American Monsters: Leopold and Loeb

0:00 Speaker 1: Warning. Kind of Murdery contains adult themes, explicit language, and descriptions of violence. It is not suitable for anyone, and we recommend you stop listening. Now.

0:16 Speaker 2: True Crime with the dash of the paranormal, the garish, the strange in the darkly comic. A podcast that's about more than just murder. It's my very own pocket dimension, home to a curated collection of bizarre and compelling stories, the unsolved, the unsettling, and the unbelievable. I cover it all just so long as it's kind of murdery. Hello, everybody, welcome to Kind of Murdery. I'm your host, Zevin Odelberg. You know, sometimes people think that our predilection for and the media's predilection for hyperbole is a modern thing, fueled by social media and the Internet and the twenty four hour news cycle, et cetera.

0:56 Speaker 2: But the truth is Americans have nearly always had a lot of affair with hyperbole, with exaggeration. In fact, there are three different trials that the media dubbed the Trial of the Century and that are often referred to by legal scholars as the Trial of the Century. What's a little bit funny as it relates to our love affair with exaggeration is that all three of these trials took place within a decade of each other, two of them within a year of each other. Perhaps they should have been competing for Trial of the Decade, but indeed the stakes were high and the participants famous.

1:31 Speaker 2: The three trials I'm referring to, of course, nineteen twenty four's Leopold and Loeb case, nineteen twenty five's John Scopes monkey trial, and nineteen thirty four's Lindbergh baby trial for a triplet of trials of the century that all happened within a decade of each other. These cases are all very different. Two of them, however, have one key thing in common. Famous, or perhaps, depending on who you ask, infamous defense attorney Clarence Darrow would defer the accused in both the Leopold and Loeb case and the John Scopes monkey trial.

2:05 Speaker 2: The crimes themselves were wildly unlike. However, Leopold and Lobe were accused of horrific child murder with a chisel, no less, John Scopes of teaching evolutionary science to his students. If you're wondering which trial we're going to cover today, this is kind of murdery. So it will not be the John Scopes evolution trial. We are, in fact going to wade into what some still consider to be the most notorious crime in American history, the Chicago Horror. Leopold and Lobe kind of murdery starts now.

2:47 Speaker 2: It was a pleasant sunny spring afternoon in Chicago on May twenty first, nineteen twenty four, and fourteen year old Robert Franks was on his way home from school. He made the kind of progress that alloy in that era would make on a day like this. There were steam shovels to inspect, baseball games to be umpired, new bikes to be tried out. He didn't return home right away, well so what that was to be expected, and certainly no cause for alarm. His parents had learned to accept with patience his boyish refusals to return home on time.

3:19 Speaker 2: If Robert's parents were worried at all, it was only that he make at home in time for dinner, and in this duty Robert rarely, if ever failed. The Franks were a wealthy family who lived in a large mansion and employed a live in serving staff. At a little after six o'clock that evening, mister Frank sent two of the house servants in search of his prodigal son. During their absence, father and mother sat down to supper, and, with a few quiet words, agreed upon the plan of further impressing upon their youthful wanderer the importance of being prompt and responsible.

3:52 Speaker 2: By seven o'clock, their anxiety had developed into profound worry. Missus Franks begged her husband to inquire into the reasons for Robert's prolonged absence. She worried that something might have happened to him, but mister Franks was inclined to regard it lightly. He sought to dispel her doubts with the suggestion that Robert might have gone to a playmate's house and been persuaded to remain there for supper. But I'm sure he would call me, persisted the mother. Mister Franks put on his coat and hat and strode out the door of his massive home in search of the air to his million.

4:26 Speaker 2: While mister Franks was out, the servants returned. They were empty handed. Robert had left the Harvard School, a private boys institution located four blocks away, at the regular hour of dismissal. This they had gleaned from the boys and groups of girls still playing in the neighboring streets. Despite inquiring from door to door, they found out nothing further. Robert, by all appearances, had simply and completely disappeared. The lines on missus Frank's face deepened. She began to pace the floor for one whom Riches dispelled.

4:58 Speaker 2: All domestic details in difficult Missus Frank suddenly became conscious of them. Previously, the telephone had been well, perhaps just a means of communication, a convenient household equipment, and more often a necessary nuisance. She looked at it hungrily. Would it bring news of Robert? Perhaps it was out of order. She picked it up, lifted the receiver, and heard the operators reassuring soprano greeting. So the telephone was working, but why didn't somebody call? She studied the great oak door that led out into a spacious area that was more like a palace portico than a porch.

5:31 Speaker 2: Who would be the first to come through that door? Her son? Her husband? She gasped, Would it be an ambulance attendant? At the thought, Missus Frank swayed and fell to the floor in a dead faint. The servants rushed to her. Her limp form was carried to a sofa, and trembling hands worked over it. Down the block, Jacob Franks was ringing the bell at the door of Samuel Edleston, Corporation Council for the City of Chicago, and a warm friend of Frank's. They were confidences, and as soon as he was admitted to the house, mister Franks informed her friend of the undue absence of his son, But Jacob remonstrated, mister Edelson, it isn't yet nine o'clock.

6:08 Speaker 2: I'm sure you're over anxious about this. Come. Chances are Robbi's decided to see a movie twice through. No. No, The father was sure he knew his son Robert wouldn't do this. No, he's never absent in himself without a word of explanation, nothing like this. I'm worried. Put your hat on, we'll take a walk and look around. The two sauntered off, one of the pair occasionally halted a passing boy. Have you seen my son Robert? No, mister, I ain't seen him, as he lost. They moved on, the friend consoling and the father unconsolable.

6:36 Speaker 2: Have you seen Robert?

6:37 Speaker 1: No?

6:38 Speaker 2: The question began to burn. The voice quivered. The boys were blunt with their answers. It was nope or uh uh, and just a shake of the head. Darkness was beginning to envelop the streets. Gradually, mister Edelson was forced to agree with Jacob Franks. The situation was serious. From that hour on, the situation for mister Franks was to be more than serious. It was to be a star and haunting tragedy, a tragedy that no friend smiles, comfort or pity could soften, tragedy that would slay him by torturous degrees.

7:09 Speaker 2: An hour more of tireless tramping around found mister Franks and his friend before the darkened windows of the Harvard School. A suspicion that perhaps Robert Franks might, under certain unexplainable circumstances, have been locked in the school building occurred to both men, and they tried various doors, but with no avail. Not to be frustrated so easily, they decided upon an unconventional method of injury. Here is where the story does something that we call crossing the rubicon. The disappearance of Robert Franks is no longer a private matter, a forgettable family incident.

