{"id":52380,"date":"2015-07-22T13:00:32","date_gmt":"2015-07-22T17:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?p=52380"},"modified":"2015-07-21T11:20:27","modified_gmt":"2015-07-21T15:20:27","slug":"toronto-link-americas-bloodiest-serial-killer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/07\/22\/toronto-link-americas-bloodiest-serial-killer\/","title":{"rendered":"The Toronto link to America&#8217;s bloodiest serial killer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The bodies of the children were buried under the cellar\u00a0floor.<\/p>\n<p>In a\u00a0gloomy\u00a0crawlspace beneath the\u00a0home at 16\u00a0St. Vincent St. near Yonge and College, police detective Frank Geyer of\u00a0Philadelphia pushed his shovel through a patch of soft soil. The stench that burst from the ground was overpowering.<\/p>\n<p>With the help of Alf Cuddy, a detective\u00a0from Toronto, Geyer\u00a0continued down further.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"s1\">&#8220;The <\/span>deeper <span class=\"s2\">we\u00a0<\/span>dug, <span class=\"s3\">the <\/span><span class=\"s1\">more <\/span><span class=\"s3\">horrible the <\/span>odour became,&#8221; Geyer would later write. &#8220;W<span class=\"s1\">hen <\/span><span class=\"s2\">we <\/span>reached <span class=\"s3\">the <\/span>depth <span class=\"s3\">of three <\/span><span class=\"s4\">feet, <\/span><span class=\"s1\">we <\/span><span class=\"s5\">dis<\/span>covered\u00a0<span class=\"s1\">what <\/span>appeared <span class=\"s5\">to <\/span>be <span class=\"s3\">the <\/span><span class=\"s6\">bone <\/span><span class=\"s3\">of the <\/span><span class=\"s5\">fore<\/span><span class=\"s1\">arm\u00a0<\/span>of a <span class=\"s2\">human <\/span>being.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Both immediately knew\u00a0they had found. In a picturesque little two-storey cottage set a few feet back from the sidewalk, the search for the elusive final victims of America&#8217;s most notorious serial killer\u00a0had finally ended.<\/p>\n<p>It was July 15, 1895.<\/p>\n<p>The bodies of Alice and Nellie Pitezel had been placed on top of each other. 13-year-old\u00a0Alice was the deepest. Her body was on its side, her hands facing west. Nellie, aged 11, was face down, her head pointed south and her dark plaited hair draped across her back.<\/p>\n<p>They were the\u00a0daughters of Benjamin Pitezel, a close associate of\u00a0Herman Webster Mudgett.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_52390\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-52390\" style=\"width: 700px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/07\/20150718-Holmes-Castle.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-52390 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/07\/20150718-Holmes-Castle.jpg\" alt=\"The Castle in Chicago's Englewood neighbourhood.  Holmes killed the majority of his victims there.\" width=\"700\" height=\"487\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/07\/20150718-Holmes-Castle.jpg 700w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/07\/20150718-Holmes-Castle-300x209.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/07\/20150718-Holmes-Castle-600x417.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-52390\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Castle at 601-603 W. 63rd St. in Chicago&#8217;s Englewood neighbourhood. Holmes killed the majority of his victims inside the purpose-built hotel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Born in New Hampshire, Mudgett was trained as a doctor and operated as a pharmacist in Englewood, Chicago. In the 1890s, he built a massive wood-framed hotel near the future site of the World&#8217;s Columbian Exposition, a World&#8217;s Fair held in Illinois to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus&#8217; arrival in the New World.<\/p>\n<p>The massive six-month event drew some 27 million visitors and was a critical moment in the increasingly powerful and confident\u00a0country&#8217;s\u00a0history. It featured the world&#8217;s first Ferris Wheel, among other wonders of the age.<\/p>\n<p>Holmes&#8217;\u00a0cavernous hotel, which was known locally as the Castle, was full\u00a0of unspeakable horrors. Some rooms had doors that could only be opened from the outside, others could be filled with gas to poison the occupant. A metal vault in the basement suffocated anyone\u00a0lured inside.<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0owner&#8217;s access to chloroform and other sedatives\u00a0made many of the murders\u00a0criminally easy.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the bodies were burnt, others were dissolved in quicklime. On several occasions, Holmes sold the skeletons to medial schools. His victims were sometimes guests at the hotel, sometimes his own employees, but\u00a0they were almost always\u00a0young women.<\/p>\n<p>The <em>Globe<\/em>\u00a0would later call him &#8220;a wolf in human shape.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In 1893, Holmes\u00a0devised a life insurance scam with\u00a0Benjamin Pitezel, a carpenter and close associate who had helped build the Castle. The pair took out a $10,000 policy with the Fidelity Mutual Life Association and planned to fake\u00a0Pitezel&#8217;s death and claim the money.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, Holmes really did\u00a0kill Pitezel and made the death scene look accidental.\u00a0He convinced his former colleague&#8217;s widow, Carrie, to let him take three of their children\u2014Alice, Nellie, and nine-year-old Howard\u2014to London, England, where their father was supposedly hiding out.<\/p>\n<p>The trip would be long and ultimately tragic.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_52384\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-52384\" style=\"width: 700px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/07\/20150718-Holmes-Letter.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-52384 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/07\/20150718-Holmes-Letter.jpg\" alt=\"A facsimile of Alice Pietzel's letter to her mother, in which she writes  \" width=\"700\" height=\"532\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/07\/20150718-Holmes-Letter.jpg 700w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/07\/20150718-Holmes-Letter-300x228.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/07\/20150718-Holmes-Letter-600x456.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-52384\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A facsimile of Alice Pietzel&#8217;s letter to her mother, in which she writes &#8220;Howard is not with us now.&#8221;<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Both Alice and Nellie\u00a0wrote letters to their\u00a0mother as they moved across the United States, but none ever reached home. Holmes collected them in a box marked &#8220;Property of H. H. Holmes,&#8221;\u00a0author Erik Larson recalls in his\u00a0book, <em>The Devil in the White City.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the Fidelity corporation had grown suspicious of the Pitezel insurance claim and sent a private detective to apprehend Holmes. He was found alone in Boston, where he confessed to the fraud and was transported to a jail in Philadelphia. There was no sign of the children, save for their unsent letters.<\/p>\n<p>Six months after Holmes had taken Alice, Nellie, and Howard, Det. Frank Geyer\u00a0was dispatched to find them.\u00a0He didn&#8217;t hold out much hope of finding them alive. From his cell, Holmes steadfastly claimed they were with a woman named Minnie Williams en route to their father.<\/p>\n<p>The case would have personal significance for Geyer. Just months earlier, his wife, Martha, and daughter, Esther, had died in a house fire.<\/p>\n<p>Using hotel registration books and geographical references in the letters, Geyer followed the trail to\u00a0Cincinnati and then to Indianapolis. As he traveled, the extent of Holmes&#8217; manipulation began to unfold. At one point,\u00a0he had been moving the children, Carrie, and Georgiana Yoke, his young wife, around the country separately via different hotels.<\/p>\n<p>As Larson writes, in Detroit Alice and Nellie were just blocks from their mother without being made aware of it. In one of Alice&#8217;s letters from that city, she noted, ominously, that &#8220;Howard is not with us now.&#8221;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_52389\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-52389\" style=\"width: 700px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/07\/20150718-Holmes-Shovel-Alt.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-52389\" src=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/07\/20150718-Holmes-Shovel-Alt.jpg\" alt=\"The shovel Holmes used to bury Alice and Nellie Pitezel. Det. Geyer used the same one to uncover their bodies.\" width=\"700\" height=\"492\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/07\/20150718-Holmes-Shovel-Alt.jpg 700w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/07\/20150718-Holmes-Shovel-Alt-300x211.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/07\/20150718-Holmes-Shovel-Alt-600x422.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-52389\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The shovel Holmes used to bury Alice and Nellie Pitezel. Det. Geyer used the same one to uncover their bodies.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In July, the search bought Geyer to Toronto, where he was\u00a0paired with local detective Alf Cuddy. Together they checked hotel guest books and showed real estate agents photos of the children. 120 years ago this week, they got a break.<\/p>\n<p>After days of intense media attention, Geyer and Cuddy got a tip from Toronto resident Thomas Ryves, who said\u00a0Holmes matched the description of a man who had briefly rented the house next to his on St. Vincent St.<\/p>\n<p>Ryves said the man had arrived with little furniture and borrowed a shovel to dig a hole in the basement for the storage of potatoes. Armed with the same shovel, Geyer and Cuddy made their first exploratory turns of the soil in the basement where they would find the bodies of\u00a0Alice and Nellie.<\/p>\n<p>The detectives became sure of the identify of the decomposed remains\u00a0when the son of the current tenant of\u00a016 St. Vincent St. produced a toy egg he\u00a0had found while\u00a0moving in. It was made of wood and inside was a toy snake that sprung out when the egg was opened. It matched a description of\u00a0a\u00a0toy the girls&#8217; mother had provided.<\/p>\n<p>The home owner also reported finding partially burnt girls clothing stuffed inside the chimney.<\/p>\n<p>The basement was extensively excavated, but no trace was found of Howard, the final\u00a0missing child.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_52386\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-52386\" style=\"width: 700px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/07\/20150718-Holmes-House.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-52386\" src=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/07\/20150718-Holmes-House.jpg\" alt=\"The house at 16 St. Vincent St. as it appeared in 1895.\" width=\"700\" height=\"504\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/07\/20150718-Holmes-House.jpg 700w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/07\/20150718-Holmes-House-300x216.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/07\/20150718-Holmes-House-600x432.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-52386\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The house at 16 St. Vincent St. as it appeared in 1895.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Geyer had long suspected the boy\u00a0had been murdered earlier and buried in Indianapolis, and that assertion would ultimately be\u00a0proven correct. The burnt remains of Howard, a few\u00a0pieces of jaw,\u00a0some\u00a0teeth, and a mass of organs, were found in the flue of a chimney of a property Holmes had rented. Again, it was a toy found in the house that helped police identify the young victim.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, police began searching Holmes&#8217; Englewood hotel, where they found countless bones: ribs, hips, a scapula, and vertebrae. Several of the complete skeletons Holmes had sold were also tracked down.<\/p>\n<p>It will never be\u00a0known\u00a0how many people Holmes killed, though the number may\u00a0be in excess of 200. He was convicted of the first degree murders of\u00a0Benjamin, Alice, Nellie, and Howard, and six counts of attempted murder. During his trial, Holmes\u00a0testified how he had locked the girls in a trunk and left for dinner, returning &#8220;at [his] leisure&#8221; several hours later to kill them by forcing\u00a0gas into their prison.<\/p>\n<p>He was hanged\u00a0on May 7, 1896, and buried at\u00a0Holy Cross Cemetery in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n<p>To deter grave robbers, Holmes&#8217;\u00a0coffin was encased\u00a0in 10 feet of cement.<\/p>\n<p>The Toronto<em> Evening Star<\/em> called the case\u00a0&#8220;one of the strangest stories of a life of crime and remorseless cruelty that the continent has produced.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is not possible to find in the annals of criminal jurisprudence, a more deliberate and cold-blooded villain than [Holmes,]&#8221; wrote Det. Geyer in an 1896 book detailing the case.<\/p>\n<p>Today, the home and St. Vincent St. are\u00a0gone. The residential road\u00a0became part of Terauley, then Bay St. in the early 1900s. Were the building\u00a0still standing, it would be at roughly\u00a0852 Bay, where there&#8217;s a condo tower and bagel shop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The bodies of the children were buried under the cellar\u00a0floor. In a\u00a0gloomy\u00a0crawlspace beneath the\u00a0home at 16\u00a0St. Vincent St. near Yonge and College, police detective Frank Geyer of\u00a0Philadelphia pushed his shovel through a patch of soft soil. The stench that burst from the ground was overpowering. With the help of Alf Cuddy, a detective\u00a0from Toronto, Geyer\u00a0continued<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/07\/22\/toronto-link-americas-bloodiest-serial-killer\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;The Toronto link to America&#8217;s bloodiest serial killer&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8234,"featured_media":52387,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[69,24],"tags":[22073,22074,19],"class_list":["post-52380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-curiosities","category-history","tag-h-h-holmes","tag-pitezel","tag-toronto"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Toronto link to America&#039;s bloodiest serial killer - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/07\/22\/toronto-link-americas-bloodiest-serial-killer\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Toronto link to America&#039;s bloodiest serial killer - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The bodies of the children were buried under the cellar\u00a0floor. In a\u00a0gloomy\u00a0crawlspace beneath the\u00a0home at 16\u00a0St. Vincent St. near Yonge and College, police detective Frank Geyer of\u00a0Philadelphia pushed his shovel through a patch of soft soil. The stench that burst from the ground was overpowering. With the help of Alf Cuddy, a detective\u00a0from Toronto, Geyer\u00a0continuedContinue reading &quot;The Toronto link to America&#8217;s bloodiest serial killer&quot;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/07\/22\/toronto-link-americas-bloodiest-serial-killer\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-07-22T17:00:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/07\/20150718-Holmes-Holmes.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"700\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"492\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Chris Bateman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Spacing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Spacing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Chris Bateman\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/07\/22\/toronto-link-americas-bloodiest-serial-killer\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/07\/22\/toronto-link-americas-bloodiest-serial-killer\/\",\"name\":\"The Toronto link to America's bloodiest serial killer - Spacing Toronto\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/07\/22\/toronto-link-americas-bloodiest-serial-killer\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/07\/22\/toronto-link-americas-bloodiest-serial-killer\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/07\/20150718-Holmes-Holmes.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-07-22T17:00:32+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/76eb8d2829230c3809681dd1d54d75ab\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/07\/22\/toronto-link-americas-bloodiest-serial-killer\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/07\/22\/toronto-link-americas-bloodiest-serial-killer\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/07\/22\/toronto-link-americas-bloodiest-serial-killer\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/07\/20150718-Holmes-Holmes.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/07\/20150718-Holmes-Holmes.jpg\",\"width\":700,\"height\":492,\"caption\":\"Serial killer Herman Webster Mudgett used the alias H. H. Holmes during the 1890s.\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/07\/22\/toronto-link-americas-bloodiest-serial-killer\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Toronto link to America&#8217;s bloodiest serial killer\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/\",\"name\":\"Spacing Toronto\",\"description\":\"Canadian Urbanism Uncovered  |  Toronto Architecture, Urban Design, Public Transit, City Hall, Parks, Walking, Bikes, Streetscape, History, Waterfront, Maps, Public Spaces\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/76eb8d2829230c3809681dd1d54d75ab\",\"name\":\"Chris Bateman\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/33536c8378a8d7a5852588844135dd82?s=96&d=blank&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/33536c8378a8d7a5852588844135dd82?s=96&d=blank&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Chris Bateman\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/author\/chrisbateman\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Toronto link to America's bloodiest serial killer - Spacing Toronto","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/07\/22\/toronto-link-americas-bloodiest-serial-killer\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Toronto link to America's bloodiest serial killer - Spacing Toronto","og_description":"The bodies of the children were buried under the cellar\u00a0floor. In a\u00a0gloomy\u00a0crawlspace beneath the\u00a0home at 16\u00a0St. Vincent St. near Yonge and College, police detective Frank Geyer of\u00a0Philadelphia pushed his shovel through a patch of soft soil. The stench that burst from the ground was overpowering. With the help of Alf Cuddy, a detective\u00a0from Toronto, Geyer\u00a0continuedContinue reading \"The Toronto link to America&#8217;s bloodiest serial killer\"","og_url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/07\/22\/toronto-link-americas-bloodiest-serial-killer\/","og_site_name":"Spacing Toronto","article_published_time":"2015-07-22T17:00:32+00:00","og_image":[{"width":700,"height":492,"url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/07\/20150718-Holmes-Holmes.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Chris Bateman","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@Spacing","twitter_site":"@Spacing","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Chris Bateman","Est. reading time":"7 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/07\/22\/toronto-link-americas-bloodiest-serial-killer\/","url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/07\/22\/toronto-link-americas-bloodiest-serial-killer\/","name":"The Toronto link to America's bloodiest serial killer - Spacing Toronto","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/07\/22\/toronto-link-americas-bloodiest-serial-killer\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/07\/22\/toronto-link-americas-bloodiest-serial-killer\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/07\/20150718-Holmes-Holmes.jpg","datePublished":"2015-07-22T17:00:32+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/76eb8d2829230c3809681dd1d54d75ab"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/07\/22\/toronto-link-americas-bloodiest-serial-killer\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/07\/22\/toronto-link-americas-bloodiest-serial-killer\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/07\/22\/toronto-link-americas-bloodiest-serial-killer\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/07\/20150718-Holmes-Holmes.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/07\/20150718-Holmes-Holmes.jpg","width":700,"height":492,"caption":"Serial killer Herman Webster Mudgett used the alias H. H. Holmes during the 1890s."},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/07\/22\/toronto-link-americas-bloodiest-serial-killer\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Toronto link to America&#8217;s bloodiest serial killer"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#website","url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/","name":"Spacing Toronto","description":"Canadian Urbanism Uncovered  |  Toronto Architecture, Urban Design, Public Transit, City Hall, Parks, Walking, Bikes, Streetscape, History, Waterfront, Maps, Public Spaces","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/76eb8d2829230c3809681dd1d54d75ab","name":"Chris Bateman","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/33536c8378a8d7a5852588844135dd82?s=96&d=blank&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/33536c8378a8d7a5852588844135dd82?s=96&d=blank&r=g","caption":"Chris Bateman"},"url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/author\/chrisbateman\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8234"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52380"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52392,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52380\/revisions\/52392"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}