Overwhelmed By Evidence

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Even without the confessions the case against Leopold and Loeb was now solid. They’d thought their plan would put them beyond suspicion; instead all it had done was create dozens of chances for the police to confirm pieces of the jigsaw. The list of people who recognized them was growing by the day. The state had no shortage of witnesses to choose from:

• Charles E. Ward at the Hyde Park State Bank recognized Leopold as the customer calling himself “Morton D. Ballard.”
• Arthur J. Doherty at the same bank recognized Loeb as having cashed a check for $100 signed by “Ballard.”
• David Barish and Max Tucherman of Barish’s Delicatessen recognized Loeb as having been there on May 9 and answering the phone when it rang; this was when Loeb, as “Louis Mason,” vouched for “Ballard.”
• William Herndon and Margaret Fitzpatrick of the Rent-A-Car Company recognized Leopold as “Morton D. Ballard.”
• Lucille Smith and her daughter had been walking up 118th, not far from the culvert, at about 9:30 p.m. on May 21 when a car passed them. From photos they identified it as similar to a Willys-Knight tourer.
• Bernard Hunt, the night watchman, identified Leopold’s Willys-Knight coupé as similar to the car the chisel was thrown from.

Having confessed, Leopold and Loeb were now willing to help turn up more vital evidence. The police took them to Jackson Park Lagoon, and Loeb showed them where he’d sunk the typewriter and pointed out the partly burned robe. Then they went out to the Indiana state line, where Loeb found the belt he’d hidden. The stores where the rope, chisel and acid had been bought were visited, and the proprietors remembered selling them to customers answering the boys’ descriptions. The Pullman car where Loeb had hidden the note to Jacob Franks was traced to a yard in New York City and the letter retrieved. A diver salvaged the typewriter from the lagoon and its serial number was traced; it was the one stolen in the Zeta Beta Tau burglary.

They’d told their story and, while they disagreed about who had struck the fatal blows, the rest of it could be solidly confirmed by physical evidence and witnesses. They had also been chatting freely with the press, not seeming to care that they were trashing any possible defense. “Why, we even rehearsed the kidnapping at least three times, carrying it through in all details, lacking only the boy we were to kidnap and kill,” said Leopold, “It was just an experiment. It was as easy for us to justify as an entomologist in impaling a beetle on a pin.” Loeb was even more arrogant: “This thing will be the making of me. I’ll spend a few years in jail and I’ll be released. I’ll come out to a new life.”[23] There was no going back now.

On June 5, 1924 a grand jury indicted them both for murder and kidnapping. State’s Attorney Crowe was already anticipating the likely defense, because he knew who had been hired to defend the killers and didn’t underestimate the challenge that posed. Lawyers, psychiatrists and journalists were assembling for the case and Crowe wanted to nail it down firmly. He was confident, though. “We have the most conclusive evidence I’ve ever seen in a criminal case,” he announced the day after the confessions were signed.[24] The defense knew that too.

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