This post is about a murder that occurred in the 1920s. This case has captivated me for years. The haunting photo of the victim, the brash attitude of the murderers, and how the murders were caught, hold my attention.
Two men by the names of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb wanted to premeditate and conduct the perfect murder, in their minds the perfect murder meant they could kill someone and never get caught.
Leopold and Loeb were lovers who met in 1920. They both came from wealthy Jewish families. Leopold enrolled in the University of Chicago at the age of only 15. He was an amateur ornithologist (the study of birds) who had published two papers, in an ornithological journal. Leopold's father made the family fortune in the shipping business. Loeb graduated from high school at the age of 14 and enrolled in the University of Chicago that same year. Loeb's father was the vice president of Sears, Roebuck & Company.
Leopold was attracted to Loeb's good looks and charm. Loeb however, had destructive behaviors. He craved the thrill of committing crimes. He had committed several burglaries, and acts of vandalism, including starting several fires.
Loeb started talking to Leopold about committing a much bigger crime. A crime that would be in all the newspaper's headlines. A crime that wouldn't be easily forgotten. A crime like murder, the murder of a child. It needed to be perfect though, they would have to figure out a way not to get caught. It was going to be the "perfect crime". They spent months planning the murder.
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| Bobby Franks | Wikimedia Commons |
On May 21, 1924, Loeb and Leopold drove a rented car under an assumed name, around the streets of Chicago looking for a victim. They spotted Bobby walking down Ellis Ave in South Side Chicago. He was on his way home from a baseball game.
So with Leopold driving, Loeb opened the back door and called out to Bobby, offering Bobby a ride home. Bobby at first turned him down. It was only a short distance to Bobby's house that he could easily walk. Loeb insisted. Loeb said he wanted to talk to Bobby about a tennis racket that Loeb wanted to buy for his brother. Bobby had no real reason to say no, this wasn't a stranger asking him to get into the car. Loeb was family. Loeb was Bobby's cousin and neighbor. Bobby in fact often played Tennis at Loeb's house. So Bobbie got in the car but he never made it home.
Loeb struck Bobby with a chisel to the head. Bobby was sitting in front of Loeb in the passenger seat next to Leopold who was driving. Loeb stabbed Bobby several times in the head. He covered Bobby's mouth with his other hand to prevent him from yelling out. I imagine Bobby suddenly terrified and overcome with shock, his brain trying to process the oncoming pain. Loeb then pulled Bobby into the back seat, where he gagged Bobby, stuffing a sock in Bobby's mouth, and putting tape over his mouth. Loeb continued to stab Bobby with the chisel as blood, covered anything that was near. Bobby died in the back seat of a rented car, killed abruptly by the hands of his cousin Richard Loeb.
Loeb and Leopold then removed and discarded Bobby's clothes, poured hydrochloric acid on Bobby's face and genitals, and dumped the body in a culvert next to railroad tracks in Hammond, Indiana. However, Unknown to Leopold, he had just broken an unwritten rule of murder, never leave evidence behind. Leopold had just mistaking dropped his eyeglasses on the ground.
When the pair returned to Chicago, they mailed a ransom note to Bobby's parents and Leopold called the Franks and told Mrs. Franks his name was George Johnson and said he had kidnapped Bobby.
Mrs. Franks was at home, located at 5052 S. Ellis, in Chicago. She was naturally worried because Bobby had not come home from the game yet. The phone rang, when she answered this is what she heard:
“This is Mr. Johnson. Of course, you know by this time that your boy has been kidnapped. We have him and you need not worry; he is safe. But don’t try to trace this call or to find me. We must have money. We will let you know tomorrow what we want. We are kidnappers and we mean business. If you refuse us what we want or try to report us to the police we will kill the boy. Good-bye.”
Loeb and Leopold burned their blood-stained clothing and cleaned the blood from the rented car.
The mailed ransom note arrived at Frank's house the following morning. Leopold called again and gave Mrs. Franks instructions for delivering the ransom. However, the ransom was never delivered because a man named Tony Minke found Bobby's lifeless body that same day.
Now that the Franks and the police knew Bobby had been murdered Loeb and Leopold destroyed the typewriter they used to write the ransom note, and the car robe they used to move Bobby's body.
A car robe or lap robe was used during the time of buggies and carriages. They were also used in the early days of the invention of the automobile. It was a blanket that was used by passengers to keep warm in an unheated car.
An investigation was started by the Chicago Police, and a reward was offered for any information. Leopold had a hard time keeping quiet and staying under the radar. He spoke to anyone that would listen, giving his theories on who killed Bobby. He even told a detective, "If I were to murder anybody, it would be just such a cocky little son of a bitch as Bobby Franks."
A detective at the scene found Leopold's glasses. The detective asked the Franks if Bobby wore glasses, they replied no. He had perfect vision. The glasses were discovered to have a rare hinged mechanism. The glasses were traced to Almer, Coe & Company. Only three had been sold in the Chicago area. One of those customers was Nathan Leopold.
