The Architecture of Deception: Holmes’s Murder Castle

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Construction of Holmes’s World’s Fair Hotel, or better known as “The Murder Castle” in modern times, began in 1890. The building consisted of over 60 rooms and 51 oddly cut doors. By Holmes’s request, new construction workers were brought in each week so no one would know the exact layout besides him, and he refused to pay for any of the labor or materials used. Holmes used his intelligence and carefully contemplated every action to make sure it would be virtually impossible for anyone to catch him. In the top two floors of the 162 by 50 foot three story hotel there were trap doors, asphyxiation chambers, and blowtorches in the walls to torture and kill the people working in and staying at the hotel and a dissection table, crematory, and …show more content…

The first floor consisted of a drug store, candy store, jewelry store and restaurant. The second floor was a labyrinth of narrow hallways, rooms lined with sheet iron of asbestos, trap doors, and lethal gas jets. Seven feet below the building, known as the “chamber of horrors”, was a room that contained a dissecting table, torture devices, jars of poisons, a crematorium, and a wooden box that contained female skeletons. After a search of the ashes, investigators found a watch that had belonged to Minnie Williams along with a ball of hair that had been carefully wrapped in cloth. Police detectives found two naked footprints in a pile of quicklime outside of the vat of corrosive acid. Other human bones and jewelry were found that could be traced back to Holmes’s mistresses; Ned Connor was called upon to identify a bloody dress that Julia had owned, and Pearl Connor’s bones were found in a hole in the middle of the floor. Following his conviction for the death of Ben Pietzel, Holmes confessed to 30 murders and six attempted murders. However, some investigators now believe that he killed over 200 people. His trial took six days, and Holmes was eventually given the death sentence on November 30, 1895. On May 7, 1896 at 10:25 a.m., the coroner pronounced Holmes dead after being

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