Fourteen-year-old Bobby Franks was walking home from school on the afternoon of May 21, 1924. Bobby lived in an affluent, predominately Jewish neighborhood in Chicago, and was a student at the prestigious Harvard School for Boys, a private preparatory school close to Bobby’s home. About two blocks from his home,^[1]Loeb-Leopold Murder of Franks in Chicago May 21 1924, 15 J. Am. Inst. Crim. L. & Criminology 347 (1924). This article is found in HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library. a car pulled up alongside Bobby, its two occupants asking the boy if he wanted a ride home. Bobby recognized the man sitting in the car’s backseat as Richard Loeb, his 18-year-old distant cousin and neighbor. Being so close to home, Bobby declined a ride, but Loeb persisted, asking Bobby to come closer to the car; he wanted Bobby to meet his friend, the car’s driver, 19-year-old Nathan Leopold, and to see a tennis racket Loeb had. Bobby agreed, climbed into the car’s front passenger seat, and drove away with Leopold and Loeb.

Bobby Franks never arrived home for dinner that night. His father Jacob searched the neighborhood with the aid of friends, but found no trace of his missing son. Worried, Jacob Franks called his attorney and then notified the police^[2]Maureen McKernan. Amazing Crime and Trial of Leopold and Loeb (1924). This book is found in HeinOnline’s World Trials Library. about his son’s disappearance. Around 10pm that night, the Franks household received a phone call^[3]Frederick Arthur Mackenzie. World-Famous Crimes (1927). This book is found in HeinOnline’s World Trials Library. from a man identifying himself as “George Johnson.” The man explained to the worried parents that Bobby Franks had been kidnapped.

The next morning, a typed ransom note^[4]Frederick Arthur Mackenzie. World-Famous Crimes (1927). This book is found in HeinOnline’s World Trials Library. arrived at the Franks home. The note assured the Frankses that Bobby was alive and unharmed, and that he would be freed upon payment of a $10,000 ransom (approximately $189,000 in 2025 dollars). Bobby’s father was a wealthy businessman and quickly procured the money as requested, and anxiously paced about his home, waiting to receive further instructions from his son’s kidnapper.

Finally, the phone rang.^[5]Frederick Arthur Mackenzie. World-Famous Crimes (1927). This book is found in HeinOnline’s World Trials Library. It was George Johnson, and he instructed Jacob Franks to get into a waiting cab and go to a specific drug store to deliver the ransom. But George Johnson spoke quickly and hung up before Bobby’s father could verify the address. Unsure of where to go, Franks hesitated. Then the phone rang again. This time, it was the Chicago police. The body of a teenage boy had been found that morning in a culvert far outside the city, and they needed Jacob Franks to identify the body.

The Privileged Lives of Leopold and Loeb

By all accounts, Nathan Leopold was a genius. Born into a wealthy German-Jewish family,^[6]Frederick Arthur Mackenzie. World-Famous Crimes (1927). This book is found in HeinOnline’s World Trials Library. Leopold’s baby book recorded that he spoke his first words at four months.^[7]15 J. Am. Inst. Crim. L. & Criminology 360 (1924). This article is found in HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library. He was educated at home by a governess before studying at the Harvard School for Boys, the same school Bobby Franks attended. Leopold was eligible for college at age 15,^[8]Frederick Arthur Mackenzie. World-Famous Crimes (1927). This book is found in HeinOnline’s World Trials Library. studied first at the University of Chicago, then transferred to the University of Michigan, before returning to the University of Chicago to earn his bachelor’s degree. He was about to start classes at Harvard Law School^[9]Jasmine V. Hernandez & Mohammad Barakat, Clarence Darrow and the Leopold and Loeb Case: Legal Ethics in Action, 39 CBA Rec. 16 (January/February 2025). This article is found in HeinOnline’s Bar Journals … Continue reading and was considered by his professors at the University of Chicago as “a marvel.”^[10]Frederick Arthur Mackenzie. World-Famous Crimes (1927). This book is found in HeinOnline’s World Trials Library. A passionate student of languages and an avid bird-watcher, Leopold was sensitive about his physical appearance, withdrawn, with a philosophical outlook on life; later, examining psychiatrists would describe him as having an “abnormal lack of ordinary ethical motivations.”^[11]15 J. Am. Inst. Crim. L. & Criminology 360 (1924). This article is found in HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library.

