Murder Castle - Herman Webster Mudgett (H. H. Holmes)

Suzanne: Warning. This episode may contain graphic and disturbing content. Listener discretion is advised.

June: Hi, y'all and welcome to Crime With My Coffee. I'm your fabulous hostess with the mostess, June.

S: And I'm Suzanne. We're gonna tell you some stories you've heard. 

J: Some you haven't. 

S: And some you wish you hadn't. 

J: All with a Texas twang. Welcome. Welcome back. 

S: Yes. Welcome back. Glad you're still here with us. Or if you're just listening for the first time, thanks for joining us.

J: Absolutely. Absolutely. We drink coffee and talk t- true crime all the time. So, I, today ventured out. I don't know why. Probably just because I had it here because I'm always the same ol', same ol'. Figured I'd change it up. I'm drinking Dunkin Donuts Dunkin Turbo, which is like coffee with a boost of espresso flavor. But I didn't venture on the creamer because it's still French Vanilla creamer but it is good. What are you having?

S: Ah. Well, I got a little adventurous too, but not on the coffee. I'm drinking Folgers like normal. But I'm using the Coffee Mate Chocolate Creme creamer.

J: Mmm. Yum. 

S: Yeah, I was in a chocolate mood today. So.

J: Anytime’s a good chocolate time.

S: Agreed.

J: So anyway.

S: Today’s mood was brought to you by frozen pizza and chocolate.

J: Oh, nice. Yeah, I haven't, I made breakfast this morning. Bacon and eggs. And that's it. I haven't cooked anything else today. But I got the laundry done.

S: I didn't do the laundry.

J: Hey, my husband helped with the laundry. Oh, what? 

S: What? 

J: I know. I know. I was surprised, too. 

S: Like he dumped to the basket for you, or? 

J: No, he actually separated his clothes, put them in the wash, started to wash, switched them over, started a new load, started the dryer. I know. I know. Then he helped fold and hang them up and put them away. 

S: What did he buy? 

J: Yeah. What did he do? Anyway, I don't know. I don't know. I'm sure it'll come to light soon.

S: Amazon will deliver it tomorrow.

J: I’ll find out tomorrow when Amazon comes by. So, I'm going to do a case for you today. So my case, of course you know me, I gotta go in the Way Back Machine, and this is the Way Way Back Machine. But I'm going to be talking about Herman Webster Mudgett.

S: Mudgett. 

J: Mudgett.

S: Okay.

J: AKA H. H. Holmes. 

S: Mudgett. 

J: Well, yeah. But it's- Mudgett Yeah. Yeah. So. 

S: Mudgett is more fun to say. 

J: It, it is. It is. But he's really better known as H. H. Holmes. 

S: That is true. 

J: But he was born May 16, 1861, in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, to Levi Horton Mudgett. And his mother's name, I believe you call it Theodate Page Price. He was the middle child of five. He had an older brother, an older sister, and he had a younger brother and a younger sister.

S: So his whole thing stems from Middle Child Syndrome.

J: Uh, okay. Yeah, we'll go with that. I guess it's a really a thing. 

S: Do I need to keep my eye on Cristi now? 

J: Maybe, maybe. So they were a farming family. But they were affluent. So he had money. In the 1860 the census of the population of the town that they lived in was only 2,373. So. 

S: I think that many people live on your street.

J: Well, yeah, but I don't live in New Hampshire, either.

S: Or in 1860. 

J: That’s true. That's true. So at- by the age of 16, he did graduate from Phillips Exeter Academy, which is a very highly selective, coeducational, independent school for boarding students, but also like daytime students, you know, people that didn't live there all the time. They were like a high school. They did grades 9 through 12. And so throughout the history- with the history, the influence, the wealth, the academic reputation that it has, made it the most- or has made it the most elite boarding school in the US.

S: Oh, snap.

J: So apparently he was pretty smart because he graduated at 16. After graduation, he got a teaching job, and he married Clara Lovering on July 4, 1878. So he he wasn't even 18 at this time. They ended up having a son in 1880. But right before that, in 1879, he enrolled in the University of Vermont. Turns out he didn't really like this school. So after a year, he quit. And then he enrolled into the University of Michigan's Department of Medicine and Surgery. And that was in 1882. And he graduated in 1884. Right before he graduated, though, it was rumored that Clara moved back to New Hampshire because of abuse, not that I can really find anything on this. So not real sure.

S: Well, I'm gonna be all like, um possibly probably because I know what's coming up. 

J: Yeah. Well, not only that, you know, rumored that his dad was kind of abusive, and I think back then, it was- People just did things like that more than they do nowadays. I'm not saying that it doesn't happen. I'm just, I'm just saying I think that it was more common back then. Maybe. I'm not real sure. Anyway, so after he graduated, he went to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and he worked in a few little odd jobs there at a state hospital for a while. I think it only lasted a few days. And then he quit. Then he got a drugstore job. Did that. They did say that one little boy had taken some medicine from the drugstore that he was working at, and the little boy died. So he moved in 1886, just right after the little boy died. I guess he didn't want to be, you know, in on that, didn't want anything to do with that, didn't want people to find out maybe he had done something. So he did go to Minnesota, Minneapolis, where he met a woman named Myrta Belknap and married her. But he was still married to Clara, too. 

S: I was gonna say, "But isn't he already married?" 

J: Yeah, yeah, he was already married. But he didn't care. But he did, a couple of weeks after being married to Myrta, he did file for divorce from Clara. But it was never finalized. So, you know.

S: I think he did that backwards.

J: Well, yeah, I agree that he did. But anyway, so they got married. They ended up moving to Chicago, where he landed a job at a drugstore named Hort- uh, Holton's. It was Holton's Drugstore. He worked there. He was a good employee and ended up buying the drugstore from the owners. And he also bought the empty lot across the street. And he started building his grand mixed use building in 1887. It later will become known as the Murdel- Murder Castle, which you know, that doesn't sound very nice.

S: I like the way you put that - the mixed use mansion.

J: Yeah. Best way to do it. I don't know. Well, he, you know, he was good entrepreneurial type person, but he kind of swindled a lot of people. Like he didn't pay the architects that were working on the building. He didn't pay the steel company. So they sued him. Course, he's like, "Well, you know, we can't have all that." So, you know, he moves around a little bit. But, you know, while he's there, there was a company, a man and a woman and their child living there. Her name was Julia Smythe. Well, H. H. Holmes and her started having an affair. The husband found out about it, and left her and her daughter there. Done. Done with you. Well, around Christmas Eve 19- er I'm sorry, 1891, they disappeared. Julia and her daughter. Never seen again. 

S: Hmm. 

J: Yeah, yeah. Well, in May of 1892, he hired another woman. Her name was Emeline Cigrande. She also disappeared that following December. Also, in '92, 1892, he started building a third floor to his grand masterpiece building. Because he wanted to use it for the for a hotel, because they were having a big world Columbian Exposition, which is actually like the World's Fair that they were going to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus's arrival to the new world. So it was the World's Fair that they were having in 1893 is the reason why he started adding on to his multi-use building. So but, like always, it wasn't completed, because he started ripping off all the investors again, like he had done previously. So in 1893, he did meet an actress, her name was Minnie Williams. I couldn't find anything that she starred in. But it was rumored she was from Oak Cliff, Texas.

S: I know where that is.

J: Yeah. And she had built a theater. They had met in, in New York, previously. And he had offered her a job to be a personal stenographer, and she accepted it. So they're kind of living as husband and wife, you know, and he convinced her to sign over some deed, to some property that she owned, in Fort Worth, Texas, that she had gotten from her deceased father, who was a physician. And, of course, you know, he had insurance money on on this woman, you know, they kind of moved around. They went to Lincoln Park, Chicago, and rented an apartment and invited Minnie's sister, Annie, to come stay with them. So she came and stayed. She arrived sometime in July of 1893. And not long after that, after the deed and everything was transferred over to H. H. Holmes, he- they kind of disappeared. Minnie and Annie never, seen again after July 5 of 1893. Yeah, yeah, go figure. So. 

S: I’m sensing a pattern here. 

J: Yeah, yeah, it seems to definitely be a pattern with this guy. So but he was briefly arrested in July of 1894, for selling mortgaged goods, where- and while he was in this brief little stint, apparently it was very brief while he was in jail, he talked to an inmate who was called, whose name was Marion Hedgepeth, who was there for robbery, and he convinced him to find him a lawyer which was Jeptha Howe, to help him fake his own death for $10,000 insurance money, which, in 2019, kind of would be the amount of $296,000. 

S: Wow. 

J: So he tries to fake his death, and the insurance is like, "Well, yeah, I don't really believe it. So we're not really gonna pay you for it." He's like, "Well, okay, I guess I'm not gonna get paid." He didn't really want to push it because he had done this more than once. So he convinced his friend, Benjamin Pitezel, to fake his death. Benjamin's, like, "Okay, I'm all in. $10,000? That's a lot of money." So 

S: That’s a lot of money now. 

J: Oh, yeah. I agree. I agree.

S: Much less then.

J: Yeah, yeah. So he's all in. He, you know, Ben kind of talks to his wife. His wife's like, "Okay, we'll do that. I could use some extra money." So they're, uh, you know, he's saying, "Okay, well, you know, I got, I'll get a body or something like that. We'll kind of fake your death, and we'll get some money and all that." "Okay, cool." Well, now, he ended up really killing the guy. So, of course, he got paid. He got paid his $10,000 because he was always a beneficiary, beneficiary on all these insurance policies that he talked to everybody into taking out. So he would always have money. So after Ben dies, he talks to his widow. And he's like, "Well, you know, we can move around the country and you know, kind of stay one step ahead of everything. You got a lot of kids. Let me take three of your kids off your hands. I'll take the middle kids," which was two girls and one boy.

S: I’m telling you, Middle Child Syndrome.

J: Must be, must be. So he's traveling all around. And the whole time they're traveling around with these kids and everything, well he's traveling with his wife, you know, but the little widow is not too far behind. You know, just kind of- they're just traveling around, spending the money and everything. The whole time he's telling her that Ben's actually in London hiding out. He ends up going to Canada, you know, where he rented a place. Well, while they're off traveling around, going to Canada, and you know, everywhere else, while he's gone in 1894, the police started inspecting his "hotel." Right? On the first floor was the storefront where he ran, you know, a jewelry store and drugstore, just everything you could think of. The second floor technically were torture rooms, you know. And the third floor were where he wanted the apartment rooms for the hotel that he wanted built. So but they noticed on these second floor rooms that some of them they had hinged walls, false partitions, secret passages, soundproof rooms, airtight rooms connected to gas lines, which would technically be gas chambers. I know.

S: Oh, my goodness.

J: Also, there were chutes going straight to the basement. And down in the basement, there were acid vats, quicklime, surgical tables, medical tools, and a crematorium.

S: That’s creepy. 

J: Yes, yes, it is. But, you know, apparently he was what he was doing with some of these bodies of these people that just disappeared and he was beneficiary on their insurance. They- he would strip them down, you know, skin them, take the organs out, sell it on the black market. Then just throw the bones and stuff like that in the acid vats and stuff so nobody could find anything. It's pretty weird. Well, his luck's about to turn bad because on November 17, 1894, he was arrested for arson on his castle, by the Pinkertons. And he was held on a horse theft warrant from Texas. 

S: Imagine that. Don't take our horses, yo. 

J: Exactly. Texas does not like you messing with them horses. 

S: We’ll get you. 

J: Exactly, exactly. So while he's in jail being held on on, you know, arson and these warr- this warrant and everything, in July of 1895, the bodies of the two Pitezel girls were found at his place that he rented in Toronto, Canada. Apparently he had taken these two little girls, put them in a big trunk, closed it up, had a hole in it, connected it with a hose to a gas line, and killed them. And then he took them down to the cellar and buried them.

S: What a douche.

J: Yeah. So they're like, "Hey, you're in jail. You know, we're kind of, you know, this Benjamin Pretzel guy- Pitezel guy, you know, we're gonna charge you with his murder, even though we're finding all this other stuff." They also did find the little boys. They found some of his teeth and bits of bones in a cottage that he had rented in Indianapolis - I know - in the chimney. So I know. 

S: My mouth hurts. 

J: Yeah. So apparently all that they're gonna charge him with, even though they're pretty sure he's done a lot more, they only charged him with one murder, and that was for killing his friend Benjamin Pitezel. He was found guilty. He was sentenced to death. So while he's in jail, he's like, "Okay, well, I'm gonna confess to all these murders, 27 of them. Six attempted murders." You know, but they did say that some of these people he confessed to killing actually were still alive.

S: I bet he also knew where Jimmy Hoffa was buried, too, huh?

J: It’s, it's possible. It's possible. So but before he was doing all that, right, this newspaper, the Hearst Newspaper, paid him$ 7,500, which in today's money is like $230,000, for his confession. They got ripped off because they're like, "You know what, most of this is nonsense, and I don't think so." But they'd already paid him his money. He didn't care. 

S: Sucks to suck. 

J: Exactly. But, like I said, he was, he was found guilty, sentenced to death for killing his friend, Ben. So they decided they're gonna hang him, because they did a lot of hanging back then. It was done at the Philadelphia County Prison, is where he was at. But it didn't really go as planned. His neck didn't snap. So he was strangled instead, jerking around and twitching for about 15 minutes, kind of serves him right.

S: You know, I was gonna say I'm just gonna say if you know if it really was H. H. Holmes that was dangling there going ah ah ah you know, dying and stuff. Serves him right. 

