Happy Halloween everyone! I hope it’s been a wonderful month for you all, and I wanted to celebrate with one last spooky post. Click here to read about ghost sightings of Bobby, Flora and Jacob Franks and Clarence Darrow.
Tomorrow I’ll be posting something a little different, which I hope will be a fun surprise!
There’s not too much news on the Leopold-Loeb front. Two ‘books’ about the King/Wilson book Nothing But the Night have come out, one a review and the other a chapter-by-chapter summary.
Often when people come to tragic ends, ghost stories spread about them returning to haunt the living. This is the case with some connected to Bobby Franks’ murder: there have been reported sightings of a ghostly boy around the Franks mausoleum, a crying woman in the hotel where Bobby’s mother died, and an old lawyer striding around the bridge which was named after him in Jackson Park. To my knowledge there have been no reports of ghostly sightings of either Leopold or Loeb.
Interestingly, all of these stories about hauntings seem to be relatively new. I haven’t found any published sources about these ghosts appearing before the 90s, even though Bobby’s ghost was said to disappear forever in 1971. Stories about the Flora and Jacob Franks ghosts seem to have popped up for the first time in 2018, though by that point both had died more than 80 years prior. But perhaps these stories had previously been passed only by word of mouth, and it wasn’t until recently that they were committed to the page.
If you’re not too faint-of-heart, read on to hear the stories of the spirits.
“Successful in procuring imprisonment for the criminals, it is not surprising that young Bobby Franks remained quiet in his grave, despite the tragically early death. Apparently, Franks did not require his murderers’ execution to feel that justice had been served. When Leopold and Loeb were released from prison, however, some might have wondered if a riled Bobby Franks would show himself to protest the pardon. No such appearance ensued, perhaps owing to the remarkable reformation of Nathan Leopold.”
“It was a spring day in 1988 and I was driving through Rosehill cemetery with a caretaker acting as my guide. ‘Bobby Franks is buried here, you know,’ he stated. He proceeded to point out a small weathered-stone crypt with the name of Franks carved over the doorway.
Stopping my car to get a better look, I walked up to the door and purely out of inquisitiveness, gave the handle a turn. To my amazement, it opened. The caretaker was shocked to see that the door was unlocked, and said to me in a not entirely humorous tone, ‘Maybe the ghost of Bobby wanted you to go in.’ I entered the crypt and said a silent prayer for the child.
The caretaker explained to me how years ago cemetery workers claimed that a young boy was seen from a distance, but would vanish when approached. It was thought to be the ghost of Bobby wandering nearby the crypt haunting the spot where his body was buried.
And what has happened with the ghost of Bobby Franks? Only after the deaths of his killers did the boy find rest, it seems. According to Rosehill Cemetery tradition, the boy’s ghost has not been encountered since Leopold’s death.
May Bobby Franks rest in peace.”
Leslie Rule wonders in her book ‘When the Ghost Screams’ about how Bobby felt about Richard Crowe’s visit:
“Robert and Richard Crowe are branches from the same family tree. Their roots are in Tipperary, Ireland, and it seems they have a karmic connection, each ending up in Chicago as a voice for murder victims. While Robert worked to put killers behind bars, Richard tells the stories of the restless spirits of the slain.
Was the spirit of Bobby Franks aware of this link when Richard Crowe visited his crypt in Rosehill Cemetery? Did he recognize the younger Crowe as the relative of the man who fought so vehemently to avenge his death?”
“Not long after Bobby was buried, sightings of a young boy playing around his grave began popping up. Many eyewitnesses positively identified the specter as young Bobby. He would appear close enough for you to make a positive identification, but always kept a ‘safe’ distance from you. It was as if he didn’t want people to forget about him.
Interestingly enough, the last reported sighting of Bobby’s ghost was of him walking into the family crypt, right at the moment many people believe is the exact moment of Leopold’s death.”
“The apparition of Bobby Franks, the 1924 murder victim of Leopold and Loeb, roamed Rosehill Cemetery for years, usually staying close to the family crypt. His visits stopped after Nathan Leopold’s death in 1971.”
Narrator: “According to many witnesses, Bobby Franks, Leopold and Loeb’s victim, was a restless spirit as long as his killers remained alive. He was buried in the family crypt at Rosehill cemetery on Chicago’s north side. There he frequently haunted the grounds, apparently unwilling to let the memory of his murder fade away.”
Richard Crowe: “For years Bobby Franks’ ghost was seen around that crypt. Bobby Franks’ ghost was seen as a young boy playing in the area near the crypt. Caretakers would see it, curators would see it, they’d see a little boy and then the boy would be gone, and what’s curious is the ghost is no longer encountered. Only after the death of his second killer did Bobby Franks find peace and his ghost travelled on.”
“Bobby Franks, victim of Chicago’s ‘thrill killers,’ was interred in his family’s crypt in the Jewish section of Chicago’s prestigious Rosehill Cemetery, on the city’s North Side. There, for years after his interment, the ghost of little Bobby was seen playing in the vicinity of the tomb, usually at twilight, and most predominately on the anniversary of his death.”
A little wordpress article which intersperses a short retelling of the Franks murder with pov of Bobby’s ghost:
“I had been laid to rest in Rosehill Cemetery, where my family had a crypt. But already, as the trial of my killers began, there were whispers that I wasn’t resting well.”
“Starting as early as the 1920s, cemetery workers and visitors reported seeing a boy near the Jacob Franks mausoleum. The boy was always seen from a distance, and when anyone tried to approach him, he would disappear. The sightings would occur for decades and continued all the way into the early 1970s before abruptly coming to an end. The ghost was identified as Bobby Franks…After Nathan Leopold’s death, the ghost of Bobby Franks was never seen again, suggesting his spirit was finally at rest, knowing his killers were gone.”
“When the trial was over, Bobby’s parents found they could no longer live in their home. Their lives were devastated by the slaying of their son and their house held to many painful memories of their boy. So, the Franks sold their home and moved into a suite of rooms at the Drake. Death would once again strike the Franks when Jacob, Bobby’s father, unexpectedly died of a massive heart attack. Nine years later, Flora, joined her husband and son in the silent embrace of the grave.
It would seem that something of the Franks’ heartache has imprinted itself in the walls of their suite where they spent the remaining years of their lives. Guests have claimed that after spending a few days in the room, they are consumed by a feeling of deep despair. They have further claimed to hear the unmistakable sound of a woman crying. Even long after their deaths, Jacob and Flora Frank are grieving the death of their beloved boy stolen from them by the hands of sadistic murderers.”
”It was the court case of the century, and reports at the time noted that the Franks family left their home to avoid gawkers, moving to The Drake, where they spent the rest of their days. They remain there in the afterlife, it seems, and have been witnessed wandering the hotel, mourning their murdered son.”
“During the famous murder trial, the forlorn parents moved into the hotel to get away from the press and distance themselves from their anguish. While Franks’ father later died in his suite from “a broken heart,” his surviving mother never got over her son’s death, crying insistently in that same suite for years. Rumor has it they both live on inside that room, listlessly wandering the halls engulfed in everlasting sorrow.”
