Criminology - H.H. Holmes

Episode Date: July 30, 2023

H.H. Holmes is often referred to as America's first serial killer. He became fascinated as a child with death and later studied medicine in college. Holmes didn't make all of his money legally. He used arson to con insurance companies and cadavers to collect life insurance. It seems that he began killing mainly to cover up his crimes. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the infamous H.H. Holmes. Holmes confessed to over 20 murders but the real number is in question. Some people believe Holmes elevated the number to sell a book. Also in question is just how many people Holmes killed at what the media dubbed his "murder hotel." You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 267 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Morford, man, what's going on with you? Well, I'm recovering from an illness that, you know, I've been fighting through the last few days. My kids brought home one of their typical germs that they bring into that house. And as usual, my wife and I are the ones.

and dealing with it, but feeling better and happy to record this episode. What's new with you? Oh, not a whole lot. We're counting down to my youngest going to college. My wife's been pretty emotional lately. You know, it's, uh, to think about being an empty nester, I guess, is, uh, I don't know, it's a little strange. Yeah, it's a new chapter. You've got to figure out what you're going to do. And this week, my, my daughter has been away. So it's my son that's home. And it's a lot quieter. It's a lot different and you know you sort of get that feeling what are you going to do when when we do have an empty nest yeah because you know for years and years and years you're used to noise and routines and and then when that all goes away it's very very different but um let's go ahead and give our

patreon shoutouts we had Heather Caesar Stephanie burnt Pat Hartley Ralph Castaneda and Janet Skull. So that's a lot of great new support. We really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks so much for taking the time to support the show. It means a lot to us. And for anyone else who'd like to support, you can go to patreon.com slash criminology.

All right. Let's jump right in. Now, in our last episode, we talked about the arrest of 59-year-old Rex Harriman, who was suspected of killing four women and burying their bodies on Gilgo Beach in New York. He's also suspected in the, Long Island serial killings, which the four murders on Go Go Beach have long been thought

apart of, it's possible there are multiple serial killers operating in the same area like we talked about before. But it's also possible that he has many more victims than anyone ever thought. He's just the most recent in a long line of other serial killers. And in researching Harriman and the Long Island serial killer, we were reminded so many times of other, known serial killers whose activities and patterns are easy to plot. The existence of these patterns and similarities is part of how criminal profiling and the behavioral analysis unit got started, but it doesn't take an expert to notice them, and we can see them in killers even going back to the 1800s.

In this episode, we're going to take a closer look at the crimes of one of those killers from the 1800s, H.H. Holmes, who has... was often called America's first serial killer. While he is widely known as a serial killer with a murder hotel in which he stocked victims, he was only actually convicted of a single murder, but is undoubtedly responsible for more. He ultimately confessed to 27 murders and six attempted murders. H.H. Holmes was born as Herman Webster Mudget on May 16, 1861, in Gilminton, New Hampshire. He was said to be bullied by classmates for his intellect and for doing so well in school.

When he was 11, some of his classmates pulled him into a doctor's office, an office that he had to walk past every day on the way to school, and he was known to be afraid of. There are varying reports of what happened, but one report says that he was made to touch a skull, and that he saw a cabin full of preserved organs, and whatever happened that day terrified him, but supposedly helped him overcome his fear of death,

and it unleashed a fascination with death. He started dissecting animals as part of his newfound curiosity. At age 16, he graduated with honors from Gilminton Academy. On July 4, 1878, he married Clara Lovering in Alton, New Hampshire. They had one son together named Robert. So, more, if this is a big case, I mean, most people know of H.H. Holmes. The one thing that has jumped out at me already was that he was bull, You know, we've done so many episodes about killers.

And one thing that comes up quite a bit is that many of them were bullied as kids. And we know bullying is bad. I mean, there have been so many efforts over the last however many years to try to end bullying and make it so that people are reporting it. And there's a good reason why. You know, I really think that it's. so harmful on a psychological level. And I think some of the research that we do proves that. Yeah, I think bullying is terrible and it's something I've always been against. And I'm glad that

in modern times here, they've taken a stance against this in schools and online. People are trying to curb it. But back obviously in the 1800s, you know, they didn't have that. It was just probably boys being boys, you know, making fun of each other, that kind of thing. But in a lot of these cases of serial killers, no matter what the year is that we're talking about, there's sometimes something in their background, some moment that might trigger something that is some kind of trauma they experience that you have to wonder, did it play a role in them becoming a serial killer? And perhaps in the case of H.H. Holmes, this incident having to look at these,

bodies, that may have been the trigger for him. And then he goes on to start dissecting animals. And, and, you know, that is something we see quite a bit as well. Cruelty to animals or, you know, fascination with animals as some type of precursor to, I don't want to use the word experimenting, because that's not correct, but expanding their fascination to people. Yeah, it makes me think right away of Jeffrey D. Dahmer. He had a fascination with experimenting on animals and dissecting them. And I wonder if there's,

when does it cross the line between a kid that's just curious and has a mind of wanting to learn about biology and how bodies are put together and it's not anything sinister to when they're disturbed and the dissecting of these animals is a sign of something troubling? in 1882, Herman studied medicine at the University of Vermont in Burlington. In 1883, he and Clara moved to Ann Arbor, where he studied medicine at the University of Michigan. In 1884, Clara left Herman and took Robert back to New Hampshire, while in medical school, Herman stole cadavers, took out insurance policies on them, naming himself as the beneficiary, disfigured them in some way, so it looked as though they died.

