September 15, 2025 • 44 mins
He was no longer Herman Mudgett—he was H.H. Holmes, and Chicago was his playground. As the city prepared for the glittering World’s Fair of 1893, Holmes began constructing something far darker: a hotel designed not for comfort, but for control, cruelty, and death. Step inside as we follow Holmes’ arrival in Chicago, and the rise of his sinister empire in the shadow of the White City.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome, dear listeners, to a special presentation of Macabre,
a dark history podcast. We delve into the shadows of the
past, where history's most sinister tales reside.
These are the stories that cannot be confined to a single
episode, narratives that demand a deeper exploration and
immersion into the human condition.
(00:23):
Prepare to immerse yourself in accounts of chilling crimes,
unsolved mysteries, and the darker side of human nature in
this macabre feature. Every story of a great evil has
a beginning, a point of transformation where the mundane
changes into the monstrous. For our story, that moment
(00:46):
arrives not with a bang, but with the scratch of a pen on a
legal document. In 1886, a man named Herman
Webster Mudgett, A gifted but fraudulent physician with a
history of petty scams and a trail of abandoned family, made
a decision. He would erase himself.
(01:07):
He would kill the man he was born as, so that a new creation,
one better suited to his dark ambitions, could be born.
He filed the paperwork. Herman Webster Mudgett, the boy
from New Hampshire with the coldeyes and unsettling fascination
with anatomy, ceased to exist. In his place stood a new man, a
(01:30):
figure of his own meticulous design, christened with a name
he felt embodied intelligence, authority, and cunning, a name
likely stolen from the headlinesand inspired by the famous
fictional detective of the era. He was now and forevermore,
Doctor Henry Howard Holmes. This was more than a simple name
(01:52):
change, it was a declaration of intent.
It was his final break from a past that could anchor him, from
people who knew him, from any lingering shred conscience.
With this new identity came a profound rebirth, a chilling
liberation from all prioritize and moral constraints.
(02:13):
He was now free to manipulate, to charm, to deceive, and
ultimately to kill. And he had the perfect
destination in mind, a city on the verge of a spectacular
transformation, a place teeming with opportunity, both
legitimate and illicit. His next stop?
(02:34):
Chicago. To understand Holmes, you must
understand the Chicago he stepped into in the late 1880s.
It was a raw, muscular and chaotic city.
It was a phoenix, having risen from the devastating Great Fire
of 1871 to become a sprawling, smoke belching metropolis, the
(02:57):
pulsing and sanitized heart of the American Midwest.
It was a city of breathtaking architecture and abject poverty,
of robber barons and desperate immigrants.
It was a place of soot and ambition, where fortunes were
made overnight and lives were lost just as quickly.
(03:18):
Railroads sprawled like iron veins across the landscape,
pumping waves of newcomers into the streets daily.
These were Swedes, Irishmen, Germans, and young men and women
from the American countryside, all of them hungry for work and
the chance for a new life. And looming on the horizon was
the promise of an event that would capture the world's
(03:40):
imagination, the 1893 World's Colombian Exposition.
Chicago was then known as the White City.
It was a monumental fair to celebrate the 400th anniversary
of Columbus's arrival in the NewWorld.
It promised wonders beyond belief.
Shimmering lagoons, electric lights that turn the night into
(04:04):
day, moving sidewalks, an enormous, magnificent Ferris
wheel that would touch the sky. It was projected that over
27,000,000 visitors would flood the city's streets.
For HH Holmes, this teeming, hopeful and dangerously
anonymous city was a paradise. There was a human sea he could
(04:25):
swim in on the scene, perfect hunting ground for a predator
who thrived on deception. He was handsome, perhaps
strikingly so, always impeccablydressed in tailored suits, and
his piercing blue eyes were disarming.
His charismatic smile could quell suspicion and inspire
(04:47):
immediate trust. He presented himself as a
successful, caring physician, a brilliant inventor and a savvy
businessman, a persona he had been rehearsing for years and
would now play to perfection. He settled in the growing middle
class neighborhood of Inglewood on Chicago's South Side.
(05:07):
It was here, amongst the hopefuland the hard working that he
found his first foothold. He quickly secured a job at a
local pharmacy owned by Doctor and Miss ES Holton.
Located at the busy corner of Wallace and 63rd St. the
Holton's were well liked and trusted by the community.
Dr. Holton was suffering from cancer and the arrival of this
(05:29):
charming, capable young doctor seemed like a godsend.
Holmes, with his apparent medical expertise and almost
hypnotic charm, quickly won the couple over.
But his sights were not set on simply being an employee.
He was, after all, an apex predator, and he was sizing up
the territory. He had his mind set on
(05:51):
acquisition, and it didn't take long.
Within months, Doctor Holton succumbed to his illness and
shortly after, Missus Holton, his grieving widow, seemed to
simply vanish. To those in the community who
inquired, Holmes had a ready andperfectly reasonable explanation
(06:11):
with a sombre expression. He would tell them she had sold
him the pharmacy, finding it toomuch for her to bear after her
husband's passing. He would add that she also
conveniently left for Californiato stay with some relatives.
In her last correspondence, he noted to anyone who questioned
her disappearance that she said she was enjoying her time with
(06:33):
family she hadn't seen in years and decided to stay there
indefinitely. No one questioned the handsome,
successful Doctor Who now ran the local pharmacy.
With this new study, income and respectable position in the
community, Holmes had his foundation, but this was merely
A stepping stone. His true ambition was far
(06:55):
grander and far, far more monstrous.
With the profits from the pharmacy and a series of loans
he acquired through fraudulent means, Holmes purchased the
large empty lot across the street.
On this plot of land he would begin to construct his
masterpiece, the building that would serve as his residence, a
(07:17):
hotel for the coming fair and the future location of what
would later be known in the whispers of pure terror as the
Murder Castle. The building that began to rise
at the corner of 63rd and Wallace was an architectural
anomaly from its inception. The people of Inglewood watched
this strange, blocky and asymmetrical form grow quickly
(07:41):
dubbing at the castle for its foreboding, fortress like
appearance. It was three stories tall and
eventually took up an entire city block, a grotesque and
windowless monument looming overthe quaint, ordinary
neighborhood. But it's true diabolical nature
was a secret known only to its architect.
(08:04):
This was no ordinary hotel. It was a purpose built factory
of death, and Holmes designed ithimself with meticulous,
malevolent care. During its lengthy and chaotic
construction, he managed to keepthe building's true blueprints
and his master plan a closely guarded secret.
How did he accomplish such a feat?
(08:26):
He devised A cunning and ruthless system.
The construction workers he hired were treated as disposable
parts. He would hire different crews
for different isolated sections of the building. 1 crew might
build a single staircase, another would plaster a set of
walls. And before they could become too
(08:47):
familiar with the structure, before they could ask too many
questions about its bizarre design, Holmes would simply fire
them. He would almost always refuse to
pay them, sighting shoddy workmanship, and dare them to
take him to court, knowing the legal process would exhaust them
(09:07):
long before they saw a dime. This constant revolving door of
Labor ensured that no single person, no architect or foreman,
ever understood the building's twisted, full design.
Only Holmes knew every secret passage, every hidden shoot,
every dead end. The ground floor of the castle
(09:29):
was designed as a mask of legitimacy, A carefully
constructed facade to lure the world in.
It housed a series of storefronts, including homes,
own relocated and expanded pharmacy, a jewelry store where
he could sell the trinkets of his victims, a Barber shop, and
even a restaurant. This was the public face of the
(09:51):
castle, the busy, respectable mask of normalcy that concealed
the unimaginable horrors of the floors above.
The upper two floors were a labyrinth nightmare, a physical
manifestation of a psychopath's mind.
There were over 100 rooms, most of them small, claustrophobic
(10:13):
and windowless. They were connected by a
disorienting, madding maze of hallways that twisted back on
themselves or simply LED nowhere.
There were staircases that endedabruptly at blank, solid walls.
There were doors that, when opened, revealed not another
room but a sheer, terrifying drop to the floor below, or a
(10:36):
solid brick wall. Many of the guest rooms were
fitted with secret peepholes, allowing Holmes to spy on his
chosen victims from the darknessof an adjoining hidden closet.
He could watch them, study them,and decide their fate.
He controlled the flow of gas into many of these rooms through
a series of hidden pipes, all connected to a control panel in
(11:00):
his own locked office. He could asphyxiate his guests
with a simple turn of a dial, savoring every excruciating
moment of their demise from a hidden God like vantage point.
Other rooms were more explicitlytorturous.
Some were lined with thick sheets of asbestos and heavy
iron plates, making them both fireproof and completely
(11:23):
soundproof. Designed to muffle the most
desperate, inevitable screens, the entire structure was a
complex, interconnected web of traps.
Hidden trap doors were concealedin the floors of the rooms and
in the bottoms of closets. These were connected to greased
metal line shoots that drop directly into the building's
(11:46):
black art. The basement.
The basement was the final destination.
It was here, in the subterraneanrealm of horrors, that Holmes
completed his ultimate gruesome work.
It was a place that defied belief, a personal industrial
hell. It was equipped with enormous
(12:06):
fats of corrosive acid, large enough to dissolve a human body
completely. There were deep pits filled with
quick lime to decompose flesh, and a blood spattered surgical
dissecting table complete with afull set of gleaming
professional instruments. On shelves one might find bones
(12:27):
bleached and labeled with a surgeon's precision.
And in the corner stood his pride and joy, a custom built
high firing furnace, which he cruelly explained to the curious
that this was for his glass bending company, another one of
his entirely fraudulent businesses.
Its true purpose was far more sinister.
(12:50):
It was in fact a crematorium, a kiln capable of withstanding
immense heat designed to reduce human beings, flesh and bone to
fine ash and brittle fragments, ensuring almost no evidence of
his atrocities remained. The few employees who worked in
(13:10):
the castle's legitimate businesses would occasionally
smell the foul, sweet, sickeningflesh burning and drifting up
through the floorboards, but Holmes, the believable Dr. would
claim and explain that it was just an unpleasant chemical
smell due to some of his experiments.
This was an easy explanation fora man of science to give, and
(13:33):
one that was, terrifyingly always accepted.
To continue the facade. He had created homes, outfitted
the hotels, public areas and guest rooms with fine
furnishings, beautiful linens and rich decor, all acquired
through his various schemes, defaulted loans and outright
(13:54):
theft. He was creating a House of
horrors disguised as a modern marvel, a perfectly designed and
baited trap for the thousands ofinnocent and unsuspecting
travellers who would soon flock to Chicago for the promise of
the World's Fair. It is a profound mistake to
think that HH Holmes was merely A murderer.
(14:18):
He was, at his very core, a master con artist, a virtuoso of
fraud. Murder was often just the
gruesome culmination of a financial transaction, the final
violent erasure of a witness, a creditor or a partner he no
longer needed. His thirst for control extended
far beyond life and death. He possessed a near religious
(14:41):
obsession with power over money and people's trust.
His criminal enterprises were astonishingly vast and complex.
Long before the castle was complete, he was already
swindling everyone he came in contact with.
Furniture suppliers, lumber companies, kiln manufacturers
(15:01):
and brick layers were all left holding worthless IO, US and
unpaid bills. He charmed them with grand
visions and promises of prompt payment, took delivery of their
goods, and then vanished into a legal labyrinth of excuses,
aliases and corporate shells. He had a particular genius for
(15:22):
creating phantom businesses. The most famous of these was his
Holmes Glass Bending Company. He claimed to have invented a
revolutionary patent pending technique for bending large
plates of glass, a process that was of course chemically and
physically impossible at the time.
(15:42):
Yet with his silver tongue, his forged blueprints, and his
unshakable confidence, he tricked seasoned investors into
supporting this phantom business, taking thousands of
their dollars and leaving them with nothing but empty promises.
During the fair, he preyed on the era's gullibility and its
obsession with quick health fixes.
(16:04):
He marketed and sold bogus mineral water cures, claiming
they could cure everything from dyspepsia to baldness.
He even created a full-fledged mail order pharmaceutical
business, sending out worthless,sometimes dangerous concoctions
to desperate people across the country who were dazzled by the
era's fate and scientific progress.
(16:26):
One of his most audacious scams involved the castle itself.
Before it was even finished, he took out multiple heavily
inflated and overlapping insurance policies on his
already mortgage building with several different companies.
Then a mysterious fire broke out, a fire that caused
significant damage but conveniently did not destroy the
(16:49):
building. It was a fire, he almost
certainly said himself. When the insurance investigators
arrive, men trained to detect fraud, they were not met with
resistance. But with the impeccably dressed,
warm and disarmingly polite Doctor Holmes, you have to
(17:10):
imagine the scene. A suspicious, hard nosed
insurance adjuster, a man who has seen every trick and heard
every lie, arrives at the partially burned castle.
He is there to investigate a highly suspicious fire at a
heavily insured property owned by a man already notorious in
business circles for not paying his debts.
(17:31):
He expects A confrontation. He's ready for a fight.
Instead, he is greeted at the door by the charismatic Dr.
Holmes. It is said.
Holmes replied. Ah, my dear fellow, Holmes said,
flashing his signature crooked, charming smile.
(17:53):
I've been meaning to speak with you.
Please, won't you come in? It's far too hot out there to be
arguing over money and paperwork.
Reluctantly, perhaps against hisbetter judgement, the man steps
inside. Holmes ushers him into a plush
parlor near the pharmacy, a roomfar enough from the street to
(18:14):
muffle noise, but close enough to seem casual and non
threatening. Holmes gestures towards a
decanter of fine Brandy or whiskey and pours them both.
A generous truth to our continued partnership in swift
resolution. Holmes says, lifting the glass
in a toast. The adjuster hesitates, but
(18:38):
takes a drink. Holmes speaks smoothly.
His voice is soothing, persuasive, lulling the man into
an unexpected sense of comfort and security.
He assures him that the paperwork has simply been
delayed, that the funds were just temporarily tied up in
another venture. His voice is hypnotic.
(19:00):
Some versions of this recurring story suggest Holmes may have
drugged the drink. Others imply that this sheer
force of personality, Holmes intense and focused
psychological manipulation, was enough to calm the man and
convince him to walk away. And any case, the result is
always the same. The adjuster, the supplier, the
(19:23):
creditor all leave empty handed,but somehow still oddly
satisfied and a little confused,as if waking from a spell.
Holmes charm was so potent that seasoned creditors and even the
police found themselves stalled,confused and utterly misled at
(19:43):
every turn. He could talk his way out of
anything. He was a master of the stall,
the misdirection and the bold faced lie.
This recurring incident showed that in Holmes Castle you didn't
have to be locked in a soundproof vault to be in mortal
danger. The greatest danger was simply
(20:03):
being in a room and talking to the man himself.
We may never know the true number of HH Holmes victims.
The official count stands at 9:00, but estimates from
investigators and researchers have ranged wildly, some soaring
to over 200. He didn't just kill, he erased
(20:24):
people. He meticulously dismantled their
lives, their finances, and theirconnections to the world before
finally extinguishing their existence.
With the 1893 World's Fair in full swing, his castle became
the perfect, efficient trap. He advertised it in newspapers
and with Flyers as the World's Fair Hotel.
(20:47):
Affordable, luxurious and conveniently close to the
fairgrounds, travellers lined upto stay.
Many were young women from ruraltowns in Illinois and distant
cities in the east. They arrived in droves, seeking
adventure, employment, independence and new beginnings.
(21:07):
They were alone in a vast and overwhelming city.
They were vulnerable and they were so easily persuaded by a
wealthy, handsome and attentive Dr. They were four homes, the
perfect prey. They arrived at his door with
trunks full of clothes and hearts full of dreams for a
(21:27):
future in the bustling New America.
Once inside the castle, they vanished behind doors that only
homes controlled. So many women were seen entering
the hotel with their suitcases. They were never, ever seen
leaving. Let us speak of the names of
those we know. To do so is to reclaim them from
(21:48):
the long shadow of their killer,to remember them as more than
just victims. First there was Julia Smythe.
