Benjamin Foreman: Tragedy on the Titanic

I’d like to introduce you all to Benjamin Laventhal Foreman: Nathan Leopold Jr.’s second cousin (so Florence Leopold’s first cousin) who was on board the Titanic and died on April 15, 1912 when it sank.

Benjamin was the son of Henry Foreman and Rose Laventhal. He was born on November 7, 1881 and raised in Albany, New York with his parents and five younger siblings. When he was a young man, the family moved to New York City and Benjamin began working in the commercial side of shipping and selling textiles and silk. He was working overseas in 1912 when he decided to come back home aboard the Titanic.

Onboard he socialized with his fellow passengers, was fond of the library and apparently helped one woman overcome some of her anti-Semitism. On the fateful night when the ship struck an iceberg Titanic survivors recounted that they saw him in and around the library. One woman recalled seeing him at the rail of the ship while she was in a lifeboat. When she invited him to join her he declined, explaining: “No, it’s women first.” That was his last reported sighting.

I haven’t been able to uncover much about him, but I wanted to get together what little I could find, to shed a bit of light on his story. Thank you to my friend Reece, who read his name in a book about the Titanic and brought him to my attention. 

Background 

June 19, 1895 New York Argus 

Benjamin L. Foreman (School No. 11) received a regents’ certificate which will allow him to graduate and go into Albany high school. 

August 23, 1897, New York Argus 

Benjamin L. Foreman of Albany, spends a part of each week with the family of Charles J. May, also of Albany, at the Ocean House. 

May 20, 1907, arriving passenger and crew lists 

B. L. Foreman departed on a ship from France to New York. His occupation was listed as a merchant. 

1910 census 

Benjamin L Foreman lives with his parents and siblings in New York City and his occupation is listed as a mercantile salesman.

Foreman Family Genealogy Booklet 

Benjamin was a partner in the commercial banking firm of Kugelman, Frankland & Foreman at 334 4th Ave. in New York City. While he was in Europe on business in 1912, he learned that a new luxury liner would be making its maiden voyage to New York. He cancelled his reservation on another ship to sail on the new liner, the Titanic. 

Titanic 

On a Sea of Glass: The Life and Loss of the R.M.S. Titanic by Tad Fitch, J. Kent Layton & Bill Wormstedt 

This account was taken from the NMM/Mike Poirier Collection 

Thirty-six-year-old Mrs Eleanor Cassebeer had just boarded from the Nomadic as a First Class passenger…As she got into line at the Enquiry Office, she apparently wasn’t paying much attention to her surroundings, for she nearly ran into a fellow First Class passenger, 30-year-old Benjamin Foreman. Foreman stepped back and graciously told Mrs Cassebeer to go on ahead of him. They got behind a Jewish passenger who, Mrs Cassebeer thought, was taking an interminable time getting his seat assignment in the Dining Saloon. She whispered back to Foreman: ‘I hope I don’t get next to that Jew.’ Foreman smiled but didn’t say anything. 

… 

Eleanor Cassebeer was walking on the Promenade Deck that day when she met Benjamin Foreman again. On Wednesday evening, she had nearly collided with him as they went to get in line at the Purser’s Enquiry Office on C Deck. On that evening, she had whispered to Foreman that she had not wished to get a seat in the Saloon beside a Jewish man who, she believed, was being a little too fussy about his seat assignment. On Friday, when she bumped into Foreman, she asked if he would like to take a walk with her. Foreman laughed and, perhaps teasingly, told her: ‘You don’t want to walk with me. You said you didn’t like Jews and I’m one too.’  

This caught Mrs Cassebeer off guard, since she believed that her prejudice against Jewish people was very typical of the period. She and Foreman went into one of the alcoves in the Lounge, where they sat and talked for a little while. They talked a bit about his background, and how he had been abroad for two years working in his father’s textile company in Switzerland. They discussed the subject of Jews in general, and Foreman told her that his feeling on the subject was that, just like every other national group, there were good Jews and bad Jews, and that it all depended on the individual. The two became fast ‘shipboard friends’. 

