Just in time for the 100th anniversary of the murder of Bobby Franks comes a new novel by author Brandy Purdy: Ashes on the Wind: The Love Story Behind The Crime of the Century. This, Purdy’s 10th novel, focuses on the relationship between the killer duo of Leopold and Loeb, how it began, grew and changed over the years. Ashes can be ordered from Amazon in either paperback or ebook format here.
I was happy to talk with Purdy about her interest in the case, her research, and to dive into some details of the novel itself.
ER: Do you remember when you first heard about the case and what interested you about it?
BP: It was in A Pictorial History of American Crime by Allen Churchill. My mother used to take me to the library when I was a little girl and they kept all the coffee table size books in one area, and I found that book and I was just fascinated by it, I loved seeing all the vintage illustrations. Leopold and Loeb was one of the cases in that book that just stuck with me and that I would look for more information about throughout the years as I got older and understood better. It was the relationship between these two young men that always intrigued me the most as well as their psychological issues.
ER: Have you read or watched other fictional adaptations of the story before?
BP: Oh yes, I try to keep up with everything, I love seeing how different novelists and filmmakers and playwrights are inspired by the story. The movie Swoon was always my favorite, I used to want to rent it every time we went to the video store, and it was one of the first DVDs I bought. And I love listening to the soundtrack of Thrill Me.
ER: What gaps did you see in those other stories that you wanted to fill?
BP: Most books tend to focus on the crime and the trial. I wanted to focus on the relationship, how it began and developed through the years. And the prison years, their lives didn’t end when they went to prison just changed drastically. And it’s the one part of their story I wish we had more information about especially in regards to Richard Loeb.
ER: Can you tell me about your research process for this project?
BP: I love doing research. Even though I write historical fiction and put my own interpretation and creative spin on things, I love having the opportunity to research and explore stories that fascinate me. I read most of the nonfiction books that were available at the time I started writing, and I did some newspaper research, though admittedly not as much as I would have liked to, and a little archival research that I was able to do by mail or online since I can’t travel. My interviewer here, Erik Rebain was also immensely helpful to me in so many ways.
ER: Your book is a work of fiction, can you discuss the line you walked between historical accuracy and creative license?
BP: I always start with a factual framework and embroider upon that as I’m inspired to as I go along. And sometimes the decision to use creative license is a more practical one, for example I try to avoid multiple characters having the same first name, like in this novel Leopold and Loeb’s friend Dick Rubel is called Richie, and sometimes I reassign actions or dialogue if I didn’t develop the actual speaker / performer as a character, or as in the case of the trial in my novel to streamline the psychiatric testimony.
ER: Did the book surprise you at all once you started working on it?
BP: Oh yes, it definitely surprised me! I’m trying to avoid giving any spoilers here, but one character who I wasn’t even sure would be more than a brief mention, evolved in a very unique way and changed the course of the rest of the story. It completely surprised me, I didn’t see it coming till it happened. It made more work for me, but I wasn’t sorry a bit.
My characterization of Richard Loeb also surprised me a great deal throughout the novel.
ER: You include people who haven’t been represented in fiction about this case before, can you talk about widening the narrative around this story?
BP: Yes, when I write a novel, I don’t like to be cookie cutter, I like to try to give readers something different they may not have experienced before. I wanted to go wider and deeper than just the criminal activity and the trial. And it’s always important to me when I write a novel about a murder that the victim or victims be more than just names on the page, like when I wrote The Ripper’s Wife, it was important to me to develop each of the Jack the Ripper victims as an individual person. So while the relationships as depicted in my novel might be deeper or different than they were in real life, I hope I was able to give back life and personality at least in the pages of a novel so readers see a person not a corpse.
ER: Nathan Leopold is the narrator for your book. Can you describe what it was like to write from his perspective?
BP: A little intimidating at first, because of his genius, I had to make myself focus more on his emotions than on his accomplishments. If I let myself think too much about philosophy and languages I would get bogged down, a little scared and overwhelmed. But I did become more interested in birds because of this book, I have bird feeders now and I love the cardinals that hang out around the camellia tree by my front porch, I love watching them they’re like a little soap opera.
My Leopold is an unreliable narrator, which is my favorite kind to write, so ultimately it’s up to the readers to decide if or when to believe him.
ER: Not to give away too much, but it seems like some of the characters in your book were able to grow and change, while others got stuck repeating patterns. Can you talk a bit about that?
BP: Yes, that was one of the things that surprised me while I was writing this novel. Someone grew and revealed a greater emotional depth than I originally expected them to, while someone else got stuck, very stuck. Sometimes bad habits or behaviors learned through childhood experiences or relationships can leave people stuck in an emotional rut, doomed to make the same mistakes, even when there’s an awareness of this and even sadness or frustration. And sometimes obsession blinds a person to everything else except the object of that obsession.
ER: The relationship between Leopold and Loeb is central to the narrative of your story, can you describe how you see this relationship and how it evolved over time?
BP: I think at first, at least on the surface, it looked like a good thing, they had enough similarities, and being in college at such a young age they were basically in the same boat, but the cracks started appearing almost at once and widening. In my novel, Leopold sees Loeb as a fantasy come to life. But that fantasy figure and the real Richard Loeb are two very different personalities. And that’s a very big problem, and an even bigger one when Leopold just can’t let go of the fantasy.
ER: Your characters are all very distinct, did you have a favorite character you enjoyed writing dialogue for in this book?
BP: Yes, Loeb when I first read about his manner of speaking and suddenly changing subjects it reminded me of those old screwball comedies from the 1930s. So I visualized him, at least in the early years of my novel, as a sort of male version of Carole Lombard in My Man Godfrey.
There was another character I also enjoyed very much, but I’m afraid of saying too much and giving spoilers, so let me just say this person represented hope and what might have been. I know from personal experience what it feels like to live without hope, or at least to have that feeling, and I found this character very comforting, inspiring and peaceful but in a bittersweet way.
ER: Do you remember what it was that made you interested in Melvin Wolf and sparked him becoming such a central character?
BP: Of all the ABCD crimes, he stood out to my mind as the most interesting. Originally he was not intended to be a character, but it was the combination of the mystery surrounding his death, the family clothing business, his interest in charity and theater that just set the creative wheels of my mind turning. I still wish I knew more about him and what actually happened to him, and I became very fond of him while I was creating this character. I unexpectedly had the chance to talk to one of his descendants, and while very little is actually known about Melvin, she told me it was a belief passed down in the family that he was gay. She also told me there had been other gay men in the family who had been open and accepted in eras where that was generally not the case. I liked the idea of creating this mature and confident young man who was comfortable in his own skin, in being himself, and loved and supported by his family, to contrast the childishness, insecurities, and dysfunction of Leopold and Loeb, and the embarrassment and shame they felt whenever there were rumors about their relationship.
ER: What were the best and the worst things about writing this book?
BP: The best thing was definitely getting to delve so deeply into the subject. I got to explore and learn so much, not just about Leopold and Loeb, but about the times they lived in, the pop culture of the period, psychology, sexuality, just so many things.
The worst thing was formatting the book, that was an absolute nightmare. So traumatic I’m not sure I will ever write another! And, on a more personal level, watching my father change and disappear into rapid onset dementia. But the hallucinations and delusions he experienced did help me create the hallucinatory scenes that Nathan Leopold experiences in my novel. Not in terms of the subject matter, my father’s were completely different, but the vividness and confusion. Ultimately, it’s up to the reader to decide what exactly Leopold’s hallucinations are, whether they are dreams, supernatural, psychiatric, or a manifestation of the conscience he rejects and claims not to have. Fun fact, I always try to include a ghost story in each of my novels because it was a book of ghost stories that first inspired my interest in history. So to anyone who reads any of my books, happy ghost hunting!
Thank you to Ms. Purdy for talking with me about her new book!
Hello everyone, I hope you’re having a nice, warm April. I wanted first of all to thank everyone who came out to see my talks this past week, it was great meeting you and I really appreciate your kindness and support!
Now, onto the updates for this month:
The post this week is a collection of all of the video footage I’ve been able to find of Leopold, some of which can be watched for free online. Check that out here.
On April 17th at 7pm Central Time, I’ll be giving a virtual presentation for the Illinois Ornithological Society’s speaker’s series. You can register for that here.
On April 20th in Liverpool’s Royal Court Theatre Studio there will be a night of 4 one act plays presented back to back. One of those is ‘Bobby Franks’ by Paula Frew. The description from the website reads: “In an affluent suburb of 1920’s Chicago, University students, Richard and Nathan plan the perfect murder… because they can!” Admission is £12. To find out more information or buy tickets, go here.
On April 22nd from 1-2pm Professor Douglas O. Linder will give the presentation: Great Trials Of World History: The Leopold & Loeb Trial. Linder is the author of the Famous Trials website, a popular source of Leopold-Loeb information. If you’d like to attend, you can go here and join the Zoom at the time of the event.
For information on more events past the month of April, you can visit the Upcoming Media page.
Here is a collection of all the video footage I’ve been able to find relating to Leopold or Loeb.
[Descriptions of the video footage will be in brackets]
[?] means I wasn’t able to understand what was being said.
(FREE) means that the video can be watched for free. ($) means that the video must be bought to be viewed, (A) means you have to go to an archive to view it. All of the free videos and some of the archival videos will have transcripts.
