All the other true crime historian presents yesterday's news serial Killer Clips Edition, a
reading of America's historic newspapers from the golden age of yellow journalism. The entire
nation was shocked and outraged in the waning years of the nineteenth century by the
gruesome deeds of one Hermann Mudget, the arch fiend who took on the pseudonym
H. H. Holmes as he prepared his famous castle of death in downtown
Chicago. He was arrested for an insurance fraud in November eighteen ninety four,
but his string of murders, perhaps two hundred in all, were soon revealed.
He was convicted of one capital crime in Philadelphia, and while he awaited
execution, he pinned a confession detailing twenty seven murders that was published in newspapers
across the country. He would recant this confession before he hanged, but really,
you can't make this stuff up. I'm true crime historian Richard O.
Jones, and I call this episode of Serial Killer Clips the Confession of H.
H. Holmes, a litany of horror. Philadelphia County Prison, April
eighth, eighteen ninety six. The first taking of human life was a torturing
thought. This, it will be understood, was before my constant wrongdoing,
I had become holy deaf to the promptings of conscience. For prior to this
I begged to be believed in stating that I had never sinned so heavily,
either by thought or deed. Later, like the man eating tiger of the
tropics, whose appetite for blood has once been aroused, I roamed about the
world seeking whom I could destroy. The killing of Miss Julia Connor was to
a certain extent due to a criminal operation performed by parties who were cognizant of
and partly responsible for both the operation and the death. A reference to almost
any newspaper of August eighteen ninety five will give the minute details. The horrors
of this case were worked out by the detectives, therefore making it unnecessary to
repeat it here. The death of Pearl, her little daughter was caused by
poison. The parties I mentioned were equally responsible for its administration, Although it
was at my instigation that it was done. I believed the child was old
enough to remember her mother's sickness and death. The other parties wished at first
to place the child in the care of their aged parents, who lived south
of the city, but were overruled by my opposition. Owing to the suddenness
of Missus Connor's death. A certain note of considerable value, well secured by
property south of the castle, was uncollectable, and at the time of my
death it will be sent to such relatives as may appear to have the greatest
right to receive it. The next case is that of Charles Coal, a
Southern speculator. After considerable correspondence, this man came to Chicago, and I
enticed him into the castle, where, while I was engaging him in conversation,
my associate struck a most vicious blow on the head with a piece of
gas pipe. So heavy was the blow that it not only caused his death
without a groan and hardly a movement, but it crushed his skull to such
an extent that his body was almost useless. This was the first instance in
which I know of this confederate having committed murder, though in several other instances
he was fully as guilty as myself, and if possible, more heartless and
bloodthirsty. And I have no doubt he is still engaged in the same nefarious
work. A domestic named Lizzie was the seventh victim. She for a time
worked in the Castle restaurant, and I soon learned that another of my employees
was paying her too close attention, and, fearing lest it should progress so
far that it would necessitate his leaving my employ I thought it wise to end
the life of the girl. This I did by calling her to my office
and suffocating her in a vault of which so much has since been printed.
She was the first victim that died there. Before her death, I compelled
her to write letters to her relatives and to state that she had left Chicago
for a western state and should not return. A few months ago, the
prosecution, believing from certain letters purporting to have been written by her that she
was still alive, showed me its willingness to give me a fair trial.
By having this public life known, she being a witness, that I could
have used a great advantage in the pencil case. Soon after this, Miss
Emmeline Segrand was sent to me by Chicago firm to fill the vacancy of a
stenographer. She had been previously employed at Dwight, Illinois, where she had
become acquainted with a man who visited her from time to time while she was
in my employ She was finally engaged to him, and the day was set
for their wedding. This attachment was particularly obnoxious to me, both because Miss
Segrand had become almost indispensable to me in my office work, and because she
had become my mistress as well as stenographer. I endeavored upon several occasions to
take the life of the young man, and failing, I finally resolved that
I would kill her instead, and upon the day of their wedding, even
after the cards had been sent out announcing that it had occurred, she came
to my office to bid me good bye. While there I asked her to
step inside the vault for some papers for me. There I detained her,
telling her that if she would write her husband that at that last moment she
had known it would be impossible to live happily with him, and consequently had
left Chicago in such a way that search for her would be useless. I
would take her to a distant city and live openly with her as my wife.
