H.H. Holmes, Part 1 | Morbid | Forensic Files

hey weirdos I'm Ash and I'm Elena and this is officially a big series of morbid it's a multi-parter and it's like
a celebration of our [ __ ] five podcast in years guy [Music] foreign [Music] ow oh man okay death destruction you
know and they're like not yours so then it's five years we're blinding Ash right
now God I've been going through it on this podcast lately oh guys um every episode last week I was like
yeah my stomach hurts I got the stomach bug Ah that's what it was she was she was gearing up
the last episode that we did uh I got the stomach bug that night yeah so yeah so for because everybody was like huh
Ash hasn't been doing great every episode I was like I don't know my stomach is just really off really off it
was off for like a week and then I was like you know what I should do I should eat chicken and waffles yeah and then
the stomach bug said oh you thought stupid [ __ ] that's what it said yeah I heard it all the way from here yep but
yeah somehow she got the stomach bug and she kept it to herself so I appreciate that that's because you weren't anywhere
near me yeah thank goodness love you so much I love you so much I wanted to be alone
leave me alone with my norovirus hopefully you know we're getting out of that season I hope so let's let's all
just stop giving each other the stomach bug and [ __ ] be careful GI bugs are really uh they're really having a moment
right now yeah ask Beach gem on Tick Tock she'll tell you all about it oh and you know what I learned from Beach gem I
think it was Beach gem that said it I know you've said it before too but I think you said it last time you're sick
you can't use hand sanitizer virus and do you know why because it's wrapped in a lipid which is a fat look at that
which is a fat fat lipids science science with morbid and Beach gym yes you have to wash your
hands for at least 20 seconds yeah so you soap and water that'll get rid of the GI buggies but other than that
they're sticking around because yeah they're about to get gone no you said hopefully they're leaving I hope so
let's all knock on wood together April showers bring no stomach bugs except that's how that goes so it's called
setting look it up it's called manifestation okay uh so yeah this like we said this is five years guys
and I know you looked at the title of this episode so this isn't going to be a big exciting surprise right this second
but like I hope you're excited because you hit play uh you have been asking all of you a long time for five years all of
it four HH Holmes yeah I have been wanting to do HH Holmes for five years it's true but I knew it was a big long
one similar to Jack the Ripper I knew that it needed like real attention paid to it
like because it's just got so much extra Josh to it that I was like this is like
you know it's got history it's got all this Mayhem to it you gotta siphon through all the lies and find the actual
facts in the case because this [ __ ] lied like a liar like a liar he lied right to everyone's face
holes all the time I like how you're doing a lot with your hands right now and the way that you were just like
digging through the lies I'm digging it made me think of the little girl in Knocked Up and she's like and then you
dig and you dig and then the baby's inside that's exactly it you dig and you dig and you dig and you find a little of
the truth that's what they say it's a little truth baby but yeah he was a liar and I think we're gonna get right into
it I don't know how many parts this is gonna be many so just strap in I think it's at least gonna be three buckle up
good before I'll let you know probably in the next episode for sure how many of how many parts it will be but you know
strap in this is our big five year series that we wanted to give to HH Holmes because he's a piece of [ __ ] and
you know the story is wild yeah so let's start at the beginning that's a good place to
go it always is in the late 1800s Hermann Webster mudget Hermann Webster mudget take that in
H.H Holmes's real name is Herman Webster mudget so he could have been hm budget yeah wow HW budget yeah Webster yeah
okay we'll just flip it upside down I was kind of just thinking about the Real Housewives of New York when Luanne says
like the Herman Munster shoes there you go of course you are yeah but this is where we need to begin because it's like
all right so H.H Holmes made objectively is a is a cool name like H.H Holmes flows it's a very like Smooth name you
would probably trust in H.H Holmes if you didn't know this AJ Jones yeah like all this aside like every all of it of
course it would be a stage name it would like H.H Holmes sounds cool yeah Herman
Webster budget doesn't sound as scary no or maybe sounds scarier actually I should say it sounds scarier it just
sounds kind of lame but you know homes we're gonna we're gonna refer to him as home homes because that's what he went
by for most of his name that's what people knew him by that's what his crimes are really under
um we'll call him Herman for part of this like in the beginning but you'll know who we're talking about
um but AKA HH Holmes he claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people
some people most people all people believe that it could be well over 200 people that he has killed you believe
I believe he's way up there yeah I think he's more than 28. okay um well the full extent of his crimes
and the number of lives that he did take is probably something that we may never
know to the nth degree you know like when I don't think we're going to be able to find every single person I would
love to believe we could um it was really his ability to kill without conscience or hesitation really
for financial gain most of the times sometimes he did it because he just liked to do it but most of the time it
was for financial gain do you think it was like financial gain and he liked it oh it was for sure yeah it was for sure
mix and I think it was also the systematic way that he got rid of his victims in his Murder Castle which don't
worry we will get to it feels like a horror novel it doesn't feel like real life yeah when you read the actual facts
of this you're like that's not real but it is it's wild and in truth he wasn't really like a genius he wasn't as
calculating as he's really made out to be he was just a man who learned pretty early on in life that being a confident
liar can get you a long way in the world unfortunately sad but true especially if
you can create enough chaos and confusion to make it absolutely impossible to actually tell the
difference between fact fact and fiction You Ever Seen The Great Gatsby there you
go if you can spin a tale so wild that people can't tell if it's real fake what is what isn't there's nuggets of Truth
Here There and Everywhere he can he got a long way with it yeah and when we go through this you're gonna
see damn he went a long way with it I'm actually really like excited to hear your telling of this because I don't
know that much about HH Holmes to be honest he's they it's weird that like I think a lot of people a lot of people
know the name HH Holmes they know the Murder Castle you know if they know like the the things about it that we've all
been told but when you dig into it and you realize like he was not just a monster he was such a piece of [ __ ] like
he was like he was a piece of [ __ ] in every aspect of his life good it was like he was just
such a [ __ ] bag it's wild and he was such a [ __ ] liar such a liar he had no qualms about hurting everybody along
the way in various ways like emotionally financially physically anything you think like he didn't care full-blown
sociopath I think he is full-blown yeah full-blown and all he gave a [ __ ] about
was money yeah that's all he cared about and it didn't do him well in the end I feel like it you if your main goal is
just money it's never gonna work out no well if you look at like money obsessed people throughout history they usually
are like yeah it doesn't work out in the very end in the very end it might work out along the way
but in the end it doesn't it can't be your only goal no ultimately it be it ends up eating you alive it really does
now let's start at the very beginning of HH home so H.H Holmes like I said was born Hermann Webster budget in Gilmanton
New Hampshire ah [ __ ] on May 16 1861 his parents were Levi mudget and Theo date price I think that makes him a
Taurus oh there you go wow I didn't see that for him I'm gonna double check though uh but according to H.H Holmes
himself his early years in New Hampshire were quote no different from those of any other country bread boy and I was
well trained by loving and religious parents I don't know about that his parents were methodists they were very
strict disciplinarians his father Levi was a house painter and would later go on to serve as the town's postmaster and
his mother stayed at home she was a housemaker okay now they were not known to be like strange
mean to have any like dark ways about them by neighbors or anything like that according to Adam Seltzer's book H.H
Holmes this true story of the White City devil neighbors remembered the mudgets as quote very upright God-fearing
citizens living in a quiet secluded section of the country with no trace or taint of immorality or vice in the
family history for at least three generations I love that they were like now we can't
tell you about that fourth generation they could be heathens of the highest order but for three generations these
people did the damn thing and they seemed okay okay like we can vouch for three generations we're not going back
to that fourth I don't know but it's weird because you get little again with that there's a lot of parts of this
story where you hear Holmes himself tell 40 different like versions of the story
or you hear other places just give you different things you will find if you read about them that they were you know
there was nothing of note in his childhood with his parents that seem to set off anything but him saying like you
know they were good people I didn't really have anything wrong with them that is probably true remember it was
the 1800s so I'm pretty sure they were strict disciplinarians meant they beat the [ __ ] out of their kids when they got
in trouble and that was just normal back then so I think it was one of those things that it was like oh yeah
whatever and normal like all throughout his life it's just like whatever but Herman himself I'm going to call him
Herman for now I wrote an autobiography from prison later called Holmes's Own Story
and he wrote it in 1895 and he starts the book like this this will tell you everything you need to know about what
kind of theater kid this guy is uh quote come with me if you will to a tiny quiet
New England Village nestling among the picturesque rugged Hills of New Hampshire this little Hamlet has for a
century been known as Gilmanton here in the year 1861 I Hermann W mudget the author of these Pages was born
narcissist like wow okay girl calm down look look I it was I the author of these
Pages was born it's fantastic it's like and the world was the worst place for it
so thank you for bringing us back to that moment where we all went [ __ ] I also love that he starts the book with
come with me if you will everybody else is like no no we're like no no I know it
reminds me of like the in like Willy Wonka when he's like come with me like that and it feels the same like
when Willy Wonka did it I was like no thank you and now when he does it I'm like no thank you I don't anytime
