Serial killer herman mudgett

He paid his tuition with a tidy legacy that had been inherited by his wife. Even as a student though, Holmes began to dabble in debauchery. In , he transferred to the medical school of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor while there, devised a method of stealing cadavers from the laboratory. He would then disfigure the corpses and plant them in places where it would look as though they had been killed in accidents.

Conveniently, Holmes had already taken out insurance policies on these "family members" and he would collect on them as soon as the bodies were discovered. Clara returned to New Hampshire and never saw her husband again. After that, Holmes dropped out of sight for six years. What became of him during most of this period is unknown and later on, even Pinkerton detectives were unable to learn much about his activities in these years, although they did come across traces of his trail in several cities and states.

For a year or so, he was engaged in a legitimate business in St. Paul and so gained the respect of the community that he was appointed the receiver of a bankrupt store. He immediately stocked the place with goods, sold them at low prices and then vanished with the proceeds. From St. In , Holmes turned up in Chicago and opened an office he was posing as an inventor in the North Shore suburb of Wilmette. Upon his re-appearance, Holmes filed for divorce from Clara, Lovering but the proceedings were unsuccessful and the case dragged on until This did not stop him from marrying another woman however, Myrtle Z.

Belknap, who father, John Belknap, was a wealthy businessman in Wilmette. Although the marriage did produce a daughter, it was nevertheless a strange one. Myrtle remained living in Wilmette while Holmes began living in Chicago. John Belknap would later discover that Holmes had tried to cheat him out of property by forging his name on deeds.

He would also claim that Holmes had tried to poison him when he was confronted about the fraudulent papers. Myrtle ended the marriage in Stories claim that the house in Wilmette where Myrtle lived is haunted today. One has to wonder if the spirits who walk here are that of John Belknap or Myrtle herself. Its possible that her unhappy marriage, and horror as the later crimes of her husband were revealed, has caused her to linger behind.

Shortly after Holmes married Myrtle, he began working in a drugstore in the Englewood neighborhood at the corner of 63rd and Wallace Street. The store was owned by a Mrs. Holden, an older lady, who was happy to have the young man take over most of the responsibilities of the store. In , Holmes began a new era in his criminal life.

After a short trip to Indiana, he returned to Chicago and purchase an empty lot across the street from the drugstore. He had plans to build a huge house on the property and work was started almost immediately.

His trip to Indiana had been profitable and he had used the journey to pull off an insurance scheme with the help of an accomplice named Benjamin Pietzel.

The confederate later went to jail as a result of the swindle, but Holmes came away unscathed. Holmes continued to operate the drug store, to which he also added a jewelry counter. In , he hired Ned Connor of Davenport, Iowa as a watchmaker and jeweler. The young man arrived in the city in the company of his wife, Julia, and their daughter, Pearl.

The family moved into a small apartment above the store and soon, Julia managed to capture the interest of Holmes. Not long after, Connor began to suspect that Holmes was carrying on with his wife, and he was right. Luckily for him, he decided to cut his losses, abandoned his family and went to work for another shop downtown. Now that Holmes had Julia to himself, he took out large insurance polices of the woman and her daughter, naming himself as a beneficiary.

When he incorporated the jewelry business in August , he listed Julia, along with her friend Kate Durkee, as directors. The building was three-stories high and built from brick. There were over 60 rooms in the structure and 51 doors that there cut oddly into various walls.

Holmes acted as his own architect for the place and he personally supervised the numerous construction crews, all of whom were quickly hired and fired. In addition to the eccentric general design, the house was also fitted with trap doors, hidden staircases, secret passages, rooms without windows, chutes that led into the basement and a staircase that opened out over a steep drop to the alley behind the house.

The first floor of the building contained stores and shops, while the upper floors could be used for spacious living quarters. Holmes also had an office on the second floor, but most of the rooms were to be used for guests Other chambers were lined with iron plates and had blowtorch-like devices fitted into the walls. In the basement, Holmes installed a dissecting table and maintained his own crematory.

