Leopold & Loeb
BYMarilyn Bardsley
Bobby Franks
Around dinner time, Bobby had not come home nor had he contacted his parents, Jacob and Flora Franks. His brother Jack and his sister Josephine had no idea where he was. Perhaps he was playing tennis at the Loebs, Jack suggested. But when his father looked over at the Loeb's tennis courts, Bobby was nowhere to be seen.
While Flora called Bobby's classmates, Jacob contacted the headmaster of the school to find out if Bobby could have gotten himself locked in the school building. He called Samuel Ettelson, a prominent lawyer and friend, to determine what to do. Ettelson and Jacob searched the entire school building, but found no sign of Bobby.
At two in the morning, Jacob and Ettelson went to the police, but since none of the police officials that Ettelson knew were on duty at that hour, they decided to come back later that morning.
The Franks were residents of Kenwood, a wealthy neighborhood in Chicago. They lived quietly among the Jewish elite of Kenwood, but had not been accepted socially for several reasons. They had renounced their Jewish faith to become Christian Scientists. Jacob had made much of his money running a pawnshop, which didn't recommend them socially to the powerful Jewish executives, bankers and attorneys in the neighborhood.
The next morning, the mailman arrived with a special delivery letter:
"Dear Sir:
As you no doubt know by this time, your son has been kidnapped. Allow us to assure you that he is at present well and safe. You need fear no physical harm for him, provided you live up carefully to the following instructions and to such others as you will receive by future communications. Should you, however, disobey any of our instructions, even slightly, his death will be the penalty.
1. For obvious reasons make absolutely no attempt to communicate with either police authorities or any private agency. Should you already have communicated with the police, allow them to continue their investigations, but do not mention this letter.
2. Secure before noon today $10,000. This money must be composed entirely of old bills of the following denominations: $2000 in $20 bills, $8000 in $50 bills. The money must be old. Any attempt to include new or marked bills will render the entire venture futile.
3. The money should be placed in a large cigar box, or if this is impossible, in a heavy cardboard box, securely closed and wrapped in white paper. The wrapping paper should be sealed at all openings with sealing wax.
4. Have the money with you, prepared as directed above, and remain at home after one o'clock. See that the telephone is not in use."
It was signed George Johnson and guaranteed that if the money were delivered according to his instructions that Bobby would be returned unharmed.
An enterprising newspaperman had been tipped off that there was a kidnapping involving the Franks' boy. He had also heard that a boy had been found dead in a culvert near Wolf Lake, a probable drowning victim. He relayed the description of the dead boy to Mr. Franks, who did not think it matched his son. Franks' brother-in-law went check it out.
When the telephone rang, "George Johnson" told Ettelson, "I am sending a Yellow Cab for you. Get in and go to the drugstore at 1465 East Sixty-third Street." Ettelson handed the phone to Jacob and the message was repeated. In the trauma of the events, both men immediately forgot the address of the drugstore.
The phone rang again. This time it was Jacob's brother-in-law. The boy that had been found dead in the culvert was Bobby Franks.
The Investigation
The investigation of Bobby Franks' death went into high gear. Unfortunately an opportunity was lost when Jacob Franks and Samuel Ettelson forgot the address of the drugstore where they were to await instructions from the kidnapper. Soon a Yellow Cab arrived at the Franks' home, sent by the kidnapper, but the driver had not been given any instructions as to the destination.
Shortly afterwards, at the Van de Bogert & Ross drugstore on East Sixty-third Street, a phone call came in for a Mr. Franks. The caller was told that there was no Mr. Franks there. A few minutes later, another call came for Mr. Franks, along with a description of Jacob Franks. The druggist told the caller that there was no man in the store of that description.
Several rewards were publicized: Jacob Franks offered $5,000; Police Chief Morgan Collins offered another $1,000; the two major Chicago newspapers, the Tribune and the Herald and Examiner, each offered $5,000.
Crowe, a forty-five-year-old politician known for his pugnacity and stubbornness, was trying to establish himself as the top Republican in the Chicago area. A favorable solution to the Franks' case would go a long way to achieving that goal.
The ransom note, police scientists determined, was typed by a novice typist on an Underwood typewriter. Coroner Oscar Wolff told the press that only an educated person could have drafted a letter in such perfect English. "That would signify intelligence, a dangerous attribute in a criminal....Greed would be the controlling passion, and, dead or alive, they intended to cash in on Robert Franks, the millionaire's son."
The small horn rimmed glasses found near the body did not belong to the boy. The frames, which were made of Xylonite, were chewed at the ends. The prescription was very common. The chances of finding the owner of the glasses seemed slim, but every attempt was made. The newspapers carried photos of the glasses and the police contacted optical companies in the area.
An Important Break
Eventually, they found the Van de Bogert & Ross drugstore and confirmed that there had been two calls the previous day for Mr. Franks. "This is the place!" Loeb shrieked enthusiastically to the others. "This is what comes from reading detective stories."
Mulroy, one of the reporters, asked Loeb if he knew the murdered boy. Loeb told him he had, then he smiled and said, "If I were going to murder anybody, I would murder just such a cocky little son of a bitch as Bobby Franks."
On Friday the 23rd, the coroner's inquest was held. Dr. Joseph Springer had conducted the autopsy. Bobby Franks had died of suffocation, perhaps when his kidnapper held his hand over the boy's mouth or when he had shoved something down the boy's throat. There were a number of wounds on the boy's body, which suggested that he had fought with his captor.
There were small wounds on the right and left sides of his head, plus bleeding and bruises from a blunt instrument on Bobby's forehead. Some chemical had been poured on his face and his penis. While there was some dilation of the rectum, Springer said that Bobby had not been sexually abused.
