Quick rundown of the timeline of Richard and Nathan’s relationship. Just thought it might be a handy guide:
Ages: Richard’s birthday is June 11, 1905 and Nathan’s is Nov 19, 1904
They meet for the first time, at first there is a “mutual disdain” for each other. Richard just finished his first year at the University of Chicago, Nathan his last year at the Harvard school for boys.
They spend more time together through mutual friends, and become closer. Both attend the University of Chicago. They attend football games as part of the same group and Richard steals small items in front of Nathan, who does not react negatively.
Richard invites Nathan to his vacation home in Charlevoix, Michigan. On the train ride Nathan confesses he’s gay and in love with Richard, Richard confesses he wants to be a master criminal. They do some mutual masturbation and intercural on the train, which Nathan says thrills him more than anything he’s ever done before. The rest of the trip is spent in sex play and attempting to cheat the Loeb family at cards.
They commit petty crimes together, burglary, property damage, stealing cars, arson, etc.
They spend a while in Charlevoix together, continuing their sex play. They decide to transfer to the University of Michigan and to share an apartment. They are caught in bed together by a friend and employee, who tells Richard’s brother what he saw. Both boys deny his claims and the friend is fired, but he begins telling people what he has seen.
Both boys move to the University of Michigan and share an apartment. They are distant in public and will only go out together if someone else is with them, attempting to dispel the rumors they are gay and a couple. Nathan’s mother dies. Crimes slow down considerably.
Richard joins the ZBT fraternity and moves out of their shared apartment.
Nathan moves back home and re enrolls in the University of Chicago, Richard stays enrolled at the University of Michigan.
For the next year the two see each other on occasional weekends and school breaks to get drunk together, there is very little crime committed.
Nathan and Richard graduate from their respective colleges, Richard returns to Chicago. Both enroll for graduate studies in the University of Chicago. They resume a more regular sexual relationship and spend more time together. They go fishing, hunting and on double dates, are frequent guests in each other’s homes, and begin committing crimes together again. They plan more involved crimes, like breaking into the homes of friends and burning down buildings.
They fight and Nathan sends Richard the so called “cocksucker” letter, that later tips the police off to their relationship.
They rob two fraternity houses in Michigan, one of them ZBT. On the way home they argue heatedly, but decide to remain friends. They agree that Nathan will do whatever Richard says without question if Richard will agree to have sex with Nathan 3 times every 2 months (this is later changed to once per crime). Richard brings up the idea of planning the perfect crime.
The two plan their perfect crime, evolving from the kidnap and torture of the friend who told people they were gay to the kidnap-murder-ransom plot it became. When discussing this and other crimes over the phone they speak in French or coded English.
They murder Robert Franks, get caught, confess. Both are extremely upset at the other and try to set themselves up as the less culpable.
The two decide to show a united front while in court and become friendly again. Nathan tells the psychiatrists that seeing Richard or brushing against him, even in jail “thrills him immeasurably.”
The two seem friendly through the trial, whispering and laughing to each other in court and putting on little skits and jokes for the reporters who interview them daily. They occasionally speak in prearranged unison.
They are sent to Joliet prison and separated. Guards endeavor to keep them apart as much as possible.
Richard’s father dies, Nathan is allowed to comfort him for a few minutes.
Both boys spend Passover talking together with the other Jewish prisoners.
Nathan is transferred to Stateville prison 5 miles away and operated on for appendicitis. He remains there and it becomes policy for them to serve their time in separate prisons. Richard, while recovering from measles, becomes delirious and violent. He recovers after a week. Nathan is distressed when he hears.
The two are brought to trial by Charles Ream who accuses them of castrating him in 1923. They spend several days in court talking to each other, laughing and whispering as they had done in 1924. There is a hung jury and the matter is settled out of court.
Richard and Nathan begin to send messages back and forth to each other using notes and codes hidden within items purchased from the prison commissary. Before this point they had only been able to communicate by giving messages to other prisoners who were transferring between prisons.
Nathan and Richard switch prisons. Richard had told Nathan he planned to transfer to Stateville, and when Nathan broke a rule, it gave prison officials a reason to send Nathan to Joliet and keep the two apart. Richard, who had fought to try and get a week to spend with Nathan to help him adjust to his new prison, is instead given ten minutes to talk with him. Nathan, convinced he will be trapped in Joliet forever (which had been deemed uninhabitable for three decades by this point) becomes suicidal. He is talked down by his brother and begins working to rejoin Richard in Stateville.
Nathan rejoins Richard in Stateville. He most looks forward to the one hour every three weeks they can spend talking together in the yard.
They reconnect further, both help each other on their respective jobs, with Nathan in the library and Richard in the greenhouse. Richard comes up with the idea to start a high school correspondence school for inmates. He and Nathan plan it together, writing the courses themselves. Nathan recalls that during these years they were “as close as it is possible for two men to be….We had no secrets.”
Prisoners remember them playing sports as a team, and Nathan being completely in awe of and in love with Richard. They were also said to both have ‘kids’, younger prisoners that they would give gifts to and have sex with.
Their correspondence school (SCS) launches, with Richard acting as director. The school is a success and continues even after both have left prison.
They work together for the prison sociologist gathering data on parole recidivism, which turns into a dissertation for Nathan. Nathan gets a tonsil removed, Richard is by his side during the surgery.
The Catholic prison chaplain recalls that Richard begins distancing himself from Nathan and showing less fondness for him, though Nathan is still devoted.
Richard is murdered. Nathan is alerted, gets to the operating room and is allowed to stand at Richard’s feet. Richard is unconscious when he arrives and Nathan does not get to say goodbye. When Richard dies Nathan helps a nurse sew his wounds and wash his body. He is sent to the hospital cells for his protection against other inmates. He receives letters of sympathy from family and friends. Richard’s body is sent to his family and cremated.
Nathan is interrogated about Richard’s murder and refuses to say anything beyond one statement about the good works Richard did in prison. In June he is released back into general population with a guard for an additional six months.
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