Leopold and Loeb
Encyclopedia
Nathan Freudenthal Leopold, Jr. (November 19, 1904 – August 29, 1971) and Richard Albert Loeb (June 11, 1905 – January 28, 1936), more commonly known as "Leopold and Loeb", were two wealthy University of Michigan
alumni and University of Chicago
students who murdered 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks in 1924 and were sentenced to life imprisonment
.
The duo were motivated to murder Franks by their desire to commit a perfect crime
. Once apprehended, Leopold and Loeb retained Clarence Darrow
as counsel for the defense. Darrow’s summation in their trial is noted for its influential criticism of capital punishment
and retributive
, as opposed to rehabilitative
, penal systems.
Leopold and Loeb have been the inspiration for several works in film, theater and fiction, such as the 1929 play Rope
by Patrick Hamilton
and Alfred Hitchcock
's 1948 film of the same name
.
supermen
who could commit a "perfect crime" (in this case a kidnapping
and murder). Before the murder, Leopold had written to Loeb: "A superman ... is, on account of certain superior qualities inherent in him, exempted from the ordinary laws which govern men. He is not liable for anything he may do."
The two were exceptionally intelligent. Nathan Leopold was a child prodigy
who spoke his first words at the age of four months; he reportedly had an intelligence quotient
of 210, though this is not directly comparable to scores on modern IQ tests. Leopold had already completed college, graduating Phi Beta Kappa, and was attending law school at the University of Chicago
. He claimed to have been able to speak 27 different languages fluently, and was an expert ornithologist
. Loeb was the youngest graduate in the history of the University of Michigan
and planned to enter the University of Chicago Law School after taking some postgraduate courses. Leopold planned to transfer to Harvard Law School
in September after taking a trip to Europe.
Leopold, Loeb, and Franks lived on the south side of Chicago, in Kenwood
, which was at the time a wealthy Jewish neighborhood. Loeb's father, Albert, began his career as a lawyer and became the vice president of Sears and Roebuck. Besides owning an impressive mansion
in Kenwood, two blocks from the Leopold home, the Loeb family had a summer estate, Castle Farms
, in Charlevoix, Michigan
.
Leopold and Loeb met at the University of Chicago as teenagers. Leopold agreed to act as Loeb's accomplice
. Beginning with petty theft, the pair committed a series of more and more serious crimes, culminating in the murder.
Leopold and Loeb spent seven months planning the murder, disposing of the body and working out a way to get ransom money with little or no risk of being caught. They put their plot into motion on Wednesday, May 21, 1924. After a search, the pair finally decided upon Robert "Bobby" Franks, the son of Chicago
millionaire Jacob Franks, who was walking home from Harvard High School (closed 1962) in Hyde Park, Chicago
. The 14-year-old boy, who was both the neighbor and second cousin of Richard Loeb, was lured into the passenger seat of their rented car.
Future Hollywood producer Armand Deutsch later claimed he might have been the intended victim of Loeb or Leopold. But on the day of the murder, as the 11-year-old grandson of Julius Rosenwald
, he was picked up by his family's chauffeur after school because he had a prior dental appointment. Deutsch died aged 92 on August 13, 2005.
With Franks in the vehicle, one of them drove and the other one sat in the back armed with a chisel
. It's not known who struck the first blow with the murder weapon. But a sock was stuffed into the schoolboy's mouth and he died soon after. Contrary to rumors that Franks had been sexually assaulted, the trial judge would later state that conclusive evidence convinced him that no abuse had been committed.
The killers covered the body and drove to a remote area near Wolf Lake in Hammond, Indiana
. They removed Franks's clothes and left them at the side of the road. Leopold and Loeb poured hydrochloric acid
on the body to make identification more difficult. They then had dinner at a hot dog stand
. After finishing their meal, they concealed the body in a culvert
at the Pennsylvania Railroad
tracks near 118th street, north of Wolf Lake.
After returning to Chicago, they called Franks's mother and said her son had been kidnapped. They mailed the ransom note to the Franks. The killers burned items of their own clothing that had been spotted with blood. They also attempted to clean bloodstains from the upholstery of their rented automobile. The two then spent the rest of the evening playing cards.
Before the Franks could pay the ransom, Tony Minke, a Polish immigrant, discovered the body. When Leopold and Loeb learned that the body had been found, they destroyed the typewriter used to write the ransom note and burned the robe used to move the body.
However, Detective Hugh Patrick Byrne, while searching for evidence, discovered a pair of eyeglasses
near the body, unremarkable except for an unusual hinge mechanism. In Chicago, only three people had purchased glasses with such a mechanism, one of whom was Nathan Leopold.
Upon being questioned, Leopold told police he had lost the glasses while birdwatching. Loeb told the police that Leopold was with him the night of the murder. Leopold and Loeb claimed they had picked up two women in Leopold's car and had dropped them off near a golf course, never learning their last names. Unfortunately for Leopold and Loeb, Leopold's car was being repaired by his chauffeur that night. The chauffeur's wife also said the car was in the Leopold garage that night.
