Other “crimes of the century” have come and gone, but the “perfect murder” of Bobby Franks by Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb continues to fascinate and infuriate Chicagoans…
Nathan Leopold Jr., left, and Richard Loeb at the time of their trial for the murder of Bobby Franks in 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. Franks, the youngest son of millionaire Jacob Franks, was killed by Richard Loeb, 18, and Nathan Leopold Jr., 19, on May 21, 1924. The funeral service was held at the Franks home at 5052 Ellis Ave.
Nathan Leopold Jr., from left, Walter Bachrach, Richard Loeb and Dr. Bernard Glueck in 1924. Nathan Leopold Jr., left, and Richard Loeb, center, plead guilty before Judge John R. Caverly in Chicago in 1924. Richard Loeb at the time of his trial for the murder of Bobby Franks in 1924. 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.
Nathan Leopold Jr., left, and Richard Loeb at the time of their trial for the murder of Bobby Franks in 1924. Judge John R. Caverly, from left, Nathan Leopold Jr., Richard Loeb, Atty. Robert E. Crowe and Sam Ettelson in the jail yard in 1924. Both had access to the best education and material things money could buy in the 1920s — impeccable clothing, flashy automobiles and even fine wines and spirits during Prohibition. Yet their affluence would also lead to their downfalls.
When Franks got into the car, Loeb subsequently recalled: “Leopold reached his arm around young Franks, grabbed his mouth and hit him with a chisel. He began to bleed and wasn’t entirely unconscious. He was moaning.”had earned his fortune through businesses including a pawn shop, watch companies and in real estate. The newspapers quickly ballyhooed the boy’s death as “The Crime of the Century.”
Instead of himself, Deutsch wrote, they “found my 14-year-old schoolmate Robert Franks. Like me, Bobby knew and trusted both of them.” Some figured Leopold and Loeb’s trial would hinge on an insanity defense. In Illinois, the legal definition of insanity was a defendant’s inability to understand the charges he faces. Acting or talking crazy didn’t count, and Cook County State’s Attorney Robert E. Crowe said his psychiatrists would testify that Leopold and Loeb were in full possession of their mental faculties.By entering guilty pleas, Darrow didn’t have to persuade 12 jurors to spare his clients the hangman’s noose.
“The great lock in the center door clanked as the key was turned,” the Tribune reported. “The iron barricade separating the 1,500 convicts from the great outside swung slowly on its hinges.”“It’s 1924 now; it will probably be 1957 when we get out, and I’ll have a beard so long,” he said.James Day, a Chicagoan who was serving a prison term of up to 10 years for grand larceny, confessed to slashing Loeb 56 times with a razor in a shower room at the prison in Joliet.
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