Original subtitles

previously on american ripper

there were at least sixty lawsuits against

holmes in chicago alone

by getting out of town he could let a lot of the heat off

if holmes is going to be jack the ripper

he needs to be the kind of killer who is comfortable

going on the road to kill

he would have to get rid of the pistol

children and on the outskirts of indianapolis howard

went first

the blade i actually believe is

jack the ripper's knife was a surgical knife

it's a doctor's knife

here i can show you what a

knife wound would look like on the rib

of a young adult female

a knife is going to leave a very thin clean cut there

if we find a bone

where we're able to identify a surgical knife has been used

then the manner of killing begins to look a lot more

like jack the rippers

howard peitzel

and his potential remains could be the answer

we got another button

oh wow i mean this is a matching set what's the white

that i'm seeing right there

that's bone

that's bone yeah so we found bone now yeah

holy

investigating the theory that the

mastermind of chicago's murder castle h h holmes

and london's infamous jack the ripper are the same man jeff

mudgett and omar alexis fox have unearthed

what may be the first new piece of evidence in the holmes

case in over a century

it's a little small

it could be a finger bone it could be a hand bone

finding physical evidence from a holmes

victim has been the white

whale of this investigation from the start

ten year old howard peitzel was one of holmes's final

victims

but only a small portion of his remains were ever recovered

the rest were scattered around the property and never found

oh oh oh amy

amy we have something

looks like something see what we have here

it's definitely bone

whoa wait a minute whoa

this is much bigger than the previous this is a bigger piece

that's a mark from being cut

that's cut that is cut so that's not

disintegration or deterioration no

well so if this is human

we found what we were looking for

we need to get this to the lab

these are bone fragments that we pulled out of the soil

we'd love your opinion

as to whether or not these would be consistent

with ten year old howard peitzel

who was killed there

over a hundred years ago

i'm sure i'd be happy to look at them

biological anthropologist page salinsky

is an expert in the identification of historical

skeletal remains

and is trained to analyze

bone for any signs of unnatural trauma

looking at this magnified image

are you able to determine what part of the body

these might have originated from

well they're

really really small fragments which makes them kind of

difficult to say a whole lot about

but they appear

most likely to be rib bone based on their texture size and

shape

that's really interesting for us to hear

because the rib cage

is one of the largest

parts of howard peitzel's body that was never recovered

exactly are you able to determine whether or not this is

human or animal bone

from a fragment of the size

i would never venture to say what kind of animal

it came from based on on this bone

we have some larger fragments

you know these have been butchered

you can see tool markings

perhaps it was chopped with a cleaver of some sort

we can do some microscopy to

enhance those tool markings

so you can see them more closely

we know that the ripper's murder

weapon was most likely a surgical knife

we also have a press account

that states that

holmes had a set of surgical knives with him in irvington

so if these are the bones of howard peitzel

and the markings were made by the same type of weapon

we could be a lot closer to proving my theory

so when you look at these images

what clues do you see as to the kind of tool that was used

probably some kind of a saw

we don't have a lot of breakage on the edge

here you can see a close up of those tool marks

from the saw blade

are you able to determine whether or not this is

human or animal bone

yeah well looking at these especially cause they're

slightly larger fragments

i can tell you for sure that these are animal

remains not human are you sure

yes i am sure positive yes they're definitely animal remains

oh that's really disappointing to hear you never hope

to find the remains of a ten year old boy

but in this case we were hoping

that some of his remains could shed light

on this unsolved case

i really thought

we had our hands on some evidence

that might actually help us link

homes to the ripper

yeah to have physical evidence from an actual holmes victim

would have been the biggest breakthrough we'd had yet

i'd really like to come back with a big enough team

that we could explore the entire property

when back in holmes's day that property was enormous

and those

historical human remains dogs are generally really accurate

it may just be that we need to excavate further

there's no doubt about that page

wasn't able to identify whether

those smaller fragments were human or not

those could have belonged to howard agreed

and once we have the resources

we should come back for a larger scale dig yeah

there is one more thing i want to check out before we leave

irvington you remember steve told us that

holmes might have left some belongings behind

