It was supposed to be the ‘perfect crime’ - pulled off by two brilliant students. American geniuses Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb believed they were ‘supermen’ but were not quite as clever as they thought when they kidnapped and a teenager back in 1924. Now, on the 100th anniversary of the notorious case, JAMES MOORE reveals what happened to the deadly duo and other ‘brainiac’ killers.
.. Twisted pals and uni graduates Leopold and Loeb killed to prove they were too bright to be caught.
Leopold, 19, had an IQ of 210, rivalling boffin Albert Einstein, while 18-year-old Loeb’s was 169. The pair planned to kidnap someone for ransom, then murder them anyway to evade capture. On the afternoon of May 21, 1924, they lured Bobby Franks, 14, into their car in Chicago, then bludgeoned him to death with a chisel.
Dumping the corpse in a ditch and covering it in acid, they buried their bloodied clothes, then sent the boy’s father a ransom note for $10,000, asking him to throw the cash out of a train for them to collect. But instead he called in cops, who quickly found - and identified - Bobby’s body. Cracked egghead Leopold had also made a crucial mistake, leaving his glasses at the scene, which were traced back to him.
Within 10 days of the murder both culprits had confessed, later being sentenced to life imprisonment. A lover of classical music, poetry, art and chess, British killer Robert Maudsley has a genius-level IQ. But he garrotted a sex offender in 1974, then k.