H.H. Holmes, Part 4 | Morbid | Forensic Files

hey weirdos I'm Elena I'm Ash and this is morbid [Music] yeah be it sounded like you were gonna
say Mario like this is Marvin I was just saying it annoying no this is never I had just quite the moment while we
were getting set up here yeah Ash was knocking [ __ ] over she was falling out of her seat Mikey's computer started and
it did the like and I thought he burped and I was like oh my God and then I was like wait that's a computer that's a
computer and then my [ __ ] iced coffee went sailing across the Galaxy and I'm just
sitting over here with the microphone in my laptop and I'm like can we start she's like I'm ready she's like this is
why I don't do group projects people like you Ash people like you I always want that [ __ ] at a group
project just like it's just a wreck knocking [ __ ] over my ice coffee's falling
falling all right um so so we're in part four um yeah she is gonna make it five times
yeah I apologize I can't I just can't cram it all into this episode it would be too much too much for you to
comprehend too much for me to comprehend really and it's definitely it's too much
it's just I'm not gonna cram it into one episode just to do that it would be it would be not as good I think in my
opinion uh so I am going to make it five and I'm Gonna Keep the Jack the Ripper stuff for part five because I I want to
find us a ship manifest that I've been seeing Rumblings of but I can't seem to find the actual ship manifest which
seems to be a lot of the uh issue in the Jack the Ripper theories is a lot of people say stuff but it's not bad no
one's got any documentation to back it up so it's like oh yeah I think there was a home's ownership on the way to UK
like during that whole thing and you're like whoa and then it's just like Brian where's that it's like and it's also
like homes was a very common name back exactly that's why he chose it so it's like I don't know about that imagine
that but we'll get to it we're gonna get further into that next episode we will end at five don't worry I'm not gonna
take this like the longest series we've ever had um we'll just tie it with Jack we'll
just tie it with Jack it's it's pretty much up there um but in this one we're gonna talk
about several murders okay that he committed uh pretty brutal ones they're all pretty brutal but these ones
involve children so yeah he's a real monster like a real monster well I mean he murdered his uh pregnant mistress so
yeah he's [ __ ] terrible that'll do it and the child in that situation uh poor Pearl I know you know I've been I can't
stop thinking about that name ever since it's such a cute name yeah and like those kind of girls are coming back now
yeah like old-timing cute old lady names yeah but you know what when we last left
you guys I'll give you a little recap because I know there's a lot to take in in this series so I think it's probably
helpful to be like this is what happened in the last time I need the recap even if you don't even I need it uh Holmes
married again yeah he's married again remember he is uh still married to Marta still married to Clara and now Georgiana
Georgiana is now his new wife uh he fake married Minnie who he killed and her sister yeah he's real married Georgiana
though he real married Georgiana in Colorado yes look at me there you go so he has plot so he married again he's
plotted to take the inherited land from his new wife Georgiana she stands to get
some inherited land from her dead grandmother so he's plotting to take that he has sent Benjamin pyzel to
Fourth Fort Worth Texas to start getting the new Texas Murder Castle underway like he's ready to start this whole
process over with a whole other Murder Castle in the same way yep um he's doing that on the land that he
made Minnie Williams transfer into he and Benjamin's aliases names after he and then he murdered her now he's
seeming to begin to turn on Benjamin a little bit after they both decided collectively to defraud an insurance
company by faking Benjamin's death and using another corpse to pretend it's his I feel like it's not gonna be fake yeah
it's looking like Benjamin's time as his Lackey is coming to a tragic end yeah at
this point I had a feeling this episode was going to be yeah hi-centric yeah it's not it's not great for that entire
family to be quite honest uh By the time Holmes and Georgiana arrived in Fort Worth to claim the the land deeded to
him by many pythal had already been there for a few weeks he was there with his young son Howard just getting things
together so when he first got to Texas pyzell had to receive the land deeded to his Alias
Benton Lyman and he had to transfer it back again to Holmes okay now initially I'll just give you a little rundown of
how it initially happened so you remember Minnie was to transfer it into Holmes's
Alias who she didn't know she she thought this was another buyer then that Alias of Holmes was deeding it into
Benjamin pyzel's Alias of Benjamin of Benton Lyman yes so now that Benton Lyman has it he now has to deed it back
into real Holmes's name it's funny I wonder if any of I don't know exactly how any of that works but if somebody
looking at that deed switching hands constantly like thought anything about that yeah I think honestly I think it's
just the time period they were able to get away with this a lot easier nowadays obviously it would be like flagged you
would think the first time it went into an alias I think people would be like wait a second what's going on right
there like it would at least be like looked at this time and instead of um like H.H homes they put it into Harry
Holmes's name and this deed like this deed has been like like you said like somebody you would
think somebody would maybe catch but again I think it's just the time period even back then though I'm like damn you
didn't think that was weird it's been like six times yeah because like this deed has been around more times than a
Broadway show yeah like it truly has and from there piedcell selected a parcel of
land on the corner of second and Rusk streets and that's where they were gonna put the Murder Castle
the castle was going to be built under the watch of construction superintendent h.m Pratt and guess who that was uh H
Holmes yep that was another one of his aliases this is Messy as [ __ ] now he is
so he has 40 plus aliases that's so crazy and he basically started doing the same [ __ ] he did in Chicago with the
construction of this one he wanted to build another Murder Castle so he had to be weird and sneaky about it so he would
fire the workers every now and then to keep the plans from being fully realized he did however switch up his game a
little and he started out actually paying people huh that's which is shocking weird but then he was right
back on his [ __ ] and stopped he was like that sucks yeah he was like oh I don't like that I don't not like that
and he had a million excuses for why he couldn't pay on time and he also went back to taking out loans and buying
furniture and fixtures for the building on credit and then he would just not pay
and then he would just hide hide the items from the creditors when they came to take them back this man gives me so
much anxiety running from these creditors yeah and he's just and he's doing the most because he's made places
in this Castle now where he's hiding all these Furnishings yeah exactly now unfortunately for him Holmes was not
going to stick around in Texas long enough to see this Castle actually come to fruition what happened uh in the
spring of 1894 he and piedcell began that scheme this is the beginning not of the insurance fraud scheme it's the
beginning of the scheme that would kind of unravel everything for him the scheme
before the scheme after that scheme and around the time of that other scheme this scheme was they would travel around
the state buying horses and they would buy these horses with worthless promissory notes and deeds not cash so
like bad checks essentially basically and then they would sell them for cash and move on before the seller figured
out that they'd been scammed oh but this plan fell apart when they were both arrested like idiots oh [ __ ] yeah once
they were because it was a shitty plan to begin with somebody was going to catch on and once they were out on bond
investigators now we're like huh we should begin looking into these guys a little bit more because homes they were
like yeah he has a few things on his records here so it was definitely going to bring more
detectives on his tail and he doesn't want that and Gathering up just some of their belongings and all the money that
Holmes had managed to raise at this point for the castle Holmes and Georgiana fled out of Texas for Saint
Louis with a brief stop in Denver along the way okay so they're running all around and does she know she knows about
the scheme obviously because now she's on the run with him we don't know what she knew okay it's one of those things
where like I don't know yeah I don't know what she knew yeah that's fair maybe she did not
real sure Georgie didn't know she she knew something but I don't know what she knew
okay at this point Holmes was on the run now for two crimes he was on the Run still in from Chicago for the arson of
the original oh my God I literally yes and now he's on the run for horse thievery
horses and arson that I'm saying so you would think he would run as far away as possible from the two places he
committed the two things he's on the run about Chicago and Texas but no after he
fled Texas they went to St Louis and Saint Louis is four hours from Chicago technically don't you think you would
just like go to Europe and it's like that's the thing and it's 12 hours from Texas obviously these two things are on
in like car you know which like at the time it's not really relevant but it's like they're not crazy far it's not like
across the country you know what I mean so it's like that's weird that you didn't go further away I guess that's
the thing like even try California yeah just some or even like Massachusetts like get out of there yeah he's already
been there like go back but I mean don't I don't want you here but they probably
didn't want to because he has a wife there that's true and his new wife might not like that his old wife is there
there's a lot going on but he had to have a reason and that for like going to St Louis and that reason was that
Georgiana was turning 25 in the fall and that was when she was going to inherit the rest of the estate left her by her
grandmother in Indiana so he was obviously planning to take the entire inheritance for himself alone so he
wanted to stay closer to Indiana to wait and then pounce on that when she turned
25 and he was just gonna like throw her down a shoe he's so gross he really is well in St Louis he called himself is it
St Louis or St Louis I say St Louis I say St Louis I'm sure I will get yelled at for that but like I
don't I think it's probably interchangeable I'm asking Mikey about it because I should you know what I always
think of Meet Me In St Louis isn't that like a a musical or something um I don't know I feel like that's a
musical I believe you you have more musical knowledge than I do um am I thinking something different I
feel like I need to confirm this with myself I think of um [ __ ] Jennifer Hudson and that's what I'm thinking in
St Louis hold on I'm gonna just check this really really time does it have Judy Garland is in it I'm pretty sure I
you're asking the wrong girly about a musical yeah it's a thing but now I'm like is it called me me and say Louie or
Meet Me In St Louis throw on the pronouncenames.com for the people in the back pronounce names.com Louis this is
real time right I feel like this is gonna prove me wrong and it's gonna be upsetting
yeah [ __ ] guys and I always believe that guy because he sounds like Jack Pepin
and I believe everything he says I believe that man so uh St Louis so that french guy I believe and he said St
Louis I don't know it could be either one maybe if it's like if you're from there
you say it maybe I don't know and I'm not from there so it's not you know it's not my business but uh St Louis I'll say
now okay I've said it both ways now so I've covered all bases so here we are uh after arriving in settling in St Louis
in the Saint Place yeah um so while he's there he called himself h.m Howard are you sure it's not Howard
is it Howard maybe a word as hm Howard she bought a drugstore again on the corner of 14th and North
Market Streets because remember he's taken money that he raised for the Murder Castle he didn't do that he's run
to St Louis St Louis and now he has bought another place a drugstore to run okay
yeah quote unquote run into the ground uh when he bought it he told the seller that he just wanted something to quote
unquote occupy his attention and that he really didn't care a lot about Prophets
was because he was just he's he's well off he doesn't give a [ __ ] about it he's
in it for the fun he's in it for the fun of a drugstore the fun that a drugstore
can provide this is a great [ __ ] time all right you can get anything you need there I'm saying that's what he's in for
it and he used a little cash to buy it but then he bought the rest of it with ding ding ding useless promissory notes
and stock he also like you have the money to spend and like plenty left over just do it the
right way brother he's greedy as [ __ ] him he is Scrooge McDuck literally he is
swimming in a bunch of gold coins and he's not giving them up but he's not cute that's true uh but yeah he did the same
old thing he bought furniture and fixings for the store on credit no intention of paying for it stupid stupid
stupid soon after arriving and settling there Benjamin paitzell joined them he had moved there with his wife Carrie
and their five children oh yeah this was when Holmes let Benjamin's wife Carrie and on the plan
that he and her husband were working on they needed her help with it their plan was to defraud the Fidelity mutual
insurance company by faking Ben's death they needed her in on it because they needed to fake his death they needed her
to help you're not gonna fool Fidelity mutual though and they did not I don't feel it uh but meanwhile Holmes was also
already on the path of selling the pharmacy and then running away from the massive debt that he had compiled with
the pharmacy everywhere so he's just like oops that sucked and now we're gonna run away from that and it's on to
the next thing it's just amazing the anxiety right filled life he must have lived like it created for himself
and he just keeps inviting yeah but I don't think he I think in the end it seems like he became anxious and he
became paranoid and it started to in the beginning I think he was having a [ __ ] blast with it because I don't
think anything was catching up to him in the beginning well and I think in the beginning there was less to keep track
of and then it just kept piling on and now he's basically like negating States out of his available Paths of Escape
he's snowballing like it's getting the mess is getting bigger and bigger as it rolls down the [ __ ] Hill he's
blacklisting himself out of several States and it's like I assume there's not going to be many left and they're
all like in the middle yeah but Holmes and bite cell bought um found a buyer for the drugstore but in order
to buy the store the man had to take a loan from A supplier and when he did this he had to promise that supplier
that they would be his main supplier that was kind of the part of the whole thing that makes sense and that was in
exchange for the money they were gonna pay the problem however was that Holmes already had a mortgage on the store
which meant that any additional mortgage on the same property would have been illegal and invalid so when the new
buyer became aware of the situation he immediately alerted authorities and he was like this is trying to [ __ ] scam
me and Holmes was arrested on fraud charges oops and this is in St Louis St Louis they
say Louis St Louis this is when he was so he bought this drugstore had no intention of running it properly he did
all the same [ __ ] bought it with worthless notes bought the fixings for it with all [ __ ] credit that he
wasn't paying and then he tries to sell it to somebody illegally and he doesn't think that this person he thought he was
so much smarter than everybody around him that was it's very it's pretty par for the course with serial killers I
feel like they always think they're smarter than everybody and No One's Gonna outsmart me and it's like you're a
[ __ ] idiot like narcissism you're not smart no you're cunning and there's a [ __ ] but you are not smart like
there's not you're an idiot and it's like and you're greedy your gluttonous and it gets and it's gonna catch up to
you it will always catch up and it does because this guy who was buying the pharmacy was like [ __ ] you you're trying
to Swindle me you dick so he called the authorities and boom authorities hello this man's trying to scam me this
man is trying to swim to Swindle me they're like sir this is St Louis are you all right but this is not great
like a fake like transatlantic accident that like doesn't exist he's like Madonna yeah what's what's going on
right now so is this like a bit so he's like no I'm just SNL I'm really upset so
he was in jail for two weeks and was finally bonded out by Georgiana oh man oh yeah because she got it yeah I don't
know what Georgiana knew you know she said about things though we say about Georgiana hmm
a little bit about it I'm not gonna say she I don't know what she knew because I'm not in giorgiana's head I'm gonna
put my sunglasses on roll up my window and say I don't know her I don't know her so I don't know uh but the day she
bonded him out they went to the train station and we're intending to flee right back to Chicago but you're wanted
there too brother and what they were gonna do there was regroup kind of formulate the next part of a uh giant
[ __ ] up plan but their plan was not gonna happen because before the train even left the [ __ ] station they were
stopped by a police sergeant and the police sergeant said that he was afraid the proposed trip would have to be
postponed and then he placed Holmes under arrest again after he literally just got out like that morning literally
like got out walked to the train station and they were like no so they're like back to jail this is Monopoly according
to news reports at the time Georgiana quote protested in the most indignant Manner and became almost hysterical and
denounced the arrest as persecution Georgie calm down so off he goes back to jail and they set bill at eight hundred
dollars which at that point was fifty thousand dollars at present they were like you're [ __ ] up and we're not
letting you out of here uh no one had that cash at the time so Georgiana went to Indiana and retrieved the deed to
some of the land she was going to be inheriting and that was going to be accepted as sufficient collateral okay
it was it's old-timey they were gonna hand over a deed to land it makes sense he was released from custody the next
day damn so he had only spent a couple of weeks in jail before that but he made some networking moves once he was in
there because we know homes always is closing just working on a pyramid scheme even in the walls of the prison he's an
idiot but he's a hard-working idiot cunning uh he connected with other inmates and he started getting them into
future schemes with him like promising them things that he couldn't deliver of course one of these convicts was a
Outlaw and bank robber named Marion hedgepeth Holmes told him about his scheme to
defraud the insurance company by faking pietzel's death passing off another body
as his and then he was like we're gonna flee the country after that because I've kind of used up a lot of
these states and I should probably get out now according to hedgepath Holmes offered to bring him in on the scheme
but he was like no I'm good like even he was like I think you're dumb like I don't think this is gonna work out for
you there was something about Holmes that he was concerned about and like there was also like a pesky little
detail that Marion was serving a 25-year sentence so like you don't really know how we're gonna
cut you into this he wasn't going to be scheming outside of those walls not for a while but he did direct homes to a
very um uh this lawyer agreed to help homes in pietzel pull off the insurance scheme
once they arrived in Philadelphia that'll get you d-barred uh he was morally gray maybe an understatement the
morally corrupt very uh unscrupulous I would say oh I love that but yeah that's a good word unscrupulous uh but
hedgepath later told reporters quote I am now convinced that he would sooner or later have murdered me had I been able
to accompany him on his his intended trip abroad which one said this hedgepath though 25-year sentence yeah I
was like I don't think you had to worry you weren't getting out of jail my guy but so on July 29th Benjamin pitzel left
St Louis St Louis and he told his wife I'm just covering my bases uh he told his wife he was taking a brief trip to
purchase some Lumber in Chicago but he was actually headed to Philadelphia where he was going to meet up with
Holmes oh yeah now meanwhile as soon as Holmes was bonded out of jail he and Georgiana left St Louis St Louis and
headed to Philadelphia to meet with Benjamin pyzel along the way they stopped in Indiana to visit georgiana's
Mother where Holmes told her they were going to be traveling to Germany to look after his uncle's property woof so she
she shouldn't be alarmed at all if she doesn't hear from Georgiana for a while he was fully planning on murdering
Georgiana and she was fully planning on spending the rest of her life with him even like in his outlawish ways yeah now
Georgiana did stay behind in Phil in Indiana a little bit just for a little while just like visit with family while
Holmes went straight to Philadelphia after this to start the whole scam so Benjamin pyzel got to Philadelphia on
August 17 1894. within a couple of days he opened a business and it was a patent business
under the name BF Perry another area another another one yeah this is what Holmes had told him to do once he'd
established himself the plan was that how the unscrupulous the morally gray lawyer was going to help them get a
fresh corpse that was similar looking to Benjamin why does this lawyer have a corpse connect not real sure a lot of
people had corpse connects back then yeah we don't love it yeah the plan was to place this body this look-alike
corpse in the patent laboratory in the building that he owned then caused an explosion in the building
disfiguring the corpse so much that they could pass it off as pyzel's body without a lot of Suspicion and then once
they'd faked his death pythal was going to go into hiding and Holmes and pietzel's wife Carrie would split the
ten thousand dollar insurance payout yeah right baby those are taking that full 10. sounds great but for all you
yeah on the morning of September 1st the doorbell rang at the apartment homes was
sharing with Georgiana and he went downstairs to open the door and it it was the police he came back inside and
he told Georgiana that the man at the door was from the Pennsylvania Railroad Company
he said he had been working with them on a contract to sell copiers Chris remember he had a weird copier business
at one point no I literally forgot that he like it was a fake copier business like ABC copiers or something like that
but he's like oh yeah he's it's this guy he's like works for the railroad company
just like you know we have a contract we're gonna sell copiers that's what he told Georgiana that's why I say I don't
know what Georgiana knew she knew some things but he would lie to her about a lot of things totally because later
Holmes told investigators that this man was actually Benjamin pyzel at the door and he had come to tell Holmes that
unfortunately his youngest child Wharton was sick and his wife had asked him to actually return to St Louis St Louis and
help with the children yeah so he was like I can't do this scheme with you I have to leave and take care of my kid
this was really going to [ __ ] up Holmes's plans and immediately he made the decision that pytzel was not
leaving Philly oh [ __ ] so this man comes to homes and says my youngest child is sick in this
in Holmes is like you're not leaving and I'm gonna make sure do you think that he
was worried that pythal was starting to freak out and was gonna like alert authorities he was probably worried of
that and he was pissed yeah his plan was [ __ ] up one thing about Holmes was like don't double cross him don't [ __ ]
with him don't [ __ ] with his schemes if you even show slight backing out or and
even for valid reasons even if you're saying my kid is sick I gotta leave he's like betrayal like he immediately looks
at that as like you don't value our [ __ ] here as much as you should I know yeah that don't understand when your kid
is sick yeah and then they're like betrayal like betrayal I'm gonna [ __ ] you over now put that on a list
somewhere exactly it's crazy so that's exactly what happened was he was like oh your kid is sick I'm gonna [ __ ] your
world up now and it's like oh okay he's just trying to go home and be a dad but like okay but like [ __ ] him right yeah
[ __ ] him so he was I think he was just really [ __ ] mad that he [ __ ] up his
plan and he figured that actually killing Benjamin would probably be easier than faking it at this point and
since he was mad already he was like I want to kill him now so then you have to worry about his whole family which I
have a feeling he will yeah he's not too worried about his whole family um in his later confession Holmes said
that pietzel sent quote discouraging letters purporting to be from his wife that caused by cell to begin drinking
heavily okay then he claimed that on the second September or um yeah September 2nd he showed up at the BF Perry
laboratory and found paitzell in a drunken stupor that's what he's claiming is confession so the next day he said he
was upset about his wife and what was going on and then we found him in a drunken stupor at the laboratory and he
said quote this was an easy matter as I was acquainted with his habits and so sure was I of finding him thus
incapacitated that when the day Came Upon which it was convenient for me to kill him even before I went to his house
I packed my trunk and made other arrangements to leave Philadelphia in A hurried flight immediately after his
death wow so he's literally like it was very convenient for me to kill him the next day because I knew he was so upset
about his child that he was going to be drunk at the laboratory and I was already on my way and I was already
ready to kill him so I figured I'd just pack everything up and be ready to go you got a friend yeah like holy [ __ ]
Jesus Christ so according to the confession Holmes said he entered the um he entered the building he went to the
second floor and that's where he found paitzell passed out he said quote only one difficulty presented itself it was
necessary for me to kill him in such a manner that no struggle or movement of his body should occur
that's the only issue not that you're murdering your long time not at all a friend and Associate basically and
father of five yeah basically he had to kill him and make it look like an accident or suicide instead of murder
and that was his concern so he tied his hands and feet and then he soaked his entire body in like in um I think it was
Ben what was it Benzene it was like some chemical and then he just burned him alive yeah that'll look like suicide
burned him alive that's so horrific he burned this man alive like didn't light the building on fire
just burned him alive first and then was gonna like building on fire so didn't even bother to light the building on
fire and leave he burned this man alive in front of him I feel like he had to have done something like so [ __ ] up
like that to somebody before like more obviously putting somebody in that enclosed room is [ __ ] up but even like
more than that because you know just burn your [ __ ] friend yeah associate and just be like well moving on well in
his confession he said so horrible of this torture that in writing of it I've been tempted to attribute his death to
some Humane means not with us not with a wish to spare myself but because I fear
that it will not be believed that one can be so heartless and depraved so do you think he really did do that then or
do you think he's bluffing he definitely oh he definitely did it's like absolutely it's like proven yeah so once
the body was sufficiently disfigured and basically burned beyond recognition Holmes claimed that he removed the
bindings from his wrists and ankles and then he said he quote poured into his stomach
one in one half ounces of chloroform so that at the time of the postmortem examination the coroner's physician
would be warranted in reporting that the death was accidental what so once he'd burned the body Holmes
threw things around and ransacked the room to make it look like an accidental explosion had caused damage to the
remains then he went further and he had like a detailed narrative to the scene he broke the bottle of chloroform in
Benzene that he had used then left an extinguished match near the spilled liquid so it made it look like pyth cell
had attempted to light his pipe too close to the flammable liquids and caused an explosion that actually is
like like I would never think to do something it kind of worked it makes sense like it was a that this is what I
mean like he's a [ __ ] idiot but he's but he's cunning but unfortunately he's smart when it comes to [ __ ] terrible
[ __ ] Street smarts yeah now with pietzel dead and murdered and the scene looking
to be an accident he rushed back to the apartment and told Georgiana that he closed the deal on the copiers and they
would be leaving for Indianapolis immediate so he'd already set that that whole thing up oh I closed that deal
that I told you about yesterday and in his mind he's like yeah I closed yeah he also also told her that if anyone
asked she should tell them that they were Bound for Harrisburg Pennsylvania okay and he explained this by saying
that the Saint Louis Saint Louis stuff wasn't fully settled and if too many people knew where they were he could be
arrested again so off the and she was like okay so off they went that evening and they boarded
the 10 25 PM train to Indianapolis you have to imagine she probably was scared of him yeah
and that's probably why she didn't if she for sure questioned things she wasn't gonna ask she was just like you
know what I don't want to be part of this let me keep my nose clean now two days later pyzel's body was discovered
by Eugene Smith who was a local inventor in the area who'd been in to talk to and
see BF Perry a week or so earlier now he had stopped in to speak with Perry a few times since
the man had opened the patent laboratory and he was really excited because they had kind of talked about him making
money off of some of his inventions now they were going to patent some of them so the morning of September 4th he tried
to walk into the patent office to speak to him but the door was locked this was strange to him because it was during
working hours so he called the police they sent officer George Lewis and he broke down the door
he found Benjamin pytzel's rotting body on the second floor of the apartment and
as far as anyone knew BF Perry was last seen alive on Saturday September 1st that's when the last people had seen him
alive besides homes um I think it was a delivery boy that had brought a message that day that was
the last person who had seen him um that message that was brought to him it's like even worse because that was a
telegram they believe from Kerry pietzel informing them him of Wharton's illness
so they think no the last person to see him besides homes was that little message boy the telegram boy yeah
telegram was the real telegram saying that Wharton was sick oh no it's just like really sad because he was trying to
get home to that child um pytale was discovered quote lying on his back on the floor with his right
hand clasped over his heart and what appeared to be blood about his head given the way that the scene looked to
detectives it was pretty much assumed that he had been holding in his right hand a bottle of benzene and was in the
act of lighting his pipe when a terrible explosion occurred knocking him to the floor
uh the body was brought in for an autopsy in the corner he was not so sure he could not identify
the cause of death he was like I can't say for sure what this cause of death is I feel like it could be something else
why why did he pour chloroform into his stomach I think it was like I don't know
if it was because it meant like um it would look like he inhaled the chloroform when the ex when that
happened he did it too close to the liquids okay or maybe he was trying to make it look like a um suicide as well
like maybe they would muddle the findings a little bit okay there was an inquest in the corner Dr William Scott
testified quote I went to the house expecting to find a man burned to death or blown to death by an explosion
instead we found the face discolored and distorted or full of pools the odor was
terrible his tongue was swollen and stuck out of his mouth and red fluid issued from his mouth any little
pressure on the stomach or over the chest here would cause this fluid to flow more rapidly
it just didn't make sense to him as it was being presented as an accident right he said the state of the room didn't
really jive with him either he thought it was very staged it didn't look like an explosion caused everything he said
it looked like somebody had just thrown [ __ ] around yeah but it was the chloroform in the stomach that actually
set off the most alarm bells that I had a feeling because it's just random as [ __ ] so yeah so um as a coroner he was
aware that if pyth Cell had ingested the chloroform before his death the harsh chemical would have caused a
lot of irritation to the stomach lining but when the stomach contents was observed there was no irritation that's
because it was put in his body after his death and it was clear now Scott couldn't be certain What
specifically had caused the man's death because it was so badly disfigured but they were pretty sure it had happened
suddenly and was not the result of an explosion now despite this testimony by this
coroner the jury delivered quote a verdict of death from inhalation of flames or from some poison the character
of which is unknown I can understand why the jury was confused because there's just so many elements to that to
understand well in what's worse is his body was held at the morgue for a few days and then it was just buried in an
unmarked popper Potter's grave oh because nobody knew because he's not nobody knows he's fight cell so at the
time it's kind of seeming like his plan is going to work here because he's going
to be able to use this right you know so while this was all happening and a jury
is trying to determine whether this man they know is BF Perry was murdered or killed by accident Holmes is on his way
back from Indianapolis to St Louis St Louis now where he's going to meet Carrie pyzell because remember she was
there she was trying to get paid sell back to St Louis St Louis and she knows about the plan plan now unfortunately
for homes word of pietzel's death had reached the family before he could get there to break the news and he found
Carrie piedcell inconsolable oh like inconsolable I can't imagine now Holmes decided because people knew that like he
was using that Alias so it was getting around people back home yeah so Holmes decided to just lie to Carrie and
insisted that her husband was actually alive and that he was in hiding until they
were going to be able to get that ten thousand dollars so he was basically like no this is no the plan is going to