During police questioning, Leopold's and Loeb's alibis fell apart. Loeb confessed first, followed by Leopold. Although their confessions corroborated most of the facts in the case, each blamed the other for the actual killing. Most commentators believe that Loeb struck the blow that killed Franks. However, which of the two actually wielded the weapon that killed Franks would never be known. Psychiatrists at the trial, impressed by Leopold's intelligence, agreed that Loeb had struck the fatal blow. However, the circumstantial evidence in the case, including eyewitness testimony by Carl Ulvigh (who saw Loeb driving with Leopold in the back seat minutes before the kidnapping), indicated that Leopold had been the killer.
The ransom was not their primary motive; the young men's families provided them all the money that they needed. Both had admitted that they were driven by the thrill of the kill
and the desire to commit the "perfect crime".
The trial became a media spectacle. Held at Courthouse Place
, it was one of the first cases in the U.S. to be dubbed the "Trial of the Century
". Loeb's family hired 67-year-old Clarence Darrow
—a well-known opponent of capital punishment
—to defend the men against the capital charges of murder and kidnapping. While the media expected Leopold and Loeb to plead not guilty by reason of insanity, Darrow surprised everyone by having them both plead guilty. In this way, Darrow avoided a jury
trial, which he believed would most certainly have resulted in a conviction and perhaps even the death penalty. Instead, he was able to make his case for his clients' lives before a single person, Cook County
Circuit Court Judge John R. Caverly.
During the 12-hour hearing on the final day, Darrow gave a speech that has been called the finest of his career. The speech included the following: "This terrible crime was inherent in his organism, and it came from some ancestor... Is any blame attached because somebody took Nietzsche's philosophy seriously and fashioned his life upon it?... It is hardly fair to hang a 19-year-old boy for the philosophy that was taught him at the university?"
In the end, Darrow succeeded. The judge sentenced Leopold and Loeb each to life imprisonment
(for the murder) plus 99 years each (for the kidnapping). This was mainly on the grounds that, being under 21, Leopold and Loeb were legal minors.
Initially held at Joliet Prison
, they were later transferred to Stateville Penitentiary
, where Leopold and Loeb used their educations to teach classes in the prison school.
On January 28, 1936, Loeb was attacked by fellow prisoner James E. Day with a straight razor
in a shower room and died from his wounds. Day claimed afterward that Loeb had attempted to sexually assault
him. Day emerged without a scratch while Loeb sustained more than 50 wounds from the attack, including numerous self-defense wounds on his arms and hands. Loeb's throat had also been slashed from behind. Nevertheless, an inquiry accepted Day's testimony. The prison authorities, embarrassed by publicity sensationalizing alleged decadent behavior in the prison, ruled that Day's attack on Loeb was in self-defense. According to one widely reported account, newsman Ed Lahey wrote this lead for the Chicago Daily News
: "Richard Loeb, despite his erudition
, today ended his sentence with a proposition."
The actual motive for Loeb's murder was apparently money. Both Leopold and Loeb had been receiving generous allowances from their families, enough to purchase tobacco and various other items for their cellmates and friends. After the warden reduced all prisoner allowances to only a few dollars per month, Day, a former cellmate of Loeb's, continued to demand the gifts he had been accustomed to receiving, which Loeb could no longer afford.
There is no evidence that Richard Loeb was a sexual predator while in prison; however, Loeb's murderer was later caught on at least one occasion engaging a fellow inmate sexually as well as committing numerous other infractions. In an autobiography entitled Life Plus 99 Years, Leopold referred to Day's claims that Loeb had attempted to sexually assault him as ridiculous and laughable. This is echoed in an interview with the Catholic chaplain at the prison, Father Eligius Weir, who had been a personal confidante of Richard Loeb. Weir stated that James Day had been the sexual predator and had gone after Loeb because Loeb refused to have sexual relations with him.
In 1944, Leopold participated in the Stateville Penitentiary Malaria Study
, in which he volunteered to be infected with malaria
. Early in 1958, after 33 years in prison, Leopold was released on parole
.
That year he also wrote Life Plus 99 Years. Leopold moved to Puerto Rico
to avoid media attention and married a widowed florist. He was known as "Nate" to neighbors and co-workers at Castañer General Hospital in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico, where he worked as a lab and x-ray assistant.
At one time after his release from prison, Leopold talked about his intention to write a book entitled Snatch for a Halo about his life following prison. He never did so. Later, Leopold tried to block the movie Compulsion
(see below) on the grounds of invasion of privacy
, defamation, and making money from his life story.
He died of a diabetes-related heart attack on August 29, 1971, at the age of 66. His cornea
s were donated.
by Patrick Hamilton
, which served as the basis for a BBC television performance of this play in 1939, and Alfred Hitchcock
's film of the same name
in 1948.
In 1956, Meyer Levin
revisited the case in his novel Compulsion, a fictionalized version of the actual events in which the names of the pair were changed to "Steiner and Strauss." Three years later, the novel was made into a film of the same name, Compulsion
.
Never the Sinner, a theatrical recreation of the Leopold and Loeb trial, was written by John Logan
in 1988.
