For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz Age Chicago (18 page)

Franks was sorry, of course, for the parents of the killers. “I have known them a great many years,” he said, “and for them I have only the deepest sympathy,” but the law must take its course. “No punishment would be too severe for them. They are fiends. I can’t see how any jury, court or even the President could release them, the act was so atrocious…. They ought to hang.”
⁹

On the opposite side of Ellis Avenue, at the Loeb house, two private bodyguards stood at the front gate to shoo away intruders. Curious spectators had started to gather outside the house; occasionally they could spot Anna Loeb pacing nervously as she awaited more news of her son. A relative of the family did speak to the journalists, but only to deny that Richard had any connection with the murder: “There is no truth to these reports. Just lies, lies, lies!…We are not worried about these rumors…. He is innocent and confessed merely to get sleep. It can be repudiated when he comes to trial.”
¹⁰

Three blocks north, at the Leopold household, Nathan Leopold Sr. bravely denied his son’s guilt: “impossible, ridiculous,…Nathan—my boy—my boy—I can’t believe it…. I won’t believe it.” But as he turned back into the house, a deep frown creased the old man’s forehead.
¹¹

For the close-knit Jewish community in Kenwood, the revelation that the murderers had come from within its ranks was impossible to credit. Acquaintances and friends of the families reacted with shock and disbelief that Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb had confessed to such an atrocious murder. The attorney Sol Levinson had already heard from the police that Nathan and Richard had eyed his son, Johnny, as a possible kidnapping victim when a reporter from the
Chicago Herald and Examiner
arrived at his home at midday to interview him. Levinson and his wife had had dinner at the Loebs only the previous month. Richard had been present and had “delighted us by his charming personality. I regarded him as one of the finest youths I have ever known. His confession of this awful crime is simply unbelievable to all who know him. I can hardly think it possible that he and young Leopold contemplated harm to my boy.”

Adele Harris, the wife of a millionaire building contractor, was equally shocked to learn that the murderers had considered her fourteen-year-old son, Samuel, as a murder victim; she too knew Richard Loeb as “one of the sweetest boys in the world. It was impossible to know him without being fond of him.”
¹²

Lessing Rosenwald, the manager of the Philadelphia branch of Sears, Roebuck, was baffled that Richard had confessed to the murder. The Rosenwald children and the Loeb boys had grown up together. “Richard Loeb is a fine fellow,” Lessing Rosenwald remarked. “I can’t understand why he would do a thing like that. If he wanted money all he had to do was to ask for it…. I knew Richard as a brother and I can’t believe this thing about him.”
¹³

An acquaintance of the Loeb and Leopold families, speaking anonymously, speculated that the casual attitude of the parents toward religious instruction had allowed Richard and Nathan to fall into bad habits. Both families worshipped at Sinai Congregation, a Reform temple at 47th Street and Grand Boulevard. The rabbi, Emil Hirsch, had been, until his death the previous year, a leading exponent of Reform Judaism, and the synagogue had become an important institution for the affluent German Jewish communities of Hyde Park and Kenwood. But some families had not been as observant as one might expect, and neither Richard Loeb nor Nathan Leopold had been consistently educated in Jewish principles. “Though the father of ‘Babe’ Leopold is a devout Jew, he failed to make religious influence a part of his son’s training. An insistence on an understanding and respect for the father’s religion would have made all the difference in the world in that young man’s development.” And Richard Loeb? His mother, Anna, was a Catholic who had only reluctantly agreed that her sons be brought up in the Jewish faith.
¹⁴

The mayor of Chicago, William Dever, counted Albert Loeb as a personal friend. Dever was careful, in his first public comments on the case, to congratulate the detectives on their swift success: “I am very much pleased with the efficient and vigorous work done by the police in solving this mystery. The case was so mysterious and baffling I was afraid it never would be solved. It was an exhibition of fine work which will be appreciated by all the people of Chicago.” Dever knew how quickly anti-Semitism might appear in a scandal that involved the scions of wealthy Jews, and he was careful also to call for restraint: “I have the deepest sympathy for the parents of all three boys. I know Mr. Loeb, whom I regard as a man of splendid character and attainment. It is sad that such a tragedy should be visited upon these people and it invites the sympathy of all.”
¹⁵

