Early Lives
Both Leopold and Loeb were exceptionally intelligent. Leopold was a child prodigy who spoke his first words at the age of four months; he reportedly had an intelligence quotient of 210, though this is not directly comparable to scores on modern IQ tests. Leopold had already completed college, graduating Phi Beta Kappa, and was attending law school at the University of Chicago. He claimed to have been able to speak 27 languages fluently, and was an expert ornithologist. Leopold planned to transfer to Harvard Law School in September after taking a trip to Europe. Loeb, on the other hand, was the youngest graduate in the history of the University of Michigan and planned to enter the University of Chicago Law School after taking some postgraduate courses.
The Leopold, Loeb, and Franks families lived in the affluent Kenwood neighborhood on Chicago's Southside some six miles south of downtown. Loeb's father, Albert, began his career as a lawyer and became the vice president of Sears and Roebuck. Besides owning an impressive mansion in Kenwood, two blocks from the Leopold home, the Loeb family had a summer estate, Castle Farms, in Charlevoix, Michigan.
Leopold and Loeb met at the University of Chicago as teenagers. Leopold agreed to act as Loeb's accomplice. Beginning with petty theft, the pair committed a series of more and more serious crimes, culminating in the murder.
Leopold was age 19 at the time of the murder, and Loeb, 18. They believed themselves to be Nietzschean supermen who could commit a "perfect crime" (in this case, a kidnapping and murder). Before the murder, Leopold had written to Loeb: "A superman ... is, on account of certain superior qualities inherent in him, exempted from the ordinary laws which govern men. He is not liable for anything he may do."
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