died in an accident and then placed their body somewhere where it would be found. That same year, Herman was supposed to graduate. A widow claimed that he had promised to marry her, but didn't. And so he had a hard time being able to graduate. At first, when we were researching this, we weren't sure if this was some sort of law he was accused of breaking or if it was maybe part of the university's honor code at the time, but whatever the case.

It seems interesting that your graduation could be held up due to a false promise of marriage. It turns out that the university did have an honor code and in their eyes, Herman had broken that code. Herman then moved to Moore's New York, but left after he was seen in the company of a young boy that ended up disappearing. Herman claimed the boy had traveled back to Massachusetts. But he laughed before any investigation. could happen. And I think once again, we're talking about the time period here. Imagine not being able to graduate college or being threatened with not being able to graduate because you had promised to marry someone, but then broke it off for whatever reason. Definitely a different time

back then than now. Yeah, I'm reminded of these, and it's a little different, but, you know, towns and cities have these strange laws that are still on the books for whatever reason that go back to let's say the 1800s, the early 1900s. There's one that I've heard about and I don't know, it might be close to me and it might not be. I can't remember. But it was like no whale parking on Sunday. And I thought, first of all, who's parking a whale this far inland or

or perking a well anywhere. But it's like, why wouldn't you take that off the books? Yeah, it's interesting to look back at some of the laws. You know, even back in the 1930s, I remember Frank Sinatra was arrested in charge with seduction, whatever that means. Apparently he had sex with someone and, you know, it was something that was frowned upon. So even into the 1900s, some of these laws were sort of outdated in comparison with today. By August 1886, Herman Mudgeett was living in Chicago, at which point he took on a new name,

Henry Howard Holmes, or H.H. Holmes, the name most people know him by today. This was supposedly a name he chose after the fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes. H.H. worked as a pharmacist while he schemed about theft and murder. Toward the end of the year, he married Murda Belknap in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They had one daughter together named Lucy. In Englewood, Minnesota, Holmes went into a... a drugstore to the northwest corner of South Wallace Avenue in West 63rd Street and was hired to work there by the store's owner, Elizabeth Holton. He worked so hard he was eventually able to buy the

store. He also bought the empty lot across the street from the store so that he could build his own building. In 1887, construction began on his two-story mixed-use building with business spaces on the bottom floor and apartments upstairs. So on the one hand, more if it sounds like maybe he was a hard worker. On the other hand, I think he was a schemer. So I don't know how much of it was actually hard work, how much money he was getting from maybe illegitimate sources. But nevertheless, you know, he was able to buy the store and buy this, this lot across the street. So he was making money at the very least. You had to go into a drug store and take an entry level job and work your way up all the way to being able to buy it. It certainly seemed like he was a hard worker and maybe

if he had stayed on a straight path, he could have been a very successful businessman and instead he chose to go down a different path. In 1888, H.H. Holmes was sued by Etna, Iron and Steel because he didn't pay them or the architect for their services in building his new structure on January 17, 1894. After his second marriage had failed, H.H. Holmes married Georgiana Yoke in Denver, Colorado. At this point, he was still married legally to both Clara and murder. By 1894, multiple insurance companies wanted H.H. to be prosecuted for arson. It was reported that he would start fires to collect from insurance companies for the damage. The arson was his preferred method of damage. damaging buildings for insurance payout. So in July, hoping to escape the arson charges,

he headed to Texas. He attempted to settle in Fort Worth where he tried to have another building constructed without paying the crew. So no surprise. He didn't last long there. He ended up in St. Louis, Missouri. But again, his ways quickly caught up to him. In 1893, he was arrested for selling mortgage goods, but he didn't stay behind bars for long. And more, if you said something about, okay, maybe he was a hard worker, what would have happened if he would have kind of stayed on that path? Would he have been a successful businessman? Maybe.

