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0:45

Criminology is a true crime podcast

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1:24

Welcome to episode 267

1:26

of the Criminology Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson.

1:29

And this is Mike Morford. Morford, man,

1:31

what's going on with you? Well, I'm recovering

1:33

from an illness that I've

1:36

been fighting through the last few days. My

1:38

kids brought home one of their typical

1:41

germs that they bring into the house. And

1:43

as usual, my wife and I are the ones

1:45

dealing with it. But feeling better and happy

1:47

to record this episode. What's new

1:49

with you? Oh, not a whole lot. We're counting

1:51

down to my youngest going to college.

1:54

My wife's been pretty emotional lately.

1:57

You know, it's

1:58

to think about being.

1:59

an empty nester, I guess is, uh, I don't

2:02

know. It's

2:03

a little strange.

2:04

Yeah. It's a new chapter. You've got to figure out what you're going

2:06

to do. And this week, my, my

2:09

daughter has been away. So it's just my son

2:11

that's home and it's a lot quieter. It's a lot

2:13

different. And, you know, you sort of

2:15

get that feeling. What are you going to do when,

2:17

when we do have an empty nest? Yeah,

2:19

because, you know, for years and years

2:22

and years, you're used to. Noise

2:25

and routines.

2:27

And then when that all goes away, it's

2:30

very, very different.

2:31

But, um, let's go ahead and give our

2:34

Patrion shout outs. We

2:36

had Heather Caesar,

2:39

Stephanie burnt, Pat Hartley,

2:41

Ralph Castaneda, and

2:43

Janet skull. So

2:45

that's a lot of great new support. We really

2:48

appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks so much

2:50

for taking the time to support the show. It means

2:52

a lot to us. And for anyone else who'd

2:54

like to support, you can go to patrion.com

2:57

slash criminology. All

2:59

right, let's jump right in. Now, in our last episode,

3:01

we talked about the arrest of 59 year old Rex Harriman,

3:06

who

3:06

is suspected of killing four women and

3:08

burying their bodies on Gilgo beach

3:10

in New York. He's also suspected

3:13

in the long Island serial killings,

3:15

which the four murders on Gilgo

3:18

beach have long been thought apart of

3:20

it's possible. There are multiple serial killers

3:23

operating in the same area, like we talked

3:25

about before, but it's also possible

3:27

that he has many more victims than

3:30

anyone ever thought. He's

3:32

just the most recent and a long line

3:34

of other serial killers. And

3:37

in researching Herman

3:38

and the long Island serial killer, we

3:41

were reminded so many times of other

3:43

known serial killers whose activities

3:45

and patterns are easy to plot. The

3:48

existence of these patterns and similarities

3:51

is part of how criminal profiling

3:53

and the behavioral analysis

3:55

unit got started, but it doesn't take an expert

3:58

to notice them and we.

3:59

can see them in killers, even

4:02

going back to the 1800s

4:04

in this episode, we're

4:05

going to take a closer look at

4:07

the crimes of one of those killers

4:10

from the 1800s. H.H. Holmes,

4:13

who's often called America's first

4:15

serial killer. While he is widely

4:17

known as a serial killer with a murder

4:19

hotel in which he stalked victims, he

4:22

was only actually convicted of a single murder,

4:25

but is undoubtedly responsible

4:27

for more. He ultimately confessed

4:29

to 27 murders and six

4:31

attempted murders. H.H.

4:34

Holmes was born as Herman Webster Mudgett

4:37

on May 16th, 1861 in Gilmanton, New Hampshire.

4:41

He was said to be bullied by classmates for

4:43

his intellect and for doing so well

4:45

in school. When he was 11, some

4:47

of his classmates pulled him into a doctor's office.

4:50

An office that he had a walk past every day

4:52

on the way to school,

4:54

and he was known to be afraid of. There

4:55

were varying reports of what happened, but

4:58

one report says that he was made to touch a skull

5:01

and that he saw a cabin full of preserved organs.

5:04

And whatever happened that day terrified

5:06

him, but supposedly helped him overcome

5:08

his fear of death. And it unleashed

5:10

a fascination with death. He started

5:13

dissecting animals as part of his newfound

5:15

curiosity. At age 16, he

5:17

graduated with honors from Gilmanton Academy.

5:20

On July 4th, 1878, he

5:22

married Clara Lovering in Alton, New

5:24

Hampshire.

5:25

They had one son together named Robert.

5:28

So more of this is a big case. I mean,

5:30

most people know of H.H.

5:33

Holmes. The one thing that

5:35

has jumped out at me already

5:37

was that he was bullied.

5:40

You know, we've done so many episodes

5:43

about killers. And one thing that comes

5:45

up quite a bit

5:46

is that many of them were bullied

5:49

as kids. And we know bullying

5:51

is bad. I mean, there have been so

5:54

many efforts over the last

5:57

however many years to try to end

5:59

bullying. and make it so that

6:02

people are reporting it, and there's

6:04

a good reason why. You know, I

6:07

really think that it's

6:09

so harmful on a psychological

6:12

level. And I think some of the research

6:14

that we do proves that. Yeah, I

6:17

think bullying is terrible

6:20

and it's something I've always been against.

6:22

And I'm glad that in modern

6:24

times here, they've taken a stance

6:27

against this in schools and online,

6:30

people are trying to curb it.

6:32

But back obviously in the 1800s,

6:35

you know, they didn't have that. It

6:37

was just probably boys being boys, you

6:39

know, making fun of each other, that kind of thing.

6:42

But

6:43

in a lot of these cases of serial killers, no

6:45

matter what the year is that we're talking

6:48

about, there's sometimes something

6:50

in their background, some moment

6:53

that might trigger something that is

6:55

some kind of trauma they experienced that you

6:58

have to wonder, did it play a role in them becoming

7:01

a serial killer? And perhaps in the

7:03

case of H.H. Holmes, this incident,

7:06

having to look at these bodies, that

7:09

may have been the trigger for him. And then

7:11

he goes on to start dissecting animals

7:14

and, and, you know, that is something we

7:16

see quite a bit as well.

7:18

Cruelty to animals or, you know,

7:20

fascination with animals

7:23

as some type of precursor

7:25

to, I don't want to use the

7:27

word experimenting because that's not

7:29

correct, but

7:31

expanding the, their fascination

7:33

to people.

7:34

Yeah. It makes

7:36

me think right away of Jeffrey Dahmer. He had

7:38

a fascination with experimenting

7:41

on animals and dissecting them.

7:44

And I wonder if there's, when

7:46

does it cross the line between a kid that's

7:48

just curious and has a mind

7:51

of wanting to learn about biology

7:54

and how bodies are

7:56

put together and it's not anything

7:58

sinister. to when they're

8:02

disturbed and the dissecting

8:04

of these animals is a sign of something

8:06

troubling. In 1882

8:09

Herman studied medicine at the University

8:11

of Vermont in Burlington. In 1883

8:13

he and Clara moved to Ann

8:15

Arbor where he studied medicine at the

8:17

University of Michigan.

8:19

In 1884 Clara left Herman

8:22

and took Robert back to New Hampshire while

8:25

in medical school Herman stole cadavers,

8:28

took out insurance policies on them, naming

8:30

himself as the beneficiary, disfigured

8:34

them in some way so it looked as

8:36

though they died in an accident and

8:38

then placed their body somewhere

8:40

where it would be found. That same year

8:43

Herman was supposed to graduate a widow

8:46

claim that he had promised to marry her but

8:48

didn't and so he had a hard time

8:51

being able to graduate. At first

8:53

when we were researching this we

8:55

weren't sure if this was some sort of law

8:57

he was accused of breaking or

9:00

if it was maybe part of the university's

9:02

honor code at the time but whatever

9:05

the case

9:06

it seems interesting that your

9:08

graduation could be held

9:10

up due to a false promise

9:12

of marriage. It turns out that

9:14

the university did have an honor code

9:17

and in their eyes Herman had

9:19

broken that code.

9:20

Herman then moved to Moores, New

9:23

York but laughed after

9:25

he was seen in the company of a young boy that

9:27

ended up disappearing. Herman claimed

9:30

the boy had traveled back to Massachusetts

9:32

but he laughed before any

9:35

investigation could happen.

9:36

And I think once again we're talking

9:39

about the time period here imagine

9:41

not being able to graduate

9:43

college or being threatened with not being

9:46

able to graduate because you had promised

9:48

to marry someone but then

9:50

broke it off for whatever reason. Definitely

9:52

a different time back then

9:55

than now. Yeah I'm reminded

9:57

of these and it's a

10:00

little different, but you know, towns

10:03

and cities have these strange laws

10:06

that are still on the books for whatever reason

10:08

that go back to, let's say the

10:10

1800s, the early 1900s.

10:14

There's one that I've

10:16

heard about, and I don't know, it might be

10:18

close to me and it might not be, I can't

10:21

remember, but it was like

10:23

no whale parking on Sunday.

10:25

And I thought, first of

10:27

all, who's parking a whale this

10:30

far inland or parking

10:32

a whale anywhere?

10:33

But it's like, why wouldn't you take

10:36

that off the books?

10:37

Yeah, it's interesting to look back at some of the laws.

10:40

Even back in the 1930s, I remember Frank

10:43

Sinatra was arrested and charged

10:45

with seduction, whatever that means.

10:48

Apparently, he had sex with someone and

10:50

it was

10:51

something that was frowned upon. So

10:53

even into the 1900s, some of these

10:56

laws were sort of

10:58

outdated in comparison with today. By

11:01

August 1886, Herman Mudgett

11:03

was living in Chicago, at which point he took

11:05

on a new name, Henry Howard Holmes,

11:08

or H.H. Holmes,

11:10

the name most people know him by today.

11:12

This was supposedly a name he chose after the

11:14

fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes. H.H.

11:17

worked as a pharmacist while he schemed about

11:19

theft and murder. Toward the end of the year,

11:21

he married Murtagh Belknap in Minneapolis,

11:24

Minnesota. They had one daughter together

11:26

named Lucy. In Englewood, Minnesota,

11:29

Holmes went into a drugstore at the northwest

11:31

corner of South Wallace Avenue in West

11:34

63rd Street and was hired to work there by

11:36

the store's owner, Elizabeth Holton. He

11:38

worked so hard he was eventually able to buy

11:40

the store. He also bought the empty

11:42

lot across the street from the store so that he could

11:45

build his own building. In 1887,

11:47

construction began on this two-story mixed-use

11:50

building, with business spaces on the

11:52

bottom floor and apartments upstairs.

12:00

On the other hand, I think he was a schemer.

12:03

So I don't know how much of it

12:05

was actually hard work, how

12:07

much money he was getting from maybe

12:11

illegitimate sources, but

12:14

nevertheless, you know, he was able to buy

12:16

the store and buy this, this lot across

12:18

the street. So he was making

12:20

money at the very least. Yeah.

12:22

To go into a drug store and take

12:25

an entry level job and work your way

12:27

up all the way to being able to buy

12:30

it. It certainly seems

12:32

like he was a hard worker and maybe if he had

12:34

stayed on a straight path, he could

12:36

have been a very successful businessman and instead

12:39

he chose to go down a different path. In 1888,

12:42

HH

12:43

Holmes was sued by Aetna

12:45

Iron and Steel because he didn't pay them

12:48

or the architect for their services

12:50

and building his new structure on

12:52

January 17th, 1894, after

12:55

his second marriage had failed. HH

12:57

Holmes married Georgiana Yoke

13:00

in Denver, Colorado. At this point

13:03

he was still married legally to

13:05

both Clara and.

13:07

Murder

13:07

by 1894, multiple

13:10

insurance companies wanted HH to

13:12

be prosecuted for arson. It

13:15

was reported that he would start fires

13:17

to collect from insurance companies

13:19

for the damage. The arson was

13:21

his preferred method of damaging

13:23

buildings for insurance payouts. So

13:26

in July, hoping to escape

13:28

the arson charges,

13:30

he headed to Texas. He

13:32

attempted to settle in Fort Worth

13:35

where he tried to have another building constructed

13:37

without paying the crew.

13:39

So no surprise. He didn't last long

13:41

there. He ended up in St. Louis,

13:43

Missouri,

13:44

but again, his ways quickly caught

13:46

up to him. In 1893, he

13:49

was arrested for selling mortgage goods,

13:51

but he didn't stay behind bars for long

13:54

and more. If you said

13:56

something about, okay,

13:57

maybe he was a hard worker. What

13:59

would. have happened if he would have

14:02

kind of stayed on that path.

14:04

Would he have been a successful businessman?

14:07

Maybe,

14:08

but it sounds to me

14:11

as though he was more

14:13

of a get rich quick

14:16

schema. You know, he had a lot of

14:18

things going. Let's build a building

14:21

and we won't pay the crew

14:23

set buildings on fire and collect

14:25

the insurance payouts. You

14:27

know, I'm really getting a vibe

14:30

of the guy who wanted money,

14:32

but wanted to, to get

14:34

it quickly and was willing to

14:36

do illegal things to acquire.

14:39

Yeah, he definitely seems like a con man or a grifter,

14:42

but at the same time, as we mentioned,

14:45

he seemed like he could have been the person that could have

14:47

attained all that stuff had he chose

14:49

to do the right thing and do

14:52

it legally. But he didn't want to do that.

14:54

So maybe that just speaks to what kind of person he

14:56

really was deep down that he was a criminal

14:58

or had criminal intent. But

15:00

I think the same could be said for

15:03

a lot of people who turned

15:05

to crime. Is it their only

15:07

avenue in life? And I would say for

15:09

a lot of people, no, but is it

15:12

easier? Maybe, you

15:14

know, most of us who,

15:16

you know, work a, an eight to five

15:19

job,

15:20

which is really probably

15:22

not many anymore. We're asked to work

15:24

a lot more hours than that. It's

15:27

a grind. It's tough, right?

15:29

It's not easy

15:31

to make a living that way,

15:33

but it's legal. It's something you should feel good

15:35

about. And a lot of people could

15:37

do it, but they see those dollars

15:40

sign and they want that money and

15:42

they see an easier way to get

15:44

it. And even though it's not legal,

15:47

they choose that way.

15:48

Yeah, we know in 2023, there

15:51

were people like that that do exactly

15:53

that. But this goes to show that back

15:55

in the 1800s, there were people like

15:57

H.H. Holmes that were the same way.

15:59

And I think we're going to be talking about that

16:02

throughout the episode.

16:03

How many different things that let's say

16:05

HH did back in the day

16:08

still hold true today? And there's

16:10

probably going to be quite a few things like that. During

16:13

the brief time HH was in jail, he

16:15

met a man named Marion Hedgepeth who

16:18

had been dubbed the handsome bandit. Hedgepeth

16:20

was doing a 25 year sentence at the time. Together,

16:23

the two men came up with a plan to get a lot of money. Holmes

16:26

would purchase a life insurance policy for himself,

16:29

fake his dad, and collect $10,000. $10,000 might

16:33

not sound like a lot, but in today's

16:35

economy it's the equivalent of $300,000. Holmes

16:39

offered Hedgepeth $500 if

16:41

he could provide the name of a shady attorney

16:43

who they could trust to help them with their plan. Hedgepeth

16:47

told him about a man named Jeff the Howe, a

16:49

lawyer in St. Louis. Howe was apparently

16:52

fine with the plan and willing to participate in

16:54

the fraudulent scheme. Holmes purchased

16:56

the $10,000 life insurance policy and

16:58

then faked his own death, and had attorney

17:01

Jeff the Howe reach out to the insurance company

17:03

to collect on the policy. But the insurance

17:06

company didn't believe it, and suspicious

17:08

that something was going on, they didn't release the money.

17:11

Holmes was frustrated but decided to try

17:13

the scheme once again, this time with

17:15

someone else helping him.

17:16

This time Benjamin Pietzel,

17:19

an associate of Holmes, agreed to take part

17:21

in the insurance fraud scheme. Pietzel

17:24

purchased the $10,000 life

17:26

insurance policy for himself in Philadelphia

17:29

using the false name BF Perry.

17:32

And again, this is over $300,000 in

17:35

today's money. Holmes would

17:37

have had enough to pay Hedgepeth,

17:39

Howe, and Pietzel for their help. The

17:42

plan was for Pietzel to fake his debt

17:45

and Holmes to help him collect

17:47

the money

17:48

by finding a cadaver that would

17:50

double as Perry.

17:51

They would horribly disfigure

17:54

this cadaver beyond recognition,

17:57

and what they would claim was

18:00

a lab accident, but Holmes

18:02

knew he couldn't go through with this faked

18:04

death so soon after the the

18:07

last fake death con

18:09

because it would be too suspicious.

18:11

So they pulled off other various cons

18:14

and thefts while they waited for the

18:16

right time to put their plan in motion.

18:19

On September 4th, 1894, Holmes

18:22

put his own version of the plan

18:24

into motion. He had decided that he

18:26

didn't want to pay Pitezel for his help.

18:29

So he used chloroform to

18:31

make Pitezel unconscious and

18:33

then set him on fire using

18:36

benzene as an accelerant with

18:38

Pitezel debt

18:39

and a body that he could produce.

18:42

Holmes was able to collect the insurance

18:45

path. So he talked about this guy

18:47

being a con man, used the word

18:50

grifter. I mean, I think all of that

18:52

applies,

18:53

but now he is definitely crossed

18:56

a line from monetary crimes

18:59

to murder. And you know

19:01

what it gives me is

19:03

the feeling that again,

19:05

this guy wanted money. I mean, money's

19:07

at the root of it, but it's

19:10

almost as if at a certain point he

19:12

realized

19:14

that he was willing to cross

19:16

any line to get it.

19:17

Yeah. And I think with some people when

19:20

they cross that line,

19:21

they don't have a filter. They're just capable

19:24

of doing it repeatedly. And I think we're going to see

19:26

that's the case with H.H. Holmes.

19:28

Holmes convinced Pitezel's wife, Carrie Alice

19:30

Canning, to grant custody of three of her five

19:32

children to him. Thirteen-year-old Alice,

19:35

nine-year-old Nellie, and seven-year-old

19:37

Howard Robert went to live with Holmes. Because

19:40

Carrie knew about her husband's plan to fake his own

19:42

death, Holmes was able to convince her

19:44

that he was still alive and that he had

19:46

used a cadaver to receive the payout. Holmes

19:49

claimed that Pitezel was hiding out in London.

19:52

Holmes and the three children traveled north to Canada,

19:55

with Carrie and the other two children following

19:57

closely. He gave Carrie false information to keep

19:59

her in the hospital. keep her on a separate route and

20:01

to keep her from reuniting with her children. On

20:04

October 8, 1894, Holmes

20:06

killed Alice and Nellie Pitesle. He shoved

20:09

them both into a large trunk and locked them inside.

20:12

That may have eventually killed them, but it wasn't fast

20:14

enough for Holmes. So he caught a hole in the

20:16

trunk big enough to slide a hose through so

20:19

that he could pump gas into the trunk,

20:21

suffocating both girls. He buried

20:23

them, both nude, at a rental

20:25

home in Toronto, Canada. Two days later,

20:27

on October 10, Holmes killed Howard

20:30

Robert Pitesle in Indianapolis, Indiana.

20:32

He drugged him and then burned his dismembered

20:35

body in the fireplace of his rented

20:37

cottage. And we just talked about,

20:39

you know, individuals crossing

20:42

a line. You know, was it the first time

20:44

for him? Maybe, maybe not.

20:47

We don't know for sure, but you

20:49

made the point. And I think it's a very

20:51

valid one that for a lot

20:53

of people,

20:54

once you cross that line,

20:56

it's like the floodgates open.

20:58

Is it because they realize that

21:01

it was easier than they thought?

21:03

It didn't bother them. And they

21:05

know that they can do it again and

21:07

again. Or is it because

21:10

it

21:10

was actually exciting

21:12

and they crave that thrill

21:15

again and again? I think it's

21:17

different for different people, but

21:19

I think at the very least, what we see is

21:22

that Holmes had no

21:24

qualms about crossing

21:27

the line again. And in this case,

21:30

he was able to kill, you know,

21:33

young children and it didn't

21:35

seem to bother him. Yeah, I think killing

21:37

their father is bad enough. Killing

21:40

anyone is bad enough, but then you are

21:42

capable of doing something like this to

21:44

children, not once, not twice,

21:46

but three times. I

21:48

think that speaks volumes about what

21:51

kind of person H.H. Holmes was. Yeah,

21:54

he was a monster. There's no doubt about it. On

21:57

November 17, 1894, Holmes was a monster.

21:59

arrested in Boston

22:01

on a warrant for horse theft

22:03

out of Texas. He'd been tracked from

22:06

Philadelphia by the Pinkerton national

22:08

detective agency and quickly arrested

22:11

before he could flee the country.

22:13

This is kind of a very early

22:15

inter agency cooperative case.

22:18

He admitted to the insurance scam, but

22:20

that didn't satisfy authorities who

22:22

knew that they could build a case against homes

22:25

for murder if they just found

22:27

the right evidence.

22:28

In July, 1895, the decomposed

22:32

bodies of Alice and Nellie were found

22:34

buried about three feet deep by

22:36

Philadelphia detectives following

22:39

Holmes trail. Detective Frank

22:41

Geier was able to track Holmes to

22:43

a pharmacy in Indianapolis

22:45

where he had purchased the drugs used

22:48

to kill Howard

22:49

and later to a knife shop

22:51

where

22:51

Holmes had his knives sharpened.

22:54

Apparently dismembering the body had been

22:56

tough on the knives.

22:58

Howard Pitesle's teeth were later found

23:00

in the chimney of the home

23:02

where he was killed.

23:03

And one thing we've talked about a couple

23:05

of times here is these bodies that

23:07

are found bodies found buried teeth

23:10

found remember, this is

23:12

way before DNA, uh, before

23:14

forensic science that we have today. So I

23:17

wonder how the authorities at the time

23:19

were able to make identifications on

23:22

some of these remains they were finding and link them.

23:25

To him, you know, it's a. A

23:27

challenge today to do that. So back

23:29

in the 1800s, I can only imagine how tough

23:31

it would have been. Well,

23:32

I'm always amazed when we do

23:34

these older cases and you

23:37

kind of see the police work that

23:39

was done

23:40

and you think, well,

23:41

some of that is not all that

23:43

different from what would happen today.

23:46

Now there are a lot of advances

23:48

in technology that would be used today

23:50

to aid

23:51

in that type of stuff, but you know,

23:54

the legwork, the tracking

23:56

of homes from one area

23:59

to the other. to where he got his knife

24:01

sharpened. I mean, that's still

24:04

kind of what you think of as good

24:06

old fashioned

24:08

police work, detective work.

24:10

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25:22

Hey there, this is Josh Horowitz. This week

25:24

on the Happy, Say It Confused podcast, legendary

25:27

filmmaker Christopher Nolan on

25:30

his new film, Oppenheimer, and whether

25:32

he'd direct a James Bond movie next.

25:35

You can also listen to recent episodes of Happy, Say

25:37

It Confused with guests

25:38

like Mission Impossible star Haley Atwell and

25:40

Indiana Jones director James Mangold.

25:43

The best guests talking about the film and

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TV you are obsessed with.

25:48

Search for Happy, Say It Confused on your

25:50

podcast app.

25:52

Hello there, music fans and podcast listeners.

25:55

Did you know studies show that listening to music can

25:58

reduce anxiety and improve mood? mental health.

26:00

And did you also know, although

26:03

we don't really have a study to back it up, that

26:05

listening to me, therapy Jeff, and

26:08

me Sarah Rice, two down-to-earth

26:10

therapists talking about real-life things,

26:13

can lift your spirits and chill you

26:15

out. Listen to our weekly podcast,

26:17

This Changes Everything. Authority

26:19

searched HH's Englewood,

26:22

Illinois home,

26:23

which many have called a castle, but

26:25

they found no additional evidence. This

26:27

home was a very large house with many rooms,

26:30

and he ran a hotel out of it. It's

26:32

usually reported that homes had the home custom

26:35

built to be a house of horrors, a

26:37

serial killer's dream. A diagram

26:39

of the so-called castle from the Chicago

26:41

Tribune showed rooms labeled

26:44

dark room, secret room, sealed

26:47

room all bricked in, room of

26:49

three corpses, an asphyxiation

26:51

chamber, no light with gas connections.

26:54

The elevator was labeled dummy elevator

26:57

for lowering bodies. There were a few

26:59

hidden rooms, but they weren't torture chambers.

27:01

They were actually spaces tied large,

27:03

stolen, or unpaid for items like furniture

27:05

items. A lot of the third floor

27:08

addition wasn't even complete, because homes

27:10

hadn't paid as builders. Even today,

27:12

there are articles that mention that some of these rooms

27:14

were soundproof and contained gas

27:16

lines so that homes could asphyxiate

27:19

his guest if he wanted to. And you could

27:21

still read about the run-in rooms, which homes

27:23

used to systematically murder anyone who checked

27:25

in. Other reports mentioned acid

27:27

vats and lime pits inside the home

27:30

for getting rid of bodies. So it seems

27:32

like a lot of these reports were really

27:34

exaggerated, and a lot of this stuff

27:37

wasn't completely accurate.

27:38

But that doesn't surprise me at all more.

27:41

I mean, you

27:42

know,

27:42

you could look at high-profile

27:45

cases

27:46

throughout history, and look at the

27:48

reporting. Often it's

27:51

sensationalized,

27:52

right? This was a huge case.

27:54

Back in the 1800s, the

27:57

Chicago Tribune did a lot

27:59

of reporting. on it. Other outlets

28:01

did a lot of reporting on it.

28:04

Just like today,

28:05

not everything was 100% accurate. There

28:07

was a lot of speculation,

28:11

but it wasn't always written as

28:13

speculation. It was written

28:16

more as fact. So, you know, when

28:18

you research, especially some of these older

28:20

cases, it's really hard

28:22

to kind of decipher fact

28:25

from

28:26

fiction because let's

28:27

face it at the end of the day,

28:29

their goal was to sell newspapers.

28:32

Well, what sells newspapers better

28:35

than talking about a

28:37

house of horrors, a

28:40

serial killer's dream with all these

28:42

rooms built to

28:45

essentially kill

28:48

people visiting the hotel. You

28:50

telling me you're not going to pick up that copy and

28:52

read it? I would. Yeah.

28:54

I think they were definitely trying to paint

28:56

a picture for readers that something

28:58

that would captivate them. And as you

29:00

put it, sell newspapers and

29:03

sure enough, it worked because a lot of

29:05

people were interested in this case.

29:08

And still are today, right? That's,

29:10

that's the amazing part about

29:12

it. It's so old and people

29:15

are still fascinated

29:16

with HH Holmes. Just listen to

29:18

this description of the Holmes home

29:20

from a 1937 article

29:22

found on biography.com.

29:25

Oh, what an odd house it

29:27

was

29:28

in all America. There was none other like

29:30

it it's chimney stuck out where

29:32

chimneys should never stick out. It's

29:34

stairways ended nowhere. In particular

29:38

winding passages brought the uninitiated

29:41

with a frightful jerk back to where they

29:43

had started from. There were rooms

29:45

that had no doors.

29:46

There were doors that had no rooms, a

29:49

mysterious house. It was indeed a

29:52

crooked house, a reflex

29:54

of the builder's own distorted mind

29:56

in that house occurred dark

29:59

and eerie deep. Okay.

30:01

I mean, that sounds like some kind of Edgar

30:04

Allen Poe poem

30:06

or something. I don't know. How do

30:08

you have a room with no door? How

30:10

do you have a door with no room? Now,

30:12

while some of the descriptions of

30:15

some of the rooms in HH's home

30:17

may have been confusing, the room

30:19

of five doors and the maze,

30:22

for example,

30:23

it seems that the house wasn't

30:25

actually built specifically

30:28

to allow Holmes to kill interrupted. If

30:31

he had built a perfect murder house,

30:33

it's odd that there's no evidence of his

30:35

known victims being killed in

30:38

it. The Pitesville children weren't

30:40

even killed in the same state as the

30:42

house of horrors. Still the

30:44

myth persists today.

30:46

It's often called a murder castle

30:48

or a death hotel. And many

30:50

people just assume that countless victims

30:53

died in the home. The sensational

30:55

reports about Holmes at the time may

30:58

be an indication of how the media was during

31:01

that period. Think back to Lizzie Borden

31:03

and you may first remember the little rhyme Lizzie

31:06

Borden took an ax and gave her mother 40 whacks.

31:09

And when she saw what she had done, she gave

31:11

her father 41. At her June 1893

31:14

trial, the jury would hear that Lizzie's

31:16

stepmother had received about 20 injuries

31:19

while Lizzie's father had been hit just 10 times.

31:21

Definitely, considerably off from the quoted 41.

31:25

But the 40 and 41 whack sound more

31:27

sensational. There are other renowned

31:29

serial killers from the past that are different than

31:31

modern day serial killers. One of these

31:33

killers was a woman named Delphine Lallori,

31:36

who was known for the torturing and killing of numerous

31:38

enslaved people. On April

31:41

10th 1834, a fire started

31:43

in the kitchen of Lallori's New Orleans mansion.

31:45

A 70 year old woman, the Holmes

31:47

Cook, was chained to the stove. She

31:50

had started the fire in an attempt to take her own

31:52

life just to escape the condition she

31:54

had been forced by Lallori to live under.

31:56

A count from over 100 years later mentioned

31:59

Lallori's sadistic appetite and

32:01

claim that those responding to the fire found

32:04

slaves chained to the wall, their eyes

32:06

gouged out, their fingernails pulled

32:08

out by the roots. Another account from

32:10

yet another fifty years after the last one has

32:13

outrageous claims of torture ending

32:15

with one victim that looked like a human

32:17

caterpillar and another that resembled

32:19

a human crab. Mostly

32:21

due to these modern fictionalized accounts,

32:24

Delphine the Lorry is known as a serial

32:26

killer who tortured and murdered up to one hundred

32:28

slaves. A personal register record

32:30

showed that only twelve people, all

32:33

kept as slaves or their children,

32:35

died at the Lorry mansion between 1830 and 1834.

32:38

She sounds like a very bad person, someone

32:41

who felt entitled to treat other human beings

32:43

any way they wanted, because she thought her

32:45

money meant that she owned them, but maybe

32:48

not a serial killer in the sense that we know of the term

32:50

today. Another supposed

32:53

female serial killer was Elizabeth

32:55

Bathory, accused of torturing and

32:57

killing hundreds of young women with

32:59

the help of four of her servants

33:02

over a twenty year period. Some people insist

33:04

that she was the real inspiration for

33:06

Dracula, as she was said to

33:09

bathe in the blood of virgins

33:11

to stay young. This liked the accounts

33:13

about the Lorry mansion, didn't start

33:15

until long after Bathory's

33:18

death, and Bram Stoker didn't mention

33:20

her anywhere in any

33:21

of his notes in his book about Dracula.

33:23

There are many people throughout history who have

33:25

been cruel to their staff or their servants

33:28

and slaves. Some have been tried

33:30

and even executed for murdering

33:32

their servants without getting their names

33:35

attached to myths or having

33:37

their deeds exaggerated.

33:39

One interesting link between Bathory

33:41

and Lorry is that they both

33:44

owned land. Lorry's mansion

33:46

was in her name. And Bathory's husband

33:49

died, leaving her a lot of land. There

33:51

are theories that Bathory's accusers

33:54

were politically motivated,

33:56

with the man leading the charge against

33:58

her being the same man.

33:59

that Bathory's husband had trusted

34:02

to watch over her and their children. But

34:04

the man who acquired LaLaurie's mansion

34:07

had nothing to do with the creative

34:09

and sensational writer

34:11

inventing things a century later.

34:13

Sometimes it just takes sensationalism

34:16

to sell a book or a newspaper

34:19

or in recent times debate

34:21

people to click a link.

34:23

Well, we can't say for sure that H.H. Holmes

34:25

never killed anyone in the Chicago building. We

34:28

can safely say it wasn't a murder hotel with

34:30

all kinds of victims. Thinking back

34:33

on serial killers, there seemed to be two distinct

34:35

types when it comes to where they commit their crimes.

34:38

Some like Jeffrey Dahmer, like the

34:40

LaLaurie victims to their homes where they

34:42

had total control over them. John

34:44

Wayne Gacy buried victims in the crawl space

34:46

of his home. We don't know if burying victims

34:48

in his crawl space was part of a fantasy Gacy

34:51

had or if it was because he felt that they

34:53

would never be found by burying them there. Either

34:55

way, it seems that one type of killer prefers

34:58

the comfort of home and doesn't mind having evidence

35:01

and literal skeletons in their closets. Other

35:04

killers like to keep their home base clean and free

35:06

of any suspicion. In September 1895,

35:09

H.H. Holmes released

35:11

his book called Holmes Owned

35:13

Story in which the alleged multi-murderer

35:16

and arch conspirator tells of

35:19

the 22 tragic deaths and disappearances

35:21

in which he is said to be implicated.

35:24

Holmes received a large payment from the

35:26

Hart Corporation for his life

35:28

story, which included confessions.

35:31

This is something that a modern

35:33

day serial killer can't really

35:36

recreate. Modern laws ban

35:38

killers from profiting off of their crimes.

35:41

They're generally called the

35:43

Son of Sam laws because after

35:45

serial killer David Berkowitz,

35:47

who called himself Son of Sam,

35:50

was arrested, there was fear that he

35:52

would take advantage of the media's obsession

35:54

with his crimes and try to speak

35:57

to a writer or even a film

35:59

crew.

35:59

idea didn't come from Berkowitz,

36:02

who himself claimed he wasn't going

36:04

to do this. Lawmakers in New York

36:06

were quick to make sure he could.

36:09

HH Holmes actually wrote this book after

36:11

he was arrested for the murder of Howard Robert Pitezel.

36:14

And in October, 1895, a

36:17

year after he killed Pitezel, Holmes

36:19

went on trial for the murder of Benjamin Pitezel. Marion

36:22

Hedgepeth, HH's former

36:24

cellmate, was pardoned for his testimony about

36:26

Holmes and his schemes. He was apparently

36:29

upset that Holmes hadn't cut him in on 500

36:31

hours as promised, and he was quick

36:33

to turn against Holmes. Holmes was found

36:35

guilty and given a sentence of death for the murder of Benjamin

36:38

Pitezel. It quickly became obvious

36:40

that he had killed Alice Nellie and

36:42

Howard Pitezel as well. Looking

36:44

at other murders and disappearances that could be connected

36:47

to Holmes, it didn't take long to find

36:49

many of both. 68-year-old John

36:51

Burrell died in the pharmacy on the ground floor

36:54

of the castle on April 17th, 1891.

36:57

A witness claimed to have seen Holmes administer

36:59

dark liquid just before he died, but

37:02

still, mostly due to his age, authorities

37:04

didn't suspect foul play at the time. Looking

37:07

back on this death, in 1895,

37:09

with different background information, it

37:11

was clear that Holmes benefited from Burrell's

37:13

death. He was a creditor of Holmes

37:16

and also had a life insurance policy with Holmes

37:18

as the beneficiary. The same

37:20

year that Burrell died in the drug

37:23

store, Emily Van Tassel, an

37:25

employee there disappeared. Holmes

37:27

confessed to her murder in his writings.

37:30

The

37:30

next year, Dr. Russel, who

37:32

had an office in the building disappeared.

37:35

Holmes also mentioned him in

37:37

his confessions.

37:38

Kitty Kelly, who worked as a stenographer

37:41

for Holmes, also disappeared that year

37:44

on Christmas Eve, 1891.

37:46

Holmes's mistress, Julius Smythe,

37:48

and her daughter, Pearl Connor disappeared.

37:52

They had been living in Holmes's hotel

37:54

since her husband found out about her

37:56

affair with H.H.

37:58

Holmes first told those. suspicious

38:00

about their whereabouts, that

38:03

Julia had to go tend to a sudden family

38:05

emergency. Her sister was sick

38:07

and dying before claiming that she

38:10

went to reunite with her husband, Dr.

38:13

Laurence

38:14

Acelius Ned Conner. Eventually

38:16

he

38:17

started telling people that she died

38:19

while undergoing an abortion. So

38:21

he poisoned Pearl to cover

38:24

up Julia's death. A partial

38:26

skeleton of a child, possibly Pearl

38:28

was found when the cellar of the building

38:30

was excavated.

38:32

Her father, Dr. Conner,

38:34

testified against Holmes at

38:36

his murder trial.

38:38

We say we want to be challenged. We say we

38:40

want to hear all sides, but that's not

38:42

how we act when we seek

38:44

out podcasts. I'm Mike Pesca, host of the

38:46

GIST, and I'm crazy enough to

38:49

think that we are up to

38:51

the challenge. I challenge myself. I challenge

38:53

my guests. I invite you in. We'll

38:55

talk about such issues as masks.

38:57

I mean, I know they work, but on a population

39:00

level, the evidence is less than clear. Mass

39:03

shootings, horrible, but they account

39:05

for less than 1% of all shootings.

39:07

Do we do ourselves

39:08

and our society a disservice when

39:10

we focus on them? These questions

39:12

and more explored and challenged

39:14

every day on the GIST, wherever you

39:17

get your podcasts.

39:18

Step behind the curtain as renowned

39:20

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39:23

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39:28

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39:30

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40:14

In 1892, 23-year-old Emmeline

40:17

Sigrand worked for homes for six months.

40:19

She disappeared in December. Her parents

40:22

believe she was off marrying a man named Robert Phelps,

40:25

but authorities think she may have met the same fate

40:27

as Julius Smythe. In 1893, John

40:30

Davis traveled from Greenville, Pennsylvania

40:32

to the World's Fair in Chicago. He would

40:35

be declared legally dead seven years later

40:37

after vanishing without a trace. Holmes

40:40

is suspected of his murder. That same

40:42

year, Henry Walker from Greensburg,

40:44

Indiana disappeared after telling friends

40:46

he would be working for Holmes in Chicago.

40:49

He had also taken out a life insurance policy

40:51

with Holmes as the beneficiary. Yeah,

40:54

you know, the World's Fair was a really big

40:56

part of this case in that so many people

40:58

came to Chicago. A

41:00

lot of them disappeared. Well,

41:02

I can tell you one thing that you didn't

41:05

want to do

41:06

in the late 1800s with

41:09

H.H. Holmes and that's take

41:11

out an insurance policy

41:13

and your name with him as the

41:15

beneficiary because I get

41:18

it there, there was some, most

41:20

likely some type of scheme, but

41:22

you were probably going to end up dead and

41:25

he was going to end up with the money.

41:27

Yeah, and I'm always curious when somebody that's

41:29

not like a direct family member

41:31

winds up as a beneficiary of somebody else's

41:34

life insurance policy. You know, I can

41:36

understand in certain businesses, they'll

41:38

have a partner name

41:40

the other partner as a beneficiary

41:43

vice versa, but just to have someone

41:45

that you're not connected to, you

41:47

know, for a business or as a family member,

41:50

how do you say, hey, I'm going to take out a life insurance

41:52

policy on you and I'm

41:54

going to be the beneficiary and get people

41:56

to agree to that. That's kind of strange

41:58

to me. Yeah, apparently

42:01

it was pretty common back

42:03

in the day. Gibby

42:05

and I did an episode, I think it was on

42:08

True Crime all the time, not that long

42:10

ago, where like everyone in the

42:12

town

42:13

was doing it. And obviously they started

42:15

ending up dead, but it

42:18

was because they were destitute

42:20

and people were giving them money

42:23

or giving them food, stuff

42:26

to live on in exchange

42:28

for allowing them to take out this

42:30

life insurance policy. Yeah. One

42:32

thing I wanted to touch on was the world's

42:35

fair happening in Chicago because we know

42:37

Chicago is a big city. There's lots of potential

42:40

victims

42:41

that could be there for HH homes to pray

42:43

on. But that world's fair,

42:46

I think attracted like 27 million

42:48

people to it. So that

42:51

could mean countless scores of potential

42:53

victims coming into the area for

42:55

homes to pray on. So I

42:58

wonder if some of the people that could have disappeared

43:00

while they were in Chicago for this fair could

43:02

actually be tied to him.

43:04

And I think that's what a lot of people believe.

43:06

I, and we'll, I'm sure we'll talk about

43:08

it more at the end, but I

43:10

think that's the trouble with this case,

43:14

what's real, what's, you

43:16

know, boasting to try to sell

43:18

a book, um, what's the media

43:21

sensationalizing, uh, a

43:24

story. Some of that is

43:26

really hard to figure out in the 1800s and it's

43:28

hard to figure out

43:30

in this case.

43:31

Also in 1893 Holmes

43:34

needed a stenographer and offered the

43:36

job to an actress named Wilhelmina

43:39

Minnie Williams, who he met in Boston

43:41

when he was using a different alias,

43:43

Harry Gordon.

43:44

She put the deed to her property in Fort

43:47

Worth, Texas, to yet another alias

43:49

of Holmes, Alexander Bond.

43:52

He later transferred the deed to

43:54

an alias he assigned to Benjamin

43:57

Pitezel

43:58

Benton Lyman. Many younger

44:00

sister Anna visited her in Chicago,

44:03

writing to her aunt on July 5,

44:05

1893 that she was

44:08

going to Europe with brother Harry.

44:10

Neither many or Anna were

44:12

ever seen after that. The next

44:15

year, Holmes and Benjamin Peitzel

44:17

killed a man named George Thomas

44:19

and disposed of his body in a swamp in

44:22

Missouri.

44:22

Also in 1894, Milford

44:25

Cole from Baltimore, Maryland disappeared.

44:28

It's assumed after meeting up with Holmes,

44:31

since he had received a telegraph from him,

44:34

inviting him to Chicago.

44:35

The bank book belonging to a Lucy

44:37

Burbank was found when authorities searched

44:40

the castle. It's unknown what

44:42

ultimately truly happened to her. All

44:44

of these possible victims still doesn't

44:47

add up to the 27

44:49

victims that Holmes confessed to killing

44:52

and some of the people he confessed to killing

44:55

were later found alive and well.

44:57

So I think that goes back to what we were talking

44:59

about. He was trying to sell

45:02

a book. So is he going to

45:04

try

45:05

to pump up the number

45:07

of his victims? Maybe.

45:09

And I think some of that is proved

45:11

by

45:13

some of these people later being found alive.

45:16

But I think you can also ask the question,

45:18

are there

45:19

people he didn't talk about? Maybe

45:22

because of their age

45:24

or of their circumstance. I

45:27

think that's possible as well.

45:29

My thought is serial killers

45:32

aren't great at always telling the truth. Yeah.

45:35

I wonder how much of it could be that he's got so many lies

45:38

and so many details to sort of

45:40

keep organized. Could it possibly

45:43

be that he couldn't keep them all organized

45:45

and he's just throwing names out there,

45:48

you know, whether he killed them or not, because

45:50

he honestly can't remember who his true

45:52

victims were. I think that's a great point.

45:55

I mean, you know, so much

45:58

of what he did was built on. on

46:01

lies, right? We just talked about

46:03

a bunch of aliases. At

46:05

what point, you know, do you struggle

46:08

to keep everything straight? So,

46:11

you know, if he's writing a book and

46:13

he, and he's got to come up with a high

46:16

number of victims, could

46:18

it be that he didn't know some people's

46:20

names? He didn't remember the

46:22

circumstances. So he made

46:25

certain things up.

46:26

And some of these people later turned out to be alive,

46:29

but that doesn't mean they didn't have a bunch of

46:31

other victims. In August 1895, Holmes'

46:35

castle was set on fire by two men using

46:37

some kind of accelerant. The men were seen

46:39

entering through the back of the building about 30 minutes

46:42

before the fire started, and then were

46:44

seen running away. A gas can,

46:46

still half full, was found underneath the back

46:48

stairs. The building was finally torn

46:51

down in 1938, and now

46:53

you'll find the Englewood Post Office at that location.

46:56

Holmes was executed at Moyam-Mensing Prison

46:58

on May 7th, 1896. He

47:01

was hanged, but the drop didn't kill him. It

47:03

took over 15 minutes before he could be pronounced

47:06

dead. His only request was for

47:08

his coffin to be buried 10 feet deep and

47:10

encased in cement to prevent grave robbing.

47:13

He didn't want his body to end up being misused

47:15

in any way. For someone who regularly stole

47:17

bodies to use as cadavers, he knew

47:19

this was a real possibility. And it's

47:22

pretty ironic that for someone who was fine with

47:24

the act, that he was so afraid of it happening

47:26

to him. Holmes was buried as requested

47:29

deep in the ground and surrounded by cement in

47:31

an unmarked grave at Holy Cross Cemetery

47:33

in

47:34

Yaden, Pennsylvania. So there's

47:36

a couple of things that jump out to

47:38

me here. One is that there's now

47:40

a post office at this supposed

47:43

murder castle location.

47:45

That's kind of interesting.

47:46

And then Holmes requesting

47:50

that his body be buried 10 feet

47:52

deep and encased in cement.

47:55

Okay. I understand why he

47:57

made the request.

47:59

What I thought was. was that they actually

48:01

honored it. You know, here's

48:03

a guy who was most likely

48:06

a grave robber himself. We know he used

48:08

cadavers. I don't know exactly where he got

48:11

them all,

48:12

but he definitely didn't want his body to

48:14

be dug up.

48:15

People request things all the time.

48:18

I'm just shocked that they actually said, yeah,

48:20

no problem, we'll do that.

48:22

We'll spend the extra money.

48:23

And in case you and cement.

48:26

Yeah, it's not like he's requesting a last meal.

48:28

This is a pretty extravagant thing

48:31

that he's asking for. But somehow

48:33

rumors began to circulate that Holmes

48:35

hadn't actually been executed.

48:38

In 2017, the

48:40

University of Pennsylvania Museum

48:42

of Archaeology and Anthropology decided

48:45

to put to rest once and for all the

48:47

rumors that somehow Holmes

48:49

hadn't actually been executed

48:52

on May 7th, 1896. Part

48:54

of this rumor is probably

48:57

rooted in the

48:58

fact that he wrote a lot about how

49:00

his face had changed while in prison

49:02

when he was giving his confessions

49:05

and life story. The rumor was

49:07

that Holmes had enlisted a crooked

49:09

guard to perhaps help him fake

49:11

his death as he had done in

49:13

the past. A team led by physical

49:16

anthropologist Janet Monge

49:18

exhumed Holmes's body.

49:21

The cement around his coffin had

49:23

kept his clothes and hair from decomposing

49:26

to the same extent as other bodies

49:28

buried around the same time. Even

49:30

his mustache was apparently still

49:33

as it was the day he was buried.

49:36

And for anybody who has seen a picture

49:38

of Holmes,

49:39

you would have to say the guy had

49:41

a magnificent mustache. It

49:43

was a horrible person, but he had a heck

49:46

of a mustache.

49:47

By examining his teeth,

49:49

it was determined that the body

49:51

in the coffin was actually

49:53

Holmes. He had not escaped

49:56

execution after all. After

49:58

exhumation, Holmes... his body

50:00

was re-interred at the same cemetery

50:03

in Yiddin, Pennsylvania.

50:05

And my understanding is that they had

50:07

hoped to use DNA,

50:09

but obviously his body had

50:12

been there a long time. It had

50:14

degraded. They, they couldn't get a viable

50:17

sample. I'm actually shocked that

50:19

they were able to do it by,

50:21

uh, you know, examining his teeth.

50:23

I can't imagine that they use dental

50:25

records.

50:26

And we're going to have dental records from 1896. And

50:30

obviously they weren't going to have X-rays

50:33

or, or anything like that. So I don't

50:35

know. There wasn't a lot of information about

50:38

how the examination of the teeth proved

50:40

that, that, uh, it was Holmes. And

50:43

maybe they had, he had some distinct teeth

50:46

that they were able to look at and just come to the conclusion

50:49

that, yeah, this is him. One thing

50:51

that interests me is, you know, I

50:53

understand on one hand wanting

50:55

to have an answer once and for all, but at the same

50:57

time, you know, it's a hundred and something years

50:59

later, would it matter

51:01

in the grand scheme of things? You know, even if it

51:03

turned out that it wasn't him, I mean,

51:06

it might make for an interesting story or

51:08

a book, but it wouldn't bring

51:10

any

51:11

justice to any of the victims. It wouldn't,

51:13

it would only lead to more questions

51:16

and speculation.

51:18

Yeah. I'm not sure why they did it other than

51:20

the fact that they were, you

51:22

know, part of the, uh, museum

51:25

of archeology and anthropology. And

51:27

they thought, Hey, don't let us do this.

51:30

We can put this to rest. And I don't fault

51:32

them at all. I mean, if you're in that field and you get

51:34

a chance to do this, I can totally understand why they

51:37

would want to do this. Yeah, absolutely.

51:40

One of HH Holmes's descendants believes

51:43

that Holmes could have been Jack the Ripper, the

51:45

infamous serial killer responsible for at

51:47

least five murders in London, England. The

51:49

murders happened between 1888 and 1891. So

51:53

Holmes wasn't in custody yet. And

51:56

he did travel extensively. Jack

51:58

the Ripper was thought to have had Jack

52:00

the Ripper was thought to have had a medical background

52:03

of some kind. Most experts don't think

52:05

H.H. Holmes was Jack the Ripper. Holmes

52:07

seemed to kill for convenience, mostly

52:10

covering up his financial frauds, while

52:12

in the case of Jack the Ripper, based on

52:14

crime scene photos of his victims, mutilation

52:17

seemed like something that the killer enjoyed. Holmes

52:20

wanted evidence of his murders to go away to

52:22

distance himself from his crimes. While

52:24

Jack the Ripper left his victims out in the open,

52:27

in very undignified poses, he

52:29

wanted people to see what he had done. Yeah,

52:31

I know this is something that comes up

52:34

quite a bit

52:35

in both cases, right? This possible

52:38

connection between H.H. Holmes

52:40

and Jack the Ripper. I don't

52:43

see it.

52:43

Now, I understand

52:45

why it might be fascinating

52:47

to people to

52:49

think, oh, you have this

52:51

serial killer in Chicago.

52:55

He traveled to London,

52:57

let's say, but they just don't

52:59

seem to match in any way,

53:02

shape, or form.

53:04

Yeah, I've never understood the comparison

53:06

either. The link people have tried to make,

53:08

it would be one thing if there were a series

53:11

of similar murders in which sex workers

53:14

were found gutted,

53:16

disemboweled out in the open, and

53:19

they matched

53:20

the MO in the Jack the Ripper crimes, but

53:22

it really doesn't even match up there. To

53:26

me, it's always surprised me that people have tried to

53:28

link these crimes.

53:29

But don't we see it so often? We've talked about

53:31

it before. How many different unsolved

53:33

crimes have people tried to link

53:35

to the Zodiac?

53:37

Or to

53:39

some other famous

53:42

or infamous unsolved killer.

53:45

It's kind of part and parcel

53:47

of the unsolved nature

53:50

of these types of murders,

53:53

trying to link them to other series

53:56

of unsolved murders, because

53:58

the thought is always that. Well, the

54:01

reason why the murder stopped was because

54:04

let's say this person thought

54:06

the heat was was getting

54:09

too much. They moved,

54:11

but they couldn't stop their

54:13

compulsion.

54:15

So they kept killing just

54:17

in a different area.

54:18

Now, to me, it goes back to what we talked about earlier,

54:21

that perhaps it's a sensationalism,

54:24

it makes for a better story if somehow

54:26

we could say that Jack

54:28

the Ripper may have been H.H. Holmes. It

54:31

gets more people talking about it and it's

54:33

more to

54:34

more to theorize about. Yeah, absolutely.

54:36

We have two infamous serial

54:39

killers and the

54:41

thought of them being the

54:43

same person

54:45

is sensational. And so if you've

54:47

got a story like that, okay,

54:49

people are going to want to read that. But to

54:52

me, there's no, there's no

54:54

conclusive proof and it really doesn't

54:56

even seem logical

54:59

and from what I've seen from America's

55:01

supposed first serial killer to

55:04

the most recent Rex Heerman,

55:07

the multiple aliases owned

55:09

property, multi-state travel,

55:12

and even the coverage in the media. They're

55:14

similar

55:15

when comparing Holmes and Heerman.

55:18

Could this just be proof that even

55:21

after almost 130 years, some serial killers just

55:25

have a lot of things in common,

55:27

things that despite the

55:29

passage of time, don't really

55:31

change for some of them. I

55:34

think when you look back at the crimes

55:36

of someone like H.H. Holmes,

55:39

is it possible to look at those

55:42

crimes, to try to understand

55:44

them in an effort to

55:46

help stop modern day serial

55:49

killers, or at the very least find

55:51

commonality between

55:53

these killers in different centuries?

55:56

And I think the answer is yes.

56:00

not just between, you know,

56:02

H.H. Holmes and Rex Herman.

56:05

I think you have to study all

56:07

of these different types of

56:09

killers in an effort

56:12

to

56:12

help apprehend, or even in

56:14

some cases help

56:16

stop or identify modern

56:18

day serial killer.

56:20

I mean, what else are you gonna use?

56:22

You've gotta use history. You have

56:24

to use examples. I

56:27

mean, we talked about it towards the beginning

56:29

of the episode. Some things

56:31

that we see in

56:34

modern day serial killers,

56:36

like their background, being

56:38

bullied, head trauma,

56:41

there's all kinds of different things. That

56:44

seems to be,

56:46

for many, to be pervasive

56:49

and goes back in time.

56:51

So I think you gotta look

56:54

at

56:54

people throughout history, what

56:56

they did,

56:57

what techniques they used to cover up their

56:59

crimes, their background, what their motives

57:02

were, all of that. I think it's fascinating

57:04

to look back and see how killers

57:06

from the 1800s have a lot

57:09

in common with killers from modern times.

57:12

You know,

57:13

technology changes, society

57:15

changes, lots

57:17

of things change over that 130 plus years,

57:19

but

57:23

at the root of it, you still have what

57:25

appears to be some of the same

57:28

common behaviors. As you mentioned, head

57:30

trauma, bedwetting,

57:33

bullying,

57:34

things like that, setting fires, hurting

57:36

animals. It's just, that's

57:39

one thing that has never seemed to change going

57:41

all the way back as far as can be tracked,

57:43

that a lot of the serial killers back

57:45

then, as

57:46

with today, have these things

57:49

in their past. So I wonder if you

57:51

can use some of these killers

57:54

in the past to help identify

57:56

killers in the present.

57:58

Well, and the other thing that jumps out at me.

57:59

is the reason behind

58:02

murders. You know, you

58:04

mentioned how much the world has changed

58:07

in the last 130 years plus,

58:10

but you know what hasn't changed is

58:12

the reason for murders, greed,

58:15

revenge, love, jealousy. You

58:18

know, a lot of those things still

58:20

exist. And it's the,

58:23

some of the same reasons people still kill

58:25

today. But you know, in wrapping

58:27

up HH Holmes,

58:28

it's a fascinating case and a lot

58:31

of people have studied it extensively.

58:34

For me, one of the fascinations

58:37

about Holmes is that there's

58:40

been so much written about

58:42

him over the years.

58:44

A lot of it is, as we

58:46

talked about earlier, not

58:48

quite accurate. A lot of it was

58:51

sensational

58:53

type writing.

58:54

It's really hard to tell how

58:57

many people he killed, how many

58:59

people he killed in his quote

59:02

unquote murder hotel and

59:04

how the actual number

59:07

may line up with his confession.

59:11

And you mentioned the world's fair, 27 million

59:15

people in the 1800s. I

59:18

mean, what

59:19

better scenario

59:21

could you think of if you were

59:24

a serial killer who

59:25

was operating a hotel

59:28

in and around the city where the world's

59:31

fair was being held? Yeah, it definitely seems

59:33

like you could have countless potential

59:36

victims coming in unaware of

59:38

what they were walking into and you have no link

59:41

to them. And it's not like today

59:43

where there's, it's easy to track missing

59:45

people, social media, that kind of

59:47

stuff. They didn't have that back then. So

59:50

it'd be a lot easier for someone to disappear

59:52

without a trace or figure out where they were last

59:54

at. But one thing that jumps out to me

59:57

in this case is the hotel

59:59

itself, this.

59:59

reputation that it's gotten over

1:00:02

the last 130

1:00:04

years, that it's almost

1:00:06

like a character in the story of

1:00:08

how frightening it is. And

1:00:11

it almost sounds like something out of a haunted

1:00:13

house movie. And, you

1:00:16

know, some of that is probably real.

1:00:18

A lot of that is again, sensationalism.

1:00:22

But

1:00:22

that's it for our episode on H.H.

1:00:24

Holmes. If you love the show, haven't done

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1:00:51

that's it for another episode of Criminology,

1:00:54

but Morf and I will be back with all

1:00:56

of you next Saturday night with a brand new

1:00:58

episode. So until then, for Mike

1:01:01

and Morf, we'll talk to you next week. Take

1:01:03

care, everyone. Bye.