During my long years there in New York I had abundant time to work out the details of a scheme that my University friend, before referred to, and myself had talked over during our hungry college days as a possible last resort in case our medical practice proved a failure; and from certain letters I had received from him, I judged that he, too, had not found all his hardships at an end upon receiving his diploma. I therefore went to where he was located, and found that though his experience had been less disheartening than my own, it had from a pecuniary standpoint been far from successful. During this visit we carefully planned the following method of obtaining money:
At some future date a man whom my friend knew and could trust, who then carried considerable life insurance, was to increase the same so that the total amount carried should be $40,000; and as he was a man of moderate circumstances, he was to have it understood that some sudden danger he had escaped (a runaway accident) had impelled him to more fully protect his family in the future. Later he should become addicted to drink, and while temporarily insane from its use should, as it would appear afterwards, kill his wife and child.
In reality they were to go to the extreme West and await his arrival there at a later date. Suddenly the husband was to disappear, and some months later a body badly decomposed and dressed in the clothing he was known to wear was to be found, and with it a statement to the effect that while in a drunken rage he had killed his family and had shipped their dismembered bodies to two separate and distant warehouses to conceal the crime, first having partially preserved the remains by placing them in strong brine. That he did not care to live longer, and that his property and insurance should pass to a relative whom he was to designate in this letter.
At the proper time he was to join his family in the West, and remain there permanently, the relative collecting the insurance, a part of which was to be sent to him, a part to be retained by the relative, and the remainder to be divided between us. This scheme called for a considerable amount of material, no less than three bodies in fact. This difficulty was easily overcome, however, so long as it was supposed that they were needed for experimental purposes, but no doctor could call for three bodies at one time without exciting suspicion, and so it was arranged that I was to go to Chicago for the winter, and some time during the intervening months we should both contribute toward the necessary supply. I reached Chicago in November, 1885, but finding it difficult to obtain satisfactory employment, I went to Minneapolis where I spent the winter in a drug store as a clerk. Meantime, my friend had promptly obtained his portion and placed it in the storage in Delaware from which place it was shipped to me later in Chicago. I remained in Minneapolis until May, 1886, when I returned to Chicago. My own life I had insured meantime for $20,000, which, at a later date, I intended to realize upon. I had prior to this time made arrangements to furnish my portion of the material. After reaching Chicago, certain sudden changes in my plans called me hastily to New York City, and I decided to take a part of the material there and leave the balance in a Chicago warehouse. This necessitated the repacking of the same, and to accomplish this I went to a hotel (May, 1886), where I registered under an assumed name, and occupied a room and had the package, which had been shipped from Detroit, taken there, and carefully removing the carpet from one portion of the room I divided the material into two packages. In doing this the floor became discolored.
Later, one of these packages was placed in the Fidelity Storage Warehouse in Chicago, and the other I took with me to New York and placed it in a safe place. Upon my trip from Chicago to New York I read two accounts of the detection of crime connected with this class of work, and for the first time I realized how well organized and well prepared the leading insurance companies were to detect and punish this kind of fraud, and this, together with a letter I received upon reaching my destination, and the sudden death of my friend, caused all to be abandoned.
Soon after leaving New York I came to Philadelphia, where I sought employment in some drug store where I could hope to become either a partner or an owner. Not finding such an opportunity at once I took a situation as a keeper in the Norristown Asylum. This was my first experience with insane persons, and so terrible was it that for years afterwards, even now sometimes, I see their faces in my sleep. Fortunately within a few days after entering the Asylum I received word that I could obtain different employment in a drug store on Columbia Avenue, which I at once accepted. About July 1st, one afternoon, a child entered the store and exclaimed, “I want a doctor! The medicine we got here this morning has killed my brother (or sister).” I could remember of no sale that morning corresponding to the one she hastily described, but I made sure that a physician was at once sent to the house, and having done this I hastily wrote a note to my employer, stating the nature of the trouble, and left the city immediately for Chicago, and it was not until nine years later that I knew the result of the case.
Later, when it became necessary to disprove the alarming statements that were made relative to various persons having been killed at 701 Sixty-third Street, I placed in the proper authorities’ hands a full collection of documentary evidence, consisting of railroad and storage warehouse receipts, letters, references and dates sufficient to show the truthfulness of my statements.
Upon reaching Chicago I found I could obtain no employment as a druggist until I had passed an examination at Springfield, Ill., and when I went there for that purpose I gave my name as H. H. Holmes, and under this name I have since done most of my business. Later, in July, 1886, I went to 701 Sixty-third Street, Chicago, where I found a small store owned by a physician, who, owing to ill-health, wished to sell badly. A little later I bought it, paying for it for the most part with money secured by mortgaging the stock and fixtures, agreeing to repay this loan at the rate of $100 per month. My trade was good, and for the first time in my life, I was established in a business that was satisfactory to me.
