For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz Age Chicago (17 page)

“Yes.”
³⁵

Richard’s hands were shaking, and the color had drained from his face. As he slumped down in his chair, the detectives heard him whisper to himself, “My God.” He tried to speak, but his words died before they reached his lips. Crowe waited impatiently for the boy to drink a glass of water.

“If the chauffeur took the car in and oiled it up, oiled the brakes and fixed it up, that would make an impression on his mind, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“If he says that is a fact, he is a liar or mistaken?…”

“Yes…. I would say he was still a liar or mistaken.”
³⁶

R
OBERT
C
ROWE WAS EXHAUSTED.
B
OTH
boys denied everything; Crowe was discouraged: they were holding fast and he saw no way to break their resistance and force a confession. He stepped out of the office. Perhaps it was time to go home—he badly needed some sleep.

One of Crowe’s assistants, John Sbarbaro, remained with Richard Loeb as Crowe talked in his office with Joseph Savage. Twenty minutes passed, then half an hour. There was a sudden bustle in the corridor; Sbarbaro had left the room and was striding, almost running, toward Crowe’s office. The assistant state’s attorney was breathless as he opened the door. Richard Loeb wanted to talk to the state’s attorney…there was no time to lose…quick, quick, before the boy changed his mind!
³⁷

7 THE CONFESSIONS

S
ATURDAY,
31 M
AY
1924–S
UNDAY,
1 J
UNE
1924

It was really too bad, for the cause of justice, that they were so loquacious.
¹

Robert Crowe, 15 August 1924

A
S
R
OBERT
C
ROWE ENTERED THE
interrogation room, Richard wiped a tear from his cheek. Crowe noticed the jerky, staccato movement of the boy’s hand. It was, he thought, as if Richard were ashamed that he had been crying, as if he hoped to wipe away the evidence of his panic.

The state’s attorney pulled up a chair, making a scraping noise as he dragged the legs of the chair across the concrete floor. As he sat down opposite Richard, the boy spoke through his tears, challenging the state’s attorney. “You have no evidence on me…. Why are you holding me?”

“Because Leopold is the owner of those glasses—”

Richard looked up, startled; he had not expected this: “My God, is that possible?”

“—because you said you were with Leopold all day on the day of the murder.” Crowe continued to list the evidence. “We have been directing our energy in fastening the crime on Leopold…. We now have, in addition to his glasses, the fact that you have both lied about being out in Lincoln Park having the red car with you…. We know that you had a portable typewriter….”

Richard Loeb had bent over in his chair. He stared at his feet and made a slight rocking movement, back and forth, back and forth, as Crowe continued to talk. Now Richard sat up straight; the tears were streaming down his cheeks; he cried out his terror at having been caught, “My God…my God…this is terrible….”

There was silence in the room. Crowe waited. The deputies at Crowe’s side held their breath in anticipation as they stared at Richard, waiting for him to admit his guilt.

“I will tell you all,” Richard suddenly announced.

Crowe clenched his fist in triumph. He had the confession!
²

But the stenographers had gone home for the night. Crowe himself had sent them away only half an hour before. He would now have to send out a police car to bring them back to the Criminal Court Building to take down Richard’s confession. And he needed other witnesses to the confession, men outside his command, who would corroborate in court that Richard Loeb had given his confession freely, without duress. Crowe knew that Michael Hughes, the chief of detectives, would want to be present when Loeb made his formal confession; and William Shoemacher also—the deputy captain of police—would certainly not want to miss the occasion.

While his assistants, John Sbarbaro and Joseph Savage, made the arrangements, Crowe resumed his conversation with Richard Loeb. He wanted only the most important details, he told the boy; a full account could come later, once the stenographer had arrived. Richard obliged—he told the state’s attorney how he had scouted the Harvard School, and how he had spotted Bobby Franks walking south on Ellis Avenue…they had driven out of Chicago on the Michigan City road and had stopped at a roadside cafe for hot dogs and root beer…oh, and the culvert by the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks—it had been difficult, Richard remembered, concealing the body in the drainage pipe….

Half an hour later Robert Crowe sat opposite Nathan Leopold in an office just a few doors down the corridor. Nathan was smoking—did Nathan ever, the state’s attorney wondered, stop smoking?

Nathan had wanted to speak to Crowe, he said, to ask a hypothetical question. The state’s attorney nodded. What did he want to know?

