STATE OF ILLINOIS vs.
LEOPOLD & LOEB

Nov. 19, 1904 Nathan Freudenthal Leopold is born in Chicago, Illinois, to Nathan and
Florence Leopold (née Foreman), a wealthy immigrant Jewish family from
Germany.
June 11, 1905 Richard Albert Loeb is born on in Chicago, Illinois. He was the second of
four sons born to Albert and Anna Loeb.
Sept. 19, 1909 Robert "Bobby" Franks is born to Jacob and Flora Franks.
1917 At age 12, Richard Loeb enters the innovative University High School,
adjacent to the University of Chicago campus.
ca. 1920 At age 15, while attending the Harvard School for Boys, Nathan Leopold
becomes acquainted with Richard Loeb, who was attending the University
of Chicago as a freshman.
1921 Florence Leopold, Nathan Leopold's mother, dies.
1921 - 1922 Both Leopold and Loeb transfer to the University of Michigan at Ann
Arbor, where they room together until Richard movs into the Zeta Beta
Tau fraternity house.
Nov. 1923 Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb begin plotting to commit the "perfect
murder."
May 20, 1924 Leopold and Loeb prepare for the kidnapping and murder. They bind a
chisel with tape, buy rope and hydrochloric acid, obtain ether, hip boots
and gags from the Leopold house, and Leopold writes the jointly-
composed ransom notes on his Underwood portable typewriter.
May 21, 1924 At about 5:00 p.m., Bobby Franks is kidnapped and murdered by Nathan
Leopold and Richard Loeb.
May 22, 1924 The body of Bobby Franks is discovered by Tony Minke, a Polish
immigrant railroad worker. A pair of eyeglasses are found near the body.
Morticians initially assumed the glasses belonged to Franks, and placed
them on the body. However, the boy's father would say that the glasses
did not belong to Bobby, who had perfect eyesignt and never wore
glasses.
The glasses were ultimately traced to Nathan Leopold.
May 25, 1924 At about 2:00 a.m., Loeb uses pliers to pry the keys from the Underwood
typewriter used to type the ransom notes. The keys are placed into a
small bundle, and the bundle, along with the typewriter and its case, are
thrown off the bridge at Jackson Park.
Later that morning, Nathan Leopold, Jr. is brought to the State's
Attorney's office for questioning. He made a statement about his
movements and his familiarity with Hegewisch swamp. Later Leopold
would tell Detective Gortland that he thought he'd be able to talk his way
out of the situation, as he had on the 25th, and had he known "Loeb
would peach," he would have killed himself and "taken a couple coppers
out in the process."
May 29, 1924 Nathan Leopold is picked up and brought into State Attorney Robert
Crowe's office for further interrogation.
May 30, 1924 In the early morning, Nathan Leopold is again brought into State Attorney
Robert Crowe's office for questioning by Crowe and Chief of Detectives
Michael Hughes.
His partner in the crime, Richard Loeb, is also interrogated.
ca. May 31, Detectives question the Leopold family's chauffeur, Sven Englund, who
1924 lived in the family's garage. When asked about Leopold's car, Englund
and his wife confirmed that it had been in the garage all day on May 21,
the day of the murder.
When confronted with Englund's statement, Richard Loeb demanded to
speak with Crowe and District Attorney John Sbarbaro, and began
confessing the true story of the murder. When told that Loeb was
confessing, Nathan Leopold also confessed that they had rented a Willys
Knight car and kidnapped and murdered Bobby Franks.
June 1-2, 1924 While housed in separate rooms at the Windermere Hotel on 56th and
Hyde Park Blvd., Leopold and Loeb lead detectives around the south side
of Chicago. They would point out where they had disposed of Franks's
clothes, as well as the typewriter used in the ransom note, a second
machine owned by Leopold, which he had dumped into the Jackson Park
lagoon after the murder.
ca. June 5, Divers find the typewriter in the Jackson Park lagoon.
1924
July 21, 1924 The first day of trial.
Aug. 22, 1924 Defense attorney Clarence Darrow delivers his closing arguments to the
jury. He had convinced the Leopold and Loeb families to enter a plea of
guilty, and his powerful summation -- which some have called the finest
of his career - would ultimately result in the avoidance of the death
penalty for the killers.
Sept. 10, 1924 Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb are each sentenced to life terms plus
99 years for the kidnapping and murder of Bobby Franks.
Oct. 1924 Nathan Leopold, Sr., sells the home at 4754 Greenwood and moves to
Lakeview, living at 420 Roscoe Street, near Belmont Harbor.
1927 Nathan Leopold, Sr., married Mrs. Daisy K. Hahn of Los Angeles.
April 5, 1929 Nathan Leopold, Sr., dies.
Jan. 28, 1936 At age 30, Richard Loeb is murdered in Stateville Prison, Joliet, Illinois, by
a fellow prisoner who claimed Loeb had made homosexual advances
toward him.
1958 Nathan Leopold is released from prison on parole.
Late 1960s The Leopold mansion at 4754 Greenwood is destroyed.
Aug. 21, 1971 Nathan Leopold dies in Puerto Rico, of heart trouble brought on by his
diabetes.