When police talked to the game warden for the area around Wolf Lake, they found that one frequent visitor to the area was Nathan Leopold, a nineteen-year-old ornithologist. Police had a servant awaken the young man so that he could come down to the police station for questioning. Young Nathan Leopold was questioned, but the answers he gave about his birdwatching expeditions were very credible and he did not arouse suspicion.
A cabdriver came forward with the story of two well-dressed young men who had hired him to drive them to the home of Jacob Franks. Once there, the two men sat in the cab for several minutes, but did not get out. He then drove them to another destination.
Arrests & Alibis
Police arrived at his house in the afternoon just before one of Leopold's classes on birds. They asked him if he had lost his glasses and he said that he hadn't. Later, they searched the house, but the glasses could not be found.
Eventually, Leopold confirmed that the eyeglasses were his and that he must have lost them a few days before the death of Bobby Franks when he had gone birding at Wolf Lake on Saturday and Sunday, May 17 and 18 with two other boys. He said that he had tripped and the glasses probably had fallen out of his breast pocket at that time.
When questioned about his activities on the day of the murder, initially Leopold was vague. Finally, he admitted that he had spent most of the day with his friend Richard Loeb, eating, drinking and looking for birds in Lincoln Park. After dinner, they picked up two girls and drove around until they went to Leopold's house where his aunt and uncle were waiting to be driven home.
As he was pressed for detail after detail, Leopold answered quickly and calmly. The inquisitors turned to questions about his personal life. In 1923, he had been graduated from the University of Chicago and had been attending law school. He planned to attend Harvard Law School later that year. He was very accomplished in the study of languages, was fluent in five and familiar with fifteen foreign languages.
He owned a Hammond Multiplex typewriter which the police confiscated and agreed that he had sufficient education to have composed the ransom note. He also agreed that the note did contain some legal wording, although it was not written by a lawyer.
After police had confiscated some of his letters, Leopold admitted that he had planned to translate the works of an Italian writer who wrote about acts of sexual perversion. However, he said he had never engaged in any sexual acts with his friend Richard Loeb.
Leopold was questioned until 4 A.M., after which he was taken to the police station to sleep until the next round of questioning. He did not realize it but his friend Richard Loeb had been picked up for questioning shortly after Leopold had been. Like Leopold, Loeb was being interrogated in another room in the LaSalle Hotel.
Loeb' Story
Loeb told a different story than Leopold about their activities on the day of Bobby Franks' murder. He said that he was with Leopold during the afternoon, but stated that they parted at dinnertime. Loeb didn't remember what he did the night of the murder.
Unsuspectingly, a mutual friend of the two boys delivered a critical message from Leopold to Loeb: "Babe [Leopold] said to tell the truth about the two girls. Tell the police what you did with them. You can't get in any worse trouble than you are now. He said you'd understand."
Suddenly, Loeb's story and Leopold's became the same. Some of the details were vague because Loeb said he had been drinking heavily and had forgotten.
Crowe and his assistants began to believe the boys' story. The state's attorney took them out for a lavish dinner. Afterward, the boys chatted amiably with the newspapermen. "I don't blame the police for holding me," Leopold told the Tribune. "I was at the culvert the Saturday and Sunday before the glasses were found and it is quite possible I lost my glasses there."
Two other reporters knew that Leopold belonged to a law student study group. From the study group members, they learned that Leopold usually typed up the study sheets on his Hammond, but that at least once, he had used a portable typewriter. They got their hands on a couple of the study sheets that Leopold had prepared and compared them with the typing on the ransom note.
Leopold admitted that he may have typed on the portable, but denied owning the machine. His house was searched, but the portable was not found. The maid, however, remembered seeing a portable typewriter in the house several weeks earlier.
Crowe and his assistants kept digging. On May 31 they interviewed the Leopold's chauffeur. On the day of the murder, the chauffeur had worked on Leopold's car all day long. Furthermore, the chauffeur maintained that the car had been in the garage until late that evening when he went home. The boys had told the police that they had used Leopold's car as they drove around the afternoon and evening of Bobby Franks' death.
The police interrogated them intensely in separate rooms. When Loeb was confronted with the lie about the car, he asked who told them that. After hearing it was Leopold's chauffeur, Loeb paled and asked to see Crowe.
Over the next two hours, a new story emerged.
What Really Happened
Finally they agreed on the plan they would use. They would tell the boy's father to go to a drugstore near the train station. They would call him at the drugstore and tell him to take a certain train that was leaving in a few minutes, so that the police could not be notified. On the train, the victim's father would find a note in a prearranged place that would tell him where to throw the money from the train. The two boys would be waiting to retrieve it.
The kidnapping had been planned for a number of months, although the boys decided that they would select their victim the day of the kidnapping, as long as he had a rich father to pay the ransom. Also, the victim would have to be a person one of the boys knew so that it would be easy to lure him into the car. They had callously planned to murder the victim, so there was no concern about being identified. They would drive by the exclusive Harvard School and randomly select the boy that was most convenient.
At one point they had even considered kidnapping and murdering their fathers or brothers, but figured they would be under too much scrutiny if their own family was involved.
They understood that their victim would have to be killed quickly so that there was no chance of him escaping or being discovered. Once the victim was killed, disposal of the body was an immediate priority. The culvert at Wolf Lake was ideal because it was concealed enough that even Leopold was not initially aware of it, despite his frequent birding trips there. Also, by dropping the victim in the culvert, they avoided having to dig a grave.
Using one of their cars was out of the question since it could be traced back to them. They invented an elaborate scheme to rent a car under an assumed name. They covered the license plate, so even that could not be traced back to them.
Richard knew Bobby. He was a neighbor and had played on the Loeb mansion's tennis courts. Richard asked him to look at a particular tennis racket and Bobby agreed. As soon as he was in the car, Bobby was hit on the head with a chisel and a cloth forced down his throat, which led to his suffocation.
