Inside a Serial Killer's 'Murder Castle'

Summary

---

American History Hit – Inside a Serial Killer’s 'Murder Castle'

Host: Don Wildman
Guest: Harold Schechter, true crime author & Professor Emeritus at Queens College
Date: June 4, 2026

---

Episode Overview

In this gripping episode, Don Wildman welcomes acclaimed historian and author Harold Schechter to uncover the gruesome true story and the enduring legend of H.H. Holmes and his infamous "Murder Castle" in late 19th-century Chicago. Diving into the intersection of fact, myth, and media sensationalism, they examine Holmes’s real crimes, the exaggerations created by yellow journalism, and the societal forces that made his case so notorious.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Separating Fact from Fiction: The Challenges of True Crime History

• Research Obstacles: Schechter highlights the difficulty of discerning truth from legend in Holmes’s story, due to sensationalist reporting in the late 19th century ([04:39]):
  • “One thing about the newspapers of the late 1800s... their unspoken motto was, why let the truth get in the way of a good story?” – Harold Schechter ([04:39])

2. The Gilded Age Context and the Birth of Modern America

• Holmes emerged at a uniquely American moment: rapid urbanization, industrialization, and an influx of immigrants ([05:52]-[08:13]).
• Cultural Shadows: Schechter relates Holmes to other "dark reflections" of their eras, like Charles Manson in the 1960s, calling Holmes “the incarnation of the darkest impulses of the Gilded Age.” ([07:10])

3. H.H. Holmes’s Origins and Character

• Early Life: Born Herman Mudgett in Gilmanton, NH; academically gifted, trained as a physician ([09:19]).
• Encounters with bullying and the macabre (ex. being forced to touch a skeleton as a child) may have inspired his fascination with anatomy ([10:06]).
• Beginnings in Crime: Engaged in body-snatching and insurance fraud as a medical student. Grave-robbing for anatomical study was common due to limited availability of cadavers ([11:04]).

4. The Rise of the ‘Murder Castle’

• Chicago Arrival: Holmes arrives in booming Chicago, reinvents himself as Dr. Henry Howard Holmes, and acquires a pharmacy under murky circumstances ([13:03]-[13:38]).
• Building the Castle: Purchases land and constructs a large, oddly-structured building, later dubbed "Murder Castle." Mishmash planning led to hidden staircases and windowless rooms ([19:42]).
• Frequently fired workmen to avoid payment; the building’s design fueled sensational rumors after Holmes’s arrest.

5. Media Sensationalism and the Growth of the Legend

• Yellow Press Impact: Claims of Holmes murdering dozens (or hundreds) at the World’s Fair mostly fabricated by competitive newspapers ([21:44]-[24:31]):
  • “Almost all of that stuff was a fabrication of the yellow press... There is no doubt that Holmes was a serial killer. But... the degree of his crimes and the nature... has been very, very exaggerated.” – Harold Schechter ([24:31])
• Holmes becomes an American "Bluebeard"—a folkloric monster elevated by myth ([22:00]).

6. Actual Crimes and Motives

• Victims: Holmes was a bigamist, murderer of several mistresses, and committed especially heinous crimes in killing his associate Ben Peitzel and Peitzel’s three children ([22:58]-[33:05]):
  • “His primary motivation was financial. Again, he was like... a classic con artist, except one whose psychopathology led him to murder.” – Harold Schechter ([26:40])
• Distinction in Serial Killing: The term "serial killer" was coined for sexually sadistic murderers; Holmes’s crimes were primarily motivated by profit, not sexual compulsion ([25:16]-[26:53]).

7. The Downfall: Peitzel Scheme and Detection

• Insurance Scam: Holmes and Peitzel plot insurance fraud. Holmes ends up murdering Peitzel rather than faking his death, collects on the policy ([30:13]-[32:12]).
• Peitzel Children: Holmes murders Peitzel’s three children while evading law enforcement ([33:05]):
  • “Carrie [Peitzel’s wife] was this very naive, gullible woman… Holmes managed to persuade her to turn over the children to his care... And in the course of these travels, he killed all three of the children.” – Harold Schechter ([33:05]-[33:52])

8. Capture, Trial, and Sensational Confessions

• Apprehension: Pinkerton detectives tracked Holmes (origin of the phrase "private eye"). Detective Frank Geyer’s investigation uncovers the children’s remains ([36:33]-[39:26]).
• Trial: Tried only for Peitzel’s murder in Philadelphia (1894), convicted quickly ([41:07]-[41:25]).
• Inflated Confessions: Holmes confessed to 27, then 133 murders—spurred by media pressure and the prospect of monetary reward from newspapers ([42:22]):
  • “Holmes wrote this very over the top, lurid melodramatic confession… He also never really confessed to these other crimes that he clearly committed.” – Harold Schechter ([43:44])

9. Reality Check: How Many Victims?

• Schechter reevaluates his own work, ultimately concluding only about seven murders can be firmly attributed to Holmes ([44:20]).
  • “...we can only say for certain that Holmes murdered—well, ‘only’ in air quotes—seven people.” – Harold Schechter ([44:20])

10. Legacy: Crime, Myth, and American Culture

• Tourism and Infamy: Plans to turn the Murder Castle into a macabre tourist site were ended by fire. Destroying crime sites (e.g., Dahmer, Gacy) is a tradition to avoid morbid tourism ([45:37]).

• Changing Law and Journalism: Holmes catalyzed detective work and professionalized law enforcement; also typified the “if it bleeds, it leads” media mentality ([46:30]-[47:49]).

  • “It takes a case—the sublime of horror—to really capture the public’s attention. And Holmes was a classic instance of that.” – Harold Schechter ([49:00])

• Enduring Legends: Myths like those of Elizabeth Bathory and Gilles de Rais mirror Holmes's legend, showing how monstrous figures are magnified by culture ([50:02]-[51:03]).

