Episode 458: H.H. Holmes Part 2

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I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast. What's the answer, and what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?

I'm Ash.

And this is morbid.

Whoa?

You might hear some faint, you probably won't actually, but if you do, you hear if, you might hear some faint. Like rain tip-tapping on the window. You guys like that ambiance, ambiance. yeah, you guys do like that.

But I don't know how. You don't like the sound of rain tip-tapping.

It's very calming. Um, I. You might not even be able to hear it because we have soundproofing. But like, you never know, I don't know, you know, I don't know your life, I don't know your ears.

I don't know what you're doing.

I don't know what you're doing, who even are you? so I'm just kidding.

You're a weirdo, I love you.

Uh, so yeah, welcome back to part two of the H..H. Holmes saga, yay.

So excited to be here.

We're going to, we're going to get into it today. So the first, uh, part was kind of setting it up. Where he came from his first marriage. How he was a philanderer, how he was a schemer, how he was a shitty student, how he smelled of smegma. I didn't want to say it again. How he was a liar and a cheater and a frauder. And just he's just an all around shit person.

Oh, what a what a repertoire.

Yeah, he's awful, and he's going to get awful-er.

So then he'll get awful-ist.

Yup, he's going to become one of the most awfuls ever. So when we last left you guys? He had just moved to Chicago. After. He was going to try that whole scheme, selling the bodies of the wife and the child of his friend, the insurance, all that stuff, and then he just abandoned that.

So figure it out.

So figure it out. But yeah, so we left you there. So he's in Chicago now, and as if you know the story of H..H. Holmes, you know that it really does revolve around Chicago.

Chicago is kind of like the room where it happened.

Very much the room where it happened. Devil in the White City. There he is, so once he'd arrived in Chicago, he somehow passed the exam to become a pharmacist. Wow.

I would think that that's a pretty difficult exam, yeah.

And he was only one of, like, a, like a handful of people. I guess he had something in there. Maybe chemistry was his thing, and that's he did a lot of extra stuff with chemistry, so maybe he really did give himself a leg up in that department.

Yeah, exactly that pretty much makes sense.

But he ended up finding work at Holton Drugs, which was a pharmacy on the corner of 63rd and Wallace, and it was owned by an elderly woman named Mrs. Holton. Ah, imagine that Holton drugs.

Isn't it funny to think of like stores just being named like something drugs?

Yeah, just like Holton drugs, right? But she explained to Holmes that the pharmacy actually belonged to her husband, Dr. E.

Oh so, HH wants to kick him down the stairs and take over the fucking pharmacy.

Yeah, the fucking pharmacy kid. And she was finding it a little hard, a little difficult to manage this entire pharmacy by herself. She was elderly herself. So, of course, like we said, his ears perked up, he was sensing opportunity here.

I thought you were going to say, he said. I too, am sick and elderly.

And no, he would lie like that, though.

He would just stand there like a 27 year old, being like, I'm also elderly, why don't you believe me?

But yeah, he was like, you know what, I'm a doctor, I have a lot of experience in the pharmacy. He did not, but he's he did pass the pharmacy exam.

So I think Kim cheated.

I something happened there, but he was like, You know what? I'm absolutely certain that I can transform this into just a thriving business again if you just give it to me. So not long after, he began work at the pharmacy because she, she believed him. Of course, yeah.

She's a sweet woman.

Dr. Holton did die and he left the store and everything in it to Mrs. Holton, so he was. So. Holmes sees this happening and he's like, You know I, he's, he's angling to own this store.

It's hard, it's a, I said, like, fixtures, cause you have to do like a tch.

Yeah, that's hard fixtures, you know, words are hard. Uh, in the stock, and actually, um, Holmes bought the pharmacy and he rebranded the entire things as H.H.

I think we do a little more here than just drugs, you know what?

I'm pretty upstanding, so let's change this. Um, in the early days of him owning this new pharmacy, a lot of the customers would come in and they'd ask about Mrs. Holton. Because people loved her. She was a sweet old lady.

Totally.

And every time he would say that she went on a trip to California now, this wasn't strange. Because this is something she had said she wanted to do, but she never had the money to do it.

Oh, sweetie, she's not upstairs anymore.

