Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hi, I'm WAA and amdel and this is Crack Divers.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Hello, everybody, welcome to today's episode.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Hello, So today is a lot of sods, a lot
of We're in the world our way, we are in America.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Cool. And what is the name of your episode? It's
called the Murder Castle. That sounds old. Well, you know,
I like it al day, just say it loves the castle.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
It's probably an old one. This is actually a very
old one. This has has taken us back to the
eighteen Okay.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
So it's a very very old one.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
And obviously I have, as you know, never heard of
her a bit. But it was one of my husband's
friends who had actually mentioned it and said that I
should look into it.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
So I decided to take him up on his advice
and I did. And so it was a listener recommendation.
Who's not actually a listener.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Yeah, basically it was a recommendation. Yeah, it was a
recommend and I just thought, you know, we've done quite
a few sort of recently ones, so why not travel
back into history quite away back in history, and I'll
just get my I'll just get myself comfy. I might
actually fall asleep. Please, I know you don't like history
(01:38):
as a history lessons, but it's.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Not that bad.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
I'm just get myself comfy. I'm like I was a
little bit tired, so I'll try to keep awake.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Well, that would be nice, please, thank you. Of course
I will dive in. Let's dive in.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
So Henry Howard Holmes was born He was actually born
as Hermann Webster Mudget. But we well know what he's
known as Henry Howard Holmes. But I'm gonna tell your
real name was Herman Webster Mudguit. Whenever I think of Herman,
I just think of the monsters, Herman monster.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
H do you know what I'm talking about. I don't
know where the monsters are the monsters. Oh yeah, well yeah,
I've heard of the name of Sherman Monster all right.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Anyway, So anyway, he was born in Gilmanton in New Hampshire,
United States, on the sixteenth of May eighteen sixty one.
Oh and he was born to Levi Horton Mudguit names
and THEO date Page Price. That's a girls then, yeah,
THEO date theodate Okay, anyway.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
So they were both of them were descended from the
first English immigrants in the area. Apparently, So there you go.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
So Holmes had an older sister Ellen and an older
brother Arthur. He also had a younger brother Henry and
a younger sister Mary, so quite a few of the
kids there. Yeah, they were from a farming family, so
Homes he spent a lot of time working on the
farm as well as you know, he's a trader and
a painter as well. You know, he did a few
bits and beses. So it was said that he suffered
(03:15):
at the hands of a violent father, and it was
thought that he liked to torture animals. But I witness
accounts of his childhood didn't proof of filer, So we
don't really know if he was had a violent father.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
We don't really know if he talked with animals, but
that was what was said.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
So at sixteen he graduated from school and he took
teaching jobs in Gilmanton and later in nearby Atland. So
on the fourth of July in eighteen seventy eight, it's
seventeen years old, he married a woman called Clara Lovering
and they had a son called Rubber. And then in
(03:51):
eighteen eighty two, Homes enrolled at the University of Michigan
to study medicine and surgery, and he graduated from there
two years later after him passing his exams. So while
I rode there, he'd worked in it in an autonomy lab.
Is that how anatomy anatomy labor anatomy lab as in
like parts of the body anatomy.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Yeah. He also apprenticed under a man called Nahom White.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
He was a noted advocate for human dissection. Must have
been somebody that was.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Known back then.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
I don't know to be black so long ago, but
at the time, they must have been somebody.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
So Holmes, you know, you moved around quite a few times.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
It seemed to be that he was actually always running
away from stuff. He was thought to have been violent
to his wife, so they I think, I think they
must have been separated because she moved back to New
Hampshire and apparently didn't really have any contact with him
after that, so she shouldn't have renthing about like what
(04:57):
he was up to and stuff. So at this point
Homes had moved to New York, but soon after a
rumor had spread that Holmes had been seen with a
little boy, and that little boy and later disappeared. But
Hope they had claimed that the little boy went home,
and no investigation ever took place but homes.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
He quickly left town after that, I don't know what
happened to the little boy. He then traveled to Philadelphia
and he worked at a drug store there. But while
I was working.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
There, a little boy died after taking medicine that was
bought at the store. So again, you know, Holmes, he
denied any involvement in his death, and he immediately again
he immediately.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Left the city.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
So it was almost like suspicious, yeah, and right and
right before he moved because this time he went, he
moved to Chicago.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
But right before he moved.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
This is when he actually changed his name from Herman
Webster Mudget to who we know him as as Henry
Howard Holmes. So that's what he's you know it, And
by that part of that was to avoid the possibility
of being exposed by what would be his victims. So
in late eighteen eighty six, I'm still married to Clara Holmes,
which was his first wife.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
He married another woman called Martha Belcome.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
He did file for divorce but after getting married to
his second wife, so he actually have fell from divorce
from his first wife the second from this one, but
after he got married the second one a legend.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Infidelity on her part, which you just got married to
somebody else. Yeah, that's infidelity exactly.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
So the claims they couldn't be proven, so it was nowhere.
It went nowhere. Sorry, so surviving pay for paperwork that
was fired and indicated.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
That Clara probably wasn't even informed that he had filed
for a divorce, so the divorce was never finalized.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
So yeah, he was a big mistress. Well yet, so
Holmes had had a daughter with Murda called.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Lucy just maybe get homes that actually did marry a
third woman, I forgot to say, called Georgia Georgiana York
in eighteen ninety four.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
So this so he was still married to both and
then he married the third woman. So yeah, and there
was no divorces. But no, it was different back then.
Maybe you still need to get the horse. Yeah you
should still get divorced, but clearly big of by exactly.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
So let's say, you know Holmes, he arrived in Chicago
and August nine nineteen, sorry we're skipping a humberdeers out
in August eighteen eighty six, and as I said before,
that's when he began to use the name Henry Howard Hopes.
