What prompted the teenaged sons of two wealthy, respected Chicago families to kidnap and kill a fourteen-year-old neighbor in cold blood on a spring afternoon in 1924? “A sort of pure love of excitement,” Nathan Leopold told his interrogators in a chilling explanation of an inexplicable crime, “the imaginary love of thrills, doing something different.” The murder of Bobby Franks by Leopold and his friend Richard Loeb was dubbed the Crime of the Century – an overused title that fits this Jazz Age tale of murder, wealth and privilege. An interview with Evanston bookseller Nina Barrett, who revisits the case in The Leopold and Loeb Files: An Intimate Look at One of America’s Most Infamous Crimes.
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