From about 15 years on and up, a great deal of my thoughts were basically uncharitable. We are all evil, in some form, where we know that. Yes, I am. Not 100 percent, but I am new.
My mother was a sick, angry, hungry, and very sad woman. I hated her, but I wanted to love my mother. This is serial killing, a podcast. Hello, and welcome to Serial Killing, a podcast, where we also veer off the serial killer path to delve into other topics within our beloved true crime community.
And I want to give a special thanks to some of my patrons, Florence, Theresa, Sarah, Sophie, Nanette, Emily, Wannabe-Sluth, Gabrielle, Galen, Cassandra, Emma, Bree, David, Judy, and John. Thank you guys so, so much. I appreciate you. So, this podcast is going to be on the infamous duo, Leopold and Loeb.
Nathan Frodenthall, Leopold Jr. was born on November 19, 1904 in Chicago, Illinois. Richard Albert Loeb was born on June 11, 1905, also in Chicago, Illinois. So, let's get into some history for that time.
The summer Olympic games of the 3rd Olympiad were held in St. Louis, Missouri, and the long-acre square in Manhattan, New York was renamed Times Square. Also, the world's first Nickelodeon, meaning five cents or nickel to watch a movie, opened. Just before these two boys were born, Guantanamo Bay was first used.
Prussia actually became the first area or country to issue driver's licenses. Henry Ford, in 1903, formed Ford Motor Company to manufacture automobiles. Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first successful man-powered airplane flight in North Carolina. And, fun fact, this is also around the time that the first Crayola crayons were created.
And the year after Richard was born was the San Francisco earthquake at a magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Marcoli intensity of 11, which is extreme. And then, interestingly, Gordon Northcott, from the Wineville chicken coop murders, which, by the way, is a hugely personal story to me. If you follow my podcast, you understand, well, this waste of space was born that year. So, you know, briefly, this was the atmosphere that the boys were born into.
And I want to say that a sizable amount of the family background information I got about Leopold and Loeb was from Loeb and Leopold.wordpress.com for reference. So, let's start with Nathan. Nathan's parents were Nathan Leopold, Sr. and Florence Foreman.
Nathan Sr. was born in Eagle River, Michigan in 1860 and was the oldest son of five children. He would not finish high school, rather choosing to help his father and uncles with their steamship transport business when he was just 16 years old. He was described as quiet, but kind, and he married Florence in 1892 when he was 32 years old.
Florence was born in 1868, being the eighth of nine children. Now, her family took part in the community as well as civil pursuits, and she was proud of this and happy to contribute. She and the youngest child, her sister, Birdie, were quite close and stayed that way their entire lives. The sisters even took care of their ailing father until he died.
Florence married Nathan Sr. when she was 24 years old. The couple would then go on to have three sons. Mike was the oldest born in 1894.
Sam the Middle, born in 1899, and then Nathan Jr. the youngest. The article also stated that they adopted one of Florence's nephews after he was unfortunately orphaned. These children would all be raised in a large and very close-knit family of influence.
Nathan Sr. was involved in water transport in some form or another most all of his life and actually became the president of the Manateau Steamship Company in 1900. Now, it would appear that Florence, while pregnant with Nathan in 1904, contracted chronic nephritis. This type of nephritis, which is an inflammation of the kidneys, comes along slowly and causes few symptoms in the early stages.
It can, however, cause severe kidney damage and or kidney failure. It can run in families, which was the case with Florence, or develop after a sudden disease, so it is clearly quite serious. Now because of this condition, she suffered with frequent headaches and felt very weak much of the time, and a lot of the time she couldn't even manage to get out of bed. But even so, she still made sure to spend time with and pay attention to her sons.
It is said that while she doted on all of her boys, she was really rather fond of Nathan Jr., and he loved her every bit as much in return. Nathan was also the youngest child of his whole extended family, and he quickly earned the nickname, Babe. He was mostly tended by live-in governesses, which was common for the upper class that his family was a part of. Being that his brothers were notably older than him, and his mother not really fully recovering from her illnesses after his birth, that's just the way that it kind of had to be.