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “He was not above making up, fabricating all kinds of lurid details that there was very little physical evidence for.” – Harold Schechter, on the yellow press ([04:39])
• “Holmes was a man of enormous ambition, great intelligence, very resourceful... he could have been a kind of paragon of Gilded Age success if he hadn’t been undone by his own psychopathology.” – Harold Schechter ([07:51])
• “Almost everything about the Murder Castle and those death rooms and so on was a complete myth.” – Harold Schechter ([29:30])
• “When legend becomes fact, print the legend.” – John Ford's 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance', referenced by Schechter on newspaper mythmaking ([28:17])
• “We can only say for certain that Holmes murdered... seven people.” – Harold Schechter ([44:20])

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [04:39] – Schechter on yellow journalism and separating fact from fiction
• [07:10] – Holmes as the dark reflection of the Gilded Age
• [11:04] – Early criminal behavior in medical school
• [19:42] – Construction and mystery of the ‘Murder Castle’
• [24:31] – Exaggeration of Holmes's crimes by the press
• [26:40] – Holmes’s motives vs. modern serial killers
• [30:13] – The Peitzel insurance scam and murders
• [36:33] – Pinkertons & Frank Geyer’s pursuit
• [41:07] – Holmes’s trial and media confessions
• [44:20] – Final estimate on number of murders
• [46:30] – Law enforcement and “if it bleeds, it leads”
• [49:00] – “Sublime of horror” and the culture of true crime

---

Language and Tone

The discussion blends dark fascination with critical skepticism. Both Wildman and Schechter exhibit a deep knowledge of the period, alternating between storytelling (“the mask of sanity”) and judicious myth-busting. There’s wry humor (e.g., on Holmes changing his name from Mudgett), empathy for victims, and a critical eye toward the media’s amplification of horror.

---

Additional Links and Resources

• Read more by Harold Schechter: haroldschechter.com
• American History Hit: New episodes Mondays and Thursdays

---

Summary

This episode expertly untangles the truth from legend in H.H. Holmes’s story, showing how America’s first “serial killer” was simultaneously master manipulator, product of his time, and victim of a press eager for "the sublime of horror." The real Holmes was bad enough, but the era's tabloid journalism transformed him into a criminal myth that endures.

Transcript

[Don Wildman]

Want to explore even more history? Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com subscribe to bring the Past Alive.

[Harold Schechter]

ACAST powers the World's Best Podcasts Here's a show that we recommend

[Nikayla Matthews Akome]

if you've ever dreamed of quitting your job to take your side hustle full time, listen up. This is Nikayla Matthews Akome, host of Side Hustle Pro, a podcast that helps you build and grow from passion project to profitable business. Every week you'll hear from guests just like you who wanted to start a business on the side. If you can't run a side Hustle, you can't run a business. They share real tips and so I started connecting with all these people on LinkedIn and I saw Target supplier Diversity was having office hours. Real advice Procrastination is the easiest form of resistance and the actual strategies they use to turn their side hustle into their main hustle. Getting back in touch with your tangible cash and sitting down and learning to give your money a job like it changes something. Check out side Hustle every week on your favorite podcast app and YouTube.

[Harold Schechter]

Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere.

[Acast/Pura Advertiser]

Acast.com Summer smells like citrus in the sun Turn your home into a daily getaway with Pura's new summer collection. Find your flow and fragrance and explore the [e-mail] what if your drive was

[Don Wildman]

fueled with more like more protection for more time on the road? Shelv Power Nitro plus provides more protection for longer lasting engines, so it helps

[Acast/Pura Advertiser]

keep your engine running like new for

[Don Wildman]

whatever drive is ahead. Shelby Power Nitro Plus Engine performance that lasts compared to minimum detergent Gasoline with continuous use of Shell V Power Nitro plus and gasoline direct injection engines, actual effects and benefits may vary. See Shell Us.

[Acast/Pura Advertiser]

More Protection for more information,

[Don Wildman]

We're in Chicago 1895. Detectives move cautiously through the dim, claustrophobic corridors of a structure the neighborhood locals call the Murder Castle. In here, the air is thick with noxious smells of chemicals and smoke. Behind seemingly ordinary storefront walls, the detectives have discovered a number of strange passageways, hidden rooms, and staircases leading to nowhere. In the basement, they find a furnace, surgical tables, and what they imagine are scattered human remains. Out on the street, reporters clamor for information Fodder to feed an ever growing national obsession with this story now exploding in the papers. Just two years earlier, the city that dazzled with the 1893 World's Fair was now confronting something far more cryptic and criminal. And at the center of it all stands a charming, if unassuming doctor and businessman who goes by the name of H.H. holmes. Hey, everybody, I'm Don Wildman. You've clicked through to American history hit, and thanks for that. Our guest today is author Harold Schechter, professor emeritus of Queens College, the City University of New York. He is the author of two dozen works of nonfiction, including the definitive true story of H.H. holmes, whose grotesque crimes shattered turn of the century Chicago. If you know the story, there's still much to be learned. If you've never heard it before, take a deep breath and brace yourself. Professor Schechter. Harold, thank you for joining us.

[Harold Schechter]

My pleasure. Thank you for inviting me on.

[Don Wildman]

This is a notoriously gruesome tale. We should caution listeners. Makes me consider right off the challenge of facing true crime historians in covering such a, you know, scandalous case as this one. This is the stuff of legend, Jack the Ripper level. But how hard is it when you do this to separate fact from fiction when you're writing about it?

[Harold Schechter]

That's an excellent question. Very hard. Especially when I was researching the book, which was back before the Internet allowed people like me to have access to a lot of old newspapers. I had to spend many, many weeks at various libraries, including the U.S. library of Congress, going through microfilms of old newspapers. And one thing about the newspapers of the late 1800s, the 1890s and so on, they were very, very sensationalistic. And they often, their unspoken motto was, why let the truth get in the way of a good story? They were not above making up, you know, fabricating all kinds of lurid details that there was very little physical evidence for. So, yes, separating fact from fiction becomes a challenge, especially in the case of somebody like H.H. holmes that a lot of myths have grown up about.

[Don Wildman]

We're in the late 1800s, as you say, yellow journalism is just being born that will be capitalized on by the likes of Hearst and all the rest of the even till today. I mentioned in the opener, we're two years past the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, the World's Fair celebrating the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World, also marking importantly the resurgence of Chicago after its big fire of 1875. This is the Gilded Age in America. Mark Twain called it. So. Context is a huge factor in this story, isn't it?

[Harold Schechter]

Absolutely. Not only because of, as you were saying, the rise of yellow journalism at the time, Both Hearst and Pulitzer having this competition over who could again out sensationalize each other and sell more newspapers. But as you say, the Gilded Age, this era when there was this worship of the self made millionaire, the cultural heroes were people like Andrew Carnegie and Morgan and so on. One thing I've discovered in my research is every era seems to produce a criminal who embodies the dark underside of the culture at that moment.

[Don Wildman]

Isn't that interesting?

[Harold Schechter]

It's like Charles Manson embodying the dark shadow side of the hippie counterculture and so on. Homes was the incarnation of the darkest impulses of the Gilded Age.

[Don Wildman]

There was tremendous energy in the country at that time. I mean, heavily industrialized cities like Chicago, especially Chicago, crammed with immigrants, are now creating this new kind of national identity. They are the major hubs of economic activity. And this magnet that they become creates its own folklore almost, you know, that just layers and layers upon itself.

[Harold Schechter]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Holmes was a man of enormous ambition, great intelligence, very resourceful. I write in my book, you know, that he could have been a kind of paragon of Gilded Age success if he hadn't been undone by his own psychopathology.

[Don Wildman]

Yeah, exactly.

[Harold Schechter]

You know, he employed all those characteristics for very, very dark ends.

[Don Wildman]

Where's he from, Professor?

[Harold Schechter]

He was born in a small New Hampshire town called Gilmanton. He trained as a physician and had worked as a pharmacist in Philadelphia and again gradually made his way to Chicago, which, as you were suggesting at that time, had really risen. Phoenix, like from the ashes of the great fire of the early 1870s, had become this flourishing industrial and mercantile center, attracted, as you said, all kinds of people from the surrounding countryside who were looking to grab their share of the American dream. And at the same time, it also would attract people like Holmes, these predators who saw in this great influx of newcomers potential targets for their own psychopathic greed.

[Don Wildman]

His name is not what he ended up being known, right?

[Harold Schechter]

Yeah. His birth name was Herman Mudgett.

[Don Wildman]

That was his last name, was Mudgett.

[Harold Schechter]

Yeah. You can sort of see why he might have wanted to change it.

[Don Wildman]

You stole my line. That's what I was gonna say. I mean, I suppose you could say this of any of these super criminals that how unlikely they are, but in his case, really so much so. Gilmanton, New Hampshire, as you mentioned, is a. Is a lovely town, an affluent Place, it was, eventually becomes the model for Peyton Place, as I understand it. It was so typical of New England as a kid. He excelled in school. He attended Phillips Exeter. He marries early. His first wife relatively young, 1882, age 18. He enrolls at the Department of Medicine and Surgery at the University of Michigan. Even then a prestigious institution. What draws him to medicine, do you know?

[Harold Schechter]

Well, again, there are all kinds of legends about that. One of which was that when he was a kid, because of his outstanding academic achievements, he was a subject of bullying by some of the other kids in town. And that they once dragged him into the office of the local physician and made him embrace the anatomical skeleton that the doctor had hanging in his office. Which supposedly both traumatized him and at the same time inspired his fascination with human anatomy.

[Don Wildman]

Right, and the dissection of the human anatomy.

[Harold Schechter]

Yes.

[Don Wildman]

It's thought that this was the first time he ever embarked on criminal activities while he was at Michigan. That he facilitated body snatchers to provide medical cadavers in teamwork with his own professor.

[Harold Schechter]

Right, yeah, well, that wasn't that unusual. Back then, anatomy professors, both here in the United States and overseas, were always faced with a shortage of cadavers for use in their anatomy classes. Partly because the laws stipulated that the only cadavers that could be turned over to medical schools were those of executed criminals. So there was again a big shortage of material. So, yeah, grave robbing for that purpose was a not uncommon phenomenon at the time.

[Don Wildman]

Yeah, he was opportunistic, let's be kind in using the word. I mean, he saw an opportunity, he went for it. But he would do that in such a way that would become the manipulations of a con man, which is so much really the real story in the end of Holmes. Not to spoiler alert there. I mean, he was that type of person who was, for whatever, perhaps ego or narcissistic reason, able to see opportunity and then take advantage of people. That's really the machinery of what's the engine of what's going on, right?

[Harold Schechter]

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, Holmes was a classic psychopath. You know, he saw other human beings as simply objects to be manipulated for his own welfare, his own financial gain. He had no apparent ability to empathize with other people, men, women or children. He lacked a conscience. He was also very plausible. The thing about psychopaths like Holmes, as we know, is that they present what one psychologist famously called the mask of sanity. He appeared to be this very personable, charming, successful businessman and entrepreneur. And no one could possibly suspect Again, as is the case with all people like this, that underneath that, you know, is this monstrous self.

[Don Wildman]

Sure. And he has this upbringing that gives him all the, the social etiquettes that he needs to, to use that cover or to create that cover. He arrives in Chicago in the mid-1880s, takes up a job as a pharmacist, as you mentioned, quickly ingratiates himself into the Englewood neighborhood of that area of that town, rein himself now as Dr. Henry Howard Holmes, this is his pseudonym, the new name for a new con. He takes over a pharmacy which he has some legitimate claim to as he's gone to medical school, I guess. He charms the owner's widow before she mysteriously disappears. Is this his first victim?

[Harold Schechter]

Well, that's one of the things that remains very fuzzy. When I wrote my book, I certainly presented it as the case based on the research I was able to do in these hundred year old newspapers. It has since become known that he a she was not necessarily a widow. That her husband, whose name was Holton, did not die after Holmes took possession of the pharmacy and that she herself survived after he became the owner.

[Don Wildman]

And the notion here is that he moves in as a partner because he wants to own it himself. The Chicago he walks into is booming, roaring in every positive and negative. And now there has been the World's Fair. I mean it's coming up. He gets there in 1888, it's just around the corner. How much was the world and Chicagoans and Henry Holmes and those in his new, new guys aware of this years prior, Holmes would have known about this coming and seen it as an advantage, correct?

[Harold Schechter]

Oh, absolutely, yeah. I mean he would have been scheming for a while as to how to take financial advantage of this great event which was going to bring, well, ultimately millions of out of towners to Chicago to visit the Great White City, as it was called.

[Don Wildman]

So Here is this H.H. holmes, Henry Holmes, who has come to Chicago, set himself up in whatever means with a prosperous business in maybe anticipation of the fact that a lot of people are going to be coming. Now, from a business standpoint, smart move investing into a business where in a growing town with lots of people coming down the pike. Perfect. But the legend begins to form around the fact that he seems to have other motives at work here. He built a building which we'll cover in a moment here, advertising rooms for rent, lodgings for fair visitors. Many of those were said to be young women. One can understand if you look at this story through a certain lens, how this was all part of a grand plan, a part of a nefarious practice of a psychopath at work here. And we'll take a break now and consider that image and come back and find out how true that is and how grisly his crimes really were.

[Harold Schechter]

Acast Powers the World's Best Podcasts here's the show that we recommend

[Nikayla Matthews Akome]

if you've ever dreamed of quitting your job to take your side hustle full time, listen up. This is Nikayla Matthews Akome, host of side Hustle Pro, a podcast that helps you build and grow from passion project to profitable business. Every week you'll hear from guests just like you who wanted to start a business on the side. If you can't run a side Hustle, you can't run a business. They share real estate, real tips, and so I started connecting with all these people on LinkedIn and I saw target supplier diversity was having office hours. Real advice Procrastination is the easiest form of resistance and the actual strategies they use to turn their side hustle into their main hustle. Getting back in touch with your tangible cash and sitting down and learning to give your money a job like it changes something. Check out side Hustle Pro every week on your favorite podcast app and YouTube.

[Harold Schechter]

Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcast everywhere.

[Acast/Pura Advertiser]

Acast.com Summer smells like salt in the air and warm sand Restore your sense of place with Pura's new summer fragrance collection. Discover transportive clean [e-mail] Most people don't

[Hayden and Stephen]

realize how much of their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the Internet, then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers. It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where Aura comes in. Aura actively removes your data from broker sites and keeps it off. They also instantly alert you if your information shows up in a breach or on the dark web. But Aura goes beyond data protection. With one app you get a vpn, antivirus, password manager, spam, call protection, dark web monitoring, and even up to $5 million in identity theft insurance, all backed by 24. 7 US based fraud support. Other companies might sell just credit monitoring or just a vpn. Aura gives you all of it together at the same price competitors charge for just one service. Start your free trial today at aura.com safety protect yourself [e-mail] safety.

[Harold Schechter]

If you love a good story, why aren't you listening to Dan Snow's History Hit podcast? It's a show where we tell you every amazing, crazy and important thing that's ever happened in human history. From the perilous voyages of the first

[Don Wildman]

Polynesians, the discoveries of Captain Cook, the

[Harold Schechter]

deadly Viking raids on Britain and Ireland,

[Don Wildman]

the rise and fall of the great English kings and queens.

[Harold Schechter]

We'll tell you how Waterloo was won, the Alamo was lost, and all the history in between. So make sure you check it out. Dan Snows History Hit for the best

[Don Wildman]

true stories ever told.

[Harold Schechter]

Wherever you get your podcasts.

[Don Wildman]

Welcome back. Speaking with writer Harold Schechter, author of Depraved the Definitive true story of H.H. holmes. By this point in the story, Professor Holmes has arrived in Chicago and set up a shop. The building that he builds becomes legendary for sure. It's called the Murder Castle in all of its various accounts. How much of this should we believe? First of all, tell me what the legend is.

[Harold Schechter]

Well, let me begin by talking about the building itself. So Holmes purchased a plot of land across from the pharmacy that he was working at and he began to construct this very large building. Of course, back then, in the wake of the Chicago fire, large construction projects like that were characteristic of Chicago. He builds this three story kind of rambling building, the ground floor of which he rents out to various merchants and businessmen, and the top floors of which he was presumably going to use as a kind of hotel for World's Fair visitors. Several things about the building, Holmes himself was the architect, and he was not much of an architect. So the building had all kinds of structural flaws. Also, he kept hiring different construction workers and then firing them so he didn't have to pay them anyway. The building itself ended up being a somewhat imposing structure that extended over a city block. But the interior again had all of these features that were a reflection of Holmes's incompetence as an architect. You know, there were like stairwells that didn't really lead to anywhere. The corridors were very Byzantine and maze like. So after Holmes's crimes were discovered and reporters for the Pulitzer and Hearst proto tabloids began to investigate the house, all these stories began to emerge that it had been this kind of medieval torture castle in which Holmes murdered and disposed of an indeterminate number of victims. Some people say over 100. So that's the legend.

[Don Wildman]

He's America's first serial killer is the legend. I mean, even in that title isn't correct because there were plenty of them before he would have been. But nonetheless, it's a fabulous, sensational story at a sensational time in a sensational city.

[Harold Schechter]

Yes. And, you know, Holmes becomes associated with all these folkloric monsters, particularly Bluebeard again, this depraved aristocrat who murdered all these women in his horror castle. So that was the legend, and that legend has been perpetuated. And to some extent, I take, you know, as having written, in a way, you know, the first major book about Holmes, I take a little bit of responsibility for perpetuating that legend.

[Don Wildman]

How much do we actually know about the types of people that he targeted, if indeed he was targeting them? The legend or the alleged activities had a lot to do with him finding young women. He would seduce them. He would marry them bigamously. He would take life insurance policies on them first, having gain control of their life savings. I mean, all of these things are part of this legend. Is all of that up for questioning?

[Harold Schechter]

No. I mean, it's definitely true that Holmes was a bigamist. It's definitely true that he murdered several of his mistresses. We know that he committed some very appalling crimes later in his career, including the murder of three innocent children. What has been called into question laterally by researchers is the issue of how many, if any, fairgoers were murdered in his supposed murder castle.

[Don Wildman]

I see.

[Harold Schechter]

And the evidence seems to be that possibly none were. You know, if you think about it for a minute, these stories about dozens, if not hundreds of fairgoers from out of town meeting these mysterious, terrible deaths in Holmes's castle, you have to wonder, well, didn't any family members notice that their sister didn't return from the World's Fair? I mean, you know, there were no reports of any family members anywhere in the US who worried that they had friends or neighbors or kin going to the Chicago World's Fair and then disappearing. So, you know, almost all of that stuff was a fabrication of the yellow press. There is no doubt that Holmes was a serial killer.

[Don Wildman]

Okay.

[Harold Schechter]

But, you know, the degree of his crimes and the nature of his crimes, you know, has been very, very exaggerated.

[Don Wildman]

We want to paint the, the picture of these people who are like him, you know, these Syracuse as monsters, as the Jeffrey Dahmer type, where, you know, it's for the pure need and, and to feed this, this savage beast inside of them that they're not even in control of. I mean, that's, that's the idea of these serial murders in, in Holmes case, it has a lot more to do with opportunity. Right. It's the, the pursuit of money and whoever's getting in the way of that needs to be removed. That's a different kind of serial killer. It's also. It's a serial killer, but a different sort of, you know, level, I guess, if you want to say it.

[Harold Schechter]

So that raises a very interesting point, and I've spoken on the subject quite a bit. The term serial killer, well, it, it, it can be traced back actually to the 1930s when it was first applied by a German detective to a very, very notorious, what they used to call lust murderer named Peter Curtin. If you've ever seen the famous Fritz Lang movie M with Peter Lorre, that's based on Peter Curtin. But the term serial killer was coined specifically to describe people, as you say, like Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, the Hillside Stranglers, Edmund Kemper. In other words, it was specifically coined to describe a certain kind of psychopathic sex murderer, an extreme sexual sadist who derives his sick erotic pleasure from kidnapping and torturing and murdering innocent victims, as you say. With Holmes, though, there undoubtedly was an element of sadism involved. His primary motivation was financial. Again, he was like in that sense, a classic con artist, except one whose psychopathology led him to murder.

[Don Wildman]

Sure, he was willing to cross that line.

[Harold Schechter]

Yeah. So there is a little bit of a distinction between somebody like Holmes and somebody again, like those classic serial murderers from the 70s and 80s and 90s that we think of.

[Don Wildman]

But I do want to understand, you know, just for the listener's sake, how colorful this story really was told. I mean, you mentioned the building called the Murder Castle, first of all. Second of all, it contained, according to accounts in the papers, secret rooms, trap doors, a hidden chute leading to the basement, of course. What would you use that as? A serial killer. Throw the bodies down and a purpose built crematorium to get rid of things. Now, they did find human remains. People did die in this, in this place. But your point is well taken, that this is a time when you sell newspapers by telling big stories. And so this naturally got inflamed to a degree.

[Harold Schechter]

Well, he definitely sold the remains of a couple of his victims to medical schools, no doubt about that. But they were a number of women who had become his mistresses and who for various reasons, he decided he wanted to dispose of. There's a classic western by John Ford, classic John Wayne western called the man who Shot Liberty Vows. And at the very end, a newspaperman is interviewing Jimmy Stewart. I won't go into all the details of the Plot, if you haven't seen it, highly recommend it. But all these stories have grown up about how Jimmy Stewart killed Liberty Valance. He was the man who shot Liberty Valance. Liberty Valance was this outlaw who would terrorize the territory, played by the great Lee Marvin. It turned out that wasn't true. Turned out John Wayne, of course, had been the man who killed Liberty Valles. But nobody knew that. And when James Stewart wants to reveal that truth, the journalist says, when legend becomes fact, print the legend. Yes, and the Holmes story is like a classic, classic case of that. You know, these legends were accepted as facts and have been perpetuated as facts. But I have to say, almost everything about the murder castle and those death rooms and so on was a complete myth. Again, which is not to say that Holmes was not a serial killer. He was a serial killer. He committed appalling crimes. But what happened is, after the discovery of those other crimes, that was when these reporters for Hearst and Pulitzer entered the building, Holmes building, discovered all these weird anomalies, like staircases that didn't go anywhere.

[Don Wildman]

And so.

[Harold Schechter]

And invented these incredibly lurid, nightmarish explanations for them. Sometimes even they would offer attractions. There was one point at which, for example, they discovered some bones in the basement and immediately published stories about that these were the remains of Holmes victims. Those would be page one stories with blaring headlines. Then if you look at the papers, like three days later, on page 26, in a little paragraph on the bottom, there'd be an item saying, oh, by the way, those rib bones were from a cow.

[Don Wildman]

I see.

[Harold Schechter]

You know what I'm saying?

[Don Wildman]

At some point, he begins, as all these guys do, to overstep himself. The key victim that speaks to this. Holmes is arrested in 1893 after a fire broke out at his home. And. And he was suspected of insurance fraud. The fact is, he had developed a scheme with an associate, right, Ben Peitzel, to defraud an insurance company for $10,000, a lot of money in those days, by faking Peitzel's death and claiming the insurance. This was to take place in Philadelphia with Peitzel's wife claiming the money. But Holmes had another plan to this. Can you tell me about his secret version of events?

[Harold Schechter]

Well, Holmes had apparently pulled off some kind of scheme like this before. The idea was that $10,000 of life insurance would be taken out in Peitzel's name with his wife Carrie as the beneficiary. Then they would stage Peitzel's death, and Holmes would acquire a cadaver I mean, he was used to getting cadavers for his medical school cronies back in the day. They would get a cadaver and substitute it for Peitzel, and they would disfigure it in some way that would be difficult to identify. And they would claim that Peitzele died in this accident, collect the $10,000 insurance, or Carrie would collect it. And then Holmes, he had an associate, this shady lawyer named Howe. They would get the money from Carrie. That was the original plan. But Holmes being Holmes, what he did was he actually murdered Peitzel and burned his face so that it looked somehow like Peitzel, who was at that point posing as a patent agent, had somehow exploded some chemicals in his office and had suffered these disfiguring burns to his face and so on and so forth. But he murdered Peitzel and they did collect the money.

[Don Wildman]

Right. And then he has to lie to Peitzel's widow, you know, obviously. Was she in on the original scheme?

[Harold Schechter]

Well, yes, she knew about it. Peitzel had confided in her that they were going to pull off the scheme and told her that if she saw any news reports that he had died in an accident in his office in Philadelphia, she shouldn't really get worried because it wouldn't really be him. It would be this cadaver that they had gotten for the job.

[Don Wildman]

Okay, so he gives Holmes his cover story for what is Holmes actual plan, which is to murder his partner, take the money to the widow, and claimed that the husband was still alive. But over time, Holmes becomes paranoid. He suspects that one of her five children would raise the alarm on me. And that's where you mentioned before the murder of two of these children, Alice and Nelly. He. Three. Three children, yeah.

[Harold Schechter]

The little boy, I think his name was also Howard. Those were incredibly heinous crimes. Carrie was this very naive, gullible woman who had known Holmes for a long time. I mean, Holmes had employed Peitzel at his handyman for a number of years. Holmes managed to persuade her to turn over the children to his care while they somehow moved around avoiding any potential investigations. And in the course of these travels, he killed all three of the children, and he actually planned to kill Carrie and her other two children, but that plan went awry, you know, and it was shortly after that that he was arrested.

[Don Wildman]

So after. Let's take a break and consider this man for a little bit. When we come back, Harold and I will discuss how Holmes was eventually caught in the gruesome legacy that lives in his wake.

[Harold Schechter]

Acast powers, the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. What if you laughed all through your commute?

[Acast/Pura Advertiser]

Or if you heard the funniest story

[Harold Schechter]

while at the gym? Well, now you can. I'm Jameela Jamil and guests on my

[Don Wildman]

new podcast Wrong Turns share their most

[Harold Schechter]

mortifying and hilarious disaster stories.

[Acast/Pura Advertiser]

I'm talking people like Mae Martin, Bob

[Harold Schechter]

the Drag Queen, Katherine Ryan, Jake Johnson,

[Don Wildman]

Margaret Cho, Simon Pegg, Penn Badgley, and so many more. So listen wherever you get your podcast.

[Acast/Pura Advertiser]

Wrong Turns where dignity goes to die

[Harold Schechter]

Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere.

[Acast/Pura Advertiser]

Acast.com Most people don't realize how much of their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the Internet, then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers. It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where Aura comes in. Aura actively removes your data from broker sites and keeps it off. They also instantly alert you if your information shows up in a breach or on the dark web. But Aura goes beyond data protection. With one app you get a vpn, antivirus, password manager, spam call protection, dark web monitoring, and even up to $5 million in identity theft insurance. All backed by 24, 7 US based fraud support. Other companies might sell just credit monitoring or even just a vpn. Aura gives you all it together at the same price competitors charge for just one service. Start your free trial today at aura.com safety. Protect yourself now at aura.com safety.

[Don Wildman]

Welcome back. So Harold Helms racket is on the verge of unraveling. The extent of his crimes are about to be revealed to whatever degree of the truth there is. But nonetheless, how was he finally caught? What brought him down?

[Harold Schechter]

Well, the insurance agency that had paid off this life insurance policy on Peitzel. Members of the officials in the agency were very, very suspicious that this had been a scam. And they eventually brought in the Pinkerton Agency. You know, the Pinkerton Agency was the very famous private detective agency at the time. Their logo was an all seeing eye. And that's where the phrase private eye comes from. Yeah, so these Pinkerton detectives were on Holmes's trail and they finally nabbed him when he was unawares and brought him back to Chicago to stand trial initially for this insurance fraud because Holmes kept insisting that Peitzel was still alive. The children were still alive. There was really no evidence at the time that he had committed murder. They exhumed Peitzel's corpse and discovered that it was in fact Peitzel. And then Holmes claimed that he had committed suicide in this bizarre way. Anyway, it was clear that he had murdered Peitzel and that he was going to be tried for Peitzel's murder. But the question remained, what happened to the three children who had been in his care for all that time and whom he had moved around to different cities just to make sure that he wasn't being followed? And the Chicago police put one of their crack detectives, a man named Frank Geyer, on the case. And Geyer, over weeks of intensive investigation and retracing Holmes trail from Indianapolis to Philadelphia up into Canada, managed ultimately to discover the remains of all three children. The little boy, Howard. His remains were found stuffed into a chimney. His body had been incinerated. The two young girls had apparently been killed. Holmes had apparently somehow lured them into the steamer trunk in which they were carrying their possessions, drilled a hole in it, stuck a hose in the hole, and fed gas from a gas light into the trunk and asphyxiated them both. He kept promising the children that they were going to be reunited with their mother and that they were going to see their father. He kept offering excuses to the widow Carrie as to why he hadn't brought the children back to her. You know, he would say, oh, well, they were visiting their father. There's no doubt that Holmes, you know, was diabolically clever.

[Don Wildman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That entire trip, all those sales trips, were really about killing those kids and covering his tracks about the murder of their father. Unbelievable. He was also arrested in 1894 on an unrelated horse theft charge. I mean, he was trying all kinds of skills, wasn't he?

[Harold Schechter]

Yeah. And it was during one of those arrests in St. Louis for another scam that he ended up in jail with what was then a very, very notorious bandit named Marion Hedgepeth, who has been totally forgotten, but who was one of the, at the time, legendary bad men of the American West. And while Holmes was in prison with Hedgepeth, in order to pull off the insurance scam, Holmes needed a shady lawyer, and he asked Hedgepeth if Hedgepeth had any recommendations. And Hedgepeth gave him the name of this lawyer named Howe in Philadelphia, who indeed participated in the whole Peitzel scam, although he didn't know Peitzel had been murdered. Anyway, it was Hedgepeth. After Holmes was arrested, Hedgepeth contacted the authorities and said, hey, there was this guy in jail with me last year who told me he was going to be pulling off this kind of scam and needed a lawyer. And I gave him the name of how and his name was H. Ray Holmes. It's one of the ways that the authorities managed to pinpoint Holmes.

[Don Wildman]

Interesting. He's tried for this eventually in Philadelphia, right?

[Harold Schechter]

Yes, he's tried in Philadelphia for the Peitzel murder.

[Don Wildman]

Yeah. He will try to conduct his own defense there, having rejected a legal team, his perhaps over inflated ego. He can take care of this, his belief in himself. The jury deliberated. And when does this happen by the way? This is in 1894.

[Harold Schechter]

Yeah.

[Don Wildman]

Jury deliberates for two and a half hours before handing a guilty verdict. Didn't take very much time at all. He is only being tried for the murder of this man, Right. Not for the children.

[Harold Schechter]

Correct. They were holding that off the other charges which would have taken place in different jurisdictions where the murders occurred, where the bodies were found, but they were holding them off as backups in case he wasn't sentenced to hang for the Peitzel murder for whatever reason. Then they can go on and try him for Howard's murder, little girl's murder,

[Don Wildman]

the storytelling will, will take place. But for now, legally they only need one murder to kill a guy before his execution. Though Holmes does confess to 27 murders, big question mark, hangs over the validity of that. He ends up claiming 133. I guess once he is knows his fate and that he's going to hang, he might as well get more and more famous while he goes. Right.

[Harold Schechter]

Well, Hearst in particular, if you look at newspapers from back then, every time there was a very, very sensational murderer. I've written about some others at around the time Hearst would offer the money to concoct these incredibly sensationalistic confessions, which they pretty much had nothing to do with writing or dictating. These were again pure fabrications of Hearst's writers. So yeah, I mean Holmes wrote this very over the top, lurid melodramatic confession which he talked about being possessed by the devil and murdering these 27 people and then he increases it. There's also the question of narcissism of these criminals, you know, who want to go down in history as the most monstrous criminals of the age, who want to become more famous than Jack the Ripper or more famous. There was a very notorious case in the 1920s where some guy wanted to become more famous than Leopold and Loeb, so that's not uncommon. So it was driven Both by Holmes megalomania and also by the fact that Hearst offered him a lot of money.

[Don Wildman]

Sure.

[Harold Schechter]

We should also say that before Holmes was hanged, he claimed he'd only murdered two people, two of his mistresses, and that both had died during illegal abortions he was performing. So he recanted the so called confession that he had written for Hearst, but he also never really confessed to these other crimes that he clearly committed. The murder of Peitzel and the murder of his three children.

[Don Wildman]

Having written a book on the subject, what's your theory? How many people did Holmes really kill?

[Harold Schechter]

I think at the end, by the time I got to the end of the book, I kind of realized that what I had written in the preceding 300 pages, there were a lot of inaccuracies, you know, that I was again caught up in the legend at the end. So I did a reasonable count, I think I said that we can only say for certain that Holmes murdered. Well, only, but only in air quotes, seven people.

[Don Wildman]

Okay. Primarily around the Peitzel scheme.

[Harold Schechter]

Well, the peitzel, but also these mistresses he wanted to get rid of.

[Don Wildman]

Right, exactly. And the pharmacy he wanted to own. Yes.

[Harold Schechter]

Yeah.

[Don Wildman]

It's always something that stands in the way of him bettering his life, as is always the case with these guys. So HH Holmes was executed May 7, 1896 at a prison in Philadelphia, having been convicted of this murder of his associate. The storytelling of this, which you've been hinting at all the while long here is really the other story in his, in his tale. The inflation of his victims, the motive behind his murders, especially the creation of this lair of his. The murder castle. I suppose it is the time that he's in prison and then shortly after that they turn this place inside out. Right.

[Harold Schechter]

Well, what happened is. Yes. So we're going to make it into a kind of murder museum.

[Don Wildman]

Yeah.

[Harold Schechter]

One thing that has always been true and remains true even today, that people will flock to the sight of a notorious crime. You know, these morbid curiosity seekers, you know, sometimes those buildings have to be destroyed. Ed Gein, the notorious ghoul of Plainfield, Wisconsin, you know, they burned down his house because they knew it would attract all kinds of morbid sightseers. You know, they, they raised Jeffrey Dahmer's apartment.

[Don Wildman]

Gacy, same thing. Tear these houses down. Yeah.

[Harold Schechter]

So yes, there was a guy who had already announced his plans to purchase the castle and make it a tourist attraction, but then it too mysteriously burned down. So that never came to pass.

[Don Wildman]

He was a watershed moment. I mean, here we are a century later or more talking about him still. But for law enforcement, he's a new kind of criminal, isn't he? I mean, there had been others like this, but he took it to another level. Because America was at another level.

[Harold Schechter]

Well, absolutely. You know, Geyer's hunt to find out what had become of the Peitzel's children was, you know, an extraordinary, extraordinary feat of detection.

[Don Wildman]

You're speaking of Detective Frank Geyer of the Philadelphia police, and he was really driving this manhunt to find out what happened. So, yeah, his kind of detective work, I guess that comes out of the Pinkerton's practices as well. Law enforcement in America was professionalizing, was, was organizing to another level. Teddy Roosevelt would take it to a different place in New York. You know, the whole thing was becoming much more of an institution in, in these cities. And that's the, the other subplot of this. The advent of that urban landscape in America changes the storytelling of America. And those newspapers, especially those publications, the magazines, begin capitalizing on this darker version of America. Is that's, that's kind of the case that this crazy factory driven industrialization was creating new kinds of predators?

[Harold Schechter]

Oh, absolutely. And you have to realize, I mean, you know, as professionalized as law enforcement was becoming, was still in a rather primitive state. For example, most police departments in the country, maybe all of them, you know, weren't using fingerprinting yet, even though that technology had been developed. I mean, that continued way into the early 20th century. And clearly they didn't have the kinds of forensic tools that we later came to develop. I mean, what's interesting to me, the realization that there's that journalistic saying, if it bleeds, it leads, which is sometimes attributed to Hearst, although I'm not sure he's the one originally coined it. But that realization, you know, was known as early as the 1840s. You know, the first really proto tabloid in our country was the New York Herald. It was, you know, what they came to call the penny press. And the publisher of that wrote something that I consider very important. You know, he said, all these crimes happen every day. And if you look at newspapers the way I do, you see that not a day goes by that some horrible murder has occurred, often more than one, in particular places. He said, yeah, men kill their wives every day, and wives poison their husbands every day and blah, blah, but it takes a case. Here's the phrase, the sublime of horror. A case has to have the sublime of horror to really capture the public's attention. And Holmes was a Classic instance of that. Again, he seemed like a character out of these nightmarish myths and folk stories and legends. Bluebeard come to life. This medieval monster come to life in what was the quintessence of contemporary modern American society. Bustling, industrialized Chicago. So that's beside the enormity of his crimes. It was all those different elements that made it into this enormous nationwide and even internationally sensational case.

[Don Wildman]

There's a story of a. Of a famous noblewoman in, I guess it was Eastern Europe who was very famous for killing virgins in order to bathe in their blood. And we went over there, guilty as charged. We went to tell that story on television and sure enough, I ran right into a scholar who explained to me very assiduously, no, that was the legend that was told by everybody who wanted to take advantage of the story. That's all there is to it.

[Harold Schechter]

Yeah, Elizabeth Bathory, the Bloodbeard.

[Don Wildman]

That's the one. There's a statue in the town. The whole thing they sell. You know, people make money off of this to this day.

[Harold Schechter]

Well, even the original Bluebeard was supposedly a French aristocrat named Gilles de Rais, who was a comrade in arms of Joan of Arc. And all these stories grew up about the hundreds of children and women who met horrific deaths in his Bluebeard's castle. And much of that has been debunked as myth.

[Don Wildman]

Well, you still wouldn't want to run into the guy. And he deserves a lot of the reputation he has for the horrible things he did to some people. Just not on the scale that Randolph Hearst would have liked you to believe. Harold Schechter is Professor emeritus at Queens College right there in New York City, and nowadays a true crime author of many books we discussed today. His one, the definitive true story of H.H. holmes, whose grotesque crimes shattered turn of the century Chicago. Harold, where can listeners find more about your work? Because there's lots of it.

[Harold Schechter]

I have a website, harold schechter.com. so, yeah, I mean the usual places.

[Don Wildman]

Thank you so much, Harold. It's been great to meet you. Can't wait to look at all your stuff.

[Harold Schechter]

My pleasure. I really enjoyed our conversation.

[Don Wildman]

Thanks for listening to American history hit. You know, every week we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays from mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements to some of the biggest battles across the centuries. Don't miss an episode by hitting like and follow. You help us out, which is great. But you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, please share with a friend. American history hit with me, Don Wildman. So grateful for your support. Thanks so much.

[Harold Schechter]

Howdy, howdy ho, and welcome to Fantasy Fan Fellas.

[Hayden and Stephen]

I'm Hayden, producer of the Fantasy Fangirls podcast and your resident lover of all things Sanderson. And I'm Stephen, your bookish Internet goofball. But you can call me the Smash Daddy. And we are currently deep diving Brandon Sanderson's fantasy epic Mistborn.

[Don Wildman]

But here's the catch.

[Hayden and Stephen]

Stephen here has not read Mistborn before. That's right.

[Harold Schechter]

Hey Hei.

[Hayden and Stephen]

So each week you'll get my unfiltered raw reactions to every every single chapter. And along the way, we'll do character deep dives, magic explainers, and Steven will

[Don Wildman]

even try to guess what's next. Spoiler alert.

[Hayden and Stephen]

He'll be wrong.

[Harold Schechter]

Newsflash.

[Hayden and Stephen]

I'm never wrong. Episodes come out every Wednesday, and you can find Fantasy fanfellas wherever you get your podcasts.

[Acast/Pura Advertiser]

Close your eyes. Summer smells like sunshine, fresh citrus, and salty air. What if your living room could feel just like that? With Pura's new summer collection, it can restore your sense of well being with fragrances designed to move with your day. From bright, energizing mornings to soft, relaxing evenings. Make the invisible unforgettable. This season. Visit pura.com to find your new favorite summer scent.