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The planning that went into the killing was elaborate in the extreme. The only automobile Leopold and Loeb could count on having access to was Leopold’s red Willys Knight. A brightly colored sporty coupé, this was a conspicuous vehicle and they decided it was too risky to use it for the crime.[9] Rather than steal a car an intricate plan was devised to rent one under a false name. In late April Leopold opened a bank account in the name of Morton D. Ballard, and Loeb registered at the Morrison hotel under the same name. Letters were sent to Ballard at the hotel, to begin building up an identity, and on May 9 Leopold went to a local Rent-a-Car office and introduced himself as Ballard. He claimed to be a salesman recently posted in from Peoria and asked to rent a car, offering a generous $400 deposit in lieu of the three references required by Rent-a-Car but which he couldn’t provide. The hire office insisted on at least one reference, though, and “Ballard” named his friend Mr. Louis Mason. A phone call to “Mason” - Loeb, waiting by the pay phone at a nearby delicatessen - secured the reference, and Leopold collected the car. He and Loeb kept it for a few hours then handed it back, at which point Loeb returned to the Morrison. The old suitcase he’d brought when he checked in was missing. He quickly realized that the staff had noticed that his bed had not been slept in and become suspicious about his reservation. He immediately left the hotel; the room had served its purpose and Leopold had been accepted as a reliable customer by the hire office.
Leopold and Loeb hadn’t chosen a specific victim but they had decided on a hunting ground. Their plan was to cruise the streets around the Harvard School after the pupils had been released and abduct a boy who was walking alone. There were obvious dangers in this, because the school was only a few blocks from both their homes and many people in the district knew them. The same factor also offered advantages, though, and the pair decided these could be exploited.
On May 20 they prepared the equipment they would need for the abduction and killing. They had decided to kill their victim by strangulation, with one of them pulling on each end of the ligature so they would be equally guilty. Loeb visited a hardware store on Cottage Grove Street and bought a length of rope to use for the killing. He then visited another hardware store further down Cottage Grove and bought a chisel. Rejoining Leopold, they next went to a drug store where Leopold tried to buy a bottle of hydrochloric acid. Failing, he tried again at another drugstore and this time was successful. The rest of the equipment was collected together at Leopold’s house - rags to use as gags, a bottle of ether to keep the victim quiet and a pair of hip boots belonging to Leopold’s brother. Leopold took a roll of zinc oxide tape from the bathroom and used it to bind the chisel’s sharp blade; it could now be safely gripped and the wooden handle used as a bludgeon. A car cloak was added; it would be used to conceal the body in the back of the car. Finally they added some extra security. If anyone caught them in the act it would be necessary to silence them instantly. Chisels and gags might work on a schoolboy, but more would be needed if an adult came across them. Two automatic pistols went into the car with the rest of the equipment, a .45 for Loeb and a .380 for Leopold.
The final stage of the crime was to be a ransom demand. Leopold and Loeb planned to demand $10,000 for the safe return of their victim, and they carefully planned a method of collecting the money without risking themselves. Of course they never had any intention of honoring the deal; they were well aware that a released kidnap victim could identify them and that abducting a boy from their own neighborhood and old school was especially dangerous. The victim would be killed as soon as possible after the snatch, and the corpse concealed well enough that it wouldn’t be found until after the money had been delivered. To speed up the ransom demand they had already composed a series of letters. These told the boy’s father not to contact the police, then went on to describe the elaborate process for handing over the money. Because a specific victim hadn’t been chosen the letters were generic; the victim’s address would be printed on the envelope after the killing. Now Leopold typed up final copies of all the letters on the portable typewriter they’d stolen from Zeta Beta Tau.[10] They both knew that letters could be traced to the typewriter that had produced them by examining wear and imperfections on the keys, but being stolen there was nothing to link the Underwood to either of them. If the police did search Leopold’s house they’d find the heavy Hammond office model in the library, and good luck tying the notes to that. The Underwood would be long gone by then.
The next day, with all their preparations made, Leopold got up early and went to college at eight o’clock as usual. Around eleven he met up with Loeb at the school. They stashed their equipment in the rented car and drove with both cars to Kramer’s restaurant on 35th and Cottage. Arriving there about quarter past twelve they put up the side curtains on the rented car, then ate lunch. Around half past one they drove to Leopold’s house, parked his car in the garage and masked the license plate of the green Willys-Knight.[11] That looked a bit suspicious, but plates weren’t as strictly regulated back then and it seemed less risky than having the number noted. By about quarter of two they were parked in Ingleside Avenue, a small street running parallel to Ellis Avenue where the Harvard School was located.
