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Interesting Questions, Facts and Information
- There are a total of 20 general entries.
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 Interesting Questions, Facts, and Information
 Leopold and Loeb
Kenwood. Nathan Leopold was the youngest son of a shipping magnate. Richard Loeb's father was the vice-president of Sears Roebuck. The Kenwood area was home to the wealthiest families in Chicago. It was from this very neighborhood that the two killers chose their victim. They planned to kidnap him, kill him, then demand a ransom from his parents. Although neither Leopold nor Loeb needed the money, they hoped to remove suspicion from themselves by insinuating that the crime was committed by someone seeking ransom.
Bobby Franks. Fourteen year-old Bobby Franks was chosen at random by the killers as he walked home from the exclusive Harvard Prep School. An acquaintence of the Loeb family, Bobby had played tennis with Richard Loeb on occasion. Loeb lured him into a rented car to discuss a new tennis racket. Once inside, Bobby was stabbed in the head with a chisel and a rag was shoved into his mouth.
George Johnson. Using the alias George Johnson, the killers rented a car and opened a bank account to deposit the ransom of $10,000. They also used this name in their telephone conversations with Jacob Franks, the boy's father, and in their written correspondance to him.
Eyeglasses. After killing Bobby, the killers drove to Wolf Lake, where they disfigured his body with acid and dumped it into a culvert. Leopold removed his jacket, and in doing so, dropped his glasses. The glasses had unique frames and were quickly traced to him through the store where he had purchased them. Once arrested, each killer blamed the other for the murder. It was soon made clear that both of them would stand trial for the murder of Bobby Franks.
Frederich Nietzsche. Both Leopold and Loeb were fascinated by Nietzsche's idea of the 'superman,' an individual whose superiority in all aspects renders him immune to any possibility of wrongdoing. The two believed that due to their families station in life, that they were above the law and neither seemed to feel any remorse for the killing.
Clarence Darrow . An ardent opponent of capital punishment, Darrow knew that a jury would convict Leopold and Loeb and sentence them to hang. He pled them guilty before Judge John Caverly and argued against the death penalty. He hoped to use their youth to his advantage (both were only 19). Darrow also argued that their pampered upbringing had given them a skewed sense of morality. Psychiatrists who analyzed the pair revealed a twisted relationship between them. Loeb was the dominant leader, while Leopold was the follower who worshipped Loeb and saw him as the quintessential 'superman.' Some rumored it to be a homosexual relationship, but little focus was placed on this in the 1920s.
Life plus 99 years. Darrow convinced Judge Caverly to spare the killers' lives. Caverly's decision was based primarily on the fact that the state of Illinois had never executed anyone under the age of 21. Leopold and Loeb were given life sentences for the murder, plus 99 years for the kidnapping charge. They were taken to the Joliet State Penitentiary to serve their sentences. Once in prison, they were afforded the same pampered treatment as on the outside. Food was cooked to their specifications, and they were allowed items such as various books, clothing and toiletries that other prisoners were prohibited from having. Eventually, they did establish a school for their fellow inmates and were able to put their privileged backgrounds and intellect to positive use.
James Day. Day claimed that Loeb had made homosexual advances toward him for years. Conflicting stories make the truth difficult to know for certain. Some reports claim that Loeb had been supplying Day and other inmates with cigarettes, due to the hefty allowance he received from his family. Others state that Loeb attacked Day first with a razor and that he was killed in self-defense when Day managed to get the razor from him. Whatever the case, Richard Loeb bled to death on January 28, 1932 after receiving more than fifty slash and stab wounds. Day was charged but found not guilty by the prison inquiry board.
1958. In 1958, Nathan Leopold was released from Joliet. He had spent the past 34 years in prison. During that time, he wrote a book, 'Life Plus 99 Years,' which told the story of the crime and his reasoning behind it. He admitted that the crime was 'in the forefront of his consciousness' and that he felt remorseful for his actions. He commented on Richard Loeb, stating that he found it highly unlikely that Loeb was capable of feeling remorse and that his only regret was that they 'had been caught.'