In Richard Wright's 1940 novel Native Son
, partly set in the same Kenwood neighborhood of Chicago, protagonist Bigger Thomas is inspired by a faint recollection of the Loeb and Leopold case to send a ransom note to the wealthy family of a young girl he has suffocated, a risk that ultimately leads to his own capture. The novel's conclusion, which centers around the efforts of Bigger's communist lawyer to convince a judge not to impose capital punishment, may also be inspired by Darrow's defense of Leopold and Loeb.
Leopold and Loeb are mentioned in a joke in the 1977 Academy Award-winning film Annie Hall
by Woody Allen
. The case is also mentioned in a 1990 episode of "Taggart
" 'Death Comes Softly', a story of two 15-year old girls that murder old people they befriend.
Other works inspired by the case include Tom Kalin
's more openly gay-themed 1992 film Swoon
; Michael Haneke's 1997 film Funny Games, with an American shot-for-shot
remake produced in 2008; 1997's Kiss the Girls
based on the 1995 bestselling novel of the same name
by American writer James Patterson
; Barbet Schroeder
's Murder by Numbers
(2002); and Stephen Dolginoff
's 2005 Off-Broadway
musical Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story
; and various TV episodes (including on Law & Order SVU).
Nathan Leopold, Jr. is featured as a character in Nicky Silver
's Off Broadway comedy The Agony & The Agony, despite the play's being set in 2006.
In the episode of NUMB3RS
titled "Scorched," Diane Farr mentions the two while investigating a murder case
In the episode of Seinfeld
titled "The Junior Mint," Jerry
says he and Kramer
are like Leopold and Loeb.
Leopold and Loeb are mentioned twice in the television show Gilmore Girls
. First in a season-one episode titled "Star-Crossed Lovers and Other Strangers", where Lorelai is set up on a blind date with a man who had two dobermans as a child named Leopold and Loeb. Second in a season-three episode titled "Those Lay-Hazy-Crazy Days", Lorelai has a dream about having twins and plans to name them Leopold and Loeb.
The Leopold and Loeb case is a theme in Daniel Clowes
' 2005 graphic novel Ice Haven
, which includes a short story about the criminal duo as well as references to the incident in other stories.
Don Draper refers to two characters of the show Mad Men
as Leopold and Loeb in episode 3 of season 2.
The film Murder By Numbers
is loosely based on Leopold and Loeb, but is set post millennium and recasts the the killers as high school students.
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
alumni and University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
students who murdered 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks in 1924 and were sentenced to life imprisonment
Life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...
.
The duo were motivated to murder Franks by their desire to commit a perfect crime
Perfect crime
Perfect crime is a colloquial term used in law and fiction to characterize crimes that are undetected, unattributed to a perpetrator, or else unsolved as a kind of technical achievement on the part of the perpetrator....
. Once apprehended, Leopold and Loeb retained Clarence Darrow
Clarence Darrow
Clarence Seward Darrow was an American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, best known for defending teenage thrill killers Leopold and Loeb in their trial for murdering 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks and defending John T...
as counsel for the defense. Darrow’s summation in their trial is noted for its influential criticism of capital punishment
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
and retributive
Retributive justice
Retributive justice is a theory of justice that considers that punishment, if proportionate, is a morally acceptable response to crime, with an eye to the satisfaction and psychological benefits it can bestow to the aggrieved party, its intimates and society....
, as opposed to rehabilitative
Transformative justice
Transformative justice is a general philosophical strategy for responding to conflicts. It takes the principles and practices of restorative justice beyond the criminal justice system. It applies to areas such as environmental law, corporate law, labor-management relations, consumer bankruptcy and...
, penal systems.
Leopold and Loeb have been the inspiration for several works in film, theater and fiction, such as the 1929 play Rope
Rope (play)
Rope is a 1929 British play by Patrick Hamilton. In formal terms, it is a well-made play with a three-act dramatic structure that adheres to the classical unities. Its action is continuous, punctuated only by the curtain fall at the end of each act. It may also be considered a thriller whose...
by Patrick Hamilton
Patrick Hamilton (dramatist)
Patrick Hamilton was an English playwright and novelist.He was well regarded by Graham Greene and J. B. Priestley and study of his novels has been revived recently because of their distinctive style, deploying a Dickensian narrative voice to convey aspects of inter-war London street culture...
and Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
's 1948 film of the same name
Rope (film)
Rope is a 1948 American thriller film based on the play Rope by Patrick Hamilton and adapted by Hume Cronyn and Arthur Laurents, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and produced by Sidney Bernstein and Hitchcock as the first of their Transatlantic Pictures productions...
.
Motive
Leopold, age 19 at the time of the murder, and Loeb, 18, believed themselves to be NietzscheanPhilosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche developed his philosophy during the late 19th century amid growing criticism of G. W. F. Hegel's philosophic system.Nietzsche owed the awakening of his philosophical interest to reading Arthur Schopenhauer's Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung and admitted that Schopenhauer was...
supermen
Übermensch
The Übermensch is a concept in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche posited the Übermensch as a goal for humanity to set for itself in his 1883 book Thus Spoke Zarathustra ....
who could commit a "perfect crime" (in this case a kidnapping
Kidnapping
In criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person's will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority...
and murder). Before the murder, Leopold had written to Loeb: "A superman ... is, on account of certain superior qualities inherent in him, exempted from the ordinary laws which govern men. He is not liable for anything he may do."
