Back to Notorious Chicago
Chicago Tribune, May 23, 1924
“Kidnappers” yesterday killed Robert Franks, the 13 year old son of Jacob Franks, a retired capitalist living at 5052 Ellis avenue. They had reached Mr. Franks with a typewritten demand for a ransom of $10,000, but before the distracted father could get the money to them they slew the boy and threw his body into a swamp alongside the Pennsylvania railroad tracks at 121st street near the Calumet river.
Dozens of detectives and hundreds of uniformed policemen were searching the city early today for the slayers, spurred on partly by a $5,000 reward offered by Mr. Franks.
Young Franks was a student at the Harvard school, a private institution in 47th street. His father is the millionaire head of the Rockford Watch company and a large holder of downtown real estate.
Question Boy’s Teachers.
The police in their efforts to solve the mystery questioned three Harvard school instructors closely last night and early today. Walter Wilson, an instructor in mathematics, was first examined at his home, 4757 Ingleside avenue.
Shortly before 3 a.m. Lieut. Michael Grady took R. P, Williams, athletic instructor, 4829 Dorchester avenue, and Mott Mitchell to search their rooms. Several pads of paper found in them were seized to be compared with the paper on which had been written the letter in which the threat that young Franks would be killed unless $10,000 was forthcoming.
- The ransom letter.
Hope to Obtain Clews.
The police make no charges against the instructors, but were interested in the fact that the English in the threatening letter have been written by a man of more ordinary education. They thought it possible the instructors might furnish clews.
The boy’s nude body was found at 9:30 o’clock in the morning, but no regular message was sent out concerning its discovery by the East Side police until long after midday, and there was no connection realized between the disappearance of the Franks boy and the finding of the body until 5:30 in the evening.
Death Cause Mystery.
Examination of the body by Coroner’s Physicians Joseph Springer and F. N. Benson late in the evening set the murder down as one of the most baffling in the city’s annals, in that neither of the experienced doctors could assign a cause for death.
“He was neither strangled nor choked,” Dr. Springer said. “He had been hit on the head several times with a blunt instrument, but none nor all of these blows were sufficient to cause death. I can only say that he has a nasty stomach and lungs.”
Both physicians indicated that the boy might have been murdered through a sponge or rag saturated in acid of some sort pressed to his mouth. The eyes, nose, and lips indicated this; they were blue, and a bit of brown coloring clung about the mouth.
WHERE BODY OF KIDNAPED BOY WAS FOUND
Beneath the culvert at 121st street and the Pennsylvania tracks was found the body of Robert Franks, 13 year old son of Jacob Franks, millionaire, of 5052 Ellis avenue.
Ready to Pay $10,000
As the boy’s body was identified by an uncle, Edward Gresham, his father and former Corporate Counsel Samuel Ettelson, a family friend, were preparing to pay over the $10,000 ransom, and they almost did so at 3:30 in the afternoon. Only the fact that Mr. Franks forgot a telephoned address given him by a mysterious “Mr. Johnson,” of the “kidnappers,” prevented it.
The boy’s body was found half extending out of a culvert under the railroad tracks. It had apparently been tossed into the water and floated into the two foot main in the shallow water Between Wolf lake and Hyde lake.
The head was inside the culvert, the feet extended out. An employe of the American Maize company of Roby, Ind., found the body while walking a path parallel with the railroad tracks, called section hands from the tracks and hauled it to dry land. Then he called the police.
No clothing was near the scene. Only one stocking, identified as worn by Robert floated in the swamp 200 feet away. On the bank lay a pair of horn rimmed eyeglasses. These were boys’ size and fitted the lad, but his father said he had never worn spectacles.
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The East Side police called to the scene, shortly after 9:30 in the morning, assumed the boy had been drowned. They had no report of the missing boy and so did not send word throughout the department until afternoon.
Chicago Tribune, May 24, 1924
Chicago Tribune, May 25, 1924
Chicago Tribune, May 26, 1924
- Eight of Robert “Bobby” Franks friends from the Harvard private school he attended acted as pallbearers at the 14-year-old’s funeral on May 25, 1924.
Chicago Tribune, May 27, 1924
Chicago Tribune, May 28, 1924
Chicago Tribune, May 30, 1924
Nathan Leopold, Jr., 4754 Greenwood avenue, 19 year old student marvel, son of a millionaire, and connected with some of the wealthiest families in Chicago, was held this morning in the office of State’s Attorney Robert E. Crowe, where he was being questioned about the murder and kidnapping of 13 year old Robert Franks.
Leopold had been taken to the criminal court building shortly after 1 o’clock after he had been charged with the ownership of the eye glasses which were found on the prairie at 121st street and the Pennsylvania tracks near the culvert in which the body of young Franks was discovered last Thursday.
Had Been at Death Culvert.
Leopold admitted the ownership of a similar pair of glasses; that a few days earlier he had been at the spot where Franks’ body was found; that he had lost his glasses.
Further questioning had elicited the admission the he was the owner of a typewriter thought to be similar to the one on which the letter demanding a ransom of $10,000 for the return of the kidnapped Franks boy had been written. The officials questioning him had sent for this typewriter, while they continued their interrogation into the early hours in the morning.
Trace Glasses to Leopold.
The clew which led to young Leopold being questioned came, as predicted, from tracing the sale of the eye glasses which were found near the body. Almer Coe & Co. had discovered earlier in the week that they were the maker of the glasses. They searched their records and found that a pair on such a prescription had been sold to young Leopold; that the discovered glasses tallied exactly with those sold to Leopold.
Detectives were sent to the home of his father, who is president of Fibre Can corporation and resides within a few blocks of the home of Jacob Franks at 5022 Ellis avenue.
Richard Loeb, son of the late vice president of Sears, Roebuck & Co., who was a companion of young Leopold, was also taken to the state’s attorney’s office, although suspicion was in no way directed against him.
Crowe Conducts Quiz.When the boys arrived there State’s Attorney Crowe himself began their examination.
“Have you ever been in the vicinity of the place where young Frank’s body was found?” was his first question.
Leopold did not hesitate.
“Yes, I have been there fifty times,” he said.
Then he explained.
“You see, I am interested in ornithology. I frequently go there with classes and with companions.”
Thinks Glasses Are at Home.
The state’s attorney flashed before his eyes the spectacles with the horn rims which have played so important a part in the mystery.
“Are these your glasses?” he asked.
“I don’t think so, was the answer. I think mine are at home.”
There was a pause in the inquiry.
Again detectives visited the Leopold home and searched the premises. They could find no trace of the glasses which young Leopold believed were there, but they did find a case with the name Almer Coe & Co. printed on the lid.
With their return and report the questioning turned upon whether it was possible that young Leopold had lost his glasses near the death culvert. He admitted that he might have done so.
“I told you I had been there frequently,” he said. “I believe I was there either the Friday or the Saturday just before the murder. I might have dropped them on that occasion.”
Leopold said that young Loeb had sometimes accompanied him on excursions to the vicinity of the culvert, and this was corroborated by young Loeb.
Further questioning about the familiarity of the youth with the neighborhood of the culvert developed, that at times he had visited it as late as midnight.
