University of Chicago students Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, Jr. murder 14-year-old Bobby Franks in a "thrill killing".
Nathan Freudenthal Leopold Jr. (November 19, 1904 August 29, 1971) and Richard Albert Loeb (; June 11, 1905 January 28, 1936), usually referred to collectively as Leopold and Loeb, were two wealthy students at the University of Chicago who kidnapped and murdered 14-year-old Bobby Franks in Chicago, Illinois in May 1924. They committed the murder characterized at the time as "the crime of the century" as a demonstration of their ostensible intellectual superiority, which they believed enabled and entitled them to carry out a "perfect crime" without consequences.
After the two men were arrested, Loeb's family retained Clarence Darrow as lead counsel for their defense. Darrow's 12-hour summation at their sentencing hearing is noted for its influential criticism of capital punishment as retributive rather than transformative justice. Both young men were sentenced to life imprisonment plus 99 years. Loeb was murdered by a fellow prisoner in 1936; Leopold was released on parole in 1958.
Loeb and Leopold have been the inspiration for several dramatic works.
The University of Chicago (UChicago) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1890, its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. In Fall 2021, it enrolled 18,452 students, including 7,559 undergraduates and 10,893 graduate students.The university is composed of an undergraduate college and five graduate research divisions, which contain all of the university's graduate programs and interdisciplinary committees. Chicago has eight professional schools: the Law School, the Booth School of Business, the Pritzker School of Medicine, the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, the Harris School of Public Policy, the Divinity School, the Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies, and the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering. The university has additional campuses and centers in London, Paris, Beijing, Delhi, and Hong Kong, as well as in downtown Chicago.The University of Chicago is ranked among the best universities in the world and it is among the most selective in the United States. Its scholars have played a major role in the development of many academic disciplines, including economics, law, literary criticism, mathematics, physics, religion, sociology, and political science, establishing the Chicago schools in various fields. Chicago's Metallurgical Laboratory produced the world's first man-made, self-sustaining nuclear reaction in Chicago Pile-1 beneath the viewing stands of the university's Stagg Field. Advances in chemistry led to the "radiocarbon revolution" in the carbon-14 dating of ancient life and objects. The university research efforts include administration of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory, as well as the Marine Biological Laboratory. The university is also home to the University of Chicago Press, the largest university press in the United States.The University of Chicago's students, faculty, and staff include 94 Nobel laureates, among the highest of any university in the world. The university's faculty members and alumni also include 10 Fields Medalists, 4 Turing Award winners, 52 MacArthur Fellows, 26 Marshall Scholars, 53 Rhodes Scholars, 27 Pulitzer Prize winners, 20 National Humanities Medalists, 29 living billionaire graduates, and eight Olympic medalists.