On January seventeen eighteen ninety four, a couple stood before a minister at the Vendome Hotel in Denver, Colorado Henry Howard and Georgiana Yoke were about to be married. standing near them was their witness. A woman Nay many Williams the bride had come. From Indiana to escape a scandalous reputation and had found working. the Congo at a store owned by Henry. She was a tall slender woman about twenty five years of age With blue eyes and blonde hair- and she Madly in love with Henry it sounds wonderful. It sounds perfect actually, but there was trouble in paradise even before they met the minister. There

the hotel you see Henry was already married. He was in fact married to two other women and many a woman standing as witness was actually Henry's. Miss as of over a year. even Henry's name was fake, is real had been abandoned long before, and it would be months before Georgiana would discover who he really was. Sometimes we think we know a person only to discover that we were fooled. Community is built on trust and that trust allows us to make connections to let down our garden to feel safe when that asked is broken now our minds quickly shift to disappointment and stress and I'll write, fear. A sure happens less often now in the age of facebooking social media, but in the late 1800s hundreds.

very little stood in the way of a person falsifying their identity. Henry Howard or whoever he was prior to that moment in Denver had turn that skill into an art view. People knew this about Henry though. If act, few people could have imagined what deeply secrets boiled just beneath the surface of this smiling young groom and when. World finally did find out exactly ten months later, they could barely contain their horror. I may remain key, and this is lore Henry Howard was born in New Hampshire in eighteen, sixty one as Herman much it. Parents were wealthy, well respected people in their community and theirs

was born into that privilege. But from an early age, Henry was a problem. Child constantly getting into trouble according to much it himself as a child. His classmates forced him to view in touch a human skin. certain after learning that he was afraid of the town doktor. There prank backfired, though, generating deep fascination rather than frightening him off. that obsession with death would only grow. soon the boy was expressing interest in medicine. One report even claims that he would have They perform surgery on animals, along with his Ex performance in school, he was able to pursue that interest and answer. Medical cool and rolling at the University of Michigan as H, H, homes in eighteen. Seventy nine far from home, and with access to resources that he previously lacked college

loud homes to get creative devised, an easy way to make money drive that would fuel many of his future crimes. It involved stealing a cadaver from the medical lab homes with this figure the corpse plant, the body somewhere that gave it the appearance of being the victim of a tragic accident and then a few days, later. He would approached the life insurance company with a policy for his deceased relative and collect the cash final insurance swindle in Michigan needed him. a thousand five hundred dollars but he knew his welcome was wearing thin after clicking the money he banished abandoning school and his new wife and child who he never saw again. He moved around the tree doing legitimate work, but also learning his way around the business world mastered the art of buying products on credit avoided

the bills, selling the items and then vanishing with the profit armed with that kill. He soon settled in Inglewood, just south of Chicago and that's where he met Doktor Elisabeth Holden Neighbours, eighteen, eighty five homes trying to avoid creditors from all around the country other than vanish into obscurity. He chose to hide in plain sight, he married his second wife, polygamous Lee. Of course. And took a job at a local drugstore owned and run by Doktor Elizabeth Holden, whose husband was dying of cancer. Spent the next two years becoming more and more essential to Holden's business. Pain, her for ownership in the business and building relationships with the customers when miss holding finally did pass away the pain it's from homes stopped and MRS Holden became upset, threatening to

and their business partnerships. But nothing happened. Nothing happened because Doktor Holden mysteriously vanished when asked about her disappearance, almost told the authorities should move to the west to live with her family right after she had sign over the business to him, of course, and the police bottle. I homes operated the drugstore as if nothing had happened, growing the business, continuing his just game of evading creditors, but when the empty lot across the street became available, it couldn't resist the temptation homes easy had digger. Plans. The world's colombian exhibition was scheduled to be hosted in Chicago in eighteen. Ninety three and he envied and a hotel that could how's the countless visitors who would travel to the area is project was lovingly called the castle, which wasn't far from the truth,

fifty feet wide and over one hundred sixty feet, long, taking up half a city block with three star worries and a basement eventually have over one hundred rooms within its walls and homes. Ever the micro manager took on the task of project arc refusing to share the plans with anyone else work on the building asked questions naturally, but when they did homes replace them most of the men. Working on the project never lasted more than two weeks. In all told over five hundred carpenters and craftsmen worked on the castle True to form homes managed to avoid paying most of them as well. You would accuse them. shoddy work and refuse their wages some suit him, but he managed to put those says off long enough that they eventually gave up and once completed, homes move the drugs into the new buildings ground floor and rented out space to other shops. His person,