7:41 Speaker 2: By virtue of the fact that a prominent millionaire and a senior public official climbed through the window of a school building at night, the case of missing boy Robert Franks became news, but not yet. For now. We stay with the panicked father and his friend as they wearily search for the young boy. Eventually they give up on the school. They had covered every room, they had shouted and called, until the tremor of fear in their voices gave back such mournful echoes that they became silent and depressed.

8:10 Speaker 2: They departed from the building and made their way to mister Frank's home, hopeful, though discouraged, apprehensive, and yet totally unprepared for the shock that was to greet them. Why are all the lights on, said mister Franks as they mounted the steps. I'll bet your long lost son has returned to the fold, Mister Edison ventured, but they were met with a state of affairs that nearly sent the father reeling. The occupants of the house were panic stricken, and their hysterical explanations unintelligible.

8:37 Speaker 2: Missus Franks was dangerously ill, stammering, the maid managed to share that there had been a telephone call. It had come while mister Franks was out. The atmosphere of the home was charged with excitement. Who leaded the frantic father, searching the eyes about him. Uh A, mister Johnson, the maid stuttered, Robert has been kidnapped. Such was the beginning of the end. Life for the Frank's family had been a sweet, happy existence before this day. Henceforth it was a process of dying and dying broken hearted.

9:04 Speaker 2: All the days of their lives were bound up in the bright, affectionate character of their son, Robert. Mister Edelson took charge of affairs when Missus Franks had recovered her composure sufficiently to speak, He questioned her concerning the phone call. When she lifted the receiver, a strange voice answered her by name and said, this is mister Johnson speaking. As you probably understand, your son has been kidnapped. You can be sure no harm will come to him. Robert has been stolen for ransom. Tomorrow morning you will get complete instructions for the drop.

9:34 Speaker 2: The voice ceased abruptly, and Missus Franks went limp. Efforts were made to trace the call, but the connection had been broken long before telephone authorities could be advised. A doctor was summoned to the bedside of the boy's mother, and the father and mister Edison began to talk it over. I believe it's a prank, suggested mister Edison consolingly. I hope to God, murmured his friend. I hope to God you're right, but I'm afraid not. Oh, I am afraid not. The best thing we can do, I believe is see the police, said mister Edelson.

10:03 Speaker 2: I'd rather not. Mister Franks objected, I believe Robert is in a serious predicament. To employ the police might jeopardize his life. We'd better wait till morning for the letter. Sam murmured Robert's father in a startlingly different voice. Do you do you think Robert is dead? The friend, a wonderful friend, met the question masterfully. Come now, Jacob, your nerves are running away with you. Listen. The police have every facility for tracing Bobby. Now's the time to put them to work. If we wait, we take unnecessary chances.

10:34 Speaker 2: If we strike back swiftly, everything will be in our favor. Here, here's your coat, let's be off. Mister Franks and mister Edelson drove directly to the Detective Bureau at one eighty North La Saul Street. It was a gloomy, dingy structure, laden with the dust of the streets. Three reporters inside were on duty, one from the City Press, another from the Chicago Tribune, and a third from the Chicago Herald Examiner. Chief of Detective Michael Hughes, known to his friends and admires go get a mic was in his office.

11:03 Speaker 2: Well hello there, Sam, he greeted, when he caught sight of mister Edison. What are you doing in a place like this at this time of night? Chief retorted the visitor solemnly. This is mister Franks, president of the Rockford Watch Company. You know him. Of course, something terrible's happened to a mister Franks. There's been a kidnapping. And what come in here? Step into my office, Jim Gortland, Oh Gartland, listen, Jim get Rid of those reporters. This is serious business. I don't want any newspapers around.

11:29 Speaker 2: Take them out to lunch. Now, come and be seated, gentlemen, say nothing of any of this to anyone. Mister Franks began on the way down here. I gave my friend the impression that I would put this matter in the hands of the police. But I've been thinking it over and I've decided otherwise. I'm willing to take your advice. I'm about ready to take anybody's advice, but this this mister Johnson warned me of the consequences of going to the police. Well, I can assure you, said the detective. But the best detective talent in Chicago will help you out.

11:55 Speaker 2: Well, yes, yes, I appreciate that, answered mister Franks. But I'm thinking of my son, don't you see, I'm afraid of the risk. Well, I believe he's right, Chief, interposed Edelson. I believe the wisest thing we can do is go along with these men, these kidnappers. God, the word makes me shudder. Here's the deal, Chief. When Robert, mister Frank's son, failed to return home from school, his father called on me and we went hunting for him. Robert goes to the Harvard School, a private boy school a few blocks from his home.

12:20 Speaker 2: Mister Franks lives at fifty to fifty two Ellis Avenue. Well, we canvass the neighborhood for the next two hours, but without any success. Finally we went over to the school building, and we crawled through an open window and searched the place from top to bottom, hoping that maybe Robert had fallen asleep after being locked in. There was no sign of him. Well. A little after nine o'clock, mister Johnson calls Frank's home on the telephone, and Missus Frank answers, and here's what he said. Edilson handed Chief Hughes a penciled transcript of the message that had caused Missus Franks to faint.

12:48 Speaker 2: Are these the exact words? I'm reasonably certain they are, said mister Edison. Hmm, mused Chief Hughes. This is a very serious matter. Personally, I think we ought to assigned the police to the case, whether it seems like proper procedure or not. For a quarter of an hour or more, the three debated the delicate problem, any decision about which seemed fraught with unspeakable dangers to the life and well being of young Robert Franks. In the end, the father went out His persistency in the belief that if the police interfered, his son would be murdered, eventually broke down the arguments of the other two.

13:18 Speaker 2: Something in the nature of a compromise was affected. Instead, mister Franks consented to have the police investigate in a sort of indirect way, but there were to be no attempts to get in direct contact with the kidnapper. It was midnight when mister Franks and mister Edison headed back to mister Frank's home. They made ready for an all night vigil beside the telephone at the beheat of the police. The telephone authorities supervised all calls coming into the Frank's home. While the mysterious mister Jacob had stated that he would furnish further instructions in the morning, he had neglected or perhaps expressly omitted, to say just when he would supply that precious formula that would bring back Robert Franks.

13:54 Speaker 2: Hence, it was an all night vigil that the father and the friend kept through the black, pressing silence of the early mone hours. They kept vigil, talking softly for a time and then lapsing into seemingly endless intervals of complete quiet, during which period's no doubt the fondest hopes developed the hue of false illusion. Hey everybody, we're back. Thank you for taking a moment to support the brands that support kind of Murdery. Whew, this is a heavy story. It's hard to tell. I can think of no greater horror than losing your child.