She was a bookkeeper by trade, awoman left in a desperate
situation when her husband abandoned her, leaving her to
raise their young daughter Pearl.
All alone, she found work as a bookkeeper for Holmes and
(22:10):
eventually became one of his many lovers.
Moving into the castle with her child, she was likely promised a
stable life, security for herself and her daughter.
But on Christmas Eve of 1891, Julia and Pearl disappeared from
the face of the earth when her former husband's family grew
(22:31):
concerned and inquired about herwhereabouts.
Holmes calmly claimed she had gone to visit her own family for
the holidays. Later, under the pressure of
interrogation, he would change his story and confess to her
death, callously claiming she had died during a botched
abortion that he himself had performed.
(22:53):
No evidence of this ever surfaced.
It was just another lie to covera murder.
During the final grim excavationof the castle cellar,
investigators under the small, delicate skeletal remains of a
child believed by forensic experts to be that of young
Pearl found buried in the damp dirt floor.
(23:14):
Then came Emmeline Sagrand. She was a bright, beautiful and
ambitious young woman from a good family in Indiana.
Drawn to the promise of Chicago,Holmes hired her as his personal
assistant, stenographer and secretary.
Soon she was completely under his spell, writing letters home
(23:35):
to her family, gushing about hernew life and her new engagement
to a handsome, wealthy Dr. namedHarry Gordon, which was one of
Holmes's favorite aliases. She was entranced by him,
telling friends he was the perfect gentleman, but those
same friends grew concerned. They noticed a change in her, a
(23:58):
quiet sadness that she couldn't explain.
She disappeared in December of 1892.
When her worried family contacted Holmes, he told them a
cold, calculated and cruel lie. Emmaline, he said, had called
off the engagement and had run off to get married to another
(24:19):
man in Europe. The truth was far more horrific.
It is believed he lured her intoone of his airtight, soundproof
vault. Years later, when investigators
finally broke into that sealed room and examine the inside of
the vault's heavy door, they found a single faint, ghostly
(24:39):
footprint etched into the metal,the last silent trace of a
woman's desperate and final struggle for life.
And then there was the Williams sisters.
Many Williams was not a naive country girl.
She was an actress and an heiress to a significant fortune
(24:59):
from a Texas railroad inheritance.
She was intelligent and had travelled the world, but she too
fell under the powerful spell ofHH Holmes.
He charmed her, seduced her and convinced her to sign over her
entire inheritance, a vast estate in Fort Worth, to one of
(25:20):
his many aliases. She was so enthralled that she
wrote to our younger sister Nanny, inviting her to Chicago
for the summer of 1893, suggesting that Nanny might be a
bridesmaid at her upcoming wedding to a wonderful man she
had met. Nanny arrived in July.
Soon after both wealthy, educated sisters vanished
(25:43):
without a trace. Holmes had a well crafted
explanation for every single missing person for the Williams
sisters. He told friends they had decided
to travel to Europe. He even went as far to forge
letters in the victims names, mailing postcards to their
distant families and wedding announcements to their friends,
(26:06):
creating a complex, believable illusion that the young woman
had simply eloped or moved away,or have been swept away forever
by some whirlwind of affair. For each of these women, he took
not only their lives and their property, but he stole their
very stories, twisting them intohis own fraudulent narratives to
(26:28):
serve and cover his tracks. These women and so many others
came to Chicago seeking freedom and new opportunities.
Instead, they met a fate so meticulously planned and so
horrifying it continues to defy comprehension.
(26:48):
As the glorious World's Fair drew to its close in the autumn
of 1893, the dazzling lights of the White City began to dim, the
crowds fend, the tourists went home, and the profits from the
World's Fair Hotel began to dry up.
Holmes, ever the opportunist, ever the predator looking for
his next meal, was already planning his next grand con.
(27:12):
For this he would need the help of his most trusted and perhaps
only associate, a man who was both a partner in his many
crimes and ultimately his most tragic and consequential victim.
His name was Benjamin Peitzel. Peitzel was a soft spoken
Carpenter, a man with calloused hands, a wife he loved named
(27:34):
Carrie, and five children he adored.
But he was also a criminal. He had a weakness for alcohol
and a malleable nature, all of which made him tragically
susceptible to the powerful influence of HH Holmes.
He saw in Holmes not a killer, but a brilliant businessman, a
(27:55):
partner, a friend who could offer him a way out of his
constant crushing financial struggles.
He was drawn to Holmes charisma and promises of easy money.
Mittel had been an integral partof Holmes operation for years.
He had helped build the bizarre House of horrors.
His unassuming, slightly sad eyed demeanor made him the
(28:17):
perfect front man for some of Holmes scams.
He was loyal, he was useful, andhe was deeply complicit.
He didn't ask questions about the strange architecture, the
odd smells, or the people who came but never seemed to leave.
Maybe, as many would later speculate, he simply didn't want
(28:40):
to know the answers. Now, with the creditors closing
in on the castle and his Chicagoenterprise becoming too risky,
Holmes devised what he considered his masterpiece of
fraud. It was a plan that required
Peitzel's complete trust. The plan was simple.
On paper, Peitzel would assume afake identity, that of a
(29:02):
struggling inventor named BF Harry.
Holmes would then take out a $10,000 life insurance policy on
this fictional Perry. The next step was for Peitel to
fake his own death in a staged lab explosion.
Holmes, using his credentials asa respected Dr. would then
officially identify the body. A disfigured cadaver Holmes
(29:25):
would procure from a ward and then collect the hefty insurance
money. Then the two partners would
split the profits 5050 and disappear, free to start new
lives. It was a classic home scheme,
intricate, audacious and utterlyfraudulent.
But in reality, HH Holmes had nointention of sharing.
(29:49):
Benjamin Feitzel, his loyal, flawed and trusting partner, was
worth far more to him dead than he ever was alive.
On a quiet September day in 1894in Philadelphia, the city of
brotherly love, Holmes put his dark, revised plan into motion.
He lured Peitel to a rented house on Callowell St.
(30:13):
There was no grand farewell. There was no warning.
Just a bottle, a breath, and a flash of betrayal.
Holmes knocked Peitel unconscious with a rag soaked in
chloroform. Then, to mimic the lab explosion
they'd agreed upon, he doused his partner's body with
flammable chemicals and sedimentblades.
(30:36):
When authorities arrived, they found a body burned beyond all
recognition. But then, as planned, Doctor HH
Holmes stepped in, playing the part of the grieving friend to
perfection. He presented forged documents
confidently identifying the charred corpse as BF Perry.
(30:56):
He claimed it was all very sad, a tragic accident, very
unfortunate. But of course he, as the man's
friend and physician, would handle the difficult paperwork.
The insurance company, convincedby his solemn charm and
seemingly impeccable credentials, paid him the full
$10,000. But this was just the beginning
(31:19):
of the horror. To keep up with the elaborate
lie for Pitel's unsuspecting wife, Carrie Holmes told her
that her husband was alive and well.
The plan had worked, he said, but there was a complication.
Peitzel was now in hiding, perhaps in London or South
America, until the threat from the insurance investigators had
(31:40):
passed. He played the part of the
concerned, loyal friend, assuring the desperate and
trusting woman that he was in contact with Peitzel and would
reunite them as soon as it was safe.
And then he made a chilling, unthinkable offer.
He volunteered to take three of her five children, the eldest
(32:01):
daughter, the thoughtful and responsible Alice, age 15, the
bright eyed Nelly, age 11, and sweet little Howard, age 8, to a
secret location where they wouldbe reunited with their loving
father. Carrie, clinging to this
fabricated hope, her heartbreaking for the children
who missed their father so much,tearfully said yes.
(32:25):
What followed was one of the most macabre and heartbreaking
journeys in American crime. For the next several weeks,
Holmes led the three innocent children on a terrifying odyssey
across the American Midwest and into Canada.
He rented apartments, changed their names and checked them
into hotels under a series of aliases.
(32:48):
All the while, the children, separated from their mother and
siblings, grew tired, homesick and increasingly suspicious of
the strange Uncle Harry. He played a cruel psychological
game with them. He bought them new shoes and
fancy clothes. He fed them candy and treats.
He allowed them and even encouraged them to write
(33:10):
postcards to their mother. These postcards, filled with
childish reassurances and coded messages of their well-being,
were dictated by Holmes and onlyserved to prolong their mother's
agony and keep her from going tothe police.
He was not just their captor, hewas their companion, a
terrifying 2 faced figure of authority and menace, the only
(33:33):
adult they could turn to. And then one by one, when they
had served their purpose, he killed them in Toronto and a
home Holmes had rented under a false name on Saint Vincent St.
He convinced Alice and Nelly to hide inside a large empty
steamer trunk, perhaps telling them it was a game or that they
(33:56):
needed to hide from people who were looking for them.
Once the 2 girls were crowded inside, he locked the heavy lid
and fed poison gas through a small hole he drilled in the
top. He left their small bodies there
to rot in that trunk in the colddark cellar.
Little Howard, the youngest the boy, met an even more gruesome
(34:19):
fate in a cottage homes rented in Irvington, a suburb of
Indianapolis, when authorities, led by a relentless detective,
finally caught up to Holmes. They found the house empty, with
the stove in the kitchen held the horrifying evidence of what
had transpired inside. Amidst the ashes, they found
(34:39):
small bones, baby teeth. It is believed Howard was
poisoned or gassed, then clinically dismembered before
the remains were placed in the fire burn.
In the end, it wasn't the spectacular horrors of the
Murder Castle, or the grand stage of the World's Fair, or
the faceless forgotten women whowould finally bring the monster
(35:01):
HH Holmes to justice. It was Benjamin Peitzel.
It was the trail Holmes left behind, not of blood, but of
children's shoes, tear stained postcards, and burned bodies
that led directly to his arrest.And the insurance scam that
should have made HH Holmes rich became his undoing.
(35:26):
While Holmes was leading the Peitel children on their slow,
meandering death March, the Gears of justice, though
grinding slowly, had already begun to turn.
The insurance company, Fidelity Mutual, had never been entirely
comfortable with the BF Perry claim.
The speed with which Holmes produced a lawyer to collect the
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money had raised some red flags.They hired the Pinkerton
Detective Agency to investigate.But the true hero of the story,
the man who would personally untangle Holmes impossibly
complex web of lies, was a detective from Philadelphia
named Frank Geyer. Geyer was a methodical, quiet,
(36:07):
and deeply empathetic investigator.
He was given the seemingly impossible task of finding the
three missing Peitzel children. It was a search that would
consume him, taking him on a grueling 5000 mile journey
across the US and Canada. He started with the scantis of
clues, a handful of letters fromthe children to their mother,
(36:29):
postmarked from different citiesacross the country.
Patiently and painstakingly, Guyer pieced together Holmes
Trail. He travelled from city to city,
Cincinnati, Detroit, Indianapolis, Toronto, showing
photographs of the children to hotel clerks, landlords,
(36:51):
shopkeepers and anyone who mighthave seen the handsome man with
the three sad eyed children in city after city, he was just a
few steps behind the killer. Arriving days or sometimes only
hours after Holmes had left. He discovered the rented house
in Indianapolis and with local police, unearthed the horrifying
(37:12):
charred remains of the stove. Then his grim investigation led
him to Toronto. Following a tip from a neighbor
who remembered a man with three children entering the house at
16 Saint Vincent St. Geyer made his most devastating
and heartbreaking discovery. In the cellar of the empty
house, he found the large, unassuming steamer trunk with a
(37:36):
pry bar. He opened the lid.
Inside were the badly decomposedbodies of Alice and Nellie
Peitzel. The evidence was damning,
horrific and absolute. With Frank Geier's discoveries
making sensational headlines in newspapers across the country,
the net was finally closing on HH Holmes.
(37:58):
He was finally tracked to Bostonwhere he was arrested by
Pinkerton agents on November 17th, 1894.
But as authorities began to investigate the calm, well
dressed man they had in custody,and as the stories from Chicago
and as the discoveries by Detective Geyer began to merge,
(38:19):
they realized that his true crimes were far darker, far more
numerous, and far more depraved than any of them had ever
imagined. The legend of the Murder Castle
began to emerge from the whispers of Inglewood, and
America was introduced to a new and terrifying kind of monster.
The serial killer in custody, HHHolmes, did not shrink from the
(38:44):
spotlight. He bathed in it.
It became an overnight media sensation.
America's first celebrity serialkiller Awaiting his trial, he
gave a series of wild, contradictory and often entirely
fabricated confessions to the press, particularly to the
Hearst newspaper syndicate, for which he was paid thousands of
(39:07):
dollars. He confessed to at least 27
murders, then later to over 150,leaving fantastic tales of his
crimes. Then he would recant it all,
claiming he was innocent of everything except for the
insurance fraud, a mere pawn of the true villain Benjamin
Peitzel. He even claimed, in a final
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theatrical flourish of manipulation, that his face was
physically transforming into a demonic sheep, that he was being
overtaken by an inner evil force, perhaps Satan himself.
He was controlling the narrativeto the very end.
Though many of these confessionswere later revealed to be false
or grossly exaggerated, they serve to cement his legend as a
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diabolical, larger than life mastermind of Eagle.
His trial for the murder of Benjamin Peitzel began in
October of 1895. It was a national spectacle.
Holmes, acting as his own attorney for a time, was
arrogant, calm and defiant. But the evidence presented by
(40:15):
the prosecution was overwhelmingthe testimony of Carrie Peitzel.
The financial records and most powerfully, Detective Frank
Dyer's stoic, heartbreaking testimony about the discovery of
the children's bodies left the jury with no doubt.
They took only a few hours to find him guilty of first degree
(40:36):
murder and sentenced him to death on May 7th, 1896 at Moya
Mincing prison in Philadelphia. Doctor Henry Howard Holmes for
Herman Webster Budget walked calmly to the gallows.
He was by all accounts, serene and showed no emotion.
(40:57):
But his death, unlike the deathshe had engineered with such
clinical precision, was not swift.
The hangman miscalculated the drop required for his weight,
and his neck did not snap. Instead, it took nearly 20
agonizing minutes for HH Holmes to strangle to death at the end
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of a row, a slow, choking, gasping descent, and to be abyss
he had spent a lifetime digging for so many others.
In a strange and final revealingtwist of fate, Holmes had made a
bizarre request for his own burial.
He, the man who had dissected, dismembered and destroyed so
(41:40):
many human bodies, insisted thathis coffin be filled with cement
and buried in a 10 foot deep, unmarked grave.
He was terrified of grave robbers.
But more than that, he feared the anatomist's knife.
He feared the very thing he had done to so many, to be exposed,
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dissected and remembered as nothing more than a body.
It was a darkly perfect, ironic,final wish.
And so ended the life of HH Holmes.
But his story, his dark legend, did not end there.
The Murder Castle, that grotesque monument is evil,
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burned to the ground in a mysterious fire in August of
1895, before its full, awful secrets could ever truly be
explored by investigators. Today, a United States post
office stands on the site where so many lives were tragically
and terribly cut short. History, however, does not
(42:45):
forget. HH Holmes remains a chilling
foundational figure in the American consciousness, a symbol
of the profound darkness that can hide behind a civilized and
charming veneer. He built a castle of horrors,
crafted scams with surgical precision, and murdered with a
chilling industrial detachment. He was a product of his time, a
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dark and twisted reflection of the Gilded ages, unchecked
ambition, and the frightening anonymity of the modern city.
He exploited the very hope and promise that drew people to
Chicago, turning their American Dream into his own personal,
horrifying nightmare. Let us not remember him for his
monstrous celebrity. Let us remember Julia and Pearl
(43:32):
Smite. Let us remember Emmeline the
Grand. Let us remember Many and Nanny
Williams, Benjamin Pite Cell, and especially Alice Nelly and
Howard Peitzel. Let us remember them not as a
list of victims and a killer story, but as people with lives,
(43:54):
with families, with hopes and futures that were stolen from
them by a man who was the worst of humanity.
Their stories, their stolen lives, are the true and tragic
legacy of the Devil in the WhiteCity.
This has been a special Macabre feature.
(44:16):
I hope you found this chilling tale of HH Holmes both
informative and compelling. History is filled with shadows,
and by shining a light on them we can perhaps better understand
the darkness that lies sometimesdormant within us all.
Thank you for listening to the special presentation and limited
series of Macabre. Stay tuned for more Macabre
(44:39):
features in the future, where together we will uncover the
darkest arts of history.
Welcome, dear listeners, to a special presentation of Macabre,
a dark history podcast. We delve into the shadows of the
past, where history's most sinister tales reside.
These are the stories that cannot be confined to a single
episode, narratives that demand a deeper exploration and
immersion into the human condition.
(00:23):
Prepare to immerse yourself in accounts of chilling crimes,
unsolved mysteries, and the darker side of human nature in
this macabre feature. Every story of a great evil has
a beginning, a point of transformation where the mundane
changes into the monstrous. For our story, that moment
(00:46):
arrives not with a bang, but with the scratch of a pen on a
legal document. In 1886, a man named Herman
Webster Mudgett, A gifted but fraudulent physician with a
history of petty scams and a trail of abandoned family, made
a decision. He would erase himself.
(01:07):
He would kill the man he was born as, so that a new creation,
one better suited to his dark ambitions, could be born.
He filed the paperwork. Herman Webster Mudgett, the boy
from New Hampshire with the coldeyes and unsettling fascination
with anatomy, ceased to exist. In his place stood a new man, a
(01:30):
figure of his own meticulous design, christened with a name
he felt embodied intelligence, authority, and cunning, a name
likely stolen from the headlinesand inspired by the famous
fictional detective of the era. He was now and forevermore,
Doctor Henry Howard Holmes. This was more than a simple name
(01:52):
change, it was a declaration of intent.
It was his final break from a past that could anchor him, from
people who knew him, from any lingering shred conscience.
With this new identity came a profound rebirth, a chilling
liberation from all prioritize and moral constraints.
(02:13):
He was now free to manipulate, to charm, to deceive, and
ultimately to kill. And he had the perfect
destination in mind, a city on the verge of a spectacular
transformation, a place teeming with opportunity, both
legitimate and illicit. His next stop?
(02:34):
Chicago. To understand Holmes, you must
understand the Chicago he stepped into in the late 1880s.
It was a raw, muscular and chaotic city.
It was a phoenix, having risen from the devastating Great Fire
of 1871 to become a sprawling, smoke belching metropolis, the
(02:57):
pulsing and sanitized heart of the American Midwest.
It was a city of breathtaking architecture and abject poverty,
of robber barons and desperate immigrants.
It was a place of soot and ambition, where fortunes were
made overnight and lives were lost just as quickly.
(03:18):
Railroads sprawled like iron veins across the landscape,
pumping waves of newcomers into the streets daily.
These were Swedes, Irishmen, Germans, and young men and women
from the American countryside, all of them hungry for work and
the chance for a new life. And looming on the horizon was
the promise of an event that would capture the world's
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imagination, the 1893 World's Colombian Exposition.
Chicago was then known as the White City.
It was a monumental fair to celebrate the 400th anniversary
of Columbus's arrival in the NewWorld.
It promised wonders beyond belief.
Shimmering lagoons, electric lights that turn the night into
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day, moving sidewalks, an enormous, magnificent Ferris
wheel that would touch the sky. It was projected that over
27,000,000 visitors would flood the city's streets.
For HH Holmes, this teeming, hopeful and dangerously
anonymous city was a paradise. There was a human sea he could
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swim in on the scene, perfect hunting ground for a predator
who thrived on deception. He was handsome, perhaps
strikingly so, always impeccablydressed in tailored suits, and
his piercing blue eyes were disarming.
His charismatic smile could quell suspicion and inspire
(04:47):
immediate trust. He presented himself as a
successful, caring physician, a brilliant inventor and a savvy
businessman, a persona he had been rehearsing for years and
would now play to perfection. He settled in the growing middle
class neighborhood of Inglewood on Chicago's South Side.
(05:07):
It was here, amongst the hopefuland the hard working that he
found his first foothold. He quickly secured a job at a
local pharmacy owned by Doctor and Miss ES Holton.
Located at the busy corner of Wallace and 63rd St. the
Holton's were well liked and trusted by the community.
Dr. Holton was suffering from cancer and the arrival of this
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charming, capable young doctor seemed like a godsend.
Holmes, with his apparent medical expertise and almost
hypnotic charm, quickly won the couple over.
But his sights were not set on simply being an employee.
He was, after all, an apex predator, and he was sizing up
the territory. He had his mind set on
(05:51):
acquisition, and it didn't take long.
Within months, Doctor Holton succumbed to his illness and
shortly after, Missus Holton, his grieving widow, seemed to
simply vanish. To those in the community who
inquired, Holmes had a ready andperfectly reasonable explanation
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with a sombre expression. He would tell them she had sold
him the pharmacy, finding it toomuch for her to bear after her
husband's passing. He would add that she also
conveniently left for Californiato stay with some relatives.
In her last correspondence, he noted to anyone who questioned
her disappearance that she said she was enjoying her time with
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family she hadn't seen in years and decided to stay there
indefinitely. No one questioned the handsome,
successful Doctor Who now ran the local pharmacy.
With this new study, income and respectable position in the
community, Holmes had his foundation, but this was merely
A stepping stone. His true ambition was far
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grander and far, far more monstrous.
With the profits from the pharmacy and a series of loans
he acquired through fraudulent means, Holmes purchased the
large empty lot across the street.
On this plot of land he would begin to construct his
masterpiece, the building that would serve as his residence, a
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hotel for the coming fair and the future location of what
would later be known in the whispers of pure terror as the
Murder Castle. The building that began to rise
at the corner of 63rd and Wallace was an architectural
anomaly from its inception. The people of Inglewood watched
this strange, blocky and asymmetrical form grow quickly
(07:41):
dubbing at the castle for its foreboding, fortress like
appearance. It was three stories tall and
eventually took up an entire city block, a grotesque and
windowless monument looming overthe quaint, ordinary
neighborhood. But it's true diabolical nature
was a secret known only to its architect.
(08:04):
This was no ordinary hotel. It was a purpose built factory
of death, and Holmes designed ithimself with meticulous,
malevolent care. During its lengthy and chaotic
construction, he managed to keepthe building's true blueprints
and his master plan a closely guarded secret.
How did he accomplish such a feat?
(08:26):
He devised A cunning and ruthless system.
The construction workers he hired were treated as disposable
parts. He would hire different crews
for different isolated sections of the building. 1 crew might
build a single staircase, another would plaster a set of
walls. And before they could become too
(08:47):
familiar with the structure, before they could ask too many
questions about its bizarre design, Holmes would simply fire
them. He would almost always refuse to
pay them, sighting shoddy workmanship, and dare them to
take him to court, knowing the legal process would exhaust them
(09:07):
long before they saw a dime. This constant revolving door of
Labor ensured that no single person, no architect or foreman,
ever understood the building's twisted, full design.
Only Holmes knew every secret passage, every hidden shoot,
every dead end. The ground floor of the castle
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was designed as a mask of legitimacy, A carefully
constructed facade to lure the world in.
It housed a series of storefronts, including homes,
own relocated and expanded pharmacy, a jewelry store where
he could sell the trinkets of his victims, a Barber shop, and
even a restaurant. This was the public face of the
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castle, the busy, respectable mask of normalcy that concealed
the unimaginable horrors of the floors above.
The upper two floors were a labyrinth nightmare, a physical
manifestation of a psychopath's mind.
There were over 100 rooms, most of them small, claustrophobic
(10:13):
and windowless. They were connected by a
disorienting, madding maze of hallways that twisted back on
themselves or simply LED nowhere.
There were staircases that endedabruptly at blank, solid walls.
There were doors that, when opened, revealed not another
room but a sheer, terrifying drop to the floor below, or a
(10:36):
solid brick wall. Many of the guest rooms were
fitted with secret peepholes, allowing Holmes to spy on his
chosen victims from the darknessof an adjoining hidden closet.
He could watch them, study them,and decide their fate.
He controlled the flow of gas into many of these rooms through
a series of hidden pipes, all connected to a control panel in
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his own locked office. He could asphyxiate his guests
with a simple turn of a dial, savoring every excruciating
moment of their demise from a hidden God like vantage point.
Other rooms were more explicitlytorturous.
Some were lined with thick sheets of asbestos and heavy
iron plates, making them both fireproof and completely
(11:23):
soundproof. Designed to muffle the most
desperate, inevitable screens, the entire structure was a
complex, interconnected web of traps.
Hidden trap doors were concealedin the floors of the rooms and
in the bottoms of closets. These were connected to greased
metal line shoots that drop directly into the building's
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black art. The basement.
The basement was the final destination.
It was here, in the subterraneanrealm of horrors, that Holmes
completed his ultimate gruesome work.
It was a place that defied belief, a personal industrial
hell. It was equipped with enormous
(12:06):
fats of corrosive acid, large enough to dissolve a human body
completely. There were deep pits filled with
quick lime to decompose flesh, and a blood spattered surgical
dissecting table complete with afull set of gleaming
professional instruments. On shelves one might find bones
(12:27):
bleached and labeled with a surgeon's precision.
And in the corner stood his pride and joy, a custom built
high firing furnace, which he cruelly explained to the curious
that this was for his glass bending company, another one of
his entirely fraudulent businesses.
Its true purpose was far more sinister.
(12:50):
It was in fact a crematorium, a kiln capable of withstanding
immense heat designed to reduce human beings, flesh and bone to
fine ash and brittle fragments, ensuring almost no evidence of
his atrocities remained. The few employees who worked in
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the castle's legitimate businesses would occasionally
smell the foul, sweet, sickeningflesh burning and drifting up
through the floorboards, but Holmes, the believable Dr. would
claim and explain that it was just an unpleasant chemical
smell due to some of his experiments.
This was an easy explanation fora man of science to give, and
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one that was, terrifyingly always accepted.
To continue the facade. He had created homes, outfitted
the hotels, public areas and guest rooms with fine
furnishings, beautiful linens and rich decor, all acquired
through his various schemes, defaulted loans and outright
(13:54):
theft. He was creating a House of
horrors disguised as a modern marvel, a perfectly designed and
baited trap for the thousands ofinnocent and unsuspecting
travellers who would soon flock to Chicago for the promise of
the World's Fair. It is a profound mistake to
think that HH Holmes was merely A murderer.
(14:18):
He was, at his very core, a master con artist, a virtuoso of
fraud. Murder was often just the
gruesome culmination of a financial transaction, the final
violent erasure of a witness, a creditor or a partner he no
longer needed. His thirst for control extended
far beyond life and death. He possessed a near religious
(14:41):
obsession with power over money and people's trust.
His criminal enterprises were astonishingly vast and complex.
Long before the castle was complete, he was already
swindling everyone he came in contact with.
Furniture suppliers, lumber companies, kiln manufacturers
(15:01):
and brick layers were all left holding worthless IO, US and
unpaid bills. He charmed them with grand
visions and promises of prompt payment, took delivery of their
goods, and then vanished into a legal labyrinth of excuses,
aliases and corporate shells. He had a particular genius for
(15:22):
creating phantom businesses. The most famous of these was his
Holmes Glass Bending Company. He claimed to have invented a
revolutionary patent pending technique for bending large
plates of glass, a process that was of course chemically and
physically impossible at the time.
(15:42):
Yet with his silver tongue, his forged blueprints, and his
unshakable confidence, he tricked seasoned investors into
supporting this phantom business, taking thousands of
their dollars and leaving them with nothing but empty promises.
During the fair, he preyed on the era's gullibility and its
obsession with quick health fixes.
(16:04):
He marketed and sold bogus mineral water cures, claiming
they could cure everything from dyspepsia to baldness.
He even created a full-fledged mail order pharmaceutical
business, sending out worthless,sometimes dangerous concoctions
to desperate people across the country who were dazzled by the
era's fate and scientific progress.
(16:26):
One of his most audacious scams involved the castle itself.
Before it was even finished, he took out multiple heavily
inflated and overlapping insurance policies on his
already mortgage building with several different companies.
Then a mysterious fire broke out, a fire that caused
significant damage but conveniently did not destroy the
(16:49):
building. It was a fire, he almost
certainly said himself. When the insurance investigators
arrive, men trained to detect fraud, they were not met with
resistance. But with the impeccably dressed,
warm and disarmingly polite Doctor Holmes, you have to
(17:10):
imagine the scene. A suspicious, hard nosed
insurance adjuster, a man who has seen every trick and heard
every lie, arrives at the partially burned castle.
He is there to investigate a highly suspicious fire at a
heavily insured property owned by a man already notorious in
business circles for not paying his debts.
(17:31):
He expects A confrontation. He's ready for a fight.
Instead, he is greeted at the door by the charismatic Dr.
Holmes. It is said.
Holmes replied. Ah, my dear fellow, Holmes said,
flashing his signature crooked, charming smile.
(17:53):
I've been meaning to speak with you.
Please, won't you come in? It's far too hot out there to be
arguing over money and paperwork.
Reluctantly, perhaps against hisbetter judgement, the man steps
inside. Holmes ushers him into a plush
parlor near the pharmacy, a roomfar enough from the street to
(18:14):
muffle noise, but close enough to seem casual and non
threatening. Holmes gestures towards a
decanter of fine Brandy or whiskey and pours them both.
A generous truth to our continued partnership in swift
resolution. Holmes says, lifting the glass
in a toast. The adjuster hesitates, but
(18:38):
takes a drink. Holmes speaks smoothly.
His voice is soothing, persuasive, lulling the man into
an unexpected sense of comfort and security.
He assures him that the paperwork has simply been
delayed, that the funds were just temporarily tied up in
another venture. His voice is hypnotic.
(19:00):
Some versions of this recurring story suggest Holmes may have
drugged the drink. Others imply that this sheer
force of personality, Holmes intense and focused
psychological manipulation, was enough to calm the man and
convince him to walk away. And any case, the result is
always the same. The adjuster, the supplier, the
(19:23):
creditor all leave empty handed,but somehow still oddly
satisfied and a little confused,as if waking from a spell.
Holmes charm was so potent that seasoned creditors and even the
police found themselves stalled,confused and utterly misled at
(19:43):
every turn. He could talk his way out of
anything. He was a master of the stall,
the misdirection and the bold faced lie.
This recurring incident showed that in Holmes Castle you didn't
have to be locked in a soundproof vault to be in mortal
danger. The greatest danger was simply
(20:03):
being in a room and talking to the man himself.
We may never know the true number of HH Holmes victims.
The official count stands at 9:00, but estimates from
investigators and researchers have ranged wildly, some soaring
to over 200. He didn't just kill, he erased
(20:24):
people. He meticulously dismantled their
lives, their finances, and theirconnections to the world before
finally extinguishing their existence.
With the 1893 World's Fair in full swing, his castle became
the perfect, efficient trap. He advertised it in newspapers
and with Flyers as the World's Fair Hotel.
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Affordable, luxurious and conveniently close to the
fairgrounds, travellers lined upto stay.
Many were young women from ruraltowns in Illinois and distant
cities in the east. They arrived in droves, seeking
adventure, employment, independence and new beginnings.
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They were alone in a vast and overwhelming city.
They were vulnerable and they were so easily persuaded by a
wealthy, handsome and attentive Dr. They were four homes, the
perfect prey. They arrived at his door with
trunks full of clothes and hearts full of dreams for a
(21:27):
future in the bustling New America.
Once inside the castle, they vanished behind doors that only
homes controlled. So many women were seen entering
the hotel with their suitcases. They were never, ever seen
leaving. Let us speak of the names of
those we know. To do so is to reclaim them from
(21:48):
the long shadow of their killer,to remember them as more than
just victims. First there was Julia Smythe.
She was a bookkeeper by trade, awoman left in a desperate
situation when her husband abandoned her, leaving her to
raise their young daughter Pearl.
All alone, she found work as a bookkeeper for Holmes and
(22:10):
eventually became one of his many lovers.
Moving into the castle with her child, she was likely promised a
stable life, security for herself and her daughter.