So there he worked in a drug store for a while,
but then he actually bought an empty.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Lot across the road from the drug store, and.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
You know there, So the construction that began in eighteen
eighty seven, and he was intended to be a two
story mixed use building with apartments on the second floor
and retail spaces on the bottom floor, including a drug
store because you know, if everybody doesn't know what drugs
store is like a pharmacy. So in eighteen ninety two
he actually added a third floor which he intended to
(08:01):
use as a hotel during the upcoming World's Columbian Exposition,
which is a worldfair, and it's to celebrate it was
to celebrate four hundred years since Christopher Columbus discovered America.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
So that's what he walked off to make some money.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
And you know how people come and stay at this
hotel they'd put on the top so Holmes Hotel. I mean,
it never actually got used as a hotel, but there's
something a lot more sinister a brothel. No, Holmes was
an actual fact a serial killer, and his hotel became.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Known as the Murder Castle.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Ah, I thought we're actually going to be a castle,
not an actual castle, not a medieval castle.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
I'm actually disappointed. I thought we were going to be
in a castle. No, we're not in a castle, but
that's what it was named.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
I don't know why, because you're right, it doesn't like
you think of a castle and you think of an
actual castle. But this was just like, you know, a
constructed building that had retail space apartments, like a castle.
It doesn't sound like a castle, but that's what it
was dubbed us for some rates. And so inside the
castle there were actual torture rooms.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Which contained huts which led to the basement.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
There there were sundproofed rooms and mazes of hallways, some
which actually seemed to go nowhere.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
So the construction was obviously not quite well. It sounds
a bit like a castle.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Yeah, So basically the victims' bodies would be sent down
the chute to the basement. So basically they killed them
down the shoote to the basement where homes had made
a prematorium to dispose of these victims bodies. So in
eighteen ninety four the place actually inspected the hotel while
Holmes was out and there they found rooms with the
(09:53):
hinged walls and false partitions, rooms length secret passageways, and
even air tight rooms were connected to pipelines filled with gas,
which they assumed that Holmes used as the gas chambers.
And in his basement, as I said, you know, it's
surgical tables and a lot of medical tools to dissect
the bodies before selling their organs and bones on the
(10:14):
black market and to medical institutions. So it sounds a
bit well, yeah, that sounds of it. So so let's
see after that, I hopefully just painted you a picture
of the kind of person that he obviously was. It
was quite yeah, quite a scary person. He obviously had
these own place where you you know, did these murders
(10:37):
and stuff.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
So does it like, do we get information on these? Well,
we do, but.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Not not a lot if I'm honest, because I suppose
because this was such a long time ago, the information
was sketchy.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
I guess you could, yeah, older cases. So but I'll tell.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
You about some of the victims that we think he
did obviously, you know, kill. So one of his early
murder victims was actually his mistress, had mistress, yeah, and
her name was Julius smythe she was actually the wife.
(11:22):
So she was married a wife of a man called
Ned Connor who had moved into homes his building and
started working for him at the drug store. Connor found
out about the affair and he actually just moved away,
so he left Julia and their daughter Pearl behind. But
Julia and Pearl they disappeared on Christmas Eve of eighteen.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Ninety one, eighteen ninety one.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Holmes claimed that she had died during an abortion, through
though what truly happened has never actually been confirmed.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
So we don't know a lot about Pearl. Well, we
don't know. Again, we don't We don't have I.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Don't have any Oh no, she's wondering what he said
about her. But because if the she did an abortion.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
But what a better daughter?
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Yeah that's true, but what was excuse for that?
Speaker 2 (12:08):
That? Don't wonder if any information? I actually say, right enough?
So there was other likely victims who.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Were called Emma Line Skirned and Edna van Tassel, and
they have both disappeared as well, but again there was
no more information on them. We do know that Holmes's
usual murder method, though, was by suffocation of his victims,
including an overdose of holoroform, over exposure to lighting gas fumes,
and trapped in an airless ball. Holmes also claimed to
(12:38):
have used starvation and burning victims alive.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
In his castle. He was.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Exactly evil. Yeah, I would say it was evil definitely.
So in early eighteen ninety three, a one time actress
named Minnie Williams. She moved to Chicago and Holmes claimed
to have met her in an employment office. He offered
her a job at the Tell as his personal stenographer,
and she accepted.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
A stenographers basically somebody like she would write for him.
So if you would then have like written out or
written down.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
She she must have a nice handbaate or something, so
she would like do that for him. So she accepted that.
But Holmes, he was also a bit of a con artist,
so he kind of had these that bled his.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Hands and a lot of different things.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
And he actually persuaded, persuaded Minnie to transfer the deed
to her property that she had in.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
A place called Fort Worth in Texas. But not but
it was.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Actually transferred the deed to a man named Alexander Bond,
who she would not know of, but actually it was
an alias of homes so he didn't even exist.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
It was actually him because she's a different name.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
But he managed to convince her to transfer the deeds
of her house to this.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Man that didn't exist. But why would she do that?
Would anybody? I don't know, I mean, I don't know,
I really don't know. You're not being very helpful here.
And in these cases, though, they're so far so long
ago that the information, let's.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Say, it can be a bit sketchy, so it's it's
hard to kind of find out exactly all the information.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
But you know, I can only go with what I find.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
So it was actually in April when the deed was
actually transferred, but the next month homes of Many who
were they were actually presenting themselves as man and wife.
