Home > Opinion > John A. Farrell > Leopold, Loeb and the Curious Case of the Greatest Newspaper Lead Never Written

Leopold, Loeb and the Curious Case of the Greatest Newspaper Lead Never Written

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An English newspaper ran a story about an elderly woman who complained that the maintenance of her flat was so bad that centipedes were coming out of her faucet. The headline ran:"Elderly grandma survives fall of 100 feet into a glass of water."

Noah Nehm of CA 12:09AM December 03, 2009

I worked for Lahey in Washington from 1962 until his death in July 1969, and always regretted never asking him about the Loeb lede. So I am glad that Rob Warden did. The bulletin board theory sounds exactly right. The book cited in Farrell's blog is "Letters from the Editor" by William F. Woo. I edited Bill's essays into a book after his death and inserted the qualification cited here, having also failed to find the legendary lede in the microfilm.

Phll Meyer of NC 5:33PM December 02, 2009

I'm gratified by Rob Warden's report that Lahey told him the fabled lede only made the bulletin board. This speaks well for the Daily News editors -- and it may speak well of Lahey. Rob doesn't specify whether Lahey turned in the lede and the editors rejected it, or whether Lehey wrote his story for publication and then, for fun, wrote the lede that he knew would get a chuckle but was worthy only of the bulletin board.
As a pun a it's a groaner, which is excellent. But as a lede it fails because it doesn't tell the news: Loeb is dead.

Tom Stites of MA 3:49PM December 02, 2009

Don Wise of the Daily Express (recorded in Chris Munnion's Banana Sunday: Datelines from Africa), 1970s:
"The first man to be killed in Portuguese Africa nearly fell into my beer today."

Jim Whyte 3:16PM December 02, 2009

Thanks very much for writing this item, and for soliciting comments. I'd always wondered about the lede, especially after finding no reference to it in the recent book on Leopold and Loeb, which I read last summer (but whose name and author escape me.) I thought it remarkable that someone could write an entire book on the case and not look into so famous an aspect of it. It sounds to me as if Rob Warden has nailed the matter, and, as an appreciator of journalistic lore, I'm grateful to him, too.

David Margolick of NY 12:31PM December 02, 2009

I searched the microfilm edition of the Chicago Daily News in vain for the famous lead on Richard Loeb's death, but only the final edition was on microfilm. I was very disappointed, naturally. Several people who worked at the Daily News at the time assured me that the lead had appeared in an earlier edition. Frankly, I was skeptical. But on a Saturday afternoon in (I think) 1969, I happened to be alone in the Daily News newsroom (I was the assistant financial editor) wgeb ub walked none other than the great Edwin A. Lahey (who then worked for Knight Newspapers). I recognized him from a photograph that had appeared with a recent series he had written about Richard J. Daley. I introduced myself. He just happened to be in town and strolled in just out of curiosity. He sat down and we talked for perhaps 35 minutes, during which I, naturally, asked about the infamous lead. He told me that indeed he'd written it, but it was never published. It only made the bulletin board. You'll note that in Done in a Day, I said that Lahey "wrote" the lead. I didn't say it was published. It wasn't.

Rob Warden of IL 12:18PM December 02, 2009

Ok, so I went home and dug out "Done in a Day" the 1977 compilation of 100 years of Chicago Daily News articles, edited by Dick Griffin and Rob Warden. In it, on page 405, they introduce another story on Leopold and Loeb this way:
"Fabled Daily News writer Edwin A. Lahey, then a crime reporter, wrote a classic lead for that story: 'Richard Loeb, who was a master of the English language, today ended a sentence with a proposition.'
Not exactly proof. But closer to it.

Daniel Rubin of PA 9:56PM December 01, 2009

Hal Higdon of Michigan City, Ind., wrote a well-researched book on the case, "Crime of the Century." He probably would know. In the book, I believe he writes that the lede was true but not necessarily accurate as Loeb the proposition was the other way around.

Christie Bleck of MI 4:47PM December 01, 2009

You obviously looked at John McPhaul's Deadlines & Monkeyshines; you and he described Loeb in similar manner. McPaul: "a year earlier the youngest man ever to be graduated by the University of Michigan." But you did not include McPaul's version of Lahey's lead: "Although a college graduate Richard Loeb today ended his sentence with a proposition."

Larry Lorenz of LA 4:21PM December 01, 2009

I submit this, in fact, as the greatest lead ever -- written by Clem Lame, also a Chicago Daily News reporter, July 18, 1935. My source is Murder Most Foul, a compilation of crime reportage edited by Rob Warden and Martha Groves (Swallow Press):
"This is the story of 'Two-Gun Louie' Alterie, one-time pugilist, one-time policeman, one-time robber, one-time lieutenant of Johnny Torrio and Dion O'Banion, erstwhile rancher and union business agent, and today the subject of a coroner's inquest as to who shot him and why not sooner."

Ron Berler of CT 4:03PM December 01, 2009