The two were exceptionally intelligent. Nathan Leopold was a child prodigy
Child prodigy
A child prodigy is someone who, at an early age, masters one or more skills far beyond his or her level of maturity. One criterion for classifying prodigies is: a prodigy is a child, typically younger than 18 years old, who is performing at the level of a highly trained adult in a very demanding...
who spoke his first words at the age of four months; he reportedly had an intelligence quotient
Intelligence quotient
An intelligence quotient, or IQ, is a score derived from one of several different standardized tests designed to assess intelligence. When modern IQ tests are constructed, the mean score within an age group is set to 100 and the standard deviation to 15...
of 210, though this is not directly comparable to scores on modern IQ tests. Leopold had already completed college, graduating Phi Beta Kappa, and was attending law school at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
. He claimed to have been able to speak 27 different languages fluently, and was an expert ornithologist
Ornithology
Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the study of birds. Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and the aesthetic appeal of birds...
. Loeb was the youngest graduate in the history of the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
and planned to enter the University of Chicago Law School after taking some postgraduate courses. Leopold planned to transfer to Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
in September after taking a trip to Europe.
Leopold, Loeb, and Franks lived on the south side of Chicago, in Kenwood
Kenwood, Chicago
Kenwood, located on the South Side of the City of Chicago, Illinois, is one of the 77 well-defined Chicago community areas.Kenwood was part of Hyde Park Township, which was annexed by the City of Chicago in 1889....
, which was at the time a wealthy Jewish neighborhood. Loeb's father, Albert, began his career as a lawyer and became the vice president of Sears and Roebuck. Besides owning an impressive mansion
Mansion
A mansion is a very large dwelling house. U.S. real estate brokers define a mansion as a dwelling of over . A traditional European mansion was defined as a house which contained a ballroom and tens of bedrooms...
in Kenwood, two blocks from the Leopold home, the Loeb family had a summer estate, Castle Farms
Castle Farms
Castle Farms is one of Michigan's largest special events facilities, and it is located in Charlevoix, Michigan. It was constructed in 1918 by Albert Loeb, who was the Vice President of Sears, Roebuck and Company, and it was designed by Arthur Heun...
, in Charlevoix, Michigan
Charlevoix, Michigan
Charlevoix is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 2,994. It is the county seat of Charlevoix County....
.
Leopold and Loeb met at the University of Chicago as teenagers. Leopold agreed to act as Loeb's accomplice
Accomplice
At law, an accomplice is a person who actively participates in the commission of a crime, even though they take no part in the actual criminal offense. For example, in a bank robbery, the person who points the gun at the teller and asks for the money is guilty of armed robbery...
. Beginning with petty theft, the pair committed a series of more and more serious crimes, culminating in the murder.
Timeline
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
millionaire Jacob Franks, who was walking home from Harvard High School (closed 1962) in Hyde Park, Chicago
Hyde Park, Chicago
Hyde Park, located on the South Side of the City of Chicago, in Cook County, Illinois, United States and seven miles south of the Chicago Loop, is a Chicago neighborhood and one of 77 Chicago community areas. It is home to the University of Chicago, the Hyde Park Art Center, the Museum of Science...
. The 14-year-old boy, who was both the neighbor and second cousin of Richard Loeb, was lured into the passenger seat of their rented car.
Future Hollywood producer Armand Deutsch later claimed he might have been the intended victim of Loeb or Leopold. But on the day of the murder, as the 11-year-old grandson of Julius Rosenwald
Julius Rosenwald
Julius Rosenwald was a U.S. clothier, manufacturer, business executive, and philanthropist. He is best known as a part-owner and leader of Sears, Roebuck and Company, and for the Rosenwald Fund which donated millions to support the education of African American children in the rural South, as well...
, he was picked up by his family's chauffeur after school because he had a prior dental appointment. Deutsch died aged 92 on August 13, 2005.
With Franks in the vehicle, one of them drove and the other one sat in the back armed with a chisel
Chisel
A chisel is a tool with a characteristically shaped cutting edge of blade on its end, for carving or cutting a hard material such as wood, stone, or metal. The handle and blade of some types of chisel are made of metal or wood with a sharp edge in it.In use, the chisel is forced into the material...
. It's not known who struck the first blow with the murder weapon. But a sock was stuffed into the schoolboy's mouth and he died soon after. Contrary to rumors that Franks had been sexually assaulted, the trial judge would later state that conclusive evidence convinced him that no abuse had been committed.
The killers covered the body and drove to a remote area near Wolf Lake in Hammond, Indiana
Hammond, Indiana
Hammond is a city in Lake County, Indiana, United States. It is part of the Chicago metropolitan area. The population was 80,830 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Hammond is located at ....
. They removed Franks's clothes and left them at the side of the road. Leopold and Loeb poured hydrochloric acid
Hydrochloric acid
Hydrochloric acid is a solution of hydrogen chloride in water, that is a highly corrosive, strong mineral acid with many industrial uses. It is found naturally in gastric acid....
on the body to make identification more difficult. They then had dinner at a hot dog stand
Hot dog stand
A hot dog stand is a food business stand that sells hot dogs, usually from an external counter on a public thoroughfare such as a road, street, ballpark, mall, or food court....