when he left town

he gave me the owner's details

i think it's worth checking those out

and seeing if they could provide any additional connections

i'm gay let's go

irvington indiana

is one of the many cities homes visits while on the run

trying to cover his tracks

he arrives in october of eighteen ninety four

rents the house where he murders young howard peitzel

and leaves after just ten days

to stay one step ahead of the authorities

how old would these boxes have been

one of them is has a date on of eighteen eighty

irvington tour guides al and ronda hunter

are in possession of a mysterious box of artifacts

given to them thirteen years ago by a local couple

they believe the contents of the box

may have belonged to holmes

and were left behind in his rush to flee town how do we

know that this is connected with homes

all this stuff was loose in the boxes

and there were a couple things in here that i believe

um point to

a connection with holmes

most importantly if you look on the back

the fourth name down on the right at the top

should be very familiar to you hermann webster mudgett

this is holmes's commencement

pamphlet from his graduation at the university of michigan

it came in this envelope

have no idea who wrote that interesting

the commencement program

links this collection with

the graduating class of

holmes's medical school

which definitely narrows things down

this obviously having

holmes's name h w midget handwritten at the top

would seem to narrow it down even more it's really eerie

to be face to face

with artifacts that could have belonged to holmes himself

and if they're genuine

they could be critical

pieces of evidence for our investigation

but this could also be the stash of a homes

collector so i'm not drawing any conclusions yet

there is one account

on august twenty eighth eighteen ninety five

that talks about

his pension for photos and photo collecting

while he was here in irvington

the man also rented a lock box at the post office

and received a great amount of mail

the greater portion of it being photographs and

tin type pictures

that's fascinating this entire box is nothing but photos

there's only a few in here

that had been identified

the one that i like and probably you would recognize

you know what without even looking at the back

i recognize this man

this is

quinlan that's holmes's assistant at the murder castle

this is the best photograph

highest quality of him i've ever seen

i've seen artist depictions and

sure enough pat pat quinlan

that was the man

down in the basement assisting holmes committing murder

holmes had at least two accomplices at the murder castle

the first was ben peitzel

his partner in scams and eventual victim

the other was pat quinlan who worked as a sort of caretaker

it's believed that when holmes

tried to burn down the murder castle in eighteen

ninety three to collect the insurance money

it was quinlan that started the fire

there are other things in here that uh

you know i have no explanation for

would love to get an explanation for it they're very

frightening looking

were these framed when they

no i put them in there just to segregate them i mean

they're scalps

they'll still cut

huh well and it obviously shows a lot of use

the the blade has been

nicked it appears from maybe bone or something hard

well ali you just caught my eye

this was made in sheffield england wait england

this was made in sheffield england

england

at the irvington historical society jeff and omarilis

discover what appeared to be nineteenth

century surgical tools among a collection of artifacts

that may have belonged to the infamous

con man and murderer h h holmes

i think what we need to look into further

is just how standard issue these are is this something that

every doctor on both sides of the atlantic would carry

or is this something

that really could serve as a tie between the ripper

murders in london

and holmes's killings

this was the pathological

department of central state hospital

which opened in

eighteen forty eight as the indiana hospital for the insane

executive director of the indiana medical history museum

sarah halter specializes in early medical history

it was the first state mental hospital in indiana

jeff and omarilis

are here to investigate

whether the origins of the newly discovered artifacts

might reveal a link

between holmes and jack the ripper

sarah tell me what this instrument would be used for

um it's it's probably a lancet

lancets were used for bloodletting

they were used to make incisions like scalpels

were but not for surgeries

so we see here the words sheffield in

england on this land set

and so we were curious as to whether british made

medical instruments were commonly sold in the united states

or whether this might

be interpreted

as some kind of circumstantial

evidence that holmes might have traveled to england

during the time

well some may have been sold in the united states

but there were plenty of instrument makers here in the us

who could supply the doctors here so most

medical instruments

that were purchased here would have been made here

steel manufacturing is booming in post civil war america

as the expansion of the railroads