Suppose, Nathan asked, that someone from a wealthy family, a family as rich as his own, had committed this murder—what chance would that person have of beating the murder charges?

Crowe looked at the boy curiously—was Nathan trying to bribe him? Or was he implying in his question that he would try to bribe the jury if he came to trial?

Crowe’s answer was abrupt. He was going to give Nathan a chance to find out—he intended to draw up a charge of murder against Nathan for the killing of Bobby Franks.

Nathan smiled. He drew on his cigarette. He knew Crowe was bluffing. This was just a trick to intimidate him. “While you have some few circumstances that point to me,” he told the state’s attorney, “you haven’t sufficient evidence to bring me into court…and you won’t.”

Crowe leaned forward in his chair—did Nathan remember, he asked, the afternoon of the murder, waiting by the car while Richard went around to the back of the Harvard School to find a boy in the school playground? And those hot dogs and that root beer that Nathan had purchased at the Dew Drop Inn after they had killed Bobby? Did he recall those? And what about the trouble he had in concealing the body inside the drainage pipe?

Richard had told him all this detail and had confessed to the kidnapping of Bobby Franks. Did Nathan still think that he could beat the murder charge?

Nathan had stopped smirking. His cockiness had disappeared. Eventually he spoke. His voice was subdued, quiet, almost ruminative. “Well, I am surprised that Dick is talking.” Nathan spoke reflectively, as though he were musing to himself. “I thought he would stand till hell froze over.”

He thought for a moment. For once, Nathan seemed uncertain, almost lost in his sudden change of circumstances. He looked up. He had realized that Richard might be blaming him for the murder, perhaps even accusing him of wielding the murder weapon.

“Dick is talking.” Nathan paused, as though he wanted to make an important announcement. “I will tell you the truth about the matter.”

The words came fast now, spilling out one after the other, piling on top of each other, in Nathan’s effort to put the blame on the other boy. Richard had wanted to commit the perfect crime, Richard had suggested the kidnapping, Richard had persuaded Bobby to enter the car, Richard had struck Bobby with the chisel…

The state’s attorney cut him short. He should save his breath until the stenographers arrived. There would be plenty of time later for Nathan to tell everything he knew.
³

A
T FOUR O’CLOCK THAT MORNING,
one stenographer, Frank Sheeder, sat waiting alone in an interrogation room. He could hear footsteps echoing along the corridor, making their way toward him, and as they got closer, he could distinguish the voice of John Sbarbaro, the assistant state’s attorney. The door suddenly opened. Sbarbaro entered first, and behind him, a young man, good-looking, not much older than twenty, walked shyly into the room. And finally, behind Richard Loeb, the deputy captain of police, William Shoemacher, stepped into the office and closed the door behind him. Sbarbaro introduced Richard Loeb to the stenographer—now that everyone had finally arrived, they could begin.

“State your full name.”

“Richard Albert Loeb.”

“Where do you live, Mr. Loeb?”

“5017 Ellis Avenue.”

“What is your occupation?”

“Student.”

“Where are you a student?”

“University of Chicago.”

“How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

“You know now that you are in the office of the State’s Attorney of Cook County?”

“Yes.”

“And you want to make a statement of your own free will?”

“Yes.”

“Calling your attention to the 21st day of May, just tell us in your own words if you know of anything unusual relative to the disappearance of Robert Franks.”

“On the 21st of May, Leopold and myself…”

“What is his full name?”

“Nathan Leopold, Junior…and myself intended to kidnap one of the younger boys from the Harvard School…. The plan was broached by Nathan Leopold, who suggested that as a means of having a great deal of excitement, together with getting quite a sum of money.”
⁴

Richard talked about the murder in a matter-of-fact way. He had now decided to pin responsibility for the crime on Nathan’s shoulders.

