Leopold and Loeb - Murder of Robert Franks

Murder of Robert Franks

Leopold and Loeb spent seven months planning the murder, the disposal of the body, and devising a plan to get ransom money with little or no risk of being caught. They put their plot into motion on Wednesday, May 21, 1924. After a search, the pair finally decided upon Robert "Bobby" Franks, the son of Chicago millionaire Jacob Franks. Future Hollywood producer Armand Deutsch, the then 11-year-old grandson of Julius Rosenwald later claimed he might have been the intended victim of Loeb or Leopold. However on the day of the murder he was picked up by his family's chauffeur after school because he had a prior dental appointment.

As Franks was walking home from Harvard High School (closed 1962) in Hyde Park, Chicago, the 14-year-old boy—who was both the neighbor and second cousin of Richard Loeb—was lured into the passenger seat of their rented car. With Franks in the vehicle, one of them drove and the other one sat in the back armed with a chisel. It is not known who struck the first blow with the murder weapon. During the attack, a sock was stuffed into the schoolboy's mouth, and he died soon after. Contrary to rumors that Franks had been sexually assaulted, the trial judge would later state that conclusive evidence convinced him that no such abuse had been committed.

The killers covered the body and drove to a remote area near Wolf Lake in Hammond, Indiana. They removed Franks's clothes and left them at the side of the road. Leopold and Loeb poured hydrochloric acid on the body to make identification more difficult. They then had dinner at a hot dog stand. After finishing their meal, they concealed the body in a culvert at the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks near 118th street, north of Wolf Lake.

After returning to Chicago, they called Franks's mother and said her son had been kidnapped. They mailed the ransom note to the Franks family. The killers burned items of their own clothing that had been spotted with blood. They also attempted to clean bloodstains from the upholstery of their rented automobile. The two then spent the rest of the evening playing cards.

Before the Franks family could pay the ransom, Tony Minke, a Polish immigrant, discovered the body. When Leopold and Loeb learned that the body had been found, they destroyed the typewriter used to write the ransom note and burned the robe used to move the body.

However, Detective Hugh Patrick Byrne, while searching for evidence, discovered a pair of eyeglasses near the body, unremarkable except for an unusual hinge mechanism. In Chicago, only three people had purchased glasses with such a mechanism, one of whom was Nathan Leopold.

Upon being questioned, Leopold told police he had lost the glasses while birdwatching. Loeb told the police that Leopold was with him the night of the murder. Leopold and Loeb claimed they had picked up two women in Leopold's car and had dropped them off near a golf course, never learning their last names. Leopold's car, however, was being repaired by his chauffeur and the chauffeur's wife confirmed that the car had been in the Leopold garage that night.

During police questioning, Leopold's and Loeb's alibis fell apart. Loeb confessed first, followed by Leopold. Although their confessions corroborated most of the facts in the case, each blamed the other for the actual killing. Most commentators believe that Loeb struck the blow that killed Franks. However, which of the two actually wielded the weapon that killed Franks would never be known. Psychiatrists at the trial, impressed by Leopold's intelligence, agreed that Loeb had struck the fatal blow. However, the circumstantial evidence in the case, including eyewitness testimony by Carl Ulvigh (who saw Loeb driving with Leopold in the back seat minutes before the kidnapping), indicated that Leopold may have been the killer.

The ransom was not their primary motive; the young men's families provided them all the money that they needed. Both had admitted that they were driven by the thrill of the kill and the desire to commit the "perfect crime".

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Famous quotes containing the word murder:

    There’s in people simply an urge to destroy, an urge to kill, to murder and rage, and until all mankind, without exception, undergoes a great change, wars will be waged, everything that has been built up, cultivated, and grown will be destroyed and disfigured, after which mankind will have to begin all over again.
    Anne Frank (1929–1945)