Why So Serial?
A Former Police Detective and His Son Discuss Cases of Serial Killers with a Fresh and Entertaining Perspective.
Why So Serial?
The Devil in The Basement (H.H. Holmes)
Step into the twisted mind of America's first documented serial killer as Corey, a former police detective, and his 12-year-old son Soren unravel the horrifying legacy of H.H. Holmes in this premiere episode of "Why So Serial?"
What makes someone design an entire building specifically for murder? Herman Mudgett, better known as H.H. Holmes, wasn't just any killer - he was a medical school graduate who used his intelligence to create a literal house of horrors. His "Murder Castle" in Chicago featured gas chambers, trapdoors leading to nowhere, secret passageways, and chutes to send bodies directly to the basement where acid vats and a crematory kiln awaited.
The father-son duo breaks down Holmes' reign of terror from 1891-1894, exploring how he lured victims using the 1893 World's Fair as his hunting ground. You'll hear about his cunning methods, including how he stripped victims' bodies and sold the cleaned skeletons to medical colleges for profit. The story takes an even darker turn when Holmes betrays and murders his associate Benjamin Peitzel and his children as part of an elaborate insurance scheme.
How did a man who confessed to 27 murders (though some estimate hundreds) operate for so long without detection? What drives someone to declare "I was born with the devil in me"? Join us for this fascinating yet disturbing journey into one of history's most calculated killers, rated on our unique serial killer scale for brutality, creativity, intelligence, and execution. Follow us on TikTok and let us know which notorious criminals you want us to cover next!
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This thing all supposed to be. Y'all already know what you came here for.
Speaker 2:It's time To introduce you to the greatest podcast on the planet. Why so Serial, cereal podcast on the planet. Wow so cereal, oh shoot, I can't even wait. This is episode one of the Devil in the Basement. Take it away, boys, let's go.
Speaker 3:Hear ye hear ye, what man? I'm trying to set the stage because we're gonna be talking about a? Uh, serial killer from the 1800s, yeah, but, uh, welcome everybody we are. Why? So serial brand new podcast uh, true, true crime podcast. I can learn how to talk. It'd probably be better for a podcast. So it's myself, corey, and my son, soren. We're true crime fans. I was a police detective for a number of years, so I actually have experience investigating murders like actual murders. I don't just talk about it, I've done it. And then my son, who's 12 and you know just kind of funny and likes true crime. So it'll be an interesting perspective from him to kind of get his take on some of this stuff. So a little bit about what we're going to be doing. Um, soren, what's your biggest gripe with true crime podcast right now? If you had to pick, can you say that again?
Speaker 3:your biggest gripe, like your biggest beef, like your biggest issue, like what don't you like about them?
Speaker 2:um, I don't like when they just like talk on and on about random stuff. You know it's like kind of related, but like do we need to know it?
Speaker 3:yeah, so like I don't care, like obviously I would like to know if they had siblings, but I don't need like a description, the name, yeah yeah, so, uh, the length is is kind of an issue for me sometimes, but, uh, so our goal is kind of to break down these different people in a light-hearted way.
Speaker 3:That's, um, hopefully, somewhat, you know, comical to you, um, but also get you the information that you want, uh, that and something that's easily digestible. You can get, uh, you know, to and from on your drive to work and not have to listen to it in 16 parts or whatever. Uh, it's a lot of good podcasts out there that do a really good job of breaking down cases in like to and from on your drive to work and not have to listen to it in 16 parts or whatever. There's a lot of good podcasts out there that do a really good job of breaking down cases in great detail, and if that's what you're looking for, you're probably not going to get that here. It's going to be hard feelings, but you want to get into this first case.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's do it All right, dude, this one's crazy.
Speaker 3:I think mainly because, okay, let's just get who he was first, his name, his birth name, was Herman Webster Mudgett. Sounds like an insult. Yeah, herman Mudgett is his name. He was born in 1861 in Gilmanton, new Hampshire. I didn't know, anybody was actually from New Hampshire. He later changed his name. He went by a million different aliases, but he changed his name too. He got into some trouble up there in his younger life, which I mean trouble was just kind of what he would do for the rest of his life. But I mean, obviously he's made it to a serial killer podcast. But he changed his name to HH Holmes and that's how he's better known HH.
Speaker 2:Holmes.
Speaker 3:HH Holmes yeah.
Speaker 2:That's crazy.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, hh home, hh, homes. Yeah, that's crazy, oh yeah. So he uh a little bit about. We'll go into a little bit of his background. Um, he was, he was born in new hampshire. Like I said, um he was a smart kid, um really intelligent, pretty cookie cutter family life back then. I mean dad was strict, strict, religious family.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:He got beat on by his dad quite a bit. You know, nothing crazy or out of the ordinary, but there was an instance that stuck out to me and a lot of things with him is it's hard to figure out what's true and what's not. Um, wait, about to call for something like you about to fall out over there, like that would be two minutes in, about to lose him, uh, no, so what? But one of the I'm gonna choose to believe this story because it starts to make sense when you hear more about him later.
Speaker 3:Some of the kids that were bullying him I say bullying, but they were just giving him crap, I think took him into a doctor's office there in town and like forced him in there and forced him into this room where they had, like this you ever seen like a skeleton that's in science class, that's like in the corner, just like posted up or whatever, like that they had one in there with it's arm stretched out and they like tried to scare him or whatever. And he claims, like whether this is true or not, we don't know, but he claims that's where he got his fascination with dead bodies. Yeah, he goes on to, like I said he was a really smart guy. He goes on, he finishes college, he finishes medical school.
Speaker 3:Um, yeah, he was a doctor, that's crazy legit doctor, um, but he, he did all that, um, and it's it's rare for a serial killer at least in my knowledge of them, um to actually finish college. Yeah, but he did in medical school, um, but that's where he got. He got really into dissecting human bodies in medical school, um, and in that I'm not going to go into like all that dude. He spends his whole life doing fraud and trickery and swindling and stuff what's swindling?
Speaker 3:it's like, yeah, it's like it's a word for just BSing people to get money, basically. But that's where he really found his fascination for dead bodies and stuff. But anyway, on to the good stuff. He was active. His years of killing was 1891 to 1894, and he confessed to 27 killings.
Speaker 2:You said 27?
Speaker 3:27.
Speaker 2:Like two seven.
Speaker 3:Two, seven, jeez, nine times three, 25 plus two. However, you want to break it down, so 27 kills that he confessed to. Now some people say it was more like nine. Some people say it could be like a couple hundred.
Speaker 2:And it's not really known. That's insane.
Speaker 3:And I'll tell you a couple about a few of them. We're not going to deep dive into a whole lot of them because obviously we don't have time to sit here and talk about 27 murders individually, but I'll go into a few of them. But let's talk more about before we get into the murders, let's talk about some other stuff. So he eventually was caught spoiler alert he was caught and arrested for murder and he was sentenced to death. Any guesses as to what Herman Mudgett's last meal was?
Speaker 2:Bag of oats.
Speaker 3:Bag of oats.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:His last meal is actually dry toast and hard-boiled eggs.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's funny yeah.
Speaker 3:I think we might actually do a segment where we eat some of these and rate them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that'd be fun.
Speaker 3:I think that'd be fun, just not that one.
Speaker 3:I can tell you the rating of this one before we even try it. It's going to be struggling to get a one or a two, but yeah, that was his last meal. The crazy part about his execution, though, is he was sentenced to hanging because they didn't really have a whole lot of other ways to kill people back in 1896 or five, whenever he was killed, um. So I don't know how much you know about hanging, but what actually kills you is like if they drop you from like a elevated point oh, I didn't know that.
Speaker 3:I thought it was like strangulation no, so it's not supposed to be, but it's supposed like break your neck and you die pretty quick, all right. Well, this fool. I guess it didn't break his neck so it took him 15 minutes to die. What he strangled and they said it like he was like convulsing and twitching for like 15 straight minutes.
Speaker 2:What.
Speaker 3:Kind of fitting for this guy though he was kind of an a-hole. Yeah so, yeah, let's get into it, huh. So after he finished medical school he went out to the Midwest and he worked several kind of normal jobs. I would say We'll call them normal. He worked at a grocery store at a point in time with one of his father-in-laws. He was actually married at one point to like four or five different women. What?
Speaker 2:That's crazy.
Speaker 3:And none of them knew about each other.
Speaker 2:What how?
Speaker 3:I don't know dude.
Speaker 2:So did eventually, like one of them find out or something, how did that happen? Happen, or they each just kind of break off on their own um, I mean, he killed most of them. So yeah, I think so well, I do have a question from the live. He said what are y'all talking about?
Speaker 3:who is it?
Speaker 2:brian is tough.
Speaker 3:Oh, we're talking about a serial killer. His name is Herman Mudgett, hh Holmes. But yeah, so a little history. He went out there, he was working some odd jobs. He was working at this pharmacy in Chicago and the guy that he worked for at the time had a piece of property across the street, um, and there wasn't anything on it, uh, but Holmes wanted to buy it, um, and he was working for this guy who, like, owned his own pharmacy, and he told me he's like I want to buy it. I'm not gonna, um, I'm not gonna gonna, you know, open up another pharmacy or anything like that. That'd be crazy, that'd be messed up to do yeah, I was like oh yeah, sure, I'll sell it to you.
Speaker 3:Then he buys it, opens up a pharmacy across the street, so that's great yeah, so, um, that spot would end up being where he builds what is referred to, depending on who you ask his murder castle. What.
Speaker 3:Or murder hotel. Yeah, he built a murder hotel. That's insane. Kind of set the stage for you how that was. There was something called the World's Fair happening at that time where it was going to bring in. It was very well known it was going to bring in a lot of people. So for a guy that was interested in murder and killing potential victims, it was prey.
Speaker 3:He was a hunter, a lot full of prey. So I think he was, from what I can understand in reading all this, he was building this murder hotel, so to speak, with a thought in mind that he was going to find his victims at this world's fair.
Speaker 2:That's crazy.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So let's talk about the castle itself. When he started building it, like I said, he wasn't a stupid guy. So what he would do is he had the plans and what he would do was the people that he hired. The people that he hired there, he would only hire them for a short period of time, ah yeah. So and with him being a swindler, he would figure out ways not to pay them. Stuff like that start little disputes. So the whole entire design he did himself and he wasn't, like a, you know, an architect by trade, but he designed the whole thing himself. But he kept the plans really close to vest, so nobody actually knew what the finished product was going to look like. He would swap out the crews so often and he was such a swindler he had this giant vault in the basement of this place. He got it on credit, like a loan. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like I'll pay you later, kind of thing, kind of like we do with cars or whatever. Yeah, he puts this giant vault in, has the construction crews like, cement it into the damn earth. What.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then he's like, yeah, I'm not paying for it, you can come get it. So he was that kind of dude, you know. Yeah, um, he ended up furnishing the entire hotel on credit, um, and then some of the design features allowed him to hide the furniture and he hid it all and he was like, yeah, y'all can come in. I don't know who that guy is. He used fake names all the time too, uh. But uh, yeah, he was able to hide all the furniture and act like he never knew what had happened dang, that's crazy yeah so, um, let's talk about the, the finished product, because that's what really is crazy.
Speaker 3:So let me just go through the layout here and give you some of the names of the rooms. The maze trap door from the third floor what asphyxiation chamber. The hanging secret chamber. The blind room, secret hiding space, five door room, reception room waiting room bathroom with hidden stairs down to the basement.
Speaker 2:Dude what.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so this was all on the second floor, so what he did was the bottom floor. The ground level was a bunch of stores. It was almost like you go downtown in our city.
Speaker 3:Oh for real, yeah, and you got like the breweries and stuff there and like little stores or whatever. It was like that. I think the third floor, I think it was three levels, the third floor had or whatever it was like that. Um, I think the third floor, I think it was three levels, the third floor had like offices and stuff like that. Uh, and the second floor was all this stuff. Um, I mean it was like nothing I'd ever even heard of before until I heard this story. Um, I mean, people would go in there, they would open the doors and it would just be like a solid brick wall behind it. Um, they'd go into a bedroom um, it's several people that he admitted to killing. Um, he actually could lock the doors from the outside, so they would close the door and wouldn't be able to open it. And he had gas lines running straight into the room and he would just gas them and kill them. What.
Speaker 3:And he had secret passageways he could go up in to get the bodies and then send them down like a do you know what a laundry chute is yeah what. He would send the body, like he'd lube that thing up and just throw the body down there, what? And they would go all the way to the basement.
Speaker 2:That's insane.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so there was spots in there that it was kind of like dude, it was almost like a haunted house, like you know where they have like the little mazes and you start to feel like legitimately confused. Yeah, you know what I mean, yeah.
Speaker 3:Like you know where they have like the little mazes and you start to feel like legitimately confused. Yeah, you know what I mean. Yeah, that's how he had it set up and there would be like they would go up some stairs and it would lead to nothing, to the points. He had, like these little mazes in there and people couldn't figure out how to get out. But he would just gas them or he would like pop up in the bathroom, yeah, and he could send him straight to the basement.
Speaker 2:That's insane.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so in the basement he actually had, that's where he liked to do his weird, weird stuff. He had like a table down there where it was like some kind of torture device where he could like almost spread you out with your legs down and arms spread out and stretch you out. He had vats of acid down there. What Is it? Acid, acid. Have you seen Breaking Bad before? Yeah, so you know. When Walt and Jesse melt the bodies in the acid and they completely disappear, that's what he was doing.
Speaker 3:Dude, that's insane yeah, so I don't know. Uh, I don't. That's one of the things too I can't really confirm, like I see people talk about it, but I don't see a whole lot of detail about it. Um, but yeah, he had a kiln down there too. Do you know what a kiln is? A what?
Speaker 3:where he burned the bodies oh, yeah, like an art kiln yeah, yeah, like an art kiln, except he wasn't doing art at him. Yeah, so he, he would burn bodies down there and it was hot enough where he could get rid of any trace that they would, that they ever even existed. And this guy was such a fool man he would, uh, he would. It would often like a lot of his victims were people. He would hire pretty women, um, to work for him, whether they were married or not, and, like the little shops I'm talking about, he would hire women and stuff to come work for him, somehow, get them to want to sleep with them or whatever. This is why I'm not sure why women even like them. I'll tell you something one of his nicknames yeah, he had a few nicknames one of them was let's go through them the Beast of Chicago, devil in White City, torture Doctor. Those all seem pretty bad. Torture Doctor yeah, dude, torture people down there, man.
Speaker 2:Why would he have that as one of his nicknames? He didn't make it. Oh, wait, wait. Was it like before or after?
Speaker 3:I'm thinking that came after.
Speaker 2:All right, because that would make more sense. That would be crazy, weird if it came before.
Speaker 3:That would definitely be crazy, but my favorite nickname that he had was Smegma. This is Smegma, was Smegma, this is Smegma, smegma. So I'm going to try to explain how to explain to you what Smegma is without being inappropriate, because you are my kid. Imagine that you were outside playing all day. You know what toe cheese is, right, it's like toe cheese of the private parts, like if you were just disgusting. Basically, he smelled so bad that people called him Smegma. I got that off the internet so I don't know how true it is, but I'm choosing to believe that because that's funny. Um, but yeah, he uh was very good with his words. He was very charismatic. He made lots of friends until he screwed him over financially, which is what he tended to do. He cared about money more than anything.
Speaker 3:Money and killing people. But when he would kill these women, everybody carried their stuff in like a trunk. Back then he would just fill their trunk with their belongings and send it back to their families and come up with some story as to what happened with them like oh so, and so went off and got married to insert fake name here, you know that's crazy yeah, so, um, but anyway.
Speaker 3:So with this uh basement, where he would, you know, kill these people? He had a an interesting thing he would do with the bodies, which is why I don't necessarily believe the acid thing so much is. He would strip the bodies completely clean, strip all the skin from the bone, clean the bone, and then he would sell the skeleton to medical schools.
Speaker 2:What that's insane.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so schools would actually buy the clean skeletons from him.
Speaker 2:They question why this man just sent them bodies.
Speaker 3:Well no, they never did.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, because it was so long ago.
Speaker 3:They never did. It's like right, it's the 1890s, people would go missing all the time and it's not like you. Could, you know, say I haven't got a text from them in a while. It's like they were sending telegrams back then. I don't know what the hell a telegram is, but I'm thinking it's not a text. I don't know how long it takes to get a telegram, or how you even send one, or what I'm pretty sure it's like a machine like that you keep at like your house or something.
Speaker 3:Like almost like a wall phone Is it. I think, I don't know. I'm going to look that up. I should have looked that up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know. They were always talking about it in the other podcast.
Speaker 3:So it's something important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not that important, but it's not that important to me, because that's how they send the ransom letters and stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2:Because there's no trace.
Speaker 3:We've got to figure out what a telegram is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but the thing with those is I would assume there's no trace because they're sending ransom letters on them and stuff like that. So I'm assuming it has no trace at all. Like, no, like number to like send back good point.
Speaker 3:I don't know, I'll have to look into that, but um yeah, he would sell the skeletons to uh medical schools that's insane yeah.
Speaker 3:So in his confessions he said that what I mean, what he would essentially do, is he would invite people from the World's Fair and he marketed this hotel as the World's Fair Hotel and people would come there and never be seen again. Yep, because they were going to the bathroom and HH Holmes popped up in there, popped in there through a secret trap door and then sent a tail to the basement. Can you imagine like you just check, you check into the holiday inn down the street and you're like ah, time to relax, tough day at the fair and all of a sudden you're like what's that smell?
Speaker 3:Dude, I can't. That is so crazy to me man yeah. I mean, but I would think there's some kind of red flags, right.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 3:Like, if you're going up the staircase you're like, hmm, that's interesting, this goes to nowhere, but you're still okay, like completely okay with staying there, or you open a closet and it's a brick wall. I I don't know if it was because it was 1890s or or what, but um, yeah, that's a broad overview of kind of the, the horror I mean that is.
Speaker 2:That's terrifying. So like was there like normal rooms, like hotel rooms, like yeah, there was.
Speaker 3:I mean there was. That's where it gets tough.
Speaker 2:I'm wondering if, like the downstairs has like the normal rooms and then upstairs there's like the brick walls and stuff.
Speaker 3:That's where a lot of things are conflicting, because I think it burned down so they never really got a good idea and, depending on which article you read or you hear from, everything with him got so blown out of proportion to a point that it wasn't like everybody that walked through the door ended up in the basement in the oven. You know what I mean. So maybe it is more realistic that he killed you know 20 something and not 300, you know, but no. And then once he realized that, like a lot of people were going to be paying attention to him, he started to lie. Oh, he started to say he would like there was one. I didn't write his name down and I didn't do a whole lot of research because no, um, but he said he killed this guy and the guy was very much alive and doing just fine, living his life somewhere. So it's hard to say um.
Speaker 3:I did want to break down a few of the murders that kind of stuck out or that are confirmed. Let's talk about those. The first one we're going to talk about is a lady named Julia Smythe. She was 31 years old at the time she was killed. She was married to a doctor. His name was Lawrence Connor. She actually got hired to work in that jewelry store. Oh, for real.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was on the on the ground level of the murder, mansion murder hotel uh wait.
Speaker 2:So um is the ground level connected to the basement, or how does that work?
Speaker 3:the basement's below it.
Speaker 2:All right, so you're saying like there's, like the top one, and then there's one, then there's ground, there's basement.
Speaker 3:I guess there's technically four levels if you include the basement. All right, you got the basement underneath. You got the ground level where all the shops were Ah, all right, you got the second floor where the hotel rooms or whatever whatever, whatever was, and then the third floor.
Speaker 3:I've seen different reports, some say it was offices, some say it's like where his, what his room was and whatever. I don't know. Four levels technically. Um, basically, he was able to, uh, get her to fancy him and her husband was like you know what? I'm out, you and Smegma have fun. Dude, stinks, you suck. You know whatever he dipped out, he left her. He left Julia and their five-year-old daughter, pearl, with Triple H, which is probably the nickname that he failed to use, that he should have. Now he's a long-haired wrestler but missed the opportunity.
Speaker 3:I guess they both went missing on Christmas Eve, 1891. Gone. So this is where the story gets interesting. It was alleged that she had gotten pregnant yeah, by Triple H and he told her that he could perform an abortion on her. But what really happened was she ended up in the basement, he whacked her, performed whatever crazy experiments and stripping of her body, and then they later actually found Pearl's child skeleton. They didn't have DNA back then, but they found the child skeleton down in the basement. Later on, when the police went there, they found the child's skeleton down in the basement later on, when the police went there.
Speaker 3:So it's they're pretty sure what happened was he killed Julia, who they think was pregnant by him. Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, if you've got four wives, you can't be getting random women pregnant. Yeah, because that's a sure way to be down to three wives at least. Because that's a sure way to be down to three wives at least. But, yeah, so what he told everybody was that he gave her he was going to do an abortion on her because he was a very experienced doctor. Blah, blah, blah and she died during the abortion. Yeah, but similar story to our next victim. So he's already. He's killed Julia. He killed her daughter, likely because the daughter was gonna say something. Yeah, she was five.
Speaker 3:Yeah, collateral damage at that point for him, which is unfortunate and sad, yeah, um, but they, they think that, uh, but they think that he poisoned her, which is especially crappy because poisoning is just a hell of a way to go. It's excruciating.
Speaker 3:It takes a special kind of person to do something like that to a five-year-old. It's horrible. Yeah, the next victim, 23-year old Emma Lyons. The grand same story. She worked for him. He ended up convincing her to get in bed with him, um, and she was last seen in December 1892. So like a year apart. Yeah, about a year apart. Almost, yeah, almost exactly a year apart. Yeah, good catch.
Speaker 3:You even got no notes of money, that's impressive um, but same story though it's like he would, he would convince these women to get in bed with him, get him pregnant, kill him. Yeah, but this one, um, he, he sent a trunk back to her parents and said that she had run off to marry some guy named Robert Phelps. But yeah, you know, I did know your daughter and here's her trunk. But she went off to go marry Bob. You know I don't know sorry, and they're to go marry bob. You know, I don't know sorry, and they're like oh, you know, we haven't heard from her. We're really worried. He's like, yeah, weird, strange, definitely, definitely didn't kill her, definitely didn't send her to the basement.
Speaker 3:Um, but dude, crazy part about this is um uh I don't know, I've seen it both different ways and heard it a couple different ways One of these women, so that vault I was telling you about. So let's back up a little bit. There was a point where this guy named Ned worked for him.
Speaker 3:Ned worked for him and I guess just to try to be an a-hole, he said he told ned he was like go check out that vault, like you can't hear anything when you get in there. And that was like oh really. So ned went inside and smegma shucked, shut him in there, what, yeah? And so Ned is freaking out, yeah, dude, and it's like airtight. So it was completely silent, like dark and silent. Dang.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Hell of a way to go. But he let Ned out. He was like how Were you scared I scared, you didn't. I oh, that's funny. Yeah, it is funny, but one of these girls I don't know which one and I was only going to do so much research before I gave up like I did. There was actually footprints on the inside of the vault. What. Yeah, like footprints and claw marks. So he killed one of them by just stuffing them inside that vault.
Speaker 2:And then put them in the kennel.
Speaker 3:The kiln, the kennel Same. Thing. I mean, they basically did stuff somebody in that kennel and kill them.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Big metal kennel.
Speaker 3:I can't even imagine just like his complete disregard for anybody or anything really Child, woman, man Didn't matter to him. Everything about him and we skipped, like all this crazy stuff he does and all these schemes he does, but everything was about money. Everything was always about money. He actually had a guy.
Speaker 3:What was his name? His name? I can't find his freaking name. This is why I don't do research, because I can't even remember where I wrote it down. Hey, hey, oh. So that girl, the last girl we were talking about, emmeline they found her body at this guy named MG Chappell's house, chappell. For real.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so what he did was he was like a professional body cleaner, like dude. That's the thing to me like what's so crazy. So, like Holmes, would pay him 50 bucks to completely strip and clean a skeleton for him. And they did find her body at this guy's house, chappelle's house. Pay him 50 bucks, which?
Speaker 2:Back then was a lot.
Speaker 3:So $1 was equal to about 40 bucks. So what was that a couple grand? Two grand I think Two grand to strip a body down, which actually still seems like pretty crappy pay. If you ask me, how much would it take you to do that, something like that? I?
Speaker 2:wouldn't mean wait, hold on, it's a I ain't doing it like was the person rude?
Speaker 3:I guess. I guess chapelle didn't ask any questions. He was getting his 50 bucks and he was like, well, I'm just going to clean it.
Speaker 2:I mean I'd do it for like 100 grand.
Speaker 3:Dang dude 100 grand.
Speaker 2:No, he's got 100 grand, all right.
Speaker 3:That's fair. That's fair. You want to talk about how? About we talk about his ultimate demise?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:You know what demise means. You're like ah, yeah, yeah, bet, bet, bet. Yes, you know what demise means.
Speaker 2:You just like his scheme, like his, like ultimate desire no, uh, demise is like a downfall.
Speaker 3:Let's talk about how he got caught, all right, okay. So do you remember when I was telling you when he was in medical school he would run those those like little frauds and stuff?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So one of them was he would do like life insurance schemes. You know how life insurance?
Speaker 2:works. Yeah, like they kill someone, right Like, and you like take it out on someone.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you take it out on someone, so like if you had life insurance out on me and I died, you would get money.
Speaker 3:It's basically to help you survive without money. That's what its intent is. He was dealing with so many bodies that he would run these life insurance frauds and use these bodies to collect insurance money. He had a good buddy. It was his dog. It was his dog, basically like his homie, his ride or die. His name was Benjamin Peitzel, peitzel Peitzel, benny P, benny P. Benny P, benny P. Yeah, benny had a whole family. Carrie was his wife. Then he had three children alice nelly and howard.
Speaker 2:So did benny know about, like, what his friend was doing?
Speaker 3:benny was involved in a lot of the fraud stuff well, what about the murders?
Speaker 2:was he a part of those?
Speaker 3:I don't think he was directly involved in those murders. No, all right, not from anything I could see I could be wrong. I don't need the fact police to come after me over it or anything. But from what I can tell, no, all right, just the fraud crap. He did basically whatever Holmes told him to do. So they come up with this. Well, holmes comes up with this scheme to fake Benny P's death out in Philly and he was going to take a life insurance policy out on him. Fake his death, he would get a body from some people he knew. But that's what's crazy to me, bro.
Speaker 2:Like in 1890s and be like hey, uh, like, just bodies were accessible I guess I mean well, he was friends with that um one dude that cleaned bodies right, oh yeah, but like, how do you like if?
Speaker 3:even if I wanted to clean a body, where am I going to find one without going to jail forever? Sorry, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like it's just crazy to me that bodies where, like bodies just laying around, Dang.
Speaker 2:Well, he probably has well think about it. Wait, I have a theory. So, um, what's?
Speaker 3:his name. I'm here for it.
Speaker 2:What's his name? Triple H Okay, he went to medical. Triple H Okay, he went to medical school, right. Yeah. I'm thinking that other dude that he sends to clean the bodies off to is maybe he had to go to medical school. Maybe there are buddies there. Maybe, Because think about like, I wouldn't give a body to a random person, even like if, like if someone's a murderer you're not gonna like.
Speaker 3:There's some obvious sign is there anybody in the chat right now somebody can look up for?
Speaker 2:um bentley, look it up all right.
Speaker 3:Um. So benny p. They come up with a scheme to collect life insurance on him, but faking his death. His wife's in on this, carrie's in on this. To what extent? Probably not much, but she knows that they're going to do this. I don't know how willing she was or if she had a choice, or whatever. Fast forward there is a body in Philly. There is a body. It's not a random body, benny. Benny, oh Benny.
Speaker 3:Benny left us. Man Benny got whack. Yeah, holmeskill Benny. Man Benny got whack. Yeah, holmes killed Benny. Man Ben. So I feel like it's kind of sad because you watch any documentaries on HH Holmes and all the stories on him and stuff and Pites L Benny P and the whole thing. They're a big part of the story. We gave him like four seconds on the podcast and he's dead. Yeah, okay, but this is what led to his demise. Let's be more on his loss.
Speaker 3:God bless you, benny P, I'm sorry. So yeah, holmes kills him. He like lights. A fire or something makes it look like an explosion, makes it look like an accident. He like lights a fire or something makes it look like an explosion happens, makes it look like an accident. It does end up ultimately. After this whole big ordeal, they ended up like dragging the daughter out there to identify her own father's body, all kinds of jacked up stuff. Why would they?
Speaker 2:do that. I mean I get like the body's burned but like doesn't he have a wife. Yeah, I mean, wouldn't you rather body's burned but like doesn't he have a wife?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, wouldn't you rather that Wait? How old was he?
Speaker 3:So I think the reason they didn't have the wife ID the body is because she was on the insurance and they knew something was weird about it, but they didn't want her to be the one to ID, because do you hear that noise?
Speaker 2:It was when you moved your thing.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay, dude, I got so much paranoia that something's going to crash and we're going to have to do all this again. I ain't doing it. I ain't doing it.
Speaker 2:I do have an answer.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Remember when we were talking about those people and how they might have been related in medical school. Um, apparently they were friends during college oh really yeah, is what I got from amy and the tiktok live oh nice, shout out amy for that.
Speaker 3:So they were friends in medical school.
Speaker 2:That makes sense yeah, it makes a lot more sense so they were probably involved in schemes together before.
Speaker 3:So he knew something was shady, but he could claim that he didn't know yeah, all right, um, so yeah, and again disclaimer I know that all of our facts might not be right, and that's okay, um, but that's why we got people like amy out there to help us. All we know is this dude had a hotel with trap doors and stuff and would shoot bodies down to the basement after he lubed the little shafts up sorry he teamed up like him and diddy would have been good friends.
Speaker 3:No diddy, no titty. Yeah, all I know is this dude would throw bodies in a basement and do crazy stuff. But anyway, back to the, back to the demise. Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2:And she said they were claiming life insurance on non-existent individuals and present disfigured corpses.
Speaker 3:Yep, which makes more sense.
Speaker 3:Yep, yeah, when they were in medical school yeah, as well yeah yeah um, there's a whole story on that too, but it was just like we're going to try to fit all this into an hour. That would have. Oh, dude, he did a whole lot of crap. Um, I suggest you like read up on some of it. It's kind of interesting and crazy. So, yeah, they end up collecting on Benny P's life insurance. Now Carrie the wife somehow he's convinced her that Benny P is still alive, right, and it's weird. So he convinces her that Benny P is hiding out in London. And you know what? I need to back up just a little bit, because I need to introduce someone who's going to come up later. Okay, somewhere during this little scheme of theirs, holmes went to jail for some fraud that he did, yeah, and he meets some guy in jail named Marion Hedgepeth Everybody's name is stupid. We need a nickname for him.
Speaker 3:How about Hedy? His name? Okay, hedy works, he meets Hedy in prison. Everybody's name. We need a nickname for him mary. How about heady? His name? Okay, heady works, he meets heady in prison. Heady's doing like 25 years for a bank robbery or some stuff. He's not getting out. I don't know what the life expectancy was back then, but he's done right. Yeah, might as well be like um holmes didn't talk a lot about. He was very careful about who he trusted up to a point, um, but he trusted this bum for whatever reason, and he told them about some of the frauds he was planning and stuff like that. And he told him about Benny P's situation and he offered him 500 bucks to help him out with some stuff. This guy had absolutely nothing to lose. He was going to snitch like any.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I was gonna say the same thing any person with a brain would look at that situation and be like, um, he can only gain by snitching on me he might get out if he snitches. Right, exactly.
Speaker 2:If at least they've not like 15 years.
Speaker 3:Exactly so. Long story short, he separates Carrie and the kids and has taken them across the country, Right Kind of traveling in like a parallel route, Carrie up here, kids down here. They were trying to write letters back and forth to stay in communication, but Holmes would intercept the letters and make them go away. And it's sad, man, because one of the kids' letters it's like you know, mother, you haven't written to us in weeks and like you, not love us, and blah blah blah, it's horrible screwed up dude.
Speaker 3:Yeah, um, so ultimately, what happens is the kids end up in toronto and he kills them all the kids too. He um carry gone kids' gum. There's a few different stories about what happened to the kids but the most realistic one is that he poisoned them and he essentially dismembered their bodies and stuffed them in the chimney. What. Stuffed them in the chimney of a rental house.
Speaker 2:Insane.
Speaker 3:There, yes, so yeah, it's real screwed up.
Speaker 2:Wait, so did Hedy snitch.
Speaker 3:Hedy snitched. Bro, hedy snitched man? Yes, of course he did. Hedy was like hey. So Frank Geyer was a detective in Philly who was working this case. Hedy snitched. There was this group of super detectives I don't actually know if they were real cops or not. Detectives, I don't actually know if they were real cops or not, but imagine some just badass vigilante that's what I picture. Outlaws that would just go get stuff done. They were called the Pinkertons. Did you just fart? Thank you, they were called the Pinkertons and they were all looking for him. So they ended up ultimately, um, arresting holmes on horse theft warrant. What's a horse? He has stolen a horse. A theft of a horse.
Speaker 3:Don't eject a horse took a horse yeah, so they end up arresting him for that. But uh, frank geyer from philly pd actually ended up um, kind of retracing homes, the steps essentially. Um, that's the thing about there is, like you know, you hear the term paper trail, like leaving a paper trail. It's like that's what everything was. Everything was on paper back then. It wasn't like you know, you could uh send a snapchat or something and it disappears or you had to get search warrants for this and that it was like everything was a paper trail. Frank guy retraces the steps ends up at the house in Toronto where the kids were and he was able to go search it because he's got. You know, holmes has no expectation of privacy there anymore because he left. They end up finding the kids' bodies. He's ultimately arrested for the murder of Banky and the kids. The kids happened in Canada, so I think they ultimately ended up prosecuting them just for the murder of Benny P.
Speaker 2:Wait, so do they like they 100% found the kids' bodies?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, they found them in the gym. They didn't leave them there.
Speaker 2:I was just making sure Because I didn't know if it was one of those cases where they never find him in the chimney.
Speaker 3:No, no, they found him. That's where they found him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that's a good question. No, they did find him and that's where he's ultimately charged with murder, and his trial was held in October of 1895. Charged with murder and his trial was held in October of 1895.
Speaker 2:I will say something. He was actually only charged for the murder of Benny P.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:That's what I said.
Speaker 3:The kids were in Toronto.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah, that's why?
Speaker 3:Yeah, he was charged with that, that's what they ran with and that's what he was ultimately hung on. Wow, yep, and that's what leads us to. Oh, I do got to share a quote with you from his trial. This dude was kind of great, so let's talk about his trial for one second. I'm not going to break down the trial or nothing, but he had the version of whatever a public defender was back then. If you can't afford a lawyer, one will be appointed to you. He got one of those deals in a murder case.
Speaker 3:I don't know what the vetting process was to be an appointed lawyer on a murder case back then, but I can't imagine that the bar was super high, um, or even how many lawyers there was. But, um, they were doing such a bad job like they wanted to excuse themselves from the trial. They were like telling the judge like hey, can we like like push this out a little bit so we can figure out what the hell we're supposed to do what? Yeah, and the judge was like, absolutely not, we're having it right now. They were like damn. So they were just like chilling. So they were doing such a bad job. Holmes requested to send them away.
Speaker 3:And he was defending himself in there, yeah, but then he started doing such a bad job he decided to bring them back because he was one of those people like a typical narcissist personality, like it's not going to be my fault. So he brought the lawyers back and was like y'all get your butts back in. Here I'm getting cooked, help me.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's amazing.
Speaker 3:One of the most memorable quotes from his trial it's a very popular one was quote I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a killer. No more than a poet could help the inspiration sing.
Speaker 2:Dude what.
Speaker 3:I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact I was a killer, no more than a poet could help the inspiration to sing. I think poets write, but you get the point.
Speaker 2:No, they really just say I think poets write. Yeah, they do, but like you should know that, not think it I'm. Like you know what I meant. No, you should they do, but you should know that, not think it I'm like you know, what I meant. No, you should ask me. You're questioning me.
Speaker 3:You ever heard of sarcasm before?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 3:Never mind, man Never mind. But yeah, so that's essentially a very condensed version of HH Holmes, probably. So what do we take away from that story when you get all those facts? I know it's a condensed version, but what stands out to you the most, what's going to stick with you the most out of the story?
Speaker 2:The kennel.
Speaker 3:The kiln.
Speaker 2:Same. Thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's crazy that this guy essentially put so much effort and time and thought into killing people.
Speaker 2:I do have a question from the TikTok. Why do you think he did this?
Speaker 3:I don't know. That's a great question. That's a great question. Why do you think, Soren?
Speaker 2:He's a psychopath.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's one thing.
Speaker 2:But I do have another thing I'm thinking, like when he was like stripping the body, like he was like experimenting, like experimenting, like I don't know if that makes sense, but like no, I think he really enjoyed it like he's like experimenting, like doing some weird medical science.
Speaker 3:I think he really enjoyed it, dude. Yeah, I think he enjoyed killing um and I also think that a lot of it, a lot of if you go like really deep dive into the rabbit hole of hh homes I think a lot of it was he had some kind of financial gain to make yeah he was going to get some kind of money out of it.
Speaker 3:Benny p was all about money, but I think he enjoyed it. He spent, he dedicated all that time and effort to build essentially a place that was designed for like creative murder, with that whole hotel. So it's really interesting as to the why. Really great question, um, and then that's what's interesting too, is that I don't know if we'll ever know factually, like how many people he actually killed and stuff like that. Because, um, while he was in prison like he was like so about himself and so about the fame and notoriety of killing all these people um, he started to write his own autobiography like anybody gave a damn but nobody did. But yeah, do you have another question?
Speaker 2:um. Another one from the tiktok live. Is there any um? Is there anything similar now?
Speaker 3:to the murder hotel I think.
Speaker 2:I think that's what they're asking.
Speaker 3:I hope not, Bro. I'm only staying in the.
Speaker 2:I do have a question what did they do with the hotel after you said it burnt down?
Speaker 3:I think it did so. I don't think anybody actually knew the full layout because somebody burned it down.
Speaker 2:Did anyone buy it? The property you live on full layout because somebody burned it down like did anyone buy it, like the property?
Speaker 3:I don't know, but I did read that um somebody that used to take care of the place uh ended up committing suicide because he was uh. He had, like uh, been possessed.
Speaker 2:He said yeah dude, I wouldn't doubt it yeah, yeah, dude.
Speaker 3:That was really called the devil in the basement. He is the devil in the basement. Yeah, dude, I wouldn't doubt it. Yeah, yeah, dude.
Speaker 2:That episode's really called the Devil in the Basement.
Speaker 3:He is the devil in the basement. Can you imagine, bro? Imagine like you just got off a long road trip, you like at a work convention or something, and you pull up in the hotel room, lay down. All of a sudden your bed disappeared and you in a secret tunnel all the way down to the basement. You're like what the hell?
Speaker 2:Why am I in the basement?
Speaker 3:What the hell, yonte? Now I'm getting burned. That's crazy, bro. That's HH Home. Here's what I want you to do. I want to do this with everybody that we cover. I want you to rate them based on four categories. Okay, then we're going to give them an overall score.
Speaker 2:I do have one more thing before we do that. Was the property haunted?
Speaker 3:I would assume so Was it ever like classified.
Speaker 3:I don't know. The only thing that I know is that the old caretakers claim he committed suicide after he claimed to several people that he was being possessed by demons. Oh, all right. So all right suicide after he claimed to several people that he was being possessed by demons? Alright, so what we're going to do? I think we can both agree his last meal was garbage. We will post a video of us trying that on the TikTok or something. I don't know if we even need to try that.
Speaker 2:It's bread bro.
Speaker 3:You know what bread tastes like, I like toast. All right man. So let's rate him on these four categories. First one is brutality of the murder. I think it's at least a nine, Nine. What makes it a nine for you?
Speaker 2:Just like he didn't care who it was Yep and why he could have no reason, Like he had no reason to kill Benny P. Benny P was in with him.
Speaker 3:Benny was the only like he was his bully.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm saying. Yeah, just for random.
Speaker 3:No, that's a great take from that, because, you're right, he didn't care who it was, what it was for, didn't care, didn't care. And the same thing in his financial crimes and fraud and stuff. He didn't care who it was. If he had something to gain from it, he didn't care. Creativeness Ten? Yeah, I mean, the guy designed a whole freaking hotel with trap doors, slides, diddy oil and all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 2:Intelligence. I think that's at least 10.
Speaker 3:10? Yeah, because he's a doctor.
Speaker 2:And he got away for so long no one blinked, batted an eye, I guess it was four years, yeah.
Speaker 3:But of course, after he gets arrested, people are like oh, I knew the whole time. Are like, oh, I knew the whole time but no one knew the whole time no, no, they did um execution. So by execution I don't mean like his death. Uh, that was a 10 out of 10. He deserved to twitch for 15 minutes. Killing kids and stuff like that 100%. He deserved that Execution, and what I mean by that is how he carried out his crimes. Yeah. How he executed it.
Speaker 2:Like, how would you like? Yeah, this dude's real good. I'm going to say a nine.
Speaker 3:A nine. I want to remind you of what got him caught. That drops the score a lot for me.
Speaker 2:Wait, you said like his strategies.
Speaker 3:His execution, how he carried it out.
Speaker 2:So a majority of it. Yeah, I got the majority of it. What I'm saying is he was I mean, in my opinion like. What I'm saying is he has a good strategy because he's able to go so long. Yeah, he was literally sliding people down the laundry chute. Yeah, Putting them in the kettle. Yeah, I got it right that time.
Speaker 3:Old kettle chips.
Speaker 2:Wait, did I say it wrong again?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you did, but it's fine All right, so you're giving him a 9.5 overall. That's going to be hard to top.
Speaker 2:He did pretty good in my opinion, Especially creativeness.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's definitely. No one's going to top his creativity. That wraps it up for HH Homes man. Any final words about our man, triple H, benny P RIP.
Speaker 2:RIP Benny P.
Speaker 3:RIP Benny P. So yeah, anybody listening. If you're still listening at the end of this hour, we appreciate you. Follow us on TikTok or whatever.
Speaker 2:That's all we got rightiktok tiktok cool.
Speaker 3:Um, you'll be able to listen to these podcasts on whatever you listen to today and all the major platforms. Hit us up on tiktok. Let us know who you want us to cover next if you hear of any interesting stories, no matter how crazy it is or how long ago it was or how popular it was. We want to cover the popular ones, but we also want to cover, um, stuff that maybe people don't know about already. So hit us up with ideas. Let us know what you want to hear. We're all about it and, uh, we're out of here, see you yo, that was sick.
Speaker 2:Y' y'all, y'all crazy as hell. Oh man, I can't wait for episode two. Can't even wait, man, what they gonna talk about. Hey, quit doing that, go follow the boys on TikTok Till next time. Why so serious?