March 24, 2025 • 60 mins
sly, witty, cunning, master deceiver, oh... and a mass murderer. Let's dive into HH Holmes shall we?
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
So clearly they endured something pretty intense.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
There was two women, yes, and seven guys, So to me,
that's problem already.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Eyebrows missing burn marks, eyeballs missing tone missing.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yeah, the bones decame to that degree in just four years.
I just don't see that type of dago.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
There's just so much that's talk about on both sides.
Both sides seem real, suspect. I know it's the South,
so maybe dental records are a bit trickier down there
because they only have maybe one or two cheeks to
identify them by it.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Have you guys ever had that, Like you've driven by
a house in the middle of nowhere, You're like, I
don't wonder who lives there? What's going on? Oh yeah,
this is gonna be one of those. It is. What's happening, everybody.
(01:09):
Welcome back, Welcome back to JG's Lounge on your host
juke Box. We're back with another episode of Central I
Sockets and our guest tonight just informed me that we
have a very long intro. So that.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
I got you, bro, I got you.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Well, you know evolution man. How you doing, man?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
I'm doing great. Actually, finally the weather is getting better,
so I can wrap up a lot of things that
I'm working on because it was way bitterly cold, and
I don't like the cold. I like what's behind me.
Uh So, yeah, we got a lot of things that
we are wrapping up and finalizing and looking forward to
(01:53):
getting those things out there.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Yeah, man, you got a lot going on here, A
couple of your shows, you know, We're getting relaunched and
revamped and I'm I'm really excited about it. So we
are doing a marathon for one of his shows about
that here soon, so you guys be looking forward to that.
Sean Shankman, how the hell.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Are you doing? You want the truth or do you
want me to lie?
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Actually lie to all of us? We all want lies?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
You want lies?
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Man, I'm doing fantastic after real life is amazing.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
I said lies? Now, how are you really, sir?
Speaker 4 (02:29):
Dude?
Speaker 3 (02:29):
I feel like shit because my dumb ass started? All right,
So I teach college Monday through Wednesday. I teach at
two different universities, and I use a lot of like
examples from my life when I'm teaching class, right, because
that's what I'm right. And I mentioned in one of
(02:52):
my classes a couple semesters ago that I wrestled for many,
many years, and you know, coach for many years. And
so one of my students got the bright idea that
he want to start a wrestling club for the college,
which is they want to turn into a team. And
he came to me, He's like, hey, you want to
be our coach, and me, being a dummy who thinks
(03:16):
he can still do stuff like it's twenty years old,
said sure, and I have got lumps and bumps and bruises.
I was talking to a nurse friend of mine the
other day and I said, I've got a spring kidney
vain flatulence, and I think I've got I'm low on
fluid in my femur, like I am just beat to death.
(03:38):
It's good, but god, dang man, I'm fantastic.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Good man. Sounds like you brought that shit on yourself.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
I certainly.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Our guest tonight job bless I aka Justin or vice versa.
How are you, buddy?
Speaker 4 (03:58):
Fantastic? I guess is the word I will use.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Okay, yes, you said, I guess, though that doesn't really
sound great.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
You know, this whole how are you question really gets me, man,
because you know who's measuring it. How am I supposed
to answer it. Life's messed up, man, but it's so
beautiful too. So you know, what are you gonna do?
You want me to tell you? Fantastic, crappy, creddy, happy, joyful.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Let's tell me whatever you want and I'll tell you
man like joyful.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
I like, let's go with joyful. Then I change it.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Oh joyful.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Let's get.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
All right. So we're here for a very special episode
that we've been talking about for a while. H Cholmes,
who was originally Herman Webster Mudget, which for a serial killer,
Herman mud Mudget sounds god awful. I'm just gonna say that.
Anybody whose last name is Mudget, I'm sorry, that sounds terrible. So, Sean,
(05:00):
and this was actually your idea to dive into this topic.
Why did you want to do this specific episode?
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Well, okay, so there man, this dude and all the
stuff that surrounds him. His life was crazy and like
we were talking about before we started the cast tonight,
the guy was a doctor, wildly intelligent. His charisma in
his ability to manipulate people like if you were playing
(05:29):
Dungeons and Dragons, this guy rolled double nat twenty on
his charisma roles, like he was just able to convince
people to do things. He was manipulative. I don't think
he was good looking, but maybe for the time they
thought he was handsome with his big ass mustache. I
don't know. But what's fascinating about this guy, for one,
(05:50):
is there were rumors for years and years and years
that he was Jack the Ripper. Yes, and he was
almost caught in London and moved here to the States
and settled down in Chicago and picked up where he
left off. But the thing that's scary about his picking
(06:10):
up where he left off turned into a murder motel, which,
at its at its height, at zenith, he was murdering
the shit out of people during the Chicago World's Fair.
A crazy story in and of itself, but there were
so many people around that it was like one of
(06:32):
those games you play on your phone where you're just
pushing all the coins into one place. It's like he
was just able to go out and just grab people
left and right because nobody noticed. It's it's crazy. And
when we start getting into this murder motel and the
stuff that was in there just picture like the game
(06:52):
mouse Trap from when we were kids. But it actually
works and was designed by a fucking psychopath.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
It's he is the definition of a psychopath. I mean
he did everything with the intention of harmony people. It
was never anything but that. So a little bit about
the history of him. He was born in eighteen sixty.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
One and his name is H. H.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Holmes Henry. He had his change his name changed to
Henry Howard Holmes. Was it legal? Who knows, because at
the time it was really hard to kind of verify documentation,
which is how he got away with a lot of
the things that he did. So his maiden name as
Herman Webster Mudget. But a lot of people know him
(07:38):
as HH. Holmes. Okay, okay, are you familiar with him
at all?
Speaker 4 (07:44):
I am not. The first time I heard about him
is yesterday when you asked me if I like true crime?
Speaker 1 (07:51):
All right, wonderful, all right. So he's born in eighteen
sixty one to his Methodist parents. They're Methodist Orthodox parents.
They are from a farming community in Gilmanton, New Hampshire,
and they were very spare. The rod beat the child,
you know. The dad was a drunk and he would
(08:13):
even used kerosene brag soaked kerosene to punish the children.
So at a very young age, he was enduring a
lot of what's up?
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Do you want to explain? Because I I remember in
my studies reading some of the stuff that happened to
him as a kid. When you talk about the kerosene
soap drag, what were they doing? So we can get
in a sense of because I think it's going to
connect up to.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Okay, I don't know the reason why he used them.
I just knew it was a form of punishment on.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
Him, okay, because I heard there was There was like
a you soak and scrub was what I read. I
don't know if that's true, but there again, there's a
lot of like kind of mystify you mystification of his past.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
It kind of had the same concept of using chloroform though,
is from what I was understanding from my research.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
What is your guys's sources?
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Speaking of Wikipedia, several blogs and you know, I listened
to probably fifteen different podcasts about it, but the best
resource that I have is Wikipedia.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
I read a bunch of books on it when I
was a kid. That was another butter when it came
to serial killers and a cult type stuff.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
So I can promise you. There's nothing that I will
tell you tonight that you won't be able to find, right. Yeah,
but that's also why I told him, I don't. I
can't verify exactly what he did with the kerosene. I
just know they were ragged, so Kerosene used to punch
the children. So at a young age, he was actually
(09:55):
being he was kind of very recluse, held back going
to the woods. At a very young age, he even
talked about going in, like harming animals in the woods
and killing them, mostly just because you know, I mean,
his helm life was terrible, so he was going out
and taking that out on the wildlife.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
You know.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
He was extremely intelligent in school. He actually got bullied
for being so smart. He was also kind of an
outcast because of his home life. I actually do resonate
with this because I had a very very abusive childhood
with a very religious family, and I was kind of
an outcast in school. I was bullied younger, not so
(10:42):
much in high school but elementary school. So I could
see that how that would resonate, especially because being smart
in school in the small town communities was very rare
during his childhood, so a lot of kids did bully him.
So at the age of twelve or thirteen, there's no
(11:03):
confirmed time, but there he was apparently drawn to a
doctor's office by some of the kids in school and
they took one of the skeletons and was rubbing in
his face to scare him. And he even talks about it,
and he's locked up in prison about how that was
what set him on the path that he was on
(11:24):
during this timeframe. Any skeletons you saw doctor's office and
science labs, they were actual skeletons. They weren't plastic, they
were real bodies. So that kind of kickstarted everything. You know,
I'm kind of just abbreviating his childhood because honestly, a
lot of this is not about his childhood, but his
childhood does play into some of the things that he
(11:46):
does in the people he killed in his murder castle.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Okay, well, if I meant to plan a seed for
later for a question that I'm gonna probably bring, I
will bring up again here's the thing you had. We've
talked about this a little bit before Jukebox with with
your upbringing and things, and I was severely bullied in school,
like severely up until even my senior year. But I
(12:17):
didn't turn out to be a serial killer. You didn't.
For what I know, you didn't.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
I mean, I just don't tell you certain things. Okay,
So anyway, anyways, but.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Do you see what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
It's like, I under this gets into the nature versus
nurture question. And this is one of the things I
want us to touch on later, if we can get
around to it, is that you know, we've got two
examples and I don't know about evolution or jah what
their upbringing was like, but you know, you can sit
there and say like, oh, you know, his parents did
(12:51):
this and did this and did this, and it's like, okay,
but we have examples here of folks that had some
pretty shit, not to get into the death of it,
but didn't turn out to be serial killers. You know
that made murder motels, right right?
Speaker 1 (13:07):
I just you know, yeah, Well, and I think you
kind of learn quickly after him getting out of high
school sort of how he kind of twists his upbringing
into what he became, and which is kind of how
it's like that definitely reflects in his killings later on.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
I think sean To answered your question. There were some
things that I think not only me, but most people
deal with when they were younger, but they make the
choice of the decision to not let that affect their outcome,
and in fact, they use it as fuel to become
something different or something more positive, to make society better
(13:51):
or themselves better, or create something so great that it
just brings everything around them to more positive environment. So
definitely understand where you're going with that. And no, because
you're brought up in a certain way, you don't have
to end up that way. Right.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
So, at the age of seventeen, John, did you have anything?
Are you good right now?
Speaker 4 (14:18):
Nothing?
Speaker 1 (14:20):
I like it just chilling. You'll have something at some point,
You're going to have something.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
My brain is definitely going but I'm just soaking it
all in, kind of gathering what this dude's about, what's
going on, and waiting for you to get to the point.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Okay. So, at the age of about thirteen or fourteen,
him in one of his neighborhood. They weren't really friends,
but they were hanging out in an abandoned house and
the person the kid he was with, ended up falling
off of landing and dying. A lot of speculation on
if that was his first kill or not, nobody knows
because there was no one there. But he had already
(15:01):
been kind of, you know, messing around with animals, woods
at the time and stuff like that. So there's a
possibility that he could have pushed a kid off the
ledge and killed him. But again there's there's no confirmation.