Then the u=interrogatory turned to other phases of the Franks case. Leopold was shown the letter in which $10,000 had been demanded of Jacob Franks for the return of his son unharmed.
“This letter was written by an educated man,” said Mr. Crowe. “Do you think you could have written such a letter?”
Could Write a Better Letter.
“Yes, I could easily duplicate it, if I couldn’t write a better one,” he said. “:There is one mistake in the letter. The word kidnaping is spelled kidnapping. I noticed it at the time.”
Then he admitted owning and operating a typewriter.
“I’ve written many articles on birds and nature,” he explained.
Questions as to his inclinations and the nature of his studies followed while the search for the typewriter was being made.
Young Leopold said he was a law student and a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society at the University of Chicago. He boasted that he was familiar with fifteen languages and that he had made a particular study of ornithology.
- Nathan Leopold’s Glasses.
Chicago Tribune, My 30, 1924
State’s Attorney Crowe explained today how the search for the owner of the glasses found near the body of Robert Franks led to Nathan Leopold Jr. Mr. Crowe said:
- Realizing that the glasses constituted the most direct clew to the solution of the mystery, I placed Assistant State’s Attorney Joseph Savage in charge of that phase of the investigation. I told him to devote every effort toward tracing the ownership of the glasses.
He found that the glasses had a special hinge, one made by the Bobrow Optical company of Brooklyn, N.Y. Comparatively few glasses sold in Chicago have this type of hinge.
Mr,. Savage went to the Almer Coe firm of opticians on Wabash avenue. Eliminating all prescriptions filled with those having hinges other than this type, they began a search for records of glasses corresponding in detail to those found near the culvert.
The search of their records showed that the prescriptions for the mystery lenses fitted glasses sold to young Leopold. Our questioning of him resulted.
The glasses found at the scene of the finding of Franks’ body, and which agree with the Leopold prescription, are described as follows:
On the outer end of each lens is a dot for positioning the lens in the frame. The frame is made of zylonite, about 150-1000 weight, and is slightly mottled, dark brown in color. The style is known as library.
The total length of the temples is 5¼ inches, the temples are curved to 4½ inches to back of ear, 3¾ inches to top of ear.
Lenses are made of white glass in toric form, round lenses with a diameter of 40 millimeters. The right lens is a plus 0.50, cylinder axis 90; left lens plus 0.50, cylinder axis 90. Spread back of temple, 1; back of joint, 4-15/16.
The dimensions of the frame are 65 millimeters PF; height of bridge. 1½ millimeters; crest of bridge, 1/16 forward; width of bridge, 16 millimeters; angle of bridge, 55 degrees.
Chicago Tribune, May 31, 1924
At 3 o’clock this morning Nathan E. Leopold Jr. and Richard Loeb, sons of rich south side families, held for investigation in the murder of Robert Franks, were making statements to State’s Attorney Crowe and Assistant State’s Attorney Savage.
While the reports of their statements were fragmentary, it was said they were relating their knowledge of the murder of the Franks boy.
This came after hours of persistent questioning. The break came after Sven Englund, a chauffeur for the Leopold family, had shattered the alibi of the prisoners by declaring that the automobile of young Leopold had not been out of the garage between the hours of 1 and 10 p.m. on the day of the murder.
Chauffeur’s Wife Corroborates.
Mrs. Englund corroborated the story of her husband that the automobile had been in the garage all afternoon and the early part of the evening on May 21. She said she remembered that on that day she went to a physician, who wrote her a prescription. She showed the box containing the medicine, which had been dated by the druggist.
This was taken to mean that the alibi established by the two youths suffered seriously. Both had firmly repeated the same story of their whereabouts on the day when young Robert Franks was spirited away to his death.
Tell of Drive to Park.
They told of a drive to Lincoln park, of considerable drinking, and of a trivial flirtation with two girls. They had said all this was carried out in Leopold’s car, a maroon colored Willys-Knight.
Early this morning Englund, the chauffeur, who lives in the Leopold garage, declared before State Attorney Crowe that he was certain the maroon car was not out of the garage during the hours named. The statement was placed before young Loeb.
The young man was perceptibly disconcerted. “For God’s sake! Is he sure?” With these sentences he kept silence for the moment. The questioning then was continued.
Had Been Gaining Favor.
Previously both young me, who had been in custody for hours on suspicion of having knowledge of young Franks’ disappearance and death, had steadily been gaining favor with the investigators. Their stories clicked true and their demeanor had been frank and outspoken. There was a feeling that both young men, and particularly Leopold, had been caught in a most remarkable set of circumstances while thoroughly innocent.
One by one there had been an apparent weakening of the circumstances that had seemingly incriminated the two millionaires’ sons and University iof Chicago students, in the murder. They were still in custody; some circumstances they had not explained away, but at midnight their straight forward answers had won them belief, and what was more to them for the moment, respect.
Seek Girls’ Story.
State’s Attorney Robert E. Crowe had the spectacles that proved Leopold had been at the culvert where Robert Franks’ body was found. Leopold had an alibi, corroborated by Loeb and needing only the confirmation of two girls, Edna and May, to give preponderance to his claims to having been elsewhere when Robert was kidnapped and killed.
Both had been drinking the afternoon of Wednesday, May 21, on the lake off Grace street, left there about 5 p.m. (the time Robert disappeared at 49th street and Ellis avenue) and the drinking continued far into the evening. Both told that to different questioners without having time to consult.
In the evening about 8:20 o’clock, at Sixty-third and Kenwood avenue, they “picked up” the girls, their stories coincided, and at 10:20 p.m. the girls left them at the entrance to the 9 hole golf course in Jackson Park.
Neither knew the last names of their chance acquaintances.
Insists Glasses Were Clean.
The young man has not known, or had not taken into consideration, the one feature the police consider strong that the spectacles, when found, bore no indications of having been there longer than a few hours. If lost there on Leopold’s last admitted visit to the “death spot,” the Sunday previous, police were certain they would be weather beaten, spattered with mud from rain or dew and dust—but they were not.
Frank Groff, maintenance man employed by the Philadelphia railroad, who found the spectacles, came to the state’s attorney’s office last night and reiterated his statement that the glasses were clear and in his opinion had not been very long where he found them.
After Nathan’s one typewriter had been proved not to have been the one used in writing the demand for $10,000 ransom to Jacob Franks, millionaire father of the slain boy, Assistant State’s Attorney Joseph P. Savage learned the scholar had another machine, an Underwood. Detectives went to his home at midnight to get this one.
A letter written by Nathan to Richard had at first resulted in embarrassment to both youths. It was signed “Babe,” which turned out to be the name Nathan is called at home and by all his schoolmates. A sentence that was regarded as at least peculiar was easily and satisfactorily explained by both. Their manly appearance and evident fearlessness was heavily in their favor.
Covers All Day Wednesday.
- That particular Wednesday bI went to school in the morning until 11 o’clock. I am taking a first year law course, having finished my collegiate course. I met ‘Dick’after class and we went downtown and had dinner at Marshall Field’s grill. In the afternoon we went up to the north end of Lincoln park, I wanted to see a heron-gull.
