Confessions of the Serial Killer H.H. Holmes (Illustrated)

by Mudgett (aka H. H. Holmes), Herman Webster

  Later he wanted to carry out the insurance work down in Mississippi, where he was acquainted, and I went there with him, and when I found out what I kind of a place it was would not go any further with it there, and told him so, and he said if I did not he would kill himself and get money for you, etc. To get him out of the notion I told him I would go to Mobile, and if I could not get what was wanted would do so; if not I would go to St. Louis and write to him to come. I did not go to Mobile. Was never there in my life.

  When I reached St. Louis I wrote him, and in the letter he left me after he died he said he tried to kill himself with laudanum there, and later I found out this was so. (Henry Rogers, proprietor of hotel at Perkinsville, Ala.) Where he was very sick. He also wrote you he was sick there. I think you told me. Here in Philadelphia we were not ready. He got word baby was sick and he had to own to me he had drank up the $35 I gave him extra in New York, and then I told him I would settle up everything, as If we carried it out he might get to drinking and tell or it.

  He begged me not to do it, and at last I concluded to try again, but thought it best to have him think for a week or two that I was not going on with it, so he would sober up and be himself. I blame myself for this and always shall, for the next day when I went to his store l found him as I have described, and Perry or the detectives have got the cipher slip he left me, or, at all events, it was in the tin box they took. He asked me to get you a house in Cincinnati, on account of good schools, etc., and I did so, but did not dare take you there after Howe and McD. Threatened my arrest, and so made arrangements with Miss W. to live with you. She took Howard with her from Detroit because he would quarrel with the girls if no grown person was with them, and he wanted his father's watch and Alice wanted to keep it, and so I took it, telling them I wanted to show it to you and Dessa, and bought all three of them each a cheap watch.

  When I found the conditions in Toronto were not as Miss W. thought they were, and I was getting word from Chicago every day that I was being followed, I thought it best to go out of the country altogether, and the insurance company knew the children, A. and E., were at their hotel at 1 o’clock the afternoon you left Toronto, and between then and when I saw you at 4 o'clock, at the store where I was buying some things for them, I had been to my wife's hotel twice and was with you again at 6:30, and had meantime started the children to Miss W. and eaten my supper.

  Account for Time

  From that time until my arrest in Boston it I now could be allowed to sit down with you and my wife I could show you where every haft hour was spent. In Boston I received a letter from Miss W. that they would leave there in a few days, and if the detectives would now go, as I beg of them, they could trace out the New York end of the matter, and stop all unnecessary delay and expense. This would spoil their theories, and would not be a sufficiently bloodthirsty ending of the case to satisfy them, it seems.

  As soon as they got a house and were settled, they were to send word and you were then to go to them, and this was why I wished you to take a furnished house so you could get rested and not be at hotels. I made arrangements for Miss W. to tell you all when you were settled. If you had known they were following you would have

  been worried, and I think you will remember that I tried to do all I could to keep you from it and we had to get rid of the old trunks and get the things into bundles, so there would be no checking. There Is a bundle of yours now at the Burlington Depot marked with the name you went by there, which I have forgotten.

  I Never Quarreled with Ben

  I was as careful of the children as if they were my own, and you know me well enough to judge me better than strangers here can do. Ben would not have done anything against me, or I against him, any quicker than brothers. We never quarreled. Again he was worth too much to me for me to have killed him, if I had no other reason not to. As to the children, I never will believe, until you tell me so yourself, that you think

  they are dead, or that I did anything put them out of the way. Knowing me as you do, can you imagine me killing little and innocent r children, especially without any motive? Why, if I was preparing to put them out of life was I (within an hour before I must have done it if ever) buying them things to wear and make them comfortable, even underwear

  for them to take to Miss W. for Howard (which I can prove I bought in Toronto), if, as they would have you believe, Pat had taken him and killed him weeks before? Don't you know that if I had offered Pat a million dollars he would not have done a thing like this? I made a mistake in having it known that Miss W. killed her sister, as it tends to make her more careful about her movements, but I could hardly do otherwise, when I was accused of killing them both. Now after they get done trying to make the case worse than it is, you will find that they will trace the children to New York and to the steamer there. Next to you I have suffered most about them, and a few days ago gave the District Attorney all the facts I could, and it nothing comes of it soon, I hardly expect anything new to occur until I can be taken to Fort Worth and arrange the property, so Mr. Massie, her old guardian, can take her part of the money to her in London. By advertising, if she knows there is money for her and it comes through Mr. Massie safely, she will find some way (probably through her Boston friend) to get it. As long as there is nothing to gain she will hardly come out openly and lay herself liable to arrest.

  The Cruel Company

  I dislike fearfully to go to Fort Worth to serve a term, as the prisons there are terrible. I would rather be here five years than there one, and in going there is no better way to have you know that I am willing to do all I can for you and yours. I blame the company here for keeping you shut up six months in this den, for worrying you about your children not being alive and for their trying to separate my wife from me, for these things do not concern them, but I have never blamed them for otherwise making me all the trouble they can. I would do the same with another if the tables were turned.

  As matters now stand I have got here, in Illinois and in Texas, between fifteen and twenty years or imprisonment awaiting me. If the children can be found I want to finish here and in Illinois first, hoping by, that lime the Texas matters may blow over or that I may die; but If they are not found before my sentence expires here, if any arrangement can be made so papers can be filed in Texas to bring me back here or to Illinois, after I have served this first small charge in Texas, so I do not have to stay and serve the others there until after my Northern term is served. I will go and do all I can to both get the property & straightened there, so you can have a small income and arrange for recovery of the children. Ben's death was genuine and you were entitled to the money, and if it had not been for H. and McD. you would to-day have been in Cincinnati with all the children.

  About the money, Ben asked me to use most or it to pay debts and arrange so some steady income should come to you from the South. The note you got in St. Louis was made by him in the spring and some money was due on it. We were owing Miss W. about $5000. I gave $1000 to her In Detroit (also $400 to Alice In Toronto), and you have no reason to think I was not Intending to take care of you then, more than in years before, and now if I can get to Fort Worth without running risk of staying there more than one year I will soon straighten so as to get you money while I am there in jail. Mr. Shoemaker went there two weeks last winter and started matters, but until I can go there and be taken into court nothing more can be done, I fear.

  Plans for the Children

  There are some letters at the City Hall that I promised Alice I would save for her, as I did not dare to let her carry them with her, and if after they get through with them you can get them I wish you would do so. Also Ben's watch. Howard has the other things. I don’t know what you what you will do meantime if you gain your liberty here, but rest assured I will do all I can at the earliest possible moment. So far as the children’s bodily health is concerned I feel sure I can say to you that they are as well to-day as though they were with you. Also that they will not be turned adrift a
mong strangers for two reasons: First, Miss W. though quick-tempered, is too soft-hearted to do so; second, if among others where their letters could not be looked over and detained they would write to their grandparents (not to you, as I instructed Miss W. from

  Boston in answer to her letter to me if she heard of my or our arrest to have the children think we were lost in crossing to London). They have no doubt written letters which Miss W. for her own safety has withheld.

  If there are any questions you wish to ask me make a list of them and send to one of my attorneys. I have refrained from asking you any lest you would think that the object of my letter. I have no desire to do anything that will cause your lawyer or the prosecution any unnecessary work or annoyance, and if you write me shall simply answer questions asked. Shall not advise nor question you, nor would I have done so if allowed to have seen you during past months, though it would have saved them much unnecessary delay and expense to have had us eliminate some of the features of the case by comparing memories. I, at least, hope your suffering is nearly ended.

  Yours, truly,

  H. H. HOLMES.

  The Hunt Begins

  Substantially this document presents the case as the authorities knew it when Detective Geyer started on his famous hunt June 26, 1895. Besides Holmes’ own statements the detective was in possession of certain clues obtained from a tin box that contained Holmes' letters and papers. Geyer went straight to Cincinnati, where he and Detective John Snooks found the first traces.

  "We finally struck a cheap hotel at No. 104 ½ Central avenue, known as the Atlantic House, and upon examining the register we discovered that on Friday, September 28, 1894, there appeared the name of Alex. E. Cook and three children,” writes Mr. Geyer. "The photographs of Holmes and the three children were shown to the clerk, who could not say positively that they were the photographs of the people who had stopped there, but thought they resembled them very much. Recalling to my mind that Holmes had Mrs. Pitezel living in Burlington Under the name of Mrs. A. E. Cook, I felt convinced that I was on the right track. The clerk informed us that these parties only remained over night, leaving the following morning. Thanking the clerk for his kind attention we left the hotel and continued our search among such hotels as we had not visited, and when we arrived at the Hotel Bristol, corner of Sixth and Vine streets, we discovered that on Saturday, September 20, 1804, there appeared on the register the name of A. E. Cook and three children, Cleveland. They were assigned to Room No. 103, a room which contained two beds. Mr. W. L. Bain, a clerk at the hotel, recognized the photographs of Holmes and the children as the party who registered there under that name. The register showed that they left the Bristol on Sunday, September 30."

  The detective then goes on to relate how they tried to find a house Holmes is alleged to have rented in Cincinnati. Summing up this chapter or the work, Mr. Geyer says:

  "Having located Holmes and the children at two hotels in Cincinnati and discovered the two false names he assumed, Cook and Hayes, I felt justified in believing that I had taken firm hold of the end of the string which was to lead me ultimately to the consummation of my difficult mission. I was not able to appreciate the intense significance of the renting of the Poplar street house and the delivery of a stove of such immense size there, but I felt sure I was on the right track, and so started for Indianapolis, from which point several of the children’s letters found in Holmes’ tin box had been dated."

  Traced to Indianapolis

  At Indianapolis he arrived on June 20. “Here,” continues the detective, “on going to the Stubbins House and examining the register, we found that on September 24, 1894, was an entry in the name of Etta Pitezel, St. Louis, Mo., and that the hotel records showed she left on the morning of September 28. Further inquiry elicited the fact that the girl was brought there by a man known to Mr. Robert Sweeney, the clerk, as Mr. Howard, and that on Friday morning, September 28, he had received a telegram from Mr. Howard, dated St. Louis, requesting him to have Etta Pitezel at the Union Depot to meet St. Louis train for Cincinnati, O. This was the day Holmes left St. Louis with Nellie and Howard Pitezel, telling their mother that he was going to take them to Indianapolis, where they would be taken care or by a kind old lady. Mr. Sweeney fully identified the picture of Alice Pitezel as the girl who stopped at the Stubbins House; also that of Holmes as the man whom he knew as Howard and to whom he had given Alice Pitezel on the St. Louis train for Cincinnati, O.”

  Further traces of Holmes were found in Indianapolis, and then Geyer went to Chicago and saw a Miss Irons, Janitor Pat Quinlan and others, who gave him information. Detroit was the next point he visited. There he found other traces and also discovered that the boy Howard had dropped out of the story and that Holmes and the two little girls had gone to Toronto.

  For several days there the detective was baffled. At last he called in the newspaper men, gave them pictures of the children and told them what he was looking for. All the Toronto papers printed big stories. They soon bore fruit. A man who had rented a house at 16 St. Vincent street to a stranger with two children turned up. He gave the right clue. The detectives followed it up. Photographs of Holmes and the children were promptly identified by those who saw them.

  Two Bodies Found

  Then continues Mr. Geyer: “We at once returned to No. 18 St. Vincent street, here we met Mr. Ryves anxiously waiting for our return. Requesting him to loan us a shovel, he went into the house and came out with the same spade he had loaned to Holmes. We rang the bell at No. 10 St. Vincent street. The door was opened by the lady of the house, a. Mrs. J. Armbrust. Mr. Ryves introduced us and told her we would like to go into the cellar. She kindly consented and ushered us back into the kitchen. Lifting a large piece of oilcloth from the floor, we discovered a small trap door, possibly two feet square, in about the centre of the room. Raising this, I discovered that the cellar was not very deep, but it was very dark, so I asked Mrs. Armbrust to kindly provide us with some lamps. In a short time she had them ready, and down into the cellar we went. The cellar was very small, about ten feet square and not more than four and a half feet in depth. A set of steps, almost perpendicular, lead to it from the old-fashioned trap door in the middle of the kitchen floor.

  "Taking the spade and pushing it into the earth, so as to determine whether it had been lately dug up, we finally discovered a soft spot in the southwest corner. Forcing the spade into the earth we found it easy digging, and, after going down about one foot, a horrible stench arose. This convinced us that we were on the right spot, and our coats were thrown off, and with renewed confidence we continued our digging. The deeper we dug the more horrible the odor became, and when we reached the depth of three feet we discovered what appeared to be the bone of the forearm of a human being.

  “Alice was found lying on her side, with her head to the west. Nellie was found lying on her face, with her head to the south, her plaited hair hanging neatly down her back. A messenger was dispatched to Humphrey's undertaking establishment to send two coffins to No. 16 St. Vincent street. In a short time the wagon arrived and the coffins were taken into the kitchen, and we proceeded to lift the remains out of the hole. As Nellie's limbs were found resting on Alice's we first began with her. We lifted her as gently as possible, but owing to the decomposed state of the body the weight of her plaited hair hanging down her back pulled the scalp from off her head. A sheet had been spread in which to lay the remains, and after we succeeded in getting it out of the bole it was placed in the sheet, taken upstairs and deposited in the coffin. Again we returned to the cellar, and gently lifting what remained of poor Alice we placed her in another sheet, took her upstairs and placed her in a coffin by the side of her sister".

  Beginning of the End

  This discovery was the beginning of the end. The story of how Mrs. Pitezel came on to Toronto and identified the remains is one of the saddest incidents in the rest of the narrative. Summing up this part of the case the detective says:

  “Nothing could be
more surprising than the apparent ease with which Holmes murdered the two little girls in the very centre of the city of Toronto without arousing the least suspicion of a single person there. It startles one to realize how such a hideous crime could be committed and detection avoided. Surely if the investigation and search

  for the children had not been made by the Philadelphia authorities these murders would never have been discovered, and Mrs. Pitezel would have gone to her grave without knowing whether her children were alive or dead. This was the one consolation she had in the very darkest hour of her life. She knew the fate of her unfortunate daughters, the mystery of their disappearance had been solved, and the only remaining problem was the discovery of her little son, Howard. She could not believe he was dead, and clung fondly to the hope that, he would ultimately be found alive.

  “Holmes was successful in maintaining the same conditions in Toronto as he had in Detroit. Mrs. Pitezel was at the Union Hotel and Alice and Nellie at the Albion, although each party was Ignorant of the proximity of the other."

  On the afternoon of July 19, 1895, the bodies were buried and the detective went on to Detroit to take up the hunt for Howard. Finally he returned to Philadelphia, and in August Geyer started out again. This time he was accompanied by Inspector Gary, of the insurance company. Step by step Holmes' journey was retraced until only forty-eight hours were unaccounted for. These left him in Indianapolis, and there the trail was hotly pressed. On Tuesday, August 27, 1895, they found where Holmes and the boy rented a house at Irvington. There the search was begun in earnest.

  Howard’s Bones Found