Leopold and Loeb | Nothing but the Night | 2

This episode contains descriptions and details that some listeners might find disturbing. Listener discretion is advised. It's just before 10 p.m.

on May 21st, 1924, in Chicago's Kenwood neighborhood. Inside 5052 Ellis Avenue, Flora Frank stares at the ringing telephone. Her 14-year-old son's been missing for hours, and Flora's worried about what she might hear if she answers.

But she knows she has to. It's a man on the other end of the line. At least Flora thinks it's a man.

The person sounds strange, like they're putting on a voice. Or maybe they just have a head cold. They ask to speak with her husband, but Flora explains that he's not at home.

When she asks who she's speaking with, the person identifies themself as Mr. Johnson. His next words confirm her worst fears.

Your son has been kidnapped. Flora nearly drops the phone, but she squeezes it tight as she asks what he wants. The man doesn't give her a straight answer, but he says something about money in exchange for Bobby's safe return.

Then his voice tightens as he warns Flora not to call the police. He and his accomplice will be in touch again soon with further instructions. Then he hangs up.

With the dial tone pounding through her head, Flora feels herself getting dizzy. Just as she's reaching out to hang up the phone, her legs crumple and she slumps to the ground unconscious. Flora comes to a little while later.

Jacob, her husband, is kneeling beside her, their family friend Samuel Edelson standing nearby. They've returned from searching Bobby's school. Jacob helps Flora up off the floor and over to a couch where she tells them about the phone call.

Jacob pales when he hears that their son's been kidnapped, then has to sit down when Flora relays the warning about going to the police. Flora can't say anymore after that. She's too distraught.

Jacob brings her upstairs and leaves her to try and sleep, but she can't rest, not with her son still missing. So she insists that they bring her regular updates and listens as Jacob and Samuel discuss their options.

At first, they decide it will be best to follow orders and keep the kidnapping a secret, but as the night wears on, Jacob's patience gives out.

It seems foolish to wait, and besides, Samuel knows some higher-ups in the police force who can be trusted to keep the matter quiet. It makes Flora nervous, but she defers to her husband's judgment.

So, around 2 a.m., Flora listens from her bedroom as Jacob and Samuel put on their coats and head out into the night once more, ready to escalate the search for young Bobby Franks. Flora hopes it's not a mistake.

From Airship, I'm Jeremy Schwartz, and this is American Criminal. After spending a year as friends at the University of Chicago, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb looked set to be separated. Richard was unhappy in Chicago and wanted a change.

So he decided to transfer to the University of Michigan. For his part, he was perfectly happy to sever ties with Nathan. He could always make new friends.

But Nathan wasn't ready to let go of Richard. He wasn't just a friend. He was more than that to Nathan.

He couldn't give that up. And he could just as easily be a genius in Michigan as he could in Illinois. So he followed Dickie East.

Once they were reunited, Nathan and Richard's strange dynamic evolved. Nathan became more assertive, imposing terms on their friendship, asking Richard for exactly what he wanted. In exchange, Dickie had some requests of his own.

And as this new transactional chapter of their life unfolded, Nathan's philosophical beliefs and Richard's criminal fantasies curdled into a warped worldview.

Nathan believed that his friend was the perfect specimen of human potential, and that entitled him to do whatever he wanted. He could even kill someone. This is episode two in our four-part series on Leopold and Loeb.

Nothing but the night. It's the summer of 1921, and Nathan Leopold is in an office at the University of Michigan. The wood-paneled room is quiet as the Dean of Admissions flips through Nathan's transcript.

Nathan watches dust motes swirl in the sunlight streaming through the tall windows. He's not worried about his application. He knows he's special.

At just 16, he's already finished a year of college. Any school would be lucky to have him. His eyes flick to the Dean.

Even this guy knows it. Eventually, the Dean closes the file and takes off his reading glasses. He tenses fingers and surveys Nathan across the desk.

