Pod Insights Infamous America HH HOLMES Ep. 2 | “Murder Castle” About this episode Holmes supervises the construction of one of the strangest apartment buildings in Chicago. He calls it his castle. Later, reporters will call it the Murder Castle. As Holmes and the city of Chicago ramp up to the World’s Fair, a young woman and her daughter disappear from the castle. During the exposition, two more young women – a pair of sisters – disappear. Before the end of the event, Holmes goes on the run to avoid scandal and creditors.
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Transcript 0:11 Speaker 00 On the evening of October 8th, 1871, a small fire started in a barn on Decovan Street on Chicago's South Side. The barn owners, the O'Leary family, desperately tried to get ahead of the blaze, but they couldn't contain it. Chicago was experiencing the perfect recipe for a fire disaster: hot, dry, windy conditions. In a time where nearly all the buildings were made from wood and they were crammed tightly together with little to no thought of the worst-case scenario, the worst-case scenario happened. High winds drove the fire to neighboring buildings. Flames tore through the city's business districts on the North Side and East Side. The inferno only subsided
0:55 Speaker 00 when a rainstorm hit the city two days later. By that time, the disaster which would be known as the Great Chicago Fire had consumed more than four square miles of the city. The fire destroyed nearly 18,000 buildings and left a third of the city's population without homes. It killed roughly 300 people, though some believe the real number was far higher. It is still the most destructive city fire in American history. The only fire which destroyed more property than the Great Chicago Fire was the now infamous Camp Fire of 2018. Though most people don't remember the official name of the fire, it's better known as the fire which leveled much of the small town of Paradise, California,
1:39 Speaker 00 as well as neighboring communities like Magalia and Concow. But that fire started as a wildfire in the hills several miles from the towns. The Great Chicago Fire started right in the middle of the city. And where most people saw grief over the tragedy, land speculators and contractors saw opportunity. Chicago rebuilt with astonishing speed.
2:07 Speaker 00 By the 1880s, the city was unrecognizable from the smoldering wreck it had been a decade earlier. Chicago became a hub for commerce, industry, and innovation. Contractors, developers, and real estate investors dreamed of a fortune in every new construction. Many of them gave very little thought to zoning restrictions or regulations. If they did, they could usually be convinced to change their minds by a healthy stream of bribes. Herman Muddit arrived in Chicago in 1886, though he went by the name Henry Howard Holmes by that time, and usually called himself "Dr. H.H. Holmes." He was accompanied by his second wife, Myrtah Belknap, who believed he was a respectable doctor
2:52 Speaker 00 since he held a medical degree from the University of Michigan. She did not know that he was still legally married to his first wife, Clara Loverick, who had been abandoned in New Hampshire with Clara and Herman's son, Robert. In the Inglewood neighborhood of Chicago, Holmes took ownership of a local, family-run pharmacy, and he immediately employed the scams he had been developing for the past couple of years. At the time, Holmes was still a small-time con artist. He bought goods on credit, then sold them for marked-up prices and never paid back the creditors. He mixed and sold fake medicines in his pharmacy, but he had dreams of a bigger fraud. Using Myrtah's name, he bought the vacant corner lot
3:35 Speaker 00 which sat directly across the street from the pharmacy. In August 1887, he started building the three-story structure which he would call "his castle." By the end of autumn, it was nearly complete, and so was his new pattern of fraud. He brought in investors and used their money to buy the very few things he actually paid for. He fired contractors and construction workers almost on a weekly basis so he wouldn't have to pay them. He signed promissory notes under multiple aliases, none of which he planned to honor. The building would have shops on the ground floor at street level, and apartments on the first floor and second floor above the shops.
4:17 Speaker 00 He ordered cabinets, furniture, expensive hardware, and dishes for the apartments, all of it on credit. Some goods he installed in the building, some he sold for profit. Most were hidden in specially-built rooms which could only be accessed through secret stairways in the confusing labyrinth of his strange building. When debt collectors showed up to repossess the goods, they had no luck. And then, the Connor family moved into one of the apartments, and the pattern of fraud of Dr. H.H. Holmes turned darker. Two of the three family members would disappear. Soon afterward, the Williams sisters arrived, first Minnie, then Nanny.
4:59 Speaker 00 They would see the beginning of the spectacular Chicago World's Fair, but not the end. And there would be born the legend of the castle, and all the diabolical things which may have happened in its secret rooms.
5:25 Speaker 00 From Black Barrel Media, this is Infamous America. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this season, we're telling the story of H.H. Holmes, the con artist and murderer whose crimes during the Chicago World's Fair became the stuff of legend. This is episode two, Murder Castle.
