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John P. Shimkonis
Police Constable
Username: Aquavalour
Post Number: 2
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, July 22, 2004 - 1:03 am: | 
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Hi, I'm new on this board, just want to introduce myself.
Mr. Larson's book "Devil In The White City" was release in February 2003 and when I first read it I strongly suspected the possibility that the offender could possibly have travelled to England at some time in the late 1800s. Harold Schecter goes into a little more detail in his book, which was published earlier.
What I would like to know is this. Exactly what fact rules Mudgett out as a suspect in the Ripper killings? Mudgett confessed to having travelled outside the United States. |
Jon Smyth
Detective Sergeant
Username: Jon
Post Number: 119
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, July 22, 2004 - 9:26 am: |
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John
I have never read the book, I did though listen to an hour long interview on radio with Mr Larson talking about his book.
From what I understand apart from him being another late 19th century multiple murderer there is nothing in his approach that parallels the Ripper murders.
Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't he re-model his house into a 'hotel' with secret rooms and torture chambers in anticipation of taking in young females because of the Chicago festival?.
I can't remember what he did to them but this is not Ripper'ish is it.
Regards, Jon |
Ally
Chief Inspector
Username: Ally
Post Number: 671
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, July 22, 2004 - 11:40 am: |
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I think he gassed his victims. Didn't he?
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Maria Giordano
Detective Sergeant
Username: Mariag
Post Number: 51
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, July 22, 2004 - 2:50 pm: |
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Jon's got it in one---- there's no similarity between the two cases.
That was an iteresting book, though. One thing I thought particularly relevant to us was the portrayal of Holmes---a true psychopath.
Sorry- couldn't resist.
Mags
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Jason Scott Mullins
Inspector
Username: Crix0r
Post Number: 292
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, July 22, 2004 - 3:06 pm: |
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Hahahahah Maria 
Ally -
Gassed, Suffocated, et al. Get that man a magazine rack, because he had issues.
crix0r
"I was born alone, I shall die alone. Embrace the emptiness, it is your end."
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Jeffrey Bloomfied
Inspector
Username: Mayerling
Post Number: 420
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, July 22, 2004 - 9:15 pm: |
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Hi John,
I just want a slight correction. Holmes "acquired" a building from an elderly couple (he got rid of the unfortunate surviving widow) in Chicago, and expanded it with a large number of contractors and their men (whom he proceeded to cheat out of their contracted fees and wages). He turned the building into an ugly looking "hotel", which had disecting rooms, gassing rooms, secret passages, and sound proof rooms. The building did have a set of rooms he lived in, but Holmes never owned it as his house.
Unlike many psychopaths Holmes always was very into con games and money making schemes (the death of Benjamin Pitezel, for which Holmes was hanged, was an attempt to defraud an insurance company). Holmes lured many tourists to his hotel, and profitted from their deaths.
Jeff |
bjbruther
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Saturday, July 24, 2004 - 1:59 am: |
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Holmes ran a series of scams throughout his life, multiple marriages, insurance fraud, in addition to increasing his income through murder -- the rooming house, the dissection tables and later the sale of skeletons to local medical schools in Chicago--taking advantage of the tourist crowds to the World's Fair . . . just like Fritz Haarmann and his partner, sex and profit played a role in their murders . . . the Pietzel murder for which Holmes was hanged also involved the deaths of the children (the boy's body was left in my hometown of Indianapolis, in a suburb called Irvington, also noted as the home of D.C. Stephenson of the KKK in the 20's)I thought Erik Larson's book The Devil in the White City was a good summary of the case and its time period. Larson also wrote a book on the Galveston hurricane of 1901, Isaac's Storm (a History Channel movie)in August. As for the Haarmann case, I recommend Theodor Lessing's book, Haarmann, the Story of a Werewolf (1925), available in reprint with the Berg book on Kurten: Monsters of Weimar. Lessing himself was a victim of the Nazis. William Bolitho's book Murder for Profit covers the same case. For some serial killers, ritualized murder may be the primary goal and satisfaction of their fantasy, but they may have a secondary motive; monetary profit, and you will find many serial killers are good "con men"--think about Ted Bundy . . . they are able to get potential victims into their comfort zone. Holmes always struck me as a late 19th century Ted Bundy--a reflecting image--he reflects back a particular "role" to his "victim". BJ |
John P. Shimkonis
Police Constable
Username: Aquavalour
Post Number: 7
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Monday, July 26, 2004 - 3:19 am: |
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Ally, off the top of my head I don't know if the victims were gassed.
crix0r, with information as you give about "The Holmes-Pitezel Case", Ms. Julia Smythe or one of two other victims, Emeline or Minnie, "Get that man a magazine rack" is a very interesting to say about the mideval torture rack and jealous motives. I have to observe.
As far as corrections go, well, the best thing I could point out is the fact that you probably will have to deal with the district attorney and a suspect or two. District Attorney Graham is in the Mudgett case, I am not sure who the DA is in the Ripper case. Marion Hedgepeth was a train robber who does figure, though, both in London and Chicago. There was an interesting train robbery around 40 miles north of London, or one of the towns around London, and solved 28 miles outside London. You would have to figure Tumblety into the case because of his involvement with money. I'm sorry but Hauptmann, Pitezel, Tumblety, all three have something to do with carpentry. |
Kris Law
Inspector
Username: Kris
Post Number: 459
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Monday, January 10, 2005 - 3:24 pm: |
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Sorry this is a little late in the conversation, but I would have to say that the largest similarity I can see between the Holmes killings and the Ripper killings is how little the police suspected what they were up against. Up until that point crime was thought of as something a person did for a reason, be it robbery, jealousy, revenge, or whatever.
The police in London and Chicago just couldn't fathom someone killing people just for thrills.
Holmes and the Ripper differed in their methods, but probably not much in their desires for blood. While it's true Holmes gassed his victims from afar, he still took great delight in carving them up at his own leisure in his basement/laboratory/dungeon. Most of the cadavers he sold as future medical skeletons were already stripped of their skin, and much of their flesh.
Also, I just wanted to correct what someone else wrote above. Mudgett DID acquire a building from an elderly couple, but this wasn't his infamous castle of death. He bought the land across the street and began building while he still had a pharmacy running in the old building.
-K
I'll see you in time . . .
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Reinhold Desjardins
Police Constable
Username: Lucretius
Post Number: 1
Registered: 6-2005
| | Posted on Monday, June 13, 2005 - 5:42 pm: |
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This seems to be a rather dead place!
Many people just love to discuss the Ripper but few H.H. Holmes, although much less known... one must ask why so? The Ripper is I believe (and pardon the connotations) sexier and Holmes perhaps too cerebral; the idea of some human ghoul coming out of the fogs of Victorian slum London to pounce upon his helpless victims and of course the mystery of who he was, well... One might however think that Holmes traveling by train all over the country and being the total criminal, living by his wits and hatching many a nefarious and complex scheme might appeal to a wider audience but such is not the case. Let us imagine Holmes perpetrating similar crimes in Chicago as the Ripper in London; the windy city certainly intimidating an atmosphere enough! Now had Holmes been caught, needless to say he still would not be as interesting as Jack since the mystery would be gone but two points; 1) He still would be vastly more interesting to the public but 2) less thought about, the Ripper himself would have lost some of his notoriety by transference!The fact that similar or worst deeds were committed here and that there is a known homicidal maniac means though the Ripper remains unknown it is now easier to think of him as a person but merely an unknown or identified one instead of the mystery which I submit is a composite of the crime and the unknown killer.}
* I should have specified however that this assumes that Holmes could not have been in London at the time of the Ripper murders. Otherwise a new mystery might have been created! |
Mark McGlone
Police Constable
Username: Kidtwist
Post Number: 10
Registered: 6-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, September 03, 2005 - 12:44 pm: |
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One reason this case doesn't seem to have quite the fascination of JtR is that the crimes were solved. I find it very interesting, however, because Holmes seems to be the epitome of the successful Gilded Age businessman: intelligent, arrogant, charming, and ruthless; constantly scheming for money anyway he can get it; rank corruption underneath a veneer of respectability.
I read a fascinating account of the case somewhere. It may have been in an old true crime anthology. Rather than just a straight narration of Holmes' crimes, it was told from the perspective of a detective who was following Holmes while he had the Pitezel children. I believe he was a private detective working for Mrs. Pitezel. Read sort of like a thriller, with the detective usually just a day or two behind Holmes. He eventually found their bodies. I had never heard of the case before reading the account, and I remember thinking that the writer must have made it up. I wish I could remember where it was. I probably have it somewhere. |
Stanley D. Reid
Inspector
Username: Sreid
Post Number: 310
Registered: 4-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, September 03, 2005 - 1:08 pm: |
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Hi Mark,
Your right, loss of the mystery takes the luster off this case. Once they are solved they're sort of like sex with a condom.
Perhaps you are thinking of Colin Wilson's account of this case that I first saw in a release entitled The Mammoth Book of Murder. I'm currently reading about Holmes' crimes in The Devil in the White City.
Best regards,
Stan |
Mark McGlone
Sergeant
Username: Kidtwist
Post Number: 11
Registered: 6-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, September 03, 2005 - 2:18 pm: |
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You may be right. It might be Colin Wilson's book. I don't think I have The Mammoth Book of Murder, though. At least I can't find it. I really need to organize my bookshelves. I do have Wilson's The Mammoth Book of True Crime 2, which covers the case. But it only mentions the detective in passing. His name was Geyer, by the way.
Wilson mentions that a book titled Book of Remarkable Criminals (1918) quotes the letters the children wrote to their mother while Holmes was carting them around shortly before their murders. He says reading them is almost unbearable, and doesn't quote them himself. I think a case such as this needs such details to remind us of the human cost of men like Holmes. Too often we true-crime afficionados focus too much on the criminals and not enough on the victims.
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