The Leopold-Loeb Case

The Evidence

A Break in the Case

The Body

• There were no clothes on Bobby's body, but a pair of glasses were find nearby. They did not belong to him.

Suspects

The Culvert

Loeb (left) and Leopold (right)

The police questioned three teachers from the school that Bobby had went to, since the ransom note suggested a well educated person to have typed it. After talking to the game warden for the area around Wolf Lake, they discovered that there was a frequent visitor: nineteen-year-old ornithologist Nathan Leopold. They brought him in for questioning as well.

Nathan Leopold

Eight days after the murder, the police had discovered that the hinges on the glasses were very unique and had been sold to only three people in the Chicago area, one of which was Leopold. He confirmed that they were his and said that they must have fallen out of his breast pocket after he tripped, but when they put the glasses in his pocket and had him re-create what happened, the glasses didn't fall out, making the questioning get more intense. After awhile, he admitted to spending most of the day with his friend, Richard Loeb, a nineteen-year-old student of University of Chicago According to him, they had been eating, drinking, and looking for birds, and after dinner they had dinner, they had picked up two girls and drove around. The police then started questioning about his personal life. He told them how he had graduated from the University of Chicago and had been attending law school, and that he also owned a Hammond Multiplex typewriter. It was determined that he did have enough knowledge to have typed the letter, but there were still plenty more investigating to do, and in another room, they were still questioning Loeb, who was telling a different story. He told police that they had went their separate ways at dinnertime and that he didn't remember what happened that night of the murder. Then, a friend of theirs delivered a letter from Leopold to Loeb that said, "Babe [Leopold] said to tell the truth about the two girls. Tell the police what you did with them. You can't get in any worse trouble than you are now. He said you'd understand." After that, their stories began to sound more and more alike.

• The ransom note was determined by police scientists that it had been written by a very educated person on an Underwood typewriter.

When Jacob went to get the money the kidnapper asked for, Ettelson called his friend who was the chief of detectives at the Chicago Police Department. A newspaperman heard that a body was found in a culvert near Wolf Lake. Jacob did not believe that the description of the body matched his son, but his brother-in-law went to check it out. He then received a call from him shortly after the kidnapper had called telling him where to go. The body in the culvert did belong to Bobby Franks, and after an autopsy, it was determined that he had died from suffocation. He also had a number of wounds on his body suggesting that he fought with his kidnapper before being killed. The coroner had also found wounds on his heard where a blunt instrument had been used.

An investigation was started, but since Franks and Ettelson forgot the address George Johnson had told them to go, they didn't have a lot to go on.

Richard Loeb

The Car

The Truth Comes Out

On May 31, Leopold's chauffeur was interviewed. He said that on the day of the murder, he had worked on the car all day and it had been in the garage since late that evening when he left. In Leopold and Loeb's story, however, they said they were driving in the car. After police told Loeb what the chauffeur had said, he paled and asked to see a lawyer.

The Crime of the Century

The boy's wanted something to entertain them, so they decided to try and plan the perfect crime. They wanted to kill someone who had a rich father and that one of them knew, so that they would get in the car without any problems. They planned to kill him as soon as possible, so that there would be no chance of the victim escaping. They waited near the Harvard school on the day they planned to commit the crime. The first person that they saw that followed their plan would be their first victim. Unfortunately, that person happened to be Bobby Franks.

Bobby Franks

The Study Sheets

Nathan Leopold

Two reporters began talking to a study group that Leopold belonged to and had learned that he had typed up study sheets on his Hammond typewriter, as well as on a portable one. They took some of the study sheets and compared them to the ransom note. They were identical. Leopold said that he had typed on a portable, but he didn't own one, however when the maid was asked, she said she remembered seeing one a few weeks earlier.

On May 21, 1914, fourteen-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks was walking home from school when a car pulled up to him and he got in after seeing a familiar face. When he didn't come home, his father, Jacob Franks, and lawyer, Samuel Ettleson, went looking for him at the school he attended. While they were gone, Bobby's mother, Flora Franks, received a phone call from a man going by the name of George Johnson telling her that her son had been kidnapped.

Bobby Franks

The Ransom Letter

Richard Loeb

The next morning, Bobby's family received a special letter from his kidnapper. It had a list of instructions and stated that if they follow those directions and give them $10,000, Bobby would be returned home unharmed. Unfortunately, that would not be the case.

The Leopold-Loeb Case