6. Holmes expands to real estate fraud
In early 1893 Holmes hired an aspiring actress named Minnie Williams, with the usual hints of potential marital bliss, and later convinced her to sign over property she owned in Texas to a third party, under an alias used by Holmes. After conning her out of the deed, which was transferred to his partner Benjamin Pitezel, the couple rented an apartment in Lincoln Park (presenting themselves as married) and invited Minnie’s sister to visit them. The sister, Nannie Williams, visited that summer and wrote to her aunt that the three of them were planning a trip to Europe later that summer. It was the last anyone heard of Nannie, neither sister was ever seen again after the first week of July, 1893. Both sisters had been covered by life insurance purchased by Holmes, with him as beneficiary.
By that summer several insurance companies had made note of the sums being paid to Holmes, as well as the frequency of his claims. A mysterious fire broke out at the Castle. Several investigators began to dig around his businesses and accounts. Recognizing that Chicago was becoming a bit hot for him, Holmes left Chicago in the summer of 1894, traveling to Fort Worth, planning to use the property he had conned out of the vanished Minnie Williams to create a new business along the lines of his Chicago enterprises. Never one to pay his bills when he could instead scam someone out of money, he borrowed money using furniture as collateral, then sold the furniture, in St. Louis, for which he was arrested. After being released on bail, Holmes made contacts with a less than scrupulous attorney, to whom he revealed plans to fake his own death as part of yet another insurance scam.