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The plan was simple, if morbid. Henry Howard Holmes and Ben Pitezel would work together to fake the latter's death so they could split the life insurance. This wasn't the first scam they'd pull together, but it would be the last. Though Holmes didn't know it at the time, his decision to end the partnership would be the first fallen domino leading to all of his secrets being exposed. Holmes went through many names in his life and many occupations.
He was a doctor and a farmer, a teacher, a business owner, and one of America's first serial killers. Apple-cheeked, fond of handlebar mustaches and bowler hats, Holmes wasn't an intimidating figure, but he managed to manipulate and influence nearly everyone around him.
including his eventual victim, Ben Pitezel. Ben was a carpenter and amateur inventor with sharp features and watery eyes. At Holmes' urging, Pitezel managed to take out a $10,000 life insurance policy on one of his aliases, a professional inventor named B.F. Perry. At 38, Ben was a few years older than Holmes but completely his disciple.
During Holmes' trial, a prosecutor even described Patezel as a tool and creature used by Henry over the course of a spree of murder, fraud, and violence that shocked the entire country. Before Holmes left his friend trapped alive in a burning laboratory, he and Patezel worked together to build one of America's most morbid landmarks: a three-story murder castle set deep in downtown Chicago.
The building was a Frankenstein's monster of functions. It was a hotel, apartments, pharmacy, retail space, and contained a number of secret rooms and hidden halls designed by Holmes. Reports disagree about how extreme the modifications were on the murder castle.
Some newspapers at the time of Holmes' trial claimed that his building was filled with trapdoors and dead drops, acid vats and pits, and every variety of secret passages. Others stated that the structure was simply maze-like and confusing. Whatever the condition of the house, what's undeniable is that it was filled with bodies and the site of extreme violence.
Police would emerge gagging from the cellar, where they pulled decomposing corpses from the dirt like weeds from a garden. All told, officials found nine bodies buried under H.H. Holmes' murder castle, but Henry would confess to a total of 27 murders, though some of those claims are disputed to this day. Among Holmes' confirmed victims were Patezel and half of his family.
Their partnership, perhaps the only genuine relationship Henry had in his entire life, began in 1892 in Chicago at the Chemical Bank building where Ben was providing demonstrations of his new invention, a modified coal bin. Part 1: A Trail of Corpses from East to West H.H. Holmes did a lot of living in his 30-odd years on Earth.
He was born under the name of Herman Mudgett to a Methodist household in New Hampshire. Holmes found that his original name didn't suit him, so he abandoned it and chose another.
There was also the practical consideration that his real name was tangled up in a few active cases on the East Coast, including the disappearance of a boy last seen with Holmes in New York, and the death of another boy in Philadelphia, who died after taking medications from a pharmacy Henry was staffing at the time.
Only in his mid-twenties, Holmes had already lived half a dozen fragmented lives by the time he arrived in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood in the claustrophobically hot summer of 1886. He immediately went to work charming and manipulating his first employer, a drugstore owner named Liz Holton. Though Holmes wasn't exactly handsome, he had puffy cheeks, was balding, and had deep-set hollow eyes.
The man still managed to become close with Liz. She first gave him a job at the drugstore as a pharmacist. Eventually, she would sell him the business at a favorable rate. The location would become the cornerstone of Holmes' miniature murder empire. The drugstore was profitable, allowing Holmes to invest in a nearby property. He purchased a lot across the street in Inglewood. This would become the foundation of his famous murder castle.
But that was still years in the works. In the meantime, Henry needed money, so he fell back onto a well-worn method he'd used many times for generating income. It was a simple con and effective. All he would need were corpses and a few partners. The first time H.H. Holmes opened up a grave to go body snatching, he was only 16 years old.
It was 1882, and Holmes was a student at the University of Michigan's Department of Medicine and Surgery. He was the favorite lab assistant of Professor Will Herdman, head of the school's anatomy department. While there's no definitive evidence that Holmes and Herdman visited nearby cemeteries at night grave digging, Holmes would later confess that he made a significant amount of money off of corpses while in college.
