Holmes Is Where Your Heart Is: H H Holmes America’s First Serial Killer
In the shadows of late 19th-century Chicago, amidst the clamor of progress and the allure of the World’s Columbian Exposition, lurked a figure shrouded in darkness and deceit. He walked the streets with an air of confidence, his charming demeanor masking a sinister truth. His name was H.H. Holmes, but to those unfortunate souls who crossed his path, he was the embodiment of pure malevolence.
Picture, if you will, the sprawling corridors of his infamous “Murder Castle,” a labyrinthine structure designed not for habitation, but for the orchestration of horror. Within its walls, hidden passages twisted like the tendrils of a malignant vine, leading unsuspecting victims to their doom. Trapdoors concealed beneath lush carpets, soundproof rooms stifling the cries of the damned, and a network of secret chambers where the echoes of terror resounded endlessly.
Holmes himself was a paradoxical enigma, possessing the allure of a gentleman and the soul of a demon. His piercing gaze held the promise of salvation and the curse of damnation, luring in innocent souls like moths to a flame. Yet behind closed doors, his true nature was revealed – a sadistic predator, reveling in the suffering of others with a cold detachment that defied comprehension.
as the fog of history shrouds his legacy in myth and legend, one thing remains certain – the name H.H. Holmes will forever be synonymous with the darkest depths of human depravity.
Hi everyone and welcome back to the dark historyqa podcast where we explore the darkest parts of human history. hope everyone is well I’m Rob your host as always. Welcome to season 3 episode 4, Holmes Is Where Your Heart Is: H H Holmes America’s First Serial Killer. The disturbing life of H H Holmes is pretty grim, but it is also steeped in myth and legend.
The notorious American serial killer is synonymous with his victims and his murder castle but sometimes in history things aren't what they seem and his murder castle may be nonsense. Also Surprisingly this American serial killer could
be the infamous jack the ripper. He has been pegged as one of the suspects in the case and the reasons behind his suspition are quite plausable. Before we start I want to thank the episodes sponsor for today the ghost town podcast but more about that later
So without further ado please turn off those lights sit back and relax next to the fire for more dark history.
Herman Webster Mudgett, better known as H.H. Holmes, was born on May 16, 1861, in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, USA. He was the third of five children born to Levi Horton Mudgett and Theodate Page Price both of whom were descended from the first English settlers in the area. Holmes' parents were both devout Methodists. His father was from a farming family, and at times he worked as a farmer, trader and house painter. He was also reportedly a heavy drinker who cruelly mistreated his family. Holmes’s childhood was marked by a troubled relationship with his father, who was strict and often physically abusive.
As an adolescent, Holmes attended Phillips Exeter Academy before graduating high school with honors from Gilmanton Academy when he was 16. Despite the ill treatment at the hands of his father, Holmes was described as a bright and precocious child with an interest in medicine from a young age.
Holmes also faced bullying by classmates due to his outstanding academic capabilities.
In one incident, he was forced to stand in front of a human skeleton and put the skeleton's hands on his face in an effort to frighten him. Initially terrified, Holmes later discovered the experience to be intriguing and claimed that it helped him overcome his worries. Holmes subsequently developed an obsession with death as a result of the encounter, and later took up the pastime of dissecting animals.
At the age of 16, Holmes graduated from high school and went on to attend the University of Vermont, where he studied medicine. It was during his time at university that Holmes began to exhibit signs of his future criminal behavior, engaging in insurance scams and stealing corpses from the local morgue for dissection. In 1882 he transferred to the University of Michigan’s Department of Medicine and Surgery in Ann Arbor, where he continued his studies.
While enrolled, he worked in the anatomy lab under Professor William James Herdman, then the chief anatomy instructor, and the two were said to have been engaged in facilitating graverobbing to supply medical cadavers.
After graduation Holmes had apprenticed in New Hampshire under Nahum Wight, a noted advocate of human.