This article, which I will link in the notes, because it is beautifully written, states that Nathan's first governess was a woman from Germany named Marie. Apparently, she taught the children German as their first language, but all of the boys were bilingual and spoke English beautifully as well. She stayed with the family until Nathan was about six years old. In his preteen and adolescent years, he became fascinated with churches and their architecture, so he would have the adults of the household drive him around to look at and catalog them.
His next governess Paula apparently encouraged his interest in Christianity as well as learning about all of the saints. The next governess the boys had was a woman who could only speak German. It is said that she sexually abused Nathan and his next older brother, Sam. So Nathan began teaching her inappropriate English words or phrases and telling her that they were harmless.
She was fired when Nathan was 12 years old. Now he had the regular illnesses that the average child gets, and he was good at sports, though he didn't show a lot of interest. He regularly went to summer camp and loved to hike and found within himself a passion for studying birds. He and his extended family were so wealthy that they bought a large amount of land and built several homes near each other with a communal building.
So that the large family could vacation together. There was, of course, horseback riding, swimming, golfing, you name it. Now Nathan Jr himself was considered a child prodigy, which is defined in psychology research literature as an individual under the age of ten who, quote, produces meaningful output in some domain to the level of an adult expert, unquote. In other words, he was extremely highly intelligent.
Rumors suggest that he said his first word at four months old, but I have a tendency to argue the validity of that, but I have no doubt that he learned to speak earlier. Once he was in school, it was obvious that he was doing so well that his fifth grade teacher stated he should skip that grade, and after that he was able to actually pass each grade much earlier and entered the Harvard school four boys at just eleven years old. In 1916, when Nathan was twelve years old, his father bought the Morris Paper Mill, which was a paper company located in Morris, Illinois, just a bit southwest of Chicago out in the country. He would grow his company to not only make paper, but also boxes and cartons.
It was highly profitable, and he left the company to his sons later in life. Now, Nathan was known to brag about his superior intelligence, and the other students grew very tired of hearing it. In one yearbook, he was described as, quote, Nathan Leopold, the crazy bird of school. The evicular member of the fifth class is forever harping on birds, their advantages, and their Twitterings.
Flea has not found much difficulty in covering his yet unsprouted wings and is always up to some kamigig mischief. His favorite prank is proving Mr. Shobinger, wrong, or telling Mr. MKM that he is laboring under a major neurosis, unquote.
Ouch. A photo of Nathan at fifteen years old in the Harvard yearbook shows a rather handsome young man with strong features, but a soft face, dark hair and intense eyes. Long story short, Nathan wasn't particularly close with his brothers, but he did play with his cousins. He loved his mother and her sister Bertie so very much, but for the most part he didn't really seem to fit in with his peers as much, and he spent most of his time with adults or just by himself.
Nathan's mother, Florence, died in 1921 when he was just sixteen years old. She was fifty-two years old, and everyone remarked about how very kind she was. And as Nathan's teenage years went on, he was able to master five different languages. Now, no one doubted his intelligence.
They were simply sick of hearing him brag about it. But something else was also making itself known within him, his sexuality. You see, when he was just thirteen years old, he had his very first sexual experience with a boy who apparently taught him how to self-serve, if you will. And then move on to an activity called Frodage.
Now, this is the practice of touching or rubbing against the clothed body of an individual in a crowd for self-gratification. This is generally, but not always thought of as male to male. Now, this opened his mind, and he began having quite active fantasies that often included a kind of king-slave relationship, and of course, he played the role of the king, and his slave would be, you know, good-looking, tall, athletic, muscular. But you must remember that, during this time, his preferences would have made him, let's say, unacceptable.
So it was said that, since he felt he was a superior being, he would try to, quote, make himself a cold-blooded intellectual machine, devoid of any of the ordinary human sensibilities. Unquote. He was actively trying to shut down his emotions. And again, he was an avid bird enthusiast who was several times over-published in leading bird magazines.
