Bobby Franks

Case background and investigation

Robert "Bobby" Franks, born September 19, 1909, was the 14-year-old son of a wealthy Chicago family living in the Kenwood neighborhood. On the afternoon of May 21, 1924, he was walking home from school when he was offered a ride by Richard Loeb, 18, who knew him, and Nathan Leopold, 19. Both were from prominent Kenwood families and had attended the University of Chicago. According to History.com, Loeb was a distant relative of the boy.

Franks was killed inside the rented car shortly after he got in. That night Leopold and Loeb hid his body in a drainage culvert beneath railroad tracks near Wolf Lake, on the far south side of the city. They then contacted the Franks family by telephone and by letter, demanding $10,000 in ransom, to make the crime appear to be a kidnapping for money.

The plan failed the next day. On May 22, 1924, a passer-by found the body in the culvert before any ransom could be paid. The Chicago Sun-Times' contemporary coverage, republished by the paper, shows that police at first considered drowning before head wounds were noted. Near the body, investigators found a pair of eyeglasses. According to Smithsonian Magazine, the glasses had an unusual hinge sold by a single Chicago supplier, and only three such pairs had been sold, one of them to Leopold. The typewriter used for the ransom letter was also later recovered.

Questioned by prosecutors, both men confessed by May 31, 1924. Their accounts agreed on nearly everything except which of them had struck the blows. Their stated motive, as summarized by History.com, was the wish to carry out a so-called perfect crime.

The families hired Clarence Darrow. Rather than go before a jury, Darrow had both defendants plead guilty, so that the only question was the sentence, to be decided by Judge John R. Caverly of the Cook County court. After a hearing lasting about a month, in which Darrow made a lengthy argument against capital punishment, Caverly on September 10, 1924, sentenced each defendant to life imprisonment for the murder plus 99 years for the kidnapping.

Loeb died on January 28, 1936, after being slashed with a razor by a fellow inmate at Stateville Penitentiary; the inmate was tried and found not guilty. Leopold was paroled on March 13, 1958, after 33 years in prison, moved to Puerto Rico, and died there on August 29, 1971.