But that happened when he was in his like preteen
early teen years, by the age of seventeen. He graduated
high school early and married a local wealthy farmer's daughter
(15:24):
and actually used their money to pay for him to
go to medical school. So within his first year they're
pregnant't have a kid. After he finishes his medical degree,
his wife and kid go back home and he moves
to Chicago. So his first this is like eighteen eighty
(15:47):
and his first few years he hits the ground running
with schemes. He starts borrowing money to buy land and
then taking money from lenders to against the property to
build buildings, and then bouncing out after he gets them built,
(16:09):
selling them to somebody else before the lenders find out
that he you know, their money. Nobody's getting their money.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
He was getting his money.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
He was he was getting money. So yes, so again
at the time, there's not a lot of paper like
there's not technology like we have today. So a lot
of the things that he ends up doing he gets
away with because there's no way to really paper trailer
you know, alias names, stuff like that. He did all
of it, and he does this multiple times. Between eighteen
(16:41):
eighty and eighteen eighty five is where he's multiplying, buying
properties by borrowing money and just dipping out. He ends
up marrying a person in Chicago. He's still got his
wife back home. He marries the lady in Chicago. They
have three kids, and he has a drug store that
(17:04):
he had purchased and he is selling you know, skeletons
at the time. He's going to graves and literally robbing
corpses and taking the skeletons and getting life insurance quotes
on them, getting the money out of that, and then
selling their skeletons to scientists and doctors.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
I'm sorry this this dude was out the hook.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
Was brilliant.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
He is.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
He was extremely smart in what he was doing. He
was a decent looking guy. I mean, honestly, I've got
a picture of right here. For the time, a lot
of people said he had sort of a magnetism about him.
Let's see here.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
I don't know if I agree with a decent looking guy?
Speaker 4 (17:52):
Is what he said?
Speaker 1 (17:55):
That's him? That's this a jlmes right there.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Well, I mean, just to just to first look at
this image, he doesn't look like he would be that
much of a gains terrific type of person, right. Uh wow,
that's that's the next level man. This guy had no
he had no limits, no limits.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
No. I mean, he's got a pretty killer stash. I
got give him that.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
It's he's It's the thing is I've always thought of
and this is one of the most used photos of him.
Is he good looking or whatever? I don't. I don't
think so. He looks like an irritating guy at a
law firm on a fleet show, right, like the little
fat guys always complained about ship. But it's just he's
(18:43):
got a very unassuming face. And I think that's what
makes it seemingly dangerous for people back then, because he
doesn't look threatening. He doesn't have this massive build, he
doesn't have accountenance. It's like, oh shit, this guy's scary.
He just looks like somebody walk by on the street.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Right. He comes off as a person that looks like
a salesperson, you.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Know, exactly, And that's what he did, is he sold lives. Yeah, yeah,
that's exactly what he did, all right. So this is
kind of where he's establishing a foundation, building money. I mean,
he's doing well. And then you get the Chicago Fair
that's the city's planning around eighteen ninety. So he purchases
(19:29):
some a corner lot downtown off sixty third Street in
Chicago to build his motel. He builds a drug store. Basically,
the first level was a drug store, which in the
cellar underneath they discover a well which he utilizes as
a mineral spring to sell water. He actually sells it
(19:50):
a five cents a bottle from the water out of
the well underneath his drug store. So Swindland, Swindland, Swinderland, man,
I'm just right off the bat. And a drug store
back then was not just a going in pharmacy. I
mean they had like your random potions and you know,
elixirs and in the shops and it's whatever they said
(20:13):
it was. So it wasn't a pharmacists. He he did
all of it, like he ran the shop. He then
built a second story which had fifteen hotel rooms that
were dedicated specifically for doing these murders that he did.
They had hidden passages, holes in the walls, floorboards that disappeared,
(20:36):
rooms behind walls. They were all sound proofed so that
his victims didn't know what was gonna, you know, be happening.
And when he started furnishing this property, he does something
pretty clever. He's borrowing money to purchase loan to property
and furnishings. He brings it into the motel. A week later,
(21:00):
they come to get their money and he all the
furniture is gone, and they have a scout that they
had sitting outside and they're like, nobody came and took
the furniture. So when they come to collect the furniture,
he's like, I don't know where this is. Not here. Obviously,
what he had done is put it all in a room,
remove the doorframe and walled it up. He walls up
(21:25):
and keeps all that furnishing. So I mean he gets
all this furniture for free. He even gets a grandfather
clock from another person for the lobby, and he puts
it in a room, shrinks the doorway to where it's
smaller than the grandfather clock. So when they come to
collect the clock, He's like, if you damage my property,
(21:45):
I'm gonna sue you. So they couldn't get the clock out,
so he got the clock. So, I mean, he's just
he's just witty, man, He's very witty. What do you
guys got so far?
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Uh? First, I have a question, So is this guy
the reason that the doctor's offices have skeletons in him?
Speaker 1 (22:05):
No? No, no, because as a kid it happened to him, like,
you know, they kind of one of like they bullied
him and tortured him with one of these doctor's office skelly.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
I mean this is from eighteen sixty one, right, this
is like.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
So at the time is eighteen nineties, but he's born
in eighteen sixty one, so yeah, that was during his childhood.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Yeah, okay, just a question.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
And I don't know how much you guys know about
the World Fair, but over the course of six months,
the World for Fair drawed in twenty seven million people. Yep,
twenty seven million people. So when he's building this property,
he's building it with the idea that he's going to
make a cash cow out of just luring people and
(22:47):
killing them, selling their body parts, their skeletons, and he
continues to do life insurance policies against them. He even
has a mistress living with him on the property and
room where he has a step that's removed and they
place like an alarm bell underneath the step so that
while he's doing his stuff, she doesn't know or he
(23:10):
can hear her if she's coming, so you can stop
what he's doing and hide it. Whatever he's doing. She's
living there with her daughter. She ends up dying or disappearing,
but everybody assumes she's dead. But so let's take a
pause on this and discuss the World Fair a little bit. Sean,
what do you know about the Chicago Worldfair? Because you
(23:31):
want to dive into this, I know you.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Do, well, Okay, So the Chicago Worldfair was a convergence
of a lot of things technology that was you know,
and Tesla was heavily involved with the Chicago Worlds Fair.
They had a motorized boardwalk that could carry literally thousands
(23:55):
of people, all right, and it's insane the amount. And
this is where or Tesla was, you know, showcasing a
lot of the technology. So people were coming out to
see this thing. And you got to remember too, back
at this time in the eighteen nineties. This isn't you know,
when we have things like social media, films TV all
(24:17):
this bullshit to distract us and things. Right, not everybody
was even reading at this point, you know. I mean
we if something like this was going on, everybody was
coming to it like it's like having a wedding and
a small town back then that was like everybody went,
that's it. So I have this massive influx of people
(24:38):
into Chicago at the time that are seeing all these
wonders and everything, and you know, they proposedly built you know,
the Gold Lady in the middle of the all the
buildings that they put up that they said were made
out of plaster and everything, which anybody you know, has
(25:02):
any conspiratorial mindset, you know, looking at this says no bullshit.
This was left over from Tartaria, you know. And they
have done studies of the buildings, and you know, looking
at him, even with the bullshit where they're like, oh,
these are all made out of paper mache whatever bullshit
stuff they said it was. And they have said even
(25:26):
with today's technology moving at you know, just the fastest
rates with the most amount of workers and machines and
everything else. These buildings that they said that they put
up in this short amount of time, they said, it's impossible, right, impossible.
So what they are saying is actually happened. And you
(25:49):
have to look into the mud floods and tartaria and
everything that these discovered buildings from a go were actually
utilized for this. And then they to and this is
the weird thing too, they tore everything down afterwards. Why
the fuck would you do that? Okay, so you have
this conspiracy that's kind of surrounding all of this stuff
(26:12):
at the Chicago World's Fair, all of this technology that
is like you've got this Old World New World tesla,
all these things that are going on, and then you've
got Holmes who put his murder hotel and I believe
it was like butt up against where a lot of
the action is right, and so he was planning on,
(26:34):
you know, making a bunch of money, but what he
was doing was he was going out and snatching people
up left and right, and inside of the hotel. You
have to picture this thing like if you saw the
movie Sweeney Todd, you know where you had the barber's
chair and like you push the button, the chair would
go angular and then slide down to the basement. Man,
(26:54):
there was all kinds of stuff like this. In the
Murder Hotel. You had slides that went down to the
basement and slider will go down to a room that
was sealed off metal walls. It had gas jets and
he would seal them in and turn on the gas
and they you know, when they actually went into this thing.
After this was all found out, there were claw marks
in the walls and on the floors and things like that.
(27:16):
And if you know anything too about the the Winchester
Mansion and how it was built and like the things
that went nowhere and stairs, I mean that's what it was. Yeah,
it's it's like that kind of construction where we're so crazy.
And Jah said, you know earlier, like this guy was
really intelligent. But what's scary is, if you know anything
(27:37):
about human psychology, generally people that are cunning can pass
themselves off as intelligence or intelligence intelligent, but they're just cunning.
They're not like doctor smart. They're just really cunning. And
you know that it's like a placeholder for intelligence. This guy,
Holmes had both. The guy was street smart, he was
(28:00):
book smart, doctor smart. The guy was cunning. He was charismatic.
He was this convergence of all these like terrible things
that made him, you know, just a nightmare. Yeah, there
you go.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Oh yeah, this is the hotel. This is the hotel.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
What is the name of it?
Speaker 1 (28:21):
It's gone now. I don't I don't even know if
you know what that there was the name of the hotel.
I don't in any of my Yeah, they tore down
not long after. They ran it for a few more
years with a new owner, and then he committed suicide
after not long of owning the property.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
Wow, no, ship, Well, I mean look at that.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Yeah, it's it's insane. The way he constructed it. You
can actually see like there's hidden hallways they kind of
show some of the things that he like some of
the rooms have like you can see look at that,
like the bathroom, look at the bat Okay, so just
like coming up out of the floor exactly. Yeah, yep.
(29:07):
And there were shoots that literally dropped bodies down the
A lot of these rooms had gas chambers in them
to where he would literally torch the people in their
own rooms alive. He would starve them and then he
would drop them down to the cellar, which I wonder
if I can get a good view of the cellar,
let's see.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
And actually, what's creepy about some of the shoots that
jukebox is talking about. Some are slides, but a majority
of them if you look at and I remember looking
at some of the plans ago when I was looking
into this, we're talking like a laundry shoot straight down.
So when he's dropped the bodies, and sometimes they were alive,
(29:47):
they would drop a couple of stories and just slugged
in the ground and they're lying down there in the basement,
broken like in a broken bloody pile.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Yep. So he also was, you know, flaying them alive tables, yeah,
you see off the right. Yeah, so that is an
actual medieval stretched device. Yeah, uh, with where he'd put
live bodies and everything like that. So to get into
(30:19):
the whole reason why I brought in Homoss Hotel was
its original name, Thank you Abo, Thank you for throwing
in there. I didn't know. Everywhere I looked, I couldn't
find out it was murder Murder Odell, So thank you
for that. So I do know that most of what happened,
how he got a lot of these people in. He
(30:40):
would lure them in by offering them jobs or marriage.
He would have them turn in deeds to their properties,
cash out he get and then he would do the
same thing. You need a life insurance policy on them,
and then you know, they disappear miraculously. And then when
they'd come looking for the bodies, he would tell detectives
(31:02):
everything from you know, it was a it was a
abortion gone wrong. She was upset and left. I don't
know where she is. Just whatever he could do to
swindle the cops to kind of steer away from him,
and they did because there was so much going on
in the town.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
So they were they were already dead. And how did
they get the insurance, Like if the insurance people didn't
see him or whatnot.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
After so long, I think they just called it.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
You know, well, he would write up fake information on
these people. Back in the time, there was no way
to really look into it.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
I remember he was a doctor.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
All they needed was a body. They didn't need to
meet them beforehand before they bought the insurance.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Correct.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
Wow, Now now Jukebox were able to find a And
this is a curiosity because of all these scheming and things.
That's one of the things I remember too, that was
incredibly scary about this guy. Did he have a net
worth estimate?
Speaker 1 (32:03):
I didn't see anything about what he was worth, Okay,
I do know that in ninety three he makes a
trip to Houston, Texas and starts to get borrow money
to purchase horses that he was taking to Saint Louis
to sell. And during that time he actually met a henchman.
(32:27):
His name was Benjamin Pitzel, and he ends up coming
back to his hotel and actually is helping him disposed
of these bodies. They had quick chains that would go
into like dissolving pits to dissolve the skin and everything
off the bones so that they could sell him for
the skeletons. They had like crematory like setups to where
(32:51):
they could just burn the bodies and they I mean,
it was just gruesome. I don't even know like how
to I wish I had like a list of everything
that they had in this cellar. It was just absurd,
but all of it was something new with money flow.
But it wasn't just about the money for him, because
he was literally torturing these people with the intention of
(33:14):
harming them. Like these rooms with the caro, you know,
the gas rooms. I mean kind of relates to him
with the you know, kerosene as a kid, stretching him,
starving him, stuff like that. He talks talked about how
which again you don't know if it's true or not,
because he was at a compulsive liar or whatever his
(33:35):
whole life, but he talks about a lot of the
things were done to him as a kid. He reflected
that on the torture of the people.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
That's a huge hole in the middle of that florid.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Yeah, that's where that's where he got his mineral water from.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
Yeah, the delicious healthy it's you know what, that's actually
that's the origin of disani.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
So there is there is three stories. Though the top
floor was just hotel rooms. The second floors were all
of like the the rooms that had the you know,
specified torture stuff in them, Right.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
John, Oh, I'm sorry to interrupt your question to John.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
I don't know, John, hun any questions or not, Okay,
go ahead, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (34:26):
This is all crazy that somebody would do this. I'm
really thinking about, like how he was able to do
all those extra rooms without anybody knowing about it.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
So he was there is according to records. I don't
want to ever say any of this is you know, prooved,
because a lot of this was lied about from him.
There was no real records kept by him. But he
was constantly firing and replacing construction workers throughout the whole
(34:58):
building and construction of this hotel. And someone that were
killed in the hotel, but nobody. I mean, again, those
are just theories.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Yeah, But that's that I read that to quite a bit,
is that he would have something that would build one thing,
and then they would be fired or disappear, and then
somebody would come in and do a separate thing. And
some of the stuff he did himself, like in my
understanding in jukebox, Correct me if I'm wrong, But even
in the hotel rooms, he had like cutouts behind some
of the places where he had peepoles and things where
(35:33):
spy on everybody, like you would see in the old
you know, like the old nineteen fifties detective mysteries where
you know, like the paintings there and all of a sudden,
the eyes shift out, two eyeballs pop in and look
left and right like this like that kind of shit exactly.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
That's exactly what I got when I was researching, is
that he had these like little peep holes. He was
watching everybody and but yeah, so he was, and a
lot of them were getting pissed off because he wasn't
paying them. You know, he was. He was lying to
all these people. I mean, there wasn't a time where
he wasn't lying to somebody. I Mean, remember, he's said
(36:07):
through this whole thing, he still had a wife back
in New Hampshire. They didn't even see they never even
officially got divorced. He's got a wife in Chicago and
he's just gone to this hotel all the time with
a miss right.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
What a mistress.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
So he just working the front desk, trying to be
helpful and like be up for turn doown service and
everything and like.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Ye, so he's got he's got a henchman, he's got
ads out luring in women, and he's just having a heyday.
Murderer people. Man, he confesses actually to twenty seven murders. However,
after he died, a couple of the people that he
named were still alive, so even then he was lying.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Yeah, the estimates are all over the place. But the
reason the estimates are all over these here's the thing
from one of the from research that I've done in
the past is that you were talking about how he
was selling skeletons earlier assumption that from some people they
posited that those were his victims, like not just from
(37:14):
the murder motel, but this guy's been killing people out
his life. And because of the sheer number of people
that were at the Chicago World's Fair, it wasn't that
he was just you know, getting people in the construction
people in and hiring people and things like that. It
was also that he because he was so charismatic in things,
(37:35):
and because of the hotel, he was just getting people
in off the street, you.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Know, and so he had his own drug store and
other shops on that just exactly.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
And because there was such the just the throngs of
people like if you've ever been to a music festival,
and just the amount of assets to elbows that are
fricking everywhere.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
And even besides that, Chicago in the time, it had
one point two million people. It was the second most
populated city in the in the US. Yeah, so it
was already a thriving city. So he had a lot
of distractions that kind of help him get away with
the things that he did.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
So and that's and so when you're talking about the
figures in the twenty seven and uh, okay.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Sent me a friend request John, It's fine.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
No, No, I thought it was a friend request for h. Holmes.
But it's the estimates, you know, are on the loan
of what he confessed to and things are you know,
in the double digits. But there are some people who
have been looking into you know what they they would
estimate the actual number is at and it possibly triple digits.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
Yeah. So he ends up getting arrested in Saint Louis
trying to sell horses that weren't even really his yet
because he didn't actually pay for them. And while he's arrested,
he talks to somebody in there and to scheming them
into a life insurance policy and says, when I get out,
(39:11):
you know, I'll get a corpse. We'll say it was you,
and I'll pay you your portion. Well, when he gets
out the he tries to sell the life insurance claim,
but the insurance agents don't believe him, so he doesn't
get the money out of it. So that person that
gets out of jail, they met in jail. When they
get out, they actually turn him in, you know, they say, hey,
(39:36):
you know that's how him. Yes, so they caught him.
He ends up getting out because of his wife in
Chicago ends up bailing him out. But so he talks
his henchman and to get more money, he tells his henchman, hey,
how about we do a life insurance policy on you?
(39:56):
And instead of actually doing the life and you know,
I'm just gonna kill him and I'm gonna collect his
life insurance policy. So he kills him and he ends
up getting arrested for that. That death he gets he
gets busted for that for killing his henchmen, not because
all the people he lured in and murdered and killed
because of his henchmen. Wow, So it's it's an absurd story,
(40:20):
Like this whole thing is just extremely messed up, and
of all the things that he gets caught for, it's.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
That well, jeez, at least he finally got caught. I mean,
just like you said, it's kind of really really difficult
to tag a certain amount of people that he actually
offt in his reign of terror. But I'll tell you what,
that house had a lot of rooms in it, and
(40:49):
doing something like the events in Chicago, uh, the World
Fair and I'm like, I'm sure he filled that hotel
quite often, you know, and consistently and constantly. So I'm
wondering if anybody made it out, you know what I'm saying,
(41:10):
depending on I mean, he had to target people who
were by themselves. I'm thinking, well that.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
That's kind of like how the ones that he lured
in through ads, That's exactly what he did.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Yeah, there were.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Women looking for marriage or whatever, so they sell all
their belongings and move there.
Speaker 4 (41:28):
And yeah, so how long did this go on for this?
Speaker 1 (41:33):
So from eighteen ninety two is when the fair started.
In eighteen ninety he started building the hotel, so it
would be between that time that he started actually doing
putting out ads to lure the women in. And they
were all women, Yes he did. There were there were
bodies that were male found, but majority of them were women.
(41:57):
They didn't found one child body. But remember his mistress
and daughter lived there, so they think that he actually
killed them, and that's what the kid's body was.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
When he starts when we start dipping into the connection
to the Jack the Ripper. Thing that was one of
the things that they leaned into is that he had
a particular mo o when he was killing folks, and
the fact that it was a preponderance of women, right,
that that was one of the things. You know, pleasure
(42:28):
out other evidence, but that was one of the things.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
But here.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
It just floors me that I really wish I knew
if they had an estimated net worth on him, because
all these schemes and things that he was doing and
he was getting money, but yet he wasn't paying anybody.
So my first thought is, like, where the hell all
the money go? That's he's doing these schemes. He's walling
(42:55):
things up, you know, and he's making you know, the
the Grandfather clocking, and he's getting these insurance policies and
obviously he had to be successful at it, and what's
what's he doing with all the cash? Where is all that?
And I know he's murdering the show to people, so
that should bother me more. But this is one of
those like weird notes.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Of like I see nothing Like I just looked it
up and I've got and there's nothing that talks about
his networth.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
So strange to me.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
But I mean he hid a lot of stuff, like
I mean finance, I imagine I doubt he had a
bank account where he went in deposited money.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
I mean, who knows, Well, it's probably in a hotel somewhere.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
Well, the hotel's gone now now now it's like a
government facility there.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
I wonder, I wonder why.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
Using that sellar for bodies? This actually a lot quicker
than I thought it was going to But what he
has got, Like, what do you what do you guys
think of this?
Speaker 3 (43:58):
I'm curious obviously, thanks man, because you've just been sitting
here pondering all this stuff. And I sure I'm jealous
of you a little bit, dude, seriously, because I would
love to hear this stuff for the first time because
it's so mind blowing what this dude did.
Speaker 4 (44:11):
Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. I don't know, man, I don't
know that I really have much. It's just crazy how
that type of stuff can happen. And you wonder, you know,
how much of that is going on today and that
we're missing. You know, it's like, are we walking by
the Hotel of Horror when we're walking through our neighborhood town.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
Right, which is definitely possible. I mean, then the thing
about the timeframe is that he got away with a
lot of it because there was no way to. I
mean there was no maybe a paper trail, but like
even then, now we got technology, we're still stored on
you know, backup CCTVs, and I mean, there's just too
many opportunities to get caught, like the bodies getting life
(44:58):
insurance claims, life claims on on bodies that don't exist.
You know, that's a lot of the things that he
did back to that didn't you know, they wouldn't you
wouldn't get away with today.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
No, not at all. Well, you know, it's funny, this
is kind of a tangential thing, but do you guys
hear about Benjamin Franklin and how they found like was
it twenty different skeletons in the basement of his house.
Speaker 4 (45:24):
And I never heard that.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
I know that.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
Well, okay, so this so this was flying around for
a couple of years and people were saying, oh my god,
you know one of our founding fathers was a serial killer. Well,
they did some investigating. They found out that he actually
somebody that he was boarding in his house was a
surgical student and a doctor eventually, and Benjamin apparently was
(45:48):
letting him do like shit in the house and then
he was just when he was done with the cadavers,
was burying the stuff in the basement.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
So yeah, all right, look it up.
Speaker 3 (46:01):
If whoever's watching stuff, look it up. There's a whole
story about it and how people thought that he was
he was killing prostitutes and everything else, and yeah, you know,
I don't think you have to because by all, by
all records, he was a hell of the ladies man.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
Well, and I think that was the thing about as Holmes,
that his perception from a woman's perspective was, Oh, he's
a wealthier, a doctor in Chicago, and he's offered me
to come stay with him. So it was probably very
easy for him to delire people in especially women.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
Well, I mean if if I mean back then, I
mean we're in the midst of the industrial age and
the upticking that, and you know, people aren't super enlightened
or reading and everything, and you know, this guy swoops
in with his his charm and all the you know,
his money and everything else, and apparently he was super
fucking handsome.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
You know.
Speaker 3 (46:56):
Yeah, I could see why it would be easy. You know.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
So, so son, you mentioned where's the money. I just
had a light bulb. Maybe he was actually paying for
these women to come to his hotel. You know, I mean,
if you're getting money left and right, and there's no
paper trail of where you're spend the money because you're
(47:18):
not paying anyone, you're killing them off. But to lure
women in, he's like, hey, i'll fly you to or
I'll ship you to or get you some.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
Flying them there. In eighteen ninety, I promise you.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
Yeah yeah, yeah, I kind of missed that up, but
you know, I'll arrange for you to get here.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
Right yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
Yeah, So and that's where the money went.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
So are you are you suggesting like he I mean,
bringing him in, but also like maybe prostitutes, because you
know who's going to miss a lady of ill repute?
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Right yeah?
Speaker 3 (47:55):
I mean, which is also the mo of Jack the Ripper.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
Yeah right, it's possible.
Speaker 4 (48:03):
And there was a.
Speaker 3 (48:03):
Whole series on what channel was that? History on the
History Channel. I'm sure you can find if you look
up in the archives. The History Channel did a whole
thing on AJH. Holmes being Jack the Ripper. There were
DNA tests and all kinds of shit. It was wildly interesting.
I at least suggest dipping into it because the thing
was it was fascinating.
Speaker 4 (48:25):
He was Jack the Ripper.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
No, they ended up like recently, didn't they recently do
something where they found out that it wasn't They did
some kind of DNA match. It was in the last
couple of years, right right.
Speaker 3 (48:36):
But this also, this DNA match was on some blood
that was on like a scar or something that did
not belong to the prostitute. And they said, well, this
was obviously his, and it you know, matches or whatever
it was. Man, I don't know, I you know, I
don't know enough about DNA technology to speak out intelligently,
(48:57):
but it seems like a pretty wide swing. It makes
the story fascinating, like if you know, hh Holmes, you
know Jack the Ripper, and you can conflate the two
into this like you know, scary story and things.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
I mean, but they were around the same same time,
and I see it's hard to kind of place him
in London and there at the same time.
Speaker 3 (49:19):
Yeah, well it's actually they explained that away in the
docu series. Again, I highly suggest looking into it. I
didn't look. The thing is, I didn't wholesale buy into it,
but I did think it was fascinating that they're like,
you know, there's enough coincidences. Like if it's just one
or two things, you're like, ah, shut up. But when
(49:39):
you have so many things and it's like, okay, you
get this preponderance of evidence and it makes you kind
of go, okay, that could make sense. It's like, and folks,
look this one up, John F. Kennedy being the reincarnation
of Abraham Lincoln. If you look at the think have
you seen this?
Speaker 1 (49:58):
No, dude, I feel like this should be your conspiracy
series show.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
Okay, I'm just saying, man, look it up. When you
start seeing all the connectivity between the two, you you
know what, you laugh now, but then you're gonna go, holy.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
Shit, it's just gypsy gypsy Roses mom. That's all well,
you know, I mean, that's what we got for tonight's show. Guys.
I mean he was He was a fucked up individual
who did a lot of torturing and even up till
(50:37):
the day he died, he even tells the guy who
what did they call the guy who kills you and
and or does the the death penalty when when they're killing.
Speaker 3 (50:49):
You, you mean, like the executioner.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
Yes, he actually told the executioner to take his time
and they hung him and he took about seventeen minutes
from to die. He just strangled it.
Speaker 3 (51:00):
So he's just hanging there like this is my thing.
Speaker 2 (51:03):
Oh yeah, so he was enjoying it. I guess right.
Speaker 1 (51:08):
I'm sure, man, It's just he didn't care. He didn't care.
Uh but yeah, that's what we got for tonight showed evolution.
You got anything that you want to throw in there
before we wrap it up.
Speaker 2 (51:19):
He was a completely twisted individual, for sure. I really
don't have much. Usually I could come up with something,
but this this person here was just mad crazy. Uh yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:32):
It fascinates me what he did with like the furnishings,
like and how he like would borrow money, gets all
these different places and then dip out without even you know,
getting caught and move on to the.
Speaker 4 (51:45):
Next minus the murdering. That sounds like something I would
have did all my twenties, dude, during that time. Yeah,
I would have. I would have all those insurance companies.
Speaker 1 (51:55):
Oh yeah. I mean, I'm not mad at him for
doing it. I think it's clever as hell. But it's
just that's why I said, these are things that back
then would have been easy for somebody like us to do.
Speaker 3 (52:08):
Their fault taking onto what Jas said, insurance companies are
responsible for far more death than HH Holmes ever would
have been.
Speaker 1 (52:17):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (52:19):
Hey, I'm just saying, man.
Speaker 4 (52:21):
Thanks for inviting me to your Guys show. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (52:24):
Yeah, I appreciate I'm sorry that you didn't talk more,
but you know, I hope you'll enjoyed it. I was
a little bit.
Speaker 4 (52:31):
More well, I mean, it was like a learning experience
and I don't know, you know, it's it's very I mean,
I guess I could say fascinating, But at the same time,
it's like, how do I get too interested in that?
This guy was a dude, like the worst right from
(52:52):
what you guys told me, Like it's like the worst
that a human being could be, like Stallin or Hitler if.
Speaker 1 (52:58):
You look into him. Like the whole thing about what
I do when we do this show, when I talk
about the timeline, is I try to leave a lot out,
a lot of the details. There's stuff if you guys
dive into it. He was a very messed up individual.
Some of the torture things that he did are extremely gruesome.
I mean, and that's kind of why this show is
what it is, man. I mean, we try to get
(53:19):
a light comical side to it in the sense. But
like that, he just said, there's nothing good about this guy.
There's not.
Speaker 3 (53:28):
Well, so again, if you're leaning into the psychopathy, sure,
but and this is why I said, I want to
bring this up later in the show. There were folks that,
because of who he was and what he did, said
that he was possessed like that, that's the only explanation,
(53:49):
you know. And if you believe in God, devil, whatever,
you on'ly lean into theology because it's it's like, how
do you explain it otherwise?
Speaker 1 (53:58):
Right?
Speaker 3 (54:00):
You know?
Speaker 2 (54:00):
It's well, I mean he got away with so much
that he probably felt like he could do anything, you know,
literally because he had done so much, you know, I
mean he'd married more than one woman. Uh, he was
getting built, buildings built and wasn't paying a dime for it.
You know, he was digging up graves or creating skeletons
(54:24):
so he could sell them. I mean, he was just
he was just a scam artist, professional, massive killer. He
just had no remorse on any hand.
Speaker 1 (54:38):
Uh. And do you think that do you think that
this this is partially because of his childhood and getting
bullied in school and.
Speaker 2 (54:45):
Well, I mean such a smart It might it might
have made him hate people, you know and how I
was treated, but he he definitely got off on you know,
the people once he started getting into that.
Speaker 1 (55:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (55:04):
So, but he got away with it. That's the thing,
you know, he got away with every single day. Even
you mentioned I guess he went to school on his
rich parents of his.
Speaker 1 (55:14):
Wife, his first wife, he used their money.
Speaker 2 (55:18):
Yeah. Yeah, so I mean he he literally was taking
advantage of people from day one, you know. So I mean,
once you start doing that and knowing that you can
get away with it, of course you know keep going right,
But I mean most people would have come and would
common sense or or heart or or some type of compassion.
(55:38):
They wouldn't do that type of stuff. But this guy,
he had mistress right and who knows and who knows
what in between because because he was he was a
peep show artist who he was peeping through the windows
and all that. So so yeah, he was definitely uh
out there.
Speaker 1 (55:56):
Yeah yeah, I agreed. You an't any last notes on this, Sean.
Speaker 4 (56:01):
I don't, man, just just thank you you guys. Are
you guys are awesome man, and I appreciate you guys
inviting me absolutely.
Speaker 1 (56:09):
The horse man, Sean, anything for you.
Speaker 3 (56:12):
Man, I just okay, the two things that I'm walking
away from this, you know that one the question of
the money that that just nags at me, man, because
so many irons in the fire and he was moving
this year. I would love to see if they, if
you could ever trace that down, like you know, how
(56:33):
he kept all these schemes going. But the other thing
is just, you know, aside from you know, the cunning
and everything else, this dude must have just been an
unmitigated narcissist. I'm for sure, for sure frightening and how
does a human being get to that point?
Speaker 1 (56:53):
Well, and what jos said earlier about how many people
do that today? You know how many places you walk
by and you have no idea? What's one onside? We
touched on that before, you know, like how neighborhood just
random residential neighborhoods, you know, wasn't.
Speaker 2 (57:09):
There wasn't there something that came up with Disney? Uh?
Like the amusement parks.
Speaker 1 (57:15):
Oh, there's a lot of stuff that we could dive
into on probably one of Sean's show about the Disney conspiracy.
Oh there he goes, all right, see you later jaw
he's here, he said, thanks for having me on now
there is and actually think that that would be uh.
(57:36):
I did a show on Startup a long time ago
that I'd love to do on Blurred Lines. I did
something called Disney Sception because there's a lot of stuff
that we could dive into a Disney alone.
Speaker 2 (57:48):
Maybe maybe maybe it was me mentioning Disney that he
had enough.
Speaker 1 (57:54):
I love Frozen man.
Speaker 3 (57:57):
Yeah, which this the conspiracy theories behind Frozens. I think
that they created that movie simply to get the web
searching away from Disney Frozen, because people would look up
the conspiracy surrounding Disney freezing his head.
Speaker 2 (58:15):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (58:17):
Yeah, there's a whole thing on that because that was
the number one web search for Disney Frozen. They're like,
we need to come up with a movie to get
this out away from it.
Speaker 2 (58:29):
That's that's the reason why that's crazy.
Speaker 1 (58:32):
Yeah. I figured if if Patrick would have joined us,
if he would have had stuff to say, because he
really wanted to be.
Speaker 2 (58:40):
A part of this, which, oh, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1 (58:43):
I figured it was gonna run a little bit longer,
but hey, we're still letting that hour marketing. I think
it was a great show, just like they all have been,
and it did it. I definitely am glad I pushed
it off because there was so much UH and I
actually kind of had to revamp how I wanted to
tell it and I removed something and just because I
you know how I am. I like for people to
(59:03):
do their own research, to not just kind of go
off what we're saying, especially if you're question anything we're saying.
I am understand people questioning you know, the sources of
where we get this stuff. So but it actually I've
I've really got invested into doing a lot more research
on a lot of my shows, specifically from this show.
(59:25):
So I'm I'm happy with where this is going and
I'm happy with uh the content that we're getting out
of these shows. And we just got I'd like to
get back to doing one every two weeks if we can.
Now the hustle and bustle of the holidays is all
done with.
Speaker 2 (59:43):
I'm okay with that. Yeah, I'm always good to do
a show.
Speaker 1 (59:48):
Yeah, and this this is I mean, we do. I
enjoy every show we do, but I love I do
really love doing this one and seeing the the depth
that people go to do and we need to do
another cold case because we haven't done one of those
in a little while. Oh yeah, thanks everybody for that.
Has been been watching tonight, We've had people tuning in
(01:00:10):
the whole time. I haven't seen that number drop to
zero at all, so that's nice. I appreciate you guys,
and appreciate job for jumping on here. And yeah, and
until next time, unless you guys got anything, I'm good.
