In Philadelphia, Holmes carries out the life insurance scam, but not the way his partner, Benjamin Pitezel, expects. When Holmes runs into unexpected obstacles while trying to collect the life insurance money, he orchestrates a dizzyingly elaborate crosscountry trip involving the Pitezel family. Along the way, Holmes eliminates members of the family one by one.

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After Holmes flees Chicago during the World’s Fair, he briefly settles in Fort Worth, Texas before an arrest warrant causes him to flee again. In St. Louis, he and his sometime partner, Benjamin Pitezel, prepare to execute a plan to commit life insurance fraud by faking Pitezel’s death. But when the law comes knocking again, they run to Philadelphia to enact their scheme.

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Holmes supervises the construction of one of the strangest apartment buildings in Chicago. He calls it his castle. Later, reporters will call it the Murder Castle. As Holmes and the city of Chicago ramp up to the World’s Fair, a young woman and her daughter disappear from the castle. During the exposition, two more young women – a pair of sisters – disappear. Before the end of the event, Holmes goes on the run to avoid scandal and creditors.

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At a young age, Herman Mudgett knows he wants to be a doctor. But as he progresses through medical school, he strays from any kind of desire to practice medicine. He realizes he can use his medical knowledge to con people out of their money. He experiments with fraud in a small town in New York, and then makes the move to the big city of Chicago. There, he adopts his notorious alias, H.H. Holmes, and begins elaborate schemes to steal millions.

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From Jonestown to Heaven’s Gate, to the Octopus Murders and the Waco Siege, the world is full of deception, manipulation, and destruction. Listen to Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes every Wednesday as we explore the real people at the center of the world’s most shocking secrets and nefarious organizations.

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Greed and addiction fueled a chaotic and coldblooded crime on September 28, 1953. The largest ransom request in American History at the time was demanded of Kansas City’s wealthiest automobile dealer, Robert Greenlease, in exchange for his 6 year old son and namesake, Bobby Greenlease. Money wasn’t the problem and the Greenleases’ wasted no time to comply, it should have been cut and dry, but it is far from it. 

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72 year old Charles Ross was a year into his peaceful retirement after a lucrative career in real estate, followed by President of the prominent George S. Carrington greeting card company, when he found himself at the wrong place at the wrong time just outside of Chicago. John Seadlund, who’d been influenced by John Dillinger’s gang member Tommy Carroll and who had evaded the FBI for years, stole much more than Ross’s golden years leading FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to manage the investigation personally. The case would earn Seadlund the nickname “The Nation's Cruelest Criminal”.

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By the early 1900s Frederick Weyerhaeuser was known as the “Lumber King” and had amassed a fortune in the Pacific Northwest. The wealth generated from his timber empire was on par with the Rockefellers, the Carnegies, and the Vanderbilts and as it kept getting passed down to the next generation, it kept growing. But it also made his family a target, specifically his great grandson George Weyerhaeuser, in what turned out to be one of the most bizarre kidnappings in American History.

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On November 9, 1933 – 22 year old Brooke Hart, the heir to a department store fortune and San Jose’s most eligible bachelor, went missing in broad daylight. The crime obsessed kidnappers believe they have a brilliant plan to extort money from the Hart family. But it was more brutal than brilliant, and when it unraveled, no one was prepared for the reaction of the people in San Jose, California.

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The Lindbergh family discovers the fate of little baby Charlie, but it takes 2 more years for investigators to follow the ransom money to the Bronx, New York to Bruno Richard Hautmann, who they labeled the kidnapper. In January of 1935 the suspect faced a sensational trial packed with journalists and celebrities, while the general public sat by the radio hanging every word of the case being called “the crime of the century”. The frenzied trial cast serious questions about the accused kidnappers' possible guilt and continues to fuel theories and speculation today. 

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On May 21, 1927, 25 year old Charles LIndbergh became the biggest star on the planet. He advanced the travel industry to a level many doubted was possible after completing the first ever solo flight from New York to Paris in 55 hours. That should have been the most dramatic moment of any person’s life, but it wasn’t for Charles. Five years later his 20 month old son was kidnapped from his home in Hopewell, New Jersey in circumstances so bizarre they made everyone suspect, from household staff to Al Capone, and captivated the world’s attention. 

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