Chicago's Crime of the Century: The Abduction and Murder of Bobby Franks

 

Robert "Bobby" Franks (photo source)

"Nowhere in the whole history of murder in Illinois is there a crime so cruel, so brutal, so vicious as this crime." - Assistant State's Attorney Thomas Marshall, August 19, 1924

"What is there in the future but grief and sorrow, darkness and despair?" - Jacob Loeb, September 10, 1924.

May 21, 1924 would be a banner day for American births.  Basketball player Jack Twyman was born in Pittsburgh, composer Robert Parris was born in Philadelphia, and actress/comedian/game show panelist Peggy Cass was born in Boston.  

Sadly, American College Football Hall of Fame quarterback Charley Barrett died at the age of thirty in Tucson from injuries he sustained years earlier in World War I.   Across the country, there would be another loss of life that would captivate the nation and dominate newspaper headlines. 

Chicago's elite Harvard School for Boys, located in the city's South Side Kenwood neighborhood, was dismissed that Wednesday, May 21 at half past two.  Its students spilled out of the three-story brick building, bursting with the energy not only of youth but from having consecutive days of rain finally letting up and the skies, although windy, promising fairer weather.  Some of the Harvard School for Boys' students were picked up in family limousines while others took a relatively short walk down Ellis Avenue to the rows of impressive mansions nearby.  On this particular Wednesday, two groups of boys decided to put off going home and tackling homework to play baseball in Harvard's schoolyard.  The impromptu game lasted a few hours, finally breaking up around five, with the sun finally shining as the boys all headed on foot for home, where they would be expected for dinner.  

Fourteen-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks lived only three blocks from the school, on Ellis Avenue.  He was followed out of the schoolyard by a classmate named Irvin Hartman, Jr., who was about half a block behind.  Irvin noticed a car driving down Ellis with its canvas side curtains up, perhaps gray, perhaps a Winton but he didn't pay much attention to it.  Instead, he turned his attention to the lush lawns that ran from the large homes to the street and the plants and flowers that dotted them.  Irvin's teacher had told the students to look at and admire flowers and so he decided to do just that.  He was midway between 47th and 48th Streets, looking at the greenery for what he guessed was maybe a minute, before he saw the same car he noticed earlier "coming lickety split up Ellis and going north."  Looking down the avenue, Irvin saw that Bobby Franks was no longer on the sidewalk ahead of him.  He had disappeared.  

Bobby in his school uniform (photo source)

Bobby and the Franks Family

Jacob Franks had immigrated to America from London with his parents in 1857 at the age of two.  At nineteen, he founded a pawnshop, The Franks Collateral Loan Bank, with his widowed mother.  The location on Clark Street was particularly auspicious.  Gambling was then unregulated in the city of Chicago and at least a dozen gaming houses were within a block of the new business.  Being a generous lender who would lend as much as 90 percent of the value of the items (diamonds, watches, rings) pawned soon led to Jacob having a loyal clientele.  In 1901, he left the pawnshop business to become president of the Rockford Watch Company and began buying up real estate in Chicago as well as stocks.  Quiet and reserved, the only whisper of scandal to Jacob before the late spring of 1924 was in 1903 when a woman sued him for breach of promise, claiming that he had backed out of marrying her.  The suit was very likely a poor attempt at blackmail and was eventually dismissed.  

In 1906, at the age of fifty, Jacob married Flora Greisheimer, a divorcee twenty years his junior.  Both born Jewish, shortly after their marriage, Jacob and Flora converted to Christian Science.  Allegedly this, along with the fact that Jacob was a former pawnbroker, created a bit of snobbery against them from the Kenwood community's Jewish elite, where they had moved their young family in 1910.  Jacob purchased a corner lot at 5052 Ellis Avenue from Albert Loeb, who was building his own mansion just across the avenue at 5017 Ellis.  Albert's wife Anna and Flora were first cousins.  

The Franks' home was designed by architect Henry Newhouse and boasted Italian, Mediterranean and American Prairie style architecture.  The yellow brick home had glassed-in sleeping porches, a clay tile roof, and a stained-glass window that featured the three Franks children:  Josephine, born in 1906; Jack, born in 1908; and Bobby, born in in 1909.  

The Franks home at 5052 Ellis Avenue, circa 1924 (photo source)

As the baby of the family, Bobby was spoiled and indulged but reportedly never a brat.  Considered a good-natured rascal with a ready laugh, he had an independent spirit and ambitious nature - at fourteen, he had already announced to his family that he was going to attend Dartmouth (where older brother Jack was planning to attend) and become a lawyer.  (All three Franks children excelled academically; Josephine had already been accepted at Wellesley for the fall 1924 semester.)  Bobby was smart and not shy about expressing his opinions.  He was small for his age, standing only five feet tall, not having yet hit his growth spurt but was keen on sports, particularly golf, tennis, and baseball.  He was a popular freshman at the Harvard School, where he was on the class debating team and, along with several other students, established a reading group.  Only a few days before May 21, 1924, he had won a debate on capital punishment, arguing for a link between criminality and mental illness and protesting against the right of a state "to take a man, weak and mentally depraved, and coldly deprive him of his life.  Would it not better serve the community to put mentally weak criminals into institutions where, removed from society, they would no longer be a menace?  Punishment should be reformative, never vindictive." 

The Ransom Demand  

For the Franks family, nothing seemed amiss at 5052 Ellis Avenue until six o'clock when Bobby had not returned home in time for dinner.  Jacob and Flora had seen him around noon when, as was his custom, he had walked home for lunch.   Bobby could be mischievous but was always considerate.  If he was going to be late, he always telephoned home.  His family sat down for dinner, expecting him to burst through the door with an excuse for his tardiness but by the time dinner was finished, there was still no sign of him.  Telephone calls to his school friends produced no results.  No one had seen him since school let out or since the baseball game had disbanded.  Jacob managed to get hold of the Harvard School's headmaster and, along with Samuel Ettelson, a neighbor, friend, retired attorney and state senator, headed to the school to see if perhaps Bobby had been accidentally locked in.   They found the school dark and the doors locked but a basement window open.  After climbing in through the open window, they walked the darkened hallways, calling for Bobby and receiving no response. 

It was while they were gone, at half past ten, that the telephone rang.  The caller asked for Jacob Franks but upon hearing that he was not home and was speaking with Mrs. Franks, informed her that her son had been kidnapped but was all right and further news would be forthcoming in the morning.   Flora Franks became hysterical and upon her husband's return, took to bed.   Jacob Franks and Samuel Ettelson discussed how to handle the apparent kidnapping.  Both were worried of incurring the wrath of the kidnappers and endangering Bobby's life but taking no action appeared riskier.  Ettelson called the telephone company, asking for them to trace any incoming calls to the Franks' residence before, at two in the morning, he and Jacob went to the local police station.  

At half past one, as Jacob Franks and Samuel Ettelson had been in discussion on how to safely arrange Bobby's return, nightwatchman Bernard Hunt had been patrolling Kenwood.  Normally, after midnight, it was quiet and it was rare that even a car would go by.  But on this early morning of Thursday, May 22, a red car raced by him at the intersection of 49th Street and Greenwood Avenue.  Hunt heard the loud clink of metal hitting asphalt as it sped past and decided to investigate.  He found a chisel, one end wrapped in tape and the other end smeared with what appeared to be dried blood.  Hunt put the chisel in his pocket, deciding to turn it in to the local police after his patrol ended.  

Just after nine in the morning on that same Thursday, May 22, a letter was delivered to the Franks  house.  Bearing two six-cent stamps on it (which would have guaranteed a speedy delivery) and with the word "Special" written and underlined on the envelope, the typewritten letter demanded $10,000 in old bills of specific denominations, which was to be placed in a large cigar box or a heavy cardboard box securely closed and wrapped in white paper and sealed with wax.  The author, who signed himself as "George Johnson," requested that Jacob Franks remain at home after 1 p.m. to await a communication via telephone.  The paper the letter was written on was of  linen stock, a good quality, and obviously written by someone who was educated.  Interestingly, and in contrast, the handwritten address on the envelope was crudely lettered.

The ransom letter (photo source)

For Jacob Franks, worth a conservatively estimated  $4 million in 1921, $10,000 was pocket change.  Samuel Ettelson advised Jacob to follow the instructions and get the money from the bank, which Franks did.  

Although the Franks family and the police, as well as Samuel Ettelson, hoped to keep the kidnapping a secret, someone alerted the Chicago Daily News that a wealthy young boy had been kidnapped and former senator Samuel Ettelson was involved in the negotiations.   Ettelson was tracked down at his office that morning by reporter James Mulroy and, in exchange for a promise that the newspaper would not publish information and risk Bobby's life, gave Mulroy bare details of the kidnapping.  Mulroy, not wanting to give the story up, had gone to the Franks home after speaking with Ettelson and stood outside on the sidewalk, waiting for any developments.  Fearful that a reporter hanging around outside the house would attract very unwelcome attention, Jacob Franks allowed him to come inside, where Mulroy waited with Franks and Ettelson for the kidnappers to call.

A Discovery

While James Mulroy was waiting in the Franks home, the Chicago Daily News received word that the body of a young boy had been found near Wolf Lake, some twenty miles southeast of Kenwood.  An immigrant from Poland, Antoni Mankowski, now known as the more American sounding Tony Minke, had finished his nightshift at the American Maize Products Company and was heading to nearby Hegewisch to pick up a watch.  He chose to follow a path called Indian Ridge that would take him through a desolate prairie near Wolf Lake.  It was while he was walking near an embankment crossed by a length of railroad track that something caught his eye, a flash of white.  Believing something was caught in the culvert of a shallow drainage ditch, he moved in for a closer look and was horrified to see two small bare feet poking out from the pipe.  Waving down a handcar with several man approaching on the railroad tracks, he shouted at them in Polish before pointing at the feet in the culvert.  Thinking someone had drowned, the men rushed down the embankment, grabbed the bare feet and pulled the body, which had been lying facedown, out of two feet of water and turned it over.  The body was that of a young boy, one they believed to be ten or twelve.  He was naked and two large gashes marred his forehead above his open eyes.  His face and genitals were streaked and spotted with a rust color.   No clothing was noticed nearby but a pair of glasses was spotted in the dirt about thirty feet from the culvert.  Assuming they belonged to the boy, they were placed on his body, which was taken to the handcar and covered with a tarp until the police were called and a police wagon showed up to take the body to a funeral home.

The site where Bobby Franks was found (photo source)

Chicago Daily News reporter Alvin Goldstein was tasked with going to the funeral home in Hegewisch to view the body.   While the newspaper's editor knew from James Mulroy that Bobby Franks had been kidnapped, he also knew there was a ransom demand and that the kidnappers wanted money, not murder.  Still, the murder of a young boy was unusual and the timing intersected.  Goldstein called Mulroy and described the dead boy: perhaps ten to twelve years old, five feet tall and maybe 100 pounds and wearing glasses.  Mulroy relayed the information to a distraught Jacob Franks, who was relieved when the detail about glasses was passed on.  Bobby didn't wear glasses.   Samuel Ettelson, however, felt the someone from the family should go down to the morgue to view the body, just to be sure.  Jacob's brother-in-law Edwin Gresham was asked to undertake the task and he agreed.  He arrived around three in the afternoon and was shown the body.  To be certain, Gresham removed the glasses and requested to look inside the boy's mouth.  As a child, Bobby had suffered with rickets, which had left marks on the teeth.  Seeing the "pearls" on the teeth, Gresham was convinced that the body was indeed that of Bobby Franks.  He called the Franks home and informed Samuel Ettelson, who then had the sad duty of informing Jacob Franks.

