Long before Claus Von Bulow or OJ Simpson, in 1924, two Chicago teenagers committed what was called at the time, “The Crime of the Century,” only to be spared by the efforts of the greatest defense attorney in American history.
Nathan Leopold
During their scouring of the Wolf Lake area, police detectives questioned the game warden of the forest preserve that was located nearby about any recurring visitors to the location. One of the names he revealed was that of Nathan Leopold, Jr a nineteen year old ornithologist and recent Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Chicago, currently taking a class at the University of Chicago’s law school. On Sunday morning, May 25, two policeman were sent to Leopold’s home to pick up the teenager for questioning, the house coincidentally in the Kenwood section near both the Harvard School and Bobby Franks’ house. Leopold had plans for a date that Sunday and was initially resistant to coming down to the precinct, but the police assured him that their captain just wanted to ask some routine questions and if he brought his car he would be back in no time.
Richard Loeb
Once Richard Loeb’s name was mentioned he also was brought to the LaSalle, placed in a separate room and questioned until the early morning hours. He claimed he left Leopold around dinnertime and mentioned nothing about picking up girls, an obvious contradiction that was certainly suspicious. The next morning, Leopold and Loeb found themselves in custody, in separate police stations, Leopold at Crowe’s headquarters in the Criminal Courts Building, Loeb at a nearby precinct house.
Bobby and Jacob Franks
At the Franks’ house, as the dinner hour approached, Bobby Franks’ parents began to wonder where their son was. Jacob and Flora Franks were the type of typically wealthy family that populated the Kenwood neighborhood. Jacob Franks’ wealth initially stemmed from a pawn shop he inherited from his parents known as Franks Collateral Loan Bank. Franks eventually diversified his business interests, first into separate watch and watch case manufacturing companies and then into various real estate and stock investments which generated a net worth of at least 1.5 million 1924 dollars, equivalent to about 27 million dollars today.
Graves of Bobby and Jacob Franks, Rosehill Cemetery, Chicago
. Because of the incredible public and media interest generated by the death of Bobby Franks, the Franks family decided to hold a small, private funeral service in their home as opposed to what might become a public circus. The Franks family were converts to Christian Science from Judaism and the affair consisted of various readings and hymns before a police escort accompanied the Franks procession to Rosehill cemetery, the pallbearers all fellow students from the Harvard School.
Clarence Darrow
Understanding his nephew’s predicament, Jacob Loeb decided to reach out to an even more prominent individual, Clarence Darrow. By 1924, Darrow was nearing the conclusion of one of the most illustrious and controversial legal careers in US history. Starting from a small law practice in the tiny Ohio town of Andover, Darrow eventually made his way to the city of Chicago where he became famous and frequently vilified for representing various labor officials like Eugene Debs and Big Bill Haywood. A 1911 scandal involving a Los Angeles bombing case which resulted in Darrow negotiating a plea deal and accusations of jury tampering via bribery alienated the attorney from organized labor. Darrow then switched to criminal and civil defense, mostly involving defendants facing the death penalty. In over 100 cases, Darrow had only one defendant executed and that was when he joined the defense only for the penalty phase of the trial. Despite a practically disheveled appearance, Darrow’s quick legal mind and remarkable eloquence during impassioned closing arguments made him the most famous trial lawyer in America.
Long before Claus Von Bulow or OJ Simpson, in 1924, two Chicago teenagers committed what was called at the time, “The Crime of the Century,” only to be spared by the efforts of the greatest defense attorney in American history.
Chicago Criminal Courts Building
Clarence Darrow would not begin his summation until the afternoon of August 23rd, so anticipated throughout the city of Chicago that a mob descended on the courthouse hoping to push into the courtroom. This throng congregated in the stairwells, common areas and hallways leading to the sixth floor chamber where Darrow was scheduled to speak. Twice after the midday recess, the famed attorney attempted to begin his summation, only to stop, the noise of spectators emanating from the hallway outside of the court too boisterous, police and bailiffs struggling to push the crowd out of the courtroom’s proximity. Angrily, the judge contacted the city police chief directly, demanding that order be restored. Within minutes, additional police resorting to billy clubs eventually removed the source of this distraction.
