The Loeb-Leopold case - The Clarence Darrow Collection

The Loeb-Leopold Case
this grow and develop in him? Let us see. It seems
to me as natural as the day following the night.
Every detective story is a story of a sleuth getting
the best of it; trailing some unfortunate individual
through devious ways until his victim is finally
landed in jail or stands on the gallows. They all
show how smart the detective is, and where the
criminal himself falls down.
This boy early in his life conceived the idea that
there could be a crime that nobody could ever
detect; that there could be one where the detective
did not land his game. He had been interested in
the story of Charley Ross, who was kidnaped.
I might digress here just a moment, because my
friend Savage spoke about two crimes that were
committed here — kidnaping and murder. That is,
the court should hang them twice — once for each.
There are more than two committed here. There
are more than two crimes committed in almost every
capital act.
In almost any important crime the State's Attor-
ney can write indictments as long as the paper lasts.
He wanted to commit a perfect crime. There
had been growing in his brain, dwarfed and twisted
— as every act in this case shows it to have been
dwarfed and twisted — there had been growing this
scheme, not due to any wickedness of Dickie Loeb,
for he is a child. It grew as he grew; it grew from
those around him; it grew from the lack of the proper
training until it possessed him. He believed he
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