Did 'Devil In The White City' Serial Killer Fake His Own Death?

PHILADELPHIA, PA — Over the years, Chicago has had a terrible connection with some of the most horrific serial killers and mass murderers of the late 20th century, including John Wayne Gacy, Richard Speck and even Jeffrey Dahmer. And if those real-life monsters and walking nightmares had a spiritual predecessor, it would be H.H. Holmes, one of the earliest documented serial killers in the United States.

Nicknamed "The Torture Doctor" and "The Beast of Chicago," Holmes reemerged in popular culture thanks to "The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America," Erik Larson's 2003 best-selling, nonfiction account of the slayings committed at the killer's twisted "Murder Castle" in the Englewood neighborhood during Chicago's 1893 World's Fair.

With Leonardo DiCaprio set to portray Holmes in a big-screen adaptation of Larson's book directed by Martin Scorsese, a state court has granted a request to exhume the killer's body from a Yeadon, Pennsylvania, cemetery to determine if he faked his execution 120 years ago, the Chicago Tribune reports. Holmes — whose real name was Herman Webster Mudgett but went by Dr. Henry Howard Holmes — was executed by hanging in 1896 after he was convicted of murder in Philadelphia.

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The request was made by Holmes' great-grandchildren, who hope this will end the legends that the killer escaped the hangman's noose, according to The Associated Press. John and Richard Mudgett and Cynthia Mudgett Soriano have submitted DNA samples to the University of Pennsylvania, which will be examining the remains, the report stated. The body will be re-interred in the same grave no matter what the testing reveals, the report added.

Although the great-grandchildren, who all live in California, are not discussing the request, a representative from the History Channel told the Tribune that the exhumation and the subject of whether Holmes faked his death will be part of an upcoming show on the cable channel.

A pharmacist by vocation and a con artist and ender of human lives by avocation, Holmes moved to Chicago in 1886, eventually setting up his "Murder Castle" at 63rd and Wallace streets. He would lure his victims — mostly young women, encountering many of them from the nearby World's Fair in 1893 — to his three-story death trap. Over the years, Holmes has been accused of killing around 200 people, a body count that's never been verified. Even the 27 murders Holmes confessed to before his hanging are in question, given his penchant for lying and changing his stories even as he walked to the gallows.

If, indeed, that was Holmes.

Various legends about how Holmes escaped his execution have popped up over the decades, largely based on his previous schemes to fake deaths in order to claim insurance payouts. For instance, Holmes is said to have bribed his guards, who then hanged a corpse while the convicted killer fled to South America, according to the Tribune. To deter potential grave robbers, that body — either Holmes or his previously deceased doppelganger — was placed in concrete and buried 10 feet deep.

But Adam Selzer, an amateur historian and author of "H.H. Holmes: The True History of the White City Devil," told the Tribune that much like the number of killings, the reports of Holmes' faked death are greatly exaggerated, the product of pulp writers and Holmes' status as "a new American tall tale."

"I found out how different the real story was from the legend," he said about researching Holmes for 10 years.

Along with serial killers, it shouldn't be forgotten that Chicago also has a scandalous connection with digging up the buried past in the hopes of unearthing an amazing piece of hidden history. Just ask Geraldo Rivera about opening Al Capone's secret vault on live TV.

More via the Chicago Tribune and The Associated Press

A court will allow the body of serial killer H.H. Holmes (left) to be exhumed from Holy Cross Cemetery in Philadelphia in order to determine if the 19th century killer immortalized in the book "Devil in the White City" faked his execution by hanging. (Holmes photo via Wikimedia Commons; Holy Cross Cemetery photo by Matt Slocum | Associated Press)

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