Confessions of the Serial Killer H.H. Holmes (Illustrated)
Page 33
The dead bodies of the little ones rested in the basement of the lonely Toronto cottage. Holmes started for Boston to await their discovery, after which the proper confederate could come forward and claim the insurance. Without doubt he intended to kill Mrs. Pitezel, who was no longer of any use to him. At this interesting stage a Boston detective placed him under arrest, and he pleaded guilty of graveyard insurance, and is now in Moyamensing jail, in Philadelphia. Had he not been arrested he would have found a way to cause a search to be made of the Toronto cottage in time to have a positive identification of the body made. Why did he cut off the feet of Nellie Pitezel?
So as to make it appear that the murderous Minnie Williams wanted to make it more difficult to identify the bodies.
There is not a circumstance known which conflicts with this theory. None but insane men could commit murder without a motive. Holmes is not insane. The motive power of his life has been money. It is not reasonable to suppose he would kill the Pitezel children for any reason. They were worth nothing to him living. Perhaps some insurance company can tell how much they would have been worth to him dead had not his plans miscarried.
AUTHOR’S ARTICULATION
Dr. E. L. Denison, Ph.D., M.D., professor of Pathology in Chicago Summer School of Medicine, also Director of the Microscopical Laboratory, No 61 Austin Avenue, Chicago, thoroughly examined the stains which the detectives supposed to be blood that was found on a table purported to be used for dissections, and also on the floor leading from the windowless room to the kitchen adjacent to it. He states that the spots were iron rust, blood and wood stain mixed. He also states that owing to age it was impossible to designate it as human blood.
He had also examined some of the bones that were dug from the cellar and pronounced them animal, chicken and turkey bones, mingled with human bones.
Upon Dr. E. L. Denison being interrogated by the author in regard to the condition of the lime found around the bones dug up. He replies: That if any portion of human or any other kind of flesh had been buried in this quicklime it would without a shadow of a doubt produced a characteristic color which is known as post mortem staining and never under any circumstances fails to produce itself, and that lime which is unslacked and buried in chunks would absorb sufficient water from the earth to slack the lime, and it would be in a moist and gluey condition and being buried with the flesh, it would necessarily through its affinity for water abstract the decomposed fluid of the flesh and produce the above color known as post mortem staining.
Dr. E. L. Denison conducts an office at 59th and State streets, and also operates the drug store of the Holmes castle.
From 1888 to 1890 Holmes done some mysterious work. In 1890 notes were signed by a woman who represented herself to be Lucy C. Belknap. The notes matured and finally the last one of seven fell due and none of them were paid. After months passed the notes were placed in the hands of attorneys Peckham & Brown, whose officers are in the First National Bank Building of Chicago. Mrs. Lucy C. Belknap of Wilmette was notified that such notes were unpaid. She visited Mr. Holmes and hot words were exchanged. Holmes smoothed things over with his mother-in-law, however, and after her departure he nonchalantly told Mrs. Julia L. Conner that the police were looking for her for the forgery of those notes. Mrs. Conner advised with a certain real estate man in Englewood who is a friend of hers. She returned to the castle and hurriedly took her daughter Pearl with her and left for parts unknown. Sometime after Holmes wrote to her father, a Mr. Smyth in Iowa, and enquired as to her whereabouts. Her father replied to him and states that he is surprised to learn that Holmes does not know where his daughter is, as he always thought Holmes was in direct communication with her- having occasion to need her testimony in a lawsuit which was on the calendar of the Supreme Court of Cook County set for June 10, 1891. the
docket shows the case to be John H. Purdy vs. Lucy C. Belknap, et al. It is numbers 133, 355 and 133, 356. Attorneys Peckham & Brown appeared for complainant, and D. T. Duncombe appeared as attorney for the defense. Judgment by default July 10, 1891.
The author sincerely believes the above to be the cause of Mrs. Julia L. Connors’ silence.
Emiline Cigrand’s folks came to Chicago to investigate her disappearance. They have never told what they discovered, but hurried back to their home in Indiana.
The following are supposed to be the victims who met death at the hands of H.H. Holmes:
B. F. Pitezel
Howard Pitezel
Alice Pitezel
Nellie Pitezel
Julia L. Conner
Pearl Conner (her child)
Emiline Cigrand
Molly Kelley (Located and living at 6431 Emerald avenue, Chicago.)
Annie Williams
Nannie Williams
Carrie Sanford
Now, the theory of the newspapers regarding the smothering of people in the vault is absurd. The last alleged victim was Minnie Williams, and the reported time of her disappearance was in September, 1893. The vault was not in the castle at that time. It was not ordered until three months later. Buzell & Blair, agents for the Diebold safe and Lock Co., delivered it upon an order purporting to have been signed by Wharton Plummer as president of the Campbell-Yates Company from a commercial agency, which states that the company claimed to be incorporated and had a capitol stock of $85,000. H. H. Holmes was one of the stockholders and the report goes on to say that to all appearances he was in very good circumstances and lived in his own home at Wilmette, Ill.
Now, consider what Dr. Denison says of the lime, then think what the papers and police have to say about Holmes burying his victims in quick lime, when according to their own stories he had special means of eating up the bodies in the tanks. Then they say he had a crematory for wiping out all traces of his crimes. Consider how they have told the people Holmes cut up bodies and burnt them in the stove.
Why should he burn them up in the stove when he had the tanks in the alley? Why should he bury them in lime when he had the tanks in the alley? Why should he cremated them when he had the tanks in the alley? Again, why should he even do this when he had as they say, a dissecting table to cut away flesh and destroy it with chemicals and then have the bones articulated into skeletons.
Take the fact that Holmes in now serving a term in Moyamensing Street Prison, Philadelphia, Pa., for conspiracy to defraud an insurance company.
How can he be convicted in this case for the conspiracy and yet also be guilty of the murder of the same man who conspired with him? Was not the face of this body mutilated so that it was impossible to recognize it? It was identified by a wart on the back of the neck. Just the thing for Holmes. Bodies are not hard to find with warts on the neck. They are plentiful.
Mrs. B. F. Pitezel in her statement to the court admitted her own part in the conspiracy. According to the theory of the Chicago police Holmes didn’t bury bodies the way the two little ones were found in the cellar in Toronto. The foot, the deformed foot of the child. Think well. If Holmes cut them off for the purpose of precluding identification, why would he not remove the other means of identification? Could he not do it with all his resources?
It is plain that Mrs. Pitezel, Ben F. Pitezel and Holmes had two bodies which could be identified placed in their house for insurance swindling purposes. He cut off that very foot on account of not being able to get a cadaver that resembled the living one in every particular. They were not just alike in face, form and feet. The blood stains on the floor in the kitchen and which lead to the windowless room is the very evidence that shows Holmes’ story of Minnie striking her sister Nannie and killing her with the stool to be true.
The author believes every word Holmes has told of Minnie Williams and her children going to England with the man Hatch to be true. What means the canary colored envelope with the British stamp on it? Why did Pat Quinlan want the author removed. Minnie Williams prefers to remain in seclusion for the present. So does Pitezel with his children, and had not Mrs. Pitezel blundered in
her part of the insurance swindle, she probably would be very comfortable in the bosom of her family today.
I tell you, and I mean every word I say, that Minnie Williams lives. She lives in England and if Holmes is ever brought to trial for her murder, irrevocable evidence will be brought forth to show she is not dead. Minnie Williams not only lived on Wrightwood Avenue on the North side, but just prior to Holmes’ arrest she had a place of abode in the rear of No. 65 Sobieski Street, which is very near to W. Fullerton avenue and Robey streets. As for Hatch, the author will tell you he is on a trail which in time will reveal his whereabouts. A man named Green had an office some time ago in No. 1169 the Rookery Building, Chicago. He used to be friendly with Holmes. Strange and mysterious moves have been made by occupants of that room. Green left for England less than a year ago. He knew a Mr. Langdale who sailed some time before him. Let the steamship register tell something.
ANOTHER CASTLE
From the Chicago Record of August 22, 1895:
Another of H. H. Holmes’ mysterious buildings has been discovered. This is ten miles from the “castle” in 63rd Street. It is a low brick building fronting nowhere but the inevitable railroad tracks runs alongside it. It stands where 65 Sobieski Street ought to be, near the tracks of the Northwestern railroad, a little northwest of the North Robey Street crossing.
Robert Corbitt, the author of “the Holmes Castle,” discovered the place and he believes it was here, if at any place, that Holmes did what cremating was necessary in his business. The building now is all boarded up and residents of the vicinity say nothing has been done there for some time. Two weeks ago, they say, a man whom they identified as “pat” Quinlan went there and took the last of what had been left and carted it away.
The building is a one-story affair, cheaply constructed, about 20 feet wide by 150 long. It was erected, say the neighbors, a little more than a year ago. When asked if they knew who owned the building they all said no, but when a photograph of H. H. Holmes was shown them, men, women and children at once exclaimed: “That’s the man.”
It was here that Holmes carried on his glass-bending business, and it is this place for which the police have been looking for more than a month without finding.
The discovery of this building was made through a Brink’s express company order found by Robert Corbitt. This order directed the company to call No 65 Sobieski Street, Dec. 6, 1894, for a box. Directions were given to stop at the glass company building and await closer orders. This was signed by P. B. Quinlan. The expressman called that afternoon and was taken to the two-story and a half house which lies in the rear of the factory. From this a large box and several bundles were taken and carted to the general depot of the express company, whence Driver J. Foley for Morrison’s Englewood and Chicago express, took it two days later. What was in the box or where it was finally taken so far is not known.
The above revolver was used by Holmes in a fracas between himself and a colored man named Nichols, which took place in the alley of his castle. Officer Rogers interfered, and later the revolver was confiscated. It can be seen at the office of the publishers of this book.
* * *
[1]* The name he had assumed for the purpose of aiding me to organize our company.
[2] * Mrs. Pitezel’s initials.
[3]* Before going to Denver when he had felt no more of carrying out the plan, I afterwards learned that he had spoken to one of his family about his sudden disappearance at any time not necessitating them to worry.
[4]* At the time referred to a daily paper had stated that these lawyers were to act as my attorneys, and upon Pitezel’s calling upon them, they had given him the card, and also directed him to the attorney they had recommended to me in the same street.
[5]* The claim so persistently advanced that this note was a forgery is untrue, it was still in existence a short time ago, and if the prosecution will produce it the signature can speak for itself.
[6] * In any instance, when not registering under my own name, my handwriting will substantiate my statements.
[7]* At the risk of being seditious, I have entered into a minute description of our stay while in Toronto, especially as it applies to Saturday, the 20th, and Thursday, the 25th of October, as they seem vital dates in the case.
[8]* In answer to a recent question from the authorities, if, after Hatch had thus changed his appearance, he looked like myself, I answer, No, at least not to a sufficient extent to be mistaken for me by one who knew us both.