. After finishing their meal, they concealed the body in a culvert
Culvert
A culvert is a device used to channel water. It may be used to allow water to pass underneath a road, railway, or embankment. Culverts can be made of many different materials; steel, polyvinyl chloride and concrete are the most common...
at the Pennsylvania Railroad
Pennsylvania Railroad
The Pennsylvania Railroad was an American Class I railroad, founded in 1846. Commonly referred to as the "Pennsy", the PRR was headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....
tracks near 118th street, north of Wolf Lake.
After returning to Chicago, they called Franks's mother and said her son had been kidnapped. They mailed the ransom note to the Franks. The killers burned items of their own clothing that had been spotted with blood. They also attempted to clean bloodstains from the upholstery of their rented automobile. The two then spent the rest of the evening playing cards.
Before the Franks could pay the ransom, Tony Minke, a Polish immigrant, discovered the body. When Leopold and Loeb learned that the body had been found, they destroyed the typewriter used to write the ransom note and burned the robe used to move the body.
However, Detective Hugh Patrick Byrne, while searching for evidence, discovered a pair of eyeglasses
Glasses
Glasses, also known as eyeglasses , spectacles or simply specs , are frames bearing lenses worn in front of the eyes. They are normally used for vision correction or eye protection. Safety glasses are a kind of eye protection against flying debris or against visible and near visible light or...
near the body, unremarkable except for an unusual hinge mechanism. In Chicago, only three people had purchased glasses with such a mechanism, one of whom was Nathan Leopold.
Upon being questioned, Leopold told police he had lost the glasses while birdwatching. Loeb told the police that Leopold was with him the night of the murder. Leopold and Loeb claimed they had picked up two women in Leopold's car and had dropped them off near a golf course, never learning their last names. Unfortunately for Leopold and Loeb, Leopold's car was being repaired by his chauffeur that night. The chauffeur's wife also said the car was in the Leopold garage that night.
During police questioning, Leopold's and Loeb's alibis fell apart. Loeb confessed first, followed by Leopold. Although their confessions corroborated most of the facts in the case, each blamed the other for the actual killing. Most commentators believe that Loeb struck the blow that killed Franks. However, which of the two actually wielded the weapon that killed Franks would never be known. Psychiatrists at the trial, impressed by Leopold's intelligence, agreed that Loeb had struck the fatal blow. However, the circumstantial evidence in the case, including eyewitness testimony by Carl Ulvigh (who saw Loeb driving with Leopold in the back seat minutes before the kidnapping), indicated that Leopold had been the killer.
The ransom was not their primary motive; the young men's families provided them all the money that they needed. Both had admitted that they were driven by the thrill of the kill
Thrill killing
A thrill killing is a term used to describe a premeditated murder committed by a person who is not necessarily suffering from mental instability, and does not derive sexual satisfaction from killing victims, or have anything against them, and sometimes do not know them, but is instead motivated by...
and the desire to commit the "perfect crime".
Trial
Courthouse Place
Courthouse Place, also known as the Cook County Criminal Court Building, is a Richardsonian Romanesque-style building at 54 West Hubbard Street in the Near North Side of Chicago. Designed by architect Otto H. Matz and completed in 1893, the build stands on the prior location of a public market...
, it was one of the first cases in the U.S. to be dubbed the "Trial of the Century
Trial of the century
Trial of the century is an idiomatic phrase used to describe certain well-known court cases, especially of the 20th century. It is often used popularly as a rhetorical device to attach importance to a trial and as such is not an objective observation but is the opinion of whoever uses it. As...
". Loeb's family hired 67-year-old Clarence Darrow
Clarence Darrow
Clarence Seward Darrow was an American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, best known for defending teenage thrill killers Leopold and Loeb in their trial for murdering 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks and defending John T...
—a well-known opponent of capital punishment
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
—to defend the men against the capital charges of murder and kidnapping. While the media expected Leopold and Loeb to plead not guilty by reason of insanity, Darrow surprised everyone by having them both plead guilty. In this way, Darrow avoided a jury
Jury
A jury is a sworn body of people convened to render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Modern juries tend to be found in courts to ascertain the guilt, or lack thereof, in a crime. In Anglophone jurisdictions, the verdict may be guilty,...
trial, which he believed would most certainly have resulted in a conviction and perhaps even the death penalty. Instead, he was able to make his case for his clients' lives before a single person, Cook County
Cook County, Illinois
Cook County is a county in the U.S. state of Illinois, with its county seat in Chicago. It is the second most populous county in the United States after Los Angeles County. The county has 5,194,675 residents, which is 40.5 percent of all Illinois residents. Cook County's population is larger than...
Circuit Court Judge John R. Caverly.
During the 12-hour hearing on the final day, Darrow gave a speech that has been called the finest of his career. The speech included the following: "This terrible crime was inherent in his organism, and it came from some ancestor... Is any blame attached because somebody took Nietzsche's philosophy seriously and fashioned his life upon it?... It is hardly fair to hang a 19-year-old boy for the philosophy that was taught him at the university?"
