Leopold and Loeb

Connected to the site: https://loebandleopold.wordpress.com/

[loebleopoldwp]

I'm cackling that Loeb was a lover of show tunes! And they say he wasn't gay! Are there any other campy facts about the famous couple?

To be fair to him he was a fan of musicals and show tunes when that was popular entertainment-there weren't even talkies yet!

Loeb did enjoy dressing up as characters, performing in plays and cheerleading (though at this time almost all cheerleaders were male).

When writing to partners and trying to avoid suspicion Leopold would sometimes use female pronouns and would pretend to be his partner's aunt.

[doctorone1000]

Your situationship is ghosting you? Lock him up for a life plus 99 years. (He wants that cigarette so much it makes him look stupid)

[loebleopoldwp]

Hey, I read in an ask from a while ago that Loeb disliked Leopold at first and assumed it was mutual

Do you know anything about wether or not it actually was?

It was actually that Leopold disliked Loeb and assumed it was mutual. Here's the note from White's psych report: "His acquaintance with Dick Loeb dates from the Spring of 1920. Dick, he says, was not popular, and at first he detested him, and he thinks the feeling was mutual. In the Fall they became intimate. By February, 1921, they were firm friends." This actually goes with the White note I posted a few days ago, but them sleeping together in Ann Arbor didn't make it into the report.

But no, Loeb seemingly didn't comment on if he disliked Leopold at first.

[loebleopoldwp]

This is probably creepy, so don't answer if you think it crosses a line, but a few times Nathan Leopold seems to have told men he was propositioning, "I can make it good for you", so I was curious if you have ever come across any accounts of his performance in that regard?

Nope, I've never seen any of his partners comment on the quality of the sex they had with Leopold.

[loebleopoldwp]

Darrow being interviewed in 1934 about what went wrong with Leopold and Loeb that caused them to become murderers: "Leopold and Loeb were pathological cases. They were born defective. They were homosexual, and environment did the rest."

-Denver Post, June 17, 1934

[loebleopoldwp]

What exactly was the "wimpus"?

This isn't the exact model that Leopold had (his had rubber bands) but here's something close:

[loebleopoldwp]

What do you think would have been different if they had been picked up for disorderly conduct before the murder, and they were brought to trial for sexual offenses instead, given that Leopold's side of the compact (which was mentioned in their letters) was a crime in Illinois at that time?

Unless they were caught having sex in public or soliciting other people, I don't think they ever would have gone to trial for that. With their money and status they may have been fined, humiliated in their social circles, never spoken to each other again, but I can't see them actually standing trial for sodomy.

If it had happened though, and they got short prison sentences, I think they would have served their time, and then been released, having lost some friends, with other people willing to pretend it hadn't happened or had been some crazy teenage thing that they were over. The stigma probably would have followed them throughout their lives, but they still would have been pretty ok, I'd imagine.

[loebleopoldwp]

Hey, maybe a slightly strange question

Some time ago you posted about the beginning of their friendship and said that one of the alienists said this:

“went to football game in Ann Arbor and slept together-beginning of their strong association.”

I was wondering if ‘slept together’ means sleeping in the same room or bed or entirely different interpretation in this context?

Unfortunately that quote is all I have, it's a handwritten note from Dr. White and he didn't talk about that moment specifically in any of his typed reports or when he testified.

[loebleopoldwp]

I think part of what makes loeb attractive is his social performance. He was described as socially effortless, quick to laugh, warm in a way that felt genuine when it wasn't entirely. That kind of grace — the way someone holds a room, the timing of their reactions, the ease in their body — simply doesn't survive a photograph.

Here we have an explanation for the previous anon.

[loebleopoldwp]

It's me from earlier. Sorry if you found that to be harsh. I didn't feel any desire to sugarcoat considering he is a murderer. But you're right, looks are subjective. He just doesn't seem conventionally attractive enough for every newspaper in the country to call him handsome

Haha, I don't mind. Standards of beauty were different back then, and it's a better, more sensational story for newspapers to print if Loeb is portrayed as very conventionally attractive. Not that I don't think plenty of people found him handsome, but some of the newspaper coverage was probably exaggerated.

[loebleopoldwp]

I do not see what all those newspapers were on about when they kept calling Loeb handsome. I mean sure, he's better looking than Mr. Unibrow but that's not a high achievement. The only photo of Loeb that I thought he looked handsome in is the one on the cover of For the Thrill of It. 99 out 100 times he just looks like if Goofy from Mickey Mouse had a baby with the moon face emoji

Looks are subjective. For you, Loeb wasn't handsome. For other people, he was.