“In 1938, Darrow died in his home on 60th Street, which overlooked Jackson Park. Darrow was cremated, and his ashes were scattered along the bridge and the lagoon. The bridge was named in his honor.
Everything stayed quiet on the Clarence Darrow Memorial Bridge for the next 52 years. Then, in 1990, people began reporting strange things on the bridge. Sometimes, the man overlooks the lagoon. Other times, the man paces back and forth on the bridge for a little while, then walks farther into the park, where he vanishes into the darkness on the other side.
People who have seen the apparition have described him as appearing much the way Clarence Darrow looked in life. Because the figure is dark and shadowy, they are unable to describe any of the man’s features. If the man is ever approached, he does not seem to notice that anyone else is there; it’s as if he is in a completely different world. Eventually, he walks farther into the park and vanishes, or slowly fades away on the bridge, leaving onlookers wondering if he was ever really there, or if their eyes had been playing tricks on them.”
“The only paranormal activity tied in any way to the Leopold and Loeb ‘Trial of the Century,’ concerns the reportedly postmortem survival of the defendants’ infamously cynical, flatly agnostic attorney, Clarence Darrow. Ever since his ashes were scattered across the Osaka Garden and Wooded Island of the Jackson Park Lagoon, near his Hyde Park home, wanderers behind the Museum of Science and Industry have claimed to catch glimpses of a figure of a man, dressed in suit, topcoat, and fedora, standing on the back steps of the museum gazing across the water. Some witnesses, familiar with the famous lawyer, have positively identified the apparition as Darrow. Others, initially unaware of the identity, have also made the connection after seeing photographs of Darrow following a sighting.
Fittingly, the ruthless opponent of capital punishment seems to have remained thoroughly opposed to death of any kind. Even now, long after the end of his own life in March 1938, many witnesses claim that Darrow himself refuses to allow his own spirit to be sentenced to death.”
The author describes several incidents in detail which occurred on ghost tours he led to the Clarence Darrow memorial bridge.
“On one of the first stops there, as my group stood on the bridge and faced the massive rear entrance of the Museum, we noticed someone standing on the stairs. Across the water in a long camelhair type coat, a rather stereotypical choice of lawyers and politicians.
There was no event ongoing at the Museum that we could tell, and the man certainly seemed strangely out of place. During better and warmer weather, fishermen often frequent the area late into the night, but this man was no fisherman.
Some of the group thought it humorous and began to yell across the lagoon to the figure, ‘Hey, Clarence! Look over here!’ Comments of that sort were shouted, but the figure stood unmoving and silent. It seemed obvious that he heard us, he just ignored us.
…
The following Friday night, I was back again with a new group of tourists. Prepped with the Darrow stories I was telling on the bus, we approached the bridge. Then it happened again, at least to some of us.
Some of the group asked, ‘Who is that on the stairs across the lagoon?’ As I looked to the stairs, I saw nothing. I squinted some more and still saw no one there. The area was partially lit by the museum floodlights and in plain sight.
‘There’s no one over there,’ I said, but some of the crowd loudly disagreed.
‘Over on the left, by the railing,’ they said, ‘wearing a long tan coat.’ They were describing the same man I saw there a week before, but I could not see him. I took a show of hands and about one half of the group, around thirty, saw the man.
…
[Describing Halloween, 1995] After some ten minutes of futility, we began to head back towards the coach. Then, about halfway back, someone shouted, ‘There he is!’ We saw the figure of an elderly man walking with steady, even steps down the sidewalk on the museum side of the lagoon. He was heading from west to east, parallel to us, on the opposite side of the water. When he got in front of the entrance, he stopped, did a half turn towards us, and seemed to look down into the dark water.
Yelling and waving our arms did no good. We could not attract his attention this time either. En masse, we all ran to the edge of the lagoon to take an even closer look. Two passengers with video cameras began to tape the event. Due to the poor light available, the image of the man appeared grainy and fuzzy, but he as captured on film.
Then two young men asked me if they could chase the figure. ‘Do it!’ was my reply. They took off around the edge of the lagoon. The route to the strange figure was around the water of the lagoon and past the Omnimax Theater and the U-404 submarine. As they gained ground on the figure, we shouted encouragement from our side of the lagoon.
When the pursuers got within about fifty feet of the figure, they both froze in their tracks simultaneously. The rest of the bus party went berserk at this point, urging the two to ‘knock him down!’ and ‘tackle him!’ Nothing we screamed could get them back into action.
After some thirty seconds or more of this stalemate, the old man did a half turn and began to retrace his steps back the way he came. He was soon around the wide of the building and out of our line of sight. The two ‘ghost chasers’ sheepishly walked back to the rest of the group.
When we questioned the two about why they stopped short, they could only explain that, ‘Something was not right!’ and ‘It was too scary!’ And, what never could be explained was why both of them they[sic] stopped exactly at the same time, as though they had hit an invisible wall.”
Ursula Bielski: “Since the scattering of his ashes there, people, a number of people, have reported that either standing on that bridge or walking in the park behind the museum, they’ll see this trenchcoated and fedora’d figure of a man.”
Richard Crowe: [The narrator says this incident happened on Halloween, 1995] “Across the lagoon here is where I saw a mysterious figure. He was dressed in the fashion of the 1930s like someone of prominence, someone of importance would wear. He walked on the sidewalk and stopped directly in front of the rear doors of the museum. He stared down at the water’s edge, stayed there for a while and then he turned and walked back the way he came. It was one of the most unique experiences in my life. I’m sure that figure that I saw that night had to be the ghost of Clarence Darrow.”
“Clarence Darrow, the young men’s defense attorney, is one of the most prolific ghosts in Chicago, having appeared to numerous witnesses on the rear portico of the Museum of Science and Industry in Jackson Park. The building overlooks the Jackson Park Lagoon, where Darrow’s ashes were scattered after his death-the same lagoon from which detectives pulled the typewriter Leopold and Loeb had used to type their ransom note.”
A Brief History of Chicago’s Other Haunted Hotel by Adam Morgan, Chicago Magazine (October 30, 2017)
Chicago Haunted Handbook: 99 Ghostly Places You Can Visit in and Around the Windy City by Jeff Morris and Vince Sheilds (2013)
Chicago Haunts: Ghostlore of the Windy City by Ursula Bielski (1998)
Chicago Street Guide to the Supernatural: A Guide to Haunted and Legendary Places in and Near the Windy City by Richard T. Crowe with Carol Mercado (2000)
Chicago’s Most Haunted Hotels, (October 8, 2018): https://www.choosechicago.com/blog/chicagos-most-haunted-hotels/
Dead Lee’s Guide to Haunted Chicago by John Petz (2010)
Haunted Chicago: Famous Phantoms, Sinister Sites, and Lingering Legends by Tom Ogden (2014)
Haunted History: Haunted Chicago, Season 2, Episode 5, Biography Channel (2001)
Haunted Stays VII: Drake Hotel in Chicago, Illinois by Rick Hale (January 13, 2021): https://www.paranormalstudy.com/haunted-stays-drake-hotel-in-chicago-illinois/
The Haunting of Joliet Prison: The Brutal Past & Paranormal Present of One of the World’s Most Notorious Penitentiaries by Ursula Bielski & The Joliet Hauntings Crew (2020)
The Most Bone-Chillingly Haunted Places Around Chicago by Elanor Bock and Lisa Chatroop: https://www.thrillist.com/lifestyle/chicago/haunted-places-in-illinois
Now, He Rests by Fairweather Lewis (May 21, 2011): https://fairweatherlewis.wordpress.com/2011/05/21/1776/
When the Ghost Screams: True Stories of Victims Who Haunt by Leslie Rule (2006)
Robert Franks: born on September 19, 1909 (time of birth unknown).