In the end, Darrow succeeded. The judge sentenced Leopold and Loeb each to life imprisonment
Life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...
(for the murder) plus 99 years each (for the kidnapping). This was mainly on the grounds that, being under 21, Leopold and Loeb were legal minors.
Prison and later life
Joliet Prison
Joliet Correctional Center was a prison in Joliet, Illinois, United States from 1858 to 2002. It is featured in the motion picture The Blues Brothers as the prison from which Jake Blues is released at the beginning of the movie...
, they were later transferred to Stateville Penitentiary
Stateville Correctional Center
Stateville Correctional Center is a maximum security state prison for men in Crest Hill, Illinois, USA.-History:Opened in 1925, Stateville was built to accommodate 1,506 inmates. Parts of the prison were designed according to the panopticon concept proposed by the British philosopher and prison...
, where Leopold and Loeb used their educations to teach classes in the prison school.
On January 28, 1936, Loeb was attacked by fellow prisoner James E. Day with a straight razor
Straight razor
A straight razor is a razor with a blade that can fold into its handle. They are also called open razors and cut-throat razors.Although straight razors were once the principal method of manual shaving, they have been largely overshadowed by the safety razor, incorporating a disposable blade...
in a shower room and died from his wounds. Day claimed afterward that Loeb had attempted to sexually assault
Sexual assault
Sexual assault is an assault of a sexual nature on another person, or any sexual act committed without consent. Although sexual assaults most frequently are by a man on a woman, it may involve any combination of two or more men, women and children....
him. Day emerged without a scratch while Loeb sustained more than 50 wounds from the attack, including numerous self-defense wounds on his arms and hands. Loeb's throat had also been slashed from behind. Nevertheless, an inquiry accepted Day's testimony. The prison authorities, embarrassed by publicity sensationalizing alleged decadent behavior in the prison, ruled that Day's attack on Loeb was in self-defense. According to one widely reported account, newsman Ed Lahey wrote this lead for the Chicago Daily News
Chicago Daily News
The Chicago Daily News was an afternoon daily newspaper published between 1876 and 1978 in Chicago, Illinois.-History:The Daily News was founded by Melville E. Stone, Percy Meggy, and William Dougherty in 1875 and began publishing early the next year...
: "Richard Loeb, despite his erudition
Erudition
The word erudition came into Middle English from Latin. A scholar is erudite when instruction and reading followed by digestion and contemplation have effaced all rudeness , that is to say smoothed away all raw, untrained incivility...
, today ended his sentence with a proposition."
The actual motive for Loeb's murder was apparently money. Both Leopold and Loeb had been receiving generous allowances from their families, enough to purchase tobacco and various other items for their cellmates and friends. After the warden reduced all prisoner allowances to only a few dollars per month, Day, a former cellmate of Loeb's, continued to demand the gifts he had been accustomed to receiving, which Loeb could no longer afford.
There is no evidence that Richard Loeb was a sexual predator while in prison; however, Loeb's murderer was later caught on at least one occasion engaging a fellow inmate sexually as well as committing numerous other infractions. In an autobiography entitled Life Plus 99 Years, Leopold referred to Day's claims that Loeb had attempted to sexually assault him as ridiculous and laughable. This is echoed in an interview with the Catholic chaplain at the prison, Father Eligius Weir, who had been a personal confidante of Richard Loeb. Weir stated that James Day had been the sexual predator and had gone after Loeb because Loeb refused to have sexual relations with him.
In 1944, Leopold participated in the Stateville Penitentiary Malaria Study
Stateville Penitentiary Malaria Study
The Stateville Penitentiary malaria study was a controlled study of the effects of malaria on the prisoners of Stateville Penitentiary near Joliet, Illinois in the 1940s. The study was conducted by the Department of Medicine at the University of Chicago in conjunction with the United States Army...
, in which he volunteered to be infected with malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
. Early in 1958, after 33 years in prison, Leopold was released on parole
Parole
Parole may have different meanings depending on the field and judiciary system. All of the meanings originated from the French parole . Following its use in late-resurrected Anglo-French chivalric practice, the term became associated with the release of prisoners based on prisoners giving their...
.
That year he also wrote Life Plus 99 Years. Leopold moved to Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
to avoid media attention and married a widowed florist. He was known as "Nate" to neighbors and co-workers at Castañer General Hospital in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico, where he worked as a lab and x-ray assistant.
At one time after his release from prison, Leopold talked about his intention to write a book entitled Snatch for a Halo about his life following prison. He never did so. Later, Leopold tried to block the movie Compulsion
Compulsion (film)
Compulsion, directed by Richard Fleischer, was a film made in 1959, based on the 1956 novel Compulsion by Meyer Levin, which in turn was based on the Leopold and Loeb trial. It was the first film Richard D. Zanuck produced.- Plot :...
(see below) on the grounds of invasion of privacy
Privacy law
Privacy law refers to the laws which deal with the regulation of personal information about individuals which can be collected by governments and other public as well as private organizations and its storage and use....
, defamation, and making money from his life story.
He died of a diabetes-related heart attack on August 29, 1971, at the age of 66. His cornea
Cornea
The cornea is the transparent front part of the eye that covers the iris, pupil, and anterior chamber. Together with the lens, the cornea refracts light, with the cornea accounting for approximately two-thirds of the eye's total optical power. In humans, the refractive power of the cornea is...
s were donated.
In popular culture
Leopold and Loeb have been the inspiration for several works in film, theater, and fiction, such as the 1929 play RopeRope (play)
Rope is a 1929 British play by Patrick Hamilton. In formal terms, it is a well-made play with a three-act dramatic structure that adheres to the classical unities. Its action is continuous, punctuated only by the curtain fall at the end of each act. It may also be considered a thriller whose...
by Patrick Hamilton
Patrick Hamilton (dramatist)
Patrick Hamilton was an English playwright and novelist.He was well regarded by Graham Greene and J. B. Priestley and study of his novels has been revived recently because of their distinctive style, deploying a Dickensian narrative voice to convey aspects of inter-war London street culture...
, which served as the basis for a BBC television performance of this play in 1939, and Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
's film of the same name
Rope (film)
Rope is a 1948 American thriller film based on the play Rope by Patrick Hamilton and adapted by Hume Cronyn and Arthur Laurents, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and produced by Sidney Bernstein and Hitchcock as the first of their Transatlantic Pictures productions...
in 1948.
In 1956, Meyer Levin
Meyer Levin
Meyer Levin was a Jewish-American novelist, known for works on the Leopold and Loeb case and the Anne Frank case.-Leopold and Loeb case:...
revisited the case in his novel Compulsion, a fictionalized version of the actual events in which the names of the pair were changed to "Steiner and Strauss." Three years later, the novel was made into a film of the same name, Compulsion
Compulsion (film)
Compulsion, directed by Richard Fleischer, was a film made in 1959, based on the 1956 novel Compulsion by Meyer Levin, which in turn was based on the Leopold and Loeb trial. It was the first film Richard D. Zanuck produced.- Plot :...
.
Never the Sinner, a theatrical recreation of the Leopold and Loeb trial, was written by John Logan
John Logan (writer)
John David Logan is an American screenwriter, playwright and film producer.-Personal life:Logan was born in San Diego on September 24, 1961. His parents emigrated to the US from Northern Ireland via Canada. The youngest of three children, he has an older brother and sister...
in 1988.
In Richard Wright's 1940 novel Native Son
Native Son
Native Son is a novel by American author Richard Wright. The novel tells the story of 20-year-old Bigger Thomas, an African American living in utter poverty. Bigger lived in Chicago's South Side ghetto in the 1930s...
, partly set in the same Kenwood neighborhood of Chicago, protagonist Bigger Thomas is inspired by a faint recollection of the Loeb and Leopold case to send a ransom note to the wealthy family of a young girl he has suffocated, a risk that ultimately leads to his own capture. The novel's conclusion, which centers around the efforts of Bigger's communist lawyer to convince a judge not to impose capital punishment, may also be inspired by Darrow's defense of Leopold and Loeb.
Leopold and Loeb are mentioned in a joke in the 1977 Academy Award-winning film Annie Hall
Annie Hall
Annie Hall is a 1977 American romantic comedy directed by Woody Allen from a screenplay co-written with Marshall Brickman and co-starring Diane Keaton. One of Allen's most popular and most honored films, it won four Academy Awards including Best Picture...
by Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
. The case is also mentioned in a 1990 episode of "Taggart
Taggart
Taggart is a Scottish detective television programme, created by Glenn Chandler, who has written many of the episodes, and made by STV Productions for the ITV network...
" 'Death Comes Softly', a story of two 15-year old girls that murder old people they befriend.
Other works inspired by the case include Tom Kalin
Tom Kalin
Tom Kalin is an award-winning screenwriter, film director, producer, and professor of experimental film at European Graduate School in Saas-Fee.His debut feature, Swoon, is considered an integral part of the New Queer Cinema...
's more openly gay-themed 1992 film Swoon
Swoon (film)
Swoon is an independent film written and directed by Tom Kalin, released in 1992. It is an account of the 1924 Leopold and Loeb murder case, focusing more on the homosexuality of the killers than other movies based on the case...
; Michael Haneke's 1997 film Funny Games, with an American shot-for-shot
Shot-for-shot
Shot-for-shot is a term used to describe a visual work that is transferred almost completely identical from the original work without much interpretation....
remake produced in 2008; 1997's Kiss the Girls
Kiss the Girls (film)
Kiss the Girls is a 1997 American thriller film directed by Gary Fleder and starring Morgan Freeman, Cary Elwes and Ashley Judd. The screenplay by David Klass is based on the best-selling novel Kiss the Girls by James Patterson.-Plot:Washington, D.C...
based on the 1995 bestselling novel of the same name
Kiss the Girls
Kiss the Girls is a psychological thriller novel by American writer James Patterson, the second to star his recurrent character Alex Cross, an African-American psychologist.-Plot summary:...
by American writer James Patterson
James Patterson
James B. Patterson is an American author of thriller novels, largely known for his series about American psychologist Alex Cross...
; Barbet Schroeder
Barbet Schroeder
Barbet Schroeder is a Franco-Swiss movie director and producer who started his career in French cinema in the 1960s, working together with directors such as Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Rivette.-Life and career:...