… 

Eleanor Cassebeer had become fast ‘shipboard friends’ with Benjamin Foreman. During the trip, she lent him a small book of epigrams that she was reading. Things were so comfortable between the two that he began to tease her over her somewhat sternly-tailored suits. ‘Is that the only thing you have?’ he would say with a laugh. ‘Come on, I bet you’ve got a real knockout hidden away somewhere.’ 

… 

She then jumped spryly into [lifeboat No. 5]. As she climbed in, she saw her shipboard companion, Benjamin Foreman, standing at the rail not too far away. Perhaps, she thought, he had noticed that she had returned to her normal attire of severe suits. ‘Come on in, there’s plenty of room,’ she said. He replied, ‘No, it’s women first.’ 

… 

It was 12:43 a.m. As Eleanor Cassebeer looked from the lifeboat at her shipboard friend, Benjamin Foreman, he was still standing on the deck. She noticed that the small book she had lent him during the crossing was poking out from his jacket pocket. 

Name: Benjamin Laventall Foreman 

Residence: New York, NY 

Age: 30 

Class: 1^st 

Embarkment: C 

Encyclopedia-titanica.org 

Benjamin Foreman was in the financial end of the fashion business in New York but had apparently worked as a buying agent at one point for a textile house. Aboard Titanic he made friends with Edith Rosenbaum (Russell) and is mentioned by her in some of her accounts. She referred to him in one 1912 interview as “B.L. Foreman.” 

According to her, he was with a firm called Kugelman, Frankland and Foreman but had previously been connected with the lace manufacturer, Einstein, Wolff and Co. (“for many years,” she said). In her words, Foreman “was coming home from Paris, having made the most wonderful connections. He had the most brilliant future ahead of him. He went down nobly.” 

(The following article was submitted to the White Star Journal by a website member) 

THE LAST SIGHTINGS OF BENJAMIN FOREMAN 

Benjamin L. Foreman was a 30-year-old Jewish man traveling first-class on Titanic. A native of Albany, New York, he was one of 6 sons born to Henry W. and Rose (Laventhal) Foreman. After a brief trip to Europe he intended to return to his home in New York City. Mr. Foreman was single and after his death, his family obtained an affidavit from Samuel Goldenberg detailing what they knew of his fate. This account served as proof that Benjamin had indeed perished on Titanic and allowed his survivors to settle his estate, valued at $10,000. 

AFFIDAVIT OF SAMUEL L. GOLDENBERG 

SAMUEL L. GOLDENBERG, being duly sworn, deposes and says: 

I reside at Nice, France. I am a director of the Corporation of Goldenberg Brothers, Eighteenth Street & Fifth Avenue, New York City, Borough of Manhattan. 

I was a passenger on the steamship Titanic of the White Star Line on its maiden trip. 

I was introduced to Mr. Benjamin L. Foreman before the departure of the steamer from Southampton, England by my step-son. I met him twice in Paris previous to the sailing. 

I spoke with Benjamin L. Foreman, several times during the voyage. 

I saw him last on board the steamship Titanic, about 10:15 P.M., ship’s time on April 14, 1912, about an hour and a half before the accident and conversed with him for fully fifteen minutes. 

In the early morning of April 15th, 1912, the steamer foundered; I saw the Titanic go down into the ocean. I was saved in one of the small boats and was picked up with several hundred other passengers on the steamship Carpathia of the Cunard Line, which landed the survivors at New York City, April 18th, 1912. 

I looked for Mr. Foreman among the survivors in the Carpathia but did not find him. 

So far as I am aware there was no one saved from the Titanic, other than those on the Carpathia. 

I was chairman of a committee which held a meeting on the Carpathia, which committee prepared an official list of the survivors on said Carpathia. This list was given to me by the purser of the Cunard Liner, SS Carpathia, in whose possession I believe it now is. Mr. Foreman’s name did not appear on this list.  

