Driving a rented car - so they could avoid being linked to one of their own vehicles if they were ever investigated - Leopold and Loeb picked Bobby up and drove toward Bobby's home. As a neighbor and distant cousin of Loeb, Bobby would have had no fear about getting in the car. About fifteen minutes later, Bobby was dead - killed in the car by Loeb, although some accounts say Leopold did the killing. This map shows the general direction Leopold and Loeb took while the crime was underway.

What made this case so terrible was not just that Bobby was killed. It was how he was killed - and what Leopold and Loeb did to him after he was dead. Those facts contributed to the public demand for no mercy.

Luring him to the car by saying he wanted to discuss a new tennis racket, Loeb wasted no time. He pushed Bobby onto the floor of the back seat and smashed Bobby's head with a chisel. Using terrific force, Loeb drove the chisel home three more times. Blood spurted everywhere, but Loeb was undaunted. After Bobby was dead, Loeb wrapped the child in Leopold's car blanket.

After dark, Leopold and Loeb left Chicago and drove toward Hammond, Indiana. They parked the rented car near the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks. Before dumping Bobby's body into a culvert, Leopold and Loeb poured hydrochloric acid on Bobby's face and body so he would not be recognized. They thought Bobby would never be discovered. And they would never be found out.