Available to watch at the Chicago History Museum and in the movie Swoon and several Leopold-Loeb documentaries. Length: 07:14 Date: 1923 Summary: Nathan Leopold Jr., Sidney Stein Jr., Henry B. Steele Jr. and James Dewey Watson as well as unidentified persons can be seen interacting with a nest of Kirtland’s Warblers. This footage was shot by James McGillivray in Michigan in June of 1923. There are also shots of the warblers and nest without human interaction.
(FREE)November 11, 1946: Drama Behind Bars: Life-termers at Illinois Stateville Prison, led by Nathan Leopold of the sensational Chicago kidnap-murder case of two decades ago, volunteer to will their eyes on death for sight restoration of the blind. Link
Part of the Hearst Newsreels Collection at UCLA
Transcript:
Prison Drama!
Commentary by Jay Sims
News of the Day
[Video taken outside at Stateville penitentiary. A large group of prisoners are in a semi-circle around a table where four men are sitting. Several guards stand by. A round house and bleachers can be seen in the background.
The prisoners raise their hands and it cuts to a close up of the crowd with hands raised. Leopold is not visible.
It cuts to Leopold sitting in front of the table, one leg crossed over the other. The rest of the prisoners can be seen standing behind him. One man stands to his left, another sits at the table holding a pen and Warden Joseph Ragen stands behind the table to his right. Leopold removes his hat and the man at the left opens both of his eyes. He then gets up. Another prisoner takes his place and has his eyes opened.
Three prisoners, including Leopold, stand around a microphone with Warden Ragen. The rest of the prisoners can be seen behind them. When each speak the camera gets close to them.]
Jay Sims: A heartwarming gesture within the grim walls of the Illinois State Penitentiary at Stateville. Supposedly pardoned felons, most of them life-termers, volunteer to will their eyes on death to the eye bank for sight restoration. Nathan Leopold of the sensational Chicago kidnap-murder case of two decades ago is prominent among those answering the call. Convicts offering their eyes that the miracle of surgery may bring sight to those imprisoned by blindness.
Warden Ragen: You men are doing a great thing. Would you mind telling us why you’re doing it?
Unidentified prisoner 1: I’m glad to be able to help someone who’s worse off than I’ll ever expect to be.
Leopold: It’s one way we have of doing our bit.
Unidentified prisoner 2: I feel that I am helping somebody more unfortunate than myself.
Warden Ragen: Well I think you’re to be complimented on it and I am sure society will pay you in one way or another for it.
[Shot of the model of Stateville prison. Stateville’s front gate. People walking. Leopold having his photo taken. Witnesses for Leopold’s parole filing in including Helen Williams. The Parole Board members talking, with no sound. Austin and Ragen together.]
Ragen: You’re down here on the Leopold case Mr. Austin, I understand. Austin: I am, Warden Ragen, and the reason I’m down here is because I believe this particular murder is different from any other murder that has occurred in this county of Cook. This is not a crime of vengeance, this is not a crime for financial profit, this was not a crime to avoid apprehension by the police officer and be taken to jail or to the electric chair. This was a crime committed solely for mental stimulation by a person with a high IQ. We feel that therefore this parole board should follow the admonition of the trial judge and of the prosecutor of 28 years ago, that he should never be released until the time he is carried out in a box.
[An interview with Ragen, Leopold and William Byron, one of Leopold’s witnesses]
Ragen: What will you do if you are paroled, Nathan? Leopold: Well, Warden, if I’m fortunate enough to be paroled I’d be delighted [to do] any kind of useful or constructive work. The thing that I’d particularly be interested in would be medical technical work of some sort, I feel like that’s what I’m most qualified to do. Ragen: How about an x-ray technician? Leopold: That’d be swell. I’ve been working in x-ray for 12 years, I’m very much interested in it and I’d like to continue. Ragen: Have you considered a teaching job? Leopold: I don’t believe I would be offered a teaching job, Warden. Ragen: You feel that you do deserve a parole? Leopold: Well, all I can say there, Warden, is I was a boy of 19 when I committed the crime [] which I []. We don’t let 19 year old boys vote. We don’t let them sign legal contacts except for necessaries. But at 19 I was able to commit an act which has cost me to date, 28 years of my life. Since I have been in here I’ve tried to embrace what opportunities there were for constructive work. Tried to be helpful to others wherever it’s been possible. And I feel sure that I would never come back. Byron: I think it’s important, Warden, that he is here on a parole hearing because the parole board made a unanimous recommendation to the governor for clemency, and that having been granted, he now comes up here. I think that bears up on the question of deserving of a parole.
Stratton: The members of the pardon board have reported to me that they have thoroughly reviewed this entire file and record, have carefully weighed all the facts and circumstances surrounding the commission of the crime for which Nathan F. Leopold Jr. is incarcerated, have given most thoughtful consideration to all that has been presented on behalf of the prisoner as well as the opinions expressed by the trial judge and prosecuting state’s attorney at the time of imposition of sentence. And have come to the conclusion that they would not be warranted in recommending that executive clemency be granted. Nathan F. Leopold Jr. is eligible to parole consideration and may file a petition for a rehearing of his case at any time he so desires. Upon full and careful deliberation of all the aspects in this case I concur in the unanimous recommendation of the pardon board and decline to interfere with the sentences of Nathan F. Leopold Jr.
[Shots of prison walls, Ragen on the phone, writing something down, being let through a door in the prison, feet walking, a roundhouse, (assumedly) Leopold’s cell and bunk, prison exteriors. Ragen press statement in his office.]
Ragen: I just received the message from the governor and the conclusion of that message was on full and careful deliberation on all aspects of the case I concur in the unanimous recommendation of the parole board and decline to interfere with the sentences of Nathan F. Leopold Jr. Reporter: You brought that message to Leopold? Ragen: I’ve given him that message. Reporter: How did he take it? Ragen: Apparently he had heard it over the radio, in fact he told me that he heard it over the radio. And there was no reaction so far as I could see.
[Ragen pointing to a spot on the Stateville model, #9 roundhouse (likely where Leopold’s cell is approximately)]
DATE OF PRODUCTION July 31 1957 ABSTRACT Nathan Freudenthal Leopold Jr. speaks at a press conference at Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, Illinois on July 31, 1957.
University of Chicago students Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were imprisoned for the kidnap and murder of fourteen-year-old Bobby Franks in 1924. They committed the murder in order to demonstrate their intellectual superiority, which they believed made them capable of carrying out the “perfect crime.”
RUN TIME 2 min 44 sec FORMAT 16mm EXTENT 100 feet COLOR B&W SOUND Optical
Transcript:
[Illinois telenews. Shots of wall, shots of Leopold walking with statement in hand, reporters walking, film equipment, shots from behind, then to the front. When walking he’s got his glasses off, when talking they’re on, with a glasses case in his front pocket.]
Leopold: I am disappointed, of course. Had I not hoped for favorable consideration, had I not felt that leniency was warranted, I should not have filed my application. However, I am not crushed by the adverse decision. I am grateful to the governor and to the members of the parole and pardon board for the very complete scrutiny they have given to all the facts and circumstances of my case. I’m sorry that they did not feel that clemency should be extended to me at this time. But the decision is, as I have always known it was, and felt that it should be, theirs. In his message denying my application for executive clemency, Governor Stratton noted that I am eligible to request rehearing of my petition of conditional release under parole. I will certainly avail myself at the earliest possible moment of this right, and again file a petition for rehearing before the parole board.
[Statement ends, Leopold lights a cigarette, he’s smoking during the question and answer portion.]
Reporter: Do you think you would be more useful on the outside? And, uh, how? Leopold: I definitely would hope to be more useful on the outside and how? Well, I would have larger opportunities to use whatever small talents I have. Reporter: Nathan what do you plan to do with your parole? Leopold: Well, that’s pretty far in the future now. I would love to have a job as a medical technician in a church hospital in Puerto Rico. If it’s available and I ever am paroled and it’s available at that time I think that’d be my first choice.
[Shots of reporters writing, Elmer passing out papers (what I assume are copies of Leopold’s statement) to reporters. Shots outside, Leopold walking back indoors, being searched. Shots of reporters shoes, going into a cell, looking around, shot of door closing.]
(FREE) Touhy Interview at Stateville 2/20/58 – Negative Trims, Link
Part of the Chicago Film Archives
DATE OF PRODUCTION 1958 ABSTRACT Roger Touhy was an Irish-American mob boss from Chicago who was imprisoned at Stateville Prison until he was granted parole in 1958. Black and white footage features reporters interviewing him as he is released from prison. The warden of Statesville is also interviewed and discusses the release of Touhy and Nathan Leopold (who was granted parole at the same time). A man outside the prison reads a statement from Nathan Leopold. RUN TIME 10 min 51 sec FORMAT 16mm EXTENT 390 feet COLOR B&W SOUND Optical
[I’m skipping the parts about Touhy and only transcribing the parts about Leopold]
[Silent footage of the prison and Elmer talking, a One Way Only sign leading to the prison, Ragen being interviewed in his office.] Reporter: Are you glad that Nate is getting out in almost a month? Touhy: I am, yes. Yes, I am.
