This Day in History: On this day in 1924 Leopold and Loeb kidnap and murder 14 year old Bobby Franks, simply to commit the perfect crime. Nathan Freudenthal Leopold Jr. and Richard Albert Loeb committed murder as a demonstration of their intellectual superiority, which they believed enabled and entitled them to carry out a "perfect crime" without consequences. Leopold was particularly fascinated by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of the superman (Übermensch), interpreting the superman as a transcendent individual possessing extraordinary and unusual capabilities, whose superior intellect allowed them to rise above the laws and rules that bound the unimportant, average people. Leopold believed that he and especially Loeb were these supermen, and as such, by his interpretation of Nietzsche, they were not bound by any of society's normal ethics or rules. In a letter to Loeb, Leopold wrote, "A superman... is, on account of certain superior qualities inherent in him, exempted from the ordinary laws which govern men. He is not liable for anything he may do."
They planned their crime for seven months, detailing how they would abduct their victim, and how they would dispose of the body. The pair lured young Bobby Franks into their rented vehicle and then killed him in the back seat with a chisel. Leopold and Loeb attempted to secure a ransom from the Franks family, but the body of the boy was quickly discovered in an open culvert.
These two "intellectual superiors" might have gotten away with this crime, had they not screwed up. A pair of horn-rimmed tortoise shell glasses, belonging to Nathan Leopold, were discovered with the body of Bobby Franks. The police noticed an unusual hinge on the glasses which only three people in Chicago ordered, which led them to Leopold, and eventually, the arrest and trial of the century. Both Leopold and Loeb were sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder, and an additional 99 years for the kidnapping.
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