We drank quite a bit there and when we started south Dick was pretty drunk and I advised him to go home. We had dinner at the Coconut Grove, 63d and Ellis avenue, and later picked up the two girls, whom we later dropped in Jackson park. I took Dick home with me for a few hours, then drove him home about 1 a.m.
Often Been to Culvert.
I have often been in the vicinity of the place where Franks’ body was found. I go there frequently because of my ornithology studies and classes. I was there this Saturday and Sunday before the crime, and I must have lost my glasses then, though I didn’t miss them.
Richard had told practically the same story, excepting in parts where he said he was “hazy,” because of the drink he had taken. He had a flask of Scotch. Nathan had a flask of gin, when they started out that morning, more gin was purchased later, he related.
His father objects to his drinking, so he readily yielded to the permission not to go home for supper, and when he did go home it was long after his household was darkened and all asleep, and none heard him enter, he stated. He remembered meeting a Mr. and Mrs. Schwab at Leopold’s house that night, he said, and police said they had learned such a couple were there.
Richard attributed the fact he and Nathan had been talked about—to a former law student at University of Chicago, a poor student who sought employment in Charlevoix, Mich., and who started the rumor because of enmity to both.
He said he had not seen his boy chum wear spectacles for at least a month; Nathan didn’t say he had worn them within that period, he only claimed to have carried them in his pocket. Several fellow students were called in and questioned on this point; none gave important information.
Chicago Tribune, June 1, 1924
- In view of the fact that the solving of the Franks kidnaping and death brings to notice a crime that is unique in Chicago’s annals 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 in the planned kidnaping 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 Tribune has aimed to set the story forth in these general lines: the day’s news developments following the early morning confession, told by Orville Dwyer; a consideration of the psychology and psychiatry of the case by Miss Genevieve Forbes; a review of the Loeb youth’s life and family, by Miss Maurine Watkins of the Leopold youth and his family, by Miss Maureen McKernan; the detective steps by which the case was worked out, by John Herrick; the Franks family, by Paul Augsburg; and other miscellaneous features of the crime.
BY ORVILLE DWYER.
Detectives stood guard over the entrance to the old yacht harbor in Jackson park last night to prevent the possible removal of the last link in an invulnerable chain of evidence by which State’s Attorney Robert E. Crowe expects to send Nathan F. Leopold Jr. and Richard Loeb, sons of millionaires, to the gallows for the kidnaping and murder of 14 years old Robert Franks on May 21.’
This last link is a portable Underwood typewriter tossed into the water from a high bridge by Leopold. It is the machine on which the famous scholarly ‘kidnapers'” letter was written by Leopold.
When it is taken out of of the water, as it is expected today, it will complete a chain of evidence against the two University of Chicago students. The chain was made stronger and still stronger as State’s Attorney Crowe, Chief of Detectives Hughes and forty operatives built up systematically during the day until the prosecutor characterized it “the strongest case I have ever experienced.” And this chain of evidence is backed by full confessions in the hands of Mr. Crowe.
- Nathan Leopold’s Underwood typewriter after it was found in the Jackson Park Lagoon on June 7, 1924.
Taken Over the Trail.
Nathan, 19 years old, and Richard, 18, immediately after they made their amazing dual confessions early yesterday morning—dual because they confessed in separate rooms of the state’s attorney’s office at the same time after they had broken down precisely the same minute—were taken over the trail of the confessions.
Late in the afternoon, after all except the recovery of the typewriter was accomplished, the two students were taken yo the Windermere hotel, near Jackson park. There final details were completed and the investigation for the day was practically closed with the finding of the dead boy’s shoes in a clump of bushes near Tessville, on the Michigan City road.
Soon after that discovery the state’s attorney ordered the two young men to bed in separate rooms in the hotel, each under the guard of detectives, and then announced the completeness of his case against them.
Brings Silk Pajamas.
Leopold’s valet arrived at the hotel last night with silk pajamas for each of the boys and a change of clothes. These were left for the boys, as they were sleeping. When Leopold and Loeb awakened after their first sleep they were asked if they were hungry.
“Yes, I am very hungry,” said Leopold. A turkey dinner was served a short time later by waiters from the hotel. The policemen on guard saw that all of the knives and forks were removed when the waiters came for the trays.
Soon after their meal the prisoners retired and were reported to be “sleeping like babies” by Sergeant Thomas O’Malley of the state’s attorney’s office, who had been left in charge of the guard.
Policemen on guard said that they were under orders “stick until relieved.” Shortly after 1 o’clock this morning the young men were awakened and taken in a police automobile to the Wabash avenue station.
Evidence Satisfies Crowe.
Mr. Crowe made a formal statement when he returned to his office.
“I have a hanging case,” he said, :”and I would be willing to submit it to a jury tomorrow. I shall present the facts to the grand jury early next week.
Then he added that the only thing needed to complete the mass of evidence was the typewriter. As he spoke members of the coast guard and several city divers were attempting to find it. The detectives were placed on guard when it became too dark last night for the search to continue.
“We have the most conclusive evidence I have ever experienced in a criminal case either as a judge or prosecutor,” Mr. Crowe continued. “We have the shoes and portions of the clothing young Franks wore when he was murdered. We found these things in every instance at the places where Loeb and Leopold led us, places where they told us they would be found.
“The case against these two young men absolutely is conclusive. I can’t see how they can get away from it. Our whole afternoon was spent in checking and organizing the evidence. I have no hesitation in saying I would be ready to go to trial tomorrow.”
- This diagram shows the route of the kidnappers and confessed killers of the Franks boy, Leopold and Loeb. The crime was done quickly. The kidnapping took place late in the afternoon. The numbers trace the rapid steps of the young criminals. As soon as it grew dark, the body was hidden, the clothes burned, the death car washed, the senior Franks telephoned to that his boy was alive, the ransom letter posted, the typewriter thrown away, and the death car was returned to its garage, so that at 10:30 Leopold could be out riding in his own car with two girls.
Only Disputed Facts.
State’s Attorney Crowe declared the only conflicting statements in the two confessions were those dealing with which of the two youths had struck young Franks over the head with the cold chisel—the blow that knocked him unconscious.
In order to clear this up the state’s attorney brought them face to face and read their statements. Each accused the other of hatching the plot and of striking the blows that rendered young Franks unconscious.
Nathan Striker of Blow?
Thus it was finally settled and both boys agreed that Richard, who was driving, had called the boy into his car. Nathan had knocked him unconscious with the chisel and stuffed the gag in his mouth.
Today the two young men will be taken out to re-enact the actual killing. They will be taken over the route from the time they drove into Ellis avenue, picked the Franks boy up and drove east in Hyde Park boulevard. Yesterday it was a visit to the points that dealt with corroboration of the plot to kill.
Today will be reenacted the actual details of the killing, the driving around with the body from 5:20 o’clock or thereabout, when the boy smothered to death, until “heavy dusk,” when they took the body to the lonely railroad embankment on which they had so often shot birds and stuffed it into the shallow waters of the culvert.
They will be asked to go over all the details as to just where the automobile was taken when Nathan struck the boy over the head, where it was when he pushed the rag gag into Robert’s mouth and then wrapped his body in the blue-black robe, the burned fragments of which were gathered up by detectives yesterday.
Where Car Was Rented.