Like Leopold, Richard Loeb was also born into a wealthy Jewish family—his father was the vice president of Sears, Roebuck and Co.^[12]Frederick Arthur Mackenzie. World-Famous Crimes (1927). This book is found in HeinOnline’s World Trials Library.—and he was also exceptionally intelligent. He was the youngest graduate of the University of Michigan.^[13]Jasmine V. Hernandez & Mohammad Barakat, Clarence Darrow and the Leopold and Loeb Case: Legal Ethics in Action, 39 CBA Rec. 16 (January/February 2025). This article is found in HeinOnline’s Bar Journals … Continue reading Although Richard Loeb wanted for nothing in terms of money and status, as a child he started stealing and shoplifting.^[14]Frederick Arthur Mackenzie. World-Famous Crimes (1927). This book is found in HeinOnline’s World Trials Library. He had a fondness for detective stories^[15]15 J. Am. Inst. Crim. L. & Criminology 360 (1924). This article is found in HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library. and, like Leopold, started drinking heavily as a young teenager. Unlike Leopold, Loeb was considered handsome, athletic, and a life-of-the-party type.

Having grown up in the same neighborhood and social circle, Leopold and Loeb knew each other casually all their lives, but their friendship truly formed while they both attended the University of Chicago in 1921. They eventually began a sexual relationship, and much was made of Leopold and Loeb’s sexual orientations by psychiatrists at their trial. Loeb pulled Leopold into petty crime, but the two soon began to dream of combining and applying their superior intellect to crimes more serious than car theft and cheating at cards.^[16]Frederick Arthur Mackenzie. World-Famous Crimes (1927). This book is found in HeinOnline’s World Trials Library. Surely two bright young men such as themselves could outsmart the police. Were they not fashioned in the mold of the Nietzschean Übermensch^[17]Edward J. Larson, An American Tragedy: Retelling the Leopold-Loeb Story in Popular Culture, 50 Am. J. Legal Hist. 119 (April 2008-2010). This article is found in HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library. or superman, cold, calculating, and above the societal constraints that shackled “normal” men? They started to meticulously plan committing the perfect crime that would demonstrate their superiority above the rest of humankind, and Bobby Franks was chosen as their random, unfortunate victim.

Leopold and Loeb’s “Perfect Crime” Unravels

Bobby Franks had been savagely beaten to death, stripped naked, and burned with hydrochloric acid in a clumsy attempt to make him unidentifiable. The coroner determined he had been dead since the previous day; clearly, the ransom and promise of his safe return were a ruse. At the crime scene, police found a pair of horn-rimmed prescription eyeglasses,^[18]Frederick Arthur Mackenzie. World-Famous Crimes (1927). This book is found in HeinOnline’s World Trials Library. but Bobby Franks did not wear glasses.^[19]Jasmine V. Hernandez & Mohammad Barakat, Clarence Darrow and the Leopold and Loeb Case: Legal Ethics in Action, 39 CBA Rec. 16 (January/February 2025). This article is found in HeinOnline’s Bar Journals … Continue reading Police quickly learned that these glasses had been specially made for their wearer; only three people^[20]Frederick Arthur Mackenzie. World-Famous Crimes (1927). This book is found in HeinOnline’s World Trials Library. in the Chicago area had been made a similar pair of glasses. One of them was Nathan Leopold.

