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[Assistant] This was definitely not the first time that he had been leading the police on like a wild goose chase at this point. But this time was a little different because they're not dealing with the petty criminal Elroy Kent. They're dealing with a man who has clearly demonstrated that he does have a capacity for violence. What he did to his brother was wild. Horrific.


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[Assistant] He also kind of has everything to lose if he's captured at this point, which is not good. So.


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[Assistant] The search for Kent began immediately around the area once they found those carvings, and it was around the areas of Wallingford, Rutland, and Brattleboro.


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[Assistant] So for some extra power and some extra help, uh, Sheriff Fish gathered deputies from the area who had known or dealt with Kent in the past, like so from outside areas.


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[Assistant] And they thought maybe they would have like unique insight into who he is, like his character, so they could kind of determine where he might be. Okay.


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[Assistant] And the sheriff's office also got some bloodhounds in. Oh shit. And they tracked Kent's trail from the Congdon farm to a spot in the mountains near his sister's home in Wallingford. Ooh.


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[Assistant] But they soon, they got, like the dogs got super exhausted, it was a long way. I mean, it's a mountain. Yeah, and they needed to rest. Yeah. And they couldn't even start the search again until the next day.


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[Assistant] So they began again the next day, August 1st, and the dogs lost his trail. Aw shit. Handlers tried to get them back on track. They gave him a pair of his old shoes that he wore at the hospital.


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[Assistant] That's- that kind of look. Bloodhounds? Fucking wild. That is a whole-


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[Assistant] Like, the whole subject that I could just sit there and read about forever. It's fascinating to me.


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[Assistant] Put it in the little, little bucket. Jar of ideas. Jar sounds better than bucket. So we'll go with that.


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[Assistant] They only got to that abandoned building on the sister's property in East Dorset and then they lost the trail again.


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[Assistant] Now luckily investigators received a tip that afternoon. Apparently some berry pickers were the ones who gave this tip. They were working at a nearby farm and they said a man wearing a bloody shirt


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[Assistant] And pretty much, according to the matching Kent's description, had been discovered in some bushes on the property and was scared away before anybody could call the police.


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[Assistant] The dogs managed to pick up a scent, where they said, uhm,


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[Assistant] And it followed, they followed it for nearly 10 miles down the highway and then they lost it again. Damn it. And according to the owners of the dogs, really the only reason they would lose the trail was if the scent was too old. Okay. So that kind of led investigators to think that Kent was definitely no longer in the area. He was long gone. Yup.


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[Assistant] Now, the dogs losing the trail definitely sucked, but a week later they became kind of hopeful because a new clue and a pattern was starting to emerge.


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[Assistant] Wherever Kent was, he just couldn't help but leave his initials somewhere.


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[Assistant] Anywhere he stayed overnight, he would leave his initials carved into it. Very interesting. Yea, it's wild.


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[Assistant] It began like emerging in different locations around southern Vermont. He would do it on trees. Are there any that still exist that you know of? I don't know. That's a good, that's a good question. We should look it up. Cause I wonder if there are, I'm sure a lot of these buildings are probably gone, but they said on trees and stuff too.


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[Assistant] And in one case, this is pretty wild.


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[Assistant] Three boys passing by Red Mill Pond in Woodford on August 8th, they stopped at a local barn and they carved their initials into the side of the barn, because remember it's like 1908. What else are you going to do? Right. And they returned the next day.


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[Assistant] And they saw that next to their initials, someone had carved EK. Ooh, creepy. So it's like he saw those initials and I was like, I was here too. Yeah, right. Creepy, creepy.


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[Assistant] Kent's family was still in the region, so investigators were thinking he might be making his way through the mountains in the direction of Massachusetts. Hey. Uh, but they had no idea where he was going to show up next.


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[Assistant] Now as weeks went by and investigators were failing to bring this guy in, couldn't find him anywhere, the news started focusing more on them and their failures and less on the murderer on the loose. Uh, among other things, the articles were saying that the Wallingford deputy sheriff Alan Leonard and A.C. Mason, uh, who were in charge of the hunt for Kent,


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[Assistant] ...had been spotted drinking on the job and when they were refused for their alcohol, they produced bottles from their jackets. So like, like they'd brought their own liquor.


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[Assistant] And they sued him for $5,000 each. Damn, and back then? Holy shit. That's a lot. And the basis of the lawsuit was the Vermont Phoenix had published articles that, quote, falsely, wickedly, and maliciously injured the officers by claiming they, quote, appeared to be as much a menace to the peace and good order as Elroy Kent. Oh no. Yeah, so that's just a little, like, woof, some drama.


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[Assistant] Now, while, while these, the lead investigators are just trying to fight with the press now over their reputation, sheriff's deputies were just trying to continue the search and trying to make this happen. You know, the main focus. The job. Uh, then they finally caught a break in late October.


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[Assistant] It was when, it was then that a man matching Kent's description was arrested in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He was trying to sell a stolen bicycle. Believe it. I bet it was over, right? Right. So he was arrested and the man said his name was William Allen.


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[Assistant] And he said, I've never heard of Elroy Kent, I don't know what you're talking about. Several hours of questioning later, he said, you know what, I'm Elroy Kent. Well, shit, here I am. He said he escaped from the hospital in Waterbury and he vehemently denied having anything to do with Delia Congdon's murder. He was like, sure, I escaped.


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[Assistant] For sure. And I just didn't want to be caught and put back in the hospital but I did not murder that woman. Okay.


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[Assistant] Now, in order to be sure it was the man that they were looking for, state's attorney Robert Lawrence was sent to Pittsfield to identify him and bring him back and he definitely was Elroy Kent. Yea, I figured. So on the morning of October 26th, he was brought to Rutland County in the company of deputies Leonard and Wilkins.


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[Assistant] Again, he admitted to being a fugitive from justice. He was like, for sure. I've been outrunning you because I didn't want to go back in the hospital.


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[Assistant] I guess like more than 20 or 200 people had shown up just to see him. Holy shit. And I guess he was quoted as saying, I don't know, I didn't know there were so many fools in all the world.


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[Assistant] I'm like, damn. That's, that's funny. You're saucy. I don't wanna laugh at him though.


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[Assistant] So Elroy Kent had already been indicted by a grand jury for the murder of Delia Congdon. So he pled not guilty and was held in a cell to await trial.


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[Assistant] The trial began March 30th, 1909, and states attorney J.C. Jones, John Sargent, and Robert Lawrence announced that they intended to call more than 30 witnesses to the stand. Shit. What's funny is that most of them, apparently all the witnesses, apparently quote, complained of being kept away from their farms at sugar making time. I mean. They were a noise.


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[Assistant] The trial was a bit over two weeks long and throughout it the prosecution called several witnesses like the Sprague brothers were called to the stand. All the sugar farmers. All the sugar farmers. And they claimed to have seen Kent in the area just before the murder. And the motive that they were putting out there was robbery. Wrong. Yea, I don't think that was the full motive. I think it was rape.


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[Assistant] Cause remember, I think he, even before the head injury, he seemed to like just doing the...


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[Assistant] The act of robbery. Yea. You know what I mean? Like I think he liked it and I think he escalated into needing more to like what he was doing. Yea, to yea.


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[Assistant] But the prosecution introduced several pieces of evidence. They had Delia Congdon's bloody clothing. They had section of wood bearing Kent's carved initials that they had taken out of various places. Where is it now? Where is it? I couldn't find it.


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[Assistant] Uhm, Dr. BH Stone, who was one of the men who completed Delia's autopsy, also testified.


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[Assistant] And said that Delia, quote, was subject to the most outrageous treatment before she was killed.


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[Assistant] Um, Herbert Savory, a former inmate, testified, and he's claimed to have overheard Kent confess that he killed Delia, so quote, she couldn't tell.


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[Assistant] Line of information here, and it's like sometimes it works out. It's really like a 50-50 shot if it's gonna work out. Because at the same time, then they're some of the worst because they're just trying to get out. Yea, they have something to gain.


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[Assistant] But the most crucial testimony definitely came from Deputy Leonard. He claimed that Kent had practically made a full confession to him following the arrest. Oh shit.


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[Assistant] He said quote, Kent told me that Miss Congdon saw him before he reached her and that he grabbed her and threw her into the milk room.


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[Assistant] Now, Leonard's testimony was corroborated the following day by Dr. W.W. Townsend, who was the physician at the House of Corrections.


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[Assistant] That was where Kent was staying, and he said he had also discussed the murder with Kent.


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[Assistant] And according to Dr. Townsend, Kent knew very specific and intimate details of the crime, and had even corrected the doctor at one point.


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[Assistant] The doctor asked something about the crime happening in the kitchen, and he said, no, it happened in the milk room. Ohhh.


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[Assistant] So the final bit of damning testimony came from Elgin Taggart, who was an employee of the East Wallingford cheese factory. Oh, the cheese tax, the cheese tax. That's a great song. Anytime you hear cheese, you have to sing it. Anytime. So Taggart told the jury he had spoken to Kent just before the murder, and it was when Elroy saw Delia.


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[Assistant] And made, quote, an obscene remark about her.


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[Assistant] Like the Sprague brothers, Taggart had told Kent that quote, he had better keep away from that house. Hell yea. I love that our neighbors protected her.


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[Assistant] Yeaah, exactly. Now, the evidence and testimony against Elroy Kent was


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[Assistant] Unfortunately, still pretty circumstantial. Like you were saying. You know, like, that's just the reality of it. But there was a lot of it. And each piece seemed to kind of corroborate the one before it.


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[Assistant] You know, so rather than try to disprove the state's claim, Kent's defense attorneys knew that


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[Assistant] And they said even if he was, he is profoundly mentally ill and could not be held accountable for what he's done.


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[Assistant] At least not held accountable in the sense that he is not sane. Right. And held accountable in the sense that he's gonna go to prison for this or be executed. Like he's gonna have to, like, we're gonna have to do an insanity defense. And he needs like psychiatric treatment. Yeah. So as an alternative, they also suggested that Taggart


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[Assistant] The guy who said that he had the cheese factory guy. Yeaah. He could have been responsible for the murder.


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[Assistant] Made the apparent error purposely to fool Dr. Grout, the superintendent. Why would you want to fool them? Why he would want to do that, unclear to this day. Still don't know why he would want to do that. So it didn't look good for him either. It was like, survey says, no. Survey says, I don't fucking know about that. Survey says, the fuck? The fuck?


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[Assistant] Now, to kinda bolster their insanity claim,


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[Assistant] The defense called a bunch of witnesses to the stand to testify about Kent's like bizarre and unpredictable behavior.


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[Assistant] And his thinking as well as disordered thinking and the handful of years leading up to the murder.


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[Assistant] Uhm, LD Wright, who was a nurse from the hospital.


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[Assistant] Dr. Grout, the superintendent, agreed while testifying that Kent was, quote, of unsound mind.


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[Assistant] Now, on April 8th, the defense rested their case, and the prosecution had an opportunity to call one final rebuttal witness, uhm, just to kind of testify, a witness to those testifying as to Ken Sanady, basically. The witness was Dr. D.A. Sheris. Uh, he was a psychologist from Montreal.


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[Assistant] Now this guy told the jury, in his opinion, Kent quote, was not insane.


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[Assistant] He did not react to any questions like a man who had hallucinations, and he said, I don't believe that he is insane.


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[Assistant] Okay, but I would like to repeat, are we taking into account the wild head injury that he sustained years earlier?


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[Assistant] But that's, that's a defense. And it's a defense that clearly seems to fit here. At the very least, you know, we have to take it into account.


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[Assistant] That's the thing. That's why this is such a complicated case. It's a tough case, yeaah. It's very complicated because you can see both sides of that. Either way, if he did it, he's gotta go somewhere. Yeaah. But execution? I don't know about that.


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[Assistant] And I think they just looked at it as like, well, he did this. So this is a way to get rid of the problem. I think so too. But the jury only deliberated for less than a day, only a few hours. They came back to the courtroom on April 10th and they delivered a verdict of guilty. Yeah. Uh, his sentencing was going to be put off until the fall. That's when he could appeal and everyone pretty much assumed he was going to get the death penalty.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and as he was being led out of the courtroom by the deputies, he was heard saying, I don't care a damn anyway.


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[Assistant] Wow. So it's like, I don't know if it's, I don't care what I did or I don't care what happens to me. Either way.


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[Assistant] Now, in October 1909, the Vermont State Supreme Court came together to hear the courses, the cases in their fall session.


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[Assistant] Um, Elroy Kentz was in this caseload and they, uh, the defense argued that the state's strongest evidence against Kent was those initials carved in the barn. Right. That was really like the number one thing.


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[Assistant] And they said that was not the same as handwriting samples and it couldn't be treated or analyzed like that.


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[Assistant] And the court considered the case as a whole, they considered everything, and then they came down and said, nope, the original sentence is gonna stay in their decision.


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[Assistant] It is rather the proof of a habit regarding the use of a character which as ordinarily made and as made in this case affords no opportunity for the development of individual characteristics capable of detection.


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[Assistant] If a writer invariably makes the same mistake or always adopts the same two or more legitimate methods, which present substantial differences, his practice therein is a circumstantial or circumstance, which makes his genuine writings available to establish the authenticity of a disputed one.


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[Assistant] But the respondent's connection with the carving in the Congdon barn does not depend entirely upon the similarity of letters. The evidence of the respondent's admission that he passed the night of the 23rds in this barn, the evidence tending to show a practice of cutting his initials as a pastime,


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[Assistant] I think he did it. Denied. Like that's, that's essentially what they, he did it. So. Bye. Bye. Uh, so they rejected his appeal and the court's sentence can, can quote, to be hanged in the yard of the state prison.


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[Assistant] At Windsor on January 13, 1911, between the hour of 1 and 3 PM. Wow.


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[Assistant] After that he was going to be held in solitary confinement until the day of his execution.


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[Assistant] Ken's response to this was, I am not guilty.


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[Assistant] So in mid-December 1910, the Vermont legislature actually broke for their holiday recess, and they made a boo-boo.


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[Assistant] Because they didn't complete all of their end of year business. And when they didn't do this, they unintentionally granted Kent a brief reprieve.


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[Assistant] Uh, state laws stipulated that the legislature must issue a formal warrant before anyone can be executed, which they did not do before they went out for recess. And luckily the problem was fixed and a new execution date had to be set though for January 5th, 1912.


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[Assistant] Yup. Oh my god. Now after that. That is like inhumane. That's the thing, it's like this really got like- This is a sad case. Now, all of this, and he's gonna be executed.


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[Assistant] And the execution did not go off without a hitch. No.


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[Assistant] When the day finally came, he was taken from his cell in solitary confinement and led out to the yard. By 1 18 PM, everything was done and prepared to go.


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[Assistant] Kent was standing over the trap door on the gallows. He had a noose around his neck.


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[Assistant] This was going to be the first execution in the state of Vermont to employ an electrical trapdoor.


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[Assistant] This electrical trapdoor was controlled by one of six switches.


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[Assistant] Now this new system required six men to each push one of the buttons. They did this so that none of them would ever know which button caused the door to open. It's almost like a firing squad. Like that kind of thing.


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[Assistant] When the warden gave the signal, all six men pushed the button, the door dropped out from beneath Kent as planned, but...


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[Assistant] When the rope pulled taut, it snapped immediately and he fell to the ground.


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[Assistant] So they had no other option. The rope was then tied over the gallows and Ken Spotty was hoisted up.


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[Assistant] Oh my, I mean, what a punishment if he really was responsible. That's quite a punishment. Now when the prison doctor examined the body, he said that, he initially said,


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[Assistant] That Kent was most likely killed during the first drop.


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[Assistant] And suffered no conscious thought after the first tightening of the noose.


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[Assistant] But many across the state were horrified by this whole thing because reports came out later that said after seven minutes of strangulation from the gallows, he still had a pulse.


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[Assistant] Also, this reminded a lot of people of the 1905 execution of Mary Rogers, which she was a woman who was convicted of killing her husband.


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[Assistant] So, the unexpected errors in the execution, uhm, resulted in people really getting angry. A flood of letters and telephone calls to the governor's office came out. Mostly by people who were like, I don't know.


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[Assistant] Uh, maybe this is barbaric. Do you think? Others were just outraged that the execution had taken place at all. Like, not even just the way it was done. They were like, no, no, no. Cause they didn't think there was enough evidence. Well, not even that. They said, it's very clear he has mental illness. Like, it likely influenced his behavior in some way.


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[Assistant] Like I said earlier, really became a point of rallying basically for death penalty opponents. And for decades it was one of the cases that was cited as an example of one


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[Assistant] Like the questionable morality here of executing somebody that is clearly mentally ill. And also, just the barbaric way that the death penalty kind of goes about itself, you know, like especially this kind of execution. It's like, that is woo. Yeah.


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[Assistant] And again, you know where we all stand here, like my view has very much evolved way more towards against us. Yours really has. I'm still pretty in the middle. Which I think is what it should do is it should always be evolving. And it didn't help the case that there were rumors


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[Assistant] When decades after Kent had been executed another man made a deathbed confession that said he was the one who'd murdered Delia Congdon and that he had allowed Elroy Kent to take the fall because he was an easy fall guy. Quite literally.


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[Assistant] Or if they just said, it is what it is, this guy's dying, that guy's dead, whatever, we're just gonna move on. Holy shit. But it definitely raises a question of, oh shit.


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[Assistant] Was Elroy Kent the one to murder Delia Congdon? Because why confess? Why? Like...


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[Assistant] Like giving off pieces of her farm for people to use, cause she's just like- Baking cookies for the kids. Baking cookies for school children. And is just attacked while she's making breakfast. While she's just- and all because she unlocked her door. That's so scary.


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[Assistant] That wasn't as epic as I thought it would sound. I thought you sounded epic, that's why I said oh my goodness. Yeah, we're finally at the conclusion here. It's a doozy.


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[Assistant] But don't worry, because in the end, this man gets what's coming to him. Hell, fuckin' yea, he does. Gets what's coming to him.


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[Assistant] So when we, we're gonna get right into it cause this is a long one.


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[Assistant] I'm just gonna catch you up really quick, so this man has now killed Benjamin Peitzel and his kids.


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[Assistant] He has sent their mother slash wife around the nation and Canada on a wild goose chase thinking her husband is alive. All the while, Detective Gary from the insurance company he defrauded with the murder of his supposed friend and business partner


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[Assistant] Yeah, I know. But before we get into this whole thing, we are going to quickly touch upon...


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[Assistant] Why people think he's Jack the Ripper. Oh my goodness. We're gonna get that right out of the way right up front so we can dive back into the story and finish it off with his execution because that's proper. Of course. You know, that's the way we do it. It's the proper, this is how we do it. Noss. Noss is how.


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[Assistant] So let's talk about the theories about him being Jack the Ripper. Let us. They mostly, so he has, um, an ancestor named Jeff Mudgett. Remember his name is Herman Webster Mudgett. How could I forget? Uh, Jeff is like his great-great-great-great-grandson, you know, like one of those, I'm not exactly sure. Like fourth removed or something? Yeah. And he


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[Assistant] He firmly believes that H.H. Holmes is Jack the Ripper. They are the same person. He is the grandson. Yea, the great great great grandson.


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[Assistant] I mean, he, he's a former attorney, like he's a credible human, like so far I have not seen him, I have not seen anything about him doing like anything, you know, bad or nefarious where you'd be like, why are we believing this man?


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[Assistant] And I, and I commend him for nobody knows. There you go, she literally put up a finger to make me stop talking to say that, I want you all to know that.


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[Assistant] Wait, I didn't want the moment to pass. Sometimes I don't put up a finger to stop you and the moment passes. Yeah, you know, I get it. Now he presented a ton of evidence. Uh, he did a Ted talk in Vancouver, I think it was. He presented a bunch of exhibits. A lot of them are pretty interesting.


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[Assistant] Um, that's as far as I think they are as interesting. Um, one of the things he presented was a letter confirmed to be written by H. H. Holmes to his lawyer and it was near, uh, 19 or 1888 and he was talking about how much he wanted to go to London. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he expressed interest in going to London. I too have done the same. Yeah, there is that. Now there's also the fact that Scotland Yard believed, according to witness reports, that Jack the Ripper was about 5'7".


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[Assistant] You know, somewhere in his late 20s, early mid 30s, they believed he was a doctor, you know, a very average build.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I feel like 5-7 is also like, kind of on the shorter side. Yeah, I think it's just like, it's all s-


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[Assistant] Pretty like, you know, average. Like nothing stands out to me. It's like, oh, that's him. Also,


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[Assistant] No surveillance, unfortunately. Everyone needs to remember, and I hammered this idea in when we did the Jack the Ripper case, there was no lights.


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[Assistant] When I say there was no lights in Whitechapel, I mean there was no lights. I mean go outside, stand in the middle of the forest, that's...


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[Assistant] You know? And even that, I'm like 5'9". I don't know what someone who's 5'9 looks like. No, but you know what some, well, uhm, no, nevermind, I'm dumb. Like, John is like 6'3", 6'4". I only compare things in heights of John. Like, I literally will look at somebody, I'll be like, well,


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[Assistant] That, that is true, so I will absolutely say that, you can't really, sure.


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[Assistant] I mean, a lot of other people are too, but like, sure, my H.H. Holmes is. Uh, Scotland Yard also put together, and he really laid his hat on this one, and a lot of people really lay their hats on this one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, Scotland Yard put together a composite of all 13 credible and corroborated eyewitness accounts of Jack the Ripper and what he looked like. But again, no lights. And again, no lights. They put it into one photo. They composited it into one human.


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[Assistant] What? Because I don't think it's a good comparison at all in my opinion. Uhm, the lip.


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[Assistant] Bothers me a lot. He has a very full bottom lip. H.H. Holmes' bottom lip was notably fuller. In fact, it was something people talked about with him. It was a distinguishing characteristic to him that his bottom lip was a full bottom lip. Filler Queen. Filler Queen H.H. Holmes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Jack the Ripper, that composite photo of what he's supposed to look like, he has no lips. And he certainly doesn't have a full bottom lip. And I'm telling you, if we are, if we are close enough


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we are able to describe enough to say he is five foot seven, he is of this age, he is of this weight, he has a mustache, he has high cheekbones.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They would have seen that full lip. That would have been one of the things you would have heard in many of the descriptions was he had a full lip. And also wouldn't you think, didn't he have like a special thing with his eyes, AJ Chulm? He had strabidness, but that wouldn't, I don't think that would have really been relevant, especially in the darkness back then, because all strabidness is is you can't, uh, really focus on someone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, okay, okay. It's like uhm, it's really just a focusing thing. Gotcha, gotcha. Like one eye might drift a little bit.


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[Assistant] Uhm, so I don't know if anybody would have been close enough to him to see that beside until they, and they would have been dead. Yeaah, that makes sense.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and he has very high cheekbones, I guess you could say Holmes does too, but like, again, they're not very...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't really think they are. I wouldn't sit there and be like, wow, look at those cheekbones. I think he kinda looks a little bit like a bassin hound. He does a little bit. A little droopy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and then there's the medical knowledge thing. We all know that medical knowledge is a...


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[Assistant] Hot debate when it comes to Jack the Ripper. Some people believe wholeheartedly he had to have been a doctor or at least in the medical field. Other people believe.


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[Assistant] Uhm, I'm on the side, like I said, like where I sit in that middle area, but I would lean more towards he had at least some medical knowledge.


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[Assistant] But theories surrounding Holmes being one in the same with Jack say that maybe Jack's crimes were actually the beginning.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of Holmes' murderous career, and he evolved into the Holmes that we know now.


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[Assistant] I don't understand this on any level and I've read a lot of these theories about this particular, like, issue here that like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He must have started as Jack the Ripper and then evolved into Holmes.


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[Assistant] I don't get that. Like Jack was very methodical from the jump.


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[Assistant] Was he reckless sometimes? Yea. Absolutely. But he always seemed to have a plan. Well that's what I was gonna say, even in his recklessness, it was still slightly organized. Yea, like it was reckless the way he went about it, but there was a plan in place.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's like he had, he like escalated as he went. So to think this would have been Holmes' beginnings make absolutely no sense to me.


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[Assistant] It makes sense to go the other way around. Because Jack's murders were...


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[Assistant] Fucking horrific. Like they, you don't start there and then end on poisoning people with gas. No, you would think that you would.


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[Assistant] Like that's it. Work your way up to. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense to me.


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[Assistant] And then people talk about the traveling, like it was pretty, you know, people could travel by boat pretty easily back then if you had the money to do it. You find the ship manifest? I cannot find the ship manifest. Maybe it doesn't exist.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There are ship manifests, allegedly, they are cited a lot, but I can't find them, that say a man named Holmes traveled from the US to London during the time period that Jack was active.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This was also during the time period in 1988, early 1989, where you can't find evidence of homes in Chicago or in the United States. So that is an interesting thing. Little hairy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is weird that you can't find a lot of evidence or a lot of stuff going on about him during that time in the United States. I will give that credence at least. But at the same time, he was always running around everywhere, so he could have even been in Canada. That's the thing, that he could have been using one of his like hundred, like his forty aliases, you know what I mean? Yeah, exactly. That they just actually didn't pick up on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Holmes was also a very common name at the time. That's probably why Holmes chose it. I think it still is.


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[Assistant] He could blend in with others, be confused with others, and that would allow him to get by with all his schemes. But the fact that there was a Holmes on a ship to London?


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[Assistant] While very compelling when you put it next to other things.


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[Assistant] Or if you want, you know, you're looking for confirmation bias and you, you want to confirm your theory. I understand that's compelling. I'm not throwing it away by any means, but I just don't think it proves anything really. I think it proves that there was a Holmes on that ship, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Very intriguing the fact that we can't find a lot about homes during this small period of time. Intriguing. But, whatever.


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[Assistant] And now we're going to get to the thing that pisses me off the most. Uh, one of the things that a lot of people use, um, and Jeff Mudgett uses, and again, I'm not like, Jeff Mudgett might be 100% right. I'm not saying he's wrong. I'm just saying I don't personally agree with this, especially this one piece of the puzzle.


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[Assistant] People like to look at the Dear Boss letter. The Jack the Ripper Dear Boss letter.


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[Assistant] And handwriting analysis said that this letter was likely written by an American because boss was not a heavily used


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[Assistant] Wowed by the comparisons. No, when you showed them to me I wasn't either. But they claim that the handwriting analysis said that it was like a 97% match or something wild.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If it is, that's fascinating, but I'm, my eyes don't work, right? It's also cursive, and a lot of people at that time period learned how to write cursive in a very similar manner. Yeah, that's the thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, I'm gonna read you, cause we, cause you, I think we need to take a little trip back to the Dear Boss letter for a second, cause I have a lot of reasons why this doesn't make sense that it was H. H. Holmes. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the Dear Boss letter was this, I'll read it to you. Dear Boss, I keep on hearing the police have caught me, but they won't fix me just yet.


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[Assistant] I've laughed when they look so clever and talk about being on the right track.


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[Assistant] That joke about leather apron gives me real fits. I'm down on whores and shant quit ripping them till I do get buckled.


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[Assistant] Grand work, the last job was. I gave the lady no time to squeal. How can they catch me now? I love my work and want to start again. You will soon hear of me with my funny little games. I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle over the last job to write with, but it went thick like glue and I can't use it. Red ink is fit enough, I hope. Haha.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The next job I do, I shall clip the ladies ears off and send to the police officers. Just for jolly, wouldn't you?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is not Jack the Ripper. When you were saying it, I was like, wait a second, because I thought that we had determined it was not. Yea, it's not. This is not Jack the Ripper. This is the, like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It could feel real on first glance. And I get that. I thought it was real on first glance. Especially because of the ear thing. The ear thing.


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[Assistant] So, this letter was turned into police on September 29th, which was hours before the double event and the murder of Catherine Eddowes, who had their ear clipped off.


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[Assistant] The Central News Agency claims they received the letter on September 27th and waited until the day of the murders to turn it into police. So there's conflicting ideas about when this letter actually came in, if it came in on the day that it happened, or days before. The dates are a little muddy there, and I don't think we can trust them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And another thing, George Sims was a journalist who wrote a weekly, uh, column and was heavily into the investigation of the Whitechapel murders. And he said,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Dear Boss letter and postcard were sent to a news agency, and not a paper, like not a newspaper, and not the cops. A news agency sells stories to papers and news outlets.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a hub. Like that's where you spread the story or the news to other sources.


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[Assistant] The fact that the self-postcard proclaimed assassin sent this imitation blood-besmeared communication to the central news.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Opens up a wide field for theory. How many among you, my dear readers, would have hit upon the idea of the central news as a receptacle for your confidence? You might have sent your joke to the Telegraph, the Times, any morning or evening paper, but I will lay long odds that it would never have occurred to communicate with a press agency.


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[Assistant] I'm curious, is it not that this maniac makes his communication to an agency which serves the entire press?


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[Assistant] It is an idea which might occur to a press man, perhaps, and even then it would probably only occur to someone connected with the editorial department of a newspaper. Someone who knew what the central news was and the place it filled in its business of news supply.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This proceeding on Jack's part betrays an inner knowledge of the newspaper world, which is certainly surprising.


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[Assistant] Everything therefore points to the fact that the jokist is professionally connected with the press.


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[Assistant] And if he is telling the truth and not fooling us, then we are brought face to face with the fact.


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[Assistant] That the Whitechapel murders have been committed by a practical journalist, perhaps even a real live editor, which is absurd. And at that, I think I will leave it.


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[Assistant] He's like, nah, bye. It's a very, very valid point. That is, this 100% betrayed somebody with an inner idea of how the press and news work. And honestly, in Whitechapel, especially at the time, the layperson did not know that. That was not something that people were just gonna know on the streets.


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[Assistant] That postcard was also talking like it was sent before the double event, like I said, but it was actually postmarked over 24 hours after it was done.


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[Assistant] So the ear thing, it was postmarked after that happened. And they could have already known. So it seems like whoever sent it tried to make it look like it was before, but that postmark betrays it. And again, the dates are all confusing. So that postmark is the only real thing you can go off of. And if you look at it, it's after the double event.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fake news. Now also the coagulated blood in the ginger bottle. That's the whole thing. This goes up my butt. This is a medically minded person. H.H. Holmes is a medically minded person.


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[Assistant] And it would, obviously that would be coagulated by the time you sat down to write that stupid fucking letter if you were keeping it from there. It would be jelly in minutes and the real killer would know that. And Holmes would also know that. Regardless of his knowledge of medicine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So his fake surprise and being like, oh, I had to switch to red ink. Like that's just over the top and dumb. Yeah. Like it's just not real.


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[Assistant] One, if we're claiming this is really Jack the Ripper, it doesn't even line up. Even if we don't know who that is, we know he knows he's gonna know what blood does. He's seen blood coagulate in front of him probably, so it's really not shocking. And then if you're claiming this guy


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is H.H. Holmes who even wrote this letter? That doesn't make sense. And then if you're saying that H.H. Holmes is Jack the Ripper and that this letter is real,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The committer of the Whitechapel murders. He was Jack the motherfucking Ripper.


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[Assistant] When that guy got ex- when he was- he had an execution date, he knew he was gone.


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[Assistant] I am, I am headed off, I'm shuffling off this mortal coil, I know this.


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[Assistant] He started being wild. Like that man started telling tall tales and started being like, I have killed 4,000 people. Like he was just...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, come on. I don't see it. Like, he would have omitted the fucking Whitechapel murders out of his legacy? Me thinks not. I don't think so. I think he would have been like, guys, you think this was wild?


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[Assistant] And then not talked about it? No. No. No. It's just not realistic. Girl. Why? It's just not realistic. I don't see it. So, I wish you had a gavel. If you believe... Do we have something that can... Sounds like a gavel, right? Did that hurt though?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No it didn't, uh, but, so if you believe that they are one and the same, I support your, uh, freedom of thought. Alena says, you're wrong. Uh, but you're wrong, and I'm right, and that's the way.


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[Assistant] Uh, so let's get back to, uh, Herman Webster Mudgett, shall we? So I just had to get through that. We had to talk about it. It was the elephant in the room, all that good stuff. He's not Jack the Ripper. So let's talk about him as he is.


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[Assistant] So, this man has now, again, killed a bunch of people, he's come back from Canada, we got the detectives on his trail.


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[Assistant] And staying in Canada definitely would have been a better idea. Since neither the Pinkerton agents or Detective Gary from Fidelity Mutual. Why will it never not be funny? Cause every time I hear Ronnie in bed go blub blub blub. Tell you about Gary from below deck.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He might not have even been extradited. Like, I'm sure Canada, like we know Canada, and they would have been like, girl, we'll help you out. Like, Canada's kind. But like, you don't know, that would have been pretty fuckin' ballsy.


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[Assistant] But this time the, uh, the agents arrived in Toronto.


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[Assistant] The amount of times that she was shuffled somewhere and then told her husband would be there and then they were like, yeah, just kidding.


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[Assistant] Uh oh, this is too small of a town for us to arrange a meeting. And he said, everyone is attending to everyone's business here. So he said, you can go to Burlington, Vermont. That's where he'll be. Oh, I fucking love Burlington, Vermont. Yeah. And he said, he said, there you can see Ben. It's a nice place.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is, but you're not gonna see Ben there. He has shuffled her everywhere. That's spot. She's come from Canada down to New York again and he's like, oop, Vermont.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In New Hampshire, saying that he had had amnesia for eight years, the eight years since I had seen him. I forgot about that. Like, oops, I just forgot everything and I would love to come back home and you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just see all the things that I happen to see. It's like the episode of Full House where Michelle falls off the horse. Yes, that was a very intense episode. True. But somewhere between Canada and where he ends up in Boston later, we'll see. What? He had heard, yep, he had heard that he was being tailed. I just pulled on my ear.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He heard with those big ears that he was being tailed for murder in Chicago. Oof. That people had figured shit out. But he didn't know by who, he didn't know the Pinkertons were involved, and he didn't know Detective Gary was involved, and he didn't know when he just heard this rumor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So in the week that followed, Holmes continued this whole bullshit. He told Carrie, Benjamin's husband or wife, and Desi, their 16 year old daughter, because now there's Desi, the 16 year old daughter, and Wharton is like a baby. Those are the only two left. Right. The other three have been murdered by Holmes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He tells Carrie and Desi, their 16 year old daughter, that Benjamin was alive and well and is now, oh no, he's up in Montreal again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Told them he's back in Canada. I don't even know what I would fucking do at that point. I think I would start exactly losing it. And they said that he, so he claimed that he went back up there because he didn't feel it was safe to be in the US. He thought he was going to get caught. So he was waiting to reunite with his family. And then he told them you won't even know him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He has a new set of teeth and is all fixed up nice so you won't know him at all. He's very anxious to see you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's such an evil fuck. So fucked. Like no one really knows why he was continuing this scheme at this point. Cause he was enjoying it. He'd already claimed the money for the insurance payout, and he killed the three Pitesell children. So there was-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Really no reason to continue this, he could have just abandoned her and left. Other than she did know a lot. That's true, but he would have been like, who's gonna believe you?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like what, they've already paid out the insurance thing. Like, it's, I truly believe he was just having a lot of fun emotionally torturing this family. That's so fucked.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now on November 5th, I believe you. On November 5th, Holmes left Carrie Pytsel in Burlington and he took a thousand dollars from Georgiana, his wife, and he traveled to Gilman to New Hampshire.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where he was from, where Claire is, where his son Robert is. Now remember that he had sent the letter to his brother.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and he said, so when he did this, he told Georgiana that he needed the thousand dollars because he was traveling to Kingston for a business meeting with an associate from Chicago.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he's just lying all over the place. Like a rug. And he said it was gonna be silly, boring stuff, you know, it would be better if Georgiana stayed behind. Yeah, of course. You should definitely stay behind. Just hang tight. So off he goes, and apparently everyone must have bought the amnesia story, right? Like, right off the bat. According to the Boston Globe,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Clara showered her long lost husband in kisses, thrilled to have discovered him to be alive. Oh my god. Now, when I read that I said, yeah?


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[Assistant] Like do we, do we remember how she would walk around that place with black eyes? Like are we really that psyched to see this fucker? Right. Now according to Adam Selser, those newspaper accounts were probably very embellished. Fake as fuck. Meaning Clara and Holmes had not seen each other in like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Forever. And the last time they had seen each other he was violent and he was shitty and neglectful of their child and her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, it's much more likely that he gave them a very selective rundown of what he'd been doing in the years that he had been away.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He definitely explained the bigamy as amnesia related, having, you know, I forgot that I was married. Oh my god. So he told them he was married again. Yea, he was like, oops, I got married again. Twice. They were like, excuse me. And according to Holmes, it was only in the last two or so months that something had happened to cause his memory to come back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That is. Like, this motherfucker's getting nostalgic. Yeah, it's like an introspective way of speaking about it, which is not very of him, I would say. Or at least he usually does it falsely, and that seemed a little more real. That definitely seemed real. Like, I lost who I was. And like, I'm like, but then you just continued to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's very weird. No one gets this though. I don't get it. He probably doesn't get it that much. Maybe. I think there is like something about going home. You know, like I think that made him introspective. It must have. And what's weird though too is


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No one knows why he really went back to New Hampshire. Do you think he loved his parents? I don't know. Or like, it's not love, but like whatever he felt. I don't know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I really don't know. I couldn't put my finger on anything because nothing makes sense for him. The only thing I can think of is that he, like you were saying, he knows the detectives are hot on his trail for murder. Maybe he did just want to go home and say, like, have a couple more memories with his parents and Clara?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so he went back there and he was fully ready to become Herman Webster Mudgett again. Right. And he was like, maybe if I leave Holmes behind, I leave all these other aliases behind, I leave Howard behind, all this, I'm Herman Webster Mudgett, I am my birthmate name, like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, maybe that, maybe this will keep me safe, like they won't be able to track me. Right. And if I convince everyone that I had amnesia,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That nothing's happened in the eight years and we just start anew. Right. That maybe like I'll be able to avoid all this. Because maybe he was even planning on like the amnesia story, selling it to himself over time. Yeah, truly. You know? Yeah, but then, so we, I said that and we said that and we're like, that makes a little sense. We besay. But he didn't stay long. He left after only two days.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe you just couldn't take it. On a train for Boston. No, get out of here. Exactly, but I'm like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What were you doing? Like what was, was the plan that initially and you were like, this isn't going to work maybe? Like maybe you saw that fucking tree and you were like, oh shit. Maybe it gave him like, maybe he was very introspective in that moment. He's like, the name has been obliterated on the tree.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] HH ohms. The only thing I could also think of, so another thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I don't know. Cause then remember he also wanted the custody and we were like, why did he want custody of his son? Like, that doesn't make any sense. It's very strange. I don't know. It's very strange.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Before leaving New Hampshire after those two days, Holmes sent a telegram to Georgiana in New York, you know, his wife, telling her to meet him in Boston. So before he even left, he was already like, I'm out of here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, they met at a train station on November 13th, and from there, they checked into the Addams House as Mr. and Mrs. H.M. Howell. So he's right back to his own bull-bullshit. The next day, he checked them into a boarding house in Boston, because he was planning to stay longer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now meanwhile, unbeknownst to Holmes, Detective Gary and the Pinkertons followed him from New Hampshire to Boston. Once there, they went straight to the Boston PD and spoke to them about setting out to arrest Holmes for the Philadelphia insurance fraud.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Unfortunately, the Boston police chief at the time felt that the warrant from Philadelphia was not like super strong.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he said, I could probably get him, but I'm not going to be able to hold him with this. Okay, so he was thinking ahead. He was. So Gary was like, I got you. And he scrambled and got a second warrant from Fort Worth, Texas, the one where Holmes was wanted for being a horse thief. And that's a big fucking deal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So this would strengthen the case to hold him in Boston. I guess they could have also tried to get a warrant from Chicago for the arson too, but they didn't need to. You would think that they would want to. I know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So at some point, he was like, I was figuring I was gonna get caught at some point, but he assumed it was for murder.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So when he goes to the station, he's confronted by, uhm, another agent from Fidelity Mutual named, uh, Forrest Perry. See, that's better. Forrest Perry from Fidelity Mutual. Yea, it makes sense.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He confronts him for faking the death of Benjamin Pytzel, and he was like, oh good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, absolutely. So he was like, I'm technically not up for murder, okay. So he just confessed. He was like, okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Except for murdering Benjamin Pytzel. He said, oh no, no, we put a person there in his place. Right. But that person was already dead. We're just, we're just frauding insurance, that's all. Like no murders here. We just knew of a dead body locally.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and he also said he was part of a band of conspirators that included Benjamin himself and Carey Peitzel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And which, I mean, it kind of was. And in his first confession to Deputy Superintendent Hanscom of the Boston Police and John Cornish of the Pinkerton Detective Agency,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He claimed that Benjamin Pizzo was still very much alive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He said quote, well I last saw him in Detroit in the neighborhood of three weeks ago.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he said he accompanied the children for a short time and then was to hand them over to their father in Cincinnati. That was the plan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But when they got there, he said Pitesel had started drinking heavily again, and he just wasn't comfortable leaving the children with him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was such a, was such an alcoholic that he didn't feel comfortable leaving those children with him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wow. And he gassed those girls in a trunk. Wow. Yea. And poisoned that little boy. And actually he didn't even, he lied about it. Yea, he poisoned them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, he said he had some discussions with Benjamin and then he said he and Benjamin, quote, compromised there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he took one of them and I took the other two to Chicago because I had business there. You can have one, I think you can handle one in your drunken super. Just one, just the boy. But I'll take the others. And he said thinking that it would not call anyone's attention so quick if he traveled with the boy alone as if there were three.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What? That doesn't even make sense. Thank you for saying the exact like what? Yeah, exactly. Holmes probably expected his confession would like pretty much answer all the lingering questions they had. I mean, he


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He did the thing that really stupid murderers do where he prepares an answer for every single question that could come up, but it's so hyper prepared and rehearsed that you're like, you can't possibly have all these answers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But he thought it was going to make up, you know, people were going to now understand his international and interstate travels, like all that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think he finally overestimated his abilities to fuck around and not find out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because within a day of his confession, they'd moved a fresh body in a trunk from New York to Philadelphia.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How'd you do that? Like, that doesn't make any sense. And that's just such a classic, like, well, I thought I was smarter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they also said, they said first of all it wouldn't have laid flat if it was in like any position and they said definitely not if it was in a trunk for a long period of time. Right. And they said it would have shown marks of where it had been doubled up. Uh huh. So no such marks were on the body.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Holmes' confession didn't hold up under any of this, of course. He couldn't explain any of this. Of course not. Yeaah. So investigators immediately said that the body found was really that of Pytzel and not of someone else.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The claim of such a, like this was truly a like gruesome insurance fraud scheme, even if you take away the murder. Like it's just gruesome. No matter what. So headlines were going crazy and within days it was blowing up all over the place.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After just two days of being arrested in Boston, Pinkerton agents arrested Carrie Pizel in Burlington, Vermont. She was probably like, what the fuck? And then she was just there waiting for Benjamin. Of course.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She was brought to Boston and she was interrogated by Hanscom and Cornish, the Boston cop and the Pinkerton detective.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And she wasn't super forthcoming, unfortunately. Well, she was probably scared. She sure was. Like you said, she was involved in a scheme. And she was trying to protect her husband who she still believed was alive. So she lied and denied any knowledge of a fraud scheme.


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[Assistant] Although she may have had some knowledge of the scheme to defraud the insurance company,


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[Assistant] Detectives were pretty sure, pretty quick that Carrie Pitesell didn't play a part in the actual crime. Okay.


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[Assistant] They said she probably only knew of the swindle after her husband was supposed to be dead.


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[Assistant] And police were pretty confident that she definitely wasn't directly involved in it. She hadn't had her hands in it.


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[Assistant] But they said there is someone else who seems to have their hands in this. Jepta how?


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[Assistant] As to how Pitesel met his death, I cannot say, but if a fraud has been committed, I'm anxious to have it investigated. Liar, liar, pants on fire. And his immediately arson was another charge because his pants lit right on fire. Yep.


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[Assistant] Uhm, on November 19th, a Philadelphia grand jury indicted Holmes and Howe for conspiracy to cheat and defraud the Fidelity Mutual Company.


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[Assistant] There's the that of it all. So there's that. The following day, they were extradited to Philadelphia to stand trial. So, Holmes killed Benjamin Pizel. Yes. Correct. So that meant he couldn't have left the three missing children with their father.


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[Assistant] No. So now the question became... Where the kids at? Where the fuck are Alice, Nellie, and Howard, Pitezel?


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[Assistant] So, the missing Pitesell children are definitely like top priority right now, but now they're also looking into like the nationwide crime spree, like an international crime spree that was shocking them at this point.


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[Assistant] In Chicago, a bunch of people came forward and identified Holmes as a man they'd once known by many other names before he had run out on them before paying for anything that he had put on credit.


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[Assistant] And in Texas, people suddenly started connecting their loved ones, Minnie and Nanny Williams, with this man, and were stressing the fuck out.


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[Assistant] Several private detectives were sent from Texas to Chicago in search of Nanny Williams because her trunk had sat unclaimed at the Wells Fargo office for months and then was returned to her aunt.


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[Assistant] So in Texas, which shocked them all and none of them could get a hold of her.


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[Assistant] The Chicago Tribune reported, it is certain Nanny Williams did come to Chicago, but whether she was murdered is a point that can only be cleared up when her sister Minnie is brought to light.


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[Assistant] One of the, uh, somebody who was transporting homes from Boston to Philadelphia


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[Assistant] Talk, he said he talked a lot about me. I was just gonna say, imagine being that guy. Oh my god. And you just have to hear him.


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[Assistant] He's told the bizarre story about, uhm, Nanny Williams, like how she had died. He told like several different stories about that. And under hypnosis...


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[Assistant] Crawford, this police detective, relayed the story that he had heard from Holmes. Oh, that's crazy. Yeah. He said he went to Chicago with his first wife and there fell in with a young typewriter named Minnie Williams.


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[Assistant] When Holmes returned and found the dead body in the rooms, he took it and put it in a trunk together with a lot of stones and sank it in the lake.


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[Assistant] Leaving her in the bed, then helped Holmes put her in the trunk, sink her to the bottom of the lake.


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[Assistant] And then he, she signed over the deed to the Texas properties to homes in Pitesel. And then they gave her a little money and off she went to Europe to live out the rest of her days. That's what he's claiming.


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[Assistant] The story he spun about Minnie killing her sister in a jealous rage just like was not anything anybody was going to believe. It wasn't hidden with anyone. Which is good because that's also so fucked up that he killed both of them and was like...


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[Assistant] And this was also further cemented in by the hordes of people who after he was arrested wanted to tell reporters about their interactions with Holmes. Many of them had met Holmes and Minnie Williams in Chicago.


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[Assistant] But the problem was that they both they were known as different names.


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[Assistant] And in some cases, the women they thought was Minnie Williams was actually Georgiana Yokes. Oh shit. But he was like introducing her saying this is Minnie. And she was like, yeah, it's me, Minnie.


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[Assistant] He also had another known associate named Kate Durkee.


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[Assistant] Who he didn't kill. And he would, it was also her sometimes that he would say was Minnie.


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[Assistant] Now eventually enough stories had come forward to allow investigators to conclude that Minnie was also missing and had in fact not been seen by anyone since she was last spotted with her sister in Chicago in mid-December 1893.


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[Assistant] Now in the year that followed after this, Holmes' story about Minnie and Nanny Williams changed a billion times. He never told the same story twice. In some, they're both alive.


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[Assistant] They're both dead. Minnie had gone into hiding after killing her sister, but then sometimes he would say, I'd only told that story for fun.


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[Assistant] Because this Crawford guy was super gullible and I wanted to see if he'd believe it.


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[Assistant] But regardless of what he would say, it was always that Minnie killed her sister.


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[Assistant] Then fled to Chicago and he hadn't seen her since. That was what he would like to go back to always.


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[Assistant] And journalists were talking to anyone who had even come in slight contact with him and his travels.


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[Assistant] Meanwhile, Detective Frank Geyer from the Philadelphia police had


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[Assistant] Set out from Philadelphia to track his movements before his arrest, so that they could figure out maybe where the missing Pitesell children were along his path.


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[Assistant] By then, investigators had learned a ton more about Holmes, and they learned that he had


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[Assistant] What, like dozens and dozens of aliases at the time that he had moved from?


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[Assistant] And just like imagine how desperate they felt. Yes, and Geyer began retracing Holmes' steps, and he's checking in with every hotel along the way, every boarding house, every alias he's falling up on just trying to find these kids. Well, it's been exhausting. Everyone. Now, Holmes was no help.


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[Assistant] Had a bunch of letters that the children had written their mother, Carrie Pizzo. Oh no, and she had written them too. And he had never sent them, and he had never given them her letters.


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[Assistant] And using the dates and locations referenced in the letters, Geier was able to trace a pretty accurate route of Holmes' travels with the kids from Indianapolis to Canada. Holy shit. So they used those letters from the kids.


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[Assistant] Um, and in a town outside Cincinnati, they talked to a bunch of like shopkeepers and they showed them a photograph of the man identified as Holmes and they were like, yep, we know that guy. And then they said he was traveling in the company of a young boy who was later identified as Howard Pytzel. Got him.


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[Assistant] Well, and also a hotel clerk in Cincinnati identified Holmes as the man who checked in with two girls. But he didn't remember seeing a boy, but remember he killed Howard first. In each new location,


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[Assistant] Geyer would hear another story. Holmes would arrive with children, rent a house or apartment for a really short period of time, and then he would leave and go to another one.


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[Assistant] This story finally changed in July 1895 because Gaier traveled all the way up to Toronto following the trail.


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[Assistant] Now, he's worked with the Toronto police force and they helped him trace Holmes' steps all along the city. Along the way he got more and more positive identifications from eyewitnesses.


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[Assistant] People would see homes, Georgiana and Nellie and Alice from hotel managers at the Walker house.


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[Assistant] Uhm, where they said the girls were staying, the Palmer house where he stayed with Georgiana.


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[Assistant] And through this investigation he finally learned that Holmes had expressed interest in buying or renting a house.


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[Assistant] And who represented that he wanted this house for his widowed sister because that's the story he was hearing. But the fact that he would only need it for a few days would be so memorable. Exactly. So after doing this only for a couple of days, he finally found an agent who rented a house on the outskirts of Toronto


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[Assistant] To a man who only stayed there for a little bit and matched the description.


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[Assistant] So Geyer and the Toronto detectives arrived at this house and now an older couple was living there with their adult son. Oh god. So the detectives were like, hey,


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[Assistant] Uh, we have reason to believe that two young girls were murdered in this house and their bodies might be buried somewhere on the property. Can we like look? Do you mind if we look? Like can you imagine getting that fucking knock on your door? Well apparently the owners weren't like crazy shocked. They go, that accounts for that pile of loose dirt under the main building.


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[Assistant] But the space was really small and it was really difficult to move around in, so it was slow, this process. And eventually they had to stop because investigators determined


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[Assistant] Now, while Geyer was retracing all the movements in Canada, Holmes was on trial in Philadelphia for conspiring to defraud the Fidelity Mutual Life Association of $10,000 by producing a dead body and representing it to be the corpse of Benjamin F. Peitzel. That's what he's on trial for.


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[Assistant] Uh, Holmes pled guilty to the fraud charges, but when asked, he said he would refuse to say to the district attorney or Philadelphia investigators where those children were. He was not gonna tell them. Of course. So they took him to county prison.


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[Assistant] Talking to every real estate agent ever. And finally comes across another one several days later.


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[Assistant] And it was for a house on Vincent Street, rented by a name matching, and you might remember that street. I remember Vincent Street. And the man who rented it matched Holmes' description. So on the morning of July 15th,


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[Assistant] I couldn't, and he said I won't identify them as the two girls because I didn't get a good enough look.


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[Assistant] But he said, uh, also before he left town, like shortly before, he asked me to borrow, um, uh, shovel.


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[Assistant] So Geyer and the other detectives went into the basement and it didn't take long before they found a spot of ground in the southwest corner of the room that was definitely recently disturbed.


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[Assistant] They began digging, like pretty easily it was moving away and Geyer said, and after going down about one foot a horrible stench arose.


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[Assistant] B.D. Humphrey, the local undertaker. He should be. Yea, absolutely. No other career path for you. I will not question that ever. Nope. B.D. Humphrey for life. Ever. Uhm, Gaier and the detectives were able to unearth the two bodies in the basement. They were very decomposed and were actually a little bit injured from being exhumed as well, cause it was not like, uh,


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[Assistant] Badly decomposed, that's gonna be a problem, but enough that they were able to put two and two together.


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[Assistant] Uhm, the children's remains were taken to the morgue for examination and Geyer sent


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[Assistant] Um, a telegram to the district attorney, Graham, letting him know that he should definitely proceed with murder charges against HH Holmes. Yikes.


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[Assistant] Unfortunately, the remains of Howard Peitzel, the third child, were never discovered. And people believe that he was probably scattered or buried on the property where he was actually murdered. Oh, that's terrible.


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[Assistant] After the bodies of Alice and Nellie were uncovered, Holmes' guilty plea in the fraud case became kind of a problem, because the girls had been killed in Canada.


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[Assistant] So Holmes would need to be extradited to Toronto in order to stand trial for the murders. And once he'd learned of the discovery, Holmes claimed


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[Assistant] He was traveling at the time that the girls were killed and he couldn't have possibly done it. Which Georgiana verified.


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[Assistant] Is that your alter ego? He described this man as a mythical sort of person. And I'm like, I'm sure he was mythical because he doesn't exist. Uhm, in a very disreputable character.


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[Assistant] Mr. Hatch was apparently a friend of Minnie Williams according to him. Isn't everybody. And he'd reluctantly given the girls to this man during a stop in Buffalo.


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[Assistant] And he had instructed Hatch to take them with Mini to Europe.


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[Assistant] Everybody's just hanging out in Europe. Totally. See, he is obsessed with Europe, I will say that. When Superintendent of Police Lyndon heard this statement, he replied,


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[Assistant] His willingness to plead guilty to the charge of conspiracy led us to think that something must be back of the case.


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[Assistant] So the discovery of the two bodies pretty much confirmed to all the news outlets and the public that H.H. Holmes was definitely a multiple murderer at the time. It was not known as a serial killer.


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[Assistant] Within days of that discovery, newspapers went wild around the country. And Chicago investigators and citizens started digging around the rubble of the castle, because remember, it had burned. Not all the way down, but part of it had.


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[Assistant] But they were thinking they would find bones of victims and they were going to try to tack moron.


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[Assistant] Chicago was looking for evidence of many nannies' remains at the cast- at the castle.


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[Assistant] And on July 19th, two detectives who were looking through the ashes that were technically used to be the basement, uhm, they found an old stove.


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[Assistant] When they looked in the firebox of the stove, they discovered a quantity of charged, uh, charred human remains and a watch chain, formerly owned and worn by many Williams. So he had burned their bodies in the stove. That's terrible.


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[Assistant] At the time of the whole crime spree and the arrest and all that, newspapers, especially like the metropolitan papers,


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[Assistant] Were not held to like very high standards. Yeah, I could see that. Uhm, and there was a lot of competition among them. They wanted to be the one with the most readers.


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[Assistant] So this would definitely lead to some leaning towards like tabloid kind of reporting.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and they were a little bit more willing to exaggerate and fabricate. You know what's sad? So many still around today do the same thing. Like how often do you find fake shit when you're researching and you're like, why does no other article say that? Yeah, it's like what? Now, Holmes knew this.


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[Assistant] And he almost was kinda like eager to play along with it. Of course. He would give outrageous statements, contradictory statements, like things that would make him like the most bloodthirsty, ruthless killer.


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[Assistant] That's another reason why I don't think he would have left out that he was Jack the Ripper. I think this would have been the time he would have been like, by the way, you know, those crazy murders in Whitechapel? Yea, seems like a big part to skip. But a lot of papers did operate the way they should, on fact.


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[Assistant] Have two more victims of murder been added to the long list to Holmes' credit? Mrs. L. L. Conner and her daughter are now supposed to have been killed by the swindler.


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[Assistant] Holmes is said to have coerced the woman to deceive her husband and to aid his general schemes of vill-villainry.


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[Assistant] Mrs. Connor then lived with Holmes, but they quarreled frequently, and she threatened to expose him.


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[Assistant] She disappeared in the fall of 1893 with her daughter and friends believe that they have been removed by homes where the woman could not possibly appear against him. So factual.


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[Assistant] But it's just the way they presented is very sensational. Yeah. Cause like, we don't know why he did it.


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[Assistant] But meanwhile, investigators in Philadelphia, Toronto, and Chicago and every other city that Holmes had been spending a ton of time in.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and they were able to attribute her disappearance to him.


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[Assistant] Holmes was indicted in early September 1895 for the murder of Benjamin Pitesell. He entered a plea of not guilty.


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[Assistant] And when the judge asked, how will you be tried, Holmes said, by God and my country, which meant he wanted a jury trial.


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[Assistant] Holmes took a lot of advantage of the public. He manipulated the hell out of people. I can see that. In early October, he published his own supposed autobiography entitled, Holmes's Own Story. Cue up Ashley Simpson. Exactly.


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[Assistant] The book was an alleged chronological history of Holmes' life all the way to incarceration.


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[Assistant] It was pretty clear that Holmes' defense attorneys were, uh, out of their league.


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[Assistant] But they didn't technically have to participate either.


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[Assistant] And they didn't. They just sat quietly and let Holmes basically act as his own defense attorney. They literally sat in the room and were like, meh.


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[Assistant] You know what, that guy said sanctions, that's the only reason I'm here, so I'm just gonna sit here.


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[Assistant] He presented a very strong case. He used a lot of witness testimony and anyone surviving in the family.


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[Assistant] Those who had seen Homes with Benjamin and the Children before they all disappeared, they all came up to say something. Homes, on the other hand, just kinda like...


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[Assistant] Made outrageous claims about the prosecutor attempting to prevent him from seeing his, quote unquote, wife Georgiana.


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[Assistant] It was all very preventive, performative, it was not helpful for him at all.


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[Assistant] Eugene Smith, the man who'd gone to the patent laboratory that day to speak about.


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[Assistant] His inventions and ended up finding Pitesel's body. He was called to testify.


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[Assistant] And on the stands, on the stand, Holmes grilled him about Benjamin Pitezel's drinking habits and other subjects that he couldn't know anything about. Like he, he didn't know him. He's like, I just know I had a patent.


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[Assistant] He was, so he's sitting there grilling him being like, well, he was a drinker, you know that. And he's like, I literally don't know that. I don't know this man. I thought his last name was Perry. So like, no, I did not know this man. I didn't actually even know his name. And he's asking him all these details and he's like, my guy, I don't know this man. All I know of him is the couple of conversations I have with him and he was not drunk. So like, I cannot


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[Assistant] Overruled. Like it was literally just like, uh, no. Nah. So on the third day, Holmes' second confession was read aloud for the jury, because remember he has like 85. And in this one, he claimed that the body was Benjamin Pytzel, but Benjamin Pytzel had died as the result of suicide.


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[Assistant] The confession was followed by what was likely the most damning testimony of the trial.


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[Assistant] It was given by Carrie and Desi Pizzo. Oh, that must have been horrific.


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[Assistant] She positively identified Holmes as the man who'd conspired with her husband and dragged her around the nation in search of her children.


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[Assistant] And she spent hours on the stand and it was just like heartbreaking. She identified the unsent letters found as being from her kids.


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[Assistant] I dunno how she went on after. She was a very powerful witness for the prosecution.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and when they put her against Holmes, it definitely helped out as well. After several days of testimony and tons of crazy media reports, the things that made Holmes such a successful criminal, like such a successful killer and conman and fraudder,


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[Assistant] His ability to lie confidently, have no remorse, and just so unbelievable amounts of chaos everywhere he went, they were kind of taking a toll on the jury.


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[Assistant] Like the jury was feeling it. I could see that. He had told so many versions of the same story and he had made such a complicated and incoherent set of stories and lies


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[Assistant] And he probably seemed like a madman at that point. Oh yea. And on the final day of the case, Graham presented his closing arguments and he just wrapped up the evidence and all the testimony and Holmes and his defense attorney or his whole team.


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[Assistant] They just had the same weak arguments, you know, the mysterious strangers, like Hatch taking the children to Europe, and Benjamin Peitzel committing suicide.


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[Assistant] All of this was supposed to put in reasonable doubt.


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[Assistant] It wasn't necessarily painting homes as innocent, right? It was really just putting reasonable doubt and it wasn't even good reasonable doubt. They were just like, I don't know, I still think you're shitty.


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[Assistant] First, the story which Mrs. Peitzel told upon the stand be true, and there seems to be no reason to doubt it. No novel that was ever written contains a story as thrilling as that which was told here upon the stand, concerning the manner in which this man lured her around the country in a deceptive and fruitless hunt after her dead husband.


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[Assistant] They spent all night in that jury room, like the liberation room. They didn't come out until 9 p.m. But the jury actually had made their decision like right away. Like they walked into that room and they were like, we're all thinking it. And they were all like, hell yeah. And then they were like, but you know what, we just needed to like keep up appearances. And we also wanted to eat dinner.


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[Assistant] Damn, they were just having a pizza party. Yeah, they just had a pizza party. Uh, after the trial, a lot of them said, when they were asked by reporters what convinced them of his guilt, he said that he just seemed to know too much about how to kill a man with chloroform. That'll do it. And it's like, yeah, I would say so. Now, when this was read out loud, Holmes was shocked.


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[Assistant] And his defense attorneys attempted to argue for a new trial date again. Is that the only thing they argued for? Yea, they said that Holmes had to act as his own defense for much of the trial and he was largely unprepared.


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[Assistant] Went about the appeal process and they said they will go to the highest court if necessary. And then they said, this is literally my favorite thing. They said, I shall enter at once upon the preparation of papers for an appeal. When I shall have them ready. It is impossible to tell, but no time will be lost.


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[Assistant] So the appeal did go through. It finally came on February 3rd. Uhm, and George Graham and Holmes' defense team were in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. I'm surprised they were like, yeah, we'll entertain this. They made it. So Holmes' defense argued that a lot of the testimony used to convict Holmes, and this is


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[Assistant] Husband and wife. I also love that he was like a prior union. I'm like, how about several prior unions? Well, it's just like, oof. Like, you tried. Guess that bigamy came back to bite you, my guy. Like that didn't help for you. It usually does.


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[Assistant] And after hearing arguments on both sides, the court sided with the prosecution and said that Georgiana, quote, did say that she had gone through a marriage ceremony with this man, but she does not say that she is his wife. She merely says that she was imposed upon.


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[Assistant] You know what? I think she was. She was. She was imposed upon. She remains to be imposed upon. Yeah, girl. So the Supreme Court decided to uphold the conviction, of course, and the death sentence. And he had no other appeals and a date of May 7th in 1896 was set for his execution. In the meantime,


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[Assistant] Holmes was now going away from the whole I didn't do it thing.


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[Assistant] And he's now just enthusiastically embracing his villain role. He's like, you know what? I've officially entered my villain era. He sure has. And between his conviction and execution, he confessed to a ton of crimes, including at least 100 more murders.


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[Assistant] Uh, but not the Jack the Ripper ones. He would scale it. Thank you. You're welcome. That's the thing.


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[Assistant] He's throwing that shit up to like 200 and something, but he's not gonna include the White Chapel. Nah. No. It doesn't make sense.


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[Assistant] He later would scale it back, but then he'd pump it up again, scale it back, so you don't know. Just depending on like the direction of the wind. And I guess a confession was commissioned by the Hearst Corporation in April 1896, titled, The Most Awful Story of Modern Times Told by the Fiend in Human Shape.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, he gave detailed accounts in this confession of the murders of Julia and Pearl Connor, Emeline Segrand, Minnie and Nanny Williams, the whole Pitesel family. Uhm, and then he added 18 more murders onto that.


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[Assistant] Which everybody was like, oh shit, okay, he really did that. But unfortunately, those other 18 are questionable because, uh, at least two of the people he claimed to have murdered, Kate Durkee and Robert Leacock, They were still alive. They were found to be alive. Stop it. And fine. Stop it. I knew it. So this motherfucker,


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[Assistant] He was saying the murder people are still alive. He was definitely gonna claim the Jack the Ripper breaders if it had ever been planted in his head. Hundo.


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[Assistant] I tell you right now, if somebody came to him during this shit and said,


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[Assistant] He just didn't, nobody planted that seed in his head.


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[Assistant] But Holmes was apparently paid $7,500 for that confession. What the fuck was he gonna do with the money? He got sentenced to hang.


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[Assistant] Why he chose to do that, I don't know. He was scheduled to die in a month, so I don't know what that money would have done for him, but. Maybe it was kind of just like a fuck you. Like, here's this money you can't spend. Yeah, like, okay, I guess I'll just take it. But then, did Georgiana get it? I don't think so, cause she's not his real wife. Damn. I hope, I hope, um, what's the first one?


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[Assistant] Very over the top about his remorse in these confessions, like he does show.


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[Assistant] Like very theatrical remorse. Which is how you know it's not real. Like laughable in a way. So he might have been trying to salvage some kind of empathetic reaction. You know what I mean? Like I don't know. Okay. I don't think so though. I think he just liked doing it.


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[Assistant] Yeah, just like for the drama. But on the morning of May 7th, 1896... Wait a second, is that today? Oh my god, is it? Is that today? Or is today the 7th?


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[Assistant] On the morning of May 7th, 1896, he was taken from his cell at the county prison and he was led to the gallows.


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[Assistant] He denied, denied, denied, now having killed Benjamin Pitesel and the children, and he insisted he only ever killed two women.


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[Assistant] I have very few words to say. In fact, I would make no statement at this time except that by not speaking I would appear to acquiesce in life and my execution.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I only want to say that the extent of my wrongdoings in taking human life consisted in the deaths of two women, they having died at my hands as a result of criminal operations.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wish to also state, however, so that there will be no misunderstanding hereafter, I am not guilty of taking the life of any of the Peitzel family, the three children or father Benjamin F. Peitzel, of whose death I am now convicted and for which I am today to be hanged. That is all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then the hood was placed over his head and the lever was pulled at 10, 12 a.m. The door opened, he dropped five feet. Oops, that was supposed to break his neck.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, pretty gross. And when he was removed from the gallows, they immediately put him into a coffin. That coffin was placed in cement.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think that's how you use that word. Cause he was 100% constantly stealing from the dead, and using dead bodies, and desecrating graves, and fucking up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Before he was executed, Carrie Pitesell's lawyer, Thomas Fahey, I think it is, uhm, he thought that when he died that he would leave a portion of his assets to the Pitesell family. Because he was like, I thought he was gonna leave.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You think this man that killed several people, including three of her children, was like, you know what, maybe I should leave for some money. Thomas, you ever play craps? Cause I don't, I don't know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The report, uh, the lawyer found out and told the reporters, I've been given to understand that Holmes died in testate, which means died without a will in place. Oh, right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Although I did believe that he would leave a will devising the one-third interest in whatever estate he had to Mrs. Peitzel. I fear now that he did not make provision for the widow of the man he yesterday denied killing, and unless he had given instructions to his attorney as to the matter of restitution, I will have to proceed upon different lines.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just kind of faded away. I bet she did. Uh, yeah, just whoop, bye. You know what though, I was saying things like, oh, I don't know about her, but he was beating Clara. I'm sure he was beating her as well, and I should have thought of that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Go live, go live the rest of the life. See ya never, just bye. Go exist. Right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Murda. Murda Holmes. Oh god, I would change my last name. Remains in the beginning, she-