Infamous America - LEOPOLD & LOEB Ep. 4 | “Aftermath”

Episode Date: September 2, 2020

Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb begin their new lives in prison, and those lives take very different turns. They use their money and intelligence to curry favor with the prison staff, but their stories end in dramatically different ways. One ends in a pool of blood. The other ends on an island in the Caribbean. Join Black Barrel+ for bingeable seasons with no commercials : blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com. Our social media pages are: @blackbarrelmedia on Facebook and Instagram, and @bbarrelmedia on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A listener note. This series in this episode contains some sexual and violent material that some might find disturbing. Listener discretion is advised. January 28, 1936. Stateville Maximum Security Prison, 30 miles outside Chicago, Illinois. Richard Loeb invited fellow inmate James Day to the shower room at noon. Richard had a key and could lock it from the inside so they have privacy. Day was 21 and serving one to ten years for armed robbery, and Richard had a crush on him.

To entice Day to be with him, Richard had been sending gifts like cigarettes and money. If Day refused, Richard would make his privileges disappear. James Day showed up to the showers on time to Richard's delight. Richard was already naked and slowly moved toward his guest. But Richard didn't know that James Day had not. not appreciated the sexual advances. Richard didn't find out until James Day pulled out

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Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were on their way to prison, and they were going in style. The lead car of their three-car convoy was a black Cadillac sedan. The killers rode in a Packard limousine. As the car sped along the highway, the brakes on the lead car locked up. The limousine swerved out of the way at 50 miles an hour. It veered off the road and ended up on the tracks of the Chicago, Joliet, and Elgin Railroad. Nathan and Richard were shaken up, but only suffered minor injuries. The sheriffs pushed the limo back onto the road, and they resumed their drive to the prison.

Their life plus 99 years' sentence was off to a bad start. As their limo pulled up to Joliet Prison, a huge crowd was gathered at the prison gates to greet the two celebrities. Joliet opened in 1858. It was a massive, oppressive structure made of stone. and Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were scheduled to spend the rest of their lives there. New inmates were given ten minutes to shower in the bathhouse, and then a new set of clothes, the standard prison-issue uniform of a blue denim jacket and pants.

After the entry process, Nathan and Richard were sent to cells on opposite sides of the prison. Even though neither had ever slept on something as paltry as a straw mattress before, both boys had a peaceful first night. It didn't take long for their privileged lives to surface. Richard's father had always disapproved of his son's drinking, but Richard's uncle provided the boys with a nightly cocktail. The drinks were smuggled through the bars by Chicago Daily Tribune reporter Ty Crum, who received exclusive interviews in return.

The press remained universally upset with the verdict. The San Francisco Bulletin called it an easy sentence. The belief was that there were two sets of laws, one for the rich and another for the poor. The murderous teens had only been spared the death penalty because of their money. Judge Kaverly's sentencing seemed to have focused exclusively on their youth and immaturity. But how immature were they really? Definitely not in their academic studies. Nathan was said to a spoken 15-line.

languages. At 18 years old, Richard Loeb was the youngest to ever graduate the University of Michigan. In fact, his father was so proud he built a nine-hole mini-golf course in their backyard as a reward. And the detailed planning of the crime showed anything but immaturity. Besides, the judge knew their ages before the trial started. Some people speculated that Caverley's mind had been made up from the beginning. And then there was Cavarly's rookie mistake. He was a veteran judge, but he somehow left out an important detail when he delivered his sentence. He never specified whether the two sentences, life for murder, and 99 years for kidnapping, should run consecutively or concurrently.

On the surface, it didn't seem like an important omission. Both sentences were so long that it was easy to think the detail wouldn't matter. But it did. In the state of Illinois, when a judge didn't mention that the sentences should be served consecutively, they would automatically run concurrently, meaning at the same time. In that instance, the prisoner served the longer of the two sentences. In the case of Leopold and Loeb, the 99-year sentence was considered the longer of the two, to some extent based on the number of years the prisoner would have to serve before he was eligible for parole.

