The story in brief
Chicago, 1893. While the World’s Fair draws millions, a pharmacist with a false name lives on swindles in a corner building. A life-insurance policy takes him to Philadelphia. A letter written in jail puts him in the police’s sights. And a detective retraces, hotel by hotel, the route of three children, guided by their letters. Then the papers invent a castle. An account of real crimes, without violent detail.
The chapters
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Chapter 1 · 4 min · Free
The Corner of 63rd Street
The legend speaks of a hotel full of trapdoors. The documents of 1893 speak of hidden furniture.
Sources: Chicago Tribune (March 1893); Frank Geyer, The Holmes-Pitezel Case (1896); Adam Selzer, H. H. Holmes (2017)
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Chapter 2 · 4 min · Free
The Man Who Didn’t Exist
A patent dealer vanishes from a shop in Philadelphia. The insurance company has doubts about the dead man. And pays.
Sources: Frank Geyer, The Holmes-Pitezel Case (1896): the Fidelity’s telegram and Alice Pitezel’s letters (1894)
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Chapter 3 · 4 min
A Letter from Jail
The policy was paid, and the swindle forgotten. Until a train robber, jailed in St. Louis, decided to write to the chief of police.
Sources: Marion Hedgepeth’s letter (9 October 1894); Frank Geyer, The Holmes-Pitezel Case (1896)
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Chapter 4 · 5 min
The Children’s Letters
A detective retraces, hotel by hotel, a journey made nine months before. And finds what no one had seen.
Sources: Frank Geyer, The Holmes-Pitezel Case (1896): the account of the search and the letters of Alice and Nellie Pitezel (1894)
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Chapter 5 · 5 min
The Paper Castle
The papers turn a building of shops into a castle of horrors. Holmes sells a confession. And the legend passes 200 dead.
Sources: The World (11 August 1895); New York Journal (12 April 1896); Adam Selzer, H. H. Holmes (2017)
What you’ll be able to tell
This story belongs to the journey “Legend and Record”. By the end of it, you can tell what the legend made up and what the documents prove, case by case.
Stories in this journey
- Jack the Ripper: The Five Women of Whitechapel
- H. H. Holmes: The Castle the Papers Built
- Rua do Arvoredo: The Sausage Legend of Porto Alegre
- Elizabeth Báthory: The Countess and the Blood Legend
Sources
- Frank Geyer, The Holmes-Pitezel Case (1896)
- Marion Hedgepeth’s letter (1894)
- Chicago Tribune (1893)
- The World (1895)
- New York Journal (1896)
- Adam Selzer, H. H. Holmes (2017)