14:35 Speaker 2: But it's also one of the most famous cases in US history and a pretty interesting study of a time period and of horrible criminal minds. I'd like to take a moment now to remind you, as I often do, of the free three digit number nine eight eight that you can call to immediately receive counseling for substance use, mental health, or suicidal thoughts. Dial ninety eight and your call will immediately be answered by someone who cares. Please program it into your phone and always remember that the world is a better place with you in it.

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16:11 Speaker 2: But also, I'll be honest with you, it does make me feel good. I love to hear from you, guys. I love to know that I'm not just speaking into a void. It's great to get the feedback. It makes all of this worthwhile, So please do leave reviews, shoot me an email, Kindamurdery at gmail dot com. Connecting with people is really what storytelling is all about, and bringing us all together is what I hope to do with Kind of Murdery. And with that, let's get back to this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad story.

16:40 Speaker 2: Buckle up for the Chicago horror, Leopold and Lobe, because kind of murdery resumes now. Through the black, pressing silence of the early morning hours, they kept vigil talking softly for a time, and then lapsing into seemingly endless intervals of complete quiet, during which periods, no doubt the fondest hopes developed the hue of false illusion. At nine o'clock in the morning, there was a noise of swift feet on the stairs, and the doorbell was rung vehemently. Mister Edison was met by a mail boy bearing a special delivery letter addressed to mister Franks.

17:20 Speaker 2: It was torn open by a trembling hand, and its contents were as follows. Dear Sir, as you know by this time your son has been kidnapped, you need fear no physical harm for him, provided you live up carefully to the following instructions and such others as you will receive by future communications. Should you, however, disobey any of our instructions even slightly, his death will be the penalty. For obvious reasons. Make absolutely no attempt to communicate with either the police, authorities or any private agency.

17:46 Speaker 2: Should you have already communicated with the police, allow them to continue their investigations, but do not mention this letter secure before noon today ten thousand dollars. This money must be composed entirely of old bills of the following denominations two thousand and fifty dollars bills eight twenty dollars bills. The money must be old. Any attempt to include any new or marked bills will render the entire venture feudal. The money should be placed in a large cigar box, or, if that is impossible, in a heavy cardboard box, securely wrapped and bound in white paper.

18:16 Speaker 2: The wrapping paper should be sealed at all openings with sealing wax. Remain at home until one o'clock PM. See that the telephone is not in use. As a final word of warning, this is a strictly commercial proposition, and we are prepared to put our threat into execution should we have reasonable grounds to believe that you have committed one infraction of the above instructions. However, should you carefully follow the instructions to the letter, we can assure you that your son will be safely returned to you within six hours after receipt of the money, yours truly, George Johnson.

18:47 Speaker 2: Mister Johnson had scored heavily. If his inns were terrorization, he achieved them over and over again. Not a robust man, mister Franks could hardly contain himself. He sank into a chair, trembling as though he were about to be seized with hysteria. Bewildered and overwhelmed, he could only give a wild stare of terror in answer to the repeated pleadings of his friend, who sought to console and sustain him. The cool, deliberate tone of the letter was terrorizing. The character of its composition, too, was baffling.

19:14 Speaker 2: Who with sufficient intelligence to write such a letter would abduct and threaten to murder harmless little Robert Franks? Where and how did such a monster exist? Equally frightening was the self confidence of the kidnapper or kidnappers. He was sure of his ground, apparently, for he was content to let the police continue their investigations in the event they had already been employed. There remained, in the end but one course to accede wholly to the wishes of mister Johnson. In his hands was the precious fate of little Robert.

19:42 Speaker 2: Like a shield, the very life of the boy stood between the kidnapper and his victims, rendering them as helpless and powerless as the boy who had been kidnapped. It was like shooting into a dark room where one could not distinguish between friend and foe and fight back. Mister Franks set off for the bank to draw out ten thousand dollars. The press, the neglected press, the newspaper men were still waiting for the break, which is to say, any break. The city editor was munching today's hard apple. Mister Ryan at High Park was drawing joy and nectar from a narrow bottle and poking fun at the government.

20:15 Speaker 2: Then the hell that puts the newspaper world on its toes transformed some tranquil editorial rooms into madhouses. Broke loose in a bust that jarred reporterdom. The story of the hour, the crime of the century. It was just the beginning. Mister Ryan heard about it, requested his informers to quit kidding, and laid down in a pure whiskey stoopor, which he hoped would and did last for two days. Now it was time for the police to let loose everything was out and everything would have to be in the open.

20:45 Speaker 2: Chief Morgan A. Collins summoned the detective officials into conference. He told them that this was the opportunity of their lives. Detective Lieutenants William Shoemaker and Michael Grady were put in active charge, with the authority to draw upon such of the powers of the Police Department as would be in the interest of their investigations. I believe, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that Shoemaker was one of the police detectives involved in the strange case of Harry Church, the man who murdered the car salesman so that he wouldn't have to pay for the car.

21:16 Speaker 2: If you haven't listened to that one, go ahead and listen to it. It's called the strange tale of Harry Church. I'm sorry, it's called the strange tale of Harvey Church. So anyway, William Shoemaker and Michael Grady were put in active charge, with the authority to draw upon such of the powers of the Police Department as would be in the interest of their investigations. Thus, while mister Franks faced with dread a foe he had never seen, Chief Hughes prepared to run him down, cost what it might and necessitate what it would.

21:43 Speaker 2: Simultaneously, a dozen detective squads were assigned to strategic points throughout the city in the scheme of covering up, which is the procedure of tapping all possible sources of information by an indirect process of elimination. The detective squads boiled the Frank's case down to the point where it became fairly obvious that the kidnapping was not the work of organized criminals or gangsters. While the nature of the ransom letter gave rise to this assumption, the work of the detectives added logic to the supposition because they were able to give a reasonable account of the conduct of all the gangs, and especially those that were in the kidnapping business.

22:17 Speaker 2: The motive for the kidnapping of Robert Franks, declared Chief Hughes in a statement issued to the press after he had heard the reports of his detective squads, is ransom money. Ten thousand dollars is not a lot of money for kidnapping, but the kidnappers appear to be of judicious persons. It's logical that they did not ask for fifty thousand dollars for fear that the father would resist or find it inconvenient to raise the sum. Such official admissions as these, issued as they were at various times, by detectives, investigators, and criminologists, fanned the fires of sensation in every newspaper reader's breast.