There was also an acid vat and pits lined with quicklime, where bodies could be conveniently disposed of. It has come to be believed that many of his victims were held captive for months before their deaths. The castle was completed in and soon after, Holmes announced that he plan to rent out some of the rooms to tourists who would be arriving in mass for the upcoming Columbian Exposition. It is surmised that many of these tourists never returned home after the fair, but no one knows for sure.

A large number of his female victims came through false classified ads that he placed in small town newspapers that offered jobs to young ladies.

When the ads was answered, he would describe several jobs in detail and explain that the woman would have her choice of positions at the time of the interview. When accepted, she would then be instructed to pack her things and withdraw all of her money from the bank because she would need funds to get started. The applicants were also instructed to keep the location and the name of his company a closely guarded secret. He told them that he had devious competitors who would use any information possible to steal his clients.

When the applicant arrived, and Holmes was convinced that she had told no one of her destination, she would become his prisoner. An advertisement for lodging during the fair was not the only method that Holmes used for procuring victims. A large number of his female victims came through false classified ads that he placed in small town newspapers, offering jobs to young ladies. When the ads were answered, he would describe several jobs in detail and explained that the woman would have her choice of positions at the time of the interview.

Holmes also placed newspaper ads for marriage as well, describing himself as a wealthy businessman who was searching for a suitable wife. Those who answered this ad would get a similar story to the job offer. He would then torture the women to learn the whereabouts of any valuables they might have. The young ladies would then remain his prisoner until he decided to dispose of them.

Amazingly, Holmes was able to keep his murder operation a secret for four years. H slaughtered an unknown number of people, mostly women, in the castle. He would later confess to 28 murders, although the actual number of victims is believed to be much higher.

To examine the details of the story, the reader cannot help but be horrified by the amount of planning and devious detail that went into the murders. There is no question that Holmes was one of the most prolific and depraved killers in American history. In , Homes met a young woman named Minnie Williams. He told her that his name was Harry Gordon and that he was a wealthy inventor.

She was in Chicago working as an instructor for a private school. This was a turn of events that did not make Julia Connor happy. She was still involved with Holmes and still working at the store. Not long after his engagement became official, both Julia and Pearl disappeared. When Ned Connor later inquired after them, Holmes explained that they had moved to Michigan.

In his confession, he admitted that Julia had died during a bungled abortion that he had performed on her. He had poisoned Pearl. He later admitted that he murdered the woman and her child because of her jealous feelings toward Minnie Williams. Police investigators would state there was no way that she could not have had guilty knowledge about many of the murders.

Besides being ultimately responsible for the deaths of Julia and Pearl Connor, Minnie was also believed to have instigated the murder of Emily Van Tassel, a young lady who lived on Robey Street. She was only 17 and worked at a candy store in the first floor of the castle.

There is no indication of what caused her to catch the eye of Holmes but she vanished just one month after his offer of employment. Minnie also knew about the murder of Emmeline Cigrand, a beautiful young woman who worked as a stenographer at the Keely Institute in Dwight, Illinois.

Holmes then contacted her and offered her a large salary to work for him in Chicago. She accepted the job and came to the Castle -- only to never leave it. Emmeline became homesick after a few weeks in Chicago. She had planned to marry an Indiana man named Robert E.

Phelps and she was missing him and her family. Holmes later confessed that he locked the girl in one of his sound-proof rooms and raped her. He stated that he killed her because Minnie Williams objected to his lusting after the attractive young woman.

Some time later, Robert Phelps made the mistake of dropping by to inquire after her at the Castle and that was the last time that he was ever reported alive. Holmes described a "stretching experiment" with which he used to kill Phelps. Always curious about the amount of punishment the human body could withstand Holmes often used the dissecting table on live victims , he invented a "rack-like" device that would literally stretch a person to the breaking point.

Lyman, who was in reality, Ben Pietzel, the already mentioned accomplice of Holmes. Apparently, in June according to Holmes , Minnie had accidentally killed her sister, Nannie, during a heated argument.

She had hit the other girl over the head with a chair and she had died. Some believe that Minnie had not killed her sister at all, but had merely stunned her with the chair. It had been Holmes, they say, who finished the woman off and who gained himself yet another accomplice.

She had applied for a job at the castle and Holmes told her that his name was Henry Howard and that Minnie was his cousin. Holmes purchased several railroad cars of horses with counterfeit banknotes and signed the papers as OC Pratt.

The horses were then shipped to St. Louis and sold. Holmes made off with a fortune The threesome returned to Chicago and their return marked the last time that Minnie was ever seen alive. Although her body was never found, it is believed to have joined other victims in the acid vat in the basement. Holmes continued to kill, claiming several victims. One of them was Emmeline Cigrand, who was hired as a secretary. She became homesick after a few weeks in Chicago as she hoped to marry an Indiana man named Robert Phelps.

Some time later, Phelps made the mistake of dropping by to see her at the castle and that was the last time that either one of them was ever reported alive. There is no indication of what caused her to catch the eye of Holmes. In July , Holmes was arrested for the first time. It was not for murder but for one of his schemes, the earlier horse swindle that ended in St. Georgianna promptly bailed him out, but while in jail, he struck up a conversation with a convicted train robber named Marion Hedgepeth, who was serving a year sentence.

Holmes then took a cadaver to a seaside resort in Rhode Island and burned it, disfiguring the head and dumping it on the beach. He then shaved his beard and altered his appearance and returned to the hotel, registering under another name and inquiring about his friend, Holmes. When the body was discovered on the beach, he identified it as "H. The insurance company suspected fraud though and refused to pay.

Holmes returned to Chicago without pressing the claim and began concocting a new version of the same scheme. A month later, Holmes held a conference with Ben Pietzel and Jeptha Howe and his new plan was put into action.

Pietzel went to Philadelphia with his wife, Carrie, and opened a shop for buying and selling patents under the name of B. Holmes then took out an insurance policy on his life. The plan was for Pietzel to drink a potion that would knock him unconscious.

Then, Holmes would apply make-up to his face to make it look as though he had been severely burned. A witness would then summon an ambulance and while they were gone, Holmes would put a corpse in place of the "shopkeeper".

The insurance company would be told that he had died. Pietzel would then receive a portion of the money in exchange for his role in the swindle but he would soon learn, as some many others already had, that Holmes could not be trusted! The "accident" took place on the morning of September 4, when neighbors heard a loud explosion from the patent office. A carpenter named Eugene Smith came to the office a short time later and found the door locked and the building dark.

For some reason, he became concerned and summoned a police officer to the scene. They broke open the door and found a badly burned man on the floor.

The death was quickly ruled an accident and the body was taken to the morgue. Days later, the police learned that the dead man Pietzel had come to Philadelphia from St. Louis and the police of that city were asked to search for relatives. Within days, attorney Jeptha Howe filed a claim with the insurance company on behalf of Carrie Pietzel and collected the money. Pietzel but then took it back, explaining that he would invest it for her.

The claim was paid without hesitation and everyone got their share of the money, except for Ben Pietzel and Marion Hedgepeth. Holmes never bothered to contact the train robber again, a slight that Hedgepeth did not appreciate. He brooded over this awhile and then decided to turn Holmes in. He explained the scheme to a St. Louis policeman named Major Lawrence Harrigan, who in turn notified an insurance investigator, W.

He then passed along the information to Frank P. Geyer, a Pinkerton agent, who immediately began an investigation. Ben Pietzel never received his share of the money either, but even if he had, he would not have been able to spend it. What Holmes had not told anyone was that the body discovered in the patent office was not a cleverly disguised corpse, but Ben Pietzel himself!

Rather than split the money again, Holmes had killed his accomplice then burned him so that he would be difficult to recognize. Holmes kept his part of the plan a secret as he and Georgianna were now traveling with Carrie Pietzel and her three children.

She believed that her husband was hiding out in New York. The group was last seen in Cincinnati and then in Indianapolis on October 1. Carrie was then sent east and the children were left in the care of Holmes and Georgianna.

Holmes made arrangements for Carrie to meet him in Detroit, where he assured her that her husband was now hiding. He arrived in Detroit several days before the appointed time and put the three children into a boarding house. Then, he went to Indiana and returned with Georgianna and installed her in a second boarding house.

When Carrie arrived, she was lodged in yet another establishment. Then, he began moving about the country, apparently aware that the Pinkerton detective was on his trail.

The journey lasted for almost two months but on November 17, , Holmes turned up alone in Boston and was arrested and sent to Philadelphia. As fate would have it though, he was not arrested for insurance fraud but for the horse swindle that he, Minnie and Georgianna had pulled off in Texas. He was given the choice of being returned to Texas and being hanged as a horse thief or he could confess to the insurance scheme that had led to the death of Ben Pietzel.

He chose insurance fraud and was sent to Philadelphia. Wisely, the guard refused. The entire insurance scheme was now completely unraveling. Holmes had lived at the house with her for several days but had left angry when she questioned him about a hole that he was digging in the back yard. The police came to believe that he was digging her grave, but for some unknown reason, he chose not to kill her. Pietzel was arrested and was taken to Philadelphia but was soon released.

No charges were ever brought against her. Detective Geyer was slowly starting to uncover the dark secrets of Henry Howard Holmes, he realized, but even the seasoned Pinkerton man was unprepared for what lay ahead. He was beginning to sift through the many lies and identities of Holmes, hoping to find clues as to the fates of the Pietzel children. At this point, he had no idea about all of the other victims. Holmes swore that Minnie Williams had taken the children with her to London, where she planned to open a massage parlor, but Geyer was sure that he was lying.

In June , Holmes entered a guilty plea for a single count of insurance fraud but Geyer expanded his investigation. Fearing the worst Detective Geyer set out to try and discover their fate -- and his fears soon came to realization.

From Gilmanton, it had been sent to Detroit, from Detroit to Toronto, from Toronto to Cincinnati, from Cincinnati to Indianapolis and then on from there. In Detroit, a house that Holmes had rented was still vacant and a large hole was found to have been dug in the cellar floor.

Geyer was relieved to discover that it was empty. In Toronto, the Pinkerton searched for eight days before he found the cottage at No. The man had been traveling with two little girls. Holmes borrowed a shovel from a neighbor, which he claimed he wanted to use to dig a hole to store potatoes in. Geyer borrowed the same spade and when digging in the same location, found the bodies of Nellie and Alice Pietzel secreted several feet under the earth.

In an upstairs bedroom, he found a large trunk that had a piece of rubber tubing leading into it from a gas pipe. He had told the girls that he wanted to play hide and seek with them, tricked them into climbing into the trunk and then had asphyxiated them.

This shocking discovery made Geyer work even harder to find what had become of Howard Pietzel. While questioning the neighbors, he learned that the Pietzel girls had told them that they had a brother who was living in Indianapolis.

With this small clue, Geyer went to Indiana and painstakingly searched houses for any clue of Holmes. Finally, in the suburb of Irvington, he found a house that Holmes had rented for a week. Geyer was sure that the remaining answers that he was seeking could be found inside of the Castle. He entered the place with several police officers -- and neither Geyer nor the veteran investigators would ever forget what they found there! Detectives devoted several weeks to searching and making a floor plan of the Castle.

The bottom floor had been used by Holmes himself as a drug store, a candy store, a restaurant and a jewelry store. The third floor of the building had been divided into small apartments and guest rooms and apparently, had never been used. The second floor however proved to be a labyrinth of narrow, winding passages with doors that opened to brick walls, hidden stairways, cleverly concealed doors, blind hallways, secret panels, hidden passages and a clandestine vault that was only a big enough for a person to stand in.

The room was alleged to be a homemade "gas chamber", equipped with a chute that would carry a body directly into the basement. The investigators suddenly realized the implications of the iron-plated chamber when they found the single, scuffed mark of a footprint on the inside of the door.

It was a small print that had been made by a woman who had attempted to escape the grim fate of the tiny room. In addition to all of the bizarre additions to the floor, the second level also held 35 guest rooms.

Half of them were fitted as ordinary sleeping chambers, and there were indications that they had been occupied by the various women who worked for Holmes, by tenants during the Fair or by the luckless females Holmes had seduced while waiting for an opportunity to kill them. Several of the other rooms were without windows or could be made air tight by closing the doors. Others were lined with sheet iron and asbestos with scorch marks on the walls, fitted with trap doors that led to smaller rooms beneath, or were equipped with lethal gas jets that could be used to suffocate or burn the unsuspecting occupants.

The apartment was located at the front of the building, looking out over 63rd Street. In the floor of the bathroom, concealed under a heavy rug, the police found a trap door and a stairway that descended to a room about eight feet square.

Two doors led off this chamber, one to a stairway that exited out onto the street and the other giving access to the chute that led down to the basement. They also found the acid vat and the crematorium, which still contained ash and portions of bone that had not burned in the intense heat.

A search of the ashes also revealed a watch that had belonged to Minnie Williams, some buttons from a dress and several charred tintype photographs.

Buried in the floor, the police found a huge vat of corrosive acid and two quicklime pits, which were capable of devouring an entire body in a matter of hours. A loose pile of quicklime was also discovered in a small room that had been built into the corner. The naked footprint of woman was found embedded in the pile. A wood burning stove in the center of the basement contained scraps of cloth and Ned Connor was summoned to the castle to identify a bloody dress that had belonged to Julia.

In a hole in the middle of the floor, more bones were found. After being examined by a physician, they were believed to be the bones of a small child between the ages of six and eight. The fate of Pearl Connor was also no longer in question. On July 20, some city workers began excavating the cellar and started a tunnel underneath 63rd Street. The hazy smell of gas hung in the air and as the men tore away one wall, they discovered a large tank or metal-lined chamber.

As soon as they broke through, the basement was filled with the stench of death, driving the crew back. Noting the metal lining of the tank, they sent for a plumber and he struck a match to peer inside of it.

Suddenly, the tank exploded, shaking the building and sending flames out into the basement. The men were buried in piles of debris but no one was seriously injured. The tank was lined with wood and metal and was 14 feet long, although thanks to the explosion, no one will ever know that it was used for. The only clue in the room was a small box that was found in its center. When it was opened by Fire Marshal James Kenyon, an "evil smelling" vapor rushed out.

The gathered men ran, except for Kenyon, who was overpowered by the stench. According to the New York World, "he was dragged out and carried upstairs, and for two hours acted like one demented. Not surprisingly, it drew onlookers and curiosity-seekers from all over the city. The people of Chicago were stunned that such things could take place The people of the Englewood neighborhood watched the sightseers with a combination of fear and loathing, sickened over the terrible things that brought the crowds to their streets.

Then, on August 19, the castle burned to the ground. Three explosions thundered through the neighborhood just after midnight and minutes later, a blaze erupted from the abandoned structure. In less than an hour, the roof had caved in and the walls began to collapse in onto themselves. The mystery was never solved, but regardless, the castle was gone for good The lot where the castle was located remained empty for many years until finally, a U.

Post Office was built on the site in Even after the post office was constructed, local folks often walked on the opposite side of the street rather than pass too close by the site where torture and murder had taken place. Neighbors who walked their dogs pass the new building claimed their animals would often pull away from it, barking and whining at something they could see or sense In addition, postal workers in the building had their own encounters in the place, often telling of strange sounds and feelings they could not easily explain.

The location was certainly ripe for a haunting and if the stories can be believed, it was, and is, taking place! The trial of Herman Mudgett, a. Holmes, began in Philadelphia just before Halloween It only lasted for six days but was one of the most sensational of the century. The newspapers reported it in a lurid and sensational manner and besides the mysteries of the Castle to report on, which were reported at length by several witnesses, Holmes created many exciting scenes in the courtroom.

He broke down and wept when Georgianna took the stand as a witness for the state and eventually discharged his attorneys and attempted to conduct his own defense. The jury deliberated for just two and half hours before returning a guilty verdict. Afterward, they reported that they had agreed on the verdict in just one minute but had remained out longer "for the sake of appearances". On November 30, the judge passed a sentence of death. His case was appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, who affirmed the verdict, and the governor refused to intervene.

Holmes was scheduled to die on May 7, , just nine days before his 36th birthday. By now, the details of the case had been made public and people were angry, horrified and fascinated, especially in Chicago, where most of the evil had occurred. Holmes had provided a lurid confession of torture and murder that appeared in newspapers and magazines, providing a litany of depravity that compares with the most insane killers of all time. He remained unrepentant, even at the end. Just before he execution, he visited with two Catholic priests in his cell and even took communion with them, although refused to ask forgiveness for his crimes.

He was led from his cell to the gallows and a black hood was placed over his head. The trap door opened beneath him and Holmes quickly dropped. After the family left this house a large bottle of chloroform was found in the cellar, where it had been left by Holmes. The mother now began to lose hope of ever seeing her husband and three children again, and she finally returned to her relatives in Galva, Ill. Pleading urgent business.

Holmes left Miss Yoke about November 1 and went to Gilmantown, where he remained with his legal wife until November 17, when he went to Boston. The detectives got on his trail while he was at his old home and traced him to Boston, where he was arrested on November His effects were searched, and several letters were found which had been written by the Pitezel children to their mother. He expressed a willingness to return to Philadelphia and plead guilty to the insurance swindle charge, providing he was not turned over to the Texas authorities.

As he made a statement in which he claimed Mrs. Pitezel was a party to the fraud, she was arrested and brought to Boston with Dessie and the baby. Pitezel was subjected to a severe cross-examination, but at its conclusion the authorities were convinced that she was innocent. However, on November 19 Mrs.

It was June 3, , before Holmes was brought to trial for defrauding the insurance company. He willingly pleaded guilty. At this time several months had elapsed since either Pite-zel or his three children had been heard from, and the authorities were becoming convinced that Holmes was guilty of far worse crimes than defrauding an insurance company by substituting a body.

They strongly suspected that he was guilty of at least four murders. The older children were probably informed by their mother of the insurance swindle and were assured that their father would return, and of course children talk.

The officers assumed that Holmes realized all this and that he decided that his safety was assured only after the entire family was disposed of. He could not hope to kill six people at once without being detected, so he decided to separate them and murder them one by one.

He appeared to be despondent and said that he had better drink enough to kill himself and have done with it all. The next morning I visited his place, and using a key I entered the building. I found a letter addressed to me, which I destroyed, in which he said I would find his body upstairs. I went upstairs and found him lying dead on the floor. There was a rubber tube in his mouth which was attached to a quill run through a cork in a large bottle containing chloroform.

It was easily proved that Holmes told the truth regarding the identity of the dead man found in Callowhill Street, but the remainder of the statement was not believed.

It was now clear that Holmes was not guilty of substituting a body, and action regarding that case was postponed, pending a further search for the missing children. The District Attorney then looked about for a detective possessed of sufficient ability and determination to undertake this gigantic task, and he decided upon Frank Geyer, of the Philadelphia Police Department. As eight months had elapsed since the children were last seen, and as it was probable that persons who had seen them had forgotten their faces, it can be readily understood that the obstacles confronting this officer were apparently insurmountable.

He proceeded to Cincinnati and began visiting the hotels. When he reached the Hotel Bristol at Sixth and Vine Streets, the clerk identified the pictures as those of a man and three children who registered under the name of Cook. When he arrived at the office of J. Thomas, at 15 East Third Street, the clerk recognized the picture of Holmes and Howard Pitezel, and it was learned that Holmes had rented a house at Poplar Street, where he only remained two days.