Almost immediately after the call from Gresham was disconnected, the telephone rang again.  Hoping that perhaps there had been some mistake, Ettelson rushed to answer it.  The caller was one "George Johnson," the alleged kidnapper.  Jacob Franks knew his son was dead but bravely took the call anyway.  He was told that a taxi from the Yellow Cab Company would arrive at his home.  Taking the ransom money with him, Jacob was to enter it and go to a drugstore on East 63rd Street.  Once there, he would wait by the pay phone for further instructions.  Jacob requested more time but "Johnson" refused it.  In moments, the doorbell rang; a driver was there from the Yellow Cab Company.  Ettelson asked the driver who had sent him and where he was supposed to go.  The driver did not know.  He was paid for his time and sent on his way without Jacob Franks.

Shortly after 3 p.m., the public telephone at the Van de Bogert & Ross Drugstore on East 63rd Street rang.  The caller asked for Mr. Franks.  Upon being told there was no Mr. Franks there, the caller said he likely had the wrong number and hung up.  A few moments later, the phone rang again.   Once again, the caller asked for Mr. Franks and once again was told there was no Mr. Franks present.   The caller described him and asked if the druggist who had answered the phone would look around the store to see if anyone matching the description was there.  The druggist complied and after a moment, reported back there was no one in the store matching such a description and no one had answered to the name of Franks.  

That evening, once word had been released that Bobby had been positively identified, neighbors, reporters, and looky-loos gathered on the sidewalk outside the Franks home.  For the neighbors, they wanted to make sense of the terrible darkness that had struck Kenwood and snatched away young Bobby Franks.  Reporter Alvin Goldstein was on the sidewalk taking notes when he saw Richard Loeb, who had walked across Ellis from his family's mansion, to join the crowd.  Goldstein had known Loeb from the University of Chicago when both had attended and went to speak to him.  He described the condition of Bobby's body, which he said made Loeb upset.  Loeb said it was "a terrible crime" and that whoever had done it should be "strung up."  

On the following day, Friday, May 23, Richard Loeb was at the University of Chicago's Zeta Beta Tau fraternity house as he had belonged to the University of Michigan chapter.  Howard Mayer, a campus reporter for the Chicago Evening American was also there.  Loeb was talkative and shared his theories about the death of his cousin Bobby, saying it was "what comes from reading detective stories."  Mayer was soon joined by fellow reporters Alvin Goldstein and James Mulroy from the Chicago Daily News.  Hoping to add some human interest to Bobby's story, they asked Loeb about his cousin and were shocked with his reply.  "If I were going to murder anyone," Loeb said, "I would murder just such a cocky little son of a bitch as Bobby Franks."  As Richard Loeb had a reputation for being glib, the reporters wondered if maybe the remark was nothing more than a harsh, insensitive joke.

On Friday afternoon, the inquest into Bobby Franks' death was held.  Mayer, Goldstein, and Mulroy attended, as did a cache of other reporters.  Also present was Richard Loeb, who had invited himself along.  Jacob Franks, also in attendance, was forced to endure testimony from the coroner, who testified to the injuries inflicted upon his son.  

During the autopsy, four significant wounds were found on Bobby's head, inflicted by a blunt instrument.  There was a three-quarter-inch gash on his right forehead, a half-inch cut just above his left eyebrow, and two deep blows to the back of his head.  The blows to the back of his head had penetrated to the bone and led to swelling of his brain.  Scratches were found to the left side of Bobby's forehead and his right shoulder, with more scratching extending from his left shoulder down his back and on his right buttock.  All the scratches had bled, indicating that Bobby had still been alive when they had been inflicted.   Acid of some kind had been poured over Bobby.   His nose, mouth and a part of his chin bore burn markings; the rest of his face had a streaked, flushed appearance as would result from acid fumes.  The skin around Bobby's mouth was a copper color, as were the streaks down the left side of his face and from his left shoulder to his left elbow.  Acid had also been poured on his genitals.  

The cause of death had been suffocation.  Something, likely a rag soaked in ether, had been shoved deeply down Bobby's throat, causing his tongue to swell.  Fumes had discolored his windpipe and entered his lungs.  No water had been found in his lungs, meaning he had not been breathing when he was placed facedown in the culvert.  

The coroner was unable to determine if Bobby had been sexually assaulted, stating that attempts could have been made and some form of attack accomplished without leaving external evidence of violence.  

Eight of Bobby Franks' friends carry his coffin at his funeral on May 25, 1924 (photo source)

On Sunday, May 25, a small, private funeral was held for Bobby Franks in his family home on Ellis Avenue.  A handful of relatives, some family friends, and twenty of Bobby's fellow classmates from the Harvard School viewed Bobby's white coffin, which rested in front of the library fireplace and was covered with red rosebuds.  A wreath of tiger lilies arrived with a card reading "Sympathies from Mr. Johnson."  The sender was never traced and described by the florist as a tall, older man.

The service was conducted according to Christian Science rites and a soloist sang hymns.  At the end of the service, eight of Bobby's classmates picked up his coffin and carried it from the library, out the front door, down the terrace stairs and to the awaiting hearse.  An estimated 300 people who had gathered on the street outside watched in silence.  Police on motorcycles then escorted the hearse and 25 cars the ten miles to Rosehill Cemetery where Jacob Franks had built a granite mausoleum in the Jewish section of the cemetery and where his son would be placed for eternal rest.  

(photo source)

Case No. 6034

Only two days after his murder, Bobby Franks' abduction and killing headlined every newspaper in the city.  The papers stated that someone "living or walking along Ellis Avenue" must have seen the kidnapping and needed to come forward.  Eventually they would report on the rewards:  $5,000 from Jacob Franks, $1,000 from the police, and $5,000 each from the Daily Tribune and Herald-Examiner.   The Herald-Examiner even went so far as to run a tasteless contest on the theory of the abduction and murder with the best guess winning $50.   The Daily Tribune, knowing that Bobby's body had been found nude, wondered if the boy had been the victim of "a male annoyer of boys" and "a degenerate who sought to cloak his act and boy's presumed accidental death by the demands for money." 

Robert Crowe (photo source)

Forty-five-year-old state's attorney Robert Crowe was assigned to the case and he promised the people of Cook County swift action. Wanting to one day run for higher office, Crowe knew that solving the Franks case would greatly assist him in that goal.  Along with a team of investigators, he worked closely with detectives and interviewed alleged witnesses - many of them crackpots who only wanted to involve themselves in the notorious case.  Every George Johnson in the city was investigated with no connections to Bobby Franks.  They spoke with Irvin Hartman, Jr., who mentioned the car he'd seen on the afternoon Bobby was kidnapped and registrations for gray Wintons were searched - but again, without luck.  So-called drug fiends, alleged perverts, and convicted criminals were interrogated and then released when it was discovered they had nothing to do with Bobby Franks.   Even a few teachers at Bobby's school, the Harvard School for Boys, were subjected to harsh interrogations that included beatings before being released without charges.  

Authorities did believe, however, that since Bobby had been kidnapped from Kenwood that his killer was familiar with the area.   Since the body had been found twenty miles away, it stood to reason that a car had been involved.  Irvin Hartman, Jr., who had been a half block behind Bobby when he was abducted, had heard nothing; no screams, no yells, no cries for help.  It suggested that Bobby had known his abductor and voluntarily gotten into the car - as well as pointing to a Kenwood resident, as Bobby's circle of acquaintances was almost entirely in Kenwood.   The discovery of the bloody chisel also supported that theory.  If the chisel was the murder weapon, it didn't make sense for the perpetrator to return to the scene of the abduction to toss a piece of evidence unless they were returning home.  For whatever reason, however, the police did not seem to pursue this idea.  

Instead, they focused on the ransom letter.  They called in a Hugh Sutton of the Royal Typewriter Company to examine the letter.  Sutton determined that it had most likely been typed on an Underwood portable typewriter by someone who essentially hunted and pecked, given the variations in pressure in pushing certain keys.  In addition, the lowercase "t" and "f" were slightly defective, meaning that the letter could be matched to a suspect's typewriter if it was ever found.  

The May 3, 1924 issue of Detective Story Magazine featured a story called "The Kidnapping Syndicate" which Detective James Gortland found disturbingly similar to the style and content of the letter sent to Jacob Franks.  The Daily Tribune published both side by side, insinuating that Bobby's kidnapper had read the story. 

A Break

Several newspapers published photographs of the glasses that had been found near Bobby's body, describing their Xylonite frames, thick lenses and measurements.  Chief of Detectives Michael Hughes said that the glasses were not purchased by a man who labored or worked with his hands but "a scholarly person, one who reads a great deal . . . or was under considerable eye strain."  Despite the prescription being a common one, Robert Crowe reassured Chicagoans that every effort was being devoted to tracing the glasses' ownership.  

(Photo source)

At the same time, Chicago police captain Thomas Wolfe questioned residents of the few homes near Wolf Lake.  He spoke with Oscar Staff, the deputy game warden for the area, and asked him if he recalled any frequent visitors to the preserve.  Looking over his station book, Staff noticed that a man named Nathan Leopold had often come to the lake, watching for birds.  

On Sunday, May 25, the same day the Franks family was saying goodbye to Bobby, Wolfe drove to the Leopold residence at 4754 South Greenwood Avenue in Kenwood and asked to see Nathan.  When asked if he ever visited the area around Wolf Lake, Leopold answered affirmatively.  He was then asked to accompany Wolfe back to the station to answer a few questions, although assured he was not a suspect.  The quiet, awkward 19-year-old law student who came from an extremely wealthy family did not fit the profile of what authorities considered to be their suspect.  When asked if he wore glasses, Leopold said that he did not.  Wolfe requested that the young man provide him with any names of persons he knew who also visited the area and Leopold identified several before being allowed to leave.

On Thursday, May 29, after discovering that the glasses found near Bobby Franks had a new and distinctive hinge on the Xylonite frame, police found that only one Chicago firm sold glasses with such a hinge.  Searching through thousands of records, the company found they sold only three pairs of glasses with the Bobrow hinges in Chicago.  One was purchased by an attorney who had been in Europe for some time, another by a woman who rapidly produced the pair she owned, and the third pair by Nathan Leopold, Jr. 

Given the Leopold family's standing in the community, and the belief that an intelligent young man from a wealthy family could not possibly be involved in such a heinous thing as kidnapping and murder, state's attorney Robert Crowe wanted to be cautious.  He sent two detectives to the Leopold home on Thursday afternoon to speak with Nathan Leopold.  When asked again if he wore glasses, Leopold this time admitted that he did.  The detectives requested he produce them.  Leopold said he didn't know where they were but they were surely in the house.  The men asked Leopold to meet with Crowe.  Leopold protested, as he was scheduled to lead a bird-watching group but consented when the detectives insisted.

To spare the Leopold family any potential embarrassment, the interview was conducted not at the police station but in room 1618 of Chicago's LaSalle Hotel.    Shown the glasses found near Bobby's body, Leopold admitted they looked like his but continued to insist that he had not lost his pair.  He agreed that whoever had written the ransom letter had been educated and the killer had been familiar with the area around Wolf Lake.  Crowe queried Leopold on whether he owned a typewriter.  Leopold did, a Hammond Multiplex that was at home.  He did not, however, have a portable typewriter.   When pressed about his whereabouts on the previous Wednesday, May 21, at first Leopold claimed not to remember as there had been nothing special about that day.  When pressed though, he said he remembered exactly how he had spent the day and he was embarrassed.  He had finished his morning law classes at the University of Chicago and met his friend, Richard Loeb.  They drove downtown in his red Willys-Knight motorcar and had lunch at Marshall Field's Grill.  They then went to Lincoln Park to watch birds and drink - Loeb had a flask of gin, Leopold had a flask of scotch.  They were happy, according to Leopold, but not drunk.  The pair had dinner at the Cocoanut Grove to sober up and then drove around without a clear destination in mind.  They picked up two girls by the names of Edna and Mae who, according to Leopold, agreed to have sex with them but the girls "didn't come across" and they were turned out of the car.  It was sometime after ten when the pair returned to the Leopold home.  Crowe requested more details - what time had they eaten dinner? What were the last names of Edna and Mae?  Exactly what time was it when he and Richard Loeb had returned to the Leopold home?  Nathan Leopold could not answer any of them.  

Having been implicated in Nathan Leopold's alibi, police picked up Richard Loeb for questioning around 6 p.m., the same time they were driving Leopold back to his father's home to search for the glasses.  The search revealed a glasses case that was marked "Almer Coe & Co." but no glasses.  Leopold's eldest brother, Mike, suggested that it was possible that Nathan had lost his glasses at Wolf Lake during one of his bird-watching expeditions and should the glasses found near Bobby Franks' body belong to him, there was an innocent explanation.  He also suggested that Nathan consult a lawyer.  Ironically, his choice was Samuel Ettelson, who was currently at the Franks home with Jacob Franks.  Mike and Nathan Leopold drove over to Ellis Avenue, where they briefly spoke with Ettelson, who encouraged them to go with the detectives and answer their questions but advised he would be following the development closely in the event Crowe overreached.  

Leopold returned to the La Salle Hotel, where he admitted that the glasses were most likely his and they certainly had been lost the weekend before Bobby was killed, when he had spent both Saturday and Sunday at Wolf Lake.  He had no explanation for why, if the glasses had fallen out of his pocket accidentally on Saturday or Sunday and had been exposed to rain and mud for several days, they were found in near pristine condition when Bobby was discovered.   Detectives asked Nathan Leopold to demonstrate with the actual glasses.  He tucked them into his coat pocket and went through several steps, stumbling, tripping and falling but the glasses never fell out of his pocket. 

Leopold admitted he was not religious and did not believe in God.  Crowe asked him if there was any difference between the death of a man or the death of a dog and Leopold answered in the negative.  Over the following four hours, the questions continued.   The harder he was pressed, the cockier Nathan Leopold seemed to become.  

Police again returned to the Leopold home, looking now for any typewriter in the residence, as well as samples of Nathan's handwriting.  They found the Hammond typewriter Leopold had mentioned but the maid informed them that there had been a portable typewriter in the library until it went missing two weeks earlier.  Their search also found bottles of strychnine, ether, and arsenic, as well as two unlicensed revolvers, both loaded.  

Richard Loeb, when asked to accompany police to the LaSalle Hotel for questioning, told his father, Albert, who was recovering from a heart attack had had suffered on May 18, that he would be back in two or three hours.   When posed the same question as his friend about his alibi for May 21, Loeb claimed he couldn't remember what he had done a week earlier.  Questioned throughout the night, like Nathan Leopold, he was eventually moved to the police station to rest before being returned to his house the next day for a search.  Rather than being worried or perturbed, Loeb was almost jovial, excited to ride in a police car.  

Despite being suspected of kidnapping and murder, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were shamelessly indulged by the authorities who were seeking to charge them.  They were allowed to meet privately with their family members, who brought them fresh clothing and linens for their jailhouse beds.  The two were taken out to dinner at the Drake Hotel and were allowed to speak freely to the press, apparently without thought of how it might taint any potential jury pool.  Leopold told a reporter from the Daily Tribune the story of losing his glasses at the culvert the Saturday or Sunday before Bobby was found and assured its readers that he was more than glad to do whatever he could to help the police.

It would be the Leopold family's chauffeur Sven Englund that would finally wrap up the investigation.  Employed by the Leopolds since 1906, Englund lived with his wife and young daughter in an apartment above the family garage.  His duties included caring for five cars: a Packard, two Lincolns, and two Willys-Knights.  He had spent much of the day of Wednesday, May 21 working on the brakes of Nathan Leopold's red Willys-Knight car.  It had never left the garage.  Englund believed that his disclosure helped his employer's son; if the car had not left the garage, Leopold could not have been involved in the crime.  He didn't know that Leopold had told police he had spent the day in his car.  Englund was certain of the date -- his daughter had been sick, gone to the doctor, and had a prescription filled that afternoon.  His wife still had the bottle with the date on it.  To make matters worse, Englund had found Leopold and Loeb attempting to clean some stains from the seats and floorboards of a car he had not seen before.  

Deciding that out of the pair Richard Loeb was the weaker of the two, Crowe shared the information from Englund, as well as the other evidence that was piling up against him and Leopold.  Shaking and crying, Loeb then confessed that he and Nathan Leopold had kidnapped and killed Bobby Franks.

In the next room, Nathan Leopold remained as cocky as ever.  When informed that his good pal Loeb had spilled all, Leopold denied that he would also tell all - until confronted with the details Loeb had confessed to.  Leopold turned red in anger, lit a cigarette and then told Crowe, "If Loeb is talking, I'll tell you the real truth."

The State Attorney's office on May 31, 1924 following the confessions.  Richard Loeb is seated to the left, Nathan Leopold is two seats over.  (photo source)

The news on Saturday, May 31, 1924 that Bobby Franks' killers had been caught and were in custody was shock enough to Chicago.  The additional detail that the killers were the sons of two very prominent Chicago families and had confessed was equivalent to a seismic shock.  Crowe gave out portions of the two confessions selectively, leaving the city's citizens horrified at the callousness and the newspapers questioning why two young men with so much in life would choose to commit such an atrocious crime.  Despite their confessions, the families of the two accused men refused to believe they were guilty.  They were confused, the confessions had to be lies and made merely to get sleep.  Jacob Franks expressed relief to know who had killed his son and that as far as he was concerned "no punishment would be too severe for them.  They are fiends . . . they ought to hang."  He also commented that "Those boys were not brought up rightly.  They were given too much freedom.  For two years it was common gossip in the neighborhood that they drank and ran about at all hours of the day and night." 

Babe and Dickie

Nathan Leopold, Jr. was born in 1904, the third and final child of Nathan Leopold Sr. and Florence Foreman Leopold.  Nathan Sr., forty-five at the time of his youngest child's birth, was a millionaire, the owner of the Morris Paper Company and the Fiber Can Corporation and a largely absent father who had little time for his children as his business interests came first.  Florence, who had suffered miscarriages between giving birth to her second son, Sam, and Nathan, Jr., had contracted nephritis during her pregnancy with her third son and her health never recovered.  Although gentle and loving in nature and dedicated to various Jewish charities, she was often confined to bed.  

Following the customs of wealthy families at the time and irrespective of Florence's poor health, young Babe, as Nathan, Jr. was called to distinguish him from his father, and his brothers were largely brought up by nurses and nannies.  From a very young age, Babe was singled out as being particularly bright.  He reportedly spoke his first words (in German) at four months old, was walking by fourteen months, and said his first prayer not in English but German (he would become proficient in five languages and study well over a dozen).  Despite his clear intelligence, something appeared to be off with Babe early on.   By the age of five, one of his governesses described him as "peculiar" and "mean," a child that kept largely to himself and was already engaging in petty thefts by stealing items that belonged to playmates.  Around that same time he discovered ornithology and rapidly became obsessed with birds.  After his father bought him a gun, he shot them, killing them not for sport but to inspect and collect them. (After learning taxidermy, his collection of birds would number around 3,000).  

Small for his age, with no interest in sports or other activities that were considered normal for boys in that time period, Babe was often bullied at school.  Considered an "ugly duckling" by his father, the boy turned inward, suppressing his emotions in reading and developing a great contempt for others and considering himself superior to them in all aspects.  

By the time the Leopold family moved to Kenwood in 1915, Nathan Leopold Sr. seemed openly contemptuous of his son, finding him rebellious, unconforming to expectations and rejecting moral obligations.  Babe, attending the Harvard School down the road, did very well academically but by this point had been hiding a terrible secret for nearly five years.  

In 1910, Nathan Sr. and Florence had hired a new governess for their younger sons, a woman named Mathilda Wantz.  Wantz resented other employees of the Leopolds, complaining about them to Sam and Babe, and especially resented the invalid Florence Leopold.   Seeking to drive a wedge between mother and sons, Babe later recalled that although he had worshipped his mother to the point of considering her "saintly" and "an extremely feminine little lady,"  Wantz had "a very great influence over my brother and myself.  She displaced my mother."  That damage, however, was not enough for Wantz, who began sexually abusing Sam and Babe, touching their bodies and encouraging them to touch and examine her.  Fearful of discovery, ashamed and disgusted, neither Sam nor Babe said anything to either their mother or their father and endured Wantz's sick treatment for six years.  Her employment with the Leopolds ended when Babe was 12 and Florence fired her after finding Wantz treating the boys roughly.  Babe and Sam never spoke of what they had endured and their sibling relationship was strained from that point forward.  

Around the same time, Babe attended a summer camp and developed a crush on an eighteen-year-old male counselor, realizing that he was attracted to other males.   A year later, he had his first homosexual experience and had a new obsession to add to ornithology - sex.  By the time he was fifteen, the same year he graduated high school, he had linked sexual satisfaction with violence.  He spent hours thinking of ways to torture those people he did not like and scoured books for gruesome details of famous crimes.  He even dreamt of capturing boys and making them his slaves.

At sixteen, Babe entered the University of Chicago with an intended triple major in English, Latin, and psychology.  The same year, he had his first sexual experience with a girl.  A classmate, feeling sorry for the unpopular young man, brought him along with other students to go out and find girls willing to have sex with them.  One girl agreed to have sex with Leopold for three dollars but it proved to be an embarrassing and humiliating experience for him when he couldn't begin the act, much less complete it. 

A more important landmark event had occurred around the same time that would alter his life.  He met Richard Loeb.    

The Leopold home at 4754 S. Greenwood Avenue in 1924 (photo source)

Like the Leopolds, the Loebs had immigrated to Chicago from Germany.  Albert Loeb had married Anna Bohnen in 1894, then considered a scandalous marriage as Anna was Catholic and refused to convert to Judaism.  As she was a secretary, some believed that Albert was marrying beneath him to a woman that was only marrying him for his money.  Their first son, Allan, was born in 1897, followed by Ernest in 1900.  Richard Albert, called Dickie or Dick, joined the family in 1905.  Thomas, their last child and final son, was born in 1914.  

Albert had studied at Johns Hopkins University and had worked as a corporate lawyer in Chicago before being hired by Julius Rosenwald to serve as corporate secretary for Sears, Roebuck & Company in 1901.  Albert's calm and easygoing nature had a positive influence on the somewhat abrasive Rosenwald; by 1908, Albert had become vice president of the booming company and instituted the then-unique idea of a profit-sharing plan with Sears employees.  

Money began pouring in to the Loeb bank accounts and in 1910, when Dickie was five years old, the family moved to Kenwood.  Just three blocks from the Leopold family home, the Loebs hired Arthur Heun, a prominent Chicago architect, to design a home for them at 5017 Ellis Avenue.  With a plot the size of a modern day city block and surrounded by a brick wall, the Elizabethan residence, with ivy-covered walls, tall chimneys, steeply pitched slate roofs, and leaded glass windows gave no doubt of the rumor that Albert Loeb had a personal fortune of nearly $10 million.  