someone says come with me no thank you I'm gonna go this way so like we said the budgets were a well-liked family
homes's childhood seems fairly unremarkable for the time period especially his mother had remembered him
as quote a good little child very pretty and loving as most moms remember their children
being very pretty and loving but not everyone remembered him as being so pretty or so loving as he began to get
older according to Ira Penick a cobbler in Gilmanton he said quote Herman was a hard worker but still there were some
things about him I didn't like he was too fond of money and panic told reporters that there were a lot of times
when he was around the shop that he would see money go missing when he had been around or when Herman would claim
that he'd sent payment for a service he would just pocket the money himself that's fake as [ __ ] and in fact of the
many stories that people got after he was arrested finally which we will get to in the ultimate episode at the end a
lot of people said that he was generally polite and pretty like fine like no one was like wow he was so
popular cool or oh he was so weird and odd and like we hated him yeah it was just like he was fine I guess like
whatever but they always mentioned him possessing a very unhealthy preoccupation or obsession with money
that was always the thing people were like yeah he was fine he was polite I guess like he wasn't super offensive but
like my God that guy was obsessed with money and it's like when everyone in your life that is the one like like
Common Thread that everybody can touch upon that's bad yeah you you want to be known for like a little bit more a
little bit more than Scrooge mcducking your way through life I think I like really good way of doing it was that an
ad for her yeah but by most accounts he did struggle a little to develop healthy interpersonal
skills as a child which to me would be a red flag now considering his adult activities but at the time you know also
the 1800s so like yeah was there even people to make friends with anyone having healthy interpersonal skills at
that point I don't think so but according to one of his neighbors as a boy he was quote a boy easily influenced
and did not appear to be well grounded in firm principles notwithstanding his excellent home training and instruction
so he just couldn't stand in his own convictions and honestly didn't seem to hold any real moral strongholds of his
own and that's not good that's a red flag to me but other neighbors remembered him spending a lot of time by
himself kind of being a little bit of a loner sometimes um another neighbor named Betsy Betsy
holdley [ __ ] love the name Betsy I thought you're gonna be like I know Betsy oh my God that's my good girl
that's Betsy holdley she said I don't know if you heard that pup bar but she said quote he always seemed to be by
himself I know that instead of playing with the other boys he would wander off alone or on long walks he was never much
of a favorite with the other boys he seemed to be very secretive he was too arrogant and domineering to be popular
with the children again that alone to me isn't a huge issue but added into everything else
later and it's definitely another red flag that you're like and what was he doing off that's the thing and being
secretive it's like you killing animals and also of note many who knew him as a boy later said that he would never make
eye contact when addressing children or adults would not look you in the eye he wouldn't look anyone in the eye
to me I was like oh that's that's a little sketchy but then if you read a little further into this you see that a
couple of medical professionals did diagnose him at one point with stravidmus which is technically like um
cross-eyed oh okay now this can make it nearly impossible to maintain eye contact physically and people you know
it can actually like hold people back because people think look at it as being like Oh you're sketchy or untrusted
really I just can't but it's really like he honestly just couldn't look people in
the eye oh that's so like that isn't super fair to like label as like oh that's a little like here's the thing
I'm sure he was on like he was objectively untrustworthy and objectively a criminal
so like even if he could look you in the eye I'm sure he wouldn't but right physically he couldn't so like well we
won't use that yeah we'll rest on that now although he did like to invent things when he was younger and he showed
interests in a few areas he never showed a real Direction and he seemed to kind of float around without a real purpose
for a while same it was really a bit later that he finally settled on medicine as his thing now the stories
recounted to reporters after he was arrested um are definitely influenced by what he
did and what he was charged with and what he was done so it is like a little biased when you
look at it later and people are seeing hindsight in full 2020 now remember now these things are never super red flags
until they add up and you sprinkle in some murder and then you're like oh yeah that all makes sense exactly
nevertheless people definitely all kind of came to a consensus that he was odd he was very apathetic he was [ __ ]
obsessed with money and honestly when you put that on with today's understanding of Psych the psychology of
con artists or Killers it's pretty on par lines up yeah those line up so it's not like everybody's just making [ __ ] up
this is who he was now one interesting story that's often told was that when he was a young boy
he always had like a fear of the local doctor's office which is pretty common in kids and especially I'm sure in the
1800s the local doctor's office was a scary [ __ ] nightmare Den so we just have all their like huge ass tools
laying out like I I'm not gonna fault little little Herman for that one he's like I bumped mine either like we're
gonna cut it off yeah it's like ah and this guy um his name was Dr Nahum white I believe
his last name was or his full name was and he was a known um dice like he was very into dissection
he was an anatomist he was very good at his job he was very respected but he took dissection to
another level sometimes okay so he had things in his office that would have been a little morbid Tim oh and also
like a little scary yeah for a child so that makes sense but one day a couple of older boys dragged Herman
forcibly into one of the rooms in the office and showed him a skeleton where where are all the employees yeah I
mean 1800s they're like I don't give a [ __ ] damn I love that they're just like
kid yeah we're gonna run in here real quick don't don't tell him to run in this skeleton by all accounts was set up
so that it had its arms outstretched which Herman said made it look like it was about to grab him yeah and it was
like this like big like open mouth skeleton like scary and so it scared the [ __ ] out of him like totally traumatized
him but at the same time it fascinated him okay and he said that was the beginning of his fascination with
medicine and Anatomy okay I'm sure it scared the [ __ ] out of him I don't know if that was the beginning of
his real like fascination with medicine I think he's trying to use that as like here's this origin tale of my of my
great career in medicine which was [ __ ] anyways so it's like I don't know about that well because a lot of
times you're inspired by like multiple things yeah exactly I was like no I think that you knew that doctors made
more money and so you wanted to do that yes you love a pretty coin yeah I think it's
more that my friend but during his teen years he graduated high school at 16. and he started working a number of odd
jobs and finally he ended up teaching at a local school for a little while it was
during this time where he was teaching that he fell in love with Clara lovering Clara was a girl from a prominent family
in nearby Loudon New Hampshire and now interestingly people who knew Herman early in life said that he had been
obsessed with getting married very early in life um even when he was like 14 years old he
was trying to get that Dowry he was trying to get that Dowry there you go and in fact after his grandfather passed
away his grandfather left him a small parcel of land which was very common um and he took this as like well I'm a
landowner now so I need to get myself a wife slow down so he at 14 he proposed to
this girl who was actually boarding with that cobbler Ira Penick who was like he
was a weird kiss yeah and probably stole money from me and also proposed to this
lady that was living with me when he was 14. I guess this girl that he proposed to was like visiting the country from
New York or something like was staying and boarding at Ira penics for the like some period of time sure and so Ira
penic was like yeah you can't marry this girl she's going back to New York and like I'm supposed to be taking care of
her and like you can't just like I can't like marry her off to you you psycho like what the hell what's happening so
she had apparently either accepted it and it was like a no you can't do that or she didn't accept it and the proposal
returned to New York shortly after um but he was undaunted though don't worry about it he wasn't gonna that
wasn't the end of his Romanticism but um he tried again when he met Clara lovering so Clara was very well liked
very respected people thought she was sweet and kind and really didn't have a bad thing to say about her
a neighbor once said about her quote she was a very pretty little woman when she
was first married and was very devoted to her husband she was a she was of a modest and retiring disposition okay
I that sounds great for 1800s like that's Victorian like you go girl I think she was an she was an IT girl she
went on hot girl they were like I always see her in the morning on her hot girl walk she's drinking her green that's
right she is she's getting it people said you couldn't help liking Clara oh I know apparently the two of them began
officially dating at a church social when Herman slash homes saw another boy hitting on her oh no you don't and he
basically threatened This Boy's Life if he didn't back off and that worked apparently and they make it easy and
like why did that work so well I know why wasn't that boy like you're not gonna do [ __ ] Herman you can't yeah but
this guy was probably like he probably will kill me so because a lot of people throughout his life were like I think
that guy's gonna murder people exactly like they just like thought it yeah like he didn't even need to do anything
violent he did later but when even before he was like actively outwardly violent it's like people were like I
don't know I know I just feel like he's gonna murder someone someday like he just had that
Vibe foreshadowing I I know you can't really do anything off of that Vibe like what are you supposed to do be like I
feel like you're gonna murder someone so you should get arrested yeah does worry go listen to the rewatcher
that's a funny funny little tidbit from there the air worries about him and it does worry about it but it worked for
Clara this whole threatening the guy that was hitting on her thing I mean I mean a guy that she was like all right
back in the day to fight for my office yeah two guys fighting over your life you know what's sad he's not going to no
no he's a piece of [ __ ] yeah of course uh but he proposed not long after they began quilting
and the two eloped in Alton New Hampshire in July of 1878 and they were both 17 years old
now on par with hermann's secrecy and general oddness it was several months before his family or Clara's family even
knew that they were married wow uh when they found out they because they just got married in front of like a Justice
of the piece yeah when they found out they were uh not happy on either side apparently Herman's mother
so H.H Holmes's mother said Clara couldn't have found much worse which feels like a stark turn from the
sweet family neighbors remembered from Herman being like yeah my family is so kind and wonderful I'm like your mom
didn't think this girl could find much worse than you oh that's his mom that's his mom oh [ __ ] so that's what I mean
when I say like imagine if you found out that your mom said that about you and she was like she and I guess she said
like oh she's gonna have to support you oh because she because she knew she was like he's a [ __ ] deadbeat like she's
like this he's pretty but that's pretty and he loves money but he can't get it himself so he's gonna take yours yikes
it's like damn your own mom knew that's rough but then later if you research a bit deeper into their family it seems
there was this weird strange jealousy that his mother and his sister Helen actually had whenever he found a girl
that he liked I don't like that it was something strange afoot there I'm sure of it I just don't know what
you know what though like some families are like that yeah like especially if if
there's one boy he's always like the Crown Jewel of the family and it gets weird sometimes where it's like I'm
gonna kill any girl that comes near him and stuff and it's like yeah yeah I think there's a TLC show about it it's
it's always been a weird vibe to me yeah when like it immediately makes me question when like uh like that's why I
love my mother-in-law like she was never ever like that no mine neither like it's
in fact she always is like you know thank you for making him so happy kind of thing like she's just always like so
kind and like supportive of it and she always has been yeah it's always a little off-putting to me when like
mother-in-laws or future mother-in-laws are like I'll [ __ ] kill you and it's like okay all right you like I'll see
tick tocks where like people who don't like even have kids yet they're like Someday my son I'll hate his girlfriend
yeah you're like why are you gearing up for that here's the thing like you can't
yeah period like you you can't like and you know what I'm saying no doubt you can't you cannot it's just a it's a
weird vibe it is like you should like my personal thought process with that and like we're not getting off on attention
so don't worry or maybe we are and it doesn't [ __ ] yeah Gonna Go Far don't worry but my personal thought about that
is that like I want to love the person mine I think we've talked about this before they're like I wanna love the
person my kids love of course whoever they are as long as they're a good person and they make them happy I'm like
cool eventually I get more kids like I get to be dude that's what my future mother-in-law always says Drew's
mom literally says she has six kids see and that's like it's like that you should want why wouldn't you want that
yeah that's the ultimate goal exactly I will love to love the people my loved ones love right like you know like
that's how it should be like you want to make sure they're like if they're a [ __ ]
person obviously no then no but if like they've done nothing and you're just going into it being like I'm gonna [ __ ]
your world up like that's a good way to go into any relationship and again you can you can't so so so Herman monsters
Mom you can yeah stuck at a place of Rooney you are so Herman Webster's mom you cannot and
sister you can't either yeah because that's even worse it's all just yuccas that takes it even to a weirder Place
yeah uh but Clara's family was not too pleased either but she was they were not pleased that they weren't really
established he wasn't stably working like they were like ah you guys kind of jumped into this and they were 17. yeah
I mean which at the time I guess it probably wasn't that weird in the 1800s but like they weren't I think they were
both just like I would like you guys to have like a decent life so we gotta Get You On Track so Clara's family took
matters into their own hands and set Herman up with a job as a clerk at the grocery store at a grocery store in East
Concord and it was a grocery store where Clara's family owned um and a lot of Clara's family members
worked there too and they said if he that went well working with him they got to know him better yeah that's probably
why they did that yeah and it was smart because they said one thing about him was that if he even got the slightest
compliment about anything it would blow his head up wildly oh like a very much like a narcissistic kind of vibe to it
I'm not diagnosing him don't worry but get out of your arm chair get out I'm out of my armchair but I'm just saying
he that's vibey with narcissism for sure you're definitely like a narcissism adjacent this is what I'm saying but he
lost love to be complimented okay and would obsess over it and it would just make him be like oh you know what I mean
like oh you did really great at stalking those shelves and he'd be like well that's because I'm the greatest shelf
stalker this side of the Mississippi you [ __ ] like bow down before me like you
[ __ ] it was like too much like it was never like thank you that's you should just go with but you know whatever by
all accounts at this time the couple seemed fine they seemed happy in fact people said he was seemingly in the
beginning very smitten with Clara um people said he would walk like miles to see her after work and then walk
miles back to work I hate saying oh I know because in the beginning it looks like there was intentions of possibly
living a a life with a clean you know but I think the intention was probably fleeting to the point of being like
maybe oh and it's gone like it was literally like like couldn't even couldn't even blink
without like it was that quick uh because he never had any good intentions ever again so don't worry good now a
year and a half later the couple's son Robert was born in February 1880. um in in his teens he had been like I
said very aimless didn't really know what he was doing but they said when when he got married and when he became a
father it did seem to awaken some kind of like I gotta get my [ __ ] together that's good that's usually what it
should do he wanted to be somebody he was claiming um and Holmes's position as a store
clerk didn't really give him an opportunity to like rise up the ranks in his opinion like enough and he's so and
it really was only meant to be a stepping stone because I think it was Clara's Uncle who had owned the store
and he was like I was just trying to give you this to get like a leg up yeah you know so like save some money I don't
don't worry it's like I didn't want you to take over the [ __ ] business [ __ ] well in his whole idea was like
Hey I was giving you this leg up maybe you learned this business and maybe you go open your own store somewhere yeah
maybe maybe you get to know this whole business you and then you're a store owner somewhere else right you can you
know everybody's happy and even if not that like you tuck some money away and you learned a little bit about business
you know in working with people and finances and all this stuff just about being in the Working World just being a
human you know but he homes quickly Herman I should say at this point he saw Herman but he quickly grew pretty tired
of this work he thought quote that he thought he was quote altogether too bright for the life of a country store
keeper okay in um an interview after he was arrested Clara actually said to reporters father tried to encourage him
by telling him that someday he could have a store of his own and could make a very comfortable living but he seemed to
think he was too smart for such an ordinary occupation he thought he could make a lot of money fast he became
imbued with the idea of becoming a doctor and he used the talk of the immense Fortune fortunes that Physicians
had made in a short time especially if they invented some patent medicine he became obsessed with creating some
kind of patent patented medicine I remember that part of the story now despite his penchant for get rich quick
schemes like he was that kind of guy yeah like you know those kind of people Tommy Haverford exactly he did seem at
this time that he was becoming very serious about becoming a doctor so which wasn't a get rich quick scheme
he was going to have to go through a lot of training obviously and spend a lot of
money exactly so he did quit his job at the General Store and he started studying with Dr nahim Nahum Wright who
or white excuse me who had owned that practice in Gilmanton the one who owned that office and was a um an anatomist
and he was very respected very renowned amputations though right loved amputations loved a like very morbid
dissection like he was just and he again he was a very good doctor by all accounts he was very respected held many
esteemed positions like not bad things to say about this doctor at all he just at the time was seen as someone who took
it to a different level okay now maybe it wouldn't be okay back then it was um but he started working with him he
was studying underneath him and it's funny because he came full circle back to that office with the skeleton that
scared the [ __ ] out of him that is funny well maybe that's why he said too like
oh it all started it here yeah and it's like I wonder if his like extreme dissections and extreme like um kind of
uh displays of anatomy in that office was something that Holmes suddenly found himself drawn like sparked something
within him and when he wasn't working with Dr White he would spend a ton of time studying on his own time uh medical
books any medical book he got his hands on because he just wanted to start right
away and by 1881 he took a job teaching at the potter District school in Gilmanton
which remember he had taught before um and this was like a small class of like 15 students so he didn't have a ton
that he had to do for that job so it allowed him a lot of time to study on the side okay meanwhile Clara and Robert
were living with her parents in Loudon she was essentially raising him as a single parent like he was kind of absent
from that child's life um well maybe that's a better joke maybe it was better for him but the distance
between her and Herman at the time was just getting bigger and bigger um and in the spring of 1882 Combs left
Herman left Gilmanton for Burlington Vermont and he started studying medicine at the University of Vermont so he was
even further away now it should be noted that medical schools at the time were regarded pretty dubiously if you listen
to our Birkin hair series you remember talk of Resurrection men resurrectionists or grave robbers how
could I forget Med students themselves were basically known to grave Rob for their Anatomy lessons it was almost one
of those things where like you could show how committed you were by being like I dug my own corpse for anatomy
today fantastic corpses were not easy to come by legally at the time and pre-doctors got a doctor so they're
gonna do what they got to do um I found in one of the sources that we will list in the show notes I found this
Epitaph of a nine-year-old girl named Ruth Sprague from 191846 who died in Hoosick Falls this just kind of shows
