WEBVTT - The Crime of the Century 0:00:01.040 --> 0:00:06.160 You're listening to History on Trial, a production of iHeart Podcasts. 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:16.239 Listener Discretion advised. Jacob and Flora Franks didn't start to 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:21.000 worry until Bobby missed dinner. Their youngest son was a 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:24.400 responsible boy who usually called home if he was going 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:29.240 to be late. May twenty first, nineteen twenty four, had 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:32.240 been a beautiful spring day, the kind of day where 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:35.360 you can lose track of time, especially if you're a 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:39.720 fourteen year old boy playing baseball with your friends. That's 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:43.440 what the Franks figured Bobby was doing. He and his 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:47.440 classmates liked to get a game going after school. Bobby 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:50.360 was small for his age, but he was a sports 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:53.320 fanatic and always found a way to join in. He 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:56.880 would be home soon, the Franks thought, But when the 0:00:56.920 --> 0:01:00.720 dinner plates were cleared with still no sign of Bobby, 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:05.959 the couple became concerned. They called around to Bobby's friends, 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:09.280 who confirmed that, yes, they had played baseball after school. 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:13.759 Bobby had served as umpire, but the game had ended 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:19.000 at five hours earlier. After Bobby had headed towards home, 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:23.080 a journey of only a few blocks. No one had 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:29.000 seen him since. Increasingly fearful, Jacob Franks enlisted a friend 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:32.319 to help him search for Bobby. The men went to 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:34.880 check if the boy had somehow gotten locked in his 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:41.200 school building. Flora Franks stayed home. At about ten thirty PM, 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:45.839 as Flora waited for news, the phone rang. The caller 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:49.240 asked for her husband. When Flora said he was not 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:53.400 at home, but that she was missus Franks, the caller said, 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:57.920 your son has been kidnapped. He is all right. Further 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:03.000 news in the morning. Who is it, Flora asked, horrified. 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:08.480 George Johnson, the caller said, and hung up. When Jacob 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:12.760 Franks got back, he was shocked by Flora's news. After 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:15.840 several tense hours, he decided to report the kidnapping to 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:19.760 the police, who agreed to investigate the matter quietly so 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:23.240 as not to alert the kidnappers. At nine am the 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:26.640 next day, the ransom note arrived in the morning mail. 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:31.200 Dear sir, it began, as you no doubt know by 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:34.640 this time your son has been kidnapped. Allow us to 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:38.120 assure you that he is at present, well and safe. 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:43.799 It continued on in this same formal, stilted language, commanding 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:47.680 Jacob Franks to withdraw ten thousand dollars and then await 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:52.080 further instructions. It warned Jacob that if he disobeyed the 0:02:52.080 --> 0:02:56.480 instructions in any way, Bobby's death will be the penalty. 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:00.600 Jacob hurried to the bank to make the withdrawal, then 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:04.359 came home to wait by the telephone. The kidnappers did 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:09.679 not call until after three pm. Jacob Franks answered the phone, 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:13.160 and a voice on the other end, once again calling himself, 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:17.400 George Johnson, described how Jacob would take a taxi to 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:22.720 a drug store where he would receive further directions. Jacob listened, 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:28.640 but inside his heart was breaking because only minutes before 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:34.120 he had received another phone call, one that changed everything. 