court like don't worry that we want you to believe that it was him that's the whole plan but they said we need to get
the ten thousand dollars first once we get that from the insurance then he'll come out of hiding and then he said but
in order to do that someone has to go to Philadelphia and claim the body as Benjamin pyzel okay he's so [ __ ] evil
he is so Carrie giving her hope that she's gonna get find her husband again yeah now Carrie was concerned about
traveling to St Louis from St Louis St Louis to Philadelphia because her child is sick and also he didn't want her to
go there because that could muddle some things so he was like who can we get that can be like a little bit down a
level from Carrie a little more so Holm convinced her to send in pietzel's teenage daughter Alice was going to use
a kid and he even claimed that the girl could stay with his cousin no Minnie Willie Williams no no no no no she's
dead yep well she was in Philadelphia no this way he could still stay on track to
get the money from insurance but in the meantime jeapta Howe the gray why are there so many characters the morally
gray lawyer the morally corrupt your house he started drafting documents that would give him power of attorney over
carry that would be necessary to claim the entire ten thousand dollars for homes not a POA nope so six days after
his death Fidelity mutual insurance received a telegram reporting that the dead man from Philadelphia known as BF
Perry was probably Benjamin pitzel this is so much how did you even [ __ ] research it's insane and they said
Benjamin pyzel has actually a large insurance policy with your insurance company so the death was still looked at
as suspicious so agents at Fidelity mutual were like we would like a little more information before we pay out this
policy right so they looked further and saw that the only other name listed on the policy was H.H Holmes his actual
name his actual name so they went about finding homes and to do this they sent a
letter to murta in wilmet his wife murder's still alive she's still alive right okay I don't know what happened
there but after a little bit of a delay Holmes did get in touch with Fidelity I don't know if Merta just called him and
was like hey I just got this letter only a little bit I think it was one of those things where it was like they she
probably knew that he was gone yeah but like it's weird okay but yeah exactly my
oh my is correct now Holmes replies to the Fidelity Insurance company and tells the agent that he'd only just learned
that the body was in Philadelphia so he said I'll go there immediately and we will identify this man and get back to
you okay now again Holmes wouldn't allow Carrie to identify the body and Carrie really didn't want to leave her kid
anyway and she probably wouldn't have wanted to see that body yeah so he told the he told the insurance company that
he she was too ill to come okay and you know he was gonna have to go but they were like no you can't just go and
that's when they were like you need to bring a family member and he was like I'll bring Alice especially because he's
the one listed so of course he's gonna be like yeah that's him yeah that's totally fine on September 20th Holmes
met Alice pietzel and Jeb to Howe in Philadelphia and she wrote a letter to Carrie her mother later and she said of
meeting homes she referred to him as Mr Howard she said quote I don't like him to call me babe and child and dear and
all such trash she's like [ __ ] this guy she thought he was a pig like she knew
right away she had his number yep a few days later Alison Howe the lawyer show up at the Fidelity mutual office Holmes
joins them there and they all provided the agents with like some like um notable like things that would that
would basically identify but yeah exactly I was trying to think of the word uh that would identify this as
Benjamin Pizza okay um things of this were uh like he had a mole on his back he had a scar on his
leg he had a twisted fingernail that had occurred out of an accident oh that's interesting and he had very unusual
dentition he had a lot of spaces in his teeth okay so a lot of very particular things his dentition just what your
teeth look like yeah I've never heard it really yeah uh it's delay it's a nice word it feels solution dentition you
have nice competition over there anything that ends in shun yeah I always feel has a nice like the body had been
exhumed now uh and when they got to the cemetery uh it had been moved to a shed and was it being examined by Dr matern
nice in the show and that happened a lot that happened a lot I Know Jack the Ripper case I know I remember seeing
like yeah in the body in the shed yeah and the corner is just doing an autopsy in a shed by being in the shed Dr matern
was the other coroner who was with Dr Scott that did the original autopsy um by that time his remains were in an
advanced state of decomposition one would think and they were given the description the unique marks on the body
but my turn insisted the state of the remains kinda made it impossible to positively identify the body at at once
at one point the doctor couldn't find the big scar that they were talking about that was supposed to be on his leg
Holmes was present for this and he got frustrated and impatient and he grabbed the leg apparently rubbed the flesh so
that the burned layer of skin moved away and then revealed the scar he's a [ __ ] monster and then was like
do you see this is Benjamin pyzel we told you like was pissed and was like here it is I figured it out like oh my
God who who like show does that show us how money hungry you are without doing Among Us does that not I not even the
coroner was willing to do that he was like no I okay but at that point they were like all right before Alice being
there and having to see that that's her father yep and they were like okay cool that you think it's him Alice what do
you think you're the determining Factor if you say this is not your father it's not she must have been scared yeah so
apparently again pytel had that unique set of teeth yeah so um a lot of spaces which were very easily identifiable and
apparently Dr matern was the only one who actually gave a [ __ ] about Alice and
they had to present this body to her and have her look at the teeth and they said
before doing that he removed quote as well as he could everything that was repulsive from the mouse and then he
asked Alice look at the teeth and she said she looked into his mouth and she told the doctor that the teeth quote
appeared to be like her Papa's and then she left the shadow now the agents from Fidelity mutual
waited a full day and then they let Allison Howe know that they found Alice's identification satisfactory
so typically these kind of claims are very slow and methodical to be processed but for good reason lawyer Howe there he
appealed to the agents and he said the pipe cells are very poor they have a sick kid they could use the money as
soon as possible can you can you expedite it yeah so after a little discussion they agreed to pay the claim
immediately and they took out any of the costs that they had to use to identify the remains you know everyone in that
Fidelity office was like what the [ __ ] is going on they were like some [ __ ] is
going down the break room was popping it was the water cooler it was bubbling the
coffee was filled to the board they were all like something stinky like you want
to go to the pub later to talk about this [ __ ] seriously so right away a check was written to Carrie piedzel but
that check was given right to homes and the check was in the amount of 9715.85 because they took out the costs
that they had to use to exhume and identify the Box must have been so much a lot of money so with that check Holmes
immediately boarded a train for St Louis St Louis and he was going to deliver that check to Carrie but have her
immediately give the money back to him so he wrote a letter to the company also by the way and he wrote it as Carrie
thanking them for the prompt payment and they used that letter in promotional materials for a little while oh my God
yikes they used a [ __ ] letter from H.H Holmes they had no idea now Holmes's plan had always been to claim the money
from the insurance scam and then flee to Europe right and that's where he was you
know none of the creditors nobody was going to be able to get him there so it's strange that during this return
trip from Philadelphia he sent a letter to his brother in Gilmanton to let him know that he would be returning to
Gilmanton in the coming days remember that he had a brother yeah Holmes told his brother he'd been on a trip to
Minneapolis in 1888 and when he was there a train crashed and for the six years that followed he'd been suffering
from Amnesia incorrect and he said he'd regained his memory and he was planning to return home to just
resume his life with Clara and Robbie what is this about what because he had like no he didn't have any plans to do
he had no plans did he just pour it on a Tuesday now when Holmes arrived in St Louis St Louis with the money from the