Zodiac sign: Virgo
Nathan Leopold: born around 4pm on Saturday, November 19, 1904.
Zodiac sign: Scorpio
Richard Loeb: born around 4am on Sunday, June 11, 1905 (the time of birth comes from a newspaper, so I’d take it with a grain of salt)
Zodiac sign: Gemini
Unfortunately this post will almost exclusively cover the astrology of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, as I wasn’t able to find any information on others associated with them. Clarence Darrow is occasionally mentioned in astrology books as an example of a famous Aries or a Pisces Moon, or an 1839 Water, but no complete readings or birth charts like the ones below. And I’ve never found anything about Bobby Franks.
I did try to do a bit of my own research, and according to several websites, the compatibility between Geminis and Scorpios (Loeb and Leopold’s zodiac signs) are low. While I would say that the stereotypical traits of those signs do often fit Leopold and Loeb, the birth charts get a little too complicated for me.
According to the five websites I consulted: Leopold was a Scorpio Sun, Taurus ascendant, Aries Moon. Loeb was a Gemini Sun, Gemini ascendant, Libra Moon. And Bobby (though I don’t know the exact time of his birth) was a Virgo Sun, Sagittarius ascendant, Scorpio Moon.
Full transcripts of the articles and passages from books with the astrological offerings and various charts can be found below, but for those (like me) who may be confused by the more technical aspects, I wanted to pull some things which I found particularly interesting.
In a 1924 article, the author stated that “Leopold would be the directional force and the master mind; Loeb would, with the Neptune-Mars aspect, follow the leader and might actually commit the deed without the enormity of the act becoming to him a realized crime.” Dr. Holdaah Morris, in an August 5, 1924 article, also saw Leopold as “the king and victor,” rather than a slave. But by 1959, when Leopold had succeeded in his positive publicity campaign and had been freed from prison, there was a sharp change in the way the Franks crime and association between the killers was discussed by astrologists.
That 1959 article states that, “Compared with Loeb’s chart, [Leopold’s] lacks violence,” and also lacks “any marks of ardent participation in murder.” Instead, “The set-up is far more reminiscent of a personality dominated too easily by another…To Leopold, the very idea of love would take on the feminine connotation, there being the desire for adoration and the willingness not only to be subservient to the beloved but loyal beyond death.” In an interesting Freudian take, this article’s author states that “At the time of the crime Loeb was the master hand. He took Leopold with him not as partner in the exercise of what came to be regarded as conceit, designed to produce the “perfect murder”, but as the moral and sexual inferior who should see maleness at its most terrible.”
The article ends by stating that Leopold “was imprisoned solely because of his appalling weakness,” and with a blessing: “I hope it has been so that where he walks in future he shall be seen not as a monster, but as one whose very gifts contributed to his weakness, and his ruin. He has been condemned. It is time now for him to be understood.”
A 1996 book also follows the subservient Leopold, dominant Loeb angle. It attributes Leopold’s involvement in the crime because “Having a Pisces Ascendant seldom enables one to say no to more intimidating individuals such as his friend Loeb.”
For a few other interesting tidbits:
Most articles said the sexual relationship between Leopold and Loeb was inevitable, and written in the stars. Two agreed that Leopold should have been a surgeon, which would have been a better channel for some of his urges.
One article from early June, 1924 went so far as to make future predictions, and I thought it would be fun to see if they panned out.
“As to the future of the boys, the planetary indications are that in the Fall of this year some very unexpected turn may take place in the march of events due to the aspect of Saturn and Mars, and a sensational, spectacular admission be brought to light that has not as yet found its way into print. Neither of these boys will experience the full penalty of the law. The scales of justice will hang in the balance for at least four years. The Fall of 1925 is a very dangerous period for them, particularly in the chart of Leopold. There are indications of probable death by his own hand.”
-An unexpected turn in the fall could mean them getting sentenced to Life rather than death, but I wouldn’t say there was a “sensational, spectacular admission.”
-The scales of justice absolutely did not take four years to decide on the fates of Leopold and Loeb.
-The Fall of 1925 is dangerous for them, and Leopold is likely to commit suicide during that time. I don’t know much about what went on in the fall of 1925, other than they were going about their normal jobs in prison, Louise Hohley dropped her lawsuit against them and Leopold celebrated his 21st birthday. As far as I can tell, he didn’t commit suicide then or ever.
Now for the transcripts of articles. Hopefully this will be enlightening to some of you, and that someone out there can decipher what these astrologists of the past are saying!
The science of the Stars has often been the medium for stressing the why and wherefore of the various acts of human beings and for indicating the outcome.
Richard Loeb, born with the sun in the zodiacal sign Cancer, and Venus, the planet governing the love nature. Mercury, rule of the mental factors, and Neptune, having jurisdiction over the higher mind, with Mars, the red planet of war, all conjured in one zodiacal sign, is unique enough to bring about genius.
His mentality is sharp, quick, and versatile, with a becoming flavor of melancholy in his nature that would attract to him many friends. Sensitive and impressionable, with high artistic faculties and marked mental ability; a real organizer-one whose environment would mean his future…with such a nature he would have begun to differentiate and compare at a very early age. Had he been born into a less pretentious environment he would have had indelibly impressed upon his subconscious the fact that work for a competence was an essential, and in this wise his dormant characteristics would have stirred themselves later at the first call of consciousness, and he would have been in the position to satisfy his innate craving for excitement by the proper functioning.
However, fate willed that he be reared in luxury, but the inner urge that the Mars-Neptune aspect creates does not recognize environment and must be satisfied at all costs. It is a jeopardizing, exciting planetary combination calling for constant mental activity not of the ordinary kind, but of the emotional-active.
There is an experiencing of reactions to sensation that this vibration brings about that must be coped with-a constant urge to express itself. It also gives a cruel, calloused side to the nature that prevents its owner from reacting through the sympathetic functions, but sensitive to the reactions of suffering. Very often this condition is appeased only by the sight of struggle and blood. It needs a great amount of expression of the emotions normally to appease this innate desire.
Had Richard Loeb been put to hard toil and sought normal recreation as should every young man, regardless of his situation in life, he would not have been in his present predicament.
The moon, ruling his personality, was in the zodiacal sign Gemini, a dualistic influence making a Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde of the personality, creating a seething restlessness, a keen desire for knowledge, but rather of the superficial type than of the profound. Only activity of both the mental and physical could have kept this boy normal.