increases demand for the metal

and the invention of the bessemer process

makes it cheaper to produce

american made

surgical tools begin to hit the market in the eighteen

thirties

by eighteen ninety foreign imports are increasingly rare

so this could indicate that holmes

had purchased this instrument in the uk

if it did in fact belong to him it could wow

if this box of artifacts did belong to holmes

then the fact that these medical tools were made

and probably purchased in england is a big deal it could be

circumstantial

evidence that holmes purchased them there

and brought them back with him

when he returned to the united states

jeff i think we've done all we can do here in indiana

absolutely i'd like to learn how holmes was finally caught

holmes was in his way a very remarkable individual

if he hadn't been so

psychologically

warped he could have been a great success in business

to uncover the details of holmes's final months on the run

jeff and amarellis meet with harold schechter

a holmes author and researcher

specializing in serial killers

how did he finally get tripped up

well holmes's downfall really begins

even before he murders

the children and actually even before he murders

benjamin peitzel

by october of eighteen ninety four

holmes secretly eliminates

four of the seven members of the peitzel family

but as holmes

plots the murder of peitzel's wife

and two remaining children

it's already too late

because of a fatal mistake he makes three months earlier

he had been on his wedding tour

with georgiana his third wife

and they were in st louis and holmes couldn't resist

pulling off some petty scam

and ended up in jail

and it turned out his cellmate

was a very notorious bank robber named marion hedgepeth

holmes spends just ten days in jail before

georgiana posts bail

but in that short time with hedgepath he confides his plan

to partner with ben peitzel in an insurance scam

holmes reveals his secret

because he's looking for help

he agrees to cut hedgepath in on the profits from the scam

in exchange for an introduction to a corrupt lawyer

whom holmes needs to carry out the plot

but holmes never pays the five hundred dollars he promises

and when hedgepath reads about the discovery of

peitzel's body

in the papers

he gets revenge by tipping off the insurance company

the man hunt for holmes begins

just as he's racing to cover his tracks

so walk us through the chronology here

holmes has picked up the insurance money

he's got the piesold children he leaves philadelphia

what happens next holmes

begins this very torturous odyssey he takes the children

from one place to another

and he's actually planning

on killing them in different places

the insurance company wasn't

equipped to launch you know this full out manhunt for homes

for that they turned to the pinkertons

in the eighteen

nineties the pinkerton detective

agency is the country's largest private law enforcement

organization

known for its nationwide security and communications network

the pinkertons are so effective at hunting criminals

that they're hired to provide president

lincoln's private security during the civil war

and the term private eye is coined as slang for their logo

the all seeing eye

so the pinkertons are put on holmes's trail

from indiana he goes to detroit and then

he takes the two remaining girls to toronto

and in toronto he murders the two girls alice and ellie

the pinkertons finally do pick up his trail the pinkertons

did some kind of canvassing

of the steamship offices and confirmed that

holmes has plans to take georgiana

his wife to boston

and get on a steamer to london london

we've seen steamship records of a man called holmes

traveling from london

during the time of the jack the ripper killings to go back

is definitely noteworthy

yeah it's a place he was familiar with

so what happens when he arrives in boston as soon as

holmes set foot in

in boston the pinkertons are waiting and they nabbed him

and he has taken to philadelphia

to be tried for insurance fraud yes

meanwhile the police in chicago

have entered into the castle

and discover evidence of

mass slaughter this reinforces

that holmes is a much much more dangerous character

than anybody had previously suspected

they find the incinerated remains

of howard

in this large stove

and ultimately the two bodies of the girls in toronto

and across at that point holmes is identified

as the most monstrous killer of his age

this is where h h holmes was tried for murder

wow this is the place

the murder trial of the century happened

h h holmes is ultimately put on trial for a single crime

the murder of benjamin peitzel

jeff and amarilis meet with historian thomas rowan

in the philadelphia courtroom

where the trial begins in october of eighteen ninety five

this was the oj simpson trial of its time

it was a media circus

newspapers from across the country were here

they were all in attendance

for the home trial

fill in for us how he landed here

with the nation's media watching him be tried for murder

when he comes in the courtroom to face the judge

he is in his full suit

he is wearing gold watch gold jewelry

he was trying to shape

his image in the public and