22:49 Speaker 2: It was like some dramatic detective novel. In a brief time, a city of three million people had completely forgotten about sales projects, time clocks, and daily traction controversy to play investigator and Sherlock Holmes against real live kidnappers in a quote million dollar unquote atmosphere. Police officials were ready to swear to this truth, for with the passing hours, the developments of the case brought an avalanche of amateur sleuths and freelance investigators down upon the city's head, until the town was fairly overrun with mail order operatives and self authorized agents of the long arm of the law.

23:21 Speaker 2: Indeed, there was an imminent danger that length and growth would be the arms undoing, and there was need of restraint upon the activities of these persons. Many of them were squelched in the beginning. Others persisted doggedly and perhaps contributed to the official undertaking. Maybe attention was focused upon the ransom missive. Its outward character was that of the conventional letter. It for a Chicago dateline, and the salutation was the formal dear Sir. The stamp of the registry at the post office was two PM at the Hyde Park station, which meant that the letter had been mailed but a few blocks from its final destination.

23:53 Speaker 2: Here, in the opinion of the detectives was an example of sheer daring or abysmal ignorance. This was not only the familiar coming back to the scene of the crime, but it was returning before the crime had been fully committed. That deduction only served to further complicate a complex situation. Copies of the faithful letter were given to the press for publication. Suddenly, the secretary to the detective chief and a newspaper man noted the similarity of the letter to another in some way or another.

24:21 Speaker 2: Where had they seen it before? The secretary suddenly remembered a story that had been running serially in a detective magazine. The Kidnapping Syndicate was the title. It was a strikingly gruesome yarn having to do with the kidnapping of a rich man's wife by a gang calling itself the syndicate that there was a pronounced, if only intangible, relation between this kidnapping of fiction and the one of fact was strangely evident in the two letters, whose contents were too identical for coincidence.

24:48 Speaker 2: The numerous points of resemblance between this and the letter quoted earlier will be readily observed, and might well be noted because of its later significance. The fictional ransom note from the fixtional story the kidnapping syndicate read as follows. Your wife is in our custody, and so long as your conduct toward us warrants, she shall be treated with every courtesy and respect, and in so far as the circumstances permit, will be made comfortable. Any change in this attitude will be the result of your own defiance to our terms, which are number one, that you make no appeal to the police or to any private detective agency.

25:26 Speaker 2: In that event, the amount stated below is automatically doubled, and let us assure you it will avail you nothing and only bring great anguish to yourself and your wife. Upon receipt of fifty thousand dollars in bills of ten and twenty dollars denominations, delivered at the time and place under the conditions you will receive later. Missus Griswold will be returned to you within a few hours thereafter. Acceptance of these terms are to be conveyed to us as follows. You will leave your house tomorrow morning wearing a white carnation on the lapel of your coat, and wear it all day.

25:57 Speaker 2: Following this, we shall send you further instruction as to how, when and where the money shall be paid. Signed the kidnapping Syndicate. When the kidnap as A Robert Franks captured, said Chief Hughes, after comparing the notes, a copy of that magazine, while that particular page in the magazine will be found on their property of person, insomuch as the point about the finding of the magazine was not conceived in the conventional police elements. So to speak, Chief Hughes was a prophet with honor in a foreign realm.

26:26 Speaker 2: However, later developments which brought up successive contradictions of the Chief's reconstruction of the crime, deflated confidence that the kidnappers would ever be captured and substantiated if only temporarily, but this was not because of incompetence or negligence on the part of the police. This was, after all, the crime of the century. Satisfied that they'd gotten all out of the letter that their eyes could see and their brains could detect, the police solicited the aid of science to give the letter a last microscopic examination for what further clues it might have held.

26:58 Speaker 2: An expert employed by the Royal Type Writer Company H. P. Sutton was engaged by the police to study it with the view of determining the make of the machine used to type it. After a few hours of research, mister Sutton reported on the typographical clues. He asserted that it was written on an underwood machine. Another expert later declared a corona was used. The various light and heavy impressions of the type letters revealed that the writer was an inexperienced typist. Here was mister Sutton the expert's commentary.

27:26 Speaker 2: The letter was typed by the four finger process. Mister Sutton stated, when the touch system is used, the impressions are uniformly heavier light, never both. In this case, the tendency for the writer was to hit some keys harder than others. In many instances, the keys made such depressions as to almost perforate the paper. This shows that the writer was hesitant and deliberate. Asked outright if he could identify the machine. The experts said that he could. Hence it was written into the official police program look out for this typewriter an Underwood.

27:56 Speaker 2: As mentioned, the first police developments in the search for the kidnapp came with the technical arrest of several instructors at the Harvard School where Robert was a student. The faultless composition of the letter, the police said, did suggest the hand of an educated person, and they were unwilling to omit the school supervisors from suspicions. Instructors R. P. Williams and M. N. Mitchell, teachers of English, were taken to a nearby police station and questioned by Lieutenant Grady. They vigorously denied every inference of guilt.

28:24 Speaker 2: At the same time, the testimony of a number of boys students implicated one of the school's teaching staff in alleged acts of perversion. The detectives seized upon this as a logical motive for the kidnapping of the boy, but with the intention of murder rather than of ransom. This angle of investigation, however, fell through, and the personnel of the school were wholly absolved of guilt and released within a few hours of being taken into custody. Their release knocked every pillar of support from under the police case, with the result that the kidnapping mystery became deeper and more baffling than ever before.

28:55 Speaker 2: In truth, the ACE investigators and the veteran detectives, with scores of solved kidnapping cases to their credit, were forced to admit that they were stumped. Simply confronted with a big, blank wall and nothing on the other side. They were not even able to establish a motive. Why, asked commentators in the press, would the kidnappers abduct a fifteen year old boy for the ten thousand dollars ransom when by selecting a boy of five or six years old they could eliminate the possibility of being identified by their captor.

29:21 Speaker 2: While this served to clear the atmosphere a little, it also contradicted every previous theory and depreciated immeasurably the value of the few clues that the police had succeeded in obtaining. It was at this stage that the Chicago Press sent in its reporters and journalistic experts with the very natural newspaper idea of forcing along a great story that was tottering perilously on its last legs. Criminologists, private investigators, and famous detectives were hired by the dozens to write discussions of the case and to analyze each new development.

29:52 Speaker 2: Police reporters were paired with their colleagues, who did the writing while the beatman did the investigating. Working hours for the nightmen soon overlapped the hours of the day men, until at one time there were as many as one hundred and fifty reporters working on the case together. The competition was keen, and it was not long before the whole group sent the individual intentions of each member to get the scoop first. Frequently their paths costs with unkind words and verbal fisticuffs. As consequence, there was no time for physical combat, much as these functionaries might have wanted to indulge in it.