Although Albert's father had beaten him and he had no desire to have his own children fear him, much like Nathan Leopold Sr., he was consumed with his business and ultimately became a distant father to his sons.  Unfortunately, Anna too was a distant parent who took no issue with leaving the care of her children to others and Dickie, as a young boy, became convinced that his family didn't really care for him, leaving him no allies in the home.  Sadly, his governess, a woman by the name of Anna Struthers, who was hired in 1910, reinforced his feelings of alienation by telling him that his parents preferred their other sons and that his older brothers treated him poorly.  Additionally, she rarely let Dickie play with others, believing that they would corrupt him, all the while being extremely critical of his words and behavior.  Struthers never used corporal punishment on Dickie but she had influenced the boy so much that he knew when she was disappointed with him.  As a result, he aimed to please and appease as much as possible, doing everything within his power to avoid confrontation and uncomfortable situations.  Lying was key among them and he became a skilled and proficient liar.  

Like Nathan "Babe" Leopold, Dickie Loeb was more advanced academically than other children his age.  He was walked to and from school daily by Struthers.  Once the school day was over, Dickie was expected to fill his afternoons and evenings with more education.  When he was ten, he founded his own journal, Richard's Magazine, which his father paid to have published.  The contents of the eventual two issues dealt with the Great War and how the money that was being spent on ammunition would be put to far better use in beautifying Chicago and the world.  Proud of his son's writing, Albert Loeb showed it to Julian Rosenwald, who in turn sent it to former president Theodore Roosevelt.  Roosevelt was so impressed that he sent a letter to Dickie in May of 1916 in which he wrote, "It does me good to see young men of your stamp growing up in this country."  

Dickie developed a fondness for detective stories, which he snuck from his brothers' rooms as Struthers, who chose his reading material, insisted it be historical fiction, history, or books with moral lessons.  Reading of gentlemen thieves like Maurice Leblanc's Arsene Lupin, Wyndham Martyn's Anthony Trent, and Frank Packard's Jimmie Dale, Dickie soon began fantasizing about crimes.  Fantasy became reality when he started following random people on the street, shadowing them, observing their movements as he played detective.  He stole money from a neighborhood boy and then regularly began lifting items of small value from neighborhood shops.  Stealing gave him "a tremendous thrill, " an escape from a rigidly controlled life and one he felt lacked excitement.  Although he was careful not to be caught, the idea of being detected and punished was enticing to him.  "I enjoyed being looked at through the bars because I was a famous criminal."  

At the same time, he had a strong sense of sympathy for those less fortunate.  In 1916, when he was eleven, he read of the hardships endured by teachers in France during the Great War.  Touched by their plight, he begged his father to send them $700 and donated his allowance to various war charities.  In 1920, following a collision in which he rammed his vehicle into a horse and buggy in Charlevoix, Michigan, he accompanied the injured woman and grandson who were in the buggy to the hospital.  He returned the following day with flowers, fruit, and packages of food and visited every day thereafter until they were released.  Dickie convinced his father to pay the hospital bill and send them on a trip to aid in their recovery, even asking Albert to pay off the woman's mortgage.  

Dickie entered the University of Chicago High School in 1917, when he was twelve.  A few years younger than his classmates, he struggled to find his place, eventually making friends, joining several school clubs, playing tennis and other sports, and excelling academically.   His governess, Struthers, however, insisted that he complete high school in two years rather than the usual four.  Always compliant, Dickie pushed himself, taking extra credit courses in German, French, Latin and history.  He was given an extra boost by a promise from his parents of a trip to Europe if he managed to graduate in two years.  Although he kept up his end of the bargain, graduating in June of 1919 at the age of fourteen, his parents changed their minds and the trip was off the table. 

In the fall of 1919, Dickie entered the University of Chicago.  It was with a group of fellow students that he lost his virginity at a local brothel.  Sex had not been an unknown concept to him.  The Loeb family chauffeur, Leonard Tucker, had told him all about the birds and the bees and women, but no one had told him that catching something like gonorrhea was possible.  The infection left Dickie ashamed and his eldest brother Allan took him for treatment secretly so their father would not find out.  The experience made him somewhat ambivalent about sex.  In future escapades, while school friends would go looking for women who would sell their favors or girls who could be easily persuaded, he would accompany them but seemed to have nearly no interest in participating.  He later said "I could get along easily without it" and "the actual sex act is rather unimportant to me."  He lied to his friends about conquests and encounters, worried that he might be impotent.  

The Loeb home at 5017 Ellis Avenue in 1924 (photo source)

It's unknown when exactly Babe and Dickie met, as both later claimed to not remember, but both were attending the University of Chicago in the fall of 1920.  They were similar in many regards - both intellectual prodigies that came from wealthy Jewish families that lived and associated in the same circle - but really had little in common other than those surface similarities.  Leopold was arrogant, introverted and fiercely competitive while Loeb was engaging, gregarious and charming.  Leopold scorned most people while Loeb appeared to champion them.  They did, however, share friends and soon began meeting for illicit drinking and games of cards.  By the winter of the following year, 1921, the relationship would take a different turn.

Leopold and Loeb's apparently odd friendship had become closer, with both sharing confidences of secrets they had not told anyone else.  Loeb spoke of his interest in crime and the petty thefts he had committed in part to outwit authority and in part to give him a thrill and Leopold confided that he liked men.   Leopold's admission was a particularly scandalous one in 1921 and especially for a teenaged boy to make.  Both had shared secrets with the other that could have been disastrous had either boy chosen to turn the other in for his actions and from that point forward kept them bound together in a combination of uneasy alliance and fear.  

Their friendship also became sexual, with Loeb, ever the pleaser, allowing Leopold, who had always felt ashamed to be gay, to dominate him.  That didn't stop Loeb from taking Leopold to a brothel, where Leopold had to fantasize about rape and humiliation in order to complete the act with a woman.  As Leopold had brought Loeb into his fantasies of domination, Loeb brought Leopold into his own of being a master criminal.  According to Leopold, Loeb was amoral without "a single scruple of any kind" when it came to crime.  There was no right or wrong, he would do "anything" and it was all just a game to him.  

In the spring of 1921, the two began sneaking out of their respective homes during the night to commit crimes that included driving around Chicago and tossing bricks through windshields of unoccupied cars and breaking shop windows.  With each act they got away with, they pushed their limits looking for more and more excitement.  Even being shot at by a man whose car they had vandalized, and police who caught them breaking a shop window, did not deter them but rather spurred them on.  

Their unhealthy relationship would take a toll, however, when they were caught naked and in bed together by a Loeb family employee, who would not only tell Dickie's older brother Allan (who apparently did not believe it) as well as the University of Chicago campus.  Under pressure from the whispers on campus and living at home, Dickie transferred to the University of Michigan in the fall of 1921 with Leopold set to follow and share an apartment with him in Ann Arbor.  Florence Leopold's health, though, had taken a turn for the worse and she died on October 17.  Leopold was convinced that, since she had contracted nephritis while pregnant with him, "my presence was the cause of her absence."  Her death firmly cemented his atheism and he became more brittle, more arrogant.  He was unpopular in Michigan and disliked by the students who could not understand why the more outgoing and likable Loeb would be friends with him.  For Loeb's part, the initial fiery excitement that had burned with Leopold had apparently run its course and he was interested in making new friends and forging a new path.  Leopold finished the year at Ann Arbor and then transferred back to the University of Chicago for the fall term of 1922.

Both graduated from college in 1923.  Loeb received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Michigan, becoming the youngest graduate in the institution's history.  Leopold received a bachelor's degree in philosophy, becoming the University of Chicago's youngest graduate.  Although he had no drive and ambition, he agreed to go on to study law to appease his father.  

Both also dated proper young ladies in their circle but Leopold was simply not attracted to them and Loeb's immature behavior, egged on by alcohol, would cause a premature end to the relationships.  It was boredom apparently that caused them to fall back into their friendship and nighttime thefts in the summer of 1923.  This time they added arson and calling in false alarms to their repertoire.  Loeb particularly enjoyed setting fires and returning to the scene to mingle with the onlookers and enjoy the chaos and destruction he caused.  

Their relationship, however, was not the same.  Resentment festered on both sides and Loeb openly made fun of Leopold to other friends.  Their arguments became frequent and volatile with Leopold threatening to kill Loeb and Loeb becoming afraid of his former friend and lover.  Loeb was tired and exhausted of Leopold's behavior and Leopold felt betrayed by Loeb.  The young men were bound in a tortuous friendship threatening to explode that eventually resulted in murder.                

The Perfect Crime

The idea to commit the "perfect crime" would take more than six months to come to fruition but once the two began plotting, they did so in earnest, meeting several nights a week and speaking on the telephone.  Leopold worked out how to get the ransom, something he thoroughly enjoyed and saw the entire scheme as a big puzzle to solve.  His schedule would dictate when they would commit this crime, as he was due to leave for Europe on June 11.  What first began as a kidnapping gradually turned into murder, although it's unknown whether it was Leopold or Loeb who first suggested adding homicide to the mix.  Loeb was the one who originally proposed kidnapping for ransom and Leopold had suggested raping and killing a girl.  Later, he would stress it was Richard Loeb who had first mentioned murder, something that seems unlikely given Leopold's predilection towards violence. 

The two discussed a variety of boys they could kidnap for ransom and kill and determined it would have to be a student at the Harvard School and someone willing to get in the car.  Both later denied that Bobby Franks was ever considered, which clearly was a blatant lie.  Bobby Franks not only went to Harvard but lived in the neighborhood, his father was wealthy and, being Loeb's cousin, would almost certainly get in the car with Richard.  Furthermore, he had been to the Loeb residence to play tennis on May 20 and Loeb would later say he had asked Bobby to come with him to discuss tennis rackets for Loeb's younger brother. 

Later, both Leopold and Loeb would claim to be the driver of the rental car while the other struck and killed Bobby.  As Loeb was spotted driving the car by a neighborhood resident who knew him well and waved at him, with Loeb waving back from behind the wheel, it seems that Loeb was telling the truth that he was driving.  Leopold, in his recounting of Loeb being the murderer, recalled exactly how many blows were struck to Bobby and where, the excessive amount of bleeding, which he claimed not to expect, the sounds that Bobby made, and when an ether-soaked rag was shoved down the boy's throat -- all this supposedly while he was driving and Loeb was in the backseat wielding a chisel.  It's more likely that Leopold had such attention to detail because he was the one actually striking Bobby Franks. 

As it was not yet dark, Leopold and Loeb drove around town, with Bobby Franks bleeding and mortally wounded - but not yet dead - in the back seat.  They stopped to eat dinner before heading toward Wolf Lake.  Along the way, they pulled off to remove Bobby's shoes, socks, and pants, claiming it would speed the process up once they dumped him.  Although both would deny molesting or "offending" Bobby in any way, Leopold had long had fantasies of rape and submission - and the scratches on Bobby's body, inflicted while he was still alive, suggest a strong possibility.  

By the time Leopold and Loeb carried Bobby to the culvert, he was dead.  He was stripped of his remaining clothing and Leopold poured acid on his face, genitals, and a scar he had on his abdomen.  Loeb claimed he began to feel remorseful when thinking of the boy and would not participate.  Bobby Franks's body was then placed facedown in the water with Leopold kicking it until only his feet protruded from the pipe.  Neither noticed when gathering Bobby's bloody clothing that a sock was left behind and that Leopold's glasses had fallen from his coat.  By Leopold's estimation, it was between 9:20 and 9:30 that night when they left Wolf Lake.  He later claimed to have found the entire event "more horrible even than I figured it was going to be" but "I can recall feeling no feeling then of remorse."   For his part, Loeb "felt sorry about the thing, about the killing of the boy." 

They ended their evening at the Leopold home, having several drinks with Nathan's father and then playing cards until after one in the morning.  It was while driving Loeb home that the bloody chisel was tossed, an act that was heard by nightwatchman Bernard Hunt. 

The next morning, upon seeing in the daylight that the rental car looked like a mobile slaughterhouse, both Leopold and Loeb began scrubbing it out.  They were spotted by Sven Englund, the Leopold family chauffeur, who found it curious as he had never seen either young man clean a car previously.  Before they could stop him, he peered inside and saw the bloodstains.  Both denied it was blood and claimed they had been doing some bootlegging.  They did not do a thorough job of cleaning the car, however, and returned it with bloodstains clearly visible on the upholstery and the floorboards.  

By that afternoon, as the two had been attempting to successfully enact their ransom plan, Bobby's body had been discovered, something they had learned from a newspaper headline (although at the time the body was still unidentified).  Having assumed the body would not be found for some time, if at all, Loeb wanted to abandon the entire scheme but Leopold insisted they move forward.   They would only abandon it after calling the drug store twice and learning that there was no Jacob Franks in the store.

On Monday, May 26, Leopold took, and passed, his law examinations.  He asked that his results be forwarded to Harvard, where he planned to enroll in the fall.  He also cornered his law professor, Ernst Puttkammer, wishing to talk about the Franks case.  He asked his teacher what the law would be if "the little boy were taken into the car with the intention of killing him."   Puttkammer told him that it would very clearly be murder.   Leopold  then asked "suppose the intent was simply to kidnap and nothing else?"  As kidnapping, like murder, was considered a capital crime in Illinois, Puttkammer said, it would not matter and be subject to the death penalty.  Finally, and perhaps tellingly, Leopold asked "suppose that the intent were simply to take improper liberties with the boy?  I understand that this is a misdemeanor here in Illinois." Puttkammer stated that while molestation might be a misdemeanor, the actual kidnapping automatically made it a capital case.   

It was Thursday, May 29 that police picked up both Leopold and Loeb and within 30 hours, Richard Loeb confessed.   

(Photo source)

 Under Arrest

Despite his obvious intelligence, Richard Loeb told reporters who were allowed to join him, Leopold and the police after their confessions, that "this thing will be the making of me.  I'll spend a few years in jail and I'll be released and come out to a new life."  Quickly corrected and informed the best outcome he could hope for after a taking a life was a life sentence in an insane asylum, Loeb lost his cockiness.   For his part, Leopold continued to boast about his intelligence and how fortunate it was that he had a memory such as his.  "I can't understand," he said, "why the papers say this is such an atrocious murder."  His death was just "an experiment" and any pain Bobby suffered was incidental to the experimenter advancing his own knowledge.  In short, the murder was " an exemplary and commendable thing."  Years later, he would insist he was misquoted and he was being sarcastic. 

While Leopold remained highly contemptuous, even calling his former lover a "weakling," Loeb repeatedly expressed remorse.  He questioned how he could have gotten himself involved in murder and he worried that his father would not survive his arrest and trial, as his father was still recovering from the heart attack he suffered only days before Bobby's abduction and killing.  Having had several days in jail to contemplate what he'd done, he claimed it had "dwelt in my mind a great deal . . . and the disgrace has not been the only thing I thought of." 

State's attorney Robert Crowe worried that if Leopold and Loeb's attorney(s) did not attempt to plead not guilty by reason of insanity, their families' wealth would allow them to evade justice.  He arranged for a number of psychiatrists to sit in on their interviews and to question both young men so that he could appropriately fight against any insanity plea.  This was a novelty in itself, as psychiatry was still very much in its infancy.  The men that Crowe brought in were traditional practitioners, who believed mental illness was a symptom of organic impairment and that such symptoms were readily seen, observed, diagnosed, and blamed for any criminal behavior as opposed to psychoanalytic thought espoused by Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, who sought to interpret subconscious ideas and emotions in order to explain behavior and motivations.  

Leopold, predictably, was critical of the examinations and chose to attempt to go head-to-head with his intelligence versus that of the doctors Crowe brought in.   He was willing and apt to discuss the crime, laughing when speaking of the events and mimicking others in the room.  When asked why he had committed the crime, very briefly he appeared on the verge of breaking down but quickly righted himself and gave a variety of motives from excitement to a desire for ransom money to being pressured by Loeb.  The greatest takeaway was the very distinct lack of emotion Leopold displayed and his repeated assertions that he felt no remorse for what he had done. 

Loeb, however, showed distinct emotion when discussing the crime and in direct contrast to Leopold's jovial attitude toward Bobby's fate, he was quiet and speculative, admitting that he had wanted to back out of the plan altogether but worried about what Leopold might say or do.  Harold Singer, a former vice president of the American Neurological Association and director of the Illinois State Psychiatric Institution, felt there was no doubt in the dynamics of the young men's relationship.  He believed that Leopold was the real criminal, the plotter of the entire scheme, and that Loeb was his tool.  Loeb, in his opinion, was weak and easily influenced.  Had he never met Leopold, Singer believed that Loeb would have gotten by in life under sane circumstances without committing a major crime.  Leopold, however, would not.  

Both Leopold and Loeb admitted that they knew they were committing a crime and were aware of the possible penalties.  All four of the psychiatrists who interviewed and examined them agreed that neither Leopold nor Loeb suffered with any kind of mental illness, leaving Robert Crowe to confidently proceed with his case.  "We have the most conclusive evidence I have ever seen in a criminal case, as either judge or prosecutor," he said.

Although both men were accused of a brutal murder and were looking at being sentenced to death, both Prisoner No. 50 and Prisoner No. 51 were treated fairly reverently by law enforcement at the Cook County Jail while awaiting trial.  Their families were allowed to bring clothing, cigarettes, bedding, linens and food to them at the jail (even meals from Joe Stein's Restaurant).  One reporter, hoping for inside information, regularly brought them liquor.  Police escorted them, separately, to dinner at different restaurants.  For the other restaurant patrons, who were shocked to see an accused murderer dining just feet from them, Leopold was predictably cocky, approaching them to assure that he was not Nathan Leopold and then bragging about his incredible ability to lie with a straight face to the police assigned to guard him. 

Loeb seemed to slip easily into the jailhouse routine, befriending other prisoners and becoming active in their games.  Leopold, as was his nature, felt he was too intelligent to mingle with the other prisoners and made little secret of it, something that did not endear him to his fellow inmates.  Loeb also had female admirers, who found him sensitive in appearance with his "lambent eyes and tender chin."  A few managed to get into the jail to watch him exercise and sigh over how handsome they found him.  Leopold had no such admirers or fans; not even a former girlfriend who would admit to being such came forward to tell her story.  

There had been open animosity between Leopold and Loeb in the days following their arrests but they healed the breach, even being on separate floors of the jail, with the weaker Loeb reaching out to Leopold.     

The Trial

Clarence Darrow in 1922 (photo source)

The direction of the case changed on Saturday, May 31 when attorney Clarence Darrow was visited by Jacob Loeb, Richard's uncle.  Darrow was not the Loeb and Leopold families' first, or only, attorney.  They had already hired Benjamin Bachrach, an attorney with experience defending murderers, arsonists, kidnappers, and gangsters; perhaps his most famous client to date had been heavyweight champion boxer Jack Johnson, who was accused of violating the Mann Act in 1912.  With Benjamin came his brother and fellow attorney, Walter Bachrach, who brought along a special interest in psychology (and who was also married to Richard's cousin).  The Leopold and Loeb families wanted a legal powerhouse though and so Jacob Loeb, along with three others, had gone to Darrow's home to plead with him.  Jacob Loeb had burst into Darrow's bedroom, startled the man awake, and had gotten on his knees to plead with the attorney to get his nephew and his nephew's friend a life sentence rather than death.  Promised any amount of money he desired and knowing that taking on such a highly publicized case would cement his reputation, he agreed to represent Leopold and Loeb.

At the time Darrow was sixty-seven years old and suffering from a variety of health issues that included crippling rheumatism, fatigue, bad teeth and weak lungs after decades of smoking.  He was also deeply in debt, which helped to drive him to accept a case that he personally found a shocking and terrible deed.   Once a revered lawyer who had defended labor unions and socialist leader Eugene Debs, he was accused of bribing jurors in a 1911 trial over the bombing of the Los Angeles Times office in which 20 people were killed.  Darrow was forced to agree to never practice law in California again and his reputation took a battering.  Even so, he was still considered a formidable figure in the courtroom, with his folksy charm and wrinkled clothing who was convinced that the judicial system was rigged against the poor.   That last opinion allowed public criticism to flood in.  He had frequently blamed crime on poverty and now he was defending two wealthy murderers who had freely confessed.  The public also speculated that the Leopold and Loeb families were paying Darrow one million dollars to keep their sons from the gallows, further giving credence to the theory that the trial would come down to the families' wealth against the law.  

Loeb (left) and Leopold, June 1, 1924 (photo source)

Meeting his clients for the first time on Monday, June 2, Darrow was impressed by them, finding Richard Loeb to be "a kindly boy" and Nathan Leopold to have "the most brilliant intellect I have ever met in a boy."  To begin damage control, he instructed both to answer no further questions from Robert Crowe - something they adhered to, even with the most innocent of questions.    

Judge John Caverly (photo source)

On June 11, Loeb's nineteenth birthday, he and Leopold were formally arraigned on eleven counts of murder (covering all possible methods by which Bobby Franks could have died) and sixteen counts of kidnapping.  They each offered a plea of not guilty.  Judge John Caverly set a trial date of August 4.  Fifteen armed deputies guarded the entrance to the courthouse but a crowd of a thousand descended upon them, tearing the courthouse doors from their hinges before being beaten back with nightsticks. 

The crime and upcoming trial dominated the news over the next nearly two months, especially since versions of their confessions had been published in the Chicago papers - although as is often the case, the victim was quickly overshadowed and upstaged by the perpetrators.  Many of the papers speculated as to why these young men had committed the crime and if it was the corrupting modern influences - nonchalance, drinking and rumored "perversions."  The papers were careful to use heavily coded language in writing of such "perversions" which was then a well-known code for homosexuality.  They speculated that their homosexuality, "a crime against nature," had led them to commit "further crimes against humanity."    As would be the case with two defendants, one would invariably be favored over the other and public opinion weighed heavily on the side of Loeb, who was seen as a victim of the narcissistic and misanthropic Leopold.  Antisemitism also played a part, with Loeb looking "less Jewish" than Leopold.  

The Chicago Daily Tribune suggested that radio station WGN broadcast the proceedings live from the courtroom and asked readers of their paper to clip and return a coupon voting for or against the idea.  Ultimately, public opinion went against a live broadcast, as many were worried that impressionable children might tune in and hear sordid details of the murder. 

The publisher of the Herald and Examiner, William Randolph Hearst, offered Sigmund Freud $500,000 and a private charter on a small ocean liner if the psychoanalyst would journey to Chicago, sit in on the trial and offer his analysis.  Not to be outdone, the coeditor of the rival Daily Tribune, Robert McCormick, offered Freud anything he would name if he would come to Chicago.  Freud refused both offers as he was ill with cancer and would only have newspaper reports to go on and not personal examinations in making an opinion.   

Families, both wealthy and poor, were in fear and awe that such a thing might happen to them.  Leopold and Loeb were held up as a warning to a generation.  