5:50 Speaker 00 For the first two years of the castle's existence, Holmes focused exclusively on fraud. He concocted a series of increasingly elaborate scams to trick people out of their money. He was no longer simply content to skim off of the pharmacy and the storefront businesses in his building. He wanted to swindle entire industries, like the utility companies. In the basement of the castle, neighbors remembered strange odors drifting from iron tanks and pipes. Holmes called the contraption in the basement "his gas generator", as in "a machine which makes gas for heating and cooking." Most people in the country still relied on wood or coal, but gas was slowly becoming an alternative.
6:34 Speaker 00 Holmes claimed his machine used chemicals and tubing to turn a little water into fuel. For potential investors, including the local gas company, Holmes staged demonstrations. He dazzled viewers with bluish flames and colored smoke. He made some agreements and started bringing in a new stream of revenue. And as it probably sounds, it was all a magic trick. In truth, he had simply tapped into the city's gas line and was selling the gas company's product back to it. The scam didn't last long, and when it collapsed, Holmes simply pivoted. He boasted of a healthy tonic which was pulled from an artesian well beneath the castle.
7:17 Speaker 00 Customers were convinced of its restorative powers and they bought it eagerly. In reality, it was ordinary city water which was tinted by chemicals. And while he ran his cons from the castle and the pharmacy, he rented the apartments on the first and second floor of the castle to eager tenants. In 1889, he became especially interested in his new tenants, the Connor family, and specifically Julia Connor.
7:50 Speaker 00 In September 1889, Julia Connor, her husband Ned, and their daughter Pearl moved into one of the apartments in the castle. After some negotiation, Holmes hired Julia and Ned to work in the shops on the ground floor of the building. Julie was confident, attractive, and increasingly unhappy in her marriage. Holmes noticed the strain between Julia and Ned, and Julia noticed the dapper, well-educated, and seemingly wealthy doctor. The affair between Holmes and Julia began quietly, but it eventually led to big changes. Holmes and his wife Myrtle lived in the apartment above the pharmacy across the street from the castle.
8:31 Speaker 00 As the affair between Julia and Holmes continued, he likely decided the situation was too complex, even for a man who thrived on the chaos of confusion. On April 25th, 1890, about seven months after the Connor family moved into Holmes Castle, President Benjamin Harrison announced that the city of Chicago would host the World's Columbian Exposition. More commonly known as the Chicago World Fair, it would take place between May and October 1893. Chicago and all of its legitimate business people and swindlers had three years to prepare. Of the many preparations H.H. Holmes would make, one of the first was to move his wife and their new baby girl out
9:15 Speaker 00 of the apartment above the pharmacy. He likely claimed that they needed more space with the recent addition of a child, and he found an apartment in the Wilmette neighborhood on the north side of the city. He, of course, kept the pharmacy, the apartment above it, and the castle, which placed more than 20 miles of distance between the new apartment and his businesses. With Myrtle and the baby successfully moved to a new apartment, he moved Julia into the apartment above the pharmacy. And since he spent virtually every minute at the pharmacy and the castle, he and Julia effectively lived together in the apartment above the pharmacy. For Holmes, it was the perfect setup. His wife and child were out of his way, and his wife was none the wiser.
9:59 Speaker 00 He was essentially living with his mistress and undoubtedly telling his wife that he was spending long hours at work. And his mistress's husband and child were in a separate building. Even though they were in close proximity across the street, he made it work, though at least some of that was an illusion like his other magic tricks. The affair with Julia was an open secret, and she was becoming more entangled in his fraudulent business dealings. When she learned she was pregnant, she found herself in a dangerous situation, even though she didn't know it.
10:39 Speaker 00 As Holmes walked a tightrope in his personal life, he craved fresh opportunities for profit. He found one in a new invention called the copy machine. Though it was a rudimentary device that used gelatin to make imprints, the ability to copy documents was considered an astounding technology at the time. The concept attracted investors across Chicago to a business called ABC Copier Company. The company had started as a legitimate venture. A Chicago businessman had purchased a patent from England and partnered with one of the city's most respected names, Thomas Bryant. Bryant was the commissioner-at-large of the upcoming Colombian exposition.
11:21 Speaker 00 He traveled the globe to promote Chicago as the host of the World's Fair. His reputation was untouchable, and his connections ran deep. In early 1891, Holmes bought a stake in the ABC Copier Company from Bryant using a promissory note for $9,000. Essentially, Holmes gave Bryant a legal document which guaranteed that Holmes would pay $9,000 as an investment in the ABC Copier Company. Holmes assured Bryant the money was coming within days. And while Thomas Bryant waited for his money, Holmes gained influence. He listed himself as the company secretary, rented an office on Dearborn Street, and began using Bryant's good name to secure credit for himself.