30:24 Speaker 2: The prize would come only to the swift and sure. In contrast to this, of course, the attitude of mister Ryan of High Park was in gross violation of every newspaper principle of news gathering. Concerted efforts on the part of several of his friends to wake mister Ryan from his alcoholic dreams were pathetically futile. If you'll remember, mister Ryan was the drunk reporter sitting in a bar, passed out for two days. When the story began. Big Story, mister Ryan would repeat, quirking his brow with great labor, Big story, huh say, I've been right here for sixty six hours.

30:57 Speaker 2: Don't kid me boys, life too short, too short, And in a voice laden with pathos, mister Ryan would tell of the vision in which he saw his old, gray haired mother scrubbing and washing a path to her lonely grave and dragging a heavy, cumbersome coffin behind her. After this, he would subside, take another swig of an almost empty bottle, and fall asleep. But mister Ryan's conduct was far from typical. Indeed, it was quite the exception industry of the most fervent and dynamic quality characterized every other newspaper man's associations with the case.

31:29 Speaker 2: Home was a place you made split second renewal of old and familiar acquaintances. Coffee was the antidote for sleep. Ham sandwiches and malted milk substituted for the more nourishing but inconvenient foods. Eating and sleeping, in short, were looked upon as vicious alien habits and an indulgence that was regarded with professional abhorrence. What the hell do I care if you haven't eaten, declared an outrage city editor in answer to a reporter's gasperonomic prayer. The only thing that's getting fed around here is the press.

31:56 Speaker 2: By the time the legions of reporters had run down the various sets of clues and publish their stories, certain angles of the official investigation were promising important developments. Relentless house to house canvassing and questioning established, to the satisfaction of Captain WILLIAMS. Shoemaker of the Chicago Detective Bureau, that Robert Franks had been kidnapped in broad daylight at the corner of forty ninth Street and Ellis Avenue. Close upon the heels of this came the statement of a servant working in a home located at the corner that had barely seen the figure of a boy stepping into a machine.

32:27 Speaker 2: A peculiar angle of vision prevented her from seeing what type of car it was. Or from noting the size or age of the boy. She said her disclosure gave rise to the assumption that Robert had been lured away by someone who knew him and whom the boy knew as well. A sage wrote many years ago that out of every human chaos rise as a genius to be the valiant hero of the situation. Whether it's a national conflict or a crisis at an Irish wake, Xercees or Officer Moriarty will surely appear in the guise of the Goddess of victory or peace and bring solid order out of hopeless chaos.

32:58 Speaker 2: Such a genius was sorely needed in this the most trying hour of the investigation into the terrifying kidnapping of a rich man's son. And then the genius came, or rather they did, in the persons of an Irish and a Jewish cub reporter on the staff of the Chicago Daily News sitting plain henre. Sitting was the chiefly life's purpose for these two cubs previous to the discovery of the crime of the century. Usually it was sitting on the edge of a desk when they were inspired to do bigger things. On the other hand, the city editor told them they could sit on the desk's middle Rarely did duty ever impose more than this.

33:33 Speaker 2: For James Mulroy and Alvin Goldstein were Cubs beginners, freshmen, but opportunity was sneaking up on them from behind. Mulroy and Goldstein were following the newspaper accounts of the Frank case with wolfish eyes. They devoured every item of the story and added in their imagination what they thought would make it complete. Hence, they did not miss the significance of an incidental report from the coroner's office that the nude body of a boy had been found in a swamp in Switch, an unsettled territory fringing on Chicago's southern extremities.

34:04 Speaker 2: On May twenty second, a Boss Mulroy stammered Goldstein, and I got a whale of an idea on this Frank's case. Will you assign us? I'm almost sure we can produce. That's a large order, Mulroy answered the city editor. At least half a dozen of your seniors here would get the preference. Give me the tip anyway, and we'll have it checked up. Say Boss, interposed Goldstein. If you knew what we had would solve the Frank's case. Would you assign it to us? Well, now, the man drawled. If that's the way you feel about it, I suppose I have no choice in the matter.

34:35 Speaker 2: Okay, shouted mulroy and Goldstein, seizing their collegiate hats and dashing out the door. O'Connor and Goldberg, as the two cubs were henceforth addressed by the editor, hailed a cab and directed the driver to the home of mister Frank's brother in law. In a few moments, the relative was riding beside them on the way to an undertaking establishment in South Chicago. You think the body is that of Robert, asked Robert's uncle, the brother of Missus Franks. The police descript Robert, and the coroner's description of the body tally so well that we can't get it off our minds, responded mulroy.

35:05 Speaker 2: It was a forbidding scene in the dismal undertaker's mordue. Gathered around a clothed form stretched on a slab, were the two reporters, nervous with excitement, the uncle of Robert Franks fearful, apprehensive, and the policeman and the undertaker the sheet was thrown back to reveal a spectacle that caused every watcher to gasp and shudder. And we'll find out just what that spectacle was after the break. Gathered around a clothed form stretched on a slab, were the two reporters, nervous with excitement, the uncle of Robert Franks fearful, apprehensive, and the policeman and the undertaker.

35:48 Speaker 2: The sheet was thrown back to reveal a spectacle that caused every watcher to gasp and shudder. The body was caked with hard mud, and the face was nearly indistinguishable, but not. The uncle leaned over, peered closely. It's Robert, Robert, Robert, Oh, Robert. Over and over he spoke the name, until the sheet was once again laid over the form of Robert Franks, and the party retired to the front room. Mulroy seized a telephone. Dearborn one one one one. He called then city editor. Hello, it's Mulroy.

36:23 Speaker 2: Robert Franks has been found. He was murdered, and the body was officially identified. Boss. This is a scoop on every paper in town. At precisely the same hour, the father of Robert Franks was waiting beside his telephone in his home. In his hands he held a sealed cigar box containing ten thousand dollars in bills of fifty and twenty dollars denominations. Mister Johnson would call at any moment now with the directions for delivering the ransom money and obtaining the stolen boy. The telephone rang Hello.

36:49 Speaker 2: Mister Edison grabbed it up. This is mister Johnson, said the voice. In five minutes, a yellow cab will come to your door. The driver has been instructed as to your destiny. Goodbye. A click told that the speaker had hung up, but not quite soon enough. They were tapping wires over which he had been speaking. Telephone authorities traced the call to the original exchange office, but they were not able to pick up any more than that the call had come from a drug store in the neighborhood of sixty third Street and Cottage Grove Avenue.