what people thought of physicians at the time it reads her body dissected by fiendish men her bones anatomized her
soul We Trust has risen to God where few Physicians were eyes oh [ __ ] but it's
like Physicians going to who I was like I don't know if that's really fair but like you're like they might save your
kid at some point I mean you at the time that's the only way they had just discovered that you can't properly teach
Physicians without dissecting corpses it's just the way it is to this day we do that because you have to right in
order to learn about the human body you gotta open the human body up it's just the way it is Hands-On baby there you go
like fortunately now it's all legal you know much more ethical much more all of that good stuff back then nothing was
legal or ethical or anything of the or [ __ ] even hygienic like it's like are they still throwing [ __ ] out the window
at this point it was Wily then like if you look up pictures I gotta find the picture and maybe we'll try to post it
of like these you know early Med students in the 1800s doing a dissection and we can like blur out the thing if
you want but I mean they even put a note exactly just so you know it's really not
gruesome to be honest but all of them are in three piece suits and just wearing like leather aprons over their
three-piece suits autopsy essentially and it's like I can't imagine eviscerating in a three-piece suit I
don't think you are meant to like that is a wild but how [ __ ] Dapper is that oh I was saying to you earlier we were
having this discussion even just like the fact like how women used to do their hair I'm like yeah I want to do my hair
like that I'm about to start [ __ ] sleeping with socks wrapped all up in this knot yeah to make it these soft
curls yes yeah I like the voluminous little things back then they they had it right I mean would I say that you should
eviscerate in a three-piece suit now no but we got cool pictures from back then so that's all that matters cheers but
either way again they were they were looked at as a little little side eye students
I just wanted to set the tone so very few peers or college faculty really seem to have even remembered Herman much from
this time period but those that did said they wasn't exactly their favorite person
he wasn't terrible he just he wasn't that great either okay um a woman named uh Mrs Brew who homes
actually boarded with for nearly his entire stay in Burlington because they Med students would stay at boarding
homes like people would keep them in there it's like Top Chef there you go she's exactly like that she's a project
there you go she remembered Herman saying that he was married because he was still married to Clara don't you
forget it technically but he was quote always flirting with a number of young girls in Burlington what a piece of poop
and he actually paid particular attention to Brew's daughter which she did not like oh no and they're living
together yes Mrs Brew also said that Herman would wake up early every morning and leave the house for what he said
were long walks for his health gotta get those steps in but yeah it's like he put
on his Apple watch and he was out there Herman on a hot trying to get that trying to close those Rings trying to
get to 10K baby on a hawk or a walk but he also would have wine with an elderly Widow every day and at first you're like
wow that's lovely but then it's like no he was just trying to get her money yeah
like he absolutely was with her even Mrs Brew was like that [ __ ] was trying to
get her money yeah like 100 you fake piece of [ __ ] it's like in Gilmore Girls when Kirk befriends elderly residents of
Stars Hollow so that he can be put in their will and get their diamonds and then he sells one to Luke later to
propose to Lorelei you know it's just like this isn't it wild that Kirk did that yeah like I love Kirk it makes
sense it really does he I think he doesn't quite get the the bad of it all exactly you know now according to Mrs
Brew um Herman was fine generally pleasant but besides being a like super flirt okay
um but she said when aroused and being aroused like us I was like I was gonna say I feel like I need to like quickly
be like she doesn't mean sexually she doesn't mean he would get like worked up borrowed
Hammond's mustache wax without asking for it permission and this led Herman to literally beat the [ __ ] out of him oh no
a huge physical altercation arose between them like they bought the two of them [ __ ] end quote the Gilmanton boy
literally cleaned up the room with his companion that's how it was described oh my God and love and I mean this is my
favorite because of what it is over because it's ridiculous and left him with black eyes and a scratched face
over a little bit of the fact that it was over mustache wax is so Victorian I can't the only thing I can think of is
that like it would have been probably pretty expensive back then and I also think he was just like a wild man yeah I
was just ready to hurt someone at a moment's notice I think you call that issues issues I think so give him a
teacher no during this time um Herman was very focused on getting through med school as quickly as
possible he wanted to start making that bank and that's like not the way that school not like quick and this was
seemingly at the cost of literally everything in his life uh well most people knew he was married to a woman in
New Hampshire he never really spoke about Clara to anyone she never visited him instead he just spent his time
studying or he would kind of just pursue subjects that he didn't think were covered well enough in school which you
would think would make him smarter but it didn't Mrs Broome Mrs Brew said quote he always pictured
himself as at the top notch of his profession I rather thought he had a very high idea of his ability that he
was self-conceited those are like the worst kind of people to be around too like you're just like oh you were like
like a know-it-all is not my faith and know it all is the worst kind of person ever they really are
we [ __ ] hate no at all I hate them all they're the worst every time I look in the mirror I'm like [ __ ] you
I love it it's not funny I'm just kidding you know you have to laugh at yourself but of of all the
subjects that he covered in med school he was really into chemistry which is why a very Grim foreshadowing of his
future activities in Chicago by the way which we will get to oh hate that can I just say yeah I [ __ ] hated chemistry
in high school I like chemistry but it was one of the hardest subjects to me I never I never understood chemistry it's
very interesting to me but it is [ __ ] hard like that was one of the subjects I
struggled with it is interesting biology I got you a biologists it's hard an organic chemistry I think that's what I
had to take actually in high school and I literally took organic chemistry in high school okay maybe not I was like
what the [ __ ] um organic chemistry just sucks I don't know whatever we took I didn't
understand but what's worse than chemistry is the other [ __ ] one that you have to take maybe it starts with a
P physics yeah [ __ ] [ __ ] this oh my God and I had this I mean like don't [ __ ]
physics like in reality because like we need it no we need so much fun but like I don't want to learn inertia who knows
her I don't know her who knows inertia I hardly know her inertia I hardly know huh
there we go don't worry I fixed it okay so loved chemistry not a great foreshadowing in the future uh Mrs Bruce
said he was just always [ __ ] around with liquids and concoctions in his room at the boarding house with like and with
with little free time he had he actually got a tutor to help him in chemistry because he was so focused on it okay Dr
J.O Lindsley who is a physician and expert in chemistry and he did this because he
thought the chem department just did a [ __ ] job he was like you're not doing enough okay that's just like who he was
like you don't know what you're doing yet so how do you know that they're not doing it right now but he quickly turned
his room at the boarding house into like a laboratory essentially um tons of bottles and all kinds of test
tubes and fluids and unlabeled [ __ ] and like just it was starting to get Wily up
in there and it scared the [ __ ] out of Mrs Brew like it would scare me too he was like she was like it was starting to
get a little too much for me I think I'm like [ __ ] in the head with like things
that I like relate other things all I can think of right now is Jack in The Nightmare Before Christmas trying to
figure out the meaning of hell or of Christmas and then Sally is Mrs Brew yeah yeah absolutely but my brain like
he's just sitting there like [ __ ] around with taking pictures in his room yeah yeah right he's like you know
dissolving Herman's like what's up [Laughter] he's not Jack Skellington I still have
Jack Skellington wild the amount of people that are in the same boat as you yeah and it was
honestly it was a foreshadowing to who I would marry because I I love me at all a
tall skeleton of a man that's what I love I love that with a great voice oh my gosh so there you go
because I loved Jack's voice and everybody on planet Earth loves John's voice I mean I can't blame you uh he
does he has a great one now according to Mrs Bruce quote Herman was fairly wild over chemistry
I love that [ __ ] used that word too like he was fairly wild she was like that dude was feral up there he was going off
but she said and he was all the time experimenting with liquids in his room and while she kind of looked at it as he
was just very committed to med school it's probably more likely that he just wanted to get as much experience with
chemistry because he wanted to patent that medicine to become [ __ ] Rich right away he knew that was the subject
he that's why he got the tutor that's everything it wasn't oh they're not doing enough at school and I'm just
really committed to my education it's like no I need to make a medicine right so I can get a million zillion dollars
fast track now he was always telling everyone at the boarding house that he knew what he was doing with the
chemicals everyone needs to chill but I don't blame everybody for being scared shitless I'd be scared that it was just
gonna explode I'm also surprised that he was allowed to have the amount of chemicals he had I know they just kind
of let it happen but also said that when he left finally that they found about three pounds of shingle
Nails hidden away in his closet I'm sorry Hua and they never understood what he had them for that's the only for the
better probably we probably don't want to know what shingle nails like big nails like I think like roofing nails
like [ __ ] all like really heavy duty nails but again very determined to get this done
as fast as possible and he was kind of overextending himself in all directions to get this done he was constantly
taking on extra work but then one day this took a very dark turn because again he's doing all this extracurricular work
on top of all his work so the darkest one might say was when Mrs Brew did her daily house cleaning
and one of these times she was sweeping upstairs and noticed a strong odor coming from Herman's bedroom
so she starts investigating the smell and she's coming over to his bed and she's like why does it smell over you
what the [ __ ] is this so she sweeps her broom under the bed and something comes
flying out and she was [ __ ] horrified to discover that when she swept out the object under the bed that was creating
the stench it was quote the body of a baby less than a year old oh my God stretched out on a board oh my
God I was not expecting that none of us were a real baby a human baby less than a year old who had obviously died was
obviously being used for dissection and he took it home but you can't be doing you can't just take it home because it
was on a board so it was obviously being a medical studied specimen quote unquote
sure to be dissected but he took it home that's not at all normal in any stretch
of any imagination or legal nope not at all she [ __ ] lost it obviously immediately confronted Fred Ingles
because that was his roommate oh yep and she was like where the [ __ ] did this come from and Fred was like uh so he
said he had quote um he had here excuse me Fred confronted Herman yeah because he was like I don't know what that is
not mine and her he said that Herman told him that he had quote brought the body in during the night and had started
to dissect it and he had no idea how or where he had acquired this body but he said quote the
site was so repulsive to him that he could not go to sleep realizing that that body had been in his room for how
long no [ __ ] way Mrs Bruce said she couldn't sleep for weeks and even like 13 years later when she talked about it
she was still like shuddering of course I can't imagine you have no idea when you're about to sweep under that from
under that bed and it's a baby and he did it again another time he brought him another baby at one point I'm surprised
not to this morning house right then air well that's the thing he never said where he got this baby but as soon as he
got back that night she was like um okay new house rule dissection of human remains cannot happen in my house
like didn't think I'd have to say that didn't think I had to add that to the lease agreement but here we are wow yeah
it's like when you see those stupid warnings on like things that are like hey don't eat this like very horrible
liquid that will turn your stomach inside out yeah and it's like someone ate that oh 100 for that to have to be a
warning or like don't stand in this trash compactor and it's like that that was because someone did it and they had
to put it down no it's true that's now that's in her lease agreement for future tenants and people are like someone did
that and we you have to agree to it though I'm that little [ __ ] that one time ate a glow stick damn yeah I forgot
about that yeah I was like very little yeah like it wasn't very recent yeah it was like five years ago
the other day no I'm just kidding it was a while ago but when the semester ended
that summer he told the Mrs brew that he would most likely not be returning to Burlington the following semester and
she was like a bite yeah and she was like that's fine and she actually said that he quote did not think that the
university here offered enough advantages for such a brilliant and promising young man that's what he
thought that's basically what he told her get out of here yeah and he was also he was also apparently disappointed with
the limited number of chemistry courses offered he's very into chemistry I wonder why and he felt that he could go
to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and that would be a better place to go with a better price I'm from
Michigan I'm from Michigan so just a few months later he followed through with the plan and he enrolled at
the University of medicine or medicine at the University of Michigan the medicine in the Michigan and the
medicine so for now he's leaving New England come back oh and throughout this entire
thing Clara has been supporting him financially by the way Clara and also raising their sons sweetie no like
literally his whole life is being supported by Clara Herman I don't know her Herman [ __ ] off so Herman relocates
to Ann Arbor in 1882 and uh despite his mom and his sister not being happy about
it Clara and the baby went with him this time how dare you live with your husband
and remember they have a weird thing you can't his mom and sister Helen never liked Clara because of that weird
jealousy thing and they would frequently encourage him to end the relationship kind meanwhile Claire is doing
everything for him but okay according to Laura young who ran the general store after Herman left she was um Clara's
cousin she said quote when Herman went to Ann Arbor to study Mrs mudget and Helen thought it was outrageous for
Clara to go with him his sister Helen made the statement long before Herman left that he was not going to live with
her any longer and she must support herself the sister used to say that Clara was not bright enough not refined
enough for Herman bet you guys regret that huh yeah because your brother turned out to be
one of the most disgusting con men and serial killers in history also outrageous
yeah Helen Clara's not bright enough or refined enough for your [ __ ] monster of a brother yeah Clara takes several
seats you wanna or not walk that statement back Helen and Mama mudget like like really that's a that's a whole
bunch of wild right there yeah that's one of those you wish you could take back that didn't age well no now Clara
began working as a dressmaker in Ann Arbor well he focused on finishing his medical degree
um but they did not have a good marriage um even before the couple left for Michigan Herman had said to Laura young
Clara's cousin quote being married would likely prevent him from rising as far in
the world as he would have let he would have otherwise and that he thought that he and Clara would not get on together
very well he is wildly narcissistic like he's literally like it's her dead weight
that's making me not rise up in the world it's like no I think you're just dumb and I don't think you're good at
this you're only moving around on her dime as well literally she's the only one doing anything and raising your
child I think she could actually launch you into success if you [ __ ] gave her a second so when they moved to Michigan
they lived in a boarding house and the other borders there said that they remembered Clara very fondly she they
said she was quote a very pleasant woman and willing to make any sacrifice that she might help homes along in his course
so they saw her as very sweet very kind and that she would do [ __ ] anything for him oh yeah they also said the
couple fought a lot and that Clara quote was sometimes seen around the rooming house with black eyes oh my God ding
ding ding he officially crossed over into monster territory what the [ __ ] so not only is he just like a lazy [ __ ]
piece of [ __ ] he's an abusive piece of [ __ ] too so we have violence [ __ ] you
Herman now Clara struggled to keep the family afloat by herself for nearly two years and the relationship was just
crumbling steadily and finally just months before Herman graduated from the University of Michigan she decided she
had [ __ ] enough abuse and she packed up the few stuff that she had and took her son back to New Hampshire I'm so
happy that she was able to do that on her own volition and later in letters she claimed that in the decade that
followed her going to New Hampshire she quote had known very little of her husband wow they actually remained
married until he was executed oh [ __ ] they never got divorced that's right he never divorced her but married several
more times that's so crazy yeah he was a piece of [ __ ] uh Upon returning to Gilmanton Clara and Robert lived with um
actually Herman's parents for a little bit until she was yeah how was that I know until she was able to find work as
a dressmaker and she relocated herself away um and once she was away from you know
the budgets I was gonna say that situation she focused only on Robert she didn't think a [ __ ] thought about
what the [ __ ] Herman was doing she didn't give a [ __ ] um and actually Claire's cousin Laura
young said even after he deserted her she never chased after him as many woman would I think however that if Clara had
followed Herman after he left her because that's the thing he had left her to go away and kind of abandoned her
while he was in school and took all her money and she just didn't left at the end yeah she really got out of there but
she said I think however that if Clara had followed Herman after he left her and went West that we never would have
heard of her again I think that he would have killed her as soon as she commenced
to to be in his way for she would have never countenanced his action absolutely because he was escalating by first he's
like talking [ __ ] about her then he starts hitting her yeah and then he we as we all know escalates to murder to
the nth degree he's cheating on her he's just like a piece of [ __ ] yeah I I have
no doubt he was very lucky to be ridden of that piece of dead weight so good for
her Clara lost like exactly 100 pounds there you go well in Burlington you're like I don't know how much he weighs but
however much he weighs that's how much she lost she lost a few Stones exactly while in Burlington Herman was a rigidly
devout student of chemistry obviously like we said but in Michigan he now shifted away from chemistry a little bit
and back to anatomy and he really liked dissecting bodies I don't love that um in fact one of the his fellow
students John Madden said quote he seemed to take a good deal of pleasure and The Uncanny things of the dissecting
room that's what it I mean when you look at it now hindsight is 20 20 and you're
like oh yeah that's [ __ ] up but like yeah I don't know dissection is interesting I can't really like say it's
not but the fact that he's a murderer makes that weird I've never dissected anything no it's definitely interesting
if you're doing it for the right purpose yeah for like biology and [ __ ] yeah but
he also was quote that um John Madden fellow student was quoted as saying Holmes talked a great deal about what he
had done in the dissecting room with what appeared to me at the time unnecessary Gusto and told me that the
professor of anatomy at the time was to permit him to take the body of an infant
home with him for dissection during the spring vacation which was to begin the following day I asked where he would
find a place to carry on his work without offending his neighbors and he replied with something to the fact that
he would find a place so see it happened again where he asked to take home an infant why is it an infant I don't know
but it's weird do you think I feel weird saying this but do you think it's like an infant is easy to carry home versus
an actual body I guess or I mean that makes absolute logical sense like logistically that does make sense yeah
but events are also very hard to dissect I I would think like it's not an easy evisceration or dissection for they're
they're tiny you know like it's all time it's and it's upsetting yeah it's more upsetting any human dissection has an
element of upset sadness to it but it's like a baby is a whole different level and I would think that you would want to
to learn on a full grown body because you're gonna I would think learn more except well there's just certain thing I
mean at least you would think he would try it out I don't know though it's just a strange
thing of strange Quirk yeah um but all in all he was said to be a pretty below average student which is
very interesting with all his extra work and everything I don't know maybe it's that he like he
wasn't staying focused on actually I think that's exactly like taking the right steps like he was going to to Z
