The criminal exploits of Leopold and Loeb began when they were fifteen years of age and grew in seriousness. However, they were never caught at any of their crimes and came into the "trial of the century" each having no juvenile records.
Dick and Nathan became friends when Nathan was 15, Dick 14, the Spring that Nathan graduated from the Harvard school.
Their first jointly planned delinguency appears to be the plan for cheating people at bridge, that they developed in February, 1921.
They stole a trophy from the Chicago Beach hotel and buried it on a beach.
They stole some pipes from a department store.
They stole two electric cars, on two seperate occasions, after Loeb discovered they all could use the same key. On one occasion they were almost cought.
They would drive around town while Loeb would throw bricks through car windshields. Once he threw a brick into a windshield of a car containing a man and woman in the baskseat, having sex. The man shot at them.
They would throw bricks through store windows, once getting shot at by two police watchmen.
They made prank calls to their old schools and began calling in false fire alarms. They then graduated to setting real fires. They torched at least three buildings, generally barns or shacks, and again moved up a scale-to robbery.
They planned to rob the wine cellar of a friend who was out of town. They brought rope and guns. Loeb brought along a taped up chisal. However, Leopold's car started making noise so they gave up. They tried again but coudn't smash through the window.
On Nov 11,1923 they robbed Loeb's former Fraternity house in Ann Arbor.
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Left. A Photo of the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity house from the 1924
University of Michigan Yearbook, the same school year that Leopold and Loeb
robbed this house, stealing "Anything that was of any use" as well as Pierce
Bitker's Underwood Portable typewriter. They also stole Max Shrayer's fraternity
pin, and this object was later buried in the Loeb's back yard. The typewriter
was tossed into the Jackson Park lagoon, and later fished out by divers after
the boys' confessions.
Below; Fraternity photo of Zeta Beta Tau from the 1924 University of Michigan yearbook. Pierce Bitker is in front center. Other fraternity members testified at the trial, including Max Shrayer and Bernard Kolb |
They had agreed to rob another house, one of Leopold's choice. But now Loeb hesitated. Leopold, however, insisted. It was a matter of honor, he stated, even though he had no real desire to commit either robbery, so he said. They did rob another fraternity, but became nervous and fled with only a camera. They then headed back to Chicago, and had a fight.
This fraternity robbery is most significant not because they stole the typewriter, or because they showed such lack of loyalty as to rob their own (Loeb's own) fraternity brothers, but because on this night, when the friendship was on the verge of ending in a bitter fight, they made a pact to perpetuate the relationship, and the subject of kidnaping for ransom was first brought up.
It is intersting to note that after a severe fight, the decision was made not to end the relationship, but to formalize it, to solidify it. Much has been made of this fight, and there are many theories. The truth is however, that we will never know what was said or the true significance of the event. We can only go from the facts we know. We know they had previously had a big fight in October during which, again, the friendship almost ended. The October fight was the result of a plan for New Year's Eve, apparently, from the Interrogation of Nathan Leopold. Apparently, Leopold and Loeb had made plans to spend New Year's together, but Loeb decided to spend it with Dick Rubel and two girls. A fight ensued and Leopold apparently, made some disparaging comment about Rubel. Loeb then accused Leopold of betraying a confidence. At some point during this fight, Loeb drove around with Leopold and wouldn't let him out of the car. It seems somebody witnessed this, thus Leopold's comment; "I wanted you this afternoon, and still want you, to feel that we are on equal footing legally, and, therefore, I purposely commited the same tort of which you were guilty, the only difference being that in your case the facts would be harder to prove than in mine, should I deny them. "
Leopold then, as revenge, the following day, locked Loeb in his (Leopold's) bedroom. It seems Leopold then called Dick Rubel on the phone to prove to Loeb that he, Leopold, had not betrayed a confidence. So Leopold asked Rubel if he, Leopold, had said that Loeb had told him whatever it was he, Leopold, had said, or if Leopold just thought it on his own. Rubel stated that Leopold never said Loeb said the thing. Rubel also stated that he didn't tell Loeb that Leopold had told Rubel that Loeb had told him (Leopold). This also shows that Richard Loeb lied, and exagerated the event.
The result of this fight was the "Cocksucker letter", in which Leopold states, in his classic fashion, that none of it was his fault.
A B C D
The Hulbert Bowman report states that the patient (Loeb) mentioned four crimes and that it was deemed "forensically inadvisable" to question him further on these. Stating such led immediately to much speculation and the Chicago Dailies attempted to pin four unsolved murders to Leopold and Loeb to match the A B C D scheme.
A 1950's tabloid magazine entitled "Confidential", features a 3 page article discussing these mysterious crimes. It also gave at least Loeb credit for the four unsolved murders.
Hal Higdon's "Crime of the Century" does tackle the question of the mysterious crimes and Higdon's theory is that two of the crimes were fires, and two were further fraternity burglaries.