Jupiter endowed him with a brilliant mind, excellent sense of judgement, and a quick, responsive nature.
Saturn, in the sign of Science and Wisdom enhanced his mental faculties with that innate brilliancy that makes for precocity, and makes for a calculating scientific mind void of sentiment.
Nathan Leopold, born in the same year, had the major planets in the same positions in the heavens as were those in the horoscope of Loeb. But the Sun, ruler of the individuality, was in the sign Scorpio, ruled by the planet of War Mars, and the Moon, ruler of his personality, in the sign Aries, also ruled by the same Martian influence. By reason of this fact he has an innate desire for surgical work, or work dealing with strife, such as warfare. A destructive tendency.
Had he otherwise been born, perhaps of parent in a humble station of life, he should have been trained as a butcher in order to quiet the urge that seethed within him.
Had Leopold the early opportunity for having his abilities directed in the proper channels, he may have become one of the greatest benefactors to humanity through the medium of surgery. Surely this precociousness must have been obvious.
To allow men to enhance their mentalities with the goods that universities may offer is not in itself sufficient for his progress. Regardless of the financial status of the family, every young man, and woman too, for that matter, should be made to do some useful labor-not merely for the financial return, but also because physical work is necessary in the scheme of nature.
Comparing the charts of these two boys, there is a marked similarity in the planetary relations. Leopold would be the directional force and the master mind; Loeb would, with the Neptune-Mars aspect, follow the leader and might actually commit the deed without the enormity of the act becoming to him a realized crime. Mars, the warrior, was in profession over the planet Venus in Loeb’s chart, which would have excited the senses and motivated the act. In Leopold’s chart Mars had reached the degree of Uranus and would have created an extreme desire for excitement bordering on insanity.
As to the future of the boys, the planetary indications are that in the Fall of this year some very unexpected turn may take place in the march of events due to the aspect of Saturn and Mars, and a sensational, spectacular admission be brought to light that has not as yet found its way into print. Neither of these boys will experience the full penalty of the law. The scales of justice will hang in the balance for at least four years. The Fall of 1925 is a very dangerous period for them, particularly in the chart of Leopold. There are indications of probable death by his own hand.
A visitor who gave his name as David Johnson, astrologist, obtained an audience with the slayers.
Leopold was openly cynical, but Loeb appeared at least interested while the astrologer assured them he could fortell their future fate and tell them events which had taken place in their past.
He asked them for the hours and dates of their births
“I was born 4 a.m. June 11, 1905,” Loeb replied.
“If you’re so good,” Leopold said, “try and find mine out.”
The astrologer said he knew Leopold was born on November 19, 1904
“Well you won’t find out the hour, I don’t remember that far back.” Leopold said, winking at reporters.
Johnson turned on Leopold then and said: “You were born on a day when the sun was high and the moon was diametrically opposite to it. Saturn was at a [?] angle from the sun. All that plainly says ‘murder’ [cut off]
“Nate” and “Dickie” have had their horoscopes cast. Their past and future was read by Dr. Holdaah Morris, head of the Nature Institute of Psychology.
The result, achieved by means of the old Chaldean science of astral numbers, according to the seer, shows that the two boys were born to do exactly what they did and also indicates “that each one is to meet the just rewards of his seed sowing, and the test of the law of retribution,” and that “the debt to the mosaic la of old mut be paid with victim of circumstance, and possibly with genius, prodigy and intellect, to the uttermost farthing.”
Dabblers in the various branches of astrology, as well as serious students of the science which most savants treat with a smiling contempt, have manifested a deep interest in the Leopold-Loeb case. Hundreds have written to the youths themselves, their relatives and attorneys, to Chief Justice Caverly, to everybody connected with the case, asking for the full names and the birth dates of the slayers.
Loeb, according to the records, was born on June 11, 1905, at 4 a.m. Leopold was born Nov. 19, 1904. The latter, for some reason, declined to make known the precise hour of his birth.
Some difficulty was encountered by would-be forecasters in learning Nathan Jr.’s middle name. Loeb’s middle name is Albert, while the “F” in Nathan’s name stands for the old name of Freudenthal (“Valley of Joy”), borne by the Leopold family for generations in Germany.
It as to prevent this honored old name from being smirched by scandal that it was guarded so closely. This was finally learned from Foreman Leopold, brother of Nathan.
“Reincarnation and prenatal influence,” according to Dr. Morris, “have played the active and most important part in the unsolved problem-the why and how such things as the Franks murder could occur in the present enlightened age.”
The forecaster then goes on to point out that such crimes as this have been committed by the boys in their previous existences and that, even if they are hanged, they probably will commit more of the same sort.
“The lives of these youths,” she says, “cannot be taken to satisfy the material law in its fullness. They will live and can return to do even greater crimes. No doubt, their many lives in the past have registered such crimes before.”
Now, taking up the characters of the two boys, Dr. Morris finds that Leopold, whose soul number is an eight, belongs to the “sixth race” and is gifted with a “sixth sense.” Eight, according to the numerologists, is the number of spiritual dissolution. It is the number of “reaction, evolution, separation, genius, invention, waywardness, aberration.” Those who possess this number are said to be, among other things, extremely analytical and critical.
Loeb’s soul number, on the other hand, is said to show that his soul is “on the cross of experience.” Five, according to Dr. Morris, is “the symbol of Jupiter, a peculiar and magical number, indicating a path of trouble and strife.”
“The keys to the characters of the two boys are to be found in the astral number six. This indicates that they react always in the extreme. They are uncertain, paradoxical, negative, and receptive to influences.
“The physical law number one is to Leopold by heritage great desire for knowledge. Physical law number six is to Loeb uncertain, reckless, negative consideration of money and what it can influence.
“Leopold, coming thru the path 15-5, shows the crucifix. He yields to influences which make himself his own worst enemy.
“Loeb, coming thru the path 32-5, shows an old soul which has been on earth many times before, still paving its way into greater experiences and to the turning point in the road of the ego.”
Dr. Morris appeared to disagree with the alienists who regard Leopold as a “slave.”
“Leopold,” she says, “in destiny is the king and victor, whatever plane he is on. His birth date, the 19th of the month, indicates a born mystic, coming in the eleventh month, it means that he is in his inner nature deep as the sea. From such a one the unexpected is always to be expected.
“Loeb’s birthday, the 11th, is a peculiar number, symbolic of destruction and which cannot properly be labeled. It shows that he is independent in thought and action. His is a path of glittering intelligence with prodigies in life and the lack of equilibrium.”
Even the “childish compact” between Loeb and Leopold, according to Dr. Morris, is shadowed in the stars.
“Their vibration,” she concludes, “are about evenly balanced and show two souls bound by an inevitable law.”
Yvonne Bernstein, an astrology buff from Spring Valley says that the rising sign of the convention indicates the possibilities of violence and the formation of a third party.
“The sign for 9 a.m. Monday is 17 degrees in Leo,” she says. “This is a sign which indicates fanaticism and paranoia. Hitler, Lenin, Huey Long, the mad dictator of Louisiana and Richard Loeb of the Leopold-Loeb murder all had this sign in their charts.”