The party, accompanied by the two boys and the detectives, left the state’s attorney’s office at 9 o’clock in the morning. They went first to the Rent-a-Car company at 1427 South Michigan avenue, where the boys obtained the murder car—the duplicate of young Leopold’s own car.
There they were identified as having rented a car twice—first on May 9—when they used it only $1.65 worth and brought it back and again on May 21, when they took it out at 11 o’clock in the morning and brought it back at 5 o’clock the next evening—May 22—the day following the murder.
After this identification the detectives took them to a bakery and delicatessen store owned by Mrs. Gertrude Barrish. As they entered young Leopold saw the lunch counter.
“Let’s eat,” he suggested; but a moment later Richard Loeb entered. Mrs. Barrish looked him over and at once identified him as a “Mr. Mason” who several times had purchased telephone slugs there and who had also been called on the telephone there several times.
As she pointed to him and told about his actions Richard turned pale. He trembled and fainted. He was taken by Sergt. Thomas O’Mally, chief of the state’s attorney’s staff, to St. Luke’s hospital to be revived.
Chicago Tribune, June 1, 1924
Last night the signed confessions of Nathan E. Leopold Jr. and Richard Loeb were sealed by State’s Attorney Crowe and placed in a safety deposit vault, there to remain until the two millionaires’ sons are brought to trial for the murder of young Robert Franks. They may be read to the grand jurors, but the contents, word for word, will not be given to the public until they become a part of the court record of murder trial without a parallel in criminal annals.
But quotations taken here and there from the statements, liberally from memory, by State’s Attorney Crowe and his assistants give some idea of the amazing business=like manner in which the youthful scholars planned and executed their crime and the equally amazing frankness with which they recounted the details of the thing “that would give one a thrill.”
Planned Since Last Fall.
“We had planned since last fall—some time in November, I think—to kidnap some rich boy, kill him and get money from his father for ransom. We planned all the details weeks ahead and thought we had everything airtight against discovery. We had several boys in mind. We didn’t know which one we would kidnap when we started out. The Franks boy just happened along and we got him.”
Leopold had posed as a Mr. Ballard, opening an account at a Peoria bank, and young Loeb as Mr. Mason, doing the same thing ayt a Morris bank—two “business men,” one of whom had given a reference for the other in obtaining the use of the rented car in which the crime was committed.
“We planned to pour hydrochloric acid on his face so his features would be unrecognizable. We bought a chisel at a store on the Grove near 43d street and wrapped it in tape. We planned to hit him over the head and stuff a gag in his mouth. If we couldn’t kill him that way we were going to use ether.
- The murderers and those who solved the crime, snapped at the state’s attorney’s office after the confessions had been made;
Left to right (seated)—Richard Loeb, Assistant State’s Attorney John Sharbaro, State’s Attorney Robert E. Crowe, Nathan E. Leopold, Assistant State’s Attorney Joseph P. Savage.
Standing—Lawrence Cuneo, secretary to Mr. Crowe; Sergt. Thomas O’Malley, Assistant State’s Attorneys Milton D. Smith and Bert A. Cronson, Sergt. William Lang, Sergt. George Moxley, Assistant State’s Attorney Robert E. McMillan, Capt. William Schoemaker, Chief of Detective Michael Hughes, Attorney Samuel A. Ettleson, Sergt. James Gourtland, Sergt. William Crot, Sergt. Frank Johnson, Sergt. John Q. Johnson.
He Was Weak.
“It was easier than we thought. He was weak. When he started to resist we hit him on the head and stuffed the gag into his mouth. We didn’t need to use the ether. He must have been dead within five minutes after we started—while we were still going on 50th street.”
{Which one hit him? That was the only point in the confession in which the old human falling of attempting “to pass the buck” cropped out. The boys each accepted half the blame, but they had to be brought together before this one was cleared up.}
“You hit him first, Dick,” Leopold said.
“No, Babe, don’t you remember? I was driving. I couldn’t have hit him first because he was in the back seat with you? I was the one that called him by name and got him into the car. You didn’t know him. Don’t you remember?”
That point was cleared up. Then the letter:
“O, we had that all written in a stamped envelope before we started out. We didn’t know who we were going to send it to. That’s why we addressed it ‘Dear Sir’ instead of ‘Dear Mr. Franks.’ We put the address on after we ditched the body and dropped it in a box across from the subpostal station in 55th street.”
And the clothing:
“We drove around with him in the car for nearly four hours until it got heavy dusk. Then we began undressing him in the car; took off everything but the underwear and stockings before we got to the culvert. We took those off there. We missed one of his stockings in the dark, but we didn’t discover that until we were burning the clothes in Dick’s basement. We weren’t worried much about that, anyway.”
The shoes were buried at a spot more than two miles south of Hammond.
“The blanket that we had wrapped around him was burned on the lake shore at 73d street. It was full of blood and we didn’t want to bring that back with us.”
With all the clothes destroyed, the only thing left was the typewriter.
“We took that over and threw it into the lagoon near the yacht harbor in Jackson Park. Babe took the keys out first and we scattered them all over. We had already thrown the ribbon into the lagoon higher up. Then we tossed in the frame.”
Loeb Financed Job.
Loeb admitted he financed the “job.”
“I still had $2,000 in my checking account and let Babe have $400 to deposit in Peoria so he could establish credit with the Rent-A-Car company. I posed as a Mr. Mason and gave a reference for him over a phone from a cigar store on Wabash avenue near 14th street. It worked slick. I beat the woman to the phone when it rang.”
Why did they do it?
“Well, it was the kind of a thing there would be a thrill in and we wanted some easy money. We made a few mistakes. I should have picked up my glasses. I didn’t know I dropped them. We thought we had the whole thing airtight, but it wasn’t. That’s all.”
Chicago Tribune June 1, 1924
By Maurine Watkins
“He couldn’t have done it. We know he’s innocent.”
That’s what they said at first, the nearest relatives and friends of young Dick Loeb, in spite of the boy’s confession to the murder of little Robert Franks.
“Loeb” as the name of a murderer falls strangely on Chicago ears. For the people of that name are written in the book of Chicago’s history as builders and leaders in philanthropy, charity and educational movements.
Albert H. Loeb, young Richard’s father, is connected closely by business and social ties with Julius Rosenwald, the Jewish philanthropist. And the boy’s uncle is Jacob M. Loeb, for mamy years a member of the board of education and its spirited president from 1916-1919.
Came from Germany.
The Loeb family came to Illinois originally from southern Germany after the unsuccessful revolution of 1848—cultured immigrants of the higher type. Down on Archer avenue, Moritz Loeb settled with his wife, Johanna, and started a little shoe store. Albert, who was born in 1868, attended the public grade and high schools, and received his A. B. from Johns Hopkins in a classical and economic major.
After leaving school, Albert Loeb taught in the public evening schools in Chicago, at the same time studying law. In 1889 he was admitted to the Illinois bar and at once entered upon practice, becoming senior member of the firm of Loeb & Adler, which partnership was continued until 1901.
But the real impetus to his career came when Ernest Magerstadt was made sheriff and appointed young Loeb, then a struggling lawyer, as his attorney.
