For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz Age Chicago (8 page)

Nathan’s devotion flattered and pleased him. True, Nathan was annoyingly egotistical—he had an irritating habit of bragging about his supposed accomplishments; and it quickly became tiresome to listen to Nathan’s empty, untrue boast that he could speak fifteen languages. Nathan also, in Richard’s opinion, had a tedious obsession with the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche; he would talk endlessly about the mythical superman who, because he was a superman, stood outside the law, beyond any moral code that might constrain the actions of ordinary men. Even murder, Nathan claimed, was an acceptable act for a superman to commit if the deed gave him pleasure. Morality did not apply in such a case, Nathan asserted. The only consideration that mattered was whether it afforded the superman pleasure—everything else faded into insignificance.
⁶⁰

It was not that Richard had any moral objection to murder; he too had only contempt for conventional morality. But Nathan was full of pretense, forever prating on about his intellectual superiority, forever sneering at the rest of humanity as dolts who obeyed the laws that he, Nathan, affected to disregard. Nathan’s braggadocio, with its exaggerated self-regard and its casual dismissal of others, seemed spoken as though for effect, as though designed to shock whoever heard it into granting Nathan the respect that had always been denied him. There was an angry edge to Nathan’s words; it betrayed the bitterness—hidden beneath his calm, equable manner of speaking—with which he remembered the taunts he had endured as a child and the loneliness he had experienced as an adolescent.

But Richard, nevertheless, was glad to have Nathan as a companion. There was no pleasure in committing crimes alone. He had to have a confederate who would appreciate his careful planning and preparation; Nathan’s admiration made it all worthwhile. And Richard had been thinking, ever since he had returned to Chicago in fall 1923, how to commit the perfect crime. He had vaguely thought of it as a kidnapping, of a young child perhaps, and there should, of course, be a ransom demand as an essential part of the plot. Richard knew that to obtain the ransom and yet still avoid capture would present a challenge that would surely tax even his ingenuity and guile—but even now, as he thought of it with anticipation, it excited and aroused him.
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3 PLANNING THE MURDER

S
ATURDAY,
10 N
OVEMBER
1923–T
UESDAY,
20 M
AY
1924

A superman…is, on account of certain superior qualities inherent in him, exempted from the ordinary laws which govern men. He is not liable for anything he may do.
¹

Nathan Leopold Jr., 10 October 1923

T
HE FOOTBALL PLAYERS REPRESENTING THE UNITED
States Marine Corps had arrived the previous day—Friday, 9 November—to an official reception from the city of Ann Arbor, and that Saturday morning, five special trains had arrived from Quantico with 2,000 marines and a military band in support of their team against the University of Michigan. The streets of Ann Arbor were packed with jostling crowds, eager to see the game. Blue and maize—the colors of the university—were everywhere: Michigan’s supporters waved their pennants and flags enthusiastically in anticipation of an easy victory over the Devil Dogs.
²

Forty-five thousand spectators crammed into Ferry Field. The University of Michigan stadium had opened in 1906, only seventeen years earlier, yet already it was too small to accommodate the crowds that flocked to the football games on Saturday afternoons. At the east end, on either side of the new field house, the university had recently installed temporary wooden bleachers, but still spectators overflowed the benches and spilled into the aisles.

Marion Burton, the president of the university, and Fielding Yost, the director of athletics, were both present to welcome their guests. Henry Ford had driven from Detroit to watch the game. Both Alex Groesbeck, the governor of the state, and James Couzens, the Republican senator for Michigan, were in attendance. Edwin C. Denby, secretary of the navy, and his assistant, Theodore Roosevelt Jr., sat on the opposite side of the field among the supporters of the Marine Corps. John Archer Lejeune, the marine commandant, had made the journey from Quantico to support his troops. It would be a difficult game for the Marine Corps, they realized; Michigan was undefeated, having already, that fall, vanquished Ohio State, Michigan Agricultural College, Vanderbilt University, the Case School of Applied Science, and the University of Iowa. True, the university would be missing some of its key players: Ed Vandervoort, the right tackle, had been injured in the Iowa game the previous week, and both Stan Muirhead, the left tackle, and Louis Curran, the right end, were unwell. But Michigan was a powerful team, nevertheless, and most experts predicted that the Wolverines would win the Big Ten conference that year.
³

Against all expectations, the first quarter belonged to the marines. Their quarterback, Frank Goettge, played brilliantly. The Michigan defense did all it could against the run, but to no avail, allowing the Devil Dogs to march uncontested seventy-five yards downfield for a touchdown.

The crowd was shocked into silence. No one that season, not even Ohio State, had scored against the Wolverines at Ferry Field. Who would have expected the unheralded Marine Corps to have scored a touchdown before Michigan had even put points on the board?

But Irwin Uteritz, the Michigan quarterback, soon asserted control over the game and in the second quarter, the tide began to turn in Michigan’s favor. Michigan repeatedly found holes in the marines’ defense; Herb Steger, the Michigan right halfback, had an outstanding game and, on those few occasions when the Wolverines did give up the ball, Harry Kipke’s punting pinned the Devil Dogs back to their goal line again and again. Michigan scored four touchdowns and made two conversions while the Marine Corps failed to score a second time; the final tally was 26–6. Michigan remained undefeated.
⁴

T
HAT NIGHT THE
M
ICHIGAN STUDENTS
packed the fraternity houses to celebrate their victory. Only two more games remained—an easy game the following Saturday against the University of Wisconsin and the final contest of the season against the University of Illinois—and already there was talk on the campus that this would be a championship year. The celebrations continued through the evening, past midnight, but by two o’clock the campus was deserted. The football crowds had long ago left Ann Arbor; the students were now sleeping off their intoxication in the dormitories; nothing broke the silence of the night.

At three o’clock that Sunday morning, a red Willys-Knight sports car, with distinctive nickel bumpers and disk wheels, drew up by the side of Zeta Beta Tau fraternity. Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb stepped wearily from the car and stretched their legs—it had been a long drive, almost six hours, from Chicago to Ann Arbor.

Richard and Nathan each held a flashlight in one hand, and each boy carried a loaded revolver in the pocket of his jacket. They cautiously approached the Zeta Beta Tau building, a large, three-story mansion set back from the street, and walked up the path to the front door. It had been Richard’s fraternity during his junior and senior years at the university; it would be a challenge, he had suggested to Nathan, to burglarize his old fraternity house. Admittedly, someone might recognize him—he had graduated from the university that year—but he could explain their presence at Zeta Beta Tau by claiming that they had come up to Ann Arbor for the football game.
⁵

The front door of the fraternity swung open at their touch. Inside, beer bottles and beer mugs stood empty on the tables; ashtrays overflowed with cigarette butts. On a side table, empty bottles of gin and whiskey stood stacked like soldiers. Nathan could see that someone had left a football program on the table; it was now soaked with beer.

8.
ZETA BETA TAU FRATERNITY HOUSE.
Jewish students at the University of Michigan established the Phi chapter of Zeta Beta Tau in 1912. The building on Washtenaw Road, shown here, was constructed for the fraternity and first occupied in 1922.

Nathan and Richard paused in the center of the room and listened for sounds from the floor above. It was quiet; nothing moved. Carefully they went up the stairs. There was a coatroom, Richard remembered, on the second floor. Sure enough, several students had left their jackets and overcoats hanging in the large closet.
⁶

They searched through the coats. One forgetful student had left his wallet in his jacket. Richard took out the money—almost fifty dollars. Nathan also discovered some loose bills—about twenty dollars. There were penknives, some watches, and several fountain pens but not much else.
⁷

As they made their way downstairs and walked across the living room toward the front door, Nathan noticed a typewriter on a writing desk to one side of the room. It was one of the latest models, a portable Underwood. Nathan picked it up and admired it—he could scarcely believe that a typewriter could be so compact and light. He already possessed a Hammond typewriter at home, but it was heavy and rather awkward; this portable Underwood would be useful for typing up his notes from the law lectures.
⁸

O
N THE LONG RIDE HOME,
back to Chicago, both boys began drinking from a half-empty bottle of gin taken from the fraternity house. Richard was exultant. To plan the robbery and to escape detection had been a challenge; to know that they had carried it off successfully was its own reward. The stolen items would certainly be missed in the morning, and news of the robbery would make its way back to his friends in the fraternity’s chapter at the University of Chicago. Richard was almost gleeful in anticipating the buzz that the robbery would generate among his friends; it heightened the experience to know that he had inside knowledge of the burglary.
⁹

But Nathan was tired and irritable, and Richard’s excitement soon became wearisome. They had left Ann Arbor at five o’clock in the morning; they would probably not reach Chicago until around midday. When Richard had first suggested the robbery, it had seemed appealing, daring, almost courageous: Richard had convinced him that the planning and calculation involved would be a test of their mettle.

Now, in the early hours of the morning, their adventure no longer seemed appealing; instead it now appeared almost pointless, even futile. What was the purpose, Nathan wondered, of driving six hours to Ann Arbor, along bumpy country roads, to steal a few trinkets? The money taken from the wallets—seventy-four dollars—was inconsequential, and they had no use for the watches and fountain pens. The Underwood typewriter, a recent model, would be useful, but otherwise, Nathan reflected, it had been a great deal of effort for singularly little reward.

In Richard’s company, Nathan was usually submissive and acquiescent. Now he was in a querulous, angry, argumentative mood. Their friendship was one-sided, he complained. Whenever Richard proposed some escapade, he always demanded that Nathan tag along. Nathan had willingly complied—but there was too little reward from their friendship. What, he demanded, did he gain from Richard’s companionship?
¹⁰

Nathan was especially aggrieved that they too rarely had sex together. In the early days of their friendship, Richard had willingly slept with him, but in the six months since Richard had graduated from Michigan to move back to Chicago, they had only infrequently had sex. Why, Nathan demanded, should he continue to participate in Richard’s schemes if Richard continued to hold him at arm’s length?

Richard knew he could not afford to lose Nathan’s friendship. The other boy now had too much on him. He could never entirely trust Nathan to keep his confidences. If their friendship dissolved, Nathan might tell the world of Richard’s crimes and misdemeanors. And if word ever got back to his father about, say, that time when he had burned down that hut or, even worse, that other occasion, when he had burglarized that house in Hubbard Woods—then who knew what might happen? Richard was afraid of his father, afraid of the punishment that Albert Loeb would visit on his head if he found out that Richard had been misbehaving.
¹¹

Richard would have liked to divest himself of Nathan’s friendship—Nathan’s cloying devotion had become irritating and even embarrassing—but who else would willingly participate in his adventures? There were no substitutes; Nathan’s companionship could be irksome, but it served its purpose: Richard felt validated when Nathan took a part in his escapades.

Richard broke the silence. Would Nathan be happier if they reached some sort of formal agreement? How would Nathan feel, for example, if they agreed to have sex a certain number of times, proportional perhaps to the frequency of their criminal adventures? Or why not just continue as before, Richard suggested, with the promise that they have sex together three times every two months?
¹²

It was not a particularly generous offer but, to Richard’s surprise, Nathan accepted readily. It gave a guarantee that their friendship would continue. Nathan had always dreaded the thought that, one day, without warning, Richard would again suddenly end the friendship. That was an event too terrible to contemplate. This compact between them gave Nathan what he desired most of all: an assurance that Richard would continue as his friend.

As Nathan drove away from Ann Arbor in the darkness, Richard continued to talk. They had carried off the robbery without a hitch, but already he felt slightly dissatisfied: the burglary had been too easy. It had involved only minimal planning, and in any case it had not been a particularly complex crime. They should be more ambitious, he declared; they should commit a perfect crime, a crime so intricate and complicated that planning and calculating its flawless execution would be a challenge. They would leave behind no clues for the police; they would leave no trace of their involvement; it would stand forever as an audacious act that admitted no solution.

Dawn had broken now; there was no longer any need to use the car’s headlights. They had finished off the gin but neither Nathan nor Richard felt especially intoxicated. The roads were deserted—occasionally they spied a Model T taking a farmer and his family to church; but otherwise they had the highway to themselves.

Soon they had passed Gary, and in less than an hour, they approached the outskirts of Chicago. On their right, they could see Lake Michigan shimmering in the morning sunlight, and on the horizon, far out on the surface of the lake, a large freighter was chugging its way slowly west in the direction of Chicago.