Hi! Welcome back from our little Thanksgiving break [for us Americans]. We were traveling to see family and took the week off to enjoy. Then some prepping for the holidays had us so busy. But we did take that chance to feature Hunt A Killer’s new premium box, Baker’s Dozen. If you missed it on our Instagram just scroll back a little and check it out! You will not regret it!

This week on Baking A Murderer we had a submission from a reader. This is his all time favorite serial killer, a thing only our readers seem to have, and it sparks joy in our lives to share this weird interest. This week we are featuring the infamous H.H. Holmes.

Herman Webster Mudget better known as Dr. Henry Howard Holmes [hence the H. H. Holmes moniker] was born in Gilmanton, New Hampshire. He was a first generation American born to two English immigrants. He was the middle child of five children. Growing up on a farm, he watched his father work the farm, work as a trader, and house painter. Due to the heinousness of his crimes, the public tried to fit Holmes into the pattern of serial killers that grew up on a farm, but they did not find any evidence that he would torture or kill animals. Thank God. We can’t handle when animals get hurt.

After graduating high school, Holmes went on to enroll in the University of Vermont in Burlington. He was dissatisfied with the school and left it after a year. Holmes transferred to University of Michigan’s Department of Medicine and Surgery. Holmes excelled in this program and graduated in June 1884 after passing his exams. During his time at the University of Michigan, he worked at an anatomy lab under Professor Herdman. Herdman was one of the head anatomy professors at the university at the time. Later, he apprenticed under Dr. Nahum Wight, a big advocate for human dissection. It eventually came out that during his time there, Holmes would defraud life insurance companies using cadavers. #sick

Housemates that lived with Holmes and his wife, Clara, described him as treating her violently. She eventually dipped out on him permanently in 1884, right before he graduated college. He then moved to Mooers Forks, New York where he evoked some speculations from neighbors. It was rumored he was seen with a little boy that was eventually declared as missing. Holmes claims the boy returned back home in Massachusetts but no investigation took place and Holmes got the hell out of dodge. #Shady. He then took up residence in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and got a job as a keeper [creeper?] at Norristown State Hospital for like three days. He moved on to work at a local drugstore but a boy died after taking medicine that was from that store. He denied that he had anything to do with this and bailed yet again on to another city. During the move to Chicago, he changed his name to the name he is recognized as today, Henry Howard Holmes. He was hoping this would help him fly under the radar and avoid any previous accusations.

In August 1984, Holmes arrived in Chicago under the alias H. H. Holmes. When looking for jobs, he found one at Elizabeth S. Englewood in the pharmacy. He eventually purchased the store after proving he was a hard worker. Holmes continued to manage the drugstore and decided to take on another business venture. He bought the two empty lots across the street from the store. They began construction in 1887 for a two story mixed-use building. He planned to have retail stores on the first floor [including a new pharmacy] while the second floor would be all apartments. In 1892, he added a third floor to the building and planned on using it as a hotel for the upcoming World’s Columbian Exposition. In the end, the hotel portion was never completed. The suppliers of the furniture found Holmes hiding materials he never paid for in hidden rooms and passages throughout the building. These secret areas were completely soundproof and a maze of sorts, some not even leading to anywhere. After digging in further, a lot of these rooms were found to have chutes that led to the basement. In the basement were huge barrels filled with acid, quick-lime and crematorium to help dispose of the bodies of Holmes’ victims.

The early victims - Julia Smyther was one of the early murder victims of The Horror Hotel. She was the wife of Conner, who moved into the Holmes’ building and was one of the workers at his new pharmacy on the first floor. Holmes started to have an affair with Julia and her husband found out. Connor quit his job and left behind Julia and their daughter, Pearl. This left Julia to continue her relationship with Holmes in freedom because there was no need to sneak around anymore. But we all know that Holmes didn’t crave a happy ending. Both Julia and Pearl disappeared on Christmas Eve of 1891 and Holmes later claimed she died during an abortion, though it was never confirmed what actually happened to the two of them. Two more women disappeared in December 1892, like Julia and Pearl disappeared the year before. These women were Emeline Cigrande - who was rumored to be another one of Holmes mistresses - and Edna Van Tassel.

Holmes decided to take on a co-worker in his vicious plans. Benjamin Pitezel was working in the Chemical Bank on Dearborn Street near Holmes’ company. He had a criminal past and at the time of meeting Holmes, was showing a coal bin he had invented at the Exhibition. Holmes was said to consider Pitezel his right hand man in his criminal wrong-doings.

The next victim was an actress named Minnie Williams. She had moved to Chicago in 1893 and met Holmes through an employment office, although there were rumors that he had met her years before when he had lived in Boston. She was offered a job at the hotel and she accepted. Holmes convinced her somehow to transfer the deed to her property in Fort Worth, Texas to a man named Alexander Bond [aka Holmes, a man of many aliases]. The following April she willingly transferred the deed to Holmes’ alias but had listed Holmes as the notary. The next month, Holmes transferred the property to “Benton T. Lyman”, an alias of Benjamin Pitezal. The next month, Minnie and Holmes presented themselves as man and wife and rented an apartment in Chicago’s Lincoln Park. #Bougie. Minnie’s sister eventually came to visit and in July sent her a letter about future plans in Europe. Neither Minnie NOR Annie were seen after July 5th.

Holmes was very money hungry. He would see value in the people he killed. He would often sell skeletons to local medical labs and schools [does this count as paying it forward as alumni of a medical school?]. He even hired an assistant that was accused of stripping the flesh from some of the bodies, dissecting them, and preparing them to be sold. If the bodies didn't seem as if they could make him money, he would just dissolve them into vats of acid so they would break down into nothing.

After a fire at the pharmacy, insurance companies were onto him and wanted to prosecute him for arson. So, of course, Holmes did what he did best and got the hell out of Chicago. He reappeared in Fort Worth, Texas at the property he had “inherited” from the William sisters. There he sought to build another murder house and had the same business plan: swindle all the suppliers and construction workers.

In July 1894 [does anyone else feel like this man loves Julys?] he was arrested and briefly incarcerated for the FIRST TIME. He was charged on the selling of mortgaged goods in Missouri. BUT! He was bailed out of jail by a fellow convicted outlaw, Marion Hedgepeth who had been serving a 25-year sentence. Sidenote — does anyone else feel like there should have been a law where prisoners couldn’t bail out other prisoners? Anyway, Holmes concocted a plan to outsmart an insurance company of $10,000 [around $300,000 today] by faking his death. He threw Hedgepath $500 just for the help of finding a lawyer who he could trust. That lawyer was Jeptha Howe. Howe practiced with his older brother who stayed the hell out of the criminal business. But luckily for Holmes and Benjamin, Jeptha Howe thought they were brilliant. The insurance company though smelled the bullshit and did not pay out. So they decided to have Benjamin Pitezal fake his death — hahaha.

Pitezal agreed to the insane plan so that his wife could get the life insurance and would split it four ways with her, Jeptha, Benjamin, and Holmes. They decided it would take place in Philly. Pitezal would set himself up at B.F. Perry and be “killed” and disfigured in a lab explosion. Holmes was in charge of finding a cadaver that would suffice as a dead Benjamin but instead, Holmes killed Benjamin by knocking him unconscious and setting his body on fire. In his confession, Holmes said Pitezal was still alive after the use of chloroform but when the scientists looked at the facts, it was proved that the chloroform was administered after death.

Holmes luckily collected the insurance payout on the basis that there was actually Ben’s corpse at the scene. He then went on to manipulate Pitezal’s wife into allowing three of her five children to be under his custody. At this point in the story, I am damned convinced that Holmes had to be the most persuasive human to ever exist. He and the three children traveled throughout the northern US and into Canada. Every so often along the route, Mrs. Pitezal would join and Holmes would make up stories about where her husband was and what really happened regarding his death as well as where her children really were. In Detroit, just prior to entering Canada mother and children were only separated by a few blocks and she had no idea.

All while this was happening, Holmes had been staying at another location with his actual wife who had literally no idea any of this was happening. [Stay woke, ladies and never trust anyone.] Later he confessed that he did in fact murder two of the three children by trapping them into a box, drilling a hole in the side, and filling the box with gas to asphyxiate the girls. He disposed of the bodies by burying their nude bodies in the cellar of his rental house at the time in Toronto.

Meanwhile, back in Philly, Frank Geyer, a police detective, was assigned to investigate Holmes and to find the missing children of Mrs. Pitezel. He found the girls in the cellar of the Toronto home. He said that the deeper they dug, the more horrid the smell became and when they reached about three feet deep, they discovered just a forearm of a human. Geyer then went to Indiana, where Holmes had been hiding in a rented cottage. He had left to visit a local pharmacy to get more drugs, which eventually were the ones used to kill the third child he had custody of. He then chopped up the body and burned it in his chimney. All that was left to be found was his teeth in the home’s chimney. Sick, in a bad way.

Holmes’ murder spree finally ended back in Boston on Novemeber 17th, 1894. He was being tracked by the Pinkertons of Philly. He was held on horse theft from back in Texas, but more suspicious things had been found while investigating his crimes and it was thought he had planned to flee the country with his third wife.

After investigators discovered the bodies, they went on to investigate the Holmes Building in Englewood [commonly known as The Castle now] but they did not find any evidence that could have convicted Holmes in Chicago. Apparrently all the rumored torture devices found there, were just that, rumors. In October 1895, he went to trial for the murder of Benjamin Pitezal and was found guilty. He was sentenced to death. But by then, it was so blatantly obvious that Holmes also murdered the three Pitezal children that he took over custody of. After his conviction, this monster then confessed to 27 murders in Chicago, Indianapolis, and Toronto. Also, the NERVE of the Hearst company, they paid him what would be $226,000 in today’s money, for this confession.

Holmes was semi delusional. He had a very contradictory account of his life which included that he was possessed by Satan at one point. His lying made it extremely difficult for researchers to find out what was true and what wasn't. While writing his confessions in prison, Holmes mentioned how his facial features changed and warped into something more satanic and wrote he was now convinced that after everything he had done, he was somehow taking on a resemblance to the Devil. Psychooooooo….

On May 7th, 1896 [if only it was July] Holmes was hanged at prison for the murder of Pitezal. He remained calm and asked to be buried in cement and ten feet deep to make sure grave robbers couldn't steal his body for dissection. But he got what was coming, pain. His neck did not snap from the noose and instead he was there hanging, twitching, slowly dying due to strangulation. It took 15 minutes for him to die, 20 to pronounce him dead and be cut down. Either he was a fighter or something above wanted him to suffer.

To follow up on the characters that helped throughout Holmes malicious adventure, let's start with the lawyer that helped him stage some deaths and then cover up others. Hedgepeth was pardoned for his working with Holmes but was then shot by a police officer in a Chicago Saloon. The caretaker of the Castle committed suicide in 1914 because he couldn’t sleep for several months and was halucinating. The Castle itself was burned down in August 1985. It was arson and they never found the two men that were seen exiting through the back right before it went up in flames. Today the spot is now a post office.

So how do you take a sick person like this and make it sweet? Well since Holmes was America’s first urban serial killer, we played with the word serial.

We welcome….

h. h. holmes’ serial treats

This recipe is our Holy Grail recipe.

Ingredients:

Base:

6 cups rice krispies of your choice

6 table spoons unsalted butter

6 cups mini marshmallows.

We like to call this the Satanic Equation for obvious 6 6 6 reasons. We find humor in this 100% but this ration makes more fluffy, light cereal treats. Every time.

S’more add-ins:

1 cup crushed graham crackers

1 cup chocolate chips

feel free to sprinkle in some left over mini marshmallows, we did not since we dont like whole marshmallows [unpopular opinion, we know]

Funfetti add-ins:

A dash of rainbow jimmies or if getting festive any color combo!

We like to call this the Satanic Equation for obvious 6 6 6 reasons. We find humor in this 100% but this ration makes more fluffy, light cereal treats. Every time.

Alright let’s bake this betch.

Measure out all the ingredient since they are pretty fast to make and have anxiety about the melted marshmallows hardening in the middle of the recipe. So get your add-ins ready.
Next melt the butter in a sauce pan that will be big enough to hold all the marshmallows.
Once melted, add in the marshmallows. Continue to stir until completely mixed and no lumps of marshmallows are left.
Have your cereal ready in a large bowl. Pour marsh mellow mixture into the cereal and mix completely. Pro tip, we scoop from the bottom to keep it light and fluffy.
Once incorporated add in all the mix in you have chosen. When it is all mixed through, pour into a parchment lined 9x13 casserole dish.
Let cool and set, and then enjoy!