And she hadn't returned for several weeks, and people are still asking where she is. And when they would ask, Holmes would just be like, Well, you know, she just loved California so much that she just stayed there. She's just there, you can't call her on the phone.

Yeah.

I think her disappearance was not so much that she moved away or she went on a vacation to California. I think he just got rid of that whole situation so that the entire building could be his.

It does sound like that.

And it's very on brand with what he would do anyways, so it makes sense there you go. These are things that he would do later. So it's like, why would we not think that it would be this time?

But what about the boy? I thought you thought the boy was?

That one, I'm like, I go back and forth with that one, for sure, could be his first victim.

But you like fullheartedly believe that she.

Mrs HoLTon I have very little doubt that he killed Mrs. Holton. So she's either his first or his second, yeah.

Oh, shit.

Um, and either her or her daughter, like the story, never really makes it clear. Cause again, he confessed to so many different things that some of these stories got intertwined. Sure, but this seems the one I told seems to be the most correct one, okay?

They said, Let's go with the feminist.

Yeah, exactly, um, and that they are a young couple and she decided to sell the pharmacy when she became pregnant. So, like, that's another story. In this version, the couple doesn't disappear, and they were actually still living in the neighborhood afterwards. So, like, it doesn't, yeah.

Either way, though, he wanted the pharmacy, he got the pharmacy, and then the two people that previously owned the pharmacy were never seen again. So, like, I think the puzzle piece of Moyda is put together.

I think so, to quote Spencer. Henry Uh, yeah, to me, it just, you know, Mrs. Holton was older. People came in looking for her, she said. She went to California.

Like, had never really seen the world.

Yeah, she lived with her parents in Minneapolis and worked in a music store. It was like a cute little existence. But like to her, that wasn't enough. She didn't feel like she was getting out there. I get that.

I was like, how did they? just didn't realize in this district because it was like another district.

Oh, I think it was just in the 1800s and they like, there's no electronic records happening.

I keep forgetting that.

I'm like, why didn't they just look it up on the computer?

Why didn't they just like, write that down somewhere?

So Myrda was very excited about this marriage, but I think that excitement would have been slightly tempered if, um. He did let her know that he was still married to a woman named Clara.

That'll usually do it.

Yeah, strangely. Two weeks after he married, Myrda Holmes filed a divorce petition in Cook County Supreme Court against Clara. Stating that quote on the 28th day of June 1883, in the city of Ann Arbor in the state of Michigan, the said Clara, a mudgett, wholly disregarding and in violation of her marriage vows, covenants and obligations, committed adultery and had carnal knowledge. With one J...M. Downer.

What?

So he's claiming they should divorce Clara and he after he's already married a second woman. By the way. He's now filing for divorce against Clara, saying Clara committed adultery.

Like, Sir, you are number one, you did that super duper backwards, you're straight up committing adultery, you motherfucking hypocrite.

Like, you are in the throes of adulterous behavior, and you are saying she was she adultered years ago, what?

It's a lot he's doing. He got married to another woman.

Like, Are we clear, Melina? That's his right as a man, that's his right.

He's a man, so, and he's a doctor.

It gets even weirder in this divorce decree, he also had put in there this he had put in there. He further represents, to your honor, that he has ever, since the time of said marriage, conducted himself as a true, kind and affectionate husband. You dirty little liar. And during that time, has faithfully discharged all of his duties. Now. Do you remember when he abandoned her several times with their child, lived off her money alone and beat her to the point of black eyes?

I do recall.

Does any of that ring is true, kind or affectionate?

Nor.

No.

Nor.

Oh, well. He also added into the decree that their six-year-old son, Robert Quote, is now living and is under the care, custody and control of your orator. Herman Webster Mudgett. That simply wasn't true, and never was.

Wait, so he was saying, like, I take care of the child like he's with me.

He literally had put in the divorce decree that that child is now living and is under the care, custody and control of him.

And that's not at all the truth.

He had been with Clara the entire time.

Also, that's so easy to prove.

At one point he tried to go get Robert and take custody and she was like, no bitch and then, and it didn't happen, right? But he's now having it put in the decree that Robert is in his custody. I don't know if he thought he would get more money or something like that or something would come out of that. But like, you're an idiot.

And again, so easy to prove. Like you go to his house, does he have a child's bedroom? Yeah, the like, the end, the end.