She was very willing to do this, and prepared to leave the vault
on completing the letter, only to find that the door would never again be
opened until she had ceased to suffer the torture of a slow and lingering death.
Here follows an unsuccessful attempt to commit a triple murder for ninety dollars that
would have been given me for the bodies of the intended victims, who were
three young women working in my restaurant upon Milwaukee Avenue. That these women lived
to tell of their experience to the police last summer is due to my foolishly
trying to chloroform all of them at one and the same time. By their
combined strength, they overpowered me in and screaming into the street, clad only
in their night robes. To this attempt to kill could very justly be added
my attempt to take the lives of Missus Pitzel and two of her children at
a later date, thus increasing the total of my victims. As it was
no fault of mine that they escaped. My next attempt was carried out with
more caution. The victim was a very beautiful young woman named Anna van Tassau,
whom I induced to come into my fruit and confectionery store, and when
she was once with me, I compelled her to live there for a time,
threatening her with death if she appeared before my customers. A little later,
I killed her by administering pharaocyanide of potassium. The location of this store
was such that it would have been hazardous to have sent out a large box
containing a body, and I therefore bury her remains in the store basement,
and from day to day during the investigations at the castle, I expected to
hear that excavations had been made there. Robert Latimer, a man who had
for some years been in my employee as a janitor, was my next victim.
Several years previous, before I had ever taken a human life, he
had known of certain insurance work I had engaged in, and when in recent
years he sought to extort money from me, his own death and the sale
of his body was the recompense meeted out to him. I confined him within
the secret room and slowly starved him to death. Finally needing its use for
another victim, and because his pleadings had become almost unbearable, I ended his
life. The partial excavation of the walls of this room found by the police,
was caused by Latimer's endeavoring to escape by tearing away the solid brick and
mortar with his unaided fingers. The succeeding case was that of Miss Annabett's,
and was caused by my purposely substituting a poisonous drug prescription that had been sent
to my drug store to be compounded. I believe that, as it was
known that I was a physician, I should be called to witness her death,
as she lived very near the store. This was not the case,
however, as the regular physician was in attendance at the time. The prescription
still on file at the Castle drug Store should be considered by the authorities if
they are still inclined to attribute this death to causes that reflect on Miss Betts's
moral character. The death of Miss Gertrude Connor of Muscatine, Iowa, though
not the next in order of occurrence, is so similar to the last that
the description of one suffices for both. Save in this respect. Miss Connor
left Chicago immediately, but did not die until she had reached her home in
Muscatine. Perhaps these two cases show more plainly than any other of the light
regard I had for the lives of my fellow beings. The next death was
that of a man named Warner, the originator of the Warner's glass bending company.
And there again I realized a very large sum of money, which,
prior to his death had been deposited in two Chicago banks, nearly all of
which I secured by means of two checks made out and properly signed by him
for a small sum each. To these I later added the word thousand and
the necessary ciphers, and by passing them through the bank where I had a
regular open account, I promptly realized the money, save a small amount not
covered by the checks, in the Park National Bank. It will be remembered
that the remains of a large kiln made a fire brick were found in a
basement. It had been built under mister Warner's supervision for the purpose of exhibiting
his patents. It was so arranged that in less than a minute, after
turning on a jet of crude oil atomized with steam, the entire kiln would
be filled with a colorless flame so intensely hot that iron would be melted therein.
It was in two this kiln that I induced mister Warner to go with
me, under the pretense of my wishing certain minute explanations of the process,
and then stepping outside, as he believed to get some tools. I closed
the door and turned on both the oil and steam to their full extent.