when he should have been at F exactly I think it was he was concentrating on what he wanted out of it and not what he
needed to get out of it and a lot of times you need like the foundations to build upon and he's building with no
Foundation exactly I don't think he was really focusing on the curriculum I think he was just looking at what he
wanted which was chemistry so he could patent a medication and he was looking at Anatomy because I think he was
starting to feel some type of way and I think he was only focusing on the things
that he wanted for different reasons and not for a medical degree to become a doctor to help people because does he
ever become a doctor he does oh he does okay yeah he graduates okay and he does like he
works as a doctor for a little bit oh okay but he's really a fraudster yeah it always
one teacher even voted against him graduating so really he graduated by the skin of his [ __ ] teeth [ __ ] he was
not good at medicine he was not he was not very Adept at it and one student described him hilariously
um as quote he was distinctly what might be termed dumb he was slow to grasp ideas and not ready at all in reasoning
okay which is funny to hear considering he's an actual piece of [ __ ] yeah you're
dumb exactly um well and he like thinks he's so [ __ ] oh he thinks he is the gift uh this is huh also hilarious and
disgusting but another said he was below mediocre another student also said that
he smelled strange and that he had a nickname oh do you want to know what his nickname was of course I want to know
his nickname was smegma [Music] please look that up if you don't know what it is
just Google it and look at the first definition that comes up and then we'll look at the first definition that comes
up anyway give you an idea of what he smelled like apparently why did you smell like that
oh my God I can't even say that out loud that's why I did it I'm just gonna encourage you all my hands smell like
four skins you know when you say a smell and then you feel as though and this is what this
gave me joy because it's like the great H.H Holmes the like Infamous like criminal of the century was called
smegma that's by his peers in med school so this little [ __ ] is nothing nothing
but a foreskin smelling below average student who couldn't even keep his first wife that's really [ __ ] gross yeah so
moving on from that now without Clara supporting his stupid ass uh Herman was forced to find his own [ __ ] job and
support himself while he finished the degree I'm still really affected so he now founded his own job with William
Herdman who was an anatomy instructor with the university and he worked as his assistant
he was responsible to like you know menial things like tending to the horses doing his errands but he also prepared
the bodies and assisted in the dissecting room um at this point maybe he had plans to uh murder and
defraud on like a galactic scale later perhaps but I think it was more that this was kind of the training along with
the whole chemistry Obsession this is all the stuff that just kind of like slowly put the pieces together for him
to become that later I don't know if he had all that in mind quite yet I don't think he really had the foresight
probably came over time um but it was also at this time that he claims he and his classmates first came
up with the idea of Faking a death and then using a body as proof to defraud an insurance company which became his thing
that's not good um also in 1884 Holmes was uh in some serious trouble he had to defend himself before the Medical
Faculty after being charged with breach of Promise breach of Promise he got himself a breach notice
to get because they're usually [ __ ] uh usually so he married this one I think was real
though so he married he's married to Clara he's married to Clara hasn't divorced her hasn't legally separated
from her in any way fantastic married until he was executed remember that well he's staying now at a boarding house and
the person who owns this house is a widow who also was a hair stylist by the name Mrs Fitch
she and him started a relationship they started sleeping together girly he smells like smegma and he made the
promise of marriage to her probably to get her into bed and to get her money that's definitely what it was to make
her sleep with him he was like I will marry you of course I'll make you an honest woman back in these days that's
[ __ ] serious that's serious business you can't be married to someone else and promise marriage to another just to get
them into bed that's not just like distasteful and bad that's like can't you like hang for that [ __ ] back then
it's a I mean I don't know if you can hang for it but you're not gonna graduate medical school that's for sure
it's adultery isn't it it's yeah yeah so Mrs Fitch found a letter he was writing
to his actual wife Clara at the time who he was still talking to and corresponding with and kind of like
stringing along a bit oh and she ran to the medical Factor faculty and was like look at this look at this and then also
showed them a proposal letter he had written to her like written down the proposal signed it with his name well
she said this is breach of Promise he promised me marriage and he's married to another
and if found guilty he would not be allowed to graduate medical school in everything he had done would be for
[ __ ] not so how did this [ __ ] dance his way around that so he denied it all and his professor professor Herman who
he was assisting under her assistant he came to his defense and he vouched for him saying he thought he was truthful he
was like he's an upstanding guy I've never had a problem with him I didn't you know I don't believe that this is
real well Holmes got off on the charges and poor Mrs Fitch was left to look like
a liar so he graduates he's able to graduate on [ __ ] graduation day he shakes Professor Herman's hand or excuse
me Professor um his name was not Professor Hermann uh no not Herman it was Herdman excuse me oh so I was close
it's like you heard with her you heard man uh but if you heard but he shakes Professor herdman's hand and says Doctor
those things are true that that woman said about me so he allowed this man to vouch for him
why then on the day of graduation was like haha [ __ ] that's like that is such a dick move because like shaking
his hand is one thing when you're a [ __ ] when you lied to his [ __ ] face you're
shaking his hand and being like hey [ __ ] you lied for me technically I didn't even realize it wow that's [ __ ]
and Herdman later said that this was the first moment that he realized that Holmes was quote a scoundrel yeah and he
later find out found out that he was more of a scoundrel because after this he dug a little deeper and found out
that Herman Holmes there had burglarized his home herdman's home yep and while staying with him once in an extra
bedroom yep he had pried open a locked drawer and he didn't see that what was that guy's name the tree guy oh the tree
guy oh my God that episode man uh was it Matthew Holmes homes oh my God what the [ __ ] was it Matthew was it
Matthew Hall right now I feel like potentially my [ __ ] thumbs can't even go fast
enough if that's the same that's an Australian actor hold on thanks for letting me regret this like
what a piece of [ __ ] wow I'm trying to like think of anybody that I can even compare that to right it's just so dirty
it is such a dirty down and dirty now Herman graduated from the University of Michigan in the late spring of 1884 and
almost immediately he relocated to more mowers Forks yeah girl you did that not sure if I said that you did it's a tiny
hamlet in Upstate New York um it had previously been um part of a larger town of Champlain oh okay so once
there he opened a small tree nursery uh yeah he got weird with it like Matthew Hoffman did yeah he got a little
weird with it not as weird as Matthew Hoffman did I will say um because he just kind of abandoned it
a few months it wasn't profitable so he just abandoned it okay but like what a weird little direction to take
um and he does that to everything in his life that doesn't serve him how he wants
it to he just abandons it good at one point he hired a primary school teacher named Minnie Everett for French lessons
um she terminated that relationship pretty quickly because she said quote and at the time she said this there is
something lurking in that man's character that Time Will Reveal oh I do not like him I firmly believe that he
would commit murder wow Minnie like you were just here to teach him French what made you think
he's gonna Revolt to murder and for her to say that Time Will Reveal like it hasn't happened yet but something's
thumbs in there I love that she was a full-blown witch oh a full-blown woman you can't tell me anything no Minnie
Everett she knew oh there's been people that I've said that but not the murder thing but like that's the best feeling
when you're like I [ __ ] knew you I had your number the second I saw you you have done that a couple of times that
that were like chef's kiss perfect oh my gosh thank you like enough first you're like no it's
fine and then later you're like what the [ __ ] how did you know that yep sometimes
I just get a Vibe you just you didn't I bet many was an empath she definitely was anyway he also aggressively refused
to leave her alone after this for some time so he was a stalker as well fantastic uh yeah he's a little [ __ ]
but after this failure Holmes petitioned The Local School trustees to hire him on
and he was put in charge of the primary school like he was able to get a lot of he's one of those that you're like how
were you able to get all these things but it's oh it's he's a con man yeah and he saved money doing this he was able to
save a lot of money and he opened his own Medical Practice that's terrifying uh during this early period in New York
he kind of perpetrated a small but kind of big medical con it was his first one um so a smallpox scare broke out in this
town and people were urging residents to get vaccinated against smallpox and he saw this as an opportunity so he
somehow got his hands probably by stealing on a load of vaccines and he loaded up a wagon and he went door to
door through the northern part of the state vaccinate vaccinizing vaccinating residents and telling him that it was
mandatory oh and he was quote representing himself as an authorized official of the Board of Health he made
the people think that it was compulsory and in every household he managed to get
several cases for which he charged 25 cents each so at the time no one questioned his
authority or asked to see his credentials they just allowed it if this man's is trying to poke you with a
needle yeah you've got to ask for a cred that's for anything ask his name as for
his library card and literally anything priced on a cracker everybody he made a lot of money doing it though but and
obviously people must have been terrified so they probably were like just vaccinate me but that's what that's
what he felt he prayed on he loved praying on that kind of [ __ ] wow so that was his first medical con can you
imagine a big if that should still happen today like knock knock I'm sure to vaccinate you and no I don't have any
ideas don't ask me about it please leave like no I'd love your credit credentials
thank you but back in his medical office he started setting up a laboratory because he was really trying to get that
patented medicine he was gonna get rich from it and to help him with this he was