Nathan holds his gaze until the Dean starts to speak. He says that Nathan's grades are adequate. They're very good, even.

But his age is an issue. He's so young and he's only focused on classes. There's no record of him joining any clubs or societies at the University of Chicago.

These are things that are the mark of a mature, well-rounded student. Go home to your cradle, the dean tells Nathan. Find out who you are and come back in five years.

Nathan's nostrils flare. The nerve of this fool. He doesn't need to be in any clubs to know who he is.

He doesn't need more time to become an adult. He's more mature than any of his classmates. They're all fascinated with juvenile trivialities like sports and popularity.

If the University of Michigan doesn't let him in, he says, they'll be sorry. The dean sighs, then picks up his pen to sign the required documents. He won't stand in Nathan's way, he says, but he urges him to think hard about the choices he's making.

Nathan smirks and rolls his eyes. He knows exactly what he's doing. Nathan's transfer to Michigan is approved, but before he makes it there, he contracts scarlet fever and is forced to delay the move.

It's frustrating for him, knowing that Richard Loeb's already in Ann Arbor making new friends. As soon as he's well again, he gets himself out east as fast as he can. Only he's barely unpacked when he gets a call from home.

His mother has died. Nathan's just about to turn 17 when he gets the news. Florence Leopold had been sick since Nathan was a baby, so her death isn't wholly unexpected, but it's still a devastating blow.

He spends some time at home grieving with his family before returning to school at last. For a while, Richard goes with Nathan on trips to cabarets and speakeasies in nearby Detroit, keeping him company while he drinks through the pain.

But the novelty of that wears off after a while, and Dickie starts spending less and less time with Nathan. He's got other things on his mind anyway. He's pledged an exclusively Jewish frat, Zeta Beta Tau.

It's the main reason why he's dropped Nathan. Richard's frat buddies noticed the two of them hanging around, and they didn't like it. Babe, as his family has always called him, is awkward and geeky, and suspiciously effeminate.

That makes him persona non grata to the fraternity and to Dickie. But Richard's not worried about trading his friendship with Nathan for a fraternity bid.

After years of being younger than his classmates, having a group of guys who think of him as their equal is a nice change of pace. Meanwhile, Nathan's miserable. Before the end of the fall semester, he's eating most of his meals alone.

Occasionally, he'll be joined by one or two other Jewish students who, like Nathan, aren't great at socializing and who don't belong to a frat. Eventually, he decides that if he can't be around Richard, there's no point in staying in Michigan.

So at the end of a year in Ann Arbor, he transfers back to Chicago, a city that feels more cosmopolitan, more cultured, and where he won't have to be reminded of what he lost.

Now, he can concentrate all his attention on graduating a year ahead of schedule, which will prove how different he is from the rest of his cohort. His final year of undergrad turns out to be more successful than either of his first two.

Obviously, Nathan aces subjects like philosophy, classical Greek, and Russian, but he also completes a correspondence course in Sanskrit. He even steps outside his comfort zone to join a club. The Italian Society.

He's grown up some since he first started college, and he's feeling more confident around people. He even fulfills a promise he made to his late mother, and joins the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society.

He spends most of his weekends birdwatching near Wolf Lake, southeast of the city. There's a nature preserve near the lake, and he has permission from the city to shoot birds in public parks.

The number of specimens in his collection soon soars to some 3,000, which he keeps in the third-floor study of his family's mansion. He even publishes a paper in the birdwatching journal, The Hawk.

So after a tumultuous couple of years, Nathan's doing just great. He's on track to graduate at the end of his third year of college, and is planning on enrolling at the University of Chicago's Law School right away. Life is good.

Back in Michigan, though, Dickie seems to be losing control. He's in his senior year, but unlike Nathan, he's not a member of any clubs besides his frat, and he doesn't participate in any extra-curriculars.

By this stage, he's 17 and spending most of his time lounging around the fraternity house, playing cards and reading detective stories. He also likes to drink, and he drinks so much and so often that it's hard to tell when he's actually sober.

