Pod Insights Infamous America HH HOLMES Ep. 1 | “Grave Robber” About this episode At a young age, Herman Mudgett knows he wants to be a doctor. But as he progresses through medical school, he strays from any kind of desire to practice medicine. He realizes he can use his medical knowledge to con people out of their money. He experiments with fraud in a small town in New York, and then makes the move to the big city of Chicago. There, he adopts his notorious alias, H. H. Holmes, and begins elaborate schemes to steal millions.
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1:09 Speaker 01 The cold mud filled Herman Mudgett's boots with each step among the tombstones. The early spring rain had started pouring several hours earlier. Normally, the downpour would have kept Herman inside his medical school dormitory for the night, but his professor had told him to meet at the cemetery gates at midnight if he wanted to get paid. So Herman ignored his cold feet as he followed his professor to a recent grave. Forest Hill Cemetery was not far from the University of Michigan campus, which made it a prime target for ghoulish activities. Herman's professor stopped, set down his lantern, and the two men began to dig. Less than an hour later, they pried open the lid of a coffin.
1:53 Speaker 01 The professor muttered curses as he fumbled with the big canvas sheet he had brought for bundling. Herman stood over the open grave and looked down at the body of the recently deceased. He didn't see a person, he saw a prophet.
2:12 Speaker 01 The mid-19th century marked the birth of modern medical science. The era brought a surge of discoveries, including innovations like germ theory and the stethoscope. The advancements led to the rapid development of vaccines, public health research, and breakthroughs in the study of human anatomy. The so-called Victorian Revolution in Surgery, from the 1840s to the 1890s, set in motion the common surgical procedures still in use today. But many of the advancements and innovations came at a cost. Victorian-era surgery was closer to the work of a butcher than of a modern surgeon. The mortality rate of surgery was higher than 50%.
2:55 Speaker 01 The procedures were often treated like theater performances, with surgeons working on stages in front of eager audiences under bright spotlights. And to practice the surgeries before the performances, many doctors relied on the services of resurrectionists. Resurrectionist was the fancy Victorian-era term for grave robber. In order to train and to develop new techniques, doctors and medical students needed real human bodies. They needed cadavers. And so, the illicit trade of grave robbing was born. Grave robbers often worked in teams, under the cover of night, to dig up recently buried bodies.
3:36 Speaker 01 The bodies were sold by sunrise to medical practitioners who were willing to pay, and many were. Resurrectionism was a lucrative business. In the mid-to-late 1800s, the going rate for a cadaver was around $50, which would be about $1,800 today. For the willing and able, grave robbing was an extremely profitable job. And that was why 20-year-old Herman Mudgett and his professor were knee-deep in mud in a Michigan cemetery in early 1882.
4:09 Speaker 01 Muddit was in the process of fully understanding that he was not bothered by death the way most people were. And he valued profit above everything. Grave robbing was just the beginning. Before long, Herman Muddit would become a prolific con artist and adopt the notorious alias HH Holmes. And to keep spinning his webs of lies, he would become one of America's earliest serial killers.
4:49 Speaker 01 From Black Barrel Media, this is Infamous America. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this season, we're telling the story of HH Holmes, the con artist and murderer, whose crimes during the Chicago World's Fair became the stuff of legend. This is episode one, Grave Robber.
5:13 Speaker 01 The people of the New Hampshire village of Gilmanton had mixed emotions about the boy called Herman Muddit. He was born a month after the Civil War started to parents who were devout Methodists. His father was an abusive alcoholic, and his mother was strict and pious. And as their son grew older, people in the village were split. Some remembered him as a mild-mannered, hard-working boy, while others knew him as a boastful loner who never seemed to look anyone in the eye. That observation shadowed him for the rest of his life, the inability to look someone in the eye. People thought it was a personality trait, and they thought he was untrustworthy. But it was more likely that it was a medical condition called strabismus, in which the
5:58 Speaker 01 eyes were not properly aligned. Over the years, various forms of strabismus would be commonly called crossed eyes, or a lazy eye. For Herman, his left eye looked inward a little bit, rather than straight ahead, and it made him a target as a kid. Neighborhood boys mocked him and bullied him. And one particular incident may have been young Herman's introduction to medicine, albeit in a scary and gory way.
6:30 Speaker 01 Herman claimed that a group of kids dragged him into the office of the local doctor, a man named White. When they shoved him inside, he was confronted by rows of jars which held preserved body parts. The chemical sting of the preservatives filled his nose, and the kids pushed him toward a mounted human skeleton in the corner. Herman Mudgett was terrified, but he also realized he was fascinated by the skeleton. That fascination would grow over the years. At sixteen years old, Herman worked odd jobs for local families. During one of those jobs, he met sixteen-year-old Clara Lovering. She was described as a pretty, pleasant young woman whom everyone liked.
7:13 Speaker 01 After fifteen months of courtship, Herman and Clara got married and moved into the Lovering home. The year was 1878, they were seventeen years old, and neither of them knew they were embarking on a truly strange journey as husband and wife. That was Herman Mudgett's only legal marriage, which was a phrase most people don't hear during their lives. But it was one which would come with startling revelations for Clara Lovering many years in the future. Two years into their marriage, their son, Robert, was born. Shortly afterward, Herman Mudgett returned to Dr. White's office, this time by choice. Herman had grown bored with the idyllic Victorian family life, and something drove
7:56 Speaker 01 him to revisit the macabre scenes of the doctor's office. Herman became White's apprentice, and he took his first formal steps into the world of medicine. Herman earned money by assisting in dissections and keeping the office organized, and it was certainly possible that the apprenticeship may have introduced him to the illicit but profitable act of grave robbing.
8:20 Speaker 01 During Herman's employment at Dr. White's office, Herman believed he had found his calling. He was committed to studying medicine, but that meant he had to leave behind his hometown, his wife, and his son. In 1881, he moved to Burlington, Vermont, and enrolled in medical school at the University of Vermont. Age, experience, and a change of location didn't change the way people around Herman viewed him, or the way he interacted with them. Herman was awkward and withdrawn. His peers sensed something off about him. They spoke of his odd manner, his over-eagerness to prove himself, and his hunger for quick rewards. They thought he was untrustworthy, and Herman almost seemed to cultivate the reputation
9:05 Speaker 01 rather than push back against it. During Herman Mudgett's one and only year in Burlington, the stories which started to surface about him ranged from puzzling to grotesque.
9:20 Speaker 01 In the university's lecture halls and dissection labs, Herman learned more about human anatomy and chemistry. The basics of chemistry were the skills he would put to use in the near future during schemes in New York and Chicago, and he spent long hours working in the room he rented. He mixed powders and chemicals, and he concocted experiments which produced heinous-smelling concoctions. To some, he probably looked like a committed and diligent student. He was there to get a medical degree, and he focused all his energy on the goal. But to others, his behavior seemed strange, and that led to the circulation of increasingly wild stories. A student claimed Herman stole an amputated foot from the university and brought it to
10:05 Speaker 01 a local schoolhouse to demonstrate anatomy to children. While the story is uncorroborated and likely made up, it gained traction because it felt believable.
10:16 Speaker 01 The unsettling idea matched the creepy character people knew, especially when they heard a far more disturbing story. One day, when a housekeeper was cleaning Herman's room, she smelled something she couldn't identify. The air in his bedroom seemed thick and sour. While sweeping under his bed, her broom struck something solid. She crouched down and pulled the object into view, and then likely recoiled in horror. The thing under the bed was the dead body of an infant.
10:53 Speaker 01 The tale spread quickly through the school. Some said the body was a medical specimen taken from the university, misplaced and forgotten. Others were certain that Herman was a resurrectionist, and he was robbing local graveyards between study sessions. Whatever the origin or the reason, the incident clouded Herman Mudgett in suspicion, and it wouldn't be surprising if it helped hasten the end of his time in Burlington. After a year at the University of Vermont, Herman's studies ended abruptly. He claimed the University of Vermont was too provincial to contain his ambitions. He wanted more than a local medical practice. He wanted credentials which were known far and wide. For bigger dreams with more prestigious credentials,
11:39 Speaker 01 he needed a bigger school. So Herman returned to New Hampshire, collected his wife and son, and moved the family to Ann Arbor, Michigan. In 1882, Herman enrolled in the University of Michigan's medical program. It was one of the most respected programs in the country, and Herman vowed he would not make the same mistakes he made in Vermont. He would not speak or act without considering his reputation. In fact, he was determined to cultivate a whole new persona. He would no longer be the odd student from New England. He was now a medical man in training, who planned to use his education and training for big things, whatever those things might be. When Herman, Clara, and Robert arrived in Ann Arbor,
12:23 Speaker 01 they moved into a boarding house for medical students. Herman began attending classes, but the entire situation was a struggle right from the beginning. While Herman studied just enough to pass his classes, he didn't excel. If he meant to genuinely earn credentials which prompted him to move his young family eight hundred miles across the country, he would have to do better. Meanwhile, Clara struggled at home. She worked as a dressmaker to keep the family afloat, but the deeper problems were with the marriage. Herman's temper had been flaring more than usual since he abandoned school in Vermont. Now, in Michigan, the marriage turned cold. Herman became impatient with Clara. He dismissed her sacrifices.
13:08 Speaker 01 He was clear about his resentment of marriage and family life. Their arguments escalated to the point where Clara could no longer take it. Clara and Robert returned to New Hampshire with hardly a word of protest from Herman. Clara was the first of several women who would find themselves in similar situations with Herman Muddit, though the others wouldn't know him by that name.
13:37 Speaker 01 With Clara gone and money scarce, Herman needed to find a way to support himself. A money-making opportunity arose from one of his professors, Dr. Herdman, who believed cadavers were invaluable to education. Medical schools constantly needed bodies for dissection, and it wasn't long before Herman Muddit and his professor were creeping through Forest Hill Cemetery and digging up recently buried bodies under lantern light. Even though it was illegal, their midnight excursions were an open secret among classmates. At the university, the corpses were sold as teaching specimens. Dr. Herdman may have viewed the acts of grave-robbing as necessary evils in the name of medical
14:20 Speaker 01 advancement, but Herman Muddit seemed less interested in the scientific value than the financial value. He made a little money at the end of each ghoulish sale, but he started to realize that there were higher profits to be made through the use of a dead body. Instead of selling a body to the medical school for use as a cadaver, he might be able to use the body as a part of a more elaborate plan. It would be more work, but it also would be more profit. Herman shared his idea with the closest thing he had to a friend, a classmate named Robert Leacock. In an era long before any kind of digital technology or real forensic science,
15:01 Speaker 01 Robert and Herman realized that they might be able to pull off a profitable fraud with just a body and a single piece of paper.
15:14 Speaker 01 The two burgeoning doctors understood that they could forge a death certificate for any cadaver, and a life insurance policy could be taken out in any name. So, a recently deceased body and a death certificate were really the only things they needed to commit insurance fraud. Herman Muddit was excited about the prospect, and Robert Leacock was surprised by Herman's excitement. Though Robert had gone along with the brainstorming side of the equation, he was not prepared to actually do it. Robert politely excused himself from further conversations about life insurance and forged documents and cadavers. But for Herman, the seeds of all of his future scandals were planted:
15:58 Speaker 01 forged documents, life insurance scams, grave-robbing experience, if or when it might be needed, and soon, the medical credentials to prove that he was a doctor. But as he progressed through the program at the University of Michigan, he never had any intention of practicing medicine. From that point forward, any desire he may have had of building a career in legitimate medicine was gone. He was now confident that there were faster and easier ways to make money. When Herman Muddit arrived in Michigan, he was a family man with a shady reputation. By the time he left Ann Arbor, he thought of himself as a bachelor and a doctor who had a whole new life ahead of him. Medical school had given him a mask to wear,
16:43 Speaker 01 a credential to flash, and the confidence to be a con man. In the spring of 1884, Herman graduated medical school at the University of Michigan. That summer, he returned to the Northeast without telling his wife and son.
16:59 Speaker 01 It was time to test a new persona and a new show in front of a live audience. He would still use his real name for the final time, but he was now a doctor and a learned man of medical science. He was no longer the awkward, temperamental, suspicious character he had been just three years earlier. He was now a confident, trustworthy professional, and he had a degree from a prestigious university to prove it.
17:26 Speaker 01 In the summer of 1884, his stage would be the tiny village of Moore's Forks in upstate New York, and his audience would be the innocent farmers of the area who were frightened of the rampant sickness which still plagued the world at that time. Smallpox burned through communities with deadly speed, and Herman Muddit would use the fear of it to his advantage. The village was in need of a doctor and a schoolteacher, and Herman charmed his way into both roles. It was graduation day for the second time in 1884. In the first, he completed medical school. In the second, he completed his evolution to professional liar and con man.
18:14 Speaker 01 By 1884, a smallpox vaccine had been around for 90 years. It had become more effective over the years, but it was still mostly used in times of crisis. It wasn't widely distributed until the 1950s, and it wasn't until the late 1960s that international health organizations banded together to eradicate smallpox. After a worldwide push to get people vaccinated throughout the 1970s, the program worked. The infection which had killed untold millions had been virtually erased from the general population. The smallpox vaccine and the eradication of the virus were considered two of the greatest medical achievements in human history.
18:59 Speaker 01 But of course, the vaccine only worked if the shot that someone received was actually the vaccine. And that was the heart of Herman Mudgett's first big fraud. In the 1880s, outbreaks of smallpox were still common, and people lived in fear of the next wave. Herman became the town doctor of Morris Forks in the far north of New York State, and his first scam was deceptively simple. Dr. Herman Mudgett showed up unannounced at local farmhouses with his doctor's bag and glass vials which he said were smallpox vaccines. He carried authority in his posture, warmth in his voice, and just enough medical jargon to silence doubt.
19:42 Speaker 01 He claimed he had been sent by the State Board of Health, and the price was 25 cents per shot, the equivalent of $8.25 today. Parents were desperate to protect their children, so the farmers scraped together the money while Dr. Mudgett performed the injections. In truth, the vials contained little more than water mixed with silver shavings. The good people of Morris Forks may have been poor farmers who lived in an isolated area, which was many miles from anything that could be considered a city. But they weren't stupid. Families began to compare notes about their experiences with the doctor.
20:26 Speaker 01 Some liked the confident and charming doctor, others felt unnerved. Over the course of a year, whispers hardened into suspicion when local merchants noticed that the doctor rarely paid his bills. When the town's patience finally wore thin in the autumn of 1885, Herman Mudgett simply moved on. His exit was as abrupt as his arrival. He left behind unsettled accounts with local shopkeepers and families who felt both deceived and ashamed of their own gullibility. They were the first of many who would have those feelings over the next 10 years. For Herman Mudgett, the Moore's Forks experiment had been a success.
21:08 Speaker 01 He discovered that he could step into a new identity, inhabit it completely, and make others believe anything he told them. He could profit from his lies, and then leave them behind as easily as changing clothes. And when he started changing identities in 1885, his movements became hard to track. There's a lot of speculation about where he went and what he did, but it seems like the only thing that is known for sure is that he was in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the winter or spring of 1886. There, he met and married a woman named Myrtta Bellnap. Myrtta, of course, had no idea she had married a con man, and that she was his second wife, and that her husband had not divorced his first wife.
21:54 Speaker 01 Clara was still in New Hampshire with her son Robert, and neither had any idea of what was happening with Herman Mudgett. And that was the final piece of the new puzzle. Moore's Fork, New York, was the last place Herman used his real name. When he married Myrtta in Minneapolis, and when they boarded a train to Chicago in May of 1886, he was now Henry Howard Holmes, though he preferred the more regal abbreviation HH Holmes. Dr. HH Holmes, if you please.
22:32 Speaker 01 In the summer of 1886, Chicago was a city teeming with ambition, especially in real estate. Regulation and oversight of building codes were nearly nonexistent. Credit was extended easily by real estate speculators. Property deeds changed hands with little scrutiny. Contracts were written faster than they could be executed or enforced. It was a period where cutting corners was not only expected, but immensely profitable. One of the results was that the city grew at a rapid and dangerous pace. Another result was that it was perfect for a con man like HH Holmes. Opportunity was everywhere, but he decided to start with a con that was in his safe zone of medicine.
23:17 Speaker 01 After only a short time in the city, he set his sights on a small family business called Holton Pharmacy.