But it sounds to me as though he was more of a get rich quick schemer. You know, he had a lot of things going. let's build a building and we won't pay the crew, set buildings on fire and collect the insurance payouts. You know, I'm really getting a vibe of the guy who wanted money, but wanted to get it quickly and was willing to do illegal things to acquire it. He definitely seems like a con man or a grifter. But at the same time, as we mentioned, he seemed like he could have been the person that could

have attained all that stuff had he chose to do the right thing and do it legally, but he didn't want to do that. So maybe that just speaks to what kind of person he really was deep down, that he was a criminal or had criminal intent. But I think the same could be said for a lot of people who turned to crime. Is it their only avenue in life? And I would say for a lot of people, no, but is it easier? Maybe. You know, most of us who, you know, you know, work an eight to five job, which is really probably not many anymore. We're asked to work a lot more hours than that. It's a grind. It's tough, right? It's not easy to make a living that way, but it's legal. It's something you should feel good about. And a lot of people could do it. But they see

those dollar sign and they want that money and they see an easier way to get it. And even though it's not legal, they choose that way. Yeah, we know in 2003, there are people like that that do exactly that, but this goes to show that back in the 1800s, there were people like H.H. Holmes that were the same way. And I think we're going to be talking about that throughout the episode. How many different things that, let's say, H.H. did back in the day, still hold true today. And there's probably going to be quite a few,

things like that. During the brief time, H.H. was in jail. He met a man Marion Hedgepeth, who had been dubbed the handsome bandit. Hedgepeth was doing a 25-year sentence at the time. Together, the two men came up with a plan to get a lot of money. Holmes would purchase a life insurance policy for himself, fake his death, and collect $10,000. $10,000 might not sound like a lot, but in today's economy, it's the equivalent of $300,000.

Holmes offered Hedgepeth $500 if he could provide the name of a shady attorney who they could trust to help them with their plan. Hedgepeth told him about a man named Jeff the Howe, a lawyer in St. Louis. Howe was apparently fine with the plan and willing to participate in the fraudulent scheme. Holmes purchased the $10,000 life insurance policy and then faked his own death and had attorney Jeff the Howe reach out to the insurance company to collect on the policy. But the insurance company didn't believe it, and suspicious that something was going on, they didn't release the money.

Holmes was frustrated but decided to try the scheme once again, this time with someone else helping him. This time, Benjamin Pytzell, an associate of Holmes, agreed to take part in the insurance fraud scheme. Pitesol purchased a $10,000 life insurance policy for himself in Philadelphia using the false name B.F. Perry. And again, this is over $300,000 in today's money. Holmes would have had enough to pay HedgePath, Hal, and Pitzel for their help. The plan was for Pizel to fake his death. and Holmes to help him collect the money by finding a cadaver that would double as parry. They would horribly disfigure this cadaver beyond recognition and what they would claim was a lab accident.

But Holmes knew he couldn't go through with this fake death so soon after the last fake death con because it would be too suspicious. So they pulled off other various cons and thefts while they waited for the right time to put their plan in motion. On September 4th, 1894, Holmes put his own version of the plan into motion. He had decided that he didn't want to pay Pizel for his help. So he used chloroform to make Pizel unconscious and then set him on fire using benzene as an accelerant with Pizel debt and a body that he could produce, Holmes was able to collect the insurance payout. So we talked about this guy being a con man, used the word grifter. I mean, I think all of that applies, but now he has definitely

crossed a line from monetary crimes to murder. And, you know, what it gives me is the feeling that again, this guy wanted money. I mean, money's at the root of it. But it's almost as if, at a certain point, he realized that he was willing to cross any line to get it. Yeah, and I think with some people, when they cross that line, they don't have a filter. They're just capable of doing it repeatedly, and I think we're going to see that's the case with H.H. Holmes convinced Pitezel's wife, Carrie Alice Canning, to grant custody of three of her five children to him. 13-year-old Alice, 9-year-old Nellie, and 7-year-old Howard Robert went to live with Holmes. because Carrie knew about her husband's plan to fake his own death,

Holmes was able to convince her that he was still alive and that he had used a cadaver to receive the payout. Holmes claimed that Pytzel was hiding out in London. Holmes and the three children traveled north to Canada, with Carrie and the other two children following closely. He gave Carrie false information to keep her on a separate route and to keep her from reuniting with her children. On October 8, 1894, Holmes killed Alice and Nellie Pytzel.

He shoved them both into a large trunk and locked them inside. That may have eventually killed them, but it wasn't fast enough for Holmes. So he caught a hole in the trunk big enough to slide a hose through so that he could pump gas into the trunk, suffocating both girls. He buried them, both nude, at a rental home in Toronto, Canada. Two days later on October 10th, Holmes killed Howard Robert Pitesle in Indianapolis, Indiana. He drugged him and then burned his dismembered body in the fireplace of his rented cottage. we just talked about, you know, individuals crossing a line. You know, was it the first time for him?

Maybe, maybe not. We don't know for sure, but you made the point. And I think it's a very valid one that for a lot of people, once you cross that line, it's like the floodgates open. Is it because they realized that it was easier than they thought. It didn't bother them. And they know that they can do it again and again? Or is it because it was actually exciting and they crave that thrill again and again? I think it's different for different people, but I think at the very least, what we see is that Holmes had no qualms about crossing the line again. And in this case, he was able to kill, you know, young children. And it didn't seem to bother him. Yeah, I think. killing their father is bad enough, killing anyone that's bad enough, but then you are capable

of doing something like this to children. Not once, not twice, but three times. I think that speaks volumes about what kind of person H.H. Holmes was. Yeah, he was a monster. There's no doubt about it. On November 17, 1894, Holmes was arrested in Boston on a warrant for horse theft out of Texas, he had been tracked from Philadelphia by the Pinkerton National Detective Agency and quickly arrested before he could flee the country. This is kind of a very early interagency cooperative case. He admitted to the insurance scam, but that didn't satisfy authorities who knew that they could build a case against homes for murder if they just found the right evidence.

