Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were rich boys attending graduate school at the University of Chicago. Having lived a pampered life, they came to the conclusion that they were superior to regular people. To prove it to themselves, they decided to pull off the perfect crime. On May 21, 1924, they picked up a boy named Bobby Franks. Franks, a distant cousin of Loeb, was the son of a Chicago millionaire. He was hit over the head with a chisel and suffocated to death. The body was stripped, dosed with acid, and dumped in a culvert at Wolf Lake, Indiana. Unfortunately for perfection, Loeb left an expensive pair of eyeglasses at the scene and they were traced to him. Leopold and Loeb were arrested and under questioning admitted to the crime. The most famous lawyer in the country, Clarence Darrow, was hired for the case. He shocked everyone by having his clients plead guilty, knowing they had a better chance for leniency with the judge than with a jury. For the sentencing, he brought in psychiatric experts to argue the two were immature and were emotionally “diseased”. After twelve hours of closing arguments by Darrow, they were sentenced to life plus 99 years. They were model prisoners, including hosting a school for inmates. Loeb was murdered by another convict in 1936. Leopold was paroled in 1958. He moved to Puerto Rico and worked in a hospital. He dreamed of coming up with a medical breakthrough that would change him from a villain to a hero. That dream went unfulfilled. Lists 146-7
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