Fiendish Killers Read online

In the 1970s a film was made of their exploits called The Honeymoon Killers, starring Shirley Stoler as Martha Beck and Tony Lo Bianco as Raymond Fernandez. The writer, Leonard Kastle, managed to stick pretty close to the facts and the film became a cult classic for its daring details about the sex and violence carried out by this unconventional union.

  Leopold and Loeb

  The friendship between nineteen-year-old Nathan Leopold and eighteen-year-old Richard Loeb began in the Spring of 1920. They both came from wealthy Jewish families and excelled academically, with outstanding IQs. In fact Leopold was a child prodigy and entered the University of Chicago at the age of fourteen, graduating four years later in law, becoming one of the youngest graduates in the university’s history earning himself Phi Beta Kappa status. Richard Loeb was the handsome and privileged son of a retired Sears Roebuck vice-president and was one of the youngest graduates, at fifteen, to enter the University of Chicago. When the two met, Loeb was in his first year at Chicago, struggling to form any real friendships due to the fact that he felt superior to all the other students. Introduced to each other by mutual friends, Leopold and Loeb were immediately attracted to one another, but the relationship was both intense and stormy. Apart, the two young men would probably have remained harmless, but together they drove each other to commit the unthinkable act – the murder of a young boy.

  the perfect crime

  Loeb was obsessed with crime and spent many hours with his head buried in detective stories. In his mind he planned crimes, he dreamt about crimes and he actually committed crimes, although none of these involved any physical harm to another person. In a way, crime became a game to the young man and he started to plot how he could carry out the perfect crime without ever getting caught. Although Leopold was doubtful about Loeb’s plan, he was obsessed with his friend, describing him as the ‘smartest young man in the world’, and eventually agreed that it would be an interesting intellectual exercise. He agreed to go along with Loeb so long as he was prepared to become his sexual partner.

  The crisis point in their relationship came in 1924 when Leopold was on the verge of going to Europe on holiday and then moving on to Harvard to continue his education. They both decided they wanted to do something drastic to seal their union and to prove their superiority over their fellow students.

  The couple started to plot their crime and agreed that the one essential element was to commit murder. They spent hours discussing how they would carry out their plan, which included the kidnap of a child from a wealthy family and then the demand of a hefty ransom. To minimize the likelihood of being discovered they both agreed that it would be necessary to kill their victim after receiving the money. They decided it would be easier to kidnap a boy that was known to either Leopold or Loeb, so that he would willingly get into their car, and their chosen victim was a fourteen-year-old by the name of Bobby Franks.

  carrying out their plan

  In truth, Bobby Franks just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The original victim they had had in mind was a boy named Johnny Levinson, a local lad who fitted perfectly into their planned ‘profile’. However, when they cruised around the golf course of Jackson Part on Wednesday, May 21, 1924, in their rented grey Willy’s Knight, the two teenagers lost their quarry.

  At about 5.00 p.m. a boy left a baseball game he had been watching and started to walk south on Ellis Avenue. Leopold and Loeb spotted Bobby Franks and decided to turn the car round and follow him. Loeb knew Bobby quite well because he was a friend of his younger brother, Tommy, and the Franks family lived opposite the Loebs on Ellis Avenue.

  Loeb hung out of the window of the car and called to Bobby, ‘Bobby, you want a ride home?’ Bobby shook his head and told Loeb that he would just as soon walk, as it was only two blocks away. Loeb thought quickly and then said, ‘Wait. I want to ask you about that tennis racquet you were using last week. I was thinking of getting one for Tommy.’

  Bobby stopped and got into the car, sitting beside the driver in the front seat. Loeb introduced Bobby to Leopold and then asked if he would mind if they just drove round the corner before going home. Bobby said he didn’t mind, unaware of the fate that was before him.