I was on the small boat for four hours until picked up. In all that time I saw no other vessel on which the said Foreman could have been saved nor do I know any vessel except the Carpathia on which any person was saved. Sworn to before me this 24th day of April 1912. 

Samuel L. Goldenberg. 

Edith Russell was also asked to provide an affidavit but was unable to do so due to illness. Through her attorney, Simon T. Stern, she stated that her residence was 45 Merrill Road, Far Rockaway, New York. She further declared that she last saw Benjamin L. Foreman on the steamship Titanic at 11:00 P.M., April 14th, 1912, sitting near her in the library and that she saw him walk out of the library with a book under his arm. 

But it would be Abram Lincoln Salomon who provided the last first-hand information on Ben Foreman’s movements aboard Titanic. 

“I last saw the decedent at five minutes before one o’clock A.M. on April 15th, 1912. 

“After I had left my room for the last time, I saw the decedent, Benjamin L. Foreman, standing in the companion-way on either deck “B” or “C” being two or three decks above the deck on which my stateroom was situated. At that time Mr. Foreman was standing with Mr. Clifford and Mr. Maguire, of Boston, Mass. He had on a life-belt when I saw him, also a steamer rug; I spoke to him and to the others and told them I was going on deck and asked them to follow me. That was the last time I saw him.” 

Unfortunately, the men did not follow Mr. Salomon. Had they done so, it is quite likely all three would have been saved. 

The body of Benjamin L. Foreman was never recovered and his estate was divided between his parents and brothers Elliott, Robert, Edwin, Jules, and Frank. 

The Official Transcript of the United State Senate Hearing on the sinking of the Titanic (1912) 

Testimony of Major Arthur G. Peuchen: I met Mrs. Gibson and Miss Gibson, of New York, and Mr. Foreman, of New York. These people I did not know as well. 

Proving Foreman on Titanic, New York Times, May 15, 1912 

Edwin H. Foreman obtained yesterday from Surrogate Fowler letters of administration on the $10,000 estate of his brother, Benjamin L. Foreman, who was drowned on the Titanic, April 15. Mr. Foreman said he had received a letter from Miss Edith Rosenbaum of 45 Merrill Road, Far Rockaway, one of the survivors of the Titanic, informing him that she had seen his brother near her in the ship’s library about two hours before the ship struck the iceberg. Miss Rosenbaum was so ill, it was stated, that she could not make an affidavit to her statement. 

Abraham L. Solomon, another Titanic survivor, made affidavit that after the ship struck he saw Mr. Foreman on deck with a life belt and a steamer rug, and asked him to come to an upper deck, to enter a lifeboat. Mr. Foreman, however, remained on the lower deck. 

Samuel L. Goldenberg of Goldenberg Brothers, Fifth Avenue and Eighteenth Street, who lives most of the time in Nice, France, was another Titanic survivor who said he saw Mr. Foreman on board the Titanic fifteen minutes before the ship sank Mr. Goldenberg was 600 feet away in a lifeboat when the Titanic went down, he said. 

New York Times, January 15, 1913 

The estate of Benjamin L. Foreman, one of the victims of the Titanic disaster, left a net estate of $38,980.87. Mr. Foreman was a member of the firm Kugelman, Frankland & Foreman, commercial bankers. 

New York Herald (date unknown) 

Benjamin L. Foreman, one of the victims of the Titanic disaster, left a net estate of $32,801. 

December 15, 2022 Site Update

Thank you all for a wonderful year! It’s been great to engage with you all about this case, to hear all of your opinions and insights. I’m looking forward to 2023 when my book will be published, and am excited for you all to read it!

Today I’ve made a post about Benjamin Foreman, Nathan Leopold’s second cousin who died when the Titanic sank in 1912, when Leopold was seven years old.

