The Murder Castle of HH Holmes: A Scrapbook of Eyewitness Accounts, Diagrams, and Ephemera: Mini Edition

by William Griffith, Adam Selzer

In 1895, investigators realized that the building H.H. Holmes operated in Chicago was a chamber or horrors, full of trap doors, secret passages, and everything you could need to dispose of a body. This is NOT another retelling of the Holmes case, but a dossier of contemporary information about the infamous castle. Here, Chicago Unbelievable collects original eyewitness accounts of the building and its evil designer, along with photos, diagrams and ephemera. If DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY made you curious, this e-booklet will take you inside the building from the time it was built to its destruction in 1938 (yes, it was still standing in 1938 - and rumored to be haunted!), as seen by many of the people who rented rooms, worked on the building, or assisted with investigating its secrets - and lived to tell about it! Includes an active table of contents, an introduction, a timeline, several eyewitness accounts of life in the castle, reports from the 1895 excavation (as well as an account of the police's first encounter with the secret rooms in 1893), diagrams, photos, and more! A must for people curious about what the "castle" was REALLY like.

The Mini Ebook / Dossier Includes:

-Accounts of the interior of the castle from reporters and tenants.

-A account of the crowd that gathered around the castle on the day of Holmes' execution.

-Pictures, drawings and diagrams from both Holmes' heyday and following its 1896 renovation, including several floor plans.

-Reprinted interviews with witnesses describing near-miss encounters with Holmes.

-Ads, artwork, and ephemera related to the castle.

Many mysteries relating to Holmes have never been solved. This is information knowing wishing to know about Holmes and his remarkable, mysterious career should be without!

NEWLY EXPANDED in 2012 with new sections, including a detailed account of the castle/basement site today.

Genres: True Crime, History

100 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[jonnie brewster · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice pictures

It was nice to see some pictures of the building and floor layouts. It is such a fantastical place for the 1890's. I find it hard to imagine in that day and age what people thought of it.

[Seawood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having read The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America, it's great to have some of the newspaper stories, eyewitness accounts and other ephemera to hand in this compilation. And like Devil, it leaves you baffled as to how someone could have got away with so much for so long. Well worth reading the two together.

I'd love to know if any of the evidence survives and could be tested with modern forensics.

[Clare K. R.]

Needs a copy editor.

[Susan Molloy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recommend reading Erik Larson's book, "The Devil in the White City" before picking up this book because the information in this publication will help round out what you discover in Larson's book. The diagrams and photographs in Selzer's book are useful.