But on Christmas Eve of 1891, Julia and Pearl disappeared from
the face of the earth when her former husband's family grew
(22:31):
concerned and inquired about herwhereabouts.
Holmes calmly claimed she had gone to visit her own family for
the holidays. Later, under the pressure of
interrogation, he would change his story and confess to her
death, callously claiming she had died during a botched
abortion that he himself had performed.
(22:53):
No evidence of this ever surfaced.
It was just another lie to covera murder.
During the final grim excavationof the castle cellar,
investigators under the small, delicate skeletal remains of a
child believed by forensic experts to be that of young
Pearl found buried in the damp dirt floor.
(23:14):
Then came Emmeline Sagrand. She was a bright, beautiful and
ambitious young woman from a good family in Indiana.
Drawn to the promise of Chicago,Holmes hired her as his personal
assistant, stenographer and secretary.
Soon she was completely under his spell, writing letters home
(23:35):
to her family, gushing about hernew life and her new engagement
to a handsome, wealthy Dr. namedHarry Gordon, which was one of
Holmes's favorite aliases. She was entranced by him,
telling friends he was the perfect gentleman, but those
same friends grew concerned. They noticed a change in her, a
(23:58):
quiet sadness that she couldn't explain.
She disappeared in December of 1892.
When her worried family contacted Holmes, he told them a
cold, calculated and cruel lie. Emmaline, he said, had called
off the engagement and had run off to get married to another
(24:19):
man in Europe. The truth was far more horrific.
It is believed he lured her intoone of his airtight, soundproof
vault. Years later, when investigators
finally broke into that sealed room and examine the inside of
the vault's heavy door, they found a single faint, ghostly
(24:39):
footprint etched into the metal,the last silent trace of a
woman's desperate and final struggle for life.
And then there was the Williams sisters.
Many Williams was not a naive country girl.
She was an actress and an heiress to a significant fortune
(24:59):
from a Texas railroad inheritance.
She was intelligent and had travelled the world, but she too
fell under the powerful spell ofHH Holmes.
He charmed her, seduced her and convinced her to sign over her
entire inheritance, a vast estate in Fort Worth, to one of
(25:20):
his many aliases. She was so enthralled that she
wrote to our younger sister Nanny, inviting her to Chicago
for the summer of 1893, suggesting that Nanny might be a
bridesmaid at her upcoming wedding to a wonderful man she
had met. Nanny arrived in July.
Soon after both wealthy, educated sisters vanished
(25:43):
without a trace. Holmes had a well crafted
explanation for every single missing person for the Williams
sisters. He told friends they had decided
to travel to Europe. He even went as far to forge
letters in the victims names, mailing postcards to their
distant families and wedding announcements to their friends,
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creating a complex, believable illusion that the young woman
had simply eloped or moved away,or have been swept away forever
by some whirlwind of affair. For each of these women, he took
not only their lives and their property, but he stole their
very stories, twisting them intohis own fraudulent narratives to
(26:28):
serve and cover his tracks. These women and so many others
came to Chicago seeking freedom and new opportunities.
Instead, they met a fate so meticulously planned and so
horrifying it continues to defy comprehension.
(26:48):
As the glorious World's Fair drew to its close in the autumn
of 1893, the dazzling lights of the White City began to dim, the
crowds fend, the tourists went home, and the profits from the
World's Fair Hotel began to dry up.
Holmes, ever the opportunist, ever the predator looking for
his next meal, was already planning his next grand con.
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For this he would need the help of his most trusted and perhaps
only associate, a man who was both a partner in his many
crimes and ultimately his most tragic and consequential victim.
His name was Benjamin Peitzel. Peitzel was a soft spoken
Carpenter, a man with calloused hands, a wife he loved named
(27:34):
Carrie, and five children he adored.
But he was also a criminal. He had a weakness for alcohol
and a malleable nature, all of which made him tragically
susceptible to the powerful influence of HH Holmes.
He saw in Holmes not a killer, but a brilliant businessman, a
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partner, a friend who could offer him a way out of his
constant crushing financial struggles.
He was drawn to Holmes charisma and promises of easy money.
Mittel had been an integral partof Holmes operation for years.
He had helped build the bizarre House of horrors.
His unassuming, slightly sad eyed demeanor made him the
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perfect front man for some of Holmes scams.
He was loyal, he was useful, andhe was deeply complicit.
He didn't ask questions about the strange architecture, the
odd smells, or the people who came but never seemed to leave.
Maybe, as many would later speculate, he simply didn't want
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to know the answers. Now, with the creditors closing
in on the castle and his Chicagoenterprise becoming too risky,
Holmes devised what he considered his masterpiece of
fraud. It was a plan that required
Peitzel's complete trust. The plan was simple.
On paper, Peitzel would assume afake identity, that of a
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struggling inventor named BF Harry.
Holmes would then take out a $10,000 life insurance policy on
this fictional Perry. The next step was for Peitel to
fake his own death in a staged lab explosion.
Holmes, using his credentials asa respected Dr. would then
officially identify the body. A disfigured cadaver Holmes
(29:25):
would procure from a ward and then collect the hefty insurance
money. Then the two partners would
split the profits 5050 and disappear, free to start new
lives. It was a classic home scheme,
intricate, audacious and utterlyfraudulent.
But in reality, HH Holmes had nointention of sharing.
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Benjamin Feitzel, his loyal, flawed and trusting partner, was
worth far more to him dead than he ever was alive.
On a quiet September day in 1894in Philadelphia, the city of
brotherly love, Holmes put his dark, revised plan into motion.
He lured Peitel to a rented house on Callowell St.
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There was no grand farewell. There was no warning.
Just a bottle, a breath, and a flash of betrayal.
Holmes knocked Peitel unconscious with a rag soaked in
chloroform. Then, to mimic the lab explosion
they'd agreed upon, he doused his partner's body with
flammable chemicals and sedimentblades.
(30:36):
When authorities arrived, they found a body burned beyond all
recognition. But then, as planned, Doctor HH
Holmes stepped in, playing the part of the grieving friend to
perfection. He presented forged documents
confidently identifying the charred corpse as BF Perry.
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He claimed it was all very sad, a tragic accident, very
unfortunate. But of course he, as the man's
friend and physician, would handle the difficult paperwork.
The insurance company, convincedby his solemn charm and
seemingly impeccable credentials, paid him the full
$10,000. But this was just the beginning
(31:19):
of the horror. To keep up with the elaborate
lie for Pitel's unsuspecting wife, Carrie Holmes told her
that her husband was alive and well.
The plan had worked, he said, but there was a complication.
Peitzel was now in hiding, perhaps in London or South
America, until the threat from the insurance investigators had
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passed. He played the part of the
concerned, loyal friend, assuring the desperate and
trusting woman that he was in contact with Peitzel and would
reunite them as soon as it was safe.
And then he made a chilling, unthinkable offer.
He volunteered to take three of her five children, the eldest
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daughter, the thoughtful and responsible Alice, age 15, the
bright eyed Nelly, age 11, and sweet little Howard, age 8, to a
secret location where they wouldbe reunited with their loving
father. Carrie, clinging to this
fabricated hope, her heartbreaking for the children
who missed their father so much,tearfully said yes.
(32:25):
What followed was one of the most macabre and heartbreaking
journeys in American crime. For the next several weeks,
Holmes led the three innocent children on a terrifying odyssey
across the American Midwest and into Canada.
He rented apartments, changed their names and checked them
into hotels under a series of aliases.
(32:48):
All the while, the children, separated from their mother and
siblings, grew tired, homesick and increasingly suspicious of
the strange Uncle Harry. He played a cruel psychological
game with them. He bought them new shoes and
fancy clothes. He fed them candy and treats.
He allowed them and even encouraged them to write
(33:10):
postcards to their mother. These postcards, filled with
childish reassurances and coded messages of their well-being,
were dictated by Holmes and onlyserved to prolong their mother's
agony and keep her from going tothe police.
He was not just their captor, hewas their companion, a
terrifying 2 faced figure of authority and menace, the only
(33:33):
adult they could turn to. And then one by one, when they
had served their purpose, he killed them in Toronto and a
home Holmes had rented under a false name on Saint Vincent St.