In a short time, not even the bones of my victim remained. The
coat found underneath the kiln was the one he took off before going Therein in
eighteen ninety one, I associated myself in business with a young Englishman who,
by his own admission, had been guilty of all other forms of wrongdoing save
murder, and presumably of that as well, to manipulate certain real estate securities
we held, so as to have them secure us a good commercial rating.
It was an easy matter for him, and he was equally able to interest
certain English capitalists in certain patents, so that it seemed that in the near
future our greatest concern would be how to dispose of the money that seemed to
be showered upon us. By an unfortunate occurrence, our rating was destroyed,
and it became necessary to at once raise a large sum, and this was
done by enticing a wealthy Chicago banker named Rogers from a Wisconsin town in such
a manner that he could have left no intelligence with whom his business was to
be to bring him to the castle and into the secret room under the pretense
that our patents were there. Was easy, much more so than to force
him to sign checks and drafts for seventy thousand dollars, which he had prepared.
At first, he refused to do so, stating that his liberty that
we offered him in exchange would be useless to him without his money, and
that he was too old to hope to make another fortune. Finally, by
alternately starving him and nauseating him with the gas, I made him sign the
securities, all of which were converted into money, and by the Englishman's skill
as a forger, in such a manner as to leave no trace of their
having been passed through our hands. I waited with much curiosity to see what
proposition my colleague would advance for the disposal of our prisoner, as I well
knew that he no more than I contemplated giving him his liberty. Evidently,
the Englishman waited with equal expectancy for me to suggest what should be done,
and I finally made preparations to allow Rogers to leave the building, thus forcing
the Englishman to suggest that he be killed. I would consent to this only
upon the condition that he should administer the chloroform and leave me to dispose of
the body as part of the work. That evening, the large sum of
money was divided between us. The next case is that of a woman whose
name has passed from my memory, who came to the Castle restaurant to board.
The person who was conducting the restaurant at the time immediately became very much
infatuated with a woman who he heard was a widow and wealthy. The manager
was married, and his wife occasionally came to the restaurant when this boarder was
there, which did not tend to decrease the family quarrel, which for quite
a time had threatened the family with disruption. Finally he came to me for
advice, and I was very willing to have him in my power that I
could later use him if need be. I suggested that he lived with the
woman in the castle for a time, and later, if this life became
unpleasant to him, we would kill her and divide her wealth. Although this
man showed no disposition to spare me in the recent investigations, and also deserved
death for this and other crimes, it is but fair to say that at
first he was not willing to enter into this arrangement, and would probably today
not be guilty of murder, but for my influence. As I had anticipated,
he soon tired of the castle life and suggested that it was time to
take his companion's life. This was done by my administering chloroform while he controlled
her violent struggles. It was the body of this woman within the long coffin
shaped box that was taken into the castle in late eighteen nine twenty three,
of which the man told the police. Is it to be wondered at that
he should have remembered her name? In order that the deaths of the Williams
sisters may be more fully understood. It is necessary for me to state that
what has been said by Miss Williams's southern relatives regarding her pure and Christian life
should be believed. Also that prior to her meeting me in eighteen ninety three,
she was a virtuous woman, thus rendering truthful the statements of Charles Goldthwaite
of Boston that he had never known her otherwise than as an intimate friend of
his wife's, and that in June eighteen ninety three he did not wire her
a considerable money to Chicago. In response to a demand for the same from
her, That she was not temporarily insane at a hotel opposite the Pullman Building
in Chicago from May twentieth to twenty third, eighteen ninety three, was not
a little later secluded in the Baptist Hospital in Chicago under the name of missus
Williams, was not still later in retreat at Milwaukee, And that she did
not kill her sister and threaten to kill her nurse who had her in charge
at number twelve twenty Rightwood Avenue, Chicago. All these statements, it gives
me certain amount of satisfaction to retract thereby undoing so far as I can,
these additional wrongs I have heaped upon her name. I first met miss Williams
in Chicago in eighteen eighty eight, where she knew me as Edward Hatch,
and later under the same name in Denver, as has been testified by certain
young women who recognized my photograph. Early in eighteen ninety three, I was
introduced to her as H. H. Holmes. She had applied for a
position as a stenographer. Soon after entering my employ I induced her to give
me two thousand, five hundred dollars in money and to transfer to me by
d much southern real estate, and a little later to live with me as
my wife, all this being easily accomplished owing to her innocent and childlike nature,
she hardly knowing right from wrong in such matters. Thereafter I succeeded in
securing two checks from her for twenty five dollars each, and I also learned
that she had a sister, Nanny in Texas, who was heir to some
property. I induced Miss Williams to have her come to Chicago on a visit.
Upon her arrival, I met her at the depot and took her to
the castle, telling her Miss Williams was there. It was an easy matter
to force her to assign me all she possessed. After that, she was
immediately killed in ordered that no one in her about the castle should know or
having known of her being there. It was the footprint of Nanny Williams,
as was later demonstrated by that most astute lawyer and detective mister Capps of Fort
Worth, that was found upon the painted surface of the vault door, who
was made during her violent struggle before her death. It was also easy to
give Miss Williams a delayed letter stating that her sister's proposed visit had been given
up, and also by intercepting later letters and substituting others to keep her from
learning that her sister had left the South. Having secured all the money and
property Miss Williams had. It was time that she was killed. Owing to
a fire that occurred in the castle, I was unable to resort to the
usual method of taking her life, and after some delay, I took her
to Moment's, Illinois about November fifteenth, eighteen ninety two, registering at a
hotel near the post office under an assumed name as man and wife. My
intention was to quickly kill her in some manner, but a freight wreck that
occurred on the outskirts of town the day following my arrival there, which out
of my curiosity I visited, brought me into contact with a passenger conductor,
Peck, who knew me, and I therefore abandoned my plans, but later
returned and took the girl eight miles east of Moments on her freight line.
Little used into her life with poison and buried her body in the basement of
the house spoken about at the time of the Irvington discoveries in eighteen ninety five.
It was a great wonder that the body was not found at that time.
If the detectives in reality went to that location. Nothing would at the
present time give me so much satisfaction as to know that her body had been
properly buried. I would be willing to give up the few remaining days I
have to live, if by so doing this would be accomplished. Because of
her spotless life before she knew me, because of the large amount of money
I do frauded her of, because I killed her sister and her brother,
and because, not being satisfied with all this, I endeavored, after my
arrest to blacken her good name by charging her with the death of her sister,
and later with the instigation of the murder of the two Pizel children,
endeavoring to have it believed that her motive for so doing was to afford the
avenue of escape for herself if she should ever be apprehended for her sister's death,
by pointing to me as a wholesale murderer, and therefore presumably guilty of
her sister death as well. For all these reasons, this is, without
exception, the saddest and most heinous of my crimes. A man who came
to Chicago to attend the Columbian Exposition, but whose name I cannot recall,
was my next victim. I determined to use this man in my various business
dealings, and did so for a time, until I found that he had
not the ability I at first thought he was possessed of. I therefore decided
to kill him. This was done after Miss Williams's death, I found among
her papers an insurance policy made in her favor by her brother, Baldwin Williams
of Leadville, Colorado. I therefore went to that city in eighteen ninety four.
A little later the assignment of the policy to which I had forged Miss
Williams's name, to John Maxwell of Leadville, the administrator of the Williams estate,
was honored, and the money was paid. Both in this instance and
in that of the thousand dollars check given by D. Tolman and checks aggregating
two thy five hundred dollars by JR. Hitt and Company of Chicago. Inasmuch
as the endorsements are forgeries, the Williams heirs can now recover these amounts,
although it will be an undeserved hardship on those who have once advanced the money
upon them. So much has already been printed regarding the case of Benjamin F.
Pizel, that there is little for me to tell save the actual manner
in which his death was brought about. It will be understood that from the
first hour of our acquaintance, even before I knew he had family who would
later afford me additional victims. For the gratification of my bloodthirstiness, I intended
to kill him. In all my subsequent care of him, as well as
my apparent trust in him by placing in his name large amounts of property,
was simply to gain the confidence of him and his family, so that when
the time was ripe, they would the more readily fall into mine hands.
It seems almost incredible, now as I look back, that I expected to
have experienced sufficient satisfaction in witnessing their death to pay me for even the physical
exertion that I had put forth in their behalf during those seven long years,
to say nothing of the amount of money I had expended for their welfare over
and above what I could have expected to receive from his comparatively small life insurance.
Yet so it is, and it furnishes a very striking illustration of the
vegaries in which this human mind will, under certain circumstances, indulge vagaries in
comparison with which the seeking of buried treasure at the rainbow's end, the delusions
of the exponent of perpetual motion, or the dreams of the Hashish fiend,
are sanity itself. Pittzel left his home for the last time in late July
eighteen ninety four. We journeyed together to New York and later to Philadelphia,
where the fatal house on coll Street Hill, in which he met a hiss
death in September, was hired. Then came my writing to him, the
discouraging letters purporting to be from his wife, causing him to resort to drink.
Then the waiting from day to day until I should be sure to find
him in a drunken stupor at midday. This was an easy matter, as
I was well acquainted with his habits, and so sure was I of finding
him. Thus incapacitated that when the day came on which it was convenient for
me to kill him, even before I went to his room, I packed
my trunk and made other arrangements to leave Philadelphia in a hurried flight immediately after
his death. After thus preparing, I went to the house, quietly,
unlocked the door, and stole noiselessly within. In the second story room.
I found him insensibly drunk, as I expected, even with him in this
condition. The question made be asked, had I no fear that he might
only be naturally asleep or partially insensible, and therefore likely at any moment to
come to himself and defend himself. I am answer no. Only one difficulty
presented itself. It was necessary for me to kill him in such a manner
that no struggle or movement of his body should occur. Otherwise his clothing be
in any way displaced, it would have been impossible to put him again in
a normal position. I overcame this difficulty by first binding him hand and foot,
and having done this, I proceeded to burn him alive, saturating his
clothing in his face with benzene and igniting it with a match. So horrible
was this torture that, in writing it I have been tempted to attribute his
death to some more humane means, not with a wish to spare myself,
but because I fear that it will not be believed that no one should be
so heartless and depraved. But such a course would be useless. The authorities
have determined for me that this death could have occurred only in this manner,
no blows or bruises upon the body, and no drugs administered save chloroform,
which was not placed in his stomach until at least thirty minutes after his death.
And make a misstatement of the facts now would serve only to draw out
additional criticism from them. The least I can do is to spare my readers
the victims cry for mercy, his prayers, and finally his plea for more
speedy termination of his sufferings, all of which, upon me had no effect.
Finally, when he was dead, I removed the strips and ropes that
bound him and extinguished the flames, and a little later poured into his stomach
one and a half ounces of chloroform. It has been asked why I did
this after I knew he was dead. What possible use could it have served.
My answer is that I placed it there so at the time of the
post mortem examination, which I knew would be held. The coroner's physicians would
be warranted in reporting that the death was accidental and due to cleansing flood composed
of benzene and chloroform, and that the chloroform had at the time of the
explosions passed into his stomach. On the receipt of such intelligence, I believed
the insurance company would at once pay the full amount of the claim. Chloroform
did more than this, however, It developed a condition of his body which,
in my limited medical experience I have never seen or heard of, and
I mention it here as a fact of scientific interest that I believe is not
generally known. It drove from his entire body tissue, brains, and viscera,
all evidence of recent intoxication, to such an extent that the physicians who
examined the body after death were warranted in stating under oath that there was no
evidence of alcohol, and that they did not believe the man was drunk at
the time of his death or within twelve hours thereafter. That they were wrong
in making such deductions is proven by the well known fact that all the testimony
and circumstances of my trial tended to show that he must have been insensible from
liquor, and that only in this condition could I have killed him, a
fact so strongly brought out that the learned trial judge and his argument commented upon
it. At some length after his death, I gathered together various assignments of
patents and deeds to property he had held for me that I had been careful
to have him sign over days before, so that I should not suffer pecuniary
loss. I also wrote the cipher message found by the insurance company among my
papers after my arrest, imitating his handwriting, and after placing the body in
such a position that, by a cunning arrangement of a window shutter upon the
south side of the building, the sun would be reflected upon his face the
entire day. I left the house without the slightest feeling of remorse for my
terrible acts. For one month and six days thereafter, I took no human
life, although about three weeks after Pittzel's death, I was afforded an opportunity
to gratify my lust for blood by going to the graveyard where his corpse had
been taken, and, under the pretense of securing certain portions of his body
for examination, removed the saying with a knife and a heartless manner in which
I did this, and the evident gratify occasion it afforded me, have been
most forcibly told by mister Smith upon the witness stand as an instance of the
infallibility of justice, as a triumph of right over wrong, and of the
general safety of condemning to death upon circumstantial evidence alone. This case is destined
to remain long prominent as a warning to those viciously inclined, and as a
warning that their only safe course is to avoid even the appearance of evil.
Two questions I have often been asked that I will answer, why did I
make no defense at my trial when by so doing I lose nothing and possibly
could have gained. I answer that, after Detective Guyer's Western investigations, which
we could not at that time in any way refute, and in the face
of doctor Leffman's learned statements, it would have been but a waste of my
counsel's energy and of my own to try to convince the most impartial of juries
that it was a case of suicide and not murder. Is it to be
wondered at that I I hesitated before placing the defense of suicide before a jury
composed of men who had, with three exceptions, stated under oath before being
passed upon by the courts as competent, that they had already formed opinions prejudicial
to my interests. The second question is, did Pitzel, during his eight
years acquaintance and almost constant association with me, know that I was a multi
murderer, And if he did know, was he a party to such crimes?
I answered that he neither knew of nor was a party to the taking
of any human life, and I earnestly beg that this statement may be believed
both in justice to his memory and on account of the surviving members of his
family. The worst acts he ever participated in were dishonesties regarding properties and unlawful
acts of trade in which he aided me freely. In support of my statement
that he was not cognizant of any of the given crimes, which I so
freely confess. Here in, I will mention one of the many instances already
known to the authorities vis a vis that for six months previous to his death,
he had planned open with his wife that their daughter, Alice, should
spend a year at a school he believed Miss Williams intended to open near Boston,
and their plan was of such a nature that missus Pitzel knew he was
not deceiving her, he would not have made the arrangement, and there would
have been no occasion for him to have deceived her or his family if he
believed Miss Williams was not alive. On the first day of October eighteen ninety
four, I took the three Pitzel children to Circle House at Indianapolis, where
I engaged permanent board for them until such a time as I could kill one
or more of them. On the evening of that day, I went to
Saint Louis, where I remained until October fourth, busily engaged in settling up
the insurance matter with MacDonald and Howell, the attorneys. During this time I
also called upon the agent or owner of the Irvington or Indianapolis house. This
was my first incautious step and was later destined to fasten the crime upon me.
For later, when detectives learned that I had made this call upon the
date they knew the insurance settlement had taken place, they no longer hesitated in
stating that I and I alone could have murdered the boy. On October fifth,
the rent of the house was paid, and about nine o'clock October sixth
I called upon doctor Thompson at Irvington for the keys, he having been the
former occupant. At five o'clock upon the same day, I called upon mister
Brown at Irvington to engage him to make some repairs upon the house, and
upon his appearing indifferent, I became very angry with him. And my only
wonder now is that I did not entice him to the house and kill him.
This small circumstance aided in bringing the crime home to me when it was
made known to the detectives, and was considered by them in connection with many
other complaints of my violence and ungovernable temper that had come to their knowledge.
On October seven, I called at the Irvington drug store early in the evening
and purchased the drugs I needed to kill the boy, and the following evening
I again went to the same store and bought an additional supply, as I
found that I had not obtained sufficient quantity on my first visit. The next
step was to secure the furniture of the house. This was done on October
eighth, late in the afternoon, at such an hour that made it impossible
for the store owners to deliver them, and as I had wished to stay
at Irvington that night, I hired a conveyance and started the goods to the
house myself, keeping the horse there until the next day. It was also
October eighth, early in the afternoon that I went to the repair shop for
the long knives I had previously left there to be sharpened. Early in the
afternoon of October tenth, I had the boy's trunk and the stove I had
bought taken to the depot, and they arrived at the Irvington house at about
six o'clock PM, at which time mister Mormon was the last person who saw
the boy alive, for almost immediately I called him into the house and insisted
that he go to bed at once, first giving him the fatal dose of
medicine. As soon as he had ceased to breathe, I cut his box
into pieces that would pass through the door of the stove, and by the
combined use of gas and corn cobs, proceeded to burn it with as little
feeling as if it had been some inanimate article. If I could now recall
one circumstance, a dollar of money to be gained, a disagreeable act or
word on his part, and justification of this horrid crime, it would be
a satisfaction to me. But to think that I committed this and other crimes
for the pleasure of killing my fellow beings, to hear their cries for mercy
and please to be allowed even sufficient time to pray and prepare for death.
All this is now too horrible for even me, hardened criminal, that I
am to again live over without a shudder. Is it to be wondered at
that, since my arrest, my days have been those of self reproaching torture,
and my knights those of sleepless fear, Or that even before my death
I have committed to assume the form and features of the evil one himself.
After I had finished the creation of my victim, I made the excavations in
which the few remaining portions were found at the time the horror was brought to
light, which, together with the stove and other evidences of my wrongdoing,
were brought here to Philadelphia at the time of my trial to mock me and
my efforts to save my life. Then, after I had removed the blood
and other evidences of the crime, and had buried the contents of the trunk
and part of the trunk itself, I went to the office of Powell and
Harder at Indianapolis for my mail. From there to the hotel of the other
two children, whom I took at once to Chicago. I immediately returned to
the Irvington house, and was seen there by mister Armstrong, a teamster,
at such an hour as to make it a foolish act for me to persist
in saying it was some other person whom he saw my identification. In Chicago,
by a woman with whom the children boarded, and by the station agent
at Milwaukee and later at Adrian, Michigan, all showed the uselessness of trying
to escape from one's self or from the responsibility of one's wrong act. In
Detroit, I hired a house and made an excavation in the basement, where
I left a note in my own handwriting, all of which I hastened to
tell the detectives as soon as I was arrested, so that by their going
to the house and finding both the excavation in the note, they would not
be inclined to make a similar search in Toronto or other places. I now,
with much reluctance, come to the discussion of the murders of Alice and
Nellie Pitzel, whose deaths will seem to many to be the saddest of all,
both on account of the terribly heartless manner in which they were accomplished,
and because, in one instance, that of Alice, the oldest of these
children, her death was the least of the wrong suffered of my hands.
Here again I am tempted either to pass the matter by without speaking of it,
or to deny it altogether. But to what purpose? It was publicly
known and freely commented upon at my trial, And to deny it now would
only serve the double purpose of breaking my resolution to hold nothing in reserve,
and of causing many who are somewhat familiar with the details of different cases to
disbelieve me in other matters. Moreover, the testimony already given by missus Adleiah
Alacombe, and the opinion of Coroner Ashbridge and mister Perry, who knew the
mental condition of the child upon the following day, would, if called for,
be sufficient to decide the matter. These children, after boarding in Detroit
for about one week, reached Toronto and were taken to the Albion Hotel,
where they boarded until they were killed. On October twentieth, I hired the
Vincent Street house, having the least made in the name of H. M.
