Image: a drawing of a quick lime grave from the basement of the ‘Murder Castle’, belonging to H.H. Holmes, aka Herman Mudgett. He used this basement of his hotel to dispose of his victims during the World’s Fair of 1893. Above the grave is a drawing of an air-tight closet in the hotel portion of the building – he would suffocate people to death in order to not damage their bodies.
Our last post concerned Nannie Williams, sister to Minnie Williams. Minnie was pseudo-married to famed serial killer H.H. Holmes. Holmes killed Nannie in an effort to clear his path to the sizeable inheritance of Minnie.
Nannie’s body was never recovered which was not unusual for the victims of H.H. Holmes. He would remove all flesh from the bones, articulate the skeleton and sell it to local medical colleges on the sly. He made money from the bodies of his victims as undamaged skeletons were incredibly tough and very expensive to come by at the time. There is no proof that this is what he did with Nannie, only speculation.
He also buried bodies in lye, incinerated them, stored them in trunks (which he did with one of the children he killed), etc. There is no telling where his victims ended up as some may still be hanging in medical colleges while others were turned to ash. We can’t trust Holmes either as he apparently loved spinning a yarn to keep the reporters enthralled – whatever he needed to stay to remain the center of attention was what he did.