“That the murderers were, so to say, imitators of Nietzsche is to me totally untrue ; they were manifestations of a virulent disease…What was that disease?…
“The disease was Supermanism gone mad. Nazism, Fascism, Marxism, and the rest of the philosophy-laden madness.
“Most likely Loeb and Leopold had never heard of Hitler. The infection was in the air….The world of 1924 was as soaked in experimentation with sadistic cruelties as ever before, and the first rash on the body of mankind was already showing.”
“If comparison of the charts of the two murderers is undertaken we find that they were more to one another than friends and college comrades.”
[Regarding Loeb’s chart] “It will be seen that Mars (angular) forms a trine with Saturn and Neptune, but has opposition to Venu and the M.E. Neptune, however, form quadrature with the Moon and opposes Uranus.
We cannot fail from these, and other indications, to see that here was a brilliant intellect with a positive slant towards make-believe and dangerous wishful thinking. The risks which attended formation of associations must have been large.
What is very plain is that the strength of mind was unequally matched by the will. We recognize Moon-Neptune is a factor which reveals much. It is rare for any chart to contain this without a good deal of restlessness of a mischievous kind.
The personality’s accenting is generally in terms of instability, and it is not unusual for persons with this opposition to become subjects of public scandal.
Besides this, the opposition is a known indication of delusions, especially those which vitally affect the social position.
I would direct attention particularly to this opposition in view of its participation in the tertiary chart (Fig. 2) which covers the period of the murder.
We find that Mars has come to the East Point and quadrates a Moon-Uranus opposition to Neptune, Moon being exactly on the M.E. and but 2 degrees from the M.C.
All that was implied in the natal chart is here given great emphasis. The very eccentricity of the crime, and its focusing of the crazed ambitions of this youth, is shown in brilliant lighting.
There can be no question that with such a configuration, success of depraved ideas would be probable. It is indeed as evidential of violent crime as those spectacles.
Nathan Leopold was born in Chicago on 19 November 1904, and I have been unable to ascertain the time of birth.
Mercury trines Moon and is sextile Saturn. Moon conjoins Jupiter.
The chart, in fact, bespeaks an extraordinary mentality. A great deal of depth of thought is present, an in most ways it strikes me as finer than Loeb’s because more poetical and of larger sympathies.
Unfortunately, we find also that Venus in this natus is much affected by opposition to Neptune and quadrature with that planet Mars.
Let us admit that this must tend to give some sharpened sensibilities, but liable to confused ideas, and the possibility of easy attraction to purely sensational issues.
A person with this configuration will be all but hypnotized by the full range of potentialities in a situation.
This has to be placed alongside a considerable leaning towards self-indulgence of one kind or another, and perhaps some form of egoism which causes needless enmities.
That there is much probability of an obsession (in this instance for things which glitter with danger) is to be concluded.
Compared with Loeb’s chart, this one lacks violence, I think, and it also lacks any active desire to injure others.
I have tried to find any marks of ardent participation in murder, but failed. It may be that if one had the precise data this would be found, but I doubt it.
The set-up is far more reminiscent of a personality dominated too easily by another for reasons which lie within sense and sensibility as understood by most of us.
To Leopold, the very idea of love would take on the feminine connotation, there being the desire for adoration and the willingness not only to be subservient to the beloved but loyal beyond death.
I ask you to note this carefully, for it throws light upon the presence of Leopold at the crime itself. He also had come to a time when by tertiary progression Neptune was opposing Uranus, being conjoined with the progressed Venus.
To me this has the appearance of a sudden situation in which lay all the elements of fascination to which his mind was prone.
Perhaps one could even go so far as to say that Leopold’s viewpoint on events was clinical ; an ability to look upon action with keen attention to its detail, but without the personal associations of fear and pain which would afflict normal people. After all, the surgeon has to acquire some such ability.
If, therefore, you take a youngster whose mind has this odd angling, allow him to be mated up in an irregular connexion regarded by him as love, and then place him in the fantastic circumstances where his partner is actually committing murder of a revolting kind, and you have something other than legal participation in the crime.
Correspondences between the two sets of positionings give a great confirmation of the relationships between these boys. I point to the closeness of Loeb’s Moon with Leopold’s Mars, to the placement of the former’s Uranus on the latter’s Venus (no infrequent mark of irregular association), and to the placing of Loeb’s Sun on Leopold’s Pluto.
There are other such marks, but I will leave you with these.
Such correspondences strengthen the conviction that between these boys there was much more than ordinary friendship, and I think we must be tolerant enough to allow that, whatever we may feel about such matters, the devotion of Leopold was real and as positive as other types of love.
If we seek correspondences at the time of the crime, we are faced at once with the solid fact that the East Point and, but 2 degrees away, the Mars of Loeb’s progression, are at the same placement as Leopold’s Moon (radical).
Progress Leopold’s factors and we find that Jupiter p. is with Loeb’s Mercury r., Saturn p. is on Loeb’s Saturn r., Sun p. is on the Ascendant of Loeb’s radix and Venus and Neptune p. are on Loeb’s Neptune r.
We begin to see what actually happened-and the facts are by no means to Leopold’s discredit, save only to is weakness.
At the time of the crime Loeb was the master hand. He took Leopold with him not as partner in the exercise of what came to be regarded as conceit, designed to produce the “perfect murder”, but as the moral and sexual inferior who should see maleness at its most terrible.
Of this motivation nothing appears to have been said during the trial. It seems to me an overlooking of facts which would have been so much A.B.C. to the astrologue.
For there can be no question in one’s mind that Leopold was infatuated enough for him to accept even that fearful situation, cowering mentally before the horrible supermanism of Loeb, and acknowledging it as superior.
Brilliant, curious, analytical the clinical observer-all this, and still weak-willed, subservient, trapped by desires and easily corrupted. That is the young Leopold.
Placed beside him Loeb is the triumphant challenge, the man armed by his own self-glory to defy the world, a dangerous and deluded man to whom his own will was the dominant argument in every situation.
They are a strangely tied couple. In their association was always the probability of affront to society and a continuous decadence for Leopold as the ego of Loeb swelled out.
In the end, as could have been foreseen, Leopold accepts as his right the partnership in judgement. Of the truth he makes no utterance.
His loyalty to his partner was as fixed and as fatal as if it were natural to die, if necessary, that the loved one should not be surprised to learn that he does not regret having accepted his miserable role.
Back of it all, as I have said, was an atmosphere of the mind. Something so readily understood to us now, but at that time not for discernment.
There was the gradual bent of human society towards glorification of the superman and the subjugation of the many by arrogant governments and their myrmidons of form-filling, lunatic, petty dictators.
Society was being reduced to a condition in which the ordinary individual was left (as now he begins to realize) as the plaything of power, of less consideration than the dust which comes overnight on an office desk.
That great man, Joyce Cary has said: A people treated like irresponsible morons will behave like irresponsible savages-the Teddy boy adolescent toting a spring-knife to swagger away his own miserable sense of ignorance and self-contempt is only the Teddy boy nation writ small*
It is so. In 1924 society inflicted a life sentence on the boys Loeb and Leopold. Within fifteen years it found itself faced with a veritable Loeb nation prepared to slaughter a million Bobby Franks and, in doing so, to become egomaniacally aggrandized.
