Money Crimes with Nicole Lapin - Presenting “Murder in the Media”: A Crime House Original Audiobook

Episode Date: June 10, 2025

Crime House proudly presents Murder in the Media, our first-ever true crime audiobook. Told through the lens of five heart-pounding murder cases, this thrilling audiobook traces the evolving – and sometimes insidious – role the media has had in shaping true crime storytelling. Dive into five iconic cases, including the twisted crimes of serial killer H.H. Holmes, the scandalous Hollywood murder of William Desmond Taylor, the infamous Clutter Family slaying, the terrifying Tylenol murder mystery, and the disappearance that captivated America: Chandra Levy. How much has media coverage shaped the crimes we remember—and why? Murder in the Media is a Crime House Original audiobook. Find it now on Spotify. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey there, it's Nicole Lapin. If you're a true crime lover like me, you will love the brand new audiobook from Crime House Studios called Murder in the Media. Told through the lens of five heart-pounding murder cases, this thrilling audiobook traces the evolving and sometimes insidious role the media has had in shaping true crime storytelling. From the discovery of America's first serial killer, to a shocking tabloid murder, to a chilling disappearance that captivated the nation, each of these stories will change how you think about the relationship between the media and true crime forever. Murder in the Media is a Crime House Original

audiobook. To listen to the whole thing, find it on Spotify. But here's a sample for you to enjoy now. Murder in the Media, written by C.C. Bowie. Read for you by Vanessa Richardson. Introduction Ever since the popularization of print media, crime and media have gone hand in hand in the United States. It's a natural relationship. A crime happens, and the media reports on it. But sometimes that relationship goes beyond a simple retelling of the facts.

In this book, we will examine five instances in which the media has taken an outsized role in a criminal investigation, and how that impacted the public's reaction to it. At the same time, we'll trace how technological advances have changed media coverage of true crime stories and how we interact with them. From the discovery of the country's first known serial killer in the late 1800s to the disappearance and murder of a young government intern in the early 2000s, the media has been there every step of the way. and murder of a young government intern in the early 2000s, the media has been there

every step of the way. As newspapers made way for radio, and then television as the primary source for news consumption, the public evolved in kind. At first, news was something you reacted to, maybe days after it happened. For some people, it was less about staying informed and more about entertainment, and newspaper publishers were happy to oblige. But the advent of radio made things much more immediate. All of a sudden, you could find out about terrifying crimes as they occurred, allowing interested listeners to track an investigation in real time. And when it came to television and the emergence of 24-7 cable

news, these investigations became less of a curiosity and more of a constant fact of life. Now, in the age of the internet and smartphone, everyday people have the ability to try their hands at cracking even the most difficult cold cases. With the rise of internet detectives and Reddit sleuths, true crime has never felt more personal. The following chapters will cover five of the biggest murder investigations in the history of the United States. Each one was significantly impacted by the media's role in covering it.

From false leads to unexpected evidence, we'll examine how the relationship between media and true crime has evolved throughout history. Most importantly, we will explain how this dynamic impacts investigations that are unfolding today. Part 1. Benjamin Pitesel and H.H. Holmes Part 1, Chapter 1, Introduction In the late 1800s, the U.S. had around 7,000 newspapers in circulation around the country. People relied on their local paper to get important information about everything from job openings to the latest international wars. But there was a new trend making waves around the nation, yellow journalism.

Similar to modern-day tabloids, this style of writing used attention-grabbing headlines and exaggerated details to drive sales. And in 1894, the perfect yellow journalism subject seemed to materialize out of thin air. When H.H. Holmes was arrested for the murder of his best friend, Benjamin Pitesel, Chicago newspapers latched onto his story and didn't let go. They did more than just inform the public about his crimes. They made their own judgments about who H.H. Holmes was and what he did. They embellished his victim count

and the gruesome details, claiming that Holmes dissected his victims before killing them, and had a special torture chamber in his murder mansion. It didn't matter that the details were grossly overblown. The people of Chicago were hooked. They wanted to know anything and everything about the country's first serial killer, and the media complied. They sensationalized Holmes as a living devil, and in the process created America's first celebrity serial killer. But what's the real story behind this near-mythical criminal? Let's go back in time to Gilded Age America and find out.

Part 1, Chapter 2. Who is H.H. Holmes? The first thing to know about H.H. Holmes is that his name was an alias. He was really called Herman Mudgeet, which certainly sounds much less imposing. Born in 1861 on a farm in New Hampshire, Herman was a polite, smart kid with lots of promise. He was also a bit of a loner and the frequent target of bullying. Herman brushed off most of the mean jokes, but one of the bully's pranks stuck with

him long past childhood. One morning, Herman had to go to the doctor's office for an appointment. According to his later autobiography, older kids were constantly telling him stories about horrifying monsters hiding behind the doctor's closed doors. To prove their point, two of those boys apparently forced Herman face to face with a human skeleton. They put the skeleton's hands on his face, trying to frighten him. It worked, at first. But then something shifted for Herman. He became intrigued by the bones, not scared of them.

If there was a moment that sent Herman down his eventual path, it might have been this one. It seemed like Herman no longer feared death. He was now fascinated by it. Over the next few years, Herman's preoccupation with death transformed into a desire to study medicine, but he didn't have the funds to pay for it himself. Herman knew that if he wanted to go to medical school, he'd need to find a way to foot the bill, and after

graduating high school in 1877 at 16 years old, he found a way to turn that dream into a reality. When he was about a year out of high school, Herman married a young woman named Clara Lovering. Clara came from a privileged family, and she had the means to pay for Herman's tuition. With Clara covering the finances, Herman went off to the University of Vermont.