[Ragen in his office]
Reporter: What happened when you told the good news to Leopold? Warden Ragen: Well the word came to me at approximately a quarter to twelve, and at the time I was in the parole office of the institution and Touhy and Leopold were waiting in the assistant warden’s office, I had sent for them. And after I received the call from the Board I announced to them that they had both been given a parole. Reporter: Was there any emotional reaction from Leopold? Warden Ragen: I would say so, he lighted up and stood up and thanked me for the information. Reporter: Did he have any comment? What did he say? Warden Ragen: Well, I really didn’t stay long enough because I had a lot of newspaper people and television people and radio people waiting for me [laughs] Reporter: Will you read us his statement please? Warden Ragen: [puts glasses on]
[Cuts to reporter outside prison]
Reporter: Nathan Leopold will be walking out these gates after a processing that usually takes three to four weeks. Refused to be photographed or interviewed this morning after he had heard the good news. [close up on reporter] Reporter: Leopold sent this statement out through Warden Ragen [reading from paper] I have only two things to say, that I am grateful and I am determined. I am grateful first of all to God. For men can do only what God permits them to do. I am grateful to the Parole Board for giving me this opportunity. I am grateful to my many many friends who have given me their help, their good wishes and their prayers. And I am grateful to the press and the other mass media communications for their fair and charitable coverage of my case. And I am determined to do my utmost to justify the faith shown in me. I am acutely conscious that more than my own future hangs in the balance. Thousands of prisoners, especially long-term prisoners, look to me to vindicate the rehabilitation theory of imprisonment. I will do my best not to fail in that trust. Signed, Nathan F. Leopold Jr.
[The reporter did multiple takes of this last line]
Warden Ragen said that Leopold lit up like a Christmas tree when he heard the good news and his comment was: Thank the Lord, it’s wonderful. Now back to John Daley in New York.
Warden Ragen said that Leopold lit up like a Christmas tree when he heard the good news and said: Thank the Lord, it’s wonderful. Now back to John Daley in New York.
Warden Ragen said that Leopold lit up like a Christmas tree when he heard the good news and said: Thank the Lord, it’s wonderful. Now back to John Daley in New York.
[Shots of prison and photographers, Leopold waving.]
Leopold: In my appearance before the board I solemnly pledged that I would avoid every form of publicity. That pledge I will keep to the letter. I will give no interviews to anyone. I will talk to no member of the press, radio or television. Please make it easier for me by not asking me to break that pledge.
Among you are men and women I count my personal friends. Many of you, I hope all of you, feel that a third of century spent in prison has been severe punishment and are happy to see me freed. I hope you want to see me succeed. To see me vindicate the trust reposed in me. Don’t then, I beg of you, add to that punishment. Don’t make it impossible for me to succeed.
I beg, I beseech you and your editors, to grant me a gift almost as precious as freedom itself, a gift without which freedom ceases to have much value, the gift of privacy. Give me a chance, a fair chance, to start life anew, thank you. Reporter: Do you feel free yet, Mr. Leopold? Leopold: No, I’m a little hemmed in. [reporters laugh] Reporter: Are you going to have a reunion with your family tonight? Leopold: I don’t know, I’m in the hands of fate, I don’t know what my own plans are. Reporter: Are you going to fly to Puerto Rico tonight, sir? Leopold: I don’t know Reporter: When you were in prison did you receive psychiatric treatment? Leopold: No Reporter: None.
Run Time: 0h 7m 48s Format: 16mm Color: B&W Sound: Optical Date Produced: 1958 Main Credits: Koza, Frank
Abstract: Nathan Leopold is released from prison and makes a statement to the press saying that as part of his parole, he is not allowed to speak to them in the future. He asks that they help him do this by leaving him alone. He answers a few questions and mentions that he plans to go to Puerto Rico, but he is unsure of his exact plans at the moment.
University of Chicago students Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were imprisoned for the kidnap and murder of fourteen-year-old Bobby Franks in 1924. They committed the murder in order to demonstrate their intellectual superiority, which they believed made them capable of carrying out the “perfect crime.”
Transcript:
[Reporters, photographers and film men shouting amongst themselves. One tries to get people to move so the newsreel can get a shot. Covers Leopold’s statement (he gives it one and a half times) and answering questions from the press. Reporters can be heard talking throughout. Silent coverage of prison and him walking out and around grounds.]
Leopold: Ladies and gentlemen, a month ago I begged the members of the parole board for their compassion. They found it in their hearts to grant it. Today I am enjoying the first moment of the supervised freedom which they restored to me.
I want now to beg your compassion. Yours, and your editors and your publishers. For only if you grant it, will that provisional liberty be worth having. Only then will my life be livable.
In my appearance before the board I solemnly pledged that I would avoid every form of publicity. That pledge I will keep to the letter. I will give no interviews to anyone. I will talk to no member of the press, radio or television. Please make it easier for me by not asking me to break that pledge.
Among you are men and women I count my personal friends. Many of you, I hope all of you, feel that a third of century spent in prison has been severe punishment and are happy to see me freed. I hope you want to see me succeed. To see me vindicate the trust reposed in me. Don’t then, I beg of you, add to that punishment. Don’t make it impossible for me to succeed.
I appeal as solemnly as I know how, to you, and to your editors and your publishers and to society at large, to agree that the only piece of news about me is that I have ceased to be news.
I beg, I beseech you and your editors, to grant me a gift almost as precious as freedom itself, a gift without which freedom ceases to have much value, the gift of privacy. Give me a chance, a fair chance, to start life anew, thank you.
Reporter: Do you think it does any good to put a man in prison?
Leopold: I’m no expert on that.
R: Do you feel your prayers have been answered, Nate?
L: Yes, sir.
R: Nathan do you honestly feel you can assume that privacy you wanted most?
L: I hope so, I hope so.
R: What are you thinking about now, Mr. Leopold?
R: How do you feel about going to Puerto Rico, is that where you really where you-
L: I’m very happy, that’s really where I wanted to go, that was my first choice.
R: Who among the people whom you’ve been socially in touch are you thinking of today?
L: Well, I’m very much confused at the moment, my thoughts aren’t clear.
R: After the five year parole period has expired, will you stay at that-
L: I have no idea.
R: Will you have to remain incommunicado for the whole five years, is that correct?
L: That is correct.
R: After that time are you hopeful that everyone will have forgotten the whole thing?
L: I haven’t thought that far ahead.
R: Do you feel free yet, Mr. Leopold?
L: No, I’m a little hemmed in. [reporters laugh]
R: Are you going to have a reunion with your family tonight?
L: I don’t know, I’m in the hands of fate, I don’t know what my own plans are.
R: Are you going to fly to Puerto Rico tonight, sir?
L: I don’t know.
R: When you were in prison did you receive psychiatric treatment?
L: No.
R: None.
R: Nathan, will you return to Chicago any time during the next five years?
L: I don’t know.
R: Is it true you do not know the arrangements that have been made for you?
L: It is true that I do not know the arrangements that have been made for me.
R: You undoubtedly will travel to Puerto Rico incognito, is that right?
L: Well you’re saying that, I don’t know.
R: I don’t know.
L: I don’t know either.
R: It’s your own statement that you want to be left alone, are you planning any interviews of any sort?
L Absolutely none. Absolutely none. It is part of my parole agreement that I give no interviews to anyone.
R: Nathan, are you going to Puerto Rico right away?
R: You wrote a book called Life Plus 99 Years. Is there a possibility that you may write further about-
L: I have no plans at all.
R: [?] Puerto Rico?
L: No.
R: Nate, are you going alone to Puerto Rico?
L: I don’t know.
R: Nate, do you remember about 6 months ago you read the Kaddish to us because you stood at the grave of your hopes?
L: That’s right.
R: Did you really feel at that time you were at the grave of your hopes?
L: You were there, did you think I did, Mr. Conner?
R: I really did.
L: I did too.
R: [?]
L: When the governor made a statement at that time and when the parole board granted my rehearing in November.
R: But you weren’t kidding after that day.
L: Of course not.
R: You were serious about [?]
L: [says something affirmative]
R: What are your feelings now about what you said about that sacred prayer at that time?
L: I still think of it as one of the finest prayers in our entire liturgy.
[He reads the part of his statement about not giving interviews again at the request of reporters, then Gertz pulls him away by the arm
Silent video of the prison outside, the sign, guard towers, photographers and citizens gathered outside the gate, him walking out with prison employees, walking out to steps before reporters crowd in, reporters crowding in]
[Shots of prison and photographers, Leopold waving.]
Leopold: Ladies and gentlemen, a month ago I begged the members of the parole board for their compassion. They found it in their hearts to grant it. Today I am enjoying the first moment of the supervised freedom which they restored to me.
I want now to beg your compassion. Yours, and your editors and your publishers. For only if you grant it, will that provisional liberty be worth having. Only then will my life be livable.
Among you are men and women I count my personal friends. Many of you, I hope all of you, feel that a third of century spent in prison has been severe punishment and are happy to see me freed. I hope you want to see me succeed. To see me vindicate the trust reposed in me. Don’t then, I beg of you, add to that punishment. Don’t make it impossible for me to succeed.
I appeal as solemnly as I know how, to you, and to your editors and your publishers and to society at large, to agree that the only piece of news about me is that I have ceased to be news.
I beg, I beseech you and your editors, to grant me a gift almost as precious as freedom itself, a gift without which freedom ceases to have much value, the gift of privacy. Give me a chance, a fair chance, to start life anew.