They weren't, but they were well, they were't officially married,
they weren't pretending themselves as man and wife. They rented
an apartment in Chicago, and then Many's sister Annie, she
came to visit, and in July she had wrote to
(14:35):
her that her aunt say that she planned to accompany
her brother Harry to Europe. But neither Mini or Annie
Annie were seen alive after the fifth of July eighteen
ninety three, so based on it's been killing quite a
few people, know I know, well I'll tell you how
(14:55):
many they think. But based on holmes medical education in
and his connections, you know, he was able to sell
He was actually able to.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Sell skeletons to medical labs and schools. So I'm thinking
about do they not question when he gets all these
skeletons from like, yeah, like these people they like, you know,
he sell it to medical people, then surely these are
like he says that he works in a morgue.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Maybe they don't do background checks back then.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
They just take your word for it. So he was
able to do that, and.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
He you know, so so he sometimes used that with
a hired assistant as well to help him because they
apparently used to like strip the flesh off the bodies
and dissected them and then obviously prepared the viable skeletons.
So the rest of it and the rest of the
remains they would be tossing the pits of lime or
(15:54):
acid and effectively.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Breaking down they remain evidence.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Saw these people that he's murdering, you know, he's obviously
able to get rid of evidence because he's strucken.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Their bodies are.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Flesh, get rid of that, and then he's stilling on
their skillhons to like, you know, these.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Medical places that are then using them for whatever, you know,
some guy.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
So you know, he was linked to many more possible deaths,
but he also actually claimed to be responsible for a
few that were actually found to be alive. So, for example,
he claimed to have killed his former medical school classmate
Robert Leecock in eighteen eighty.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Six for insurance money.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
But Leacock, however, died in Canada on the fifth of
October eighteen eighty nine, so that was nonsense.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
It was a bit of a fantasist as well. I
think he's just like to big himself up. So yeah,
and he also had like many like aliases over the years.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
So you know, he was called AH Holmes for Henry
Howard Holmes, Alexander bond as.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Class as America's first serial killer.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
He was called the Beast of Chicago, doctor Death, the
Devil in the White City, the torture doctor, and the
arch fiend Johnson.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
So you have a lot of names. Yes, So he
was obviously quite notorious, you know, in these days.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
So in July eighteen ninety four, Holmes was finally arrested,
finally arrested for.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
The first time, but it was only brief.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
He was actually arrested on the charge of selling mortgaged
goods in Missouri, so it was even more.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Well, I think I don't really know.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Is that like things that people well I only know
a mortgage say, it's almost like selling something that's been
paid up.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Yeah, so like he's selling it before it's actually been
paid off. Maybe, yeah, I do. I think this is
only a mortgage as a house, so.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Yeah, I think that's probably what it means an explanation,
but he was building out fairly quickly. But while and jail,
he actually struck up a conversation with a convicted outlaw
named Marrying Hedgepath.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Now, marian Is it's actually a man, right, So he
was like a proper world wide West can of you
know a guy? And I thought that what you said, outlaw?
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Yeah, I had actually looked at actually looked him up,
and I was like, oh, he's actually like a proper
out like wild wild West guy. I mean you just
hear about that in the films and stuff, but this
is actually a genuine, your real life one. He was
serving a twenty five year sentence for you know, the
fairest things like.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Robbery, murderers stuff.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
So Holmes had concocted a plan to swindle an insurance
company out of ten thousand dollars by taking it a
policy on himself and then faking his own death. So
he promised Hedgepath five hundred dollars basically just in exchange
for the name of a lawyer that you could trust.
So I was money for him, I suppose. Yeah, So
(18:49):
he was put in touch with this lawyer. So he did,
you know, make a claim that on his own death,
but that failed because the insurance company actually became suspicious
so obviously refused to pay.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
But that did not stop him trying again.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
So this time one of Holmes's acquaintance says, which was
a man called Benjamin Fitzal. Fitzal agreed to fake his
own death so that his wife would collect on a
ten thousand dollars life insurance policy which he was to
split with Holmes and the lawyer that Hedgepath had put
(19:26):
me in touch with. The scheme was that Fitzal was
to set himself up as an inventor under the name
of B. F. Perry, and then he was going to
be killed and disfigured in a lot of explosion. So
that was the plan, so ho and Holmes his part
in it. He was to find a body that was
to pretend to be Fitzal because also they were going
(19:47):
to make him that unrecognizable that they wouldn't be able
to realize it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
But instead Films had other ideas.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
He actually had killed Fitzal. He knocked him on conscious
with coloroform.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
And then he set his body on fire lovely so
and I don't know why he decided to do that.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Maybe he wanted to make it more believable and it
was going to be.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Actually his body.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
But in a later confession of Holmes, it said he
implied that Fitzial was actually still alive before he set
him on fire. But however, forensic evidence presented that the
trials said that Holmes had applied the chloroform after death.
And we think they think that that was to sort
of fake the suicide. So like to think, to think,
(20:36):
to think the fake suicide. So in case, Holmes was
charged to the murder, so basically it would have looked
like that Fitzel actually had committed suicide.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Right, but he didn't.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
He was murdered, so the insurance committed to pay out
because I didn't know this still after you know, they
didn't know that the hold was killing. So the insurance
company did actually pay out, and somehow again Holmes manipulated
Fitzo's wife, but this time he manipul her to allow
because they had had five children together, fits on his wife,
(21:04):
and Holmes managed to manipulate her into giving him custody
of three out of their five children.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
What the fuck?
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Yeah, so he ended up with Alice, Nelly, and Howard
and his wife, and I think had kept the older
one and the baby.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
I think it was I have no idea how that
is even possible. He must be like how like what? Yeah?
I mean, he just it just seems to be the
master of He just gets what he was. Yeah, who
does he manage that? Like?
Speaker 1 (21:35):
He just totally manipulates all these people and somehow. I
mean that must take a lot to manipulate some day
to give them their kids up exactly. I don't really
understand how or even what he wanted, Like why why
would he.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Want the kids? I don't like it anyway.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Sadly, Holmes later confessed to murdering Alice and Nelly by
forcing them into.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
A large trunk and locking them inside. He drugged a
hole in the lid of.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
The trunk, and he put an end of the host
through the whole, attaching it into a gas line.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
God yea.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
So he buried the boys of them in the cellar
of a house that he was renting at the time.
So what was the point in killing them because he's
not whyle in there flipping skeletons or whatever.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Because You're like, why.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Did you get custody on them, because then like you
could have just left.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
The custody of the killed them basically, Well, I think so,
I think that is said about what had happened.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
And Holmes did kill Howard with the drugs overdose, and
he chopped up.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
His body and burned it. His teeth and bits of
bone were actually later discovered in the chimney of the house.
The chimney, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
So I'm assuming he must have burnt them in the fire.
Maybe there was some I don't know, they were later
frond there.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Yeah. So I just think that's quite quite horrible.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
So holmes murder spree finally came to an when he
was arrested in Boston on the seventeenth of November eighteen
ninety four, and in October eighteen ninety five, he was
put on trial for the murder of Benjamin Fitzo. He
was found guilty and sentenced to death. Now he was
the only one that was convicted of really the only one.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
That's the only one.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
But I don't know, maybe because he was sent to
death back then, maybe that was you know, but maybe
that was it. Yeah, but it was no other family
would have got justice for that. So but following his conviction,
he did confess to twenty seven murders, though some of
those were still found alive, and six attempted murders. And
(23:39):
he was actually paid, And I mean, why the criminal
should be paid for anything, But he was actually paid
seven and a half thousand dollars by a newspaper in exchange.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
For his confession. No way, I don't think that's a dumpling.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
These days, there's I think there's a thing now that
you're not allowed to profit, yeah, from your crime, But
I guess back then that was something.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
So yeah, so he was actually paid, that's ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
I don't know how he was going to spend that
was that though, because if he was convicted and since
death he was I mean, I was gonna saying less
he was for family, but then he didn't really have
any family, because you know, he had wife's, he had kids,
A spooted their kids, So I don't know, But then
he doesn't sound like the guy that would be that
nice as to leave money his kills exactly. But then
(24:23):
apparently the confession itself was quickly found to be mostly nonsense,
so I didn't actually know whether he did actually get
the money. And then I suppose, yeah, they must have
published it or whatever and then realized it was a
whole nonsense, so actually they paid him some and half
grand for the story. Yeah, he also said that he
(24:43):
was possessed by Satan and that, and in prison he
actually reckoned because he was like quite sort of frail looking,
and like the space sort of changed and drawn, and
I don't know just the effects of being in.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Jail, but he reckoned. They began to resemble the devil.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
So I don't know how saying mind he was sort
of he was just well, how would you even know
what the devil looks like?
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Exactly what the devil looks like? I'm assuming, well, tom
ellis m Lucifer. Yeah, but he's not callow. I mean,
he's necessarily really it's pretty handsome.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Maybe not back in eighteen ninety No.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yeah, on the seventh of May eighteen ninety six, Holmes
was hanged.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
He you know, remained calm right up until it happened,
and he even asked for his coffin to be contained
in cement as he was worried about grave roppers stealing
his body and using it for dissection what a bloody chaketought.
So I'm sorry for him to do, yeah, but not him,
but the just apparently, no, it's wisious because they did.
(25:51):
They did, like totally put cement down in it like
that you can get to fuck exactly. But homes Holmes's
neck did not break when he was hung. Instead, he
was strangled to death very slowly, and it said that
he was still twitching for about fifteen It was because
I was pronounced dead twenty minutes after he'd obviously been
(26:12):
let go. There still twitching about after for about fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
So it sounds like ID a slow, painful gat I
don't know what's rather than being quick and whatever. So yeah,
So in twenty seventeen, so will Over.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
One hundred years later, there was allegations that Holmes had
in fact.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Escaped execution, so his homes his body was.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Exhumed for testing, and due to this cement, his body
was found.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Not to have decomposed normally. His clothes were almost perfectly preserved,
and his mustache was found to be intact. Wow.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
The body was identified by his teeth as being homes
and then it was buried.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
So I don't know why there was.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Allegations about it not being him, but it was him,
and they.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Reburided up hopefully not in cement and the stuff. So
but actually did it decomposed this time? But like a sister,
that's rairdo.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
But like I said to you earlier, he was only
convicted for that one murder, but clearly clearly committed a
lot more. They reckon they did kill maybe about ten
between ten and thirty four, but potentially over two hundred.
They just don't know because obviously I've got rid of
them quite a lot.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
So Yeah, he was lovely.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Yeah, history back in history, I'm serious, it's it's it's
definitely harder to find more information on like the older
ones and stuff, so that this back could have been
I think it might have been cuded to another one.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
It was in the eighteen hundreds, I think, was that
with the mad Yeah, I can't remember how far back
she was. No, I can't remember either. I actually know.
I think she was maybe very late, and I.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Just think that's spilled over into the early nineteen hundreds
of remember, So I think.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
That could have been maybe the oldest. I don't think
I've done any old ones. I like an older though.
I think my oldest still being like certain nineteen eighties,
some eightes something like that. I don't think I've done
any right. Really. I like a lot of olding.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Then again, just to you know, because obviously these murders
and people still existed back then, and sometimes.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
I think they're more they've done more like terrible things.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Yeah, that's probably because you can get away more about them.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Yeah, I think so. I mean, he got all the
technology of today. Well, I saw all the forens X
and all and stuff like that. I mean, let's say
he you know, the amount.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Of victims that he potentially murdered and never got caught
for because you know, he got rid of all their
skin and stuff like that, and and sold on their
bones to medical institutions for for stuff, so he probably
did get away with a hell of a lot more.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Yep. Yeah, so oh well, thank you for that. There
you go.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
That was my lordest word for today. Okay, well, thank
you for listener, and we'll see SI and a few
obviously you know, are enjoying us on Patron, which like
you obviously are, then I'm sure you've already suscred rated
and reviewed.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
But if you haven't, don't forget to do so. Yeah,
thank you by
Hi, I'm WAA and amdel and this is Crack Divers.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Hello, everybody, welcome to today's episode.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Hello, So today is a lot of sods, a lot
of We're in the world our way, we are in America.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Cool. And what is the name of your episode? It's
called the Murder Castle. That sounds old. Well, you know,
I like it al day, just say it loves the castle.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
It's probably an old one. This is actually a very
old one. This has has taken us back to the
eighteen Okay.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
So it's a very very old one.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
And obviously I have, as you know, never heard of
her a bit. But it was one of my husband's
friends who had actually mentioned it and said that I
should look into it.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
So I decided to take him up on his advice
and I did. And so it was a listener recommendation.
Who's not actually a listener.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Yeah, basically it was a recommendation. Yeah, it was a
recommend and I just thought, you know, we've done quite
a few sort of recently ones, so why not travel
back into history quite away back in history, and I'll
just get my I'll just get myself comfy. I might
actually fall asleep. Please, I know you don't like history
(01:38):
as a history lessons, but it's.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Not that bad.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
I'm just get myself comfy. I'm like I was a
little bit tired, so I'll try to keep awake.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Well, that would be nice, please, thank you. Of course
I will dive in. Let's dive in.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
So Henry Howard Holmes was born He was actually born
as Hermann Webster Mudget. But we well know what he's
known as Henry Howard Holmes. But I'm gonna tell your
real name was Herman Webster Mudguit. Whenever I think of Herman,
I just think of the monsters, Herman monster.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
H do you know what I'm talking about. I don't
know where the monsters are the monsters. Oh yeah, well yeah,
I've heard of the name of Sherman Monster all right.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Anyway, So anyway, he was born in Gilmanton in New Hampshire,
United States, on the sixteenth of May eighteen sixty one.
Oh and he was born to Levi Horton Mudguit names
and THEO date Page Price. That's a girls then, yeah,
THEO date theodate Okay, anyway.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
So they were both of them were descended from the
first English immigrants in the area. Apparently, So there you go.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
So Holmes had an older sister Ellen and an older
brother Arthur. He also had a younger brother Henry and
a younger sister Mary, so quite a few of the
kids there. Yeah, they were from a farming family, so
Homes he spent a lot of time working on the
farm as well as you know, he's a trader and
a painter as well. You know, he did a few
bits and beses. So it was said that he suffered
(03:15):
at the hands of a violent father, and it was
thought that he liked to torture animals. But I witness
accounts of his childhood didn't proof of filer, So we
don't really know if he was had a violent father.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
We don't really know if he talked with animals, but
that was what was said.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
So at sixteen he graduated from school and he took
teaching jobs in Gilmanton and later in nearby Atland. So
on the fourth of July in eighteen seventy eight, it's
seventeen years old, he married a woman called Clara Lovering
and they had a son called Rubber. And then in
(03:51):
eighteen eighty two, Homes enrolled at the University of Michigan
to study medicine and surgery, and he graduated from there
two years later after him passing his exams. So while
I rode there, he'd worked in it in an autonomy lab.
Is that how anatomy anatomy labor anatomy lab as in
like parts of the body anatomy.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Yeah. He also apprenticed under a man called Nahom White.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
He was a noted advocate for human dissection. Must have
been somebody that was.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Known back then.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
I don't know to be black so long ago, but
at the time, they must have been somebody.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
So Holmes, you know, you moved around quite a few times.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
It seemed to be that he was actually always running
away from stuff. He was thought to have been violent
to his wife, so they I think, I think they
must have been separated because she moved back to New
Hampshire and apparently didn't really have any contact with him
after that, so she shouldn't have renthing about like what
(04:57):
he was up to and stuff. So at this point
Homes had moved to New York, but soon after a
rumor had spread that Holmes had been seen with a
little boy, and that little boy and later disappeared. But
Hope they had claimed that the little boy went home,
and no investigation ever took place but homes.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
He quickly left town after that, I don't know what
happened to the little boy. He then traveled to Philadelphia
and he worked at a drug store there. But while
I was working.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
There, a little boy died after taking medicine that was
bought at the store. So again, you know, Holmes, he
denied any involvement in his death, and he immediately again
he immediately.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Left the city.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
So it was almost like suspicious, yeah, and right and
right before he moved because this time he went, he
moved to Chicago.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
But right before he moved.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
This is when he actually changed his name from Herman
Webster Mudget to who we know him as as Henry
Howard Holmes. So that's what he's you know it, And
by that part of that was to avoid the possibility
of being exposed by what would be his victims. So
in late eighteen eighty six, I'm still married to Clara Holmes,
which was his first wife.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
He married another woman called Martha Belcome.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
He did file for divorce but after getting married to
his second wife, so he actually have fell from divorce
from his first wife the second from this one, but
after he got married the second one a legend.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Infidelity on her part, which you just got married to
somebody else. Yeah, that's infidelity exactly.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
So the claims they couldn't be proven, so it was nowhere.
It went nowhere. Sorry, so surviving pay for paperwork that
was fired and indicated.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
That Clara probably wasn't even informed that he had filed
for a divorce, so the divorce was never finalized.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
So yeah, he was a big mistress. Well yet, so
Holmes had had a daughter with Murda called.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Lucy just maybe get homes that actually did marry a
third woman, I forgot to say, called Georgia Georgiana York
in eighteen ninety four.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
So this so he was still married to both and
then he married the third woman. So yeah, and there
was no divorces. But no, it was different back then.
Maybe you still need to get the horse. Yeah you
should still get divorced, but clearly big of by exactly.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
So let's say, you know Holmes, he arrived in Chicago
and August nine nineteen, sorry we're skipping a humberdeers out
in August eighteen eighty six, and as I said before,
that's when he began to use the name Henry Howard Hopes.
So there he worked in a drug store for a while,
but then he actually bought an empty.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Lot across the road from the drug store, and.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
You know there, So the construction that began in eighteen
eighty seven, and he was intended to be a two
story mixed use building with apartments on the second floor
and retail spaces on the bottom floor, including a drug
store because you know, if everybody doesn't know what drugs
store is like a pharmacy. So in eighteen ninety two
he actually added a third floor which he intended to
(08:01):
use as a hotel during the upcoming World's Columbian Exposition,
which is a worldfair, and it's to celebrate it was
to celebrate four hundred years since Christopher Columbus discovered America.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
So that's what he walked off to make some money.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
And you know how people come and stay at this
hotel they'd put on the top so Holmes Hotel. I mean,
it never actually got used as a hotel, but there's
something a lot more sinister a brothel. No, Holmes was
an actual fact a serial killer, and his hotel became.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Known as the Murder Castle.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Ah, I thought we're actually going to be a castle,
not an actual castle, not a medieval castle.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
I'm actually disappointed. I thought we were going to be
in a castle. No, we're not in a castle, but
that's what it was named.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
I don't know why, because you're right, it doesn't like
you think of a castle and you think of an
actual castle. But this was just like, you know, a
constructed building that had retail space apartments, like a castle.
It doesn't sound like a castle, but that's what it
was dubbed us for some rates. And so inside the
castle there were actual torture rooms.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Which contained huts which led to the basement.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
There there were sundproofed rooms and mazes of hallways, some
which actually seemed to go nowhere.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
So the construction was obviously not quite well. It sounds
a bit like a castle.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Yeah, So basically the victims' bodies would be sent down
the chute to the basement. So basically they killed them
down the shoote to the basement where homes had made
a prematorium to dispose of these victims bodies. So in
eighteen ninety four the place actually inspected the hotel while
Holmes was out and there they found rooms with the
(09:53):
hinged walls and false partitions, rooms length secret passageways, and
even air tight rooms were connected to pipelines filled with gas,
which they assumed that Holmes used as the gas chambers.
And in his basement, as I said, you know, it's
surgical tables and a lot of medical tools to dissect
the bodies before selling their organs and bones on the
(10:14):
black market and to medical institutions. So it sounds a
bit well, yeah, that sounds of it. So so let's
see after that, I hopefully just painted you a picture
of the kind of person that he obviously was. It
was quite yeah, quite a scary person. He obviously had
these own place where you you know, did these murders
(10:37):
and stuff.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
So does it like, do we get information on these? Well,
we do, but.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Not not a lot if I'm honest, because I suppose
because this was such a long time ago, the information
was sketchy.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
I guess you could, yeah, older cases. So but I'll tell.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
You about some of the victims that we think he
did obviously, you know, kill. So one of his early
murder victims was actually his mistress, had mistress, yeah, and
her name was Julius smythe she was actually the wife.
(11:22):
So she was married a wife of a man called
Ned Connor who had moved into homes his building and
started working for him at the drug store. Connor found
out about the affair and he actually just moved away,
so he left Julia and their daughter Pearl behind. But
Julia and Pearl they disappeared on Christmas Eve of eighteen.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Ninety one, eighteen ninety one.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Holmes claimed that she had died during an abortion, through
though what truly happened has never actually been confirmed.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
So we don't know a lot about Pearl. Well, we
don't know. Again, we don't We don't have I.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Don't have any Oh no, she's wondering what he said
about her. But because if the she did an abortion.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
But what a better daughter?
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Yeah that's true, but what was excuse for that?
Speaker 2 (12:08):
That? Don't wonder if any information? I actually say, right enough?
So there was other likely victims who.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Were called Emma Line Skirned and Edna van Tassel, and
they have both disappeared as well, but again there was
no more information on them. We do know that Holmes's
usual murder method, though, was by suffocation of his victims,
including an overdose of holoroform, over exposure to lighting gas fumes,
and trapped in an airless ball. Holmes also claimed to
(12:38):
have used starvation and burning victims alive.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
In his castle. He was.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Exactly evil. Yeah, I would say it was evil definitely.
So in early eighteen ninety three, a one time actress
named Minnie Williams. She moved to Chicago and Holmes claimed
to have met her in an employment office. He offered
her a job at the Tell as his personal stenographer,
and she accepted.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
A stenographers basically somebody like she would write for him.
So if you would then have like written out or
written down.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
She she must have a nice handbaate or something, so
she would like do that for him. So she accepted that.
But Holmes, he was also a bit of a con artist,
so he kind of had these that bled his.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Hands and a lot of different things.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
And he actually persuaded, persuaded Minnie to transfer the deed
to her property that she had in.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
A place called Fort Worth in Texas. But not but
it was.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Actually transferred the deed to a man named Alexander Bond,
who she would not know of, but actually it was
an alias of homes so he didn't even exist.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
It was actually him because she's a different name.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
But he managed to convince her to transfer the deeds
of her house to this.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Man that didn't exist. But why would she do that?
Would anybody? I don't know, I mean, I don't know,
I really don't know. You're not being very helpful here.
And in these cases, though, they're so far so long
ago that the information, let's.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Say, it can be a bit sketchy, so it's it's
hard to kind of find out exactly all the information.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
But you know, I can only go with what I find.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
So it was actually in April when the deed was
actually transferred, but the next month homes of Many who
were they were actually presenting themselves as man and wife.
They weren't, but they were well, they were't officially married,
they weren't pretending themselves as man and wife. They rented
an apartment in Chicago, and then Many's sister Annie, she
came to visit, and in July she had wrote to
(14:35):
her that her aunt say that she planned to accompany
her brother Harry to Europe. But neither Mini or Annie
Annie were seen alive after the fifth of July eighteen
ninety three, so based on it's been killing quite a
few people, know I know, well I'll tell you how
(14:55):
many they think. But based on holmes medical education in
and his connections, you know, he was able to sell
He was actually able to.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Sell skeletons to medical labs and schools. So I'm thinking
about do they not question when he gets all these
skeletons from like, yeah, like these people they like, you know,
he sell it to medical people, then surely these are
like he says that he works in a morgue.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Maybe they don't do background checks back then.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
They just take your word for it. So he was
able to do that, and.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
He you know, so so he sometimes used that with
a hired assistant as well to help him because they
apparently used to like strip the flesh off the bodies
and dissected them and then obviously prepared the viable skeletons.
So the rest of it and the rest of the
remains they would be tossing the pits of lime or
(15:54):
acid and effectively.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Breaking down they remain evidence.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Saw these people that he's murdering, you know, he's obviously
able to get rid of evidence because he's strucken.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Their bodies are.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Flesh, get rid of that, and then he's stilling on
their skillhons to like, you know, these.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Medical places that are then using them for whatever, you know,
some guy.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
So you know, he was linked to many more possible deaths,
but he also actually claimed to be responsible for a
few that were actually found to be alive. So, for example,
he claimed to have killed his former medical school classmate
Robert Leecock in eighteen eighty.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Six for insurance money.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
But Leacock, however, died in Canada on the fifth of
October eighteen eighty nine, so that was nonsense.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
It was a bit of a fantasist as well. I
think he's just like to big himself up. So yeah,
and he also had like many like aliases over the years.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
So you know, he was called AH Holmes for Henry
Howard Holmes, Alexander bond as.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Class as America's first serial killer.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
He was called the Beast of Chicago, doctor Death, the
Devil in the White City, the torture doctor, and the
arch fiend Johnson.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
So you have a lot of names. Yes, So he
was obviously quite notorious, you know, in these days.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
So in July eighteen ninety four, Holmes was finally arrested,
finally arrested for.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
The first time, but it was only brief.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
He was actually arrested on the charge of selling mortgaged
goods in Missouri, so it was even more.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Well, I think I don't really know.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Is that like things that people well I only know
a mortgage say, it's almost like selling something that's been
paid up.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Yeah, so like he's selling it before it's actually been
paid off. Maybe, yeah, I do. I think this is
only a mortgage as a house, so.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Yeah, I think that's probably what it means an explanation,
but he was building out fairly quickly. But while and jail,
he actually struck up a conversation with a convicted outlaw
named Marrying Hedgepath.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Now, marian Is it's actually a man, right, So he
was like a proper world wide West can of you
know a guy? And I thought that what you said, outlaw?
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Yeah, I had actually looked at actually looked him up,
and I was like, oh, he's actually like a proper
out like wild wild West guy. I mean you just
hear about that in the films and stuff, but this
is actually a genuine, your real life one. He was
serving a twenty five year sentence for you know, the
fairest things like.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Robbery, murderers stuff.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
So Holmes had concocted a plan to swindle an insurance
company out of ten thousand dollars by taking it a
policy on himself and then faking his own death. So
he promised Hedgepath five hundred dollars basically just in exchange
for the name of a lawyer that you could trust.
So I was money for him, I suppose. Yeah, So
(18:49):
he was put in touch with this lawyer. So he did,
you know, make a claim that on his own death,
but that failed because the insurance company actually became suspicious
so obviously refused to pay.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
But that did not stop him trying again.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
So this time one of Holmes's acquaintance says, which was
a man called Benjamin Fitzal. Fitzal agreed to fake his
own death so that his wife would collect on a
ten thousand dollars life insurance policy which he was to
split with Holmes and the lawyer that Hedgepath had put
(19:26):
me in touch with. The scheme was that Fitzal was
to set himself up as an inventor under the name
of B. F. Perry, and then he was going to
be killed and disfigured in a lot of explosion. So
that was the plan, so ho and Holmes his part
in it. He was to find a body that was
to pretend to be Fitzal because also they were going
(19:47):
to make him that unrecognizable that they wouldn't be able
to realize it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
But instead Films had other ideas.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
He actually had killed Fitzal. He knocked him on conscious
with coloroform.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
And then he set his body on fire lovely so
and I don't know why he decided to do that.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Maybe he wanted to make it more believable and it
was going to be.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Actually his body.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
But in a later confession of Holmes, it said he
implied that Fitzial was actually still alive before he set
him on fire. But however, forensic evidence presented that the
trials said that Holmes had applied the chloroform after death.
And we think they think that that was to sort
of fake the suicide. So like to think, to think,
(20:36):
to think the fake suicide. So in case, Holmes was
charged to the murder, so basically it would have looked
like that Fitzel actually had committed suicide.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Right, but he didn't.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
He was murdered, so the insurance committed to pay out
because I didn't know this still after you know, they
didn't know that the hold was killing. So the insurance
company did actually pay out, and somehow again Holmes manipulated
Fitzo's wife, but this time he manipul her to allow
because they had had five children together, fits on his wife,
(21:04):
and Holmes managed to manipulate her into giving him custody
of three out of their five children.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
What the fuck?
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Yeah, so he ended up with Alice, Nelly, and Howard
and his wife, and I think had kept the older
one and the baby.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
I think it was I have no idea how that
is even possible. He must be like how like what? Yeah?
I mean, he just it just seems to be the
master of He just gets what he was. Yeah, who
does he manage that? Like?
Speaker 1 (21:35):
He just totally manipulates all these people and somehow. I
mean that must take a lot to manipulate some day
to give them their kids up exactly. I don't really
understand how or even what he wanted, Like why why
would he.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Want the kids? I don't like it anyway.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Sadly, Holmes later confessed to murdering Alice and Nelly by
forcing them into.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
A large trunk and locking them inside. He drugged a
hole in the lid of.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
The trunk, and he put an end of the host
through the whole, attaching it into a gas line.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
God yea.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
So he buried the boys of them in the cellar
of a house that he was renting at the time.
