BBC - Great Crimes and Trials Series 3 Set 2 (1995) Part 7 Leopold and Loeb Killing for Thrills

Stabbings, shootings, genocide, torture, abduction, robbery, serial killing and mass suicide are just a few of the horrific crimes explored in Great Crimes and Trials. True stories carefully researched and reconstructed with actual archive footage. Cases which have become almost legendary in the annals of crime and detection. Serial killers, gangsters, assassins and war criminals - Great Crimes and Trials sheds light on crimes that shocked the world, bringing back memories of some of the most notorious cases of the twentieth century. The murders of John Lennon and presidential candidate Robert Kennedy, the unsolved Zodiac murders and the treasonous crimes of Lord Haw-Haw are all covered here in exacting detail, alongside other shocking stories of murder and mayhem. From the violent mob rule of the thirties to the fairly recent phenomenon of the serial killer, the motives, behavior patterns and killing techniques of some of the world's most evil felons are explored. Their detection, capture and trials are examined to give a complete picture of how crine and justice have evolved through the twentieth century. Narrated by Robert Powell, Great Crimes and Trials combines new and archive interviews to reconstruct each story, analysing the individual and his motive, explaining how the crime was committed and showing breakthroughs in investigations alongside details of the trial. With its researchers gaining unprecedented access to picture libraries and over 250,000 hours of archive footage, these are the definitive accounts of these appalling murders.

Part 7 Leopold and Loeb Killing for Thrills

Two Chicago rich kids who killed for kicks. A tragedy of three young lost lives, a dead fourteen-year-old victim and the imprisonment of two teenage killers, unfolded in Chicago in 1924. The murder trial of Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold that shocked the nation is best remembered decades later for the twelve-hour long plea of lawyer Clarence Darrow to save his clients from the gallows. On May 21, 1924, 14-year-old Robert “Bobby” Franks, the son of a wealthy Chicago watch manufacturer was kidnapped. A ransom note was sent to his family, but the Franks family could not have known that Bobby was already dead. He had been murdered shortly after being kidnapped by the sons of two of Chicago's wealthiest families, Nathaniel Leopold, Jr. and Richard Loeb, whose only motives were to see if they could commit the “perfect crime” and prove their intellectual superiority as self-perceived Ubermenschen. Leopold and Loeb vastly overestimated their superiority, however, and were soon caught. Their subsequent trial would go down as one of the most sensational in American criminal history, and also served as a platform for the arguments about capital punishment.

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