2 years After graduating in 1884, Holmes moved to Chicago, where he took on the alias Dr. Henry H. Holmes aka H.H. Holmes and began working at a pharmacy. He came across a drugstore at the northwest corner of South Wallace Avenue and West 63rd Street in Englewood section of Chicago The drugstore's owner, Elizabeth Holton, gave Holmes a job; he proved to be a hardworking employee, eventually buying the store. Contrary to belief It wasn’t here that he committed his first known murder, in a lot of sources it’s claimed he killed his business partner and collecting the insurance money.
By 1886, Holmes purchased the pharmacy in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago. Holmes also purchased an empty lot across the street, where construction began in 1887 for a two-story mixed-use building, with apartments on the second floor and retail spaces, including a new drugstore, on the first. later this building would become known as the “Murder Castle.”
Ever the swindler Holmes declined to pay the architects or the steel company, Aetna Iron and Steel, for the building and services they had provided. The two companies would take him to court in 1888.
Despite his reluctance to pay anything In 1892, he added a third floor, telling investors and suppliers he intended to use it as a hotel during the upcoming World's Columbian Exposition. The exposition also known as the Chicago worlds fair was held from May 5 to October 31, 1893,in the city to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492.
Unfortunately here I am about to burst the proverbial evil mastermind bubble that surrounds H H Holmes, Contemporary accounts report that Holmes built the hotel to lure tourists visiting the Exposition in order to kill them and sell their skeletons to nearby medical schools. Although he did have a history of selling stolen cadavers to medical schools, Holmes had acquired these wares through graverobbing rather than murder.
Likewise, there is no evidence that Holmes ever murdered Exposition-goers on the premises. The yellow press labeled the building as Holmes' "Murder Castle", claiming the structure contained secret torture chambers, trapdoors, gas chambers and a basement crematorium; none of these sensationalised claims were true.
Other accounts stated that the hotel was made up of over a hundred rooms and laid out like a maze, with doors opening into brick walls, windowless rooms and dead-end staircases. In reality, the third-floor hotel was moderately sized, largely unremarkable and uncompleted due to Holmes' disputes with the builders. It did contain some hidden rooms, but they were used for hiding furniture Holmes bought on credit and did not intend to pay for.
The contemporary sources, such as newspapers, would have you believe the sprawling building featureing a labyrinth of secret passages, trapdoors, and soundproof rooms designed to facilitate Holmes’s gruesome crimes was the lair of the devil himself but these were most likely a fallacy. In truth Besides his infamous "Murder Castle", Holmes also owned a one-storey factory which he claimed was to be used for glass bending.
It is unclear if the factory furnace was ever used for this purpose; it was speculated to have been used to destroy incriminating evidence of Holmes's crimes.
What is for certain is H H Holmes was a murderer and there is a long list of poor unfortunate victims that cross his path.
By the time Holmes arrived in Chicago in 1886, he was a wanted man. As a con artist and bigamist, he fled from one town to the next, avoiding prison time for various scams, including insurance fraud of a ghastly nature Holmes was stealing and mutilating medical cadavers and pretending they were victims of accidents to collect money.
It wouldn't take long for homes to jump from con artest and thief to mirdere
His first victims were Holmes' mistress, 31-year-old Julia Smythe, who was the wife of Dr. Laurence Icilius "Ned" Conner, who had moved into Holmes' building and began working at his pharmacy's jewelry counter. After Conner found out about Smythe's affair with Holmes, he quit his job and moved away, leaving Smythe and their 5-year-old daughter Pearl Conner behind. Smythe gained custody of Pearl and remained at the hotel, continuing her relationship with Holmes. Julia and Pearl both disappeared on Christmas Eve of 1891. Holmes initially claimed to acquaintances that Julia had left unexpectedly to visit her dying sister, but then changed his story and said that she had fled her former husband. Ultimately, Holmes later claimed that Julia had actually died during an abortion. Despite his medical background, Holmes was unlikely to be experienced in carrying out abortions, and mortality from such a procedure was high at that time. Holmes then claimed to have poisoned Pearl, likely to hide the circumstances of her mother's death. A partial skeleton, possibly of a child around Pearl's age, was found when excavating Holmes' cellar.
