When detectives arrested H.H. Holmes in 1894, they thought he was a simple con man. But they were shocked to discover that he’d been operating a bizarre Chicago hotel full of blind passageways, trapdoors, hidden chutes, and asphyxiation chambers in which he’d sadistically murdered dozens of victims. In today’s show we’ll follow the career of America’s first documented serial killer, who headlines called “a fiend in human shape.”
We’ll also gape at some fireworks explosions and puzzle over an intransigent insurance company.