He convinced Alice and Nelly to hide inside a large empty
steamer trunk, perhaps telling them it was a game or that they
(33:56):
needed to hide from people who were looking for them.
Once the 2 girls were crowded inside, he locked the heavy lid
and fed poison gas through a small hole he drilled in the
top. He left their small bodies there
to rot in that trunk in the colddark cellar.
Little Howard, the youngest the boy, met an even more gruesome
(34:19):
fate in a cottage homes rented in Irvington, a suburb of
Indianapolis, when authorities, led by a relentless detective,
finally caught up to Holmes. They found the house empty, with
the stove in the kitchen held the horrifying evidence of what
had transpired inside. Amidst the ashes, they found
(34:39):
small bones, baby teeth. It is believed Howard was
poisoned or gassed, then clinically dismembered before
the remains were placed in the fire burn.
In the end, it wasn't the spectacular horrors of the
Murder Castle, or the grand stage of the World's Fair, or
the faceless forgotten women whowould finally bring the monster
(35:01):
HH Holmes to justice. It was Benjamin Peitzel.
It was the trail Holmes left behind, not of blood, but of
children's shoes, tear stained postcards, and burned bodies
that led directly to his arrest.And the insurance scam that
should have made HH Holmes rich became his undoing.
(35:26):
While Holmes was leading the Peitel children on their slow,
meandering death March, the Gears of justice, though
grinding slowly, had already begun to turn.
The insurance company, Fidelity Mutual, had never been entirely
comfortable with the BF Perry claim.
The speed with which Holmes produced a lawyer to collect the
(35:46):
money had raised some red flags.They hired the Pinkerton
Detective Agency to investigate.But the true hero of the story,
the man who would personally untangle Holmes impossibly
complex web of lies, was a detective from Philadelphia
named Frank Geyer. Geyer was a methodical, quiet,
(36:07):
and deeply empathetic investigator.
He was given the seemingly impossible task of finding the
three missing Peitzel children. It was a search that would
consume him, taking him on a grueling 5000 mile journey
across the US and Canada. He started with the scantis of
clues, a handful of letters fromthe children to their mother,
(36:29):
postmarked from different citiesacross the country.
Patiently and painstakingly, Guyer pieced together Holmes
Trail. He travelled from city to city,
Cincinnati, Detroit, Indianapolis, Toronto, showing
photographs of the children to hotel clerks, landlords,
(36:51):
shopkeepers and anyone who mighthave seen the handsome man with
the three sad eyed children in city after city, he was just a
few steps behind the killer. Arriving days or sometimes only
hours after Holmes had left. He discovered the rented house
in Indianapolis and with local police, unearthed the horrifying
(37:12):
charred remains of the stove. Then his grim investigation led
him to Toronto. Following a tip from a neighbor
who remembered a man with three children entering the house at
16 Saint Vincent St. Geyer made his most devastating
and heartbreaking discovery. In the cellar of the empty
house, he found the large, unassuming steamer trunk with a
(37:36):
pry bar. He opened the lid.
Inside were the badly decomposedbodies of Alice and Nellie
Peitzel. The evidence was damning,
horrific and absolute. With Frank Geier's discoveries
making sensational headlines in newspapers across the country,
the net was finally closing on HH Holmes.
(37:58):
He was finally tracked to Bostonwhere he was arrested by
Pinkerton agents on November 17th, 1894.
But as authorities began to investigate the calm, well
dressed man they had in custody,and as the stories from Chicago
and as the discoveries by Detective Geyer began to merge,
(38:19):
they realized that his true crimes were far darker, far more
numerous, and far more depraved than any of them had ever
imagined. The legend of the Murder Castle
began to emerge from the whispers of Inglewood, and
America was introduced to a new and terrifying kind of monster.
The serial killer in custody, HHHolmes, did not shrink from the
(38:44):
spotlight. He bathed in it.
It became an overnight media sensation.
America's first celebrity serialkiller Awaiting his trial, he
gave a series of wild, contradictory and often entirely
fabricated confessions to the press, particularly to the
Hearst newspaper syndicate, for which he was paid thousands of
(39:07):
dollars. He confessed to at least 27
murders, then later to over 150,leaving fantastic tales of his
crimes. Then he would recant it all,
claiming he was innocent of everything except for the
insurance fraud, a mere pawn of the true villain Benjamin
Peitzel. He even claimed, in a final
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theatrical flourish of manipulation, that his face was
physically transforming into a demonic sheep, that he was being
overtaken by an inner evil force, perhaps Satan himself.
He was controlling the narrativeto the very end.
Though many of these confessionswere later revealed to be false
or grossly exaggerated, they serve to cement his legend as a
(39:53):
diabolical, larger than life mastermind of Eagle.
His trial for the murder of Benjamin Peitzel began in
October of 1895. It was a national spectacle.
Holmes, acting as his own attorney for a time, was
arrogant, calm and defiant. But the evidence presented by
(40:15):
the prosecution was overwhelmingthe testimony of Carrie Peitzel.
The financial records and most powerfully, Detective Frank
Dyer's stoic, heartbreaking testimony about the discovery of
the children's bodies left the jury with no doubt.
They took only a few hours to find him guilty of first degree
(40:36):
murder and sentenced him to death on May 7th, 1896 at Moya
Mincing prison in Philadelphia. Doctor Henry Howard Holmes for
Herman Webster Budget walked calmly to the gallows.
He was by all accounts, serene and showed no emotion.
(40:57):
But his death, unlike the deathshe had engineered with such
clinical precision, was not swift.
The hangman miscalculated the drop required for his weight,
and his neck did not snap. Instead, it took nearly 20
agonizing minutes for HH Holmes to strangle to death at the end
(41:18):
of a row, a slow, choking, gasping descent, and to be abyss
he had spent a lifetime digging for so many others.
In a strange and final revealingtwist of fate, Holmes had made a
bizarre request for his own burial.
He, the man who had dissected, dismembered and destroyed so
(41:40):
many human bodies, insisted thathis coffin be filled with cement
and buried in a 10 foot deep, unmarked grave.
He was terrified of grave robbers.
But more than that, he feared the anatomist's knife.
He feared the very thing he had done to so many, to be exposed,
(42:02):
dissected and remembered as nothing more than a body.
It was a darkly perfect, ironic,final wish.
And so ended the life of HH Holmes.
But his story, his dark legend, did not end there.
The Murder Castle, that grotesque monument is evil,
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burned to the ground in a mysterious fire in August of
1895, before its full, awful secrets could ever truly be
explored by investigators. Today, a United States post
office stands on the site where so many lives were tragically
and terribly cut short. History, however, does not
(42:45):
forget. HH Holmes remains a chilling
foundational figure in the American consciousness, a symbol
of the profound darkness that can hide behind a civilized and
charming veneer. He built a castle of horrors,
crafted scams with surgical precision, and murdered with a
chilling industrial detachment. He was a product of his time, a
(43:08):
dark and twisted reflection of the Gilded ages, unchecked
ambition, and the frightening anonymity of the modern city.
He exploited the very hope and promise that drew people to
Chicago, turning their American Dream into his own personal,
horrifying nightmare. Let us not remember him for his
monstrous celebrity. Let us remember Julia and Pearl
(43:32):
Smite. Let us remember Emmeline the
Grand. Let us remember Many and Nanny
Williams, Benjamin Pite Cell, and especially Alice Nelly and
Howard Peitzel. Let us remember them not as a
list of victims and a killer story, but as people with lives,
(43:54):
with families, with hopes and futures that were stolen from
them by a man who was the worst of humanity.
Their stories, their stolen lives, are the true and tragic
legacy of the Devil in the WhiteCity.
This has been a special Macabre feature.
(44:16):
I hope you found this chilling tale of HH Holmes both
informative and compelling. History is filled with shadows,
and by shining a light on them we can perhaps better understand
the darkness that lies sometimesdormant within us all.
Thank you for listening to the special presentation and limited
series of Macabre. Stay tuned for more Macabre
(44:39):
features in the future, where together we will uncover the
darkest arts of history.
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