So, all of this meant that if the boys were credited with serving their life sentences, they would be eligible for parole in just 20 years. But if they were technically serving their 99-year sentences, they would be eligible for parole in 33 years. And if they were credited with good behavior, their sentences could be reduced even further. So it was possible that Leopold and Loeb would serve less than 30 years in prison for the kidnapping and murder of Bobby Franks.

And Judge Kaverley's clerical error was already having an effect on Chicago crime. A group of teenagers viciously strangled an elderly woman in her apartment with telephone wire. One of the four teens in custody told reporters, they'd just have the court appoint Clarence Darrow to defend them. Then they'd never be executed. The two rich teens navigated their way through the rigors of Joliet prison. The cells were small, dark, and damp, and the building was crue. crumbling. There were no flushed toilets in the decrepit structure, so every morning all the prisoners

had to carry their waste in buckets to a large trough in the prison yard. Then it was off to breakfast. After eating, it was back to their tiny cells where the windows were slits that barely allowed any light in. Joliet Prison was, predictably, freezing in the winter and boiling in the summer. On the other hand, despite the unpleasant conditions, they still had a minor advantage over some of their family members. Within five years, Richard's father, Nathan's father, and Bobby Frank's father were dead. The other principal players also suffered defeats. One year after the Leopold and Loeb trial, Clarence Darrow took on a case that might have superseded the murder trial in fame and publicity. The legendary lawyer was all set to retire when he signed on to and then lost the Scopes Monkey Trial.

Then in 1928, four years after the teens had been spared the death penalty, State's attorney Robert Crowe was forced out of office thanks to the skyrocketing murder raid in Chicago. In May of 1925, after less than a year at Joliet, Nathan Leopold was transferred to a new prison at Stateville a few miles. away. Richard remained behind. Stateville was one of the most modern prisons in America. Its circular design allowed the guards in the central tower to observe all the prisoners in their cells. But Stateville cost a lot to build, and the powers that be left very little in the budget to pay the guards. At a monthly salary of just $100 and no pensions, it was tough for them to make ends meet, so they had to find other ways to make money.

Bribes. At least a dozen rival gangs competed for control of the prison. Each had a tar paper shack in the prison yard as their headquarters. They operated whiskey stills and grew marijuana and ran male prostitution rings. If you had money, you could get anything you wanted at the time. Six years later, in March of 1931, Richard was transferred to Stateville and reunited with Nathan. Nathan, far more than Richard, wanted to curry favor with the prison administration, so he volunteered for clerical jobs, which Stateville desperately needed.

There were just six people in administrative positions inside a prison with nearly 4,000 inmates. Thanks to Nathan's guidance, the prison soon functioned far more efficiently. But despite his spurts of helpfulness, Nathan still had a temper. and was often in solitary. The warden at Stateville had one mission, rehabilitation. He wanted to reform repeat offenders. Nathan got on the warden's good side

by helping the prison sociologist determine the categories of prisoners for early release. In fact, Nathan became so indispensable, he soon had the run of the prison, as did Richard Loeb, but they went about it in completely different ways. While Nathan used his brains to make prison tolerable, Richard used his money.

He kept a $500 deposit in the prison office at all times. When it became depleted, his brothers replenished it. Plus, his parents, who didn't know he had a private banking arrangement in prison, sent him another $50 per month. Richard skillfully bribed the guards. He could buy whatever he wanted in the commissary and was allowed to eat his meals and privacy in his cell. Richard wasn't even required to wear the prison uniform most of the time.

Instead, he wore a white shirt and flannel pants. Richard also had keys to parts of the prison that were usually accessible to inmates only at specific times of the day. Thanks to his stream of cash, Richard did as he pleased, and he used much of his influence on the guards to elicit sexual favors from other inmates. Prisoners who slept with Richard were handsomely rewarded with cigarettes, alcohol, larger cells, or easy jobs within the prison. Those who fell out of favor found themselves shoveling coal in the yard. Inmate James Day was in his early 20s while serving up to 10 years for armed robbery.