Through his partner he met the latter’s brother-in-law, Julius Rosenwald, of Sears, Roebuck & Co., and in 1901 he gave up his law practice to become secretary of the concern. Seven years later he became vice president and treasurer, an office he now fills. His business ability is manifest in the growth of this establishment, and his personal fortune has been estimated as high as $10,000,000.
Attorney Clarence Darrow surprised the world by having Nathan Leopold Jr., left, and Richard Loeb, right, plead guilty in their trial for the murder of Robert “Bobby” Franks in 1924. Darrow hoped he could save the two youths from being hanged.
Married in 1894.
In 1894 he married Anna Bohnen, who is an active social and welfare worker and a member of the home and public welfare department of the Chicago Women’s club.
The oldest son, Allan, is in business on the Pacific coast. Ernest, the second, is manager of his father’s large farm at Charlevoix, and Tommy, a youngster of 8, is at home.
And Richard, whose future seemed the most brilliant, is in jail, a confessed murderer.
Born in Chicago, he was educated at the University of Chicago Elementary and High school, with one year at the university itself. Then he transferred to the University of Michigan, where he graduated in 1923 at the age of 18—the youngest graduate the school had ever had.
- The home of Richard Loeb, 5017 Ellis avenue.
Father Built Golf Course for Son.
When he came home that June, his father, proud of the boy’s brilliant scholastic record, built a miniature nine hole in the “back yard” at 5017 Ellis avenue. And there young Loeb “went around” with his friends, And in that same yard he played tennis—tennis with young “Bobby” Franks!
Last fall Richard reentered Chicago university to work on his master’s degree in history and there he renewed his friendship with Nathan Leopold, who was studying law in the university and also teaching ornithology.
Both were sons of wealthy parents; both had position among the Jewish “400”; both had brilliant minds.
Of the two, Leopold seems to have the more dominating personality and the training—not by practice, but by philosophical thought—that would best fit him to plan such a crime. Loeb’s education was along general lines, but Leopold had specialized at an age when specialization is dangerous.
And to this shadowy world, where he ruled as king, he admitted Loeb—for “Narcissus” must have his mirror!
By nature, too, Leopold had not only the more dominating personality, but a steadiness the younger boy lacked. Leopold took his school work seriously, and never “cut” classes even during the days following the murder; while Richard was more temperamental. He was fonder, too, of drink than Nathan. A bit more likable, a bit less sure, all around.
First to Break.
And it was he who broke first into confession—a confession which some of his friends still deny.
“It’s a damned lie!” said Richard Rubel hysterically. “I’m Dick Loeb’s best friend and he couldn’t have done it! For a ransom—————!” he looked about at the magnificent home of his millionaire friend, at the garage stocked with limousine, sedan, coupe, touring car; at the tennis court where they so often played.
“Why these boys could have had all the money in the world! Why would they do that?”
Yet “money” was one of the reasons they gave. “Money” and “adventure.”
Were they bored by a life which left them nothing to be desired, no obstacles to overcome, no goal to attain?
Needed New Thrills?
Were they jaded by the jazz-life of gin and girls, so that they needed so terrible a thing as murder to give them new thrills?
For ten days Loeb was an “ideal spectator” of his own crime. He visited the Franks’ home, talked to the father at the boy’s inquest, helped detectives locate the drug store from which the mysterious “Mr. Johnson” called. Even when held for questioning by the police he urged that every clue be followed to solve the “horrible” crime and catch the “fiendish” slayer of his little friend.
Still untouched!
At Last It’s Personal.
But at last the break came. He lost his objective viewpoint of himself and sobbed out his confession.
A confession which the family still refuse to believe—Mr. Loeb, confined to his bed, his wife weeping alone, and the two brothers hurrying from their homes.
“He is innocent,” they say, “and confessed merely to get sleep, It can be reputed when he comes to trial!”
Attorney Charles Adler has been in conference with Mr. Loeb Friday night and all day Saturday; he is associated with James Hamilton Lewis and it is possible that the ex-senator may be the chief counsel for the defense.
Mrs. Jacob Loeb, the boy’s aunt, is in San Francisco. As she called the Chronicle for “latest developments in the case,” this message flashed over the wire from State’s Attorney Robert E. Crowe:
We have a hanging case and are ready to go to the jury today!
Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb (a son of a Sears Vice President) were geniuses. Mr. Loeb graduated from the University of Michigan in 1923 at the age of 18—the youngest graduate the school had ever had. They felt that their combined high intelligence could commit the Perfect Murder. For seven months they worked out a plan. Bobby Franks, a 14 year old boy was their chosen victim. Bobby’s father was a millionaire who also happened to be a distant cousin of Mr. Loeb and lived in the Hyde Park area.
Chicago Tribune June 1, 1924
By Maureen McKernan
Young Nathan F. Leopold is not the “advanced” thinker of his stock, but he is the first, it is said, to mar the family record. There have been Leopolds in Illinois for seventy-five years, because a fiery young Samuel F. Leopold, a German Jew, was one of the leaders of that band of young insurgents and intellectuals who in 1848 made such n unsuccessful attempt to unite the German states in a democratic sort of federation.
This young Leopold was one of the band of German Jews, most of them professional men, all highly idealistic and well educated, who came to America under the leadership of Carl Schurz in the late ’40’s and early ’50’s.
Came to Michigan.
To the industrial frontier, Michigan, came Samuel Leopold and his bride, Babette. It was there that Nathan F. Leopold, father of that unfortunate young Nathan F. Leopold, today enmeshed in the tragedy of Robert Franks’ death, was born at Eagle River, July 2, 1860.
When his son was 7 years old, Samuel Leopold came to Chicago with his wife. The industrial growth of the city has been one with the growth of the family’s prosperity, Nathan F. Leopold Sr. was educated in Chicago’s schools. In 1892 he married Florence Foreman. He had started in his youth his way to a fortune to be acquired in lake transportation.
Well Known Ship Owner.
As early as 1876 Nathan E. Leopold was known in transportation circles. In 1900 he became president of Manitou Steamship company, and for years before he was a member of the shipping company of Leopold & Austrian. His sisters intermarried with some of the city’s largest fortunes. There have been no social advantages Nathan Leopold Sr. has not given his sons, Foreman, Samuel and Nathan Jr.
Florence Foreman Leopold, who died two years ago, was the mother of young Nathan Leopold. She was the daughter of Gerhart Foreman, a pioneer Chicago banker. Nathan’s aunts, his mother’s sisters, are Mrs. Arthur Schwab, Mrs. Julius Rosenberg, and Mrs. Henry Steele.
The daughters of that Samuel Leopold who fled Germany because he was too much an idealist, married as well and as wisely as did their brother.
- The home of Nathan Leopold, 4754 S. Greenwood Avenue as it appeared in 1924.
The house was built about 1886 for Charles van Kirk, one of the founders of the Chicago Board of Trade.
Related to Other Bankers.
These aunts, on his father’s side, are Mrs. Sam Steele, Mrs. P. D. Block, Mrs. Henry Greenebaum, and Mrs. Leo Strauss. The Greenebaum family started one of the first banks in Chicago, now under the management of the third generation. The Steele family has long been noted in mercantile life. Leo Strauss is an uncle of Judge Henry Horner.
