This is the story of what is commonly referred to as the twentieth century’s first ‘trial of the century’; a story of two cold-hearted killers, one of the most famous defence attorneys in American legal history and the chance discovery of a simple pair of spectacles that led to the murderers’ conviction.
The setting is Chicago, 1924, in the affluent neighbourhood of South Greenwood, only a block away from where Barack Obama’s residence now sits, on the favoured south side of the city. In that suburb lived two wealthy families. Each had a teenage son as brilliant intellectually as their personalities were troubled. For all their anti-social tendencies, it is generally accepted that it was only as a result of their meeting and forming of a complex relationship that such a heinous crime of premeditated murder could have been committed.
Richard Loeb was the second of four sons of a vice-president of the Sears Roebuck mail-order corporation. His governess recognised his early academic promise, pushing him hard in his studies. He came to resent the enforced workload; nevertheless he graduated from high school at fourteen and, in 1923, became the University of Michigan’s youngest ever graduate, aged 17. He had been popular with his peers, but his fascination with detective and crime novels led him to start committing crimes, mostly criminal damage, for thrills.
Nathan Leopold, Jr could not have been more different in character than the extrovert, seemingly easygoing Loeb. Leopold was self-conscious about his somewhat awkward features, but his prodigious intelligence led many to see him as outwardly contemptuous and arrogant. He was completely spoiled by his industrialist father after his mother died when Nathan was young. He devoured knowledge, becoming fluent in at least nine languages, a noted botanist, a national authority on ornithology and a classics and philosophy scholar – all by the age of eighteen. It was the latter, in particular his fascination with Nietzsche’s idea of the ‘superman’, the superior man who rises above the conventional morality, that was to cause his downfall.
[CaptionComponent="1278"]Leopold was preparing to enter the University of Chicago when he met Loeb, already a student there prior to his transfer to Michigan. They were an unlikely pair, but Leopold fell completely under the spell of the charming, handsome Loeb. Despite having a girlfriend at the time, Leopold was sexually attracted to Loeb, and accepted the role of Loeb’s partner in petty crime in return for his sexual favours. Despite drifting apart for a time, they renewed their friendship when both re-enrolled at Chicago, Loeb on a history course and Leopold in the law school. Their activities soon escalated to theft and arson, Loeb for the thrill of committing undetected crimes, Leopold for the sex and the desire to live the Nietzschean life above morals.
The boys’ relationship proved to be the spur for an idea Loeb began to develop for committing the perfect crime. The plan they came up with was for the kidnapping of a son of wealthy parents and demand for a large ransom. They soon realised that, though unpalatable, to be sure of evading detection the boy would have also to be killed. Leopold wrote later that his motive for acquiescing to the scheme ‘to the extent that I had one, was to please Dick.’ He explained that, ‘Loeb’s friendship was necessary to me – terribly necessary.’
On the afternoon of May 21, 1924, the pair were cruising in a rented car looking for a victim. They spotted fourteen year-old Bobby Franks, whom Loeb was acquainted with, walking home from school. Loeb enticed him into the car on a pretext, and when they drove off he was killed by several blows to the head with a chisel; most evidence suggests the murderer was Loeb. They drove to a marshland that Leopold frequented for birdwatching, stripped the body naked, poured hydrochloric acid over it and dumped it in a concrete drainage culvert. The clothes were taken away and burned. That evening Leopold phoned Mrs Franks to tell her that Bobby had been kidnapped, unharmed, and to expect a ransom note. A letter duly arrived the next day instructing the Franks’ to gather $10,000 in old, unmarked bills and to await further instructions. Mid-afternoon, Mr Franks received another call telling him to take the money in a taxi shortly to arrive, to a named drugstore. But before he could comply another call came, from the police, to say that Bobby’s body had been discovered, a chance sighting by a labourer.
The boys may never have been caught but for ‘the hand of god at work in this case’ according to the prosecutor. A pair of tortoiseshell spectacles were found at the scene which, at first, seemed quite ordinary. When Leopold read of the find, he became worried when he could not locate his similar-looking pair in the jacket pocket in which he kept them. He had only worn them for a few weeks months earlier to cope with headaches. He consoled himself, as he recounted later, telling Loeb, ‘I know the prescription is a very common one. The doc told me so. And how are they going to know what oculist they come from? They’d have to go through the records of every oculist in town and then check on a couple of thousand people.’
[CaptionComponent="1279"]But on closer inspection the frame had an unusual hinge which enabled it to be traced to a single Chicago optometrist, Emil Deutsch. The hinge was manufactured by a New York company that had only one Chicago outlet, Almer Coe & Co, and they had sold only three of the frames with this hinge. One wearer was female, another travelling in Europe at the time, the third belonging to Leopold. The police brought him in to be interviewed by State’s Attorney Robert Crowe, whereat he claimed that the spectacles must have fallen out of his pocket when he tripped on one of his regular birding expeditions. But after several attempts at a demonstration he failed to dislodge them.
Two other pieces of evidence then sealed the boys’ fate. Firstly, a typewriter that Leopold used at college was found to match the type on the ransom note. Secondly, the boys claimed that on the evening of the murder they had been driving around with some girls in the Leopold family car; ironically, in a misguided effort to clear Leopold, the family chauffeur came forward to state that the car had not left the garage that day.
The families hired Clarence Darrow to defend the boys. If this was the case that really made his name, he became even more famous a year later as the defence lawyer in the ‘Scopes Monkey Trial’. The prosecution’s plan was to try the boys first for murder and then, if found innocent, for kidnapping; both crimes attracting the death penalty. Darrow got them to plead guilty so that the state would get only one go at the death sentence, and at a hearing by the judge rather than a jury. A twelve-hour summation by Darrow followed, largely a moral crusade against the death penalty. He ‘won’ a sentence of life (for murder) plus 99 years (kidnapping).
Loeb would be attacked and killed in jail in 1936. Leopold was released after serving 34 years. To escape publicity he emigrated to Puerto Rico, where he eventually married despite still declaring his love for Loeb. Leopold died in 1971, following which his wish to donate his corneas was carried out.
David Baker is an independent optometrist