Maybe part of the public's extraordinary fascination with this case stemmed from the great wealth all three families possessed. Maybe it was the violent way young Bobby had been killed. Maybe Darrow's passionate hatred for the death penalty caused people to think about the ultimate penalty. Or - maybe the story just made great reading in The Chicago Daily News, whose reporters had helped to crack the case.
This was the "perfect crime." At least, that's what Richard Loeb thought when he concocted it. Loeb, who had been raised by a strict Canadian governess since he was four, had fantasized about leading a criminal gang. Loeb was smart. He had finished grade school by the time he was 12 and high school by age 14. Because his governess was quick to punish him, he had learned to evade her discipline by lying. By seventeen, as one of the youngest graduates from the University of Michigan, he was an expert liar.
Leopold was even more intelligent than Loeb. His IQ was 210 - a certifiable genius. He was a national expert on birds. He spoke nine or ten languages by the time he was 18. But he was obsessed with his friend Richard Loeb. He would do anything Loeb told him to do.