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:40.440 From it, he had learned that Bobby's body had been 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:46.080 found earlier that morning. The body of a boy was 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:49.560 found in a concrete culvert in the nature preserve surrounding 0:03:49.640 --> 0:03:53.920 Wolf Lake, some twenty miles southeast of the Franks house 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:57.440 in Chicago. A pair of glasses had been found near 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:00.360 the body, and the officer who arrived at the scene 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:03.560 assumed they were the boys and placed them on his face. 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:07.640 The Frank's family heard about the discovery but believed the 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:12.839 boy couldn't be Bobby. Bobby didn't wear glasses, but as 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:15.040 the day wore on. They thought it would be good 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:18.480 to know for sure, and so Bobby's uncle traveled to 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:22.320 view the body. When the uncle walked in, he removed 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:26.800 the glasses from the boy's still cold face and gazed 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:30.520 down at it. Then he looked at the boy's teeth. 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:34.799 Bobby had marks on his teeth from a childhood illness, 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:38.880 so did this boy. Bobby's uncle did not have to 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:43.279 look any longer. He knew this was his nephew. He 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:46.240 called home and told the Franks the news only minutes 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:49.520 before the kidnapper called to give Jacob Franks his instructions. 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:53.159 So Jacob had had to sit at the phone and 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:56.160 listen as the kidnapper spoke of his son as if 0:04:56.200 --> 0:05:00.719 he was still alive. Jacob's plan now was to follow 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:03.760 the ransom instructions and hope they led to the killer. 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:07.400 But in his shock, Jacob did not retain the name 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:09.400 of the drug store he was supposed to go to. 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:14.760 The trail went cold for more than a week. The 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:18.159 appalled public wondered who could have committed such a crime. 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:22.960 Bobby had been beaten and suffocated, and then had acid 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:26.560 poured on his face after death. It was a senseless 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:32.159 awful killing. People could only speculate as to what kind 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:36.480 of monster the killer must be. But when the police 0:05:36.520 --> 0:05:40.480 announced that they had obtained confessions for the crime, the 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:44.080 culprits were not at all what the public had expected. 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:47.960 The killers, for there were two of them, were the 0:05:48.040 --> 0:05:56.040 clean cut, brilliant teenage scions of prominent families. Their names 0:05:56.839 --> 0:06:03.800 were Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb. Leopold and Loebe's names 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:08.800 are infamous. The killing of Bobby Franks was called the 0:06:08.920 --> 0:06:13.039 crime of the century. As the twisted tale of the 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:16.720 crime unfolded, people struggled to make sense of how the 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:20.640 two young men could do what they had done. Everyone 0:06:20.720 --> 0:06:24.520 awaited the trial certain that the pair would be sentenced 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:28.640 to death, But the killer's family had hired one of 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:33.800 the most famous attorneys in American history, Clarence Darrow, and 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:37.240 what happened in the courtroom in that hot summer of 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:41.039 nineteen twenty four has to be heard to be believed, 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:45.279 because the Leopold and Loeb trial, one of the most 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:49.360 