We'll see you guys around. Thank you for tuning in.
So clearly they endured something pretty intense.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
There was two women, yes, and seven guys, So to me,
that's problem already.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Eyebrows missing burn marks, eyeballs missing tone missing.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yeah, the bones decame to that degree in just four years.
I just don't see that type of dago.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
There's just so much that's talk about on both sides.
Both sides seem real, suspect. I know it's the South,
so maybe dental records are a bit trickier down there
because they only have maybe one or two cheeks to
identify them by it.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Have you guys ever had that, Like you've driven by
a house in the middle of nowhere, You're like, I
don't wonder who lives there? What's going on? Oh yeah,
this is gonna be one of those. It is. What's happening, everybody.
(01:09):
Welcome back, Welcome back to JG's Lounge on your host
juke Box. We're back with another episode of Central I
Sockets and our guest tonight just informed me that we
have a very long intro. So that.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
I got you, bro, I got you.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Well, you know evolution man. How you doing, man?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
I'm doing great. Actually, finally the weather is getting better,
so I can wrap up a lot of things that
I'm working on because it was way bitterly cold, and
I don't like the cold. I like what's behind me.
Uh So, yeah, we got a lot of things that
we are wrapping up and finalizing and looking forward to
(01:53):
getting those things out there.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Yeah, man, you got a lot going on here, A
couple of your shows, you know, We're getting relaunched and
revamped and I'm I'm really excited about it. So we
are doing a marathon for one of his shows about
that here soon, so you guys be looking forward to that.
Sean Shankman, how the hell.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Are you doing? You want the truth or do you
want me to lie?
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Actually lie to all of us? We all want lies?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
You want lies?
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Man, I'm doing fantastic after real life is amazing.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
I said lies? Now, how are you really, sir?
Speaker 4 (02:29):
Dude?
Speaker 3 (02:29):
I feel like shit because my dumb ass started? All right,
So I teach college Monday through Wednesday. I teach at
two different universities, and I use a lot of like
examples from my life when I'm teaching class, right, because
that's what I'm right. And I mentioned in one of
(02:52):
my classes a couple semesters ago that I wrestled for many,
many years, and you know, coach for many years. And
so one of my students got the bright idea that
he want to start a wrestling club for the college,
which is they want to turn into a team. And
he came to me, He's like, hey, you want to
be our coach, and me, being a dummy who thinks
(03:16):
he can still do stuff like it's twenty years old,
said sure, and I have got lumps and bumps and bruises.
I was talking to a nurse friend of mine the
other day and I said, I've got a spring kidney
vain flatulence, and I think I've got I'm low on
fluid in my femur, like I am just beat to death.
(03:38):
It's good, but god, dang man, I'm fantastic.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Good man. Sounds like you brought that shit on yourself.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
I certainly.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Our guest tonight job bless I aka Justin or vice versa.
How are you, buddy?
Speaker 4 (03:58):
Fantastic? I guess is the word I will use.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Okay, yes, you said, I guess, though that doesn't really
sound great.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
You know, this whole how are you question really gets me, man,
because you know who's measuring it. How am I supposed
to answer it. Life's messed up, man, but it's so
beautiful too. So you know, what are you gonna do?
You want me to tell you? Fantastic, crappy, creddy, happy, joyful.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Let's tell me whatever you want and I'll tell you
man like joyful.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
I like, let's go with joyful. Then I change it.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Oh joyful.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Let's get.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
All right. So we're here for a very special episode
that we've been talking about for a while. H Cholmes,
who was originally Herman Webster Mudget, which for a serial killer,
Herman mud Mudget sounds god awful. I'm just gonna say that.
Anybody whose last name is Mudget, I'm sorry, that sounds terrible. So, Sean,
(05:00):
and this was actually your idea to dive into this topic.
Why did you want to do this specific episode?
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Well, okay, so there man, this dude and all the
stuff that surrounds him. His life was crazy and like
we were talking about before we started the cast tonight,
the guy was a doctor, wildly intelligent. His charisma in
his ability to manipulate people like if you were playing
(05:29):
Dungeons and Dragons, this guy rolled double nat twenty on
his charisma roles, like he was just able to convince
people to do things. He was manipulative. I don't think
he was good looking, but maybe for the time they
thought he was handsome with his big ass mustache. I
don't know. But what's fascinating about this guy, for one,
(05:50):
is there were rumors for years and years and years
that he was Jack the Ripper. Yes, and he was
almost caught in London and moved here to the States
and settled down in Chicago and picked up where he
left off. But the thing that's scary about his picking
(06:10):
up where he left off turned into a murder motel, which,
at its at its height, at zenith, he was murdering
the shit out of people during the Chicago World's Fair.
A crazy story in and of itself, but there were
so many people around that it was like one of
(06:32):
those games you play on your phone where you're just
pushing all the coins into one place. It's like he
was just able to go out and just grab people
left and right because nobody noticed. It's it's crazy. And
when we start getting into this murder motel and the
stuff that was in there just picture like the game
(06:52):
mouse Trap from when we were kids. But it actually
works and was designed by a fucking psychopath.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
It's he is the definition of a psychopath. I mean
he did everything with the intention of harmony people. It
was never anything but that. So a little bit about
the history of him. He was born in eighteen sixty.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
One and his name is H. H.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Holmes Henry. He had his change his name changed to
Henry Howard Holmes. Was it legal? Who knows, because at
the time it was really hard to kind of verify documentation,
which is how he got away with a lot of
the things that he did. So his maiden name as
Herman Webster Mudget. But a lot of people know him
(07:38):
as HH. Holmes. Okay, okay, are you familiar with him
at all?
Speaker 4 (07:44):
I am not. The first time I heard about him
is yesterday when you asked me if I like true crime?
Speaker 1 (07:51):
All right, wonderful, all right. So he's born in eighteen
sixty one to his Methodist parents. They're Methodist Orthodox parents.
They are from a farming community in Gilmanton, New Hampshire,
and they were very spare. The rod beat the child,
you know. The dad was a drunk and he would
(08:13):
even used kerosene brag soaked kerosene to punish the children.
So at a very young age, he was enduring a
lot of what's up?
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Do you want to explain? Because I I remember in
my studies reading some of the stuff that happened to
him as a kid. When you talk about the kerosene
soap drag, what were they doing? So we can get
in a sense of because I think it's going to
connect up to.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Okay, I don't know the reason why he used them.
I just knew it was a form of punishment on.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
Him, okay, because I heard there was There was like
a you soak and scrub was what I read. I
don't know if that's true, but there again, there's a
lot of like kind of mystify you mystification of his past.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
It kind of had the same concept of using chloroform though,
is from what I was understanding from my research.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
What is your guys's sources?
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Speaking of Wikipedia, several blogs and you know, I listened
to probably fifteen different podcasts about it, but the best
resource that I have is Wikipedia.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
I read a bunch of books on it when I
was a kid. That was another butter when it came
to serial killers and a cult type stuff.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
So I can promise you. There's nothing that I will
tell you tonight that you won't be able to find, right. Yeah,
but that's also why I told him, I don't. I
can't verify exactly what he did with the kerosene. I
just know they were ragged, so Kerosene used to punch
the children. So at a young age, he was actually
(09:55):
being he was kind of very recluse, held back going
to the woods. At a very young age, he even
talked about going in, like harming animals in the woods
and killing them, mostly just because you know, I mean,
his helm life was terrible, so he was going out
and taking that out on the wildlife.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
You know.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
He was extremely intelligent in school. He actually got bullied
for being so smart. He was also kind of an
outcast because of his home life. I actually do resonate
with this because I had a very very abusive childhood
with a very religious family, and I was kind of
an outcast in school. I was bullied younger, not so
(10:42):
much in high school but elementary school. So I could
see that how that would resonate, especially because being smart
in school in the small town communities was very rare
during his childhood, so a lot of kids did bully him.
So at the age of twelve or thirteen, there's no
(11:03):
confirmed time, but there he was apparently drawn to a
doctor's office by some of the kids in school and
they took one of the skeletons and was rubbing in
his face to scare him. And he even talks about it,
and he's locked up in prison about how that was
what set him on the path that he was on
(11:24):
during this timeframe. Any skeletons you saw doctor's office and
science labs, they were actual skeletons. They weren't plastic, they
were real bodies. So that kind of kickstarted everything. You know,
I'm kind of just abbreviating his childhood because honestly, a
lot of this is not about his childhood, but his
childhood does play into some of the things that he
(11:46):
does in the people he killed in his murder castle.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Okay, well, if I meant to plan a seed for
later for a question that I'm gonna probably bring, I
will bring up again here's the thing you had. We've
talked about this a little bit before Jukebox with with
your upbringing and things, and I was severely bullied in school,
like severely up until even my senior year. But I
(12:17):
didn't turn out to be a serial killer. You didn't.
For what I know, you didn't.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
I mean, I just don't tell you certain things. Okay,
So anyway, anyways, but.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Do you see what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
It's like, I under this gets into the nature versus
nurture question. And this is one of the things I
want us to touch on later, if we can get
around to it, is that you know, we've got two
examples and I don't know about evolution or jah what
their upbringing was like, but you know, you can sit
there and say like, oh, you know, his parents did
(12:51):
this and did this and did this, and it's like, okay,
but we have examples here of folks that had some
pretty shit, not to get into the death of it,
but didn't turn out to be serial killers. You know
that made murder motels, right right?
Speaker 1 (13:07):
I just you know, yeah, Well, and I think you
kind of learn quickly after him getting out of high
school sort of how he kind of twists his upbringing
into what he became, and which is kind of how
it's like that definitely reflects in his killings later on.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
I think sean To answered your question. There were some
things that I think not only me, but most people
deal with when they were younger, but they make the
choice of the decision to not let that affect their outcome,
and in fact, they use it as fuel to become
something different or something more positive, to make society better
(13:51):
or themselves better, or create something so great that it
just brings everything around them to more positive environment. So
definitely understand where you're going with that. And no, because
you're brought up in a certain way, you don't have
to end up that way. Right.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
So, at the age of seventeen, John, did you have anything?
Are you good right now?
Speaker 4 (14:18):
Nothing?
Speaker 1 (14:20):
I like it just chilling. You'll have something at some point,
You're going to have something.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
My brain is definitely going but I'm just soaking it
all in, kind of gathering what this dude's about, what's
going on, and waiting for you to get to the point.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Okay. So, at the age of about thirteen or fourteen,
him in one of his neighborhood. They weren't really friends,
but they were hanging out in an abandoned house and
the person the kid he was with, ended up falling
off of landing and dying. A lot of speculation on
if that was his first kill or not, nobody knows
because there was no one there. But he had already
(15:01):
been kind of, you know, messing around with animals, woods
at the time and stuff like that. So there's a
possibility that he could have pushed a kid off the
ledge and killed him. But again there's there's no confirmation.
But that happened when he was in his like preteen
early teen years, by the age of seventeen. He graduated
high school early and married a local wealthy farmer's daughter
(15:24):
and actually used their money to pay for him to
go to medical school. So within his first year they're
pregnant't have a kid. After he finishes his medical degree,
his wife and kid go back home and he moves
to Chicago. So his first this is like eighteen eighty
(15:47):
and his first few years he hits the ground running
with schemes. He starts borrowing money to buy land and
then taking money from lenders to against the property to
build buildings, and then bouncing out after he gets them built,
(16:09):
selling them to somebody else before the lenders find out
that he you know, their money. Nobody's getting their money.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
He was getting his money.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
He was he was getting money. So yes, so again
at the time, there's not a lot of paper like
there's not technology like we have today. So a lot
of the things that he ends up doing he gets
away with because there's no way to really paper trailer
you know, alias names, stuff like that. He did all
of it, and he does this multiple times. Between eighteen
(16:41):
eighty and eighteen eighty five is where he's multiplying, buying
properties by borrowing money and just dipping out. He ends
up marrying a person in Chicago. He's still got his
wife back home. He marries the lady in Chicago. They
have three kids, and he has a drug store that
(17:04):
he had purchased and he is selling you know, skeletons
at the time. He's going to graves and literally robbing
corpses and taking the skeletons and getting life insurance quotes
on them, getting the money out of that, and then
selling their skeletons to scientists and doctors.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
I'm sorry this this dude was out the hook.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
Was brilliant.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
He is.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
He was extremely smart in what he was doing. He
was a decent looking guy. I mean, honestly, I've got
a picture of right here. For the time, a lot
of people said he had sort of a magnetism about him.
Let's see here.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
I don't know if I agree with a decent looking guy?
Speaker 4 (17:52):
Is what he said?
Speaker 1 (17:55):
That's him? That's this a jlmes right there.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Well, I mean, just to just to first look at
this image, he doesn't look like he would be that
much of a gains terrific type of person, right. Uh wow,
that's that's the next level man. This guy had no
he had no limits, no limits.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
No. I mean, he's got a pretty killer stash. I
got give him that.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
It's he's It's the thing is I've always thought of
and this is one of the most used photos of him.
Is he good looking or whatever? I don't. I don't
think so. He looks like an irritating guy at a
law firm on a fleet show, right, like the little
fat guys always complained about ship. But it's just he's
(18:43):
got a very unassuming face. And I think that's what
makes it seemingly dangerous for people back then, because he
doesn't look threatening. He doesn't have this massive build, he
doesn't have accountenance. It's like, oh shit, this guy's scary.
He just looks like somebody walk by on the street.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Right. He comes off as a person that looks like
a salesperson, you.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Know, exactly, And that's what he did, is he sold lives. Yeah, yeah,
that's exactly what he did, all right. So this is
kind of where he's establishing a foundation, building money. I mean,
he's doing well. And then you get the Chicago Fair
that's the city's planning around eighteen ninety. So he purchases
(19:29):
some a corner lot downtown off sixty third Street in
Chicago to build his motel. He builds a drug store. Basically,
the first level was a drug store, which in the
cellar underneath they discover a well which he utilizes as
a mineral spring to sell water. He actually sells it
(19:50):
a five cents a bottle from the water out of
the well underneath his drug store. So Swindland, Swindland, Swinderland, man,
I'm just right off the bat. And a drug store
back then was not just a going in pharmacy. I
mean they had like your random potions and you know,
elixirs and in the shops and it's whatever they said
(20:13):
it was. So it wasn't a pharmacists. He he did
all of it, like he ran the shop. He then
built a second story which had fifteen hotel rooms that
were dedicated specifically for doing these murders that he did.
They had hidden passages, holes in the walls, floorboards that disappeared,
(20:36):
rooms behind walls. They were all sound proofed so that
his victims didn't know what was gonna, you know, be happening.
And when he started furnishing this property, he does something
pretty clever. He's borrowing money to purchase loan to property
and furnishings. He brings it into the motel. A week later,
(21:00):
they come to get their money and he all the
furniture is gone, and they have a scout that they
had sitting outside and they're like, nobody came and took
the furniture. So when they come to collect the furniture,
he's like, I don't know where this is. Not here. Obviously,
what he had done is put it all in a room,
remove the doorframe and walled it up. He walls up
(21:25):
and keeps all that furnishing. So I mean he gets
all this furniture for free. He even gets a grandfather
clock from another person for the lobby, and he puts
it in a room, shrinks the doorway to where it's
smaller than the grandfather clock. So when they come to
collect the clock, He's like, if you damage my property,
(21:45):
I'm gonna sue you. So they couldn't get the clock out,
so he got the clock. So, I mean, he's just
he's just witty, man, He's very witty. What do you
guys got so far?
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Uh? First, I have a question, So is this guy
the reason that the doctor's offices have skeletons in him?
Speaker 1 (22:05):
No? No, no, because as a kid it happened to him, like,
you know, they kind of one of like they bullied
him and tortured him with one of these doctor's office skelly.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
I mean this is from eighteen sixty one, right, this
is like.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
So at the time is eighteen nineties, but he's born
in eighteen sixty one, so yeah, that was during his childhood.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Yeah, okay, just a question.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
And I don't know how much you guys know about
the World Fair, but over the course of six months,
the World for Fair drawed in twenty seven million people. Yep,
twenty seven million people. So when he's building this property,
he's building it with the idea that he's going to
make a cash cow out of just luring people and
(22:47):
killing them, selling their body parts, their skeletons, and he
continues to do life insurance policies against them. He even
has a mistress living with him on the property and
room where he has a step that's removed and they
place like an alarm bell underneath the step so that
while he's doing his stuff, she doesn't know or he
(23:10):
can hear her if she's coming, so you can stop
what he's doing and hide it. Whatever he's doing. She's
living there with her daughter. She ends up dying or disappearing,
but everybody assumes she's dead. But so let's take a
pause on this and discuss the World Fair a little bit. Sean,
what do you know about the Chicago Worldfair? Because you
(23:31):
want to dive into this, I know you.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Do, well, Okay, So the Chicago Worldfair was a convergence
of a lot of things technology that was you know,
and Tesla was heavily involved with the Chicago Worlds Fair.
They had a motorized boardwalk that could carry literally thousands
(23:55):
of people, all right, and it's insane the amount. And
this is where or Tesla was, you know, showcasing a
lot of the technology. So people were coming out to
see this thing. And you got to remember too, back
at this time in the eighteen nineties. This isn't you know,
when we have things like social media, films TV all
(24:17):
this bullshit to distract us and things. Right, not everybody
was even reading at this point, you know. I mean
we if something like this was going on, everybody was
coming to it like it's like having a wedding and
a small town back then that was like everybody went,
that's it. So I have this massive influx of people
(24:38):
into Chicago at the time that are seeing all these
wonders and everything, and you know, they proposedly built you know,
the Gold Lady in the middle of the all the
buildings that they put up that they said were made
out of plaster and everything, which anybody you know, has
(25:02):
any conspiratorial mindset, you know, looking at this says no bullshit.
This was left over from Tartaria, you know. And they
have done studies of the buildings, and you know, looking
at him, even with the bullshit where they're like, oh,
these are all made out of paper mache whatever bullshit
stuff they said it was. And they have said even
(25:26):
with today's technology moving at you know, just the fastest
rates with the most amount of workers and machines and
everything else. These buildings that they said that they put
up in this short amount of time, they said, it's impossible, right, impossible.
So what they are saying is actually happened. And you
(25:49):
have to look into the mud floods and tartaria and
everything that these discovered buildings from a go were actually
utilized for this. And then they to and this is
the weird thing too, they tore everything down afterwards. Why
the fuck would you do that? Okay, so you have
this conspiracy that's kind of surrounding all of this stuff
(26:12):
at the Chicago World's Fair, all of this technology that
is like you've got this Old World New World tesla,
all these things that are going on, and then you've
got Holmes who put his murder hotel and I believe
it was like butt up against where a lot of
the action is right, and so he was planning on,
(26:34):
you know, making a bunch of money, but what he
was doing was he was going out and snatching people
up left and right, and inside of the hotel. You
have to picture this thing like if you saw the
movie Sweeney Todd, you know where you had the barber's
chair and like you push the button, the chair would
go angular and then slide down to the basement. Man,
(26:54):
there was all kinds of stuff like this. In the
Murder Hotel. You had slides that went down to the
basement and slider will go down to a room that
was sealed off metal walls. It had gas jets and
he would seal them in and turn on the gas
and they you know, when they actually went into this thing.
After this was all found out, there were claw marks
in the walls and on the floors and things like that.
(27:16):
And if you know anything too about the the Winchester
Mansion and how it was built and like the things
that went nowhere and stairs, I mean that's what it was. Yeah,
it's it's like that kind of construction where we're so crazy.
And Jah said, you know earlier, like this guy was
really intelligent. But what's scary is, if you know anything
(27:37):
about human psychology, generally people that are cunning can pass
themselves off as intelligence or intelligence intelligent, but they're just cunning.
They're not like doctor smart. They're just really cunning. And
you know that it's like a placeholder for intelligence. This guy,
Holmes had both. The guy was street smart, he was
(28:00):
book smart, doctor smart. The guy was cunning. He was charismatic.
He was this convergence of all these like terrible things
that made him, you know, just a nightmare. Yeah, there
you go.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Oh yeah, this is the hotel. This is the hotel.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
What is the name of it?
Speaker 1 (28:21):
It's gone now. I don't I don't even know if
you know what that there was the name of the hotel.
I don't in any of my Yeah, they tore down
not long after. They ran it for a few more
years with a new owner, and then he committed suicide
after not long of owning the property.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
Wow, no, ship, Well, I mean look at that.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Yeah, it's it's insane. The way he constructed it. You
can actually see like there's hidden hallways they kind of
show some of the things that he like some of
the rooms have like you can see look at that,
like the bathroom, look at the bat Okay, so just
like coming up out of the floor exactly. Yeah, yep.
(29:07):
And there were shoots that literally dropped bodies down the
A lot of these rooms had gas chambers in them
to where he would literally torch the people in their
own rooms alive. He would starve them and then he
would drop them down to the cellar, which I wonder
if I can get a good view of the cellar,
let's see.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
And actually, what's creepy about some of the shoots that
jukebox is talking about. Some are slides, but a majority
of them if you look at and I remember looking
at some of the plans ago when I was looking
into this, we're talking like a laundry shoot straight down.
So when he's dropped the bodies, and sometimes they were alive,
(29:47):
they would drop a couple of stories and just slugged
in the ground and they're lying down there in the basement,
broken like in a broken bloody pile.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Yep. So he also was, you know, flaying them alive tables, yeah,
you see off the right. Yeah, so that is an
actual medieval stretched device. Yeah, uh, with where he'd put
live bodies and everything like that. So to get into
(30:19):
the whole reason why I brought in Homoss Hotel was
its original name, Thank you Abo, Thank you for throwing
in there. I didn't know. Everywhere I looked, I couldn't
find out it was murder Murder Odell, So thank you
for that. So I do know that most of what happened,
how he got a lot of these people in. He
(30:40):
would lure them in by offering them jobs or marriage.
He would have them turn in deeds to their properties,
cash out he get and then he would do the
same thing. You need a life insurance policy on them,
and then you know, they disappear miraculously. And then when
they'd come looking for the bodies, he would tell detectives
(31:02):
everything from you know, it was a it was a
abortion gone wrong. She was upset and left. I don't
know where she is. Just whatever he could do to
swindle the cops to kind of steer away from him,
and they did because there was so much going on
in the town.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
So they were they were already dead. And how did
they get the insurance, Like if the insurance people didn't
see him or whatnot.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
After so long, I think they just called it.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
You know, well, he would write up fake information on
these people. Back in the time, there was no way
to really look into it.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
I remember he was a doctor.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
All they needed was a body. They didn't need to
meet them beforehand before they bought the insurance.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Correct.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
Wow, Now now Jukebox were able to find a And
this is a curiosity because of all these scheming and things.
That's one of the things I remember too, that was
incredibly scary about this guy. Did he have a net
worth estimate?
Speaker 1 (32:03):
I didn't see anything about what he was worth, Okay,
I do know that in ninety three he makes a
trip to Houston, Texas and starts to get borrow money
to purchase horses that he was taking to Saint Louis
to sell. And during that time he actually met a henchman.
(32:27):
His name was Benjamin Pitzel, and he ends up coming
back to his hotel and actually is helping him disposed
of these bodies. They had quick chains that would go
into like dissolving pits to dissolve the skin and everything
off the bones so that they could sell him for
the skeletons. They had like crematory like setups to where
(32:51):
they could just burn the bodies and they I mean,
it was just gruesome. I don't even know like how
to I wish I had like a list of everything
that they had in this cellar. It was just absurd,
but all of it was something new with money flow.
But it wasn't just about the money for him, because
he was literally torturing these people with the intention of
(33:14):
harming them. Like these rooms with the caro, you know,
the gas rooms. I mean kind of relates to him
with the you know, kerosene as a kid, stretching him,
starving him, stuff like that. He talks talked about how
which again you don't know if it's true or not,
because he was at a compulsive liar or whatever his
(33:35):
whole life, but he talks about a lot of the
things were done to him as a kid. He reflected
that on the torture of the people.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
That's a huge hole in the middle of that florid.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Yeah, that's where that's where he got his mineral water from.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
Yeah, the delicious healthy it's you know what, that's actually
that's the origin of disani.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
So there is there is three stories. Though the top
floor was just hotel rooms. The second floors were all
of like the the rooms that had the you know,
specified torture stuff in them, Right.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
John, Oh, I'm sorry to interrupt your question to John.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
I don't know, John, hun any questions or not, Okay,
go ahead, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (34:26):
This is all crazy that somebody would do this. I'm
really thinking about, like how he was able to do
all those extra rooms without anybody knowing about it.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
So he was there is according to records. I don't
want to ever say any of this is you know, prooved,
because a lot of this was lied about from him.
There was no real records kept by him. But he
was constantly firing and replacing construction workers throughout the whole
(34:58):
building and construction of this hotel. And someone that were
killed in the hotel, but nobody. I mean, again, those
are just theories.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Yeah, But that's that I read that to quite a bit,
is that he would have something that would build one thing,
and then they would be fired or disappear, and then
somebody would come in and do a separate thing. And
some of the stuff he did himself, like in my
understanding in jukebox, Correct me if I'm wrong, But even
in the hotel rooms, he had like cutouts behind some
of the places where he had peepoles and things where
(35:33):
spy on everybody, like you would see in the old
you know, like the old nineteen fifties detective mysteries where
you know, like the paintings there and all of a sudden,
the eyes shift out, two eyeballs pop in and look
left and right like this like that kind of shit exactly.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
That's exactly what I got when I was researching, is
that he had these like little peep holes. He was
watching everybody and but yeah, so he was, and a
lot of them were getting pissed off because he wasn't
paying them. You know, he was. He was lying to
all these people. I mean, there wasn't a time where
he wasn't lying to somebody. I Mean, remember, he's said
(36:07):
through this whole thing, he still had a wife back
in New Hampshire. They didn't even see they never even
officially got divorced. He's got a wife in Chicago and
he's just gone to this hotel all the time with
a miss right.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
What a mistress.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
So he just working the front desk, trying to be
helpful and like be up for turn doown service and
everything and like.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Ye, so he's got he's got a henchman, he's got
ads out luring in women, and he's just having a heyday.
Murderer people. Man, he confesses actually to twenty seven murders. However,
after he died, a couple of the people that he
named were still alive, so even then he was lying.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Yeah, the estimates are all over the place. But the
reason the estimates are all over these here's the thing
from one of the from research that I've done in
the past is that you were talking about how he
was selling skeletons earlier assumption that from some people they
posited that those were his victims, like not just from
(37:14):
the murder motel, but this guy's been killing people out
his life. And because of the sheer number of people
that were at the Chicago World's Fair, it wasn't that
he was just you know, getting people in the construction
people in and hiring people and things like that. It
was also that he because he was so charismatic in things,
(37:35):
and because of the hotel, he was just getting people
in off the street, you.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Know, and so he had his own drug store and
other shops on that just exactly.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
And because there was such the just the throngs of
people like if you've ever been to a music festival,
and just the amount of assets to elbows that are
fricking everywhere.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
And even besides that, Chicago in the time, it had
one point two million people. It was the second most
populated city in the in the US. Yeah, so it
was already a thriving city. So he had a lot
of distractions that kind of help him get away with
the things that he did.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
So and that's and so when you're talking about the
figures in the twenty seven and uh, okay.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Sent me a friend request John, It's fine.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
No, No, I thought it was a friend request for h. Holmes.
But it's the estimates, you know, are on the loan
of what he confessed to and things are you know,
in the double digits. But there are some people who
have been looking into you know what they they would
estimate the actual number is at and it possibly triple digits.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
Yeah. So he ends up getting arrested in Saint Louis
trying to sell horses that weren't even really his yet
because he didn't actually pay for them. And while he's arrested,
he talks to somebody in there and to scheming them
into a life insurance policy and says, when I get out,
(39:11):
you know, I'll get a corpse. We'll say it was you,
and I'll pay you your portion. Well, when he gets
out the he tries to sell the life insurance claim,
but the insurance agents don't believe him, so he doesn't
get the money out of it. So that person that
gets out of jail, they met in jail. When they
get out, they actually turn him in, you know, they say, hey,
(39:36):
you know that's how him. Yes, so they caught him.
He ends up getting out because of his wife in
Chicago ends up bailing him out. But so he talks
his henchman and to get more money, he tells his henchman, hey,
how about we do a life insurance policy on you?
(39:56):
And instead of actually doing the life and you know,
I'm just gonna kill him and I'm gonna collect his
life insurance policy. So he kills him and he ends
up getting arrested for that. That death he gets he
gets busted for that for killing his henchmen, not because
all the people he lured in and murdered and killed
because of his henchmen. Wow, So it's it's an absurd story,
(40:20):
Like this whole thing is just extremely messed up, and
of all the things that he gets caught for, it's.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
That well, jeez, at least he finally got caught. I mean,
just like you said, it's kind of really really difficult
to tag a certain amount of people that he actually
offt in his reign of terror. But I'll tell you what,
that house had a lot of rooms in it, and
(40:49):
doing something like the events in Chicago, uh, the World
Fair and I'm like, I'm sure he filled that hotel
quite often, you know, and consistently and constantly. So I'm
wondering if anybody made it out, you know what I'm saying,
(41:10):
depending on I mean, he had to target people who
were by themselves. I'm thinking, well that.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
That's kind of like how the ones that he lured
in through ads, That's exactly what he did.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Yeah, there were.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Women looking for marriage or whatever, so they sell all
their belongings and move there.
Speaker 4 (41:28):
And yeah, so how long did this go on for this?
Speaker 1 (41:33):
So from eighteen ninety two is when the fair started.
In eighteen ninety he started building the hotel, so it
would be between that time that he started actually doing
putting out ads to lure the women in. And they
were all women, Yes he did. There were there were
bodies that were male found, but majority of them were women.
(41:57):
They didn't found one child body. But remember his mistress
and daughter lived there, so they think that he actually
killed them, and that's what the kid's body was.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
When he starts when we start dipping into the connection
to the Jack the Ripper. Thing that was one of
the things that they leaned into is that he had
a particular mo o when he was killing folks, and
the fact that it was a preponderance of women, right,
that that was one of the things. You know, pleasure
(42:28):
out other evidence, but that was one of the things.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
But here.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
It just floors me that I really wish I knew
if they had an estimated net worth on him, because
all these schemes and things that he was doing and
he was getting money, but yet he wasn't paying anybody.
So my first thought is, like, where the hell all
the money go? That's he's doing these schemes. He's walling
(42:55):
things up, you know, and he's making you know, the
the Grandfather clocking, and he's getting these insurance policies and
obviously he had to be successful at it, and what's
what's he doing with all the cash? Where is all that?
And I know he's murdering the show to people, so
that should bother me more. But this is one of
those like weird notes.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Of like I see nothing Like I just looked it
up and I've got and there's nothing that talks about
his networth.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
So strange to me.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
But I mean he hid a lot of stuff, like
I mean finance, I imagine I doubt he had a
bank account where he went in deposited money.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
I mean, who knows, Well, it's probably in a hotel somewhere.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
Well, the hotel's gone now now now it's like a
government facility there.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
I wonder, I wonder why.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
Using that sellar for bodies? This actually a lot quicker
than I thought it was going to But what he
has got, Like, what do you what do you guys
think of this?
Speaker 3 (43:58):
I'm curious obviously, thanks man, because you've just been sitting
here pondering all this stuff. And I sure I'm jealous
of you a little bit, dude, seriously, because I would
love to hear this stuff for the first time because
it's so mind blowing what this dude did.
Speaker 4 (44:11):
Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. I don't know, man, I don't
know that I really have much. It's just crazy how
that type of stuff can happen. And you wonder, you know,
how much of that is going on today and that
we're missing. You know, it's like, are we walking by
the Hotel of Horror when we're walking through our neighborhood town.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
Right, which is definitely possible. I mean, then the thing
about the timeframe is that he got away with a
lot of it because there was no way to. I
mean there was no maybe a paper trail, but like
even then, now we got technology, we're still stored on
you know, backup CCTVs, and I mean, there's just too
many opportunities to get caught, like the bodies getting life
(44:58):
insurance claims, life claims on on bodies that don't exist.
You know, that's a lot of the things that he
did back to that didn't you know, they wouldn't you
wouldn't get away with today.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
No, not at all. Well, you know, it's funny, this
is kind of a tangential thing, but do you guys
hear about Benjamin Franklin and how they found like was
it twenty different skeletons in the basement of his house.
Speaker 4 (45:24):
And I never heard that.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
I know that.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
Well, okay, so this so this was flying around for
a couple of years and people were saying, oh my god,
you know one of our founding fathers was a serial killer. Well,
they did some investigating. They found out that he actually
somebody that he was boarding in his house was a
surgical student and a doctor eventually, and Benjamin apparently was
(45:48):
letting him do like shit in the house and then
he was just when he was done with the cadavers,
was burying the stuff in the basement.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
So yeah, all right, look it up.
Speaker 3 (46:01):
If whoever's watching stuff, look it up. There's a whole
story about it and how people thought that he was
he was killing prostitutes and everything else, and yeah, you know,
I don't think you have to because by all, by
all records, he was a hell of the ladies man.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
Well, and I think that was the thing about as Holmes,
that his perception from a woman's perspective was, Oh, he's
a wealthier, a doctor in Chicago, and he's offered me
to come stay with him. So it was probably very
easy for him to delire people in especially women.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
Well, I mean if if I mean back then, I
mean we're in the midst of the industrial age and
the upticking that, and you know, people aren't super enlightened
or reading and everything, and you know, this guy swoops
in with his his charm and all the you know,
his money and everything else, and apparently he was super
fucking handsome.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
You know.
Speaker 3 (46:56):
Yeah, I could see why it would be easy. You know.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
So, so son, you mentioned where's the money. I just
had a light bulb. Maybe he was actually paying for
these women to come to his hotel. You know, I mean,
if you're getting money left and right, and there's no
paper trail of where you're spend the money because you're
(47:18):
not paying anyone, you're killing them off. But to lure
women in, he's like, hey, i'll fly you to or
I'll ship you to or get you some.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
Flying them there. In eighteen ninety, I promise you.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
Yeah yeah, yeah, I kind of missed that up, but
you know, I'll arrange for you to get here.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
Right yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
Yeah, So and that's where the money went.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
So are you are you suggesting like he I mean,
bringing him in, but also like maybe prostitutes, because you
know who's going to miss a lady of ill repute?
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Right yeah?
Speaker 3 (47:55):
I mean, which is also the mo of Jack the Ripper.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
Yeah right, it's possible.
Speaker 4 (48:03):
And there was a.
Speaker 3 (48:03):
Whole series on what channel was that? History on the
History Channel. I'm sure you can find if you look
up in the archives. The History Channel did a whole
thing on AJH. Holmes being Jack the Ripper. There were
DNA tests and all kinds of shit. It was wildly interesting.
I at least suggest dipping into it because the thing
was it was fascinating.
Speaker 4 (48:25):
He was Jack the Ripper.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
No, they ended up like recently, didn't they recently do
something where they found out that it wasn't They did
some kind of DNA match. It was in the last
couple of years, right right.
Speaker 3 (48:36):
But this also, this DNA match was on some blood
that was on like a scar or something that did
not belong to the prostitute. And they said, well, this
was obviously his, and it you know, matches or whatever
it was. Man, I don't know, I you know, I
don't know enough about DNA technology to speak out intelligently,
(48:57):
but it seems like a pretty wide swing. It makes
the story fascinating, like if you know, hh Holmes, you
know Jack the Ripper, and you can conflate the two
into this like you know, scary story and things.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
I mean, but they were around the same same time,
and I see it's hard to kind of place him
in London and there at the same time.
Speaker 3 (49:19):
Yeah, well it's actually they explained that away in the
docu series. Again, I highly suggest looking into it. I
didn't look. The thing is, I didn't wholesale buy into it,
but I did think it was fascinating that they're like,
you know, there's enough coincidences. Like if it's just one
or two things, you're like, ah, shut up. But when
(49:39):
you have so many things and it's like, okay, you
get this preponderance of evidence and it makes you kind
of go, okay, that could make sense. It's like, and folks,
look this one up, John F. Kennedy being the reincarnation
of Abraham Lincoln. If you look at the think have
you seen this?
Speaker 1 (49:58):
No, dude, I feel like this should be your conspiracy
series show.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
Okay, I'm just saying, man, look it up. When you
start seeing all the connectivity between the two, you you
know what, you laugh now, but then you're gonna go, holy.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
Shit, it's just gypsy gypsy Roses mom. That's all well,
you know, I mean, that's what we got for tonight's show. Guys.
I mean he was He was a fucked up individual
who did a lot of torturing and even up till
(50:37):
the day he died, he even tells the guy who
what did they call the guy who kills you and
and or does the the death penalty when when they're killing.
Speaker 3 (50:49):
You, you mean, like the executioner.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
Yes, he actually told the executioner to take his time
and they hung him and he took about seventeen minutes
from to die. He just strangled it.
Speaker 3 (51:00):
So he's just hanging there like this is my thing.
Speaker 2 (51:03):
Oh yeah, so he was enjoying it. I guess right.
Speaker 1 (51:08):
I'm sure, man, It's just he didn't care. He didn't care.
Uh but yeah, that's what we got for tonight showed evolution.
You got anything that you want to throw in there
before we wrap it up.
Speaker 2 (51:19):
He was a completely twisted individual, for sure. I really
don't have much. Usually I could come up with something,
but this this person here was just mad crazy. Uh yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:32):
It fascinates me what he did with like the furnishings,
like and how he like would borrow money, gets all
these different places and then dip out without even you know,
getting caught and move on to the.
Speaker 4 (51:45):
Next minus the murdering. That sounds like something I would
have did all my twenties, dude, during that time. Yeah,
I would have. I would have all those insurance companies.
Speaker 1 (51:55):
Oh yeah. I mean, I'm not mad at him for
doing it. I think it's clever as hell. But it's
just that's why I said, these are things that back
then would have been easy for somebody like us to do.
Speaker 3 (52:08):
Their fault taking onto what Jas said, insurance companies are
responsible for far more death than HH Holmes ever would
have been.
Speaker 1 (52:17):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (52:19):
Hey, I'm just saying, man.
Speaker 4 (52:21):
Thanks for inviting me to your Guys show. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (52:24):
Yeah, I appreciate I'm sorry that you didn't talk more,
but you know, I hope you'll enjoyed it. I was
a little bit.
Speaker 4 (52:31):
More well, I mean, it was like a learning experience
and I don't know, you know, it's it's very I mean,
I guess I could say fascinating, But at the same time,
it's like, how do I get too interested in that?
This guy was a dude, like the worst right from
(52:52):
what you guys told me, Like it's like the worst
that a human being could be, like Stallin or Hitler if.
Speaker 1 (52:58):
You look into him. Like the whole thing about what
I do when we do this show, when I talk
about the timeline, is I try to leave a lot out,
a lot of the details. There's stuff if you guys
dive into it. He was a very messed up individual.
Some of the torture things that he did are extremely gruesome.
I mean, and that's kind of why this show is
what it is, man. I mean, we try to get
(53:19):
a light comical side to it in the sense. But
like that, he just said, there's nothing good about this guy.
There's not.
Speaker 3 (53:28):
Well, so again, if you're leaning into the psychopathy, sure,
but and this is why I said, I want to
bring this up later in the show. There were folks that,
because of who he was and what he did, said
that he was possessed like that, that's the only explanation,
(53:49):
you know. And if you believe in God, devil, whatever,
you on'ly lean into theology because it's it's like, how
do you explain it otherwise?
Speaker 1 (53:58):
Right?
Speaker 3 (54:00):
You know?
Speaker 2 (54:00):
It's well, I mean he got away with so much
that he probably felt like he could do anything, you know,
literally because he had done so much, you know, I
mean he'd married more than one woman. Uh, he was
getting built, buildings built and wasn't paying a dime for it.
You know, he was digging up graves or creating skeletons
(54:24):
so he could sell them. I mean, he was just
he was just a scam artist, professional, massive killer. He
just had no remorse on any hand.
Speaker 1 (54:38):
Uh. And do you think that do you think that
this this is partially because of his childhood and getting
bullied in school and.
Speaker 2 (54:45):
Well, I mean such a smart It might it might
have made him hate people, you know and how I
was treated, but he he definitely got off on you know,
the people once he started getting into that.
Speaker 1 (55:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (55:04):
So, but he got away with it. That's the thing,
you know, he got away with every single day. Even
you mentioned I guess he went to school on his
rich parents of his.
Speaker 1 (55:14):
Wife, his first wife, he used their money.
Speaker 2 (55:18):
Yeah. Yeah, so I mean he he literally was taking
advantage of people from day one, you know. So I mean,
once you start doing that and knowing that you can
get away with it, of course you know keep going right,
But I mean most people would have come and would
common sense or or heart or or some type of compassion.
(55:38):
They wouldn't do that type of stuff. But this guy,
he had mistress right and who knows and who knows
what in between because because he was he was a
peep show artist who he was peeping through the windows
and all that. So so yeah, he was definitely uh
out there.
Speaker 1 (55:56):
Yeah yeah, I agreed. You an't any last notes on this, Sean.
Speaker 4 (56:01):
I don't, man, just just thank you you guys. Are
you guys are awesome man, and I appreciate you guys
inviting me absolutely.
Speaker 1 (56:09):
The horse man, Sean, anything for you.
Speaker 3 (56:12):
Man, I just okay, the two things that I'm walking
away from this, you know that one the question of
the money that that just nags at me, man, because
so many irons in the fire and he was moving
this year. I would love to see if they, if
you could ever trace that down, like you know, how
(56:33):
he kept all these schemes going. But the other thing
is just, you know, aside from you know, the cunning
and everything else, this dude must have just been an
unmitigated narcissist. I'm for sure, for sure frightening and how
does a human being get to that point?
Speaker 1 (56:53):
Well, and what jos said earlier about how many people
do that today? You know how many places you walk
by and you have no idea? What's one onside? We
touched on that before, you know, like how neighborhood just
random residential neighborhoods, you know, wasn't.
Speaker 2 (57:09):
There wasn't there something that came up with Disney? Uh?
Like the amusement parks.
Speaker 1 (57:15):
Oh, there's a lot of stuff that we could dive
into on probably one of Sean's show about the Disney conspiracy.
Oh there he goes, all right, see you later jaw
he's here, he said, thanks for having me on now
there is and actually think that that would be uh.
(57:36):
I did a show on Startup a long time ago
that I'd love to do on Blurred Lines. I did
something called Disney Sception because there's a lot of stuff
that we could dive into a Disney alone.
Speaker 2 (57:48):
Maybe maybe maybe it was me mentioning Disney that he
had enough.
Speaker 1 (57:54):
I love Frozen man.
Speaker 3 (57:57):
Yeah, which this the conspiracy theories behind Frozens. I think
that they created that movie simply to get the web
searching away from Disney Frozen, because people would look up
the conspiracy surrounding Disney freezing his head.
Speaker 2 (58:15):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (58:17):
Yeah, there's a whole thing on that because that was
the number one web search for Disney Frozen. They're like,
we need to come up with a movie to get
this out away from it.
Speaker 2 (58:29):
That's that's the reason why that's crazy.
Speaker 1 (58:32):
Yeah. I figured if if Patrick would have joined us,
if he would have had stuff to say, because he
really wanted to be.
Speaker 2 (58:40):
A part of this, which, oh, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1 (58:43):
I figured it was gonna run a little bit longer,
but hey, we're still letting that hour marketing. I think
it was a great show, just like they all have been,
and it did it. I definitely am glad I pushed
it off because there was so much UH and I
actually kind of had to revamp how I wanted to
tell it and I removed something and just because I
you know how I am. I like for people to
(59:03):
do their own research, to not just kind of go
off what we're saying, especially if you're question anything we're saying.
I am understand people questioning you know, the sources of
where we get this stuff. So but it actually I've
I've really got invested into doing a lot more research
on a lot of my shows, specifically from this show.
(59:25):
So I'm I'm happy with where this is going and
I'm happy with uh the content that we're getting out
of these shows. And we just got I'd like to
get back to doing one every two weeks if we can.
Now the hustle and bustle of the holidays is all
done with.
Speaker 2 (59:43):
I'm okay with that. Yeah, I'm always good to do
a show.
Speaker 1 (59:48):
Yeah, and this this is I mean, we do. I
enjoy every show we do, but I love I do
really love doing this one and seeing the the depth
that people go to do and we need to do
another cold case because we haven't done one of those
in a little while. Oh yeah, thanks everybody for that.
Has been been watching tonight, We've had people tuning in
(01:00:10):
the whole time. I haven't seen that number drop to
zero at all, so that's nice. I appreciate you guys,
and appreciate job for jumping on here. And yeah, and
until next time, unless you guys got anything, I'm good.
We'll see you guys around. Thank you for tuning in.
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