An uncle of young Leopold is Oscar G. Foreman.
Leo Strauss is now in business with the elder Leopold, who is president of the Fiber Can corporation. A son of Leo Strauss is married to the daughter of L. Block, president of the Inland Steel company.
Nathan Leopold, unlike Richard Loeb, is not a fraternity man, but his club affiliations are numerous. He is a member of the Campus club, a non-fraternity organization; of the Italian club, and one of the Undergraduate club, as well as a member of Phi Beta Kappa, honorary scholastic fraternity.
Father Calls Charges Absurd.
Utter disbelief in the confessions has been expresses by the families of both boys. Nathan Leopold, aged millionaire, an invalid for several years, stood on the front porch of his home yesterday and cried and said his boy could not have done the things he is declared to have confessed.
The father said again and again, “Impossible, ridiculous, Nathan—my boy—my boy—I can’t believe it—I won’t believe it.” And he tried to smile, through his tears, at reporters who gathered about him.
Chicago Tribune, September 11, 1924
- The plea of guilty does not make special case in favor of the defendants.
By pleading guilty guilty the defendants have admitted legal responsibility for their acts.
The testimony in this case reveals a crime of singular atrocity.
In choosing imprisonment instead of death the court is moved chiefly by the consideration of the age of the defendants, boys of 18 and 19 years.
Life imprisonment may not, at the moment, strike the public imagination as forcibly as would death by hanging. . .
—Excerpts from Judge Caverly’s findings.
By Robert M. Lee
Evidence against Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, “piled mountain high” by State’s Attorney Crowe, does not send them to the gallows for the murder of Robert Franks. Instead they go to Joliet today under sentences of life imprisonment imposed yesterday by Judge Cavalry.
State’s Attorney Crowe’s comment last evening was this:
- The ??? county is and has been at best a difficult one. This decision only will tend to increse the difficulty.
Chicago lawyers commenting on the verdict, followed by Mr. Crowe’s observation with remarks which expressed extreme doubt whether murder in Cook county ever again will be punished by swift hanging.
99 Year Sentence Illegal?
Nor was escape from the noose the only subject of debate among lawyers. Discussion immediately passed to the sentences imposed by Judge Caverly. Both defendants were sentenced to life imprisonment for murder and ninety-nine years each for kidnaping for ransom.
One authority, who declined to be quoted by name, declared that the nature of the sentences is such that both murderers will be eligible for parole in twenty years, when the youths are 39 years old.
“The sentence for kidnaping is invalid,” he said.
I think a higher court would act it aside. The law expressly states that only four crimes are punishable by definite terms of imprisonment. These are treason, murder, rape, and kidnaping. This does not mean kidnaping for ransom, which is a distinct crime under the statute. This is provided for in a law of 1917, which provides ‘expressly’ that only the four crimes enumerated are subject to definite terms of imprisonment. And further that indeterminate or general sentences shall apply to all other crimes and offences enumerated.”
Explains Still Further.
It is held that “kidnaping for ransom,” therefore, is not subject to a definite sentence; that Judge Caverly might have sentenced Loeb and Leopold to life imprisonment for kidnaping for ransom, to hanging, or to an indeterminate term of from five years to life.
“As I see it,” said this lawyer, “Loeb and Leopold can, at the end of twenty years, apply for parole. They will have become eligible under the life term for murder. They can ask that the ninety-nine year term be set aside and the law sustains them.”
Thus it was the opinion in legal circles that not only had Mr. Crowe’s “mountain high evidence” been displaced by Clarence S. Darrow’s sage philosophizing to the extent of saving the lives of the young killers, but they go to prison with the prospect of emerging before they reach middle age.
When the brief and machinelike court proceedings which concluded the spectacular Franks case had come to an end there was a momentary buzz in the courtroom. The young Messrs. Leopold and Loeb exchanged practical handshakes with Mr. Darrow. Then they retired to their quarters in the county jail with their retinue of guards. Here they met Sheriff Hoffman.
Boys Want Big Meal.
“Go out,” said young Mr. Leopold, “and order us a big meal. Get us two steaks—that thick!” and he measured off a liberal three inches with thumb and forefinger.
“Yes,” said young Mr. Loeb, “and be sure they are smothered in oniomns. And bring every side dish that you can find. This may be our last good meal.”
“And,” added Mr. Leopold,”bring chocolate eclairs for dessert.”
Then they both concluded fervently; “We feel fine.”
There were plans to remove them to Joliet within an hour after the sentence.
Off to Prison Today.
This was set aside, however, when a technicality developed in the preparation of the mittimus. It is probable that the young men will be established in the Joliet penitentiary some time today.
The attorneys for the defense declined to comment fulsomely on the verdict. They preferred to regard it as simple justice. They issued lengthy statements, however, Mr. Crows was disappointed. He issued a statement, the pith of which was that he could not be resonsible for anything beyond the presentation of a well prepared case.
- POLICE LINES CHECK CROWD’S ADVANCE ON COURTROOM.
More than 5,000 persons trampled on one another’s toes in a vain effort to get int the Criminal court building to hear sentenced pronounced upon Leopold and Loeb. Special details of police, mounted traffic officers, and deputy sheriffs cooperated in controlling the throng.
Chicago Tribune, January 29, 1936
Richard Loeb, 30 years old, son of a wealthy Chicago family and one of the two men who murdered little Bobby Franks in 1924, was slashed to death yesterday with a razor wielded by one of his fellow convicts in the Stateville penitentiary near Joliet.
The man who did the ferocious cutting—there were fifty-six slashes from one inch to two feet long on the body of Loeb—is James Day, 23 years old, a Chicagoan who is serving a prison term of one to ten years for grand larceny. He advanced the claim the at only acted in self-defense after wrestling the razor from Loeb.
New Prison Scandal Brewing.
The circumstances surrounding the crime were being made the subject last night of investigation by the Will county authorities, by prison officials, and by A. L. Bowen, state director of public welfare. There were indications that the facts being brought out might again rock the state with a new scandal of lax prison administration. Among those facts were:
- 1. Loeb, sentenced to both life and ninety-nine year terms in prison for the murder of the Franks boy, had unusual privileges as a semi-trusty in Stateville.
2. Nathan Leopold, who shared in the murder of young Franks and is serving the same sentence that Loeb was, declined to give investigators any information about events preceding the fatal cutting.
3. The razor used by Day had been stolen on Monday from a prison barber shop near the cells of Leopold, Loeb and Day.
Setting of the Murder.
The scene of the fatal attack was a small shower bath on the first floor of the prison. This room is on the south side of a long corridor leading from the prison mess hall to the administration building. It is part of a suite that formerly was used as a dining hall for officers and employes. Th e entrance to it is only about 40 feet from the door leading intoi the mess hall.
Into this shower room shortly after 1 p.m. walked Loeb and Day. Loeb had a key to the suite, which is in process of reconstruction for use as the quarters of a correspondence school which the Loeb-Leopold duo (both were brilliant college students) were conducting within the prison walls.
Loeb Staggers into Corridor.
After Loeb and Day entered the place the door was locked on the inside. Some twenty minutes or a half hour later Loeb, stark naked, with blood running from his multitude of wounds, unlocked the door and staggered into the corridor.