You don't want that child.

So you're just doing that to be an asshole.

Oh, for sure, but how many parents do that? Oh my God, they don't actually want custody of the child, they just want to do it to hurt the other parent.

Oh, carnal knowledge is fucking.

That's fucking.

That's fucking.

Uh, he likely didn't exist, like he, he likely did not exist.

No.

Holmes was a lying sack of shit. But it doesn't really matter anyways, because he also failed to show up on any follow up on any of the administrative requirements. And the petition, yeah, and the petition, like, I hear that, but like. And the petition just lapsed and was eventually dismissed by the court for quote default of appearance of complainant. It's unclear whether Clara ever even received notice of his intention to divorce her, right.

You know what, this is, giving a little bit Sheena and Raquel. He makes this fake tro, except it's not a tro, it's a divorce decree.

He doesn't.

That's where my head's at.

Except he, except he actually, like, should have just divorced Clara, like, why are you not getting divorced? Yeah, I don't understand. why are you married to, like several women at a time?

That, well, he's the sandoval in it all now.

So like, obviously, that's exactly what you think of with H.

He's gotta be, there's gotta be Capricorn in his chart. I'm pretty, I think his birthday, he's a cancer like a son, but I'm like, there's Capricorn in that chart. Money motivated and to a fault.

But in the spring of that year, Murda actually became pregnant. And the bulk of the work she did was shifting, you know, off of her. And her husband had to kind of, like, take a bigger role back in the pharmacy.

See, I want to be excited for her, but I feel like it's going to end badly.

No, you definitely don't want to be excited for this whole thing. But um, she was separated from Holmes a lot like she was kind of she had to be in the back, right, like she could do office work.

I love that they were like, we'll be with you, yeah.

We'll come and hang with you. And after they had, like, settled in there, Murda moved in with her parents and gave birth to their daughter, Lucy. Cute. Um, at first, Murda's parents were very suspicious of H..H. Holmes.

Well, cause this all came about very, very quickly. Married baby business.

And I feel like parents, they know it's like he went after young women.

Yeah.

At the time. And he and he went after young men for like schemes and stuff, so he, he was always going for people who he knew he could con.

Like, young and unexperienced.

But older people, I feel like like elderly people, fell for it. But at somewhere in between, like the parents of the whole generation, were like, something is Sus about you? And I don't know what it is. And he didn't exactly endear himself to them. Uh, despite his wife and child living in the house, he was barely there, like he never came to visit.

No, okay.

Well, literally never came to see them, that's good. Um, immediately they began to question the kind of man that their daughter had married and had a child with. And soon, though, he was able to charm his way into their good graces. I'm not sure how, but it took a lot of vision on his part.

Business money motivated.

That it's like, look at this briefcase, like, I'm very important.

Meanwhile, there's nothing in it.

It just opens and it's just like a moth flies out. But he would say that things were busy at the store and there was so much to do in Chicago. And making it seem, you know, like that. He was just up to his neck and work, and he was just trying to support his little family. And, according to Eric Larson, who I will source his work in. Our show notes Holmes's manner of dress and how he would frequently give a lot of gifts. And, like, he was always about the material, things that really gave off.

Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.

That's the thing, and he was very concerned with that. Like he always wanted to present himself as being a man of importance, a man of means, a man of power. And it, honestly, went a long way to making her parents at least be eased a little bit, thinking, Well, he's going to take care of them, yeah.

Like doubling and tripling, and it's all these girls.

With a diagnosis, the state tried to keep on the down low. Everybody thought I was holding something back. Well, you were holding something back intentionally. Yeah, yeah.

Leroy was the new dateline and everyone was trying to solve the murder.

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California, New York, Chicago. Same vibes.

Yeah, exactly. As a result, new buildings were popping up all over the city. Because like, people were coming in, the economy was starting to boom. People were trying to make way for a ton of residents to be living there. Big apartment buildings. And since arriving in Chicago and starting work, Holmes had been eyeing this empty lot that happened to be across the street from the pharmacy. And finally, in the summer of 1888, he managed to buy it, and at the time, he registered the deed under the false name H..S.

Things also can I just know it wasn't. 1888. Jack the Ripper Uh, yeah, so they were operating at the same time. That's so crazy to think about.

