Is Holmes Hatch?

Herman Webster Mudgett, alias Dr. H. H. Holmes, confessed to killing 27 men, women, and children, but lawmen estimated that his actual total was as high as 230 murders. This is not enough for some people; there appears to be a movement afoot, to pin every unsolved murder of the 19th century on Dr. Holmes. Some amateur detectives are now attempting to “prove” that H. H. Holmes was also Jack the Ripper, though there is no evidence that Holmes ever left North America, and the modus operandi of the two men could not be more different (the ripper killed with a quick slash to the throat; Holmes preferred slow torture from a distance). It is also rumored that someone is trying to connect Holmes to the murder of Lizzie Borden’s parents.

Apparently, accusing Holmes of murders he did not commit, is not a new phenomenon. This article from The Fort Wayne Journal, September 1, 1895, tells of a  theory from Colorado, that Clark W. Hatch, who murdered his uncle there, was actually H. H. Holmes. The theory was effectively refuted by Yankee common sense.

IS HOLMES HATCH?
COLORADO PEOPLE HAVE WORKED OUT A STORY
THEY THINK MULTI-MURDERER HOLMES AND THE MYSTERIOUS HATCH ARE ONE AND THE SAME MAN – A HISTORY OF HATCH AND HIS CRIMES

The Sheriff’s Mistress

In the summer of 1827, George Swearingen was a hardworking, upstanding, young family man.  He and his lovely wife, Mary, had a new baby daughter. Working as clerk and deputy to his uncle, the sheriff of Washington County, Maryland, George was being groomed to take his uncle’s job.  Everything was going George Swearingen’s way; then he met Rachel Cunningham. In September the following year, George and Rachel were fugitives, running from the charge of murdering Mary Swearingen.

Edward Hovey

Little Murders:

From Defenders and Offenders:

Edward Hovey.

Edward Hovey was hanged in New York City on October 19, 1883, for the murder of his sister-in-law. The murder was unprovoked and he deserved his doom. He called at his sister-in-law’s house and after quarreling with her, shot her down in cold blood. He was so completely broken down before his execution, that he had to be dosed with whiskey, while a morphine injection was also given him.

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Defenders and offenders. New York: D. Buchner & Co., 1888.

The Great Trunk Mystery

The afternoon of August 26, 1871 a porter at the Hudson River Railroad Depot in Manhattan, noticed a disgusting odor emanating from a trunk bound for Chicago. He notified the baggage master, who ordered his men to open the trunk and find the source of the smell. They lifted the lid, removed a blanket, and found the body of a pretty, young woman, with golden hair, jammed into the trunk, naked, in a fetal position. The trunk had no address, and no one knew who had left it. The police seemed powerless to solve the “Great Trunk Mystery”