Next up 23-year-old Emeline Cigrand began working in Holmes' building in May 1892 and worked for him for six months. Holmes reportedly hired Cigrand as a secretary due to her connection to a doctor who peddled a "vaccine" that allegedly cured alcoholism. Those who saw Cigrand in the weeks before her disappearance noted that she appeared to have lost interest in Holmes and their relationship. Cigrand was last seen in December 1892. Her parents were informed that she had left to marry a man named "Robert Phelps". Authorities hypothesised that she had gotten pregnant by Holmes, possibly being a victim of another failed abortion that Holmes tried to cover up. Her empty luggage trunk was sent back to her Mother in Anderson Indiana; her skeleton was found by police at the home of a Chicago physician with the help of M.G. Chappel who admitted having articulated three skeletons for H.H. Holmes.
In early-1893, a 24-year-old one-time actress named Wilhelmina "Minnie" Williams moved to Chicago. Holmes claimed to have met her in an employment office, though it is believed that he had actually met her in Boston several years earlier while he was then going by the alias "Harry Gordon". Holmes offered her a job at the hotel as his personal stenographer and she accepted. Holmes persuaded Williams to transfer the deed to her property in Fort Worth, Texas, to a man named "Alexander Bond" which was an alias of Holmes. In April 1893, Williams transferred the deed, with Holmes serving as the notary. The following month, Holmes and Williams, presenting themselves as husband and wife, rented an apartment in Chicago's Lincoln Park. Minnie's younger sister, 18-year-old Anna "Nannie" Williams, came to visit, and on July 5, 1893, she wrote to her aunt that she planned to accompany "Brother Harry" to Europe. In it, she signed off with the message: "Brother Harry [Holmes] says you need never trouble any more about me, financially or otherwise. He and sister will see to me. I hope our hard days are over." Neither Minnie nor Nannie were ever seen alive again and Holmes would subsequently use Minnie's name in future scams.
Holmes also had a list of suspected murders attached to him, which were proven after his death or could never proven. A 68-year-old creditor of Holmes named John DeBrueil died of apoplexy on April 17, 1891, in the "Castle" drugstore. DuBreuil collapsed and died shortly after Holmes poured a "black liquid" down his throat, according to a witness. But Foul play was not suspected; in 1895, it was determined that DuBrueil's life had been insured, and that Holmes had profited from his death.
In 1891, Emily Van Tassel disappeared after working at Holmes’ drugstore; Holmes spoke of her in his confession. In 1897, Tassel's name was cited in a list of suspected victims and Tassel's mother believed she was a possible victim. a man known as Dr. Russler" had an office in the "Castle" and went missing in 1892; Holmes mentioned killing Russler in his confession.
Kitty Kelly, a stenographer for Holmes, also went missing in 1892. John Davis of Greenville, Pennsylvania, went to visit the 1893 World's Fair and vanished. In 1920, he was declared legally dead. Harry Walker of Greensburg, Indiana, went missing in November 1893. He was alleged to have insured his life to Holmes for $20,000 and wrote to friends that he was working for Holmes in Chicago.
Holmes and his associate Benjamin Pitezel took George Thomas out to a Mississippi swamp on the Tombigbee River in June 1894, killed him, and disposed of the body. Holmes confessed to the murder to his second wife.
Milford Cole of Baltimore, Maryland, disappeared after receiving a telegram from Holmes to come to Chicago in July 1894.
. An additional possible victim was Lucy Burbank; her bankbook was found with human hair in a chimney flue at the "Castle" in 1895.Allegedly in his confession Holmes claimed to have killed two persons in Lake County, Illinois sometime in 1890s-which was confirmed years later when the remains of an unknown man and an unknown woman were found on a farm in 1919-twenty-three years after his execution.
The Pitezel Family were the known victims of Holmes: Father Ben and his three children, daughters Alice and Nellie, and little son Howard.
While working in the Chemical Bank building on Dearborn Street, Holmes met and became close friends with 38-year-old Benjamin Freelon Pitezel, a carpenter with a criminal past who was exhibiting, in the same building, a coal bin he had invented. Holmes used Pitezel as his right-hand man for several criminal schemes.