In July 1895, the decomposed bodies of Allison, were found buried about three feet deep by Philadelphia detectives following Holmes trail. Detective Frank Geier was able to track Holmes to a pharmacy in Indianapolis where he had purchased the drugs used to kill Howard and later to a knife shop where Holmes had his knives sharpened, apparently dismembering the body had been tough on the knives. Howard Pitzel's teeth were later found in the chimney of the home where he was killed. And one thing we've talked about a couple times here is these bodies that are found, bodies found buried, teeth found. Remember, this is way before DNA, before forensic science that we have today.

So I wonder how the authorities at the time were able to make identifications on some of these remains they were finding and link them to him. You know, it's a challenge today to do that. So back in the 1800s, I can only imagine how tough it would have been. Well, I'm always amazed when we do these older cases and you can see the police work that was done. And you think, well, some of that is not all that different from what would happen today. Now, there are a lot of advances in technology that would be used today to aid in that type of stuff. But, you know, the legwork, the tracking of homes from one area to the other to where you got his knife sharp. And I mean, that's still kind of what you think of as good old-fashioned police work, detective work.

In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020. Blood and Water. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. If you love chilling mysteries, unsolved cases,

and a touch of mom-style humor, moms and mysteries is the podcast you've been searching for. Hey guys, I'm Mandy. And I'm Melissa. Join us every Tuesday for moms and mysteries, your gateway to gripping, well-researched true crime stories. Each week, we deep dive into a variety of mind-boggling cases as we shed light on everything from heist to whodunits.

We're your go-to podcast for Mysteries with a Motherly Touch. Subscribe now to Moms and Mysteries wherever you get your podcast. Authority searched H.H.'s Englewood, Illinois home, which many have called a castle, but they found no additional evidence. This home was a very large house with many rooms, and he ran a hotel out of it. It's usually reported that homes had the home custom built to be a house of horrors, a serial killer's dream. A diagram of the so-called castle from the Chicago Tribune

showed rooms labeled dark room, secret room, sealed room all bricked-in, room of three corpses, and asphyxiation chamber, no light with gas connections. The elevator was labeled dummy elevator for lowering bodies. There were a few hidden rooms, but they weren't torture chambers. They were actually spaces tied large, stolen, or unpaid for items like furniture items. A lot of the third floor edition wasn't even complete because Holmes hadn't paid his builders.

Even today, there are articles that mention that some of these rooms were soundproof and contained gas lines so that Holmes could suffixate his guest if he wanted to. And you could still read about the rented rooms, which homes used to systematically murder anyone who checked in. Other reports mentioned acid vats and lime pits inside the home for getting rid of bodies. So it seems like a lot of these reports were really exaggerated and a lot of this stuff, wasn't completely accurate. But that doesn't surprise me at all more. I mean, you know, you could look at high profile cases throughout history and look at the reporting.

Often it's sensationalized, right? This was a huge case back in the 1800s. The Chicago Tribune did a lot of reporting on it. Other outlets did a lot of reporting on it. Just like today, not everything. was 100% accurate. There was a lot of speculation, but it wasn't always written as speculation. It was written more as fact. So, you know, when you research, especially some of these older cases, it's really hard to kind of decipher fact from fiction because, let's face it, at the end of the day,

their goal was to sell newspapers. Well, what sells newspapers better than talking about a house of horrors, a serial killers dream with all these rooms built to essentially kill people visiting the hotel. You tell me you're not going to pick up that copy and read it? I would. Yeah, I think they were definitely trying to paint a picture for readers, something that would captivate them. And as you put it, sell newspapers. And sure enough, it worked because a lot of people were interested in this case. And still are today, right? That's the amazing part about it.

It's so old. And people are still fascinated with H.H. Holmes. Just listen to this description of the Holmes home from a 1937 article found on biography.com. Oh, what an odd house it was. In all America, there was none other like it. Its chimneys stuck out where chimneys should never stay. stick out. Its stairways ended nowhere in particular. Winding passages brought the uninitiated with a

frightful jerk back to where they had started from. There were rooms that had no doors. There were doors that had no rooms. A mysterious house it was indeed. A crooked house, a reflex of the builder's own distorted mind. In that house occurred dark and eerie deeds. Okay. I mean, that sounds like some kind of Edgar Allan Poe poem or something. I don't know. How do you have a room with no door? How do you have a door with no room? Now, while some of the descriptions of some of the rooms in H.H's home may have been confusing, the room of five doors and the maids, for example, it seems that the house wasn't actually built specifically to allow Holmes to kill interrupted. If he had built a perfect murder house, it's odd that there's no evidence of his known victims being killed in it.

