WEBVTT 1 00:00:12.080 --> 00:00:15.560 This episode MA contained content of a graphic nature, including 2 00:00:15.640 --> 00:00:20.879 descriptions of physical and sexual violence against adults, children, and animals. 3 00:00:21.440 --> 00:00:36.719 Listener discretion is advised. Hi, I'm Shannon. Hi I'm Tanya, 4 00:00:37.079 --> 00:00:44.079 and we are Crimes and Consequences, a hardcore true crime podcast. Shannon, 5 00:00:44.200 --> 00:00:48.159 my love, Oh my dear heart, Tanya. How are you? 6 00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:52.600 I am good? How are you? I'm doing pretty good. 7 00:00:53.359 --> 00:00:57.280 We gotta make our weather report. Just a little feeling 8 00:00:57.439 --> 00:01:02.840 run down us. All my usual complaints, but that's not 9 00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:06.799 too bad to have, honestly. So, yeah, I had a 10 00:01:06.840 --> 00:01:10.439 physical therapy today, so my shoulders a little sore. But 11 00:01:10.680 --> 00:01:14.200 how is that going? It's going good. So my physical 12 00:01:14.239 --> 00:01:17.040 therapist is somebody I went to college with, so I'm 13 00:01:17.079 --> 00:01:20.719 known for a really long time. And I told her, 14 00:01:20.840 --> 00:01:23.400 I said, it's starting to feel better. I told her, like, 15 00:01:23.480 --> 00:01:26.719 before we started our session today, I've only gone to two. 16 00:01:26.840 --> 00:01:30.560 Today was number three. And she's like, yeah, physical therapy 17 00:01:30.799 --> 00:01:33.079 really works. And we were kind of laughing because I 18 00:01:33.120 --> 00:01:35.319 was like, this bullshit works, you know what I mean, 19 00:01:35.959 --> 00:01:39.840 this boodoo. Yeah, this who works. But it really has 20 00:01:39.920 --> 00:01:43.120 been feeling a lot better. So I think the prescription 21 00:01:43.319 --> 00:01:46.799 was for twelve visits, so yeah, so I'm gonna do 22 00:01:46.799 --> 00:01:49.560 it for the next six weeks. So, oh good. I 23 00:01:49.680 --> 00:01:54.280 know your your mobility is pretty limited on that side. 24 00:01:54.480 --> 00:01:56.879 I couldn't believe it when you show me at our 25 00:01:57.040 --> 00:02:02.319 movie date. But no, that's awesome news. Well good, I'm glad. 26 00:02:02.680 --> 00:02:05.959 That's the latest and greatest. What she got today got 27 00:02:06.159 --> 00:02:09.759 us a story. I want to take you back. Gosh, 28 00:02:09.800 --> 00:02:13.039 when was it? Was it the late nineties in your 29 00:02:13.080 --> 00:02:18.599 garage the candles. Shannon and I had a candle making 30 00:02:18.680 --> 00:02:22.039 business for a little while. It was so fun. It 31 00:02:22.080 --> 00:02:26.400 was probably the mid eighties, the mid nineties, mid nineties, 32 00:02:26.479 --> 00:02:30.719 mid to late yeah, okay, And so to pass the time, 33 00:02:30.719 --> 00:02:33.759 when you have to pour candles in a container, you 34 00:02:33.960 --> 00:02:36.599 have to wait and check for air bubbles. So Tanya 35 00:02:36.599 --> 00:02:38.240 and I would just sit out in the garage and 36 00:02:38.800 --> 00:02:41.240 just talk and it would be cold, but it was 37 00:02:41.319 --> 00:02:43.159 okay because there was a heater in there and we 38 00:02:43.159 --> 00:02:46.240 were watching our candles set up. We started playing, you know, 39 00:02:46.319 --> 00:02:52.400 the usual fun game f Mary Kill and we are 40 00:02:52.639 --> 00:02:54.840 well back in the day. Now this is the nineties 41 00:02:54.919 --> 00:02:58.960 for wrestling. So we would pick wrestlers and Tanya loved 42 00:02:59.360 --> 00:03:05.439 Hunter Palmsley Triple h God. He was so fucking It 43 00:03:05.479 --> 00:03:07.800 would usually just be down to two him and the 44 00:03:07.919 --> 00:03:10.759 rock him, and they were really the hottest. No one 45 00:03:10.919 --> 00:03:13.000 I wouldn't even consider, And so it would always be 46 00:03:13.080 --> 00:03:20.479 like Hunterhearst Houndsley in the shower fingering or the rock 47 00:03:21.199 --> 00:03:25.159 Doggie on the stairs. It would be so close. It 48 00:03:25.199 --> 00:03:28.319 would be like, oh gosh, it's hard. It was a 49 00:03:28.400 --> 00:03:31.360 really difficult It was like totally Sophie's choice because it 50 00:03:31.439 --> 00:03:34.800 was really a hard decision to make. And then we 51 00:03:34.879 --> 00:03:41.479 would do it with Paul Bearer, mister Fuji. It would 52 00:03:41.520 --> 00:03:47.000 be like two horrible choices, two nightmare choices, and we 53 00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:49.759 would just be giggling and laughing so hard. And I 54 00:03:49.840 --> 00:03:54.599 just bring it up because this week's story. His initials 55 00:03:54.599 --> 00:03:58.599 are triple H, and he went by H H. Holmes. 