And it also found that there were Leopold nations who were prepared to witness countless brutalities and still find that at Munich there was something of a possibility to negotiate.
By an irony of the situation, this essentially Jewish crime was to prove itself (for those willing to think about it) the precursor of such a crime against Jewry as will shatter men’s mind for centuries to come.
The mystery here in this story is the mystery of why Nathan Leopold was drawn into the crime, and why he was imprisoned solely because of his appalling weakness.
Perhaps I have made an explanation possible. I hope it has been so that where he walks in future he shall be seen not as a monster, but as one whose very gifts contributed to his weakness, and his ruin.
He has been condemned. It is time now for him to be understood.
* “Art and Reality,” by Joyce Cary, Cambridge University Press.
Nathan Leopold
Nathan Leopold’s Equilibrium chart cannot be judged on its own evidence as that of a murderer, for it required that his chart be temporarily joined with that of Richard Loeb before the murder of little Bobby Franks could be committed. This reason is similar to the case of married people who change after marriage.
First, Leopold’s Sun is in the most violent sign of the Zodiac, the capable of great extremes, Scorpio, ruled by the warlike Mars. This gives his Mars significance, as we see that it is squared by his Uranus (aspect of conflict) and disposits both his Moon and his Jupiter (both planets related to sympathy and kindliness). The Mars element in his nature, therefore, was paramount, with tendency to sudden (Uranus square) and violent action.
He met another boy whose Sun fell within the 8th (death) house of his chart, upon whose cusp we find Gemini. Loeb is a Gemini native. This was to be their type of contact. Within Leopold’s 8th is his Neptune, which rules his 5th (children); read as his own death involving children or their death being connected with him.
Please notice that the capacity for human brotherhood was limited here by the presence of Mars at the 11th cusp and the presence of Saturn in Aquarius, the natural ruler of the 11th and of the ability to understand the brotherhood of man under the Fatherhood of God. Remember that his Mars and Uranus were square, also. And that his Uranus is opposition that Neptune in his 8th house (death, ruler 5th, children.)
Richard Loeb
The Mars from Loeb’s chart falls into the 12th house of Leopold’s, in the same sign as his Sun, evidencing a tendency for the two when in contact to evolve secrets (12th) of violent nature.
From our glance at the Equilibrium chart of Leopold we found that Richard Loeb’s Mars was in Scorpio like his accomplice’s Sun. Now we see that this Mars originated in the fifth house of Loeb’s horoscope, the location of children and relations with them!
Gemini, where we find Loeb’s natal Sun position, is a Mercury sign (Mercury ruling it) and Mercury is a planet that needs the addition of strong emotional aspects and positions in the chart to ensure its living up to high moral codes. Mercury is intellect purely, without the influence of anything warmer to form emotional conceptions; such as honesty, and so forth. It is for this reason that Gemini contributes many of our cleverest crooks, when its natives misuse their invaluable gifts of mind.
When this Gemini youth met Nathan Leopold, his Moon was immediately squared by the other’s Neptune and conjoined his Mars; and his own Neptune was squared by Leopold’s Mars and opposed by his Venus. Their two Mercurys came into opposition aspect.
That Mars from the other chart fell not only in conjunction with Loeb’s Moon, but it happened in the 4th house. Where ordinarily Richard Loeb might have had a good and protective instinct toward home and its members (4th house) this Mars incited his worst thoughts, particularly as it is square to the ruler of his 5th (children) and in quincunx (8th house) aspect to his Saturn which rules his 8th house-death!
It is probable that these two boys could have been saved by the right kind of forethought in their earlier lives; and that, had they not met each other, the cold-blooded murder of the child Bobby Franks would never have been committed. Neither chart destined its owner to become a murderer. There is much that we could do by means of Astrology to raise the level of the race.
[For Leopold] The Sun conjunts Mercury and Jupiter in the ninth house of the law and all there inconjunct the Moon, ruler of the fifth house of children, which is opposed by Saturn, ruler of the eleventh house of friends. The Moon also semisquares Uranus which rules the twelfth house of confinement and imprisonment. Venus at the Midheaven indicates Leopold was the passive partner in this scheme which went awry as Uranus squared the Midheaven. Note also that Pluto, ruler of the ninth house, inconjuncts the Midheaven from the fifth house of kids. Having a Pisces Ascendant seldom enables one to say no to more intimidating individuals such as his friend Loeb. The Midheaven sextiles his Saturn, ruler of his natal ninth house, while the Ascendant inconjuncts his Mars, ruler of his twelfth house.
[For Loeb] The Sun in the twelfth house squares Uranus at the Midheaven, indicating problems with the Law as Uranus rules the ninth house of law. Sun squaring Uranus doesn’t point to mental stability as Loeb needed continual excitement to keep going lest he become bored with the mundane. Venus, ruler of the eleventh house, trine the Midheaven points to his friend Leopold being a partner in their heinous act as well as that the two were sexually involved. Neptune ruler of the Midheaven, inconjunts from the second house of money. Pluto rising indicates the compulsive, obsessive behavior with Loeb who firmly believed in Nietzsche’s Ubermensch, or superman, who was above the law and lived by his own rules. The Midheaven squares Loeb’s Sun and Pluto, indicative of his abnormal need for power and control. The Midheaven also opposes his Jupiter, the planet of ethics and the law. The Ascendant trines his Mars but conjuncts his Neptune, the planet of delusions, co-dependency and addiction.
April 15, 16, 17, 18
Aries, Cusp of Taurus
This birthday zone gives you more calculation than most Aries. You can see a few steps ahead, and probably have a sharp mind for thinking strategically. Clarence Darrow (April 18), the brilliant early twentieth-century lawyer, had this birthday. Darrow was a huge fan of the underdog, the long shot, and popular villains. Giving people a second chance or the benefit of the doubt can be a strength to build on and sets you apart from other Aries.
The crime of Loeb and Leopold has been called a “thrill” killing, but the violence of their actions points to something more than momentary excitement. It points to a deep-seated reservoir of anger. What could have inspired such anger in two young men who seemed to have everything going for them? Both horoscopes contain strong aspects to Mars and other explosive indicators, but what really unites the two charts are aspects by Saturn to the Nodes of the Moon. Loeb had Saturn conjunct the South Node Leopold had Saturn quincunx the North Node. Along with their privilege and intelligence, they shared this hidden influencer and the doubt that it brought into their lives. The crime that these two young men committed, which at the time was considered the “crime of the century,” was their ill-conceived response to that doubt.
What makes the choice by Leopold and Loeb so egregious is the fact that we have many examples of people who felt the doubt of Saturn aspecting the Nodes and accepted its challenge. These are people who succeeded and did remarkable things despite the ominous shadow cast by this archetype.