insurance payout he gave two thousand five hundred dollars to jump to Howe as payment I'm surprised I know that and he
only gave 500 to carry and he said that the remaining 6700 for himself was because her her husband had owed him
money and had outstanding debts and that was he was going to take what a piece of
absolute dung yeah and she just had to accept it elephant dung how about that now what's worse
is Carrie's husband Benjamin now has to be in hiding and they have to go get him
out of hiding but he's still in hiding right now and she's got five kids that she's trying to support that now she has
like almost no income doing right so she's panicking she's like I can't do this oh my God and Holmes like you know
what it might be better if uh I took your 12 year old Nelly and your eight-year-old Howard and they could
come live with their sister Alice in Indiana for a little while and they can be looked after by my cousin Minnie
Williams who's dead until Benjamin comes out of hiding and then you can all re rejoin together so what you're telling
me is he was like I'm gonna kill these kids now Carrie piedzel agreed because she probably had no other choice at that
point yeah and on September 27th she transferred custody of Nellie and Howard to Holmes and he sent a telegram to
Alice in Indianapolis telling her to be ready to leave the following day because
they were going to go stay in Indiana they were going to go stay with Minnie Williams
now on September 28th Alice met Holmes and her two younger siblings at the train station in Indianapolis and the
four of them went to Cincinnati okay I know now we're in Ohio once there he registered at the Atlantic house
under the name Alexander cook and he got the kids settled and then he wired Georgiana and asked that she come to
join them all so he explained that he had come into some money because remember Georgiana
was staying with some family in Indiana so he explained that he had come into some money from someone purchasing the
land in Fort Worth okay I know there's a lot that's what I mean when I say I'm not cramming everything into one episode
because there's enough with just this no there is just enough places enough people he's traveling everywhere do you
see my eyes every now and again just like adding it up in my head I was like okay that's where we are and that's why
I'm like it just needs to be consumed in in bits so that you can understand where
he is at any given time no I'm happy about the way that you're doing it because I I would turn off at some point
and just be like I don't know that's this one's different from Jack the Ripper obviously in a lot of ways but
like very Larry Jack the Ripper was at least like White Chapel yeah right we are in White Chapel we're in [ __ ]
Massachusetts then we're in here we're in Ohio then we're in Philadelphia literally we're in so many other places
Colorado Chicago Texas Indiana Cincinnati St Louis see what I knew of the H.H Holmes story was just the murder
just Chicago like that's all I knew because he's known as like the Chicago serial killer but really he was
everywhere he was now it was at this time that Holmes was becoming really paranoid I can as you can imagine blood
is being piled on now and I feel like he he let too many people in on this way too many people he's done it across way
too many states yup he's caused way too many wires to cross he's been in jail a few times now yeah he's starting to
crack a little bit and according to Adam Seltzer who we uh linked that Source in
the in the show notes Holmes claim that he received tips that detectives were on
his tail right and it was starting to get to him um I don't know how much he knew whether
he was you know just operating purely out of paranoria or he was actually like had the facts but he was being pursued
by a lot of different agencies so and now the Fidelity mutual insurance company was added to that list because
now they were like something's awry here now what made them feel that way so I'll
tell you so in early October the lead detective with the Fidelity mutual insurance company w e Gary got a
telegram telegram not a telegram this telegram was from Lawrence Harrigan who is the
chief of the St Louis St Louis Police uh this telegram from the chief of police was letting him know that a
prince prisoner in Saint Louis Saint Louis had come forward with information that basically alluded to the fact that
the Fidelity Insurance company had recently been defrauded in a big way I knew that [ __ ] was going to come
forward and try to get some [ __ ] off his 25-year sentence yeah right it was for
Marion had stuff uh who's his cellmate why would you not why are you interested like if you're going to tell anybody
tell somebody with like three years so they have something to look forward to but this guy's got nothing to lose he
doesn't give a [ __ ] and everything to gain because he's giving information he's thinking like oh let me help you
out and get a couple years off my sentence yep in the letter the telegram gave all the details of the scheme that
Holmes had told him about how they were gonna fake pythal's death for money and at the time he had offered hedgepeth
five hundred dollars for his part in it which would be to recommend an attorney of ill repute which she did hedgepeth
claimed that he really didn't think Holmes would attempt it he thought he was just like I'll talk bluffing but
then a few weeks later his lawyer Howe told him quote that he had never heard of a finer or smoother piece of work and
that he was sure to work and it was sure to work and that Howard H.H Holmes was one of the smoothest and slickest man
that he had ever heard tell of so Hal was already singing his Praises like weeks later so Marion hedgepeth likely
felt compelled to inform authorities of this just to get something out of it obviously he was also salty because he
was never given his 500 and it seemed to him like every one of the schemers had just got what they needed from him and
then Abandoned Ship right he's like I got snacks to buy on this commissary so he was out to [ __ ] them over but
detectives did believe him and the details he gave and the superiors at Fidelity mutual
they thought actually that hedgepath may be lying um and a few days had passed before they
finally were willing to believe this and that they were like you know what we're
going to give W.E Gary the detective for Fidelity Insurance approval to pursue homes but it took a
few days for them to like investigate it because they had just paid this out they
don't want to believe that they just got [ __ ] over yeah that's a lot so I looked into it and they were like I
think this guy is telling the truth yeah would you say it was like nine thousand
dollars right yeah it was a lot of money it was almost 10 it was actually almost
ten it was 9 700 I think somewhere in there Round Up um but Holmes had been lucky that his
previous issues with the law were under so many aliases and there had been so much time between them that they were
kind of tough to connect the dots but this scheme was so fresh and so big that it was much easier to trace and he had
left too many missing pieces so now detective Gary is on Holmes's tail detective Gary's hilarious I think all I
can think of is Gary from below deck yeah I know any any like Mr Gary like that's detective Gary it just doesn't
sound right but now Holmes is having to shuttle the pied cell children all over Cincinnati for the remainder of this
time yeah um and then he ships them to Indianapolis for the few for a first few weeks of October and in India
Indianapolis homes in Georgiana checked into some like very fancy like Swanky Hotel like Penthouse situation yeah and
they had the pike cell children at a hotel down the block and they registered them as the canning children when they
put them in the hotel weird a few days later he moved them again this time to the Circle house which was another hotel
in the city he's like shuttling them everywhere they must have been like what the [ __ ] is going on they were so con
like they were like what the [ __ ] is happening here like I just want to go home and Alice I feel like was on to him
oh she was like what the [ __ ] is going on now even though he was on the Run from many multi like law enforcement
agencies many a multitude he made time during this whole thing to attempt another scam what while they were in
Indianapolis Holmes and Georgiana began touring properties with a realtor this realtor thought that they were a couple
who wanted to buy a house in the city yeah Holmes had told the realtor that his wife had inherited some property and
they were planning to trade the title to that property for something in Indianapolis that they he could then
sell for cash okay this sounded insane to me when I read it but apparently the bank had already approved this exchange
like in reality weird the problem however was that the offer had an October 10th expiration date okay and
the property wouldn't have officially been accessible to Georgiana until her 25th birthday which was not until