($)(A)August 30, 1971: LEOPOLD DEATH #16920: ABC Evening News for Monday, Aug 30, 1971 Link
Part of the Vanderbilt News Archive
Abstract: (Studio) Paroled murderer Nathan F. Leopold dies at age 66. REPORTER: Howard K. Smith Duration:00:00:40
($)(A)August 30, 1971: LEOPOLD DEATH #459655: NBC Evening News for Monday, Aug 30, 1971 Link
Part of the Vanderbilt News Archive
Abstract: (Studio) Paroled murderer Nathan F. Leopold dies at age 66. REPORTER: John Chancellor Duration:00:00:20
($)(A) August 30, 1971: LEOPOLD DEATH #218979: CBS Evening News for Monday, Aug 30, 1971 Link
Part of the Vanderbilt News Archive
Abstract: (Studio) Murderer Nathan F. Leopold dies at age 66; spent life after parole atoning for 1924 murder. REPORTER: John Hart Duration:00:01:00
($)(A) May 21, 1999: THE CENTURY (LEOPOLD AND LOEB) #186319: ABC Evening News for Friday, May 21, 1999 Link
Part of the Vanderbilt News Archive
Abstract: (Studio: Peter Jennings) The 75th anniversary of Nathan Leopold-Richard Loeb thrill murder in Chicago featured; many photos and era film shown; details given of the kidnap/murder of young Bobby Franks and the following trial in which Clarence Darrow defended the pair. [University of Nevada historian Richard JENSEN – says the pair felt they could get away with “the perfect crime.”] [Original Leopold and Loeb kidnap target Armand DEUTSCH – explains why he was saved.] [Historian Geoffrey PERRET – says there was a homoerotic element to the Leopold-Loeb relationship.] Film clip shown from the movie “Compulsion” about the Leopold-Loeb case.
Reporter(s):Jennings, Peter Duration:00:04:40
Other Videos of Interest
These videos aren’t about Leopold or Loeb specifically, but are useful for getting a sense of the time and place they lived in.
Chicago Film Archives: Susan H. and Charles P. Schwartz, Jr. Collection
(FREE) 1927: Charlevoix, Link DATE OF PRODUCTION 1927 ABSTRACT Home movie of a family’s stay at a Michigan lakeside home. Includes scenes of children playing on the beach, women posing on a porch and a new baby. RUN TIME 12 min 14 sec FORMAT 16mm EXTENT 250 feet COLOR B&W SOUND Silent
(FREE) 1927: Charlevoix – Lewis House, Link DATE OF PRODUCTION 1927 RUN TIME 17 min 33 sec FORMAT 16mm EXTENT 400 feet COLOR B&W SOUND Silent
(FREE) 1927-1931: Charlevoix, Link DATE OF PRODUCTION 1927 – 1931 ABSTRACT A home movie documenting a family’s summer vacation in Michigan. Includes scenes of family and children swimming and diving in a lake, men smoking cigars on a porch, men and women boating and a small picnic near the beach. This is followed by brief Chicago residential scenes of children playing and posing in the yard. RUN TIME 17 min 11 sec FORMAT 16mm EXTENT 400 feet COLOR B&W SOUND Silent
Chicago Film Archives, Heidkamp Family Collection
(FREE) [1924 circa: Chicago], Link DATE OF PRODUCTION circa 1924 ABSTRACT Amateur footage of Chicago shot circa 1924. DESCRIPTION Daytime views of the Wrigley Building from Michigan Avenue, the Eugene Field Memorial (“The Dream Lady”) and Carl von Linné Monument in Lincoln Park, Lincoln Park Zoo, as well as Chicago’s “L” trains and a route 3 streetcar.
The film ends with nighttime footage of the Lincoln Square neighborhood, including illuminated signs for Ben Tupler Co. and the Pershing Theater, which is showing the film Broken Laws (released November 9, 1924). The Pershing was built in 1918 and became the Davis Theater in the 1930s; the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016, and remains as one of the few operating neighborhood movie theaters in Chicago at 4614 N. Lincoln Avenue. RUN TIME 4 min 29 sec FORMAT 16mm EXTENT 100 feet COLOR B&W SOUND Silent
(FREE) 1931 MONTAGE A fatal prison uprising by eleven hundred inmates / Joliet, Illinois, Link
Part of the Getty Images archive
Description: prison mess hall / debris left over from the rioting / man walking through the wreckage Clip Length: 00:00:22:21
(FREE) Fire at Stateville Correctional Center in 1931, Link
Part of the Getty Images archive
Description: VS an interior, barred room in flame; dark figures in silhouette run toward and past camera Clip length: 00:00:39:23
(FREE) Smoke and fire at Stateville Correctional Center during 1931 inmate riot, Link
Part of the Getty Images archive
Description: VS smoking rubble and smoke pouring from the blacksmith’s shop Clip length: 00:00:48:19
(FREE) IL National Guard at Stateville Correctional Center after 1931 inmate riot, Link
Part of the Getty Images archive
Description: Illinois National Guardsmen at aftermath of Stateville Correctional Center fire caused by rioting inmates Clip length: 00:00:24:22
(FREE) Men with guns in Stateville Correctional Center after 1931 inmate riot, Link
Part of the Getty Images archive
Description: Several men in suits, all carrying firearms, walk forward on a wet passageway during riot and fire at the Stateville Correctional Center Clip length: 00:00:10:12
(FREE) Aerial views of Stateville Prison in Joliet, Illinois, which was under siege during a prison hostage crisis.Link
Part of the Getty Images archive
Date created: June 09, 1973 Clip Length: 00:00:07:12
Hello all, I hope you’ve had a good and restful holiday weekend. Today I have a post about Leopold and Loeb’s Cell Mates and the cells they occupied. That’s here if you’re interested.
There’s a lot happening in April, so here’s a list of everything I’m aware of:
On April 7th at 10am the Talisman Theatre in Kenilworth, England is holding auditions for a production of Never the Sinner. For more information you can go here.
On April 10th, 6:30pm Central Time, I’ll be giving an in-person and virtual talk at the Schaumburg Public Library. You can register for that event here.
On April 14th, 2pm Central Time I’ll be giving an in-person talk at the Joliet Historical Museum. $5 for the general public, free for Museum members. For more information go here. To book tickets go to this page and find my program listed as: Second Sunday Lecture: Arrested Adolescence.
On April 17th at 7pm Central Time, I’ll be giving a virtual presentation for the Illinois Ornithological Society’s speaker’s series. You can register for that here.
On April 20th in Liverpool’s Royal Court Theatre Studio there will be a night of 4 one act plays presented back to back. One of those is Bobby Franks by Paula Frew. The description from the website reads: “In an affluent suburb of 1920’s Chicago, University students, Richard and Nathan plan the perfect murder… because they can!” Admission is £12. To find out more information or buy tickets, go here.
On April 22nd from 1-2pm Professor Douglas O. Linder will give the presentation: Great Trials Of World History: The Leopold & Loeb Trial. Linder is the author of the Famous Trials website, a popular source of Leopold-Loeb information. If you’d like to attend, you can go here and join the Zoom at the time of the event.
If you’re interested in what’s coming up after April you can check the Upcoming Media page, where I try to keep this information up to date.
If anyone is able to make my events, I look forward to seeing you there!
This is a list of the cell mates Leopold and Loeb had and descriptions of the cells they occupied together. Unfortunately, this list is far from complete. Though the prison kept records of other things including what jobs each prisoner held and the punishments they received, I haven’t been able to find much official information about cells or cell mates, so most of this comes from Leopold’s autobiography, with supplementary material from letters and a few newspaper articles.
When I quote from the autobiography, know that Leopold usually used pseudonyms for people who were still alive when he was writing, which is why their last names are often different. In almost every case I’ll use the person’s real name in the title of their section and when I refer to them, the only exception being Paul Henry. I use his prison pseudonym to protect the anonymity of his living family members.
For a bit of context: in Stateville there were 4 cell houses when Leopold and Loeb arrived there, with a 5th, B house, being built in 1931. Cell houses C, D, E and F were round houses, or panopticons, and had 4 stories of cells. B house was rectangular, and looked more like Joliet’s cell wings. Though conditions changed over the years, typically C house was seen as the best cell house; it was where inmates tended to live if they had better jobs, and civilian tours were usually brought through it. B house was seen as the worst, and F was often called the worst of the round houses.
Above are pictures of the cell houses from above; the four round houses gathered around the circular dining room in the middle, and the rectangular B house jutting off to the side. C is the cell house closest to B, then they keep going in alphabetical order clockwise, so F house is directly across from B. Then on the right there’s the interior of a round house with a guard tower in the middle.
Take everything from the newspapers, especially the conversations, with a huge grain of salt. There’s a very big possibility that a lot of it has been fabricated.
Click on the names below to jump to a particular person or cell, or you can scroll down and read about them in chronological order.
Starting with Leopold: In general, Leopold could be a fairly messy person, not overly concerned with organizing his things or beautifying his space. He was also averse to chores. After his release from prison he wrote to a friend explaining how he was usually able to wiggle out of cleaning: “Whenever I moved into a new cell with a new cell partner, I’d immediately grab the mop and start mopping the floor. But I did it so badly that invariably the CP would say, ‘Here give me that mop,’ and do the job himself. Worked in nearly every case!”
In 1936 an article, supposedly written by an ex-convict, came out and described Leopold in this way: “Leopold was unmoral in a way that disgusted most men. I can’t explain all this in a newspaper. But Leopold, with all his fine intelligence, was rotten to the core. He had cellmates, and his cellmates in most cases were guys like him.”