With Bobby dead or unconscious, covered by a rug in the backseat, the two boys drove toward the Indiana border. They pulled off on a deserted road and stripped the boy of his clothing, most of which they left by the side of the road.
They had dinner at a hot dog stand in Hammond and stayed there until it was almost dark. Then they took the dirt road to the marshlands around Wolf Lake. After dumping Bobby's body into the culvert, they drove back home, stopping only so that Leopold could call his father to say he would be delayed and to call Jacob Franks to tell him his son had been kidnapped. At the same time, they addressed the ransom note to the Franks' house and mailed it with postage and instructions for special delivery.
Then they went to Loeb's house and burned clothes that had bloodstains on them. After that, they went to work on the bloodstains in the rental car. Later that night, the two boys stayed up late playing casino. They threw out the chisel used to murder Bobby on the way to take Loeb home.
The next day they perfected the scheme to collect the ransom money and placed the kidnap note in a telegraph box on the last car of a train going to Michigan City, Indiana. Then Leopold called Jacob Franks and gave him the address to the drugstore. When Jacob Franks didn't go to the drugstore, they realized their grand scheme had failed.
Loeb ended his confession by saying," I just want to say that I offer no excuse, but that I am fully convinced that neither the idea nor the act would have occurred to me had it not been for the suggestion and stimulus of Leopold. Furthermore, I do not believe that I would have been capable of having killed Franks."
Confronted with Loeb's confession, Leopold had little he could do but confess himself. The confessions were very similar except for some minor details and one major factor. Leopold claimed that Loeb had killed Bobby, whereas Loeb had claimed Leopold had committed the murder. Initially, the police and the press decided to believe Loeb and treat Leopold as the "evil genius" who had dominated his affable friend with his superior intellect.
In some ways, it didn't matter which of the two had actually killed Bobby. They would both hang for premeditated murder and kidnapping, according to State's Attorney Crowe.
Enter Clarence Darrow
"The diabolical spirit evinced in the planned kidnapping and murder; the wealth and prominence of the families whose sons are involved; the high mental attainments of the youths, the suggestions of perversion; the strange quirks indicated in the confession that the child was slain for a ransom, for experience, for the satisfaction of a desire for "deep plotting," combined to set the case in a class by itself."
The public was aghast at the crime and the newspapers demanded swift retribution. "It should not be allowed to hang on, poisoning our thoughts and feelings. Every consideration of public interest demands that it be carried through to its end at once," wrote the Herald and Examiner.
The story created tremendous anguish in the Jewish community. It had been unimaginable that such a crime could have been committed by the brilliant, cultured, pampered children of the Jewish social elite. These families represented society's role models for success. Albert Loeb was a millionaire executive in charge of Sears, Roebuck's prosperous mail-order business. Nathan Leopold, Sr., was a wealthy shipping and manufacturing executive. Both men were highly respected members of the community. Both were sympathetic figures. Albert Loeb, recovering from a serious heart attack, and Nathan Leopold, an elderly invalid, trying to cope with the horror that their sons had thrust upon them and their families.
Meyer Levin noted that "there was one gruesome note of relief in this affair. One heard it uttered only amongst ourselves a relief that the victim too had been Jewish. Though racial aspects were never overtly raised in the case, being perhaps eclipsed by the sensational suggestions of perversion, we were never free of the thought that the murderers were Jews."
Once the ink on the confessions was dry, Crowe took the boys on a search for evidence. The clerk was found who sold Leopold the hydrochloric acid that he had poured on Bobby Franks' body to disguise his features and circumcision. The chisel that killed the boy was retrieved from a man who had seen it thrown from the car. Bobby's shoes that had been discarded on the side of the road were found after a long search. etc.
Crowe was very satisfied with the evidence they found that day. "We have the most conclusive evidence I've ever seen in a criminal case," he announced.
During the day, Jacob Loeb, Richard's uncle, and Benjamin Bachrach, a successful attorney, tried to find out where the boys were being held, but they were not told. The two boys were in desperate need of an attorney.
"Get them a life sentence instead of death," Loeb begged for his nephew and Leopold. "That's all we ask. We'll pay anything, only for God's sake, don't let them hang."
Darrow took the case, not for the fee, but by defending these two boys, he had a unique opportunity to combat the death penalty. This case was getting so much publicity around the country and the world that it was a rare chance for him to be widely heard on his capital punishment soapbox.
Darrow Takes the Case
Leopold told one reporter, "Why, we even rehearsed the kidnapping at least three times, carrying it through in all details, lacking only the boy we were to kidnap and kill...It was just an experiment. It is as easy for us to justify as an entomologist in impaling a beetle on a pin."
Loeb told the police captain, "This thing will be the making of me. I'll spend a few years in jail and I'll be released. I'll come out to a new life."
The police took careful notes and the newspapermen wrote furiously as the boys kept talking and talking.
Darrow was on the case the next day. Sunday, June 1, he waited with Jacob Loeb and Benjamin Bachrach until the boys had been returned from another evidence gathering expedition. They demanded to see the two boys, but were refused. Crowe had three traditional alienists forensic psychiatrists lined up to interview the boys that afternoon to confirm that they were indeed sane as well as guilty.
Early the next morning, Darrow and Bachrach were in Crowe's office demanding that the two boys be moved to the county jail where he and Bachrach and their families could see them. Again Crowe refused so that his alienists could get additional evidence of their sanity. Crowe assumed that Darrow would plead them not guilty by reason of insanity and he wanted to be sure that the prosecution had enough evidence of the boys' sanity before their lawyers cut off their damaging testimony.
However, Darrow had with him an order from Judge John R. Caverly. The boys were allowed to meet with their attorneys before being confined in the country jail.
"Be polite. Be courteous, " Darrow told them. "But don't give Crowe any more help. Just keep quiet and refuse to answer questions."