October 17th oh [ __ ] so Holmes abandoned the realtor and never went through with
the plan but he was planning to try to get go through with this before it was going to be legal
and after he was arrested the realtor who who was scammed here told the Press quote Holmes was a good-looking fellow
but had a kind of uneasy look in his eyes so he tried to [ __ ] over this other person while he's on the run like the
heat is on the heat is like the heat is it's more than yeah it's real on uh well
well he toured the city with Georgiana trying to set up some other schemes the pied cell children were just spending
their time in a hotel room alone that's so sad and during this time they were writing daily to their mom in St Louis
at St Louis and they were concerned because they never received anything back and on October 6th at one point Alice
wrote to her mother and said why don't you write to me I've not got a letter from you since I have been away and it
will be three weeks day after tomorrow had been writing to her children she had written back to every single letter
Holmes just kept them what they just kept them from the kids just to [ __ ] with the kids why would you even do that
because he's an actual monster evil yeah so in October just had their mourning the loss of their father being shuttled
to all these new places and now they think their mom just abandoned yeah holy that's awful he is like truly torturing
them and I I feel as though it's going to escalate and I just can't believe that's their last days yeah
um Holmes went to a reality a real why could I never say Realty Realty Realty Realty Realty why can I not say that
word that tripped me up in the last one I did yeah right some people say realtor
but it's just realtor I think Realty that's what it is a realty office it's losing all meaning but it really is
sorry everybody I don't know why my like my brain knows it but my mouth won't say
it say real estate office a real estate office in Irvington which is a suburb of
Indianapolis yeah and he started making arrangements to rent a house called the Lancaster house it was a small cottage
on Union Avenue I would not rent that house he got very hostile which was rare for him to do in public because remember
he is Mr cool call me now at this point uh because he was demanding the keys be given to him now and he was like I'm in
a big hurry I need them now I'm not going through any of the [ __ ] I have to go through like lost his mind and the
realtor there you go later said quote I remember the man very well because I did
not like his manner I felt that he should have had more respect for my gray hairs
but a few days later um uh Holmes had a large Oak Stove delivered to Lancaster house because he
did rent it and also dropped off a case of surgical tools in town to be sharpened a large Oak
Stove and sharpened surgical tools that sounds normal so everything's fine oh no
um in the afternoon on an or like in early October Holmes brought Howard pietzel in his trunk of belongings
Howard is the um 10 year old son yep uh belongings to the Lancaster house and according to his confession later they
arrived a little after 8 pm and Holmes called Howard into the house and he told him that he had to go to bed at once and
then he said he gave him the first the Fatal dose of Medicine and he said he he like poisoned him yeah
essentially and he said as soon as he had ceased to breathe I caught his body into pieces that would pass through the
door of the stove and by the combined use of gas and corn cobs and proceeded to burn it with as little feeling as
though it had been some inanimate object what that was his own confession that's
a 10 year old I poisoned this 10 year old boy and I cut up his body and then put him
in a stove and I felt such little feelings about it that he might have been well has been an inanimate object
oh my God yeah so it's most likely that he had poisoned his food to kill him that's what
everybody thinks um of course sweetie when they searched the property after he was arrested they found a bottle of
cyanide an amount of wolf Spain and there was also um he had purchased a cocaine solution from a pharmacist a few
days earlier uh once he had disposed of Howard's body he went back out at the train station by 9 pm so that all
happened within an hour according to him and he got his mail and he boarded a train for Chicago
so the next day and I don't know what he did there but he returned to in Annapolis the next day and he got
Georgiana and the other children and put them on separate trains Georgiana on one
children on the other Bound for Detroit we're going to Michigan so when they when they were going to Mission like why
are we going another place when they arrived in Detroit Holmes checked himself and Georgiana into the Hotel
Normandy under the name g Howell and wife I love that back then you didn't need a name as a wife you were just one
wife yeah and then one to like we don't need your name and they went a few blocks away and checked Nelly and Alice
into the new Western Hotel then the next day they moved them to a boarding house
run by a woman named Ray um May Ralston Holmes was definitely starting to fray at the seams he's starting to come apart
the children were starting to lose it being alone all the time not understanding where Howard is now not
understanding what's going on he's dragging them all over the place leaving them a whole loan for days at a time
Alice wrote letters to her grandparents in October 14th she wrote we have to stay in all the time Howard is not with
us right now all that Nell and I can do is draw and I get so tired sitting that I could get up and fly almost I'm
getting so homesick that I don't know what to do um I wish they had just run away now a
day after she sent that letter Carrie and Wharton pythal Wharton was the younger son that was sick they arrived
in Detroit and checked into a hotel just a few blocks away from the boarding house where they didn't know that Alice
and Ellie were staying holy [ __ ] Holmes had written Carrie telling her to come
there where she could finally be reunited with Benjamin and her children oh my god when they got there
looking awful when they got there he goes oops sorry can't reunite you yet because it's like too heavily populated
here so you're gonna have to wait a little longer oh my God he is just [ __ ] up a few
days after coming to Detroit he rented a small house on East Forest Avenue which
he told the landlord was for his sister and her children okay which he was probably gonna pass Georgiana and the
kids off yeah um he then dug a four foot by three foot hole in the backyard okay neighbors noticed so this was
clearly where he was intending to kill Alice and Nelly no one is sure why but he decided not to murder the girls there
at this time instead he told Carrie pythal that Benjamin was waiting for her now in Toronto Canada and she should
travel there and he was going to and so he sent Alice and Nelly back to Indianapolis where they were going to be
waiting for them when she and Benjamin returned from Canada Canada okay this is when Carrie was like what the [ __ ] what
the [ __ ] is going on and she was concerned and this is when she was like where the [ __ ] are my kids like where
are they and he was like don't worry they're being cared for by a widow lady but he wouldn't give any more details
yeah that sounds totally fine now as all of this is unraveling and he's losing complete control of this situation
clearly I also just feel like he's going insane oh he is it seems like he's going
mad because he's just doing like none of this makes any sense it's chess moves that make no sense at all right he's
just sending her up there he's sending he doesn't know what he's he was just making a bunch of lateral moves yeah and
he was definitely intending to kill Nelly and Alice in that house in Detroit but then he didn't I don't know why I
wonder if one of the neighbors like came by or something I wonder if a neighbor saw him digging you're right and was
like hey what's that about and then he was like oh nothing but detective Gary had enlisted that's so funny and
detective Gary is like the real MVP here because he got the Pinkerton detective agency on the case and they had made a
lot of progress in finding homes they narrowed him down to the Detroit area and this is why I believe maybe he left
like me it could have been that he was planning to kill them but I think they came a little hotter
sure um I don't know how aware he became of that situation but the but thinking now
like that the fact that he moved so quickly out of there he was tipped off somehow and that's probably why he
abandoned the whole plan maybe he saw some kind of police presence he could have so they made it to Canada and as
soon as they got there Holmes checked Carrie and Wharton into the Union house under the name Mrs Adams
then he disappointed them again and he said oh you just missed Benjamin he said Benjamin had received word of detectives