Thomas Doherty
Leopold’s first cell mate was Thomas Doherty in the Cook County Jail. They shared cell 604 and Leopold moved in with him on June 3rd, 1924. As Leopold described him in Life+: “My first cellmate was Tom Lafferty from the South Side. He was in for larceny of an automobile. He was on the quiet side. Oh, he told me all about jail ways; he helped me get onto the ropes. But he didn’t have too much to volunteer. The other fellow usually had to start any conversation there was to be.”
There were a few mentions of Doherty interacting with Leopold in the newspapers as well. The Chicago Evening American, true to form, gave a long, chatty impression of Leopold’s new cell mate:
“The poor kid needs to be wised up, but he seems to be the right sort.”
Thomas Doherty, a tall slim youth with a fuzzy beard, said it. Fate thrust Nathan Leopold into cell 604 and made the son of one of Chicago’s wealthiest business men Tom’s cellmate.
Doherty was indicted on two charges of robbery several months ago. According to the police, he got very careless with a .32 caliber revolver and waved it somewhat carelessly about the face of a pedestrian.
“Say, I have had six buddies to date,” said Doherty, “and this guy Leopold is no different than the others. If he snores I wouldn’t know it because I sleep with my eyes and ears closed.”
“Get me right,” added Doherty, “I’m no student of psychology and when it comes to Mr. Einstein and his theory about relatives I’m entirely in the dark. But harken to this much: Leopold’s a rank amateur around the jail and I feel sorry for anybody who don’t know his stuff.”
“When he offered me half his chicken yesterday, I said to myself, ‘a right guy,’ despite charges to the contrary, so I showed this quiet kid the ropes on how to make a bed and sweep out quicker than Tommy O’Conner could pull a 45.”
“The way that boy pounded the apple against the wall yesterday in the indoor game proves he must have a mean and wicked right arm. That boy’s a comer and we’re all beginning to like him.”
I found two other mentions of Doherty in the papers, once on June 5th that: “Leopold requested Marie Corell’s Romance of Two Worlds from the prison library. He read aloud from it to his cellmate Thomas Doherty.” And then on June 11th it was reported that Leopold and Doherty played checkers in their cell.
Leopold and Doherty weren’t cell mates long, as he explained in Life+: “A week after my arrival Tom was sent to Pontiac Reformatory to begin his sentence.” Another newspaper mention refuted this:
“Nathan Leopold Jr. lost his cellmate to-day. Thomas Dougherty, nineteen, who has shared Leopold’s lodgings in the county jail since his arrest, was acquitted of a charge of robbery in Judge Harry Lewis’ court.
The jury was out only a few minutes. Dougherty told Leopold: ‘I wish you the same luck.'”
I haven’t been able to find any newspaper articles just about Doherty, his crime or his trial, only mentions of him in articles about Leopold. There obviously wasn’t a lot of interest in Doherty beyond his connection to Leopold, reporters even sometimes mixing him up with Edward Doherty, who was reporting on the case at the time. But Leopold’s memory was often faulty this far back in time, so I don’t know exactly what happened with Doherty, if he was released or sent away, but regardless, he was out of Cook County Jail, and Leopold had an opening in his cell.
Chicago Tribune, June 9, 1924Toronto Star, June 12, 1924
The above photos appeared in newspapers in early June. The Tribune photo on the left says that Leopold is sitting in the bullpen with his cell partner, Edward Donker, at his left. The photo from the Toronto Star says Leopold is sitting with his cell partner, Edward Donker, and they cropped it so it only includes the young man on the right.
Loeb’s cell partner at this time was Edward Donker, Leopold’s was Thomas Doherty. So whether it was Donker, Doherty, or totally random people sitting next to Leopold in this photo, who knows.
August Vogel
Chicago Sun-Times, Vogel on May 8, 1930
On June 12th Leopold got his second cell mate, as Leopold described him in Life+: “The next cellmate was a German lad of my own age, Augie Vogel. He was a most pleasant cellmate, a peach of a guy, I couldn’t get over the innate courtesy, the instinctive good manners all these fellows exhibited. When a newspaper reporter would come up to the bars of the cell after lockup, each of them would quietly and unobtrusively sit at the far end of the cell, reading.”
The Chicago Herald Examiner had this to say about Vogel and Leopold: “Leopold was assigned a new cellmate yesterday-August Vogel, 1906 Jackson blvd., who is under $40,000 bonds on highway robbery charges.
The confessed slayer had established a friendship with Vogel while the latter occupied a cell across the aisle, and requested that he be transferred to take the place left vacant Wednesday when Thomas Doherty was acquitted by a jury.”
On June 24th Vogel was sent to Pontiac. He wouldn’t stay there too long, and after his release he would go on to get a similar nickname to his former cellmate. Dubbed the “Whim Slayer” he was electrocuted on May 9, 1930 for killing a man during an attempted robbery.
John Ogorzelec
I’m not sure when exactly he and Leopold became cell partners, but as Leopold described in Life+: “My next cellmate was a Polish youngster with the improbable name of Johnnie Ogorzelec. He was a good cell partner too…While we were together he attempted to teach me some Polish. One of the newspaper reporters, my favorite, Ty Krum of the Tribune, got me a couple of Polish grammars and a dictionary from the Public Library and I learned a little.”
An article from the New York Evening Post on August 15th said: “It became known today that Leopold has not been discouraged from his pursuit of learning by the possible brief span of life that stands between him and the hangman. He has taken up the study of Polish. He was induced to begin this study by the fact that he has a Polish cellmate.”
It was announced in the papers after Leopold’s transfer to Joliet, since he couldn’t take his clothes with him, “John Orgozeles was given 2 pairs of silk pajamas, a suit, four shirts, a sweater, six pairs of silk socks, three cartons of cigarettes and some cigars.” Leopold backed this up in his book: “It was to him that I left my extra suit and my other clothes when I was sent to Joliet.”
Joliet, Cell 318
While in Joliet prison Leopold occupied cell 318, gallery 7, in the east wing. He didn’t have a cell mate.
Stateville, Cell 427-F
In May of 1925 Leopold was transferred to Stateville penitentiary for an appendectomy. Once he recovered he was assigned permanent residence in the new prison. He describes this in his autobiography:
“I was assigned to Four gallery in Cell House F. The cell house had just been opened; indeed, I was the first occupant of cell 437. How different it was from the East Wing in the old prison!…Each cell had a window, barred inside and outside, which the occupant can open or close at will. What a luxury that is!…From my cell high on the fourth floor gallery I could look over the wall to the rolling farmland beyond.”
He went into more detail in an earlier draft of his book:
“My cell was ten feet long and six feet wide. The front end was of glass, with a sliding glass door, containing a chuck hole. Above the door was a five-foot wooden shelf. Along one wall stood an iron, double-deck bunk, with springs. Behind the bunk was a toilet and a face bowl, with hot and cold running water. Against the wall opposite the bunk was a table, or commode, about two by three feet and containing three large drawers. Two small circular stools completed the furnishings of the cell. The walls were painted green, the ceiling buff. Above all, the cell was clean and airy.”
George Fisher
Leopold described getting his first cell mate in his book: “My first cell partner was George Reynolds, a man about twenty-eight or twenty-nine, who had been a professional horse-race tipster. He was serving ten years to life for a jewel robbery. George was an extremely intelligent fellow and a pleasant cell partner. For the express purpose of learning Spanish he had previously celled for a year with one of the Mexicans assigned to our shop, and he was extremely fluent in the language. We spent a good deal of time in the cell speaking Spanish. We decided also to study together some language neither of us knew. We finally selected Rumanian, got a grammar of the Gypsy-Otto-Sauer series, and went to work.” They didn’t get far before giving up on it.
Leopold also describes in detail how he and Fisher got privileges by advising the guards on stock market investments. A few months after they started celling together, Fisher was transferred to a new assignment and cell house.
Charles Shader
Chicago Tribune, October 10, 1928
Leopold mentioned that everyone in the Shoe Shop, where he worked, was moved to D house, so assumedly the next few cell partners he had were located there.
On the surface, Leopold’s new cell partner Charles Shader seemed to have a lot in common with him: Shader was also 19 when he was sent to prison for murder with a life sentence. But Leopold described Shader in his autobiography this way: “Charlie came from one of the high-delinquency areas of Chicago’s South Side; he hadn’t finished grammar school, and I’m afraid he wasn’t very bright…Though Charlie was a pleasant enough cell partner, we didn’t have much in common, and when an opportunity arose after a couple months I transferred cells.”
A researcher who saw a list Leopold kept of the men he had sex with, claimed that he and Shader had sex.
Shader was one of the seven men who killed the deputy warden and escaped from Stateville in 1926. He was caught shortly after his escape and hanged in 1928.
Mike Dennehy
Leopold seemed fond of his next cell partner, Mike Dennehy, who he calls Pat Moroney in his book. As Leopold describes it: “I moved in with a young Irish lad of twenty-five or twenty-six, Pat Moroney. Pat was a typical ‘state-raised kid.’ Born in a high-delinquency area on the West Side of Chicago, he had begun his institutional career at the age of seven…he had never been out of an institution continuously for as long as eighteen months since he was seven. He knew nearly every con in the prison; those he hadn’t worked with here at Stateville were likely to be cronies of long standing from Pontaic or St. Charles.