  The plan was to knock the boy unconscious using a metal chisel which they had previously bound with tape to make it easier to grip. However, the plan started to go horribly wrong when they failed to knock Bobby out with the first hit and he started to scream. They hit him again and again causing the young boy to bleed profusely, leaving blood all over the seats of the car. They stuffed a gag into Bobby’s mouth, wrapped him in a blanket and then pushed him onto the floor of the car.

  At this point in the proceedings, Leopold lost his nerve and started mumbling, ‘This is terrible. This is terrible!’ Looking at the amount of blood that had seeped out onto the floor and seats, Leopold was starting to panic, but the ever cool Loeb started to laugh and joke with his friend in an effort to calm him down.

  They drove around and decided they would wait until after dark to finish the job. The plan was to strangle him at a predetermined site, each taking one end of a rope so as to apportion the blame, but this part of the plan was foiled because Bobby was already dead. They drove south towards Indiana to their designated spot and then stopped the car, removing Bobby’s clothes.

  As it would be a little while before it became dark the couple drove round until they came across a hotdog stand. Leaving Bobby on the floor of the car, they sat and enjoyed hotdogs and root beers, seemingly unaffected by the gruesome murder they had just carried out.

  As soon as it was dark, Leopold and Loeb headed towards Wolf Lake and the allocated hiding spot, which was a drainpipe under the railway tracks which connected two lakes. They dragged Bobby’s naked body from the car and, before placing it in the drainage pipe, poured hydrochloric acid over the boy’s face, an identifying scar on his stomach and his penis. Leopold and Loeb were both under the misapprehension that a body could be identified by its genitalia, which is why they tried to destroy Bobby’s gender. They had hoped that the body would simply decompose before it was discovered, but the acid actually only discoloured the skin rather than causing any disfigurement.

  Leopold put on a pair of rubber waders he had previously purchased, so that he could drag the body into the water without getting too wet. However, as the body hit the water some of it splashed on his clothing causing him some concern. He pushed the head into the drainpipe first, but, overcome by the fumes of the acid, Leopold failed to push the body in far enough and left one foot protruding. This was to be another major mistake in their supposed ‘perfect’ crime.

  After washing the blood off their hands, the two teenagers drove to a drugstore so that Leopold could phone his father and tell him that he would be a little late getting home. While in the drugstore they got the telephone number of the Franks family from the directory and dialled the number. However, the operator took a long time to connect them and Leopold panicked and slammed the receiver down, fearing that the call would be traced.

  Instead they addressed an envelope to the Franks and sent a ransom note marking it SPECIAL and mailing it from the Hyde Park Post Office.

  On the way home they made another attempt at calling the Franks and this time got through to Bobby’s mother. Leopold told Mrs Franks that his name was George Johnson, that he had kidnapped her son, adding that he was safe and that ransom instructions would arrive tomorrow.

  Arriving back at Leopold’s house, they parked the tarnished rented car on the street in front of an apartment building on Greenwood Street and then Leopold retrieved his own car from the garage where he had left it earlier that evening. Leopold drove his aunt and uncle home who had been visiting his parents, while Loeb stayed and talked to Mr Leopold. When Leopold returned they had a few drinks and then sat up and played cards until about 1.00 a.m. The two young men left and went to Loeb’s house, where they burnt the boy’s clothing in the furnace and then made a half-hearted attempt at trying to clean the ren
tal car in the driveway.

  Another flaw in their ‘perfect’ crime was the fact that the chisel had been carelessly flung from the car window as they drove around the streets. This action was witnessed by a nightwatchman, who went and retrieved the object which was covered with tape and blood, and took it straight to the police.

  Mr Franks, accompanied by his friend and attorney, Samuel Ettelson, went to the police department at around 2.00 a.m. to report that Bobby was missing.

  the ransom

  The delivery of the ransom note was possibly the most elaborate part of the whole plan, and actually the part that Loeb enjoyed the most.