37:17 Speaker 2: Exactly five minutes afterward, a yellow cab drew up to the curb before Frank's mansion. Mister Edelson went out in response, and before talking to the driver, made a mental note of the CAB's number, which he later said was either fourteen ninety two or nineteen forty two? Who sent you here, mister Edelson asked, Branch office over at Cottage Grove Avenue, answered the driver supposed to pick up mister Franks. Where were you ordered to take him? I don't know, responded the driver. Them's all the orders I got.

37:45 Speaker 2: At this juncture, mister Edison was called into the house by a servant to answer a telephone summons. He had informed the servants they were not to call mister Franks to answer the telephone or doorbell. It was the wish of the friend that the father have as little to worry him as possible. Although mister Franks had not express agreed to any such arrangement, he seemed willing to refrain from these duties. So great had been the strain of the terrific ordeal. It was the grace of God. Mister Edison told a friend later that mister Franks did not answer this particular phone call.

38:14 Speaker 2: Its message cut like a sword and shattered forever. The only remaining faint hope erased, the only prayer that had nightly been lifted to Heaven from the quiet of the bedchamber, where the father and the mother could never find the sweet, peaceful oblivion of sleep. It stirred a home from its anxious loneliness, only to pitch it deeper into the undying sorrows of death, into despair, which no amount of ransom money would dispel or ever alay. Even as the dread words came over the instrument into the friend's ears, he could see the tidally wrapped cigar box with its puny, meaningless ten thousand dollars.

38:56 Speaker 2: The irresistible force futility was riding down on the seemingly immovable object hope, in a truly tragic clash of the Titans. The news of Robert's death was correspondingly horrible in its significance and feeble in its effect upon the boy's parents. The source of their emotions had long since been drained through hope and then through despair. On being told of the fate of his son, mister Franks merely shook and then bowed his head. Not a sob escaped from his lips, Not a sound betrayed the presence of the anguish that must have seized him.

39:31 Speaker 2: Fearful relatives postponed telling the mother she was still seriously ill, suddenly reminded of his interview with the taxi driver, mister Edelson hurried outside, but the cab was nowhere in sight. He turned back into the house and telephoned detective headquarters. Discovery of the murder of Robert Frank startled the whole world. Associated press despatches flashed the sensational news to all civilization, and newspapers headlined them on the front page with monstrous captions. Reports to reach the ear of mister Ryan of High Park, although in the throes of a murderous hangover, he managed to struggle to a telephone and call his city editor.

40:07 Speaker 2: On being connected, he was sharply informed that no such person as mister Ryan worked for the City Press, and that if he came into the office, the city editor would be obliged to kick him down the stairs. Others, however, were leaving off where Ryan had just begun. Scores of them were racing to the scene of the finding of the boy's mutilated body, while an almost equal number of photographers followed on their trail. Molroy and Goldstein had already been upon the scene and were interrogating a handful of curious spectators who happened to be by.

40:35 Speaker 2: When a railroad laborer espied the dead body. The present theater of events constituted no more than a wide expanse of swamp and weed, which could only be approached from the beaten path by way of a railroad embankment. There was a small path which led from the rails to a wood colvert stretched across a small stream. The body of Robert had been stuffed under the colvert. The finder of the body stated that it was so lodged that half the body, which was not submerged in watter, was jammed securely against the culvert's bottom at the point where the culvert joined the stream's bank.

41:05 Speaker 2: So inaccessible was the place, and so well hidden was the body that all who were gathered there agreed that its finding was some determined act of providence. The two reporters lost no time in joining detectives from the nearest police station in a minute examination of the territory for possible clues. Sleuth in klined spectators also lent a hand so that a fair sized congregation of policemen, civilians and reporters were engaged in the hunt. One civilian, Paul Korf, caught sight of a gleaming object lying in the mud under the colvert Mulroy was standing near when Korf leaned down to study the object.

41:43 Speaker 2: Both recognized it as a pair of horn rimmed spectacles, whereupon Mulroy judiciously took charge of them, explaining that he was a newspaper reporter and that if anything developed he would let kaorif know. The police were not told, Mulroy hurriedly informed his colleague of the find, and while Korff had been given to understand that something might come of those glasses, Mulroy pocketed the spectacles and renewed the search for further clues. Meanwhile, doctor Joseph Springer, physician for the coroner of Cook County, arrived accompanied by a horde of news hungry reporters and pictures starved photographers.

42:19 Speaker 2: He had made his cursory examination of the body and wanted a final study of the colvert spot. Plainly, the doctor was puzzled. I haven't even determined the cause of death yet, he told reporters. There's a small abrasion on the head in the front and an apparent laceration at the base of the skull. The wounds do not appear to be serious enough to have caused death. On the other hand, there's a light seapius stain about the mouth. It is possible that he was poisoned, although I did not detect the presence of any poison in the stomach.

42:47 Speaker 2: Doctor Springer also disclosed that the face had been burned, as if by an acid solution. The physician then proceeded to question Tony Mink, the laborer who came upon the body, after which he made a close examination of the colvert spot. While thus engaged, he was accosted by a young man bearing a metal bar eight inches long. Found it just beyond the covert, announced the youth carelessly. Doctor Springer took it gingerly, produced a handkerchief, and laid the bar in it wound about one in was a batch of adhesive tape.

43:15 Speaker 2: The covering was fairly clean, indicating that it had not lain in the swampy ground for long. I believe, declared doctor Springer, turning to the waiting reporters, that this was the instrument that killed Robert Franks, Goldstein and Molroy waited no longer, Jumping into the cab they'd kept waiting, they were off toward the city, the precious glasses safe in their possession. They had two anxieties, the glasses and the unspeakable amount of the cab bill. Public reaction to press reports that Robert Franks had been murdered and the body had been found was unstinted.

43:48 Speaker 2: People of all races and ages were roused, as a crime had never roused them before. The gruesome grave, the brutal circumstances of his apparent death, and the savage act of the kidnappers in and leading the father to believe that he was ransoming his son, his son, who was already dead, stirred the heart of every newspaper reader. Prominent men spoke their feelings freely. Detectives and investigators pledged themselves to solve the crime and bring the perpetrators to justice swiftly and surely. Deeper indignation followed substantial reports to the effect that the body had been attacked.

44:21 Speaker 2: The police were spurred to a frenzy of activity, and the state's attorney was assigning his best assistance to the investigation. Science was consulted in the person of criminologists, psychologists, and chemists, the latter being given all such objects and articles for analysis as might yield valuable clues. A question and answer symposium of the opinions of Chicago's best detectives and the circumstances of the kidnapping and the murder of the Franks Boy went something like this. Question who killed Robert Franks?