Unlike Richard Loeb, Day came from a troubled past. He never met his dad and his mother died when James was eight. Richard and James met in 1935, and Richard immediately liked James. Richard arranged for James to be transferred to a cell closer to his, and began sending him presents, liquor, cigarettes, and money. Richard used his bribe network to get James a cushy job in the prison office building, and Richard went so far as to hint that he might even be able to help James get a parole hearing. In return, Richard demanded sex. James was able to resist Richard's demands for weeks, but Richard started threatening to remove James privileges.

On January 28, 1936, James Day decided the situation had gone on long enough. Richard invited James to the shower room at noon. Richard had a key and could lock the room from the inside so they'd have privacy. James agreed to the plan. As James entered the shower room, Richard, was naked and slowly moving towards him. As Richard got closer, James pulled out a straight razor that another convict had stolen from the barber shop.

He attacked Richard. He sliced Richard 56 times on the hands, the arms, and the stomach. And then finally, he cut Richard's throat from behind. James Day, who was five feet six inches tall and weighed 135 pounds, walked out and left Richard low bleeding on the shower room floor. Richard died later that day. He was 30 years old. The prison doctors did what they could, but he'd lost too much blood.

Nathan rushed from his cell to the prison hospital and watched helplessly as his friend lay dying on the operating table. After Richard was pronounced dead, the doctors and guards allowed Nathan to be alone with him. Nathan grieved silently as he cradled Richard's head in his arms. When James Day went to trial for the murder of Richard Loeb, Nathan didn't contradict Day's story that Richard had demanded a homosexual encounter, and the attack was self-defense. The jury found James Day not guilty on all charges. Richard's actions had a negative trickle-down effect on Nathan.

The new warden at Stateville Prison was embarrassed after word got around that Richard had bribed prison guards to get special privileges. So, to prevent any further embarrassment, Nathan Leopold was closely watched. Nathan's cellmate was moved so that Nathan had to live alone. All of Nathan's privileges were rescinded, including the ability to freely walk around the prison without a guard. He'd been in prison for 12 years, and he still had 21 to go before he could even think about parole. Nathan Leopold became bitter and lonely. his privileges inside the prison were gone, as was his only true friend. So Nathan focused on the possibility of parole.

It was still a long way off, but he had a lot of work to do to impress a parole board. His crime had been so gruesome and so widely publicized that the odds of parole were stacked against him. He needed to prove that he'd been fully rehabilitated so that if he was granted his freedom, there was zero chance of him committing a similar crime. Nathan was nothing if not a planner. In the 1930s, a school had been established at Stateville where prisoners taught other prisoners English composition, algebra, geometry, bookkeeping, and history.

Nathan and Richard, both highly intelligent, were involved with the school from the start. Now, with Richard gone, Nathan immersed himself in the management of the school and the program flourished. Enrollment jumped from 70 inmates to 400. The school became a huge success until the warden ruined it with good intentions.

He decided that each student's academic record would now be reported so that it could eventually be presented to the parole board as evidence of rehabilitation. This led to an avalanche of prisoners enrolling. Many had no interest in learning. It was just a shortcut to freedom. them. Prisoners began threatening their teachers with violence if they weren't awarded the highest

grades, and the school went downhill from there. In 1941, Nathan secured a position as an X-ray technician in the prison hospital. Before long, he had parlayed that into a nurse's position in the hospital's psychiatric ward. He now had lots of freedom and little supervision and received a larger cell that was never locked. There were basically no rules, and he was permitted to do as he pleased. Nathan became obsessed with patting his resume with good deeds. World War II was raging,

and the U.S. government was quickly trying to produce a drug to stave off malaria. The government needed human guinea pigs to be infected with the disease. Nathan was one of the first to volunteer. On June 19th, 19th, 19th, In 145, Nathan caught malaria. Two weeks later, his temperature hit 104 degrees Fahrenheit, and he could barely move. Thanks to volunteers like Nathan, the new drugs were ruled too toxic. And now, due to the testing, Nathan had symptoms of kidney disease and diabetes.