The Pitesel children weren't even killed in the same state as the House of Hors. Still, the myth persists today. It's often called a murder castle or a death hotel. And many people just assume that countless victims died in the home. The sensational reports about homes at the time may be an indication of how the media was during that period. Think back to Lizzie Borden, and you may first remember the little rhyme, Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother 40 wax, and when she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41.

At her June 1893 trial, the jury would hear that Lizzie's stepmother had received about 20 injuries, while Lizzie's father had been hit just 10 times, definitely considerably off from the quoted 41, but the 40 and 41 wax sound more sensational. There are other renowned serial killers from the past that are different than modern-day serial killers. One of these killers was a woman named Delphian Lelori, who was known for the torturing and killing of numerous enslaved people. On April 10, 1834, a fire started in the kitchen of Lelori's New Orleans mansion. A 70-year-old woman, a home's cook, was chained to the stove.

She had started the fire in an attempt to take her own life, just to escape the conditions she had been forced by Lelori to live under. Accounts from over 100 years later mentioned Lurie's sadistic appetite, and claim that Those responding to the fire found slaves chained to the wall, their eyes gouged out, their fingernails pulled out by the roots. Another account from yet another 50 years after the last one, has outrageous claims of torture, ending with one victim that looked like a human caterpillar, and another that resembled a human crab. Mostly due to these modern fictionalized accounts,

Delphine the Lurie is known as a serial killer who tortured and murdered up the 100 slaves. Funeral register records show that only 12 people, all kept as slaves or their children, died at the La Lory Mansion between 1830 and 1834. She sounds like a very bad person, someone who felt entitled to treat other human beings any way they wanted, because she thought her money meant to she own them, but maybe not a serial killer in the sense that we know of the term today. Another supposed female serial killer was Elizabeth Bathory, accused of torturing and killing hundreds of young women with the help of four of her servants over a 20-year period. Some people insist that she was the real inspiration for Dracula, as she was said to bathe in the blood of virgins to stay young.

This liked the accounts about the Lelori Mansion, didn't start until long after Bathory's death, and Bram Stoker didn't mention her anywhere in any of his notes in his book about Dracula. there are many people throughout history who have been cruel to their staff or their servants and slaves. Some have been tried and even executed for murdering their servants without getting their names attached to myths or having their deeds exaggerated. One interesting link between Bathory and Lillory is that they both owned land. Lallory's mansion was in her name. And Bathory's husband died, leaving her a lot of land. there are theories that Bathre's accusers were politically motivated with the man leading the charge

against her being the same man that Bathre's husband had trusted to watch over her and their children. But the man who acquired La Lurie's Mansion had nothing to do with a creative and sensational writer inventing things a century later. Sometimes it just takes sensationalism to sell a book or a newspaper, or in recent times, debate people to click a link. Well, we can't say for sure that H.H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. where they had total control over them. of his home. We don't know if burying victims in his crawl space was part of a fantasy gase he had, or if it was because he felt that they would never be found by burying them there. Either way, it seems that one type of killer prefers the comfort of home and doesn't mind having evidence

and literal skeletons in their closets. Other killers like to keep their home base clean and free of any suspicion. In September 1895, H.H. Holmes released his book called Holmes' own story in which the alleged multi-murderer and arch-conspirator tells of the 22 tragic deaths and disappearances in which he is said to be implicated, Holmes received a large payment from the Hart Corporation for his life story, which included confessions. This is something that a modern-day serial killer can't really recreate. Modern laws ban killers from profiting off of their crimes. they're generally called the son of Sam laws because after serial killer David Berkowitz, who called himself, son of Sam, was arrested, there was fear that he would take advantage of

the media's obsession with his crimes and try to speak to a writer or even a film crew. Though the idea didn't come from Berkowitz, who himself claimed he wasn't going to do this, lawmakers in New York were quick to make sure he couldn't. H.H. Holmes actually wrote this book. book after he was arrested for the murder of Howard Robert Pytzel. And in October 1895, a year after he killed Pytzel, Holmes went on trial for the murder of Benjamin Pytzel. Marion Hedgepeth, H.H. H.H.'s former cellmate, was pardoned for his testimony about Holmes in his schemes. He was apparently upset that Holmes hadn't cut him in on 500 hours, as promised, and he was

quick to turn against Holmes. Holmes was found guilty and given a sentence of death for the murder of Benjamin Pytzell. It quickly became obvious that he had killed. killed Alice, Nellie, and Howard Pitesell as well. Looking at other murders and disappearances that could be connected to Holmes, it didn't take long to find many of both. 68-year-old John Burrell died in the pharmacy on the ground floor of the castle on April 17, 1891. A witness claimed to have seen Holmes administer dark liquid just before he died, but still, mostly due to his age, authorities didn't suspect foul play at the time.