He collected birds, and in fact, some had been taxidermied by others, and some, well, some he killed himself. His collection, according to this article, grew to around three thousand specimens, and his family also continued to become even more wealthy. It is said that by 1924, when Leopold was twenty years old, his family was worth four million dollars, which is the equivalent to about sixty-one million dollars today. But we're going to stop there with Nathan and get into Richard Loeb.
Now, Richard's parents were Albert Henry Loeb and Anna Henrietta Bonin. Albert, Richard's father, was born in 1868, the third son of his parents. He was quite intelligent, having no issues passing each grade, and going on to John Hopkins University in Maryland, where he graduated in 1887. He then began teaching night school in Chicago where he studied law during the day.
He passed the bar exam in 1889 when he was just twenty-one years old. He rather quickly became a senior partner in the firm of Loeb and Adler. Anna Henrietta Bonin was born in 1874 to German immigrant parents and was the oldest of two daughters, she being actually fourteen years older than her baby sister. Now, there's really not a lot of information about her early years, other than the fact that she loved nature and the outdoors, and that she was, quote, passionate about charity work, unquote.
Now, Albert and Anna married in 1894 and had four sons together, Alan, Ernest, Richard, and then Thomas. Anna was very active in the Chicago's Women's Club and was a big advocate for women's rights. She taught Sunday school as well as helping run a family farm in Michigan. So Albert decided to go into commercial business and in 1901 he became the Secretary of Sears, Robuck, and Company.
A few short years later he was elected the Vice President and the Treasurer. Now, for Anna, it was extremely important to her that her sons were socially conscious. So needless to say, Richard was also born into wealth and privilege. It was said that he was a bit sickly as a small child having contracted months, measles, and whooping cough, making him have to be inside and sometimes even in bed for long periods of time.
But he got stronger, healthier, and at around ten years old he started wanting to play sports, tennis being his favorite, and go fishing and sailing. His personality and his youth was described as quiet but courteous, obedient, if you will. So back when he was four years old his parents hired a governess, Anna Struthers. Apparently at first he really wasn't too fond of her.
He would sometimes even lock her up in the attic just to make her go away. But eventually they would bond and he grew to love her and she devoted herself to him and the boys. She tutored them privately and once Richard was in school she continued to tutor him when he was at home. She read classic novels to him and so on, which is fantastic.
Except he basically lost all interest in interacting with the rest of his family or any of his peers. In fact, she apparently coddled him terribly and would go along with his ideas of his older brothers bullying him. She would often at least hint that his parents favored his brothers over him, so she was swaying his affections, if you will. And then he began sneaking and reading detective magazines after bedtime.
He would lie to his governess and he began shoplifting small items while still being pretty young. He began to dream about being a famous criminal someday and then he began to tell stories to his favorite teddy bear. So apparently even as he got into his very early teens he would lie in bed and get lost in his daydreams, still talking to his teddy bear. That turned into fantasies about being in jail and his jailers abusing him.
He would walk around giving off fake hand signals to imaginary friends pretending to tell them which house to rob or to tell them that they were in danger. But again, he was outgoing, polite and no one around him suspected of the life that he was living at least within his mind. Richard, even at 10 years old, created a magazine and one of his father's friends sent it to the Teddy Roosevelt who responded back with, quote, it does me good to see young men of your stamp growing up in this country, unquote. This, of course, absolutely thrilled young Richard.
And as intelligent as Richard was, he was able to graduate high school when he was just 13 years old, only one year after his brother who was four years older than him. He was a member of the Literary Club, the Engineering Club and also a discussions club. He was the treasurer for the freshman class and he also tutored other students. At just 14 years old, he attended the University of Chicago as a full-time college student and he seemed to be a popular kid.
While there, for some reason, he lost some of his motivation to study. Now, he kept his grades to acceptable levels but wanted to take classes that seemed more entertaining than educational. When his governess was let go for refusing to take care of his younger brother, Richard really began to change. And they did continue, at least some fond relationship afterwards, she wrote him for years.