44:49 Speaker 2: Answer? A kidnapper seeking ransom or a moron? Question what killed him? Answer? After making every possible examination, the coroner's physician says, it must have been caused by suffocation. But why suffocation? Answer? The boy had been choked or strangled, He had not been poisoned. He had been hit on the head with a blunt instrument, but not hard enough to cause death. He was found in two feet of water, and although his lungs were copper colored, he had not been drowned. Suffocation seems the only possible way by which he could have come to his death.

45:19 Speaker 2: Well, question, how was he suffocated? Answer? Probably by a handkerchief or a hand pressed to his nose and mouth for a period of about two minutes. Why was the boy killed? Now this is a debatable question. If he was killed by a moron or several of them, he probably was killed accidentally while in a struggle with them, a struggle which induced hemorrhages of the lungs from which he died, or they may have killed him to cover up their crime, to keep the boy from telling. Question what if he was killed by the kidnappers?

45:47 Speaker 2: Answer then also, probably in a struggle with his captors, and from a hemorrhage of the lungs induced by a hand pressed over the nose and mouth. Indications are that the kidnappers would not have deliberately killed the boy so quickly, at least not until negotiations showed signs of failing, and they must make a getaway. Question When was Robert killed? Answer? Probably within a few minutes after he was abducted or lured away while he was struggling for his freedom. Question Where was he killed?

46:12 Speaker 2: Answer? Probably in an automobile in the three block stretch between his school and his home. The theory is that he could not have been kidnapped or lured away on foot without some of his companions becoming aware of it. Well, what sort of person must the police seek in the murder? Answer A scholarly person, a master of English. None but such a person could have written the famous letter received by mister Franks. Its grammar was faultless. Question was there any peculiarity in the letter? Answer yes.

46:37 Speaker 2: The spelling of the word kidnapped spelled kidnaped. The strictly English version of the word includes two p's question if the boy was killed by kidnappers, why did they persist in their demands for a ransom long after the boy was dead and his unidentified body recovered? Answer? They did not know the body had been recovered and attempted to obtain the ransom money despite his mimurd Question if a moron or several of them killed the boy, why the telephone messages and the letter demanding the kidnappers ransom?

47:07 Speaker 2: Answer to cover up the real motive of the crime, to throw detectives off the track, possibly to obtain money for a desperate attempt to get away. Question what is the more likely theory? Murdered by the kidnappers or murder by morons? Answer? No attempt is made to answer this, Yet only the remarkable letter and the suspicions of mister Edelson lend a basis to the moron theory. Question what was the boy attacked? Answer? Coroner's physician says he probably was not, although it is difficult to determine this.

47:35 Speaker 2: Attempts to attack him might have been made and some form of attacks accomplished without leaving external evidence of violence. Question was the writer of the erudite letter a good typist? Answer not, according to the findings of mister Sutton, the typewriter expert. Question did the addressing of the envelope in printed letters in ink indicate anything concerning the writer? Answer? Yes, It indicated the writer might have known something of cartooning, or that he was at least familiar with mechanical drawing and lettering.

48:03 Speaker 2: Question is it possible that a woman was involved in the sling? Answer it is. The pair of eyeglasses found near the culvert seemed to be a woman's Question is there any other evidence to indicate a woman's hand in the crime? Answer? Nothing. Everything else points to it as the work of a man or men. While this summary clarified the atmosphere on several issues, it only served to further complicate any conception of a motive for the crime or of the character of the guilty person or person's The crime of the Century was defying solution.

48:35 Speaker 2: Meanwhile, Moulroy and Goldstein had secured the Assistant State Attorney Joseph Savage and were imploring him to do something about the glasses. At the suggestion of the two reporters, Prosecutor Savage went with them on a canvas of optical firms in Chicago. The first two concerns flatly declared there was no way of tracing the glasses. The next shop was the firm of almer Coe and Company. Here a mister Weinstein went over the spectacles thoroughly. This is a peculiar pair of glasses, he informed them.

49:06 Speaker 2: In they have a special hinge device which has been patented by a New York firm. The frame possibly was made in New York, and it is altogether likely the lenses were bought here. This company is an agent for that firm. Mister Weinstein then took the glasses measurements. These he scribbled on a piece of paper, which was handed in turn to his second clerk. In a moment, the latter had returned and mister Weinstein was reading his notation. Elens's leading glasses were purchased by Nathan Leopold forty seven point fifty four Greenwood Avenue.

49:37 Speaker 2: That's a swell address, said Goldstein, nudging his partner. I wonder, answered Mulroy, if that's the Leopold I knew at the University of Chicago. Well broke in the other let's go see. The two cubs arrived at the Leopold home accompanied by detective Sergeants Edward Anderson and Hugh Burns of the State Attorney's Office, who had instructions to arrest Nathan Leopold. In response to their knock, a maid case to the door. She greeted them, how do you do? Is Nathan Leopold home? Why? Yes? Will you wait till I can get him?

50:06 Speaker 1: No?

50:06 Speaker 2: Thanks, lady, We'll step right inside. We're detectives. Where's his room? Frightened, the maid pointed to a door on the second floor near the stairs. They bounded up just in time to meet Nathan Leopold coming out of his room. He was taken aback by the abruptness of his collars and by apparently nothing more. His curious gaze spoke for an explanation of the strange intrusion. Nathan Leopold asked Sergeant Anderson, Yes was the call answer, You're under arrest. You have to come with me? Well, why, I can't talk about that now?

50:36 Speaker 2: Will you come along? Leopold indicated that he would, whereupon he donned his top coat and hat, and left in the company of the detectives. As their car pulled away, a second car drew up, and cap'n Shoemaker and his squad got out without any delay. They took what seemed to be complete possession of the house. One herded the servants into a single room, a second went out to the garage. A third covered the rooms upstairs. Cap'n Shoemaker took chard of the questioning of the servants from them. He sought detailed information of the life, habits, and acquaintances of Nathan Leopold.

51:06 Speaker 2: He heard, at any rate of a unique person. And we'll find out just how unique when kind of murdery returns after the break. One week before the day of the kidnapping, Low and Leopold drove about the neighborhood of the Harvard School where Robert Franks was a pupil, and selected from a number of pupils, they knew several likely victims. One was Robert, another the son of Julius Rosenwald, nationally known philanthropist and a member of the directorate of the Sears Roebuck Mail Order House, and the third was a son of a wealthy furniture dealer.