Same time, and it's opposite ends of the world. Yeah, it's like, really wild, yeah.

Well, and it kind of seems like, at least from what I know, h.

It is, and he is. He's mainly money motivated with his murders, but he liked killing as well, like H..H. Holmes liked killing, and he liked killing women, yeah.

Yeah, possibly.

That the person tailored himself to those environments, right? But who knows? I mean, when we talked about it in, when we talked, actually, when we talked about it with Tobias, he made a valid point of like, which we always thought. But like, I'm like, I don't know. In Whitechapel. If it was like somebody like H..H. Holmes, who dressed like a man of importance all the time and was very like Showy, he would stick out like a sore thumb.

I just hate the unknown.

It's an interesting theory and I will look further. I'm, you know what? I'll probably look further into it by the end of this series because I would like to touch upon it more by the end. But I definitely want to look further into it and look at some dates and look at, you know, because I know there was some possibilities. That H..H was out of the country at certain times, and that maybe Jack had left at certain times. And it would be. How fucking crazy would it be if he was Jack the ripper?

It would be nuts because 1888 is when Jack ended right.

1888 Jack was still going.

Oh, he was still going, okay, all right.

But but he did, like, I think this is when he was coming to an end, so.

Which is interesting because this is really when h.

It definitely is.

I'll be. I'm excited to hear what you have to say once you are able to look more into it.

I definitely want to look further into it, for sure.

Sorry for the divergence there.

And we'll talk about it. Yeah, don't worry, it's really not a divergence, though, because it's all the same cool.

Okay.

He claimed he killed a friend and former schoolmate named Dr. Lee Cock. Now. He did this because this man had a large life insurance policy. And he said he lured his friend to Chicago under some kind of bullshit pretense, gave him, quote, an overwhelming dose of laudanum, and killed him that way. After his murder, Holmes took the body of Lee Cock to Grand Rapids, Michigan. He did this because it would look like Lee Cock had died accidentally in his home.

Very strange.

But either way, there is mention a lot in his youth, like in his early days, in any research you see, of a classmate at college named Robert Lee Cock. Now, he was actually the one that Holmes claimed helped him originally come up with the idea of faking a death and using a medical dead body to claim insurance fraudulently. So it would be a little poetic of Holmes to then use that plan on his friend, who he came up with it with. But take it to another level and just murder him for it, like it would be something he would do, that's a lot.

Dramatic.

That's him, yeah, that's him, that's him and his mustache.

Very performative.

Uh, now for the so, this all began, this is what began. The Murder Castle idea was what he said.

Okay.

He said After this whole scheme, after he went through with it, he got the money, he was ready to go, he said. I had this grand idea for a murder castle. And, according to Holmes, the design and the purpose of it really came to him all at once. After this, this was like the igniting thing.

He had, like, an epiphany.

Yeah, he said. He originally envisioned a massive three floor building, three stories up the first floor, would have retail shops, pharmacies, jewelry shops, clothing stores. In his words, he said, it would be quote to generate income and allow him to employ as many women as possible.

Like, essentially kind of like a penthouse.

Exactly, and he would have a large window that he could gaze over. 63rd and Wallace.

Like, just, I just got distracted, my palace, like, I kind of want that.

I know you don't want this, not this one. No, now. This was all the normal logistics of a building.

Except all the women.

And it seems innocuous to a certain extent. Sure, pretty normal, seems like some kind of. He seems like a piggy guy who just wants to, like, hire women.

He's like Doug Dimmadome.

There you go, so well. This part was important to him like that, it was important to him to have a very front facing business model, a very front facing looking building that no one could question. But what was more important to him was these macabre little details that were going to be hidden inside the bones of the building. They were much more important and much more exciting to him in particular.

Also, how do you talk to the contractors about all of this?

Don't worry about it. He also wanted gas jets throughout the entire building that would be controlled only in his personal office, so he could turn on gas and just gas you anywhere he wanted to.

No one's going to notice that in the blueprint, nope.

He also, don't worry, we're going to get to that. He also wanted a large basement with secret storage chambers inside that would seal off. Okay, and like you said, your first thought is, how are you going to get this built, my guy? how are you going to do this?

That's really crazy.

