For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz Age Chicago (11 page)

It was a peaceful, almost idyllic, scene. Nathan broke the silence first, turning to speak to Richard as they sat, side by side, in the front of the car. There were several boys on their list, he began, any one of whom would be a suitable victim. Armand Deutsch was their best prospect: Deutsch, an eleven-year-old pupil at the Harvard School, was the grandson of Julius Rosenwald, the president of Sears, Roebuck. The Rosenwald family was one of the wealthiest in the city and, because of the patriarch’s philanthropy, also one of the best known.

Richard shifted uncomfortably in his seat. His father was vice president of Sears, Roebuck. Albert Loeb had known the Rosenwalds for two decades. Richard was uneasy that Armand Deutsch was a possible victim. Suppose they were found out? Imagine the embarrassment for his father if it emerged that Richard had killed Julius Rosenwald’s grandson!

Well, Nathan continued, there was also Johnny Levinson, a nine-year-old boy in the same class at the school as Richard’s younger brother, Tommy. Johnny’s father, Sol Levinson, was one of the wealthiest attorneys in Chicago. He would certainly pay the ransom. Samuel Harris, a fourteen-year-old pupil at the Harvard School, was also on the list; his father was a building contractor who had made his fortune during the city’s real estate boom at the turn of the century.
¹⁴

Richard looked at his watch. They had been talking for almost an hour. It was quarter past two. He turned the key in the ignition and slowly moved the car out of Jackson Park toward the Midway.
¹⁵

A
S THEY TRAVELED NORTH, TOWARD
Kenwood, Nathan reminded Richard that directly across the street from the Harvard School, facing its redbrick facade, there was an alley connecting Ellis Avenue to a parallel road, Ingleside Avenue. They could park the car on Ingleside Avenue, walk along the alley to Ellis Avenue, and from the alley observe the main entrance of the school.
¹⁶

Nathan waited by the car on Ingleside Avenue while Richard walked through the alley to the Harvard School. Richard could see a few boys already by the main entrance; some classes must have ended already. He continued walking, past the entrance and along the north side of the school, toward the playground in the rear.

James Seass, an instructor, was in the playground, standing guard over the boys playing baseball. Richard recognized Seass as a senior at the university, a member of Delta Chi. He guessed that Seass was teaching at the Harvard School part-time to pay his way through college.
¹⁷

Suddenly Richard noticed one of the boys on their list. Johnny Levinson, a thin wire of a boy with straight brown hair falling over his forehead, was scarcely ten feet from where Richard stood.

Could Richard lure Johnny away from his friends? What would persuade Johnny to leave the playground and walk with Richard to the car?

Richard found an excuse to talk to the boy. Johnny had a baseball in his hand; he was waiting for some friends, he explained to Richard, so that they could walk across to the lot at 49th Street and Drexel Boulevard for a pickup baseball game.
¹⁸

Richard left the playground and made his way to the main entrance. His ten-year-old brother, Tommy, had finished his classes and was standing by the door, talking to another boy.
¹⁹

At that moment, Nathan appeared on the other side of Ellis Avenue, directly opposite the school entrance. He whistled for Richard. He waved, urgently, signaling to Richard to join him. There were some children playing on Ingleside Avenue, he announced. Why not capture one of them? The street was otherwise deserted; there were no adults in sight.

No, Richard replied; he had a better plan. Johnny Levinson was going to 49th Street to play baseball; they should watch the game and then, when Johnny left to go home, they could grab the boy and kill him.
²⁰

But it was difficult to watch the game without being observed. They had to be careful: someone might see them watching the boys playing baseball, and if Johnny Levinson vanished, they would surely be linked to his disappearance.

While Nathan went back to his house on Greenwood Avenue to pick up his field glasses, Richard stopped at the drugstore on 47th Street and Ellis Avenue. He would find the Levinsons’ address in the telephone book. Once they knew the street where Johnny lived, they could tell the direction he would take to go home.
²¹

But by the time they arrived at 49th Street, Johnny Levinson had left the game. Perhaps he would return. They watched and waited for Johnny to appear. But there was no sign of the boy—he must have gone home.

Throughout the afternoon, they continued to drive around Kenwood, looking for a victim. Some children were playing near the corner of 48th Street and Greenwood Avenue, so close to the Leopold house that they could watch them from an upstairs bedroom window, but that opportunity also disappointed them—the children never departed alone but always left in small groups or with at least one other child.
²²

It was almost four-thirty. They had now spent almost two hours in Kenwood, waiting and watching, hoping for the opportunity to kidnap a victim. Nathan was ready to abandon the attempt, at least for today; perhaps they should try again tomorrow.

Richard hesitated; it was worth one last try. They would drive around Kenwood a final time, and if they did not see anyone, they would postpone the kidnapping until another day.

Nathan drove the car west along 49th Street, turning left onto Drexel Boulevard. Richard sat in the back, behind the front passenger seat. At Hyde Park Boulevard, they turned left again, continuing east for one block. On Ellis Avenue, they drove north, passing the Loeb family home on the right-hand side.
²³

Richard Loeb had slumped back in his seat. It was already a few minutes past five o’clock and Ellis Avenue was deserted. It seemed futile to continue looking; no doubt all the children had made it safely home.

R
ICHARD SAW HIM FIRST.
There—on the other side of the street—was a young boy, about fourteen years old, with chestnut-brown hair, walking south, alone, on Ellis Avenue. He was wearing a tan jacket with matching knee trousers, a colored shirt, and a necktie; he had on brown shoes and black-and-white checkered socks.
²⁴

Richard leaned forward and tapped Nathan urgently on the shoulder. “Here is an ideal victim.”