Howard, in order to avert suspicions as much as possible in case an
investigation should follow. Between five and six p m. On the same day,
I took a large empty trunk to the house, and then passed the
following day at Niagara Falls. On the twenty third, I bought and took
to the house the furniture, stove and bedding, and the children went to
the house for a few hours. The twenty fourth was passed in other parts
of the city, but on the twenty fifth, the day of their death,
the children were seen at the house at one o'clock PM, and a
little later they accompanied me to some clothing stores. Finally, at four o'clock
PM, while they were in a restaurant near by, I entered a large
store in which I believed I should meet Missus Pitzell. Holding my hands some
heavy winter underclothing, which I bought for the little boy already dead. At
Indianapolis. Speaking of this meeting, missus Pitzell has since said, I believe
my children were at that time in the store with me. I immediately took
the children to the Vincent Street house and compelled them both to get within the
large trunk, through the cover of which I made an opening. There,
I left them until I should return, and at my leisure killed them.
At five o'clock PM, I borrowed a spade of a neighbor, and later
I called on missus Pitzel at her hotel. I then returned to my hotel
and ate my dinner, and at seven o'clock PM went again to missus Pitzel's
hotel and aided her in leaving Toronto for Ogdensburg, New York. Later than
eight PM, I again went to the house in which the children were imprisoned
and ended their lives by connecting the gas pipes with the trunk. Then came
the opening of the trunk and the viewing of their little, blackened and distorted
faces. Then the digging of the two shallow graves in the basement of the
house, the ruthless stripping of their clothing, and their burial without a particle
of clothing, but the cold earth which I heaped upon them, These little,
innocent, helpless children, the oldest being only thirteen years of age,
a puny and sickly child whom, to look at one would believe much younger.
Consider that for eight years before their death I had been almost as much
a father to them as if they had been my own children, thus giving
them a right to look at me for care and protection. And in your
righteous judgment, let your bitterest curses fall upon me. But again I pray
upon me alone. There is little more to tell. The next day was
past and burning the children's clothing, and in resting from my terrible night's work.
And upon the twenty seventh, I called an expressman and had the trunk
removed from the house. After giving the keys to a neighbor, I went
away, never to return. From Toronto, I went to Ogdensburg, and
from there to Burlington, Vermont, where I hired a furnished room for missus
Pitzel's use, and a few days prior to my arrest in Boston, I
wrote her a letter in which I directed her to carry a bottle of dynamite
that I had previously left in the basement, so arranged that in taking it
to the third story of the house, it would fall from her hands and
not only destroy her life, but that of her two remaining children, whom
I knew would be with her at the time. This was my last crime,
happily did not have a fatal termination. The eighteen intervening months I have
passed in solitary confinement, and a few days I am to be led forth
to my death. It would now seem a very fitting time for me to
express regret or remorse in this which I intend to be my last public utterance
for irreparable shortcomings. I do so without the expectation that even one person who
has read this confession to the end will believe that in my depraved nature there
is room for such feelings. I fear to expect more than would be granted,
and I can and do refrain from calling forth such criticism by openly inviting
it. Signed H. Holmes. This has been the Confession of H.
H. Holmes. A litany of horror presented by true crime historian Richard O.
Jones. The descriptions and quotes used in this production have been called from
the pages of the Chicago inter Ocean and other newspapers of the day before he
was hanged in the Philadelphia County Prison on May seventh, eighteen ninety six.
Holmes recanted his confession, but the details are so specific that most historians believe
this to be at least a semblance of the truth of what happened in the
murder Castle of H. H. Holmes musical direction by Chuck Wiggins. This
is true crime. Historian Richard O. Jones signing off for now all unity