Looking back on this death, in 1895 with different background information, it was clear that Holmes benefited from Morel's death. He was a creditor of Holmes and also had a life insurance policy with Holmes as the beneficiary. The same year that Burrell died in the drugstore, Emily Van Tassel, an employee there, disappeared. Holmes confessed to her murder in his writings. The next year, Dr. Rustler, who had an office in the building, disappeared. Holmes also mentioned him in his confessions. Kitty Kelly, who worked as a stenographer for Holmes, also disappeared that year.

On Christmas Eve, 1891, Holmes's mistress, Julia Smyth and her daughter, Pearl Connor, disappeared. They had been living in Holmes's hotel since her husband found out about her affair with H.H. Holmes first told those suspicious about their whereabouts, that Julia had to go tend to a sudden family emergency. Her sister was sick and died Fresh air, longer days, a chance to reset. This season let therapy be part of your spring cleaning. Clearing mental clutter, shaking off stuckness, and building something better. Grow therapy helps you get there.

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That's growtherapy.com slash book now. Growtherapy.com slash book now. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. Before claiming that she went to reunite with her husband, Dr. Lawrence, the sillius, Ned Connor. Eventually, he started telling people that she died while undergoing an abortion. So he poisoned Pearl to cover up Julia's death. A partial skeleton of a child, possibly Pearl, was found when the cellar of the building was excavated. her father, Dr. Conner, testified against Holmes at his murder truck.

In 1892, 23-year-old Emmeline Sigrand worked for homes for six months. She disappeared in December. Her parents believe she was off marrying a man named Robert Phelps, but authorities think she may have met the same fate as Julius Smyth. In 1893, John Davis traveled from Greenville, Pennsylvania to the World's Fair in Chicago. He would be declared legally dead seven years later. after vanishing without a trace, Holmes is suspected of his murder. That same year, Henry Walker from Greensburg, Indiana, disappeared after telling friends

he would be working for homes in Chicago. He had also taken out a life insurance policy with Holmes as the beneficiary. Yeah, you know, the World's Fair was a really big part of this case in that so many people came to Chicago, a lot of them disappeared. Well, I can tell you one thing that you didn't want to do in the late. eight 1800s with H.H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. And that's take out an insurance policy in your name with him as the beneficiary. Because I get it. There was some, most likely some type of scheme, but you were probably going to end up dead. And he was going to end up with the money.

Yeah. And I'm always curious when somebody that's not like a direct family member winds up as a beneficiary of somebody else's life insurance policy, you know, I can understand in certain businesses, they'll have a partner, name the other partner as a beneficiary, vice versa. But just to have someone that you're not connected to, you know, for a business or as a family member, how do you say, hey, I'm going to take out a life insurance policy on you and I'm going to be the beneficiary and get people to agree to that. That's kind of strange to me.

Yeah, apparently it was pretty common back in the day. Gibby and I did an episode, I think it was on True Crime all the time, not that long ago, where like everyone in the town was doing it. And obviously they started ending up dead, but it was because they were destitute and people were giving them money or giving them food stuff to live on in exchange for allowing them to take out this life insurance policy. Yeah, one thing I wanted to touch on. was the World's Fair happening in Chicago? Because we know Chicago is a big city. There's lots of potential victims that could be there for H.H. Holmes to pry on.

But that World's Fair, I think, attracted like 27 million people to it. So that could mean countless scores of potential victims coming into the area for homes to pry on. So I wonder if some of the people that could have disappeared while they were in Chicago for this fair could actually be tied to him. And I think that's what a lot of people believe. And we'll, I'm sure we'll talk about it more at the end. But I think that's the trouble with this case.

What's real? What's, you know, boasting to try to sell a book. What's the media sensationalizing a story? Some of that is really hard to figure out in the 1800s. And it's hard to figure out in this case. Also in 1893. Holmes needed a stenographer and offered the job to an actress named Wilhelmina Minnie Williams, who he met in Boston when he was using a different alias, Harry Gordon.

She put the deed to her property in Fort Worth, Texas, to yet another alias of Holmes, Alexander Bond. He later transferred the deed to an alias he assigned to Benjamin Pitzel, Benton Lyman. Many younger sister Anna visited her in Chicago. writing to her aunt on July 5, 1893 that she was going to Europe with brother Harry. Neither many or Anna were ever seen after that. The next year, Holmes and Benjamin Paisel killed a man named George Thomas and disposed of his body in a swamp in Missouri. Also in 1894, Milford Cole from Baltimore, Maryland disappeared. It's assumed after meeting up with Holmes, since he had received a telegraph from him,

inviting him to Chicago. The bank book belonging to a Lucy Burbank was found when authorities searched the castle. It's unknown what ultimately truly happened to her. All of these possible victims still doesn't add up to the 27 victims that Holmes confessed to killing. And some of the people he confessed to killing were later found alive and well. So I think that goes back to what we were talking about. He was trying to sell a book.

So is he going to, you know, try to pump up the number of his victims? Maybe. And I think some of that is proved by some of these people later being found alive. But I think you can also ask the question, are there people he didn't talk about? Maybe because of their age or of their circumstance, I think that's possible as well. My thought is, serial killers aren't. great at always telling the truth. Yeah, I wonder how much of it could be that he's got so many lies and so many details to sort of keep organized. Could it possibly be that he couldn't keep them all organized?