law offices were located on the top floor and the remaining space was rent it out as temporary living quarters marketed as Boarding house for young single women the castle was open for business, a fortunate not everyone who stayed there managed survive the hospitality that homes offered them. when Missus Pansy Lee arrive from New Orleans, she rented a room at the castle, was a widow and had travelled all over the United States before arriving in Chicago to settle down. what homes learned that she kept four thousand dollars in cash in the false bottom of her trunk and he kindly offered to keep it in his store vault for her, MRS Dot Lee decline, the offer and vanished a short time later, while some people came to the castle for lodging other

were looking for work. One of the requirements that homes imposed was that all his employees were to have life insurance policies, but the sum of five thousand dollars homes remember, knew the life insurance business well, When seventeen year old Jenny Thomson arrive from Southern Illinois looking for work homes, an opportunity, she was young and pretty the exact sort of blonde hair blue eyed beauty that he preferred and he quickly gave her a job, In casual conversation, Jenny let slip that her family didn't actually know where she was and told them she was travelling to New York, but the offer of a job, was enough to keep her right there in Chicago,

She told homes that she couldn't wait to tell her parents about her good fortune before she did, though he escorted her up to her room and she was never seen again in eighteen. Ninety NED Connor arrived at the castle. Looking for work he travelled with his wife Julia, who was unusually tall for a woman at nearly six feet, and the younger Pearl NED was watchmaker and a jeweler and homes hired him right away. But it was NED's wife who captured his attention. The most. Holmes soon fired his bookkeeper and gave the job to Julia were not long after it began to be obvious that homes was more than a little friendly with his wife NED for his part

turned a blind eye. It seems he was simply glad to have a good job with steady pay. A roof over his head eventually became pregnant, though NED finally took the hint he packed up wild for divorce and left her and pearl in the care of homes who immediately took. Life insurance policies for both of them, but homes had a new problem. Julia knew the business too well, and she presented a threat to his illicit activities. Poems found a saloon You know he told Julia that he would marry her, but only If she would have an abortion Julie resisted at first, but FF Finally, on December 24th, one thousand eight hundred and ninety one she gave in she asked Holmes to put pearl to bed, and then he led her to the basement where he had a makeshift operating room, Julia and Pearl

we're never seen again. At same winter, homes summoned a man named Charles Chapel to his office and chapel performed odd jobs around the castle, but he had a particular skill that homes required. He was incredibly gifted in the craft of articulating scale, Tens chapel, arrived and homes led him to a second for room where the body woman lay on a table according to travels own test. Only to the authorities. The body had been skinned like a jack rabbit. He assumed since almost doctor that he had simply been performing an autopsy on a patient and pushed his doubts to the back of his mind, alms page apple, thirty, six dollars to strip the flash. If the body and prepare the bones for articulation, the finnish skeleton was sold to a doctor Pauling of the hangman Medical College and I could Pauling, would often look at the skeleton in his private office.

a marvel at how unusual that was to see a woman who was nearly six feet. Tall. Holmes eventually made a critical mistake. Ironically, it was his, love of insurance scams that caught up with him in the end after care in his right hand, man, Benjamin title and attempting to pass. The death or as an accident to the insurance company authorities, got wind of the crime and tracked him down. He was finally arrested in Boston on November seventeen eighteen, ninety four ten months to the day, from his wedding ceremony in Denver Hotel His trial began, however, the castle was, mysteriously guided by fire. Thankfully, the authority

