The Pitezel Family Holiday

H H Holmes, along with Ben Pitezel, hatch a plan to defraud their life insurance

Procure a cadaver and stage a deadly accident with Pitezel's life insured

He follows Holmes expressed wishes and takes work in a patent office

Unbeknownst to him his fate is sealed

Doped with alcohol, Pitezel is overpowered by Holmes and subjected to chemical burns

Carbonized tissue, acid burns corrode the flesh, features burned with fire

Recognizable no longer, the corpse is left to be discovered

A victim of heartless betrayal

Holmes is not done, the Pitezel family's suffering persists

Fifteen year old Alice Pitezel is taken away to identity her father's burnt remains, in abject grief

Two more of the children are now collected

Younger siblings, Howard and Nellie join Alice, reunited by abduction

Carrie Pitezel, the wife of the deceased, is sent to meet Ben, supposedly in biding

She's unaware of his murder

The family members are now moved around like pawns

Holmes makes his plans, sharpens his knives, and locates a secluded house

Howard is killed, dismember and buried

His remains are discarded

The remaining Pitezel family are lead around, weakening with agitation

In a chilling, devious game of cat and mouse, stalked by a predator

After some aborted attempts, Holmes searches out another quiet location

He forces the girls inside his luggage trunk, now cruelly modified

A length of rubber tube attached to a gas pipe, so they asphyxiate

With the bodies stripped naked and laid on a mattress

Holmes then digs a grave, down in the cellar, under a trap door

The two sister buried three feet down, putrefying together in death

However, soon to be unearthed

The next plain fails to work, causing an explosion from nitroglycerin to kill the poor mother

His downfall now begins, a former accomplice betrays him to the police, aggrieved by non-payment

Holmes is arrested and the lies now unravel, his travels scrutinized

Suspicions of murder

Ben Pitezel's fate revealed, along with his children

After a length hunt, discovery of their remains

Attention now turns to Holme's killings

A dramatic court case results in Holmes sentenced to death

Hanging fails to snap his neck, finally leaving him to slowly strange

With his body writing, till the last twitch of the death nerve