Crowe, Leopold, Loeb and Darrow before Judge Caverly
Darrow immediately lived up to his reputation. Although he had formulated his strategy well in advance, he surprised the court, the media, the prosecution and even the defendants after a lengthy opening statement by pleading his clients guilty to both murder and kidnapping. Strategically, this was a brilliant maneuver on several fronts. It ambushed Crowe by not allowing the prosecutor to potentially get two bites of the apple in attempting to condemn the defendants. If he was aware of this strategy in advance, he would withdraw most likely the kidnapping charge and attempt to retry it later. Darrow’s plea circumvented that option. The decision as to what sentence the defendants received now was the sole responsibility of the judge, who would be asked to personally condemn two teenagers as opposed to a jury.
Leopold and Loeb Prison Mug Shot
On the eleventh of September, 1924, Leopold and Loeb would begin serving hard time at Joliet state prison, a forbidding stone edifice housing some of Illinois’ most hardened criminals. One immediate hardship was the end of the meals that they were able to order from a Chicago restaurant during their trial. Although they granted interviews upon their entrance to the prison, Loeb would never publicly speak again and Leopold waited twenty years before interacting with a journalist. This despite repeated press attempts to provide updates on the successive anniversaries of their incarceration. Possibly to separate the two prisoners, Leopold was quickly transferred to Stateville prison, a brand new maximum security facility. The formerly high profile prisoners were so isolated that Leopold only found out about the 1929 death of his father from a prison employee.
Nathan Leopold, 1958
Despite his recent parole rejection, Leopold cooperated with the Saturday Evening Post on an April, 1955, four part series that was sympathetic. Even more eventful was the 1956 novel Compulsion written by Meyer Levin, a runaway best seller that was a very thinly disguised account of the Loeb and Leopold murder and an eventual film starring Orson Welles. Once again, Nathan Leopold was an American celebrity, although he hated the book and sued Levin and 20th Century Fox for invasion of privacy, an unsuccessful suit that dragged on for most of the rest of his life. Perhaps, attempting to tell his side of the story, in 1958, Leopold published Life Plus 99 Years, a sanitized autobiography also undertaken to persuade any future parole proceedings. A best seller, the book created an additional groundswell for Leopold’s release. This sentiment finally played out on February 13, 1958 when Nathan Leopold emerged from Stateville Prison, a free man.
In 1929, Al Capone was worth an inflation adjusted 1.5 Billion Dollars.
Green Mill Cocktail Lounge, Chicago.
Most speakeasies and night clubs serving illicit alcohol provided entertainment in some form, mostly jazz or a vocalist with a band. One of these entertainers named Joe E. Lewis was a regular performer at the Green Mill, a club that was owned by the Outfit. As compensation, Al Capone gave Jack McGurn a piece of the club’s profits and when McGurn found out that Lewis was not going to renew his contract and was going to earn more money at the Rendezvous, a North Side Gang operation, he confronted the singer-comedian and told him he couldn’t leave.
Joe E. Lewis
Lewis brushed him off, said his contract was up and that was that. He actually performed at the Rendezvous for a week, protected by a bodyguard who accompanied him to and from his hotel residence. Lewis then decided he didn’t need protection, that McGurn had only been trying to scare him. On November 9, 1927, seven days after he opened at his new club, three men showed up at Lewis’ Commonwealth Hotel room, burst in on the sleepy Lewis when he opened the door and pistol whipped him into unconsciousness. Then one assailant took a large knife to Lewis’ throat and mouth and even cut off part of the singer’s tongue. Although they could have merely shot the defiant entertainer, the thugs instead sent a terrible message to Lewis and any other performer who attempted to assert such independence. Joe E. Lewis managed to crawl into the hallway and was quickly taken to a hospital where he underwent extensive but successful surgery. He recovered but eventually became a stand-up comedian, his voice now a bullfrog like croak, no longer able to belt out night club standards. Ironically, most likely to counter the public outcry over the incident, Al Capone actually went out of his way to patch things up, claiming to Lewis personally that he knew nothing about the attack and that Joe should have come to him personally if he had a problem. Capone also got him back to the Green Mill, equaling his deal at the Rendezvous, and gave Lewis winning tips at dog and horse races controlled by the Outfit. Lewis’ career continued successfully well into the sixties, and a biographical film starring Frank Sinatra called the Joker Is Wild was produced in 1957, reiterating Lewis’ terrible ordeal and recovery.
Al Capone, Philadelphia mug shot after firearms arrest
While this investigation proceeded laboriously, in mid-1929, a curious incident occurred which only added to the mysterious lore surrounding Al Capone. In mid-May of 1929, Capone traveled to Atlantic City to participate in what became known as the Atlantic City Conference. Organized by Meyer Lansky, this gathering included almost all of American organized crime including Capone, Lucky Luciano, Frank Costello and many other gangsters from all over the US. The meeting was the first attempt by the American underworld to set up a national organization to oversee and make decisions to divide territory and adjudicate disputes without violence. Another underlying issue was a resolve to minimize the attention that Al Capone was generating, involving both the type of violence that occurred with the St. Valentines Day Massacre and Capone himself, who routinely sought out positive media coverage and made himself publicly prominent to the point of celebrity, behavior that created hostility from other prominent underworld figures who abhorred attention of any kind. Following the conference, which concluded on May 16, Capone intended to return to Chicago by train via Philadelphia. With some time on his hands, he and a bodyguard went to a movie and when the film ended, upon leaving the theater, both men were arrested, searched and found in possession of a firearm, in Capone’s case a .38 caliber revolver.
Capone, Time Magazine, 1930
. But his respite was brief, In late April, the Chicago Crime Commission, a watch-dog collection of businessmen with no legal standing issued a list of the 14 most prominent Public enemies in the city. Headlines about this list screamed over the front pages of every American newspaper and when Capone attempted to lie low in Miami, he was continually arrested there as a public nuisance, harassment that he eventually successfully fought in court.
Al Capone, mug shot, Atlanta Federal Penitentiary
Al Capone’s legal good fortune ran out on October 18 when the jury returned with a verdict of guilty. Six days later Capone received a sentence of eleven years, the longest sentence ever imposed for tax evasion. By comparison, Nitti and Guzik received 18 months and five years respectively. Although he would appeal, Capone was confined in the Cook County Jail until May 2, 1932, when the Supreme Court of the United States refused to hear his case. Immediately, the Federal government prepared to send him not to Leavenworth , where Nitti and Guzik languished, but to the penitentiary in Atlanta, the system’s harshest. He began serving his sentence on May 4.
Alcatraz Island and former Federal prison
On August 19, 1934 Al Capone was placed on another train with 42 other prisoners, a train that was very different from his ride to Atlanta on the Dixie Flyer where he interacted with other civilians and played cards. It was armored with bulletproof plating, its windows barred, the Atlanta prison warden and numerous heavily armed guards along for the ride. The occupants were not told of their destination, but rumors had swirled for months about a new federal prison, even harsher than Atlanta, an escape proof dungeon on an island in San Francisco Bay. It was called Alcatraz.
Alcatraz, Prisoner Number 85
Because of his notoriety, his propensity for braggadocio about past criminal exploits and his constant demands from the warden for special treatment, Al Capone was not a popular inmate. In fact, on June 26, 1936, another inmate stabbed him with the detachable blade of a pair of barber shears, which Capone survived.
Al Capone, Terminal Island
Finally, unwillingly to merely release Capone before his time, the Bureau of Prisons allowed his transfer to Terminal Island, in San Pedro, California on January 6, 1939. By now, Capone’s mental capacity was utterly diminished, his conversation peppered with the mention of celebrities. exploits and future plans that were utterly delusional. Neither the Capone family or the Federal government wanted the spectacle of a public release of Al Capone. Government doctors recommended that the family consign Capone to the care of members of the medical staff at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, the leading specialists in the nation on the treatment of neurosyphilis. Capone was secretly transferred to the penitentiary at Lewisburg, PA and then officially released on November 16, 1939.
Machine Gun Jack McGurn grave, Chicago
It took longer, but the demise of Jack McGurn was perhaps the most illustrative example of how quickly Capone’s power diminished. McGurn was always considered a braggart and a hothead, and with Capone gone, Frank Nitti had no use for him, McGurn too recognizable as a hitman. For a while McGurn tried to hustle a living as a golf pro, hanging out at a mobbed up Chicago golf course of which he was a part owner. By 1936, still married to Louise Rolfe, McGurn was broke, hadn’t killed anyone in years and was rumored to have threatened Frank Nitti if Capone’s successor didn’t let him back into the rackets. On February 14, 1936, seven years to the day after the infamous massacre he allegedly planned, Jack McGurn was bowling with two buddies, a regular Friday night outing. Shortly after midnight, three gunmen burst into the bowling alley and methodically shot him fatally in the head and back. Although technically, February 15, earlier on Valentine’s Day, someone knowing that McGurn would be at the bowling alley, left him an inscribed Valentine with a drawing of a couple, apparently in need of cash, standing gloomily with a For Sale sign next to their worldly goods. The printed message inside read:
