Episode 60: Unveiling H.H. Holmes – Fact vs. Fiction

In this week's episode of Super SUS, we unravel the story of H.H. Holmes, the man often called America's first serial killer, and we separate what actually happened from the legend that grew up around him.

Born Herman Webster Mudgett, Holmes landed in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood and built a three-story building that the press would later dub the "Murder Castle." The popular story says he rigged it with trapdoors, gas chambers, and a basement crematorium, then lured up to 200 World's Fair visitors to their deaths in 1893. The reality is grim in a different way. Historians who have dug through the records, like Adam Selzer, put the number of victims that can be tied to him with any confidence at around nine. Holmes himself confessed to 27, and several of those people turned out to be alive.

What is solid is the Pitezel case. Holmes talked his business partner Benjamin Pitezel into faking his death for a $10,000 insurance payout, then actually killed him and collected the money. To cover it up, he murdered three of Pitezel's children across three states. A detective named Frank Geyer tracked the children's path and built the case that brought Holmes down. He was convicted of Benjamin's murder and hanged in 1896.

So much of what we "know" about Holmes came from yellow journalism competing for sales, not from evidence. We get into where the myth came from, what he really did, and why the true story still matters. The facts are disturbing enough without the embellishment.