THE STORY OF

LEOPOLD AND
LOEB OR
CRIME OF THE
CENTURY
WHO WERE LEOPOLD AND
LOEB?
Nathan Leopold was brilliant. He had an IQ of over
200 and excelled at school. By age 19, Leopold had
already graduated from college and was in law school.
Leopold was also fascinated with birds and was
considered an accomplished ornithologist. However,
despite being brilliant, Leopold was very awkward
socially.
Richard Loeb was also very intelligent, but not to the
same caliber as Leopold. Loeb, who had been pushed
and guided by a strict governess, had also been sent to
college at a young age. However, once there, Loeb did It was at college that Leopold and Loeb became close friends. Their
not excel; instead, he gambled and drank. Unlike relationship was both stormy and intimate. Leopold was obsessed with
Leopold, Loeb was considered very attractive and had the attractive Loeb. Loeb, on the other hand, liked having a loyal
impeccable social skills. companion on his risky adventures.
The two teenagers, who had become both friends and lovers, soon began
committing small acts of theft, vandalism, and arson. Eventually, the two
decided to plan and commit the "perfect crime."
PLANNING THE MURDER
It is debated as to whether it was Leopold or Loeb who first suggested
they commit the "perfect crime," but most believe it was Loeb. No
matter who suggested it, both boys participated in the planning of it.
The plan was simple: rent a car under an assumed name, find a wealthy
victim (preferably a boy since girls were more closely watched), kill
him in the car with a chisel, then dump the body in a culvert.

Even though the victim was to be killed immediately, Leopold and Loeb
planned on extracting a ransom from the victim's family. The victim's
family would receive a letter instructing them to pay $10,000 in "old
bills," which they would later be asked to throw from a moving train.
Interestingly, Leopold and Loeb spent a lot more time on figuring out
how to retrieve the ransom than on who their victim was to be. After
considering a number of specific people to be their victim, including
their own fathers, Leopold and Loeb decided to leave the choice of
victim up to chance and circumstance.
THE MURDER
On May 21, 1924, Leopold and Loeb were ready
to put their plan into action. After renting a
Willys-Knight automobile and covering its
license plate, Leopold and Loeb needed a victim.
Around 5 o'clock, Leopold and Loeb spotted 14-
year-old Bobby Franks, who was walking home
from school. Loeb, who knew Bobby Franks
because he was both a neighbor and a distant
cousin, lured Franks into the car by asking Once it was dark, Leopold and Loeb found the culvert, shoved Franks' body
Franks to discuss a new tennis racket (Franks inside the drainage pipe and poured hydrochloric acid on Franks' face and
loved to play tennis). genitals to obscure the body's identity.
Within minutes, Franks was struck several times On their way home, Leopold and Loeb stopped to call the Franks' home that
in the head with a chisel, dragged from the front night to tell the family that Bobby had been kidnapped. They also mailed the
seat into the back, and then had a cloth shoved ransom letter.
down his throat. Lying limply on the floor of the They thought they had committed the perfect murder. Little did they know that
back seat, covered with a rug, Franks died from by the morning, Bobby Franks' body had already been discovered and the police
suffocation. were quickly on the way to discovering his murderers.
LEOPOLD AND LOEB'S TRIAL
With the public decidedly against the boys and an extremely large amount of
evidence tying the boys to the murder, it was almost certain that Leopold and
Loeb were going to receive the death penalty.
Fearing for his nephew's life, Loeb's uncle went to famed defense attorney
Clarence Darrow (who would later participate in the famous Scopes Monkey
Trial) and begged him to take the case. Darrow was not asked to free the
boys, for they were surely guilty; instead, Darrow was asked to save the boys'
lives by getting them life sentences rather than the death penalty. Darrow, a
long-time advocate against the death penalty, took the case. On August 22,
1924, Clarence Darrow gave his final summation. It lasted approximately two
hours and is considered one of the best speeches of his life.
Most people thought Darrow would
plead them not guilty by reason of
insanity, but in a surprising last- After listening to all the evidence presented and thinking carefully on
minute twist, Darrow had them plead the matter, Judge Caverly announced his decision on September 19,
guilty. 1924. Judge Caverly sentenced Leopold and Loeb to jail for 99 years
With Leopold and Loeb pleading for kidnapping and for the rest of their natural lives for murder. He also
guilty, the trial would no longer recommended that they never be eligible for parole.
require a jury because it would
become a sentencing trial. Darrow
believed that it would be harder for
one man to live with the decision to
hang Leopold and Loeb than it would
be for twelve who would share the
decision.
THE DEATHS OF LEOPOLD
AND LOEB
Leopold and Loeb were originally separated, but by
1931 they were again close. In 1932, Leopold and Loeb
opened a school in the prison to teach other prisoners.
On January 28, 1936, 30-year-old Loeb was attacked in
the shower by his cellmate. He was slashed over 50
times with a straight razor and died of his wounds. Leopold stayed in prison
and wrote an
autobiography, Life Plus
99 Years. After spending
33 years in prison, 53-
year-old Leopold was
paroled in March of 1958 ​
and moved to Puerto Rico,
where he married in 1961.
Leopold died on August
30, 1971, from a heart
attack at age 66.
IN POPULAR CULTURE
The Franks murder has inspired works of film, theatre, and fiction,
including the 1929 play Rope by Patrick Hamilton, performed on BBC
television in 1939, and Alfred Hitchcock's film of the same name in
1948. A fictionalized version of the events formed the basis of Meyer
Levin's 1956 novel Compulsion and its 1959 film adaptation. Never the
Sinner, John Logan's 1988 play, was based on contemporary newspaper
accounts of the case, and included an explicit portrayal of Leopold and
Loeb's sexual relationship. In 2019, the story was fictionally retold
again in the third season of The Sinner.
Other works influenced by the case include Richard Wright's 1940 novel Native Son, the
Matlock episode “The Sisters”, the Columbo episode "Columbo Goes To College" (1990),
the drama Murdoch Mysteries, Tom Kalin's 1992 film Swoon, Michael Haneke's 1997
Austrian film Funny Games and the 2008 International remake, the 2002 black comedy
R.S.V.P., Barbet Schroeder's Murder by Numbers (2002), Daniel Clowes's 2005 graphic
novel Ice Haven, and Stephen Dolginoff's 2005 off-Broadway musical Thrill Me: The
Leopold and Loeb Story.