Pampered in everyday life, the boys were also pampered in jail. Stein's Restaurant catered to their need for good food, cigarettes and liquor, which was sneaked into them since it was Prohibition times.
On June 5, 1924, the grand jury indicted the two boys on eleven counts of murder and sixteen counts of kidnapping. The very next day, their full confessions were published in the newspapers. The public was incensed, not just over the crime itself, but the perception, fanned by the news media, that the wealthy Loebs and the wealthy Leopolds were going to pay Clarence Darrow a million dollars to save their sons from the gallows.
With Darrow's help, the families constructed a joint statement, which in summary said, "There will be no large sums of money spent, either for legal or medical talent."
Walter Bachrach, Benjamin's brother, promptly went to the American Psychiatric Association's annual convention and recruited three top flight experts: Dr. William A. White, president of the APA and superintendent of St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C.; Dr. William Healy, an expert in juvenile criminal psychiatry; and Dr. Bernard Glueck, head of the psychiatric clinic at Sing Sing Prison in New York State. Unlike Crowe's traditional alienists, Bachrach's experts were innovative Freudians who believed in subconscious motives and compulsions. Two other psychiatrists were also employed, Dr. Harold Hulbert and Dr. Carl Bowman.
Leopold loved the sessions with the alienists. His ego was intensely gratified that these experts were putting his personality under a microscope. It also gave him a chance to talk continuously about himself. Loeb, on the other hand, was bored with the entire process and occasionally fell asleep. Neither boy showed any guilt or remorse for their cold-blooded crime, though both of them were upset that they had brought down so much misery on their families.
The Trial Begins
Darrow approached the bench and began to speak in a low voice. First he assured the court that he was not going to try to have the trial moved somewhere else, nor was he going to try to stop the prosecutors from separating the murder indictments from the kidnapping indictments.
"We want to state frankly here that no one in this case believes that these defendants should be released or are competent to be. We believe that they should be permanently isolated from society... After long reflection and thorough discussion, we have determined to make a motion in this court for each of the defendants in each of the cases to withdraw our pleas of not guilty and enter a plea of guilty."
Everyone in the courtroom was shocked. They had expected Darrow to plead them not guilty by reason of insanity.
There was more to Darrow's rationale. In pleading guilty, the boys could avoid a jury trial. A single judge would determine the sentence. Had he chosen to plead them not guilty by reason of insanity, they would have had a jury trial. Given the public outcry over the crime and the statements the boys had made, it was unlikely that the boys would fare well with any jury.
Darrow realized that it was comparatively easy for a jury to sentence the boys to death because it would be a shared decision. For Caverly to sentence the boys to death was a decision that he would have to live with as solely his own. He felt that he had a decent chance with Caverly considering the boy's mental conditions and their youth.
Caverly told the defendants to approach the bench and questioned each boy: "if your plea be guilty, and the plea of guilty is entered into this case, the court may sentence you to death; the court may sentence you to the penitentiary for the term of your natural life; the court may sentence you to the penitentiary for a term of years not less than fourteen. Now, realizing the consequences of your plea, do you still desire to plead guilty?"
Both boys answered "yes." They were beginning to understand the magnitude of their predicament.
Judge Caverly, looking very serious, was beginning to understand the magnitude of his predicament. He alone would decide whether or not the boys would hang. It was not a decision he wanted to make.
END OF PART 1
BYMarilyn Bardsley
Bobby Franks
Bobby Franks
On Wednesday, May 21, 1924, fourteen-year-old Bobby Franks walked home from school by himself. A car stopped and a familiar face appeared in its open window. Bobby got in the car raced away.Around dinner time, Bobby had not come home nor had he contacted his parents, Jacob and Flora Franks. His brother Jack and his sister Josephine had no idea where he was. Perhaps he was playing tennis at the Loebs, Jack suggested. But when his father looked over at the Loeb's tennis courts, Bobby was nowhere to be seen.
While Flora called Bobby's classmates, Jacob contacted the headmaster of the school to find out if Bobby could have gotten himself locked in the school building. He called Samuel Ettelson, a prominent lawyer and friend, to determine what to do. Ettelson and Jacob searched the entire school building, but found no sign of Bobby.
Flora Franks & Samuel Ettelson
While they were gone, Flora got a phone call. A man calling himself Johnson told her, "Your son has been kidnapped. He is all right. There will be further news in the morning." Flora fainted and remained unconscious until her husband and Ettelson came home.At two in the morning, Jacob and Ettelson went to the police, but since none of the police officials that Ettelson knew were on duty at that hour, they decided to come back later that morning.
The Franks were residents of Kenwood, a wealthy neighborhood in Chicago. They lived quietly among the Jewish elite of Kenwood, but had not been accepted socially for several reasons. They had renounced their Jewish faith to become Christian Scientists. Jacob had made much of his money running a pawnshop, which didn't recommend them socially to the powerful Jewish executives, bankers and attorneys in the neighborhood.
The next morning, the mailman arrived with a special delivery letter:
"Dear Sir:
As you no doubt know by this time, your son has been kidnapped. Allow us to assure you that he is at present well and safe. You need fear no physical harm for him, provided you live up carefully to the following instructions and to such others as you will receive by future communications. Should you, however, disobey any of our instructions, even slightly, his death will be the penalty.
1. For obvious reasons make absolutely no attempt to communicate with either police authorities or any private agency. Should you already have communicated with the police, allow them to continue their investigations, but do not mention this letter.
2. Secure before noon today $10,000. This money must be composed entirely of old bills of the following denominations: $2000 in $20 bills, $8000 in $50 bills. The money must be old. Any attempt to include new or marked bills will render the entire venture futile.
3. The money should be placed in a large cigar box, or if this is impossible, in a heavy cardboard box, securely closed and wrapped in white paper. The wrapping paper should be sealed at all openings with sealing wax.
4. Have the money with you, prepared as directed above, and remain at home after one o'clock. See that the telephone is not in use."