Now it became obvious that eagerness had got the better of them; they were too early. They had no chance of finding a victim until the school let out - three o’clock at the very least. In fact it was probably going to be later still because the boys often hung around in groups after school, chatting to friends or setting up a ball game on a nearby vacant lot. They’d need to hang out until the cliques started to break up and the boys began making their way home, and then they’d have to wait until one got far enough away from his friends that they could snatch him unobserved.
In fact hanging around the school for hours was almost insanely risky. It was within three blocks of both their homes - a single block over from Leopold’s. The boys they were stalking were the sons of family friends, and if the attempt failed they might be recognized. Loeb’s younger brother Tommy was a pupil there himself, and knew that he’d been cruising around the school that afternoon. By choosing a hunting ground where they were both quite well known they had made things much more dangerous for themselves. Maybe that was part of the thrill.
Loeb certainly didn’t let the risk put him off. He walked from Ingleside over to the school, to reconnoiter the area. A group of boys were playing outside under the supervision of a tutor named James Seass. Loeb chatted to him for a while, all the time looking around for likely targets. The group included a boy they’d already discussed as a possible victim. Sol Levinson’s son John ticked all the boxes. He was young enough to be easily overpowered and his wealthy family could pay the ransom. He knew Loeb, so it would be easy to get him into the car without a fuss. Now Loeb chatted to him about his baseball game for a while, then said goodbye to Seass and wandered round the front of the school. Out front he found his brother, and was talking to him when he heard a whistle from across the street. He looked up, and there was Leopold. Loeb crossed over and Leopold told him there was another group of boys playing on Ingleside that looked promising.
The two walked back to Ingleside and scouted out the group, but decided none of them would do. Next they headed down to Drexel Boulevard and 49th Street, where more boys were playing. Levinson had now joined this group, and they watched for a while then went back to the car. Drexel has a wide median strip, and they parked on the west side, opposite the vacant lot. Now they found a new problem - from that distance they couldn’t recognize individual boys. Leopold had a solution for that though; they drove to his house and he picked up a pair of field glasses, while Loeb went to the drug store on 47th and Ellis. He bought two packs of gum and leafed through the phone book, finding Sol Levinson’s address so they could guess John’s route home from school.[12]
After picking up Leopold they drove back to the same spot on Drexel and watched the boys through the glasses for a while. John Levinson and a couple of others headed up an alley towards the school. They waited for him to come back, but he didn’t. Wondering where he’d gone, Loeb looked for him in the alley. There was no sign of him. He wasn’t playing outside his house when they drove past there, either. In fact Levinson had been collected by the family chauffeur and taken to a dental appointment. As much as everyone hates dentists, this visit had probably saved his life.
Loeb returned to the car and they drove off down Drexel, turned left then left again and headed back up Ellis. As they approached 48th Street they saw a boy walking down the west side of the road. It was Bobby Franks.
Leopold pulled left onto 48th then turned the car around and drove back down Ellis. By the time that was done Franks was nearly at 49th Street. Loeb knew exactly where the boy lived - it was nearly opposite his own house. Franks was only two blocks from home and walking fast. There wasn’t much time to get him. On the other hand, he explained to Leopold, he was the perfect victim. Small enough to be easily snatched, his father Jacob Franks doted on the boy and had made a fortune from his business activities. Starting as a pawnbroker, he’d made a clever investment in the Chicago gas company then gone on to be president of a watchmakers and a successful real estate broker. Nicknamed “Honest Jake” for his fairness, he was believed to be worth at least $4 million and maybe much more.[13] He’d happily pay to get Bobby back.
There was a potential problem. Another boy was walking in the same direction not far behind Franks. They idled down the street, letting Franks open the gap, until they judged that the boys were far enough apart. Then they closed in.
Leopold pulled up close to Franks; Loeb opened the door and called, “Hey, Bob!” Franks stopped, and Loeb offered him a ride home. The boy declined, but Loeb then asked him to get in so they could talk about a tennis racket. Franks climbed into the car and Leopold set off along Ellis. Just over a block later he turned left onto 50th Street. Franks still suspected nothing, because Loeb had said they would drive round the block, but almost as soon as the car turned off Ellis the trap was sprung. Loeb grabbed him, clapped a hand across his mouth to silence him and hit him four times on the head with the handle of the chisel.[14]
Stunned, Franks slumped on his seat. The blows hadn’t knocked him completely out, though, and he was moaning in pain. Frightened of being seen, Loeb hauled him into the back seat. To silence the boy’s cries he stuffed a rag into his mouth then pushed him to the floor and covered him with the car cloak. Semi-conscious and choking on the gag, the boy asphyxiated to death within minutes.