well known trials of all time, was not really a 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:55.120 trial at all. Welcome to History on Trial. I'm your 0:06:55.120 --> 0:07:01.160 host Mira Hayward. This week, Illinois v. Naan Leopold and 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:09.039 Richard Loeb. Leopold and Lobes lives ran like trains on 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:15.520 parallel tracks until fatefully their paths converged. Both boys were 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:21.680 born to wealthy families, Nathan Freudenthal Leopold Junior on November nineteenth, 0:07:21.800 --> 0:07:26.640 nineteen oh four, to Florence and Nathan Leopold, and Richard 0:07:26.680 --> 0:07:30.840 Albert lob On June eleventh, nineteen oh five, to Albert 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:36.520 and Anna Loeb. Both boys had nicknames. Everyone called Nathan Babe, 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:41.360 everyone called Richard Dickie. Both boys grew up in Kenwood, 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:46.640 an affluent, predominantly Jewish neighborhood on Chicago's South Side. Both 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:50.520 boys were precocious, skipping multiple grades and racing through their 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:54.680 school years in record time, and both boys were impacted 0:07:54.920 --> 0:08:00.480 by disturbed nannies. Nathan was allegedly sexually abused by any 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:04.880 while Richard was allegedly emotionally abused by his domineering and 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:10.000 obsessive nanny. But the boys had differences too. They attended 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:16.520 different schools, had different interests, and very different personalities. Nathan 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:20.760 was aloof and egotistical. He had trouble connecting to his 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:25.360 peers his classmates at the Harvard School for Boys, nicknamed 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:30.000 him Flea because he was small and annoying. He was 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:35.240 obsessed with birds. He shot and taxidermied thousands of the animals, 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:38.720 placing them around the Leopold Home until it looked like 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:43.079 a natural history museum. Richard, on the other hand, was 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:47.880 popular and outgoing. He could easily fit into any social situation, 0:08:48.559 --> 0:08:53.040 charming classmates and adults alike, but he sometimes seemed to 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:55.800 be playing a role, and when people tried to get 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:59.040 close to him, he would not let them in. He 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:02.760 moved on from friend ships quickly. No one quite had 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:07.120 a grasp on who the real Richard was. His defining 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:12.000 adolescent interest was not birds, but books, detective fiction to 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:17.000 be specific, which he consumed voraciously. Since the two boys 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:20.440 had grown up so close together and in such similar circles, 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:24.200 they likely met once or twice in their childhood, but 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:26.960 it would not be until nineteen twenty that they would 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:33.240 truly connect. With deadly consequences that fall, Nathan enrolled at 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:37.280 the University of Chicago, where Richard was beginning his sophomore year. 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:41.760 Both boys were only fifteen years old. They each had 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:47.480 different approaches to college. Richard went a little wild, drinking, gambling, 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:51.840 and losing his virginity at a brothel. Nathan, by contrast, 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:57.880 maintained his standoffish, superior attitude. Richard was stylish and handsome, 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:02.439 Nathan gawky and awkward. Over the course of the winter, 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:06.400 though the two began to get closer. They played cards 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:11.800 and stayed up late drinking and talking. In February nineteen 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:15.080 twenty one, Richard took Nathan on a trip to his 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:19.720 family's estate in Charlevoi, Michigan. Albert Loebe had built an 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:23.520 enormous working farm there, and the Lobes loved to escape 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:27.640 Chicago for the peace of the lakeside retreat. Now, Richard 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:31.080 invited his new friend to visit. The train trip from 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:34.880 Chicago took twelve hours, and the pair shared a private 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:38.840 train car. Over the course of the long journey, Richard 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:42.400 and Nathan opened up to each other, sharing their feelings 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:47.599 of loneliness their desire to fit in. They also shared secrets. 