If convicted of murder, Leopold and Loeb could be sentenced to a mandatory fourteen years to life imprisonment or to death.  Not surprisingly, Robert Crowe was seeking the death penalty for their crimes.  As they had confessed, Darrow's options were limited.  He hired his own psychiatrists to examine them and they concluded that both were suffering from schizophrenia and legally insane.  However, if Darrow put the doctors on the stand to testify to those findings, the judge would have no choice but to call a jury to hear the case - something that Darrow wanted to avoid at all costs.     And so he decided to plead the men guilty.  With such a plea, no jury would be called and it would be up to the judge to hear the evidence and decide their sentences.    With both Richard and Nathan being nineteen and legal minors under the law at the time Darrow believed it might help to ease their punishment.  He couldn't use his own witness's psychiatric testimony to evidence any kind of proof that they were insane but so long as insanity was not mentioned and only mental illness as a whole, he could skate around the jury requirement.  Keeping his tactic as secretive as possible, so that the prosecution would not realize what he was up to, Darrow informed no one, not even Leopold and Loeb.  Leopold had already hotly denied to reporters that he was insane and Darrow likely knew full well that he would torpedo his own case in order to prove his intelligence.      

The trial began on Monday, July 21, 1924.  The two defendants wore dark suits, white shirts, and had their hair slicked back.  Richard looked pale while Nathan seemed delighted at the attention.  Their handcuffs were removed as they were seated between Darrow and the Bachrach brothers.  Behind them would sit Jacob Franks, who attended court each day.  Nathan's father and brother Mike attended to support him, while Richard's brother Allan and his uncle Jacob represented the Loeb family; Albert Loeb was still recovering from a heart attack and he and Anna had left Chicago for their home in Charlevoix, where they would remain throughout the trial.  Judge John Caverly took the bench at half past nine and called the case to order.  Caverly had only become the chief justice of the Cook County Criminal Court in 1923 and had never condemned a prisoner to death.  

When Darrow announced that his clients were withdrawing their not guilty pleas and entering pleas of guilty and throwing themselves on the mercy of the court, the spectators audibly gasped.  It meant that there would technically be no trial at all, that Judge Caverly would decide the fate of the two defendants.  For his part, Caverly appeared to be as shocked and unnerved as the spectators.  Verifying that Leopold and Leob were indeed changing their pleas to guilty, he announced that the sentencing hearing would begin on Wednesday, July 23 and left the bench.  

Before the 10 a.m. start on Wednesday, Richard joked with reporters about the exceptional heat that had descended upon Chicago and Nathan, stating that the reporters had had difficulty describing his and Loeb's wardrobes on Monday, went into great description of what they wore.  As he was two days earlier when being led into the courtroom, Richard was pale and appeared startled while Nathan was nonchalant.  

Robert Crowe made his opening statements to the court.  Richard reportedly adjusted his tie and picked at specks on his sleeve while Nathan sat motionless.  Jacob Frank showed no emotion but steadily chewed gum.   Darrow, in his opening statement suggested there were degrees of atrocity, with Crowe objecting, feeling the words minimized Bobby's death.  The judge agreed and advised Darrow to limit his opening to what he intended to present in his defense case.  Darrow attacked the evidence the prosecution would introduce, labeling it "utterly incompetent" and asserting that the statements already made publicly should have no bearing on the guilty pleas.  He also played on what he hoped were the judge's sympathies by reminding him of the ages of the "boys" and it would be without precedent if boys of their age were hanged by the neck until dead; it would not bring Bobby Franks back nor heal the community.  

Leopold (left) and Loeb in the courtroom (photo source)

As Leopold and Loeb had entered guilty pleas, Crowe was not required to present a case but he did so anyway, wanting to show how the crime had been planned and executed.  He also wanted to underscore that the evidence against them had been so overwhelming that their attorneys had had little choice but to plead them guilty.    

Jacob and Flora Franks each took the stand on Wednesday.  Jacob nearly broke down upon seeing his son's class pin and shoes; Flora shed no tears but it was noted that her grief was evident in her voice, her sorrow heavy.  She was not present in the courtroom when coroner's physician Dr. Joseph Springer read the autopsy report into the record, demonstrating that Bobby had fought hard for his life and suffered before succumbing.  

As Crowe continued with a litany of witnesses against Leopold and Loeb, Darrow objected, believing that Crowe was only stirring up anger and hatred in the community with needless witness testimony when guilty pleas had been entered.  The judge sided with Crowe and allowed him to continue to call nearly eighty more witnesses.  He would rest his case on Wednesday, July 30, after the confessions and transcripts of police interviews with the defendants were read into the record.  

The weekend before Darrow began presenting his case, portions of the reports prepared by his psychiatric witnesses were deliberately leaked to the press.  Predictably, he disavowed all knowledge as to how it had happened, suggesting that a reporter must have stolen it from his secretary's desk.  Knowing that it would be printed in the papers, Darrow likely arranged for the report to be picked up, hoping that it would help to portray his clients as mentally ill.        

Darrow's witnesses took the stand to describe what had driven the defendants to commit such atrocious acts but without stating their opinions that either or both were insane.  Crowe fought to read their reports, knowing full well that if the judge admitted them, it would immediately render a jury trial necessary but lost the fight.  Dr. William Healy summed up the Franks kidnapping and murder as an inevitable outcome of the "coming together of two pathologically, disordered personalities."  

Leopold and Loeb's attorneys deliberately infantilized the pair, referring to them as "Dickie" and "Babe" not just to reemphasize their youth but also to reinforce the then-conception of male homosexuality as arrested development.  They wanted the judge and the general public to believe that their sexual relationship was further evidence of being mentally ill.  Nathan told Dr. Healy that the preservation of his dignity was more important than saving his life and he "would rather hang" than have people hear his sexual history in court.  It was the one subject - not kidnap, not murder - that really bothered him.

The remainder of the defense's witnesses revealed little else of note, other than to highlight the disparity between Richard and Nathan.

Darrow rested his case on Monday, August 11 and Crowe began his rebuttal the next day with psychiatrists to challenge the defense's assertion that Richard and Nathan suffered from mental illness.  On Tuesday, August 19, the prosecution gave their closing argument, delivered by assistant state's attorney Thomas Marshall.   Over the following two days, Marshall stressed that Richard and Nathan had meticulously planned, rehearsed, and then committed their crime; they suffered from no mental illness; and their ages should have no bearing, as recently two Illinois men under the age of twenty-one had been sentenced to death for shooting and killing a police officer while committing a robbery.  Marshall, and the prosecution, felt that there was only one sentence that could possibly be imposed upon the defendants and that was death.  Anything less, said Marshall, "would make a mockery of the law itself."

Richard and Nathan gave Marshall's closing argument little attention with Nathan even reading a letter over Darrow's shoulder and laughing aloud at its contents.  

Assistant state's attorney Joseph Savage followed Marshall with a painstaking recital of the details of the kidnap and murder.  He reminded that judge that while Darrow had asked for mercy for his clients, the defendants had shown none for Bobby Franks.  If there was ever a case in history in which the most severe punishment was deserved, he said, it was surely this one.  While Richard and Nathan may have been dismissive of Thomas Marshall's remarks, those of Joseph Savage apparently shook them enough to lead Nathan to turn to his brother and say, "My God, Mike, do you think we'll swing after that?" 

Walter Bachrach began the defense's closing arguments but if would be Darrow, who started his oration on Friday afternoon, August 22, that would be most remembered.  To an overflowing courtroom, Darrow gave an impassioned plea and statement that went from Friday afternoon, continued on Saturday and concluded on Monday.  He flattered the judge for having "more experience, more judgment and more kindliness than a jury."  He attacked public opinion for calling for the defendants' blood over the last six weeks.  He attacked how the crime itself was characterized as "cruel, dastardly, premeditated, fiendish" and reminded the judge that the defendants were "two minors, two children, who could not sign a note or make a deed."  In Darrow's impassioned speech, the true cruelty and cowardice was that Richard and Nathan were handcuffed while being brought into and out of the courtroom, that they were penned like rats in their cells, and the justice system had fed the community into a "frenzy of hate" while planning and scheming "to take these two boys' lives."  Bobby Franks, Darrow said, was dead and gone.  He had suffered very little and nothing was going to bring him back.  While had had sympathy for the "poor boy" and his parents, "it is done."  The crime was "a senseless act of immature and diseased children" and they should not be "hanged in malice and in hatred and injustice because someone in the past has sinned against them."  When pitying the father and mother of Bobby Franks, he concluded, the judge should remember and pity the fathers and mothers of Richard and Nathan, as well as the "unfortunate boys" themselves.  Executing them, Darrow said, would be a more brutal act than that of Bobby Franks' murder and the Leopold and Loeb families had already been punished enough.  Darrow then quoted a poem by Omar Khayyam, the fourth time he had done so, to conclude.

On Tuesday, August 26, following a brief statement by Benjamin Bachrach, Robert Crowe stood to address the court for a final time.  While the press had been full of rapt praise for Darrow, Crowe was contemptuous and angry and it showed in his comments.  He attacked Darrow's claims that the two accused murderers were poor unfortunate boys who had suffered being born into the families of multimillionaires as well as attacking the assertion that the state was foaming at the mouth to execute them.  He ridiculed the appeal for sympathy for the "two perverts," "two atheists, " "two murderers."  Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, Crowe informed the judge, were entitled to as much kindness and consideration as two mad dogs, saying they were a disgrace to their honored families and a menace to the community.  He then went into what he considered the real motivation of the crime, "a desire to satisfy unnatural lust," citing the fact that Bobby Franks' trousers were removed hours before the remainder of his clothing, the coroner's report found his rectum was distended, and the defendants "are perverts."  

Crowe wrapped up his closing on Thursday, August 28, pleading with Judge Caverly to not be swayed by sentiment but instead to follow the law. 

Judge Caverly then announced he would take the next ten days to consider his verdict and set the date for his decision as September 10.  

The Verdict

Both Richard and Nathan spoke to the press while they awaited their fate.  Richard said the ten days before the verdict would allow him to "have more opportunity to make a name for myself in the jail baseball league."  Nathan said it would be "a rare occasion" if he were hanged but he would "arrange to have a good jazz band and plenty of hard punch."  He added "I am planning the last supreme shock for the world in the form of my farewell speech." 

Although Judge Caverly had threatened legal action and jail should he be "molested" by anyone during his deliberations, there were still threats, including bombing the courthouse, should Leopold and Loeb not be sentenced to death.  Another threat promised that Judge Caverly himself would be shot and hanged on a telephone phone should he not condemn the defendants.  

On Wednesday, September 10, extra security was ordered at the Criminal Courts Building as Caverly prepared to announce his verdict.  An estimated five thousand people tried to gain entry to the building, in an attempt to hear what sentence would be meted out to Leopold and Loeb.  

Police check lines as more than 5000 people try to gain entry into the courtroom to hear the verdict on September 10, 1924 (photo source)

At half past nine, with both defendants declining to make a last statement, Caverly read his decision.  He found the defendants to be "abnormal" and had they been normal, they would not have committed the crime.  He did find that the crime was thoroughly planned and committed but was moved by the ages of the accused and so declined to impose the death penalty upon them, instead sentencing them to life in prison for killing Bobby Franks and an additional 99 years for the kidnapping charges.  

Jacob Franks spoke to the press briefly following the verdict.  He said that he and his wife had not believed that Richard and Nathan should be hanged and were satisified with the verdict.  His son, he reminded them, had not believed in capital punishment.  

The families of the convicted men said not a word of sympathy for the Franks family but instead spoke of how the crime and conviction impacted their families and their positions.  

The convicted men themselves, knowing they were spending their last night in the Cook County Jail before being transferred, had a celebration of sorts with steaks smothered in onions, various side dishes and chocolate eclairs for dessert.