A few moments later, Day, clad only in a pair of trousers he had hastily donned, walked into the corridor and presented the razor, a conventional straight one with a white handle, to one of the guards who were beginning to pour into the place.
About the bed of the slashed Loeb gathered Warden Joseph Ragen, Leopold, and four prison physicians.
Loeb Whispers His Hope.
“I’m all right, warden; I’ll pull through,” whispered Loeb.
The physicians, however, realized from the start that there would be no chance of saving the man’s life. They summoned other doctors from Joliet. The Loeb family in Chicago was notified and their family physicians, Dr. Lester E. Frankenthal and his son, Dr. Lester Frankenthal Jr., set out for Joliet.
A blood transfusion was decided on and a convict was found who volunteered to donate the blood. The operation hardly suffered to delay death. There were deep cuts on Loeb’s throat. His windpipe had been punctured and the jugular vein nicked. Another cut extended down the abdomen for more than a foot.
At 3:05 p.m. Loeb died. The Franekenthals and Loeb’s brother, Ernest, arrived in the hospital just as he passed away.
Warden Ragen, who had issued a first message to the effect that the wounds were not serious, let it be known that one of his two most notorious prisoners was dead. Then the investigation was launched.
What had happened in the shower room?
The only man who could tell was Day, and he was questioned by the warden and by Edward Powers, chief investigator for State’s Attorney William R. McCabe of Will county.
“Loeb brought it on himself,” declared Day. “This morning I saw Leopold and Loeb chatting together and eating in a cell. I’ve had trouble with Loeb before; we had a fight once. He said he’d like to settle our differences and I said that would be all right.
“‘Meet me in my private bathroom after dinner,’ he said. I told him that would be all right. After dinner I went to the door of the room and waited several minutes for Loeb. He came, took the key from his pocket and unlocked the door. I went in with him and he locked the door on the inside.
Tell’s Loeb’s Razor Threat.
“Wer undressed and got under the shower. Then he showed me the razor and told me if I did not do what he told me to he would kill me with it. I waited for an opportunity and kicked him hard. He fell to the floor and the razor dropped from his hand. I seized it.
“Then I cut him. He was much bigger than I am and he fought hard. But I cut him repeatedly until he fell. He dropped right in the shower and the hot water poured down on him. He seemed to pass out. But when I turned off the hot water and turned on the cold he revived and moved over to the door.
“He had stopped trying to attack me and I let him go. He unlocked the door and went out. A little while later I dragged on my trousers and went out myself.”
Day Uninjured in Fight.
Day, who is about 5 feet 6½ inches tall and weighs about 135 pounds, 40 pounds less than Loeb, had a black eye. He had not acquired this in the fight with Loeb, however, but in fisticuffs with another convict several days ago. He had not received even a scratch from the razor in yesterday’s battle.
Much of the work of the investigation centered on the question of which man carried the razor into the shower bath. If it was Loeb, it was held, the story of Day probably was true. On the other hand, it was entirely possible that Day was telling a false story.
All that the prison administration could say of the matter was that the razor had been reported missing the night before from the barber shop in cellhouse D. Leopold, Loeb, and Day all slept in cellhouse C. As a matter of routine, the 30 razors issued to convict barbers are called in every night. The guards were searching quietly for the missing one all through yesterday morning, but had made no progress in the hunt.
Warden Makes Statement.
Waqrden Ragen, hearing Day’s story, immediately made it plain that Loeb and Leopold were not cellmates. He said:
They were associated in their correspondence school work and temporarily had an office in cells where Day doubtless saw them. They may have been eating food purchased from the commissary. They are not served special meals and they eat with other inmates.
Concerning the key, the warden commented as follows:
Loeb did not have a private bath. The old suite that was used for the officers’ mess and kitchen, including the shower room and a small storeroom, was being rebuilt for the use of the correspondence school. Loeb had taken a great interest in this. I did not know that he had a key to the place.
All Three Semi-Trusties.
day, like Leopold and Loeb, according to Warden Ragen, was a semi-trusty. He worked in the prison office and was a helper at times of the college bred slayers of Bobby Franks. It was in this connection, it was assumed, the he came into close contact with Loeb and came to hate him.
State’s Attorney McCabe’s investigation, he announced, will be thorough.
“There is no grand jury sitting now in Will county,” he said, “but I will convene one if necessary. We are going to get at the bottom of the whole thing.”
Leopold refused pointblack to talk with the state’s attorney and this was regarded as puzzling since the investigators felt thst he must know something of the feud between Loeb and Day. This Leopold denied, however, in a private conversation with Warden Ragen. He insisted that he knew nothing about the slaying or the events that preceded it,
Founder of Prison School.
Since Loeb entered prison on Sept. 11, 1924, he had had many jobs. He was a laborer in the prison yard, a messenger, a landscape gardener. Finally he became registrar and director of the correspondence school, the idea for which he furnished.
His prison record was better than that of his companion, Leopold, who was punished several times for violating prison rules. The last rebuff handed Leopold was little more than a month ago, when he was displaced as chief assistant to Prof. Ferris F. Laune, Northwestern university sociologist and prison actuary with whom he had collaborated in the formulation of a system of “parole forecasting.”
The Franks boy’s killers had spent only a small portion of their time in prison together. They were in the old Joliet penitentiary for six month. Then Loeb was transferred to Stateville. Two and a half years ago Leopold was also sent to this institution.
In the earlier days of their prison career, officials held to the view that two such notorious criminals should be kept apart. Their usual good behavior and submissiveness, together with the real good they seemed to being with their correspondence school, served to change this attitude.
Record of Killer Day.
Day, the killer, is a far different sort from the slayers of the Franks boy. He has a police record dating back to 1928, when he was only 15 years old. On Aug. 27 of that year he was sent as an incorrigible to the St. Charles school for boys.
Released on Aug. 6, 1929, he was sent back six months later. He was again released on Feb. 7, 1931. He was a frequent offender of school rules and was regarded as “insubordinate.”
He did not remain long at liberty. On Oct. 3, 1931, he held up a gasoline station attendant at 955 North Crawford avenue. Arrested a few days later, he confessed the stickup, and on Feb. 9, 1932, he was sentenced to one to ten years in Pontiac reformatory, after Judge Rudolph Desort permitted the charge again t him to be reduced to grand larceny. The state board of pardons arid paroles had set February, 1940, as the time for the sentence of one lo ten years to expire, and Day would have been eligible for a parole in 1937.
Chicago Tribune, August 30, 1971
Nathan Leopold, 66, who spent 33 years in prison for the 1924 “thrill killing” of Bobby Franks and was paroled to work as a $10-a-month technician in a hospital, died yesterday in Puerto Rico.
He had been living in Puerto Rico since his parole in 1958 from Stateville Penitentiary.
Leopold had been suffering from congestive heart failure for some time, according to his widow, Gertrude. He entered Mimya Hospital, Santurce, Puerto Rico, 10 days ago after suffering the latest in a series of heart attacks.
In prison, Leopold ], whose mental capacities were measured as that of a genius, and Loeb organized the prison correspondence school. Loeb was fatally stabbed in a prison brawl, but Leopold came out of prison with a knowledge of 27 languages and was considered an authority in subjects ranging fromn ornithology to mathematics.