in the prosecution that he could not have been a killer

he was a nice guy

so what happened then it starts to turn

the prosecutors

bring several key witnesses to testify against holmes

including mrs peitzel

who breaks down in tears

as she explains how he convinced her to leave

her children in his care

his defense starts to wane

he starts to lose control of the trial

in some of the headlines he starts to grow pale

you can physically see the end coming

the most

damning testimony comes from holmes's wife georgiana yoke

who has just learned holmes has two other wives

she testifies that on the night of peitzel's murder

holmes demands that they immediately leave philadelphia

and in the end that's what nails him yes so after a week

he's sentenced to die

and until the end he has

worked the press and he has manipulated the newspapers

he can't stop playing that game

after the trial

he was able to sell his confession to

hearst newspapers

for seventy five hundred dollars which in today's money is

what like almost a quarter of a million dollars

yes so he copped to twenty seven murders

but in hindsight

several of the murders he claims

the people were still alive

right you couldn't believe a word out of his mouth

following holmes

execution you would think that was the end of the media

circus but have you ever heard of the holmes curse no so

following his death some strange occurrences

were attributed to holmes's supernatural ability

to reach beyond the grave

and cause some chaos i've researched this

a lot of people involved with the case

mysteriously died after the execution

do you believe that

that's a difficult question

but i collected a whole bunch of articles

that i think you might find interesting

thank you thomas of course

i mean that man could sell newspapers

holmes relished media attention much like the ripper

it's an incredibly

striking similarity between these two killers

jack the ripper gives himself a name it sticks in the press

creates all of the mythology that has grown up around him

well and just look at holmes his very own confessions

it's really striking

how they relish the spotlight and how masterful

they were at creating their own narrative in the press

that's why i find the stuff that thomas

gave us about the holmes

curse so interesting the story

of holmes coming back from the grave and exacting

retribution on the people who had convicted him

but when you go through the list of people

that were involved

in the holmes trial

we have the prison superintendent

who supposedly shot himself

we have the judge dying of a mysterious illness

a juror is electrocuted a witness

dies in a freak accident

and they find the priest who gave

holmes his last rites dead in a basement

people involved in his arrest

his trial his execution his burial

and all of a sudden they're

either dead or suffering terrible misfortune

it's a list of coincidences that is simply amazing

in fact i think it's too amazing to be a coincidence

and our work over the past six months

has only strengthened my conviction

i think the holmes curse is compelling evidence

that holmes escaped

his death and execution on that may day wait what

i think the holmes curse is compelling evidence

that holmes escaped

his death and execution

and the investigation

that you and i have been conducting these past few months

has only made that belief stronger than ever

at the age of thirty four

master swindler h h

holmes is convicted for the murder of benjamin peitzel

and sentenced to hang

he is executed on may seventh eighteen ninety six

but in the months following his death

numerous people associated with the trial

die or disappear under mysterious circumstances

the press dub it the holmes curse

you're telling me that he faked his own death

in front of the media

and law enforcement at

moya mensing prison that day okay but give me this

was he not the master manipulator

sure could he not con

anyone around him yeah so it's possible

holmes faked his own death

i mean i grant you this is a whole lot of misfortune but

other than a few newspaper articles that suggest people

involved with his trial

died of unnatural causes

what other evidence do you have

that holmes could have faked his own death if holmes

was the ripper as i believe and ripper killings continued

after his execution

we can go a long way to establishing holmes escaped

and in my research

i've found some reports of ripper style killings

after eighteen ninety six that sound

a lot like what we've been uncovering in our investigation

i've known about the theory that holmes

escaped his death for a long time

but i've never believed in it as much as i do now

now that we've uncovered what a master con artist

holmes really was

i mean the media reports of the time

have been pretty helpful so far

i'm highly skeptical here but let's see what you've got

the idea that

holmes could have

bribed or coerced his way out of his own execution

just at the moment where all eyes were on him

seems pretty far fetched

but as an investigator i don't want to disregard a lead

however tenuous

so often it's the unexpected details that solve a case

okay so here's one a woman is mutilated

this is from 1906

body horribly