Loeb and Leopold were brought in for questioning on May 29. They stated they were with two women, Edna and May, in Leopold's car, and had dropped off their dates later that night without ever learning their last names. However, Leopold's chauffeur told the police he had been doing repairs on Leopold's same car that night. The chauffeur's wife backed up her husband's story stating she saw the car parked in the garage that night of Bobby's murder. Loeb and Leopold's "perfect murder" was starting to become faulty.
The pair eventually confessed to the murder but Loeb claimed he was driving, and Leopold struck the killing blow to Franks, while Leopold insisted that Loeb was the actual murder, while Leopold was the driver of the rented car.
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| Clarence Darrow | Wikimedia Commons |
Darrow was known to be against the death penalty. Darrow wanted his clients to plead guilty. He wanted to avoid a trial that he felt could lead to the death penalty.
Darrow argued during the trial:
"Has the court any right to consider anything but these two boys? The State says that your Honor has a right to consider the welfare of the community, as you have. If the welfare of the community would be benefited by taking these lives, well and good. I think it would work evil that no one could measure. Has your Honor a right to consider the families of these defendants? I have been sorry, and I am sorry for the bereavement of Mr. and Mrs. Franks, for those broken ties that cannot be healed. All I can hope and wish is that some good may come from it all. But as compared with the families of Leopold and Loeb, the Franks are to be envied—and everyone knows it.
I do not know how much salvage there is in these two boys. I hate to say it in their presence, but what is there to look forward to? I do not know but what your Honor would be merciful to them, but not merciful to civilization, and not merciful if you tied a rope around their necks and let them die; merciful to them, but not merciful to civilization, and not merciful to those who would be left behind. To spend the balance of their days in prison is mighty little to look forward to if anything. Is it anything? They may have the hope that as the years roll around they might be released. I do not know. I do not know.
I will be honest with this court as I have tried to be from the beginning. I know that these boys are not fit to be at large. I believe they will not be until they pass through the next stage of life, at forty-five or fifty. Whether they will then, I cannot tell. I am sure of this; that I will not be here to help them. So far as I am concerned, it is over."
Leopold (top) and Loeb (bottom) | Wikimedia Commons
Leopold and Loeb were sentenced to life plus 99 years each. They would avoid the death penalty.
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| Bobby's classmates carry his coffin |
Bobby's funeral was held on May 26, 1924, in the family home. The Frank's buried their boy in the family mausoleum in Chicago's Rose Hill Cemetery.
Written upon the crypt was: "Life is because God is, infinite, indestructible, and eternal. Bobby E. Franks Sept 19, 1909- May 22, 1924"
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| Bobby's mother, and his uncle and sister at the internment of Bobby at Rosehill Cemetery |
Loeb died in prison in 1936. He was attacked by a fellow inmate, James Day in the shower with a straight razor. Day claimed that Loeb tried to sexually assault him but there was no evidence to support the claim. Reminiscent to the way Bobby had died, 10 years earlier, Loeb was stabbed and his throat was slashed.
Leopold was released on parole in 1958 for good behavior. He later formed the Leopold foundation to help disturbed, retarded, and delinquent youth. The foundation was later voided by Illinois claiming it violated the terms of his parole.
Leopold moved to Puerto Rico and married. He earned a master's degree at the University of Puerto Rico and taught classes. He also published two books, one while in prison, Life Plus 99 Years, and another in 1963: The Checklist of Birds of Puerto Rico and The Virgin Islands.
He died in 1977 from complications to diabetes and donated his corneas to science.
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| Bobby's mother, Flora, and his brother Jack at the memorial dedication |
Shortly after the verdict, Jacob Franks moved his family out of their home on Ellis Ave and into a suite at the Drake Hotel on Michigan Ave. Jacob Franks died in 1928. He left $100,000 for the creation of a memorial for Bobby. A gymnasium was dedicated on December 7, 1930, with Bobby's mother, Flora, and his older brother Jack, in attendance.
Rumors have surfaced over the years that the ghost of a boy with dark hair and a baseball cap was seen around Bobby's crypt.
Citations:
Leopold and Loeb's Criminal Minds
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/leopold-and-loebs-criminal-minds-996498/
The Other Frank's Son, Jack M. Franks
http://undereverystone.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-other-franks-son-jack-m-franks.html
Vintage Threads- Automobile Lap Robes
http://fountainheadauto.blogspot.com/2014/11/vintage-threads-automobile-lap-robes.html
Wikipedia- Leopold and Loeb
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_and_Loeb
Franks Family
https://loebandleopold.wordpress.com/franks/
Find A Grave- Franks' Mausoleum
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/4578
The Chicago Crime Scene Project Blog
http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/10/bobby-franks-home.html
Evil Summer, Babe Leopold, Dickie Loeb, and the Kidnap-Murder of Bobby Franks
Book by John Theodore
https://www.amazon.com/Evil-Summer-Leopold-Kidnap-Murder-Criminology/dp/0809327775