It was signed George Johnson and guaranteed that if the money were delivered according to his instructions that Bobby would be returned unharmed.
Franks' home
While Jacob went to get the money, Ettelson called his friend who was chief of detectives for the Chicago Police Department.An enterprising newspaperman had been tipped off that there was a kidnapping involving the Franks' boy. He had also heard that a boy had been found dead in a culvert near Wolf Lake, a probable drowning victim. He relayed the description of the dead boy to Mr. Franks, who did not think it matched his son. Franks' brother-in-law went check it out.
When the telephone rang, "George Johnson" told Ettelson, "I am sending a Yellow Cab for you. Get in and go to the drugstore at 1465 East Sixty-third Street." Ettelson handed the phone to Jacob and the message was repeated. In the trauma of the events, both men immediately forgot the address of the drugstore.
The phone rang again. This time it was Jacob's brother-in-law. The boy that had been found dead in the culvert was Bobby Franks.
The Investigation
The investigation of Bobby Franks' death went into high gear. Unfortunately an opportunity was lost when Jacob Franks and Samuel Ettelson forgot the address of the drugstore where they were to await instructions from the kidnapper. Soon a Yellow Cab arrived at the Franks' home, sent by the kidnapper, but the driver had not been given any instructions as to the destination.
Shortly afterwards, at the Van de Bogert & Ross drugstore on East Sixty-third Street, a phone call came in for a Mr. Franks. The caller was told that there was no Mr. Franks there. A few minutes later, another call came for Mr. Franks, along with a description of Jacob Franks. The druggist told the caller that there was no man in the store of that description.
Several rewards were publicized: Jacob Franks offered $5,000; Police Chief Morgan Collins offered another $1,000; the two major Chicago newspapers, the Tribune and the Herald and Examiner, each offered $5,000.
Robert E. Crowe
State's Attorney Robert E. Crowe took charge of the investigation. Crowe's assistant, Bert Cronson, a nephew of Samuel Ettelson, was assigned full time, along with two others on Crowe's staff.Crowe, a forty-five-year-old politician known for his pugnacity and stubbornness, was trying to establish himself as the top Republican in the Chicago area. A favorable solution to the Franks' case would go a long way to achieving that goal.
Detectives at culvert
The culvert near Wolf Lake in which the body was found was near railroad tracks. In fact, it was members of a railroad crew that had lifted the naked body of the Franks boy from the water. Bobby's clothes were not found nearby, but a pair of eyeglasses were lying on the ground.The ransom note, police scientists determined, was typed by a novice typist on an Underwood typewriter. Coroner Oscar Wolff told the press that only an educated person could have drafted a letter in such perfect English. "That would signify intelligence, a dangerous attribute in a criminal....Greed would be the controlling passion, and, dead or alive, they intended to cash in on Robert Franks, the millionaire's son."
A Portion of the Ransom Note
Given that the ransom note was written by someone well educated, the police focused upon three teachers at the Harvard School where Bobby Franks attended. They were taken to the police station and grilled for hours while their apartments were searched. One of the teachers was released, but the other two were kept in custody.The small horn rimmed glasses found near the body did not belong to the boy. The frames, which were made of Xylonite, were chewed at the ends. The prescription was very common. The chances of finding the owner of the glasses seemed slim, but every attempt was made. The newspapers carried photos of the glasses and the police contacted optical companies in the area.
An Important Break
Richard Loeb
On Friday, May 23, Richard Loeb, a handsome nineteen-year-old University of Chicago student and neighbor of the Franks family, was at his Zeta Beta Tau fraternity house with Howard Mayer who was the campus liaison to the Evening American. Loeb suggested that they try to locate the drugstore that the kidnapper had instructed Jacob Franks to go to with the ransom money. Just as the two of them were about to check the various drugstores, two Daily News reporters, one of whom was a ZBT member, came into the fraternity house and decided to go with them.Eventually, they found the Van de Bogert & Ross drugstore and confirmed that there had been two calls the previous day for Mr. Franks. "This is the place!" Loeb shrieked enthusiastically to the others. "This is what comes from reading detective stories."
Mulroy, one of the reporters, asked Loeb if he knew the murdered boy. Loeb told him he had, then he smiled and said, "If I were going to murder anybody, I would murder just such a cocky little son of a bitch as Bobby Franks."
On Friday the 23rd, the coroner's inquest was held. Dr. Joseph Springer had conducted the autopsy. Bobby Franks had died of suffocation, perhaps when his kidnapper held his hand over the boy's mouth or when he had shoved something down the boy's throat. There were a number of wounds on the boy's body, which suggested that he had fought with his captor.
There were small wounds on the right and left sides of his head, plus bleeding and bruises from a blunt instrument on Bobby's forehead. Some chemical had been poured on his face and his penis. While there was some dilation of the rectum, Springer said that Bobby had not been sexually abused.
When police talked to the game warden for the area around Wolf Lake, they found that one frequent visitor to the area was Nathan Leopold, a nineteen-year-old ornithologist. Police had a servant awaken the young man so that he could come down to the police station for questioning. Young Nathan Leopold was questioned, but the answers he gave about his birdwatching expeditions were very credible and he did not arouse suspicion.
The Leopold home
The Leopolds were a very highly respected family of German Jews who had arrived in the United States in the mid-1800's. The family had made its fortune transporting grain, minerals and other freight on the Great Lakes. They lived in the same wealthy Kenwood area as the Franks family.A cabdriver came forward with the story of two well-dressed young men who had hired him to drive them to the home of Jacob Franks. Once there, the two men sat in the cab for several minutes, but did not get out. He then drove them to another destination.
