Background
Nathan Freudenthal Leopold Jr. was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Florence Foreman and Nathan Leopold, Sr. , a wealthy South Side manufacturer.
(Nathan Leopold Jr. was half of the famed duo Leopold and ...)
Nathan Leopold Jr. was half of the famed duo Leopold and Loeb, murderers of 14-year old Bobby Franks in 1924 on the south side of Chicago. Life Plus 99 Years is an autobiographical work which commences with the day after Leopold's sentencing, and which was designed to ingratiate the author with the parole board. As such it is a fascinating multi-layered work - the reader has to work at keeping in mind that the writer was the perpetrator of a heinous crime made all the more horrendous by the fact that its only motivation was the thrill of the idea. A must read for anyone interested in the workings and effects of our criminal justice system.
https://www.amazon.com/Life-plus-Years-Nathan-Leopold/dp/B0000CK1VN?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B0000CK1VN
Nathan Freudenthal Leopold Jr. was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Florence Foreman and Nathan Leopold, Sr. , a wealthy South Side manufacturer.
He was educated at the private Harvard School and at the University of Chicago, graduating at the age of nineteen. While in prison he enrolled in correspondence courses from the University of Iowa in advanced mathematics, physics, and classical languages. His intelligence and the quality of his work impressed both professors and administrators. He also took correspondence courses from the University of Puerto Rico, earning a Master of Science degree in June 1961.
In November 1923, Leopold and Richard Loeb (the son of a recently deceased vice-president of Sears, Roebuck, and Company) began planning a "perfect crime. " To them, "perfect" meant not only insoluble, but free from passion or motive, an act of pure will. The two young men, precocious students, were influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of the "superman, " a human being superior to common codes of morality. At first it was believed that Leopold, an avid reader of Nietzsche, instigated the crime. But later scholars believe that Loeb was the leader and Leopold only his tool. The pair planned to make the event seem like a kidnapping for ransom.
On the afternoon of May 21, 1924, using a rented automobile, they picked up fourteen-year-old Bobby Franks, the son of one of Chicago's wealthiest families, bludgeoned him to death with a chisel wrapped in tape, and stuffed his body into a culvert near the Lake Michigan shore, eight miles south of his home. They then attempted to collect $10, 000 in ransom from the Franks family; however, the boy's body was discovered before the ransom could be paid. Unwittingly, Leopold had left clues to his identity during the crime: he had dropped his glasses in the marsh where the body was buried. When confronted with the glasses and with evidence that the ransom note had been typed on his portable typewriter, he and Loeb confessed. Their horrified parents hired Clarence Darrow, "the Great Defender, " as defense attorney. Convinced that any Chicago jury would find the pair guilty--a finding that in the city's heated atmosphere would automatically result in their execution--Darrow had them plead guilty with mitigating circumstances. He contended that, although not legally insane, the young men were "mentally diseased" and incapable of judging right from wrong.
After five weeks of testimony, much of it by psychiatrists, their trial before a judge in an overcrowded courtroom led to sentences of life imprisonment on the murder charge and ninety-nine years on the kidnapping charge. Leopold and Loeb were at first incarcerated in separate prisons in Joliet, Illinois; they would later be moved to other prisons. The murder, trial, and imprisonment received national attention, and through the years became the subjects of numerous newspapers and magazine articles, as well as the subjects of a novel, Compulsion (1965), and a play by the same title (1959), both by a fellow student at the University of Chicago, Meyer Levin.
The book, a partly fictional representation of events leading to the crime, also presents a detailed record of the trial, with lengthy excerpts from Darrow's summation--a masterly plea for mercy that undoubtedly influenced the judge's decision not to impose a death sentence. Leopold called Compulsion "at once a horrible, a fascinating and a beautiful book, forty percent fact and the rest of it pure moonshine. " Concerned that the novel had damaged his chances for parole, Leopold sued Levin for defamation of character. In response, a chastened Levin wrote an article in Coronet, urging Leopold's release.
In prison, the fates of Leopold and Loeb diverged. The latter was murdered on January 28, 1936, by another inmate reportedly angered by Loeb's homosexual advances. (In fact, the man was angry because Loeb did not give him some cigarettes, as he had promised. ) Leopold, on the other hand, became a model prisoner and won the respect of guards and prison officials. Leopold persuaded the faculty at the University of Iowa to help in organizing correspondence courses for prisoners and in replacing textbooks for the prison library that had been burned in a riot. He convinced the prison staff to make it easier for inmates to borrow and read books. He convinced the prison staff to make it easier for inmates to borrow and read books. During World War II, he volunteered for medical tests that would advance knowledge of the causes and treatment of malaria (the disease was of concern to the military fighting in the Pacific). As a consequence of these activities, Governor William Stratton commuted his ninety-nine-year sentence to eighty-five years, which improved the possibility for his ultimate parole.
In 1958, supporting a fifth plea for release, Carl Sandburg, a longtime correspondent, and University of Iowa professor Helen Williams spoke on his behalf. Shortly before his subsequent release, he announced the formation of the Leopold Foundation to aid disturbed children. The foundation was funded in part with proceeds from his Life Plus 99 Years, an autobiography first serialized by the Chicago Daily News, then published in full in 1958, with an introduction by the crime novelist Erle Stanley Gardner. The book bypassed the murder of Bobby Franks but gave a detailed description of Leopold's life in prison. Most reviewers praised the book in lengthy reviews.
On March 13, 1958, after thirty-three years in prison, Leopold was released to the custody of the Church of the Brethren, to which he had been converted while in prison. He worked for $10 per month in the church's medical mission at Castañer, in Puerto Rico's hill country, where he taught mathematics and helped raise funds for the church. Six months earlier he had married Trudi Feldman Garcia de Quevado. After Leopold's death, his body was donated to the University of Puerto Rico's School of Medicine, and his eyes to the school's eye bank.
(Nathan Leopold Jr. was half of the famed duo Leopold and ...)
In 1961 Leopold had married Trudi Feldman Garcia de Quevado.