On November 5, 1950, The Field Museum [the Chicago Museum of Natural History at the time] Curator of Mammalogy Colin Sanborn received an extraordinary letter, which began as follows: It wasn’t the request itself that was so unusual: individuals (or their descendants) frequently inquired about a specimen donated to the museum. It was the letter’s author, in this case, that made it stand out: Nathan Leopold, Jr. Prior to becoming part of the infamous duo Leopold and Loeb, convicted for kidnapping and murdering Bobby Franks, a 14-year-old neighbor, Leopold had been a birder and ornithologist.
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