's Murder by Numbers
Murder by Numbers
Murder by Numbers is a 2002 psychological thriller film produced and directed by Barbet Schroeder. It stars Sandra Bullock, Ben Chaplin, Ryan Gosling and Michael Pitt. It is loosely based on the Leopold and Loeb case....
(2002); and Stephen Dolginoff
Stephen Dolginoff
Stephen Dolginoff is an award-winning, New York City based playwright-composer. His most notable work is Thrill Me, the musical version of the true story of Leopold and Loeb, which opened Off-Broadway at the York Theatre in 2005. Subsequently it was published by Dramatists Play Service...
's 2005 Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
musical Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story
Thrill Me
Thrill Me: The Leopold & Loeb Story is a musical with a book, music, and lyrics by Stephen Dolginoff. It is based on the true story of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, the so-called "thrill killers" who murdered a young boy in 1924 in order to commit "the perfect crime." The story is told in...
; and various TV episodes (including on Law & Order SVU).
Nathan Leopold, Jr. is featured as a character in Nicky Silver
Nicky Silver
Nicky Silver is an American playwright. Formerly of Philadelphia, he resides in New York City.As a teen, Silver attended Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Training Center in upstate New York. He began writing after graduating from the New York University Theatre program. Many of his early plays...
's Off Broadway comedy The Agony & The Agony, despite the play's being set in 2006.
In the episode of NUMB3RS
NUMB3RS
Numb3rs is an American television drama which premiered on CBS on January 23, 2005, and concluded on March 12, 2010. The series was created by Nicolas Falacci and Cheryl Heuton, and follows FBI Special Agent Don Eppes and his mathematical genius brother, Charlie Eppes , who helps Don solve crimes...
titled "Scorched," Diane Farr mentions the two while investigating a murder case
In the episode of Seinfeld
Seinfeld
Seinfeld is an American television sitcom that originally aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, lasting nine seasons, and is now in syndication. It was created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, the latter starring as a fictionalized version of himself...
titled "The Junior Mint," Jerry
Jerry Seinfeld
Jerome Allen "Jerry" Seinfeld is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and television and film producer, known for playing a semi-fictional version of himself in the situation comedy Seinfeld , which he co-created and co-wrote with Larry David, and, in the show's final two seasons,...
says he and Kramer
Cosmo Kramer
Cosmo Kramer, usually referred to as simply "Kramer", is a fictional character on the American television sitcom Seinfeld , played by Michael Richards...
are like Leopold and Loeb.
Leopold and Loeb are mentioned twice in the television show Gilmore Girls
Gilmore Girls
Gilmore Girls is an American family comedy-drama series created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, starring Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel. On October 5, 2000, the series debuted on The WB and was cancelled in its seventh season, ending on May 15, 2007 on The CW...
. First in a season-one episode titled "Star-Crossed Lovers and Other Strangers", where Lorelai is set up on a blind date with a man who had two dobermans as a child named Leopold and Loeb. Second in a season-three episode titled "Those Lay-Hazy-Crazy Days", Lorelai has a dream about having twins and plans to name them Leopold and Loeb.
The Leopold and Loeb case is a theme in Daniel Clowes
Daniel Clowes
Daniel Gillespie Clowes is an American author, screenwriter and cartoonist of alternative comic books....
' 2005 graphic novel Ice Haven
Ice Haven
Ice Haven is a 2005 graphic novel by Daniel Clowes. The book's contents were originally published as the comic book Eightball #22 and were subsequently reformatted to make the hardcover Ice Haven book....
, which includes a short story about the criminal duo as well as references to the incident in other stories.
Don Draper refers to two characters of the show Mad Men
Mad Men
Mad Men is an American dramatic television series created and produced by Matthew Weiner. The series premiered on Sunday evenings on the American cable network AMC and are produced by Lionsgate Television. It premiered on July 19, 2007, and completed its fourth season on October 17, 2010. Each...
as Leopold and Loeb in episode 3 of season 2.
The film Murder By Numbers
Murder by Numbers
Murder by Numbers is a 2002 psychological thriller film produced and directed by Barbet Schroeder. It stars Sandra Bullock, Ben Chaplin, Ryan Gosling and Michael Pitt. It is loosely based on the Leopold and Loeb case....
is loosely based on Leopold and Loeb, but is set post millennium and recasts the the killers as high school students.
External links
- Leopold and Loeb Trial Home Page by Douglas Linder. Famous American Trials — Illinois v. Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb. University of Missouri at Kansas City Law School. 1997. Retrieved September 14, 2008.
- Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, Crime of the 20th Century by Marilyn Bardsley. Crime Library — Courtroom Television Network, LLC. Retrieved April 11, 2007.
- Northwestern University Archives
- leopoldandloeb.com
- Thrill Me:The Leopold and Loeb Story - main site/CD ordering
- Thrill Me:The Leopold and Loeb Story Review quotes from York Theatre Company
- Harold S. Hulbert Papers from Northwestern University Archives, Evanston, Illinois
- The Loeb-Leopold case : with excerpts from the evidence of the alienists and including the arguments to the court by counsel for the people and the defense (1926) stored on Archive.org