The one positive was that there were rumors circulating that anyone who volunteered for the study would have his sentence shortened. At the time, Nathan wasn't eligible for parole until 1957, but he got lucky. Governor Adly Stevenson reduced his sentence to 85 years. The number was still so big the reduction might have seemed trivial, but it wasn't. Stevenson's gesture meant Nathan would be eligible for parole in 1953, four years earlier than expected. In the winter of 1953, Nathan sat at a wooden table as three years. members of the parole board peppered him with questions. He was now 48 years old. His hair was

receding. His eyes were drooping. His stomach was more expansive, and he emanated a pronounced sadness. He wore a blue denim shirt with his prison number, 9306D, stenciled on the back. Nathan told the parole board how his personality and outlook on life had changed while in prison, and he promised he'd never get in trouble again. After all, he was only 19 when he committed his crime. A board member asked him why he'd murdered Bobby Franks. It was a question he should have assumed they'd ask. He answered that he couldn't give a motive that made sense to him.

He didn't know why he did it. Nathan was totally unprepared for the most obvious questions. The board asked what Nathan planned to do after he received his freedom. him. Again, he was blindsided and said he hadn't given the matter much thought. He thought maybe he'd sell neckties or work behind a soda fountain. He did not make a good impression. And worse than those answers, Nathan seemed flippant and insincere and still hadn't shown any remorse for the murder of Bobby Franks. Nathan's appeal was not only rejected, but the chairman of the parole board hammered his character to the press. He called Nathan a liar and a fraud

who continued to embellish his achievements in prison. The chairman said it was absurd that Nathan now claimed he could read 27 languages. With their rejection, it would be another five years before Nathan could get another chance of freedom. In February of 1958, Nathan had his second parole hearing. This time, Nathan hired a lawyer to help present his case to the board. Nathan also had several job offers lined up, including from a first job offers lined up, including from a friend of his brother who said he would sponsor Nathan as a medical technician at a hospital in Puerto Rico. Yes, Nathan was still a cold-blooded killer, but in the past eight years,

the parole board had granted freedom to nearly 200 murderers, including Art Newman, who had killed seven people. Nathan's lawyer asked the board to go back to the original court documents that showed that it had been Richard Loeb who had initiated the scheme to kidnap and kill a child. Richard had planned the details of the ransom note, and Richard had struck all the blows with a chisel that killed Bobby Franks. Nathan was just an accomplice who had followed Richard's lead. A collection of character witnesses spoke on Nathan's behalf, including a journalist who had interviewed him in prison and the poet Carl Sandberg. But now came the tough part. It was Nathan's turn to speak. He was more prepared than he'd been five years ago.

He confessed to the board, The worst punishment comes from inside me. It is the torment of my own conscience. He then assured them he'd be a decent, self-respecting, and law-abiding citizen, and they'd just wanted a chance to find personal redemption by providing service to others. He said, It is for that chance that I humbly beg. All I want, if I am so lucky as to ever see freedom again,

is to become a humble little person. On February 20, 1958, Nathan Leopold was granted his freedom. Three weeks later, he walked out of prison. There were swarms of reporters, photographers, and TV cameramen. They had not forgotten about the surviving perpetrator of one of the most horrific crimes in American history. Nathan begged them to leave him alone. He no longer wanted attention.

The only thing he wanted now was privacy. He just wanted a chance to start fresh. Nathan Leopold boarded a plane in Chicago's O'Hare Airport bound for New York and then on to San Juan Puerto Rico. He needed to get as far away from his past as possible. In San Juan, in the mountains at 4,000 feet elevation, Nathan was surrounded by bananas and coffee plants.

