Nathan Leopold And Richard Loeb

On 21st May 1924, the 14-year-old son of a wealthy industrialist, named Bobby Franks, was kidnapped. The boy was viciously bludgeoned to death and left dead in a marsh on the south side of Chicago. During the investigation a pair of eyeglasses were found at the crime scene, and this led police to two students, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb.

The two of them were students at the University of Chicago, and very well respected students they were. They had a privileged upbringing and had brilliant academic records, all of which opposed their involvement in the crime. However the two of them soon confessed to the kidnap and murder. Leopold & Loeb had planned this to be a ‘perfect’ crime, which they had carried out for a ‘thrill’ and as an ‘intellectual exercise’. They were arrested and charged with murder on 6th June 1924.

Their families hired the best defence lawyers money could buy, and the trial turned out to be an exciting one. The defendants were guarded wherever they went, and the case was covered widely by the media. Both defendants plead guilty. There was a huge public demand for the death penalty, but the pair were sentenced to life imprisonment. While in prison, Richard Loeb was murdered by another inmate in 1936. In 1955 Nathan Leopold appealed for parole, and left prison in 1958.