51:48 Speaker 2: With this decision. They arranged for the rental of a Dodge touring car from the Hurtz drivat Yourself station. The selection of the colvert spot for the disposal of the victim's body was the child of Leopold's in genius Sprain. He knew the tar toy thoroughly, having been there, as he said, on many expeditions as an ornithologist. On Wednesday, at four o'clock in the afternoon, Leopold confessed, we went to the rental station and obtained a car which we said we wanted for two days. Dick Loab did the driving and we went to my home where I put on an auto robe and a pair of boots.

52:17 Speaker 2: Without any delay, we drove to the Harvard School. After circling the block several times, we spotted Robert Franks playing at the corner. We decided then that we would kill him and demand ten thousand dollars ransom from his father. I was sitting in the back and Lob was in the front driving. Loeb knew Robert best and called him over to our car. What did Lob say, came the question from the assistant state's attorney. He just said, Hey, Bobby, come here was Leopold's reply. Then he asked Robert if he wanted to play some tennis.

52:42 Speaker 2: Robert said he did, and we invited him into the car. While we were starting away, I was getting the chisel out of the pocket in the door of the car and my handkerchief out of my coat. Robert saw the chisel and asked what it was for. Lob then took his attention away from what I was doing by drawing him into conversation. We'd gone about two blocks and then I decided to go ahead. I brought up the chissel and struck Robert on the head. It stunned him and he began to struggle and scream. I seized him around the neck and I clapped the handkerchief over his nose and mouth, and I hit him harder with the chisel.

53:09 Speaker 2: Then he went limp. I pulled him over the back of the seat and onto the floor and covered his body with the auto robe. We drove around for about two hours, waiting for it to get dark, meanwhile driving always in the direction of the colvert at one hundred and twenty second Street. We arrived at the covert at about eight thirty and parked the car alongside the main road. Then we stripped the body of clothes and poured the hydrochloric acid over the face. I put my boots on and we carried the body to the covert.

53:31 Speaker 2: I stood in the water and placed the body close up against the covert support, and when I was sure it would not float away in the water, we went back to the car. It was at this time I think that my glasses dropped out of my coat pocket. The deed finished, the two dastardly murderers proceeded back to the city, stopping in route to bury the boy's clothes in a large prairie. Arriving home, they parked the rental car in Leopold's yard. Then, with a calm air, the pair retired to the dining room with a Leopold home and played several rounds of casino.

53:59 Speaker 2: Later, Low bade his friend good night and went home to bed. Leopold followed his example shortly afterward. In the interim, he stepped out to a drug store and telephoned the Franks home, informing Missus Franks incredible english of the kidnapping of her son. On serving the car early the next morning, Leopold discovered bloodstains on the back of the seat, the car's floor, and the running board. He also found blood spots on the autoobe some of the spots he managed to obliterate. Failing in his efforts to clean the robe, Leopold took it to the nearest lake and burned it.

54:28 Speaker 2: On his way back. He returned the rental car and paid the charges. It was lob he said, who called the Franks home the following day and announced the ransom letter with its instructions, was en route. In addition, Loebe called from the Ross drug store, notifying mister Edelson that the cab would come to pick up mister Franks. Shortly afterward, both heard of the finding of the boy's body and promptly forgot the ransom negotiations with mister Franks, although they had already been discouraged in this with the failure of the father to appear at the drug store.

54:56 Speaker 2: Both then went home to bask in the secretive glory of murderer who were never caught. Such was the tenor of the confession. So read the document that was passed among the congregation of reporters in the old Criminal Court building. It was a reading of achievement for Molroy and Goldstein. With weary steps, they made their way out of the building towards home, there to regain dire needed sleep, and there to invoke the blessing of Providence on their efforts the next day to pass one hundred and thirty five dollars cab bill on to the city editor.

55:24 Speaker 2: So thoroughly were the master murderers incriminated that it was conceded at once that no lawyer in the state of Illinois, however brilliant or cunning, could be even remotely instrumental in sparing their necks from the deadly embrace of the hangman's hemp. Swiftly were the two conducted through the mill of criminal procedures, so that, on being brought to actual justice, they would not have had neither the mood nor the time to think of escape from the consequences of their act. A month gone in a flash, and Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold stood before Judge John R. Caverly in the Criminal Court, answering to the people of the state for the murder of one of its youths.

55:57 Speaker 2: To Clarence Darrow, the apostle of humanity, the champion of the underdog was given the title of chief counsel for the defense, something in the opinion of the press and the public, that existed in no sense at all at the present time. For Leopold and Lobe. The defense offered by Clarence Darrow is now famous literature today, daring in its application of the case at hand, utterly radical in its sense of justice. The Darrow defense, on top of all, its concession to the charges of the state, and nothing was denied, nevertheless, withstood the terrific hammerings of the prosecution with facts, facts facts.

56:31 Speaker 2: Someone has said that Darrow did no more than sing the intellectual blues for his clients who read the super velosophy of Nietzsche and the grotesque comedies of Robla at one sitting. Whatever he did, the effect brought a so thoroughly aroused public indignation on the head of Judge Cavalry that the worthy man was almost forced to flee the city to escape the torment at the hands of friends as well as enemies. That something of Clarence Darrow's sufficed at any rate for Leopold and Lobe and for their grieving Relativesjudge Caverley himself was moved to run counter to a fierce sentiment, and he saved the defendants from the gallows by sentencing them to prison.

57:08 Speaker 2: For the murder they got life imprisonment, and for the kidnapping ninety nine years. The sentence is to run concurrently. Oddly enough, for weeks afterwards. Judge Caverley was the target of editorial writers, priests, rabbis, ministers, and toastmasters, not a few remarks being made publicly passed on by some of his intimate friends too. Obviously, money, the money that was able to purchase great legal talent, prevented two heirs from taking what certainly would have otherwise been a death march.

57:36 Speaker 2: A large, perhaps negligible part of the public misconstrued application of the term money to the success of the defense to them. It meant that the judge was bribed. But nothing is more unreasonable and out of the question. Judge Caverly's integrity was above reproach. Leopold, with all his academic genius, became a trustee, acting clerk and assistant to the prison chaplain at Juliet Penitentiary, while Lobe labored in the Rattan factory, but very little news of them ever leaked out, they received one annual holiday when they were permitted to see one relative for a few hours, and gradually the crime of the century became just another sordid injury in the long annals of American true crime history, destined to spawn books, movies, and likely more than one podcast episode.

58:28 Speaker 2: Thank you so much everyone for being here with me. I appreciate you all very much. I'm Zevanodleberg and this has been kind of Murdery.

58:39 Speaker 1: If you like the show, please subscribe, review and tell your friends. You can find us on social media at kindo Murdery or email at Kindomurdery at gmail dot com.