But very soon my landlord, seeing that I was prospering well, made me aware that my rent would be increased, and to protect myself I was forced to purchase at a great expense the vacant property opposite the location I then occupied, and to erect a building thereon. Here my real troubles commenced. The expense incurred was wholly beyond the earning capacity of my business, and for the next few years I was obliged to plunge deeply in debt in every direction; and worse than this, when these debts became due, if unable to meet them to resort to all means of procuring a stay or evading them altogether. At last there came a day when Thomas Fallon, a constable, together with a lawyer named Sanforth, both of Chicago, came to my store to attach the same to satisfy the claim of some impatient creditor. And during the appraisal of the goods they came and asked me the contents of two small barrels.
I gave them some misleading answer, and bringing out other goods to attract their attention, they were passed for the time being. They were the two packages I had arranged more than a year before at a certain hotel, and which had been removed from the storehouses in Chicago and New York, first to my former store, and later to the new one.
A soon as possible after this attachment took place, I resolved to permanently dispose of both these packages, and to do so, I opened the smaller of them and commenced its destruction by burning in a large furnace, then in the basement. The experience was so unpleasant, owing to the terrible odor produced, that I did not think it safe to destroy more of it in the same way, and therefore buried the remainder of that package, as well as the fragments that were partially burned, in the places where they have lately been found.
The other package was removed unopened, from the building, and so disposed of that it is hardly probable it will ever be found, and I do not feel called upon to bring it forth, as it would only serve to add more newspaper notoriety to the case.
If, however, my life is ever jeopardized, or my other statements discredited owing to want of additional proof in this matter, I shall at once cause it to be produced, and my so doing will result in showing that the portions therein cont
ained are parts of the two bodies already found, and more important still that the package thus brought to light has necessarily occupied its present location for nearly seven years.
This will be corroborated by documentary evidence freight, express and warehouse receipts, letters, etc., already in the hands of the authorities, together with evidence from workmen, if still alive and to be found.
Early in 1888, needing some extra carpenters, there came to me, in response to an advertisement, a tall, thin, muscular man, whom, at the time, I took to be a farmer from the Western plains.
He assured me, however, that he was a carpenter, able to do as much and as good work as anyone else, that his name was Benjamin F. Pitezel, that he had a large family, was badly in need of work for their support and begged me to give him a trial. This I did, but soon found him to be a dreamer.
Coming to him at his work I would find him with a set of figures and perhaps a diagram illustrative of their use, or busy making a model of some complicated contrivance. This proceeded so far that for my own protection I had to cause him to work by contract instead of by the day, although I found him fully as improvident of his own time as he had been of mine. Little by little I grew to like his quiet ways, and to depend upon him to take charge of the work at times when I was obliged to be absent, and one day I said to him, “Ben, with all your mechanical ingenuity you should have been a rich man before now. How is it?” His answer was that heretofore the world had not seemed to be inclined to be kind to him. This seemed so aptly to describe my own case, that I talked with him further from time to time, and a summary of what I learned was as follows:
He, like myself, had been a county-bred boy, knowing few pleasures, but, unfortunately, receiving few school advantages. At a comparatively early age he had married and commenced life as a farmer in Illinois or Indiana. Later he had moved to Kansas, and, later still, had been forced to leave that State owing to some legal trouble with a bank there, to which he had given a worthless mortgage to secure a loan in money. After leaving Kansas he had wandered through the Western States, principally in the gold regions and finally had settled in Chicago with his family which, while he traveled, had remained in Kansas. Very soon after reaching Chicago he had commenced working for me, and from that time until September 2, 1894, when he died, he was continually in my employ, working as a carpenter and builder, and as a real estate dealer and as a wholesale lumber merchant, buying and shipping lumber from the South and West to Chicago and St. Louis, where I also sold the same products.
I think it was in 1889 that I was one day waited upon by two gentlemen who wished to sell me a gas machine, by using which I could be forever independent of the regular city gas company. So great were the inducements held out that I later met them at their office in La Salle Street, and before leaving them had bought one of the machines, which a few days later was arranged in the basement of my building, and I had notified the city company that thereafter I should cease to be one of their patrons. For two days the new machine performed wonders, and I recommended it to many of my customers and friends. The third evening when I was very busy, my store was suddenly enveloped in darkness. I was obliged to turn away my customers and close for the want of light and from then until morning I wrestled with my gas machine, and when Pitezel came to his day’s work he found me still perspiring and, I fear, swearing over it.