0:10:48.320 --> 0:10:51.959 Richard told Nathan about the thefts he'd committed inspired by 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:56.640 his love of crime fiction. In return, Nathan told Richard 0:10:56.840 --> 0:11:00.400 that he was gay. Nathan had known he was gay 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:05.800 since childhood. Richard's sexuality is more ambiguous. He had sex 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:09.440 with women and like to maintain a playboy image. However, 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:13.760 he would later tell psychiatrists quote, the actual sex act 0:11:13.840 --> 0:11:17.240 is rather unimportant to me, and I could get along 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:22.120 easily without it. On that train ride, though, perhaps fueled 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:27.040 by an intoxicating sense of closeness and shared vulnerability, Richard 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:31.600 and Nathan began a sexual relationship. In many ways, this 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:35.600 was a normal teenage fling. However, it had to be 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:41.360 conducted in strict secrecy. Homosexuality was deeply stigmatized at the time. 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:44.920 The secret nature of their relationship seems to have brought 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:49.800 the pair even closer, as did their second secret. In 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:53.800 the spring, shortly after their trip to Charlevoi, Richard and 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:58.800 Nathan began committing crimes together. They stole cars and went 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:02.600 for joy rides, tossed bricks through the windshields of parked cars, 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:07.880 and vandalized businesses. The relationship seems to have fulfilled both 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:13.480 Richard and Nathan's childhood fantasies. For Nathan, the handsome, suave 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:18.840 Richard provided him social cachet and sexual gratification. For Richard, 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:22.920 the brilliant, fearless Nathan was the perfect partner in crime. 0:12:23.880 --> 0:12:28.160 Both struggled to make genuine connections with others. With each other, 0:12:28.360 --> 0:12:32.319 it seemed they could finally be themselves and be accepted, 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:38.320 but that summer things nearly fell apart. A fellow University 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:41.959 of Chicago student, Hamlin Bouchman, was working at the Lobe 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:45.200 farm at Charlevoi when Richard and Nathan came for a visit. 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:49.240 The three spent the evening drinking together and then fell asleep. 0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:53.520 During the night, Buchman saw Richard go into Nathan's bed. 0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:58.800 Richard and Nathan, realizing that their secret was out, decided 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:03.880 to take jurrass stick action. They attempted to kill Buchman. 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:07.760 They took Buuchman out on a boat, and, believing that 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:12.240 he could not swim, tipped the boat over. Buchman managed 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:15.040 to make it out of the lake in shock. He 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:18.240 immediately ran to Richard's brother, Allan and told him about 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:22.280 Richard and Nathan's relationship. The Low family did not believe 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:25.920 Buchman and fired him from the farm. Buchman traveled back 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:30.280 to Chicago and immediately told classmates what he'd seen. When 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:34.240 Richard and Nathan returned to campus, gossip about them raged 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:38.400 like wildfire. That fall in part due to the rumors 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:42.000 