THE THRILL OF KILLING.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 85, 11 April 1931, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE THRILL OF KILLING.

boys spared the death sentence.

1 "BRIGHT YOUNG PEOPLE" OF AMERICAN SOCIETY—LOEB AND 1 LEOPOLD LANDED BEHIND PRISON BARS—KIDNAP IDEA FORMED (BASIS OF CALLOUS SLAYING —YOUTH AND MERCIFUL JUDGE SAVED THEM FROM THE ELECTRIC CHAIR.

I | it the beginning of June, 1924, two 1 „ mP n of the names of Leopold and I voung mtu u . I were living at home in Chicago, r j tes Harold Dcarden, the dramatist. 1 They were about the same age, Leopold I , n(! just turned nineteen, and they I 1' both also more than usually happy | ™the choice of their parents. 1 1 They belonged, in fact, to the millionI • p croup, and from their earliest youth 1 they had had lavished upon them every £? luxury. , . . § They had always been firm friends. If Thev were both superficially clever; fa wtistical and conceited to a degree; and St! were both, moreover, members of I Chicago's Bright Young People. That is to say that they enjoyed an § M vironment where a very little intelli- §§ J. nce goes a very long way, since most of 13 its admirers are in the singular position of II themselves having none at all. H Of these two mediocrities Leopold was " probably the superior. He had done, I indeed, quite we " in " ls college examina-| tions 'though he had, it is true, been assisted in this direction by every conceivable facility in the way of crammers, nAnra and other sources of forcible Satid feeding. They had plenty of money from their greats, but notwithstanding this fact they had never been averse to increasing their income by any means, however petty, which presented itself. Leopold, for instance, had taken up the study of wild birds and their habits, and had, in that amazing manner prevalent in American universities, constituted himself a sort of juvenile professor in the icience of ornithology. Once a week he would take out a class of enthusiasts into the country outside Chicago and give them the benefit of his knowledge, while they trailed behind at hig heels. For this he charged a fee of H about half-a-crown a head per day, which, || ju 7 iew of his professed outlook on If humanity in general, was not entirely in i keeping. He had the profoundest conI tempt for anyone other than himself and II his fellow-superman, Loeb. Mutual Admirers. |f Other brains were so completely incap--1 able of grappling with facts and seeing life fit that unusual clarity which disII tinguished himself and his friend, that one 1 would scarcely therefore have thought i that the boredom of trailing around 'a I group of these intellectually despised and rejected bird-watchers would have been I -worth enduring for half-a-crown a head. I ' Loeb's method of augmenting his income | was in every way superior. 1 It consisted entirely in removing from |l time to time when opportunity presented § itself any small article of value which 1 he found lying about in the college or 1 in the homes of his friends, and he had if been making over a period of years quite I a nice little bit of pocket money by this I enterprise alone. i He and Leopold admired each other 1 so intensely that they had come after _ a i time to conceive themselves as being in i seme mystic way bound together to form 1 one entity. It is only fair to say that they suffered, I in their efforts to visualise this conception, 1 from something approaching the same ' degree of difficulty as one would quite reasonably expect from some of those lesser mental outfits which they so con- - tinuously despised. .. _ _ . They came no nearer visualising it, in fact, than is commonly achieved by rather | unhealthy minded individuals who com- : pose poems about each other. In these poems Loeb was referred to ' as king, while Leopold announced himself as his consort, the idea being to convey I the extraordinary eminence of the comI hingd intellectual resources which their I two great brains represented. They went about constantly together, I and were, on the whole, as sickening a pair I of young blackguards as it would be reaI sonably possible to produce. I They were by now familiar with almost 1 every conceivable form of dissipation and I depravity, and it occurred to them, there- I 1 fore, that to continue in this humdrum i I way would be to deny to their intellect® 1 I the full experience to which they were s I entitled. J

It happened also that they were at that time temporarily very hard up, so they decided on a little enterprise which thonld both, provide an unusual thrill and be 4 source of profit in addition. The idea was to kidnap somebody and hold them up to ransom, and they proceeded to look about, therefore, for a suitable victim. Their first choice unanimously fell upon a little girl. They hired a car one evening and drove wound the town looking for some likely infant, but they were entirely unable to discover one- really suitable for their purpose.

Profitable Prey. Rich little girls of the frailty which they considered essential are not commonly left unattended in the streets at night in Chicago. But they were fortunate in seeing an alternative subject, who seemed to them ideal. This was a youth of 14 named Robert Franks, whose father also was a millionaire, and whom they both knew slightly. He was a somewhat weakly little boy, *®d the extreme richness of his father common knowledge. Plainly a leaven-sent opportunity, of which they Quickly availed themselves. They asked him into the car for a ride, snd he accepted, since he was on his way home from a game of baseball arid had nothing particular to do. One of the heroes drove and the other j$ into the back of the car and sat reside their victim. The hood was up, and while Franks leaning forward to speak to his friend 'at the wheel, it was a simple Mtter for the superman at his side to "f&e him a violent blow on the head *ith a Bpanner which had previously been P'&ced to hand. . «is admittedly no part of a superman's Pretensions to be particularly adept with a spanner, so that it is in no way disparaging to state that the blow did no fi or e than terrify young Franks and cause hun to begin to utter loud shouts and try t° climb out of the car. "laudy, this could not be permitted, so ~°? L> dragged him back on to the scat stuffed a quantity of rag into his mouth, which their forethought had also Provided. This rag, together with repeated applica--s®s of the spanner, was more'than young pranks could bear, and, within a very few ~uutes, as a subject for ransom he was Poetically of no use. What to do was a problem, and the * en ds therefore decided to discuss ! e matter in detail over a light dinner some stimulating place of entertain-

hid the body in the back of the ? covered it over with rugs, parked ® car outside a restaurant, and enjoyed meal. 4. J® 11 they got into the car again, drove .],3® scene of Leopold's bird-watching ».pipped the body entirely, and nf?L » a culvert which drained one w . we. fields. Kidnappers' Letter. ifijthen destroyed or hid the clothing, tC f, e !i er Was more convenient, and, in lull fiugh 0 £ this novel experience, ]?,*' turned to their homes. j. when young Franks did not (j,j- "°®e his parents were intensely jj-.J lß ' ar >d this anxiety was still further the , w hen they received a letter in ij^® ornin g, apparently from their son's

» Leopold had made quite a good job of I this letter. It was concise and to the point, and stated clearly that unless a ransom of £2000 was immediately paid oyer, Mr. Franks, sen., would never see i. his son again. The police were consulted, but before any active steps could be taken to trace the sender of the letter, the body of the • murdered boy was discovered in the culvert and the secret was out. There was absolutely no clue whatever to connect either Leopold or Loeb with this atrocious affair. No one had apparently seen them with the dead body on the evening in question, and they were merely interrogated by the police as a routine measure applied by them to every one of his friends. The ground in the neighbourhood of the culvert was examined with the most rigorous care, and the police at last came across a pair of broken tortoise-shell spectacles trodden under foot in the mud. They made inquiries of every oculist in Chicago, and succeeded at length in tracing the glasses as being similar to uome bought by young Leopold about eight or nine months previously. Type Clue. Moreover, »his typewriter bore certain peculiarities in the matter of its lettering closely resembling those found in the letter received by Mr. Franks. Both he and Loeb were arrested, still on the vaguest suspicion, when, to the amazement of those in charge of the ease, they immediately confessed to the crime. They stated that they had done it for a thrill, and they behaved, in fact, in such away as clearly showed that the sensation which their story had caused was something in Avhich they revelled. Almost immediately after making this confession they retracted, on the .advice of their counsel, with the somewhat specious explanation that it had only been made in the first place to get any sort of thrill, and, certainly, if thrills were what they wanted they were to have enough during the next few months to satisfy the greatest glutton. Their parents, as well as the father of the dead boy, engaged whole batteries of counsel regardless of expense. The newspapers gave to the case the greatest possible prominence, illustrating their reports from day to day with scores 6% flashlight photographs actually taken in court. The two boys were interviewed almost daily, and their most trivial behaviour was chronicled in detail. Insanity Plea. The defence was one of insanity, and for months experts of the greatest eminence urged their opposing views. Literally for days the court proceedings read more like a lecture in abnormal psychology than anything else, and, by the time these experts had said their say, the jury must have been stunned. It is an unspeakable relief, therefore, to read the opinion of one amateur psychologist offered later on in the case. This was a young lady of about 18 who had been fortunate enough to be selected by Leopold and Loeb as their partner on many festive occasions. When asked her opinion of their mental state, she gave it with an accuracy and a degree of insight altogether refreshing and admirable. "Rather bughouse" was the term Rbe used, which is shorter than Bright young people" and in every way to be preferred.

The Court decided that they were guilty and perfectly sane as well, but the judge, on account.,,of their extreme youth, spared them the death sentence and imprisoned them for life.