The eyeglasses
Eight days after the murder, police discovered that the hinges on the pair of eyeglasses were very unique and had only been sold on three pairs of glasses in the Chicago area. One of those three pairs of glasses belonged to Nathan Leopold.Arrests & Alibis
Attorney Crowe examining evidence
State's Attorney Crowe was sensitive to questioning the son of a prominent family in the police station with voracious reporters swarming around. Instead, on May, 29, 1924, Nathan Leopold was to be taken to a room at the LaSalle Hotel where he could be questioned discreetly.Police arrived at his house in the afternoon just before one of Leopold's classes on birds. They asked him if he had lost his glasses and he said that he hadn't. Later, they searched the house, but the glasses could not be found.
Eventually, Leopold confirmed that the eyeglasses were his and that he must have lost them a few days before the death of Bobby Franks when he had gone birding at Wolf Lake on Saturday and Sunday, May 17 and 18 with two other boys. He said that he had tripped and the glasses probably had fallen out of his breast pocket at that time.
Nathan Leopold
One of Crowe's assistants had Leopold put the glasses in his breast pocket and re-create the fall. The glasses did not fall out of the pocket. The questioning became more intense.When questioned about his activities on the day of the murder, initially Leopold was vague. Finally, he admitted that he had spent most of the day with his friend Richard Loeb, eating, drinking and looking for birds in Lincoln Park. After dinner, they picked up two girls and drove around until they went to Leopold's house where his aunt and uncle were waiting to be driven home.
As he was pressed for detail after detail, Leopold answered quickly and calmly. The inquisitors turned to questions about his personal life. In 1923, he had been graduated from the University of Chicago and had been attending law school. He planned to attend Harvard Law School later that year. He was very accomplished in the study of languages, was fluent in five and familiar with fifteen foreign languages.
He owned a Hammond Multiplex typewriter which the police confiscated and agreed that he had sufficient education to have composed the ransom note. He also agreed that the note did contain some legal wording, although it was not written by a lawyer.
The Typewriter
Leopold had not known the Franks family, but had been following the case just like everyone else in Chicago.After police had confiscated some of his letters, Leopold admitted that he had planned to translate the works of an Italian writer who wrote about acts of sexual perversion. However, he said he had never engaged in any sexual acts with his friend Richard Loeb.
Leopold was questioned until 4 A.M., after which he was taken to the police station to sleep until the next round of questioning. He did not realize it but his friend Richard Loeb had been picked up for questioning shortly after Leopold had been. Like Leopold, Loeb was being interrogated in another room in the LaSalle Hotel.
Loeb' Story
Loeb told a different story than Leopold about their activities on the day of Bobby Franks' murder. He said that he was with Leopold during the afternoon, but stated that they parted at dinnertime. Loeb didn't remember what he did the night of the murder.
Unsuspectingly, a mutual friend of the two boys delivered a critical message from Leopold to Loeb: "Babe [Leopold] said to tell the truth about the two girls. Tell the police what you did with them. You can't get in any worse trouble than you are now. He said you'd understand."
Suddenly, Loeb's story and Leopold's became the same. Some of the details were vague because Loeb said he had been drinking heavily and had forgotten.
Crowe and his assistants began to believe the boys' story. The state's attorney took them out for a lavish dinner. Afterward, the boys chatted amiably with the newspapermen. "I don't blame the police for holding me," Leopold told the Tribune. "I was at the culvert the Saturday and Sunday before the glasses were found and it is quite possible I lost my glasses there."
Two other reporters knew that Leopold belonged to a law student study group. From the study group members, they learned that Leopold usually typed up the study sheets on his Hammond, but that at least once, he had used a portable typewriter. They got their hands on a couple of the study sheets that Leopold had prepared and compared them with the typing on the ransom note.
Attorneys examine the typewriter evidence
The typing from some of the study sheets was identical to the typing on the ransom note.Leopold admitted that he may have typed on the portable, but denied owning the machine. His house was searched, but the portable was not found. The maid, however, remembered seeing a portable typewriter in the house several weeks earlier.
Crowe and his assistants kept digging. On May 31 they interviewed the Leopold's chauffeur. On the day of the murder, the chauffeur had worked on Leopold's car all day long. Furthermore, the chauffeur maintained that the car had been in the garage until late that evening when he went home. The boys had told the police that they had used Leopold's car as they drove around the afternoon and evening of Bobby Franks' death.
The police interrogated them intensely in separate rooms. When Loeb was confronted with the lie about the car, he asked who told them that. After hearing it was Leopold's chauffeur, Loeb paled and asked to see Crowe.
Over the next two hours, a new story emerged.
What Really Happened
Prosecutor Crowe (center, seated) and his staff pose with Leopold (seated, right) and Loeb (seated, left)
Essentially, the whole murder/kidnap scheme was an elaborate game to entertain and intellectually challenge two bored students. They immensely enjoyed developing and refining what they were certain was the "perfect crime," befitting their superior intellects. Collecting the ransom without being caught was a more difficult problem for them than the kidnapping and murder. They had put together several different plans for the ransom collection, researching each plan diligently.Finally they agreed on the plan they would use. They would tell the boy's father to go to a drugstore near the train station. They would call him at the drugstore and tell him to take a certain train that was leaving in a few minutes, so that the police could not be notified. On the train, the victim's father would find a note in a prearranged place that would tell him where to throw the money from the train. The two boys would be waiting to retrieve it.
The kidnapping had been planned for a number of months, although the boys decided that they would select their victim the day of the kidnapping, as long as he had a rich father to pay the ransom. Also, the victim would have to be a person one of the boys knew so that it would be easy to lure him into the car. They had callously planned to murder the victim, so there was no concern about being identified. They would drive by the exclusive Harvard School and randomly select the boy that was most convenient.
At one point they had even considered kidnapping and murdering their fathers or brothers, but figured they would be under too much scrutiny if their own family was involved.
