October 1—Monday. Mrs. Pitezel left St Louis for Galva, Ill., with Dessie and the baby. Galva was the home of her parents. Holmes takes the children to the Circle House, Indianapolis (registers as “Three Canning children"), where they remained until October 10.
October 1—Alice and Nellie write letters as follows:
Indianapolis, Ind., October 1, 1894.
Dear Mamma.:
We was in Cincinnati yesterday and we got here last night getting that telegram from Mr. Howe yesterday afternoon.
Mr. H. is going to-night tor you and he will take this letter. We went us three over to the Zoological Garden in Cincinnati yesterday afternoon and we saw all the different kinds of animals. We saw the ostrich it is about a head taller than I am so you know about how high it is. And the giraffe you have to look up in the sky to see it. I like it lots better here than In Cincinnati. It is such a dirty town Cin.
There is a monument right in front of the hotel where we are at and I should judge that it is about 3 times the height of a five story building. I guess I have told all the news so good bye love to all & kisses. Hope you are all well. Your loving daughter,
ETTA PITEZEL.
___
Indianapolis, Ind., October 1, 1894.
Dear Mamma, Baby and D.
We are all well here. Mr. H. is going on a late train to-night. He is not here now I just saw him go by the Hotel He went some place I don't know where I think he went to get his ticket.
We are staying in another hotel in Indianapolis it is a pretty nice one we came here last night from C.
I like it here lots better than in C. It is quite warm here and I have to wear this warm dress because my close aren’t ironed. He ate dinner over to the Stibbins Hotel where Alice staid and they knew her to. We are not staying there we are at the English H.
We have a room right in front of a monument and I think it was A. Lincolns. Come as soon as you can because I want to see you and baby to. It Is awful nice place where we are staying I don't think you would like it in Cincinnati either but Mr. H. sais he
likes it there. Good bye your daughter.
NELLIE PITEZEL.
___
October 5—Holmes rents the house at Irvington from Mr. Crouse (J. C. Wand's clerk). He said he wanted it for his sister, Mrs. A. E. Cook and her children, and that she intended using it as a boarding house.
October 6, 7, 8—Children write letters home.
October 10—Howard disappears on this day.
Same day—Holmes takes Alice and Nellie from the Circle House.
October 12—Evening. Holmes arrives in Detroit. Himself and Miss Yoke in one party: Alice and Nellie in another. He registers the children at the New Western Hotel as Etta and Nellie Canning. St. Louis, Mo. He registers himself and Miss Yoke at the Hotel Normandie “C. Howell and wife, Adrian.”
October 13—Mrs. Pitezel, Dessie and the baby leave Galva, Ill., for Detroit, stopping in Chicago. Holmes has written to her that “Ben" was waiting to see her in Detroit.
October 13—Holmes and Miss Yoke remove from Hotel Normandie to No. 54 Park Place. He gave their names as Mr. and Mrs. Holmes.
October 14—Mrs. Pitezel, Dessie and the baby arrive in Detroit, and register as C. A. Adams and daughter at Geis’s Hotel.
October 14--Alice writes her last letter.
October 15—Holmes takes Alice and Nellie to boarding house of Lucinda Burns at No. 91 Corgress street.
October 15—About this date Holmes rents of Mr. Boninghausen the house No. 241 East Forest avenue. Mr. Boninghausen does not remember name Holmes gave. In the rear of cellar under porch of the house Holmes digs a hole four feet long, three and a half feet wide, three feet six inches deep.
October 18—Holmes and Miss Yoke leave Detroit tor Toronto, Canada. He tells Mrs. Pitezel that Ben had gone to Toronto. At Toronto Holmes registers at Walker House as Geo. H. Howell and wife, Columbus. Some day Mrs. Pitezel, Dessie and the baby left Geis’s Hotel, Detroit, tor Toronto; were met at Grand Trunk Depot by Holmes and taken to the Union House, where they register under the name of C. A. Adams and daughter.
