Crime Of The Century, By Nathan Loeb And Richard Leopold

Imagine if you read an article that said that you would be considered a super human and would be invincible, if you were able to kill someone and not feel any guilt. Crazy right, except that article does exist and there are people out there that have tried testing the theory. Although most people would not be able to handle the guilt they would feel, that was not a problem Nathan Loeb and Richard Leopold. These two boys tested the theory and found that it was true to them, they felt nothing. They killed someone, however they were caught. And sentenced to prison for life after they were identified and mentally unstable. With decisions affected by their exotic relationship, Leopold and Loeb committed the “Crime of the Century”, and although it took Clarence Darrow to clear them of the

They were both rich men and they came from very rich families. Loeb was a confident young man whereas “Leopold suffered from numerous glandular and nervous disorders” (“Leopold and Loeb” 159). They had been friends for a couple of years before things turned sexual between them. Leopold’s main fantasy was a king-and-slave one, where he was the slave and the men that he would think of would be the kings (Bernard Ryan Jr. 307-310). As Brandt Aymar and Edward Sagarin states, “It was then agreed that Loeb would have complete domination over Leopold and could call on him for exacting obedience in any important, not trivial, demands” (363). Leopold was so deeply in love with Loeb that he said he would be Loeb’s slave, and do anything he wanted to do (Aymar and Sagarin 364). It was then that Loeb knew Leopold would not say no to helping out with the murder. As Ryan Jr. explains, Leopold and Loeb wanted to kill a boy from a rich family. They chose Loeb’s distant cousin, Bobby Franks, he was 14 years old. They picked him up in a rented car from Harvard Preparatory School (308). They told Bobby that they would give him a ride home, then “Loeb suddenly pushed him onto the floor and