HH Holmes a Ripper suspect?

[Howard Brown]

Jonny:
While you're at it, please ask if a copy of his appearance on WFMZ in Allentown or maybe it was WGAL in Reading is available.

[SirRobertAnderson]

I think there's four How....it's starting to look like the Tribbles on Star Trek.....

http://www.daneladwig.com/menu/

That thar' dude makes three, Bob.

[SirRobertAnderson]

Hi Jon

Could you please ask Mr Potts why the pdf's about his theory have been pulled off the web?

Are the pdfs available elsewhere?

(23210949.pdf )

I mentioned to Potts that one of his pdfs showed his home address; I think he took it down to remedy this.

[Paul Kearney A.K.A. NEMO]

Thanks Robert

I did download it but lost it a while ago I think

[Adam Selzer]

Chicago Unbelievable

Hi, guys. Adam from Chicago Unbelievable here; I asked the admin to let me register to say my thing. I was listed a page or two back as one of four proponents of the Holmes/Ripper theory. That's not quite accurate; I write about Holmes a lot and I've done some events/podcasts with the other guys mentioned (nice guys all), but I tend to sit back during any Ripper talk, and I don't think any of my writings on Holmes do more than mention the Ripper theory in passing, if they even do that.

Bloodstains is really a novel, not a proper memoir (though it is based on Jeff's own theories about Holmes). Frankly, I think one should think of Devil in the White City as a novel, too - Larson's version of events is sort of the "if all the tabloids and pulps were right" version (he's pretty upfront about how much he's making up in the endnotes).

The "curse" business is real, at least in the sense that it wasn't just invented recently - newspapers had a lot of fun with that story in the weeks before (and years after) Holmes's execution. Eventually about 20 people connected to the case identified as "victims" (and a couple more probably could have been), but they didn't all die; one guy managed to make the list by spraining his ankle.

thanks,
Adam

[SirRobertAnderson]

Hi, guys. Adam from Chicago Unbelievable here; I asked the admin to let me register to say my thing.

Thanks for joining in.

Bloodstains is really a novel, not a proper memoir (though it is based on Jeff's own theories about Holmes).

I just received it from Jeff last week; haven't properly read it yet but it's clear he's a fine writer, whether it is fact or fiction or something in between.

I am surprised that Holmes has as much traction as a Ripper candidate online as he does, because he is not considered much of one here. Perhaps we are at fault; I'm always willing to listen.

We argue all the time over Stride because the nature of the attack differs slightly from what we perceive to be JtR's M.O. - Holmes is WAY afield of that. We are talking galaxies away in terms of how he went about his business.

But I'm willing to listen as I've said.

[Howard Brown]

Thanks for the insight, Adam.
By the way, I have Mr. Selzer's "The Curse Of H.H.Holmes" on Kindle and I recommend it as an addition to your crime library.

Along with case authorities James Badal ( Cleveland Torso Slayer) and Tom Voigt ( The Zodiac), we are fortunate here on the Forums to have Adam, who specializes in the Holmes Case, to depend on for cold hard facts.

This is the cover of Adam's book :

[Adam Selzer]

I think that he's picking up traction in the larger world just due to the media that the story is getting lately - it's probably going to get louder when the Devil in the White City movie hits.

I'm in the "willing to listen" category as well; I'm no one's idea of a Ripper expert to start with. There are some "clues" that he may have been in England for a bit in 1888 - his wherabouts that year are sort of a question mark, and when a ledger for his businesses was found in 1895 that particular year had been torn out. He also spoke quite a bit of having some contact from England. But, as with anything to do with Holmes, it's tough to be sure whether he was telling the truth or not. There're a couple of composite sketches of the Ripper that resemble Holmes, but in 1896 the Lumiere brothers filmed a parade of police officers in Chicago, and practically every last one of them could probably be said to resemble the guy in the sketch. There's only one or two guys in the whole parade who doesn't have a mustache.

However, even if he was there, it doesn't seem to me that stabbing people was really his style. I wouldn't put it past him, but in the very few cases where we know how he killed a person, he seems to have favored poison and asphyxiation. I don't think he killed nearly as many people as one generally hears - as of the 1940s, he was generally said to have killed about a dozen people. Then Herbert Asbury said, without citing a source, that Holmes was estimated to have killed between dozens and hundreds; the next year a Harper's article refined that and said estimates ranged from "a couple dozen to a couple hundred." The number 200 seems to have stuck now (though it seems to go up every Halloween).

In realty, though, while I assume that there were some we've never found out about, there's not much new evidence to push the number past a dozen, and even a few of those dozen are sort of iffy - he was apparently shrewd enough to get rid of the bodies, and the kind of forensics that could have firmly established that the fragments and stains they found to him were a few years off (though, strangely enough, the Luetgert sausage factory, where the murder that popularized those sort of forensics, was only a few blocks from one of Holmes's buildings).

I assume you all also know about the OTHER Chicago Ripper candidate, Thomas Neal Cream, the guy who supposedly said "I was Jack the..." on the gallows. His office was about three blocks from where I am right now. I don't think too much research has been done into that guy, really, but I understand that the "gallows statement" was probably nonsense (like the ones sometimes attributed to Holmes years later), and he was in prison in 1888.

[Howard Brown]

Adam:
Thanks very much for elaborating on the issue.

[Paul Kearney A.K.A. NEMO]

Hi Adam

I'm pleased to see you on the forum

I've read Bloodstains and have a few questions if I may

What exactly is being proposed by the author in regard to HH Holmes being the Ripper?

The book alludes to genetic experiments by Holmes and wild speculations such as Holmes being connected with the Zodiac crimes

The description of his MO as JtR is extremely naive

What do you think of the scenario in which Holmes escapes the hangman via hypnotism on the guard?

The theories being put forward in novel format seems to me to be a ploy to dissuade criticism

[Howard Brown]

The book alludes to genetic experiments by Holmes and wild speculations such as Holmes being connected with the Zodiac crimes

Neems...no kidding ?

[Paul Kearney A.K.A. NEMO]

Hi Howard

I'll go and recap because I can't remember if the author suggested Holmes was Zodiac or whether his spirit possessed Zodiac

There are some extremely wild statements in the book but as I said, they are covered, in a sense, by the claim that they may be fiction

The thing is, there is little else in the book beside these wild theories and even a single one claimed as truth is likely to be heavily criticised

If you remember, Holmes was really collecting ovaries for his genetic work

An accomplice killed the woman, then called Holmes over with a clicking device to check the viability of the ovaries, and then disguised the operation with the known mutilations etc etc , so the theory is not actually saying HH Holmes was the killer of the unfortunates in Whitechapel

Complete rubbish IMO, the whole book

Did you establish that Jeff was indeed related to HH Holmes?

[SirRobertAnderson]

This may be of interest.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/the-mudge-report/2012/11/09/hh-holmes--the-great-debate

HH Holmes - The great debate...

by The Mudge Report

in History
Thu, November 8, 2012 10:00 pm

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h:320109
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archived

Listen to Jeff as he talks with Ray Johnson, John Borowski, Adam Selzer, Mark Potts and Dane Ladwig about the stories behind Holmes.
What were the changes in Holmes appearance that the reporters wrote about preceding his death?
What are the theories behind why Holmes wanted to buried encased in cement?
What did Holmes really use his glass factory for?
What new evidence have these great historians unearthed?
Have to wait and see......

[SirRobertAnderson]

As well as this.....

Adam has several audio files available here.

http://archive.org/details/ChicagoUnbelievableH.h.HolmesAndTheGlassBendingFactory

Chicago Unbelievable: H.H. Holmes and the Glass Bending Factory

• 43:17
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  2011 Sobieski podcast chicago unbelievable

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43:17

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The crew investigates the location of a "glass bending factory" once operated (more likely as a body dump than a glass works) by the notorious H.H. Holmes, ten miles from his famous "murder castle." Includes an interview with Jeff Mudgett, Holmes' great great grandson, who believes that Holmes may have also been Jack the Ripper - and that he may not have really been executed in 1896....

[Paul Kearney A.K.A. NEMO]

Good links Robert, thanks

In the first podcast thing it is stated that JtR had medical expertise

It is also suggested that the first 2 canonicals definitely showed surgical skill, whereas the last 3 did not, suggesting that a copycat killer killed the last 3

Much is also made of Wynne Baxter's American doctor requesting organs to suggest that Holmes was trying to gain financially by the murders, as with his selling of skeletons in the US

Jeff Mudgett suggests Holmes lived to the age of 99, his death predating the Zodiac

I'll go and recap on Bloodstains so that I'm up to speed on this discussion