00:00:00
hey weirdos I'm Elena I'm Ash and this is morbid [Music] yeah be it sounded like you were gonna
00:00:26
say Mario like this is Marvin I was just saying it annoying no this is never I had just quite the moment while we
00:00:36
were getting set up here yeah Ash was knocking [ __ ] over she was falling out of her seat Mikey's computer started and
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it did the like and I thought he burped and I was like oh my God and then I was like wait that's a computer that's a
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computer and then my [ __ ] iced coffee went sailing across the Galaxy and I'm just
00:00:56
sitting over here with the microphone in my laptop and I'm like can we start she's like I'm ready she's like this is
00:01:03
why I don't do group projects people like you Ash people like you I always want that [ __ ] at a group
00:01:11
project just like it's just a wreck knocking [ __ ] over my ice coffee's falling
00:01:16
falling all right um so so we're in part four um yeah she is gonna make it five times
00:01:24
yeah I apologize I can't I just can't cram it all into this episode it would be too much too much for you to
00:01:31
comprehend too much for me to comprehend really and it's definitely it's too much
00:01:35
it's just I'm not gonna cram it into one episode just to do that it would be it would be not as good I think in my
00:01:41
opinion uh so I am going to make it five and I'm Gonna Keep the Jack the Ripper stuff for part five because I I want to
00:01:50
find us a ship manifest that I've been seeing Rumblings of but I can't seem to find the actual ship manifest which
00:01:58
seems to be a lot of the uh issue in the Jack the Ripper theories is a lot of people say stuff but it's not bad no
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one's got any documentation to back it up so it's like oh yeah I think there was a home's ownership on the way to UK
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like during that whole thing and you're like whoa and then it's just like Brian where's that it's like and it's also
00:02:16
like homes was a very common name back exactly that's why he chose it so it's like I don't know about that imagine
00:02:22
that but we'll get to it we're gonna get further into that next episode we will end at five don't worry I'm not gonna
00:02:28
take this like the longest series we've ever had um we'll just tie it with Jack we'll
00:02:32
just tie it with Jack it's it's pretty much up there um but in this one we're gonna talk
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about several murders okay that he committed uh pretty brutal ones they're all pretty brutal but these ones
00:02:45
involve children so yeah he's a real monster like a real monster well I mean he murdered his uh pregnant mistress so
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yeah he's [ __ ] terrible that'll do it and the child in that situation uh poor Pearl I know you know I've been I can't
00:02:59
stop thinking about that name ever since it's such a cute name yeah and like those kind of girls are coming back now
00:03:04
yeah like old-timing cute old lady names yeah but you know what when we last left
00:03:09
you guys I'll give you a little recap because I know there's a lot to take in in this series so I think it's probably
00:03:14
helpful to be like this is what happened in the last time I need the recap even if you don't even I need it uh Holmes
00:03:21
married again yeah he's married again remember he is uh still married to Marta still married to Clara and now Georgiana
00:03:28
Georgiana is now his new wife uh he fake married Minnie who he killed and her sister yeah he's real married Georgiana
00:03:36
though he real married Georgiana in Colorado yes look at me there you go so he has plot so he married again he's
00:03:44
plotted to take the inherited land from his new wife Georgiana she stands to get
00:03:49
some inherited land from her dead grandmother so he's plotting to take that he has sent Benjamin pyzel to
00:03:55
Fourth Fort Worth Texas to start getting the new Texas Murder Castle underway like he's ready to start this whole
00:04:02
process over with a whole other Murder Castle in the same way yep um he's doing that on the land that he
00:04:09
made Minnie Williams transfer into he and Benjamin's aliases names after he and then he murdered her now he's
00:04:16
seeming to begin to turn on Benjamin a little bit after they both decided collectively to defraud an insurance
00:04:22
company by faking Benjamin's death and using another corpse to pretend it's his I feel like it's not gonna be fake yeah
00:04:30
it's looking like Benjamin's time as his Lackey is coming to a tragic end yeah at
00:04:36
this point I had a feeling this episode was going to be yeah hi-centric yeah it's not it's not great for that entire
00:04:42
family to be quite honest uh By the time Holmes and Georgiana arrived in Fort Worth to claim the the land deeded to
00:04:48
him by many pythal had already been there for a few weeks he was there with his young son Howard just getting things
00:04:54
together so when he first got to Texas pyzell had to receive the land deeded to his Alias
00:05:01
Benton Lyman and he had to transfer it back again to Holmes okay now initially I'll just give you a little rundown of
00:05:08
how it initially happened so you remember Minnie was to transfer it into Holmes's
00:05:14
Alias who she didn't know she she thought this was another buyer then that Alias of Holmes was deeding it into
00:05:21
Benjamin pyzel's Alias of Benjamin of Benton Lyman yes so now that Benton Lyman has it he now has to deed it back
00:05:29
into real Holmes's name it's funny I wonder if any of I don't know exactly how any of that works but if somebody
00:05:36
looking at that deed switching hands constantly like thought anything about that yeah I think honestly I think it's
00:05:42
just the time period they were able to get away with this a lot easier nowadays obviously it would be like flagged you
00:05:48
would think the first time it went into an alias I think people would be like wait a second what's going on right
00:05:51
there like it would at least be like looked at this time and instead of um like H.H homes they put it into Harry
00:05:59
Holmes's name and this deed like this deed has been like like you said like somebody you would
00:06:07
think somebody would maybe catch but again I think it's just the time period even back then though I'm like damn you
00:06:12
didn't think that was weird it's been like six times yeah because like this deed has been around more times than a
00:06:16
Broadway show yeah like it truly has and from there piedcell selected a parcel of
00:06:22
land on the corner of second and Rusk streets and that's where they were gonna put the Murder Castle
00:06:27
the castle was going to be built under the watch of construction superintendent h.m Pratt and guess who that was uh H
00:06:36
Holmes yep that was another one of his aliases this is Messy as [ __ ] now he is
00:06:42
so he has 40 plus aliases that's so crazy and he basically started doing the same [ __ ] he did in Chicago with the
00:06:49
construction of this one he wanted to build another Murder Castle so he had to be weird and sneaky about it so he would
00:06:56
fire the workers every now and then to keep the plans from being fully realized he did however switch up his game a
00:07:02
little and he started out actually paying people huh that's which is shocking weird but then he was right
00:07:09
back on his [ __ ] and stopped he was like that sucks yeah he was like oh I don't like that I don't not like that
00:07:15
and he had a million excuses for why he couldn't pay on time and he also went back to taking out loans and buying
00:07:21
furniture and fixtures for the building on credit and then he would just not pay
00:07:26
and then he would just hide hide the items from the creditors when they came to take them back this man gives me so
00:07:33
much anxiety running from these creditors yeah and he's just and he's doing the most because he's made places
00:07:38
in this Castle now where he's hiding all these Furnishings yeah exactly now unfortunately for him Holmes was not
00:07:46
going to stick around in Texas long enough to see this Castle actually come to fruition what happened uh in the
00:07:51
spring of 1894 he and piedcell began that scheme this is the beginning not of the insurance fraud scheme it's the
00:07:59
beginning of the scheme that would kind of unravel everything for him the scheme
00:08:03
before the scheme after that scheme and around the time of that other scheme this scheme was they would travel around
00:08:09
the state buying horses and they would buy these horses with worthless promissory notes and deeds not cash so
00:08:18
like bad checks essentially basically and then they would sell them for cash and move on before the seller figured
00:08:24
out that they'd been scammed oh but this plan fell apart when they were both arrested like idiots oh [ __ ] yeah once
00:08:31
they were because it was a shitty plan to begin with somebody was going to catch on and once they were out on bond
00:08:36
investigators now we're like huh we should begin looking into these guys a little bit more because homes they were
00:08:43
like yeah he has a few things on his records here so it was definitely going to bring more
00:08:48
detectives on his tail and he doesn't want that and Gathering up just some of their belongings and all the money that
00:08:54