Richard looked more closely; the boy seemed familiar. Richard suddenly recognized him. It was his cousin, Bobby Franks! Richard murmured into Nathan’s ear, “I know him.”
²⁵

The Franks family lived on Ellis Avenue, almost directly opposite the Loeb home. Richard knew the Franks children well—just yesterday, he had played tennis with Bobby on the court at the rear of the Franks mansion.

The car slowed down, but Bobby had already walked past. He had now crossed 48th Street.

Nathan turned the car in a circle so as to drive up behind the boy. He drove slowly down Ellis Avenue, gradually catching up with Bobby, pulling alongside the boy.

13.
THE KIDNAPPING.
As Leopold and Loeb drove north along Ellis Avenue, they spotted Bobby Franks walking south, about to cross 48th Street. They turned the car around to drive up behind Franks just before he reached 49th Street.

“Hey, Bob,” Richard shouted from the rear window.

Bobby turned slightly to see the Willys-Knight stop by the curb. Richard leaned forward, into the front passenger seat, to open the front door.

“Hello, Bob. I’ll give you a ride.”

The boy shook his head—he was almost home.

“No, I can walk.”

“Come on in the car; I want to talk to you about the tennis racket you had yesterday. I want to get one for my brother.”
²⁶

Bobby had moved closer now. He was standing by the side of the car. Richard looked at him through the open window. Bobby was so close that Richard could have grabbed him and pulled him inside, but he continued talking, hoping to persuade the boy to step into the front seat.

Bobby had stepped onto the running board. The front passenger door was open, inviting the boy inside, and then suddenly Bobby slid himself into the front seat, next to Nathan.

Richard gestured toward Nathan, “You know Leopold, don’t you?”

Bobby glanced sideways at Nathan and shook his head, not recognizing him.

“No.”

“You don’t mind [us] taking you around the block?”

“Certainly not.” Bobby turned around in the seat to face Richard; he smiled at his cousin with an open, innocent grin, pleased to see Richard, ready to banter about his success in yesterday’s tennis game.
²⁷

The car slowly accelerated down Ellis Avenue. As it passed 49th Street, Richard felt on the car seat beside him for the chisel. Where had it gone? There it was! They had taped up the blade so that the blunt end—the handle—could be used as a club. Richard felt it in his hand. He grasped it more firmly.

At 50th Street, Nathan turned the car left. As it made the turn, Bobby looked away from Richard and glanced toward the front of the car.

Richard reached over the seat. He grabbed the boy from behind with his left hand, covering Bobby’s mouth to stop him from crying out. He brought the chisel down hard—it smashed into the back of the boy’s skull. Once again—he pounded the chisel into the skull with as much force as possible…but the boy was still conscious. Bobby had now twisted halfway around in the seat, facing back to Richard, desperately raising his arms as though to protect himself from the blows. Richard smashed the chisel down two more times into Bobby’s forehead, but still Bobby struggled for his life.

The fourth blow had gashed a large hole in the boy’s forehead. Bobby now began to collapse onto the front seat. Blood from the head wound was everywhere, spreading across the seat, splashed onto Nathan’s trousers, spilling onto the floor. Bobby was holding his hands to his head, curled up in pain on the front seat, whimpering and crying, his legs crumpled awkwardly underneath his body, as the blood continued to seep onto the front seat.

It was inexplicable, Richard thought, that Bobby was still conscious. Surely those four blows would have knocked him out?

Richard reached down and pulled Bobby suddenly upward, up over the front seat into the back of the car. He jammed a rag down the boy’s throat, stuffing it down as hard as possible, forcing it in with his fingers past the boy’s teeth, pushing against the resistance of the tongue. He tore off a large strip of adhesive tape from the roll and taped the mouth shut. Finally! The boy’s moaning and crying had stopped. Richard relaxed his grip—Bobby slid off his lap and lay crumpled at his feet.
²⁸

N
ATHAN CONTINUED DRIVING.
T
HE CAR
left the city in the direction of Gary. Twenty minutes later, they were in open country, driving along a deserted road. They arrived at a spur road, not much more than a small two-lane track, leading from Calumet Boulevard to the Gary road.

Nathan parked the car off the road on a small bank of grass near a copse. The sun had already begun its evening descent and the summer heat had started to slacken its grip on the day. Fields of brown and blond stubble stretched out before them to the horizon. On the left, in the distance, they could see a small cemetery, and scattered across the flat, empty plains, dilapidated farm buildings broke the monotony of the landscape.
²⁹

Only occasional sounds disturbed the evening silence—the crows in the adjacent wood were cackling and cawing, and coming from the copse, there was the idiosyncratic whistle of a whip-poor-will—but across the vacant horizon, nothing moved. They were alone.

It was still only a few minutes past six o’clock. If they were to dispose of the body safely, they had to wait until nightfall. There was nothing to do but remain in the car.

Both boys were hungry—they had not eaten for six hours. Eventually Nathan started the engine and began driving along the Indiana country roads looking for a place to eat. He stopped at the Dew Drop Inn, a roadside convenience store with large billboards on its outside walls tempting passersby with promises of Cracker Jack and Coca-Cola. The owner, Jim Tamis, was about to close for the night. Nathan returned to the car with a couple of hot dogs and two bottles of root beer.
³⁰