There was a massive public outcry when the murderers were spared the death penalty, and once they were behind bars in Joliet Prison, most hoped they would never be heard from again.

Nathan Leopold seemed to live a charmed life: a published, polyglot college graduate by the time he was 18 and from a prominent, wealthy Chicago family. So it was a shock to everyone when he and his lover, Richard Loeb, confessed to killing their 14-year-old neighbor Bobby Franks “for a thrill.”

33 years after the murder, it seemed that Nathan Leopold was a changed man. In prison he ran a high school and library, worked as a nurse and helped find a cure for malaria. He was deemed rehabilitated and paroled to a tiny town in the mountains of Puerto Rico. There he got a degree in social work, raised funds to build a hospital and advocated for the abolishment of prisons and capital punishment.

When he died in 1971 there was an outpouring of support for the “gentle” “reformed” killer. Yet his life was not what it seemed.

Join us as Author Erik Rebain discusses his research for his book, Arrested Adolescence.

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