and in part due to a sense of restlessness. Richard 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:46.319 decided to transfer to the University of Michigan. Nathan decided 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:50.120 to transfer with him, but soon after the school year started, 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:54.800 Nathan learned that his mother, Florence, was dying. He managed 0:13:54.800 --> 0:13:56.520 to make it home in time to be with her 0:13:56.640 --> 0:14:00.600 when she died on October seventeenth, nineteen twenty one. It 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:05.080 was a devastating loss. When Nathan returned to Michigan, he 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:09.240 found that Richard had made new friends. These friends, along 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:13.480 with many other Michigan students, did not like Nathan. They 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:17.360 thought he was cold and pretentious. Rumors about the two 0:14:17.480 --> 0:14:22.040 boys sexual relationship had also reached campus. Nathan and Richard 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:24.880 decided to quash the rumors by spending less time together. 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:27.920 At the end of the year, Nathan transferred back to 0:14:27.960 --> 0:14:31.880 the University of Chicago. Richard stayed on at Michigan, where 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:36.120 he pledged a fraternity, drank, heavily, worked minimally, and read 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:41.520 detective novels. At Chicago, Nathan favored the intellectual life, studying 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:47.440 comparative language and becoming obsessed with the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:52.360 Nathan loved Nietzsche's conception of the Ubermensch, which he interpreted 0:14:52.400 --> 0:14:56.560 to be quote a superman who, on account of certain 0:14:56.600 --> 0:15:00.280 superior qualities inherent in him, is exempted for from the 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:05.200 ordinary laws which govern ordinary men. He is not liable 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:10.239 for anything he may do. Philosophers might disagree with Nathan's 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:13.800 definition of this concept, but it is an interpretation that 0:15:13.960 --> 0:15:20.360 reveals Nathan's desire to transcend conventional definitions of morality. Over 0:15:20.400 --> 0:15:23.160 the next year, Richard and Nathan did not keep in 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:27.080 close touch. In the summer of nineteen twenty three, however, 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:31.720 they found themselves reunited in Chicago. Both had graduated that 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:36.000 spring at age eighteen, the youngest graduates in the history 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:40.960 of their respective colleges. At loose ends, they reconnected and 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:45.720 resumed their life of crime. They cheated at cards, planned 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:51.440 break ins, and set fires. Nathan even managed to acquire guns, 0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:56.400 which they carried with them on their nighttime expeditions. However, 0:15:57.160 --> 0:16:01.240 the friendship was a fraught one. The pair argued constantly. 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:04.960 Nathan was jealous of the time Richard spent with other friends. 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:09.480 Richard was tired of Nathan's constant bragging about his intelligence. 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:13.480 In October, they had a falling out and almost ended 0:16:13.480 --> 0:16:17.400 their relationship. Nathan confessed in a letter to Richard that 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:21.160 he had thought about killing him. He also threatened to 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:26.000 expose Richard, either for their sexual relationship or for their crimes. 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:31.080 For some reason, even after all of this, the friendship continued. 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:35.120 In November, while Richard and Nathan were both enrolled in 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:38.960 graduate classes at the University of Chicago, they decided to 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:43.360 commit their most daring crime yet. On Saturday the tenth, 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:46.720 they drove up to Ann Arbor to rob Richard's old 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:51.960 fraternity house. They brought guns, masks, flashlights, and a chisel 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:56.760 with them. It wasn't a very complicated crime. Upon arrival, 0:16:56.880 --> 0:17:00.760 they walked through the unlocked front door and stole items 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:04.679 they found lying around, loose change, a pen and pencil, 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:11.479 a knife, and notably, a portable underwood typewriter. They had 0:17:11.520 --> 0:17:14.360 agreed earlier in the night to break into two fraternities, 0:17:14.800 --> 0:17:17.679 but after pulling off the first tist, Richard wanted to 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:21.520 go home. Nathan demanded that they follow through on the plan. 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:25.439 They went into another house and stole a camera, but 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:29.639 when Richard heard someone snoring, he panicked and ran. On 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:33.600 the drive home, Nathan was furious, he called Richard a 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:38.159 coward and questioned their connection. The argument built and built, 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:42.240 and the two nearly ended things right there, but ultimately 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:47.240 they didn't. Instead, deciding to once again double down on 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:52.919 their toxic bond, the pair created a pact. The terms 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:56.000 of the pact, which they determined would last until Nathan 0:17:56.119 --> 0:18:00.439 left for Europe the following summer. Were this agreed to 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:04.520 participate in any crime that Richard asked him to, unless 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:07.320 he thought it would put him or his family in danger. 0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:11.400 In exchange, Richard agreed to have sex with Nathan three 0:18:11.440 --> 0:18:15.920 times every two months. Lastly, the two agreed to embark 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:19.879 on a new project, one that they believed would strengthen 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:29.760 their relationship. Leopold and Lobe decided to kidnap someone. Progress 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:34.400 was slow on the kidnapping plan. In March nineteen twenty four, 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:38.359 Nathan and Richard had another fight and renegotiated the pact. 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:41.920 Now Richard agreed to have sex with Nathan every time 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:45.720 they committed a crime. They also began planning the kidnapping 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:50.320 in earnest. Richard had long been obsessed with committing the 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:55.880 perfect crime. Nathan had long been obsessed. Without smarting others, 0:18:56.359 --> 0:19:02.480 their obsessions combined with tragic consequences. That spring, they were 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:06.919 determined to execute a flawless kidnapping. They plotted out an 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:12.040 elaborate ransom plan, which involved multiple stops, phone calls, and 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:15.280 a money drop off of a moving train. They even 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:18.640 rehearsed the money drop, throwing a bundle of newspapers from 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:22.119 the train to see where it landed. The pair also 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:24.919 decided that they would have to kill their victim to 0:19:25.040 --> 0:19:29.919 avoid being identified. They discussed different methods of murder and 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:34.280 settled on either strangulation or drugging with ether. They chose 0:19:34.320 --> 0:19:37.959 a location to dump the body. Nathan suggested the area 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:42.480 around Wolf Lake, where he often led birding trips. The 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:45.119 only thing that the two could not decide on was 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:48.520 a victim. They eventually decided that it would be best 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:50.760 to take a young boy from a wealthy family who 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:54.199 would pay the ransom. There were many such boys at 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:59.720 the Harvard School for Boys, Nathan's alma mater. Richard and 0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:02.240 Nate and spent the month of May getting the final 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:06.840 details in place. They constructed a fake identity, Morton Ballard, 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:09.680 which they used to open a bank account and rent 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:14.199 a car. They bought a chisel rope and hydrochloric acid. 0:20:14.960 --> 0:20:18.000 They typed up a ransom letter and scripts to use 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:23.159 for their calls by May twenty first they were ready. 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:27.480 That morning, they rented a dark blue car, ate lunch, 0:20:27.800 --> 0:20:31.600 and drove to the Harvard School. They lurked around the area, 0:20:31.920 --> 0:20:35.080 using a pair of Nathan's birding binoculars to spy on 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:39.480 the boys for several hours. A little after five PM, 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:44.880 they spotted Bobby Franks walking down Ellis Avenue. Bobby Franks 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:50.159 was Richard Loebe's second cousin. Their families lived across the 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:54.600 street from each other. Bobby had played tennis with Richard 0:20:54.840 --> 0:20:58.960 the day before. He had no reason to be suspicious 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:02.359 when Nathan and Richard pulled up alongside him and offered 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:06.560 him a ride home. Bobby declined, though his home was 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:10.840 only two blocks away. Richard tried again, saying he wanted 0:21:10.840 --> 0:21:14.919 to ask Bobby about his tennis racket. Bobby agreed and 0:21:15.040 --> 0:21:20.960 hopped in the car. Within minutes, the attack began. Richard 0:21:21.000 --> 0:21:24.359 and Nathan never agreed on who had done the actual killing, 0:21:24.800 --> 0:21:28.679 each blaming the other. One of them, though, began to 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:32.200 beat Bobby with the chisel, then shoved an ether soaked 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:36.240 rag down his throat. Unconscious, Bobby lay bleeding on the 0:21:36.280 --> 0:21:38.800 floor of the car As it sped out of Chicago. 0:21:39.880 --> 0:21:44.080 Around six, Richard and Nathan stopped for dinner. They ate 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:46.960 hot dogs and drank root beer at a picnic table 0:21:47.359 --> 0:21:51.199 while Bobby suffocated to death in the car. Once it 0:21:51.240 --> 0:21:54.840 got dark, they drove to wolf Lake and dumped Bobby's 0:21:54.840 --> 0:21:59.360 body in a culvert, first pouring acid on his face, genitals, 0:21:59.400 --> 0:22:02.119 and on a skin on his abdomen in an effort 0:22:02.119 --> 0:22:06.840 to prevent identification. On the drive home, Nathan stopped and 0:22:06.920 --> 0:22:10.040 called the Franks and told Flora that her son had 0:22:10.080 --> 0:22:16.800 been kidnapped. Nathan and Richard's so called perfect crime fell 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:22.359 apart quickly. Bobby's body was discovered sooner than they had expected, 0:22:22.840 --> 0:22:27.720 and Jacob Franks could not remember the complicated ransom instructions. However, 0:22:28.160 --> 0:22:30.760 no one had any idea who had committed the crime. 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:35.359 It was the talk of Chicago, and Richard himself couldn't 0:22:35.400 --> 0:22:39.320 help but bring up the subject. He even involved himself 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:43.359 in the investigation, taking reporters on an expedition to discover 0:22:43.480 --> 0:22:46.080 which drug store Jacob Franks was supposed to have gone to. 0:22:47.119 --> 0:22:50.919 On this trip, the reporter asked Richard about Bobby, hoping 0:22:50.960 --> 0:22:55.320 to get family details for their story. Richard, to their horror, 0:22:55.760 --> 0:22:59.000 told them quote, if I were going to murder anyone, 0:22:59.280 --> 0:23:01.639 I would murder just such a cocky little son of 0:23:01.640 --> 0:23:05.480 a bitch as Bobby Frank's. On May twenty fifth, the 0:23:05.480 --> 0:23:09.560 Frank's family held Bobby's funeral at their home. A distraught 0:23:09.600 --> 0:23:13.359 Flora Franks, who refused to believe that her son was dead, 0:23:14.000 --> 0:23:17.360 ran her hands tenderly over the faces of his classmates. 0:23:18.200 --> 0:23:21.880 Jacob Franks told the Chicago Tribune, I'd try to put 0:23:21.920 --> 0:23:25.199 things out of my mind, but they come back. My 0:23:25.280 --> 0:23:28.680 wife keeps showing me pictures of him, and I lay 0:23:28.680 --> 0:23:34.440 awake until dawn thinking about it all, thinking about that baby. Meanwhile, 0:23:34.880 --> 0:23:39.600 Richard and Nathan continued their normal lives, attending dinners, taking 0:23:39.640 --> 0:23:43.200 girls out on dates, drinking and dancing the nights away, 0:23:44.200 --> 0:23:49.719 but unbeknownst to them, the police were circling. Ultimately, it 0:23:49.760 --> 0:23:52.800 was a pair of glasses that proved to be the killers. 