For the last week, we've been preparing a new ebook about the H.H. Holmes "Curse" that was said to follow those involved in his trial. I assumed it was just the invention of later pulp writers, but, in fact, over a twenty year period, about 30 people were mentioned in the press as victims of Holmes and his "evil eye." There's some misinformation out there, but it's kind of refreshing to find a Holmes story that does turn out to be real. I don't know if the "curse" was real, but a lot of people around the time of Holmes's execution sure thought it was.
Though getting to the “truth” of the matter with Holmes is frankly impossible, there are certain bits of misinformation that come up over and over again, leading serious researchers to make mistakes.
None of this, of course, is to say that Holmes was NOT a criminal mastermind or a murderous monster. He was certainly both of those things. But anyone who wants to study the case should be prepared to learn taht we really don’t know a thing about Holmes, really, and much of what we THINK we know is just a guess. A lot of what we think we know come from wild guesswork, pulp retellings, and the like.
Here are few common misconceptions:
1. The “Murder Castle” was a hotel.
This is sort of half true. Holmes called the building “The World’s Fair Hotel,” but it doesn’t seem to have functioned as a hotel in the modern sense of the word. The first floor was mostly businesses, the second was mostly labs (and, well, murdering equipment). Most of the “flats” were on the third floor, and seem to have functioned mainly as extended-stay apartments, not as more modern hotel rooms. There was no “front desk.” People paid rent.
2. The Murder Castle Burned Down in 1895
There was a fire that destroyed most of the evidence in 1895, but it didn’t burn the building to the ground. The second and third floors were torn down several days after the fire (they were already in terrible shape), but they were rebuilt. The first floor and basement, with the new upper floors, survived until the 1930s.
3. Holmes stalked victims at the Congress Hotel.
This story seems to come up a lot lately - someone has been going around saying that he stalked or picked up many of his victims here. Not only is there no evidence of this that I could ever find, there's nothing out there from before a couple of years ago that would even create that impression. I wouldn't state with certainty that he was never, ever in the building, and that none of his friends or victims ever were, but there's nothing to indicate that there was. I did once hear a rumor that his name had been found in the old records, but when I asked the security guards about it, they thought it was very funny. Now, the story has gone around enough that the newer guards might say "I heard that he was here," but there's still no evidence of it. The Congress was built in 1893 to cash in on the same World's Fair Holmes is often connected to, but that's the only connection. But because of this, a stop there was sometimes used on early Devil in the White City tours (it was a useful bathroom break and the ballrooms are stunning), and the story grew from there.
I'd love to find a solid connection between Holmes and the hotel (if that building ain't haunted, no building is), but it remains wishful thinking. He is known to have stayed, or put people up, in a number of local hotels, but I don't think any of them are still standing. One was right across from where the Chicago History Museum is now. He seems to have generally preferred smaller ones - the kind with just a handful of rooms. Finding a building Holmes was definitely in, and that is still standing, is a real trick (though I imagine he was in the courthouse now and then, as often as he got sued).
3. Holmes stalked victims at the Congress Hotel.
This story seems to come up a lot lately - someone has been going around saying that he stalked or picked up many of his victims here. Not only is there no evidence of this that I could ever find, there's nothing out there from before a couple of years ago that would even create that impression. I wouldn't state with certainty that he was never, ever in the building, and that none of his friends or victims ever were, but there's nothing to indicate that there was. I did once hear a rumor that his name had been found in the old records, but when I asked the security guards about it, they thought it was very funny. Now, the story has gone around enough that the newer guards might say "I heard that he was here," but there's still no evidence of it. The Congress was built in 1893 to cash in on the same World's Fair Holmes is often connected to, but that's the only connection. But because of this, a stop there was sometimes used on early Devil in the White City tours (it was a useful bathroom break and the ballrooms are stunning), and the story grew from there.
I'd love to find a solid connection between Holmes and the hotel (if that building ain't haunted, no building is), but it remains wishful thinking. He is known to have stayed, or put people up, in a number of local hotels, but I don't think any of them are still standing. One was right across from where the Chicago History Museum is now. He seems to have generally preferred smaller ones - the kind with just a handful of rooms. Finding a building Holmes was definitely in, and that is still standing, is a real trick (though I imagine he was in the courthouse now and then, as often as he got sued).
4. Holmes Had a Torture Chamber in the Basement of his castle.
The castle basement was not soundproof - you couldn't torture people in there without people finding out. PLenty of people had access to it. The police found an unused quicklime pit and a 12 foot tank full of gas down there, and it seems likely that Holmes probably planned to get rid of their bodies in the basement, but mostly likely he tried it once or twice and found that trying to do it in a crowded building was more trouble than it was worth. Stories were told of trunks being shipped out of the castle frequently, and Holmes had a couple of facilities that he said were for bending glass. These other facilities would have been better places to cremate people.
5. Holmes Is Known to Have Killed Over 200 People
The actual “known” victims number about 12, and even a few of those are sort of dubious. The number 200 was casually tossed off in an article in the 1940s and seems to have stuck. It’s not at all impossible that he did kill that many people in his career, but most of the victims we know of were people that he knew fairly well, not random strangers. Of course, if he killed random strangers, we wouldn’t likely know about it. No one is quite confident that those two dozen are his only victims, by any means, but the body count seems to go up by a hundred or so every Halloween when the story is retold.
6. The Police In Chicago Knew Nothing About Holmes
The police were well aware of Holmes and his activities - he was being sued and searched constantly, mainly for non-payment of funds. That his “castle” was full of secret passages was even the subject of a Tribune story in Spring, 1893. What they didn’t know, though, was that he was a murderer, not just a swindler.
7. Holmes sold bodies of his victims to be articulated as skeletons for sale to medical schools.
Holmes, as a University of Michigan med student, surely had some experience with the body snatching trade - it was a rite of passage for med students then, and the University of Michigan had a particular reputation for it. But during the investigation of the castle, a man named M.G. (not Charles) Chappel came to the police and said he'd bought bodies from Holmes at the castle. His story didn't hold up, though. None of the colleges he claimed to have bought bodies from had ever heard of the guy, and his relatives told police that he was a heavy drinker who made stories up, then forgot that he had made them up. He told them places in the castle basement to dig for more skeletons, but they didn't find any. The police kept the bones he gave them, but considered the clue to be weak.
7. Holmes sold bodies of his victims to be articulated as skeletons for sale to medical schools.
Holmes, as a University of Michigan med student, surely had some experience with the body snatching trade - it was a rite of passage for med students then, and the University of Michigan had a particular reputation for it. But during the investigation of the castle, a man named M.G. (not Charles) Chappel came to the police and said he'd bought bodies from Holmes at the castle. His story didn't hold up, though. None of the colleges he claimed to have bought bodies from had ever heard of the guy, and his relatives told police that he was a heavy drinker who made stories up, then forgot that he had made them up. He told them places in the castle basement to dig for more skeletons, but they didn't find any. The police kept the bones he gave them, but considered the clue to be weak.
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