And he's just throwing names out there, you know, whether he killed them or not, because he honestly can't remember who his true victims were. I think that's a great point. I mean, you know, so much of what he did was built on lies, right? we just talked about a bunch of aliases. At what point, you know, do you struggle to keep everything straight?

So, you know, if he's writing a book and he, and he's got to come up with a high number of victims, could it be that he didn't know some people's names? He didn't remember the circumstances. So he made certain things up. And some of these people later turned out to be alive,

but that doesn't mean that he didn't have a bunch of other victims. In August 1895, Holmes' castle was set on fire by two men using some kind of accelerant. The men were seen entering through the back of the building about 30 minutes before the fire started, and then were seen running away. A gas can, still half full, was found underneath the back stairs. The building was finally torn down in 1938, and now you'll find the Englewood Post Office at that location. Holmes was executed at Moyamensing Prison on May 7, 1896. He was hanged, but the drive.

dropped and kill him. It took over 15 minutes before he could be pronounced dead. His only request was for his coffin to be buried 10 feet deep and encased in cement to prevent grave robbing. He didn't want his body to end up being misused in any way. For someone who regularly stole bodies to use his cadavers, he knew this was a real possibility. And it's pretty ironic that for someone who was fine with the act, that he was so afraid of it happening to him. Holmes was buried, as requested, deep in the ground and surrounded by cement in an on Mark Grave at Holy Cross Cemetery in Yaden, Pennsylvania. So there's a couple of things that jump out to me here.

One is that there's now a post office at this supposed murder castle location. That's kind of interesting. And then Holmes requesting that his body be buried 10 feet deep and encased in cement. Okay. I understand why he made the request. What I thought was shocking was that they actually. honored it. You know, here's a guy who was most likely a grave robber himself. We know he used cadavers. I don't know exactly where he got them all, but he definitely didn't want his body to be dug up.

People request things all the time. I'm just shocked that they actually said, yeah, no problem. We'll do that. We'll spend the extra money and encase you in the cement. Yeah, it's not like he's requesting a last meal. This is a pretty extravagant thing that he's. he's asking for. But somehow, rumors began to circulate that Holmes hadn't actually been executed. In 2017, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology decided to put to rest once and for all. The rumors that somehow Holmes hadn't actually been executed on May 7, 1896, part of this rumor is probably rooted in the fact that he wrote a lot about how his face had changed. While in prison, when he was giving his confessions and life story, the rumor was that Holmes had enlisted a crooked guard

to perhaps help him fake his death, as he had done in the past. A team led by physical anthropologist Janet Monge, exhumed Holmes's body. The cement around his coffin had kept his clothes and hair from decomposing to the same extent as other bodies buried around the same time, even his mustache was apparently still as it was the day he was buried. And for anybody who has seen a picture of Holmes, you would have to say the guy had a magnificent mustache.

It was a horrible person, but he had a heck of a mustache. By examining his teeth, it was determined that the body in the coffin was actually Holmes. He had not escaped execution after all. after exhumation, Holmes's body was reinterred at the same cemetery in Yedden, Pennsylvania. And my understanding is that they had hoped to use DNA, but obviously his body had been there a long time. It had degraded. They couldn't get a viable sample. I'm actually shocked that they were able to do it by, you know, examining his teeth. I can't imagine that they use dental records. And we're going to have dental records from 1896 and obviously they weren't going to have x-rays or or anything like

that. So I don't know. There wasn't a lot of information about how the examination of the teeth proved that it was homes. And maybe he had some distinct teeth that they were able to look at and just come to the conclusion that, yeah, this is him. One thing that interests me is, you know, I understand on one hand wanting to have an answer once and for all, but at the the same time, you know, it's 100-something years later, would it matter in the grand scheme of things? You know, even if it turned out that it wasn't him, I mean, it might make for an interesting story or a book, but it wouldn't bring any justice to any of the victims.

It wouldn't, it would only lead to more questions and, and speculation. Yeah, I'm not sure why they did it, other than the fact that they were, you know, part of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. And they thought, hey, don't let us do this. We can put this to rest. And I don't fault them at all. I mean, if you're in that field and you get a chance to do this, I can totally understand why they would want to do this.

Yeah, absolutely. One of H.H. Holmes's descendants believes that Holmes could have been Jack the Ripper, the infamous serial killer, responsible for at least five murders in London, England. The murders happened between 1888 and 1891, so Holmes wasn't in custody yet, and he did travel extensively. Jack the Ripper was thought to have had a medical background of some kind. Most experts don't think H.H. Holmes was Jack the Ripper. Holmes seemed to kill for convenience, mostly covering up his financial frauds,

while in the case of Jack the Ripper, based on crime scene photos of his victims, mutilation seemed like something that the killer enjoyed. Holmes wanted evidence of his murders to go away to distance himself from his crimes, while Jack the Ripper left his victims out in the open. in very undignified poses. He wanted people to see what he had done. Yeah, I know this is something that comes up quite a bit in both cases, right? This possible connection between H.H. Holmes and Jack the Ripper, I don't see it.