Eventually, even his frat buddies have had enough. Richard's directionless and frankly kind of annoying. The fraternities executive committee votes to formally censure him and revoke his senior privileges within the group.

That doesn't bother Dickie much, though. He goes to enough classes and puts enough effort into his assignments that in 1923, he becomes the University of Michigan's youngest ever graduate. But after that, he really isn't sure what to do.

Getting a job seems like a lot to a 17-year-old, so instead, he heads back to his family home in Kenwood and decides that he'll take some history classes at the University of Chicago.

That way he can put off figuring out what he wants to do without committing to a post-grad degree. Of course, the University of Chicago is where his old friend Nathan's now studying law.

And without the pressure of his frat buddies to keep them apart, the two guys pick up exactly where they left off. Nathan, the worshipful puppy dog, and Richard, the wannabe criminal mastermind in need of a sidekick.

But although the basic foundation of their relationship is pretty much the same, both Babe and Dickie have changed in the two years they've spent apart. In particular, Nathan, now 18, is more assertive, and he's not scared to ask for what he wants.

And what he wants is to have sex with Richard. You may recall that both of these guys have some very specific fantasy lives they imagine for themselves. And each of these fantasies has a strong sexual undercurrent.

Nathan fantasizes about being a powerful slave owned by a king. Richard imagines he's a criminal genius who, after being caught, is stripped naked and whipped while pitying fans watch on.

But despite this seemingly masochistic fantasy, Dickie's not all that interested in sex itself. Nathan is, though, and because Dickie likes having his friend around, he goes along with it whenever Nathan propositions him.

You might call this a dysfunctional relationship, and from the outside, people wonder how Richard, an outgoing, jovial sort of guy, can stand to hang out with someone who's dour and arrogant and kind of unpleasant to be around.

Dickie's usually shrugged all that off because he's gotten along pretty well with Nathan, but now things are starting to grade on him a bit more. In particular, he's over the constant boasting.

Nathan is smart, yes, there's no question about that, but he's one of those people who can't help embellishing their stories to make himself seem even more impressive. He doesn't just take classes in languages, he's fluent in them.

He's not just a good student, he's the best in the class. Then again, some of the stuff Nathan says to Richard makes a lot of sense, like when he starts talking about philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's Theory of the Ubermensch, or Superman.

Nathan explains it like this, in the world, there just might exist an individual, or even several, who are so perfect that he stands outside of and beyond the constraints of regular society. This includes morals and laws, which are beneath him.

This Ubermensch is so much better than other men that his own pleasure and curiosity are all that matter. In Nathan's opinion, an Ubermensch could even murder somebody if he wanted to, and that would be his right.

But it's important to point out that Nathan has conveniently left a few things out here, several things. In fact, Nietzsche himself denounced any readings of his work in this way.

To him, the idea of the Ubermensch represented what humans could be at their full potential. But Nathan's misunderstanding of Nietzsche's complex theory isn't all that uncommon.

And it will eventually be used by the Nazis to explain the concept of a master race to people and to rationalize the Holocaust. So, Nathan Leopold, good student, not great. Richard Loeb, though, doesn't know this.

He just hears what his friends tell him and likes what he hears. Nathan strongly believes that Richard, his handsome, charming, smart friend, is an Ubermensch. And that fits in just perfectly with Dickey's view of himself as a master criminal.

Nathan also thinks of himself as, if not quite a Superman, then at least head and shoulders above everyone else. He looks at other people obeying laws and paying heed to petty moral standards, and he rolls his eyes. Pitiful.

And all of this, the fantasies, the sex, the warped Ubermensch theory, the scoffing at laws feed directly into what comes next. Because ever since Nathan's gotten his friend back, he's noticed that Dickey is lacking direction.

Nathan has plans to study at Harvard University to see the world, but Richard's less motivated. When Nathan prods him, though, he says that there is one goal he'd like to accomplish. He wants to commit the perfect crime.

