I thought I knew everything about the Leopold and Loeb murder case, but then I watched the L&L American Experience episode.
I’ve always assumed that after their conviction they lived out their life sentences in separate prisons, but no. They ended up in the same prison and hung out as buddies. (Or possibly, they continued on as lovers.)
"Well, there's a story," I thought, and started researching.
Here’s what I learned:
They worked in the same area in prison and were allowed to do projects as a team. (Teamwork makes the dream work, whether it’s prison literacy or child murder, I suppose.)
Loeb died ten years in, when he was sliced to death by another prisoner, James Day. Leopold stayed by Loeb’s bedside until he died.
Leopold had to see Loeb’s murderer every day after that, because they were both penned up in the psychiatric ward. Leopold took to screaming into his hands a lot.
He was eventually paroled after 33 years. He married and lived in Puerto Rico for another 13 years after that, but still had affairs with the ex-con men he sponsored when they got out of prison.
In his post-prison life, the reformed Leopold kept a photo of Loeb in his bedroom, which did not seem to bother Leopold's wife at all.
She explained it away, saying her husband was “complex.”
This is a pathological level of forgiveness. I suppose she might have said other things, such as, “He’s a different person now,” or, “He only murdered that one child.”
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