Thrill of the kill: 90th anniversary of Leopold and Loeb's horrific murder of boy
Bobby Franks, 14, was cruelly murdered by two wealthy, brainy, crime-obsessed teenagers this week in 1924.
BY
Mara Bovsun NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Saturday, May 17, 2014
Ninety years ago this week, Bobby Franks, 14, left school and headed for his parents’ mansion in the Kenwood section of Chicago. His walk didn’t take him home. Instead, it landed him in the history books, in the most hideous way. Franks became the victim in a “crime of the century” case, a murder that shocked the public, even in the anything-goes Jazz Age. The unfortunate child crossed paths with two brainy-but-bad teenagers, Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, at the moment they decided it would be fun to break the commandment “Thou Shalt Not Kill.”
For them, murdering a young boy meant nothing. They did it to see what it would feel like, just for the thrill. “The killing was an experiment,” Leopold would later tell his lawyer, Clarence Darrow. “It is just as easy to justify such a death as it is to justify an entomologist killing a beetle on a pin.”
Such bloated ego seemed almost inevitable, given the boys’ backgrounds. Born into wealth and privilege, both also had the gift of extraordinary intelligence. Leopold, born in 1904, the son of a man who made a fortune manufacturing boxes, had a genius-level IQ. Lecturing on botany, writing scholarly tracts on ornithology (he was the nation’s expert on the Kirtland warbler), learning new languages (he had already mastered 10), and translating classics filled his spare time.
Loeb, born in 1905, the son of a millionaire Sears, Roebuck executive, was way above average. He had a passion for reading, mostly crime fiction. By age 15, both boys were in college.
Leopold had become obsessed with the writings of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, particularly the notion of a superman, who was not limited by little things like laws or morality. The pair began to dabble in petty crimes like tossing bricks through windows. Over time, their criminal activities escalated and their bond deepened into a sexual relationship.
They separated briefly in 1921, when Loeb transferred to the University of Michigan. At 17, he was the youngest graduate in the school’s history.
By the fall of 1923, Loeb was back in Chicago and the wicked whiz kids were together again. They decided to act out Loeb’s fantasy of committing the perfect crime, kidnapping for ransom. It took them all winter to plan it.
On May 21, 1924, the pair rented a car and stocked it with such essentials as a chisel, ropes and hydrochloric acid. Then they drove to a park near a local prep school to wait for the perfect victim. They had been trawling for a few hours when, around 5 p.m., Bobby Franks strolled into view.
Loeb, exploiting a mutual interest in tennis, lured Franks into the car by pretending that he wanted some advice about a racket.