said to have brought in to stay with him for a while his six-year-old son Robert
no no no no no and he quote and put him to work in the laboratory putting up in putting up in bottles the liquid which
Hermann manufactured although he never sold any of these things that he made like he just couldn't get the right
concoction together sure he definitely tried um but he also couldn't convince anybody
to try any of his cares because people didn't trust him I mean they were like many came to teach him French and she
was like You're a murderer yeah like You're a murderer Minnie knows but what's weird about him is he's somewhat
out of an anomaly in the sense that he was a get rich quick guy and he was a con man but he also didn't shy away from
hard work like he would work yeah like he's very strange in that way like he doesn't have that like like cut
and dry get rich quick personality right it's it's strange but it should be said
that well he claimed the boy in his company was his son there is a lot of speculation that this
was a completely unrelated boy who disappeared a little while after this oh no according to the New York's top New
York Times there was a report filed shortly after he was arrested like way later
um and it said that after he left his teaching position in New York that he had quote went home went to
Massachusetts hey yo but returned in a short time accompanied by a small boy who
disappeared shortly after his arrival Holmes saying he had gone home it doesn't appear that any investigation
went into this boy's Identity or disappearance and nobody really went further into it but if this boy has what
like was part of something nefarious then he was his first victim holy [ __ ] and they were never able to confirm
whether that was Robert or not and you would think it would be as easy as like somebody reaching out to Clara
yeah and it's like I don't I think this might have been a boy that he took wow and used until he didn't eat anymore
I hope not I hope it was Robert and that he just went to Massachusetts I hope so
too like that's honestly I'm hoping that but I don't know I can't be sure because he's such a piece of
[ __ ] right it was also in New York that there were rumors about his um inappropriate behavior with women
um an inappropriate like he was a pig and on several occasions he was known to have treated out of town women for
what's only referred to as organic trouble in his office what is organic not sure and there were rumors that they
were all like that these women were treated and then disappeared because they were from a house of ill repute oh
you know so they were treated as less dead yeah but there was never any confirmation of this no identities that
we can like hang our hats on but definitely happened it probably happened and there were reports of Herman Payne
quote violent attention to a young woman named Alan what who eventually left town
and was never heard from again oh hopefully she actually did leave town yeah and actually there were rumors
around this New York town that Holmes had actually married her but they said that like there was rumors that he had
married her but then there was rumors that she left town but the ones that everybody kind of sits on is that she
probably met a Sinister end at his hands it kind of sounds that and they just couldn't prove it and especially she was
never found again yeah like that's definitely he did something especially if he had already killed that boy yeah
something happened here right there's that's what I mean when I say there's definitely more over the ones he
confessed to and are confirmed right and I think a lot of people think that now despite
honestly referring to him as a hard worker and a generally like fine man aside from his like preoccupation with
like out of town women and being a little weird um residents found something just
off-putting about him right like people around him were like he was never like mean outwardly to
people who he didn't do like you know he was a little weird but like not like super stranger eccentric like there was
just something about his like Minnie said there was just something that was going to be revealed but you just didn't
know what was and women in the village begin sharing stories of his you know unwanted advances and the men began
noticing a growing trend of homes ignoring deaths and making false promises to pay for things and but he
always had an excuse of course you always had an excuse so he was a woman he was getting the reputation of being a
pig men he's getting the reputation of being a [ __ ] deadbeat so on one occasion his landlord confronted him and
was like Hey you haven't paid your rent and I've tried to get you to pay your rent for like [ __ ] months oh [ __ ] and
he said it was and he had come forward to him when he knew he had plenty of money he was like the dog he's a doctor
like I know he has money and he said quote the doctor would stand quietly by and hear himself called a scoundrel and
a swindler in the strongest terms then the tears would appear in the doctor's eyes and trickle down his cheeks but he
never said a word in reply so he would just sit there and let people be like you're a [ __ ]
scoundrel you're a swindler you're a piece of [ __ ] like you're just like you're a dead people and he would just
sit there and cry and never say anything that's very strange right and also like
sad but like I don't want to feel sad no he's no because I think it's fake it's fake as [ __ ] those tears are crocodile
tears my friend he would cry because he knew it was going to disarm anybody around him to see this Mustachio
gentleman weeping openly after being called a scoundrel after refusing to pay for things he should have [ __ ] paid
for well I think he's especially a physician yeah they were probably like what is happening right now back then
they're like a man crying what so strange I think only did it just to disarm everybody and probably he was
just hinged I feel yeah he's [ __ ] monster but he took similar approaches with his medical office landlord because
he always had an excuse for not paying and then he would make empty promises to pay and then he would just cry when he
was confronted or he would go into a rage sometimes when he was confronted and they would just be like forget it
well I was going to say that some people cry when they're mad and it could be that he was just trying to like keep it
together but he was crying right um and at one point he produced a letter that supposedly was sent from someone in
Gilmanton where he was from claiming his uncle had died and left him a substantial inheritance which he said oh
see I'll be able to pay you yeah you just have to open the email attachment yeah just look at this yeah open that
email attachment it's definitely not a scam your Royal uncle has passed it exactly so Herman's reputation in this
New York village continued to decline towards the end of his residency in the village and not long before leaving he
was involved in a scheme that was to avoid paying his debts that definitely will give you a little bit of a
foreshadow into his later crimes according to the Daily Boston Globe there was an older Soldier a veteran
living in town who had for several months been dealing with like an unknown illness it was like a shuddering cough a
lot of pain and the doctors kept trying to tell him it was malaria but this Soldier said no that's not it he refused
to believe this diagnosis and he believed that it was being caused by an injury he had received during the war he
said he'd gotten shot there was a bullet lodged in his lungs in his like the area
of his ribs and he said it's pressing his ribs against my lungs and it's making it hard for me to breathe I know
that's what it is oh but ultimately he was dying so it really didn't matter to him personally what was going on but if
the injury was the result of him serving in the war in the military his widow when he passed away was going to be
granted his full pension so he wanted to make sure which I'm like I'm like I know and this poor man is like I want
my wife and my family to get all of that money yeah so I need to make sure that I'm diagnosed before I die correctly
like he was doing this only for them I'm like what a good man also what a [ __ ] like I know future to face so
for that reason he asked um Herman's landlord Edward Steele to be present for his autopsy which I'm like oh my God
yeah imagine having to ask that no but this but Edward Steele couldn't come to the autopsy so it was conducted without
him there and again his cause of death was labeled as malaria so Edward Steele felt horrible and he was desperate to
make sure this Widow got the full pension so he asked Herman to do a second autopsy with him to help him and
he was like of course I will I love dissection so when he so steals like okay you finish it you tell me what you
think I want to see what you have to say about this so we asked them for the results at the end of it and Herman
looks at him and says yeah I have evidence but only I'll only give it to you so he's already extorting him yep if
that my rent is paid in full we like I'll only do my job if you pay my rent like you're asking me to help
out of the goodness of my heart which I don't know this Widow to make sure he had this man's dying wish your I have
evidence that could help this but I want you can give it to you if you say that my rent is paid in full what a [ __ ]
jackass and he said if you don't do that I'm Gonna Keep the evidence of the autopsy and the Widow won't get the full
pension and I don't give a [ __ ] oh my God and the evidence he had he had the actual ribs he had evidence that they
were pressing against them correct wow he kept those broken ribs because Edward Steele looked at him and was like go
[ __ ] yourself yeah you I'll figure out another way to get her her pension and you know what he did thank you he got
that Widow his pension and Holmes Herman there Herman [ __ ] budget he kept those two broken ribs what a
[ __ ] no one knows what he did with them but he kept those [ __ ] ribs he never
gave them over crazy person like what that's so weird like what yeah so shortly after he had done this you
know extorted false evidence for payment of his rent yeah he tried to leave this
Village without saying anything to anyone or paying any of his debts he was just gonna leave all of it behind and
although his landlord literally found him loading the wagon and being like hi you still owe me all this money he
couldn't really stop him like he just the last anyone heard from him from this Village was a letter sent from Tilton
New Hampshire saying he had business to attend in New Hampshire and he would be in touch to settle his deaths at a
future date doubt it ding ding ding he never did now after leaving Holmes returned to New
Hampshire briefly and just tried to take full custody of Robert yeah wow why not no you know I haven't
been part of his life for six years but why not no uh and again Claire and he were technically still married so he
never actually lost custody of him right he just abandoned them um it's unclear what actually happened
here but Clara ended up taking their son to her father's house and he left the state so like she was like no good track
she's like you're a murderous piece of [ __ ] no you can't have our son but he definitely tried to and without a job
now or any source of income he said um quote starvation was staring me in the face I doubt it and he sold his horses
