True Crime with Kimbyr - Part 2: Evil Doctor Seduces, Traps & Kills In MURDER MANSION - H.H. Holmes | The Devil In Me

Episode Date: January 18, 2026

What secrets were still hidden inside the Murder Mansion? In True Crime with Kimbyr, Part 2 continues the chilling deep dive into H.H. Holmes — the “Evil Doctor” whose charm masked calculated brutality. Kimbyrleigha examines the darker layers of Holmes’ manipulation, the victims caught in his web, and the shocking discoveries that finally exposed his crimes. With detailed research and a compassionate, analytical approach, True Crime with Kimbyr explores how greed, deception, and unchecked power allowed a killer to thrive — and why his legacy still haunts true crime history today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

But Julia was now caught between a rock and a hard place. She didn't have anyone to lean on. Ned was gone, she was all alone, no family to take care of her, and she couldn't go back home. Own it all. Pay off your home, travel for life, drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Buckslot Machine by Aristocrat Gaming, Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is giving one person a $1.6 million dream package. The biggest prize in Yamaba's history.

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She's an unmarried pregnant woman. Eventually, according to Holmes, Julia reluctantly agreed to the procedure. This was huge. It wasn't commonplace to have a procedure like this. It must have been terrifying, but it just goes to show you how, much Julia trusted Holmes and wanted to be his bride. Poor Julia. She is known as one of Holmes's

first victims. She and Pearl mysteriously disappeared on Christmas Eve 1891. Julia's room was left untouched and witnesses who were shown around the premises as prospective guests saw half-eaten plate of rotting food in her room, as well as an unmade bed. It was probably left that way since Julia's the last morning alive. There were also clothing and children's toys all over the place, and the room was left like that for at least four months. Holmes would tell everyone that Julia had to leave with Pearl after getting a telegraph informing her that her sister was dying. It turns out the telegraph was real, but it wasn't to let Julia know that her sister was dying. It was to let her know she was getting married, a wedding that Julia never showed up to.

Holmes would keep this lie going for years. The truth was, Julia and Pearl were dead. The truth, according to Holmes, is that Julia's death was an accident. But many people think otherwise. It's just too much of a coincidence. It's just too convenient. A new woman comes in a Holmes' life, Emmeline. At the very same time that Julia announces she's pregnant and wants to get married.

And then Julia accidentally dies while Holmes is carrying out the procedure. I'm going to tell you right now, I think he killed both of them. It's said that he poisoned poor little pearl, and remains matching her age range were found later on in the basement. Remember I told you about Benjamin the alcoholic carpenter with a criminal record? Well, it's well documented that Benjamin helped Holmes cover up many of his crimes, from the insurance scams to murders. In the case of Julia Smith, it was most likely no different. The true cause of death was most likely chloroform, which was readily available in Holmes' pharmacy. This same chemical would have been used during the procedure, but of course merely to sedate her not kill her.

She would have come to in about an hour, but instead, Holmes most likely used a lethal amount, put it on a rag against her mouth until she stopped breathing. It's heartbreaking to think about how personal that death would be, looking right into the eyes of the man you love, knowing that he is the one doing this to you. It's almost too much for me. It's so unbelievably sad. He just disposed of these women like they were nothing, and he'd be on to the next one. It seems like it's a few months shelf life for each of the women in Holmes's life, at least the

mistresses like Julia and Emmeline. Emilyne was working alongside Holmes, but the records I read stated that she never actually lived in the building with him. She was very professional having come from a previous corporation, therefore she most likely decided against actually living in the building owned by her boss. However, it is widely accepted as truth that Emily, most likely began an intimate relationship with Holmes or maybe she didn't. Either way, she ultimately met her demise when Holmes lured her into an airtight vault in one of the building's bedrooms and turned on a poisonous gas to fill the room until she was unable to breathe. I read that it was Holmes's interest in Emmeline that almost ended his marriage with Myrta.

He had told her many times do not come up to the building while I'm working. Besides, she was like 30 miles away caring for an infant. But one day Mirta comes and she comes unannounced. Either she wanted to surprise Holmes or maybe she suspected something. But either way, she supposedly witnessed Holmes flirting with Emmeline. And as she continued to spy, she sees him kissing or at least attempting to kiss Emmeline. So when he comes home that night, it's said that Myrta confronts him. And of course he denies it. Probably tried to gaslight her. That's the typical behavior for a narcissist like Holmes. But yes, he denies it and probably turned it back on her, getting upset for her dropping in unannounced after he told her not to.

It wouldn't be the first time he explained away in sense of flirting by insisting he just worked closely with his female employees. It was in nothing more. Yeah, right. It makes me so mad. I hate liars. I despise men like H.H. Holmes doesn't like to be put in these complicated situations. When it happens, he tries to get rid of the problem by getting rid of. of one of the people involved. And that is why Emmeline was most likely killed. It said that Holmes had gas lines built into the structure. He could turn them on at any time. Plus each room was equipped with a people

that was undetectable to guests so he could spy on each of them and witness deaths like Emmelines. There's also an airtight exfixation room behind a window in the bathroom where both husband and wife watched each other in horror as they took their last breath. So sad and so sick. This whole scene really stood out to me because of the way the rooms were designed because it was so similar to the one I created in my dollhouse. I've recreated two different airtight rooms. First I'll show you the one that sort of matched the devil in me. It's behind the bathroom wall in my dollhouse hidden by this painting. Once it's removed, it's a window looking inside the airtight gas chamber, almost identical to the devil in me before I even played the game or knew.

that they would have a similar one. Unreal. Then I also created another one that's similar to the one Holmes supposedly used in Emmeline's case. Behind this fireplace, you will find a vault, which is also a gas chamber. You can tell these are my secret rooms because each of them have a distressed floor and walls, and I got these printouts from Pixel Market on Etsy. And wow, do they have a great collection of abandoned dollhouse wallpapers and flooring printouts. Holmes actually did use the vault to store cash and checks and other valuables. And Emmeline being his assistant was most likely privy to all of that. Its location, its contents, everything.

It wouldn't be hard for him to tell her to go fetch something from the vault, like he did a number of other times, only this time locking her in from the outside. Years later, a small footprint is found inside the vault by police investigating several of the disappearances. The footprint seemingly belonged to a woman, and it's thought to be that of Emmeline Sagrand. The most accurate records that I've read say that the most likely scenario is that Emmeline rejected Holmes advances and would not live in the building as he wanted and he couldn't control her so he locked her in the vault, turned on the gas and she suffered a slow, painful, and terrifying death.

Now from what I read and saw in the blueprints, there were various shoots in the hotel layout, which were said to have been made in order to easily and secretly dispose of Holmes' victims' bodies. Benjamin would most likely assist Holmes with his task. Homes would dump the victims into the shoots that led down to the first floor or the basement level, and then Benjamin would retrieve the bodies and dispose of them by placing them in barrels of acid. I didn't have a basement built out in my dollhouse recreation, but I did have a shoot of sorts right here in a closet in the first bedroom I showcased.

Though probably not to scale, I did take out a few floorboards that would allow access to a hidden area on the first. floor. I haven't showed you this yet. This one is behind this decorative hutch in the music room. It opens to reveal a secret room where I imagined Holmes' victims would be dropped from the levels above and picked up by Benjamin. Whitney helped me construct a fake wall from a cardboard Amazon box. I wallpapered it as though it was part of the authentic greenleaf buildout and I made it as a part of my pub. This is one of my favorite rooms in the entire dollhouse, a place where guests could be entertained with music, food, alcohol, and snacks. And although probably not historically

accurate, I had to add my favorite drink, Dr. Pepper, and some Lays potato chips. I love the wallpaper and the flooring in this room. I've always loved black and white tile. As far as the barrels of acid are concerned, I didn't create a basement. I made all of that happen in the tower of my dollhouse, which is situated right outside this doorway of Holmes' bedroom. I felt like he would want to be close to his handiwork. I made it accessible but undetectable from the outside. Inside this portion of my buildout, there's barrels of acid as well as various tools, similar to those said to be used by Holmes in the process of disposing of his victims. Carbolic acid is a chemical that dissolves flesh and the other barrel contains bleach

that was used to whiten the bones after the flesh was gone. The cleaner and whiter the bones, the more money Holmes could get for them. This was his new business, killing guests, and selling their corpse to a man named Charles Chapel. He was a mechanic that was employed by Chicago's Hanamon Medical College, and his expertise was transforming corpses into medical exhibits. Well, Holmes definitely sent a lot of business chapel's way, each time with a new reason for the victim's death. For Emmeline, her body was most likely sold to Chapel under the guise of her death being from tuberculosis,

which is a lung disease, also known as consumption, and it was a widespread issue back in those days. Chapel wouldn't ask questions as long as he got what he bargained for. What an evil business he's men were in. After all, Holmes needed the money. He had a family to support. Yes, Marita and Little Lucy, who by all accounts he absolutely adored. It's not uncommon for serial killers to have a wife and kids at home.

Many of the most prolific ones did, or at least long-term commitments, the Green River Killer, B.T.K. The Golden State Killer. Just to name a few. all had wives and they were living double lives. It's like they wanted it all. Emmeline disappeared right before Christmas in 1892. Perfect timing. Holmes got to spend the holiday with his wife, Myrta, and his young daughter, rebuilding those relationships after his infidelity. The gifts were probably purchased with the money he made from selling Emmeline's corpse. How sickening.

All was forgiven. Holmes made a promise to Myrta that Emmeline was gone for good. and nothing like that would ever happen again. Life went on for the couple, but not for poor Emmeline. When people inquired about Emmeline's whereabouts, even a detective sent by her family came by. Holmes would tell them she went off to marry some guy named Robert Phelps. And she was probably on her honeymoon.

The thing is, none of Emmeline's friends or family had ever heard that name. The only name they did here was H.H. Holmes. But when the relatives came a knock and Holmes was prepared. He even made up fake wedding announcement cards and had them sent to her family. Back then, though, it was pretty uncommon for announcements to be typed. They were usually handwritten, so that was definitely suspicious. Holmes even had newspapers run the announcement in the paper.

Later, he would actually give out clippings of the newspaper article whenever somebody would inquire about Emmeline's whereabouts. It's been said that during Holmes' trial, a witness saw him and Benjamin carrying a heavy trunk away from the building which was believed to be filled with emmeline's body since it was estimated to be around the same time of her disappearance now it's the time holmes had been waiting for it was finally here the chicago world's fair and holmes hotel was conveniently and purposely given the name the world's fair hotel that way when tourists were looking for a place to stay it seemed fitting It was easily marketed as the place to stay when you were in town. It was May 1893 and the fair would run until October with plenty of time for Holmes to test out his new hotel and all of its special rooms.

However, it has been noted that the third floor was never actually finished. That it didn't house any hotel guests after all. Instead, it was used as Holmes's office and other rooms only used by him. It's been said that some of the upstairs bedrooms were used to. to hide furniture and appliances that he bought on credit and could never pay for. That way, when bill collectors came, they couldn't find these items since they were stored in secret rooms, unable to be seen from the hallways or the corridors of the hotel. Hence, why I created my third floor rooms the way that I did.

I created this upstairs hallway containing a chessboard and a more private sitting area where I imagined homes would get away, spend time drinking, hanging out with his main man, Benjamin or entertaining ladies with his pool or chest skills away from the prying eyes of hotel guests. Speaking of hotel guests, Holmes put out ads looking for pharmacy clerks, barbers, etc. to work in his retail spaces. With employment, you either received free room in board in the hotel or a discounted rate. The rooms were extravagant for those times. It was like walking into complete luxury. Most people hadn't seen anything like it before. Holmes, deliberately went above and beyond, knowing his evil plan would produce profit well worth it.

Holmes' hotel would have been very enticing to young women just setting out in life on their own independently, traveling to the world's fair for new opportunities, better jobs, and to begin their careers. Not only that, Holmes himself was quite a man to work for. A hot boss who's a doctor and owns this extravagant business, he could offer. them the world and they were ready to accept it. Women like Minnie Rayford Williams. Holmes met Minnie years earlier on a business trip when he was in Boston. She was working as an actress and when they met Holmes was going by yet another alias, Henry Gordon. That's what Minnie called him. Minnie was originally from Texas where she lived with her uncle after being orphaned as a child.

This uncle was a wealthy businessman and Minnie owned a piece of land worth over $50,000. and that piqued Holmes interest in Minnie right away. But they didn't reunite until after Emmeline was out of the picture and the World's Fair was in town. Minnie wrote to Holmes letting him know that she had just moved to Chicago and was in the area for the fair. Right away, Holmes offers Minnie a job at the hotel and she accepted. Now at the time, even though his hotel was up and running for the most part

and guests were staying there, he wasn't turning a profit. Not at all. Instead, he was so far. debt that there was a new bill collector knocking on his door every day. Aside from being a serial killer, Holmes was a serial con artist. And by 1896, he was involved in over 50 lawsuits in Chicago alone. These lawsuits were for many of his scams, which involved using his wife's name and even his wife's mother's name and many other people's names to obtain lines of credit to fund the hotel's construction, among other things. And when the creditors figured it all out,

They came for their money. So now he's got detectives poking their head into the hotel, as well as creditors coming to collect on their debt. It was getting to be too much for Holmes. Lots of people were going missing in Chicago at the time. It was almost an epidemic back then. But the police began to realize that many of the people who went missing were there to attend the World's Fair, never to be seen or heard from again. Holmes' name comes up more than once. He was definitely on the authorities' radar, and detectives were able to gain access to the hotel.

under the guise of either staying as a guest or by other means. And ultimately, a local newspaper ran an article exposing the hotel and its hidden secret rooms. So with all this going on and the pressure mounting, Holmes starts looking at Minnie Williams as his cash cow. And he streamlines his typical seduction routine. Within just a month, Holmes pops the question. And of course, many, like many others, says yes. Remember, this man is still married to Mirza and his first. first wife Clara under two different names Herman Mudgeon and H. H. Holmes and now he's marrying Minnie as

Henry Gordon. It wasn't long before Minnie was writing home to announce her upcoming marriage. There was one person that wasn't happy, her sister nanny. She basically tells Minnie to slow down. What's the rush? Well, the rush for Holmes was to marry her and then convince her to transfer the deed of her Texas estate to a man named Anthony Bond, which was really just another alias that Holmes created for himself. Minnie is determined to marry her wealthy doctor-fiance and she does just that against her sister's will and judgment. Minnie was even convinced to transfer the deed with Holmes surfing as the notary. Then Holmes turns around, poses as Anthony Bond and signs the deed over to his right-hand man Benjamin Petzel, giving him the alias Benton T. Lyman.

Even though Holmes married Minnie, he didn't want her around. So instead, he persuades her to rent out an apartment in Chicago's Lincoln Park, which is not cheap. But her sister wouldn't stop nagging. She was getting in the way of Holmes's plans. She would advise Minnie not to sign any documents to any of her property, her bank accounts, or her inheritance. So Holmes had to put a stop to it. It was July 4th weekend in 1893, and he invites Minnie's sister Nanny. out to the hotel to attend the world's fair and stay with the newlyweds at their new apartment.

Minnie has no idea that he's done this. He picks up Nanny at the Engelwood train station, brings her right to his hotel, telling her, oh, I'm going to give you a nice tour of the place, during which he traps her behind a secret door to a room that she can't get out of, a room where she's doused with chemicals that were used to burn her to death. The secret door in my dollhouse, that's part of the music room that I showed you is where I would imagine Holmes guiding Nanny on a tour opening the store and pushing her inside the secret torture chamber. This was recounted on the wax cylinder recording that the collector purchased, along with the following confession that Holmes took Minnie eight miles out of town on a freight train where he poisoned her and then buried her body.

With that confession was a profession of his love for Minnie. Holmes said he only regretted one murder and it was the one of Minnie Williams because he said he thinks he loved her. I think not Herman. That's not love. Nanny and Minnie's aunt received a letter from Nanny that was written in July and in the letter she told her aunt she was planning to accompany Brother Harry to Europe. Although Holmes had seemingly gotten away with murder time and time again, it was different when it came to police and detectives and bill collectors. He couldn't just kill everyone that stood in his way. So it really started to weigh on him and he saw no way out. So of course Holmes comes up with yet another plan. He realizes he's going to have to let go of his most prized possession, his hotel,

but he doesn't want to abandon it. He's always looking for a way to make money. Now it was insurance fraud by the way of arson. So he begins to move items out of the hotel and into his home in Wilmette. On August 13th, 1893, he works all day at the hotel and then catches the train back home at 5 p.m. It wasn't long after he boarded that train that the hotel was on fire, specifically the third floor. Luckily, the authorities were notified right away and the fire was put out and no one was injured. However, police suspected arson in an attempt for homes to collect on insurance money. While the insurance companies decide they're going to prosecute homes, so now he's definitely got to. to run. This time he needs Benjamin's help more than ever to pull off this next scheme.

He sits down with Benjamin and his wife Carrie, who is such a sweet woman, by the way, just an innocent lady that doesn't think like a criminal. And she trusts the man that has been helping to support her family for so long with his so-called generosity. She has no idea the evil things that this man and her husband have done together. The plan, according to Holmes, was simple. He says, Benjamin would take out a $10,000 life insurance policy. Homes would pay the premiums. Benjamin would then leave his family behind for just a short time and move out to Philadelphia, where he would pose as an inventor

under the name Benjamin F. Perry. He would stay there for a couple months that no one would suspect anything because, you know, an accident was going to happen. And that accident was part of the plan to fake Benjamin's death and collect the insurance money, and then split it. Well, $5,000 was a lot for the Pitzel family. Benjamin trusted Holmes and Carrie trusted her husband. All Holmes had to do was find a corpse to substitute for Benjamin's body,

and Benjamin knew Holmes could do that. So this plan was set into action. Holmes's plan was to meet up with Benjamin in September where they would do the little switcheroo, and then they would make it look like an explosion happened in the inventor's lab. Meanwhile, Holmes is taking trips to Fort Worth, where he now owns property that he inherited from Minnie's marriage. He was planning to use one of the properties to build yet another murder motel, but on an even larger scale. While he's making trips back and forth between Texas and Chicago, he meets another woman, and he decides to seduce her.

Her name is Georgiana Yoke. They meet at a department store. Holmes introduces himself under yet another alias, Henry Mansfield Howard. Georgiana believes that Holmes has inherited property from a relative that has just died, and he brings her with him on his trips to Fort Worth and ends up marrying her. Well, the people in the area knew many, and no one had heard or seen from her in a while, and they were curious as to why her husband was bringing another female around. Once they started questioning him, he was on the run again, bringing Georgiana along with him.

This time, the couple settled down in St. Louis, where Holmes acquired yet another drugstore, apartment for his new wife. It is like clockwork. He does the same thing time and time again. And I'm sitting here wondering what does merita think? What's his excuse? Traveling for business? Not long after this, it was time to finalize the plan with Benjamin in Philadelphia. Now this is probably the sickest thing I think I read about Holmes and what he did. We already know how disgusting he is, but this is just heinous. You see, there was no switcheroo. Holmes intended on killing Benjamin and not using a cadaver as a substitute. That's evil. He knew Benjamin had a drinking problem. He knew he would most likely be wasted when Holmes came to carry out the plan. He knocks Benjamin unconscious,

then he bound his hands and feet together and set his body on fire with benzene. It's an industrial chemical that's found in crude oil and it's a major part of gasoline. So he uses this as an accelerant and he ignites his body with the flick of a match. He had just killed the person that was the most loyal to him, his closest friend, his confidant, his partner in crime, and now he became part of the crime itself. I'm wrapping up everything soon. I just want to tell you a few more details about his heinous crimes.

After what he did to his best friend Benjamin, him and Georgiana left for Indianapolis. It's believed that Holmes was probably banking on the fact or at least hoping that Benjamin wouldn't be discovered for a little while, so he could make his escape. However, there was a man who planned to meet up with Benjamin the night, so he came knocking on the door, and nobody answered. But he comes back the next day and that time, when he's knocking, he smells something. He opens the door and finds Benjamin's body.

At first, it's actually ruled an explosion until later, when the medical examiner found chloroform in Benjamin's system. which we know Holmes most likely used to knock him unconscious. But for some reason, the death was still ruled an accident. Carrie, Benjamin's wife, she reads a newspaper article about her husband's death. However, she's still thinking this is part of the plan, but it's still shocking reading something like that and she's kind of freaking out. She wants answers from Holmes. He assures her, it's not Benjamin and everything went according to plan.

What a liar. The thing is, Benjamin's body has to be identified by someone in his family in order to collect on the insurance claim. And at this point, Carrie doesn't want to go. She doesn't want to make the trip. So her 15-year-old daughter, Alice, goes back to Philadelphia with Holmes. And in order to shield her from actually seeing her dad in the state that he was in, even though that she's been told it wasn't really her dad and she's in on the plan, they expose only his teeth and they say, do these look like your father's? And of course she says yes. So they cut the check. All the while, Carrie thinks and everyone believes that this is really a substitute for her husband

and that he's still alive. The thing is, Holm starts to realize that this family knows way too much. So he's going to have to take care of them. He tells Carrie that they have to relocate to Indianapolis, where Benjamin would be meeting up with them very soon, just as soon as everything died down. He tells her, I can't move your entire family all at once because it's going to look suspicious. So he says to Carrie, and this is just disgusting, that he needed to take the family members there one by one. But what he's doing is killing them, one after the other.

The first one to go was Benjamin's son Howard, who was only eight. And I'm not going to tell you exactly what he did to him because it's just uncalled for, and we're talking about a child, but he got rid of him. And not soon after that, it was Benjamin's two daughters. 15-year-old Alice and 16-year-old Nellie. Supposedly, he tells Carrie that he's got to go to Toronto because that's where Benjamin's going to meet them now. But it's really because he doesn't want to raise any suspicions. You know, because he's already killed someone where he is at the moment.

As soon as he carries out those two murders, he's on the move again. They took place in a trunk, an actual luggage trunk for clothing. He took them one by one in place. them inside and shut it. And then apparently there was a hose attached to it where gas would go inside. It was like a portable exfixation chamber. I'm not going to tell you all the different places, but he just kept moving Carrie and her remaining kids while lying to her time and time again about her husband still being alive and just knocking off her children. At this point, she only has two left, her eldest daughter and her youngest. All the while he's also moving around his new wife, Georgiana,

and hiding all of this from Murta. At this point, just because Benjamin was legitimately dead and the insurance claim was not true fraud, that didn't mean the insurance company wasn't suspicious. So they hire a Philadelphia detective named Frank Geier to figure out what's going on with the claim and to find out where the missing Pittsell children were. On November 17, 1894, Holmes was in Boston with Georgiana when a group of detectives from the Private Pinkerton National Detective Agency tracked him down from Philadelphia and arrested him for the outstanding warrant in Fort Worth for theft.

Holmes's reign of terror was finally over, but his lying and scheming wasn't. He told police that Benjamin was alive and well and on the run, and he swore that the body wasn't his. It was a stolen corpse. Detectives weren't buying it, but that didn't stop newspapers from selling those lies. The headlines about Holmes being this prolific grave robber made him into an overnight celebrity. And while he's in prison awaiting his trial, as the narcissistic man Holmes was, he decides to write. a memoir, that's right. He wrote a series of autobiographical documents, revealing and confessing to all of his crimes. However, most of it was crap and lies. It was like he was high on being

a celebrity criminal, and he just rode that wave, but the truth began to come to light. The more evidence was collected. By July of 1895, Detective Frank Geier finally located the bodies of Benjamin's two daughters. By that time, they were decomposed in a cellar of a tariff. Ronto home. This is what Geyer had to say in his own words. The deeper we dug, the more horrible the odor became, and when we reached the depth of three feet, we discovered what appeared to be the bone of a forearm of a human being. Geyer followed more clues back to Indianapolis and found eight-year-old Howard's teeth and bit of bone in the chimney of a home that records indicated was rented by homes during the time Howard went missing. In October of 1895, Holmes was put on trial

for the murder of Benjamin Pitzel. We don't know everything that was set at trial, but we know that Ned Connor was one of the witnesses as well as Carrie Petzel herself and his third wife, Georgiana. Here's the scene from The Devil in Me, which includes Holmes speaking at the trial, and these became infamous words, which become the title for the game itself. I was born with the devil in me, also saying,

I could not help the fact that I was a murderer no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing. Holmes was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. After his conviction, Holmes confessed to 27 murders in total. However, most of those have been debunked because some of the people he confessed to killing were actually still alive. Therefore, he's only recognized for killing four known victims, Benjamin Petzel and his three children, Howard, Alice, and Nellie. And for five to assume victims, the ones I mentioned to you, Julia, Pearl, Emmeline, Minnie, and Nanny. However, the last time I looked at a master list, there were at least 28 additional possible victims, and I will link this site for you in my sources if you want to read about each and every one. There just wasn't enough evidence to

prove them. The site also includes all the debunked confessions. No one really knows how many victims H.H. Holmes had in total. Nevertheless, he was hanged on May 7, 1896 at Philadelphia County Prison. His last wishes were for his body to be buried 10 feet deep and covered with cement. Rumors say it was because he didn't want the devil to come out and continue to murder people after he was dead. But in actuality, it's been said the real reason was because he didn't want grave robbers to steal his body and dissect it. So this evil man didn't want anyone doing the same thing he did to so many innocent people. His final meal was toast eggs and a cup of coffee. He was dressed in a black suit and a white silk handkerchief around his neck.

At 10 a.m., he was led to the scaffold by his lawyer, who he thanked before the new source. was placed around his neck and a black bag over his head. He said something to the effect of, you did the best you could. And his hanging was not uneventful. He didn't go quickly with a swift snap of the neck. Instead, he flailed around for another 15 minutes, twitching and making noises. Yikes. They did keep his final wishes, and five barrels of cement were put into his coffin before he was, and then more was poured on top of him, and the top of the coffin was screwed down tightly. Then he was placed in an unmarked grave at Holy Cross Cemetery, a Catholic cemetery in Pennsylvania. So what happened to the murder castle, as it was later dubbed? Well, of course,

the entire hotel was investigated. Detectives dug up the floors in the basement. They tore through each and every one of the rooms looking for clues, but nothing of evidentiary value was ever found. Nothing that could be used at trial anyway. Later, it mysteriously caught fire in August of 1895. Here's what I gathered from Wikipedia. According to a newspaper clipping from the New York Times, two men were seen entering the back of the building between 8 and 9 p.m. About half an hour later, they were seen exiting the building and rapidly walking away, following several explosions the castle went up in flames.

Afterward, investigators found a half-empty gas can underneath at the back steps of the building. The building survived the fire and remained in use until it was torn down in 1938. site is occupied by the Englewood branch of the United States Postal Service, which I showed you in the beginning of the video. Here it is again. Two other things that I found noteworthy was that in 1914, Patrick Quinlan, who was the former caretaker of the hotel, took his own life by drinking poison. He left a note behind that simply read, I couldn't sleep. He took with him any secrets he could have shared about the mysterious murder castle. His relatives swear that he was being haunted, possibly by the ghost of Holmes himself, or that he was suffering from

hallucinations and they were getting to be too much for Patrick. Lastly, in 2017, Holmes's body was exhumed. Yes, I could not believe what I was reading, but since this was such a sensational case and there's so many rumors flying around, even years later, the biggest rumor was that Holmes was never hanged. A team led by Janet Monge from the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archie archaeology and anthropology, assumed and analyzed Holmes' remains. And they did confirm by positively identifying them using dental records that it was the body of Herman Mudgeett, H.H. Holmes. Because he was encased in cement, his body did not decompose the way a body usually would in the same circumstances. His clothes were almost in perfect condition

and even his mustache was intact. After identifying him, the body was buried once again. So I will leave you with some additional footage of my recreation of the H.H. Holmes World's Fair Hotel. That's all I have for you today. Thank you so very much. I will see you in my next video. Bye.