(Photo source)

Inmates 

On September 11, 1924 Richard and Nathan were taken to the Illinois State Penitentiary at Joliet where their heads were shaved, they were photographed and fingerprinted, and received their prison kits that included underwear, blue striped shirts, pants, a pair of shoes, socks, and two handkerchiefs.  Nathan Leopold became Prisoner No. 9305 and Richard Loeb Prisoner No. 9306.  Their new home was described as overcrowded and outdated.  Their four foot by eight foot cells had narrow windows and no running water, meaning inmates had to use a bucket as a toilet.  Unlike the Cook County Jail, where they were indulged as though they were royalty, at the state penitentiary they could receive visitors only once every two weeks and could send one letter during the same period of time.  The only other privileges they were allowed was to purchase tobacco, rolling papers, chewing gum and candy from the prison commissary with money from their prison account.  

A week into their sentences, they were allowed to join other prisoners for a concert where both reportedly broke down in tears.  They were then informed by the warden that they would not be allowed to see or communicate with each other again, as policy dictated they be kept separate and apart.  Richard was assigned a job working in the furniture shop, while Nathan was assigned to the fiber shop, weaving cane bottoms for chairs.  

On October 27, Albert Loeb died at his home on Ellis Avenue following another heart attack.  He was fifty-six.  Richard could have applied for compassionate leave to attend his father's funeral but the Loeb family apparently thought it better if he stayed away.  Even so, immense crowds gathered both outside the Ellis Avenue house and the Rosehill Cemetery.  

In May of 1925 Nathan was transferred to the then-new Stateville Prison five miles from Joliet following an attack of appendicitis and given a job in the shoe shop.  At Stateville, the cells had hot and cold water, toilets, beds with spring mattresses, bookshelves and radiators that the innates could control.  It wasn't long though before he was caught violating prison rules and sent to solitary confinement where he was handcuffed to a cell door for eleven hours a day, had a concrete slab for a bed, went without running water and was given bread and water for meals.   In May 1926 he was caught stealing sugar and once again sent to solitary.  It would be a pattern he would follow for years to come and he would blame his punishment to the publicity surrounding his case and not his own actions.  Also taking place in 1926 was an escape attempt where seven prisoners overpowered guards and killed the deputy warden.  While Nathan did not escape, a search of his cell uncovered a letter to his father in which he wrote that he was about "to go away."  Predictably, he denied any involvement or thought of escaping but he knew and worked with six of the seven escapees; one was a former cellmate.  The case went to trial and Nathan refused to testify.

In April of 1929, Nathan Leopold Sr. died after an operation.  Nathan learned of his father's death from a guard who asked him if he knew his "old man" had "kicked the bucket."  Nathan claimed his father's death gave him the first instance of remorse and regret for what he had done, five years after Bobby Franks' murder, but any regret or remorse did not bring about any change in his behavior.  He continued to violate prison rules and got into four (if not more) physical fights with other inmates - being sent to solitary after each instance.  Later he would claim three of the fights were a result of his resisting sexual advances from other inmates.  

By comparison, Richard seemed to almost flourish at Joliet.  He befriended his fellow inmates and was well liked not only by them but by the guards as well.  He never violated prison rules during his incarceration there and was never disciplined for any reason.  He was assigned the highest possible rank in the hierarchy of prisoners, given that he was considered exceptionally trustworthy, cooperative, and obedient.  He continued to be a voracious reader and had very minimal contact with Nathan.  In 1930, while working as an assistant to the deputy warden, Richard too was transferred to Stateville.  He and Nathan would not be under the same roof, so to speak, until the following year as Nathan had been caught forging passes with the chaplain's name and was sent to Joliet.  Once both were at Stateville in 1931, prison officials allowed them to congregate together and arranged for them to coordinate writing a booklet explaining parole conditions to inmates.  

Years later, Nathan would claim that he and Richard were "as close as it was possible for two men to be," with no secrets, always working as a team with something akin to power meetings each morning.   He did admit, however, that he was overshadowed by Richard from the moment Loeb arrived, that everyone liked him (Loeb) and he was one of only three or four men in the prison about whom no one had anything negative to say.  Fellow inmates had asked Richard to represent them on a prison advisory board, something that thrilled him, but Nathan found it objectionable.  The assignment would have been not only useful but should Richard ever come up for parole, would have looked good on his record.  Against his own wishes and feelings, Richard gave in to Nathan and declined the offer.  

In the fall of 1932, horrified that so many of his fellow inmates were poorly educated, Richard asked if he could establish a high school curriculum for them.  Warden Frank Whipp approved the plan, whereby the inmates' time could be spent on subjects they found interesting and receive certificates of completion following satisfactory work.  Richard was allowed to design courses with Nathan's assistance, with the lessons corrected by inmate instructors in their cells at night.  On January 1, 1933, the Stateville Correspondence School officially opened with 28 students and a wait list of 64.  Richard taught history, English (for which he devised his own textbook), and geometry while Nathan taught algebra and foreign languages.   Such a striking success was the school that it expanded to Joliet and then across the state, with Richard receiving the majority of the accolades for his dedication.   

On January 28, 1936, Richard had breakfast with Nathan before spending the morning correcting school papers.  After lunch, he went to take a shower in the private bathrooms attached to what would be the future offices of the school.  Shortly thereafter, he was found on the floor near the shower, naked and covered in blood.  He was taken to the infirmary where four doctors attempted to save his life.  He had four deep wounds to his throat, with one opening his jugular vein.  Vicious gashes covered his torso, arms and legs - every six inches or so on his body would find an angry cut.  There were fifty-seven in all, inflicted by a straight razor.  A rubber tube was inserted into his windpipe through the gaping hole in his throat so that he could breathe.  "If I'm okay," he told the doctors, "I'll pull through." 

Upon hearing of the attack, Nathan rushed to the infirmary to find Richard with his head nearly severed from his body, as he later recalled it.  He offered to donate blood but each time the doctors gave him a transfusion from the supply they already had, blood gushed freely from his neck.  

Richard's brother Ernest arrived at Stateville at 2:45 that afternoon, bringing the family physician who had not only delivered Richard but Nathan as well.  The physician said nothing could be done and they should fetch the priest immediately.  As Richard's mother was Catholic, the priest offered to administer last rites but Nathan refused, allowing the priest to pray for Richard instead.  

At 3:05 p.m., Richard Loeb died at the age of thirty.  His body was taken to Donnellan's Funeral Home in Chicago, where police stood guard in the event the public, still angry over Bobby Franks' fate, decided to take their own vengeance on Richard's corpse.  The next day, the Loeb family held a private funeral service in their home on Ellis Avenue.  Richard's body was then taken to Oak Wood Cemetery, where a brief Jewish service was conducted and then his remains were cremated.  His family disposed of the ashes privately and their ultimate location is unknown, although there was speculation that they were interred on the Loeb estate in Charlevoix.  

(Photo source)

Richard's killer, a twenty-three-year-old inmate named James Day, had arrived in Stateville in the summer of 1934 with a police record that went back to 1928.  He had been Richard's cellmate until mid-December of 1935, just a month before killing him.  Their relationship apparently grew icy after a new warden was brought to Stateville and cut the amount of funds prisoners could have in their prison accounts; before that time Richard would willingly share his money with others, including Day.  Once that amount was cut down to where it was just enough for Richard's wants and could no longer include Day, Day fought with him and was moved to another cell.  As to why he killed his former cellmate, Day claimed that Richard had pursued him relentlessly for sex and had cornered him in that shower with a straight razor.  During a scuffle, Day had managed to grab the razor and had slashed Richard to defend himself.  He told a very melodramatic and ridiculous account, depicting Richard as a crazy, nearly unstoppable killer and Day a poor, unsuspecting victim who had managed to somehow overpower the three-inches taller and fifteen pounds heavier Loeb and had done so, in this alleged life and death struggle with only few superficial scratches while Richard had sustained multiple defensive wounds to his hands and arms.  Day also had no accounting for how Richard's throat had been cut from behind.  

No prison authorities believed Day's account, including the warden who thought Day had carried out the attack without any provocation from Richard and then had concocted his fantastical story about Richard propositioning him.  A state's attorney, William McCabe, was assigned to investigate the killing and he disbelieved Day's story in its entirety.  What Day said of Richard's morality, McCabe said, directly opposed all that was known of him.  Furthermore, Richard owned no straight razor.  It was Day's cellmate, a man by the name of George Bliss, who had stolen it from the prison barbershop and given it to Day the morning of January 28 to use against Richard.      

Day went on trial for Richard's murder in June of 1936.  He asserted what would later be termed the "gay panic defense," saying that he had protected himself from Richard's sexual overtures, doing what "any normal man might have done under the circumstances."  His attorney concurred, saying that Day not only had the right but "should have killed Loeb."  The verdict came on June 4 after less than an hour of deliberations when the jury found Day not guilty.  They likely were still smarting over the verdict in the Bobby Franks case and found Richard Loeb an unsympathetic victim - as well as the general homophobia of the time playing a large part in their decision.  When the verdict was read, the courtroom erupted in applause.  When asked for comment, one of the jurors said that "nobody likes a queer, a homo, or a lesbian" and "it was a good thing to get rid of such people."  

Being acquitted wasn't enough for Day.  He began promoting himself as the man who had killed one of America's most notorious murderers, hoping to profit from it.       

Leopold Alone

Nathan claimed that he missed Richard terribly and was lonely in his absence.  Despite this, he had refused to assist the investigation into Richard's murder.  He claimed that punishing James Day would not help Richard, nor bring him back.  

Following the murder, Nathan continued to work at the Stateville Correspondence School, with more courses being added and enrollment ballooning up to almost 450 students.  His enthusiasm soon faded though, with Nathan admitting that he was "tired of it."  Truthfully, it had been Richard's passion project and not Nathan's.  

He was transferred to the prison infirmary, where he worked as an X-ray technician.  He utilized the position to look through inmates' mugshots, select those he found the best looking and then call them into the infirmary under the guise of getting X-rays to solicit them for sex.  He remained unpopular.  The majority of inmates avoided him, as he was a notorious child killer who was suspected of having molested Bobby before murdering him.  His attitude did little to help him.  A fellow prisoner said that he was smart but arrogant and no good and was confused by Nathan's talk of domination and submission.  Another inmate recalled that Nathan constantly bragged of his intelligence, spoke of the inferiority of the guards and advocated racist beliefs.  "Nobody wanted me around, neither cons nor screws," Nathan later remembered.       

In 1944, he volunteered to test experimental vaccines for the malaria that was decimating American troops in the Pacific.  He was proud of the scars on his legs that resulted from the infection having been cut out but Dr. Alf Alving had a different perspective. He felt Nathan exaggerated his illness after having been bitten and accused him of using the program to seduce other prisoners.  

The fact that the program might help participants' sentences be reduced certainly held sway with him.  He hoped that "public opinion in my regard might be softened to some degree" and started cultivating an image of a reformed and selfless inmate working toward parole.  It was, as he later admitted, "quite easy to put up a pretty convincing story" that his actions were "for the very noblest motives" - even when they clearly weren't.  He also continued to take "all the credit for anything good that happens and to disclaim responsibility for anything that blows up."  

(Photo source)

Warden Joseph Ragen promoted Nathan as a prime example of rehabilitation being possible with proper discipline and allowed him to speak to the press, participate in radio broadcasts and pose for Life magazine photographers. 

In 1949, based somewhat on his malaria work, Adlai Stevenson, the Illinois governor, granted Nathan a sentence reduction, making him eligible for parole in 1953.  This led Nathan to revise history and his life, wholly blaming Richard and his influence for a crime that he said he had no desire to commit.  