Leopold was questioned by Cook County District Attorney Robert Crowe—not at police headquarters like a common criminal, but at the fashionable La Salle Hotel. Leopold provided an alibi for the night of the murder, saying he was driving around in the family car and drinking^[21]Maureen McKernan. Amazing Crime and Trial of Leopold and Loeb (1924). This book is found in HeinOnline’s World Trials Library. with Loeb. Loeb too was questioned and both men supported each other’s alibis. But there was a problem with their story: the family chauffer categorically denied^[22]Francis X. (Francis Xavier) Busch. Prisoners at the Bar – An Account of the Trials of the William Haywood Case, the Sacco-Vanzetti Case, the Loeb-Leopold Case, the Bruno Hauptmann Case (1952). This book is found in HeinOnline’s … Continue reading the family car was out of the garage on the night of the murder. Still suspicious as to how Leopold’s glasses came to be at the crime scene, the two men were held in custody and questioned further.

The break came from a former classmate of Leopold’s who was now working as a reporter. He informed the police that, when Leopold was a student at the University of Chicago, he owned an Underwood typewriter,^[23]Maureen McKernan. Amazing Crime and Trial of Leopold and Loeb (1924). This book is found in HeinOnline’s World Trials Library. and it had been determined that the ransom note had been typed on an Underwood typewriter. When the reporter showed police class notes that had been typed on Leopold’s typewriter, they concluded the same typewriter had been used to write the ransom note.

Under relentless questioning by the police, Richard Loeb finally confessed^[24]Francis X. (Francis Xavier) Busch. Prisoners at the Bar – An Account of the Trials of the William Haywood Case, the Sacco-Vanzetti Case, the Loeb-Leopold Case, the Bruno Hauptmann Case (1952). This book is found in HeinOnline’s … Continue reading the full details of the crime, its planning, and execution, saying Leopold was the one who beat Bobby Franks to death with a chisel. When police informed Nathan Leopold of Loeb’s confession, he too confessed but with one very important difference: Loeb was the one who killed Bobby. They both fully cooperated,^[25]Maureen McKernan. Amazing Crime and Trial of Leopold and Loeb (1924). This book is found in HeinOnline’s World Trials Library. showing police where they had discarded the Underwood typewriter in Jackson Park, the drug store from which they had called the Franks house, where they had hidden Bobby Franks’ body and discarded his clothing, and where they had rented the car they had used to commit the crime. Throughout the whole narration, the police had the impression that Leopold and Loeb “basked in the undivided attention they received.”^[26]Maureen McKernan. Amazing Crime and Trial of Leopold and Loeb (1924). This book is found in HeinOnline’s World Trials Library.

Clarence Darrow and Leopold and Loeb

Bobby Franks’ murder quickly became the most dominant news story in America, in part because of the crime’s brutality but largely because two wealthy, privileged, intelligent men from good families had committed it, apparently for no reason other than to prove that they could. Journalists filed twice as many requests for press passes as there were seats in the courtroom,^[27]Maureen McKernan. Amazing Crime and Trial of Leopold and Loeb (1924). This book is found in HeinOnline’s World Trials Library. desperate to witness what was sure to be a sensational sentencing hearing. When the sentencing hearing began on July 21, some 3,000 people^[28]Maureen McKernan. Amazing Crime and Trial of Leopold and Loeb (1924). This book is found in HeinOnline’s World Trials Library. lined up on the sidewalk daily in hopes of securing a pass inside the courtroom.

Leopold and Loeb entered guilty pleas, and their families hired renowned Chicago attorney Clarence Darrow to jointly defend them. Darrow was one of the most famous and controversial lawyers in America for his work defending labor leaders; we previously explored Darrow’s labor career and his role in another crime of the century, the bombing of the Los Angeles Times building, in another HeinOnline blog post, as well as Darrow’s immortal post-Leopold and Loeb case, the Scopes Monkey trial, in another HeinOnline blog post.