John Caverly, chief justice of the Criminal Court, promised that he would bring kidnapping and murder charges before the grand jury as soon as possible—most probably on the following Tuesday, 3 June—and predicted that the trial would begin within the next thirty days. There was to be no delay of justice simply because the prisoners came from wealthy families. Robert Crowe welcomed Caverly’s announcement. He was ready to go to trial. He was confident, he announced, that he had “a hanging case…. I shall present the facts, including the confessions, to the grand jury early in the week.”
¹⁶

Crowe had the confessions, but Nathan and Richard could (and probably would) repudiate them. Their lawyers would, no doubt, claim that they had spoken under duress, that the police had beaten them, that Crowe had denied them access to a lawyer.

The state’s attorney anticipated such claims. Therefore, he would ask the boys to retrace their steps on the day of the murder—to show him where they had kidnapped Bobby Franks, how they had driven out to Wolf Lake, and where they had disposed of Bobby’s clothes.

It was an unusual strategy—but this was an unusual case, unlike anything in Crowe’s experience as a state’s attorney. Both Nathan and Richard were cooperating—in that respect, Crowe had no complaints. Neither boy had yet pressed his right to contact a lawyer, and neither the Loeb family nor the Leopold family had yet appeared at the Criminal Court Building to demand access to the boys. It was now nine o’clock on Saturday morning. The Chicago newspapers had already appeared with accounts of the confessions, yet neither Albert Loeb nor Nathan Leopold Sr. had thought to hire lawyers to get the boys out of his custody.

At ten minutes past nine, a cavalcade of seven police cars set out from the Criminal Court Building. Forty detectives—including the deputy captain of police, William Shoemacher, and the chief of detectives, Michael Hughes—accompanied Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb. In the rear, tagging along behind the seven black sedans, dozens of journalists and photographers followed in their cars.

The procession stopped first at the Rent-A-Car Company at 1427 South Michigan Avenue. The general manager, Walter Jacobs, identified Nathan Leopold as the man who had taken out a dark green Willys-Knight on Wednesday, 21 May.
¹⁷

Where was that car now? Was it in the garage? Could the police, Shoemacher asked, take a look at it? Jacobs checked his records—a customer named Salvatore Sarascio had rented the car the previous day and it was still out, but Jacobs assured Shoemacher that he would make sure to notify the police when it came back into the garage.
¹⁸

They stopped next at the lunchroom at 1352 Wabash Avenue where Richard had waited by the phone to provide a reference for Nathan. Gertrude Barish, the wife of the owner, remembered seeing Richard about three weeks previously—she recalled that he had waited by the telephone booth at the back of the restaurant for almost an hour.

Richard Loeb, surrounded by detectives, stood in the center of the room listening. He had not had a wink of sleep. Richard felt tired and miserable, and then dizzy and light-headed; he heard the woman’s voice droning away, and suddenly his legs buckled underneath him and he fell, fainting, to the floor.

Nathan also was exhausted. Even after he had finished giving his confession that morning, Crowe had kept him sitting and waiting, waiting endlessly in an office in the Criminal Court Building. Now he was in an irritable mood. Nathan had already read the morning newspapers, and he was annoyed that they all painted the murder as the worst crime in the city’s history.

Gertrude Barish finally finished talking to the detectives. They left the diner to drive down Cottage Grove Avenue and, in the back of the police car, Nathan gave vent to his indignation.

“I can’t understand,” Nathan complained, talking to no one in particular, “why the papers say this is such an atrocious murder.”

Frank Johnson, the police sergeant who had first brought Nathan in for questioning, turned around in his seat to look at the boy. Johnson had gotten to know Nathan well in the past two days, yet he was as puzzled by the crime as anyone else. How, he wondered, could this slightly shy and rather amiable young man have committed such a callous act?