slashed and dismembered jack the ripper method used

at six second street new york

well we know that there have been ripper style killings

there associated with holmes's travel in the past

okay so here's another one from 1908

yeah a jack the ripper murder in chicago

woman murdered in london this is 1902

evidence of crime were calling jack the ripper found

in poor quarter of lambeth

canadian jack the ripper this was in 1900

one woman killed and two others attacked in toronto well

holmes has a connection in toronto

it's pretty striking that

each of these are

jack the ripper

style murders after holmes's execution

in cities that holmes has a link to

but to me this isn't enough evidence i'm gonna need more

to take from this that holmes

faked his own death and walked around

killing all of these people

after the world thought he'd been executed

what about the batty street lodger

there's a detail in that eyewitness report

you're talking about

the baddie street landlady who saw an american doctor

return to the lodging house

with bloody cuffs

and then saw that same american doctor again

twenty five years later

right if holmes wasn't executed in eighteen ninety six

then that detail suddenly makes a lot more sense

i'm not completely

convinced about this line of investigation

twenty five years is a long time

and i'm not sure that the eyewitnesses

recognition would be a hundred percent at that point

but what does intrigue me is

if jeff's theory is correct and

holmes is the ripper and he escaped his own death

chances are he continued killing after eighteen ninety six

which means potentially more opportunities

to find physical evidence to link the two men

so while i think this is a long shot

i'm gonna remain open minded

i'd really like to understand

what the security protocols

at the prison even were a hundred twenty five years ago

whether there was maybe

holes in the security that were easy for somebody

as intelligent and charming as homes to exploit

well there's one thing that's for sure

he was a master

manipulator and if anyone could have done it it was h h

holmes

hh holmes got

condemned to death in november of eighteen ninety five

capital punishment was fairly rare

philadelphia's moyamensing prison

where hh holmes is incarcerated and allegedly executed

stands for more than one hundred years before its demolition

in nineteen sixty eight

to investigate what it would take to escape a

nineteenth century prison

jeff and amiralis visit the historic eastern state

penitentiary a prison of similar design to moya mensing

how many people

from say when holmes got up in the morning of his execution

would come in contact

with his body

so there would have been

the person who brought him his breakfast

he met with his priest before he was executed

we know that there were newspapermen

the guards taking him out of his cell

there were other prison officials

so

dozens of people would have come into

contact with him that day

i know also there were quite a few observers

to holmes's execution

yes i read as many as two hundred people were there

hangings

in the late eighteen hundreds were kind of public affairs

but people

who went on to the gallows who were executed often had

hoods on so their face was obscured

did your readings

indicate that holmes had been hung with the hood on or not

the articles that i've read indicate that he was hung

with a hood on

so theoretically

he could have paid off someone to take his place

it seems like a pretty wild theory

did you also find out anything about whether an autopsy

was conducted after the execution holmes

specifically stated

he did not want an autopsy taken on his body

and that was approved by the superintendent

and that was approved and so there was never an autopsy

holmes specifically stated he did not want an autopsy taken

and that was approved by the superintendent

and that was approved

at eastern state penitentiary

jeff and amiralis are investigating a theory that suggests

notorious swindler and murderer h h holmes

may have pulled off the ultimate con

and escaped his hanging in 1896

what happened to the body typically after an execution

some prisoners were brought out and buried in

potter's fields or in cemeteries

the story with holmes

is that he was brought out and he was buried in a cemetery

was it possible to escape a prison like moya mensing

it was and in fact there were escapes

can we take a look at what it's like inside sure

generally were the guards here

honest and above board or were they on the take

a lot of the guards would have been working class guys

they weren't getting paid a lot of money

so a little extra cash

from a prisoner could have gone a long way

for the year and a half that holmes is in prison

he's in his cell

twenty three hours a day or so

what's he spending his time on

we can presume that he spent a lot of time in solitude

reflecting on his life

writing his confessions

him being allowed to have

writing implements and journalists coming to see him

letters coming in the mail

that's something that a regular prisoner

and everyday prisoner

probably would not have gotten

and probably a privilege granted

to him because of his status as a quote unquote celebrity