He loved his medical classes, especially anatomy, but otherwise he was struggling. Herman had a hard time fitting in and didn't get along with his roommate. After just one term, Herman decided to pack it up and head back home to Clara. Although his experience at the University of Vermont wasn't the best, Herman wasn't ready to give up on his dreams of becoming a doctor. One year later, in 1881, he decided to try again. This time, he went to the University of Michigan, where he studied under a professor named William Herdman. He was what's known as a demonstrator of anatomy, meaning he dissected human bodies for science. Herman seemed to spend all of his time in his professor's

office helping him prepare and dissect bodies, and maybe joining his mentor on night trips to the graveyard. During the late 19th century, medical schools often resorted to working under the table with resurrectionists, or grave robbers, to get enough cadavers for teaching. It seemed like that's what the two men were doing. The more time Herman spent at the graveyard, an idea began to take form. He and a friend came up with a plan to defraud an insurance company using a stolen cadaver. It sounded simple. They would create a fake identity, take out an insurance policy, stage an accidental death, and collect the payout.

Although Herman didn't go through with his plan, he couldn't get the thought out of his head. It combined two of his favorite things—death and fraud. As the line between right and wrong blurred in his mind, Herman's moral compass continued to deteriorate, and before long, his penchant for destruction started to affect his personal life. Clara had moved to Michigan with Herman, and they had a son named Robert. But Clara quickly realized that Herman wasn't the kind of husband she wanted. After years of alleged abuse, Clara refused to endure his violence any longer. Right before Herman's graduation in 1884, Clara took Robert and fled back to her family

in New Hampshire. Herman didn't seem too bothered by it. He'd gotten what he wanted from Clara, a free ride to medical school, and had no use for her anymore. He never even bothered to seek a divorce. Herman simply carried on his life without her. Soon after Clara's departure, the day finally came, and 23-year-old Herman graduated from the University of Michigan's Department of Medicine and Surgery. He was officially a doctor. After years of studying, Herman Mudgett had a fancy title, but without Clara, he didn't

have any money. Despite all the work he'd put in, Herman didn't go into medicine. Instead, he traveled around the East Coast, dodging debt collectors and getting into trouble. This was when he first adopted an alias and started going by Dr. Henry H. Holmes. Some reports say it was an homage to the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, while others believe it was a way to evade the law. Eventually, Herman made it to Philadelphia, where it was rumored that he got a job as a clerk at a drugstore. There were whispers that a young boy came into the store and purchased some medicine. Right after taking it, he died.

Holmes denied having anything to do with it, but he did immediately leave town afterward. That's how he ended up in Chicago in 1886. After checking out the scene, Herman found another job at a drug store called Holton's. It was owned by a woman named Dr. Elizabeth Holton, and at least according to some sources, she and Holmes were more than colleagues. They were lovers. Elizabeth was so smitten with Holmes, she promised to give the store to him in exchange for getting married. Holmes agreed, only for Elizabeth and her young daughter to mysteriously disappear soon after. Their disappearance didn't go unnoticed. Police quickly discovered Holmes' connection to Elizabeth and her daughter and questioned him about their disappearance. But he insisted he had nothing to

do with it and they'd simply moved away. It seemed like the officers took his word for it. And he may have been telling the truth. According to Adam Seltzer, author of H.H. Holmes, The True History of the White City Devil, Elizabeth simply sold the store to Holmes. Her daughter, sadly, passed away nearly a decade later, but from gastritis, not a gruesome murder. Either way, Holmes was off the police's radar and was free to take ownership of Elizabeth's store. Shortly after that, he purchased a plot of land across the street and began construction on a two-story building. To the outside observer, the building didn't seem like much. There

was retail space on the ground floor and apartments on the story above it. Nobody would ever suspect that it would someday become what the tabloids deemed Chicago's infamous Murder Castle. The Murder Castle moniker came later, but it was based on the building's strange interior design. There were trap doors and chutes, stairways that went nowhere, doors that opened into walls, and a giant furnace in the basement big enough to fit a human body. It seemed exactly like the kind of place a killer would design if they had all the resources in the world, hence the name, Murder Castle. It's understandable why the media would become fixated on these details.

The building seemed tailor-made to make it look like someone vanished into thin air, while giving Holmes the freedom to torture and kill his victims without ever having to leave the building. And when the papers were trying to build up H.H. Holmes as this near-mythical serial killer, his strange building naturally became part of this terrifying persona. But at the time of the building's construction, nobody was considering this terrifying possibility. People simply found it odd. Holmes played into the mystery of it all. He never let anyone spend too much time working on his building. He wanted to keep the rest of

the world in the dark about what he was up to. For that reason, he constantly hired and fired new construction crews. But it was also because he didn't want to pay for the work being done. Every time he fired another crew, he claimed shoddy workmanship and refused to pay for their services. He did this with everyone from carpenters to furniture vendors. Supposedly, that was how he crossed paths with 33-year-old Benjamin Pitesel, a Chicago carpenter-for-hire. The details are a little murky, but Eric Larson's

narrative nonfiction book, The Devil in the White City, suggests that Holmes hired Benjamin to work on his building in November 1889, about three years after Holmes settled in Chicago. Adam Seltzer's H.H. Holmes, The True History of the White City Devil, says the two also shared an office where Benjamin was selling a coal bin he had invented. The definitive truth of how they met has been lost to history, but once the two did cross paths, their lives would never be the same.