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the late spring of 1924, two well-to-do University of Chicago students,
Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, kidnapped and murdered a
fourteen-year-old neighbor boy, Robert Franks. When pressed by the
police and scoop-hungry journalists, the two confessed. They said they
had done it for the exhilaration of planning and executing "the
perfect crime." Seventy-plus years later, what seems most
fascinating about the case aren't its particulars, but rather the manner
in which the crime and its perpetrators were represented by the press
and why Chicagoans were so enthralled by the story. A closer examination
reveals the underlying social tensions that made the case and its
coverage so sensational and so captivating.
Below you will find a collection of documents related to the Leopold and Loeb case. The first of these links will direct you to a more detailed summary of the events of 1924, as well as suggest some of the ways in which this case served to dramatize, on the one hand, the city's hopes for moral purity and social justice, and, on the other hand, its need to assess, comprehend, and even glamorize the evil that so clearly violated its ideals. The second group of links will direct you to several newspaper articles from the Chicago Daily News, whose reporters were instrumental in the eventual breaking of the case. 
Nathan F. Leopold, Jr. (1), and Richard Loeb (2), Arraignment, 11 June 1924
· Map of the Crime Investigation · Map of Leopold and Loeb's Alibi Photographs · Leopold and Loeb During Questioning · Leopold's Automobile Photograph: "Photograph of a full-length portrait of Bobby Franks," 1924 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Group of men standing outdoors at a crime scene in the investigation of the Leopold and Loeb murder case," 1924 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Three men gathered around a culvert where Bobby Franks' body was found," 1924 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Two police officers dredging the water near the scene where Bobby Franks was murdered," 1924 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Ransom letter and envelope in the murder case of Bobby Franks," 1924 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Men standing around a table with the typewriter used to write a ransom note," 1924 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Home of Richard Loeb on South Ellis Street," 1924 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Home of Nathan Leopold on the northwest corner of East 48th Street," 1924 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Man holding Nathan Leopold's glasses," 1924 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Richard Loeb, Nathan Leopold, Jr., and two men walking down a staircase," 1924 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Nathan Leopold sitting and smiling with his hat in his lap," 1924 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Richard Loeb sitting in a chair in a courtroom," 1924 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Two police photographs and physical records of Richard Loeb," 1924 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Two police photographs and physical records of Nathan Leopold, Jr.," 1924 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Jacob Franks, father of murder victim Bobby Franks," 1924 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Robert E. Crowe, a prosecutor in the Leopold and Loeb murder case," 1924 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Clarence Darrow, a defense attorney for the Leopold and Loeb murder case," 1924 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "John R. Caverly wearing a robe and standing behind a desk," 1924 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Judge John R. Caverly, Richard Loeb, and Nathan Leopold, Jr.," 1924 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, Jr. sitting in crowded courtroom," 1924 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Crowds standing on a street corner and in the street across from a courthouse during the Leopold and Loeb murder trial," 1924 [Library of Congress] Photograph: "Crowds standing on a sidewalk in front of buildings during the Leopold and Loeb murder trial," 1924 [Library of Congress] Other Online Resources Leopold and Loeb Court Case Records [Cook County Clerk of Court Archives] Famous American Trials: Illinois v. Leopold and Loeb [Prof. Douglas Linder] Suggested Books and Films · Annotated Bibliography · Hal Higdon, Leopold and Loeb: The Crime of the Century (University of Illinois Press, 1999). · Paula Fass, "Making and Remaking an Event: The Leopold and Loeb Case in American Culture," Journal of American History 80 (1993), 919-951. · Gilbert Geis, Crimes of the Century: From Leopold and Loeb to O.J. Simpson (Northeastern University Press, 1998). · Maureen McKernan, The Amazing Crime and Trial of Leopold and Loeb (New American, 1957). · Arthur Weinberg, ed., Attorney for the Damned: Clarence Darrow in the Courtroom (University of Chicago Press, 1989). · Meyer Levin, Compulsion, novel (Carroll and Graf, 1996). · John Logan, Never the Sinner: The Leopold and Loeb Story, stage play (Penguin, 1999). · Robert Fleischer, director, Compulsion, film starring Orson Welles, 1959. · John Houseman, director, Clarence Darrow, film starring Henry Fonda, 1974. · Tom Kalin, director, Swoon, film, 1992. |
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Page authored: 6 June
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