Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold they were two young people with a really promising future, when they were arrested in Chicago for murder. They came from wealthy families and were gifted, in the strict sense of the word. However, the need to prove that they were more intelligent than any other human being was the Achilles heel that made his future look ruined.
The events take place in Chicago, in the year 1924. By then, the ornithologist Nathan Freudenthal Leopold Jr.. he was convinced that he was a genius, as he spoke 15 languages and had entered university at an early age. By his side, his friend Richard Loeb He was recognized for being the youngest person to graduate from the University of Michigan, having obtained his law degree at just 17 years old.
However, Why are they so important? Who was murdered and why?
21 May 1924. 2 University of Chicago students, Nathan Leopold (left) and Richard Loeb (right), kidnapped and murdered 14-year-old, Bobby Franks in what they saw as the perfect crime, but they were caught. It’s thought the incident inspired the eerie Alfred Hitchcock film, Rope. pic.twitter.com/s5wbBRzLIS
— Prof. Frank McDonough (@FXMC1957) May 21, 2022
Both were convinced that they were the ‘supermen’ described in the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Basically they believed that they could rise above good and evil by believing themselves to be intellectually superior, while feeling great contempt for those they saw as ‘inferior’. For this very reason they proposed to carry out a murder that, they were sure, would never be discovered.
But the opposite happened. Leopold and Loeb were recognized worldwide for being the authors of the ‘crime of the century’. For months they planned the murder of Bobby Franks, a 14-year-old boy from a wealthy family.
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Two friends cut from the same cloth
Leopold and Loeb grew up in the privileged world of the Kenwood neighborhood, a place full of mansions and tennis courts inhabited by wealthy Jewish families and academics from the nearby University of Chicago. For one thing, the Leopolds had a million-dollar fortune; while the Loebs, four million.
Additionally, both had certain affinities in terms of tastes and ideologies. Leopold was the one who first became obsessed with Nietzsche’s ‘superman’ and who taught the concept to Loeb, his young friend who was a crime story buff and fantasized about being able to enter that world.
Today in 1924 University of Chicago students Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, Jr. murder 14-year-old Bobby Franks in a “thrill killing.” pic.twitter.com/IgaBCeMMGM
— the painter flynn (@thepainterflynn) May 21, 2022
Nathan convinced him that they were thinking heroes, with superior intellectual power, strength of character and will.
The pair of friends had been together for almost two years, when they began committing petty crimes for the thrill of it. They looted small shops, but then they started burning down buildings and stealing cars.
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Still, they never sparked suspicion. Not only because they come from families with large amounts of capital in their hands, but because of the personality of the duo. Richard was a handsome, charismatic and well-mannered young man. He was outgoing and handled most of the situations in which he found himself with Nathan, since he, unlike his friend, he was a shy and introverted boy who hid in his shadow.
The murder of Bobby Franks
After seven months of planning, On the afternoon of May 21, 1924, they rented a car and picked up Robert ‘Bobby’ Franks, the son of a famous Chicago watchmaker and Loeb’s second cousin.
The 14-year-old boy was approached on the streets of Kenwood while on his way to school. Since the minor knew young people, he did not see anything wrong with getting into his car under the excuse of going for a ride. According to his statements, Leopold was the one he was driving at the time, Bobby was in the passenger seat and Loeb was in the back seat with the murder weapon: a chisel.
With this, Richard hit the boy repeatedly on the head, then gagged him to prevent him from breathing and dragged him into the back seat.. All this while Nathan was driving to Lake Hammond in Indiana, where they additionally disfigured his face with acid and hid his body in a sewer.
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At nine in the morning the other day, Jacob Franks, father of the minor, received a typewritten letter. By then, Bobby was already dead, but the killers were demanding a ransom of $10,000.
But just a few hours later, before Mr. Frank could pay the ransom, the boy’s body was discovered by police and recognized by a close relative.
The Police launched an intense investigation, pressured mainly by the media that cried out for justice for this “crime of the century”. During the covering, Loeb offered to find the killer, even telling a reporter that if he were to murder a child, it would be “a spoiled, spoiled one.”
the ultimate test
The plan of the two gifted friends collapsed faster than they thought. Nine days later, the police discovered that the horn-rimmed glasses had a unique hinge, coming from a prestigious store in Chicago. Only three matching pairs had been purchased and one of them was Leopold’s.
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That was the key to discovering the perpetrators of the crime. Once in custody, both Leopold and Loeb confessed to the authorities to the crime. The versions agreed, except that they both blamed each other as to who actually used the chisel. Nevertheless, during the trial it was concluded that it had been Nathan.
The trial began on July 1 and they were for 19 days under the representation of Clarence Darrow, a well-known lawyer for opposing capital punishment. During the sessions, he argued that the crime had to do with the delay in the emotional maturity of the accused, in addition to being victims of society and their families.
With these, he avoided the death penalty, but not the death penalty. Instead, they received life in prison for murder, plus 99 years for kidnapping.
However, this was never fulfilled. Richard was murdered two years later by a cellmate, who stabbed him with a razor blade. On your side, Nathan was released in 1958, due to his good behavior in prison. He created a foundation to help ex-convicts and married a Puerto Rican woman in 1961. Ten years later, he died.
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