And at this point, as you can imagine, he began becoming friends with students a lot older than him and he began to start drinking. And then he also began having sex as his much older peers were doing, but it is said that he really didn't have much interest in it. His first time was when he was 15 years old and it was with a woman that he paid. But then he contracted gonorrhea and he was forced to tell an uncle and one of his brothers so that they could get him help and apparently his parents never found out.
So, Nathan and Richard grew up in very close proximity to one another, but didn't officially begin to get to know each other until 1920. Richard had just completed his first year at the University of Chicago and Nathan was getting ready to begin there himself. At first, they were not fond of each other at all, believe it or not, but they eventually became very close friends. And that's their childhood stories, so let's get into it.
We know that both boys were born into and raised in very affluent families, right? So, both fathers showed a clear and hard work ethic and mothers who loved their children completely. There was no mention of abuse or neglect on behalf of either boy. Their high intelligence in every single source I researched was made abundantly clear.
Both were able to sail through school and both entered into college in their mid teens. Both boys also had governesses that helped to raise them, and again, this is a testament to just how wealthy their families were. Now, as Nathan began the process of puberty and going through experiences with another adolescent, he discovered that he was homosexual. Back in this time, that would have been completely unacceptable.
And then Nathan began to fantasize about a master-slave relationship where he would be the master and have a completely subservient man who was devoted to him only that he could use at his disposal now, folks. Who does that sound like? With Richard, we see that once he entered college at such a young age, he tried to keep up with the other young men by opening up, drinking, having sex. But it was specifically mentioned that he really had no desire to have sex with women, and he even contracted an STD from this.
Nathan began making a point to start shutting his emotions off completely, and Richard was giving into what he perceived as peer pressure to conform and fit in. Both boys were very interested in crime, and it was noted that Nathan was particularly interested in Michi's concept of supermen and interpreted them as, quote, transcendent individuals, possessing extraordinary and unusual capabilities whose superior intellects allowed them to rise above the laws and rules that bound to the unimportant, average populace. Unquote. I personally believe what we have here is Nathan displaying grandiosity.
This, of course, refers to an unrealistic sense of superiority, characterized by a sustained view of oneself as better than other people, which is expressed by disdainfully viewing them as inferior, and it refers to a sense of personal uniqueness, the belief that few other people have anything in common with oneself, and that one can be only understood by a few very special people. The personality trait of grandiosity is principally associated with narcissistic personality disorder, but it is also displayed in antisocial personality disorder and bipolar disorder, but let's continue the story. So in early 1921, Nathan went to Richard's family vacation home located in a small resort town in northern Michigan. The duo had to take a train ride from Chicago to the estate, and during that time, Nathan confessed to Richard that he was in fact gay and that he had developed a crush on Richard.
They went on to confess many things to each other, including Richard's fascination with a life of crime and their sexual relationship started immediately and was near constant while they were alone. Now, once back in college, the boys went on about their campus lives, though still much younger than the rest of the student body and both joined the campus club. In their free time, they cheated while playing cards with people, committed grand theft auto, vandalized, and even called in a few fake firearms. And yet by all outward appearances, they were two very upstanding young men and their parents were quite happy with their friendship.
That next summer, Nathan spent most of his time at Richard's family vacation home in Michigan indulging in his love of bird watching as well as going out and about with Richard. Another boy happened to be around in that summer because he was working for the Loeb family. This boy walked in on the duo having relations. After this, as Nathan later said, he began to daydream about torturing and killing the boy, and he discussed this with Richard.
They went so far as to come up with a plan and gather supplies, but they decided to go about getting rid of their witness another way. But leaving that the boy didn't know how to swim, they took him out on a boat, then they purposely tipped the boat over. Richard and Nathan easily swimming back to shore, only the boy was able to swim, and he too swam back to land. That boy then told Richard's oldest brother what they had done to him and what he had walked in on.
