In 1924, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, two wealthy teenagers from Chicago, brutally kidnapped and murdered 14-year-old Bobby Franks as part of a plan to commit the “perfect crime.” They lured Franks into a car, killed him with a chisel, and disposed of his body in a culvert, all while planning to extort a ransom from his family. However, their plan quickly unraveled when a pair of distinctive glasses dropped at the crime scene led to their capture. During their trial, defense attorney Clarence Darrow argued that Leopold and Loeb’s actions were influenced by a distorted understanding of evolution and Nietzsche’s philosophy. The two believed that, like the “superior” individuals in evolutionary theory, they were beyond the moral constraints that governed ordinary people.

They saw themselves as intellectual “Übermenschen” (supermen) who were justified in committing the murder, as they were above society’s laws. Darrow used this defense to argue that the pair were not fully responsible for their actions, suggesting their psychological immaturity and delusions played a role in the crime. As a result, they were spared the death penalty and sentenced to life imprisonment.