56 00:03:58.879 --> 00:04:01.759 Oh triple eight. Yes, there was a triple H back 57 00:04:01.759 --> 00:04:04.759 in the eighteen hundreds. He was not a wrestler. He 58 00:04:05.000 --> 00:04:12.199 was America's first serial killer. Oh America, girl, I'm going 59 00:04:12.280 --> 00:04:15.080 to take you right back. America at the end of 60 00:04:15.120 --> 00:04:19.720 the nineteenth century was a country racing full speed into 61 00:04:19.720 --> 00:04:24.759 the future. Cities rose like steel giants, electric lights flickered 62 00:04:24.800 --> 00:04:28.279 to life in places where darkness used to settle without argument. 63 00:04:28.800 --> 00:04:34.040 Railroads carved new lines across the landscape, carrying strangers from 64 00:04:34.120 --> 00:04:36.879 one end of the country to the other faster than 65 00:04:36.920 --> 00:04:40.199 most newspapers could print their names. And in that rush 66 00:04:40.319 --> 00:04:47.079 toward progress, something unexpected happened. The country became anonymous. People 67 00:04:47.199 --> 00:04:50.000 arrived in cities where no one knew who they were, 68 00:04:50.360 --> 00:04:53.800 where they came from, or what ghosts traveled with them. 69 00:04:54.279 --> 00:04:58.199 A man could reinvent himself overnight, a woman could vanish 70 00:04:58.279 --> 00:05:01.600 in the space of a single block. Entire lives could 71 00:05:01.720 --> 00:05:05.920 unfold or collapse in crowded streets where everyone minded their 72 00:05:05.959 --> 00:05:10.120 own business. It was the perfect ecosystem for a predator. 73 00:05:10.639 --> 00:05:14.360 And in the early eighteen nineties, while Chicago prepared to 74 00:05:14.399 --> 00:05:19.439 showcase the wonders of modern civilization to the world, a 75 00:05:19.519 --> 00:05:22.560 man moved quietly through the city with a smile on 76 00:05:22.639 --> 00:05:26.639 his face and something far darker in his mind. His 77 00:05:26.759 --> 00:05:32.000 given name was Herman Webster Mudget, but the name history 78 00:05:32.079 --> 00:05:37.920 remembers the name he gave himself was doctor Henry Howard Holmes. 79 00:05:38.839 --> 00:05:45.120 Holmes appeared respectable, polished, soft spoken. He dressed well, paid 80 00:05:45.160 --> 00:05:48.560 attention to details, and carried himself like a man the 81 00:05:48.600 --> 00:05:53.279 world ought to trust. People described him as charming and intelligent, 82 00:05:53.800 --> 00:05:59.199 a gentleman, a doctor, but charm as camouflage. An intelligence 83 00:05:59.560 --> 00:06:04.240 is a weapon. Holmes didn't simply kill. He designed murder. 84 00:06:04.759 --> 00:06:08.720 He engineered it. He built a structure, brick by brick, 85 00:06:09.199 --> 00:06:13.519 that operated like a machine for disposing of human beings. 86 00:06:14.120 --> 00:06:20.000 He turned anatomy into opportunity, He turned anonymity into cover. 87 00:06:20.639 --> 00:06:23.800 And when the world finally discovered what he'd done, it 88 00:06:23.920 --> 00:06:28.160 struggled to understand the truth because America didn't have a 89 00:06:28.199 --> 00:06:32.720 word for a man like him. Not serial killer, not psychopath, 90 00:06:33.319 --> 00:06:40.000 not organized defender. Those weren't invented yet. Holmes was the first. 91 00:06:40.560 --> 00:06:45.920 And the story you're about to hear isn't the mythologized version, 92 00:06:46.480 --> 00:06:51.040 not the Hollywood embellishment, not the half remembered urban legend, 93 00:06:51.600 --> 00:06:54.519 and not the water down folklore of a so called 94 00:06:54.720 --> 00:07:01.839 murder castle. This is the Holmes who existed in reality, calculated, inventive, cold, 95 00:07:02.240 --> 00:07:06.399 and extraordinarily patient. A man who saw human beings not 96 00:07:06.519 --> 00:07:10.279 as people but his assets. A man who could build 97 00:07:10.279 --> 00:07:13.680 a house that didn't just hide death, it produced it. 98 00:07:14.199 --> 00:07:17.720 A man who learned exactly how easy it was in 99 00:07:17.759 --> 00:07:21.399 the chaos of a booming country to make someone disappear 100 00:07:21.480 --> 00:07:24.920 without a trace. So tonight we're going to step into 101 00:07:24.959 --> 00:07:27.839 that world. We're going back to the beginning, before the 102 00:07:27.879 --> 00:07:32.240 newspaper headlines, before the confessions, before the trial, back to 103 00:07:32.279 --> 00:07:36.079 the child who learned how to lie without blinking, and 104 00:07:36.319 --> 00:07:40.079 the medical student who discovered how profitable a body could be. 105 00:07:40.800 --> 00:07:45.519 And then we descend into the castle. Because to understand 106 00:07:45.759 --> 00:07:49.959 doctor H. H. Holmes, you have to understand the machinery 107 00:07:50.040 --> 00:07:54.040 he built and the system he exploited, long before the 108 00:07:54.040 --> 00:07:58.920 country even realized a monster was walking among them. Hermann 109 00:07:59.040 --> 00:08:03.720 Webster Mudget was born on May sixteenth, eighteen sixty one, 110 00:08:04.279 --> 00:08:08.519 in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, a place where church pews outnumbered 111 00:08:08.560 --> 00:08:13.000 storefronts and the rhythm of daily life was slow, predictable, 112 00:08:13.519 --> 00:08:18.480 and tightly controlled. His parents were strict Methodists, committed to 113 00:08:18.560 --> 00:08:23.360 discipline and moral order. In that era, obedience was a virtue, 114 00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:29.279 silence was expected, and fear was considered a tool. Holmes 115 00:08:29.279 --> 00:08:33.399 would later insist his childhood was pleasant, calm, and ordinary. 116 00:08:34.000 --> 00:08:38.080 The people who knew him remembered something very different. Neighbors 117 00:08:38.080 --> 00:08:43.679 described him as unusually bright, but unnervingly detached, a boy 118 00:08:43.679 --> 00:08:47.879 who didn't laugh with other children, didn't scare easily, and 119 00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:51.320 lied with a casual confidence that adults didn't know what 120 00:08:51.480 --> 00:08:55.080 to do with. He seemed to understand early that people 121 00:08:55.120 --> 00:08:58.399 believed what they wanted to believe, and if he delivered 122 00:08:58.399 --> 00:09:01.279 the right expression at the right place moment, he could 123 00:09:01.279 --> 00:09:05.480 get away with anything. It was an early form of manipulation, 124 00:09:06.120 --> 00:09:10.720 and Holmes mastered it effortlessly. But the story he repeated 125 00:09:10.799 --> 00:09:14.279 most often, the one he claimed that shaped him, was 126 00:09:14.399 --> 00:09:19.399 the now famous skeleton incident. According to Holmes, neighborhood boys 127 00:09:19.440 --> 00:09:23.000 once forced him into a doctor's office where they shoved 128 00:09:23.000 --> 00:09:27.000 his hand into a human skeleton to terrify him. He said, 129 00:09:27.039 --> 00:09:32.000 the fear melted into fascination. He said that moment sparked 130 00:09:32.039 --> 00:09:36.679 his lifelong obsession with anatomy. It's a neat story, it's 131 00:09:36.720 --> 00:09:40.960 a cinematic story. But there's one problem. There's no evidence 132 00:09:41.000 --> 00:09:44.960 it ever happens. Holmes wrote that story himself years later, 133 00:09:45.240 --> 00:09:49.519 while awaiting execution. Historians believe he created it as part 134 00:09:49.559 --> 00:09:54.279 of his personal mythology, a dark origin Taleman to explain 135 00:09:54.559 --> 00:09:59.000 or even justify everything that came after. But whether the 136 00:09:59.080 --> 00:10:03.279 Skeleton's story he was real or not, something else was true. 137 00:10:03.320 --> 00:10:06.919 Holmes understood the power of narrative. He understood how to 138 00:10:07.039 --> 00:10:10.759 make people remember him the way he wanted to be remembered. 139 00:10:11.200 --> 00:10:14.799 He understood how to turn himself into a character. And 140 00:10:14.879 --> 00:10:18.399 long before he became a doctor, long before he built 141 00:10:18.399 --> 00:10:22.399 the castle, long before he made his first body disappear, 142 00:10:23.039 --> 00:10:27.039 Holmes learned to become whoever he needed to be. But 143 00:10:27.200 --> 00:10:31.759 childhood is only the prologue. The real transformation, the moment 144 00:10:31.960 --> 00:10:35.960 Holmes learned exactly what a human body was worth, began 145 00:10:36.720 --> 00:10:42.759 at the University of Michigan Medical School. Shut up, shut up. 146 00:10:43.039 --> 00:10:45.279 He worked at U of M. He was at U 147 00:10:45.360 --> 00:10:49.320 of M. Oh Yes, this is where he learned the 148 00:10:49.440 --> 00:10:53.240 value of a body. By the early eighteen eighties, Herman 149 00:10:53.320 --> 00:10:57.039 Webster Mudget had shut his skin. Distance from his childhood 150 00:10:57.039 --> 00:10:59.159 gave him freedom, and he stepped into the world of 151 00:10:59.240 --> 00:11:02.759 higher education with a new kind of confidence. He enrolled 152 00:11:02.799 --> 00:11:05.759 in the University of Michigan Medical School in eighteen eighty two, 153 00:11:06.320 --> 00:11:09.039 a decision that would alter the course of his life 154 00:11:09.039 --> 00:11:12.519 in many others, in ways no one could have predicted. 155 00:11:13.080 --> 00:11:17.799 Medical schools in the nineteenth century were worlds unto themselves. 156 00:11:18.200 --> 00:11:22.879 The halls carried the metallic smell of discarded instruments and formaldehyde. 157 00:11:23.320 --> 00:11:28.000 Anatomy labs were crowded with cadavers, bodies obtained from sources 158 00:11:28.039 --> 00:11:34.480 that ranged from legally ambiguous to outright criminal. Grave robbers 159 00:11:35.159 --> 00:11:41.799 known politely as resurrectionists. That was their yes, their street term, 160 00:11:42.159 --> 00:11:45.559 supplied much of the demand. It was an open secret. 161 00:11:45.919 --> 00:11:48.639 Everyone knew about it, and no one talked about it 162 00:11:49.320 --> 00:11:53.279 because dissection was essential to learning, and the supply had 163 00:11:53.320 --> 00:11:57.120 to come from somewhere. Holmes stepped into this world like 164 00:11:57.159 --> 00:12:02.440 a man entering a library he already meted. He understood 165 00:12:02.600 --> 00:12:06.279 anatomy quickly, not just the structure of the human body, 166 00:12:06.639 --> 00:12:10.360 but the opportunities it presented. There are students who study 167 00:12:10.440 --> 00:12:13.600 because they must, and there are students who study because 168 00:12:13.639 --> 00:12:17.559 they see advantage. Holmes was the latter. This was the 169 00:12:17.600 --> 00:12:22.080 first time he was surrounded by corpses, not as symbols, 170 00:12:22.120 --> 00:12:28.279 not as stories, but as raw material. Bodies were accessible, movable, convertible, 171 00:12:28.720 --> 00:12:34.320 and in the right circumstances, profitable. Holmes discovered a method 172 00:12:34.480 --> 00:12:40.559 that exploited both medical anonymity and insurance loopholes. This process 173 00:12:40.679 --> 00:12:46.559 was simple, elegant, and ruthlessly efficient. You create a false identity, 174 00:12:47.039 --> 00:12:50.840 You take out a life insurance policy under that identity, 175 00:12:51.360 --> 00:12:56.200 then you obtain a cadaver that resembles the imaginary policy holder, 176 00:12:56.799 --> 00:13:00.519 and finally you mutilate that body to sit just a 177 00:13:00.679 --> 00:13:06.159 violent accidental death. Doesn't this remind that story that you 178 00:13:06.320 --> 00:13:13.080 covered the two parts with that irishman? Oh? Yes, Michael Malone. Yes, 179 00:13:13.679 --> 00:13:16.200 I was thinking of him when I was doing this. 180 00:13:16.639 --> 00:13:19.279 They tried to kill him and kept trying to kill him, 181 00:13:19.320 --> 00:13:23.720 and kept over and giving him gasoline. Almost. Oh right, 182 00:13:23.799 --> 00:13:28.240 paint Dinner. I think it was paint Dinner's paint Thinner. Yes, yeah, terrible. 183 00:13:28.679 --> 00:13:34.000 It was. Holmes, with his medical knowledge, authenticated the corpse, 184 00:13:34.480 --> 00:13:38.320 the insurance company paid the claim, and the false identity 185 00:13:38.799 --> 00:13:42.679 died without question. He ran these schemes with fellow student 186 00:13:43.000 --> 00:13:47.399 Robert Leecock, but even among the ethically flexible students of 187 00:13:47.559 --> 00:13:52.759 nineteenth century medicine, Holmes stood out. He had no hesitation, 188 00:13:53.240 --> 00:13:57.919 no discomfort, no internal conflict. He had found his first 189 00:13:58.200 --> 00:14:04.039 entrepreneurial model, death is business. He learned the paperwork, the anatomy, 190 00:14:04.399 --> 00:14:09.879 the insurance codes, the art of forging documents, and most importantly, 191 00:14:10.480 --> 00:14:13.799 he learned how easy it was to make a body disappear, 192 00:14:14.759 --> 00:14:19.039 the first unconfirmed victim. This is one story that rarely 193 00:14:19.080 --> 00:14:22.559 makes the mainstream accounts a young woman who came to 194 00:14:22.799 --> 00:14:27.519 the medical school for tutoring. She studied stenography, and she 195 00:14:27.679 --> 00:14:32.960 was bright, independent and fascinated by scientific education in a 196 00:14:33.000 --> 00:14:36.559 time when most women weren't encouraged to pursue it. And 197 00:14:36.639 --> 00:14:41.120 she visited home several times, and then she vanished. No 198 00:14:41.240 --> 00:14:45.960 missing person's report, no newspaper alert, nothing. But around the 199 00:14:45.960 --> 00:14:50.639 same time, Holmes was overheard asking a fellow student about quote, 200 00:14:50.879 --> 00:14:55.720 disposing of a female corpse discreetly end quote. That phrasing, 201 00:14:55.840 --> 00:14:59.159 even in the morally gray world of nineteenth century anatomy, 202 00:14:59.240 --> 00:15:05.039 raised some eyebro Yeah, I read flat flag? What Yeah? What? 203 00:15:05.960 --> 00:15:09.879 The woman was never identified and herds as appearance never recorded, 204 00:15:10.360 --> 00:15:14.720 but the timing and the silence speaks for itself. Holmes 205 00:15:14.720 --> 00:15:19.080 had crossed the line internally from fraud involving corpses to 206 00:15:19.320 --> 00:15:22.960 creating a corpse himself, and he learned something that would 207 00:15:23.000 --> 00:15:26.480 shape the rest of his life. Young women could vanish 208 00:15:26.519 --> 00:15:30.919 without consequence. No one came looking, no one raised hell, 209 00:15:31.559 --> 00:15:35.840 no one cared enough to ask questions. Disappearance was easy, 210 00:15:36.200 --> 00:15:41.440 Disposal was easy. Death was easy. And with that realization, 211 00:15:41.919 --> 00:15:47.240 Hermann Webster Mudget began shedding his old identity entirely. He 212 00:15:47.279 --> 00:15:49.639 walked toward a new life, a new city with a 213 00:15:49.720 --> 00:15:55.320 new name. Holmes Holmes arrived in Chicago in eighteen eighty six, 214 00:15:55.840 --> 00:16:00.000 a city bursting at the seams, smoked from factories, clung 215 00:16:00.120 --> 00:16:04.519 to the skyline, street cars rattled, immigrants poured in by 216 00:16:04.600 --> 00:16:09.759 the thousands. The air tasted like ambition and ash. Chicago 217 00:16:09.879 --> 00:16:12.600 was a place where you could beat anything, a place 218 00:16:12.639 --> 00:16:15.200 where a new name was enough to rewrite a man's 219 00:16:15.440 --> 00:16:19.559 entire past. Holmes called himself a doctor, and no one 220 00:16:19.720 --> 00:16:22.399 questioned him. He took a job at a drug store 221 00:16:22.399 --> 00:16:26.039 in Inglewood, a working class neighborhood that smelled of coal 222 00:16:26.159 --> 00:16:30.279 dust and opportunity homes. Sold medicine with a warm smile, 223 00:16:30.679 --> 00:16:33.519 he counted change with a soft hand, and when the 224 00:16:33.559 --> 00:16:38.559 aging owner of the drug store died unexpectedly, Holmes comforted 225 00:16:38.600 --> 00:16:42.639 the widow with gentle words and patient eyes. Not long 226 00:16:42.759 --> 00:16:51.159 after she disappeared, Holmes acquired the drug store Hmmm, and 227 00:16:51.320 --> 00:16:54.440 with it the financial footing he needed to build something 228 00:16:54.600 --> 00:16:58.639 far more ambitious, something the world would later name the 229 00:16:58.759 --> 00:17:03.039 Murder castle, though that phrase didn't capture the cold precision 230 00:17:03.159 --> 00:17:06.799 behind it. Holmes purchased a vacant lot across from the 231 00:17:06.880 --> 00:17:10.279 drug store and began construction on a three story building 232 00:17:10.400 --> 00:17:14.960 that defied logic. The workers who built it complained constantly, 233 00:17:15.519 --> 00:17:20.000 the blueprints changed weakly. Holmes kept the plans locked away. 234 00:17:20.519 --> 00:17:24.440 He hired carpenters, then fired them, then hired new ones, 235 00:17:24.720 --> 00:17:29.039 then fired them too. It wasn't incompetence, it was strategy. 236 00:17:29.559 --> 00:17:33.839 No single person ever saw the building's full design. When 237 00:17:33.880 --> 00:17:37.519 the investigators eventually entered the building in eighteen ninety five, 238 00:17:37.720 --> 00:17:41.640 they documented features that read like architecture of a nightmare. 239 00:17:42.119 --> 00:17:47.440 Hallways that led nowhere, staircases ending abruptly at blank walls, 240 00:17:48.039 --> 00:17:52.480 rooms with no windows, no vents, no escape doors that 241 00:17:52.599 --> 00:17:57.480 locked from the outside, only secret passages and hidden corridors. 242 00:17:58.079 --> 00:18:03.160 Shoots leading directly to the basement, angled perfectly to accommodate 243 00:18:03.240 --> 00:18:07.079 a human body. A sealed vault with gas jets that 244 00:18:07.160 --> 00:18:11.839 could be activated remotely and in the attic. A walk 245 00:18:11.920 --> 00:18:16.920 in kiln lined with firebrick capable of reaching temperatures high 246 00:18:17.000 --> 00:18:21.079 enough to obliterate bone. Well, damn, he had crematorium in 247 00:18:21.119 --> 00:18:26.319 his attic crematorium that shoot down to the basement. Did 248 00:18:26.319 --> 00:18:30.200 you ever see American horror story Hotel. No. I never 249 00:18:30.240 --> 00:18:33.720 watched that one. This is so reminiscent of it. This 250 00:18:33.920 --> 00:18:39.319 wasn't chaos, this wasn't accidental. This was engineering. Holmes didn't 251 00:18:39.359 --> 00:18:43.240 build a home. He built a machine, a structure designed 252 00:18:43.240 --> 00:18:49.119 to confuse, isolate, weaken, and finally erase. The castle was 253 00:18:49.200 --> 00:18:52.680 the body, Holmes was the brain, and the young women 254 00:18:52.720 --> 00:18:57.160 who entered it were raw material. Inglewood had no idea 255 00:18:57.240 --> 00:19:00.920 what it was living beside Chicago had no idea what 256 00:19:01.160 --> 00:19:05.440 it had invited in. Because the castle was only the stage. 257 00:19:06.000 --> 00:19:11.039 The real horror was what and who disappearing inside it. 258 00:19:11.559 --> 00:19:15.400 The castle didn't become famous overnight. It didn't announce itself. 259 00:19:15.480 --> 00:19:18.599 It didn't scream or cry out or drip blood into 260 00:19:18.680 --> 00:19:22.640 the sidewalk. It blended in. It looked like any other 261 00:19:22.759 --> 00:19:26.920 large commercial building. In Inglewood, offices on the first floor, 262 00:19:26.960 --> 00:19:35.359 rental rooms above. People entered constantly, travelers, employees, customers, deliverymen, neighbors. 263 00:19:35.880 --> 00:19:39.920 But the ones homes focused on most were young women. 264 00:19:40.799 --> 00:19:44.480 Chicago in the early eighteen nineties was full of them, 265 00:19:44.880 --> 00:19:50.720 newly independent, newly urban, newly vulnerable women came from small 266 00:19:50.759 --> 00:19:56.000 towns and farming communities across the Midwest, hoping for work, education, 267 00:19:56.400 --> 00:20:02.079 or excitement. They answered newspaper ads promising respectable employment. They 268 00:20:02.119 --> 00:20:05.920 rented rooms cheaply, often with little more than a trunk 269 00:20:06.039 --> 00:20:10.599 and a handwritten letter of reference. Holmes didn't choose victims 270 00:20:10.599 --> 00:20:16.319 at random. He selected women who were isolated, transient, or unprotected, 271 00:20:16.880 --> 00:20:20.720 women who wouldn't have family nearby to question their absence, 272 00:20:21.319 --> 00:20:24.680 and once he hired them, Holmes encouraged them to take 273 00:20:24.720 --> 00:20:30.359 out life insurance policies, policies that listed him as the beneficiary. 274 00:20:31.000 --> 00:20:34.160 It was one of his earliest red flags, and it 275 00:20:34.319 --> 00:20:39.119 was the one almost no one noticed. I'm sorry, don't 276 00:20:39.759 --> 00:20:43.279 take a life insurance policy out on me. I start it, 277 00:20:45.640 --> 00:20:52.000 stop it. Julia and Pearl O'Connor the first documented disappearance so. 278 00:20:52.240 --> 00:20:55.960 Julia Connor was working at the castle's pharmacy counter when 279 00:20:56.000 --> 00:21:01.000 Holmes noticed her. She was charismatic and attractive. Entrapped in 280 00:21:01.039 --> 00:21:08.240 a failing marriage, Holmes exploited that instantly. He offered her stability, attention, affection, 281 00:21:08.640 --> 00:21:13.000 then seduction. Julia and Holmes began an affair, and soon 282 00:21:13.319 --> 00:21:17.319 she and her daughter, Pearl lived inside the castle itself, 283 00:21:17.839 --> 00:21:23.039 and then Christmas Eve eighteen ninety one, they vanished. Holmes 284 00:21:23.119 --> 00:21:26.880 later claimed Julia died during a botched abortion and that 285 00:21:27.039 --> 00:21:32.400 Pearl went elsewhere. But holmes lies always came in half 286 00:21:32.599 --> 00:21:37.519 formed fragments. His stories shifted with each retelling. What didn't 287 00:21:37.599 --> 00:21:41.160 change were the forensic traces later recovered in the castle 288 00:21:42.319 --> 00:21:45.759 the case file discovery. In the basement of Julia and 289 00:21:45.839 --> 00:21:51.400 Pearl during the eighteen ninety five excavation, investigators found small, 290 00:21:51.599 --> 00:21:55.680 fragile femur fragments belonging to a child between six and 291 00:21:55.720 --> 00:21:59.480 eight years old, a partial dental plate consistent with young 292 00:21:59.519 --> 00:22:06.559 girl's fragments of jewelry identified by relatives as Julia's, strands 293 00:22:06.599 --> 00:22:10.839 of long, dark hair lodged inside a drain gate, chemical 294 00:22:10.880 --> 00:22:16.519 residues consistent with quick line decomposition. There was no abortion, 295 00:22:16.799 --> 00:22:21.119 there was no departure, there was no disposal. Julia and 296 00:22:21.200 --> 00:22:26.119 Pearl's remains tell a story Holmes refused to Emmeline's. The 297 00:22:26.200 --> 00:22:31.279 grand was intelligent, careful, and far more guarded than holmes 298 00:22:31.480 --> 00:22:35.640 usual targets. She worked as a scenographer. She had a 299 00:22:35.680 --> 00:22:39.559 family nearby, and she had her own plans, her own ambitions, 300 00:22:40.039 --> 00:22:44.200 but Holmes had a talent, a dark talent for creating trust. 301 00:22:44.839 --> 00:22:49.839 He courted her. Proposed marriage described a future so detailed 302 00:22:49.880 --> 00:22:54.720 it became almost tangible. Then one afternoon, Emmaaline told a 303 00:22:54.759 --> 00:22:58.680 coworker she had a meeting in Holmes's office to talk 304 00:22:58.720 --> 00:23:03.200 about the future. She was never seen again. Months later, 305 00:23:03.279 --> 00:23:07.960 a trunk belonging to Emmaline was found in the castle's basement, locked, 306 00:23:08.119 --> 00:23:13.519 tagged and empty. Her body has never been recovered. Her disappearance, 307 00:23:13.880 --> 00:23:16.920 like so many others, was buried under the weight of 308 00:23:16.960 --> 00:23:21.200 a city too busy, too crowded, and too chaotic to 309 00:23:21.319 --> 00:23:26.119 notice a single missing woman. The Minnie Williams, was wealthy 310 00:23:26.519 --> 00:23:31.880 by nineteenth century standards. She inherited Texas property worth thousands 311 00:23:32.440 --> 00:23:36.079 Home saw her as a gold mine. He seduced her, 312 00:23:36.599 --> 00:23:40.359 convinced her of his affection, then persuaded her to sign 313 00:23:40.400 --> 00:23:43.480 the deed to her property over to a man named 314 00:23:43.640 --> 00:23:49.920 Alexander Bond. Bond was Holmes himself. When Many's sister, Nanny 315 00:23:50.160 --> 00:23:53.880 arrived in Chicago to visit, the two sisters were last 316 00:23:53.880 --> 00:23:58.039 seen entering the castle together. Neither was seen again. What 317 00:23:58.160 --> 00:24:04.160 investigators found instead were forged letters, forged signatures and property 318 00:24:04.240 --> 00:24:08.519 transfers that pointed to Holmes as the sole beneficiary. The 319 00:24:08.559 --> 00:24:13.680 sisters were gone, their assets were not. Holmes didn't kill impulsively. 320 00:24:14.240 --> 00:24:18.880 He killed for reasons money, control, convenience, and when the 321 00:24:18.920 --> 00:24:24.359 castle's architecture required a body, he provided one. So how 322 00:24:24.400 --> 00:24:28.680 many disappeared? The truth is simple and chilling. We will 323 00:24:28.720 --> 00:24:32.720 never know the full number. Chicago in the eighteen nineties 324 00:24:32.759 --> 00:24:38.160 recorded thousands of untraced disappearances each year. People vanished from 325 00:24:38.160 --> 00:24:43.319 boarding houses, factories, tenements, and rail lines without paperwork, without 326 00:24:43.480 --> 00:24:48.279 follow up, and without anyone filing a missing report. Holmes 327 00:24:48.359 --> 00:24:51.559 knew this, He navigated it, and he fed off of it. 328 00:24:52.039 --> 00:24:56.119 The castle didn't merely hide victims. It processed them, and 329 00:24:56.160 --> 00:24:59.680 it reduced them. It eliminated all evidence that they were 330 00:24:59.680 --> 00:25:04.720 ever there. And Chicago and all its industrial glory, was 331 00:25:04.759 --> 00:25:09.519 the perfect hiding place. But everything changed in eighteen ninety 332 00:25:09.519 --> 00:25:13.400 three when the World's Fair came to town, and suddenly 333 00:25:13.559 --> 00:25:18.039 the entire world walked straight past the castle, never suspecting 334 00:25:18.119 --> 00:25:22.640 the darkness inside. In eighteen ninety three, Chicago transformed into 335 00:25:22.680 --> 00:25:28.400 something extraordinary. After years of construction delay, political wrangling, and 336 00:25:28.519 --> 00:25:34.519 national pressure, the World's Columbian Exposition finally opened its gates. 337 00:25:35.160 --> 00:25:39.200 Over six hundred acres of gleaming white buildings rose from 338 00:25:39.200 --> 00:25:42.519 the muddy swamp land near Lake Michigan, lit at night 339 00:25:42.599 --> 00:25:46.400 by more electric bulbs than most Americans had ever seen 340 00:25:46.440 --> 00:25:50.160 in their lifetime. It was called the White City, a 341 00:25:50.200 --> 00:25:55.720 mirrored dream of what America hoped it could become. Modern, bright, safe, 342 00:25:55.759 --> 00:25:59.319 and full of promise. But that was the illusion above 343 00:25:59.359 --> 00:26:02.920 the surface. Down in Inglewood, just a few miles away 344 00:26:03.519 --> 00:26:08.519 stood holmes Castle, dark, labyrinth, and carefully designed to be 345 00:26:08.640 --> 00:26:12.640 everything the White City wasn't. The fair brought twenty seven 346 00:26:12.759 --> 00:26:17.240 million visitors through Chicago. It was a tidal wight. Twenty 347 00:26:17.279 --> 00:26:21.519 seven million and eighteen three. Yes, it was a tidal 348 00:26:21.559 --> 00:26:27.839 wave of humanity, mothers, fathers, businessmen, inventors, students, countless, young 349 00:26:27.880 --> 00:26:34.480 women traveling alone, searching for independence, excitement, and opportunity. For Holmes, 350 00:26:34.559 --> 00:26:39.119 it was a banquet, the perfect cover, the perfect stream 351 00:26:39.279 --> 00:26:42.960 of victims, a city flooded with strangers no one