Geyer proceeded there and interviewed a Miss Hill who resided next door. The singular incident so impressed her that she unconsciously watched the proceeding very closely. Geyer then proceeded to Indianapolis and visited the hotels and real estate offices. He gathered valuable information as to the route taken by the children from the letters which they wrote to their mother, but which Holmes withheld and foolishly kept in his possession.

Here Mr. Herman Ackelow was located, and he at once identified the pictures of the children as those of guests who stopped with him when he conducted the Circle House.

He also stated that the children were held in their room practically as prisoners, and although they were constantly crying, they refused to state the cause of their grief. This convinced Geyer that the child had been murdered in or near Indianapolis, but he failed to obtain any clew at that time upon which to work. He then proceeded to Detroit and found that on October 12 Nellie and Alice Pitezel were registered at the New Western Hotel, but neither Howard nor the trunk were seen there.

But intent on tracing the girls first, Geyer proceeded to Toronto, Canada, where Mrs. Pitezel next met Holmes. He arrived on Monday, July 8, and found that Holmes and Miss Yoke registered on October 18, , at the Walker House, under the name of Howell and wife, and that the children were registered at the Albion Hotel under the name of Canning.

Herbert Jones, the thief clerk of this hotel, stated that on October 25 Holmes called for the children, paid their bill and they were never seen again. As it was known that Holmes went to his first wife in Gilmantown a few days after this, Geyer became convinced that the fiend had rented a house in Toronto for the purpose of murdering the two girls. He prepared a list of all real estate agents and had the newspapers publish the pictures of the children and print his theories.

He then began a canvas of the real estate offices, which lasted for days, but nothing was accomplished. Finally Geyer learned that a Mrs. Frank Nudel had rented a house at No. He immediately proceeded to the house, but when he reached the house located at No. Thomas Ryves, who resided there, and that gentleman instantly recognized them as the photographs of a man and girl who were at the house next door for a day and then disappeared.

Ryves furthermore stated that this man borrowed a spade from him, saying he wanted to plant some potatoes. On receiving this information Geyer hurried to the home of Mrs. He rushed back to No. He examined the house, and on raising the linoleum in the kitchen he discovered a trap door which led to a dark cellar. He procured a light, and after examining the ground he found a spot which appeared to have been recently disturbed.

He had only been digging a minute or two when a terrible odor arose which became more horrible with each shovelful of dirt removed. He finally unearthed what was apparently the arm of a child, but as the flesh fell from the bones he decided that great caution would be necessary or the bodies would fall to pieces.

So Undertaker Humphreys was called in and the digging proceeded, with the result that the terribly decomposed bodies of Nellie and Alice Pitezel were found. While the features of the children could not be recognized,, the clothing and hair were readily identified by the heartbroken mother, who started for Toronto as soon as she was advised of the discovery. After graduating high school at 16, Mudgett changed his name to Henry Howard Holmes, and later in life would be known as H.

Holmes studied medicine at a small school in Vermont before being accepted into the University of Michigan Medical School. While enrolled in medical school, Holmes stole cadavers from the laboratory, burned or disfigured them, and then planted the bodies making it look as if they had been killed in an accident. The scandal behind it was that Holmes would take out insurance policies on these people before planting the bodies and would collect money once the bodies were discovered.

In Holmes passed his medical exams and in he moved to Chicago where he got a job working at a pharmacy under the alias Dr. Henry H.

When the owner of the drugstore passed away, he left his wife to take over the responsibilities of the store; however, Holmes convinced the widow to let him buy the store. The widow soon went missing and was never seen again. Holmes claimed that she moved to California, but this could never be verified. After Holmes had become the owner of the drugstore, he purchased an empty lot across the street.

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American businessman Ross Perot ran for the U. He was one of the most successful third-party candidates in American history. Holmes was the alias of one of America's first serial killers. During the Columbian Exposition, he lured victims into his elaborate 'Murder Castle. Willow Smith —. Lil Nas X —. Robert Durst —