Episode 111 of MARS MESSINA PRESENTS is a True Crime episode devoted to the Leopold & Loeb homicide case. In an attempt to commit "the perfect crime", 19-year-olds Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb murdered Loeb's 14 year old cousin, Bobby Franks, in May of 1924. The case engendered worldwide fascination because of the viciousness of the crime, that the murderers were believed to be homosexual, and that the murderers and the victim were all Jewish.

The case was mainly fascinating in that defense attorney, Clarence Darrow, constructed a psychiatric case for his two clients, which was the first time in American history that a defense attorney used mental illness in an attempt to talk a court down from a death penalty sentence to life in prison. Darrow was successful in doing that. We will read an excerpt from his closing argument.

BEDTIME STORIES FROM THE ACOUSTIC BOOKSHELF closes this episode with a reading of the poem, "The Ideal", by Charles Baudelaire.

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