Richard and Nathan, of course, denied it all, and the boy was fired and ordered to stay away from the family. And as you can imagine, things quieted down as things tend to do, and Richard decided he was done with the University of Chicago. He wanted to enter the University of Michigan. You see, he wanted to get away from his hometown of Chicago where he was known, and he felt moving would give him a sense of freedom.
Now, discussing this with Nathan, of course, Nathan said that he would transfer as well. However, once they moved to the new school, well, their relationship changed. Again, according to the article I have linked in the notes, Richard barely paid any attention to Nathan, and Nathan confronted him about it. Richard stated that, yes, he was being distant because that boy that had busted them was spreading rumor, and he wanted people to see that it simply wasn't true, though obviously it was.
Nathan saw the logic in this strategy, and they maintained the public persona of only being socially polite to one another. And really, Richard had started to realize that he really wasn't into the sexual relationship, or at least as much as Nathan was. It would be later determined that Richard was closer to asexual and began to resent Nathan's constant approaches. And make no mistake, Nathan was incredibly attracted to Richard to the point of obsession, and yet the divide between them grew.
Nathan was hanging out with the regular college boys while Richard had joined a fraternity, and he was drinking and bragging about his female conquests, which were most likely just bragging. So this led to a broken-hearted Nathan to move back to Chicago, back with his family, and the University of Chicago. The young men drifted further apart, really only seeing each other during breaks where they'd get together and get drunk. So Nathan began focusing primarily on his bird-watching love, and would even take small tours of people around Chicago to show them the great spots to watch birds.
And it was stated that he even taught in elementary schools and birding events. So time went along, as time always does, and Nathan wrote papers that were published as well as learning a few other languages. He was steering himself toward a career as a lawyer as his father had really wanted him to. Richard was doing pretty well, fairly good in college, but he was also getting busted, stealing small things from around the front house, and he drank to excess regularly.
But Richard managed to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree, the youngest graduate they had ever had at that time. It was the spring of 1923, and he was just 18 years old. This same year, Nathan graduated from the University of Chicago, earning a bachelor's degree in philosophy. That fall, both young men would begin taking undergraduate classes at the University of Chicago to study.
Richard, American and English history, and Nathan, law. And then, of course, inevitably, with both of them attending the same school, they started seeing a lot more of each other again. They went out drinking together, sneaking out, as well as breaking into small businesses, which then escalated to actually burning down buildings. Then they would sit back and listen to the people in the crowds and get off on the drama and all of the scuttlebutt about what was happening.
Nathan was, as ever in love with the philosophies of Frederick Nietzsche, which contemplates the meaning of values and their significance to human existence. Nathan wrote a letter to Richard that stated, quote, I am going to add a little more in an effort to explain my system of a Nietzschean philosophy with regard to you. It may not have occurred to you why a mere mistaken judgment on your part should be treated as a crime when, on the part of another, it should not be so considered. Here are the reasons.
In formulating a Superman, he is, on account of certain superior qualities inherent in him, exempted from the ordinary laws which govern ordinary men. He is not liable for anything he may do, whereas others would be, except for the one crime that is possible for him to commit, to make a mistake. And Ubermench is held to have committed a crime every time he airs in judgment, a mistake excusable in others, unquote. Now, Nathan truly believed that he and Richard were above the laws of the ordinary man.
Richard played along, but largely didn't agree. You see, Richard didn't need excuses. He just enjoyed committing crimes. And that fall, Richard talked Nathan into robbing his old fraternity house.
Nathan agreed, as long as Richard would, in turn rob another fraternity house. On November 10, 1923, they drove to the frat houses and they stole money, watches, medals, and even a typewriter. They then broke into another one, but they only managed to steal a camera from that, because they had gotten spooked. As they drove back from the University of Michigan, back to Chicago, which is about a four-hour drive give or take, they argued and fought nearly the entire way.
But once they got closer to home, they calmed down, and their relationship went back to at least somewhat normal. They came up with an agreement, albeit a rather odd one. Nathan would have to follow Richard's orders without fail. No matter the task and in return, Richard would have sex with Nathan after each crime they committed together.