12:11 Speaker 00 Holmes didn't care about selling copy machines. He cared about selling the rights to sell copy machines. He sold exclusive rights to territories for salesmen to market the devices. And of course, he double-sold those territories whenever he could. Within months, lawsuits from swindled salesmen piled up. Investors accused Holmes of mismanaging funds, running the company without authority, and pocketing loans meant for supplies. And it was at about that time that Julia Connor stepped into the mess Holmes had created. Sometime in the second half of 1891, probably in the late summer or early autumn, Julia's husband Ned left Chicago.
12:53 Speaker 00 No one knows how long he knew about her affair with Holmes. And if their marriage was already in trouble when they had moved into the castle, then a breakup was probably gonna happen soon anyway. But shortly after Ned left the city and his wife and daughter, Julia's relationship with Holmes took a turn. Holmes filed a lawsuit against Julia in the autumn of 1891. Most historians believe she had little to no knowledge of Holmes's schemes, but she was about to get caught up in one. He claimed she failed to pay a debt on the drugstore. In essence, he pushed his debt onto her. Whether Julia understood the mechanics of the lawsuit or not, she was now financially bound to H.H. Holmes.
13:36 Speaker 00 Witnesses recalled heated arguments between the two around that time. Then Julia's situation turned desperate. A few weeks later, Julia discovered she was pregnant. Holmes could fool his wife Myrtah. He could navigate an affair, he could manage an endless parade of lawsuits and debt collectors, but Julia's pregnancy presented a problem Holmes could not charm away. A scandalous birth threatened to unravel his carefully constructed image. Some accounts suggest Julia leveraged the pregnancy to try to pressure Holmes into marriage. Others claim Holmes attempted an abortion which went horribly wrong. Whatever the case, sometime around Christmas of 1891, Julia Connor and her daughter Pearl
14:21 Speaker 00 disappeared. Their absence doesn't seem to have caused a stir. However he did it and whatever he did with the bodies, H.H. Holmes was free from his difficult situation. By 1892, the city of Chicago was racing toward the biggest event in its history. The White City, as the sprawling complex of buildings for the fair would be called, was under construction. Engineers had only a year and a half to finish the Mammoth Project before millions of people from around the world streamed into the city. H.H. Holmes turned his attention to the same task. He started construction on a fourth story of his building to turn it into a hotel for the World's Fair.
15:08 Speaker 00 Holmes' original plan, after the World's Fair was announced in 1890, was to evict all the tenants in the apartments of his castle to open up the rooms for guests for the fair. But then he realized he didn't have to resort to such extreme measures to take advantage of the fair. He could keep his tenants and their reliable payments and simply add a fourth story to his building. Contractors swarmed the castle once more to build a fourth floor which he claimed would be a hotel for fairgoers. Holmes used all the same fraudulent tactics to save money on construction costs and to steal as much as he could. But frequently firing workers wasn't just a strategy to save money by not paying them.
15:51 Speaker 00 It was an effort to hide the poor quality and strange features of his building. No one who worked on the building understood the full scope or complexity of it. They knew a little bit about their specific project, but never the entire picture. Secrecy about the details seemed to work as construction progressed throughout 1892. But his cons soon grew too obvious to hide. In March 1893, two months before the World's Fair began, the Chicago Tribune published an article about the castle's strange design and hidden rooms. It was the first major story linking Holmes to the bizarre building. Within two years, newspapers around the country would revisit the topic of the building
16:36 Speaker 00 and spin wild stories about all the horrific crimes which supposedly happened inside. By that time, the fates of two young women would be added to the legend.
16:51 Speaker 00 Twenty-four-year-old Wilhelmina Williams, known as Minnie, was a young woman from the area around Fort Worth, Texas, who moved to Chicago in search of opportunity. She found work at the castle as Holmes' secretary, and before long, she became his next mistress. Unlike his two wives or his former mistress Julia Connor, Minnie Williams knowingly joined some of Holmes' scams. In business, Holmes trusted her with the fine details he didn't want to trace back to himself. She helped draft company letters, notarize forms, and process insurance paperwork. To outsiders, Minnie was a diligent clerk. To Holmes, she was frequently a useful accomplice.