I’ve added a page for my Wish List: things like documentaries, newspapers and articles which I’ve been looking for but unable to find, so if anyone can point me in the right direction to them I’d be grateful.

I’ve also added a page for Fan Fiction, because I figure if I have pages for the published works, I should also have one for the unpublished as well. This has a particular focus on Murder by Number fanfics, because those I’ve had to piece together from defunct websites and are a little harder to find than fics for other adaptations.

Happy holidays to those who celebrate, and I wish you all a marvelous new year.

Advanced Review Copies of my Book Are Now Available!

Hello everyone, I have a very exciting update to share: as of this morning, an electronic version of my book is available to be read and reviewed on the website NetGalley!

You have to sign up for a free account, and put in a request for the ebook which will be accepted or denied by my publisher (I have no say in it, unfortunately.) Priority is given to people who are librarians, booksellers or professional reviewers, but regular readers will also be considered as well.

Please note that this isn’t the final version of the book and won’t reflect some changes and additions which have been made since.

If you’re interested, you can request it here.

Good luck to everyone who tries for an early read!

Prison Punks and Gun Smuggling: James Day’s Many Reasons For Murdering Richard Loeb

James E. Day, famous for murdering Richard Loeb on January 28^th, 1936, had an interesting relationship with the story of that murder. His petty crimes which sent to him to juvenile detention centers and eventually state prisons received little publicity, but murdering one of the most notorious criminals of the past decade turned the eyes of the world on him. And Day was happy to use this publicity: dramatically telling a lurid story of attempted rape in court, and going on to sell three articles about his life and the murder of Loeb. By 1975, according to Hal Higdon, he even “committed eighty hours of his prison recollections to tape for a book to be written.” This book was evidently never completed and with Day now long dead, and the tapes nowhere to be found, it seems likely that we may never have the full, true story of James Day.

But while we never got that prison memoir, the three articles he wrote (or had ghost written) about Loeb’s murder still stand, and are an interesting look into how Day was trying to spin the narrative about Loeb’s murder at different points of his life.

Thanks to Brandy Purdy for finding and sharing these three articles with me.

Note: I’ll be saying ‘Day said’ or things to that effect for quotes from the articles, but I have no idea how much input Day actually had vs his ghost writers.

Summary

For those who may need a refresher on Day’s story: after he slashed Richard Loeb more than 50 times in a bathroom with a razor, he was apprehended and gave back to back statements, the first to prison psychologist John Larson, and the second to the State’s investigator: Edward Powers. Five months later he also testified about the murder at his trial.

The stories he told in each case were very similar: that he met Loeb through the correspondence school, Loeb got him his job in the front office and a transfer to cellhouse C, and they were very friendly. But then things took a turn when Loeb talked to Day in the library about sex and tried to proposition him. Day rejected him and ran off, but Loeb was persistent, trying to persuade Day kindly at first and then with threats. Eventually Loeb tried to fight Day over it, but Day’s cellmate George Bliss stepped in to protect him. Finally, on the morning of January 28^th, Day said Loeb told Day to meet him in the bathroom so they could settle their differences. Day went, but Loeb pulled a razor and demanded Day undress so Loeb could rape him. Day had to fight him to protect both his life and his body.

Day described the fight itself in somewhat confusing detail, especially in his first statement to Larson, but the basics are that Day said he kicked Loeb in the groin, there was a lot of wrestling, punching, slashing, jumping, steam making it impossible to see, Loeb’s eyes crazy and murderous, with hands like claws who would just not stop trying to attack Day. Until finally, when Day thought Loeb was down for good, he heard a laugh or moan behind him and Loeb got up and stumbled out of the bathroom. Day said the razor changed hands many times, and that he only avoided getting cut by chance, the razor often missing him by inches. In Day’s second statement he also said that he thought he cut Loeb three times at most, and that the first cut was somewhere to his body.