A completely extroverted, open, friendly fellow, he was deservedly popular. He is one of the comparatively few men I have known in prison who really lived up rigidly to the stringent code of the ‘good hoodlum.’ Pat wouldn’t ‘beef’ under any circumstances, regardless of the cost to him. He minded his own business, ‘did his own time,’ fought his own battles. He worked hard at hiding his light under a bushel, for Pat had a good head on his shoulders, but somehow he dreaded letting anyone know he had brains. He went to great lengths to put on protective coloration: to talk like everyone else, to express the thoughts of everyone else.”
Leopold and Dennehy were both in solitary confinement when the 1926 escape happened.
Joe Jablonski
In May of 1928 Leopold began to work in the library and moved into a 4 person cell in C House, giving him 3 cell partners. In his book he said he was pleased with the new arrangement: “with four men housed in a unit there was a decided element of community living. We’d have nightly domino games, for example (playing cards were not permitted until several years later). With three cell partners, two of whom worked on other assignments, one’s interests widened; one learned more of the life in places other than one restricted assignment.”
“One of my cell partners was Joe Rogalski, a Polish lad of twenty-eight. Joe had spoken Polish as a child at home and had attended a Polish parochial school for a few years. His Polish was extremely rusty from disuse, but it was still good enough to be very helpful to me.”
Jablonski worked in the surveyor’s office and had been tasked with marking the places where the corners of Cell House B should be, which would soon begin construction. He wanted to check his work, so Leopold informed him how. Leopold said that though Jablonski had only finished 7th grade and knew no algebra or geometry, in order to help his work for the surveyor, “I secured a copy of Kenyon and Ingold’s Elementary Plane Trigonometry and I set to work with Joe. He was a bright lad and he worked hard. Every evening we spent over an hour on his trig. In a few months he had a good working knowledge of the elementary principles of the subject.”
William Kauffman
Another of Leopold’s cell mates in his 4-man cell, Kauffman actually had another connection to Leopold: he had been a private chauffeur for Emma Stein, who kept her car in the same garage the Leopolds and Loebs used. He recalled Loeb as “the greater schemer and rascal of the two.”
They were happy to reunite in Stateville, and Leopold was amused that Kauffman, though Catholic, was passing himself off as Jewish so he could enjoy Jewish holidays. He and Leopold even served on the holiday committee for several years. Leopold further described him as:
“the first man at Stateville to make a cigarette-holder. Bill was a real artist with his hands; he could make anything or fix anything. And he conceived the idea of making long cigarette holders from the celluloid of discarded toothbrushes and combs…Originally he made two or three for his own amusement and to give to a friend or two. But they were really works of art and everyone who saw one wanted a holder to send to his wife or his girl. Bill was swamped with orders.”
Kauffman was paroled in 1934 and he and Leopold kept in touch over the years. He sent a letter favoring Leopold’s release to the parole board in 1952 and did what he could to encourage his friends to support Leopold’s freedom.
George Post
Leopold and George Post would make up words together and try to get them to catch on throughout the prison. Post worked in the front office and when the prisons revamped the commissary in the summer of 1929 he was tasked with picking what items would be sold in the store. Leopold recounts pouring over catalogs from stores with his cellmates as they tried to help Post decide which items to pick.
Art Coleman
When George Post was paroled his place was taken by Art Coleman, the prison taxidermist, who was one of the only prisoners who could earn money at that time. He had a shop below the library where he mounted birds for guards and made bird statues to sell as souvenirs for visitors.
Joilet, 1930-1931
In 1930 Leopold was transferred back to Joliet. This time he had a cell mate, though I haven’t seen him named anywhere. Leopold relates an incident between them in his book: “One evening my cell partner broke the glim string and was grumbling about having to use a glim box. I told him I thought I could get a lighter but was afraid to have it in my possession. He said, ‘“’You get it and I’ll carry it.'”
Sam Lentz
In 1931 Leopold was transferred back to Stateville and celled with Sam Lentz. As the prison had just gone through a riot, the prisoners were barely let out of their cells for weeks, so Leopold and Lentz played checkers to pass the time. As he describes it:
“After a short time I moved into the cell with Sammie Lentz, a Jewish lad some ten years older than I. Sammie was one of the better checker played in the joint. Not absolutely top-flight, perhaps, for he population included two or three real experts, who had contributed to national checker magazines, but he was definitely a Grade B player. The last time I had played checkers was when I was about eight, and I still played a pretty good game for an eight-year old. Now twenty-four hours a day is a pretty long time to be locked with anyone, and time began to drag. Sammie undertook to teach me checkers. We borrowed a book on the subject and my instruction began. Faithfully I memorized an opening gambit from the book. So long as Sammie made the best possible countermove each time, I could win invariably; that’s how the gambit worked. But, if he deviated from the prescribed move, in such a way that I should have been able to win more quickly, I was dead. I just had no insight in the game – no checker imagination. Sammie had to give up on me.”
Dan and Charlie
Sometime after Lentz but still very soon after the riot, Leopold wrote that he celled in E house, in cell 126, had a robin named Bum and two cell partners, named Dan and Charlie.
Trevlyn Clinkunbroomer
In 1931, Leopold was working in the library and celling in C House. Clinkunbroomer was working in the prison store, but “I really liked the guy and decided I’d try to help him. He was working at the Store and I went to Professor Taylor and asked to have him transferred to the Library. Trev really liked the work…He had been only twenty when he and another lad were sent to prison with a one-to-life for armed robbery. He came from a thoroughly respectable lower-middle-class family…Trev was a thoroughly nice guy-not a confirmed criminal in any sense. He was really an example of that much-missed, much-overplayed, hackneyed phrase, ‘a crazy mixed-up kid.’
Leopold devoted a lot of time in his book, and especially in earlier versions, to talking about “Trev.” About the long continuance Clinkunbroomer got when he tried to get paroled and how Leopold helped take his mind off of it, and Leopold and Loeb helping get Clinkunbroomer elected football manager of the prison while he was in the hospital with appendicitis. Clinkunbroomer was also one of the inmates working in the sociological research office, and I believe he is the “Investigator W” mentioned in the book Predicting Criminality, in which Leopold and Loeb were investigators X and Y.
Clinkunbroomer was paroled on December 15, 1934, and married. He and Leopold kept in touch through letters, at least up until 1944, the date of the last Christmas card I’ve seen Clinkunbroomer send to Leopold.
Frank Crawford
Mount Vernon Daily Argus, January 31, 1936Chicago Tribune, February 1, 1936
Above are two views of the cell Leopold and Crawford shared at the time of Loeb’s death. You can see that the three person bunk bed was converted so that the middle bunk could be used as a desk/storage space.
Leopold writes in his book that “Frank Crawford had been my cell partner at the time of Dick’s death. He had worked in the Salt Mine with me and later had been clerk in the school. He was paroled in December 1936 and went to work in the furniture store owned by a friend of Dick’s, who had employed two other ex-cons on our recommendation.”
According to Leopold, Crawford did well for a while; he was a successful salesman and courted a woman he intended to marry. When suddenly his behavior changed: he fell back into criminality, fled the state and married a different woman. When he was rearrested and sent back to Stateville in 1939 the cause was discovered: he had neurosyphilis.
Helen Williams, a friend of Leopold’s, recalled this relationship: “There were a lot of boys Nathan was interested in, he thought they were worthwhile and wanted me to meet them if I could and sometimes write them or send them things. One was Frank Crawford, Nathan taught him typing and office work and he was a good, clever, social individual so when he was up for parole Nathan’s friends and family and others got him a pretty good job in Chicago and he was so good they trusted him too much and he got in a jam. I heard that he was in trouble, wrote to Nathan and I will never forget the letter. He said if [Frank] lied he did what any human would do, he got in a corner and could not get out any other way and one lie led to another, but now is the time he needs help, you, who are interested in him were glad to help him, but now is the time he needs it. I was ashamed of myself for not having such a reaction because he hadn’t followed my ideas. Nathan could see he was still worth salvaging.”
When Crawford returned to Stateville, Leopold wanted to see him again and filed a ticket requesting he visit the Correspondence School office so they could talk. This went through and Leopold and Crawford were able to have their chat. But the civilian director of the school, who needed to approve every ticket, didn’t remember signing Crawford’s ticket, he disliked Crawford and said he wouldn’t have approved Leopold meeting with him. It was thought that Leopold had forged the director’s signature and he was sent to solitary confinement for 15 days. Leopold staunchly plead his innocence.
What really happened, and indeed what the rest of the story between Leopold and Crawford was, I don’t know. I haven’t seen him mentioned again in Leopold’s letters.
Detention Cells, 1936
After Loeb’s death Leopold was taken to the detention cells, where he would remain for six months. This was done for Leopold’s safety, as the prison administration worried that he would try to kill himself and that other inmates may try to kill him, as they had killed Loeb. As these cells were in the prison’s hospital building and meant for mentally ill inmates, Leopold was very unhappy to be stuck here and worried what the press would say if they found out. He celled alone and during the day was allowed to mingle in a common area with other prisoners in the detention cells.
He described the experience in his book: “Life in the bug cells was not unpleasant; under any other circumstances I would actually have enjoyed the vacation from my normal routine. We had comfortable hospital beds, for instance, and, like the hospital patients, we were fed from the officers’ kitchen rather than from the general kitchen. I got better food than I ever had in prison. Then, there were two fine hydrotherapy tubs in the place; I made the most of those. I kept busy by having my lessons from the school sent up for me to correct, and I even took advantage of the time I had on my hands to write some new courses.”