“I drove the car…south on Ellis Avenue, parallel to where young Franks was…. I told him that I would like to talk to him about a tennis racket; so he got in the car…. Just after we turned off Ellis Avenue, Leopold reached his arm around young Franks, grabbed his mouth and hit him over the head with the chisel. I believe he hit him several times. I do not know the exact number…. Leopold grabbed Franks and carried him over back of the front seat and threw him on a rug in the car. He then took one of the rags and gagged him by sticking it down his throat…. The scheme for etherizing him originated through Leopold, who evidently has some knowledge of such things, and he said that would be the easiest way of putting him to death, and the least messy. This, however, we found unnecessary, because the boy was quite dead when we took him there. We knew he was dead, by the fact that rigor mortis had set in, and also by his eyes; and then when at that same time we poured this hydrochloric acid over him, we noticed no tremor, not a single tremor in his body; therefore we were sure he was dead.”
⁵

Richard eventually came to the end. He looked around the room, first at Sbarbaro, then at Shoemacher, and finally at the stenographer. He had recovered his composure. He betrayed no sign of the tears that he had cried only a few hours earlier.

Sbarbaro had only one more question and then they would be done.

“This statement that you have just made has been made of your own free will?”

“Yes.” Richard accepted responsibility, but of course Nathan had been to blame; they understood that, didn’t they? “I just want to say that I offer no excuse; but that I am fully convinced that neither the idea nor the act would have occurred to me, had it not been for the suggestion and stimulus of Leopold. Furthermore, I do not believe that I would have been capable of having killed Franks.”
⁶

L
ESS THAN TEN YARDS AWAY,
in an office two doors down the corridor, Nathan also was confessing. Another of Crowe’s assistants, Joseph Savage, together with Michael Hughes, the chief of detectives, listened as Nathan told his version of events while the second stenographer, Elbert Allen, scribbled down his words in shorthand.

Savage had already learned that Richard blamed Nathan for the murder. Yet now he was hearing the opposite, that it was Richard who had killed Bobby Franks.

“Richard placed his one hand over Robert’s mouth to stifle his outcries, with his right beat him on the head several times with a chisel, especially prepared for the purpose. The boy did not succumb as readily as we had believed, so for fear of being observed, Richard seized him, pulled him into the back seat. Here he forced a cloth into his mouth. Apparently the boy died instantly by suffocation….”

“When Richard hit Robert first, was it down in the tonneau of the car, the bottom of the car, or was it on the seat he choked him?”

“It was on the seat; Robert was sitting on the front seat, Dick was in the back seat.”

“Robert was sitting in the front with you?”

“Yes; and Dick sort of leaned over and put his hand over his mouth, like this.”

“Did he pull him back in the rear?”

“Not until later.”

“After he cracked him on the head, did he fall down then, Robert?”

“No, he struggled.”
⁷

Each boy blamed the other for the murder—who was telling the truth? Had Nathan or Richard struck Bobby Franks on the head with the chisel?

But in all other respects, their accounts were identical—each prisoner corroborated the other’s story. The murder was solved.

Shortly before seven that Saturday morning, Robert Crowe emerged from his office to speak to the journalists waiting in the main corridor of the Criminal Court Building. The air was thick with cigarette smoke; a dozen reporters had spent the night sitting in the corridor, leaning against the walls, waiting for the break in the case. They struggled to their feet as Crowe appeared before them; the state’s attorney looked tired, weary from the long hours of interrogation—perhaps, the journalists thought, there was still no result.

Crowe stood in the center of the small group arranged in a semicircle before him. He spoke quietly, just loud enough for his audience to hear: “We have the murderers in custody.”

Not one of the reporters was looking at him; they were too busy scribbling down his words in their notebooks. It was a strange scene, Crowe reflected. The end of the murder investigation, and now he was announcing it to this small group of journalists while secretaries, desk sergeants, and clerks walked by him on their way to their offices as they arrived for the day. Surely it should have ended on a more triumphal note?

“The Franks murder mystery has been solved. The murderers are in custody. Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb have completely and voluntarily confessed…. The Franks boy was kidnaped out of a spirit of adventure and for ransom. The kidnaping was planned many months ago, but the Franks boy was not the original victim in mind…. He was beaten with a chisel, strangled and then [an] attempt was made to disfigure him with acid.”
⁸

T
HE REVELATION THAT
R
OBERT
C
ROWE
had solved the case reached the relatives first. Reporters swarmed into Kenwood to obtain reactions to the news. Jacob Franks came to his front door. The old man was solemn and unsmiling as he spoke to the journalists gathered before him. It was only fitting, he remarked, that two unbelievers had been exposed by a providential mistake: “I understand the two boys boasted they are atheists. I know now they will see there is a God above Who watches all things. It was His providence that caused Leopold’s glasses to be dropped near my boy’s body—His will that those two boys should pay.”