“Is it necessary,” he asked, “that you had to kill the boy?”

“It was,” Nathan replied.

“Why?”

Nathan explained that Richard Loeb and Bobby Franks had been second cousins. Bobby knew Richard, and if they had released him, he would surely have identified Richard to the police. “We couldn’t afford to take a chance to have him come back and say it was Dick.”

But, Johnson replied, “He didn’t know you.”

“Well, I lived in the neighborhood and it was just a question of time before he would see me.”
¹⁹

The police car had been traveling south along Cottage Grove Avenue and now it came to a stop outside a hardware store close to 43rd Street. Albert Hubinger had been the clerk on duty at the store when Richard had purchased the cold chisel and the rope. Yes, Hubinger told the detectives, he remembered Richard well—he could identify him as the man who had bought the chisel and rope.
²⁰

Two blocks farther on, at a second drugstore at 4458 Cottage Grove Avenue, Aaron Adler remembered selling a pint bottle of hydrochloric acid to Nathan. He had not been likely to forget it, he told the police. He rarely sold such a large quantity of chemically pure acid; it was a very unusual purchase.
²¹

The police cavalcade drove north along Cottage Grove Avenue to the Leopold family home on Greenwood Avenue; Nathan had promised to provide the hip boots that he had worn in the culvert. Then it was on to Jackson Park to show the detectives the spot where Nathan had thrown the typewriter into the outer harbor. And then out onto South Shore Drive, stopping briefly at 73rd Street to retrieve the partially burned automobile blanket, before traveling out of the city on the Michigan City Road, turning at Forsyth Avenue and onto Hopp Road, where, Richard told the police, they would find the shoes, belt buckle, and class pin belonging to Bobby Franks.
²²

I
N
C
HICAGO, A SMALL CROWD
of onlookers had already gathered at the front entrance of the Criminal Court Building. The spectators never spotted either Nathan or Richard, but they did see, at around two o’clock in the afternoon, four distinguished-looking gentlemen, all dressed in dark suits and with somber expressions, enter the building.

Milton Smith, an assistant state’s attorney, met with the four men—the father, Nathan Leopold Sr.; a brother, Michael Leopold; an uncle, Jacob Loeb; and the Leopold family lawyer, Benjamin Bachrach—but was unable to let them see Robert Crowe. The state’s attorney was still driving around Chicago with Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold.

When would they be back? Smith was not sure: sometime that afternoon, perhaps. But in any case, he warned, it was unlikely that they would be able to see either Crowe or the two boys. The state’s attorney would release them only on a writ of habeas corpus and the courts would not open again until Monday morning. Whatever else happened, Smith cautioned, both Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold would remain in police custody until then.
²³

T
HE NEXT DAY,
S
UNDAY
, 1 June, promised to be bright and sunny. The humidity had dropped and the storms that had broken over the city during the week had now rolled on farther west, across the plains and out toward the Pacific. Ruby Darrow lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling. It was not yet seven o’clock and her husband, Clarence, was fast asleep, snoring contentedly. Ruby turned on her side and lifted herself on her elbow to look across at Clarence. His face was lined, his hair had thinned and had long ago turned gray, and his cheeks now sagged with age, but Ruby thought he was still an adorable man, an immensely comforting and reassuring presence in her life.

Suddenly she heard the ringing of the front doorbell. Who could it be so early on a Sunday morning? They did not expect visitors, and in any case no one would presume to visit at such a time. There it was again! The bell had an urgent, persistent tone, as though the visitor would not be denied.

Ruby climbed out of bed to put on her dressing gown and slippers. The bedroom was at one end of their seven-room apartment, and the front door was at the other end of a long corridor along which Ruby now walked, fastening the cord of the gown around her waist as she made her way toward the sound of the bell.

She opened the door. Four men stood before her. Ruby recognized Jacob Loeb, the former president of the Board of Education, but who were the others? Ruby Darrow had not seen them before.

Jacob Loeb bustled into the apartment. He seemed in a desperate hurry.

“We’ve got to see Clarence Darrow! Is he here?”