Yeah, that's the thing that kills me with him, he's one of those people that you're like. You could have done something great if you just put your mind to it. Like, you weren't a brilliant guy, but you had a working, you had hard work ethic when you put your fucking mind to it.

But not for a good cause.

But you put it to terrible causes.

Exactly.

And it's like, like this, like you're learning a skillset yourself to accomplish something, but you're accomplishing a skillset to build a murder castle. Because you're scared someone will figure it out.

What a wild fucking like like, This is real, too. Yeah, this is real, like what?

This is real. And what's so? There was a population boom in Chicago, like I said at the time, people were moving over there. And it meant that there was going to be no shortage of labor. Like people were going to be wanting to work on these kinds of things. But there was again still that problem that these workers were going to ask too many questions.

I feel like that's like, that's such a gamble to take.

His whole life was a fucking gamble, everything he did was a gamble.

I'm just thinking of like work we've had to do on the house, being like, Okay, you finished that, now I'm going to call someone else.

And what he would do was he would just not pay the person and be like, Fuck you, you're, you're fired bye. And then just bring someone else in and be like, Okay, start working on this.

You're creating so many issues for yourself.

And they would just be more confused, really, like they'd just be like, what? and not realize how weird all of this was together. And also due to the lax inspection processes in Chicago at the time and the limited protections for laborers. He was going to be able to get away with not really paying anybody, like it really wasn't going to be an issue.

Like you were saying, too, people are so desperate for work that they're probably not asking that many questions, exactly.

That's the other thing he's banking on that. But it is a really like, cunningly smart thing to do. To one. Start the blueprint process yourself to make sure you get all those weird things in there.

Right?

Then hire architects, have them work a little more on it, then fire them before they're done. Hire another one to build off that other thing, hire fire that one, bring in laborers to start building this little extension, fire them when they're done with it, hire another one to do that one.

It's like you're giving everybody a little piece of the puzzle, but like.

But nothing that they can jump off of.

Exactly.

The construction of the quote unquote Murder Castle, which he was calling the Holmes Castle Yeah, began in the summer of 1889. Again, partially working from Holmes's own design blueprints, and also working from plans partially developed by local architects. Two of which were Charles Berger and Edward Golner.

I'm nervous.

Just a bricklayer, just doing his job, yeah.

I know about H.H. Holmes and Bricks.

Yeah, now, Bowman later said. He asked me if I wouldn't like to make money easier than what I was doing, and of course I told him, Yeah, yeah.

Who wouldn't?

And, according to Bowman, he said A few days later, he came over to me and pointing down into the basement, said, You see that man down there. Well, that's my brother-in-law, and he's got no love for me, neither have I for him. Now. It would be the easiest matter for you to drop a stone on that fellow's head while you're working. And I'll give you $50 if you do it.

$50.

Well, at the time.

Oh.

We're talking like 1888.

I got to keep remembering that's a lot. I'm like, $50..

That's it, that's a lot. Back then. For the murder of a man, it's honestly unknown what the purpose of this kill proposition was, to be quite honest.

He probably just wanted to see that he could do it.

He wanted to either make money, oh, that's from some avenue by doing this. Or he was just honestly asking to see if Bowman was a guy he could trust. I think he was looking for a guy he could trust. But either way, Bowman quit and never returned to the job. Smart man.

I think you're right.

At first, Pitezel's job was to take care of the horses that were going to be used on the construction site. Cause, again, we're in the 1800s, uh, but we are, we are. But over time, he actually gained Holmes's trust a lot.

That is stand up, man.

So Holmes actually bailed Pitezel out of jail.

Yeah, that's his right hand.

He paid the amount in bad checks, by the way, he bailed him out with bad checks.

Bailed the man sitting in jail for bad checks, out of jail with bad checks. The irony.

Holmes is nothing but a poet. Pitezel failed to return to Indiana for the trial. So now they were just like, now they nothing could happen. They're like, we're out.

They're like Jay-z and Beyonce on the run together.

They're thick as thieves together because now they're the boss and the assistant. It's like the assistant to the regional manager from the office. There you go. Now, after a year or two, the unpaid bills and the schemes and the lying and the fraud. It started to catch up with Holmes.

That'll happen.

Unfortunately, for the most part, though, individual laborers, many of them were immigrants, they had no way of getting the money owed to them.