Then as they finished their drive back, they began to talk about how they could kidnap someone for ransom. Richard had actually been contemplating this idea for a while. After much discussion, they decided they would kidnap a younger boy from a wealthy family. They talked through the plans over and over, and soon they felt it was going to be the perfect crime.
And soon after, they decided the boy would have to die so that he could not go on to identify his kidnappers. So in April of 1924, they obtained fake IDs and even rented a room at a hotel under a false name, having the room stocked with books and clothes and odds and ends to make it appear that someone was indeed living in the room. The next month, they had everything prepared and had made a few dry runs along the routes that they would take to kidnap the other boy, where they would dispose of the body, and so on. They purchased rope, a chisel, hydrochloric acid, rubber boots, tape, and a spotlight for the car.
They pre-typed up a ransom note, and then they were ready to go. On May 21st, they picked up the rental car and dropped Nathan's car off at home, transferred the items needed for their crime to the rental car, then told the family chauffeur that the car needed some maintenance. Then the two hopped into the rental car, drove to Jackson Park, and they waited. Once school was out, they saw some boys playing in an abandoned lot.
They recognized Johnny Levinson as his father was also a lawyer and had been to Richard's house. But they eventually lost sight of him and they couldn't find him again. That's when they spotted 14-year-old Bobby Franks walking down the street. They pulled their car up and they asked Bobby if he'd like a ride, and he told them no because he was already getting pretty close to his house, but Richard was able to talk the young teen into getting in the car.
Around 5 p.m. as they were leaving the area, Richard reached from the backseat. He covered the boy's mouth and hit him over the head repeatedly with that chisel. As the child's injuries began to bleed pretty heavily, Nathan began to panic, but Richard pulled the boy into the backseat and covered him in some kind of dust cover for cars, stuffing a rag in his mouth.
The boy promptly went unconscious. The young men then turned the car towards Indiana, driving down many isolated back roads, and then they stopped. They just rode to the boy and then kept driving. They then stopped for hot dogs and root beer and ate them in the car, chuckling to themselves with the boy still laying in the backseat.
After driving around until it was completely dark outside, they drove to a drainage ditch area, dragged Bobby's lifeless body out of the car, and poured the hydrochloric acid over his face in an attempt to make him unrecognizable. But Bobby had actually died from asphyxia from the rag. Nathan then pushed Bobby's body into the water. After they left the scene, they mailed the ransom letter to Bobby's family.
It read, quote, as you no doubt know by this time your son has been kidnapped. Allow us to assure you that he is at present, well and safe. You need fear, no physical harm for him provided you live up carefully to the following instructions and such others as you will receive by future communications, unquote. They demanded that the family not contact the police and they said they wanted $10,000, which is roughly about $152,000 today, and if they did not comply, their son would be killed.
The letter was signed George Johnson. Then they stopped at a payphone and Nathan called Bobby's mother, telling her that her son had been kidnapped and telling her that instructions were coming. Then the duo went back to Richard's mansion where they hid the material they used to cover the body in the huge backyard. They burned Bobby's clothes in the furnace in the basement.
Then they drove the rental car to Nathan's mansion. Then they played cards with the family before Nathan drove Richard home in his own car, tossing the chisel out along the way. Now sources say that the boy slept quite soundly that night. The next day they went to class and then met up for lunch with another friend and then decided to clean on the inside of the rental car just a bit more, telling the chauffeur that they had spilled some red wine, you know, and they would clean it up.
And as they began making the arrangements and phone calls needed to be able to get the ransom, they saw a newspaper stating a body had been found in the drainage area by a man who had been on his way to get a watch repaired. He and some other people pulled little Bobby's body from the water. A search of the area produced a pair of glasses that they thought were Bobby's. Needless to say, the ransom idea was now over.
