I believe that many people like room escape games now, but if you are trapped in a room trap by a murderous demon king, it is not a fun thing. Today we will introduce a serial killer who has committed crimes through the secret chamber mechanism in history. You may have heard of many famous serial killers, such as clown killers, Green River killers, zodiac killers and so on. But the killer introduced today is one of the earliest recorded in the United States. The place where the incident occurred was the famous City of Chicago in the United States. In 1893, the World Expo held in Chicago, usa, attracted worldwide attention, which was a sensational event in the world at that time. But this event not only attracted many tourists, but also attracted the protagonist of our story today, "Sherlock Holmes". I would also mention here a little, in fact, the name killer in English is "Holmes", and the name of the famous Detective "Sherlock Holmes" of Baker Street is the same as that later known to everyone. And this serial killer used a pseudonym during the crime: Henry. Howard. Holmes, i.e. H.H. Holmes. In order to avoid misunderstanding, we will call him by his other name, "Helms".
"White City Demon" Helms
Why this man could commit such a heinous crime, in addition to his own reasons, the social background and economic background at that time also magnified his crime. During the Chicago World Expo, the man booby-trapped nearly 200 women in the "World's Fair Hotel," a hotel he ran, in the name of recruiting staff. To facilitate his murder plans, he designed the interior of the hotel to resemble a labyrinth, filled with windowless rooms, secret passageways, fake floors, traps, and more. Helms was sentenced to death by hanging in 1896 on suspicion of killing business partners, but the actual number he killed remains a mystery. He admitted in court that he had killed only 27 people, but police officers found only 9 bones by examining the scene. Because hundreds of people were reported missing in Chicago at the time, many people counted the missing people on Helms' head. Later this killer was also known as the "White City Demon". It was because Chicago took advantage of the Expo at that time to carry out large-scale beautification of the city, the main buildings led by the World Expo were painted white, and the landscape of the city was also renewed, so Chicago was named at that time: White City. So how does a person gradually become a murderous demon without blinking? Let's go back in time to the 19th century and look at Helms' upbringing.
The whitewashed white city of Chicago
Chicago World Expo site
In 1861, in China, the Xianfeng Emperor of the Qing Dynasty died and there was a coup d'état of Xin You, and it was at this time that Empress Dowager Cixi, who had ruled China for 47 years, came to the throne. Far away in the United States, because President Lincoln abolished black slavery after his election, the North, which supported industrialization, and the South, which supported slavery, both wanted to implement their own systems in the newly acquired lands in the West. The contradictions between the two sides intensified, and the American Civil War broke out. In this era of great change, the protagonist Helms was born in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, USA.
Gilmanton, New Hampshire, U.S
As a child, Helms was quiet and introverted, but his parents often used prolonged fasting, confinement, and other means to discipline their children. Not only him, but also his brothers and sisters. It is said that when they cried loudly, my father used a rag soaked in kerosene to shut his mouth. Helms would often flee to the nearby woods to escape abuse. Here, he chops up small animals to vent, showing a bad taste for killing. Like most serial killers, many believe helms' painful childhood experiences were the main cause of the crime. Once when he went to the pharmacy and saw the skeleton of the human body, he felt very frightened, but also very curious, and gradually developed this curiosity into a sick personal hobby. The Helms parents were devout believers and wanted their sons to be like them. But soon, they discovered that Helms was actually interested in human skeletons, which was unforgivable. For this his father punished Helms fiercely. Severe punishment did not make him give up his sick hobbies, but became more egotistical and unconcerned about everything in the outside world. In addition to parental abuse, there is also intimidation from senior classmates. Once on the way out of school, several senior boys tricked him into going to the local medical clinic and asked him to touch the human skeleton. Later, he said that this incident did not help him face up to his inner fears, but he became interested in human anatomy, which was the main reason why he chose to study medicine later.
Helms married Clara Loveline at the age of 17, when he couldn't make ends meet, a year later, Clara gave birth to their first child, Helms was more financially strapped, but Helms was not willing to accept the status quo, he always wanted to make a career, he wanted to be a doctor to make a lot of money.
Helms' first wife, Clara Loveline
In 1880, at the age of 19, Helms went to the University of Vermont School of Medicine and began studying medicine under the guidance of Dr. White. Helms clearly understood that he did not have the talent to take care of patients, but he was willing to do everything in his power to get the money and respect he wanted, and more importantly, his fascination with human anatomy, which made him Dr. White's proudest student. At the end of the 19th century, there was a great deal of moral controversy in anatomy, and it was extremely difficult to obtain a corpse for dissection. So almost all medical schools at that time did something unsightly to teach anatomy. For example, they will either go to the cemetery to steal other people's bodies, or they will pay for them on the black market. Usually, students feel extremely nauseous the first time they perform anatomical experiments, and it usually takes them two months to adjust. However, Helms did not show any discomfort, and he was even obsessed with corpses. His classmates later recalled that Helms had pleaded with a professor to bring back a baby's corpse to study. Helms took the body back to his boarding house and inexplicably hid it under the bed. While he was out, the landlady came to Helms' room to clean up, and he suddenly found the baby's body staring dead at him on the floor. The discovery frightened the landlord, who refused Helms to step into his house again. But fortunately for the landlord, Helms spent all his money a year into school and was forced to drop out. In the months that followed, he worked hard and saved up enough for a year's tuition.
Classmates know that Helms's life is very poor, for the sake of face, high self-esteem Helms transferred, he decided to go to the University of Michigan to study, there to prove his worth. Clara moved with her two-year-old with Helms. During the day Clara worked as a tailor and supported her husband's studies. And when Helms is not successful in school, he will blame all his failures on his wife. Clara gave everything to her husband, but in exchange for domestic violence again and again.
In early 1884, Clara left Helms with the children, and although they remained separated, they were not legally divorced. After Clara left, Helms threw himself into his studies, having a good relationship with the professor of anatomy and finding a part-time job in the lab. He often went to the cemetery at night with his professor to buy fresh corpses for the school. Helms behaved very strangely and looked mysterious, so he didn't make any friends. After graduating from medical school at the age of 23, Helms felt that his future was infinitely bright, and money and fame were no longer out of reach. Helms then went to a small town near New York called Morse Fox, where he worked as a doctor. But Helms' real concern was not to cure the sick and save people, he wanted to realize his ambitions. Soon his dark side was revealed.
There was a small smallpox outbreak in the town, and Helms quickly ordered a large number of smallpox vaccines, and he walked the streets and sold them for 25 cents each, about 6 cents today. Few people bought it at first, probably because Helms was new and the townspeople hadn't believed him that much, but Helms was clearly finding that deception came sooner than trust. He later falsely claimed to be an official in the Health Bureau, saying that the government required every household to buy vaccines or face legal consequences. Helms earned his first pot of gold through fraud, and then he used the money to rent a lab, and his next goal was to work on a patented drug that could be used to treat multiple symptoms. But after months of trying, Helms didn't succeed and he eventually abandoned the project. At that time, he basically ran out of money again and owed months of rent. Knowing that he would not be able to pay it, Helms quietly fled to New York one night, and then went to Pennsylvania to avoid debt.
At this time, he was willing to do anything for money, but he did not put his little cleverness on the right path, he contacted a college classmate, and began to plan insurance fraud with him. They plan to fake the death of a third person and defraud the insurance company of their life insurance. But what Helms actually didn't expect was that the insurance company had a very good anti-fraud mechanism, and the insurance company refused to pay unless they found the body exactly as described by the insured. Helms' plan was soon revealed. Coupled with the urgency of his creditors' tracking of him, the 25-year-old Helms moved between cities, working for a while every time he went to a place, and then rushing away whenever he owed a lot of debt. During this time, Helms also learned to hide his cunning and immoral side, and he gradually changed his speech, dress, and transformed into a polite gentleman.
In 1885, Helms was fascinated by a girl named Marta, who was smart, independent, and loved to travel, and they soon married in Chicago. Helms and Clara were still legally husband and wife at the time, so his new marriage was not legal. Helms found that in a big city like Chicago, it was difficult for debt collectors to find him, so this place could be expected for a long time. With this in mind, Helms began to consider a new scam. He found out that there was a couple who ran a pharmacy and their business was so bad that they barely made any money. So Helms pretended to be an experienced businessman and offered to help the couple run the drugstore. The couple very naively accepted Helms's offer and handed the entire pharmacy into Helms' hands, after which Helms not only stole a large amount of medicine from the pharmacy. The medical device business was also deliberately run by him, and the pharmacy became less and less valuable, and after a few months, Helms bought the pharmacy with very little money. Helms was ecstatic about his success, and then he pretended to be a successful business tycoon and fabricated many shell projects to attract investors. For Helms, if someone is stupid enough to believe that a 25-year-old doctor is also a successful businessman, then they should be deceived.
Helms' second wife, Marta
In 1887, Helms used the ill-gotten fortune to buy a plot of land opposite the pharmacy, where he built a two-story building with shops on one floor, including a new pharmacy, and apartments on the second floor. But Helms's designs were very strange, such as at the back of the drugstore or we designed a secret room between the first floor and the floor, and he also designed a hidden staircase, the entrance of which was located behind the secret door in the bathroom on the second floor. Eventually the building became one of Chicago's most notorious buildings. The titles of young and promising doctor and real estate tycoon made Helms more and more personal, and he was adept at using such titles to deceive people's trust. According to the records, Helms's criminal career from 1886 to 1889 was non-violent, and it was some kind of money fraud through shell companies and fake businesses. But Helms remained obsessed with dead bodies and human autopsies, and soon after he crossed the line of being human and committed his first murder.
Helms bought the pharmacy, and the second floor is the apartment
Helms gradually loses the ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality, and he disguises himself to the extreme, and his wife Marta does not even know that her husband is actually a criminal. In Marta's eyes, Helms was a perfect person. In 1889, the couple welcomed a daughter, while Helms and one of his own employees, Julia. Connor is having an affair.
Two years later, Julia became pregnant, and Helms feared that his reputation would be damaged, but he had no intention of breaking up with his mistress, instead choosing to let Julia disappear forever. On Christmas Eve, Julia and his six-year-old daughter, Pearl, have dinner at a friend's house. At that time, Julia told a friend that he was going to travel to Iowa for his sister's wedding and planned to leave after Christmas. However, when Julia left her friend's house, no one ever saw him or his daughter again. Helms then told neighbors that Julia had left Chicago. In order to cover up his crimes, he also wrote several letters to Julia's friends and family, asking about Julia's whereabouts. In the end, Helms even spread rumors that Julia had gone off with a mysterious man.
After the incident, Helms did not show the slightest recollection, and when he confirmed that he had escaped the suspicion, Helms embarked on a new criminal journey. He hired a typist named Emmaline, and this time he not only wanted Emmaline to help him set up a shell company and defraud investors as usual, he had other plans. Helms wanted Emmaline to replace Julia, and over time, the young Emmaline fell into the same traps, fell into the same lies, and ended up with the same fate.
Typist Amarin
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The previous episode is updated here, and the next episode will tell the vicious case that Helms committed during the Expo. Please like friends pay attention to likes and forwards. You can also follow my personal public account, which will also be updated regularly. The name of the official account is: Investigator Zero. Your support is what motivates me to move forward, and I will continue to work hard to bring you a great story. Thanks!
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