Now, I understand why it might be fascinating to people to think, oh, you have this serial killer in Chicago. you know, he traveled to London, let's say, but they just don't seem to match in any way, shape, or form. Yeah, I've never understood the comparison either, the link people have tried to make. It would be one thing if there were a series of similar murders in which sex workers were found, you know, gutted, disembowled out in the open,

and they matched the MO in the Jack the Ripper crimes, but it really doesn't even match. match up there. So to me, it's always surprised me that people tried to link these crimes. But don't we see it so often? We've talked about it before. I mean, how many different unsolved crimes have people tried to link to the zodiac, you know, or to some other famous or infamous unsolved killer? It's kind of part and parcel of the unsolved nature of these types of murders, trying to link them to other series of unsolved murders because, you know, the thought is always that, well, the reason why the murder stopped was because, let's say, this person thought the heat was

getting too much. They moved, but they couldn't stop their compulsion. So they kept killing just in a different area. Now, to me, it goes back to what we talked about earlier, that perhaps it's a sensationalism. It makes for a better story if somehow we could say that Jack the Ripper may have been H.H. Holmes. It gets more people talking about it and it's more to theorize about. Yeah, absolutely. We have two infamous serial killers and the thought of them being the same person is sensational.

And so if you've got a story like that, okay, people are going to want to read that. but to me there's no there's no conclusive proof and it really doesn't even seem logical and from what I've seen from America's supposed first serial killer to the most recent Rex Harriman the multiple aliases owned property multi-state travel and even the coverage in the media they're similar when comparing homes and heremen could this just be proof that even after all almost 130 years, some serial killers just have a lot of things in common. Things that despite the passage of time don't really change for some of them. I think when you look back at the crimes of someone like H.H. Holmes, is it possible to look at

those crimes, to try to understand them in an effort to help stop modern day serial killers, or at the very least, find common. commonality between these killers in different centuries. And I think the answer is yes, not just between, you know, H.H. Holmes and Rex Herrman. I think you have to study all of these different types of killers in an effort to help apprehend or even in some cases help stop or identify modern day serial killer. I mean, what else? are you going to use? You've got to use history. You have to use examples. I mean, we talked about it towards the beginning of the episode. Some things that we see in modern day serial killers,

like their background, being bullied, head trauma, there's all kinds of different things. That seems to be for many to be pervasive and goes back in time. And it goes back in time. So I think you've got to look at people throughout history, what they did, what techniques they used to cover up their crimes, their background, what their motives were, all of that. I think it's fascinating to look back and see how killers from the 1800s have a lot in common with killers from modern times. You know, technology changes, society changes, lots of things changed over that 130 plus years. but at the root of it, you still have what appears to be some of the same common behaviors, as you mentioned, head trauma, bedwetting, bullying, things like that, setting fires, hurting animals. It's just, that's one thing that has never seemed to change going all the way back as far as can be tracked,

that a lot of the serial killers back then as with today have these things in their past. So I wonder if you can use some of these killers in the past to help identify killers in the present. Well, and the other thing that jumps out at me is the reason behind murders. You know, you mentioned how much the world has changed in the last 130 years plus. But you know what hasn't changed is the reason for murders. Greed, revenge, love, jealousy. you know, a lot of those things still exist. And it's some of the same reasons people still kill today.

But, you know, in wrapping up H.H. Holmes, it's a fascinating case. And a lot of people have studied it extensively. For me, one of the fascinations about Holmes is that there's been so much written about him over the years. A lot of it is, as we talked about, earlier, not quite accurate. A lot of it was sensational type writing. It's really hard to tell how many people he killed, how many people he killed in his quote unquote murder hotel and how the actual number may line up with his confession.

And you mentioned the World's Fair, 27 million people in the 1800s. I mean, what better scenario could you think of if you were a serial killer who was operating a hotel in and around the city where the World's Fair was being held? Yeah, it definitely seems like you could have countless potential victims coming in unaware of what they were walking into and you have no link to them. And it's not like today where it's easy to track missing people, social media, that kind of. of stuff. They didn't have that back then, so it'd be a lot easier for someone to disappear without a trace or figure out where they were last at. But one thing that jumps out to me, in this case, is the hotel itself, this reputation that it's gotten over the last 130 years, that it's almost like a character in this story of how frightening it is. And it almost sounds like

something out of a haunted house movie. And, you know, some of that, is probably real. A lot of that is, again, sensationalism. But that's it for our episode on H.H. Holmes. If you love the show, haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a five-star rating, leave a review. Also, keep telling your friends, that word of mouth about the podcast really helps us out. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at CriminologyPod. You can also find us on Facebook by going to facebook.com slash criminology podcast. and you can join our Facebook discussion group,

Criminology Podcasts, Discussion, and Fans. So that's it for another episode of Criminology, but Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then, for Mike. And Morf. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.