C House, Late 1930s
Leopold describes getting out of the detention cells in his book: “Finally, on June 30, I was sent back to my assignment. But it was a changed prison into which I stepped; it had been tightened up unbelievably. And there were special restrictions on me. My cell partner was moved; I was to cell alone. Further, whenever I left the cell house on a ticket I had to be accompanied by an officer…It was not until six months later, just at Christmas time, that my bodyguard was removed and I was permitted to move about like any other prisoner.” It’s unclear when he was allowed to have a cell partner again.
In Leopold’s book he says that he was in the same cell from 1937-1939 and that a robin would build a nest somewhere near his window every year. I’m not sure if this is cell 149, the same cell he was occupying when Loeb was killed, or a different one.
After he got out of a stint in solitary confinement in May of 1939, Leopold was sent to B house. As he puts it: “I was put into a cell with a one-armed man. He was more than a little stir-bugs, he hardly even glanced up when I came into the cell. Or maybe he just wasn’t happy about having a cell partner.” Leopold didn’t have to spend even one night there, before he was transferred back to his own cell in C house.
Detention Cells, 1941-1942
From November 1941 to December 1942 Leopold worked in the detention hospital as a nurse. Nurses lived in the hospital building and Leopold described the cells in his book: “Here we each had a nice clean cell, larger than the ones in the cell house. And we were on twenty-four hour detail; that is, our cells were never locked.”
According to a 1955 article, Leopold had trouble with his coworkers. “The other nurses seemed, to him, to exclude him from their clique. He had a fight with one of them. ‘There was no special casus belli-he was drunk and I guess he just didn’t like Jews.'” Frank Sandiford, one of Leopold’s prison partners, claimed that this fight was between Leopold and head nurse Bill Madden, who was five years younger than Leopold. Leopold mentioned off-handedly in a letter after his release that nurses Jerry King and Bill Madden used to get drunk for weeks at a time in the bug cells, with no sobriety in between.
C House, 1943
After leaving his nurse job, Leopold moved back to C House and worked as a janitor.
Dormitory
From May 1943 to May 1944 Leopold succeeded in getting placed in a dormitory, rather than a cell house. Leopold describes it in his book: “My work was to keep a room, occupied by sixteen of us, clean. Or a suite of rooms, rather, for we had the dormitory proper, in which we slept, a small recreation room with lockers, chairs, and a table, and a lavatory and shower room. I was extraordinarily lucky in that my room was occupied by night men. At five-thirty in the afternoon they left for work, and the whole place was mine. During the day they slept…And we weren’t confined to our own room. The door wasn’t locked until a quarter to nine in the evening. Up to that time we had the use of an enormous recreation room in the basement of the building. Here there were some fine bridge and pinochle games…Often we’d start a game early in the morning and play continually until bedtime.”
He continued describing the place: “The huge windows were made of small panes of glass set in a lattice of steel crosspieces, so that getting out would not have been too easy, but still there were none of the double sets of bars found everywhere else in the institution. The beds were extra-wide hospital beds; there was plenty of light and air. And you had a shower right in your own room…We could go out and walk around the building or play handball in the adjacent yard.”
In 1944 everyone was pulled from the dormitory and sent to B House “The Siberia of Stateville,” as Leopold calls it.
Donald Lilyroth
Lilyroth and Leopold celled together sometime in the 1940s or 1950s. Lilyroth was arrested for burglary and sent to Joliet in 1943 and paroled in 1949. He was rearrested for breaking parole and in California in 1952 and sent back to Illinois, though he was free by 1957.
There’s a document in Leopold’s papers noting that Lilyroth was Leopold’s cellmate, but it’s undated. Lilyroth wrote an article about Leopold in 1957 which I’ve been unable to find, but which Leopold read and enjoyed. Leopold mentioned off-handedly in 1968 that he and ‘Don Lilyroth’ were still in touch, though I’ve found no letters between the pair.
X-Ray Lab
Murder on His Conscience, April 23, 1955
Beginning in August of 1944 and continuing until July of 1956, Leopold worked in the prison’s x-ray lab and lived in the hospital building.
Here he slept in a single bed and multiple inmate employees shared the same room. In 1955 a reporter wrote that he “sleeps with five inmate nurses in a large, pleasant room in the hospital…Unlike inmates in the cell houses, Leopold does not have to be locked in at 4:30 P.M. He spends his evenings in the laboratory watching television, sometimes until midnight.”
An earlier draft of the Murder on His Conscience article went more in depth on Leopold’s living quarters: “Leopold and a young auto thief run the laboratory, three small rooms on the ground floor of the hospital. It overlooks a green yard inside the prison wall. In the outer office are Leopold’s desk, a fan, a clock, a filing case, the X-ray machine and a table. The floor is linoleum. One of the rear rooms is a dark room, the other contains a toilet, a locker and a couch, behind that is the dark room. Leopold’s books on birds and sociology, some of them autographed, fill a bookcase. In a filing case his notebooks and manuscripts and letters are neatly filed. On the walls hang Leopold’s certificate as a medical technician and a picture of Albert Einstein, a picture of Dick Loeb, taken years ago at his parents summer home in Charlevoix, a picture of Leopold’s assistant’s girlfriend, and his framed ‘max-x’ certificate—the notification that the Board refused him parole.”
For many years one of Leopold’s partners in the x-ray lab was a man named William ‘Bill’ Carr, the above mentioned auto thief. Carr was about 18 years younger than Leopold, and likely in his late 20s when they met. He was paroled in 1956 and the pair kept in touch after Carr and Leopold were released from prison, and met up occasionally.
After many years on the project Leopold left the hospital in 1955, worked in the front offices and moved into cell house F.
Paul Henry
Leopold in cell 435-F, Life MagazinePaul Henry in 1947
Leopold’s final cell mate, Paul Henry, was born in 1931. At 15 he falsified his age and joined the army, after that getting work in a steel mill. On the job he lost one of his fingers and as this put him out of work he began committing thefts with a local group of young men. They committed a number of robberies and during the last one they beat the homeowner so badly that he later died from his injuries. Henry was sentenced to Stateville in 1952.
Henry soon got a job in the kitchen, where he would stay for the majority of his sentence. Leopold likely met Henry through the correspondence school in 1953. Henry took three classes and was awarded a high school diploma at the end of the year. Midway through 1954 Henry completed a German class through SCS and Leopold began mentioning him in letters. They became cell partners in 1955, sharing cell 435 in F-House, and remained so until Leopold was paroled. Leopold had his family and friends send him letters and money and gave him plenty of money and gifts himself.
Their letters also reveal a more romantic, rather than strictly transactional side to their relationship. Henry mentioned the poems Leopold would give him, and they talked about being paroled to Hawaii together. Leopold would often dine in the officer’s kitchen, where Henry would give him steaks and other food prisoners usually weren’t privy to.
Leopold helped facilitate Henry’s release from parole twice and in 1968 Henry moved to Puerto Rico and the pair resumed their relationship. When Henry got married, Leopold walked his bride down the aisle, and he left a substantial monetary gift for him in his will.
Unverified Cell Partners
Peter Conlin
An article in Wilmette Life on July 11th of 1924 claimed that “Peter Conlin, Winnetka delivery boy, sought a thrill late last week and got it. Conlin was fined for speeding in Winnetka and refused to pay in order, according to the police, that he might have an opportunity to visit with Leopold and Loeb.
Conlin had his wish, for upon entering the county jail he was almost immediately made a cell-mate of Leopold, the latter’s erstwhile “roommate” having been sent on to the Pontiac reformatory.
“I refused to pay my $50 fine or to permit any of my friends to pay it because I wanted to get the thrill of meeting and talking with Leopold and Loeb,” Conlin told Sergeant Iverson of the Winnetka police.
Surprise was expressed generally among the police and others connected with north shore police courts that a youth working out a fine for speeding should be placed in the same cell with a confessed murderer and it was expected the authorities at Winnetka would confer with the sheriff’s office to have Conlin removed to another cell.”
I doubt this story a bit, as I don’t see why Leopold would have been without a cellmate for weeks after Vogel’s parole in an overcrowded prison, though I suppose it’s possible.
Matt Rizzo
Matt Rizzo, mug shot, 1936
The graphic novel The Hunting Accident by David Carlson and Landis Blair has Leopold and Matt Rizzo share a cell in the detention cells in 1936. While both men were in the detention cells for a few months in 1936 and interacted during the day, they did not share a cell. Everyone in the detention cells had their own cell as far as I’ve been able to find.
Leopold did help teach Rizzo Braille, as he had been blinded right before coming to prison. Leopold wrote of acquiring Braille books for them both, tryingt o teach himself before teaching Rizzo. “Matt seemed to learn the system a lot more quickly than I, once he got started…I studied with him right through the first two grade of Braille. When he got to Grade 3, the more complicated word signs, and was obviously able to continue by himself, I quit.” Rizzo was only in the detention cells a month, from February to March, before moving to his permanent home in the F house sick bay. He was paroled in 1940.
George Dasho
A man claimed that he entered prison in June of 1931 under the name John Sayad and was a cellmate of Leopold’s for 13 months. As he claims to have been paroled in May of 1934 that gives a 3 year window of when that could have happened. As that time covers when Leopold was cell mates with Frank Crawford, it doesn’t seem to add up.