And according to his friend, he's not only capable of doing this, he's entitled to it. It's a Tuesday night in the summer of 1923.

In Kenwood, a middle-class Chicago neighborhood, 18-year-old Nathan Leopold is reading in his father's study when the phone rings. He doesn't move. It's not his job to answer.

A few moments later, the door opens and the maid tells him there's a telephone call for him, a Mr. Richard Loeb. Nathan smiles, feeling a tingle rattle through his body at the sound of Richard's name.

He stands up and walks into the hall to the telephone, then dismisses the maid. When his friend speaks, it's another thrill. But the conversation is short, curt even.

They don't want to say anything that might arouse the suspicion of any family members who might overhear them, or of any switchboard operators listening in. So, they talk in code.

With the air of someone commenting on the weather, Dickie says that he saw a sale on fine silk handkerchiefs on the corner of 1st and 15th streets. Trying to sound bored, Nathan replies that he'll try to get down to the store to check it out.

Then, after a minute or two of meaningless chit chat, Richard mentions how hard it can be to talk to some people. Not Nathan, though. Then they hang up.

Nathan smiles to himself, certain that no one could ever crack their code, even if they were listening for it. But he knows that Dickie's reference to a store on the corner of 1st and 15th is a message.

The two streets run parallel to one another, so there is no corner. What Dickie meant was that he wants to meet at 1:15 a.m. And that comment about how easy it is to talk with Nathan?

Well, there's a speakeasy not too far from their neighborhood where they like to go sometimes. That's where they'll meet later. Now, that's still hours away, but Nathan's excited already.

He can't wait to see his friend and to talk about all the things they have planned.

Nathan and Richard Following their reunion in Chicago, Nathan and Richard spend the summer and fall of 1923 discussing ways to pull off more elaborate crimes than their immature exploits of the past.

For them, half the fun is in the planning stage, when they can game out the scenario and think of clever ways to avoid detection or conceal their crime from a victim.

In the earliest chapter of their friendship, they do things like call in false alarms or vandalize parked cars in the middle of the night. Once, they stole a tennis trophy from the Chicago Beach Hotel.

Another time, they threw a brick through a drugstore window. That one actually attracted the attention of nearby police, who shot at the guys as they ran from the scene. At least that's how they'll tell the story later.

But these crimes didn't particularly satisfy either of them. For Richard, he wanted something that was written about in the papers, and Nathan was happy to play accomplice to his friend, as long as they weren't risking arrest.

And preferably, he wanted something that made use of his intellect, too. So, what they needed was something bigger, but also quieter. A crime that will require careful planning and flawless execution to demonstrate their superior intellect.

One that will draw attention after the fact, but that they'll never be caught for. And in June, they come up with just the thing. They're going to burglarize a friend's wine cellar.

The cellar in question is in Hubbard Woods, 30 miles north of Kenwood, and the family who owns it will be in New York for part of the summer. It's perfect. They get to planning.

They decide that they'll need rope in case the maid is at the house and needs to be tied up. To help subdue her, Richard buys a wooden-handled chisel. He wraps the blade with tape so he can use the wooden end as a club.

Oh, and they'll bring a pair of pistols to shoot the night watchman if he shows up. When they think they thought of everything, they get in the car to drive to Hubbard Woods. Except, they realize that Dickie's car is too noisy.

There's no way they'll be able to get in and out of that house without everyone on the street knowing about it. So they turn around and go home.

On their second try, they take a different car and make it all the way to the house, but their excitement quickly fades. It turns out they're not very good burglars, because they can't work out how to break in through the cellar window.

After struggling with it for a while, they give up again. They take their rope, their chisel, their guns, and they go home empty handed. Well, not empty handed, but wine-less.

But really, neither of them is that frustrated by the failure. They're both certain that their plan was foolproof, and they've gotten away with it. You know, if they managed to get inside the house.