J: Exactly. So they just let him hang there. After about 20 minutes, after the the trap door flipped, and he, he was hung, they did pronounce him dead. But before he was hanged, he was afraid that grave robber- grave robbers would take his body and sell it on the black market. Yeah, dude, like you weren't doing the same thing? But he didn't want that happening to him. So he wanted his casket contained in cement and buried 10 feet down. They're like, "Okay, we can do that." So they did. Years and years go by. A lot of people say, "You know what, you know, he was a sly rascal. He was always getting away with something." So they didn't believe that he actually had been killed. So in 2017 they exhumed his body. But it was proven that the body in there, which was preserved pretty well-

S: I heard he still had his mustache.

J: Yes. And clothes. Clothes were real, you know, real nice and everything. Yeah, he hadn't decomposed, like, I guess most people would because he was, you know, surrounded by cement. But it was proven through dental records, the what they had, I guess back then, it was Herman Webster Mudgett, which was AKA H. H. Holmes.

S: Mudgett. 

J: Yeah. Anyway, so they re-buried him. But he technically was known as the first American serial killer. It was confirmed that he had killed nine people. And they also said he killed between 20 and 200 people.

S: That is just insane.

J: That’s a lot of people, but only nine were truly confirmed that he killed. So, I don't know. I mean, there's probably a lot more I could get into. But I didn't. I just wanted to get to the meat and potatoes of it. You know, this is what he did. This is what an asshole he was. And now he's dead. 

S: So also, I just kind of wanted to point out that they didn't rely on just the dental records. They did do a tissue sample and a DNA analysis and blah, blah, blah of his descendants, and it totally matched. So.

J: Yeah, that's true, because he did have two kids. He You know, he had the son with Clara. And then he also did have a daughter with Myrta. Right? I think it was Myrta. He got married, like three times. He was a big ol' bigamist, married three people at the same time. Because I don't know. 

S: He’s a douche. 

J: Yeah, yeah. He's a douche. I thought I had the wives' names in here. Meh, but I guess not. I guess I just had two, even though he did marry three different women. And rumored that he, he was married also to the actress, Minnie Williams, who her and her sister come up missing as well. They did present themselves as being married. So technically, if they weren't truly married- if they were truly married, it would be four wives that he had instead of just three.

S: Yeah, that's crazy.

J: I know. I know. It's crazy. So he had two kids, son, daughter. And he was the first American seriar-  serial killer.

S: Well, good case. That's pretty awesome. Pretty awesome. 

J: And yeah, it was. Was bare boned. Oh, sorry.

S: You’re terrible, Mother. Terrible. 

J: I know. I shouldn'tsay things like that. It's gross. But whatever.

S: It’s funny, though. 

J: Mm hmm. Yeah. 

S: So well, thanks for joining us. Hope you enjoyed it like we did.

J: Yeah, wasn't a, wasn't a whole lot to make fun of. I mean, there probably was a lot of stuff to make fun of, but we just didn't make fun of it. We probably should have though, 'cause this guy's a douche. 

S: Yeah. 

J: Yeah. A swindling, polygamist douche.

S: But hey, at least it was him buried in the box. 

J: It was, it was. 

S: And he didn't escape and run away to South America and go crazy with another mixed use mansion. 

J: Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. 

S: So, they did tear down the murder the Murder Castle, though. Now it's just an empty lot. 

J: Yes. Yeah. It is tore down. Hmm. And the property that he he got from Minnie Williams, um, what was it? They had the stuff he wanted to build another castle there, too. But yeah, that didn't go as planned either. So, I'm not sure what's there now. But something but not not owned by H. H. Holmes, I'm sure.

S: No, he's dead. He can't own anything.

J: Well, you know what I mean. Not passed down to.

S: True, true. 

J: Whatever.

S: So, alright. Well, thanks for joining us. And until next week.

J: We’ll see ya. On the flip side. 

S: On the flip side. 

J: On the flip side.

S: Thanks for listening today. Be sure to tune in next week for another episode of Crime With My Coffee.

J: And don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, so we will automatically download. And if you get us on Apple, go ahead and give us a rating and a review.

S: And look us up on social media to stay up to date on everything Crime With My Coffee. You can find us on Instagram and Twitter @cwmcpod.

J: Check us out on Facebook at Crime With My Coffee.

S: Check out our website at www.crimewithmycoffee.com; you can read full transcripts of our episodes there and you can even give us case suggestions there. And please think about giving us support on Patreon at www.patreon.com/crimewithmycoffee.

J: And if you'd like to send us an email or suggestion you can send it to crimewithmycoffee@gmail.com and don't forget all hate mail goes to crimewithmycoffee@gmail.com, attention, Trevor. 

S: And remember, if you don't need two hands to hold your mug, it ain't big enough.