LEOPOLD AND LOEB
THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE THE CLEVEREST BOYS IN THEIR CLASS, SO COULD LEOPOLD AND LOEB PROVE THIS BY PLANNING AND COMMITTING THE PERFECT MURDER?
They were two young men on the cusp of adulthood, not yet out of their teens but with both the wealth and education to help them achieve their dreams. The sons of affluent men, one of them – Richard Loeb, a strikingly good-looking youth – was the youngest ever graduate of the University of Chicago, while his friend Nathan Leopold was a multi-lingual University of Michigan graduate. With expertise in ornithology, an interest in law, and other academic achievements despite only being 18 and 19, they had the whole world before them and had the potential to dominate whatever field of work they chose after completing their studies. What they were really interested in, though, was murder.
In the spring and summer of 1924, the actions of Leopold and Loeb would enthral and horrify not only the American public but people worldwide. Their audacious, perverse plan to commit the perfect murder not only unravelled, as the two self-professed intellectuals made basic errors that led the police straight to them, but also led to their claims of mental superiority being dissected by press and law enforcers.
The Gilded Sons
The last decades of the 19th century constituted America’s Gilded Age, a period of rapid economic growth, rising wages, and a corresponding increase in immigration, as people flocked to the United States to find work. In the early 20th century, Leopold and Loeb were two of America’s gilded sons. Nathan Freudenthal Leopold was born on 19 November 1904 in Chicago, the youngest of three boys. His family was a typical American success story from the Gilded Age: his father, also named Nathan, was the son of German immigrants, but was born in Eagle River, Michigan. Nathan Sr.’s own father, Samuel, had migrated to the US where, by 1893, he had established the Lake Michigan and Lake Superior Transportation Company (LM&LSTC) and soon established a comfortable family home on Michigan Avenue. By 1920 the family had moved to Greenwood Avenue in the affluent Chicago suburb of Kenwood, and Nathan Sr. had become president of the Manitou Steamship Company, operators of the Manitou steamer, which had initially been built for the LM&LSTC. Nathan Sr. sent two of his sons to study at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor – Samuel and Nathan.
By the time Nathan reached Ann Arbor, another grandchild of German immigrants was also starting h