What really happened is unknown, though doctors and coroners were able to determine that the first cut had been to the front of Loeb’s neck and had been administered from behind. Loeb also had many defensive wounds on his hands, and more than 50 cuts on his back, torso and a cut more than a foot long across his abdomen. Day’s cell partner George Bliss also admitted years later that he had been the one to steal the razor, and had passed it to Day before the murder, so it was Day, not Loeb, who brought and wielded the razor. It seems likely that Day went into the bathroom with the intention of murdering Loeb, and thought slitting his throat would be enough. But when Loeb fought back and kept getting up, Day kept slashing and slashing, needing him to die so he couldn’t tell his side of the story of what happened in the bathroom.

Once Loeb was finally dead, Day wasn’t interested in telling the truth about what happened in the bathroom, only in helping himself, hoping the publicity would help him get released on parole and set up with a good job. Towards this end, he sold his story to a detective magazine, and an article about his experience was published in November of 1936.

I Killed Dickie Loeb! By convict James E. Day as told to Harry Spurrier, Master Detective, November 1936

According to research done by Hal Higdon, this article was written by Harry Spurrier.

The first article, which was published ten months after Loeb’s murder, followed faithfully along the story Day had told in his statements and testimony, often word for word. Day does go a bit into his own past; saying he learned about robbery at the “Crime School” that was the Cook County school for boys (a reformatory), “Therefore it was an easy step when I got out of there to try my first oil station robbery.” This is what lands him with his 1-10 prison sentence.

Then the story of his relationship with Loeb starts along its track; he tells of Loeb pursuing him, getting him transferred to a better job and cellhouse, having a conversation with him about sex in the library, Day rejecting him, Loeb trying to persuade and then fight Day, Day being protected by his cellmate, Day being invited to hash things out with Loeb in the bathroom, going, and even the fight is mostly beat for beat. A kick in the groin, a punch to the back, jumping over Loeb’s body, the steam clouding Day’ view, Loeb’ hands looking like as claws as he lunges, even Loeb moaning/laughing as he got up to leave. It’s remarkable to think how little work went into this, as this story had already been printed in newspapers across the country several times.

Day reveals what perhaps motivated this article’s publication in the last section of his article, where he complains about Ragen taking away the good time on his sentence and punishing him for murdering Loeb. “Innocent of any crime in the eyes of the law; eligible for parole; yet here I must sit because I have ‘violated prison rules.’ I killed a man.

“Why did I kill Dickie Loeb? I killed him because I would not submit to immoral advances by him or by any other living person, as long as there is a breath of life in me.”

This article may have been written as an attempt to stir public opinion in his favor and earn him a parole, but this was never to be. Day had to serve a full ten years, and when he was released on February 18^th, 1942, he had a new story to tell.

Why I Killed Richard Loeb by James E. Day as told to Barry Stephens, Master Detective, September 1942

According to research done by Hal Higdon, this article was written by Tom O’Dwyer.

Though Day’s second article was published in September, Day says it was written two months after his release from prison, so likely in April. At this point Day had already tried and failed to get into the army and was likely having trouble finding a job and reintegrating into society. Perhaps in need of money, or to distance himself from the connection to homosexuality that was an integral part of his previous story, he was now coming out with what he claimed was the actual truth. Now that he was out of prison he said he felt able to tell it, and “I will gladly go before any Grand Jury and take an oath that all I tell here is the truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God!”

And the new truth to be revealed? Day was now claiming that “the animosity that arose between Loeb and me grew out of my refusal to smuggle five .45 caliber automatics into the cell blocks.”

That’s right. Nothing about being pursued sexually, this time Loeb was hounding Day to help him with an escape plot.

And Day wasn’t content to only alter the reason for Loeb’s death, he also blames someone else for why he was in prison in the first place. In his previous article he said only that he learned about crime during his time in the reformatory, but here he throws all the blame on his rap-partner. Day claims that he made friends with an older boy who was very generous and free with his money. Then one day he told Day he planned to rob a gas station, telling him: “I have done a lot for you and this is your way to repay me.” Day thought it over for a few days, then agreed. Even the date is incorrect here, Day says this robbery happened on August 14, 1931, but it actually occurred on October 7, 1931.

