On
21st May, 1924, two young men in Chicago, decided to try and commit
the perfect crime. One was Nathan Leopold, the eighteen year old son
of a millionaire box manufacturer. The other was Richard Loeb, the
seventeen year old son of a wealthy vice-president of the Sears and
Roebuck company.
Leopold and Loeb picked up fourteen year old Robert Franks while he
was walking home from school. While Leopold drove the car, Loeb killed
the boy with a chisel. They then hid his body in a culvert under a
railroad crossing, twenty miles outside the city. They then phoned
the parents demanding a $10,000 ransom.
The murderers were convinced that no one would link two wealthy young
men with such a crime. However, Leopold dropped his glasses while
dumping the body. The glasses had been made by a local optician and
were of an unusual design. The optician's records showed that the
glasses belonged to Leopold. The two men were taken into custody by
the police and under questioning, Loeb confessed to the crime.
The famous lawyer, Clarence Darrow, was
employed to defend the two men. With the evidence that was available
to the court, Darrow knew he could not obtain a not guilty verdict.
As he explained in his autobiography, "From the beginning we
never tried to do anything but save the lives of two defendants; we
did not even claim or try to prove that they were insane. We did believe
and sought to show that their minds were not normal and never had
been normal."
The judge was convinced by Darrow's arguments and Nathan Leopold and
Richard Loeb were sentenced to life imprisonment and were therefore
saved from the electric chair.
Loeb was murdered by a fellow prisoner in Illinois's Joliet Prison
in January, 1936. Leopold was paroled in 1958 and found work as a
hospital technician in Puerto Rico. He published his autobiography,
Life
Plus 99 Years
(1958) before his death on 29th August, 1971.
Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold talking during their trial.
(1) Clarence
Darrow, The Story of My Life (1932)
It seemed that Loeb had gotten it into his head that he could commit
a perfect crime, which should involve kidnapping, murder, and ransom.
He had unfolded his scheme to Leopold because he needed some one to
help him plan and carry it out. For this plot Leopold had no liking
whatever, but he had an exalted opinion of Loeb. Leopold was rather
undersized; he could not excel in sports and games. Loeb was strong
and athletic.
Leopold had not the slightest instinct toward what we are pleased
to call crime. He had, and has, the most brilliant intellect that
I ever met in a boy. At eighteen he had acquired nine or ten languages;
he was an advanced botanist; he was an authority on birds; he enjoyed
good books.
From the beginning we never tried
to do anything but save the lives of two defendants; we did not even
claim or try to prove that they were insane. We did believe and sought
to show that their minds were not normal and never had been normal.
Available from Amazon Books
(order below)