23:25 Speaker 01 Like versions of snake oil salesmen throughout history, he knew that you could sell virtually anything to virtually anyone if you had the right cover and the right confidence. He had the confidence, and he believed Holton Pharmacy would be the cover. The shop was on the busy corner of 63rd Street and Wallace Avenue in the neighborhood of Inglewood. It was less than three miles from the future home of Chicago kingpin Al Capone. In the late 1880s, the neighborhood was a bustling hub of activity. Commuter trains, cable cars, horses, carriages, and people rushed down the streets lined with newly installed gaslights. The doctor known as H. H. Holmes and his new wife Myrta
24:09 Speaker 01 settled into the Inglewood neighborhood in May of 1886, and Holmes went right to work acquiring Holton Pharmacy.
24:21 Speaker 01 The common legend about H. H. Holmes and the pharmacy is that he arrived in Chicago and happened upon the drugstore by chance. The old pharmacist was often sick, and his wife was overwhelmed running the business. When the charming young Dr. Holmes showed up on their doorstep, it seemed like a gift from the heavens. Holmes worked his way into their trust, and then one day, the pharmacist and his wife disappeared. Holmes took over the pharmacy and claimed the owner sold it to him before leaving the city in the dead of night. The neighbors speculated that the odd couple were buried in the basement, or dumped into Lake Michigan, or burned in the furnace, or some other horrifying demise, believed it long after the fact.
25:04 Speaker 01 The truth was that the pharmacy was run by Dr. Elizabeth Holton, a fellow University of Michigan graduate. While it's true that she and her husband struggled to keep up with the flow of customers, her husband wasn't sick, and she wasn't overwhelmed to the point of desperation. Dr. Holton became pregnant in the summer of 1886, which may have inspired her to sell the business to Holmes. She and her husband lived in the apartment above the pharmacy, and it's possible they wanted to move somewhere more quiet before she had the baby. While the specific details of the sale are a mystery, by July 1886, Holmes had the deed to the pharmacy. Dr. Holton and her husband moved out of the upstairs apartment,
25:48 Speaker 01 and Holmes and Myrta moved in. He now had a respectable front for his schemes. Much like he'd done in Morse Forks, he sold fake serums and vaccines in addition to legitimate medicines and other goods. He bought goods on credit and sold them at steep markups without paying back the original creditors. When the sellers tried to take back their goods, there was nothing left to repossess.
26:17 Speaker 01 Holmes manipulated contracts with the help of shady lawyers to make sure he always had an excuse for not paying his bills. While he kept the vendors at bay, he charmed his customers with his confidence and apparent knowledge. The business and the scams succeeded, but the profits were small. Holmes was looking to expand. He was never going to have real wealth by selling a few fraudulent medicines. But just across the street from the pharmacy, there was a prize which could be the key to riches. An empty lot sat there waiting for a new owner. Holmes envisioned a multitude of cons which he could run in a mixed-use property. In early 1887, using Myrta's name,
27:01 Speaker 01 he bought the lot and commissioned blueprints for a new three-story building. He pitched investors on joining the project, and construction companies and developers were eager to get a piece of a building that would pay out with street-level storefronts and apartments above.
27:18 Speaker 01 In August 1887, one year after Holmes arrived in Chicago, construction began on the building that Holmes would affectionately call "his castle." But as the steel beams and wooden floors took shape, the builders began to notice strange details in the blueprints. The design was unlike anything they'd ever seen, even in the largely unregulated market of the era. There were staircases, which didn't lead anywhere. There were tiny chambers between some of the walls. Secret doors opened into narrow passages, which crisscrossed spaces between floors. Some of the rooms seemed to have no doors or windows at all. But workers who asked too many questions were fired.
28:01 Speaker 01 In fact, none of the workers would remain with the project from start to finish. Holmes made sure of that. Whether it was to stop curiosity or to steal money, Holmes would sow chaos and confusion during the construction of his building. And those conditions would eventually lead newspaper publishers to add an infamous modifier to the nickname of the building. Holmes called it "his castle." Newspapers would soon call it "the murder castle."
28:48 Speaker 01 Next time on Infamous America, H.H. Holmes defrauds virtually everyone involved with the completion of his strange building, yet it somehow opens for business and starts making money. And as Chicago starts preparing for the 1893 World's Fair, women start disappearing from Holmes Castle. That's next week on Infamous America.
29:19 Speaker 01 Members of our Black Barrel Plus program receive the entire season to binge all at once with no commercials, and they also receive exclusive bonus episodes. Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. This series was researched and written by Andrew Messer. Original music by Rob Valier. I'm Chris Wimmer. Thanks for listening.
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