Darrow was especially crucial for Leopold and Loeb’s defense because he was a staunch opponent of the death penalty. At the time, in the state of Illinois kidnapping and murder each carried a maximum sentence of death.^[29]Maureen McKernan. Amazing Crime and Trial of Leopold and Loeb (1924). This book is found in HeinOnline’s World Trials Library. Since Leopold and Loeb had pled guilty, they would not receive a full trial before a jury, only a sentencing hearing before a judge. It was up to Darrow to convince a judge not to hang his clients.

Over the next month, some 100 persons testified^[30]Maureen McKernan. Amazing Crime and Trial of Leopold and Loeb (1924). This book is found in HeinOnline’s World Trials Library. on Leopold and Loeb’s life, character, and mental state to try and answer two unanswerable questions: what was their state of mind at the time the crime was committed, and what motivated two apparently upstanding citizens to commit what the District Attorney called “the most atrocious, cruel, brutal, cowardly, dastardly murder in the history of American jurisprudence”?^[31]Edward J. Larson, An American Tragedy: Retelling the Leopold-Loeb Story in Popular Culture, 50 Am. J. Legal Hist. 119 (April 2008-2010). This article is found in HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library. Psychiatrists for the prosecution and defense examined both men’s lives in minute detail, described their “peculiar relationship,”^[32]15 J. Am. Inst. Crim. L. & Criminology 360 (1924). This article is found in HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library. their fantasies, and, in Leopold’s case, childhood sexual abuse^[33]Francis X. (Francis Xavier) Busch. Prisoners at the Bar – An Account of the Trials of the William Haywood Case, the Sacco-Vanzetti Case, the Loeb-Leopold Case, the Bruno Hauptmann Case (1952). This book is found in HeinOnline’s … Continue reading by a governess. The complete trial transcript^[34]Illinois. Criminal Court. Cook County. Trial Transcript Leopold and Loeb (1924). This set is found in HeinOnline’s World Trials Library. spans seven volumes. Photographers captured the obvious anguish of Bobby Franks’ parents alongside Leopold and Loeb’s apparent indifference to the judicial proceedings; “scarcely a person in court but felt that these two smiling, sleek, well-dressed youths were in a way inhuman and infinitely more dangerous to their race than would be a pair of rattlesnakes.”^[35]Frederick Arthur Mackenzie. World-Famous Crimes (1927). This book is found in HeinOnline’s World Trials Library.

Clarence Darrow’s closing argument took 12 hours to deliver.^[36]Francis X. (Francis Xavier) Busch. Prisoners at the Bar – An Account of the Trials of the William Haywood Case, the Sacco-Vanzetti Case, the Loeb-Leopold Case, the Bruno Hauptmann Case (1952). This book is found in HeinOnline’s World … Continue reading Throughout, he described his 19 and 20 year old clients as “boys” and referred to them not as Nathan and Richard, but by their nicknames, Babe and Dickie. Darrow opened his argument by describing the media circus that had pitched its tent around the case (“newspapers all over this country have been giving it space such as they have almost never before given to any case”^[37]Maureen McKernan. Amazing Crime and Trial of Leopold and Loeb (1924). This book is found in HeinOnline’s World Trials Library.) before systematically refuting the state’s argument that his clients were cold-blooded, calculating, devious men. They were, in Darrow’s interpretation, “impressionable, visionary, dreamy”^[38]Maureen McKernan. Amazing Crime and Trial of Leopold and Loeb (1924). This book is found in HeinOnline’s World Trials Library. boys, lost in a world that they had not been prepared to emotionally navigate.^[39]Maureen McKernan. Amazing Crime and Trial of Leopold and Loeb (1924). This book is found in HeinOnline’s World Trials Library.