  The following morning the postman brought the special delivery letter written by Leopold the day before. The ransom note assured the Franks that their son was safe and well and would not be harmed provided they followed their instructions precisely. The ransom note instructed the Franks to secure the sum of $10,000 in old bills which were to be placed in a heavy cardboard box and then sealed securely with sealing wax. Finally, it said that they were to have the money ready and wait at home, without calling the police, until 1.00 p.m., when they would receive further instructions. The note was signed ‘George Johnson’.

  Jacob Franks went to his bank to withdraw the money while Ettelson called a friend of his who was chief of detectives for the Chicago Police Department. In the meantime, the body of a boy had been discovered in a drainpipe near Wolf Lake and the police called Mr Franks with a description of the corpse. Not prepared to accept that the body was in fact that of Bobby, Mr Franks sent his brother-in-law to the morgue to view the corpse.

  Back at the Franks’ house the telephone rang and Ettelson answered it. Leopold, still calling himself George Johnson, told him that a yellow taxi would soon be arriving and that he was to instruct it to drive him to a drugstore at 1465 East Sixty-third Street. Ettelson handed the phone to Mr Franks, who asked the caller to repeat the message, but as soon as he put the phone down in their panic neither men had remembered the address to which they were supposed to go. Leopold and Loeb phoned the drugstore several times, but needless to say Mr Franks never arrived and the ransom was never collected.

  incriminating evidence

  Although they had meticulously planned their crime so that their identities would remain a secret, Leopold and Loeb were caught almost immediately because Leopold dropped a pair of eye glasses close to where they dumped Bobby’s body. The glasses were easily traced back to Leopold because they had a special patented spring on the frames which had only been sold in one place in Chicago and purchased by only three people.

  Once the pair were in custody they both confessed to the crime in lurid details, showing no remorse whatsoever. The public were outraged that two young men from such privileged backgrounds should stoop to such levels and their trial proved to be a media spectacle.

  An eminent defence lawyer was hired by the families of Leopold and Loeb, and Clarence Darrow advised the two teenagers to plead guilty to kidnap and murder, thus forgoing a jury. The sentencing hearing was in front of Judge John R. Caverly, and it was Darrow’s job to prevent his clients from receiving the death sentence.

  The hearing lasted for three months in August 1924, and public interest remained intense through-out. Darrow played on the fact that Leopold and Loeb were still immature and should not therefore be treated as adults. After twelve hours of summing up, Darrow convinced the judge to spare their lives because of their youth and they were both sentenced to life plus ninety-nine years, with no possible chance of parole.

  In prison Leopold and Loeb were kept apart and Leopold was devastated when Richard Loeb was murdered in 1936 by a fellow inmate. When Leopold was granted permission to see his friend for the last time, he described the sensation as: ‘I felt like half of me was dead.’ Loeb’s body was cremated at Oaks Wood cemetery in Chicago, but there is no marker and no official burial site.

  Nathan Leopold became a model prisoner and published an autobiography in 1958 entitled Life Plus Ninety-Nine Years. Leopold was eventually paroled that same year after spending thirty-three years in prison. He attended the University of Puerto Rico where he earned a master’s degree in social work, graduating first in his class. He married Gertrude ‘Trudi’ Feldman Garcia de Quevado in February 1961 and spent the next ten years living in Puerto Rico away from the glare of media attention.

  Leopold died after ten days of hospitalisation on August 30, 1971, with his wife at his side. Right up until the time of his death, he avoided discussing the murder of Bobby Franks, although he always kept a photograph of Richard Loeb where he could see it. For a couple who wanted to commit the perfect crime, they ended up by performing an act that was riddled with flaws.

  Burke and Hare

  With the ever-advancing breakthroughs in medical science, the demand for human corpses grew steadily and in the early 1800s the number of students wishing to study anatomy increased dramatically. Up until the nineteenth century British law forbade the use of cadavers, other than those of recently executed criminals, and so the devious practice of grave robbing became a profitable business. In fact the practice of ‘body snatching’, as it became known, was so rife in certain parts of Edinburgh that many graveyards had to be protected by large walls and railings, and some even resorted to having watchtowers erected.