This hadn’t been in the plan; rather than being strangled in a perverse bonding ritual Franks was now dead on the floor of the car. Worse, blood from the gashes in his scalp was leaking onto the carpet. The seats were already smeared. Even in the time before forensics really took off the danger was obvious. Leopold, confronted with the mess, started to panic and Loeb had to spend several minutes calming him down. “This is terrible. This is terrible,” he said, only regaining equilibrium slowly. When his composure came back, though, it came back all the way. It was only quarter past five and the sun wouldn’t set for nearly three hours; having killed Robert Franks they now had to kill time, so they would have darkness to dispose of the body. Driving out towards the Indiana state line Loeb began stripping Franks’ corpse. Leopold turned off onto a dead end road and pulled over. The dead boy’s shoes were hidden in a bush, and his belt concealed nearby. His pants and socks were also removed but kept in the car for later disposal. The pair then retraced their tracks back to the main road and drove around a while longer, waiting for dusk.[15] They stopped once at a drug store and Leopold called his girlfriend, Susan Lourie, to cancel their date for that evening. At Calumet Boulevard and 132nd Street they stopped again at a sandwich stall and Leopold bought hot dogs and root beer, which they ate in the car. Another hour of cruising aimlessly and finally it was dark enough for their purposes.
Ten miles southeast of the murder scene, Wolf Lake straddles the Illinois-Indiana state line. A few hundred yards from its western shore is the Burnham Greenway, a paved recreational track popular with walkers and cyclists. The Greenway follows the line of an older track. In 1924 it was the Pennsylvania Railroad, and in stretches the modern road runs along the top of an old embankment. To stop this embankment causing flooding in the low, wet ground around the lake drainage culverts were built through it, and Leopold and Loeb had chosen one of these as the last resting place of their victim.
Parking the car about 300 yards from the culvert, they dragged Franks from the back seat and turned the car cloak into an improvised stretcher. Loeb took the head and Leopold the feet, and they carried it over to the railway line. There they laid the body down and finished stripping it. The clothes were bundled into the cloak along with the short pants and socks they’d removed earlier. Now Leopold uncorked the bottle of hydrochloric acid.
The killers had been concerned that the body might be found before they could collect the ransom money, which would obviously put an end to that part of their plan. Their fears were to prove justified, but instead of finding a more effective way of disposing of the victim they outsmarted themselves yet again. It would have been simple enough to tie the body in the cloak with a couple of large rocks and throw it in one of the area’s many rivers, but having chosen the culvert and scouted it out days earlier they didn’t want to change their plans. Instead they decided to disfigure the body enough to make it unrecognizable, and that was where the acid came in. A heavy splash of the caustic liquid started to eat away at Franks’ face. That wasn’t enough for Loeb, though. He had the idea that men could be identified by the shape of their penis - apparently he thought his brother Tommy had an unusually-shaped one - so more acid was poured on the body’s genitals. Franks had an appendectomy scar; more acid. Then Leopold pulled on the hip boots he’d taken from his house and waded into the drainage ditch. Dragging Franks in after him he pushed it head first into the culvert while Loeb washed blood from his hands. The body had splashed when it hit the water, though, and his cold wet shirt and the smell of the acid distracted Leopold. Eager to get the job done he didn’t push the corpse in far enough and one foot remained visible. That mistake was bad enough. What followed was worse.
Leopold had taken off his coat and shoes before donning the boots and getting into the water. Now he climbed the embankment; it was darker down by the culvert and he was having trouble tying his shoelaces. “Hey, Dick, can you get my coat?” he called.
“Sure, Babe.” Loeb shook the water from his hands and picked up the old coat. Something slipped from the pocket and hit the ground; the water flowing in the culvert masked any noise it made. Loeb bundled the rest of the boy’s clothing into the cloak and started up the embankment towards his friend. In the darkness a stocking slipped out of the bundle and fell unnoticed to the grass. That didn’t really matter, of course; it belonged to Franks, not one of the killers, and at that time the police wouldn’t have got any forensic data from it. They’d still made a fatal mistake though.
Walking back towards the car, Leopold never thought to check his pockets. He and Loeb had set out to commit the “perfect crime,” but in fact they had bungled it. Before they even moved on to the next stage - the ransom demand - their detection was already almost inevitable.
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