As a lover of all things historical, the stories I find myself most drawn to often include the aftermath of a historical event. One such story involves an incident and personality from the pages of Irvington history. In October of 1894, America’s first serial killer, Dr. H.H. Holmes committed one of his last murders in a quiet little bungalow on what was then the far eastern edge of Irvington. He was captured, imprisoned, convicted and hung in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on May 7, 1896. While that was the end of HIS story, it was not the end of THE story.
H.H. Holmes left behind a massive building at 63rd and Wallace in Chicago that the press dubbed “The Murder Castle.” Here Holmes tortured and killed his victims as systematically as cattle in a stockyard. Some claim that Holmes killed over 200 people; he confessed to killing 27. The 3-story building was a maze of confusing hallways with blind corners, doors that opened to brick walls and rooms that were escape proof with the only exit for guests being a greased chute leading to the basement.
The building was described in a contemporary newspaper article as: “The castle was built admirably for a murder shop. A dumb waiter ran from the third floor to the basement and there were no connections with the dumb waiter on the intervening floors. The conveyance was big enough to admit a man riding upon it. On the top floor in one of the rooms was a gigantic stove. It was eight feet high and three feet in diameter. It was an ideal stove for the burning of a human body. A person could be thrown into the stove bodily and could be burned to nothing. In the basement were quicklime vats. Bodies could be thrown in quicklime and consumed.”
Patrick Quinlan was the caretaker of that Murder Castle. Police described Quinlan as being “five feet, eight or nine inches tall, slim build with light curly hair, sandy mustache around 38-years-old” at the time. “Pat” Quinlan had done a pretty good job portraying his innocence in the dirty deeds that went on at the Murder Castle. He said that he was only an employee of arch murderer H. H. Holmes. He claimed that he was just the janitor of the Holmes Murder Castle, 701 63rd Street, Chicago, and nothing more. He admitted he had helped build the secret trap doors and lined the killing rooms with asbestos, designed to deaden the sound of dying men and women, but Quinlan insisted that he knew nothing of their purpose, and had no part in the devilish machinations of his boss.
Quinlan was only an ordinary employee who did what he was told unhesitatingly. Quinlan never questioned the authority of his boss, H.H. Holmes. He never asked who the many women were Holmes had visiting him. He never questioned why he would see them come in but never see them go out. He never asked where they went when they disappeared. He was an ideal servant. That was the face Pat Quinlan showed to the authorities and the role he played for the public, but the truth was vastly different. Pat Quinlan was playing games of his own in the Murder Castle.
Seems that the married Quinlan liked the ladies as much as his boss did and apparently held them in the same regard. In 1893, he got a chambermaid that worked at the Castle, named Lizzie, pregnant. His wife lived in Ohio, but would soon be joining her husband at the Castle in time to see the 1893 World’s Fair located a short six blocks away. As the time for his wife’s arrival drew ever nearer, heated arguments between Pat and his very pregnant mistress made Holmes aware of the problem. Quinlan asked his boss, Dr. Holmes, if he could deliver the baby and “keep it quiet so the missus don’t find out.” Quinlan’s agitation grew as Holmes paused for a long uncomfortable minute before answering, “I’ll do anything I can Pat.”
The plan to deliver the baby changed days after his revelation to Dr. Holmes. Now Lizzie threatened to tell Pat’s wife of their elicit love affair. Worse, Lizzie had already told her sister. Quinlan went to Holmes and explained the situation in an undisguised effort to take advantage of his boss’s nefarious skills he would later claim he had no knowledge of. Quinlan lured both women to a small room in a remote part of the Murder Castle. He left the two women and met Holmes in the basement where the doctor turned on the open gas jets, filling the room with the deadly invisible killing atmosphere. Within a few minutes the two sisters were dead. Their bodies were disposed of in the usual manner and without a trace. Quinlan’s problem was instantly solved and his silent loyalty guaranteed forever.
Since Quinlan did an admirable job of keeping his mouth shut while proclaiming his innocence, no one will ever know what part he played in the murders at the Castle. What we do know is that Quinlan likely remained quiet for no other reason than fear of Dr. H.H. Holmes. One of the requirements of employment with Holmes was a life insurance policy for $5,000 naming Holmes as beneficiary. Quinlan also knew that the caretaker before him was a man named Robert Latimer who tried to blackmail Holmes after learning of the insurance scams. Pat’s fellow employees told him that Latimer just disappeared one day.
On trial in Philadelphia, Holmes said this of Latimer, his 13th victim: “Robert Latimer, a man who had for some years been in my employ as janitor, was my next victim. Several years previous, before I had ever taken human life, he had known of certain insurance work I had engaged in, and when, in after years, he sought to extort money from me, his own death and the sale of his body was the recompense meted out to him. I confined him within the Secret Room and slowly staved him to death. Of this room and its secret gas supply and muffled windows and doors, sufficient has already been printed. Finally, needing its use for another purpose and because his pleadings had become almost unbearable, I ended his life. The partial excavation in the walls of this room found by the police was caused by Latimer’s endeavoring to escape by tearing away the solid brick and mortar with his unaided fingers.”
In September of 1893, one month before the close of the all-important 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, the Murder Castle caught fire in several different locations simultaneously. True to form, Holmes had insured the building with several companies for a total of $25,000 (which shakes out to $657,000 in today’s money). Investigators discovered strong evidence of a liquid accelerant used to start the blaze. The fire had not spread to the lower floors and the insurance company never paid Holmes’s claim. The fire destroyed the top floor but Holmes was never charged with arson. The fire was the beginning of the end for H.H. Holmes.
Next week: Part II — Pat Quinlan and the Ghost of H.H. Holmes.
Al Hunter is the author of the “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Haunted Irvington” and “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest book is “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.