  Two Irish immigrants, William Burke and William Hare, aware of the growing demand for fresh bodies and that the price paid for these bodies was rising all the time, devised their own sinister scheme for supplying cadavers to the classrooms – with no questions being asked.

  Burke arrived from Ulster to work as a labourer on the New Union Canal in Edinburgh. In 1827 the two men met when Burke took up lodgings at Hare’s lodging house in Tanners Close, West Port, and it was from here that they hatched their deadly plan to make some easy money. They started off by simply robbing graves and selling the cadavers to doctors to use in their anatomy classes, but they thought that the digging late at night was too much like hard work. In truth, the two men hit upon their scheme by pure chance when one of Hare’s lodgers, an old army pensioner by the name of Donald, fell ill and died. Although Hare was unconcerned about the old man’s death, he was annoyed that he had passed away still owing him £4 in rent.

  big business in bodies

  Shortly after Hare had called the authorities to come and remove the body, he came up with an idea that meant he could recoup his losses. With Burke’s help they removed Donald’s body from the coffin and weighted it down with logs so the authorities wouldn’t be suspicious. They hid the body until the coffin had been removed and then went off in search of Professor Robert Knox. One of Knox’s assistants told Burke and Hare that they were definitely interested in taking the body and asked the men to bring it back after dark.

  Later that night they took the body round to Knox’s rooms in a large hessian sack and, after a couple of his assistants studied the body, Knox offered to pay the princely sum of £7. Burke and Hare were delighted with their night’s work and realised how easy it would be to make significant amounts of money with little effort. So, having found a willing buyer for their bodies, Burke and Hare set to work supplying cadavers to Dr Knox on a full-time basis.

  A few days later, another of Hare’s lodgers, a miller by the name of Joseph, was also taken ill. Although Joseph was not seriously ill, Burke and Hare decided to help him out of his misery once and for all and gave the man large amounts of whisky until he fell into a drunken stupor. With their victim unable to struggle, it was an easy job to suffocate the poor man to death, leaving no obvious marks on the body to cause suspicion. According to his later confession, Burke appeared to nearly always carry out the murder while Hare was the one to negotiate terms with the good doctor.

  Needless to say, Joseph was soon on the doorstep of Dr Knox and this was a process that would be repeated time and time again over the next eleven months. Obviously, with the remainder of the lodging house guests in full health, the dynamic duo had to search fur
ther afield for their victims. All went well until they murdered a prostitute by the name of Mary Paterson. When the body was delivered to the classroom of Dr Knox, several of his students recognised her – probably because they had taken advantage of her services – and they started to ask Burke and Hare how they had come into the possession of such a fine specimen. Burke and Hare were not prepared to give any details and were not aware that a close friend of Mary’s, Janet Brown, was busy making enquiries into the strange disappearance of her associate.

  Apart from the close shave regarding Mary Paterson, Burke and Hare’s trade in bodies had gone smoothly, and it wasn’t long before they started taking uncalculated risks. They even went as far as approaching two local policemen who were carrying a woman who was in a drunken state back to the prison to sleep it off. Burke approached the policemen and told them that he was a friend of the woman and that he would take her home and make sure she was taken care of. Of course the policemen didn’t realise quite how she was going to be ‘taken care of’ and Burke and Hare earned themselves a few more easy pounds that night.

  doctor’s denial

  Little did Burke and Hare realise quite what an ally they had in Dr Knox until they brought him the cadaver of eighteen-year-old James Wilson, who was known in the neighbourhood as ‘Daft Jamie’. He was a popular character who was known for his entertaining stories which kept the street kids highly amused. In October 1838, Hare happened across Jamie who was walking the streets looking for his widowed mother. Hare told the innocent young lad that he knew where his mother was and asked him to go back to his house with him to wait for her. Burke, who had been taking a drink in the local inn, watched the pair go by and realised exactly what was happening and returned to the house.