Leopold and Loeb had committed the “perfect crime” … or had they?
In 1924, one of the most infamous murders in American history was committed. 19-year-old Nathan Leopold and 18-year-old Richard Loeb (better known as “Leopold and Loeb”) murdered a 14-year-old boy named Bobby Franks. The boy was Loeb’s second cousin and across-the-street neighbor. Bobby Franks had played tennis at the Loeb residence several times. The two men tried to lure him into their car as he walked home from school. The boy seems initially to have refused, because his destination was only two blocks away. But Loeb successfully persuaded the boy to enter the car, to discuss a tennis racket that he had been using. As Wikipedia puts it, “Loeb struck Franks, who was sitting in front of him in the passenger seat, several times in the head with [a] chisel, then dragged him into the back seat and gagged him, where he died.”
Details of their murder of 14-year-old Bobby Franks
Wikipedia also notes that “With the body on the floorboard, out of view, the men drove to their predetermined dumping spot near Wolf Lake in Hammond, Indiana, 25 miles (40 km) south of Chicago. After nightfall, they removed and discarded Franks' clothes, then concealed the body in a culvert along the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks north of the lake. To obscure the body's identity, they poured hydrochloric acid on the face and genitals to disguise the fact that he had been circumcised.” They left a typed ransom note with the victim’s mother, and then tried to destroy the typewriter that could have linked them to the note. They also burned their blood-stained clothing, and then spent the evening playing cards – a sign of how little they cared about what they had done. The family had plans to pay the ransom, but they were abandoned when the boy’s body was found. As the film’s title says, Leopold and Loeb thought that they had committed “The Perfect Crime.” But Leopold had left his eyeglasses at the crime scene, and they had an unusual hinge that made them easy to trace. Leopold was one of only three people in Chicago to have purchased such an eyeglass hinge. Thus, the police traced the hinge to its purchaser, and zeroed in on the young Leopold as a suspect.
Nathan Leopold
The arrest of both Leopold and Loeb for the crime
The police soon found out that Leopold was close friends with Loeb, and also thus became interested in him as a suspect. They soon discovered that Leopold and Loeb were more than just friends. When PBS tells this story in this film, they play both the Jewish card and the gay card, in an attempt to get sympathy for the perpetrators. (But more on that in a minute.) They go over the perps’ infamous confessions, which were enough to get them arrested and charged with murder. Although they initially denied involvement in the crime, their confessions soon revealed that they were “proud” of their actions – proud enough to repeat the confessions in front of some reporters. Perhaps partially because of this, the perpetrators received a lot of bad press, by the time that their trial began. The film goes through most of this with astonishing speed, since this film is only an hour long. Thus, the bulk of this short film is about the trial. In that trial, Leopold and Loeb were defended by Clarence Darrow, who had achieved fame as a defense attorney.
Richard Loeb
The trial of Leopold and Loeb, and the portrayal of the perpetrators as helpless “victims”
At the time of the murder, Leopold had been 19 years of age, and Loeb had been 18 years of age. At that time, the minimum adult age was actually 21. Thus, Leopold and Loeb were legally considered minors at the time of the crime, even though they would be considered adults today. Under the laws of that time, this made it harder to try them as adults. It even had the potential to protect them from capital punishment, then a real possibility for them. Specifically, there was a possibility that they would be the state’s first offenders of that age to receive the death penalty. Thus, defense counsel Clarence Darrow had some other cards to play. He gave a defense that was far ahead of its time, and not in a good way. That is, he tried to paint Leopold and Loeb as “victims.” This was a hard case to make, because Leopold and Loeb were both from upper-class families. But Darrow argued that they had both been “molested” by their governesses. He presented a sob story that was creative, although it was not backed up by much in the way of evidence. It’s amazing how many excuses someone can come up with for committing a murder. Many today seem more willing to pardon murders than they are to pardon the saying of a racial slur – unless, of course, the murders are “racially motivated.” But I digress. Suffice it to say that this defense had an emotional punch, even if it was not corroborated by any real evidence.
Defense attorney Clarence Darrow
Leopold and Loeb are spared the death penalty because of being underage at the time
With the family’s permission, attacks were even made upon the family itself, and upon the parenting style of their upbringing. The parents wanted badly to spare their sons from the death penalty, and so were all right with these desperate tactics. Earlier in the trial, Leopold and Loeb had snickered at the prosecution’s violent descriptions of Bobby Franks’ death, showing that they were amused (rather than horrified) by what they had done. But during the sob story presented by their defense attorney, the two of them had tears in their eyes. Even the judge had tears in his eyes. The prosecutor was furious, and kept bringing the story back to the grim facts of the victim’s death. Clarence Darrow seems never to have manifested any sympathy for the young murder victim, or for the devastated family that he had left behind. It was all about his clients, and how they had been “victims” themselves (a rather spurious defense). In the end, the judge was unmoved by the theatrical sob stories, but spared the boys from the death penalty anyway. This was because they were legally considered minors at the time of the crime. The case was nonetheless influential, though, because it opened the door to future use of these kinds of defenses – which are par for the course in today’s criminal cases.
Leopold in Stateville Penitentiary, 1931
A response to this film’s defense of Leopold and Loeb (which I find disturbing)
This film is good as storytelling, and it makes good use of period photographs and newspaper headlines. But I found its defense of Leopold and Loeb to be disturbing. They manifested considerable sympathy for two hardened murderers, who were amused by chiseling and gagging a 14-year-old boy into his early grave. But no such sympathy is given to the murder victim, who lost decades’ worth of opportunity to live his life. No sympathy is given to Bobby Franks’ family, who would have to live without their beloved son because of the insensitive actions of two young punks. I tire of the kinds of defenses pioneered at this trial, although I’m all right with PBS covering them anyway. Unfortunately, they had a strong historical influence, which is still felt to the present day. But I am repulsed by hearing them play the gay card, the Jewish card, and other victim-identity cards – particularly since the murder victim was also himself Jewish. When will people of this kind start to feel any sympathy for the real victim? I’m sure that opposition to capital punishment is the real motive behind these tactics, but it makes them rather insensitive to the life of the real victim and his bereaved loved ones. Thus, excusing these things on the grounds of a “respect for life” would seem rather hollow and inconsistent. I again give PBS credit for good storytelling, but I disagree with them about the moral culpability of the murderers. Leopold and Loeb are still infamous today for a reason, and their upper-class upbringing makes it hard for me to see them as true victims. To me, the real victim is a 14-year-old boy coming home from school, whose future was destroyed by a chisel and a gag, and by two callous individuals who just didn’t care.
Bobby Franks, the 14-year-old murder victim
Conclusion: Good storytelling, but rather biased because of its defense of two thugs
I’m still glad that I watched this film, because I like to hear other opinions on these things. And, again, this film really does have some good storytelling. But I give it a low review for its defense of two cold-hearted thugs, who thought that it was “funny” to kill an innocent boy. Surely we can expect better from PBS.
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