The temperate climate suited him well. Thanks to his brother's friend, Nathan now worked as a medical assistant at a local hospital. He spent his free time as a graduate student in social work at the University of Puerto Rico. For his hospital job, Nathan received $10 per month, transportation to work, a single room to live in, and meals. He had also inherited $50,000 from his father's death back in 1929, and the money had been accumulating interest for three decades. so his small monthly salary was no problem. He lived comfortably. Nathan seemed to adjust to his new surroundings remarkably well,

and then a book came out that nearly ruined his life. A peer of Nathan's at the University of Chicago, Meyer Levin, wrote a novel. It was called Compulsion, and it was based on the Bobby Frank's murder. Although it was fiction, the character based on Nathan was not flattering, and there was more. 20th century Fox was turning the novel into a movie starring Orson Wells as Clarence Darrow.

Nathan was finally a free man and now everyone in America would relive his story and open the wounds all over again. Nathan was furious and in October 1959 he had his lawyer Sue Levin for $1.4 million. The public was not on Nathan's side. He was one of the most nice. notorious murderers in American history, and now he was upset that a fictionalized account of

his crime would sully his name. He didn't garner much sympathy. The author, Meyer Levin, had vocally supported Nathan's parole the previous year. Now Levin was forced to spend tens of thousands of dollars over the next decade to fight the lawsuit. It was dismissed in 1970. But the lawsuit cost Levin more than money. During the 10 years he was embroiled in the legal battle, publishers were scared to do business with him. They were worried they'd have to pay out damages if Nathan won the case. Publishers refused to reissue compulsion after its initial print run,

which probably cost 11 a small fortune. In 1961, two years after Nathan filed the lawsuit, he married a 53-year-old woman from Baltimore named Trudy Feldman. She owned a flower shop in San Juan. That same year, Nathan earned his master's degree and was also appointed to the University of Puerto Rico's faculty to teach mathematics. 1963 was the year Nathan was waiting for. He officially won his release from parole,

which meant he could legally drive, drink alcohol, and stay out at night. But as Nathan told his lawyer, he'd already been doing those things. He'd basically ignored every rule of parole over the past five years. He drank, ignored curfew, went to brothels and casinos, owned weapons, a shotgun, a rifle, and a machete, and left the county without permission. But now Nathan was free to travel anywhere. He and Trudy went to Europe, South America, Asia, and the Middle East, and Nathan finally returned home to Chicago to visit the graves of his parents and brothers. He was the last one left. Everyone else involved in the case was dead.

Richard Loeb was stabbed to death in a prison shower in 1936. Clarence Darrow had passed away in 1938. Judge Caverley had suffered a fatal stroke in 1939. And state's attorney Robert Crow had passed away in a retirement home in 1958. In 1971, the last connection to the event that was called the Crime of the Summerty, century was severed. On August 29th, Nathan Leopold died of a heart attack. He was 66 years old. His body was donated to the University of Puerto Rico for medical research. An ophthalmologist removed his corneas, which had long ago required rare tortoise shell glasses with unusual hinges.

The corneas were given to two strangers. Next time on Infamous America, we're going to tackle another infamous murder. This one is fascinated audiences around the world for nearly 130 years, especially around Halloween. The story of the Lizzie Borden Axe Murders begins September 23, 2020. But as always, members of our Black Barrel Plus program received the entire series to binge one week earlier, September 16th. Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, Blackbarrelmedia.com. If you want to know more about the Leopold and Loeb story, here are a couple quick book recommendations.

The Leopold and Loeb files, an intimate look at one of America's most infamous crimes by Nina Barrett. And, for the thrill of it, Leopold, Loeb, and the murder that shocked Jazz Age Chicago by Simon Bats. This season was researched and written by Brian Frazier. audio editing and sound design by Dave Harrison. I'm your host and producer, Chris Wimmer. Find us at our website, blackbarrelmedia.com, or our social media channels. We're BlackBeril Media on Facebook and Instagram and B-Barrell Media on Twitter. And you can stream all our episodes on YouTube.

Just search for Infamous America Podcast. Thanks for listening.