It was quickly obvious after the family told the police that the glasses were in fact not Bobby's, so they saved them as possible evidence. Two days after the murder, Richard was on campus when a friend and news reporter approached him and they began to discuss the murder case. And as the hours went on, Nathan became rather nervous that Richard was giving, quote, possible information and that his mouth would get them caught. So on the 25th, a few days after the murder, confident that they had gotten rid of any and all evidence, they were left with one problem, Nathan's glasses.
It was decided that if they were traced to him, he would say he lost them during a birding expedition because where the body had been found, that was an area that Nathan went too frequently to bird watch. And the young men were correct about the glasses being common except for one minor point, the hinge and only three pair of glasses in the greater Chicago area had purchased them with that particular hinge. The other two people had solid airtight alibis, that left Nathan to be brought in for questioning. Now when asked, he said that the glasses must have fallen out of his pocket while bird watching the previous weekend, but that didn't cut it.
Both Nathan and Richard were brought in for questioning on May 29th, roughly a week after the murder. Now their story was that they had been out and about, picking up two women in Chicago in Nathan's car, then dropping them off later and they didn't think to ask what the girls' last names were. Now, remember the chauffeur? He told the police that he had been tending the brakes on Nathan's car that night, ultimately killing that alibi.
That was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back. Richard broke down and confessed first, and of course he said the whole thing had been Nathan's idea that Nathan had been the one to kill Bobby in the back seat. Nathan of course denied that, stating he had been driving and Richard had killed the boy. But in the end, they both said that they were, quote, driven by their thrill-seeking Superman delusions and their aspiration to commit a perfect crime, unquote.
Now the trial, of course, was a media frenzy and labeled the trial of the century. They were advised to enter a plea of guilty in hopes that they would only get life imprisonment. The sentencing hearing took 32 days. The defense used arguments that involved extensive psychiatric testimony causing mitigating circumstances, such as childhood neglect, absent parents, and sexual abuse by a governess.
There was some talk of their dysfunctional endocrine glands, which is involved in the movement of hormones and other delusions. But it did nothing to dissuade the judge, who gave both boys life imprisonment plus 99 years. Richard's father actually died from heart failure about a month later. Behind bars, the two remained friends.
They even expanded the prison school system, adding high school and junior college curriculum. In January 1936, 32-year-old Richard was attacked by another inmate with a straight razor in the shower and died in the prison hospital. Nathan continued his work improving prison conditions and was a model prisoner, though he did suffer from depression. In 1944, he volunteered himself to be injected with live malaria to test a possible treatment.
In 1958, Nathan published his own autobiography titled, Life plus 99 Years, Trying to Win Pearl. And then, miraculously, in 1958, 54-year-old Nathan was Pearl. He had been in prison for 33 years. He did try to set up the Leopold Foundation, funded by the profits made from his book to help emotionally-deserved and delinquent youths, but it was not to happen as it would violate the terms of his parole.
Nathan eventually moved to Puerto Rico, married a widow, florist, and earned his master's degree and taught classes there, becoming a researcher in the social service program of Puerto Rico's Department of Health, Urban Renewal, and Housing Agency. In 1963, he published, quote, Checklist of Birds of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, unquote. In August of 1971, he died of a heart attack from complications of his diabetes at the age of 66. So, while the boys led decent and productive lives in prison, several sources state that neither ever showed any level of remorse.
Doctors from all those years ago tried to say that both boys were schizophrenic, but I, of course, don't agree with that. We already know Nathan had a grandiose sense of self, and I'm more inclined to believe that perhaps the boys both had something closer to antisocial personality disorder, but there's no way to know for sure. Perhaps Dr. Grande can evaluate this case and give us his opinions and observations.
I mean, one can hope. So tell me guys, what do you think? Born to Kill? Condition to Kill?
What happened? Leave me a comment in the video down below, or you can DM me on Instagram at serial underscore killing. You can email me at serialkillinginstagram at gmail.com, and as always, thank you so much for listening, because I know you could be listening to anyone else, and you chose me, and I truly appreciate that. Thank you, and have a great day.