it's amazing to imagine

one of these tiny cells being used

kind of is his

pr headquarters with journalists coming and going

to create and build on this nationwide brand

all out of one of these prison cells

yeah there's actually a rumor that

he made a confession that was

recorded in this very primitive audio recording device

of his voice of his voice

wow confessing to multiple murders

we've got to look that up

i never imagined that i'd be able to hear

the actual voice of my great great grandfather

and someone with

an ego like holmes may have boasted about anything

in his final confessions maybe even

about the crimes that link

him to london in eighteen eighty eight

well if we're able to get our hands on that recording

and your theory is correct

then we'll be hearing the voice of jack the ripper

echoing through a hundred and twenty five years of history

i mean i'm incredibly excited

well do you know how we could get a hold of this recording

this collector

supposedly has this recording

whether or not it's an authentic recording

remains to be seen

why don't you see if you can

track down that lead and in the meantime

i'm gonna do some research on how

holmes might have orchestrated an escape

this particular cylinder

was introduced at the end of nineteen twelve

and was in production till nineteen twenty nine

audio recording technology

is in its infancy in the late nineteenth century to capture

h h holmes's jailhouse confession

would have required a cylinder phonograph

with a special needle to etch sound waves onto

wax cylinders

jeff has tracked down a professor

who owns a priceless collection of the world's earliest

cylinder recordings

i've been told

that you have a recording of my great great grandfather

h h holmes it's a

distinct possibility

as a collector myself i used to buy

old boxes of records and in one of those

boxes i came across a record that was unlabeled

i played the record

and it sounded like a man

confessing to killing

twenty seven people

i'm obviously

incredibly interested in hearing my ancestors

voice on the recording is there any chance

i could listen to it here today

investigating the theory that h h holmes

assumed the identity of jack the

ripper in eighteen eighty eight jeff mudgett

has tracked down

what may be a primitive audio recording of his great

great grandfather's final confession

the record itself is too fragile

it could easily crack while playing

so i do have a fairly accurate transcript

during the past few months

it has been repeatedly expressed that i make a detailed

confession

of all the graver crimes that have been traced out

and brought home to me

i am not sorry for it would not do any good for me

i regret only one murder

and that was of minnie williams

because i think i loved her

wow

well it's done now and i think i made a good job of it

i was born with the devil in me

and i cannot help the fact that i was a murderer

no more than the poet can help the inspiration to a song

i was born with the evil one standing beside the bed

when i was ushered into the world

and he has been with me ever since

wow

i don't have any doubt it's his his words

what moves me most

is

how closely it connects

to his memoirs

and also of the literature used in the dear boss letter

in london jack the ripper fame

in this confession holmes says

it's done and i think i made a good job of it

and in the ripper's eighteen eighty eight

dear boss letter to the press he wrote

grand work the last job was

both killers talk about their murders as their work

and brag about the good jobs they've done

the language is eerily similar well

one also gets the feeling that if he had another chance

to do it all over again

he'd probably kill her again and regret it again

so i did some research on this theory that

holmes escaped his own death

and found some reports that are worth checking out okay

in a conversation with a mercury reporter

mr warner said that holmes

was never hanged in reality

but through the wonderful

craftiness that distinguished him all during his life

finally managed to elude the gallows

and have himself hanged by proxy

in the person of a poor and struggling physician

from an interior town of new york

l w warner he was the business partner of h h holmes

he was associated with the warner glass company

he'd known holmes professionally for years

so he's a pretty credible source

take a look at this

is h h holmes

alive robert latimer says the great criminal was not hanged

robert latimer

that's one of the twenty seven that holmes

confessed to murdering

and some believe a

co conspirator

with holmes on some of the frauds he committed in chicago

so he was one of the twenty seven

holmes confessed to murdering

but we're actually still alive he was alive

based on this article

he says that holmes escaped in a coffin

and claims that a cadaver was substituted at the execution

which frankly isn't that outrageous because we know the sale

of his book of confessions

had given him three hundred

thousand dollars in today's money

in other words a bribe

in the nineteenth century

it is not typical to grant convicted murderers

any special favors

but holmes is no ordinary prisoner the sale

of his confessions makes him the wealthiest death row

inmate in the country

and his trial makes him a celebrity

but despite the extensive press coverage

no one knows for sure what happens to holmes' money

after the trial

uh okay well here he outlines

arrangements for the mock execution

we're talking about a major conspiracy

if this is actually how he pulled it off

as the clergymen and officers in charge

crowded in front of the law's victim

for a few brief moments the condemned

man was completely screened

from the view of the little knot

of witnesses on the prison floor

and the living man

stepped off into the space beneath the platform

as the dead man was hastily lifted into his place

and holmes is crouching underneath the scaffold

hiding from view in order to be smuggled out

there may not be that many accounts

but these two sources are pretty credible

and the stories they're telling

corroborate one another and mention

techniques that we've seen homes use in the past

i want to understand

what kind of security measures were in place

or whether there are any records

that could help us understand

whether the body

was identified again once it reached the cemetery

you want to go out to the cemetery

i think it's our best bet

to understand

whether he actually could have pulled this off

the coffin of h h holmes

is transported about six miles from

moya mensing prison to a nearby cemetery on may seventh

eighteen ninety six

and buried on the site the following day

the cemetery was opened in eighteen ninety

so that would make it a hundred

and what twenty seven years old

and there's a lot of people buried here

jeff and amirilis are here to uncover

details about the alleged final

resting place

of america's first serial killer

this looks like serious business

this is the burial register

on may seventh we have a

herman w mudge

his estate purchased

two graves and they buried him

in the center of both of those graves

but is it unusual for one person to purchase two plots

it's very unusual

there had to be a reason

is it unusual for one person to purchase two plots

it's very unusual

there had to be a reason and we think because

of what he wanted to do

running down the theory that h h

holmes may have pulled off one of his greatest

cons by escaping his execution jeff and

amaryllis access rare records

housed at the cemetery where

holmes is said to have been laid to rest this is the

interment ledger this is the book that's

has detail of the sections

okay this is section fifteen and sixteen

the documents contain a first hand account

of holmes's last requests

regarding his burial

according to this record

they dug this grave at ten foot

and they lowered him down and and poured

cement on top of him wait wait

it it's noted here that his grave was covered in cement

that's what i'm reading i mean that's wild

have you ever seen that happen in another case

can't say that i have

but they were uh apparently they were his instructions

the depth of the grave

ten feet is that unusual well

it's kind of deep

yeah usually typically it would be an eight foot grave

why do you suppose

you would line

a grave with cement i can come up with two reasons off hand

one he didn't want anyone robbing his grave two

he didn't want anything

found there that he was concerned about

at this time

prisoners on death row were largely from the lowest

social class and usually ended up in a potter's field but

holmes's money and murderous charm

meant that he was granted every bizarre

request for his internment which was unheard of at the time

well this is a very unusual

burial top to bottom for sure definitely

you have the double

plot you have the depth you have the concrete on top

you've got space on either side

every one of these records

raises more questions than it answers

do you think we could go out

and actually take a look at the site itself sure

this is it

there's no headstone no headstone

according to the records mudget purchased

graves three in that lot

and four okay and he is supposed to be

smack dab in the middle of the two graves

with the concrete

poured on top of it directly in the center

directly in the center

here's somebody who

has spent his entire life trying to put his name in lights

was this his way of hiding a secret

about his execution and actual burial

the only way i'm going to find out if h

h holmes escaped death and may actually be jack the ripper

is to see what if anything is buried here

wait are you talking about actually taking a

shovel to the ground and digging up your great great

grandfather there's

there's something here that bothers me

there's something that doesn't make sense

and i think we need to look deeper

that's a huge step

we've got to put a shovel

to this we've got to dig into the ground

on the season finale of american river

they did find something interesting

this is elizabeth stride

we are a huge step closer

to nailing down that holmes was jack the river

you think we could be looking at backbone right there

we haven't found a body

and we're down to levels where it should be

there there there there there there there

i can't believe i'm saying this jeff but

i think the bastard might have walked away