Used as Guinea Pig.
During World War II, he volunteered as a guinea pig for testing new antimalaria drugs. He contracted the disease and was cured by one of the drugs.
He was denied parole in 1953, 1955, and in 1956. On July 9, 1957, he wrote to the Parole Board:
- I have 33 years to reflect on it—12,000 days to carry my guilt in my soul—12,000 nights to be bitterly remorseful.
Gentlemen, I earnestly beg you show the mercy I did not show.
He left prison on March 13, 1958, under five years of parole restriction, and almost immediately left for the Castaner Hospital in Puerto Rico.
Writes a Book on Prison
Leopold’s $10-a-month salary as a technician was supplemented by royalties from his book, “Life Plus 99 Years,” which related his prison experiences.
While in Puerto Rico, he earned a master’s degree from the University of Puerto Rico and most recently as a social service investigator with the Puerto Rico Department of Health.
He is survived by his widow, whom he married in 1961. There will be no services.
ROPE (1929)
Rope is a 1929 British play by Patrick Hamilton. In formal terms, it is a well-made play with a three-act dramatic structure that adheres to the classical unities. Its action is continuous, punctuated only by the curtain fall at the end of each act. It may also be considered a thriller. Samuel French published the play in 1929.
The play is set on the first floor of a house in Mayfair, London in 1929. The story, thought to be based loosely on the Leopold and Loeb murder case, concerns two young university students, Wyndham Brandon and Charles Granillo (whom Brandon calls “Granno”), who have murdered fellow student Ronald Kentley as an expression of their supposed intellectual superiority. At the beginning of the play, they hide Kentley’s body in a chest. They proceed to host a party for his friends and family at which the chest containing his corpse is used to serve a buffet.
Rope was first presented by The Repertory Players in a Sunday night try-out production at the Strand Theatre, London, on 3 March 1929. The following month the play opened in the West End at the Ambassadors Theatre on 25 April 1929. The production ran for six months. Retitled Rope’s End, the first Broadway production opened at the John Golden Theatre (then called the Theatre Masque) on 13 September 1929. On 16 December 2009, a revival of Rope began at the Almeida Theatre in London, in a production directed by Roger Michell.
ROPE (1948)
COMPULSION (1959)
The New York Times, April 2, 1959
MOVIE REVIEW
Compulsion
By A. H. WEILER
THE team that made “Compulsion,” which came to the Rivoli Theatre yesterday, has artfully manufactured a tense, forceful and purposeful drama obviously inspired by a purposeless crime that shocked a nation wallowing in prosperity, illicit whisky and vague ideas about abnormal psychology.
In adapting Meyer Levin’s popular book, which the author termed a documentary novel stemming from his personal knowledge of the Loeb-Leopold case, they have fashioned a documentary-like fiction that moves as briskly as exciting melodrama while it dramatically probes the characters of its principals. Although a viewer may not be constantly involved emotionally in the events in “Compulsion,” the film has the rare attribute of gripping one’s attention throughout its dark proceedings.
Its artistry lies in the outstanding performances by the leads, the crisp and natural dialogue written by Richard Murphy, who appears to have had respect for his source material, and the highly efficient direction of Richard Fleischer. They are never blatant but nearly always fascinatingly professional in their deft handling of the causes and effects of an outrageous act of violence in a civilized society.
Credit them with establishing the strange nature of their principals quickly and vividly. From the opening scene, when these odd, boon companions careen down a dark road and deliberately try to run down a wandering drunk, an observer is made increasingly aware that they are intellectual giants and emotional pygmies. As scions of rich Chicago families, college graduates at 18 and academic leaders of their law-school class, they bask in superior detachment, a superiority based on Nietzschean superman concepts and a shadowy inference of homosexuality.
It is soon evident that they also kidnapped and coldly slew a rich neighbor’s young son in proof of their so-called superiority and destructive neuroticism. Rapidly, vignette on vignette reveals the extroverted Artie Straus gloating as he watches the police (whom he even “aids” with false leads) grapple with their problem, as the introverted, submissive Judd Steiner aloofly observes his revered pal in crime.
The sudden discovery of the latter’s eyeglasses, which eventually link the pair to the killing; the slick questioning by the state’s attorney and his careful accumulation of incriminating data, and the final trial, in which a truly impassioned and moving plea against capital punishment is made by a dedicated lawyer who could easily have been the late Clarence Darrow, pass in cumulatively sharp and striking review.
In his performance as the defense lawyer, Orson Welles contributes a comparatively short but the finest portrayal to this searching drama. Heavy-set, beetle-browed, gray hair descending in a drooping cowlick, he is the personification of a wise humanitarian who strongly projects, in one of the longest of film speeches, the need for mercy in the face of public demand for execution.
Bradford Dillman emerges as an actor of imposing stature as the bossy, over-ebullient and immature mama’s boy, Artie. Dean Stockwell’s delineation of the quiet, sensitive Judd is equally effective, a characterization highlighted by a searing sequence in which he breaks down as he attempts to rape a classmate. Diane Varsi is gentle and compassionate as that student who understands his desperation to prove his manhood.
Mention should be made, too, of Martin Milner’s restrained depiction of her fiancé and E. G. Marshall’s carefully underplayed stint as the state’s attorney. They, as well as other supporting players, add strength and conviction to the fine job done by the principals. In “Compulsion” they have made a dark deed into a bright and fascinating picture.
COMPULSION; screen play by Richard Murphy; based on the novel by Meyer Levin; directed by Richard Fleischer; produced by Richard D. Zanuck; a Darryl F. Zanuck Productions, Inc., presentation released by Twentieth Century-Fox.
At the Rivoli Theatre, Broadway and Forty-ninth Street.
Running time: 103 minutes.
The Cast
Jonathan Wilk . . . . . Orson Welles
Ruth Evans . . . . . Diane Varsi
Judd Steiner . . . . . Dean Stockwell
Artie Straus . . . . . Bradford Diliman
State’s Attorney Horn . . . . . E. G. Marshall
Sid Brooks . . . . . Martin Milner
Max Steiner . . . . . Richard Anderson
Lieutenant Johnson . . . . . Robert Simon
Tom Daly . . . . . Edward Binns
Judge . . . . . Voltaire Perkins
Mr. Steiner . . . . . Wilton Graff
Mrs. Straus . . . . . Louise Lorimer
Mr. Straus . . . . . Robert Burton
Padua . . . . . Gavin MacLeod
Benson . . . . . Terry Becker
Edgar Llewellyn . . . . . Russ Bender
Emma . . . . . Gerry Lock
Detective Davis . . . . . Harry Carter
Detective Brown . . . . . Simon Scott
An excellent resource covering all aspects of this infamous murder.
I have been fascinated by this case since I first saw Hitchcock’s Rope on TV almost 50 years ago as a young teenager around Bobby Frank’s age.
I’m surprised that no streaming service such as NETFLIX, PRIME or APPLE have commissioned a mini series or movie based on these events- especially on the 100th anniversary of the events.
It seems to me a perfect subject for someone like Ryan Murphy who has tackled similar infamous cases- most recently the Menendez Brothers case of the late 80s.