Holmes' Own Story / In Which the Alleged Multi-murderer and Arch Conspirator Tells of the Twenty-two Tragic Deaths and Disappearances in Which He Is Said to Be Implicated, With Moyamensing Prison Diary Appendix

by Herman W. Mudgett

May 16th.—My birthday. Am 34 years old. I wonder if, as in former years, mother will write me. Was at the City Hall and pleaded with the Assistant District Attorney again that my present case be abandoned and that I be at once tried upon the charge of killing Pitezel, as I feel that I cannot too soon have this matter settled, inasmuch as they so boldly accuse me of it. This they flatly refused to do, saying I only wished to avoid serving a sentence upon the minor charge. Then the only satisfaction I could obtain when I urged that the conspiracy charge be tried at once in order that Mrs. Pitezel may be set at liberty was, “Don’t you worry yourself about Mrs. Pitezel; we will care for her and will also give you all you want to do before we are through with you.” Have retained Mr. R. O. Moon as special counsel.

May 21st.—My case was called in Court to-day, and I entered a formal plea of “not guilty.” The trial was postponed until a later date. On Monday, May 27th, my case was called for trial. I went to the City Hall, where the Court was held, in the same kind of conveyance that had brought me here over six months before, and was conducted by two officers into the Court room, and placed in a small enclosure in the centre of the room. After a little delay, the Court was called to order, Judge Hare presiding. Little time was lost in securing a jury, as those first called, almost without exception, appeared to be both intelligent and honest. After administering the oaths, the District Attorney arose and addressed the Court. Theretofore I had not looked upon my case as serious, for after I had placed before the authorities my written statement, some months earlier, stating that Pitezel was actually dead, some of the prosecution and the insurance company had openly stated that they believed it to be true, and knowing myself that his death had actually occurred, it left little, save the charge of conspiracy, to be disposed of; but when the prosecution drew into the case matters altogether foreign to the conspiracy charges, I felt that it could not help but influence the jury. The authorities had also brought Mrs. Pitezel into Court, and had seated her in a prominent portion of the room, and later, while giving his testimony, one of the witnesses led the Court to understand that with a knife I had proceeded, in a cold-blooded manner, to mutilate the body of Pitezel at the time of examination for the purpose of identification. I saw that the prosecution were determined to magnify and dilate each point that could be turned in their favor.

During the afternoon session I learned that a subpœna had been issued requiring my wife to appear in Court, contrary to a distinct arrangement that I had previously made with the insurance company that she should not be used as a witness or annoyed in regard to the case, and I felt that I would rather serve a longer term of imprisonment than thus humiliate her. At the close of the Court for the day I learned that the prosecution were prepared to place upon the witness stand the doctors before referred to, who had seen the body at Callowhill street, both of whom would swear the body found there could not have been Pitezel, a matter I could not disprove, and that evening, after considering all the proceedings of the day, I resolved to ask my counsel to allow me to change my plea, relying upon them to show the Court when I should, at a later date, be brought before the Judge to be sentenced, that while there had existed an agreement to perpetrate a fraud under certain circumstances, there was no active conspiracy at the time when Pitezel’s death had occurred, and that the death being genuine, the insurance company had not been defrauded. This, together with the fact that I should save at least a week’s valuable time to the Court by ending my trial as I did, I hoped would cause the Judge to reduce my sentence to one-half the fullest extent, thus allowing me to go to Texas in October, 1895, which would be in season to attend to my business matters there before they would seriously suffer from the delay. Before leaving the Court the Judge stated that I should be allowed the six months I had already been in prison, which I could not but appreciate, as it was wholly discretionary with him. Later during the day I was called before the District Attorney, in his private office, and there made a statement as to the probable whereabouts of the children, telling them as truthfully as I knew all the facts I could think of that would aid them in the search, and later gave them the cipher I had formerly used in communicating with Miss Williams. I then returned to my prison room at Moyamensing.

Upon the 18th of June I was taken to the Court House as a witness in the case against Howe; but a long continuance being taken, I was not called upon to testify. Shortly thereafter one of my attorneys, after careful preparation, went to London, and did considerable hard work for me in endeavoring to locate the missing children by searching for the old addresses given me by Hatch; and the assertion made by the Assistant District Attorney that I had deceived my counsel and sent him upon a search I knew to be useless, is simply one of many statements he has made both to me and for publication that are painful evidence of the want of discernment and good judgment one had a right to expect from the occupant of so important a position.

Later in June Detective Guyer called on me, and, in a long conversation with him, I made a most honest endeavor to place him in possession of all the facts I could think of that would be instrumental in facilitating the proposed search, which I looked upon and welcomed as one of corroboration of the same statements I had previously made, feeling that upon his following my movements from place to place, and finding that I had not misled him in any way, he would return more free to believe other statements that were not so easily verified; and I do not think I need to state to any intelligent reader that had I known of the death and burial of the little ones in the Toronto cellar, and wished to conceal the same, I should have avoided all mention of other houses where furniture had been brought and, in one instance, an excavation made, and I feel that if Mr. Guyer were called upon for a truthful statement, he could not fail to say that but for my aid, freely given him at this time, together with detailed statements and drawings previously made relating to those places where I had forgotten the exact location, his search would have been a failure, inasmuch as he would have had no incentive to prosecute a similar investigation in Toronto.

On the morning of the 16th of July, my newspaper was delivered to me at about 8.30 a. m., and I had hardly opened it before I saw in large headlines the announcement of the finding of the children in Toronto. For the moment it seemed so impossible, that I was inclined to think it one of the frequent newspaper excitements that had attended the earlier part of the case, but, in attempting to quickly gain some accurate comprehension of what was stated in the article, I became convinced that at least certain bodies had been found there, and upon comparing the date when the house was hired I knew it to be the same as when the children had been in Toronto; and thus being forced to realize the awfulness of what had probably happened, I gave up trying to read the article, and saw instead the two little faces as they had looked when I hurriedly left them—felt the innocent child’s kiss so timidly given and heard again their earnest words of farewell, and I realized that I had received another burden to carry to my grave with me, equal, if not worse, than the horrors of Nannie Williams’ death.

I think at this time I should have lost my senses utterly had I not been hurriedly called to prepare to be taken to the District Attorney’s office. I went there securely handcuffed and accompanied by two officers for further safety, and not until these extra precautions were taken did I realize the new and terrible change that had occurred affecting the entire aspect of my case. Upon reaching the City Hall the Assistant District Attorney met me. I was in no condition to bear his accusations, nor disposed to answer many of his questions. I felt it right that he should know that I had already seen the morning papers, and upon his demanding that I tell him where the body of the boy could be found, I answered, that in the light of the Toronto development, I had reason to think he would be found buried in or about the house that had been hired in Detroit. He then accused me of killing him in Detroit and destroying his body by burning it in a furnace that was in the cellar. This I denied, and moreover felt sure and told him that the body could not have been destroyed there in that way by any one else, as I had been in the house upon two occasions and knew that if human remains had been cremated there even at a considerably earlier date the odor would have been noticeable. I did not see the District Attorney at this interview and was very soon taken to the prison again.

For the next forty-eight hours I reasoned and thought, studying minutely each step of our journey from the time Hatch had joined us; but what seemed utterly incomprehensible to me then, and even now, was how any sane man would take such awful chances, even if he had no other scruples to restrain him, yet I well knew it could have been no one else that committed the crime, for in that event the non-arrival of the children would have been known to us. I knew also that the small sum of $400, that was given to the girls just previous to their death, could have been no incentive for the commission of the act, and was forced to look further for the motive. I could only think that it had been done at Miss Williams’ suggestion and in furtherance of her threat of the previous year, which, owing to friendliness at a later date, I had believed wholly abandoned, probably also intending to give color to a theory (if later for her safety such had to be advanced) that I, and not she, had killed her sister, pointing to these disappearances that had occurred at a time when I was known to have had the children in my charge as corroborative of the same, though I felt sure that her hellish wish for vengeance for the imagined desertion of the previous year was much the more potent of the two motives.

Finally I commenced at the time I had first asked them to come here, and following carefully each step and conversation we had held, I became certain that when Hatch had first met me in Cincinnati he could have had no matured plans. Then going over our route I could see no change until after reaching Indiana. He had gone away for a few days to Chicago, as he then said, but, as I now believe, to Detroit, to consult with Miss Williams, as it occurred directly after he had first known I was liable to be arrested. He then commenced taking more interest in the children, taking them about with him and buying them presents. It was at this time, also, that he took a private room, saying that inasmuch as I was liable to be watched, it was unsafe for any of us to be at a hotel. It was then that he had his beard removed from his chin[9] in the barber shop at the Indianapolis depot, each act being a trifle in itself, yet taken together showed to me that then was when the change had commenced. Following still further, I had at first wished to go to Chicago alone, thinking it safer to do so than to be accompanied by the children. I had asked him to take them all to Detroit with him, to which he replied that if this was done it would keep him from looking about for a house there for Mrs. Pitezel, which we were anxious to obtain as quickly as possible; that he could take the boy with him easily, for he could accompany him about the city in his search. This, together with the girls’ desire to go to Chicago, led me to carry out the arrangement in this way. Then came our arrival in Detroit, two days later, when Hatch stated that the boy had gone with Miss Williams to Buffalo, and that he had been delayed twenty-four hours en route to Detroit at some junction where a wreck had occurred, thus accounting for his having made no search for a house.

Then of another circumstance, which ordinarily I should not have considered more than a coincidence. While in Cincinnati, Alice and the boy had disputed as to which should wear an old watch that had belonged to their father. Alice advancing her claim of superior years, Howard, that he was the boy of the family, accompanied by the remembrance that his father had promised it to him when he grew older. I settled the matter by taking the watch in charge and buying each of them a small nickel open-faced watch and chain. This left little Nellie with a broken heart, and as soon as I noticed her trouble, I told her that before our journey was ended I would also buy one for her, or something else equally pleasing to her, if she preferred. The day after our arrival in Detroit she came to me much elated, saying Mr. Hatch had bought her a watch. Upon looking at it, it proved to be of the same make and design as the one Alice had, and I now believe it was the same watch I had given Howard some days before. Then in Detroit occurred the buying of the spade and his insisting upon taking it to Toronto, giving the weak excuse that he had paid for it and did not wish to throw it away, when he could have sold it at a second-hand store much easier than to have taken it so far to the depot to place it in the trunk. Then, the letter from Miss Williams, asking that I pay the $1,000 due upon the Fort Worth property then, instead of later, as she wished to use a part of it; it seeming hardly probable, if this had been the real reason of requiring the money at that time, that so much trouble would have been taken in trying to convert the money I gave into a $1,000 bill.