17:35 Speaker 00 While there's still some debate as to whether or not she realized the extent of his deceit, Minnie was certainly aware of several instances of fraud. Through Minnie, Holmes took out three separate insurance policies on the castle. If anything ever happened to the building, he hoped he could collect triple insurance payments. Meanwhile, creditors, investors, and would-be tenants continued to pass through the castle. They reported more odd construction on the fourth floor. Closets with two doors, walls that seemed to shift, rooms that didn't quite line up with exterior walls. But few people asked many questions. The city was blinded by the rush of the upcoming World's Fair.
18:18 Speaker 00 Speed was paramount, and cutting corners was often tolerated. And for the few people who did ask questions, they were directed to one of the many lawyers Holmes retained to shield him. Holmes often bragged to his associates that he paid lawyers handsomely to keep him in the clear. That was likely true, as the dozens of lawsuits and liens on his properties and businesses never stuck to him. To this day, historians have trouble tracing the intricacies of the paperwork associated with his time in Chicago. And Holmes obviously enjoyed the con game. Some neighbors said he openly mocked the businessmen he fleeced. One neighbor said that Holmes didn't just escape trouble, he seemed to laugh at it.
19:03 Speaker 00 But in May of 1893, the fair was about to open, and the fourth floor of the castle, which would have been the third floor of apartments, still wasn't finished and ready to use as a hotel. It was little more than a hollow shell, though Holmes didn't seem overly concerned. He had wrung every dollar out of the construction process through loans, shady sales, and insurance fraud. He didn't necessarily need guests in order to make a profit. And as the 1893 World's Fair opened for business, Minnie Williams wrote letters to her younger sister to encourage her to come to Chicago. Even though Minnie was knowingly involved in illegal activity, she seemed to believe there was a dreamlike future ahead,
19:47 Speaker 00 and that was a tragic miscalculation.
19:55 Speaker 00 The 1893 World's Colombian Exposition opened on May 1, 1893. Visitors soon marveled at the unparalleled spectacle of the gleaming stone buildings in the fairgrounds which were nicknamed "The White City." The fairgrounds dominated 686 acres of Jackson Park along the shore of Lake Michigan. There were hundreds of buildings and thousands of exhibits for millions of visitors to see. And less than three miles away was the castle of H.H. Holmes. Despite more than a year of planning and construction, the fourth floor of the building still wasn't finished. But Holmes had committed every type of fraud he could think of during the process,
20:37 Speaker 00 and the combined schemes had made him rich. And it wasn't just local businessmen whom Holmes was conning. He was also working a scam on his mistress and business partner, Minnie Williams. She owned property in Texas which Holmes coveted. Holmes convinced Minnie to transfer the deed to the property to one of his aliases. But Minnie was no fool. She was fiery and assertive, and because she knew of at least some of Holmes' illegal dealings, some historians have wondered if she was working her own scheme against him. He was a wealthy man, and growing wealthier. She likely signed over the deed based on the promise of marriage, which could then make her wealthy in any number of ways.
21:21 Speaker 00 If she were trying to run a game on H.H. Holmes, her major misstep was likely to underestimate the depth of his ruthless nature.
21:33 Speaker 00 When Minnie wrote to her eighteen-year-old sister Anna, Minnie said she was engaged to be married to a wealthy businessman and doctor. She invited Anna, known as Nanny, to come to Chicago to see the World's Fair. Afterward, Minnie hinted that the three of them might travel to Europe together. For a young woman from the dusty cattle market town of Fort Worth, the prospect of seeing Chicago and the White City Fairgrounds, and then possibly traveling to Europe, was too good to pass up. Nanny arrived in Chicago in June 1893, and it appears she quickly became skeptical of Dr. H. H. Holmes. Of the many unknowns which would soon follow Nanny's arrival,
22:16 Speaker 00 one was whether or not she knew that Minnie had signed over her property in Texas to Holmes. If so, and if Nanny expressed concern, that might have contributed to what happened next. Some have speculated that Minnie might have been trying to manipulate Holmes into an expensive divorce. And Minnie knew enough about Holmes' illegal business practices to make her a liability. Whether it was one cause or a combination of several, Minnie Williams' time in Chicago was brief, and her younger sister Nanny's time in the big city lasted no more than a month. After July 5, 1893, neither sister was ever seen again.
22:59 Speaker 00 Two years later, Holmes would offer a range of stories to explain the disappearances of the sisters, but none of them would hold up to scrutiny. Whatever he did, it happened by July 5, because on July 6, several transactions were made under Minnie's name. One of the transactions was a promissory note for $6,250, made payable to Horace A. Williams, which was likely one of Holmes' aliases.
