By Tim Lambert
Nathan Leopold aged 19 and Richard Loeb aged 18 killed a 14-year-old boy in Chicago in 1924. Both were from rich families and both were very intelligent. They excelled academically. Loeb graduated from the University of Michigan aged 17. Leopold was studying law at the University of Chicago and planned to study at Harvard Law School. Both seemed to believe they were superior beings, above ethics and the law. The two committed petty theft just for thrills before progressing to murder. They planned to commit the perfect murder. They didn’t. In fact, it was an incompetent crime and they were easily caught.
The unfortunate victim was Bobby Franks, aged 14. On 21 May 1924 Leopold and Loeb hired a car. They chose a victim at random. Driving along they saw a boy walking home from an after-school baseball game. Bobby didn’t know Leopold but he knew the Loeb family. The murderers lured him into the car. They gagged him then hit him, repeatedly over the head with a chisel. Bobby suffocated on the gag.
They threw the chisel out of the car. It was found and handed in to the police. Leopold and Loeb then stripped the body and hid it in a culvert by a railroad. They poured acid over his face to make identification harder.
They sent a letter to the family of Bobby Franks saying he had been kidnapped and demanding a ransom of $10,000. In fact, Bobby was already dead.
The body of Bobby Franks was discovered the next day, 22 May. Nearby the police found a pair of glasses. They had an unusual hinge which allowed them to be traced to a certain optometrist. He had only made three prescriptions for that type of glasses. One of them was Nathan Leopold. He claimed he must have dropped them from his jacket pocket in the area when he was bird watching some days before. But it had been raining for days before the body was found and they glasses were dry. The police asked Leopold to demonstrate how the glasses could have fallen from his jacket pocket but no matter how he bent over the glasses did not fall out.
At first Leopold claimed he had driven with his friend Loeb to Lincoln Park, Chicago. Loeb confirmed his alibi. However, Leopold had typed notes for students at his law school. One still had the notes and the typeface was found to match the type on the ransom note sent to Bobby Frank’s family. Also the Leopold family chauffeur made a statement that the car the murderers claimed they had driven around all day on 21 May, had not left the garage that day.
Faced with the evidence Loeb broke down and confessed. When he was told that Loeb had confessed Leopold confessed too. They both blamed each other for the actual killing. Both denied any sexual assault took place.
The two were interviewed by ‘alienists’ as psychiatrists were then called. Neither showed any remorse for the crime.
The trial began on 21 July 1924. The killers were defended by the famous lawyer Clarence Darrow. They pleaded guilty but Darrow pleaded with the judge not to impose the death penalty.
He made a speech lasting two days. In the end the judge did not sentence the two to death on the grounds of their youth. Instead he sentenced them to life imprisonment plus 99 years for the kidnapping.
Richard Loeb was killed by another inmate in 1936. Leopold was paroled in 1958. He died of a heart attack in 1971, aged 66.