Day goes further, saying that after they were caught, he was tricked by his co-defendants lawyer, and that his rap-partner “blamed me for all his misfortunes,” and said that Day had been the “ringleader” of their crime. Day said he was naturally bitter to learn that his partner got probation when he himself got a 1-10 prison sentence.

To clear this up: Day was apprehended in 1931 with a 24 year old named Gerald Covici. It was Covici’s first offense, he had steady employment and dependents, so he was given probation. Day had been constantly in trouble with the law for the past 5-6 years, had no job and no dependents and so was given a harsher sentence. I don’t have a transcript to see if Covici blamed Day or not, but it seems more likely that Day’s previous record and lack of stability are what got him sent to prison instead of Covici.

After complaining about that for a bit, Day turns his focus to what happened in Stateville.

This time, Day hints that he met many famous criminals, but names only one: Marty Durkin. Durkin had been a car thief, and when pursued by the FBI, he shot and killed one of the agents, landing himself 20 years in prison. Day claims that Durkin “gave me the first tailor-man cigarette that I smoked in Stateville, and along with it some good advice. ‘Just keep your nose clean, kid,’ he said, ‘and you’ll do all right.’” This is the first time Day claimed a connection to a wise, kindly, famous older prisoner, but it won’t be the last.

Day’s story pertaining to Loeb starts the same: with the correspondence school, but Day immediately gives more tangible evidence of Loeb’s corruption and power: saying he had whisky in the school office and more than $100 of contraband cash. He also sticks with Loeb probably getting him the job in the front office, but after that:

“Loeb came to me and in great secrecy announced that a plan for escape on which he had worked for some time was about perfected. He outfitted a scheme he had for smuggling five .45 automatics into the prison.” Loeb’s idea was to have a candy salesman smuggle the guns into Day’s office, and for Day to sneak the guns under the cover of his typewriter one by one and then carry them back to his cell where Loeb would retrieve them. When Day declined “[Loeb] looked at me for a moment with cool calculation, then he smiled. “I’ve done a lot of you, Jim, and now you’re giving me the run around.” Day compares this to the rap-partner who had gotten him into prison to begin with.

Day also claims here that Loeb told him the name of the four Italians he planned to escape with (who are consistently called ‘gorillas,’), and quotes Loeb as saying: “I can’t imagine myself dying in here, going on day after day like this when there is so much on the outside. The way things stand, I will never see outside again unless I walk through these front gates, with a blazing gun in my hand.”

Day says Loeb didn’t say it, but he deduced that Loeb’s plan to escape involved kidnaping the Warden or other people to be escorted out through the gates. “That, of course, is just a guess on my part,” Day concedes to his readers. “He spoke of a place in South America, which he said would be ideal for a hideout. There was a far-off look in his eyes as he talked, as if the world beyond Stateville were a fairyland of milk and honey.”

After Day rejects this idea, Loeb hounds him, and Day is threatened by the Italians, which he claims left him with a scar on his hand that he still carries to this day.

On January 28^th, 1936, the story reconnects with the previous versions of the story: the invitation to talk in the bathroom, but now it’s a surprise when Loeb demands that Day undress. Day quotes Loeb as saying: “For all the trouble you’ve caused me I’m going to take my payment.”  Day adds to this: “That he was a sex pervert I now realized.” This is the first and only time homosexuality or rape are brought up in the entire article.

The fight changes a bit, as to address some of the criticisms about Day not just leaving the bathroom once he had the razor he adds: “I sprang to my feet, intending to throw the razor out of the door. But he was coming at me now, had me backed up against the wall. I had to defend myself.”