In one scheme pitezel was to fake his own death so that his wife could collect on a $10,000 life insurance policy The scheme, which was to take place in Philadelphia, called for Pitezel to set himself up as an inventor under the name "B.F. Perry", and then be killed and disfigured in a lab explosion. Holmes was to find an appropriate cadaver to play the role of Pitezel. Instead, Holmes killed Pitezel on September 4, 1894, by knocking him unconscious with chloroform and setting his body on fire with the use of benzene.
Holmes collected the insurance payout on the basis of the genuine Pitezel corpse. Holmes then went on to manipulate Pitezel's unsuspecting wife, Carrie Alice Canning, into allowing three of her five children to be placed in his custody. The three children who were placed under Holmes' care were: 13-year-old Alice Pitezel, nine-year-old Nellie Pitezel, and seven-year-old Howard Robert Pitezel. Holmes and the three Pitezel children traveled throughout the Northeastern United States and into Canada. He simultaneously escorted Carrie along a parallel route, all the while using various aliases and lying to Carrie concerning her husband's death by claiming Pitezel was hiding in London,as well as lying to her about the true whereabouts of her three missing children.
Holmes later confessed to murdering Alice and Nellie on October 25, 1894, by forcing them into a large trunk and locking them inside. He drilled a hole in the lid of the trunk and put one end of a hose through the hole, attaching the other end to a gas line to asphyxiate the girls. Holmes buried their nude bodies in the cellar of his rental house at 16 St. Vincent Street in Toronto. On July 15, 1895 Alice and Nellie's bodies were found in a Toronto cellar. Holmes was reported to have visited a local pharmacy to purchase the drugs which he had used to kill Howard Pitezel on October 10, 1894, and a repair shop to sharpen the knives he used to chop up the body before he burned it. Later, authorities found teeth and pieces of bone among charred ruins that belonged to Howard in an Indianapolis cottage that Holmes hadrented.
After several weeks of outrunning authorities, Holmes was finally apprehended in November 1894. During his time in custody, he gave numerous stories to police, once admitting to killing 27 people. Convicted in 1895, Holmes appealed his case but lost. Estimates of the total number of people Holmes killed range from 20 to as many as 200 victims.
Holmes died on May 7, 1896, when he was hanged for the Pitezel murder. Roughly 34 years old at his death, the Beast of Chicago was buried in Philadelphia.
Thank you for taking the time out of your day to listen to this dark episode. So H H Holmes, like I said in the episode the media generally exaggerate things in a bit to sell more papers or ,in more modern times, keep people watching the news, h h Holmes story seem to have had this treatment, don't get me wrong he was a cold and calculated killer but the whole murder castle was pure journalist fantasy. There is no confusion, however, on his murderous intent holmes stated "I was born with the very devil in me, I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to song, nor the ambition of an intellectual man to be great. The inclination to murder came to me as naturally as the inspiration to do right comes to the majority of persons."
One legend that has come around in more contemporary times it H H Holmes was non other then jack the ripper. the most convincing argument for Jack the Ripper and H.H. Holmes being the same person is a single name on a ship log from late 1888. The name reads “H. Holmes”.
Holmes actually had a colleague, Edmund Buckley, that hailed from Whitechapel. This would have given Holmes a reason to visit Whitechapel in the first place. While in Whitechapel, Holmes could have begun his string of murders as Jack the Ripper before fleeing back to the states and beginning the construction of his Murder Castle.
The dates of all the murders fit there is no overlap between the two murder sprees by the two different killers. The gap between the last killing by Jack the Ripper and the first by H.H. Holmes was 6 months. So, if Jack the Ripper and H.H. Holmes was the same person, they would need to travel from London to Chicago within that time span.
Sure, on the surface, everything works out time wise for the murderers having the same identity, but coincidences aren’t exactly evidence. And as exciting as it is to put all the puzzle pieces together, there is no concrete proof that H.H. Holmes committed the Ripper murders.
There isn’t even proof that Holmes ever traveled to London.
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