So with that in mind, they start planning their next big heist, and this time, they vow to make it inside. It's just after 3 a.m. on November 11, 1923, at the University of Michigan.

On Washtenaw Avenue, the Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity House is quiet. Hours ago, the frat was celebrating the university's football victory over the Marines. Now, though, the brothers are all passed out in their beds on the third floor.

And whoever was the last to drunkenly stumble upstairs forgot to make sure that the front door was locked. Richard and Nathan approach the mansion as quietly as they can, black ski masks covering their faces.

Each of them is carrying a flashlight and has a pistol tucked into their coat pocket. Richard's got his home made club again, and Nathan has a length of rope coiled over one arm just in case. It's tense as they push open the front door.

The lights are on in the living room, and for a moment, they're worried that they'll meet resistance. But the ground floor is deserted. They both breathe a sigh of relief and start looking for things to swipe.

This is Richard's former frat house, so he knows that all of the members sleep in bunks on the third floor, and that they mostly keep their clothes and smaller studies on the second floor.

On a night like this, he's counting on them to have left plenty of valuables out in the open. In the dark of the second story, the guys turn on their flashlights and grab anything they see. Cash, fraternity pins, a pocket knife, watches.

When they've collected a couple of pocketfuls of stuff, they turn to leave. That's when Nathan spots an underwood portable typewriter. He's already got a typewriter at home, but he could always do with another.

And besides, neither of them are stealing because they need to. This is just for fun. So Nathan puts the typewriter under his arm and follows Richard downstairs.

When they get back to the car, they pull off their masks, grinning at one another. They did it. They didn't get caught.

They are brilliant. Now that he's proven himself, Richard's riding high on the feeling that he's pulled one over on his frat brothers. He's ready to go back home to Chicago.

But Nathan's not having that. When they were planning this, they made an agreement. He'd hit the Zeta Beta town mansion with Richard if they also broke into a home that he chose.

And he wants to see that part of the plan through. After a few minutes of heated argument, Richard agrees to Nathan's demand, and they drive to the second house. But once they get there, they're spooked by noises coming from upstairs.

They make off with a camera from the ground floor living room and run back to the car, finally ready to make the long drive back to Chicago. But despite their relatively successful night, neither Richard nor Nathan is feeling satisfied.

Their brief disagreement over whether to hit the second target has brought a couple of things to the surface, persistent issues in their friendship.

Richard really just wants a literal partner in crime, someone who has the same objectives when it comes time to pull off their plans. And that's just not Nathan.

Nathan just likes being around Richard, especially when Richard agrees to have sex with him. And in Nathan's opinion, that's not happening enough. So, each of them, though, mostly Dickie is thinking about calling it quits on their friendship.

But with a 200-plus mile drive back to Chicago, the guys get into it, and after a lot of back and forth, they come up with a solution they're both happy with. Richard agrees to have sex with Nathan a certain number of times each month.

In exchange, Nathan will do just about anything Richard tells him to. He's allowed to ignore any ridiculous or outlandish requests, but if Dickie says the words, for Robert's sake, that means it's an order, and he cannot refuse.

With their new transactional relationship ironed out, talk turns back to the heist they've just pulled. Driving through the dawn, the adrenaline's worn off, and Richard starts complaining that it was all too easy.

Burglarizing a house full of sleeping college kids is like taking candy from a baby. He wants a challenge. He wants to get away with something big.

And after months listening to babe go on about Nietzsche and the Ubermensch, he starts to think it's his right to do whatever he wants. Exactly who suggests a kidnapping is their next endeavor, is something neither of them will ever admit to.

But once it's out there as an option, it's too good an idea to ignore. A flawlessly executed kidnapping and ransom plot would prove their superiority over the rest of mankind.

Okay, they'll need to compose a note, communicate with their victim's family, and work out a way to collect the money without ever being detected. But they're certain they can pull it off. They won't leave any clues.

Their crime will be flawless. It will be perfect. Of course, to get away with that crime, they know they'll need to kill their victim.

But that doesn't bother them. In the days following the Michigan burglaries, they toss around a few different ideas for who they should target. At first, they think about kidnapping one of their own fathers, but they dismiss that pretty quickly.

It's too close to home. Eventually, one of them suggests they should go for a child. Nathan thinks they should grab a girl.

He tells Richard that he's got this fantasy about a German soldier raping a French prisoner of war, and this seems like a perfect time to live out that twisted dream. But Richard shuts that down. He's not interested in fulfilling Nathan's fantasies.

And besides, girls are usually watched more closely than little boys. That would make it too difficult, even for him. Eventually, they decide that whoever their victim is, it should be someone from their own neighborhood.

They figure it'll be easier to entice a young boy they're familiar with to come with them. Plus, most families in their suburb are fairly wealthy, so they'll be able to afford a ransom. Slowly, things start to take shape.

Nathan and Richard have the basis of what they want to do. Now, they just need to make their final preparations. It's early spring in Chicago 1924.

19-year-old Nathan Leopold pulls his bright red Willis Knight to a stop on a dirt road just off 108th and Avenue F. He and 18-year-old Richard Loeb get out of the car, and Nathan leads the way towards Wolf Lake.

He knows the area well after spending years birdwatching here. Now he thinks it'll be the perfect place to hide a body.

The two friends move slowly through the undergrowth, pointing out patches of open space where they could dig a hole big enough to fit a child. But then Richard spots something that makes him realize they should be working smarter, not harder.

He calls Nathan back to show him. There's a set of railroad tracks running near the lake, and an unobtrusive drainage culvert cuts underneath the tracks. What does he think?

Would that work? Nathan's kind of stunned. He's been out here dozens and dozens of times, and he has never noticed that culvert.

And if he's never seen it, he's sure no one else will have paid any attention to it either. He agrees with Richard too. Digging a hole will be a lot of work they can avoid if they go with this option.

So that decides it. They found their victim's final resting place. Nathan and Richard have been quietly planning their perfect crime since November 1923.

And by the time they find the culvert near Wolf Lake, they figured out the basic shape of things. First, they'll lure a student from Nathan's former school, the Harvard School for Boys, into one of their cars.

They'll knock him out with something heavy, then use a rag soaked in ether to kill him. Once he's dead, they'll bring him out to the reserve, pour some kind of acid on his face to obscure his identity, then hide the body and drive away.

But the murder and disposal of the body is just a means to an end. The real test of their combined intellect and criminal genius will be collecting the ransom. They've put together a complex plan for that part.

They know they'll need to keep the police from getting involved too quickly, so they'll call their victim's family and warn them to stay quiet, then have a full ransom letter delivered soon after.

The day after the murder, they'll call the family and instruct the boy's father to follow a series of clues and phone calls to a specific train station, where he'll board the train and head for the last carriage.

When the train passes a certain building, he's to throw a package containing ransom money from the back platform of the car as hard as he can.

The guys have tested this and worked out that the money should land somewhere on 67th Street, so they can be waiting to collect it, and all before the cops know what's going on. In their minds, the plan is absolutely foolproof.

There's no possible way they can be tracked while they get the money. And because they plan to kill their victim long before they make their ransom demand, there's no chance they can be identified as the kidnappers.

That said, they know there are some kinks to work out. To begin with, Nathan's flashy red car is not ideal for kidnapping. It's much too noticeable.

So they need to get a rental. And of course, they can't rent a car using their real names. What if it gets traced back to them?

What they need is a fake name. And the process they use to set one up is surprisingly easy and kind of complicated. First, in early May, Nathan takes $100 to the small Hyde Park State Bank and asks to open an account.

He introduces himself as Morton Ballard, a traveling salesman from Peoria about 150 miles away. No, he doesn't have any identification, he tells the cashier, and no, he doesn't know anyone in the area who can vouch for him.