Day says that during the fight he was so weak that he could barely stand (for some unexplained reason) and has no memory of the bulk of the fight, but when he came to Loeb had left the room.

He claims he was next to Loeb in the hospital and heard Loeb say “I’m okay, Warden. I’ll pull through all right.”

When it comes to the trial, Day explains he didn’t discuss the gun angle because “if I implicated Loeb in the escape plot, I would also have to implicate the others, who were still in prison and would be there when I returned to finish my sentence. If I opened my mouth about the affair, I would be rated a first-class rat and every hardened con in the institution would have it in for me.” Never mind that he could just say that Loeb never told him who the other people involved were, or that there were even other people to begin with.

Bizarrely, Day claims instead that he only talked about the fight itself on the stand, and that his cell partners testified that Day had been nervous and lost weight in the months leading up to it, but no mention is made of the defense built up around Loeb as a sexual predator, Day just pretends that it never happened.

He ends the article complaining again about being forced to serve time for a self-defense killing, and says that now that he’s free “I believe I can go on from here and make a success of life in spite of all that is behind me.”

This is such a strange addition to the mystery surrounding Loeb’s murder, and I think it shows how well it was received that I’ve never seen anyone take it seriously or even mention it as a possibility. Yet that didn’t stop Day from trying to tell it one more time.

Why I Killed Richard Loeb by James Day, True Detective, May 1960

According to research done by Hal Higdon, this article was written by Ray Brennan.

For a final time Day’s ghost writer had his work cut out for him. This time the article is bookended by scenes of Day at home in his bedroom with his sleeping wife, to emphasize both the tranquility and stability he’s found, and to reinforce his heterosexuality.

When Day once again goes back to the story of his original crime, it’s another huge change. Now it’s 1932 and he’s sitting on a bench in Lincoln Park, so hungry he has belly cramps. A man named Morris sits next to him who “had a gun and he wanted to heist a gas station and I went with him.” The robbery goes off successfully, but the next day when Day and Morris are walking along a street, a child set off a toy siren, and paranoid Morris panicked and pulled a gun. Of course a cop car happened to be passing by and arrested them both. Here things reconnect with Day’s earlier gripes about Morris’ family getting him a lawyer, telling Day to plead guilty, Morris blaming everything on Day, and getting probation while Day got his 1-10. Day also claims this was his very first time in court, ignoring all those previous times in juvenile detention and making him seem even more innocent and pathetic than ever.

This time once Day gets to Stateville he trades up from Marty Durkin to gangster Roger Touhy as his kindly prison mentor. After an extremely detailed description of the man, Day says: “[Touhy] seldom spoke to anybody. But he broke his silence in the yard one afternoon when he told me, “Get yourself an education while you’re in here, kid. Go to school. You’ll have a lot of years after you get out of here.” It’s possible that Touhy was added for a couple reasons: 1) he had just been murdered recently and 2) the ghost writer of the article had authored Touhy’s autobiography the year before.

Outside of the Touhy addition, the story starts the same as always: connecting with Loeb about school, getting a better cellhouse and office job.

Then the escape plot from the previous article is covered in the same way, with the addition of Day going to Touhy for advice and being told “Forget it, kid. Get yourself an education and get out of here on parole. Don’t try to be a big shot.” There is even some mystery about Loeb claiming a mysterious big shot whose initials are R. T. is involved in the plot too. Could this be Roger Touhy? Could he be trying to save Day from the bad decision he can’t resist himself? It’s so much like a movie, so dramatic, and so far from reality at this point that I just find it charming.

Now, instead of Day saying that kidnaping someone to get out of the gates was just his own speculation, there’s no ambiguity: “Loeb hinted that he and his tough guys would grab the warden at gunpoint and force him to give them safe conduct to the outside, where getaway cars would be waiting. He would go to a level farm field not far from Stateville, Loeb said, and an airplane would start him on his way to a remote part of South America. A million dollars would be waiting at his destination.”

