Figure 1.-- One of the most notorious crimes of the 1920s in America was the senceless murder of 14-yearold Bobby Franks. Bobby was the victim of the sensational Leopold and Loeb thrill killing. They were teenagers from affluent families. The photograph of Bobby taken right before his murder is quite famous and has been reproduced many times in history and sociology books. Bobby wears the popular knickers suit that ws so common at the time.

One of the most notirious crimes of the 1920s in America was the senceless murder of 14-yearold Bobby Franks. It led to a landmark American trial putting capital punishment on trial. Bobby was the victim of the sensational Leopold and Loeb thrill killing. Bobby's parents were Jacob and Flora Franks, a Jewish couple who had renounced their Hebrew faith and had been converted to Christian Science. The Franks family lived in the wealthy Kenwood neighborhood of Chicago. Jacob Franks had become rich as a pawnbroker, and although he lived near powerful Jewish executives, bankers, and attorneys, tended not to be accepted socially into the elite upper-crust circle of his neighbors. The two murderers were also wealthy teenage boys who lived near Bobby Franks. Richard Loeb was a gifted 19-year-old University of Chicago student and Nathan Leopold was a brilliant amateur ornitholigist of the same age who used to go bird-hunting around Wolf Lake. Bobby was kidnapped on his way home from school in Chicago (May 21, 1924). He was not picked at random. They knew each other. They held Bobby for ransom, but as Bobby knew them his murder was inevitable. The kidnappers killed him and threw Bobby's battered body sripped naked into a culvert in the area of Wolf Lake where Leopold commonly searched for birds. The case for the defense was argued by the distinguished lawyer Clarence Darrow. Guilt was not at issue. The issue of the trial is whether the two teenagers should hang. Darrow despite Leopold and Loeb were the two most hted people in America managed to convince the jury to spare the killers the death penalty. The case became a tabloid sensation and was later the basis (in a highly modified form with an older victim) of an Alfred Hitchcock film starring Jimmy Stewart, Farley Granger, and John Dall entitled "Rope" (1948). The photograph of Bobby taken right before his murder is quite famous and has been reproduced many times in history and sociology books (figure 1). In this photograph, made shortly before his murder, Bobby wears typical dress clothes for boys and younger teenagers of the period (1924)--a dark single-breasted Norfolk jacket with above-the-knee knicker suit with white shirt and tie, black long stockings, and black oxford-style shoes.

Created: 11:01 PM 4/4/2006
Last updated: 1:44 AM 12/27/2017