Darrow’s closing argument, however, more than attempting to change the narrative around how his clients were perceived by the press and the court, was an impassioned argument against the death penalty in all cases, regardless of the crime. Darrow recounted for the court the historical rarity^[40]Maureen McKernan. Amazing Crime and Trial of Leopold and Loeb (1924). This book is found in HeinOnline’s World Trials Library. of defendants in Cook County who had pled guilty being sentenced to death. “We are accustomed to blood, Your Honor,” Darrow said, “and it has left stains upon every human heart and upon every human mind, and has almost stifled the feelings of pity and charity that have their natural home in the human breast.”^[41]Maureen McKernan. Amazing Crime and Trial of Leopold and Loeb (1924). This book is found in HeinOnline’s World Trials Library.

Verdict and Aftermath

Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were not sentenced to die at the end of the hangman’s rope. They were each sentenced to life in prison for murder plus 99 years for kidnapping.^[42]Maureen McKernan. Amazing Crime and Trial of Leopold and Loeb (1924). This book is found in HeinOnline’s World Trials Library. In his sentencing statement, Judge Calvert said, “Life imprisonment, at the moment, strikes the public imagination as forcibly as would death by hanging, but to the offenders, particularly of the type they are, the prolonged suffering of years of confinement may well be the severest form of retribution and expiation.”^[43]Maureen McKernan. Amazing Crime and Trial of Leopold and Loeb (1924). This book is found in HeinOnline’s World Trials Library.

Leopold and Loeb both served their sentence at Joliet Prison. Richard Loeb was killed^[44]Francis X. (Francis Xavier) Busch. Prisoners at the Bar – An Account of the Trials of the William Haywood Case, the Sacco-Vanzetti Case, the Loeb-Leopold Case, the Bruno Hauptmann Case (1952). This book is found in HeinOnline’s World … Continue reading by a fellow inmate at Joliet in 1936. Nathan Leopold had his sentence for kidnapping commuted^[45]Francis X. (Francis Xavier) Busch. Prisoners at the Bar – An Account of the Trials of the William Haywood Case, the Sacco-Vanzetti Case, the Loeb-Leopold Case, the Bruno Hauptmann Case (1952). This book is found in HeinOnline’s World … Continue reading in 1949, and he was paroled in 1958. After his release, Leopold relocated to Puerto Rico, where he earned a master’s degree from the University of Puerto Rico and continued his ornithology studies.

In 1966, Leopold published an article in the Nebraska Law Review titled “What Is Wrong with the Prison System?”^[46]Nathan Leopold, What is Wrong with the Prison System, 45 Neb. L. Rev. 33 (January 1966). This article is found in HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library. in which he argued for a criminal justice system that focused more on offender rehabilitation than retribution. “No one who intends to commit a crime believes that he will be caught,”^[47]Nathan Leopold, What is Wrong with the Prison System, 45 Neb. L. Rev. 33 (January 1966). This article is found in HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library. Leopold wrote in his article. “If he did, he would not commit the crime. But he always feels sure that he, at least, and this time, at least, will not be caught. With this conviction, punishment loses its significance as a deterrent.”

Memory, Crime, and Capital Punishment

Leopold and Loeb’s crime and trial provided the inspiration for two popular movies that present thinly-veiled fictionalized versions of the events: Alfred Hitchcock’s 1949 Rope, starring James Stewart and based on the 1929 play of the same name, and the 1959 film Compulsion, starring Orson Welles as the Darrow-like defense attorney.

Clarence Darrow’s successful defense of Leopold and Loeb cemented his reputation as the most famous lawyer in America. His eloquent repudiation of the death penalty in his closing argument was republished in countless books and newspapers, and is still studied today.

Interested in learning more about the complex legal, ethical, and moral issues surrounding the death penalty? HeinOnline’s History of Capital Punishment is a unique resource that documents the history and debates surrounding the ultimate judicial punishment. This collection is built around the personal collection of books, articles, newspapers, post cards, and other ephemera on the subject compiled by Michigan lawyer Eugene G. Wanger, who authored Michigan’s state constitutional ban on the death penalty in 1961. Supplemented by additional content, the History of Capital Punishment collection is an essential resource for anyone researching the topic.