So what was the point in killing them because he's
not whyle in there flipping skeletons or whatever.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Because You're like, why.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Did you get custody on them, because then like you
could have just left.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
The custody of the killed them basically, Well, I think so,
I think that is said about what had happened.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
And Holmes did kill Howard with the drugs overdose, and
he chopped up.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
His body and burned it. His teeth and bits of
bone were actually later discovered in the chimney of the house.
The chimney, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
So I'm assuming he must have burnt them in the fire.
Maybe there was some I don't know, they were later
frond there.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Yeah. So I just think that's quite quite horrible.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
So holmes murder spree finally came to an when he
was arrested in Boston on the seventeenth of November eighteen
ninety four, and in October eighteen ninety five, he was
put on trial for the murder of Benjamin Fitzo. He
was found guilty and sentenced to death. Now he was
the only one that was convicted of really the only one.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
That's the only one.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
But I don't know, maybe because he was sent to
death back then, maybe that was you know, but maybe
that was it. Yeah, but it was no other family
would have got justice for that. So but following his conviction,
he did confess to twenty seven murders, though some of
those were still found alive, and six attempted murders. And
(23:39):
he was actually paid, And I mean, why the criminal
should be paid for anything, But he was actually paid
seven and a half thousand dollars by a newspaper in exchange.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
For his confession. No way, I don't think that's a dumpling.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
These days, there's I think there's a thing now that
you're not allowed to profit, yeah, from your crime, But
I guess back then that was something.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
So yeah, so he was actually paid, that's ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
I don't know how he was going to spend that
was that though, because if he was convicted and since
death he was I mean, I was gonna saying less
he was for family, but then he didn't really have
any family, because you know, he had wife's, he had kids,
A spooted their kids, So I don't know, But then
he doesn't sound like the guy that would be that
nice as to leave money his kills exactly. But then
(24:23):
apparently the confession itself was quickly found to be mostly nonsense,
so I didn't actually know whether he did actually get
the money. And then I suppose, yeah, they must have
published it or whatever and then realized it was a
whole nonsense, so actually they paid him some and half
grand for the story. Yeah, he also said that he
(24:43):
was possessed by Satan and that, and in prison he
actually reckoned because he was like quite sort of frail looking,
and like the space sort of changed and drawn, and
I don't know just the effects of being in.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Jail, but he reckoned. They began to resemble the devil.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
So I don't know how saying mind he was sort
of he was just well, how would you even know
what the devil looks like?
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Exactly what the devil looks like? I'm assuming, well, tom
ellis m Lucifer. Yeah, but he's not callow. I mean,
he's necessarily really it's pretty handsome.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Maybe not back in eighteen ninety No.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yeah, on the seventh of May eighteen ninety six, Holmes
was hanged.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
He you know, remained calm right up until it happened,
and he even asked for his coffin to be contained
in cement as he was worried about grave roppers stealing
his body and using it for dissection what a bloody chaketought.
So I'm sorry for him to do, yeah, but not him,
but the just apparently, no, it's wisious because they did.
(25:51):
They did, like totally put cement down in it like
that you can get to fuck exactly. But homes Holmes's
neck did not break when he was hung. Instead, he
was strangled to death very slowly, and it said that
he was still twitching for about fifteen It was because
I was pronounced dead twenty minutes after he'd obviously been
(26:12):
let go. There still twitching about after for about fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
So it sounds like ID a slow, painful gat I
don't know what's rather than being quick and whatever. So yeah,
So in twenty seventeen, so will Over.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
One hundred years later, there was allegations that Holmes had
in fact.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Escaped execution, so his homes his body was.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Exhumed for testing, and due to this cement, his body
was found.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Not to have decomposed normally. His clothes were almost perfectly preserved,
and his mustache was found to be intact. Wow.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
The body was identified by his teeth as being homes
and then it was buried.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
So I don't know why there was.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Allegations about it not being him, but it was him,
and they.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Reburided up hopefully not in cement and the stuff. So
but actually did it decomposed this time? But like a sister,
that's rairdo.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
But like I said to you earlier, he was only
convicted for that one murder, but clearly clearly committed a
lot more. They reckon they did kill maybe about ten
between ten and thirty four, but potentially over two hundred.
They just don't know because obviously I've got rid of
them quite a lot.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
So Yeah, he was lovely.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Yeah, history back in history, I'm serious, it's it's it's
definitely harder to find more information on like the older
ones and stuff, so that this back could have been
I think it might have been cuded to another one.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
It was in the eighteen hundreds, I think, was that
with the mad Yeah, I can't remember how far back
she was. No, I can't remember either. I actually know.
I think she was maybe very late, and I.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Just think that's spilled over into the early nineteen hundreds
of remember, So I think.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
That could have been maybe the oldest. I don't think
I've done any old ones. I like an older though.
I think my oldest still being like certain nineteen eighties,
some eightes something like that. I don't think I've done
any right. Really. I like a lot of olding.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Then again, just to you know, because obviously these murders
and people still existed back then, and sometimes.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
I think they're more they've done more like terrible things.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Yeah, that's probably because you can get away more about them.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Yeah, I think so. I mean, he got all the
technology of today. Well, I saw all the forens X
and all and stuff like that. I mean, let's say
he you know, the amount.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Of victims that he potentially murdered and never got caught
for because you know, he got rid of all their
skin and stuff like that, and and sold on their
bones to medical institutions for for stuff, so he probably
did get away with a hell of a lot more.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Yep. Yeah, so oh well, thank you for that. There
you go.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
That was my lordest word for today. Okay, well, thank
you for listener, and we'll see SI and a few
obviously you know, are enjoying us on Patron, which like
you obviously are, then I'm sure you've already suscred rated
and reviewed.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
But if you haven't, don't forget to do so. Yeah,
thank you by
Popular Podcasts
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.