Welcome to the spookiest month of the year, those who celebrate any of this season’s various holidays. In honor of October I wanted to explore the side of this case which have been unproven by science (therefore supernatural? I admit I’m stretching it a bit). The first post which is up now is on the science of phrenology/physiognomy, or the study of head shape and facial features as they reveal a person’s personality. On October 15th I will release a post about what astrologists who have weighed in think about the case and how Leopold and Loeb’s birth charts and horoscopes influenced them into committing their crime. Then on October 31st we’ll get into the actual supernatural, by looking at the various ghost sightings connected to Leopold, Loeb and members of the Franks family. I hope you enjoy this loosely thematic look into different aspects of the case, and have a great month!
I’ve gone on a bit of a fiction kick (as is typical of me) and have added new entries to the Fiction: Other page. Did you know that shows like Alf and M*A*S*H have referenced Leopold and Loeb? You can read what they said over there!
For anyone in the London area, a production of the musical Thrill Me will soon be holding auditions in case anyone is interested, and information about that can be found here.
Phrenology: the detailed study of the shape and size of the cranium as a supposed indication of character and mental abilities.
Physiognomy: a person’s facial features or expression, especially when regarded as indicative of character or ethnic origin.
More photos can be found at the bottom of this page here.
By early June of 1924, Leopold and Loeb had stopped giving interviews to reporters, but as public interest in the pair refused to wane, newspapers had to look elsewhere to fill their columns. Phrenologists and physiognomists from around the country studied photos of the killers’ heads and facial features, to answer the questions the reading public wanted to know: who had the dominant personality? What was the motive behind the Franks murder? What do Nathan Leopold and Aaron Burr have in common?
Far be it from me to doubt the credibility of the people who analyzed these photos and wrote articles about them, but I think it’s a tad suspicious that most of the things these doctors said falls very much in line with what public perception of Leopold and Loeb was in June and July, when these articles were published. As Loeb had confessed first, fainted, cried to his mother, etc. in the days after his confession while Leopold made incendiary comments and joked with the police, it was commonly believed that Loeb was the weak, dominated normal one, while Leopold was said to be the dominant, schemer.
There traits were repeated constantly the first couple months after their arrests, so it seems possible that the analysts may have been influenced by the stories. I think it would have been very interesting to give the photos to a physiognomist who hadn’t heard of the case, or at least one who hadn’t seen newspaper photos yet and wouldn’t recognize them. But this way we get a peek into the public consciousness at the time and some really fun (and often racist) ideas about what nose, eyebrow and eyelid shape say about a person’s personality and actions. And, just to clear this up beforehand: these were never used during the hearing or by the defense psychiatrists. These are all from unaffiliated people selling stories to the newspapers.
Reporter John Herrick from the Chicago Tribune related his visit to Dr. James M. Fitzgerald “expert in character analysis…whose thirty-five years’ training have given him a reputation for phrenological deduction, a nose, the line of an ear, the curve of a skull are words in a sentence that spells personality.”
Fitzgerlad only used photographs, rather than personally visiting with Leopold and Loeb. When Herricks came to interview him, “Dr. Fitzgerald’s first move was to point to Leopold’s ear. Then he gestured toward a death mask of Aaron Burr on his bookcase.
“’Note the anti-helix,’ he said, indicating the cartilaginous fold within the rim of the ear. ‘In Leopold and in Burr it is very prominent. Going with the motive portion of the brain and face it indicates the dynamic man of action.’”
“With a picture of both, one in each hand, Dr. Fitzgerald compared the two ‘prodigies’ further.”
“’Their destructive tendencies and their desire for adventure should have been given expression in a hunting trip in the wilds of Africa.’”
“’It has been Leopold all along. His is the ego that allowed no law, but his own desire. Loeb was clay in the hands of potter Leopold.’”
A different perspective was given by Nat Olds, who for 35 years had been practicing the Holmes W. Merton system of analysis. You can view Merton’s book about his method here, in case you want to try to interpret the data, or maybe read your own personality in the shape of your face!
Though Olds also bemoaned that he wasn’t able to personally examine Leopold and Loeb-as photos couldn’t accurately capture all facial features, he gave what he thought was a good approximation of their personalities:
“For Leopold the answer to the question, ‘Why did he do it?’” can be found in Index No. 20, “a combination of these mental attributes urging him into a perverted channel through his high sex instinct…Leopold was the leader.”
“Loeb “is not the type of the natural instigator and his weak will faculties, his low ‘pride,’ his high ‘self esteem,’ his low ‘vigilance’ and comparatively low ‘analysis,’ together with almost a complete lack of ‘adroitness,’ coupled with a sex instinct equally as high as that of Leopold, kept him a more or less willing tool of the stronger character.
“In spite of this, however, it is evident that Leopold found it necessary to keep his companion pretty well under the influence of liquor whenever their escapades were under consideration.”
Taking a look at the analysis of 4 newspaper phrenologists/physiognomists, I also think it’s very funny that almost none of them came to the same conclusions on specific facial features, though they all got roughly to the same place regarding who was worse between Leopold and Loeb and who was the leader in the Franks crime. It’s almost as if they had made up their minds about these things beforehand, and then randomly placed assumed character traits on random features to prove that conclusion.
For Charles Bonniwell, Leopold’s ears suggested that he was intellectual and shrewd, while Fitzgerald saw in them Leopold’s quality as a “dynamic man of action.” It was in Leopold’s eyebrows that Fitzgerald read Leopold’s shrewdness, while Bonniwell saw in them his passionate, jealous, mean nature. Both were in agreement though, that Leopold had sensuous lips.
As for Loeb, Bonniwell saw determination (though a lack of tenacity) in Loeb’s chin, while Fitzgerald saw “a love of excitement which would cause him to lose his head if aroused.” His eyes, according to Bonniwell, showed a vast array of traits, including a combative instinct, selfishness, good memory, and that he should be “a serious, musically inclined and religious youngster.” William Love meanwhile, only saw in Loeb’s eyes that he was under the subjugation of his subconscious. They also disagreed on Loeb’s lips, Bonniwell worried that “it doesn’t show pride of family as it should,” while Fitzgerald thought his lips showed “the curve of vanity.” Both doctors disagreed on if the killer had sensuous lips or not.
As funny as it is to compare these findings, against each other as well as against the actual traits we know Leopold and Loeb to have possessed, I think it’s important to keep in mind the racism that often ran in the background of these kinds of analysis’. Bonniwell’s opinion that Leopold’s nose was “entirely too full and broad,” and indicative of his strong “animal passions,” while Loeb’s “well shaped” nose showed that his “animal qualities” were subdued. Reading more sinister meanings from the more typically Jewish features of Leopold and innocent ones in the more typically anglicized features of Loeb shows a clear bias and dangerous precedent which for years gave ammunition for the belief that non-Anglican people were lesser, more dangerous and more animalistic than the inherently gentler white man.
Not everyone agreed with the phrenologists though, and weren’t able to read danger in the countenances of either murderer. In a July 23rd editorial in The Morning News, one editor gave the opinion that: “The boys do not seem to fit the requirements for criminal physical traits. Their clean-cut appearance has made many people shudder. Criminals are supposed to look like criminals, not like shiny-haired collegiates.”
Thankfully this kind of pseudo-science was relegated to newspapers of the time, and not in the psychiatric reports or during the sentencing hearing. By this time in history this kind of analysis was on its way out, and though psychiatrists for the defense looked for glandular abnormalities, they gave no time to phrenology or physiognomy.
I’ve compiled a list of all the traits I could find the various phrenologists discussing and have ordered them below. At the top are traits shared by both, then Leopold, then Loeb, all split up into their various facial features in alphabetical order.
Key for which phrenologist was giving which opinion:
Charles A. Bonniwell, Chicago Herald and Examiner, June 1, 1924 (CAB)
Bonniwell also looked at a composite of both faces (CAB Composite)
Charles A. Bonniwell, Chicago Herald and Examiner, June 7, 1924 (CAB-E)
James M. Fitzgerald, Chicago Tribune, June 5, 1924 and July 29, 1924 (JMF)
William Lathrop Love, Chicago Herald and Examiner, June 4, 1924 (WLL)
Depth of chin almost identical, showing same feelings in each
The depth of brain is unusual and shows brain capacity above average.
Heavy eyebrows are marked characteristics of amorous and jealous natures.
Slightly bulging eyes indicate uncanny memories
The upper lids on both of the boys press down on eyeball and in the case of Loeb it is quite pronounced. This in itself shows that both are of a cruel nature and that the sufferings of others would not have the effect on them that it would have on other normal individuals.
In both Leopold and very much so in Loeb the upper lid pretty well covers the upper eyeball, and this suggests a person of deep thought, scheming and secretive. Here you have a person who talks but doesn’t tell you anything, even though he does not convince you that he is not holding something back. Loeb appears to have this to a far greater degree, unless the puffiness around his eyes comes from [systemic disturbances].
Length and slope of forehead very similar, so that both have same reactions and reflexes.
Sweep and curve of jaw are essentially feminine
Mouth line straight, with slight upcurve at tips, indicates unwillingness to permit any one to cross them.
Width of mouth small in relation to head, indicating petty character.
In both boys the lips are those of the voluptuary. They have not yet pulled in. Their mouths are 16 year old mouths. There are no lines of continued resolution.
Executive ability is emphasized by outlines of slightly humped noses.
Distance of nose from base to tip explains in part propensity to delve into many things.
This is the dominant will. Leopold is the male when it comes to temperament
Leopold is a moral simpleton.
The face of Leopold is much stronger than that of Loeb. It is not the face of a boy of 19, but that of a man.
Leopold would be taken anywhere as a clean, wholesome chap, with possibly a predilection to be a little too full of vitality for his own good.
Leopold is a leader.
Depth of chin-determination
Depth of brain unusual. Man of exceptional brain. Length of face-a dominance of feminine characteristics.
The higher portions of the frontal lobes, however, are deficient. He is lacking in the reflective and reasoning faculties, in the moral and religious faculties, in benevolence, respect, and faith. But note the apex of the cranium, and how ill developed it is. He is all goo and self-esteem.
The sex center is in the cerebellum, and it will be noted how this protrudes in Leopold, beyond the social faculties above. It shows how his sex feelings predominate in his social ideals. It is ‘I,’ not ‘we,’ in his world.
Sex, weaker than Loeb
As for his centers of causativeness, they are poorly developed. His destructiveness is prominent.
Destructive instinct
Depth of face in front of ears emphasizes intellectual possibilities.
General shape and contour of ears as well as set-uncanny shrewdness.
Note the anti-helix. In Leopold and in [Aaron] Burr it is very prominent. Going with the motive portion of the brain and face it indicates the dynamic man of action.
Heavy eyebrows with their joining showing passionate, jealous nature.
When you see a person with a strongly marked eyebrow you associate it with strength, and you are right, for that kind of an eyebrow is essentially masculine.
Now, in the case of Leopold, that is true, though instead of that strength being shown in a way that would benefit him, it is an indication of strong passion on his part. Then again the hairs are inclined to be scraggly, so that his general position is very likely mean. That his is also a jealous nature is shown by the hair growing across the root of the nose.
Keen perspicacity
Narrow space between eyes-lack of fighting instinct.
Relatively small eyes-selfishness. Partly covered lids-ability to hide thoughts.
The space between Leopold’s eyes is a trifle narrow, suggesting narrow mindedness and exclusive self interest.
Leopold’s eyes are grey, so that he probably has northern as well as southern blood in him, and this color is indicative of one who is cold and calculating.
High forehead, intellectual qualities well above average, while slight slope shows deliberation and a study before action.
Curve of jaw feminine and actions toward others probably have that characteristic.
Short upper lip-love of approbation
Full, heavy lips further strengthen sensuality evidenced by nose
Sensuous lips
Base of nose wide and distended, nostrils indicating animal passion very strong.
Aggressiveness
Loeb is the female when it comes to temperament
He is dominated by love of approbation. His desire is to be popular. The large lower face shows that the vital is in the lead.
Loeb’s countenance is that of a dreamer.
Looks like a good average boy, with a nicely balanced head, with feminine and masculine traits about balanced.
Loeb is more of a follower.
Depth of chin-plenty of determination, though lacking in tenacity of purpose.
The prominent chin denotes a love of excitement which would cause him to lose his head if aroused.
A nicely balanced head of a boy who is likely to prove highly suggestible. Length of head a fine balance between a feminine and masculine type. Plenty of brain.
His perceptional center is well developed, but not as well as is Leopold’s. His moral faculties are a little higher.
Loeb will suffer where Leopold will not. Loeb is a moral weakling.
The center of secretiveness is prominent. Loeb is foxy. He tells falsehoods easily. Sex is very strong in him. His is the finer texture of the two, but his sensibilities have been perverted and made drunk with a desire for experiences.
Ego less than Leopold
Great love of sex
Higher moral sense
Excessive vanity
Fair ears without any dominating trait.
Depth of face I front of ears-fair intellectual qualities.
Fairly heavy eyebrows-passion, though partly offset by nose and lips.
While Loeb has a fairly heavy eyebrow, masculine in quality, it is well shaped, so that the matter of passion is not nearly so strongly marked as in Leopold. However, the eyebrows seem to hang over the eyes and while showing force of character, it is an indication of a person inclined to be pesimisstic. It is probable that Loeb is frequently in the “dumps” and morose and a bad one to cross while in that mind frame of mind.
Width of face across eyes only average-combative instinct.
Shape of eyes and space between-selfishness-lids partly closed due to eyestrain or diet disturbance.
The spacing in Loeb’s is better, so he has the same traits but to a less degree. The position of the eyes shows that he has a good visual memory.
Loeb’s eyes run true to form, so that by hereditary he should be a serious, musically inclined and religious youngster.
The eyes giving the impression of subjection to the subconscious mind.
Forehead fair in size and sloping-showing he possesses to a less degree the qualities of his co-partner.
Curve of jaw from chin to ear distinctly feminine.
Upper lip fair in proportion, though it doesn’t show pride of family as it should.
Fairly full mouth, though not a sensual type.
Sensuous Lips
The mouth turns up in the curve of vanity.
Well shaped with animal qualities subdued.
Feminine nature shows in nose
The Lives and Legends of Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold 