Pod Insights Infamous America HH HOLMES Ep. 3 | “Web of Lies” About this episode After Holmes flees Chicago during the World’s Fair, he briefly settles in Fort Worth, Texas before an arrest warrant causes him to flee again. In St. Louis, he and his sometime partner, Benjamin Pitezel, prepare to execute a plan to commit life insurance fraud by faking Pitezel’s death. But when the law comes knocking again, they run to Philadelphia to enact their scheme.
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Transcript 0:12 Speaker 00 Quando H.H. Holmes deixou Chicago em outubro de 1893, deixou atrás de uma trailha de fraude e destruição. O piso superior do seu castelo estava amarelo contra o céu de Chicago. A sua segunda esposa, Myrta, e sua filha jovem estavam escondidas em um apartamento no norte da cidade. Um exército de investigadores de companhias de seguro, colecionadores de deputados e distritos de polícia estava atravessando mounds de papel e falsas identidades para construir uma imagem completa de crimes de Holmes. O quarto piso, largamente desfeito, do seu edifício de quatro pisos tinha acertado fogo em agosto durante o meio da Festa Mundial. Foi quase certo que Holmes iniciou o fogo, mas também era quase impossível provar.
0:57 Speaker 00 Nesse momento, sete anos de enganos em Chicago finalmente acertaram com Holmes, e ele decidiu recusar. Ele tinha configurado várias políticas de seguro no edifício para apenas uma contingência, mas não pagaram tanto quanto ele esperava. Pelo menos parte da razão era que algumas das políticas estavam no nome da sua esposa na época, Minnie Williams. Um mês antes do fogo, Minnie Williams e sua irmã menor, Nanny, que havia chegado de Texas para uma visita, haviam desaparecido. Como o fogo, não havia provas de que Holmes as matou, mas também não havia outra explicação razoável. A mesma coisa tinha provavelmente acontecido com Julia Connor, esposa de Holmes antes de Minnie Williams.
1:39 Speaker 00 Julia e sua filha haviam desaparecido por um ano e meio antes de Minnie e Nanny. Seria necessário um tempo para as suas desaparecências se conectarem com Holmes, mas naquele momento haveria uma imagem clara de crimes de Holmes. Agora, em outubro de 1893, Holmes acelera para o sul, para Texas, para evitar a polícia judicial e a Legião de colecionadores de deputados em Chicago. Holmes tinha enganado Minnie Williams devido à propriedade de um terreno de terra em Fort Worth, e a terra era agora a melhor chance para começar de novo.
2:15 Speaker 00 The only full accomplice whom Holmes ever worked with was already in Fort Worth setting up the new scam. He was a small-time con artist named Benjamin Pitezel. Pitezel had worked with Holmes on various crimes in Chicago, but it was mostly low-level clerical stuff from time to time. When Holmes realized he needed to leave Chicago, he convinced Pitezel to join him in a new scheme in Texas. The territory was new, but the plan was not. Holmes wanted to replicate the success of his Chicago castle. He wanted to construct a building on the land he now owned from Minnie Williams and swindle every possible dollar out of every part of the construction process.
2:57 Speaker 00 And with a willing accomplice like Benjamin Pitezel, Holmes wanted to add a new piece to his complicated puzzle of scams. Holmes had been dreaming of a clever life insurance fraud since he was in medical school at the University of Michigan in the early 1880s. So, in addition to helping with the construction fraud, Pitezel agreed to take out a life insurance policy on himself worth $10,000, nearly $360,000 today. Holmes would stage Pitezel's accidental death, collect the payout, and they would split the money. If it worked, both men would walk away rich. There was no firm timeline for the insurance fraud, but those were the two major cons
3:40 Speaker 00 which Holmes and Pitezel intended to operate in Texas. H.H. Holmes, who was born Herman Muddit and who used more aliases than anyone could count, was a man of supreme confidence by the early 1890s. But his confidence led him into criminal territory in which he had no experience. He would quickly learn that Fort Worth was not Chicago. Chicago was a huge bustling city with a population of more than a million people. Fort Worth had a population of a little more than 23,000 in the 1890s. Things which were easy to hide or confuse in Chicago were not so easy in Fort Worth, and Holmes' con games could unravel with shocking speed.
4:37 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 three, "Web of Lies."
5:02 Speaker 00 When H.H. Holmes set up shop in Texas, Benjamin Pitezel wasn't the only full-time addition to the crew. Holmes had with him Georgiana Yoke, the woman who was his third mistress and would soon be his third wife. They met during the World's Fair, and Holmes claimed his wife Myrna had broken his heart. He said he wanted a fresh start at love, and Georgiana believed him. At worst, she thought he was a slightly crooked businessman, but he appeared to be wealthy, and he made grand promises. And so, she hopped on a train with him to Texas. On the train, she knew that Holmes identified himself by a different name to the porter, and the name she knew did not match the name on some documents she had seen.
5:46 Speaker 00 But she didn't ask questions. In Fort Worth, Holmes and Pitezel dove into the construction of a new castle on the land, which Holmes had essentially stolen from Minnie Williams. The con men used all their old tricks to swindle money out of everyone who was even remotely involved in the construction process. And for a while, nobody was the wiser. But the Williams sisters had friends in Fort Worth, and the friends were curious about the building which was going up on Minnie's land. No one had seen or heard from the Williams sisters in months, and people grew suspicious. But in a Texas twist, it was not fraud related to the building which would ultimately lead to trouble for H.H. Holmes.
6:29 Speaker 00 It was fraud related to an age-old crime in the West: horse stealing.
6:38 Speaker 00 Holmes bought teams of horses using forged promissory notes from banks. He created false ownership documents and transferred control of the horses from aliases to shell companies until the paperwork was a maze of nonsense. Eventually, he sold the horses for cash, pocketed the money, and didn't spend a nickel of his own money in the process. At first, the scam worked well, but soon whispers of unpaid debts were joined by loud accusations of outright theft. The breaking point came in the spring of 1894, when Holmes promised $400 for a pair of black horses. When the money never arrived and the horses couldn't be found, H.H.
7:22 Speaker 00 Holmes became a horse thief. A grand jury indicted him for horse theft and a warrant was issued for his arrest under the alias OC Pratt. Around the same time, detectives and collections agents in Chicago were piecing together a case. They had tracked some of Holmes's aliases to Minnie's property in Texas. By May of 1894, there were rumors that Chicago detectives were coming south. Suspicions and rumors and arrest warrants became too much for H.H. Holmes. Construction on the Newcastle stop. Holmes and Georgiana packed quickly. Holmes told Pitezel the life insurance scheme would have to wait until they settled somewhere new.
8:06 Speaker 00 After less than a year in Texas, it was time to go. Holmes and Georgiana hurried to board a train for St. Louis, Missouri. They arrived in a city which was bigger and busier than Fort Worth, but smaller than the crowded metropolis of Chicago. When Holmes stepped off the train, he had a rare moment of self-reflection. He understood that he had made a mistake. His cons had become too big and too complicated. He needed to go back to the smaller, safer cons he had used at the Holton Pharmacy when he first arrived in Chicago. He was still a doctor after all. He could buy medicines on credit, sell them for exorbitant prices, and then never pay off his credit debts.
8:49 Speaker 00 He could mix up fake medicines and sell them at even higher prices. And on the corner of Fourteenth Street and Market Street in St. Louis, he found a small drugstore whose owner was eager to sell. Holmes seemed like an ideal buyer, but he informed the owner that he did have a slight problem at the moment. He wouldn't have the cash to buy the store until his wife's inheritance arrived in a few months from Indiana. The story was a mix of truth and fiction. Georgiana was from Indiana, and they had recently been married, but there was no inheritance on its way. The drugstore owner was eager to close the deal and get out from under his mortgage and debts, and he didn't ask too many questions.
9:33 Speaker 00 Holmes handed over a fraction of the selling price in cash and guaranteed the rest of the money with fraudulent promissory notes. It was the same trick Holmes always pulled, and by the end of June 1894, he was the new owner of a local drugstore. He ordered cigars and whiskey on credit, and he told Ben Pitezel to head for St. Louis.
10:03 Speaker 00 Ben Pitezel arrived in St. Louis with his wife Carrie and their five children. Unlike most of Holmes's wives and mistresses, Carrie Pitezel knew her husband was a fraudster. She may not have known all the details, but she knew he was a criminal. Even so, she had her limits, and she thought the life insurance fraud which had been dreamed up by Holmes was grotesque. Holmes planned to resurrect, pun intended, his idea to fake the death of Benjamin Pitezel to collect life insurance money. Holmes would dig up a freshly buried body and manipulate it so that it could pass for Pitezel. Ben would hide while Holmes coordinated the paperwork and sold a story to the insurance company. When the company paid out,
10:47 Speaker 00 they would split the money and leave the area. On the surface, it was relatively simple. Disgusting, yes, but simple.
10:56 Speaker 00 The problem, from Holmes' point of view, was Kerry Pitezel. Holmes knew that Kerry would have to be in on it. Holmes and Pitezel had already secured a large life insurance policy from Fidelity Insurance Company, and Holmes assured Kerry that the payout would be big enough to make them all rich. But after just a month in St. Louis, Holmes was already restless to move on, and soon he wouldn't have a choice.
11:27 Speaker 00 In early July 1894, Pitezel and Holmes executed a plan to commit mortgage fraud, which they hoped would be their last big score before leaving St. Louis. Holmes still wanted to do the life insurance scam, but he seemed to have a stronger urge to leave St. Louis. Ben Pitezel had secured a second mortgage on the drugstore. He claimed he needed new money to restock the shelves. In reality, Holmes and Pitezel pocketed the money from their new loan and swiftly packed up the store's remaining stock to sell later. Then, they closed the store with a plan to flee the city as soon as possible. But they weren't fast enough. The day after Holmes and Pitezel emptied the drugstore,
12:11 Speaker 00 a loan officer from the mortgage company arrived to inspect the store. When he saw that it was empty and closed, he immediately suspected fraud. He alerted the authorities, who tracked down Holmes that same day in East St. Louis. The police caught Holmes with hundreds of dollars in swindled goods, which were tied to multiple fake identities. After years of outsmarting law enforcement, H.H. Holmes was finally in handcuffs. The cops threw him in a cell in the Four Courts Prison, where the air was a foul mix of unwashed bodies and stale tobacco. Confinement and the conditions in prison were bad enough, but Holmes' ego suffered the roughest punishment.
12:54 Speaker 00 He had not been outsmarted by a brilliant detective like the fictional character Sherlock Holmes. He had been caught by paperwork. The mortgage company had receipts, and he couldn't explain the empty building which the loan officer had seen with his own eyes. Holmes finally faced a problem he couldn't solve by himself. But he was such a good liar that his relatively new wife, Georgiana, rode to his rescue.
13:25 Speaker 00 Georgiana refused to believe the charges against her husband. She worked with a local lawyer to arrange for a bondsman to put up the money to bail Holmes out of jail. A few days after his arrest, Holmes walked free on a $500 bond. But his freedom only lasted a few hours. The former drugstore owner told the bondsman that Holmes had stiffed him on the purchase of the store. The drugstore owner warned the bondsman against trusting Holmes. After the warning, the bondsman rescinded his bail payment, and the cops went out with a new warrant to rearrest Holmes. When Holmes heard the news, he and Georgiana rushed to Union Depot to catch the next train out of town.
14:09 Speaker 00 The couple slipped onto a train bound for Chicago, and for a fleeting moment, Holmes relaxed. But as the locomotive chugged to life, Holmes heard the heavy thud of boots in the train car. A police sergeant named O'Malley walked down the aisle and scanned the faces of the passengers. When he stopped at Holmes and began to grab the wanted man, Georgiana leapt to her feet. She shouted hysterically and clutched her husband's arm. She screamed that it was all a mistake, but O'Malley didn't flinch at the theatrics. He gripped Holmes by the elbow, pulled him off the train, and marched him down the steps of Union Depot. Curious onlookers jeered and whispered. The newspapers laid out the scene the next day in the headlines.
14:53 Speaker 00 This time, the bail was set at $800, and no bondsman would touch it. Holmes was back in jail, where he made another crucial mistake.
15:11 Speaker 00 In four courts prison at the time, one name carried more weight among the inmates than any other: Marion Hedgepath, an armed robber who was known as the Debonair Bandit.
15:22 Speaker 00 Hedgepath had robbed several trains in Missouri with the kind of daring Holmes only read about. Holmes soon craved the robber's respect. Holmes began with small talk and flattery, sprinkling in embellished stories of his own supposed exploits. After a couple days, Holmes took a gamble to earn the outlaws' trust. He shared a secret about his plans. In an uncharacteristic bout of truth-telling, Holmes told Hedgepath about the plan to defraud Fidelity Insurance Company for $10,000. The centerpiece of the plot was Holmes' associate Benjamin Pitezel. Pitezel would fake his death, and Holmes would pass off a real dead body as that of Pitezel.
16:05 Speaker 00 Then the insurance company would pay out a fortune. Holmes boasted that he had done it before. With his training as a doctor, he could prepare a corpse to look like an accident victim. Holmes said he could fool anyone, but he needed the help of a local lawyer to ensure the plan would work. If Hedgepath could provide a name, Holmes would pay him $500. It's hard to know if Hedgepath believed Holmes. Later, Hedgepath would claim he saw right through Holmes' story. But at the time, in the St. Louis jail, Hedgepath gave Holmes the name of Jeptha Howe, an attorney with a reputation for making miracles in court.
16:46 Speaker 00 In the past, Howe had bent the legal system as far as possible to help Hedgepath. If anyone could help Holmes, it was Jeptha Howe. Holmes now daydreamed about a sunny future after the life insurance scam, but he didn't realize he had just committed a critical mistake. Bringing Marion Hedgepath into the plan would cost Holmes far more than he would gain. Meanwhile, Georgiana was still working furiously to secure her husband's release. Desperate for money, she traveled to her family home in Franklin, Indiana.
17:26 Speaker 00 Within days, she returned to St. Louis carrying deeds and real estate papers to use as collateral for the bail money which would get her husband out of jail. Among the papers was the deed for a property in Texas, the land which originally belonged to Minnie Williams. The paperwork was suspicious, but it was accepted as collateral against the $800 bail.
17:50 Speaker 00 Bail was granted on July 31, 1894, and Holmes walked out of jail once more. He couldn't believe his luck. He had charmed a real outlaw and managed to walk free just 72 hours after his second arrest. He had promised to stay in town and settle his debts with his creditors, but he vanished within hours. Holmes and Georgiana boarded a train for Philadelphia. Benjamin Pitezel planned to meet them there a few weeks later, and Holmes hoped he would finally be able to carry out his plan for a big payday. In Philadelphia, Holmes and Georgiana settled into a respectable boarding house. Holmes told everyone that he was a copy machine salesman who had contracts with the Pennsylvania Railroad and other companies.
18:35 Speaker 00 He had swindled the ABC Copier Company a couple years earlier in Chicago, and now he used the fraud as a cover story. Two weeks later, in mid-August, Benjamin Pitezel arrived in Philadelphia. He rented a small office on Callow Hill Street under the name BF Perry, and he put out a sign in the window offering patent services, including buying and selling new inventions. And to Pitezel, the patent business may have been more than just a cover for an eventual con with Holmes. For years, Pitezel had dabbled on the side with his own inventions and half-baked ideas. He wanted to be more than a small-time con artist. He wanted real success and the legitimacy of an honest living.
19:20 Speaker 00 And with a wife and five kids to provide for, stability would be nice, too. But Pitezel's family in St. Louis would quickly become confused about his situation in Philadelphia. Pitezel's family in St. Louis heard conflicting stories. His wife Carrie believed Philadelphia was a temporary stop. But as Ben wrote letters to his family throughout the second half of August, the tone of the letters swung wildly between settling permanently in Pennsylvania and returning to St. Louis sometime soon. Ben Pitezel seemed torn between continuing a life of chasing fraudulent schemes with Holmes and giving up crime altogether.
20:05 Speaker 00 And there was an added dimension to the confusion which centered on the long-planned life insurance fraud. Before Ben left St. Louis to go to Philadelphia, Ben pulled aside his eldest daughter Desi, who was about sixteen years old, and he said something curious. He told her that if she heard about his death, she shouldn't believe it. He assured her that better news would follow, it was all part of a grander plan. The conversation struck Desi strangely. Ben seemed to warn his daughter in an oblique way that the long-delayed life insurance plan would happen in Philadelphia. And it would, but not the way Ben Pitezel thought.
20:50 Speaker 00 On the last day of August, a carpenter and inventor named Eugene Smith walked into Pitezel's patent office on Callow Hill Street. Smith was eager to strike a deal. He carried patents for some homemade devices and he hoped Pitezel could help. Whatever business they transacted, it seemed typical. When Smith left the office, he had no cause for alarm. The next day, Ben Pitezel bought cigars and changed some of his money into smaller bills. Those seemed like the actions of a man who was about to take a trip, and maybe they were. According to Holmes, Pitezel showed up at Holmes' apartment that day with troubling news.
21:30 Speaker 00 Pitezel allegedly claimed he had received a telegram from St. Louis which said his infant son was sick. Pitezel urgently needed to return to his wife Carrie and the kids. The life insurance scam would have to be delayed again. The truth about the telegram is impossible to know, but it's very possible that Ben Pitezel wanted to get out of town for a little while so that he could start to disassociate himself from Holmes. If he were leaving Philadelphia as the first step of their life insurance plan, he would not have needed to tell a story about a sick child, he simply would have gone to a pre-arranged hiding spot. But maybe Holmes sensed that Pitezel was changing his mind about the plan.
22:13 Speaker 00 Maybe Holmes suddenly thought Ben Pitezel was a liability. Or maybe Holmes simply saw an opportunity to make the life insurance plan much simpler and easier.