would 352 00:26:42.960 --> 00:26:49.079 ever trace. Holmes placed advertisements in newspapers across the Midwest 353 00:26:49.079 --> 00:26:52.519 and East Coast, would say young women wanted good pay, 354 00:26:52.799 --> 00:26:57.359 travel opportunities, room and board included it was innocent enough 355 00:26:57.599 --> 00:27:01.640 the kind of add Thousands of employedlawyers posted during the fair. 356 00:27:02.359 --> 00:27:07.240 Women arrived with trunks and dreams. They entered Holmes's office 357 00:27:07.319 --> 00:27:11.880 with resumes neatly folded, and they signed employment contracts written 358 00:27:11.920 --> 00:27:16.200 in his elegant handwriting. And then they vanished. Some were 359 00:27:16.279 --> 00:27:19.279 last seeing buying a new dress for their job. Some 360 00:27:19.440 --> 00:27:23.400 mailed letters homes saying that they had arrived safely. Some 361 00:27:23.559 --> 00:27:27.079 walked into the castle confident they had secured their future 362 00:27:27.720 --> 00:27:31.720 homes made sure they never had one. The fair created 363 00:27:31.759 --> 00:27:36.200 a crisis of lodging. There simply wasn't enough places to stay. 364 00:27:36.599 --> 00:27:41.799 Boarding houses overflowed with guests. Thousands slept in makeshift dormitories 365 00:27:41.960 --> 00:27:46.240 or took rooms in private homes. Homes exploited this chaos. 366 00:27:46.759 --> 00:27:50.200 He rented out rooms in the castle to visitors. Guests 367 00:27:50.240 --> 00:27:55.559 came and went. Most left unharmed, but enough disappeared that 368 00:27:55.640 --> 00:28:00.000 investigators would later struggle to reconstruct exactly who stayed there 369 00:28:00.559 --> 00:28:04.240 and who never checked out. He understood the genius of noise. 370 00:28:04.960 --> 00:28:09.480 When everyone is shouting, no one notices a single missing whisper. 371 00:28:10.079 --> 00:28:14.839 So the case file missing Persons during the Fair between 372 00:28:14.920 --> 00:28:19.720 May and October eighteen ninety three, Chicago police recorded a 373 00:28:19.720 --> 00:28:24.680 staggering number of disappearances, many of them young women traveling alone. 374 00:28:25.119 --> 00:28:29.759 Numerous missing persons were never identified. Many were travelers with 375 00:28:29.880 --> 00:28:35.119 no local contacts. Everything that made Holmes's checklists women trying 376 00:28:35.160 --> 00:28:38.720 to flee marriages or family, you know, getting away a 377 00:28:38.799 --> 00:28:42.960 degree of desperation, and newspapers were flooded with pleas like 378 00:28:43.079 --> 00:28:47.240 missing daughter, last letter sent from Chicago, seen at the fair, 379 00:28:47.400 --> 00:28:51.720 no contacts. Since many young women fell into that, Holmes 380 00:28:51.720 --> 00:28:55.240 didn't need much to hunt victims. They came to him 381 00:28:55.519 --> 00:28:58.759 because the World's Fair made Chicago shine like the future, 382 00:28:59.319 --> 00:29:04.319 and predators understand better than anyone that bright lights cast 383 00:29:04.359 --> 00:29:08.720 the darkest shadows. The castle was running at full capacity, 384 00:29:09.240 --> 00:29:14.240 and while Chicago celebrated its triumph of modernity, Holmes perfected 385 00:29:14.279 --> 00:29:18.200 the art of making people vanish. But eventually, even he 386 00:29:18.279 --> 00:29:22.359 made a mistake, and it wasn't the castle that betrayed him. 387 00:29:22.839 --> 00:29:25.759 It was a man he thought he could control, a 388 00:29:25.799 --> 00:29:29.920 man named Benjamin Pitzel. For all his charm, for all 389 00:29:29.960 --> 00:29:34.960 his intelligence, for all his architectural brilliance, HH Holmes was 390 00:29:35.079 --> 00:29:40.319 undone by something surprisingly simple, greed and the belief that 391 00:29:40.480 --> 00:29:43.720 no one not even the law would ever be smart 392 00:29:43.839 --> 00:29:46.880 enough to catch him. By eighteen ninety four, Holmes had 393 00:29:46.880 --> 00:29:51.759 a new accomplice, a carpenter named Benjamin Pitzel. Pitzel was 394 00:29:51.799 --> 00:29:55.559 a father, an alcoholic, and a man desperate for money. 395 00:29:56.000 --> 00:29:59.720 He saw Holmes as charismatic and successful, a man who 396 00:29:59.720 --> 00:30:02.480 could offer him steady work and a sense of purpose. 397 00:30:03.079 --> 00:30:07.759 Holmes saw Pizel as something else, a tool, a liability, 398 00:30:08.240 --> 00:30:13.279 and eventually opportunity. Holmes and Pizel had run several insurance 399 00:30:13.279 --> 00:30:16.920 scams together, but the last one, the one that would 400 00:30:16.920 --> 00:30:20.839 expose everything, was supposed to be their biggest score. Yet. 401 00:30:21.240 --> 00:30:26.240