Holmes had managed to raise at this point for the castle Holmes and Georgiana fled out of Texas for Saint
00:09:01
Louis with a brief stop in Denver along the way okay so they're running all around and does she know she knows about
00:09:07
the scheme obviously because now she's on the run with him we don't know what she knew okay it's one of those things
00:09:12
where like I don't know yeah I don't know what she knew yeah that's fair maybe she did not
00:09:17
real sure Georgie didn't know she she knew something but I don't know what she knew
00:09:22
okay at this point Holmes was on the run now for two crimes he was on the Run still in from Chicago for the arson of
00:09:30
the original oh my God I literally yes and now he's on the run for horse thievery
00:09:36
horses and arson that I'm saying so you would think he would run as far away as possible from the two places he
00:09:45
committed the two things he's on the run about Chicago and Texas but no after he
00:09:50
fled Texas they went to St Louis and Saint Louis is four hours from Chicago technically don't you think you would
00:09:57
just like go to Europe and it's like that's the thing and it's 12 hours from Texas obviously these two things are on
00:10:03
in like car you know which like at the time it's not really relevant but it's like they're not crazy far it's not like
00:10:10
across the country you know what I mean so it's like that's weird that you didn't go further away I guess that's
00:10:15
the thing like even try California yeah just some or even like Massachusetts like get out of there yeah he's already
00:10:20
been there like go back but I mean don't I don't want you here but they probably
00:10:24
didn't want to because he has a wife there that's true and his new wife might not like that his old wife is there
00:10:29
there's a lot going on but he had to have a reason and that for like going to St Louis and that reason was that
00:10:36
Georgiana was turning 25 in the fall and that was when she was going to inherit the rest of the estate left her by her
00:10:43
grandmother in Indiana so he was obviously planning to take the entire inheritance for himself alone so he
00:10:50
wanted to stay closer to Indiana to wait and then pounce on that when she turned
00:10:55
25 and he was just gonna like throw her down a shoe he's so gross he really is well in St Louis he called himself is it
00:11:01
St Louis or St Louis I say St Louis I say St Louis I'm sure I will get yelled at for that but like I
00:11:08
don't I think it's probably interchangeable I'm asking Mikey about it because I should you know what I always
00:11:15
think of Meet Me In St Louis isn't that like a a musical or something um I don't know I feel like that's a
00:11:23
musical I believe you you have more musical knowledge than I do um am I thinking something different I
00:11:31
feel like I need to confirm this with myself I think of um [ __ ] Jennifer Hudson and that's what I'm thinking in
00:11:39
St Louis hold on I'm gonna just check this really really time does it have Judy Garland is in it I'm pretty sure I
00:11:46
you're asking the wrong girly about a musical yeah it's a thing but now I'm like is it called me me and say Louie or
00:11:53
Meet Me In St Louis throw on the pronouncenames.com for the people in the back pronounce names.com Louis this is
00:12:02
real time right I feel like this is gonna prove me wrong and it's gonna be upsetting
00:12:08
yeah [ __ ] guys and I always believe that guy because he sounds like Jack Pepin
00:12:13
and I believe everything he says I believe that man so uh St Louis so that french guy I believe and he said St
00:12:22
Louis I don't know it could be either one maybe if it's like if you're from there
00:12:27
you say it maybe I don't know and I'm not from there so it's not you know it's not my business but uh St Louis I'll say
00:12:34
now okay I've said it both ways now so I've covered all bases so here we are uh after arriving in settling in St Louis
00:12:42
in the Saint Place yeah um so while he's there he called himself h.m Howard are you sure it's not Howard
00:12:50
is it Howard maybe a word as hm Howard she bought a drugstore again on the corner of 14th and North
00:13:00
Market Streets because remember he's taken money that he raised for the Murder Castle he didn't do that he's run
00:13:06
to St Louis St Louis and now he has bought another place a drugstore to run okay
00:13:12
yeah quote unquote run into the ground uh when he bought it he told the seller that he just wanted something to quote
00:13:19
unquote occupy his attention and that he really didn't care a lot about Prophets
00:13:23
was because he was just he's he's well off he doesn't give a [ __ ] about it he's
00:13:27
in it for the fun he's in it for the fun of a drugstore the fun that a drugstore
00:13:32
can provide this is a great [ __ ] time all right you can get anything you need there I'm saying that's what he's in for
00:13:38
it and he used a little cash to buy it but then he bought the rest of it with ding ding ding useless promissory notes
00:13:45
and stock he also like you have the money to spend and like plenty left over just do it the
00:13:53
right way brother he's greedy as [ __ ] him he is Scrooge McDuck literally he is
00:13:58
swimming in a bunch of gold coins and he's not giving them up but he's not cute that's true uh but yeah he did the same
00:14:06
old thing he bought furniture and fixings for the store on credit no intention of paying for it stupid stupid
00:14:13
stupid soon after arriving and settling there Benjamin paitzell joined them he had moved there with his wife Carrie
00:14:20
and their five children oh yeah this was when Holmes let Benjamin's wife Carrie and on the plan
00:14:27
that he and her husband were working on they needed her help with it their plan was to defraud the Fidelity mutual
00:14:35
insurance company by faking Ben's death they needed her in on it because they needed to fake his death they needed her
00:14:41
to help you're not gonna fool Fidelity mutual though and they did not I don't feel it uh but meanwhile Holmes was also
00:14:48
already on the path of selling the pharmacy and then running away from the massive debt that he had compiled with
00:14:54
the pharmacy everywhere so he's just like oops that sucked and now we're gonna run away from that and it's on to
00:14:59
the next thing it's just amazing the anxiety right filled life he must have lived like it created for himself
00:15:08
and he just keeps inviting yeah but I don't think he I think in the end it seems like he became anxious and he
00:15:16
became paranoid and it started to in the beginning I think he was having a [ __ ] blast with it because I don't
00:15:22
think anything was catching up to him in the beginning well and I think in the beginning there was less to keep track
00:15:26
of and then it just kept piling on and now he's basically like negating States out of his available Paths of Escape
00:15:35
he's snowballing like it's getting the mess is getting bigger and bigger as it rolls down the [ __ ] Hill he's
00:15:40
blacklisting himself out of several States and it's like I assume there's not going to be many left and they're
00:15:46
all like in the middle yeah but Holmes and bite cell bought um found a buyer for the drugstore but in order
00:15:54
to buy the store the man had to take a loan from A supplier and when he did this he had to promise that supplier
00:16:00
that they would be his main supplier that was kind of the part of the whole thing that makes sense and that was in
00:16:04
exchange for the money they were gonna pay the problem however was that Holmes already had a mortgage on the store
00:16:10
which meant that any additional mortgage on the same property would have been illegal and invalid so when the new
00:16:17
buyer became aware of the situation he immediately alerted authorities and he was like this is trying to [ __ ] scam
00:16:24
me and Holmes was arrested on fraud charges oops and this is in St Louis St Louis they
00:16:32
say Louis St Louis this is when he was so he bought this drugstore had no intention of running it properly he did
00:16:39
all the same [ __ ] bought it with worthless notes bought the fixings for it with all [ __ ] credit that he
00:16:45
wasn't paying and then he tries to sell it to somebody illegally and he doesn't think that this person he thought he was
00:16:51
so much smarter than everybody around him that was it's very it's pretty par for the course with serial killers I
00:16:57
feel like they always think they're smarter than everybody and No One's Gonna outsmart me and it's like you're a
00:17:02
[ __ ] idiot like narcissism you're not smart no you're cunning and there's a [ __ ] but you are not smart like
00:17:11
there's not you're an idiot and it's like and you're greedy your gluttonous and it gets and it's gonna catch up to
00:17:18
you it will always catch up and it does because this guy who was buying the pharmacy was like [ __ ] you you're trying
00:17:24
to Swindle me you dick so he called the authorities and boom authorities hello this man's trying to scam me this
00:17:33
man is trying to swim to Swindle me they're like sir this is St Louis are you all right but this is not great
00:17:39
like a fake like transatlantic accident that like doesn't exist he's like Madonna yeah what's what's going on
00:17:44
right now so is this like a bit so he's like no I'm just SNL I'm really upset so
00:17:52
he was in jail for two weeks and was finally bonded out by Georgiana oh man oh yeah because she got it yeah I don't
00:18:00
