Chicago's "the crime of the century"

On September 10, 1924, nearly a hundred years before our time, a pair of Chicago murderers were convicted of the kidnapping and murder of Robert "Bobby" Franks — a teenage boy whose life was cut short in pursuit of what the killers called an "intellectual thrill." The accused, Nathan F. Leopold, Jr. and Richard A. Loeb, had none other than Clarence Darrow representing them in court, a celebrated lawyer who had previously served as US Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Their confessions ultimately spared them from the death penalty, and instead the pair received life imprisonment plus 99 years behind bars. The case would become infamously known as Chicago's "crime of the century."

Both wealthy and exceptionally bright, Leopold and Loeb had already engaged in a string of petty thefts and arsons before escalating to their most horrific act. On May 21, 1924, the pair lured Bobby Franks into a rented car on Chicago's southside. Loeb, believed to be the more brutal of the two, shoved a gag into the boy's mouth and bludgeoned him with a chisel. Within just minutes, Bobby Franks was dead. They partially buried his body in a railway culvert and then had the audacity to demand $10,000 in ransom from the boy's wealthy family. But the scheme unraveled quickly — police discovered the body in the ditch along with critical evidence, among it a pair of eyeglasses traced back to Leopold. Once confronted, the two confessed almost immediately.

Leopold's father brought in Darrow, who mounted a powerful case against the death penalty over the course of 33 days of testimony before Judge John R. Caverly during July and August 1924. When the judge handed down his ruling, it was life imprisonment for the kidnapping charge and a 99-year sentence for the murder. Following sentencing, both men were sent to the Nebraska Penitentiary located near Joliet, Illinois, in the northern part of the state.