22:24 Speaker 00 Why bother digging up a dead body and stage managing a fake death and coordinating Ben Pitezel's disappearance when Holmes could just kill Ben Pitezel for real? Pitezel had been a loyal associate for several years, but that didn't mean much to a man like Holmes. The next morning, September 2nd, Holmes told Georgiana that their business and their time in Philadelphia had come to an abrupt end. He was gonna close his local contracts, and they were gonna hit the road once more. While he finished his business that morning, she needed to pack their belongings and be ready to travel by that afternoon. With the orders issued, Holmes walked to Ben Pitezel's office on Callow Hill Street, where Ben was, regrettably, still working.
23:09 Speaker 00 If Ben Pitezel had genuinely intended to leave Philadelphia, for whatever reason, he should have left the previous day.
23:23 Speaker 00 At about 10:30 in the morning, Holmes walked up to Pitezel's office with a bottle of chloroform in his pocket. Chloroform had been a popular anesthetic in the US and Europe in the Victorian era, but its usage in medicine was being phased out by the 1890s due to the fatal risks of accidental overdose. Contrary to scenes in Hollywood movies, knocking someone out with chloroform isn't quick or easy. It takes much more than just a single whiff off of a handkerchief. In general, a person had to breathe chloroform for about five minutes before he or she passed out. In the case of an attack, that could be enough time for a victim to resist or escape.
24:04 Speaker 00 But, Ben Pitezel was known to be a heavy drinker, a fact which would be confirmed later. At 10:30 in the morning, most people would assume that Pitezel wasn't drunk, but there was no way to know for sure. If he wasn't, it appears as though Holmes convinced him to start drinking, which might not have taken much effort, or that Holmes forced him to start drinking. At some point, Ben Pitezel passed out from alcohol consumption. When Pitezel was unconscious, Holmes poisoned him with the chloroform, likely by covering Pitezel's nose and mouth with a rag that was soaked in the liquid. Pitezel inhaled the noxious fumes until his heart stopped beating. And then Holmes poured a couple more ounces of the liquid chloroform down Pitezel's throat
24:49 Speaker 00 to ensure he was dead. With the deed done, Holmes started to arrange the crime scene to look like an accidental death.
25:02 Speaker 00 Holmes arranged Pitezel's body on the floor so that the dead man was lying on his back with his arms over his chest. Holmes made a quick and crude attempt to create a scene which looked like an explosion had happened. He broke a bottle of benzene, which was a flammable liquid that was mostly used in machines, and he used it to burn the area. Then he set a charred pipe and a burned match next to Pitezel's body. Finally, he singed Pitezel's skin and hair. It's hard to know if the scene looked as unconvincing as it sounds, but Holmes must have believed it was good enough. He left his former friend's body in the office and rushed home. His wife Georgiana would say later that he returned in an agitated state.
25:47 Speaker 00 He was sweaty and anxious to leave town immediately. Nearly 12 hours later, at 10:25 PM, they left Philadelphia for Indianapolis. Holmes likely assumed it would take a while for the murder scene to be discovered, but Holmes didn't count on the enthusiasm of Eugene Smith. Smith was the inventor who had started working with Pitezel the day before the murder. Smith was keen to learn of any progress on his patents, and he turned up at Pitezel's office two days after the murder. Smith walked into the office and found a body, presumably Benjamin Pitezel, lying on the floor. Smith called the police. At the start of the investigation, a local doctor helped determine the cause of death.
26:33 Speaker 00 Judging from Pitezel's burns and the condition of the room, the doctor immediately suspected the scene was a fake. He was certain that an explosion had not killed the man on the floor. But that suspicion was overturned by the coroner's office just a day later. Likely in an attempt to expedite the death certificate, the official cause of death was labeled an accident. Holmes got lucky, at least for the moment. But in his focus on a fast, easy way to finish the life insurance scam, he probably didn't consider the full scope of the consequences. In St. Louis, there were six members of the Pitezel family, Benjamin's wife Carrie and their five children,
27:16 Speaker 00 and they were about to start asking questions. The extraordinary energy that Holmes would have to spend in order to weave a web of lies would have exhausted anyone. He needed to collect the life insurance money while telling different lies to different members of the Pitezel family. He was about to embark on a cross-country journey, and the effort would prove to be too much. He decided he would need to eliminate the Pitezel family, one by one.
28:01 Speaker 00 Next time on Infamous America, H.H. Holmes goes on the run. He shuttles members of the Pitezel family from one city to another as he tries to collect the life insurance money. It's a high-wire act with no safety net, and it will have tragic consequences for the Peitzels. That's next week on Infamous America.
28:32 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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