The machine was to him as a new toy to a child, although he soon assured me that as a gas producer it was an absolute failure. That afternoon I instructed him to temporarily connect it with the city gas to provide light for the evening, and next day I would go to the company and make a new application to again become a permanent customer. As he finished making the connection he remarked that he thought that it would be a good permanent arrangement without going to the gas company. His quiet remark resulted in my having him, next day, lead the gas from the city main to the machine underground in such a way that it would not be known without a close inspection, and this I did, not to defraud the city, but “to get even” with the company who had defrauded me. A few evenings thereafter the president of this company called upon me, and, after quietly studying my new light for a time, spoke to me of it.
I then told him that I had bought his machine for the purpose of trying a new gas that for years I had been experimenting with. Several other visits followed, and although I was apparently averse to disposing of my new discovery, I finally did so, taking in return first a contract so skillfully worded that there could later be no claims brought against me, and, second, a check for a large sum of money. Had matters stopped here as I had at first intended, all would have been well, but I neglected disconnecting from the city supply from day to day, until finally an inspector, more energetic than his fellow-workers, became aware of it, and this resulted in my very willingly choosing to pay a five hundred dollar gas bill in preference to being openly written up and perhaps prosecuted.
There have occurred other deals of a somewhat similar nature, and generally inspired by the same motive, but this one suffices as an example of those that occurred later. Sometime previous to this I had had occasion to employ an attorney to transact some business in which certain papers had to be signed in my New Hampshire name, and to do this work, I employed one I did not know in order that my real name should not be confounded with the name of Holmes, under which I had been known and had done all my work since commencing business in Chicago.
About a year after consulting this attorney, I was called into court as a witness on some trivial case, and while giving my testimony under the name of Holmes, I saw him sitting in the court room apparently much mystified. Instead of denouncing me to the court, as he might easily have done, he spoke to me alone, and, later, feeling he had done me a most kind favor I gave to him the greater part of my legal work; but though he attended to this conscientiously for me as an attorney, he at no time encouraged me to acts that were wrong, nor was he a party to them and the late newspaper comments reflecting upon his integrity are most unjust and uncalled for.
Aside from this one incident I know of no time during the nine years prior to my arrest that my two names conflicted the one with the other, or caused me trouble or annoyance.
In 1890 I added a jewelry store to my business, and placed Julius L. Connor in charge of that and my drug business, his wife, Julia Connor, assisting him as cashier for a time, who, after the sale of the store, lived in the building and supported herself and child by taking boarders. That she is a woman of quick temper and perhaps not always of a good disposition may be true, but that any of her friends and relatives will believe her to be an unmoral woman, or one who would be a party to a criminal act, I do not think. She lived for her child, and her one fear was that she should lose her, and as soon as the daughter is of sufficient age to protect herself, I feel that her whereabouts will be made known. I last saw her about January 1, 1897, when a settlement of her rent was made. At this time she had announced not only to me, but to her neighbors and friends, that she was going away.
At this interview she told me that, while she had given her destination as Iowa, she was going elsewhere to avoid the chance of her daughter being taken from her, giving the Iowa destination to mislead her husband. I corresponded with her upon business matters later, and the so-called secreted letters lately found could only have been obtained from my Chicago letter files, in which hundreds of my business letters were stored away in alphabetical order.
In 1890 I opened an office on Dearborn Street, Chicago, and organized “The Warner Glass-Bending Co.” the principal value of which consisted in certain not very clearly defined ideas I possessed upon the subject of bending glass for mechanical purposes. This was a stock company, in which I had interested, among others, Osmer W. Fay, a most reputable and honest man (a retired minister), of whom I will speak later in this history. Suffice it say here that, when I found that he had invested the principal part of his savings in my company, knowing that it would not be a successful business venture to others, s
ave myself, I returned to him his investment with interest. At this time Pitezel was in the same office with me, selling an invention he had lately patented, known as “Pitezel’s Automatic Coal Bin.” I later established him in an office by himself, where he opened a patent exchange similar to the one he was conducting in Philadelphia at the time of his death.
At about this time, Patrick Quinlan, a whole-souled Irishman, had left his farm in Michigan to come to the city to work during the winter months, and commenced his service with me. He soon became almost indispensable, owing to his careful management and supervision of help and general faithfulness, and for several years he worked for me continually, though during that time he did no illegal act nor committed any wrong so far as I know.
Early in 1891 I became interested in one of the most seductive and misleading inventions that has ever been placed before the American public; a device known as the “A B C Copier,” which had been brought to this country from Europe by a prominent official of the World’s Fair.
Confessions of the Serial Killer H.H. Holmes (Illustrated) Page 2