1971. After being paroled, Nathan Leopold moved to Puerto Rico, where he hoped to find privacy and start a new life. He wrote another book, 'The Birds of Puerto Rico' and married a widow. He died of a heart attack in 1971.
Chicago, Illinois. The abduction took place outside the prestigious Harvard School. The body was dumped at a culvert near Wolf Lake, not far from a very well-to-do area of Illinois in which both murderers and the victim lived.
| One of the most sensational things about the two murderers themselves was their unusual level of intelligence. Of the two, Nathan Leopold was the more intelligent one. What was his I.Q.? | The Infamous Leopold-Loeb Murder
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210. A certified genius, Nathan Leopold reportedly began speaking at the age of four months. At the time of the murder he was 19 years old and already fluent in fifteen languages, and was a nationally recognized ornithologist. He had also gained entry to the University of Chicago at the age of 16. His accomplice, Richard Loeb, had an I.Q. between 160 and 168.
| It was discovered that Leopold and Loeb had elaborately planned the crime for several months before it occurred, but what was the reason for the crime? | The Infamous Leopold-Loeb Murder
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Boredom. They wanted to see if they could commit the perfect crime.. Both Leopold and Loeb were from already very wealthy families and they did not need money. It is true that in the plan they devised there would be a ransom, but they also initially did intend to kill the victim because they decided to choose someone they knew personally, and did not want the victim to identify them.
By chance they saw him the afternoon of the murder and chose him at the last minute.. In planning the crime, Leopold and Loeb decided that they would not choose the victim until the very day of the crime. They considered kidnapping either their own fathers or brothers and then killing them after collecting ransom, but then assumed that they would be under too much scrutiny if the victim was a member of their own families. They agreed that they would randomly select a victim as long as it was a boy with a rich father.
A pair of eyeglasses.. A pair of eyeglasses discovered at the scene of the body was found to have a rare type of hinges on them. Only three pairs of eyeglasses with those particular hinges had been sold in the Chicago area, and one of them belonged to Nathan Leopold. This was the first big break in the case, and the ultimate undoing of the two murderers' alibis.
He was suffocated by a cloth forced down his throat.. Shortly after being lulled into a rented car under the pretense of looking at a tennis racket, Bobby Franks was in fact struck in the head with a chisel. The autopsy, however, revealed that the blunt trauma was not the cause of his death, but rather it was the piece of cloth shoved in his throat shortly thereafter.
| Leopold and Loeb's defense attorney, Clarence Darrow, took the case at the behest of Richard Loeb's uncle Jacob. What was the ultimate reason Darrow agreed to take the case? | The Infamous Leopold-Loeb Murder
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He was a champion of the abolishment of the death penalty and saw the trail as an opportunity to further his publicity to that end.. Jacob Loeb did in fact offer to pay Darrow anything, "just don't let them hang," at Darrow's apartment the evening of the initial arrest. Darrow had already made a name for himself as one of the country's most brilliant lawyers and also a fierce opponent of capital punishment. He took the case not for the fee, but to make his beliefs on capital punishment more public. He was not related to either of the defendants, as far as is known, and at the time did not believe they were innocent.
Life in prison, plus 99 years. The exact wording of the sentence:
"For the crime of murder, confinement at the penitentiary at Joliet for the term of their natural lives."
"For the crime of kidnapping for ransom, similar confinement for the term of ninety-nine years."
He died a free man in 1971.. Nathan Leopold continued learning in prison. He mastered 12 more languages and studied several other subjects. He was paroled in 1958 and moved to Puerto Rico where he earned a Master's Degree, published books, continued studying birds, and married. He died of a heart attack in 1971 with his wife next to him.
Most of the information in this quiz is found at http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/famous/loeb/index_1.htmlHope you enjoyed it!
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