The Killing Spree
The murder castle was completed in 1892 and Holmes announced that he would rent out rooms to tourists during the Columbian Exposition, also known as the World’s Fair in Chicago. Holmes even murdered his employees, and there is no way of knowing just how many guests died because the activity of the Fair was a perfect disguise for his dastardly deeds.
Holmes murdered his victims in a variety of ways. He could asphyxiate them, seal them up in chambers so they died of thirst, or hang them. Holmes typically disposed of the bodies by placing them in a fake elevator or dumping them down a metal chute that ended up in the basement. Once he was downstairs, Holmes would gleefully dissect the corpses, sell their organs to his medical connections, and steal their valuables. The remaining parts of the bodies were disposed of in acid baths, furnaces, or lime pits.
Capture & Execution
Holmes’ fondness for insurance scams led to his capture. With the aid of his friend Benjamin Pitezel, he launched a scam whereby Pitezel faked his death so his wife could collect a $10,000 payout. The two men traveled around the country committing other frauds, and when they ended up in jail in Texas, Holmes asked fellow inmate Marion Hedgepeth to help them with the scam.
Holmes asked Hedgepeth to recommend a lawyer capable of helping him with the insurance fraud and promised a payment of $500. The cheapskate Holmes failed to live up to his end of the bargain, and an irate Hedgepeth went to the police to tell them of the crime. Instead of finding a cadaver to imitate the body of Pitezel, Holmes decided to murder his accomplice by knocking him out and burning the body with benzene. He was able to collect the payout and convinced Pitezel’s widow to give him custody of three of her children. He then proceeded to murder all three.
The net closed in on Holmes, and as he sat in a Philadelphia prison after confessing to insurance fraud, the police traced his trail back to Chicago and entered the castle of death. They located his maze of secret chutes and torture chambers and discovered mounds of animal and human bone,s including those of children as young as six-years-old. Police also found bloodied women’s clothes beside a ‘dissection’ table that was covered in blood.
Holmes was tried for the murder of Pitezel and sentenced to death. After his conviction, Holmes said he committed at least 27 (some estimates say he confessed to 30) murders in Chicago, Toronto, and Indianapolis. The problem was, some of the people he claimed to have murdered turned up alive later on. Holmes’ neck did not snap when he was hanged on May 7, 1896, and it took 20 minutes for him to die. Ironically, he asked to be buried in a cement chamber so his body could not be dissected.
We will never know how many people he murdered because of the chaos of the World’s Fair and the less than sophisticated methods of police detection back in the late 19th century. The murder castle was effectively destroyed in a fire in 1895, although the first floor survived until 1938 when it was razed and turned into a U.S. Post Office.
Interestingly, a man named Pat Quinlan was the caretaker of the castle during Holmes’ killing spree, and while he was questioned about the murders, there wasn’t enough evidence to charge him. However, he committed suicide in 1914 by consuming strychnine. His suicide note said ‘I couldn’t sleep’ so it is likely that he suffered from a guilty conscience. Did Pat Quinlan help Holmes commit murder, did he cover up the crimes, or was he just an unsuspecting associate?