23:27 Speaker 00 The next day, solicitors came looking for Minnie at the castle, and they found the apartment she shared with her sister, and sometimes Holmes, was empty. Later, Nanny Williams' suitcase was found abandoned at a Chicago train depot. Her personal effects were inside, in what appeared to be a shallow attempt to convince people she had been traveling without her belongings, or that she had stashed the suitcase at the depot for safekeeping, and then never returned for it, for whatever reason. The trunk remained at the depot untouched, for months, until it was discarded. Whatever happened at the castle during the month of June 1893, it was serious enough to make Holmes believe that his time in Chicago was done.
24:11 Speaker 00 The World's Fair was only two months old, but it was time for Holmes to leave.
24:22 Speaker 00 By early August 1893, Holmes was dismantling his empire in a frenzy. The fourth floor, which had never truly served its alleged purpose as a hotel for faregoers, was cleared out. Files were packed away in a giant safe. A porcelain bathtub, marble basins, and furniture were removed. All the cabinet hardware was stripped. Anything of value was taken out. It was apparent that Holmes was clearing the stage for the grand finale at his unfinished World's Fair hotel. Despite the flurry of activity for two weeks, on the night of August 13, 1893, the castle was eerily quiet. There were only a few long-term tenants and employees present.
25:07 Speaker 00 The day before, Holmes had ensured that any transient guests were absent. That afternoon, he'd stopped by the castle, and then boarded a train for Wilmette, where his wife and daughter were living. That whole time, Myrta and her daughter with Holmes had been quietly living in an apartment about thirty miles north of the castle, with no real understanding of everything that had happened. She was, apparently, wistfully oblivious to all of her husband's machinations.
25:35 Speaker 00 On August thirteenth, one of the employees at the castle was a cleaner named Joe Owens. Not long after Holmes departed, Owens smelled the sharp tang of burning tar. He couldn't find the source, but he also didn't search very hard upstairs because he knew Holmes had emptied most of the fourth floor. But then thick black liquid began running down the walls of a third-floor closet. It was hot tar warmed by a fire. Joe smelled smoke, and he told the other employees and tenants to get out of the building. Within a couple of hours, the fourth floor was on fire.
26:17 Speaker 00 Luckily for the neighborhood, the fourth floor did not completely burn, nor did the fire burn down the castle. Holmes immediately filed insurance claims. He stated that the fire was the work of an incendiary, but he didn't know who set the fire. Joe Owens, for one, was certain that Holmes started the blaze. Multiple people had witnessed Holmes hurrying to remove valuables before he conveniently left the building before the fire started. It wasn't proof, but it was suspicious. Unfortunately for Holmes, despite the multiple insurance policies on the property, the payout was minimal. The insurance policies were in Minnie Williams' name, or a Holmes alias,
27:00 Speaker 00 so Holmes' insurance fraud idea wasn't working the way he had planned. And after the newspaper coverage of the strange layout of the castle a few months earlier, the fire attracted scrutiny. Many of his creditors for the furniture and hardware came knocking, as did several insurance investigators, and even law enforcement. Holmes stayed away from the castle, moving between hotels and the Wilmette apartment. Throughout September eighteen ninety-three, as the World's Fair was winding down, Holmes' empire of fraud in Chicago was crumbling.
27:35 Speaker 00 Lawsuits piled up. Collection agencies pursued him, and investigators circled like vultures. Holmes was being hunted like never before. He had been in Chicago for seven years, which was his longest stay in any one place since he left home to go to the University of Vermont. In a familiar pattern, when he was backed into a corner, he ran. He decided to abandon the castle and everything in Chicago, including his second wife Myrtle and their young daughter. They were still living in the apartment in Wilmette when Holmes decided to capitalize on the disappearance of Minnie Williams. He had the deed to her property in Fort Worth, and that suddenly sounded like an excellent place to start over.
28:19 Speaker 00 With an empty piece of land, he envisioned the same setup he had used in Chicago: construct a building, defraud as many people as possible, and steal as much money as possible, and then vanish when the time was right. But Texas in 1893 was still the Old West. As a dapper, East Coast dude, as Westerners might have called him, he didn't know what he was doing. In Texas, it wasn't construction fraud or the other sleight-of-hand swindles which would get him in trouble. He would find himself caught up in a crime which they still took seriously in the Old West. When that first domino fell, it would send him reeling.
29:14 Speaker 00 Next time on Infamous America, H.H. Holmes tries to reconstruct his Chicago frauds in Fort Worth, but a bad decision brings a ton of unexpected trouble. Investigators in Chicago and friends of the Williams sisters in Texas start asking questions about the missing girls, and the heat quickly grows too hot in Fort Worth. Holmes has to keep moving as he experiences real pressure from law enforcement for the first time in his life. That's next week on Infamous America.
29:46 Speaker 00 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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