in Tilton and he boarded a train for Pennsylvania and when he left New Hampshire for the last time he wanted to
leave behind everything meaning he wanted to leave behind Hermann Webster budget oh he was now going to be known
formally as Dr Henry Howard Holmes HH home do you have any idea how he came up with that name I do not he just
wanted HHH yeah sounds like H.H Holmes is a I don't know how I mean I think he just made it he thought it sounded good
there's all kinds of speculation that he used uh Sherlock Holmes as his uh inspiration but that wasn't published
until a year after oh so Preston incorrect so I think it was just it was a name he came up with I guess
okay unfortunately a good one uh so he homes now arrived in Norristown Pennsylvania which is a town just
outside of Philadelphia in the fall of 1885 and he found the city uh wasn't as bumpin as he thought it was gonna be a
lot fewer opportunities than he was expecting wow this place is bumping wow guys this place is so bumping
oh secret bump I suppose but that was great a lot isn't really known about this time period
um there is some evidence that suggests that just days after having arrived he walked into the police precinct and told
officers there that he was quote on the verge of starvation and had come here with the express intentions of
committing suicide that's a quote um I don't know if that actually happened that is a report police
officers did say that happened so who knows what that was about um they took pity on him and they let
him stay in the station while they tried to find him some work and they ended up
finding him work in the Norristown State Hospital which was a state-funded psychiatric hospital a few miles from
Philadelphia so I thought that would never happen today well that's here's the thing as he either because it's not
clear if that particular part happened yeah there's some stories like that that I don't know if that was later concocted
by him to um gain some sympathy right but he did get a job working at this Hospital you
just don't know how yeah this is the story he tells uh like I wouldn't believe [ __ ] that comes out of here yeah
I don't know if I buy that like that such pity on you you poor lad but no matter what he did get work at the
Norristown state hospital um and years later in his autobiography Holmes said that it was a very troubling
experience for him he said quote so terrible was it that for years afterwards even now sometimes I see
their faces in my sleep good the patients at this psychiatric hospital I'm glad he was haunted now after just a
few months in Norristown he actually abandoned that job at the state hospital because that's what he does and found a
new position at a pharmacy in Philadelphia which is much more his speed as would become his Mo this job
also didn't last long and there was some mysterious [ __ ] that happened before he
left it right bro he abandoned the job and Philadelphia completely after a local boy died after taking some
medicine purchased from Homes at the pharmacy oh he claimed he had nothing to do with the medicine nothing to do with
the boy's death but it definitely put a black mark on his already questionable reputation and there really wasn't a
future hint for him in Philadelphia after this because people were like no thank you yeah like we're all set yeah
I'm doing an X sign with my fingers just so you know everyone went no thank you get away from us so this is when the
idea of Faking a death and using a substitute dead body to defraud insurance came back around they had
talked about it a little in college it's coming back and Holmes now is ready to do it okay because now he's like I've
tried this working thing for a minute or two too hard and it's hard so let's just
scam insurance money please now Aqua money so according to him he apparently contacted an old college friend which
imagine how hard that was back in the day yeah you had to really want to contact someone I think that all the
time when I'm driving and I have my GPS on I'm like how the [ __ ] would I ever get anywhere yeah I wouldn't know where
anything like how do people do that how do you do it Maps either way he was also his friend was in
Dire Straits financially as well and they decided that they would get one more friend involved and this other
friend was going to be the one to increase his life insurance to forty thousand dollars at the time and he
would do this by telling the insurance company that he dealt with some kind of life-altering experience that made him
concerned for his family's well-being so he wanted to opt the amount I feel like
you might need to get a little more specific than that I guess back that insurance was just like sure thing buddy
yeah now he would then later this man the plan was to send his wife and child Somewhere Out West near California and
he was going to fake confess via letter that he had killed them both in some kind of alcohol-induced frenzy an ad
that he had dismembered and pickled their bodies Christ I figured that was to make sure he didn't have to show
bodies to insurance but like that's not the case which is weird and then he was going to have claimed to have killed
himself in the note this friend okay then the money would go to a quote unquote relative of this man wink wink
nudge nudge his friends and he would move out to where his very much alive wife and kid were live with some of the
money that was shelled out to him it was going to be between the three of them you know live in obscurity that's
something I've never thought of like if you murder your family and You're a murderer who gets your life insurance
payout like will like do you get a payout if you've murdered somebody no I don't think you get it if you were like
but no but like the person so like if you have murdered and then yeah killed yourself whoever is in your policy gets
that exactly I know it is weird right and that's what that's what they banked on was like they
could control who he wrote down in his policy right now me thinking the dismemberment detail was to make sure he
didn't have to show bodies apparently that wasn't right they had to show bodies regardless three bodies which
meant they were gonna have to procure three imposter dead bodies including a child and put them in a pickle jar and
like I was like you would have to dismember them yeah that's a lot so he went to minneana so at this time so this
is what they wanted to do plan the whole thing out so Holmes had went to Minneapolis and Chicago during
this time I don't know I said Minneapolis Minneapolis you know that's what I meant
I was gonna let it go and then I was thinking the world you know I was glad you correct thank you because that's I
rolled over and I said Ah that's not a big deal then I said yep that's a big deal then I went back mini apples is
what I meant in Chicago during this time and he was able to get a job as a drug clerk in a pharmacy and according to him
he was able to procure bodies pretty easily by buying them from med school Anatomy rooms at the time because now he
had money Mr Burke Mr head exactly now also that was just very easy to do back then so that would be well know he got
two bodies okay he was able to buy two bodies probably adult ones I assume and put them into barrels which he stored in
a room at the McCoy Hotel in Chicago damn but apparently after hearing or reading about how well insurance
companies checked into cases like this and would like require a lot of uh evidence and proof right he decided they
should abandon the whole idea now he had two bodies now yeah so this is when he says okay well that's I
just said like oh no and I just buried those bodies in my basement like not a big deal this story people believe was
possibly concocted and changed a bit to help him explain why there were a lot of
bones found buried in his Chicago place oh good he they were probably the result
of something even more Sinister just what we don't know but he wanted to make it look like well I purchased bodies
legally and I just buried them down there because we decided not to go ahead with the scheme like don't [ __ ] put
those on me buddy and it's like I know I think you killed those people like there's a lot to unpack here that's the
thing like he'll he comes out with things and it's like legal right I did illegally and it's like no I think you
killed them and I think you're so good at lying that's the only thing you are good at is you're making this story up
so that we don't question those bones in the basement but in reality if they had
questioned those bones in the basement which they didn't in time to identify them or figure something out we probably
would have figured out that those were missing people probably hundo P guarantee you damn so he leaves
Philadelphia in the spring of 1886 after are definitely murdering people and he eventually settled in Inglewood a
Suburban neighborhood on the south side of Chicago and this is where [ __ ] really
starts to get wild and it's where you're gonna it is because the Chicago Chronicles are
really where it's a whole new era are the Chicago Chronicles bumpin they're uh they're bumping in some way not in a
good one I sure did that was something you know the Bumpits are coming back that's
upsetting yeah that's an upsetting episode that's it bye just kidding uh but yeah stay tuned
for part two and um he gets worse and worse so fantastic yeah happy anniversary to us yay five
years woohoo thanks guys we love you and we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird but that's weird that
this entire time every single time Elena has said something about him writing his
own autobiography all you can think of is Ashley Simpson singing autobiography while Henry Holmes or is that his name
Henry yeah well he writes his autobiography and he's like that's all I've been thinking bye
[Music] come on [Music]

When Boston police arrested Dr. Henry Howard Holmes in a West End boarding house on November 17, 1894, they assumed they had apprehended an interstate criminal guilty of defrauding the Fidelity Insurance company of $10,000 and of being a horse thief in Texas. Holmes had been tracked to New England by the Pinkerton Detective Agency, who had suspected him of other crimes in various cities across the country; yet even the most seasoned and creative detective couldn’t have imagined the horrific scope and magnitude of crimes he’d committed.

Thanks Dave for this magnificent synopsis!

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Brief Summary

Hosts Ash and Elena celebrate five years by discussing H.H. Holmes's life, crimes, and notorious Murder Castle, setting the stage for future episodes.

Key points

The Truth About H.H. Holmes. Exploring the notorious serial killer's life and the lies he told.
Celebrating Five Years of Morbid. Ash and Elena kick off a multi-part series to celebrate their podcast's five-year anniversary.
The Start of a Dark Fascination. H.H. Holmes' childhood fear of doctors leads to a fascination with medicine.
The Secret Marriage. Herman and Clara eloped at 17, keeping their marriage hidden from their families.
Herman's Ambition. Dissatisfied with his clerk job, Herman aspired to become a doctor, seeking quick wealth.
Herman's Deception Unveiled. Herman's charm hides a dark truth: he was after money from an elderly widow.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

He was a piece of [ __ ] in every aspect of his life.

Describing H.H. Holmes' character

8:32WatchMay 9, 2023

Tension

45/ 100Some tension

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