Who are Leopold and Loeb?
Nathan Leopold, Jr. and Richard Loeb were the defendants in a notorious murder and kidnapping trial in 1924. Brilliant students at the University of Chicago, they attempted to stage “the perfect crime” by murdering 14-year-old Bobby Franks and attempting to collect ransom money. Leopold and Loeb were inspired to get away with murder by the writings of the German philosopher Nietzsche and his concept of the Superman. Clarence Darrow represented Leopold and Loeb in court, giving one of the finest speeches of his career arguing against capital punishment for the pair. Leopold and Loeb first met at the University of Chicago when they were teenagers. Both were intelligent, advanced students, but Nathan Leopold was a genius with an IQ of 210. At the time of the murder, Leopold was 19 and studying law at the University of Chicago; Loeb, 18, planned to do the same after taking some courses at Harvard law school. Leopold and Loeb carefully planned their crime over a few months. Before the kidna
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