[loebleopoldwp]

Sorry you've mentioned before that one or both of them had bad teeth, I was wondering if you know what was bad about them?

Also, since both were maybe overweight as teenagers, do you know what was meant when it was said that they both dieted before the murder?

With Loeb you can see when he smiled that his teeth were irregular:

Here's all the information I have about their teeth:

Loeb

From psych reports: Teeth irregular and with absent lateral incisors. Still has some baby teeth. Poor teeth.

He has had considerable dental work in straightening the teeth. He still has three of his baby teeth, and the adult teeth have not been revealed, as show by xray, nor have they erupted.

Teeth crowded, long, narrow, left lower canines prominent

From newspapers: Loeb is an attractive youngster in spite of several gold crowns on his teeth.

Loeb has gold fillings in two of his right upper teeth-the gold is usually in evidence.

Loeb has a protruding sensual mouth and rather bad teeth.

Loeb not appear to be looking at anything. His lips parted and his rather prominent upper teeth became visible, but it could hardly be said that he was smiling.

Leopold

From psych reports: His teeth have tended to decay, so that he has had to have a good deal of dental repair work. Much dental repair of cavities.

With dental work he has good, evenly spaced teeth.

-

The only time I can remember that I've seen dieting mentioned (pre-prison) is in Leopold's psych report: "In 1920 when 15 he was somewhat overweight-weighing 142 pounds. By hard exercise he reduced his weight between 15-20 pounds." And then Hulbert testifying: "When he was 15 he became quite overweight and reduced 15-20 pounds by dieting."

[loebleopoldwp]

"The fact remains, Elmer, that he's broken faith with everyone who helped him and believed in him - all of his dear devoted friends, as well as his family, and most of all me. I hate to say this but he isn't one bit different than he was in 1924; his activities continued throughout his Stateville days, and started here a month after he arrived in 1958, and are continuing presently. I've confronted him with what he is and he laughs at me and says I'm a paranoid schizophrenic. Naturally, when confronted, he lies but I have such damning evidence that he doesn't have a leg to stand on. I hope with all my heart that I never need to use this. I don't wish to hurt him but I long since ceased to love him and don't have a particle of respect for him."

-Trudi writing to Elmer Gertz about Leopold's homosexuality, 4 months before his death

[loebleopoldwp]

Girl why did you delete your post before I could read it?? 🥺

Haha, I thought it was badly formatted, and since no one had seen it yet, no harm, no foul. I'll redo it and reupload.

[loebleopoldwp]

I'm so sorry, Leopold had a gay sex diary? 😭

Haha, in a way, yes. He did keep track of men he slept with, when and where. I've never seen it, it may not exist anymore, but I've talked to a researcher who saw, if not the list itself, then a copy Trudi made. And it included a list of people's names in order, starting in prison, a date and a short description about where the encounter took place. It sounds like the list the researcher saw only included the first time he had sex with each person, but I don't know if Trudi made a copy with only first encounters and the actual list included repeats.

[loebleopoldwp]

Went down a little rabbit hole today tracing a short story someone mentioned as being inspired by Rope.

The story is Thirty Hours with a Corpse by Maurice Level, about a pair of students who murder a woman, hide her body in a chest in their apartment and then try to leave town without being caught. They also might be gay, they're very close.

Turns out it started as a French play and was published as a short story in French in 1921, so it was in no way inspired by Leopold, Loeb or Rope.

But I think the English translation, published in 1934, may actually have been inspired by Rope because it so drastically changes the structure of the story and some of the events to make them more like the Rope play. The biggest clue is rather than starting the night before at a card game, like in the original, the translation opens the same as Rope does, with the two killers in the dark with the body, deciding to put it in a chest.

[loebleopoldwp]

I have always felt bad for Trudi, but after listening to Dr Henry Johnson's interview, I am the sorriest I have ever been for her. It is so unbelievably underhanded to marry a woman under false pretenses, tell her you can't sleep with her because you're impotent, and then leave her your diary of gay sex escapades in your will. And after all that, she remained so resolute as to turn down publishing opportunities!

It was a really bad situation he put her in, although I will say, he didn't specifically leave her his gay sex diary in his will, she just found it with his things after he died. And that loyalty only lasted for a couple years, after that she was very interested in publishing a tell-all biography.