The fight itself is very similar to his 1942 article, with Day just remembering slashing and realizing belatedly that he’s covered in blood and that Loeb has left the room.

He once again says he heard Loeb’s last words, and this time also adds in a reference to Lahey’s “he ended his sentence with a proposition,” line and denies the rumor that Loeb faked his death and escaped, just to hit every well-known untruth about this murder. He doesn’t go through his trial at all and there are no claims this time about what story he told or why.

Day seems strangely kind to Leopold in this article, relating his malaria work in prison and claiming to have been happy to read that he had been released from prison. But it makes more sense when taking into the context that Brennan, the ghost writer, had been covering Leopold very positively in newspaper articles since 1957.

While I’m not sure if Leopold saw the previous articles which Day wrote/had written for him, I do know for sure that he read this one. He was told of its existence soon after its publication and eventually was able to find a copy for himself. When Leopold’s lawyer Elmer Gertz asked him to pick through and write down what was true and what was false in the article, Leopold replied: “If you think I’m going to take time out now to point out the [truth] in the Jimmie Day article you have holes in your head. It’s almost completely a tissue of lies.”

While Leopold apparently wasn’t pleased with the article, Gertz wrote happily to a friend: “From Nathan’s viewpoint, that article was extremely good, as it painted him as a very fine character while running down Loeb. He is self-conscious about such things, but I am not.”

Conclusion

At this point, it’s hard to know for sure what Day was trying to achieve with these articles; if it was for money or if he was actually trying to change how people saw him and his story. If he was trying to obtain the latter, it was a complete failure. I’ve never seen a single book, podcast, article, or anything even mention these articles or the stories they tell (other than Higdon, who disbelieves them). Publishing them in detective magazines rather than newspapers or more well regarded publications probably didn’t help either. Whatever his goal, the original story he told in 1936 is still the most enduring, and his role as a victim of Loeb’s lust may never be completely erased.

December 1, 2022 Updates and An Upcoming Project

Welcome to winter, for those of us in the northern hemisphere! I wanted to update everyone on what I’ve got going on.

Today I posted Prison Punks and Gun Smuggling: James Day’s Many Reasons For Murdering Richard Loeb, analyzing how James Day changed and used the story of Loeb’s murder throughout his life through three articles he wrote (or had ghost written), which were published in detective magazines. Thank you to Brandy Purdy for sending the articles to me and making this post possible.

For a couple years I’ve been working on creating a photo database for all of the public domain images related to Leopold and Loeb that I can find, organizing them, transcribing any captions that might be attached, figuring out when they were taken, etc. and putting them into a system which can be searched. Here’s a behind the scenes look at a bit of the table from my perspective:

It’s zoomed out quite a lot so you can see all the data I’m looking for: the title and caption if it has them, the photo itself, what kind of image it is, where it’s from, the photographer or wire service that distributed it, the date it was taken and published, who or what is in it and where it was taken. Here I’ve sorted to include only images of both Leopold and Loeb. You could search any way you like, by person, thing, place, date, newspaper, etc.

Here’s a more zoomed in look at the gallery view, which I’ll have set up for the public, and every record will be able to be clicked on to get more detail:

Unfortunately I very quickly realized that any free software had very low limits to the amount of photos I would be able to include, and the one which offered the most space with the kind of excel-style data input that I was looking for was called Airtable. This allows for 1,200 free records, but it turns out that will probably only just cover the out-of-town (as in not Chicago) newspaper photos. The Chicago photos are about another 1,300, and that also means I can’t include anything published in old books or watermarked images from websites or the photos from places online like the history museum which I use on this website.

Ideally I’d love to be able to upgrade to a Plus account, which would allow for 5,000 records and would cost $120 a year, letting me include all those other photos as well. But either way, the database should be finished by next year (I’m on the ‘S’ newspapers at the moment, and going alphabetically) and I’m excited to share it with all of you!

I hope you all have a wonderful rest of the year and have big plans for 2023!