They understood that their victim would have to be killed quickly so that there was no chance of him escaping or being discovered. Once the victim was killed, disposal of the body was an immediate priority. The culvert at Wolf Lake was ideal because it was concealed enough that even Leopold was not initially aware of it, despite his frequent birding trips there. Also, by dropping the victim in the culvert, they avoided having to dig a grave.
Using one of their cars was out of the question since it could be traced back to them. They invented an elaborate scheme to rent a car under an assumed name. They covered the license plate, so even that could not be traced back to them.
Loeb (l) and Crowe with the rented car
The afternoon of the murder, Leopold and Loeb hung around the Harvard School after classes had finished. They had considered and rejected several students for various reasons. It was getting close to dinner time and most of the students had left. It was then that they saw Bobby Franks.Richard knew Bobby. He was a neighbor and had played on the Loeb mansion's tennis courts. Richard asked him to look at a particular tennis racket and Bobby agreed. As soon as he was in the car, Bobby was hit on the head with a chisel and a cloth forced down his throat, which led to his suffocation.
With Bobby dead or unconscious, covered by a rug in the backseat, the two boys drove toward the Indiana border. They pulled off on a deserted road and stripped the boy of his clothing, most of which they left by the side of the road.
They had dinner at a hot dog stand in Hammond and stayed there until it was almost dark. Then they took the dirt road to the marshlands around Wolf Lake. After dumping Bobby's body into the culvert, they drove back home, stopping only so that Leopold could call his father to say he would be delayed and to call Jacob Franks to tell him his son had been kidnapped. At the same time, they addressed the ransom note to the Franks' house and mailed it with postage and instructions for special delivery.
Then they went to Loeb's house and burned clothes that had bloodstains on them. After that, they went to work on the bloodstains in the rental car. Later that night, the two boys stayed up late playing casino. They threw out the chisel used to murder Bobby on the way to take Loeb home.
The next day they perfected the scheme to collect the ransom money and placed the kidnap note in a telegraph box on the last car of a train going to Michigan City, Indiana. Then Leopold called Jacob Franks and gave him the address to the drugstore. When Jacob Franks didn't go to the drugstore, they realized their grand scheme had failed.
Loeb ended his confession by saying," I just want to say that I offer no excuse, but that I am fully convinced that neither the idea nor the act would have occurred to me had it not been for the suggestion and stimulus of Leopold. Furthermore, I do not believe that I would have been capable of having killed Franks."
Confronted with Loeb's confession, Leopold had little he could do but confess himself. The confessions were very similar except for some minor details and one major factor. Leopold claimed that Loeb had killed Bobby, whereas Loeb had claimed Leopold had committed the murder. Initially, the police and the press decided to believe Loeb and treat Leopold as the "evil genius" who had dominated his affable friend with his superior intellect.
In some ways, it didn't matter which of the two had actually killed Bobby. They would both hang for premeditated murder and kidnapping, according to State's Attorney Crowe.
Enter Clarence Darrow
Clarence Darrow
The story of Leopold and Loeb dominated the newspapers. The Tribune explained why: "In view of the fact that the solving of the Franks kidnapping and death brings to notice a crime that is unique in Chicago's annals, and perhaps unprecedented in American criminal history, the Tribune this morning gives to the report of the case many columns of space for news, comment, and pictures."The diabolical spirit evinced in the planned kidnapping and murder; the wealth and prominence of the families whose sons are involved; the high mental attainments of the youths, the suggestions of perversion; the strange quirks indicated in the confession that the child was slain for a ransom, for experience, for the satisfaction of a desire for "deep plotting," combined to set the case in a class by itself."
The public was aghast at the crime and the newspapers demanded swift retribution. "It should not be allowed to hang on, poisoning our thoughts and feelings. Every consideration of public interest demands that it be carried through to its end at once," wrote the Herald and Examiner.
The story created tremendous anguish in the Jewish community. It had been unimaginable that such a crime could have been committed by the brilliant, cultured, pampered children of the Jewish social elite. These families represented society's role models for success. Albert Loeb was a millionaire executive in charge of Sears, Roebuck's prosperous mail-order business. Nathan Leopold, Sr., was a wealthy shipping and manufacturing executive. Both men were highly respected members of the community. Both were sympathetic figures. Albert Loeb, recovering from a serious heart attack, and Nathan Leopold, an elderly invalid, trying to cope with the horror that their sons had thrust upon them and their families.
Meyer Levin noted that "there was one gruesome note of relief in this affair. One heard it uttered only amongst ourselves a relief that the victim too had been Jewish. Though racial aspects were never overtly raised in the case, being perhaps eclipsed by the sensational suggestions of perversion, we were never free of the thought that the murderers were Jews."
Once the ink on the confessions was dry, Crowe took the boys on a search for evidence. The clerk was found who sold Leopold the hydrochloric acid that he had poured on Bobby Franks' body to disguise his features and circumcision. The chisel that killed the boy was retrieved from a man who had seen it thrown from the car. Bobby's shoes that had been discarded on the side of the road were found after a long search. etc.
Crowe was very satisfied with the evidence they found that day. "We have the most conclusive evidence I've ever seen in a criminal case," he announced.
During the day, Jacob Loeb, Richard's uncle, and Benjamin Bachrach, a successful attorney, tried to find out where the boys were being held, but they were not told. The two boys were in desperate need of an attorney.
Robert Crowe (l), Benjamin and Walter Bachrach, and Clarence Darrow (r)
Later that evening, Jacob Loeb went to the apartment of the one of the country's most brilliant lawyers. Loeb got the sixty-seven-year-old Clarence Darrow and his wife out of bed. Darrow had made a name for himself championing the underdog and fighting capital punishment."Get them a life sentence instead of death," Loeb begged for his nephew and Leopold. "That's all we ask. We'll pay anything, only for God's sake, don't let them hang."
