University of Chicago students, & lovers- Richard Loeb & Nathan Leopold, Jr. murder 14-year-old Bobby Franks in a "thrill killing". The couple were motivated to murder Franks by their desire to commit a perfect crime.The couple were known to be exceptionally & keenly intelligent. Once caught, Leopold & Loeb retained Clarence Darrow as for their defense.
Leopold & Loeb have been the inspiration for many works in film, theater & literature, including the1929 play & Alfred Hitchcock's 1948 film- Rope. In 1956, Meyer Levin used the case as the basis of his novel Compulsion, a fictionalized version of the actual events in which the names were changed to Steiner & Strauss. The novel was made into a film of the same name. Never the Sinner- a theatrical recreation of the Leopold & Loeb trial, was written by John Logan in 1988. Other works inspired by the case include Tom Kalin's more openly gaythemed 1992 film Swoon; The1997 film Funny Games, with an American shot-for-shot remake in 2008; 1997's Kiss the Girls based on the 1995 bestselling novel of the same name by James Patterson; Barbet Schroeder's Murder by Numbers (2002); & Stephen Dolginoff's 2005 off-Broadway musical Thrill Me; & various TV episodes including on Law & Order. In Season 2 of Mad Men, Don Draper refers to Ken Cosgrove & Freddy Rumsen as Leopold & Loeb.
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A series of demonstrations that came to be known as The White Night Riots took place in San Francisco after the man who murdered Harvey Milk & SF Mayor George Moscone. Dan White was given an extremely lenient conviction of voluntary manslaughter. It was the lightest possible sentence that White could have received, after gunning down the mayor & Milk in cold blood in city hall. The announcement of the verdict brought to a head the ongoing tension that San Francisco's LGBT community felt toward the police & the criminal justice system in the city, which had for years actively discriminated against the LGBT population. White was convicted of manslaughter rather than murder in the deaths of Milk & Moscone based on the infamous Twinkie Defence. White’s defence team insisted that he was depressed & suffered a Diminished Capacity caused by consuming junk food & sugar laden soft drinks.
After serving 5 years out of a 7 year sentence, White returned to San Francisco & 2 years later committed suicide. What followed after White's conviction was announced, the White Night Riots, brought out more than 50,000 gay people & allies into the streets. Demonstrators were outraged that White was given such a small sentence for murdering 2 people. Cleve Jones said at the time: “Today, Dan White was essentially patted on the back. He was convicted of manslaughter—what you get for hit and run. We all know this violence has touched all of us. It was not manslaughter. I was there that day at City Hall. I saw what the violence did. It was not manslaughter, it was murder.”
The demonstrations took place 31 years ago today.They caused more than $800,000 in damage to the city of San Francisco, & numerous injuries were reported. Police retaliated with a raid on a bar in the Castro, where still in riot gear, they beat the patrons. The riots also showed the raw political power & mobility of the LGBT population, & influenced SF politics for years to come.
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