That's so fucked, yeah.

And that sucks. He just got away with that. But remember, he's using Aetna, iron and steel for the supplies. That's a major company who doesn't give a shit about your feelings. So they sued his ass.

How do you just do that?

He just did that. What, for the most part, like, so literally. He had first registered that deed under a false alias, right?

I don't know what you're talking about. I love that. And like, nobody was like, Yeah, dude, like, Clearly, you just did that, yeah.

That's the thing back then, you could do that easily, you can shift out, like, who's going to catch you? You know? You just like, write her name in there and you're like.

There it is, you, just like, spit on the previous writing, rub it off.

Exactly so, for the most part, all his like legal shit was handled by his lawyer, Edward Marr, who actually did manage to successfully, like, push off creditors for a while. But he was, and he was honestly, his lawyer, till he was, like, executed, essentially.

Damn.

And he did manage to help him out in this scenario. I think they just like, kind of backed off a little bit because it was under her name that was going to be an issue. But you wouldn't think this murder castle would be like, you would think that this would be a very long process of building this thing.

Really.

It was literally like, pretty much done by the end of 1889.

Wow, so like a year.

Excuse me, it was done by 1890..

Okay, so like two-ish years, yeah.

And I think they were putting like finishing touches on it until 91, but it was essentially like, livable at that point.

She struck him with her motor vehicle, she had been under the influence, and then she left him there.

Holmes had already moved Murda, Lucy and her mother, the one he had thrown the deed, into, into the large corner apartment on the second floor. I think that's how he was able to get away with doing these kinds of things. Was he would then? Don't worry about it, don't worry about it, I'm handling it.

Castle What an actual douchebag, yeah, but that's a perfect example of why you don't just have a an agreement by word of mouth. He's such a dick.

Like, he's just such a dick. Yeah, he does things just to be a dick. He's such a fuck boy he really is.

I wonder, so did. Would Holmes have anything to do with his convulsions beforehand, or no idea?

Or if it was just a happy accident that he was able to pour something down his throat that would kill him instantly. Holy shit, I don't know. But Dubry's death may not like he didn't get any money from it, like he didn't lose any money either.

Cause that was the whole thing, so he kind of did get money out of it.

And he would have had to pay a small fortune to him. I mean, he was an investor in the thing. That was a lot. He was essentially alone on the castle that he didn't have to pay anymore.

Right, so he did get money out of it.

Now, during the construction of the castle and into its first year. He was engaged in a lot of schemes. Like little schemes, you know, like the the Snake oil Salesman kind of schemes. Like he would sell mineral water to people and say it would like cure all this shit, but it was just vanilla infused tap water. Sounds kind of good. He would con widows out of their pensions, you know, he was very into that.

He's such a, yeah like, low down fucking ass.

He is a low down, just dirt bag. Yeah, he really is, I mean.

He's capable of murder, so obviously, but like, he's so low down in every way, though.

The little like, like petty crimes on top of that, conning out widows out of pensions, like, Goddamn, yeah.

I just want an elderly woman to beat him over the head with her purse, yeah.

But he was still very committed, but while doing these schemes, he was committed to his murder for profit idea. That was his main thing, right? And in 1891, shortly after everything was done, Holmes approached a woman who did his laundry. And he had an he had a proposition. Or, Oh God.

Yeah.

$6,000 to take out a life insurance policy in the amount of $10,000, which is even more. And she was like, Why the fuck would you pay me to do that? like, I don't understand why would I do that? And he said, Well, then after you die, I would make $4,000 profit on the investment.

Does he say that to people?

Like, no, but I just thought that's something that Thomas Shelby would absolutely do, like he has that vibe. Okay, like, I'm not afraid. But this is Herman Webster Mudgett, who smells like scrotum.

Anybody that says, Don't be afraid of me for out of the blue, no reason I'm afraid of.

And I think he was trying to do the like, Don't be afraid of me, like, you know what I mean, like, aren't I charming?

Like, being so on my nose that like, but you're like.

You actually are scary, like, that's what I meant. When I said, like, if Killian Murphy is leaning into you and saying, don't be afraid of me, I'm like, I'm not, I would still be afraid.