Darrow took the case, not for the fee, but by defending these two boys, he had a unique opportunity to combat the death penalty. This case was getting so much publicity around the country and the world that it was a rare chance for him to be widely heard on his capital punishment soapbox.
Darrow Takes the Case
Clarence Darrow
The boys had already done irreparable harm to their defense, not only in their confessions, but in helping locate evidence that would be used against them and by running off at the mouth to their captors, newspapermen and anyone else who would give them an audience.Leopold told one reporter, "Why, we even rehearsed the kidnapping at least three times, carrying it through in all details, lacking only the boy we were to kidnap and kill...It was just an experiment. It is as easy for us to justify as an entomologist in impaling a beetle on a pin."
Loeb told the police captain, "This thing will be the making of me. I'll spend a few years in jail and I'll be released. I'll come out to a new life."
The police took careful notes and the newspapermen wrote furiously as the boys kept talking and talking.
Darrow was on the case the next day. Sunday, June 1, he waited with Jacob Loeb and Benjamin Bachrach until the boys had been returned from another evidence gathering expedition. They demanded to see the two boys, but were refused. Crowe had three traditional alienists forensic psychiatrists lined up to interview the boys that afternoon to confirm that they were indeed sane as well as guilty.
Early the next morning, Darrow and Bachrach were in Crowe's office demanding that the two boys be moved to the county jail where he and Bachrach and their families could see them. Again Crowe refused so that his alienists could get additional evidence of their sanity. Crowe assumed that Darrow would plead them not guilty by reason of insanity and he wanted to be sure that the prosecution had enough evidence of the boys' sanity before their lawyers cut off their damaging testimony.
However, Darrow had with him an order from Judge John R. Caverly. The boys were allowed to meet with their attorneys before being confined in the country jail.
"Be polite. Be courteous, " Darrow told them. "But don't give Crowe any more help. Just keep quiet and refuse to answer questions."
Pampered in everyday life, the boys were also pampered in jail. Stein's Restaurant catered to their need for good food, cigarettes and liquor, which was sneaked into them since it was Prohibition times.
On June 5, 1924, the grand jury indicted the two boys on eleven counts of murder and sixteen counts of kidnapping. The very next day, their full confessions were published in the newspapers. The public was incensed, not just over the crime itself, but the perception, fanned by the news media, that the wealthy Loebs and the wealthy Leopolds were going to pay Clarence Darrow a million dollars to save their sons from the gallows.
With Darrow's help, the families constructed a joint statement, which in summary said, "There will be no large sums of money spent, either for legal or medical talent."
Walter Bachrach, Benjamin's brother, promptly went to the American Psychiatric Association's annual convention and recruited three top flight experts: Dr. William A. White, president of the APA and superintendent of St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C.; Dr. William Healy, an expert in juvenile criminal psychiatry; and Dr. Bernard Glueck, head of the psychiatric clinic at Sing Sing Prison in New York State. Unlike Crowe's traditional alienists, Bachrach's experts were innovative Freudians who believed in subconscious motives and compulsions. Two other psychiatrists were also employed, Dr. Harold Hulbert and Dr. Carl Bowman.
Leopold loved the sessions with the alienists. His ego was intensely gratified that these experts were putting his personality under a microscope. It also gave him a chance to talk continuously about himself. Loeb, on the other hand, was bored with the entire process and occasionally fell asleep. Neither boy showed any guilt or remorse for their cold-blooded crime, though both of them were upset that they had brought down so much misery on their families.
The Trial Begins
Judge Caverly
On July 21, 1924, the case of The People against Nathan Leopold, Jr., and Richard Loeb opened in Chief Justice of the Criminal Court John R. Caverly's courtroom.Darrow approached the bench and began to speak in a low voice. First he assured the court that he was not going to try to have the trial moved somewhere else, nor was he going to try to stop the prosecutors from separating the murder indictments from the kidnapping indictments.
"We want to state frankly here that no one in this case believes that these defendants should be released or are competent to be. We believe that they should be permanently isolated from society... After long reflection and thorough discussion, we have determined to make a motion in this court for each of the defendants in each of the cases to withdraw our pleas of not guilty and enter a plea of guilty."
Everyone in the courtroom was shocked. They had expected Darrow to plead them not guilty by reason of insanity.
Leopold, Darrow and Loeb
Darrow had planned this for some time and discussed it with the families, but did not tell the boys until that morning. The boys understood that it was their best chance to escape hanging. He explained it to them this way, "Crowe had you indicted both for murder and for kidnapping. He'd try you on one charge, say, the murder. If he got less than a hanging verdict, he could turn around and try you on the other charge. There is only one way to deprive him of that second chance to plead guilty to both charges before he...has an opportunity to withdraw one of them. That's why the element of surprise is absolutely necessary.There was more to Darrow's rationale. In pleading guilty, the boys could avoid a jury trial. A single judge would determine the sentence. Had he chosen to plead them not guilty by reason of insanity, they would have had a jury trial. Given the public outcry over the crime and the statements the boys had made, it was unlikely that the boys would fare well with any jury.
Darrow realized that it was comparatively easy for a jury to sentence the boys to death because it would be a shared decision. For Caverly to sentence the boys to death was a decision that he would have to live with as solely his own. He felt that he had a decent chance with Caverly considering the boy's mental conditions and their youth.
Caverly told the defendants to approach the bench and questioned each boy: "if your plea be guilty, and the plea of guilty is entered into this case, the court may sentence you to death; the court may sentence you to the penitentiary for the term of your natural life; the court may sentence you to the penitentiary for a term of years not less than fourteen. Now, realizing the consequences of your plea, do you still desire to plead guilty?"
Both boys answered "yes." They were beginning to understand the magnitude of their predicament.
Judge Caverly, looking very serious, was beginning to understand the magnitude of his predicament. He alone would decide whether or not the boys would hang. It was not a decision he wanted to make.
END OF PART 1
