Editing Leopold and Loeb (section)

== Adolescence and early crimes ==
The two young men grew up with their families in the affluent [[Kenwood, Chicago|Kenwood]] neighborhood on Chicago's [[South Side, Chicago|South Side]]. The Loebs owned a summer estate (the farm part of which is now called [[Castle Farms]] and is a popular wedding venue) in [[Charlevoix, Michigan]], as well as a mansion in Kenwood, two blocks from the Leopold home.

Though Leopold and Loeb knew each other casually while growing up, they began to see more of each other in the spring of 1920;<ref name="AmExper">{{cite web |date=April 10, 2018 |title=The Perfect Crime: In Love with Murder – Transcript |url=http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/perfectcrime/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180416151330/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/perfectcrime/ |archive-date=April 16, 2018 |access-date=April 11, 2018 |website=[[PBS]]}}</ref> their relationship flourished at the University of Chicago, as part of a mutual friend group. Their sexual relationship began in February 1921 and continued until the pair was arrested.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Rebain |first=Erik |title=Arrested Adolescence: The Secret Life of Nathan Leopold |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |year=2023 |isbn=978-1538158609 |pages=22}}</ref>

Since childhood Loeb had been stealing small things from friends, family and stores. He would sometimes show off his pick-pocketing skills to friends in high school in an attempt to impress them.<ref name=":1">Transcript of the State of Illinois vs. Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, 4104-4113.</ref> When Loeb met Leopold the pair began to steal things together, and worked out a system to cheat their friends and family during games of [[Contract bridge|bridge]], though it was largely unsuccessful.<ref name=":1" /> They also upgraded to larger crimes, including breaking into people's homes to steal things like wine, piano benches and vacuum cleaners.<ref>Rebain (2023). p. 35</ref> The pair would also drive around throwing bricks through car and store windows and committed several acts of arson, enjoying setting a building on fire, driving away, changing clothes, and then chatting with others who came out to watch the firefighters attempt to put out their blaze.<ref name=":1" />

While Loeb seems to have been content to do these things for fun, Leopold felt the need to justify them philosophically. He was an individual [[Hedonism|hedonist]], as he explained it, he would weigh all of the pleasure or pain he would receive from an action, and do what would give him the most pleasure. This extended to every arena of his life, including his eventual decision to commit murder. As he explained to a psychiatrist: "Making up my mind to commit murder was practically the same as making up my mind whether or not I should eat pie for supper, whether it would give me pleasure or not."<ref name=":1" />

Leopold was also interested in [[Friedrich Nietzsche]]'s concept of "supermen" (''[[Übermensch]]en''), interpreting them as transcendent individuals possessing extraordinary and unusual capabilities, whose superior intellects allowed them to rise above the laws and rules that bound the unimportant, average populace.<ref name="Linder" /> Leopold believed it was possible that he and Loeb could become such individuals, and as such, by his interpretation of Nietzsche's doctrines, they were not bound by any of society's normal ethics or rules.<ref name="Linder" /> In a letter to Loeb, he wrote, "A superman ... is, on account of certain superior qualities inherent in him, exempted from the ordinary laws which govern men. He is not liable for anything he may do."<ref name="Baatz">{{cite book |last=Baatz |first=Simon |title=For the Thrill of It |date=2009 |publisher=[[HarperCollins]] |isbn=978-0060781026 |location=New York}}</ref>

After robbing Loeb's old fraternity house at the University of Michigan, where they stole penknives, a camera, and a typewriter that they later used to type the [[ransom]] note for their murder victim, Bobby Franks, Loeb proposed they should commit a "[[perfect crime]]" that would garner public attention and confirm their superiority to others.<ref>Higdon (1975), pp. 150–154</ref>