It was called "The Trial of the Century," a media circus before we even had the term. In 1924, two University of Chicago students kidnapped and murdered a young schoolboy in Kenwood, just north of Hyde Park on Chicago's South Side. America was riveted by details of the grisly crime; the lawyerly maneuverings of celebrity attorney Clarence Darrow were a source of daily discussion and distraction. Your tour guide and fellow timetraveler is University of Chicago scholar and noted storyteller Paul Durica, who reveals how a collection of artifacts—a pair of glasses, an Underwood typewriter, a green touring car, a length of rope, a chisel with a taped handle, a checkered stocking—helped disprove the alibi given by Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb. Had these young men of wealth and education turned to murder, as they later claimed, for the "thrill of it?"

This program was recorded on October 21, 2012 as part of the 23rd annual Chicago Humanities Festival, America: http://chf.to/2012America