0:23:52.880 --> 0:23:57.720 Undoing the glasses had been found by Bobby's body. The 0:23:57.760 --> 0:24:00.440 first officer on the scene had assumed they were the boys, 0:24:00.840 --> 0:24:04.159 but after learning they were not, investigators wondered if the 0:24:04.240 --> 0:24:08.040 killer had dropped them. They spent all week tracing the 0:24:08.080 --> 0:24:13.040 glasses and caught a huge break. The frames had a 0:24:13.080 --> 0:24:17.840 distinctive hinge, only manufactured by one company in Brooklyn and 0:24:17.960 --> 0:24:22.320 only sold by one optometrist in Chicago, Almer and Co. 0:24:23.400 --> 0:24:26.080 The company searched its records and discovered that it had 0:24:26.119 --> 0:24:29.480 sold three pairs of the glasses, one to a man 0:24:29.520 --> 0:24:32.000 who was now in Europe, one to a woman who 0:24:32.080 --> 0:24:37.280 still had her glasses, and one to Nathan Leopold. Nathan 0:24:37.400 --> 0:24:40.160 had in fact been brought in by the police already, 0:24:40.520 --> 0:24:44.600 but for unrelated reasons. A game warden at wolf Lake 0:24:44.880 --> 0:24:47.639 had identified him to police as someone who frequented the 0:24:47.720 --> 0:24:51.000 area for birding trips, and the police had questioned him 0:24:51.000 --> 0:24:54.800 on May twenty fifth, the day of Bobby's funeral. Nathan 0:24:54.920 --> 0:24:58.040 was not a suspect at this point. The police simply 0:24:58.080 --> 0:25:00.240 wanted to know when he was last in the area. 0:25:01.119 --> 0:25:03.720 Nathan said he had last been there the weekend before 0:25:03.760 --> 0:25:08.040 Bobby's murder, and the police released him. But with the 0:25:08.040 --> 0:25:14.359 glass's revelation, everything changed. Now the police focused their energy 0:25:14.440 --> 0:25:18.840 on Nathan. On May twenty ninth, States attorney Robert Crowe, 0:25:18.880 --> 0:25:21.760 who was leading the investigation and would soon lead the 0:25:21.800 --> 0:25:27.040 prosecution sent detectives to question Nathan. When Nathan could not 0:25:27.160 --> 0:25:30.480 produce his glasses, the detectives decided to bring him in 0:25:30.520 --> 0:25:35.320 for questioning. Under questioning, Nathan claimed that his glasses must 0:25:35.359 --> 0:25:37.560 have fallen out of his pocket while bird watching at 0:25:37.560 --> 0:25:41.480 Wolf Lake. However, when given his glasses and asked to 0:25:41.520 --> 0:25:45.240 recreate the fall, Nathan could not dislodge the glasses from 0:25:45.240 --> 0:25:49.240 his jacket pocket. He denied owning a portable typewriter, the 0:25:49.359 --> 0:25:52.639 kind of typewriter used to make the ransom note, and 0:25:52.680 --> 0:25:55.040 he claimed that on the day of the kidnapping, he 0:25:55.160 --> 0:25:58.399 had been out driving, drinking, and picking up girls with 0:25:58.560 --> 0:26:03.200 Richard Loeb. The detectives then searched his house again, uncovering 0:26:03.280 --> 0:26:09.480 bottles of poisons and drugs, including ether, and two unlicensed handguns. 0:26:10.560 --> 0:26:14.720 Detectives arrived at Richard's house the next day, Friday, May thirtieth. 0:26:15.800 --> 0:26:18.199 Richard claimed not to remember what he had done on 0:26:18.240 --> 0:26:21.399 the day of the murder, but later, after receiving a 0:26:21.400 --> 0:26:25.080 message from Nathan that he should quote remember what happened, 0:26:25.680 --> 0:26:28.760 he told the police the same story about driving around 0:26:28.840 --> 0:26:33.119 in Nathan's car. Robert Crowe and the police were convinced 0:26:33.119 --> 0:26:36.360 that they had their men, and two events on Friday 0:26:36.400 --> 0:26:41.520 solidified their case. First, a typewriter expert matched the type 0:26:41.680 --> 0:26:44.600 in Nathan's study group notes to the type in the 0:26:44.680 --> 0:26:49.320 ransom note. Though Nathan had denied having a portable typewriter, 0:26:49.840 --> 0:26:52.880 Robert Crowe brought in members of his study group, who 0:26:52.920 --> 0:26:56.240 all stated that he had once used a portable typewriter. 0:26:56.960 --> 0:27:00.240 It would later emerge that the typewriter used was the 0:27:00.320 --> 0:27:04.840 Underwood portable typewriter that Nathan and Richard had stolen from 0:27:04.840 --> 0:27:08.960 the Michigan fraternity. The final nail in the coffin came 0:27:09.000 --> 0:27:14.240 from the Leopold family chauffeur Spen England. England had believed 0:27:14.280 --> 0:27:18.760 that his information would help exonerate Nathan. According to his statement, 0:27:19.080 --> 0:27:21.760 England had been working on the brakes on Nathan's car 0:27:21.880 --> 0:27:24.640 on May twenty first, so Nathan could not have used 0:27:24.640 --> 0:27:28.719 his car to kidnap anyone. But England didn't know that 0:27:28.840 --> 0:27:33.480 Nathan claimed to have driven around in his car that day. Inadvertently, 0:27:33.880 --> 0:27:38.879 England had broken Nathan's alibi. England also told police that 0:27:38.920 --> 0:27:41.919 he saw Nathan and Richard cleaning stains out of a 0:27:42.000 --> 0:27:46.520 dark colored car on the twenty second, Bobby Franks was 0:27:46.600 --> 0:27:49.399 last seen in the vicinity of a dark colored car, 0:27:50.280 --> 0:27:53.080 and a dark colored car had been spotted near wolf 0:27:53.119 --> 0:27:56.119 Lake around the time the killers had dumped Bobby's body. 0:27:57.200 --> 0:28:01.199 With these four pieces of evidence, the broken alibi, the 0:28:01.240 --> 0:28:06.000 matching glasses, the matching typewriter, and Leopold and Loebe's possession 0:28:06.040 --> 0:28:09.680 of a dark colored car, Robert Crowe believed he had 0:28:09.840 --> 0:28:14.920 enough to get a confession. He decided to confront Richard first. 0:28:16.160 --> 0:28:20.719 When Crowe told Richard about England's evidence, Richard responded that 0:28:20.760 --> 0:28:25.600 the man must be lying or mistaken. But then Assistant 0:28:25.640 --> 0:28:30.879 States Attorney Joseph Sparbaro confronted Richard with all the evidence. 0:28:32.119 --> 0:28:36.560