Dasho claimed this in 1936 and gave an interview revealing the favoritism Leopold and Loeb received in prison, and the details he gave make me further suspect his narrative. For instance, he said that James Day “was a green kid, didn’t seem to know what it was all about,” though Day had entered Stateville in August of 1934, 3 months after Dasho claims to have been paroled, so they never would have met.
Sayad is also the originator of the claim that the Stateville Correspondence School was created because “Loeb lost his greenhouse job and was almost beaten to death by one of the inmates when he tried to replace five or six convicts working with him with friends of his own…Leopold told me they [created the school] to get a job for Loeb.” There’s no record of a hospitalization around this time on Loeb’s prison record, and I haven’t heard anyone else tell a similar story.
Loeb’s Partners
In general I know far less about Loeb’s cell mates, so unfortunately this section will be patchy, unreliable and with many gaps.
Edward Donker
On June 3rd, 1924, Loeb got his first cell mate, a young robber named Edward Donker. They shared cell 717 in Cook County Jail. The Chicago Evening American gave this, likely highly fictionalized, description of a conversation with Donker the day he was made cell mates with Loeb:
“Loeb’s cellmate is a boy of 18 who stutters terribly. Well built chap with flaxen hair and blue eyes. He is very serious and stands at attention when addressed.
“Sir,” he stammered, his jaw heaving around in a convulsive fashion. “I like him. He gave me some ham and eggs this morning.” Then he caught himself for a full sentence and talked without a break.
“He went to school yesterday, but last night he seemed to be awfully blue,” he said. Once more, however, his tongue slipped. “IIIII hhhhave one thing against him. Last night he told me he didn’t mind my stuttering any time except when I ate my soup. But he’s a good fellow. I’ll help him all I can.”
Once more Donker got complete mastery of his tongue and talked seriously.
“Loeb reads everything in the papers. Yesterday I asked him if his confession were true. ‘I can’t talk about that to anyone,’ he replied.” Once more the whistle came, evidence again of the slip of the tongue.
“Do you think he will always have ham and eggs for breakfast?” He queried. “Good gracious,” he responded to himself.”
In a letter to his parents Loeb described Donker as “a clean looking young fellow, who was exceedingly nice to me and helped very materially to make things easier.”
In late June Donker was sent to Pontiac.
Cook County, 6th Floor
On July 21st Loeb moved to the 6th floor of the Jail. On July 28th Loeb wrote to his parents: “My present “room-mate” is also a very nice chap-somewhat older than I and with a good high school education.” I haven’t been able to find any other specific mentions of who this person was. It could have been John Kapustha, his final cell mate, or he could have had several between Donker and Kapustha.
John Kapustha
When Loeb left prison it was revealed that his final cell mate was John Kapustha, and he was given many of Loeb’s clothes, as he couldn’t take them to Joliet. Specifically, he was given “a pair of silk pajamas, 6 shirts, several pieces of underwear, one dozen handkerchiefs and several books including cross word books.”
One newspaper quoted Kapustha discussing Loeb:
“He was a regular guy, Dickie was, and I miss him, even if he did act sorter goofy if I skinned him playing cards.”
“How do you mean goofy?”
“Well he sometimes acted so it made a fellow wish there was an extra light or two in the cell.”
Joliet, Cell 260
When he first arrived in Joliet prison Loeb occupied cell 260, gallery 6, in the west wing. He didn’t have a cell mate.
September, 1925
In Leopold’s autobiography he mentions that when he and Loeb talked during the Jewish holiday, Loeb said he had a cell partner that he liked.
Deputy Warden
From 1928 until his transfer to Stateville, Loeb worked as a clerk for the Deputy Warden in Joliet. This allowed him access to a better cell with more furniture and food.
Stateville, 4 Man Cell
In late 1930 Loeb was transferred to Stateville prison. In early February of 1931 he wrote a message to Leopold in Joliet describing his living situation: “He was celling with some of my former cell-partners and had even transcribed a short message in Polish from Joe Jablonski. He told me that he had some racks made, resembling mah jongg racks, and a special set of dominoes, marked with the markings of playing cards, and was teaching his cell-partners to play bridge.”
Cell 129, C House
Loeb’s cell, 1936
At least from the time when the school was started in January of 1933, and likely earlier, Loeb lived in cell 129 in cell house C. Though it was a 3-person cell, only Loeb and one other cell mate lived there. The photo at the left shows that cell, though the photo was taken after Loeb died, most of his possessions had been removed and at least one new inmate had moved in. The canaries and the cages that can be seen, a guard testified, came from that new inmate and hadn’t been owned by Loeb.
Leopold mentions that in 1934 Loeb had a cell partner named Joe who participated, along with Loeb and Leopold’s cellmate Clinkunbroomer, with the scheme to protect Leopold from inmate Jay Breen.
Edward Sklepowski
Daily News, February 3, 1936
Sklepowski was Loeb’s last cell mate, they shared cell 129 in C House. He had arrived in Stateville in 1933, when he was 21, after receiving a 1-10 year sentence for larceny.
According to Sklepowski, he and Loeb met on the handball courts where Skepowski was training for a fight, and became friends. A few months later, on September 7th, 1934 Sklepowski was transferred to Loeb’s cell. He went to work for Professor Fitzgibbon, the civilian who ran the school department for the prisons. When testifying, Skelpowski also said that he acted as secretary for Loeb, doing most of his typing from 4:30-10pm in the evenings.
He was quoted by an investigator into Loeb’s death as having this to say about his former cell mate: “He didn’t like the radio. He wanted a lot of quiet in the cell. He was busy writing a history of the civil war and as soon as the door was locked on us at 5:30 p.m. every day he would get busy reading his reference books and making notes. He had completed several volumes of the history.” Sklepowski testified in Loeb’s defense in 1936 and was mocked for it in the newspapers, one of the defense lawyers referring to him as Loeb’s “widow.”
After Loeb’s death, Sklepowski went to work in Stateville’s photography department. He was released in 1938 and married.
Unverified Cell Partners
Warren Lincoln
Lincoln in 1924, Chicago Tribune
An article in the DeKalb Daily Chronicle from August 15th, 1928 claimed that Warren Lincoln was celling with Loeb. Lincoln was also an infamous murderer, having killed his wife and brother-in-law, dismembered them, burned their bodies and hid their heads in blocks of concrete. He was sentenced to life in 1925.
According to the Chronicle, “Lincoln and Loeb occupy a separate room and are not required to live in the cell black tenanted by the other prisoners. In addition to sharing a private cell, Lincoln and Loeb are allowed better food that the other prisoners, and are permitted to have books and magazines, also not allowed among the common run of men incarcerated in the state’s prison.
Both have been ‘promoted’ to ‘positions’ in the prison life. Lincoln has held his job as florist and gardener for some months, tending the flowers of the penitentiary with the same care he showed when he ran the greenhouses on the Indian Trail…
Loeb has been elevated to a job runner for the deputy warden. Good behavior, it was stated at the penitentiary, earned these two their new ‘job’ and provided them with what little ‘luxuries’ the prison life afford to men who are sent there.”
I can’t verify this partnership, though it’s possible. This article appeared about a month after Loeb became a clerk for the deputy warden and was moved to a better, more private cell with better food, and I do know that Lincoln was in Joliet (rather than Stateville) in December, 1927.
James Corcoran
James Corcoran was an inmate who testified in 1936 in defense of James Day. On the stand he testified: “Sure I was Loeb’s cellmate-but not for long!”
Victor Walinski
Victor Walinski was a 27 year old inmate who testified in 1936 in defense of James Day. He testified that he got a job as school instructor and the same day he moved into Loeb’s cell. He also said that he did nothing as an instructor and lost the job when he left the cell three weeks later.
James Day
Albany Times Union, June 5, 1936
The rumor that Day and Loeb were cell mates came from the 1957 book Warden Ragen of Joliet by Gladys Erickson:
“When Ragen took over Stateville, Loeb and Day were cell mates in Cell House C. Loeb had been receiving an allowance of fifty dollars a month from his family. Since Day had no income, Loeb supplied him with such luxuries as cigarettes, candy and food. They had several arguments over the division of Loeb’s ‘groceries’ after Loeb had shared his supplies with a number of other inmates who had no cash.
Loeb was one of those hit hardest when Ragen took all money out of circulation and decreed that each inmate could spend a maximum of three dollars (later raised to five) a week in the prison commissary. This rule left Loeb with barely enough buying power to supply his own needs, and the squabbles between the two increased until Ragen moved Day out of Loeb’s cell. This had taken place about six weeks before the final stabbing.”
We know this is untrue because Ragen had only been Warden since October of 1935. Edward Sklepowski was Loeb’s cellmate from 1934 until Loeb’s death, so the claim of Loeb and Day being cell mates when Ragen took over up until 6 weeks before Loeb’s murder can’t be true.
Day was transferred from Pontaic to Stateville on August 16th, 1934 and if I’m reading his record correctly, he didn’t come to C House until December 21, 1934, again, when Loeb and Sklepowski were already cell mates. Most telling of all: never in 1936 did anyone say that Loeb and Day had celled together at any point. If Day and Loeb had ever been cell mates, and especially if they’d been known to fight so much that Ragen was forced to separate them, I feel sure that it would have come up during the trial.
The Lives and Legends of Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold 