For our 150th episode, we revisit one of history’s most infamous names: H. H. Holmes. Behind the myths of the ‘Murder Castle’ lies a story of fraud, fear, and fact stranger than legend. Step inside Chicago’s 1890s underworld—and separate truth from folklore.

Source Materials

The Enduring Mystery of H.H. Holmes, America's 'First' Serial Killer

The Toronto link to America's bloodiest serial killer - Spacing Toronto | Spacing Toronto

H.H. Holmes: Biography, Serial Killer, Murderer

Murder Castle - H.H. Holmes, Chicago World's Fair & Layout | HISTORY

H. H. Holmes: Master of Illusion — Swindler — Crime Library

Selzer, Adam. H. H. Holmes: The True History of the White City Devil. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2017.

Geyer, Frank P. The Holmes-Pitezel Case: A History of the Greatest Crime of the Century and of the Search for the Missing Pitezel Children. Philadelphia: Publishers’ Union, 1896.

On New Year’s Day, 1886, Edwin Bartlett was found dead in his Pimlico home — his stomach filled with chloroform, but with no sign of how it got there. Was it murder, suicide, or something science couldn’t yet explain? Step into thePimlico Poisoning Mystery, a case that baffled Victorian doctors, scandalized London, and left one woman forever in the shadows.

Source Materials:

nbtfacsimile.pdf

t18860405-466 | The Proceedings of the Old Bailey

The Trial of Adelaide Bartlett for Murder, Held at the Central Criminal Court from Monday, April 12, to Saturday, April 17, 1886

bmj00471-0054.pdf

AFP937923 35..46

Ambrose Bierce was a Civil War veteran, journalist, and master of the macabre whose razor-sharp pen made him both feared and admired. In 1913, at seventy-one yearsold, he left the United States for war-torn Mexico—and vanished. This episode traces Bierce’s journey from log cabin childhood to battlefield survivor, from satirical journalist to literary legend, before diving into one of the greatestmysteries in American history: what became of Ambrose Bierce?

Source MaterialsIntroduction to A Sole Survivor: Bits of Autobiography by Ambrose Bierce

Why did brothers fight on opposite sides of the Civil War? | HowStuffWorks

Disappearance of Ambrose Bierce - Historic Mysteries

Ambrose Bierce, Hoosier author and Civil War vet, vanished in Mexico

Carey McWilliams. Ambrose Bierce: A Biography. New York: Albert and Charles Boni, 1929.

S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz. Ambrose Bierce: The Devil’s Lexicographer. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2002.