know what Georgiana knew you know she said about things though we say about Georgiana hmm
00:18:09
a little bit about it I'm not gonna say she I don't know what she knew because I'm not in giorgiana's head I'm gonna
00:18:15
put my sunglasses on roll up my window and say I don't know her I don't know her so I don't know uh but the day she
00:18:21
bonded him out they went to the train station and we're intending to flee right back to Chicago but you're wanted
00:18:27
there too brother and what they were gonna do there was regroup kind of formulate the next part of a uh giant
00:18:33
[ __ ] up plan but their plan was not gonna happen because before the train even left the [ __ ] station they were
00:18:40
stopped by a police sergeant and the police sergeant said that he was afraid the proposed trip would have to be
00:18:45
postponed and then he placed Holmes under arrest again after he literally just got out like that morning literally
00:18:51
like got out walked to the train station and they were like no so they're like back to jail this is Monopoly according
00:18:56
to news reports at the time Georgiana quote protested in the most indignant Manner and became almost hysterical and
00:19:04
denounced the arrest as persecution Georgie calm down so off he goes back to jail and they set bill at eight hundred
00:19:12
dollars which at that point was fifty thousand dollars at present they were like you're [ __ ] up and we're not
00:19:17
letting you out of here uh no one had that cash at the time so Georgiana went to Indiana and retrieved the deed to
00:19:25
some of the land she was going to be inheriting and that was going to be accepted as sufficient collateral okay
00:19:31
it was it's old-timey they were gonna hand over a deed to land it makes sense he was released from custody the next
00:19:37
day damn so he had only spent a couple of weeks in jail before that but he made some networking moves once he was in
00:19:43
there because we know homes always is closing just working on a pyramid scheme even in the walls of the prison he's an
00:19:50
idiot but he's a hard-working idiot cunning uh he connected with other inmates and he started getting them into
00:19:56
future schemes with him like promising them things that he couldn't deliver of course one of these convicts was a
00:20:03
Outlaw and bank robber named Marion hedgepeth Holmes told him about his scheme to
00:20:08
defraud the insurance company by faking pietzel's death passing off another body
00:20:12
as his and then he was like we're gonna flee the country after that because I've kind of used up a lot of
00:20:18
these states and I should probably get out now according to hedgepath Holmes offered to bring him in on the scheme
00:20:24
but he was like no I'm good like even he was like I think you're dumb like I don't think this is gonna work out for
00:20:31
you there was something about Holmes that he was concerned about and like there was also like a pesky little
00:20:36
detail that Marion was serving a 25-year sentence so like you don't really know how we're gonna
00:20:42
cut you into this he wasn't going to be scheming outside of those walls not for a while but he did direct homes to a
00:20:49
very um uh this lawyer agreed to help homes in pietzel pull off the insurance scheme
00:21:03
once they arrived in Philadelphia that'll get you d-barred uh he was morally gray maybe an understatement the
00:21:10
morally corrupt very uh unscrupulous I would say oh I love that but yeah that's a good word unscrupulous uh but
00:21:18
hedgepath later told reporters quote I am now convinced that he would sooner or later have murdered me had I been able
00:21:25
to accompany him on his his intended trip abroad which one said this hedgepath though 25-year sentence yeah I
00:21:31
was like I don't think you had to worry you weren't getting out of jail my guy but so on July 29th Benjamin pitzel left
00:21:37
St Louis St Louis and he told his wife I'm just covering my bases uh he told his wife he was taking a brief trip to
00:21:44
purchase some Lumber in Chicago but he was actually headed to Philadelphia where he was going to meet up with
00:21:49
Holmes oh yeah now meanwhile as soon as Holmes was bonded out of jail he and Georgiana left St Louis St Louis and
00:21:57
headed to Philadelphia to meet with Benjamin pyzel along the way they stopped in Indiana to visit georgiana's
00:22:04
Mother where Holmes told her they were going to be traveling to Germany to look after his uncle's property woof so she
00:22:12
she shouldn't be alarmed at all if she doesn't hear from Georgiana for a while he was fully planning on murdering
00:22:19
Georgiana and she was fully planning on spending the rest of her life with him even like in his outlawish ways yeah now
00:22:27
Georgiana did stay behind in Phil in Indiana a little bit just for a little while just like visit with family while
00:22:33
Holmes went straight to Philadelphia after this to start the whole scam so Benjamin pyzel got to Philadelphia on
00:22:40
August 17 1894. within a couple of days he opened a business and it was a patent business
00:22:47
under the name BF Perry another area another another one yeah this is what Holmes had told him to do once he'd
00:22:55
established himself the plan was that how the unscrupulous the morally gray lawyer was going to help them get a
00:23:03
fresh corpse that was similar looking to Benjamin why does this lawyer have a corpse connect not real sure a lot of
00:23:10
people had corpse connects back then yeah we don't love it yeah the plan was to place this body this look-alike
00:23:17
corpse in the patent laboratory in the building that he owned then caused an explosion in the building
00:23:24
disfiguring the corpse so much that they could pass it off as pyzel's body without a lot of Suspicion and then once
00:23:32
they'd faked his death pythal was going to go into hiding and Holmes and pietzel's wife Carrie would split the
00:23:39
ten thousand dollar insurance payout yeah right baby those are taking that full 10. sounds great but for all you
00:23:46
yeah on the morning of September 1st the doorbell rang at the apartment homes was
00:23:51
sharing with Georgiana and he went downstairs to open the door and it it was the police he came back inside and
00:23:57
he told Georgiana that the man at the door was from the Pennsylvania Railroad Company
00:24:04
he said he had been working with them on a contract to sell copiers Chris remember he had a weird copier business
00:24:11
at one point no I literally forgot that he like it was a fake copier business like ABC copiers or something like that
00:24:17
but he's like oh yeah he's it's this guy he's like works for the railroad company
00:24:20
just like you know we have a contract we're gonna sell copiers that's what he told Georgiana that's why I say I don't
00:24:26
know what Georgiana knew she knew some things but he would lie to her about a lot of things totally because later
00:24:31
Holmes told investigators that this man was actually Benjamin pyzel at the door and he had come to tell Holmes that
00:24:38
unfortunately his youngest child Wharton was sick and his wife had asked him to actually return to St Louis St Louis and
00:24:46
help with the children yeah so he was like I can't do this scheme with you I have to leave and take care of my kid
00:24:54
this was really going to [ __ ] up Holmes's plans and immediately he made the decision that pytzel was not
00:25:01
leaving Philly oh [ __ ] so this man comes to homes and says my youngest child is sick in this
00:25:07
in Holmes is like you're not leaving and I'm gonna make sure do you think that he
00:25:12
was worried that pythal was starting to freak out and was gonna like alert authorities he was probably worried of
00:25:17
that and he was pissed yeah his plan was [ __ ] up one thing about Holmes was like don't double cross him don't [ __ ]
00:25:24
with him don't [ __ ] with his schemes if you even show slight backing out or and
00:25:30
even for valid reasons even if you're saying my kid is sick I gotta leave he's like betrayal like he immediately looks
00:25:35
at that as like you don't value our [ __ ] here as much as you should I know yeah that don't understand when your kid
00:25:43
is sick yeah and then they're like betrayal like betrayal I'm gonna [ __ ] you over now put that on a list
00:25:48
somewhere exactly it's crazy so that's exactly what happened was he was like oh your kid is sick I'm gonna [ __ ] your
00:25:55
world up now and it's like oh okay he's just trying to go home and be a dad but like okay but like [ __ ] him right yeah
00:26:00
[ __ ] him so he was I think he was just really [ __ ] mad that he [ __ ] up his
00:26:04
plan and he figured that actually killing Benjamin would probably be easier than faking it at this point and
00:26:10
since he was mad already he was like I want to kill him now so then you have to worry about his whole family which I
00:26:15
have a feeling he will yeah he's not too worried about his whole family um in his later confession Holmes said
00:26:22
that pietzel sent quote discouraging letters purporting to be from his wife that caused by cell to begin drinking
00:26:30
heavily okay then he claimed that on the second September or um yeah September 2nd he showed up at the BF Perry
00:26:37
laboratory and found paitzell in a drunken stupor that's what he's claiming is confession so the next day he said he
00:26:45
was upset about his wife and what was going on and then we found him in a drunken stupor at the laboratory and he
00:26:50
said quote this was an easy matter as I was acquainted with his habits and so sure was I of finding him thus
00:26:56
incapacitated that when the day Came Upon which it was convenient for me to kill him even before I went to his house
00:27:03
I packed my trunk and made other arrangements to leave Philadelphia in A hurried flight immediately after his
00:27:09
death wow so he's literally like it was very convenient for me to kill him the next day because I knew he was so upset
00:27:15
about his child that he was going to be drunk at the laboratory and I was already on my way and I was already
00:27:19
ready to kill him so I figured I'd just pack everything up and be ready to go you got a friend yeah like holy [ __ ]
00:27:27
Jesus Christ so according to the confession Holmes said he entered the um he entered the building he went to the
00:27:33
second floor and that's where he found paitzell passed out he said quote only one difficulty presented itself it was
00:27:41
necessary for me to kill him in such a manner that no struggle or movement of his body should occur
00:27:47
that's the only issue not that you're murdering your long time not at all a friend and Associate basically and
00:27:52
father of five yeah basically he had to kill him and make it look like an accident or suicide instead of murder
00:27:58
and that was his concern so he tied his hands and feet and then he soaked his entire body in like in um I think it was
00:28:06
Ben what was it Benzene it was like some chemical and then he just burned him alive yeah that'll look like suicide
00:28:14
burned him alive that's so horrific he burned this man alive like didn't light the building on fire
00:28:22
just burned him alive first and then was gonna like building on fire so didn't even bother to light the building on
00:28:28
fire and leave he burned this man alive in front of him I feel like he had to have done something like so [ __ ] up
00:28:34
like that to somebody before like more obviously putting somebody in that enclosed room is [ __ ] up but even like
00:28:39
more than that because you know just burn your [ __ ] friend yeah associate and just be like well moving on well in
00:28:45
his confession he said so horrible of this torture that in writing of it I've been tempted to attribute his death to
00:28:52
some Humane means not with us not with a wish to spare myself but because I fear
00:28:57
that it will not be believed that one can be so heartless and depraved so do you think he really did do that then or
00:29:03
do you think he's bluffing he definitely oh he definitely did it's like absolutely it's like proven yeah so once
00:29:10
the body was sufficiently disfigured and basically burned beyond recognition Holmes claimed that he removed the
00:29:17
bindings from his wrists and ankles and then he said he quote poured into his stomach
00:29:23
one in one half ounces of chloroform so that at the time of the postmortem examination the coroner's physician
00:29:31
would be warranted in reporting that the death was accidental what so once he'd burned the body Holmes
00:29:40
threw things around and ransacked the room to make it look like an accidental explosion had caused damage to the
00:29:46
remains then he went further and he had like a detailed narrative to the scene he broke the bottle of chloroform in
00:29:54
Benzene that he had used then left an extinguished match near the spilled liquid so it made it look like pyth cell
00:30:02
had attempted to light his pipe too close to the flammable liquids and caused an explosion that actually is
00:30:08
like like I would never think to do something it kind of worked it makes sense like it was a that this is what I
00:30:15
mean like he's a [ __ ] idiot but he's but he's cunning but unfortunately he's smart when it comes to [ __ ] terrible
00:30:21
[ __ ] Street smarts yeah now with pietzel dead and murdered and the scene looking
00:30:26
to be an accident he rushed back to the apartment and told Georgiana that he closed the deal on the copiers and they
00:30:33
would be leaving for Indianapolis immediate so he'd already set that that whole thing up oh I closed that deal
00:30:39
that I told you about yesterday and in his mind he's like yeah I closed yeah he also also told her that if anyone
00:30:46
asked she should tell them that they were Bound for Harrisburg Pennsylvania okay and he explained this by saying
00:30:53
that the Saint Louis Saint Louis stuff wasn't fully settled and if too many people knew where they were he could be
00:30:59
arrested again so off the and she was like okay so off they went that evening and they boarded
00:31:05
the 10 25 PM train to Indianapolis you have to imagine she probably was scared of him yeah
00:31:12
and that's probably why she didn't if she for sure questioned things she wasn't gonna ask she was just like you
00:31:17
know what I don't want to be part of this let me keep my nose clean now two days later pyzel's body was discovered
00:31:23
by Eugene Smith who was a local inventor in the area who'd been in to talk to and
00:31:30
see BF Perry a week or so earlier now he had stopped in to speak with Perry a few times since
00:31:37
the man had opened the patent laboratory and he was really excited because they had kind of talked about him making
00:31:44
money off of some of his inventions now they were going to patent some of them so the morning of September 4th he tried
00:31:49
to walk into the patent office to speak to him but the door was locked this was strange to him because it was during
00:31:55
working hours so he called the police they sent officer George Lewis and he broke down the door
00:32:01
he found Benjamin pytzel's rotting body on the second floor of the apartment and
00:32:06
as far as anyone knew BF Perry was last seen alive on Saturday September 1st that's when the last people had seen him
00:32:13
alive besides homes um I think it was a delivery boy that had brought a message that day that was
00:32:19
the last person who had seen him um that message that was brought to him it's like even worse because that was a
00:32:28
telegram they believe from Kerry pietzel informing them him of Wharton's illness
00:32:33
so they think no the last person to see him besides homes was that little message boy the telegram boy yeah
00:32:39
telegram was the real telegram saying that Wharton was sick oh no it's just like really sad because he was trying to
00:32:45
get home to that child um pytale was discovered quote lying on his back on the floor with his right
00:32:51
hand clasped over his heart and what appeared to be blood about his head given the way that the scene looked to
00:32:58
detectives it was pretty much assumed that he had been holding in his right hand a bottle of benzene and was in the
00:33:05
act of lighting his pipe when a terrible explosion occurred knocking him to the floor
00:33:10
uh the body was brought in for an autopsy in the corner he was not so sure he could not identify
00:33:17
the cause of death he was like I can't say for sure what this cause of death is I feel like it could be something else
00:33:24
why why did he pour chloroform into his stomach I think it was like I don't know
00:33:30
if it was because it meant like um it would look like he inhaled the chloroform when the ex when that
00:33:34
happened he did it too close to the liquids okay or maybe he was trying to make it look like a um suicide as well
00:33:42
like maybe they would muddle the findings a little bit okay there was an inquest in the corner Dr William Scott
00:33:48
testified quote I went to the house expecting to find a man burned to death or blown to death by an explosion
00:33:55
instead we found the face discolored and distorted or full of pools the odor was
00:34:00
terrible his tongue was swollen and stuck out of his mouth and red fluid issued from his mouth any little
00:34:06
pressure on the stomach or over the chest here would cause this fluid to flow more rapidly
00:34:12
it just didn't make sense to him as it was being presented as an accident right he said the state of the room didn't
00:34:17
really jive with him either he thought it was very staged it didn't look like an explosion caused everything he said
00:34:22
it looked like somebody had just thrown [ __ ] around yeah but it was the chloroform in the stomach that actually
00:34:27
set off the most alarm bells that I had a feeling because it's just random as [ __ ] so yeah so um as a coroner he was
00:34:34
aware that if pyth Cell had ingested the chloroform before his death the harsh chemical would have caused a
00:34:41
lot of irritation to the stomach lining but when the stomach contents was observed there was no irritation that's
00:34:48
because it was put in his body after his death and it was clear now Scott couldn't be certain What
00:34:55
specifically had caused the man's death because it was so badly disfigured but they were pretty sure it had happened
00:35:01
suddenly and was not the result of an explosion now despite this testimony by this
00:35:07
coroner the jury delivered quote a verdict of death from inhalation of flames or from some poison the character
00:35:15
of which is unknown I can understand why the jury was confused because there's just so many elements to that to
00:35:20
understand well in what's worse is his body was held at the morgue for a few days and then it was just buried in an
00:35:27
unmarked popper Potter's grave oh because nobody knew because he's not nobody knows he's fight cell so at the
00:35:34
time it's kind of seeming like his plan is going to work here because he's going
00:35:39
to be able to use this right you know so while this was all happening and a jury
00:35:45
is trying to determine whether this man they know is BF Perry was murdered or killed by accident Holmes is on his way
00:35:53
back from Indianapolis to St Louis St Louis now where he's going to meet Carrie pyzell because remember she was
00:36:00
there she was trying to get paid sell back to St Louis St Louis and she knows about the plan plan now unfortunately
00:36:07
for homes word of pietzel's death had reached the family before he could get there to break the news and he found
00:36:14
Carrie piedcell inconsolable oh like inconsolable I can't imagine now Holmes decided because people knew that like he
00:36:22
was using that Alias so it was getting around people back home yeah so Holmes decided to just lie to Carrie and
00:36:28
insisted that her husband was actually alive and that he was in hiding until they
00:36:33
were going to be able to get that ten thousand dollars so he was basically like no this is no the plan is going to
00:36:39
court like don't worry that we want you to believe that it was him that's the whole plan but they said we need to get
00:36:45
the ten thousand dollars first once we get that from the insurance then he'll come out of hiding and then he said but
00:36:51
in order to do that someone has to go to Philadelphia and claim the body as Benjamin pyzel okay he's so [ __ ] evil
00:36:59
he is so Carrie giving her hope that she's gonna get find her husband again yeah now Carrie was concerned about
00:37:07
traveling to St Louis from St Louis St Louis to Philadelphia because her child is sick and also he didn't want her to
00:37:15
go there because that could muddle some things so he was like who can we get that can be like a little bit down a
00:37:20
level from Carrie a little more so Holm convinced her to send in pietzel's teenage daughter Alice was going to use
00:37:27
a kid and he even claimed that the girl could stay with his cousin no Minnie Willie Williams no no no no no she's
00:37:33
dead yep well she was in Philadelphia no this way he could still stay on track to
00:37:38
get the money from insurance but in the meantime jeapta Howe the gray why are there so many characters the morally
00:37:46
gray lawyer the morally corrupt your house he started drafting documents that would give him power of attorney over
00:37:53
carry that would be necessary to claim the entire ten thousand dollars for homes not a POA nope so six days after
00:38:02
his death Fidelity mutual insurance received a telegram reporting that the dead man from Philadelphia known as BF
00:38:08
Perry was probably Benjamin pitzel this is so much how did you even [ __ ] research it's insane and they said
00:38:15
Benjamin pyzel has actually a large insurance policy with your insurance company so the death was still looked at
00:38:21
as suspicious so agents at Fidelity mutual were like we would like a little more information before we pay out this
00:38:27
policy right so they looked further and saw that the only other name listed on the policy was H.H Holmes his actual
00:38:35
name his actual name so they went about finding homes and to do this they sent a
00:38:39
letter to murta in wilmet his wife murder's still alive she's still alive right okay I don't know what happened
00:38:46
there but after a little bit of a delay Holmes did get in touch with Fidelity I don't know if Merta just called him and
00:38:52
was like hey I just got this letter only a little bit I think it was one of those things where it was like they she
00:39:04
probably knew that he was gone yeah but like it's weird okay but yeah exactly my
00:39:10
oh my is correct now Holmes replies to the Fidelity Insurance company and tells the agent that he'd only just learned
00:39:17
that the body was in Philadelphia so he said I'll go there immediately and we will identify this man and get back to
00:39:23
you okay now again Holmes wouldn't allow Carrie to identify the body and Carrie really didn't want to leave her kid
00:39:28
anyway and she probably wouldn't have wanted to see that body yeah so he told the he told the insurance company that
00:39:35
he she was too ill to come okay and you know he was gonna have to go but they were like no you can't just go and
00:39:41
that's when they were like you need to bring a family member and he was like I'll bring Alice especially because he's
00:39:45
the one listed so of course he's gonna be like yeah that's him yeah that's totally fine on September 20th Holmes
00:39:50
met Alice pietzel and Jeb to Howe in Philadelphia and she wrote a letter to Carrie her mother later and she said of
00:39:58
meeting homes she referred to him as Mr Howard she said quote I don't like him to call me babe and child and dear and
00:40:06
all such trash she's like [ __ ] this guy she thought he was a pig like she knew
00:40:11
right away she had his number yep a few days later Alison Howe the lawyer show up at the Fidelity mutual office Holmes
00:40:19
joins them there and they all provided the agents with like some like um notable like things that would that
00:40:26
would basically identify but yeah exactly I was trying to think of the word uh that would identify this as
00:40:32
Benjamin Pizza okay um things of this were uh like he had a mole on his back he had a scar on his
00:40:38
leg he had a twisted fingernail that had occurred out of an accident oh that's interesting and he had very unusual
00:40:45
dentition he had a lot of spaces in his teeth okay so a lot of very particular things his dentition just what your
00:40:51
teeth look like yeah I've never heard it really yeah uh it's delay it's a nice word it feels solution dentition you
00:40:57
have nice competition over there anything that ends in shun yeah I always feel has a nice like the body had been
00:41:03
exhumed now uh and when they got to the cemetery uh it had been moved to a shed and was it being examined by Dr matern
00:41:12
nice in the show and that happened a lot that happened a lot I Know Jack the Ripper case I know I remember seeing
00:41:18
like yeah in the body in the shed yeah and the corner is just doing an autopsy in a shed by being in the shed Dr matern
00:41:24
was the other coroner who was with Dr Scott that did the original autopsy um by that time his remains were in an
00:41:34
advanced state of decomposition one would think and they were given the description the unique marks on the body
00:41:40
but my turn insisted the state of the remains kinda made it impossible to positively identify the body at at once
00:41:47
at one point the doctor couldn't find the big scar that they were talking about that was supposed to be on his leg
00:41:53
Holmes was present for this and he got frustrated and impatient and he grabbed the leg apparently rubbed the flesh so
00:42:02
that the burned layer of skin moved away and then revealed the scar he's a [ __ ] monster and then was like
00:42:11
do you see this is Benjamin pyzel we told you like was pissed and was like here it is I figured it out like oh my
00:42:19
God who who like show does that show us how money hungry you are without doing Among Us does that not I not even the
00:42:27
coroner was willing to do that he was like no I okay but at that point they were like all right before Alice being
00:42:33
there and having to see that that's her father yep and they were like okay cool that you think it's him Alice what do
00:42:41
you think you're the determining Factor if you say this is not your father it's not she must have been scared yeah so
00:42:46
apparently again pytel had that unique set of teeth yeah so um a lot of spaces which were very easily identifiable and
00:42:54
apparently Dr matern was the only one who actually gave a [ __ ] about Alice and
00:42:59
they had to present this body to her and have her look at the teeth and they said
00:43:04
before doing that he removed quote as well as he could everything that was repulsive from the mouse and then he
00:43:11
asked Alice look at the teeth and she said she looked into his mouth and she told the doctor that the teeth quote
00:43:17
appeared to be like her Papa's and then she left the shadow now the agents from Fidelity mutual
00:43:25
waited a full day and then they let Allison Howe know that they found Alice's identification satisfactory
00:43:31
so typically these kind of claims are very slow and methodical to be processed but for good reason lawyer Howe there he
00:43:40
appealed to the agents and he said the pipe cells are very poor they have a sick kid they could use the money as
00:43:46
soon as possible can you can you expedite it yeah so after a little discussion they agreed to pay the claim
00:43:52
immediately and they took out any of the costs that they had to use to identify the remains you know everyone in that
00:43:58
Fidelity office was like what the [ __ ] is going on they were like some [ __ ] is
00:44:02
going down the break room was popping it was the water cooler it was bubbling the
00:44:07
coffee was filled to the board they were all like something stinky like you want
00:44:12
to go to the pub later to talk about this [ __ ] seriously so right away a check was written to Carrie piedzel but
00:44:18
that check was given right to homes and the check was in the amount of 9715.85 because they took out the costs
00:44:26
that they had to use to exhume and identify the Box must have been so much a lot of money so with that check Holmes
00:44:32
immediately boarded a train for St Louis St Louis and he was going to deliver that check to Carrie but have her
00:44:38
immediately give the money back to him so he wrote a letter to the company also by the way and he wrote it as Carrie
00:44:45
thanking them for the prompt payment and they used that letter in promotional materials for a little while oh my God
00:44:53
yikes they used a [ __ ] letter from H.H Holmes they had no idea now Holmes's plan had always been to claim the money
00:45:00
from the insurance scam and then flee to Europe right and that's where he was you
00:45:05
know none of the creditors nobody was going to be able to get him there so it's strange that during this return
00:45:10
trip from Philadelphia he sent a letter to his brother in Gilmanton to let him know that he would be returning to
00:45:17
Gilmanton in the coming days remember that he had a brother yeah Holmes told his brother he'd been on a trip to
00:45:24
Minneapolis in 1888 and when he was there a train crashed and for the six years that followed he'd been suffering
00:45:32
from Amnesia incorrect and he said he'd regained his memory and he was planning to return home to just
00:45:40
resume his life with Clara and Robbie what is this about what because he had like no he didn't have any plans to do
00:45:47
he had no plans did he just pour it on a Tuesday now when Holmes arrived in St Louis St Louis with the money from the
00:45:54
insurance payout he gave two thousand five hundred dollars to jump to Howe as payment I'm surprised I know that and he
00:46:02
only gave 500 to carry and he said that the remaining 6700 for himself was because her her husband had owed him
00:46:11
money and had outstanding debts and that was he was going to take what a piece of
00:46:15
absolute dung yeah and she just had to accept it elephant dung how about that now what's worse
00:46:23
is Carrie's husband Benjamin now has to be in hiding and they have to go get him
00:46:28
out of hiding but he's still in hiding right now and she's got five kids that she's trying to support that now she has
00:46:34
like almost no income doing right so she's panicking she's like I can't do this oh my God and Holmes like you know
00:46:40
what it might be better if uh I took your 12 year old Nelly and your eight-year-old Howard and they could
00:46:47
come live with their sister Alice in Indiana for a little while and they can be looked after by my cousin Minnie
00:46:52
Williams who's dead until Benjamin comes out of hiding and then you can all re rejoin together so what you're telling
00:46:59
me is he was like I'm gonna kill these kids now Carrie piedzel agreed because she probably had no other choice at that
00:47:05
point yeah and on September 27th she transferred custody of Nellie and Howard to Holmes and he sent a telegram to
00:47:12
Alice in Indianapolis telling her to be ready to leave the following day because
00:47:16
they were going to go stay in Indiana they were going to go stay with Minnie Williams
00:47:20
now on September 28th Alice met Holmes and her two younger siblings at the train station in Indianapolis and the
00:47:28
four of them went to Cincinnati okay I know now we're in Ohio once there he registered at the Atlantic house
00:47:36
under the name Alexander cook and he got the kids settled and then he wired Georgiana and asked that she come to
00:47:44
join them all so he explained that he had come into some money because remember Georgiana
00:47:48
was staying with some family in Indiana so he explained that he had come into some money from someone purchasing the
00:47:54
land in Fort Worth okay I know there's a lot that's what I mean when I say I'm not cramming everything into one episode
00:48:00
because there's enough with just this no there is just enough places enough people he's traveling everywhere do you
00:48:07
see my eyes every now and again just like adding it up in my head I was like okay that's where we are and that's why
00:48:11
I'm like it just needs to be consumed in in bits so that you can understand where
00:48:16
he is at any given time no I'm happy about the way that you're doing it because I I would turn off at some point
00:48:22
and just be like I don't know that's this one's different from Jack the Ripper obviously in a lot of ways but
00:48:27
like very Larry Jack the Ripper was at least like White Chapel yeah right we are in White Chapel we're in [ __ ]
00:48:33
Massachusetts then we're in here we're in Ohio then we're in Philadelphia literally we're in so many other places
00:48:39
Colorado Chicago Texas Indiana Cincinnati St Louis see what I knew of the H.H Holmes story was just the murder
00:48:48
just Chicago like that's all I knew because he's known as like the Chicago serial killer but really he was
00:48:54
everywhere he was now it was at this time that Holmes was becoming really paranoid I can as you can imagine blood
00:49:04
is being piled on now and I feel like he he let too many people in on this way too many people he's done it across way
00:49:11
too many states yup he's caused way too many wires to cross he's been in jail a few times now yeah he's starting to
00:49:18
crack a little bit and according to Adam Seltzer who we uh linked that Source in
00:49:22
the in the show notes Holmes claim that he received tips that detectives were on
00:49:27
his tail right and it was starting to get to him um I don't know how much he knew whether
00:49:32
he was you know just operating purely out of paranoria or he was actually like had the facts but he was being pursued
00:49:40
by a lot of different agencies so and now the Fidelity mutual insurance company was added to that list because
00:49:47
now they were like something's awry here now what made them feel that way so I'll
00:49:51
tell you so in early October the lead detective with the Fidelity mutual insurance company w e Gary got a
00:49:58
telegram telegram not a telegram this telegram was from Lawrence Harrigan who is the
00:50:05
chief of the St Louis St Louis Police uh this telegram from the chief of police was letting him know that a
00:50:11
prince prisoner in Saint Louis Saint Louis had come forward with information that basically alluded to the fact that
00:50:19
the Fidelity Insurance company had recently been defrauded in a big way I knew that [ __ ] was going to come
00:50:24
forward and try to get some [ __ ] off his 25-year sentence yeah right it was for
00:50:28
Marion had stuff uh who's his cellmate why would you not why are you interested like if you're going to tell anybody
00:50:35
tell somebody with like three years so they have something to look forward to but this guy's got nothing to lose he
00:50:40
doesn't give a [ __ ] and everything to gain because he's giving information he's thinking like oh let me help you
00:50:45
out and get a couple years off my sentence yep in the letter the telegram gave all the details of the scheme that
00:50:50
Holmes had told him about how they were gonna fake pythal's death for money and at the time he had offered hedgepeth
00:50:56
five hundred dollars for his part in it which would be to recommend an attorney of ill repute which she did hedgepeth
00:51:04
claimed that he really didn't think Holmes would attempt it he thought he was just like I'll talk bluffing but
00:51:09
then a few weeks later his lawyer Howe told him quote that he had never heard of a finer or smoother piece of work and
00:51:16
that he was sure to work and it was sure to work and that Howard H.H Holmes was one of the smoothest and slickest man
00:51:23
that he had ever heard tell of so Hal was already singing his Praises like weeks later so Marion hedgepeth likely
00:51:30
felt compelled to inform authorities of this just to get something out of it obviously he was also salty because he
00:51:36
was never given his 500 and it seemed to him like every one of the schemers had just got what they needed from him and
00:51:43
then Abandoned Ship right he's like I got snacks to buy on this commissary so he was out to [ __ ] them over but
00:51:49
detectives did believe him and the details he gave and the superiors at Fidelity mutual
00:51:55
they thought actually that hedgepath may be lying um and a few days had passed before they
00:52:01
finally were willing to believe this and that they were like you know what we're
00:52:05
going to give W.E Gary the detective for Fidelity Insurance approval to pursue homes but it took a
00:52:14
few days for them to like investigate it because they had just paid this out they
00:52:18
don't want to believe that they just got [ __ ] over yeah that's a lot so I looked into it and they were like I
00:52:22
think this guy is telling the truth yeah would you say it was like nine thousand
00:52:25
dollars right yeah it was a lot of money it was almost 10 it was actually almost
00:52:28
ten it was 9 700 I think somewhere in there Round Up um but Holmes had been lucky that his
00:52:34
previous issues with the law were under so many aliases and there had been so much time between them that they were
00:52:40
kind of tough to connect the dots but this scheme was so fresh and so big that it was much easier to trace and he had
00:52:48
left too many missing pieces so now detective Gary is on Holmes's tail detective Gary's hilarious I think all I
00:52:59
can think of is Gary from below deck yeah I know any any like Mr Gary like that's detective Gary it just doesn't
00:53:06
sound right but now Holmes is having to shuttle the pied cell children all over Cincinnati for the remainder of this
00:53:14
time yeah um and then he ships them to Indianapolis for the few for a first few weeks of October and in India
00:53:21
Indianapolis homes in Georgiana checked into some like very fancy like Swanky Hotel like Penthouse situation yeah and
00:53:29
they had the pike cell children at a hotel down the block and they registered them as the canning children when they
00:53:35
put them in the hotel weird a few days later he moved them again this time to the Circle house which was another hotel
00:53:41
in the city he's like shuttling them everywhere they must have been like what the [ __ ] is going on they were so con
00:53:46
like they were like what the [ __ ] is happening here like I just want to go home and Alice I feel like was on to him
00:53:51
oh she was like what the [ __ ] is going on now even though he was on the Run from many multi like law enforcement
00:53:57
agencies many a multitude he made time during this whole thing to attempt another scam what while they were in
00:54:06
Indianapolis Holmes and Georgiana began touring properties with a realtor this realtor thought that they were a couple
00:54:12
who wanted to buy a house in the city yeah Holmes had told the realtor that his wife had inherited some property and
00:54:18
they were planning to trade the title to that property for something in Indianapolis that they he could then
00:54:24
sell for cash okay this sounded insane to me when I read it but apparently the bank had already approved this exchange
00:54:30
like in reality weird the problem however was that the offer had an October 10th expiration date okay and
00:54:38
the property wouldn't have officially been accessible to Georgiana until her 25th birthday which was not until
00:54:44
October 17th oh [ __ ] so Holmes abandoned the realtor and never went through with
00:54:49
the plan but he was planning to try to get go through with this before it was going to be legal
00:54:54
and after he was arrested the realtor who who was scammed here told the Press quote Holmes was a good-looking fellow
00:55:02
but had a kind of uneasy look in his eyes so he tried to [ __ ] over this other person while he's on the run like the
00:55:09
heat is on the heat is like the heat is it's more than yeah it's real on uh well
00:55:16
well he toured the city with Georgiana trying to set up some other schemes the pied cell children were just spending
00:55:22
their time in a hotel room alone that's so sad and during this time they were writing daily to their mom in St Louis
00:55:28
at St Louis and they were concerned because they never received anything back and on October 6th at one point Alice
00:55:36
wrote to her mother and said why don't you write to me I've not got a letter from you since I have been away and it
00:55:41
will be three weeks day after tomorrow had been writing to her children she had written back to every single letter
00:55:47
Holmes just kept them what they just kept them from the kids just to [ __ ] with the kids why would you even do that
00:55:54
because he's an actual monster evil yeah so in October just had their mourning the loss of their father being shuttled
00:56:03
to all these new places and now they think their mom just abandoned yeah holy that's awful he is like truly torturing
00:56:09
them and I I feel as though it's going to escalate and I just can't believe that's their last days yeah
00:56:15
um Holmes went to a reality a real why could I never say Realty Realty Realty Realty Realty why can I not say that
00:56:23
word that tripped me up in the last one I did yeah right some people say realtor
00:56:28
but it's just realtor I think Realty that's what it is a realty office it's losing all meaning but it really is
00:56:34
sorry everybody I don't know why my like my brain knows it but my mouth won't say
00:56:39
it say real estate office a real estate office in Irvington which is a suburb of
00:56:43
Indianapolis yeah and he started making arrangements to rent a house called the Lancaster house it was a small cottage
00:56:50
on Union Avenue I would not rent that house he got very hostile which was rare for him to do in public because remember
00:56:57
he is Mr cool call me now at this point uh because he was demanding the keys be given to him now and he was like I'm in
00:57:06
a big hurry I need them now I'm not going through any of the [ __ ] I have to go through like lost his mind and the
00:57:11
realtor there you go later said quote I remember the man very well because I did
00:57:16
not like his manner I felt that he should have had more respect for my gray hairs
00:57:25
but a few days later um uh Holmes had a large Oak Stove delivered to Lancaster house because he
00:57:32
did rent it and also dropped off a case of surgical tools in town to be sharpened a large Oak
00:57:39
Stove and sharpened surgical tools that sounds normal so everything's fine oh no
00:57:45
um in the afternoon on an or like in early October Holmes brought Howard pietzel in his trunk of belongings
00:57:52
Howard is the um 10 year old son yep uh belongings to the Lancaster house and according to his confession later they
00:58:00
arrived a little after 8 pm and Holmes called Howard into the house and he told him that he had to go to bed at once and
00:58:06
then he said he gave him the first the Fatal dose of Medicine and he said he he like poisoned him yeah
00:58:12
essentially and he said as soon as he had ceased to breathe I caught his body into pieces that would pass through the
00:58:18
door of the stove and by the combined use of gas and corn cobs and proceeded to burn it with as little feeling as
00:58:25
though it had been some inanimate object what that was his own confession that's
00:58:29
a 10 year old I poisoned this 10 year old boy and I cut up his body and then put him
00:58:36
in a stove and I felt such little feelings about it that he might have been well has been an inanimate object
00:58:41
oh my God yeah so it's most likely that he had poisoned his food to kill him that's what
00:58:49
everybody thinks um of course sweetie when they searched the property after he was arrested they found a bottle of
00:58:54
cyanide an amount of wolf Spain and there was also um he had purchased a cocaine solution from a pharmacist a few
00:59:02
days earlier uh once he had disposed of Howard's body he went back out at the train station by 9 pm so that all
00:59:09
happened within an hour according to him and he got his mail and he boarded a train for Chicago
00:59:15
so the next day and I don't know what he did there but he returned to in Annapolis the next day and he got
00:59:22
Georgiana and the other children and put them on separate trains Georgiana on one
00:59:26
children on the other Bound for Detroit we're going to Michigan so when they when they were going to Mission like why
00:59:34
are we going another place when they arrived in Detroit Holmes checked himself and Georgiana into the Hotel
00:59:40
Normandy under the name g Howell and wife I love that back then you didn't need a name as a wife you were just one
00:59:47
wife yeah and then one to like we don't need your name and they went a few blocks away and checked Nelly and Alice
00:59:54
into the new Western Hotel then the next day they moved them to a boarding house
00:59:59
run by a woman named Ray um May Ralston Holmes was definitely starting to fray at the seams he's starting to come apart
01:00:08
the children were starting to lose it being alone all the time not understanding where Howard is now not
01:00:14
understanding what's going on he's dragging them all over the place leaving them a whole loan for days at a time
01:00:19
Alice wrote letters to her grandparents in October 14th she wrote we have to stay in all the time Howard is not with
01:00:27
us right now all that Nell and I can do is draw and I get so tired sitting that I could get up and fly almost I'm
01:00:33
getting so homesick that I don't know what to do um I wish they had just run away now a
01:00:38
day after she sent that letter Carrie and Wharton pythal Wharton was the younger son that was sick they arrived
01:00:45
in Detroit and checked into a hotel just a few blocks away from the boarding house where they didn't know that Alice
01:00:51
and Ellie were staying holy [ __ ] Holmes had written Carrie telling her to come
01:00:56
there where she could finally be reunited with Benjamin and her children oh my god when they got there
01:01:03
looking awful when they got there he goes oops sorry can't reunite you yet because it's like too heavily populated
01:01:10
here so you're gonna have to wait a little longer oh my God he is just [ __ ] up a few
01:01:16
days after coming to Detroit he rented a small house on East Forest Avenue which
01:01:21
he told the landlord was for his sister and her children okay which he was probably gonna pass Georgiana and the
01:01:26
kids off yeah um he then dug a four foot by three foot hole in the backyard okay neighbors noticed so this was
01:01:36
clearly where he was intending to kill Alice and Nelly no one is sure why but he decided not to murder the girls there
01:01:43
at this time instead he told Carrie pythal that Benjamin was waiting for her now in Toronto Canada and she should
01:01:50
travel there and he was going to and so he sent Alice and Nelly back to Indianapolis where they were going to be
01:01:58
waiting for them when she and Benjamin returned from Canada Canada okay this is when Carrie was like what the [ __ ] what
01:02:05
the [ __ ] is going on and she was concerned and this is when she was like where the [ __ ] are my kids like where
01:02:10
are they and he was like don't worry they're being cared for by a widow lady but he wouldn't give any more details
01:02:17
yeah that sounds totally fine now as all of this is unraveling and he's losing complete control of this situation
01:02:24
clearly I also just feel like he's going insane oh he is it seems like he's going
01:02:28
mad because he's just doing like none of this makes any sense it's chess moves that make no sense at all right he's
01:02:34
just sending her up there he's sending he doesn't know what he's he was just making a bunch of lateral moves yeah and
01:02:39
he was definitely intending to kill Nelly and Alice in that house in Detroit but then he didn't I don't know why I
01:02:45
wonder if one of the neighbors like came by or something I wonder if a neighbor saw him digging you're right and was
01:02:50
like hey what's that about and then he was like oh nothing but detective Gary had enlisted that's so funny and
01:02:57
detective Gary is like the real MVP here because he got the Pinkerton detective agency on the case and they had made a
01:03:04
lot of progress in finding homes they narrowed him down to the Detroit area and this is why I believe maybe he left
01:03:12
like me it could have been that he was planning to kill them but I think they came a little hotter
01:03:18
sure um I don't know how aware he became of that situation but the but thinking now
01:03:24
like that the fact that he moved so quickly out of there he was tipped off somehow and that's probably why he
01:03:30
abandoned the whole plan maybe he saw some kind of police presence he could have so they made it to Canada and as
01:03:36
soon as they got there Holmes checked Carrie and Wharton into the Union house under the name Mrs Adams
01:03:42
then he disappointed them again and he said oh you just missed Benjamin he said Benjamin had received word of detectives
01:03:51
looking for him in the city and he had actually fled to Montreal now oh my God and holmesan returned to the train
01:03:57
station till he got Alice and Nelly at the train station and brought the girls to the house he'd rented on Vincent
01:04:03
Street and he told the neighbors he had rented this one for his sister as well who was going to be coming from Hamilton
01:04:08
Ontario and this is a different house than the different house yes okay the house had been rented on a six-month
01:04:16
lease and the neighbors later told investigators they thought it was real strange that the man had rented the
01:04:21
entire house yet he only had a bed frame a trunk and a mattress a dog wouldn't even sleep on oh what does that mean so
01:04:28
Holmes then got Georgiana at the train station and they went off to Niagara Falls where they stayed One Night in the
01:04:34
Imperial Hotel before they went back to Toronto and checked into the Palmer House Hotel as H Howell and wife well
01:04:41
the Palmer House is super haunted there you go probably from him so on October 24th Holmes went to the house on Vincent
01:04:48
Street where he put Nelly and Alice he borrowed a shovel from a neighbor neighbor telling him I'm gonna fix a
01:04:54
place in the cellar to hold potatoes the [ __ ] and he went into the basement of
01:04:59
the house and dug a fresh grave no after he did this he went back to Carrie piedcell and told her oh [ __ ]
01:05:07
Howard's not there yet and he said up you got to go to Ogdensburg New York because Benjamin Had fled there now at
01:05:14
this point I'd be like you're not sending me another [ __ ] place but he put Carrie on the tree but she also
01:05:18
misses her husband so she's just trying to get her family back together God puts
01:05:22
Carrie on the train and he went back to the Vincent Street house was strangely when he confessed to this he
01:05:31
was less Sensational than he normally is really the story of Nelly and Alice's murders
01:05:37
is less dramatic and less like he was less excited to tell this story I feel huh in his confession he said he had
01:05:44
taken a large trunk to the house on Vincent Street he'd cut a small hole in the trunk large enough for a hose to fit
01:05:50
uh-huh this is pretty awful it sounds like it will be he wouldn't explain how but he got both girls in the trunk alive
01:05:58
alive and he quote ended their lives by connecting the gas with the trunk so he gassed them in a trunk holy [ __ ]
01:06:06
once they were killed he opened the trunk and he found them in his words quote they're little blackened and
01:06:13
distorted faces oh my God so he then took them out of the trunk he stripped them of their
01:06:20
clothing then buried their bodies in the grave in the basement in the Vincent house oh my God and he said quote
01:06:26
without a particle of covering saved the cold Earth which I heaped upon them with
01:06:30
fiendish delight that's the only time he got like he just gassed two children to death and
01:06:38
two little girls buried them in fiendish Delight I don't know how he dies but I hope they
01:06:46
did something brutal to him well in what's worse is so you listen to that story and you're like that's [ __ ]
01:06:51
terrible but Adam Selzer he says there's a problem with that story and he said he
01:06:57
did kill these little girls of course but that house on Vincent Street was not set up for gas
01:07:03
and so he says the claim of poisoning them with gas was probably not true unless he did it somewhere else okay and
01:07:09
then what's worse is that he was like he probably poisoned their food like he did
01:07:15
Howard but then he just told this story that's even worse which is even worse and he's like I don't no matter what he
01:07:24
killed brutally killed two little girls and buried them in the basement right but the fact that he is making up
01:07:32
from something that's even grow like still gross is like you just wanted to tell that story like what the [ __ ] is
01:07:40
wrong with you well I wonder if it's like almost he can't now that he's in prison and he knows he's got God he
01:07:45
can't kill anybody anymore so now he's killing people differently in his mind yeah
01:07:50
vicariously through his own fantasies exactly wow dude that is here what the [ __ ] did he have yeah like
01:07:59
seriously was wrong what was going on with him now the next day he returned the shovel to the neighbor and then he
01:08:06
stuffed the girl's clothing and any belongings they had into the chimney and put a fire in the fireplace to try to
01:08:11
burn them all but unfortunately for him he'd pack the items too tightly into the
01:08:16
chimney so large pieces of clothing were still in there even after the fire went
01:08:20
out oh damn and he didn't realize it no also the stupid idiot hadn't even been very thorough when he gathered up their
01:08:26
belongings because he had ended up leaving several of Alice's belongings including a bag out in the apartment
01:08:31
when he left and you can't imagine she even had that many belongings at that point exactly by the time the new
01:08:36
tenants arrived a few days later oh my God they found the random clothing scraps and Remnants left behind but by
01:08:43
this point he almost was back and he he had already left Toronto and he wasn't coming back and is he sorry is he the
01:08:49
landlord of that house or no he just rented it no he just rented it okay just to do that now eventually this man would
01:08:55
tell so many story is about the missing children it would be almost like it's like it's something out of fiction he
01:09:01
would say Benjamin Benjamin the father was in South America he told Carrie the kids were in South America he told them
01:09:08
now they were in Chicago in Detroit they were in England they were anywhere else
01:09:12
but reality he was just driving her insane yes he was trying to drive her insane
01:09:17
and that is where we're going to leave part four you are you guys I did not see that coming because what
01:09:25
what because what should have stayed in Canada and he didn't okay I want you to know that once
01:09:33
he returns to the United States that's when [ __ ] is going to go down for him and I don't want to start the going down
01:09:41
process I would like I would like episode five to just be us all high-fiving in the fact that this
01:09:47
[ __ ] gets got oh I can't wait to hear how because I actually I don't have any idea yeah how he gets caught or what
01:09:54
happens to him after he's caught so this is him he's leaving Toronto he's leaving
01:09:59
Canada he's coming back to the United States like a big [ __ ] idiot he has killed kids in Canada he's killed kids
01:10:06
in the United States he has killed women in the United States he's now killed a man in the United States and he's coming
01:10:10
back and the Pinkerton detective agency guys they are on his [ __ ] tail I'm so excited they're right here he would have
01:10:18
been much better off staying in Canada thank goodness he didn't thank goodness he's a [ __ ] idiot I'm so glad he is
01:10:24
so we're gonna talk about his arrest we're going to talk about the trial we're going to talk about the wild
01:10:29
confession and we're going to talk about the theories that he is Jack the Ripper
01:10:33
which I don't agree with understand why people are interested they are slightly compelling okay but
01:10:44
very interesting and we're going to talk about his execution ah it's all coming in part five it's all happening Sheena
01:10:51
Shea the end the climax of this series is part five my goodness yeah all right well we hope you keep listening and we
01:11:00
hope you keep it but not so weird that you go all around the world doing HH Holmes type [ __ ]
01:11:09
because like don't keep it so weird that your detective Gary yeah just be it to time in a world
01:11:15
full of HH Holmes's be a detective Gary and with that we leave you [Music] foreign