looking for him in the city and he had actually fled to Montreal now oh my God and holmesan returned to the train
station till he got Alice and Nelly at the train station and brought the girls to the house he'd rented on Vincent
Street and he told the neighbors he had rented this one for his sister as well who was going to be coming from Hamilton
Ontario and this is a different house than the different house yes okay the house had been rented on a six-month
lease and the neighbors later told investigators they thought it was real strange that the man had rented the
entire house yet he only had a bed frame a trunk and a mattress a dog wouldn't even sleep on oh what does that mean so
Holmes then got Georgiana at the train station and they went off to Niagara Falls where they stayed One Night in the
Imperial Hotel before they went back to Toronto and checked into the Palmer House Hotel as H Howell and wife well
the Palmer House is super haunted there you go probably from him so on October 24th Holmes went to the house on Vincent
Street where he put Nelly and Alice he borrowed a shovel from a neighbor neighbor telling him I'm gonna fix a
place in the cellar to hold potatoes the [ __ ] and he went into the basement of
the house and dug a fresh grave no after he did this he went back to Carrie piedcell and told her oh [ __ ]
Howard's not there yet and he said up you got to go to Ogdensburg New York because Benjamin Had fled there now at
this point I'd be like you're not sending me another [ __ ] place but he put Carrie on the tree but she also
misses her husband so she's just trying to get her family back together God puts
Carrie on the train and he went back to the Vincent Street house was strangely when he confessed to this he
was less Sensational than he normally is really the story of Nelly and Alice's murders
is less dramatic and less like he was less excited to tell this story I feel huh in his confession he said he had
taken a large trunk to the house on Vincent Street he'd cut a small hole in the trunk large enough for a hose to fit
uh-huh this is pretty awful it sounds like it will be he wouldn't explain how but he got both girls in the trunk alive
alive and he quote ended their lives by connecting the gas with the trunk so he gassed them in a trunk holy [ __ ]
once they were killed he opened the trunk and he found them in his words quote they're little blackened and
distorted faces oh my God so he then took them out of the trunk he stripped them of their
clothing then buried their bodies in the grave in the basement in the Vincent house oh my God and he said quote
without a particle of covering saved the cold Earth which I heaped upon them with
fiendish delight that's the only time he got like he just gassed two children to death and
two little girls buried them in fiendish Delight I don't know how he dies but I hope they
did something brutal to him well in what's worse is so you listen to that story and you're like that's [ __ ]
terrible but Adam Selzer he says there's a problem with that story and he said he
did kill these little girls of course but that house on Vincent Street was not set up for gas
and so he says the claim of poisoning them with gas was probably not true unless he did it somewhere else okay and
then what's worse is that he was like he probably poisoned their food like he did
Howard but then he just told this story that's even worse which is even worse and he's like I don't no matter what he
killed brutally killed two little girls and buried them in the basement right but the fact that he is making up
from something that's even grow like still gross is like you just wanted to tell that story like what the [ __ ] is
wrong with you well I wonder if it's like almost he can't now that he's in prison and he knows he's got God he
can't kill anybody anymore so now he's killing people differently in his mind yeah
vicariously through his own fantasies exactly wow dude that is here what the [ __ ] did he have yeah like
seriously was wrong what was going on with him now the next day he returned the shovel to the neighbor and then he
stuffed the girl's clothing and any belongings they had into the chimney and put a fire in the fireplace to try to
burn them all but unfortunately for him he'd pack the items too tightly into the
chimney so large pieces of clothing were still in there even after the fire went
out oh damn and he didn't realize it no also the stupid idiot hadn't even been very thorough when he gathered up their
belongings because he had ended up leaving several of Alice's belongings including a bag out in the apartment
when he left and you can't imagine she even had that many belongings at that point exactly by the time the new
tenants arrived a few days later oh my God they found the random clothing scraps and Remnants left behind but by
this point he almost was back and he he had already left Toronto and he wasn't coming back and is he sorry is he the
landlord of that house or no he just rented it no he just rented it okay just to do that now eventually this man would
tell so many story is about the missing children it would be almost like it's like it's something out of fiction he
would say Benjamin Benjamin the father was in South America he told Carrie the kids were in South America he told them
now they were in Chicago in Detroit they were in England they were anywhere else
but reality he was just driving her insane yes he was trying to drive her insane
and that is where we're going to leave part four you are you guys I did not see that coming because what
what because what should have stayed in Canada and he didn't okay I want you to know that once
he returns to the United States that's when [ __ ] is going to go down for him and I don't want to start the going down
process I would like I would like episode five to just be us all high-fiving in the fact that this
[ __ ] gets got oh I can't wait to hear how because I actually I don't have any idea yeah how he gets caught or what
happens to him after he's caught so this is him he's leaving Toronto he's leaving
Canada he's coming back to the United States like a big [ __ ] idiot he has killed kids in Canada he's killed kids
in the United States he has killed women in the United States he's now killed a man in the United States and he's coming
back and the Pinkerton detective agency guys they are on his [ __ ] tail I'm so excited they're right here he would have
been much better off staying in Canada thank goodness he didn't thank goodness he's a [ __ ] idiot I'm so glad he is
so we're gonna talk about his arrest we're going to talk about the trial we're going to talk about the wild
confession and we're going to talk about the theories that he is Jack the Ripper
which I don't agree with understand why people are interested they are slightly compelling okay but
very interesting and we're going to talk about his execution ah it's all coming in part five it's all happening Sheena
Shea the end the climax of this series is part five my goodness yeah all right well we hope you keep listening and we
hope you keep it but not so weird that you go all around the world doing HH Holmes type [ __ ]
because like don't keep it so weird that your detective Gary yeah just be it to time in a world
full of HH Holmes's be a detective Gary and with that we leave you [Music] foreign

In Part 4 of H.H. Holmes, it gets even wilder. This man has now headed to Texas with his 500th wife and is ready to join his partner in crime, Benjamin Pitezel to steal Minnie Williams' inherited land. He has plans. He plans to now build a Texas murder castle like the one he created in Chicago. But first, Pitezel and Holmes need to scheme their way into a payday, using an insurance scam and faking Pitezel's death. When it looks like Pitezel might back out, things go sour and Holmes goes on a murder spree that brings him to several states and even Canada. Strap in, friends. It's complicated and horrific here.

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Brief Summary

H.H. Holmes continues his murderous schemes, manipulating families and evading capture while plotting his next moves.

Key points

Chaos Before the Show. Elena and Ash share a chaotic moment before starting the episode, highlighting their dynamic.
The Real Monster. Discussion of Holmes' brutal murders, including the tragic fate of children.
Holmes' Financial Schemes. Holmes' greed leads him to multiple scams, culminating in his arrest in St. Louis.
The Insurance Scheme. Holmes concocted a plan to defraud an insurance company by faking a death.
The Murder of Pitzel. Holmes decided to kill Benjamin Pitzel instead of faking his death when plans went awry.
Discovery of the Body. Pitzel's body was discovered in a suspicious state, raising questions about the cause of death.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I can't stop thinking about that name, Pearl.

Elena expresses her fondness for the name Pearl amidst dark topics.

2:59WatchMay 19, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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