It's odd for a customer to not have any way of proving who they are, not even a reference. But the cashier can't think of a plausible reason to turn Nathan down. He takes the $100 deposit and hands over a checkbook and a passbook for Morton Ballard.

Step one, done. Later that same day, Richard checks in to the Morrison Hotel in the heart of the city. He uses the same story as Nathan.

He's Morton Ballard, traveling salesman. He only needs to stay one night, but he'll be back in a few weeks and asks if the front desk can hold any mail that arrives for him. The desk clerk agrees.

Step two, done. One more to go. A couple of days after that, Nathan rolls into a rent-a-car office on Michigan Avenue and once more introduces himself as Morton Ballard.

This time, he's got a bank passbook to prove it. He tells the assistant manager of the office, a man named William, that he's willing to put down a $400 deposit since he's a new customer. It's a lot of money.

In fact, it's possible to buy a car for less than that. And if that's not enough of a guarantee, Nathan says he could provide a personal reference, then hands over the phone number to a diner on the next street over.

Richard's waiting by the pay phone at the diner. So when the call comes in, he picks it up and says that yes, he's Louis Mason. And while yes, he does know a Morton ballot.

Of course, Morton's dependable, he tells William. And there you go. That's pretty much it.

Richard's part is done. So he hangs up and orders a sandwich while he waits. Back in the rental office, Nathan signs the paperwork to take a car for the day and says that he'll be back to rent it again in a few weeks.

And he asked that since William has already verified his identity, would he be able to send an identification card to the Morrison Hotel? That way he won't need to arrange a reference for next time.

Now, if this sounds strange, I am not surprised, but this is the 1920s, don't forget, when people didn't typically carry ID with them. Maybe a library card if you were lucky.

So, the fact that William had spoken to someone who said he knew and trusted this Morton Ballard guy was enough to verify that he is who he says he is.

William tells Nathan that he'll send the card to the hotel, then hands him the keys to his rental car. With that taken care of, Nathan and Richard are just about ready. They've decided how they'll kill their victim, where they'll hide the body.

They know how they'll deliver the ransom to man, and how they'll collect the money. They're confident that their plan is so meticulously thought out that there's no way the crime will be traced back to them. May 21st will be the big day.

That's when they'll make the decision about who their victim will be. They want to scope out the Harvard School for Boys that afternoon and choose someone who's on his own. Someone nice and vulnerable.

On the 20th, they make their final preparations. Nathan visits a stationary store to buy writing paper and envelopes to use for the ransom note. Then he heads to a drug store, where he asks for hydrochloric acid and ether.

While the salesman is ringing him up, Nathan complains, offhandedly, about how difficult it's been to find both the chemicals. Now, see, for all his careful planning, he never thinks that being a memorable customer could ever come back to Biter.

Meanwhile, Richard's at a hardware store, where he buys rope and another wooden-handled chisel. He tosses both items onto the front seat of his car and heads home. A thrill of excitement buzzing through every inch of his body.

As he drives along the quiet Kenwood streets, he thinks about two facts he's certain of. This time tomorrow, he'll be a killer. And he'll have gotten away with it.

But as it turns out, he's only right about one of those things. From Airship, this is episode two in our series on Leopold and Loeb. On the next episode, Nathan and Richard carry out their perfect crime.

But nothing goes to plan. We use many different sources while preparing this episode. A couple we can recommend are Leopold and Loeb, The Crime of the Century by Hal Higdon, and For the Thrill of It by Simon Botts.

This episode may contain reenactments or dramatized details. And while in some cases we can't know exactly what happened, all our dramatizations are based on historical research.

American Criminal is hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Jeremy Schwartz. Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzi. Sound design by Matthew Filler.

Music by Thrum. This episode is written and researched by Joel Callan, managing producer Emily Burke. Executive producers are Joel Callan, William Simpson, and Lindsey Graham.