Commonwealth v. Mudgett

• Decision Date: 04 March 1896
• Docket Number: 136
• Citation: 174 Pa. 211,34 A. 588
• Parties: Commonwealth v. Herman W. Mudgett, alias H. H. Holmes, Appellant
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

34 A. 588

174 Pa. 211

Commonwealth v. Herman W. Mudgett, alias H. H. Holmes, Appellant

No. 136

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

March 4, 1896

Argued February 3, 1896

Appeal No. 136, Jan. T., 1896, by defendant, from judgment of O. &amp T. Phila. Co., Sept. T., 1895, No. 466, on verdict of guilty of murder of the first degree. Affirmed.

Indictment for murder. Before ARNOLD, J.

At the trial it appeared that on September 4, 1894, the dead body of a man known as B. F. Perry was found at No. 1316 Callowhill street in the city of Philadelphia in a house occupied by him, which he had rented about a month prior to this time for the ostensible purpose of an office on the lower floor for the sale of patent rights and machinery, and a residence on the upper floors.

Immediately after the discovery of the body an inquest was held and an autopsy made. The body was indentified as that of B. F Perry, and the verdict of accidental death rendered by the coroner's jury. The body was buried in the Potters' field, Philadelphia.

Some weeks subsequent to this, information was received by the Fidelity Mutual Life Association of Philadelphia that the body was not that of B. F. Perry, but was in reality that of Benjamin F. Pitezel upon whom that company had issued a policy of $10,000 which was in force at the time of his death; the beneficiary named being Mrs. Carrie A. Pitezel. It was also discovered that Herman W. Mudgett alias H. H. Holmes was acquainted with Pitezel in his lifetime. A correspondence was opened between the life association and Holmes as to the identity of the body, and upon the invitation of the association Holmes came to Philadelphia in company with one Jeptha A. Howe, an attorney from St. Louis, and Alice Pitezel, a daughter of the deceased. The body was examined and identified as Pitezel's by Holmes and Alice, and the insurance company paid the sum of $10,000 to Jeptha A. Howe who held a letter of attorney from Mrs. Pitezel.

Further facts appear by the charge to the jury, the opinion of the court below overruling the motion for a new trial and the opinion of the Supreme Court.

At the trial the commonwealth attempted to show that Pitezel had been poisoned by chloroform. The theory of the defense was that he had committed suicide. The commonwealth offered evidence tending to show that the prisoner had engaged in a conspiracy to obtain the insurance money on the life of Pitezel whom he had murdered in the furtherance of this object. It was proved that Mrs. Pitezel had been informed that her husband was not dead but that the body of another person had been imposed on the life insurance company as Pitezel's. By his influence over Mrs. Pitezel, and by means of a fraudulent claim against her husband, the prisoner obtained the insurance money. The testimony tended to show that the daughter Alice and two of the other children of Pitezel with whom Alice had been brought in contact after the identification of her father's body, were prevented by the prisoner from seeing their mother again. They disappeared one by one in different places, and their concealed and mutilated bodies were subsequently discovered. Mrs. Pitezel was taken from place to place by the prisoner's direction in the vain search for her husband.

Georgiana Yoke gave testimony without objection as to the prisoner's actions in Philadelphia at the time of Pitezel's death tending to incriminate the prisoner. She was subsequently recalled and examined by the defendant. Her later testimony showed that she had gone through a form of marriage with the prisoner on January 14, 1894, and it also tended to show that at that date the prisoner was already married to another woman. After this later evidence had been produced, defendant's counsel moved to strike out the testimony of this witness on the ground of her incompetency. This was refused by the court. [1] The court also refused to direct the jury, as requested by defendant, to disregard the testimony of Georgiana Yoke [2], and refused to say to the jury that, disregarding the testimony of this witness, there was not sufficient evidence to convict. [3]

The district attorney in his opening address to the jury said:

After this began the extraordinary work of his endeavor to hide what had taken place, and to destroy the evidence of his criminalty. Alice was there for the purpose of identifying her father's body. After this identification the body was reburied. This man took Alice Pitezel, a fourteen-year-old girl, with him to 1905 North Eleventh street, and there represented her to be his sister, and they slept in adjoining rooms. They slept in adjoining rooms! "His sister! His sister!" I will show you that he occupied that room with that little girl at 1905 North Eleventh street.

