Task #10

I went to Consumer Reports and looked up information about Leica cameras. It's very handy to be able to limit the search by date with a simple sliding device they've placed on the right.

I then decided to read up on Leopold and Loeb on the Biography resource center. Did you know that the boy they murdered was actually a distant cousin to Loeb who was later murdered in prison? Also, although both were sentenced to ninety nine years for kidnapping and life for the murder Leopold "became a model prisoner who won the respect of guards and prison officials. He enrolled in correspondence courses in advanced mathematics, physics, and classical languages from the University of Iowa.

Interested in prison reform, he persuaded the faculty at the university to help organize correspondence courses for prisoners and to replace textbooks that had been lost in a fire. He also convinced the prison staff to make it easier for inmates to borrow and read books. During World War II (1939-45), he volunteered for medical tests intended to advance knowledge of the causes and treatment of malaria. Some people regarded Leopold's behavior as a self-serving ploy to gain early release. But others were convinced by it. Impressed by Leopold's apparent rehabilitation, Illinois Governor William Stratton commuted his ninety-nine-year sentence to eighty-five years, which improved the possibility for his ultimate parole (early release).

In 1958 Leopold presented his fifth plea for release. Writer Carl Sandburg--with whom Leopold exchanged letters--and University of Iowa professor Helen Williams spoke on his behalf. Shortly before his release, he announced the formation of the Leopold Foundation to aid disturbed children. The foundation was funded in part with proceeds from his Life Plus 99 Years, an autobiography serialized by the Chicago Daily News and published in book form in 1958. It featured an introduction by crime novelist Erle Stanley Gardner. While the book did not discuss the murder of Bobby Franks, it gave a detailed account of Leopold's life in prison. Most reviewers praised the book.

On March 13, 1958, after thirty-three years in prison, Leopold was released to the custody of the Church of the Brethren, to which he had been converted while in prison. He worked for $10 per month in the church's medical mission at Castañer, in Puerto Rico's hill country, where he taught mathematics and helped raise funds for the church. He also took correspondence courses from the University of Puerto Rico, earning a master of science degree in June 1961. Three years after his release, he married Trudi Feldman Garcia de Quevado. Leopold died of a heart attack in 1971. In accordance with his wishes, his body was donated to the University of Puerto Rico's School of Medicine." ("Leopold and Loeb." Outlaws, Mobsters & Crooks: From the Old West to the Internet. Vol. 5. U*X*L, 2002.
Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2009. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC)