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101 – Holmes
41 Plays6 days ago
Sam shares the chilling story of H. H. Holmes, one of America’s earliest and most infamous serial killers.
Operating during the late 1800s in Chicago, Holmes became notorious during the time of the 1893 World’s Fair. Behind his charming demeanor and successful business ventures was a dark and calculated killer whose crimes would become the stuff of legend.
Holmes is most remembered for his so-called “Murder Castle,” a building allegedly designed with hidden rooms, secret passages, and deadly traps. While some details surrounding the case have become exaggerated over time, the horrifying reality of his fraud, manipulation, and murders remains deeply disturbing.
This episode explores the myth, the man, and the terrifying legacy Holmes left behind in turn-of-the-century America.
Visit us on Linktree for the collection of links, Instagram, or email us at jeffandsamshow@gmail.com.
Sources
- Encyclopaedia Britannica – H.H. Holmes
https://www.britannica.com/biography/H-H-Holmes - Library of Congress – Chronicling America: H.H. Holmes
https://guides.loc.gov/chronicling-america-h-h-holmes - EBSCO Research Starter – H.H. Holmes
https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/h-h-holmes - Forensic Scholars Today – Academic article on H.H. Holmes
https://digitalcommons.csp.edu/forensic_scholars_today/vol1/iss2/4/ - Larson, Erik. The Devil in the White City
- Schechter, Harold. Depraved – The Definitive True Story of H.H. Holmes, Whose Grotesque Crimes Shattered Turn-of-the-Century Chicago
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Transcript
Introduction and Setting the Stage
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello, Sam. Hi, Jeffrey.
00:00:25
Speaker
Welcome to the Jeff and Sam show. I'm Jeff. And I'm Sam. Hi. Hi. Hi, Jeffrey. How are you? I'm well. How are you? Weller. Weller. Yes. Like the Wellerman. No, like the Wellerman, yeah. but You know I love that song.
00:00:39
Speaker
You know I love that group. Sing it. No. Go for it. Do it.
00:00:45
Speaker
Good job. Excellent. d in room Excellent. Oh, what's new? What's going on? Not much. i finally got this story for you, and it's ah it's a long one. Okay, you want to just get into it?
00:00:59
Speaker
I feel as though we should, because our poor listeners will have to listen to me talk for quite a while. I can't wait to hear what this one Okay, I feel like it's been a long time coming. All right, you ready? Let's it. Let's do it.
00:01:13
Speaker
On September 4, 1846, a boy was born in Henderson, New York. By the age of 47, this man would become an absolute giant in his field and literally change the face of cities for all eternity.
00:01:29
Speaker
Years later, on May 16, 1861, another boy was born in the small town of Gilmanton, New Hampshire. In just 34 short years of life, this child would also grow up to make a name for himself and ensure a forever place in American and world history.
00:01:47
Speaker
Okay. Both men had a way with people. They were handsome, charismatic, confident, and had striking blue eyes. They each cemented their fame in the same city at the same time.
00:02:01
Speaker
One in the spotlight and the other in the shadows. I am racking my brain. You're goingnna you're going to get it immediately. On February 24th, 1890, thousands of Chicago residents gathered in the streets waiting to hear the results of a nationwide vote taking place in D.C.
00:02:19
Speaker
Those not gathered outside the offices of the Chicago Tribune were standing by at home or work waiting for the runners and the messenger boys to deliver the news. After years of bidding wars, at the conclusion of hours and hours and hours, multiple votes,
00:02:35
Speaker
And a lot of trash talking other cities via telegram, which who knew? it That can't have been very witty. Very quick, yeah. Like, you suck.
00:02:46
Speaker
Hours later. Four days later. bitch said I sucked. um And then some attempted political manipulation. The decision seemed close to being made. The Tribune had been relaying the results of every vote through handwritten signs in their office window. Late into the day, with even more people gathered after work and gas lamps lighting the crowded street, the Tribune employee painstakingly and dramatically slowly painted out a sign to be put in the window that would alert the waiting crowd of the results of the most recent vote.
00:03:19
Speaker
He hefted the large bulletin up and placed it in the window, notifying the ever-expanding mass of watchers. After fighting for the honor against places like New York, who claims to be the center of culture and art and really everything else, right which you know, you can't fault them. Washington DC who said, well, we're the center of government and the nation, we deserve this. right And then sweet St. Louis who randomly threw their name in the ring and quote, no one cared what St. Louis thought, although the city got a wink for pluck.
00:03:51
Speaker
Louis, wait a think told me that before. Yeah. Chicago was granted a contract by Congress to host the World's Fair. Yes. The crowd erupted in cheers. Messenger boys bolted to spread the word. People ran to share the news with their absent family members and friends. They ran into hotels, high-end homes, offices, and restaurants. Some boys patted down the dirtier, shadier back alleys to bars and brothels. One boy walked down a dark alley towards a door that led into a room full of...
00:04:21
Speaker
very odd, wall decor that included skulls, weapons, a bloody blanket, and a hangman's noose. In the center of the room, there was a coffin being used as a table. Surrounding it was a group of men of varying ages.
00:04:36
Speaker
These men, although sinister in appearance, were simply passionate journalists and the true crime junkies of that day who had named themselves the Whitechapel Club in reference to the London slum that had been terrorized just two years earlier by Jack the Ripper. right People from all walks of life were invested in the idea of the fair being hosted in Chicago. Regardless of their socioeconomic status, career, social activities, everybody wanted to see what the fair would bring to their still recovering city.
00:05:06
Speaker
The celebration was to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus's discovery and stick it to the French in response to them building the eiffur Eiffel Tower and hosting the Exposition Universelle.
00:05:18
Speaker
America, as a whole, had a lot to make up for, apparently, having supplied a barely even palatable presentation at France's Eiffel Fair. Of America's presentation during the 1889 Historic French Expo, a correspondent wrote,
00:05:32
Speaker
The result is a sad jumble of shops, booths, and bazaars, often unpleasing in themselves and incongruous when taken together. Other nations are not rivals.
00:05:44
Speaker
They are foils to France, and the poverty of their displays sets off, as it was meant to do, the fullness of France, its richness and its splendor. When the bidding had started in 1882, most Americans believed that the celebration should be held at nation's capital.
00:06:00
Speaker
However, Chicago was thriving with pride in a powerful force that was growing after the rebuild following the Great Fire of 1871. Chicagoans wanted the opportunity to show cities like New York and D.C. that they were worth more than a wink for pluck. Mm-hmm. So on June 29th, 1889, Mayor DeWitt C. Krieger announced the creation of a committee made up of 250 of the city's most prominent men.
00:06:25
Speaker
The closing passage of the committee's resolution stated, and this is like, you know, you just want them to win. It said, the men who have helped build Chicago want the fair and having a just and well-sustained claim.
00:06:40
Speaker
They intend to have it. Like, way to go, my man. Like, you're going to get it. They intend to have it. so Right? And damned if they did not do the thing. In what became known as the White City, the final exhibition spanned more than one square mile and consisted of more than 200 buildings. Somewhere is large and grand enough to fit the U.S. s Capitol building, the Great Pyramid, Winchester Cathedral, Madison Square Garden, and St. Paul's Cathedral combined. Holy shit. Yeah.
00:07:11
Speaker
One of the buildings named the Court of Honor was described um was described by an author or writer as, no other scene of man's creation seemed to me so perfect as this Court of Honor.
00:07:27
Speaker
It was practically blameless. The aesthetic sense of the beholder was as fully and unreservedly satisfied as in looking at a masterpiece of painting or sculpture, and at the same time was soothed and elevated by a sense of amplitude and standard such as no single work of art could produce.
00:07:45
Speaker
Like, that's just a lot of passion, you know? love the word amplitude. Right. Yeah. The fair lasted six months and recorded 27.5 million visits. The total population of the country at the time was 65 million.
The Success and Tragedy of the Chicago World's Fair
00:08:00
Speaker
It was described as enchanting, magical, transformative, exotic, and immense. Get that telegram. Right? Yeah. It attracted big names like Buffalo Belt, not the creepy cross-dressing skin-wearing serial killer. um but like the good the actual actor, right? Theodore Dreiser, Susan B. Anthony, Nikola Tesla, George Westinghouse, Thomas Edison, Henry Adams, Jane Adams, Philip Armour, Marshall Field, and Archduke Francis Ferdinand. Who's who? Butterfly effect. Archduke Francis Ferdinand. All of these people in one place. Wow, that's insane. Yeah, way to go Chicago, right? Yeah.
00:08:42
Speaker
One of the men who was pivotal in making this happen was Daniel Hudson Berman. He was handsome and blue-eyed. He was an architect who had already made a name for himself, sort of. Burnham had been born in New York in 1846.
00:08:56
Speaker
His family was ah devoted to... i'm going to butcher this word, okay? Butcher? You know what? i won't be able to tell. just Sweden version. Okay. Okay. It's set of principles of obedience, self-subordination, and public service. I feel like you slayed it. Oh, thank Yeah.
00:09:14
Speaker
He was loved and supported by his parents. When he was nine, his family moved to Chicago. Burnham was described as a lackluster student, and... He had a, quote, severe case of test anxiety, which, you know, I get that. I relate. I get that. I relate.
00:09:29
Speaker
So his father was a very, very successful businessman. He had expected and hoped for more. So as he aged, he was like, my man, Daniel, we got to get better at this. So he sent him back east to have private tutors prepare him for entrance exams to... Harvard and Yale.
00:09:46
Speaker
He flunked both. Like flunked. He didn't write a single word on the test. Okay. So, however. So just didn't try. Well, he did. He, she, cause he had been doing well in his private tutoring sessions, but like he gets into the thing and he's like, i got nothing. So, however, Berman had always excelled in drawing.
00:10:06
Speaker
When he returned to Chicago at the age of 21, he sought work with the architectural firm of Loring and Jenny. the company that is technically actually credited with the invention and creation of the first ever skyscraper.
00:10:19
Speaker
Not accurate entirely. He left, ah and he was like, this is cool and all, but I'm going to go elsewhere, and decided to try his hand at gold mining in Nevada. He failed, epically.
00:10:30
Speaker
ah Returned to Chicago, broke his fuck, and joined a new architectural firm. Then October 1871 The Great Chicago Fire happened, burned 18,000 buildings, left over 100,000 people homeless.
00:10:44
Speaker
This was a great opportunity for architectural firms. Yeah. I mean, it it the the description of how it burned, holy tits. Anyway, so this was a great opportunity. Architectural firms, builders, contractors, like this was their time to shine. They're going to rebuild the city.
00:11:01
Speaker
Do you think Burnham stayed? He didn't. He didn't. He did not take the opportunity. He quit. He dabbled in plate glass sales. Failed at that.
00:11:11
Speaker
He tried working as a druggist. He quit that. ah His father decided to intervene when Burnham was 25. He introduced him to architect Peter White, who thoroughly appreciated Burnham's skill at design and drawing. Burnham liked White, ah fell in close with one of the other young men working at the firm, John Root.
00:11:29
Speaker
So John Root and Daniel Burnham became fast friends, and then they became partners in their own firm. The partnership thrived, and even during the economic crisis of 1873, Burnham's friendship with Root was enough to make him stick with their work. So everything else...
00:11:41
Speaker
Burnham had quit. But something about his friendship with Root was like, this is going work. okay So in 1881, Peter Brooks III hired Burnham and Root to construct the tallest office in Chicago. They went back and forth, disagreed on design frequently. ah Root came up with a solution to the single most complex and deadly problem that architects and builders in Chicago had been struggling with for years. How to build high with the soil and foundation of Chicago being what they called gumbo. Hmm.
00:12:10
Speaker
The men succeeded. Root and Burnham ah created a new design, and the Montauk Building became the first ever building to be called a skyscraper. Wow. ah Loring and Jenny later altered and perfected the design. Chicago exploded skyward. Burnham and Root prospered, became very wealthy.
00:12:28
Speaker
Burnham started to shine as the face of the company because he was handsome and charismatic. He was known for his ability to attract new clients and execute Root's designs. So pushing through minor challenges and setbacks with the firm, Burnham and Root was undoubtedly ah the most impressive and sought-after architectural firm in the city.
00:12:46
Speaker
So obviously, in 1890, when Chicago won the vote, loudmouthed Chauncey Depew from New York said, The most marvelous exhibit of modern times or ancient times has now just closed successfully in Paris. Whatever you do is to be compared with that.
00:13:03
Speaker
If you equal it, you have made success. If you surpass it, you have made triumph. If you fall below it, you will be held responsible by the whole of American people for having assumed what you are not equal to.
Daniel Berman and Innovations at the Fair
00:13:13
Speaker
no pressure.
00:13:14
Speaker
Right? Like, oof. the firm of Burnham and Root, they had a challenge, right? Mm-hmm. They spent some weeks gathering this absolutely all-star team, which included world-renowned sculptor, designer, painter Francis David Millett, also known as Frank Millett, as the decorations director and a prominent landscape architect who did not want to be called a landscaper, mind you. He was a very, very salty man. Frederick Law Olmsted, who became known as the Wizard of Central Park.
00:13:47
Speaker
The architects met this challenge and skepticism and anxiety head on with a plan to conquer the nearly impossible. Burnham had known that he would be facing challenges about deadlines, personality problems, differences, opinions, and all the other fuckery that goes along with attempting to coordinate such an elaborate and extensive event. But what he didn't have on his bingo card was that he would have to live through and recover from a deep personal loss during the planning.
00:14:13
Speaker
In January 1891, his business partner and longtime friend John Root died from pneumonia. It nearly destroyed Burnham, but he had to continue because this was their greatest achievement, and he would do it to honor John.
00:14:25
Speaker
As Chicago continued to expand and thrive, so too did crime and chaos. Death was commonplace in all forms. There were daily tragic accidents and deaths involving... The many, many trains and rail crossings and described as like there were so many trains going at all times that you would step off one and there would be another one. And that was very commonplace at the time. um Fires still broke out. It's got to be a little PTSD. Yeah, for Horse-drawn carriages went berserk and trampled people.
00:14:58
Speaker
I'm just thinking like, what would you do if you saw like a a crazed horse coming at I'd be like, oh shit. Damn. Damn. Damn. ah Who do you throw in the way?
00:15:10
Speaker
You know? Yeah. Don't say it out loud. Diphtheria, tuberculosis, typhus, cholera, and the flu claimed lives by the dozens. What a great time to be alive. I'm saying. Like, gross.
00:15:23
Speaker
As more women became liberated from home lives, they began taking jobs in the city and traveling alone. This makes me so happy. A warning ad was issued in the newspaper written by a bank officer that read, quote, our gro it is our growing conviction that no thoroughly honorable businessman who is this side of dotage ever advertises for a lady stenographer who is blonde, is good looking, is quite alone in the city, or will transmit her photograph.
00:15:54
Speaker
All such advertisements upon their face bear the marks of vulgarity, nor do we regard it safe for any lady to answer such unseemly utterances. so unseemly. Honestly, the first thing that I thought of when I read this was the ad that Joey puts in the newspaper for a new roommate when Chandler moves out, because it's basically what he does. What was the ad?
00:16:19
Speaker
It was like attractive... female, non I don't know. i remember that, yeah. You know? yeah. And it was like Rachel's looking at trying to find apartments the next and she's like, look how gross this is it's Joey's ad.
00:16:34
Speaker
are you doing? Right? ah And so as the Metropolitan Center, as with any Metropolitan Center, there was a seedy side. So during the first half of 1892, murder and violent deaths were happening at a rate of four per day.
00:16:50
Speaker
That's a lot of fucking people. Mm-hmm. As the fair, i would like to know what the, like, rates, I mean, I know there's, like, Detroit, there's, a like, New York, right, but I would like to know what the death rates are. um As the fair approached and crime continued to rise seemingly on the next street over from where the magic was being made, the area outside the fairgrounds was referred referred to as the Black City in reference to the pervasive soot stains, odors, crime, and filth.
00:17:17
Speaker
The White City, by comparison, was clean and well-kept. The team had created a mystical place that boasted clean water, clean public restrooms, electric lighting, a sewage management management system that produced acres of manure for farmers to use. Like, this is just ahead of the time, you know? Yeah, I never thought about that.
00:17:36
Speaker
oh there was Oh, God, I wish I could have seen it, you know? There was an ambulance service, a daycare center, and live music that was broadcast throughout all of the grounds by a long-distance telephone system. They had speakers, man. That's insane. like they were It's so cool. ah Visitors witnessed stunning new technology and science from those like Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison.
00:17:58
Speaker
They rode a magnificent Ferris wheel that was just the talk of the town. um They got to try a new oddly flavored gum called Juicy Fruit. Oh, shut up. Caramel-covered butter popcorn that was named Cracker Jack.
00:18:15
Speaker
A new cereal that everyone said was destined to fail and that they playfully called Shredded Dormat instead of its real name, Shredded Wheat. And a new beer that won the top award at the fair that was then aptly named Pabst Blue Ribbon. Shut up. Mm-hmm.
00:18:34
Speaker
Amazing. Buffalo Bill's Wild West exhibit drew nearly four million million visitors alone. Much to the chagrin of many of the fancier, snootier exhibitor people, um everyone from all over the place were thrilled by the shows that he put
Chicago's Dark Underbelly
00:18:48
Speaker
on. And he even, just to kind of stick it to them, he had asked for a more central location for his show, and they were like, fuck that guy. we don't need your We don't need your kind around here. So he actually had ah kind of...
00:19:02
Speaker
ah perimeter type things. He wasn't like the central. um He opened the show one day for all the children of Chicago and offered free train tickets, free admission to the entire encampment and the show, and all of the candy and ice cream that the children could eat.
00:19:20
Speaker
15,000 kids showed up that day. It's just a classy way of saying, okay, bitches, watch what I'm going to do. But it's like everyone from all over just loved his show. Yeah. You know? He made, um the i think he made the equivalent of like,
00:19:39
Speaker
I think $3 million. Yeah. um in In his thing and like it's just crazy. Just crazy. That's awesome. Yes. Oh, shit. That's a lot of money. yeah Yeah. Yeah.
00:19:51
Speaker
Yeah. And so he used that money to actually buy and create the town of Cody, Wyoming. Yeah. Shut up. Yes.
00:20:02
Speaker
It's crazy. Like from from his proceeds from this exhibit, he created the town of Cody, Wyoming. I've had the best steak I've ever had in Cody, Wyoming.
00:20:16
Speaker
No shit. They do steak well. They do steak well. And we were at, in South Dakota, on the president's heads, what's that called? Mount Rushmore. That thing. We were there and I asked told the guy that night we were stopping in Cody, Wyoming. And he said, I'm from there. And oh we were like, tell us like your favorite steak restaurant.
00:20:35
Speaker
In Cody, which is like really not a big place. I mean, but it's beautiful. And he said, um he named the steak place so that night when we got to Cody, that's where we went for a steak. But we all know that the best steak in Wyoming was at... I don't know. The Little Yellow House. Oh, yeah, the Yellow Hotel. The Yellow Hotel, yeah.
00:20:57
Speaker
i don't know. The Cody-Wyoming steak was pretty damn good, but I did not know Buffalo Bill... Bought it with the proceeds from crazy the World's Fair. yeah ah The committee continued to have its own concerns and problems. The work never ended. Logistics were continuing to be a nightmare. There were some, like, minor setbacks. Some shit burned down. Some stuff blew up. There were a lot of deaths, you know, but such is the game when you're building world exhibit.
00:21:21
Speaker
I mean, but there was one, like, the first man who got electrocuted. The way that the the report was of his death was, like, I'll to find it and show it to you later because it was worded so magically. i want to see this. should have put it in, but I didn't. But it was amazing. It was like in an absurd movement of electrical current, this man lost his life. It was so weird.
00:21:48
Speaker
Yeah. um From the outside, though, the fair was everything it was intended to be. It was immense. It was beautiful. And it was breathtaking. It drew crowds from all over the world. It seemed that the men who had been put in charge of bringing America some glory had pulled off a miracle in an unbelievably short period of time because it was less than three years that they had to do this.
00:22:09
Speaker
In the first week of October, just a few weeks before the fair was set to close, Frank Millett was had designated October 9th as Chicago Day. That single day, 751,026 people attended the fair.
00:22:24
Speaker
This number shattered the record for the largest number of people to attend any single event of peaceable, ah any single day of a peaceable event in history.
00:22:35
Speaker
The previous record holder was the French exposition from 1889 that had, give it 300,000? 397,000. Take that, French. Fuck off, Eiffel. three hundred and ninety seven thousand yeah that you french fuck off eiffel <unk>ber um Unfortunately, the years of hard work by Burnham, Olmsted and Millett were not celebrated and praised as they should have been.
00:22:58
Speaker
The six months of the fair's elegance and majesty and joy did not culminate in this grand closing ceremony as was planned. Instead, the fair ended with a massive funeral service being held for the beloved Mayor Harrison, who had been assassinated by a delusional, obsessive, disgruntled man just days before he could speak at the conclusion of the dedication of city pride.
00:23:20
Speaker
During the funeral, part of the originally planned speech that was to be read at the closing festival was actually recited by the Reverend who performed the services. In it he read, we are turning our backs upon the fair stream of civilization and are about to co-sign it to the dust. It is like the death of a dear friend.
00:23:37
Speaker
How fitting. yeah um For Daniel Burnham, it was more difficult because he deeply felt the loss of his friend John Root on the ride to the cemetery. The fair was over in a cloud of sadness. The most magical and unforgettable event that was to solidify Burnham and Root in the history books was instead concluded in tragedy and without any opportunity to give the recognition deserved to a Brut, Burnham, Millet, and Olmstead.
The Rise of H.H. Holmes
00:24:00
Speaker
It wouldn't be until a few years later that the citizens of Chicago and the world at large would find out that not only was there an assassination, but there was something far worse festering just beyond the lights and shimmer of the White City. um Talking about a person? Mm-hmm. Yeah. So now we turn to our other character, and we flash back to 1861.
00:24:23
Speaker
Herman Webster Mudgett. What a fucking name. Mudgett. What a douche. Hi. I'm Mr. Mudgett. I'm Herman Mudgett. I'm Herman Mudgett. He was such a shit name. Like, you're destined for horrific things. You're going to be a mass murderer. Multi-murderer. Yeah, multi-murderer.
00:24:43
Speaker
He was born to Theodate Page. Theodate, that's, I mean, come on, okay. Yeah, religious mother. Unfortunately. And Levi Horton, the harsh father, as old as time, right?
00:24:55
Speaker
Third of four children, he was raised in a very devout Methodist home. He was kind, quiet, and handsome. He had piercing blue eyes. Levi was described as a heavy drinker and a violently abusive man.
00:25:06
Speaker
The children all suffered at his hand. Their mother was described as cold and distant and reliant on religion to guide her parenting, which is always a great idea, right? The Bible says...
00:25:17
Speaker
mu Sorry, my trauma's showing. too Any slight variance from what they considered appropriate behavior met with rod and prayer and then banishment to the attic and food withholding.
00:25:30
Speaker
Because why not? That's what that's what Jesus would want. to Can we just also take a moment to cheers queers? Because religious trauma, we need to cheers queers. Cheers queers. we're not a part of that. are not. And you know what?
00:25:44
Speaker
I like to consider myself recovering Catholic. People are like, you know, not renounced, just recovering. Okay, so we got that out of our system. We did. Sorry for the delay in that. Just really it. You know what? We did it. We did it. What more do they want? Does it matter when? more do they want?
00:25:59
Speaker
Christopher. Christopher. um but you bed b well Don't know where I am.
00:26:10
Speaker
So Levi, he was abusive, an asshole. Yeah, yeah, kids beating food. ah Herman was a very intelligent boy. He attended Phillips Exeter Academy and then graduated with honors from the Gilmanton Academy at the age of 16. Wow.
00:26:25
Speaker
oh In addition to a rotten home life, however, Herman was mercilessly mocked and bullied in school because of his superior academic capabilities. Fucking nerd.
00:26:36
Speaker
I think I know who you're talking about. I would hope so. Ding. Do you wanna say without them hearing it? No, I'm gonna, I don't have to. Hold up a card.
00:26:54
Speaker
Yes. My pen ran out. but I know, yes, yes, yes, yes. yes yes ok Just based on what you wrote. ok um During one such episode of bullying when he was only five years old, like poor boy, right? But like also just a lot of us got bullied. I got put in a trash can, and like it's fine. Also, I'll tell you, i don't know this story the way that I would like to know this story. Oh man, it's bad. yeah It's bad, but it's magnificent. it's a really popular story. Yes, but also not as well covered. I think it's always mentioned. Yeah, it's always mentioned. it's always because
00:27:31
Speaker
Realistically, you have to you have to give you have to pay homage to this story because it is a story that created ah a whole thing for us, right? So five years old, um there was a doctor's office on his way to school and everyone knew that he feared the doctor's office and he was, you know, so on his way to school, passing the doctor's office, a couple of his schoolmates that were older dragged him kicking and screaming into the doctor's office while the doctor was out and they like threw him up against an articulated skeleton, which at the time was not made of plastic, it was real human bones. Oh yeah, oh shit. Yeah. And then like use the skeleton's hands to like touch his face and like totally freak him out. He's sobbing, screaming, whatever. Doctor comes and is like, hey, you kids, get out of here.
00:28:19
Speaker
um Here's the morphine. Go. Right? So he was initially terrified, but then he actually became intrigued by the anatomy and physiology of the human body. He said in his memoir, quote, it was a wicked and dangerous thing to do of a child of tender years and health, but it proved an heroic method of treatment destined ultimately to cure me of my fears and to inculcate me in inculgate in me first a strong feeling of curiosity and later a desire to learn, which resulted years afterwards in my adopting medicine as a profession. Right? Yeah. Wow. Wow.
00:29:04
Speaker
After his a horrific experience with a skeleton at the doctor's office, he began conducting experiments on creatures. Here we go. By the time he was 11, he realized that he enjoyed dissecting animals while they were still alive and found ways to disable them without killing them and then would dissect them.
00:29:23
Speaker
His only real childhood childhood friend was an older boy named Tom who mysteriously fell to his death while the boys were playing in an abandoned house. Herman did not seem fazed by it Prior to his career as a doctor, though, just after graduation at 16, Mudgett actually became a teacher.
00:29:43
Speaker
the Not much to say about that. In 1878, he married Clara Lovering. The relationship was magical and passionate, but then it quickly changed to something involving long absences, distrust, and disdain. In 1879, enrolled in the University of Vermont, and then transferred to the University of Michigan Department of Medicine and Surgery in Ann Arbor. At the time, the school was known as the leading scientific medical school with an emphasis on a very new and controversial dissection program.
00:30:16
Speaker
He graduated in 1884, then he went to practice medicine in New York. He was offered a position as a principal at a school because the trustees were just so impressed by his gentlemanly manners.
00:30:28
Speaker
ah His time in New York, though, there were there were odd rumors and concerns about maybe some of the things that he was doing and his scruples. um By 1885, he was broke. He needed money quickly. He had a medical practice that was failing, and he was a principal who didn't get paid shit. um He was already kind of rocking this blooming reputation for scamming people, so why not make money off of it?
00:30:56
Speaker
um Turns out that when he was in med school, he and a classmate had thought up a scheme um obtaining life insurance policies with himself being the beneficiary and then using cadavers to fake a death.
00:31:08
Speaker
Because there you go, right? ah So he reached back out to his schoolmate. They created an elaborate pant plan. ah He worked odd jobs, moved around Pennsylvania, Minnesota, New York, and Illinois. And what he said was his way of gathering, quote, materials for his contribution to
The Construction of the Murder Castle
00:31:24
Speaker
the plan. The term materials, turns out, was how he described bodies.
00:31:29
Speaker
ah He was collecting those for the insurance scam. At the time, medical schools and doctors were already short on cadavers. So even reputable places like schools, were like sending people to go grave robbing. So it wasn't the craziest thing. Can just do like, oh this reminds me, i mean, the Nick on Prime, it's medicine at the turn of that century. yeah And if you haven't seen it, Dan's seen it.
00:31:58
Speaker
He really likes this show. oh nice I am fascinated by it. And this is all at that same time. Yes. Yeah. okay um So eventually he moved to Chicago where he adopted the name Henry Howard Holmes.
00:32:17
Speaker
He became partner in a pharmacy and a respected doctor. The aging wife of the owner of the pharmacy was immediately taken by his handsome face and overall presentation. He just was well put together. He looked like he knew what he was doing. He had the talk. He could do everything. He looked like he was also well off.
00:32:39
Speaker
He asked for a job, and she hired him instantly. She never asked about his past beyond that he had previously worked in a pharmacy. He never found it necessary to tell her that while working at that pharmacy, he had quickly fled the job in Philadelphia because there was a sudden death of a patient who had taken one of his elixirs. And he was like, let's not talk about that.
00:33:01
Speaker
Um, Miss Horton, the store owner's wife, was actually very relieved when after poor Mr. Horton died, Holmes offered to buy her out and said she could remain living upstairs in the apartment. Next thing you know, that gentle elderly woman who had been a neighborhood figure at that pharmacy vanished.
00:33:21
Speaker
He rapidly became the topic conversation. The young, handsome, blue-eyed, supposedly unmarried Dr. Holmes answered questions about Miss Horton um with ease. He explained that she had decided to move to California to visit resident relatives.
00:33:36
Speaker
After he established himself as a wonderful and kind replacement, people stopped asking questions. In 1887, Henry courted and then married small-town lady Myrta Belknap, whom he had met on a trip to Minneapolis.
00:33:51
Speaker
Still married, by the way, yeah to Clara Lovering back in New Hampshire. We never really hear anything else about her. hu me so they still hitched Yeah.
00:34:05
Speaker
um murda became pregnant in early nineteen eighteen eighty eight ah the relationship became strained her parents moved to will-met illinois and by summer of eighty eight myta ended up moving in with them um initially holmes would go and visit he begged for forgiveness and not being a good husband and The parents were like, we don't like you. And then they fell in love with him and he showered her with gifts and he was described as a wonderful husband and father.
00:34:36
Speaker
yeah That same summer and early fall, Holmes purchased the lot across from his pharmacy and began construction on a massive building that he claimed would be used as like a multipurpose building. Retail on the bottom, apartments on the second floor, a new pharmacy. um For some reason, the land was purchased under the name H.S. Campbell.
00:34:59
Speaker
Weird. He hired many laborers and workers whom he then would berate and claim did poor work and thus didn't deserve pay for what they had done. And then he would fire them or they would quit without being paid.
00:35:14
Speaker
None of them were part of the entire construction process or knew the full blueprints. So it was very compartmentalized. Of his many contractors and workers who moved through through the process, three individuals remained with Holmes and kind of pop up throughout the story. um Charles Chappell, Patrick Quinlan, and Benjamin Pitezell.
00:35:37
Speaker
Pitezell became Holmes' right-hand man and all-around assistant. The two began scheming and plotting ways to make money. Pitezell was an alcoholic, a hot mess. He was a father of six children before one of them died of diphtheria. Ew.
00:35:51
Speaker
A district attorney later referred to Pitisel as, quote, Holmes's tool and his creature. The work on the building was so compartmentalized and turnover was so great that although the building was slow, he actually managed to cut his costs to like an eighth of what they would have been for such a complex monstrosity of a property. Like really kind of smart though. i mean, shitty, but you keep firing people, then, you
00:36:22
Speaker
By mid 1890, the building was almost completed. Imposing and fit with turrets, douche. It was a monstrosity, but the people of the area looked on it with pride. Englewood, where it was located, was a suburb of the actual hotspot city, and it was up and coming.
Holmes' Deceptions and Murders
00:36:40
Speaker
People who had fled after the fire were all settling there. People from out of town were coming, and Englewood was booming. So he got in at the right time, and he built a one block building.
00:36:53
Speaker
I wonder if it's still standing. It is not, and I will explain later. Okay. Which just burns my butt because I want to go in it so badly. oh The first floor was comprised of space for five retail stores, including um a corner store that was very inviting right at the the corner of Wallace and 63rd. Like, that's what you saw when you walked in there.
00:37:18
Speaker
um He also sold the original drug drugstore across the street and opened a new one in his fancy building. Other businesses listed on the property were a barbershop, a restaurant, headquarters for the war Warner Glass Bending Company, and the office of a Dr. Henry D. Mann.
00:37:37
Speaker
The second story had six corridors, 35 and doors. Math isn't mathing. The top floor had an additional dozen rooms.
00:37:51
Speaker
Holmes furnished the entire building on credit without ever planning to repay it. When creditors were come to collect, he would direct them to the fictional Mr. H.S. Campbell, who owned the building and the property. Oh, wow. They could never find him. So people would come in and and there were witnesses that described seeing him interact with these creditors, and he was just smooth fucking talking. They'd come in, they'd be irate, they'd be wanting their money, and then next thing you know, they'd be walking out, shaking hands, smiling with some promise from Dr. Holmes. yeah Let's go get some drinks later. Some pats.
00:38:26
Speaker
Yeah. When the new police precinct opened up down the block, Holmes became friendly with them. As the pressure mounted from all the debts he was still avoiding paying, he needed to find some way to finish the last bit of his building.
00:38:39
Speaker
So he found out that Murda's rich uncle was coming to visit in Wilmette. So he began spending more time there before his arrival, showered Murda and Lucy, his daughter, and Murda's parents with gifts.
00:38:53
Speaker
Her uncle, when he arrived, was very wary of Holmes because he had already heard stories of him. But he was disarmed enough after a few days that when Holmes asked for a loan to build a home for Myrta and Lucy so that they could, you know, fix their marriage.
00:39:08
Speaker
Uncle Belknap agreed. Holmes quickly forged another check. Then Holmes was like, hey, come to Englewood. Let me show you this building that I've got. It's a sign that I have good intent to repay you and make a good life for Myrta.
00:39:23
Speaker
Belknap was like, hmm, not about that. But Murda was so disappointed that he had rejected Holmes that he decided to concede. So they're at the building, and Belknap later reported that he repeatedly felt an underlying sense of unease being around Holmes. He said he was charming and passionate and appeared to be truly connecting with others, but there was something off.
00:39:44
Speaker
Many times during that one stay, Holmes tried to convince Belknap to visit the roof to see the views. Then he invited him to stay the night. He initially rejected Belknap was like, okay, maybe I'm being a dick.
00:39:57
Speaker
So he relented, said that he would stay the night. In the middle of the night though, he he couldn't quite get to sleep. So he's laying awake in his bed and he hears someone one trying to enter his locked room.
00:40:08
Speaker
When he calls out he's like, who the fuck is there? First, no one answers. And then he hears a set of footsteps walking away. And then he hears the voice at the door still trying to unlock the door, mind you.
00:40:20
Speaker
And it's none other than Patrick Quinlan, who had been introduced to Uncle Belknap earlier as the caretaker of the building.
00:40:31
Speaker
Belknap refused to let him in, said, we'll talk tomorrow if you really need to talk. He eventually left. Shortly after the visit, um Uncle Belknap realized that a forgery had been...
00:40:42
Speaker
done and he confronted Holmes and he was raging and he had this like deep distrust but he ended up forgiving him because Holmes was so persuasive and he seemed genuinely sorry about it.
00:40:58
Speaker
He's got that the thing. Yeah. Charm. It's stunning. Yeah. Like worse than Ted. He began to spend less and less time at Wilmette home. Never built that new one for murdering Lucy, by the way.
00:41:11
Speaker
He sent them money to keep them comfortable and even had the forethought to take out a life insurance policy on little Lucy because children were so fragile, right? Oof. He had multiple um businesses that were, or like business ventures, I guess, not all legit, that were thriving. So he had rent from his tenants and the shop owners. He had the pharmacy that was doing very well. And then he had this mail order medicine company selling things to cure baldness and alcoholism. Hmm.
00:41:39
Speaker
ah The corner shop was always busy and doctors Dr. Holmes always hired such beautiful young women to help him. But one neighbor recalled that he seemed to be the most unlucky business owner because although he
The World's Fair Hotel and Holmes' Continued Crimes
00:41:52
Speaker
could always find replacements, some of the girls just seemed to leave or quit so suddenly and sometimes in such a rush that they would leave all their belongings behind.
00:42:01
Speaker
um
00:42:04
Speaker
ah um but like the way they described it is like these little old ladies from the neighborhood were like well it's just a sign of the times these women are so transient and they have no you know so they were blaming it on this like newfound freedom that these girls had so like clearly their morals were yeah messed up it's them yeah um leaving all their stuff behind yeah idiots damn So by early 1891, Holmes had a new employee at the drugstore named Ned Cooper.
00:42:35
Speaker
He was a jeweler. working like one of the counters in the store. um He had moved to Chicago with his stunning and exquisitely tall wife, Julia, and their daughter, Pearl. And then his gorgeous sister, Gertie, joined them later.
00:42:50
Speaker
The group ended up residing in one of the second story apartments, which by the way, these apartments were like multi-room apartments. So this was a very massive building. One of the people that moved in lived in like a five room, a park five bedroom. It's a city block, right? It's fucking, yeah, it's massive. Yeah.
00:43:05
Speaker
So Holmes hired Gertie and Julia to help around the shop, so all three of them were making wages, which is great. The women and Holmes hit it off quite well. Some of the customers even started to notice the energy between them.
00:43:19
Speaker
Ned was kind of oblivious to it. um Unbeknownst to many in the city at the time, police and detectives were getting more and more frantic letters from family members who hadn't seen or heard from their daughters, friends, or sons after they had left or visited the great city.
00:43:34
Speaker
As we know, violent crime and murder rates were sky high. There was a constant flood of bodies washing up on the river. um They would be taken to the morgue. If not claimed, they would be sent to a dissection theater and then an articulation laboratory and then shipped to doctors' offices, museums, schools, and private collectors. So missing people, it was a hard hard thing to follow up on.
00:43:53
Speaker
The city kept bustling around the missing and the dead. After all, they had a huge win coming up and they couldn't be disturbed or interrupted, right? Right. Meanwhile, Gertie Conner, Ned's sister, left Chicago in hysterics suddenly one night, and then soon after arriving back home, died very suddenly of natural causes.
00:44:11
Speaker
Ned and Julia's marriage was more strained. Holmes decided to sell the entire drugstore to Ned. Unfortunately, that lasted only briefly. After the turnover, Holmes' schemes and debts made themselves known to poor Ned as collect till collectors came to call. He tried to approach Holmes, and Holmes was like, did something just make sound?
00:44:32
Speaker
Okay. Something just talked, right? Yeah. Okay. Just being sure that wasn't in my head. I think that was the vocera. Oh, that was my vocera? Yeah. Not that I take my battery home. said that. The battery is low.
00:44:46
Speaker
I was like, oh my that did you hear that? she just I should have just been like, no. You should have. i didn't hear anything. Oh my God. I would have been totally thrown off. No.
00:45:02
Speaker
case anyone was wondering if you couldn't hear that, something really did just talk. Yes, it did. And we both just like looked out of the corner of our eyes. To hear which ghost was visiting us this time. Almighty. Okay.
00:45:13
Speaker
Your battery is low. No, it's the battery low. The battery is low.
00:45:20
Speaker
Thank you for that, Vosera, you piece of shit. blah blah blah so ned tried to approach homes and he was like listen bud like that's just part of business like we'll talk to hs campbell like don't worry about it and i was like okay so um he suffered through it for a little while and thought that like this new position would help fix his relations with julia because he was like maybe she's judging me because i'm just a counter worker like I just need to prove myself so he gets to to the pharmacy he's like yay look at me Julia's like fuck off guy um so eventually Ned left the store in a rage because he began to suspect that Julia's temperament was due to a relationship with Holmes. that
00:46:02
Speaker
Pearl and Julia remained in Englewood after Ned left shortly after Ned was out of the picture though Holmes lost interest in Julia and was more annoyed than anything that Pearl was in the picture Much to his dismay though, by November, Julia, now officially divorced from Ned and expecting a promised proposal from Holmes, said, I'm pregnant.
00:46:23
Speaker
Holmes said, okay, well let's get married like I promised. But ah we can't really afford to have children right now because there's still too much to do. Julia happily consented to allow Dr. Holmes to perform an abortion on her in his building where he had created his very own operating theater. Ew. Julia and Pearl were last seen on Christmas Eve, 1891.
00:46:48
Speaker
As it turns out, Holmes' associate, Charles Chappell, was a well-learned articulator. Do you know what that means? No. He could precisely strip the flesh from a body and then clean the bones, bleach the bones, and reassemble the skeleton perfectly.
00:47:09
Speaker
He had done so when he worked at the Cook County Hospital. Holmes began realizing that the need for bodies in small in like all stages of death was rising as the study of medicine was becoming more serious.
00:47:20
Speaker
Holmes was not one to pass up on a good money-making scheme, so he decided to start preparing his materials just after Christmas 1891.
00:47:30
Speaker
Chappell was unsurprised to find the fully equipped operating room, tools, surgical instruments, and a very tall female body on the table when he followed Holmes.
00:47:44
Speaker
He later said, quote, the body looked like that of a jackrabbit which had been skinned by splitting the skin down the face and rolling it back off the entire body. Dang it.
00:47:57
Speaker
But Holmes was a doctor, so it wasn't that weird, right? He had been, as he told Chappell, doing a dissection for medical research, but was now done. Everything with this man is just like, well, he's like a this, or he's got the blue eyes, or, you know, he's a doctor. He's so sweet, he's so charming, he's so kind. Yeah.
00:48:21
Speaker
So he finished his research, quote, and then he paid Chapel to take the body, turn it into a perfectly articulated full skeleton. Chapel did exactly that, return it to the the building, and then Holmes homes immediately sold it to a medical school for a significant amount more than he had paid Chapel By spring 1892, Holmes had a new employee working for him again.
Holmes' Manipulations and Proposal
00:48:49
Speaker
in absolute beauty, Miss Emmeline Segrand. She was charming, clever, effervescent, bright, easy on the eyes, and sweet. She was from from Indiana originally, but he had actually stolen her from a scam doctor in Dwight, Illinois, after his friend Benjamin Pitezel had attended a sober treatment plan and came home raving about this absolute beauty.
00:49:13
Speaker
drop-dead gorgeous stenographer. The two formed a quick and passionate relationship, as was his pattern. By October, he was proposing to her and promising to take her to Europe, where his father, the Lord, still resided. course.
00:49:31
Speaker
Just three weeks before Christmas 1892, Emmeline was notably feeling different about Dr. Holmes. She went to visit her close friends, the Lawrences, who lived in his building,
00:49:42
Speaker
And they commented on her change, and she told them that she was going home to Indiana and then returning to her job in Dwight. She seemed determined to leave him. Shortly after that visit, she abruptly stopped seeing the Lawrences. She never wrote, and she never came to say goodbye.
00:49:57
Speaker
Mrs. Lawrence asked Holmes about her sudden disappearance, and he claimed that she had run off to get married. Mrs. Lawrence was like, the fuck? No way. Yeah. She didn't relent. Holmes presented her with a handwritten wedding announcement for mrs for a Miss Emmeline Seagrand and a Mr. Robert Phelps. There was a wedding announcement even placed in the like hometown newspaper in her Indiana hometown.
00:50:24
Speaker
There seemed to be plenty of evidence, but Mrs. Lawrence still wasn't convinced that that was what was happening. She kind of thought, maybe Holmes had killed this week or all. um Her parents, who previously took letters from her at least twice a week, never heard from her again.
00:50:41
Speaker
They received a trunk full of her belongings months later, but nothing else. Little did anyone know, the name Phelps was the alias that Benjamin Pitezel had used when he checked in into the Dwight Rehab Center and first met Emmeline.
00:50:58
Speaker
Wow. They were also not aware that on January 2nd, 1893, Holmes again employed Charles Chappell to work on a partially skinned female corpse. God damn, dude. And just a few weeks after Chappell was paid, another medical school received a fully articulated female skeleton.
00:51:16
Speaker
As 1893 brought about the long-awaited Chicago World's Columbian Exposition, which is what it was called. Lots of words. AKA the World's Fair. It's too much, right? well Just the World's Fair. yeah um Holmes was kind enough to rent out space to out-of-town visitors and workers. His massive building on 63rd Street, which was now referred to as the Castle.
00:51:39
Speaker
Dick. I would love to see those. God, I would love to. Yes. yes His business was thriving and his year was going great-ish so far.
00:51:50
Speaker
He actually did finally build that Wilmette home for Myrda and Lucy. Didn't ever go there, but he built it for them. He owned another home on Honoré Street. He was a single-ish sort of...
00:52:04
Speaker
handsome man with multiple multiple lucrative businesses ventures. He got, again, his rent from his rentable units in the castle. He was partial owner in a legitimate company who made machines for duplicating documents.
00:52:18
Speaker
I guess like a copy purse? I don't know. Something like a... He owned his own alcohol treatment company and a mail order elixir and ointment company, and he was about to start receiving his first World's Fair guests.
00:52:33
Speaker
Unfortunately, he still had a few pesky things eating into his joy. Mrs. Lawrence had become a constant annoyance, asking more direct and accusatory questions about Emmeline. Creditors were becoming less forgiving and failing like to fall for his manipulations, and um He kept receiving panicked letters from families asking about their missing loved ones, and detectives kept showing up at the door to inquire about the same and different missing persons. At least slightly connected to him, like that was the last place he had been, etc. Luckily, and much to his pleasure, and kind of surprised, he found that not a single person suspected him. They just knew that he had been like the last person to know, but this charming man. like So they wanted his help in finding where they had gone.
00:53:16
Speaker
By this point, it seemed that his greatest problem was actually finding a new secretary that fit all of his specific needs. There were plenty of women ah to choose from because they were flocking to the city to become a part of Chicago during the fair. In March 1893, Miss Minnie Williams showed back up in his life.
00:53:34
Speaker
They had met in Boston many years earlier when he was going by the alias Henry Gordon, but now she was here and just what he needed. She began working for him almost immediately.
00:53:46
Speaker
However, much to the surprise of all of his neighbors and frequent customers, he wasn't real she wasn't really what his normal employees seemed to look like.
00:53:57
Speaker
Minnie was described as plain, short, and plump, with a masculine nose, thick, dark eyebrows, and virtually no neck. Her expression was bland and her cheeks full. She didn't seem to know much.
00:54:10
Speaker
However... It turns out that Minnie was the heir to a considerable wealth and large portion of land in Texas. After just a few weeks of him flattering her and adoring her, he proposed to Minnie.
00:54:27
Speaker
Minnie, who had become close with her previously estranged sister, Anna, over the recent years, wrote to her often about the romance in her relationship and the promise of marriage. The happy couple began making elaborate wedding plans and travel plans full of life and art and adventure.
00:54:40
Speaker
But Holmes said that he had to take care of a few financial things first, so with Minnie's help, he could overcome them. Serving as the notary on both documents, he persuaded her to put the deed to her Fort Worth land in the name of a man, um Alexander Bond.
00:54:57
Speaker
And then Mr. Bond showed up. Mr. Bond, and promptly turned the deed over to a man named Benton T. Lyman. At the same time, Holmes established the Campbell Yates Manufacturing Company, which was billed as a firm that bought and sold pretty much everything.
00:55:17
Speaker
There were five officers listed on the forums, an H.H. Holmes, an M.R. Williams, A.S. s Yates, Haram S. Campbell, and Henry Owens.
00:55:28
Speaker
With the exception of Henry Owens, all of the names were aliases of Holmes himself or just Minnie's name. The company existed entirely to hold assets and provide references for any prying eyes.
00:55:42
Speaker
Finances taken care of, Holmes arranged, a sweet and small marriage ceremony that many thought was entirely legal. It was absolutely fake. There was never any record of their marriage.
00:55:53
Speaker
So, May 1893, the Great World's Fair has officially begun, and it's booming. Wait, so they did get married? Not legal. like they They had a wedding. And she thought it was She thought it was legit. Okay. Yeah. um So...
00:56:07
Speaker
The new World's Fair Hotel, named by its owner, was constantly busy. Some note that the building and its owner tended to have an odd persistent chemical smell and sometimes a gas smell, but they weren't really bothered by it because he was a doctor. There we go again. There we go again. He's a doctor.
00:56:28
Speaker
He's a doctor. Everything is good. He's a handsome doctor. With blue eyes. With blue eyes. As the days progressed... A waitress from the restaurant in Holmes' building disappeared.
00:56:41
Speaker
And then a stenographer named Jenny Thompson. And then a guest named Evelyn Stewart. Families would write and Holmes would offer his assistance. Still, no suspicion fell on him. The police were too busy with other crimes to be involved in disappearing women.
00:56:55
Speaker
When Minnie's sister, Anna, arrived to visit in June, she finally got to meet her supposed brother-in-law. He seemed shorter and maybe a little less handsome than she would have expected based on the letters. But, quote, there was something about him that even Minnie's glowing letters had not captured.
00:57:12
Speaker
She had been skeptical of their relationship for many reasons, but it didn't take her long to fall under his spell and believe that he was genuinely love with his with her sister. Despite their...
00:57:25
Speaker
After touring all of Chicago and finishing at the fair, Anna was invited to stay for the summer. She was overjoyed and sent word for her trunk to be sent. Holmes was getting slightly annoyed by the constant presence presence of Minnie, so he decided to rent an apartment for Minnie and himself, far from the castle, to prevent her from visiting spontaneously.
The Pitezal Scheme and Detective Geyer
00:57:44
Speaker
He got them settled across town and was free to spend his time managing the World's Fair Hotel. On the night of July 4th, Anna wrote a note to her uncle. It told of glamorous travel plans with Minnie and, quote, Brother Harry.
00:57:59
Speaker
ah hate that. She calls him Brother Harry. It's fucking weird. ah They were going to travel across the States and then to Europe where his family resided. In the note, she wrote, quote, Brother Harry says you need never trouble any more about me, financially or otherwise. He and sister will see to me.
00:58:19
Speaker
The next day, as many prepared to leave for their trip, Anna went to Englewood with Holmes for a private tour of the castle. Once there, Holmes lured her into an airtight, soundproofed vault and locked her in.
00:58:33
Speaker
He sat back in his office chair, which had a venting system and an access button, and listened in the gas pipe for the banging and crying to stop. Oh, my God.
00:58:45
Speaker
Then he turned on the gas in the vault and sat back down. He returned to the apartment across town and told Minnie that they had to hurry up. Anna was waiting for them at the castle. A few days later, Holmes hired a private mover to pick up a couple of boxes, told him to arrive after dark, and then had him take the boxes to two prearranged drop locations. One was a trunk taken to the home of Charles Chapel.
00:59:13
Speaker
The other was a plain wooden box, almost the size of a coffin, that was dropped off at the Union Yard, where it was later picked up by a prearranged express courier. Holmes then showed up at the Pitezel house a few days later and gifted Benjamin Pitezel's wife Carrie a large number of dresses and lots of clothing that he had said belonged to his cousin, Minnie Williams.
00:59:39
Speaker
His caretaker, Pat Quinlan, also received a gift of two very sturdy trunks that bore the initials MRW. Minnie and Anna Williams were never seen or heard from again.
00:59:53
Speaker
Just days later, Holmes went to the fair with a young woman named Georgiana Yokes, whom he had met earlier in the year when she was a saleswoman at a department store. Apparently, the two had hit it off and ah started a secret affair.
01:00:09
Speaker
Georgiana knew Holmes as a handsome, articulate, and wealthy man who had lost all of his family except an aunt that was still living in Africa. Prior to their trip to the fair, he had just inherited a large fortune and land in Fort Worth because his final uncle had recently passed away.
01:00:28
Speaker
That night, he asked Georgiana to marry him. pe This story is insane. Yeah. She said yes. He told her that the only caveat was that when they got married, he had to change his name to Henry Mansfield Howard because... The uncle that had just died, that was his name, and he had demanded that Holmes take up the land under that name.
01:00:52
Speaker
She had no reservations about it and didn't think it was odd. Why not? At the fair that night as well was Benjamin Pitezil. He had purchased some gifts for his wife and children, and the one he was most excited about was a small tin man spinning top toy that he had gotten for his son Howard.
01:01:09
Speaker
It turned out to be Howard's favorite toy. As the fair concluded, Chicago returned to itself. The darkness and the dreary nature of the city and the black city crept back into place that was previously occupied by the glamour and festivities of the fair. Homelessness, crime, unemployment skyrocketed. The city city was rife with filth.
01:01:28
Speaker
In the late fall of 1893, with Chicago being what it was, it seemed like a good time to leave. So Holmes was one of those to depart Chicago. However, he couldn't pass up a good insurance scam before leaving.
01:01:40
Speaker
He set fire to the third floor of the castle and filed a claim for $6,000. Unfortunately for Holmes, an investigator for the insurance company became suspicious. He launched a full-scale investigation.
01:01:53
Speaker
In doing so, he managed to uncover and then unite many of Holmes' other creditors who had become increasingly impatient. In addition, Minnie and Anna's guardians then sent investigators and attorneys of their own to investigate their whereabouts.
01:02:08
Speaker
The Sigrand and Smythe families, as well as many others, continued to reach out to Holmes requesting information about their missing loved ones. Holmes was contacted by attorney George B. Chamberlain, who invited him to attend a meeting to discuss some concerning matters. When he arrived, it was into a room full of nearly two dozen angry contractors, creditors, and lawyers who However, he did not seem shocked, was unfazed at all.
01:02:37
Speaker
He smooth-talked, teary-eyed, pity-storied about, you know, he lost some money and this and that, and, you know, shame on me. Out of, like, immediate rest, because they were thinking they were just going to like, throw him and clap him in irons. i don't know if that's what they were still doing back in then, but i like that saying.
01:02:53
Speaker
Yeah. And then he managed to split them enough that then they were like, okay, wait, we need to take time out. We need to talk about this without you here. So he stepped out of the meeting room, didn't look back.
01:03:06
Speaker
He's gone. yeah So to avoid prosecution for arson and all his other schemes from the insurance companies, he quickly disappeared from Chicago. He left with his fiance, Georgiana, and Benjamin Pitezel.
01:03:19
Speaker
Again, just prior to leaving, Holmes couldn't resist. He took out a life insurance policy on Pitezel for $10,000. Oh, Pitezel. Come on. come on They moved to Fort Worth, Texas, where he had recently obtained land and property from Miss Minnie Williams, who had signed the property over to Alexander Bond and Benton Lyman. Remember? Turns out that Alexander Bond was Holmes and Benton Lyman was Pitezel.
01:03:45
Speaker
While there, he obtained additional property started to like try and build something again, but because he refused to pay the sp suppliers and contractors, he ended up with an incomplete structure. Shortly after leaving Texas, he was arrested and briefly jailed in Missouri for stock fraud.
01:03:59
Speaker
He and the Pitazell family ended up in Philadelphia for their next scheme. It was here that Holmes met his eventual downfall after yet another insurance company became suspicious of him. Much like many of our modern-day...
01:04:14
Speaker
serial killers and people that we love. He was apprehended for something completely unrelated to the atrocities that he committed. a private investigation group that was like big time back in the day, because you know, police agencies were kind of not the best-ish. Do you have the name? The pinker Pinkerton National Detective Agency. So they were like big name.
01:04:36
Speaker
um Had been hired to assist in finding homes for the insurance fraud committed in Philadelphia. He was tracked to Boston and confessed to the fraud. He was extradited back to Philadelphia. philadelphia Apparently, the plan had been to fake Benjamin Pitezel's death and collect the insurance money. Okay? So that's what the fraud was.
01:04:58
Speaker
Enter 20-year veteran detective Frank Geyer, who had picked up Holmes' trail in Philadelphia. As Holmes sat in prison, Geyer was investigating him and his possible connection to a missing children's case that he was working on.
01:05:14
Speaker
The more he dug, the more evidence began to surface that Holmes may not have actually faked Benjamin Pitezel's death at all. Geyer worked tirelessly to tie Holmes to the disappearances of 13-year-old Alice, 9-year-old Nellie, and 7-year-old Howard Pitezel.
01:05:31
Speaker
The detective was one of the city's most admired and trusted police officers. He had been handpicked by the district attorney for this case. But it was, like, more close to home, and he was even more motivated and dedicated than ever before because just a few months earlier, he had lost his own wife and 12-year-old daughter in a house fire.
01:05:51
Speaker
His first interview with Holmes was illuminating. I fucking love this man, by the way. And I think he will too. ok He described Holmes as glib and a social chameleon, stating, quote, Holmes is greatly given to lying with a sort of florid ornamentation.
01:06:10
Speaker
In talking, he has the appearance of candor. becomes pathetic at times when pathos seems to serve him best, uttering his words with a quiver in his voice, often accompanied often accompanied by a moistened eye, then turning quickly with a determined and forceful method of speech, as if indignation or resolution had sprung out of tender memories that had touched his heart. That's good.
01:06:36
Speaker
Like when I say that the way this man's brain works, he's like the original fucking behavioral analysis unit. Like what a fucking badass. And the way that he, God, it's so good.
01:06:51
Speaker
I love him. And he was the investigator at the Pinkerton. No, he was just a Philadelphia cop. Oh, okay. And he had been just assigned just to look for the missing children. Right.
01:07:03
Speaker
So the Pinkerton group had been hired by the insurance the Fidelity Insurance Company. yeah um So it came to light that Holmes had apparently had a plan with Pitazel to fake his death and then scam the insurance company.
01:07:16
Speaker
Unfortunately for the husband and father of five, because you know the one died of diphtheria, Holmes didn't fake this one. In September 1894 in Philadelphia, Holmes murdered his friend, that's a loose term, yeah and set him on fire.
01:07:32
Speaker
Then he collected the insurance money and somehow convinced unaware, unsuspecting widow, Carrie, to allow him to take three of their five children into his care. He said, Benjamin's out hiding and he's desperate to see the kids, let me take them.
01:07:49
Speaker
i did It just makes me wonder you know, like just fuck. Over the next many weeks, Holmes traveled with the children, lying to them, repeatedly.
01:08:01
Speaker
He also sent messages to Carrie that the children were fine and hiding out in London with Benjamin. After six months of not hearing from them and scotland Scotland Yard having no record or evidence of any of them in the country, Geyer was increasingly concerned.
Holmes' Arrest and Discovery of Crimes
01:08:15
Speaker
Shortly after his fraud arrest, police had found a box of unsent letters written by the children that led him to further investigate Holmes.
01:08:24
Speaker
So he hit the pavement hard. Using the kids' letters, he traced their travels and started in Cincinnati. After what seemed like a pointless search, they ran across a rundown hotel with a guest log that dated back many months.
01:08:38
Speaker
On it, he saw a name that had been used as an alias for homes before, to rent a home in Burlington, Vermont. The next letters were leading them to Indianapolis, but Geyer knew that Holmes liked to rent homes in, Holmes liked to rent homes? In the places he visited, just like he had in Vermont.
01:08:58
Speaker
So they checked in with a realty office that remembered Holmes and gave them the address rented to an A.C. Hayes. A neighbor recalled that he was odd and only stayed one night, but had arrived with a young boy and a large iron stove.
01:09:12
Speaker
When he made to leave, he offered the stove to that neighbor. The trail continued as such. She found more information and some really horribly unsettling information about how Holmes had treated the kids when they were in and Indianapolis.
01:09:25
Speaker
hey Alice's letters and things witnesses recalled told of how Holmes was continuously angry and fed up with little Howard. i mean, he was nine, you know? like Or seven. Like, he's a seven-year-old boy. yeah um Next, he tracked a lead back to Chicago. He searched for and found every possible clue that could link their travels and possibly lead him to these children that Holmes claimed were safely hidden in England.
01:09:51
Speaker
Again, no proof. Over the months, the letters came became more homesick and sad. There was fear, like obvious, physical discomfort and like emotional turmoil. The next clue took Guyer to Detroit.
01:10:04
Speaker
When he canvassed the Detroit area, he found just how deeply fucking conniving Holmes was. He had checked in three canning children, which was Carrie Pettizel's maiden name, into one hotel.
01:10:19
Speaker
his new wife, Georgiana Yoke, into another whole hotel. And then just a block away, he checked in Carrie Pitazell and her two remaining children.
01:10:33
Speaker
So as Carrie's searching for her kids and thinking, I don't know where they are, oh Holmes is playing them all. He's got the girls and the kids over here in this hotel and just here,
01:10:47
Speaker
Carrie and her two other children that's are here. And Holmes is just, she was less than three blocks from her other children. Alice's final letter, dated October 14, 1894, was dated the same day that Carrie checked in with the other siblings. It was addressed to her grandparents, and it was chilling.
01:11:09
Speaker
In it, she begged for warmer clothing and a coat to be sent. She asked for news of her baby brother and wished for his company as a form of entertainment and distraction. From the boredom and the loneliness, but the last line of her letter replayed repeatedly in Geyer's mind. It read, Howard is not with us now.
01:11:28
Speaker
Hmm. Damn. Back in the Philadelphia prison prison, Holmes was playing his twisted psychopath games with the other inmates and the guards. He earned their favor quickly and was a smug bastard about it. He was considered a model prisoner.
01:11:42
Speaker
He seemed completely unfazed by um sort of his circumstances. When he read newspaper articles showing his increasing notoriety and seeing that Detective Geyer was searching the Midwest for the kids, he was delighted.
01:11:55
Speaker
So confident was he that the detective would find nothing that he actually got pleasure from following the stories. While in prison prison, he wrote his memoir. His fucking disgusting.
01:12:06
Speaker
As Holmes continued his pathetically false jailhouse musings, including a horrifying, horrifically disgusting letter to Carrie. Like, read it. It's fucked. You can still see it?
01:12:17
Speaker
Yeah. Wow. Geyer continued his quest. He traced Holmes all the way to a home in Toronto, Canada. In this city, they found that Holmes again had had three parties staying near each other with increasing fame as the tireless detective racing across the country. Also, like, he's going across the country and to Toronto like in 1896 or something, right? 1894. Yeah, that's wild. Yeah.
01:12:48
Speaker
Um... So yeah, Geyer was gaining fame because he was this tireless, like really motivated, tragedy struck detective, right? Just trying to find these kids. um they were He and his Canadian counterpart were just being bombarded with tips. They were exhausted.
01:13:05
Speaker
On July 15th, they received a tip. ah July 15th, 1895. Okay. They received a tip that they decided to finally check out. It was an older gentleman who had lent a shovel to an odd neighbor back in the fall of 1894 who looked kind of like the description of the man everyone was talking about.
01:13:23
Speaker
The man had apparently moved in with nothing but a mattress and a very large old trunk. He had asked to borrow a shovel to dig a hole in the basement to store potatoes. don't know. The next day, he returned the shovel, took the trunk out of the house, and never returned.
01:13:38
Speaker
In that home, Geyer and the other investigators found the decomposed bodies of Alice and Nellie Pitezel, buried in a shallow grave in the basement. The feet had been removed from the smaller body, and Geyer realized it was because Nellie had club feet and it would be too easy too easy to distinguish her.
01:14:00
Speaker
The medical examiner actually couldn't find any sign of violence on either girl, other than Nellie's feet being cut off post-mortem. The working and likely theory was that Holmes had locked the girls in the large trunk and then filled it with gas because there was a hole in the trunk.
01:14:15
Speaker
The girls had died together in the cramped luggage. Because the investigators knew that Howard wasn't with the girls when they got to Detroit, they needed to retrace Holmes' journey. Nothing turned up.
01:14:26
Speaker
The news of the discovery of the children spread surprisingly quickly for the time. Geyer recalled feeling extremely grateful and accomplished that he had at least recovered those two, but he was still tormented that he didn't know where Howard was.
01:14:39
Speaker
Unfortunately, the telegram to the jail arrived too late to halt the delivery of Holmes' daily newspaper. The guard rushed in to find him seated at his desk reading it. In his memoir, he wrote that he thought at first that it was a silly fanatic writing something sensational, but there was no real information. And then he continued to read, and he thought it was impossible that this had been discovered.
01:15:00
Speaker
But the details were there. He immediately, in his memoir, started claiming that obviously Minnie had killed them, or, you know, she had been known to have this unsavory associate named Hatch, so she must have had them kill him.
01:15:16
Speaker
In the memoir he wrote, quote, I gave up trying to read the article and saw instead the two little faces as they had looked when I hurriedly left them, felt the innocent child's kiss so timidly given and heard their earnest words of farewell.
01:15:32
Speaker
Fuck this guy, right? Like in his memoir he makes himself out to be this kind and caring loving man and it just gives you the fucking right? Well also writing it as he's reading the newspaper about the bad shit he's like. Exactly.
01:15:44
Speaker
So then he's taken to the DA's office, like almost immediately. He sat in near silence for two hours of questioning and accusations, and one witness reported, quote, his genius for explanation had apparently deserted him. And that's just kind of like a kick in the dick. I love it. yeah He returns to his cell, and this grieving man spends the next few days focused on one thing alone.
01:16:07
Speaker
How can he find a publisher to get his memoir into print immediately? Wow. The finding of, the and he does, he finds someone. Like someone's like, yeah, let me do this. So then those two start like trying to do this thing. And his,
01:16:26
Speaker
again, his advice and his instruction to the the publisher is ick, he's just so manipulative. He's like, oh, you need to get it to these people and you need to like do it like, oh, oof.
01:16:43
Speaker
The finding of the Pitezel children by Frank Geier prompted Chicago police to take a little bit of a dive into this guy, right? That's all takes. So they searched the castle. Inside were hidden passages, peepholes in every room, windowless rooms with steel doors that made them airtight, chutes that fed from the rooms, hidden chutes that fed directly down into the basement, and they were, like, greased and large enough to fit bodies? Hmm.
01:17:14
Speaker
and then an insulated vault room with gas-dispersing jets installed. As eerie as those things were, the officers were horrified at what they found in the basement.
01:17:25
Speaker
There was a torture table, a dissection table stained with what appeared to be blood, mysterious wooden boxes, a vat filled with acid that had eight rib bones and a partial skull in it, a massive iron stove that was eight feet tall and three feet wide.
Revelations of the Murder Castle
01:17:44
Speaker
In that stove, they found jewelry, clothing, scraps, and bones. In a hidden airtight, soundproof room, the police found an eerie and difficult to explain phenomenon. Imprinted in perfect detail on the enameled finish of the interior of the vault door, they found a female footprint.
01:18:04
Speaker
Toes, the ball, and the heel were perfectly outlined two feet above the floor. The explanation for this impression, being so detailed and entirely resistant to removal, was that Holmes, who was an avid amateur chemist, had poured some form of acid or other chemical onto the floor before sealing the woman inside. As the chemical processes sped up the consumption of oxygen, she died more quickly.
01:18:28
Speaker
So the person stepped in the acid and then tried to, yeah. So, also in the castle, police found bank books, jewelry, and clothing belonging to various individuals who had been reported missing.
01:18:41
Speaker
Amongst his documents, a letter was found, handwritten by Holmes, and addressed to one of his employees. It read... Do you ever see anything of the ghost of the Williams sisters? And do they trouble you much now?
01:18:55
Speaker
move Reportedly, police found the remains of nearly 100 bodies scattered throughout the castle. The investigation revealed a truly skilled manipulator and shrewd killer. He was notorious for seeking out young women who shared certain traits that he could and would use to his advantage. The mounting disappearances and reports of missing persons began to paint a vivid picture of the man that they were last known to have had contact with.
01:19:19
Speaker
He used his friend Chappell for many of his victims, but not nearly all. Chappell did actually participate in the search of the castle and led police to an additional hidden chamber in the basement where they found more human rene remains and articulated skeletons. He then shared with police that institutions had received other skeletons.
01:19:36
Speaker
However, because he had a built-in kiln crematorium in his basement and pits with quicklime, many of the bodies were disposed of by Holmes himself. He never held on to any of Chappell's pieces of work for long because he didn't want to risk discovery.
01:19:50
Speaker
He later wrote that he never felt the need to have trophies because once the victims were dead, his desire for possession moved on to a new target. Geyer
Investigation Clues and Discoveries in Irvington
01:20:00
Speaker
continued his search for Howard Pizzell because he still wasn't finished. He spent weeks back and forth from Chicago to Indianapolis to Michigan to Ohio, losing hope all the while.
01:20:10
Speaker
In mid-August, Guy and his associate, the Fidelity Insurance Inspector w e Gary, found themselves back in Indianapolis when they received word that the now infamous castle belonging to the mysterious, depraved, and deranged Dr. H.H. Holmes had burned to the ground. Wow.
01:20:27
Speaker
Investigators suspected arson, and they knew the motivation had been to bury whatever secret still remained. The castle's gone. Hmm. As August 1895... Well, now that I've heard all this, it should be gone. Yeah. i didn't know all this.
01:20:45
Speaker
You know what i mean? and At first I thought, eh, that'd be neat, but then, like, eh. Yeah. Yeah. As August 1895 drew to a close, Detective Geyer and Inspector Gary had followed 900 leads, searched all of Indianapolis and every surrounding town except one. On August 27th, they struck out with just one remaining outlying town, Irvington.
01:21:11
Speaker
In this small town, their first stop was a realty office belonging to an elderly gentleman. Expecting more disappointment, they shared the photographs that they still held of the home of homes and the children.
01:21:23
Speaker
Turns out that this old guy vividly recalled the adult man and said he was quite rude. He should have respected me more for my gray hairs. Kind of love that. Yeah. With a surge of hope and excitement, they followed the lead and found a few others who had interacted with him the previous fall.
01:21:38
Speaker
A young man had helped him construct a large stove in the basement of his home. A repairman at shop in town had cleaned and sharpened two cases of surgical instruments for him, and a pharmacist recalled providing him with some sedating medications.
01:21:51
Speaker
Yeah, some good detective work. There in the unassuming small town of Irvington, Illinois, the last town
01:22:03
Speaker
Not Illinois. you Like, outside of Indianapolis, sorry. Guyer's pain-seeking search came to an end. In the pile of ashes in the open base of the chimney, he found teeth and bones belonging to a young boy.
01:22:13
Speaker
There was also a large charred mass stuck inside the chimney. When it was cut open, it revealed unburned internal organs.
01:22:26
Speaker
It had been compacted too much that it couldn't burn. Oof.
Holmes' Indictment and Confessions
01:22:30
Speaker
Carrie Pitezel was summoned and easily identified an overcoat and scarf pin that belonged to Howard and a small burnt tin man spinning top that had been his most prized possession since his father had gifted it to him.
01:22:44
Speaker
In September that same year, the Philadelphia grand jury indicted Holmes for the murder of Benjamin Pitezel. He continued to swear his innocence and put the blame on Minnie mill Williams and Hatch Pitezel.
01:22:56
Speaker
Indianapolis followed suit and indicted him for the murder of Howard Pitezel. Toronto quickly indicted him for the murders of Alice and Nellie Pitezel. So if one failed, then he had multiple options. However, if the first one succeeded, death sentence, obviously. Around this time, his rushed memoir was released. The final pages held the statement, quote, In conclusion, I wish to say that I am but a very ordinary man, even below average in physical strength and mental ability, and to have planned and executed some stupendous amount of wrongdoing that has been attributed to me would have been wholly beyond my power.
01:23:35
Speaker
Sort of everything that that detective said about him. Just the how he would have a tear and then be pissed off and indignant. Yeah. So, I mean, the trial was a, jo I mean, they had so many witnesses to call from all over the place, but the judge actually said that they weren't allowed to call the witnesses.
01:23:57
Speaker
Um, but they had multiple corners like testify and, um, Holmes was tried and convicted of murdering murdering the Pittazells. During the trial, he officially confessed to 27 murders and then later apparently confessed to his lawyers that it was 133. God almighty. The number varies from other confessions that he made and doesn't align with some of the physical evidence.
01:24:22
Speaker
In addition, some of the people that he claimed to have killed actually turned up later very much alive. um So again, as is the story with many, we have no idea what his true number was.
01:24:32
Speaker
um At the time, the term serial killer obviously did not exist. um The
Holmes Compared to Jack the Ripper
01:24:38
Speaker
term psychopath did not exist. They were still trying to figure out what this was, so he was labeled a multi-murderer.
01:24:46
Speaker
Holmes managed to steal the attention of the world. He was, quote, so very adept at sensing that a luring amalgam of isolation, weakness, and need Jack the Ripper had found it in the impoverished horrors of Whitechapel.
01:24:59
Speaker
Holmes saw it in the transitional women, fresh, clean, young things, free for the first time in history, but unsure of what that freedom meant and the risk it entailed. What he craved was possession and the power it gave him. What he adored was anticipation. The slow acquisition of love, then life, and finally the secrets within.
01:25:17
Speaker
The ultimate disposition of the material was irrelevant. um a recreation ah recreation that he happened to have found a way to make disposal both efficient and profitable was simply a testament to his power.
01:25:30
Speaker
His fame surpassed even that of his British contemporary, Jack. Wow. Some say that Jack's... This is what I know. Okay, this is the part that I've heard of before.
01:25:40
Speaker
What?
Execution and Legacy of H.H. Holmes
01:25:41
Speaker
Something that you're going to say. Well, you don't know what I'm gonna say. So some people some people claim that Jack the Ripper um only killed five people because he was finally satiated satiated after that final kill. um However, many people firmly believe that if Holmes had not been apprehended, again in a stroke of luck, that he would no doubt have continued his murderous behavior.
01:26:04
Speaker
Near his end, Holmes said of himself, again, previously denying all this bullshit, okay? He said, I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer. No more than a poet can help the inspiration to sing.
01:26:22
Speaker
For the next several decades, alienists and their successors, so brain docs, right, would find themselves hard-pressed to describe with any precision what it was about men like Holmes that could cause them to seem so warm and ingratiating, but also telegraph the vague sense that some important element of humanness was missing.
01:26:43
Speaker
The 1893 Chicago World's Fair greatly impacted the nation moving forward. The architectural wonders that were created for the fair brought about things like Disney World and the Magic Kingdom, because Walt's father was a part of that.
01:26:57
Speaker
yay um The magical environment and the glamour played into the development of the fictional city of Oz. Grocery stores around the nation still sell many of the products that were first introduced at the fair.
01:27:08
Speaker
Countless homes and buildings rely on lighting from alternating current incandescent light bulbs that first proved worthy at the fair. Daniel Burnham continued changing the architectural world. He was commissioned for many great works and a leader in the urban planning across the country.
Impact of the Chicago World's Fair
01:27:23
Speaker
He can be credited with things like Union Station in D.C., wow the Flatiron Building in New York, and the Selfridges Department Store in London. Wow. He can also be credited with the entire layout of D.C. and Chicago.
01:27:37
Speaker
Other big names who played key roles in bringing the fair to reality laid differing led differing lives after it concluded. Many struggled with addiction and floundered their careers. Others led uncomplicated but unimpressive lives.
01:27:49
Speaker
Henry Howard Holmes, a.k.a. Herman Webster Mudgett, was hanged at Moynamsingh Prison in Philadelphia on May 7, 1896. He walked to the gallows with his head held high like the arrogant, twisted fuck that he was. And to the hangman, he said, take your time, old man.
01:28:08
Speaker
Although scientists and medical researchers all tried to bribe Holmes' lawyers for his body, they were repeatedly rejected. Holmes knew that people would want to obtain his remains, for whatever purpose, legally or illegally. So he took steps to ensure that that would not be possible, and he left detailed instructions with his lawyers.
01:28:26
Speaker
His coffin was filled with cement, then his body was placed inside, and then more cement was poured on top. Then it was carried to a Catholic cemetery. A double grave was dug, filled with cement, the coffin hefted into it, and then more cement poured on top of it.
01:28:43
Speaker
And then the grave was covered. The
Fates of the Fair's Contributors
01:28:46
Speaker
Chicago Times Herald said of him, he was a prodigy of wickedness, a human demon, a being so unthinkable that no novelist would dare to invent such a character.
01:28:55
Speaker
After his end, people continued to believe that wickedness plagued his story because strange things happened to those associated with the case. The coroner died, many of the coroners actually, died. One such of blood poisoning. Judge Arnold suffered a life-threatening illness. Detective Geyer became seriously ill. The warden from his Philly prison committed suicide. The jury foreman was electrocuted in a freak accident. The priest who delivered Holmes' last rites was found dead at his church for mysterious causes.
01:29:22
Speaker
Emily and Sagran's father was horrifically burned in a boiler explosion and a fire destroyed the office of the district attorney Graham and left only a photograph of Holmes and the framed original arrest warrant untouched. Wow.
01:29:38
Speaker
He remains in an unmarked grave in a secluded corner of the Philadelphia Cemetery off a street named Lazarus Lane. Biblically, that's important. No visitors have ever been and no flowers have ever been left.
01:29:51
Speaker
As the years progressed, Burnham developed multiple chronic illnesses. In his 50s, he had a slow decline. 47 days after his longtime friend Frank Millett died on the Titanic, Burnham died of complications associated with his diabetes and colitis. At the time of his death, D.H. Burnham and Company was the world's largest architectural firm.
01:30:13
Speaker
Burnham and his wife are
Daniel Burnham's Architectural Legacy
01:30:14
Speaker
buried together in Chicago's Graceland Cemetery on an island in the pond decorate or designed by Olmstead. John Root is buried next to them, as is Louis Sullivan, Mayor Harrison, Marshall Field, Philip Armour, and the Palmers, who all contributed to or had a hand in bringing the White City to life.
01:30:33
Speaker
Damn. That was good. That was so good. Yeah. Yeah. America's first serial killer. Fucked up. Really good, though. And I thought there was more of a connection between h h h Holmes and Jack the Ripper. So it's said that he got his... Because he started building the castle when Jack the Ripper started killing, right?
01:30:57
Speaker
Because he started building the castle in the summer of 88. Jack the Ripper's first kill was in May 88.
01:31:06
Speaker
Holmes was kind of inspired, maybe, him. That's what I kind of thought you were going to say. But his, mean, you can't really prove that. There are other serial killers that actually use Holmes as inspiration, obviously. I mean, he is America's first serial killer.
01:31:23
Speaker
um But, like, the things that developed from him and his existence, um the... the psychology that was explored because of him and all that kind of stuff. Just bonkers. I mean, he's... And I think that the the part to me is, again, we have so many serial killers that we can choose from. And everyone always says that, like, oh, I never would have expected them, right? But again, you look at people like Ed Gein and John Wayne Gacy and, like, some of these other ones. Yeah, they had all the marks of it. And they they might have been charming, but they weren't...
01:32:00
Speaker
handsome They weren't as charming. They weren't they really were not this picture-perfect, like, handsome dude, right? Ted Bundy was. Ted Bundy was spoken about very highly in so many regards, right?
01:32:15
Speaker
And his interviews. He was fucking toxic and manipulative and ugh. But H.H. Holmes was worse than Ted Bundy. That's crazy. The way that he...
01:32:31
Speaker
for years was able to scam all of these women, all of these people, all of these companies out of, God, I think it was like hundreds of thousands of dollars of furniture, money, land, stuff.
01:32:50
Speaker
He just kept going. And he just kept going. And he had so many aliases. And I mean, he he did say at one point, because like you want to say that Benjamin Pitezel was his friend, right?
01:33:01
Speaker
He did say towards the end of his life in his writings, he was like, no, I always plan to kill him. like shit Like, never, never would that man have survived. And it's just, it's just wild.
01:33:13
Speaker
Damn. Yeah. Good job. He was a dick. Total dick. I know. But a story worth telling. Yeah, that was good. America's First Serial Killer.
01:33:25
Speaker
I didn't know 90%. I knew you mentioned the World Fair. Is that what you were originally going to start the story with? Well, I did. i mean, and that's... Yeah. And that's the thing, too, right? Yeah.
01:33:41
Speaker
H.H. Holmes is a really big part of the dark side of American history, right? But Daniel Burnham, like, I think his story is so impressive and the World's Fair.
01:33:54
Speaker
i don't think that gets nearly enough attention. Yeah. You know, after they wrote Devil in the White City, like...
01:34:03
Speaker
That I think did justice to Daniel Burnham. i read
Reflections on Light and Dark in History
01:34:09
Speaker
Depraved, which is really just the tale of Holmes. But I liked Devil in the White City better because it It told about like the bright side and like all of the things that were glorious about that time and like gives credit to the men who were trying to bring America back to glory and Chicago and all that kind of stuff.
01:34:30
Speaker
So i thought it was important to share his side too. Good job. Thanks. Should we end it? We should. That was a lot. 21 pages. twenty one pages That was good. Well, I'm going to flip it around, a 180.
01:34:49
Speaker
But you all we hear that were are going to hear that next week. Indeed. Because this one is so we've tapped out. Tapped out. Sam's just pointing. She's like, point ah read the fucking line.
01:35:02
Speaker
Here for a good time. Not a long time. Except for a very long time. See ya.