October 10--Alice and Nellie leave Detroit for Toronto; arrive in the evening about 8 o'clock; were met by Holmes, who turned them over to George Dennis, a hotel porter for the Albion Hotel, and they were registered as Etta and Nellie Canning, Detroit.
October 20—Holmes rented house No. 16 St. Vincent street of Mrs. Nudel. Said his name was Howard and that he wanted it for his sister.
Same day Holmes and Miss Yoke went to Niagara Falls.
October 21—They returned and registered at the Palmer House under the name of Howell.
October 24—Holmes borrows a spade from Mr. Ryves, No. 18 St. Vincent street, to dig a hole in the cellar, “for the storage of potatoes.” While in Toronto Holmes called at Albion Hotel for Alice and Nellie every morning, returning them in the evening.
October 25—On the morning of this day he takes Alice and Nellie from the Albion Hotel, paying their account tor board in full. The children disappear.
October 25—He requests Mrs. Pitezel to go to Ogdensberg. He tells her Ben is in Montreal. He said that he had rented a house in Toronto, but that two detectives on bicycles were watching it, and it would not be safe for Ben to visit her there.
October 26—Holmes and Miss Yoke leave Toronto and go to Prescott, Canada; remained there over night.
October 31—He is found at Burlington on at the Burlington House; registered as G. D. Hale, Columbus, O. He moved to rooms at Mr. Aherns, where he gave the names of himself and Miss Yoke as "Mr. Hall and wife."
November 1—He rents a house No. 23 Winooski avenue of W. B. McKillip under the name of J. A. Judson, for his sister, Mrs. Cook.
November 1 to November 16—Between these dates visited his parents at his old home in Gilmanton, N. H.: resumes his relations with his real wife, Mrs. Mudgett. He tells a romantic story, accounting for his absence from home.
November 17—He is arrested in Boston.
November 18—He makes his first confession. He says Pitezel is alive in South America, or, on his way there, and that the children were with him. He said Pitezel was bound for San Salvador. That their means of communication was to be in the personal column of the New Your Herald.
Mrs. Pitezel is arrested on the same day.
November 20—Holmes and Mrs. Pitezel brought to Philadelphia; committed to county prison.
December 6—Mrs. Pitezel makes a full statement to Mr. Fouse and Mr. Perry, of the Fidelity Mutual Life Association.
December 15—Holmes now says Pitezel is dead and that the children were given to Miss Williams, who took them to Europe.
December 17—Makes another confession, declaring that Pitezel was dead and that he had committed suicide.
1895.
June 3—Holmes is tried for conspiracy to cheat and defraud the insurance company and on the second day of the trial pleads guilty.
June 27—Detective Geyer leaves Philadelphia and commences his search for the children.
July 15—Geyer finds the bodies of Alice and Nellie in the cellar of the Toronto house, No. 16 St. Vincent street.
August 27--Geyer finds the remains of Howard in the house at Irvington, a few miles from Indianapolis.
September 12—Holmes is indicted in Philadelphia for the murder of Benjamin F. Pitezel.
September 23—He pleads not guilty. The court fixes the day of the trial to be October 28.
October 28—Motion for continuance denied. Trial commences and continues until November 2. Jury render a verdict: “Guilty of murder in the first degree."
November 18—Motion for a new trial argued.
November 30—Motion for new trial overruled. Holmes sentenced to be hung.
Holmes, in his confession of how he has taken the lives of so many innocent people, even going so far as to claim that he had studied medicine merely to further his own infamous plots and plans of murder, does not claim that in his mode of life he has been j
ustified. There Is due to him this honor, that he does not claim doing anything for the good and welfare of the people while perpetrating the harrowing crimes of which he is the father. The pickpocket, who stealthily filches our pocketbook, the burglar, who in the dead of night enters our homes, claims not that he is right by the very fact that he does it under cover. His crime is one that is easily recognized and when discovered easily punished.
The avowed foe has, to a certain extent, our admiration for his open avowal, and he is not to be feared half so much as the one who under the guise of friendship and interest in our well being stealthily takes from us that which undermines our very existence.
There is in this great city of Brotherly Love, and in our midst an insidious enemy to the well being of the American work people, undermining foundation of our institutions; this is known under the innocent-looking name of SWEAT SHOP LABOR. All attempts to battle against that system is, and will be, futile without the existence of a good, healthy public sentiment against the same. This sentiment can only be made through appeals to the people by that great molder of public opinion which reaches the masses directly—the public press. But has the press the knowledge of this iniquitous evil? To this can emphatically be answered—“Yes."
Having the knowledge, do they use it for the betterment or the condition of the people? They do not. They are like the long-visaged impostor who, while claiming to look after and be interested alone in our welfare, takes advantage of our faith in him, betrays our confidence. The press, the molder of public opinion, is always claiming that it is ready to do battle for the right but has thus far neglected to show conclusively to the people the danger to which they are aware and which beset the people of this country. Will they prove true to the trust reposed in them, they certainly will not; as is evidenced by the confession of the editor of one of the most influential papers of Philadelphia, who refused to insert the report of a committee of one of the representative guilds of this town who, upon investigation, had made the following report:
“The latest case and one of the most interesting, is the establishment of Miller, Sons & Co., ready-made clothing, where, partly in their retail store on Market street, and partly in their mills in this city and Bordentown, their motto, ‘From Loom to Wearer,’ is literally carried out, all the weaving, dyeing, cutting and sewing being done under conditions as comfortable and hygienic as it seems possible to make them; with no contract or sweat shop anywhere in the system.”
To the request to insert the above the editor said, "If I should print this tomorrow about forty ready-made clothing firms would withdraw their ads from us the day after." Is not this a fearful CONFESSION of the weakness of the position of papers as a maker and guider of public opinion? Should we not rise in our might and “drive” the money changers from the temple? This refusal had reference to the portion of the report, quoted above, all other matter being admitted.
Since the press will not voluntarily print these claims for a better condition of the masses we propose to enlighten the people directly and for that purpose are ready at any time to give clothing honestly made under the system so earnestly advocated by the upholders of free American labor.
Holmes, the Arch Fiend
Or:
A Carnival of Crime
The Life, Trial, Confession and Execution of H. H. Holmes.
Twenty-seven Lives sacrificed to this
Monstrous Ogre's Insatiable Appetite.
Copyright by BARCLAY & CO.
PUBLISHED BY
BARCLAY & CO.,
210 and 212 East Fourth St., Cincinnati, 0hio
"Truth is stranger than fiction, and if Mrs. Pitezel's story is true it is the most wonderful exhibition of the power of mind over mind I have ever seen and stranger than any novel I have ever read."
JUDGE ARNOLD.
The Wife and Mother
On September 28th, 1894, there was a poor woman in St. Louis, Mo., half-crazed by the bitterness of her suffering, but whose miseries and trials had only just begun.
Her husband was not at her side. Whether he was living or dead was an unsolved mystery for the poor woman that awaited some tidings from the one that should have been her protector.
Deprived of the life-partner in whose companionship she had known so many happy moments it is not to be wondered at that she often gathered her poor defenseless children about her and wept bitterly.
Mrs. Carrie Pitezel, who was passing her life in the midst of the grief and sorrow just mentioned had five children, Alice, Nellie, Howard, Dessie and Wharton, the baby, but three months old. They were bright, pretty children, the oldest no more than twelve. The spectacle of their mother's grief saddened them too, young as they were.
"Why are you always crying?" lisped Dessie in her innocent way.
Every word was a knife stab in the mother's heart.
"Your papa…" began the poor woman and broke down.
"Why doesn't he come home?" inquired Howard, with a serious face. "When he went away a month ago he promised that he would be back in a week."
"He hasn't even written to us," added Alice.
At these innocent remarks poor Mrs. Pitezel burst out afresh and wept without restraint.
It was evening at length before she realized in the midst of her distraction, that it was time to begin preparing the frugal meal that served the little family for supper. The Pitezel's were very poor and their only means of support was the sewing and washing that Mrs. Pitezel did when she could get it to do.
She busied herself about the kitchen that was located in one of the three rooms they occupied. She noticed that they had used the last of the little supply of coffee. As the children were very fond of coffee Mrs. Pitezel called to Alice and gave her a few coins from the meager stock of change in the house and sent her to the grocery. When Alice returned from the grocery she carried something besides the coffee she had been sent for.
"What is that you have, Alice?" inquired Mrs. Pitezel, thinking the child may have picked up one of the cheap harmful story papers printed to corrupt the young.
"It's just a newspaper," said Alice. "Mr. Becker, the grocery man said there was something in it about 1316 Callohill Street, Philadelphia."
These words struck upon Mrs. Pitezel's ear like the tones of an alarm bell. She grew faint and caught at the edge of the table for support.
"1316 Callohill Street," she cried, at length. '"That is where your papa went with that-that-"
Mrs. Pitezel could not finish. The name of the monster stuck in her throat.
"What does the paper say?" asked Mrs. Pitezel, at length. "Let me have it dear."
Alice handed her mother the newspaper which was from Philadelphia, Pa. The first item she saw was one headed: "Found Dead."
The article went on to describe that a certain B. F. Perry, who had lived at 1316 Callohill Street in Philadelphia, had been found dead in that house by a man named Eugene Smith. The account stated also that Perry had lain at the morgue for eleven days awaiting identification by some of his friends or family and that the body had at length been buried in Potter's field, no one having come to claim it.
With a burst of agony she could not repress Mrs. Pitezel threw her arms about Alice and exclaimed: "Papa is dead!"
"Dead!" cried Alice. "How do you know about that mamma?"
"Hush my darling," cried the mother. "I must not tell you now - I must not tell you. Remember this, my child, whatever else you ever hear in your life, your papa was a good man. No better man than he ever lived. He was kind-hearted, true and good. But he was led away."
"Led away to Philadelphia?" asked the child, not comprehending that her mother meant that her husband had been led away from his good principles. It was this fact that Mrs. Pitezel was trying to conceal from her children.
She believed Ben Pitezel innocent in spite of his ready constant to the schemes and crookedness of a monster that had come across the family's path like a black cloud from Satan’s dominions. Secretly she had no doubt that
Ben. F. Pitezel, her husband, and B. F. Perry, who was found dead in Philadelphia, were one and the same person. That the monster had ended by killing her husband outright she did not doubt. Still, there was just one faint glimmer of hope in her bosom for the monster had promised that no harm was to come to her husband.
In order to be alone so that she could gather her thoughts, Mrs. Pitezel put the children to bed earlier than usual. After listening to their prayers and seeing them safely asleep she sat down at a table and mentally went over the entire history of her trouble.
She reverted to the time when her husband had first met the person whom we have referred to as the Monster.
In January 1894, when the Pitezel's were living in Fort Worth, Texas, a comfortable happy family, there had come a man who represented himself to be D. T. Pratt. We shall not refer to this man Pratt in the future, for we will have much to say in connection with him. Pratt was but one of his many aliases. The man's real name was Mudgett. To the world he is known today as H. H. Holmes. For convenience we will continue to speak of him as Holmes.
This man came home with Pitezel, one evening, who introduced him to Mrs. Pitezel and said that they had a business arrangement by which they were to operate in real estate and also engage in building.
Mrs. Pitezel, sitting alone in her humble home at St. Louis, allowed her mind to run back to that evening. She remembered how her husband's strange quiet caused her to wonder. He who had always been overflowing with fun and good spirits now seemed to be strangely depressed and gloomy. He kept his eyes on Holmes most of the time and the expression in them was like that of a beaten dog, humble, cowed and submissive. It was plain to be seen that Holmes was master. Mrs. Pitezel had made up her mind to interfere and prevent her husband from uniting in any enterprise with this man but when she subsequently tried to prevail upon her husband she found that he was deaf to entreaties. His soul was no longer his own. He was a slave.
Mrs. Pitezel also pictured the appearance of the man Holmes in her mind and she shrank instinctively and looked about her as she did so, half expecting to see some grim apparatus from Hades at her side.
Confessions of the Serial Killer H.H. Holmes (Illustrated) Page 20