Out in the suburbs of Indianapolis a scene was enacted that would curdle the blood -- freeze the blood of the strongest man. God only knows, for I do not, how this man could do such a deed. Devils may know how he could do it, but it is beyond the ken of any human being with a heart to conceive how this poor, innocent child could have been cut and marred and burned in the big stove that we have here and will show you.

We found the remains. The remains? No, a few charred bones, some few little toys that belonged to the boy, and that the mother identifies, some parts of his clothing that the mother identifies, and a trunk that they had used in traveling -- enough to show that Howard Pitezel came to his death in that Irvington house, which this man had rented under an assumed name.

We will also show you he rented the house. We have the people from whom he rented the house here. We will show you that he rented the house under a false and fictitious name, and these people will identify him as the man who rented the house and, gentlemen, more than that, among his effects we found a key which the detective took out to Irvington and tried in the door, and it fitted the lock exactly -- the very key to the house he rented, found in his possession. He went to Detroit, but the group of children was two instead of three. He rented a house in Detroit, and in the cellar of that house we found a hole dug by him, in which he intended to have put the remains of the other two children, but something startled him from his work, for the job was not completed. This house he had rented under the assumed name of Alexander E. Cook, or A. E. Cook. He gave it up, and moved further on with his group.

To me, one of the most touching incidents of this whole tragedy occurred in this city. These almost prattling children procure paper and sit down to write letters to their mother, from whom they had been separated now for some weeks -- little, loving letters, full of pathos and full of love -- and this man takes those letters from the children, and leads them to believe he is going to mail them to the mother, whom they supposed to be away off in Galva, in the state of Illinois -- going to send these messages of love to the mother whom they want to see. But he keeps the letters. Again he overreaches himself, for the letters are found when he is arrested. Think of the heartlessness of it! Within four blocks of where those children were in this city the mother was located by him. Within four blocks was the mother yearning to see her children and the children anxious and eager to see their mother, and this man pretending to take these letters of these innocent children and send them to the mother when he knew she was within four blocks of where they were. He does not send those little loving epistles, but he keeps them, and now, gentlemen of the jury, they rise up to condemn him.

But he goes from there. He moved them in three detachments. I have said this man had a great job on his hands. He may well undertake to defend himself. I have no doubt he could do it better than any lawyer that could be found. A man who could conduct three detachments and keep each one ignorant of the movements of the others is a general, indeed. In one he had Mrs. Pitezel, Dessa and the baby. In the other he had Nellie, Howard and Alice. The three children at first, but Howard was dropped at Irvington. He burned up the remains of Howard, and, as he thought, had made detection impossible, and the few charred bones were thrust into a chimney-hole, leaving Alice and Nellie to form the second detachment; and at the same time, having a wife living in Willamette, he beguiled a pure and innocent woman into marrying him, and travelled with her in his company. I tell you, gentlemen, it is wonderful. He and this lady, Miss Yoke, formed the third detachment. Mrs. Pitezel, Dessa and the baby formed one detachment, the two children another, and Miss Yoke and himself formed the third detachment. He manages to journey with them from point to point, marshal them coming and going, keep them in control and have them within four blocks of each other and each detachment ignorant of where the other was. And assumed names by the basketful.

Now he goes to Toronto, and the house at No. 6 St. Vincent street is rented under another assumed name, and one of the detachments is now to be destroyed. The officer who went there dug the cellar of that house up, and what did he find? All that was left of Nellie and Alice. All that was left was buried there and quick-lime put with them to hasten decomposition. One detachment was wiped out. Thus far he has been successful. He had got the insurance money; he had taken away the little girl that identified her father; he had destroyed her two little companions to whom she had, no doubt, told about the father's death. Why, it may be asked, did he have Mrs. Pitezel traveling around the country with him? Gentlemen, nothing easier or plainer in the world. He had told her, poor woman, from the...