Harry, Motherfucking Stiles could walk up to me and say, Don't be afraid of me, and I'd be like, You know what, Harold? It's been a good run, it's been a good fucking run.

But Herman Webster Mudgett says that to me, and I'm like, bye, I would run so far away, so this lady was like, absolutely not.

Just like, what is wrong with you? Yeah, he's trying some shit, so it's like when people say like, I don't bite.

So in 1890, like the year before, after a long bidding and like crazy process. It was announced that the next World's Columbian Exposition would be held in Chicago. And it was going to be held between May and October of 1893.

Parasols in the air. Yeah, like, you just don't care exactly.

The fair was going to be a massive spectacle, it was going to very much draw in hundreds of thousands of visitors to Chicago. Visitors who say it was going to be a huge, huge boom for the local economy economy. It was a huge win for them to get it here.

Yay for Chicago and Holmes.

He was probably pretty psyched about tourist dollars coming in, like regular ones. Like, you know, there was going to be a lot of boom in the economy, that's good for everybody. But he was not one to waste opportunities that were just going to stroll into his life, especially if it involved bringing unsuspecting women into his orbit. Exactly.

Oh, wow.

So Ned was hired, like on the spot, to work in that jewelry store, and they ended up moving into an apartment in the Holmes Castle. Better still, Holmes was like, Julia can work in the pharmacy with me, oh God, and I can train her to keep the books.

Wow, what a great guy.

Such a nice guy.

Oh, and that's so sad, too, that they probably were like, Wow, like, how lucky are we?

Yeah, and like, what a kind guy like, he's just like, ready to help people who come into the city now. To Ned, things felt like, Wow, we've been really struggling and this is finally falling all into place. But he said that. But there was always something about H.H. Holmes that, he said made him uncomfortable.

We're moving out in two and a half minutes. Goodbye.

Bye now over time, during this whole thing. Because, remember, Holmes is paying a lot of attention to Julia, like, it's getting weird. So things between Ned and Julia are becoming strained, right?

Like, this guy literally came in and just like, took complete control over you.

In Gertrude, her sister left the city a while later, so like she wasn't around anymore. So now it was just Julia. And he was trying to fix it. But during this time, Holmes suddenly offered out of nowhere to sell Ned the pharmacy.

And does Ned even have like pharmacy experience? Well, and he was like.

I want you to own the store, like not be a pharmacist, but I want you to own the business. And of course, Ned is like, Hell, yeah, are you kidding me? And he's like, This is going to be the thing that's going to improve me and Julia's relationship. I'm going to be a business owner.

I hope he did.

I'm hoping that so by the fall, why you say that to me? So by the fall? Holmes had moved to Myrta and Lucy, yeah, his wife and child.

Were they in his apartment, or were they in the Oh, they were in his apartment?

Remember, he's also married to Clara, Still, yep, and Myrta, and he's also having an affair with Julia, Yeah.

How does he even keep all their names straight? Yep, so well, don't worry.

He moved Myrta and Lucy, his wife and child, U.m. into a house several miles away, okay, in downtown Chicago. And he was just spending most of his time at the castle, where Myrta didn't know it. But he was having a full blown affair with Julia Connor, so this affair was super intense, like, very passionate, very intense.

And Julia knows that he's married and it's like, if he's telling you he's going to marry you, do you really think that means that much to him? No.

So he's constantly promising he's going to marry her, but once Ned left Chicago, suddenly it all.

Yeah, cause it's not as exciting. Yeah, all of a sudden he'd lost interest.

The risk of getting caught was gone. There was really no competition anymore. And he's uninterested by it. That's so fucked. So, by November of 19 of 1891, Julia told Holmes that she was pregnant.

Wild that he could do that to a woman carrying his child, too.

It gets worse. Oh, he then walked into Pearl's bedroom, oh, no, and did the exact same thing to Pearl, Oh, a child who was likely about five or six.

Oh, I hate him so much. Or maybe you're not even.

She might've been like, four, oh my God. Now, once everybody was dead, Holmes contacted a man named Charles Chappell, who Holmes knew was a trained articulator. What is that, a person trained in stripping the flesh from human bodies in preparation for medical instruction?

Where did she go, where did they suddenly disappear?

And no one else in the building had seen them for days. And finally, they caught up with Holmes and they were like, What happened? And he was like, Oh, Julia and Pearl left early for a planned trip to Davenport, Iowa. Um, obviously, like, you didn't, she tell you? And they were like, I don't know about that, but they were like, Okay, I guess we have to just accept this explanation.

And then imagine, like, obviously they have no reason to, but the guilt you would feel, yeah, what are they going to think when you murdered her like this, right?

So in January 1892, a new family moved into the Connors Old Apartment, the Julia and Ned Connors Apartment, and Pearl. Um, and when they arrived in to move in, they found it completely the way it was. The dishes were still out on the table, Pearl's clothes were laid out on a chair. Oh my God.

Which is what happened, right?

Holmes explained to them that Julia, the person who had lived here before her sister, had become ill a few weeks earlier. And she and Pearl had had to leave right away to tend to her. And, according to Holmes, there was no need to pack up their belongings as Julia and Pearl were well provided for and would not be coming back. I'd be like, Yeah, that's great.

But, like, you're the landlord.

You should have this place to clean up. Yeah, like, what the fuck like?

I have to just like, take all this shit out of here now and move mine in, yep.

Now he gave a different version of this story to others when they asked. Because, of course, he's giving three different things about what happened to Julia and Pearl. It's also like.

Maybe you should stick with the same story, brother. Yeah, I mean, I'm glad you didn't, but yeah.

When others asked, he claimed that Julia had briefly come back in early January to settle up rent. She owed him, and at that time, Quote announced not only to me, but to her neighbors and friends that she was going.

Away, Yeah, she didn't say that to anybody, though.

But apparently he knew ahead of time that Julia had mentioned to others that she had plans to visit her sister in Iowa at some point. So the story would seem legit. He had planned this all out. He also vehemently denied any claims or rumors that he had any kind of inappropriate sexual relationship with Julia. They were just friends.

But he's, Oh, I, I'm here, I am thinking that, like, he's in love with this.

He said She's just she's beautiful. you should kill her. Hey, she's this beautiful young woman. you would probably like her. Oh my god.

It's also like all these women are taken with him, the women that are taken with him work beneath him. Exactly. So it's that whole, like, oh, like, man in power kind of thing.

Yeah, they're the ones that are like, doing their own thing.

And I don't need your shit, right?

And it wasn't long until he shammed his way into a romantic relationship with poor Emmeline. Now other employees noticed, like at the castle, and the different businesses they noticed, and everyone around them knew something was going on, one of Holmes's castle tenants, Dr Maurice Lawrence, told the Interocean. We felt that she was be she was to be more pitied than blamed. He was apparently very kind to her, always buying flowers and presents for her and taking her to the theater and places of entertainment.

Clara and Clara has a son with him, George Robert Robert. Why did I say George?

But good try, yeah, absolutely no, which it's like, what the fuck?

So at this point, he would have had three children.

At this point, he would have had three children. Yeah, um, or no, He would have had two children because Pearl was not his, but she was pregnant. JULIA Yeah.

He would have had three children, a stepchild. Technically, absolutely.

What a fucking asshole, actual piece of shit, uh, and Murda's just across town, yeah, like a few miles away.

Maybe he leaned in and said, Don't be afraid, don't be afraid of me.

Because then several days passed and no one in Inglewood had seen or heard from Emmeline Sagrand, No. When the wife of Dr. Maurice Lawrence, the tenant in the castle who had that other quote, asked, like, about her two homes, he simply said Quote Oh, she's gone away to get married, Oh what?

She'd never dated anyone but him.

It was pretty clear that they were in a relationship and Emmeline never mentioned leaving early, and no one ever heard of Emmeline being engaged to someone else. Also, she said that she was very put off about how he spoke about it. He was very anxious appearing. uh, he couldn't look at her when he said it, he was very monotone.

And now this is the second woman who's just up and left him, uh, out of nowhere, suspiciously. Yeah, and it's to her.

It felt like he was hiding something and scared it was going to come out if he said too much, yeah, like he was really hiding something here. And so the next day, she notices that she sees Holmes and two of his assistants carrying a heavy trunk out of the castle and loading it into a wagon. One day after that, Holmes left Chicago for the house in Wilmot, where Murda and Lucy lived Murda's parents.

As if she would send him a wedding invitation or announcement.