At his first parole hearing on January 8, 1953, Nathan said he could not give a motive for the crime which made sense to him and that he was in no better position to do so than he was in 1924.  Giving no insight and expressing no remorse led the parole board to decide against him.  He continued attempting to overhaul his image, giving only selective interviews to those journalists he deemed friendly and who would focus on his prison work and rehabilitation.  In 1955, he cooperated in a four-part profile in The Saturday Evening Post in which he was portrayed as an innocent bystander to Richard Loeb, and one which was "childish."  Nathan Leopold, according to the profile, "was in no sense a 'true homosexual.'" 

Nathan's second and third parole requests were also denied.  In 1957, Chicago lawyer Elmer Gertz solicited letters of support for Nathan, advocating for his release, and won him a new clemency hearing.  At that hearing on July 9, 1957, Gertz presented Richard Loeb - dead for more than twenty years and unable to speak for or defend himself - as a pathological liar who possessed every bad quality in a person and who had a sadistic streak and who had influenced the easily-followed Leopold.  Leopold, he said, had gone along with the "dreadful error" because he was a lonely kid.  The parole board again denied parole but agreed to hear the case again in February of 1958.  At that hearing, Nathan accused Richard of being the killer of Bobby Franks but claimed to accept responsibility for his part as well as remorse he claimed to have had daily for more than three decades.  He also had a concrete plan in place for himself should he be released; he was promised a job in Puerto Rico as an X-ray technician.  

On February 20, 1958, the board granted Nathan parole.  His parole came with the normal restrictions - no use of alcohol, regular reporting to his parole officer, no contact with former prisoners, no ownership of a car or gun, and a strict 10:30 p.m. curfew.  Given Leopold's notoriety, a special restriction was added for him - no voluntary participation in publicity activities, personal appearances on stage or radio, motion pictures, television or any other publicity media.  The one exception was his memoirs, which were published in the spring of 1958. 

On Thursday, March 13, 1958, Nathan left Stateville a free man.       

Freedom

On Friday, March 14, 1958, Nathan boarded a plane for Puerto Rico.  His destination was Castaner, a tiny mountain village, where he worked as an X-ray technician for the small hospital run by the Church of the Brethren.  Perhaps predictably, he grew tired of village life and moved to San Juan, where he enrolled at the University of Puerto Rico to work toward a master's degree in social work. He resented his parole conditions and constantly broke them, ignoring his curfew, communicating with former prisoners and secretly purchasing guns.  

His memoirs, called Life Plus 99 Years, was published by Doubleday in the spring of 1958.  Not only was it an inaccurate and thoroughly biased accounting but its author roundly refused to discuss the crime that made him infamous.   He had hoped that his own book would overshadow one released the year before called Compulsion, a fictional account of Bobby Franks' murder, but Life Plus 99 Years, while selling well on release, dropped off the public's radar.  Doubleday was forced to offer the book at deep discount, depriving Nathan of any financial windfall he might have imagined.   As disgusted as he was by Compulsion the book, in which his character was depicted as clearly gay - and by the fact that Compulsion was a success - he was infuriated by the release of the film version in April of 1959.   Still, he sat in a San Juan theater and watched the 20th Century-Fox film closely and formulated a plan. 

He once again called upon lawyer Elmer Gertz to assist him in filing an action in which he asserted that the book and everything that followed from it illegally appropriated Nathan's name for commercial gain and violated his right to privacy.  The suit, filed on October 2, 1959, cited 56 defendants that included author Meyer Levin, the book's publishers, 20th Century-Fox, the film's distributors, and theaters that had shown the movie.   Nathan asked for $4.3 million; $2.9 million from 20th Century-Fox, $1.4 million from various distributors, and $150,000 from Levin.  

Ultimately, it would take more than a decade for the lawsuit to wind its way through the judicial system.  The verdict, when it came from the Illinois State Supreme Court in May of 1970, vindicated Levin and his co-defendants.  Nathan's claim that his right to privacy was violated was rejected by the court, who found that his own actions had caused himself and his life to be placed in public view.  Any hope he may have held out to hit a payday over his 1924 crime effectively ended.

Nathan had met a woman by the name of Gertrude Feldman Garcia de Quevado, an American widow of a San Juan doctor.  He married her in 1961.  It was hardly a love match.  Gertrude, or Trudi as she was known, felt that Nathan looked like he needed a friend more than anyone she had ever met and Nathan flat out admitted to attorney Elmer Gertz that he did not love her but thought the marriage would help him be released from parole.  That did not happen - he had to wait the usual five years, or until 1963, for his parole conditions to expire.  

The couple moved into an apartment in the Santurce section of San Juan where a prominently displayed framed photograph of Richard Loeb was the first thing any visitor saw.  

While Trudi accepted the photograph of Richard, she was not so understanding of Nathan's continued pursuit of men, no matter how discreet he may have been.  She and Nathan fought often behind closed doors, with her complaining about his trysts and talk of divorce.  Nathan, she said, "isn't one bit different than he was in 1924."      

In 1963, he published a second book, this one called A Checklist of the Birds of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and he authored several articles on prison reform.  That same year, he collaborated with former actor Don Murray on a film about Nathan's prison work and time in Puerto Rico to be called Beyond the Night.  As had happened with Life Plus 99 Years, there were no takers for the film.  Discouraged but not defeated, Nathan started a second memoir, this one called Reach for a Halo.  He only wrote  few chapters before calling it quits as no publisher wanted his story. 

Following the 1966 spree of killer Richard Speck in which Speck slaughtered eight student nurses in Chicago in one evening, Nathan ironically suggested writing a fictional account of Speck's crime, seemingly forgetting that he himself had sued over Compulsion's depiction of himself and his crime.

   

Following his legal loss in 1970, Nathan's health declined rapidly.  He was overweight, he drank and smoked too much, and suffered with diabetes.  In the spring of 1971, he suffered a series of heart attacks that hospitalized him for much of April and May.  That summer, he traveled back to Chicago and returned to Wolf Lake for the first time since 1924.  He ended his Chicago trip with illness that had him in the hospital for a week.  On August 19, back in Puerto Rico, he had trouble breathing.  For the next ten days, he lingered at the Mimiya Hospital where doctors told Trudi they could do nothing - his heart was failing.    On August 29, with Trudi by his side, Nathan died.  He was sixty-six years old.

As his older brother Sam had told him years earlier that the Leopold family did not want Nathan buried in their plot at Rosehill Cemetery, Nathan willed his body to the University of Puerto Rico for medical research.  

Nathan Leopold and his wife Trudi in Puerto Rico (photo source)

Afterward

Less than a month after his decision in the trial of Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, Judge John Caverly suffered a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized.  He did eventually return to the bench but was assigned lighter duties, dying in 1939.

State's attorney Robert Crowe, resentful of Caverly's sentence and receiving frequent accusations of corruption, returned to private practice in 1928.  He continued to voice his opinion that it had been Nathan Leopold who had struck Bobby Franks with a chisel.  He became a judge in 1942 but retired a short time later.  He continued opposing Nathan's parole until his death in 1958 at the age of seventy-eight.  

In 1925, Clarence Darrow went on to defend Tennessee teacher John Scopes when Scopes was charged with teaching evolution in a groundbreaking case.  Although he lost, the verdict was eventually overturned.  Darrow died in 1938 at the age of eighty.  

Anna Loeb, Richard's mother, continued to live quietly following her husband's death in October of 1924, dividing her time between the mansion on Ellis Avenue and the Loeb estate in Charlevoix.  She continued to visit her son in prison until his murder in 1936.  She died in 1950 at the age of seventy-four. 

In 1927, most of the Charlevoix, Michigan property was sold due to losses, though the massive mansion above Pine Lake was retained.  It still stands today, where descendants of Richard and his family continue to visit.   Richard's older brother Allan died in 1962, his younger brother Ernest a year earlier.  Richard's youngest brother, Tommy, the brother he was especially close to, died in 1991, following years of trying to forget the horrible events of 1924.  

Nathan's brothers Mike and Sam changed their surname from Leopold to Lebold in an attempt to distance themselves from their brother's notoriety and crime.  Mike married in 1936 but chose not to have children, worried that they might be marred by their uncle's infamy.  He died in 1953.  Sam continued to live in Chicago, married twice, had children and died in 1973.  

Following her husband's death, Trudi Leopold started writing a book of her own.  Called I Married a Murderer, it was her account of her time with Nathan Leopold and her recounting of her husband's continued homosexual liaisons as well as her opinion that he had never reformed.  She never finished the book and died in Puerto Rico in 1987.  

Following the brutal murder of his son, Jacob Franks died four years later, in 1928, of a heart attack.  The Chicago Daily News reported his death and informed its readers that the man's ill health had been brought on from "grief over the murder of his son."  

In 1930, a new clubhouse for boys was dedicated in Bobby's memory, with his mother Flora and brother Jack helping to lay the cornerstone.  Money for the clubhouse was provided for through Jacob's will, where he had left money specifically earmarked for the construction of "a fitting memorial to perpetuate the memory of my boy."  

Three years later, in 1933, Flora Franks married Chicago attorney Albert Louer.  She would reside in a suite at the Drake Hotel until her death from breast cancer in 1937.  Her remaining son, Jack, died just a year later of heart trouble, following a marriage and a divorce.   Only Bobby's sister Josephine was blessed with a long life.  She married her first husband in 1927, gave birth to three daughters and was widowed in 1954.  She married a second time in 1976 and would outlive her second husband by nearly three decades, dying in 2007 just a month shy of celebrating her 101st birthday. 

 As far as what remains, Nathan Leopold's glasses are stored in a temperature-controlled vault of the Chicago History Museum in order to preserve their brittle frames.  The area around Wolf Lake where Bobby Franks' body was recovered is still a marshland preserve but the culvert where Leopold and Loeb placed him has long since disappeared.  The neighborhood of Kenwood fell on hard times in the 1950s when it was split in half by the nearby University of Chicago.  North Kenwood became a series of ruined buildings and low cost housing while South Kenwood was, and remains, an affluent area with upscale homes.  The Harvard School for Boys that Bobby attended closed in 2003, following more than a century of operation, and was turned into condominiums.  The former Leopold house on South Greenwood is gone, although the large garage where Nathan kept his red Willys-Knight automobile still stands and is now a private residence.  The Loeb mansion was sold in the 1930s and became a branch of the Illinois Protestant Children's Home with orphaned or abandoned boys sleeping in Richard's former bedroom.  By 1971, the house had become derelict and was razed.  Only the high brick wall that once surrounded the grand property remains.  The Franks home still stands across Ellis Avenue from where the Loeb home once stood.  Following Bobby's murder, the home went through several owners and was purchased in 1936 for use as the Ffoulkes School for Boys and Girls.  Nearly six decades later, in 1991, it was empty and started down a similar path to the Loeb home, toward dereliction.  In 2007, new owners bought the property and turned it into two luxury condominiums. 

In 1935, Jack Franks gave a rare interview to the Chicago Daily Tribune and spoke about his brother's killers.  "I have no feeling of animosity.  It has been hard for the families.  How my family feels about it, I don't know.  We never discuss it.  So far as I am concerned, I just want them to stay out of my life.  They're in another world from me, and I'm not interested in theirs.  That's all."      

  

Bobby Franks' final resting place, below that of his father Jacob's.
(Photo source)

  

Sources:

Chicagology (2024).  Leopold & Loeb. 

King, Greg and Wilson, Penny.  Nothing but the Night: Leopold & Loeb and the Truth Behind the Murder That Rocked 1920s America.  McMillan USA, 2022.

Smithsonian Magazine (August 2008).  Leopold and Loeb's Criminal Minds.

The Saturday Evening Post (May 23, 2014).  The Leopold and Loeb Murder Trial, 90 Years Later.

Wikipedia (2024).  Leopold and Loeb.