There were two common ways at the time to make fast funds from the freshly dead: cadaver sales to dubious medical labs and insurance fraud. Holmes was skilled at the former, but genuinely enjoyed the latter. The man spent more than a decade running the same con. He would create a fake alias, take out a substantial life insurance policy on the individual,
then concoct an accident, often a fire, which left his alias dead and a fresh, mutilated body beyond recognition corpse in his place. Holmes profited heavily from recycling the dead. Beyond the commercial benefits, Henry also displayed a unique interest in the inner workings of human bodies. Studying under Nahum White, a 19th century master of cadaver dissection,
Historians differ on whether Holmes truly took pleasure in opening and exploring corpses, or if he was just comfortable with the process. However, Henry's track record of multiple marriages, pattern of domestic abuse, and easy betrayal of friends made it clear that he was glad to indulge in violence if it got him something he wanted. And what H.H. Holmes wanted most of all was to make his mark on the world. Part 2
the horrifying hotel of H.H. Holmes. When Henry bought the parcel of land in downtown Chicago, across from his drugstore, he did so with a vision already in mind. Holmes pictured a massive structure that could meet any need, sell any product, house renters and visitors alike. He held everything perfect in his imagination, where he saw the structure rise like a modern-day castle from the city streets.
The only problem was that Holmes was broke after buying just the lot. He would need investors to see his castle made real. Once again, Holmes weaponized his charm and powers of persuasion. He managed to string along creditors and construction firms on little more than promises and a sly grin. It was during this period that Holmes and Patezel began working together on other ways to raise money for the castle.
Robbing graves was a staple for the pair, but relatively small potatoes. It took a lot of time, energy, and caution to evacuate the freshly dead from their plots without arousing suspicion. Holmes was tired of creeping into cemeteries at 2 in the morning with a shovel and sack. If Henry was going to build himself a true monument, he would need an influx of cash. He began to get bolder and bolder with his cons with each brick laid at his hotel.
He partnered with Patezel on a parade of insurance fraud, defrauding investors, the sale of stolen goods, as well as stealing the goods they were selling. Secret rooms within the growing murder castle were used to store pilfered whiskey and furniture and pharmaceuticals. The money kept coming in, and Holmes' tower continued to grow, but it was never enough.
In 1891, a little over three years into the construction of the building, one of Henry's creditors, John de Bruyel, died inside the pharmacy on the ground floor of the hotel. The official cause of death was ruled apoplexy, but de Bruyel would only be the first of many creditors, investors, and even lovers of H.H. Holmes to die inside of the castle.
During the construction process, Ben Pitezel was a valuable resource for Holmes. His skill in carpentry and knack for invention helped give the hotel unique features, unusual locks, and false doors. There were halls that led to dead ends and plenty of hidden storage. Pitezel wasn't shy about taking pride in his work or his friendship with the mysterious H.H. Holmes. For his part, Henry didn't seem to celebrate his partnership with Ben.
but neither did he treat it with contempt. Holmes viewed Patezel as a useful tool, like a hammer or a knife. Part 3: The Actress, the Alias, and the World's Fair H. H. Holmes was, officially, married four times. He was never divorced,
In addition to collecting wives, Henry also had a significant number of mistresses. Several of his paramours disappeared under unusual circumstances. At least one became an early victim of the killer. Julia Smythe was the young wife of a man Holmes hired to work at the jewelry counter inside of his hotel. The job was only an excuse for Henry to get close to Julia, and he was soon wrapped up in an affair with the woman.
When Julia's husband Ned became aware of the relationship, he left Chicago, leaving behind his wife and their young daughter Pearl. Julia was infatuated with Holmes, but their relationship didn't last. Henry lost interest in women the same way he lost interest in his identities or his careers. He walked through them like he was walking between rooms in his ever-growing tower. And the castle was growing.
brick by brick and board by board. The structure rose to one story and then a second. It contracted dozens of rooms, renters and businesses. Holmes loved the building, the sawdust smell of it, the endless corridors and the never-ending thump of new construction. But Henry did not love Julia. So when she came to him to announce that she was pregnant and he was the father,
Holmes killed his mistress. He also killed Pearl, poisoning the child. Before the bodies were even cool, Holmes ordered Pitezel to dispose of the corpses. It was Christmas Eve, 1891. Julia was probably the first mistress that Holmes killed, but she was not his last.
The cycle of infatuation, affair, pregnancy and murder repeated the following year almost to the day when H.H. Holmes murdered Emmeline Sagrande, another young woman who worked in his building. Just like Julia, when Sagrande approached Holmes with her pregnancy, he killed both the woman and his unborn child.
Pitezel again removed the evidence, probably dragging the bodies downstairs, adding more bones to the cellar, though neither Julia or Pearl could be identified when the graves were later discovered. While the murders of Julia, Pearl, and Emmeline were brutal, they weren't profitable. Holmes wasn't so much bloodthirsty as utterly ruthless, so a death without a financial incentive was, in his opinion, a bit of a waste.
Henry decided to appeal his charm into picking up new mistresses, but instead of focusing on women who were pretty or convenient, the killer cast out a net seeking ladies with property. Minnie Williams was a former actress who caught Holmes' eye while he was traveling through Boston. Even more appealing than Minnie's looks, however, was the property she held in Fort Worth, Texas.
Henry courted Minnie, both in person and with letters, until he convinced her to move to Chicago, where she would take up residence in his hotel as his personal stenographer. Once Minnie was in the city, Holmes began a shell game of multiple aliases and property transfers. He convinced her to sign over the deed to her Texas property to one of his fabricated identities, Alexander Bond.
Henry, under his alias of Bond, then signed the property over to another fake name, this one under the control of his henchman, Ben Pitezel. Holmes was willing to play pretend at a relationship with Minnie for a few months, going so far as to rent a separate apartment in the city for the couple while inviting Minnie's sister Annie to visit for the summer. Much like Minnie,
Annie was taken with Holmes' slithering charm, writing to friends that she was excited to go on vacation with the newlyweds. Henry and Minnie were technically married, though his failure to get proper divorce from any of his previous wives made the arrangement illegal. The last time family or friends heard from either William's sister was July 1893.
Part 4: The Death and Disfigurement of B.F. Perry and the World's Fair Holmes was driven by two dreams in 1893: having his hotel completed in time for the World's Fair in Chicago, and finally pulling off a score so large that he could retire from fraud and become a legitimate businessman. Neither dream came true, however, and the greatest obstacle Henry faced that year was himself.
H.H. Holmes simply could not stop committing petty, pointless crimes, even while working toward larger schemes. The man spent most of the winter and spring of 1893 trafficking in stolen goods, acting as part pawnbroker, part fence. He also indulged in his firestarter side, buying and torching small properties for the insurance money.
It was an arson charge that eventually caused Holmes to flee Chicago before he could complete the murder castle. By the time of the World's Fair, Henry was staying in Fort Worth on the property he'd swindled from the Williams sisters. Exile wasn't a good fit for the perpetual criminal. Holmes stewed and schemed and planned his grand return to the Windy City. His next and final fraud would be basic but on a grand scale.
Holmes enlisted the help of a seedy lawyer he'd worked with in the past, as well as Ben Pitezel and Pitezel's wife. The idea was to set up Ben with a new alias, an inventor named B.F. Perry, and a fancy laboratory in Philadelphia. Perry, a genius with chemicals but not exactly dedicated to safety, would then experience a terrible accident.
His lab would burn, his body would be so disfigured by the inferno that any old corpse would work as a stand-in, and his $10,000 life insurance policy would pay out to Perry's next of kin, Ben's wife, Carrie Batesle. It's entirely possible that the plan may have worked. However, Holmes wasn't in the market for taking any more chances.
He also was looking for ways to cut ties with Patezel. The collaborator was part of Henry's old life. Ben knew too much to ever be trusted without Holmes watching over his shoulder, and the killer wasn't one for leaving loose ends. So instead of digging up a fresh corpse to play the role of Patezel in the insurance scheme, H.H. Holmes met with his friend at the laboratory, waited for Ben to begin pouring accelerants on the floor,
then walked behind the man with a chloroform-soaked rag. Patezel barely struggled. He was more confused than alarmed. The chemicals quickly dropped the slim man to the ground. Holmes finished spilling a mix of accelerants all over the lab, then went to stand over Ben. Benzene is an extremely toxic but powerful industrial chemical produced when refining crude oil. Holmes doused the unconscious Patezel in liquid benzene.
dropped a lit match, then exited the laboratory. The structure burned, flames burst glass and came crawling out through the windows, while plumes of black chemical smoke climbed towards the cloudy sky. Holmes quickly connected with Carrie Patezel, and they split the $10,000 life insurance policy for the deceased B.F. Perry. Not knowing that her husband was actually dead,
Carrie agreed when Holmes suggested they leave the area but meet up later. He then convinced her to leave three of her five children at his care, as it would be easier for them to travel that way before meeting up with Ben to divide the spoils. Why exactly Henry wanted to travel with three of the young Patezel children is unknown,
Perhaps he planned on slowly eliminating the entire family to cover his tracks as they made their trip to London, where Holmes claimed Ben Patezel was waiting. During a detour through Canada, Henry murdered Alice and Nellie Patezel. He locked them together in a storage trunk, drilled a hole, then ran a hose from the trunk to a gas line. After asphyxiating the children, Holmes buried their bodies in the cellar of a Toronto house where he was staying.
Henry then traveled to Indianapolis with a third Betezel child in his care, little Howard. He poisoned Howard, then dismembered his small body so he could burn the corpse inside a chimney. Officers later discovered bits and pieces of Howard when examining the fireplace. If Holmes' goal in 1893 was to wipe out the Betezel family, then disappear with all of the money, he failed.
Government officials from a dozen different open investigations were on Holmes' heels that year. Private detectives from the Pinkerton agency finally caught up to the killer in Boston. He was arrested for, of all crimes, horse theft, stemming from his time in Texas. Once Henry was seated in an investigation room, however, he quickly confessed to a butcher's bill of crimes, including 27 murders. Only nine bodies were ever recovered.
Part 5: Holmes's Own Story "I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing." These were some of the final words that Holmes used to describe himself. While under arrest, he managed to write his memoir titled "Holmes's Own Story."
He also provided several confessions and interviews to newspapers, often drawing controversy as several of the papers paid Henry. His crimes grew more and more gruesome and wild during the accounts, leading investigators to begin doubting some of the details. What was beyond doubt, though, was that H.H. Holmes was a killer of men, women, and children.
He was a serial arsonist, fraudster, thief, domestic abuser, and con artist. Holmes' life story changed several times over the course of his trial, and it can be difficult to separate fact from fiction.
His soaring tower, the murder castle, was nearly burned to the ground and permanently damaged not long after his arrest. The mysterious fire, almost certainly arson, managed to destroy evidence related to Henry's crimes. However, the court saw more than enough proof of guilt in the Batesle family murders to condemn Holmes to the gallows.
He was hanged on a beautiful May morning in 1895 outside of Philadelphia at Moyamensing Prison. Coincidentally, Moyamensing resembled a castle from its inception until it was torn down in the 1960s. Perhaps Holmes felt at home as he climbed the wooden steps and felt the noose tighten around his throat. Witnesses describe Henry as calm while he stood waiting for the door to drop and the rope to tighten.
He didn't show any fear as his death approached. His only anxiety was related to what would happen after. Holmes begged prison officials to bury his coffin 10 feet deep and to encase it in cement. "It's the only way to avoid grave robbers," he told them. His last request was granted. The hanging was rough. Henry didn't die when the trapdoor sprung, leaving him to choke slowly as the noose crushed his windpipe.
He twitched and kicked at the end of the rope, turning round and round for nearly 20 minutes. Holmes' body was exhumed in 2017. Researchers found that the cement helped preserve his corpse, leaving America's first serial killer unnaturally fresh.
