Happy Halloween!

It is my favorite day of the year, Halloween. Time for a marathon of scary movies, trick or treating and costumes galore. The South Side does it up right and I'll have some pictures posted tomorrow. I'm taking the nephews out to get their haul tonight and we'll be seeing some spooktacularly decorated houses round these parts.

Halloween in Chicago is the best. With all of our local ghost stories and lurid tales of murder and mayhem, Chitown is one hell of a town for scary. Let me share one of our local nightmarish tales

H.H. Holmes and the Murder Castle

Herman Mudgett aka H.H. Holmes came to Chicago in 1885 where he began working at a drugstore in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood, which was then a suburb. A charmer, H.H. was a popular fixture at the store, building a social reputation, drawing in customers with his wit and his skill as a pharmacist. After he considerd himself "established", he struck like a raptor. His first victim here is believed to be the store owner, Mrs. Dr. Holden, who mysteriously disappeared one day while Holmes took charge of the store. He told customers she had decided to "move West." His true plans began in earnest.

Acquiring the large lot across from the store, Holmes started to construct the enormous building he told everyone would be a hotel for the upcoming Columbian Exposition. The locals referred to it as the Castle. He was very secretive about the construction, changing crews constantly, showing  no one the entire plan. While the first floor had the typical shops, inside, however, was a different story. There were legitimate guest rooms, but there were also rooms with peepholes, rooms lined with metal that had primitive blow torch equipment and a few were asphyxiation chambers that had exposed gas nozzles. Holmes would poison his guests, then remove them for experimentation. There was  also a maze of 100 windowless rooms, oddly angled hallways, doors that could only be opened from the outside and stairs that went nowhere. In the basement was a dissecting table and a crematorium as well as an acid vat and pits filled with quick lye.

Holmes chose his victims from amongst the unsuspecting visitors to the White City of the Columbian Exposition. They were excited, many having never left home before and were naively trusting. Holmes spread the word about his "hotel" and the people came, many never to be heard from again. He also lured many of his female victims with ads promising jobs and safe lodging to young ladies alone in the world. When these eager young women arrived, he kept them prisoner until he was ready for them. Some he locked in a soundproof bank vault near his office, others in the windowless rooms. He tortured his victims to death, stripped them of their flesh and sold their skeletons and organs to medical schools. Some he just disposed of in the crematorium and pits.

He probably could have continued his spree unabated for a few more years, but the economy here had taken a hard hit after the fair closed. Holmes fled Chicago in 1894 as creditors closed in on him. By this time he had taken on a business partner, Benjamin Pietzel, and they began insurance swindles. Holmes would later kill Pietzel and three of his children, two of whom were found buried in a cellar in Toronto. By the time the Pinkertons caught up with Holmes in Boston in November of 1894, the Chicago police were well into the gruesome investigation of the killings here and what became known as the Murder Castle. The picture above is a rare photo of the place from the Chicago Historical Society.

Holmes confessed to 27 murders, including the Pietzels, but the body count is estimated to be as high as 200. There were too many body parts found to get an actual identifiable count. Holmes was sentenced to death by hanging and died on May 8, 1896 at Moyamensing Prison in Philadelphia

H.H. is America's first known serial killer and probably the most prolific. I tell you, Jack the Ripper had nothing on this guy. A very good book to read if you want to know more is Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair That Changed America.

Now after reading this gruesome tale, go enjoy your Halloween.