It had already been able to search the building and after doing so, they had given it a new name, the murder house, the authorities does over that, like any boarding house at the time, the castle had a reception room, a waiting room and rooms for residents to live in, but the bill they had more insight its wall and was expected. There were secret chambers, trap, doors, peoples and hidden laboratories Aside from the thirty five guest rooms, the second floor was a labyrinth of passages. Sunday, Is opened on brick walls, some good only be opened from one side and others were hidden completely from sight. Trapdoor is led to staircases that lead to hidden Ambrose in their even alarms and all of the rooms that would alert homes in his quarters if any prisoners tried to escape

the rooms were windowless and could be sealed off and made airtight if necessary, some were equipped with gas jets that were fed by pipes the basement. Others were lined with asbestos and had visible scorched marks on the floor, and then there was the vault He was a room that could fit a single person. Only then if they were standing. The walls inside the vault were lined with iron plate broke only by a handful of gas fixtures, then a trap door that led to a shoot. on the inside of the door, was a single footprint. The size the woman's boot. It was a homemade gas chamber was designed to deliver corpses straight to the basement and when the police Descended to the lowest level of the building, they discover that homes had expanded the base

and beyond the foundation of the building and out beneath the sidewalk. You did this to make room for all of his equipment here, found the dissection table still splattered with blood jars of poison, fill the shelf and A large wooden box nearby contain multiple female skeletons agree Torreon, was built into one wall which still contained ash and bone fragments. A search also found valuables that belong to some of his victims, a watch, the belong to many Williams, scraps of fabric tintype photographs and a ball of women's hair, carefully wrapped in cloth, the bones of a child were found buried in a pit, and the remnants of a bloody dress were recovered from wood burning stove, when NED Connor was asked to identify the fabric reconfirmed belong to his wife, Julia, a rack design.

stretch. Bodies was also discovered beneath the dirt floor. They found of corrosive acid and to quickling pits used for quickly dissolving the flash off of corpses there are human skulls, a shoulder blade, ribs a hip, socket and countless other human remains. Whatever the police had hoped to find that day, they were simply unprepared for the truth. In and they had discovered a medieval charnel house right beneath their feet. it's easy to feel safe in our own neighborhood walking past closed doors in manicured lawns What goes on behind those walls is never something that we can be sure of each Every person we meet wears a mask

And were only allowed to peek behind it if they let us society he is built on the idea that we can trust the people around us we can take. Our neighbours are family, even our co workers at face value, and enter into relationships with them but with every relationship comes risk, we risk disappointment. We risk pain and betrayal. For some of us, we even risk our very safety near in map makers of the fifteenth century would sometimes mark, explore areas of their maps with a warning here there be monsters. there is danger in the places we haven't explored and while this True, then, of undiscovered continents is all

been true of humanity. Beneath the surface. Behind the mask hides the monster. On May seven, eighteen, ninety six. After Final meal of boiled, eggs, dry, toast and a cup of coffee, H, H, homes. Has led to the gallows at my immense in prison. A black hood was placed on his head and as the crowd outside the prison walls, shout their insults engineers this position to over the trap door when it opened alms job and his head snapped the side, but rather than killing him quickly. The rope had somehow in his neck and left him alive. The crowd watched for over fifteen minutes as homes hung from the noose fingers and feet twitching and dancing before his heart. Finally stopped beating,

Homes was buried in an unmarked grave in Holy cross. cemetery just south of Philadelphia, as per his role There was no autopsy and his body Buried in a coffin filled with cement homes is, he was afraid that some, when would dig up his body and uses skeleton for science, and he was probably right We don't know how many people he killed palms, confess to a rioting numbers, changing his story again. On the hangman's platform, some experts who. studied the missing person. Reports of the world's colombian exhibition have placed the possible death toll as high as two hundred. There's so much, we don't know about homes, a man whose entire life seemed to be One elaborate lie built a top another like some macabre house of cards,

He will forever remain a mystery to us, a monster hidden behind a mask that was painted to look just like you or I. But one last insight into the man can be found in his written confession. I was born with the devil. In me. He wrote I could not help the fact that I was a murderer. No more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing. I was born,

with the evil one standing as my sponsor beside the bed where I was ushered into the world- and he has been with me since this episode of law was researched, written and produced by me. Errand, Maggie Lore is much more than upon cast there's a book series in bookstores around the country and on line, and the second season of the Amazon Prime Television show was recently released, check them both out. If you want more lore in your life, I also make two other points.

Guests, airy, monkeys, cabinet of curiosities and unobserved, and I think you'd enjoy both each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite sized episodes to season long dives into a single topic. You can learn about both of those shows and everything else going on all over in one central place: Thou world of lore dot com. Slash now, and you can also follow the show on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to search for lore podcast, all one word and then click that follow button. When you do say hi, I like it when people say I, and as always, thanks for listening.