rosemary connors: newspapers called him the greatest criminal in history, capturing hollywood's attention too. male: i was born with the devil in me. rosemary: brought to justice in philadelphia more than 100 years ago. matt lake: he was notorious, absolutely. rosemary: but now, only the nbc10 investigators reveal a new chapter unfolding right now in this sleepy delaware county cemetery. male announcer: "nbc10 @issue" starts now. rosemary: good morning, i'm rosemary connors for "nbc10 @issue." the infamous murderer who was known as h.h. holmes. his descendants have begun a push for new answers about his death. and as investigative reporter george spencer found out, delaware county has become ground zero in solving this mystery. george spencer: he's been called america's first serial killer.

described at the time as a case without known parallel, a case that author matt lake says philadelphia broke wide open. matt: we caught him and we got the body, yeah. he'd have gotten away with it too if it weren't for those darn philly kids. george: most of h.h. holmes' notoriety centers in chicago, around the site of what's now this us post office. it was there, in 1889, that he built his famous murder castle hotel ahead of the city's world fair, a castle full of secret chutes and gas chambers. some who arrived were never seen again. matt: he'd wind up putting them into an airtight room and turning a gas on in there until they suffocated. george: experts believe holmes made big money selling his victim's body parts and swindling their insurance. and in 1894, holmes brought his swindling to philadelphia and this corner of 13th and callowhill. it was here, lake says, that greed finally

got the best of him. in his scheme to get insurance money, he killed his business partner, making it look like an accident. but a philadelphia investigator uncovered his scam and holmes was arrested, leading to the discovery of his heinous crime. newspapers covered his trial daily right here in city hall, and the philadelphia inquirer's publisher paid him for his confession, a total of 27 murders he claimed. as holmes sat in the moyamensing prison, now the site of this south philly acme on passyunk, lake says, "eager crowds gathered just to be near the execution. matt: this was the crime of the century as far as everybody here was concerned. george: but as soon as the hanging was over, news stories swirled, questioning whether he might still be alive. matt: maybe he faked his death. george: and that theory is where holmes' story is being dug up again, more than 100 years later, in the holy cross cemetery in yeadon, where his family wants to know

if he was actually buried in a block of cement in an unmarked grave. the nbc10 investigators discovered this petition to exhume holmes' body, filed by his great-grandchildren and signed by a judge in march. it says, "family lore indicates that holmes managed to escape through some subterfuge, and that someone else was hanged and buried at the gravesite. the university of pennsylvania anthropology department will attempt to extract dna from the remains. forensic scientist arthur young is not involved, but tells us, "as long as those remains were relatively protected, the anthropologists should be able to find usable samples in a remaining tooth or bone." and with that dna, a century-old question can be answered once and for all: was holmes' execution his biggest swindle of all? matt: it's going to be really exciting to find out.

rosemary: joining me now is nbc10 investigative reporter george spencer. george has been on top of this story for months. you join us with some new developments, so what's the latest? george: yeah, it's been an interesting one, rosemary. this is a story that's attracted so much attention, you know? and since we first aired that story, people have kind of come out of the woodwork, and everybody with their own sort of connection to this story. perhaps the most interesting, though, is this--was this family we spoke to from south jersey who came forward, emailed us through our website, said, "we actually have a family bible that was signed by h.h. holmes, dated the day of his execution." this family bible has an inscription in it that appears to have been written by holmes right before he was led to the gallows. their connection, as a philly family, longtime philly family, they have an ancestor who was a catholic priest, who apparently worked at the catholic parish that's directly around the corner from what was the site of the moyamensing prison,

now that acme down in south philadelphia that a lot of people even shop at. so, he was this catholic priest, and they imagined that he ministered to a number of the inmates there at the moyamensing prison, you know, 100 plus years ago. and h.h. holmes was just one of the prisoners that walked through there during his time, you know? although he had this major connection to america's--you know, america's first serial killer, this major connection to a murder spree, and their relative who owned this bible originally probably ministered to holmes in his final days. rosemary: wow, so what does the inscription say? george: the inscriptions is asking basically--some of it's hard to make out, which is sort of a fascinating element. it's a little different than other pieces of holmes' handwriting that we saw, although it is quite clearly written by him. you kind of get the heaviness of his final days, even in the way he's writing there. but it's a short inscription basically asking this priest to pray for his soul.

you know, writing to the--father daley was his name, "you know i'm going to be departing earth soon, in a matter of hours," you know, "i pray that--i ask that you pray for my eternal salvation." and so, imagine this south jersey family, they're, of course, they're cleaning out books from a deceased relative, and they come across this bible, they just think it's a family bible. they open it up, there's some newspaper clippings inside, and they put two and two together, and they realize this is probably the final written word of america's first serial killer. rosemary: an incredible find, and what seems to be quite a departure from, obviously, his life. george: right, you know, that's sort of what caught their attention was this narrative around holmes of being this remorseless serial killer. this is a guy who, as we mentioned in the story, confessed in a paid confession killing up to 27 people. no one knows exactly what the true number was, but this is a guy who went through his life, i mean, he was not

only a killer, he was a swindler too, you know? he made money off of this lengthy career of killing people, insurance scams, all sorts of scams. so, he was seen as a pretty remorseless guy and a guy who lied up until the very end. so, there's a question of, you know, does this final request for forgiveness and this inscription in the bible, does that show he changed in his final hours, or was it yet another kind of lie to, you know, try and get the priest on his side right before he's taken to the gallows? rosemary: speaking of right before he's taken to the gallows, was he taken to the gallows? george: the big question, right? so, that's the question that's being explored by his descendants right now, and it's a question that, as of yet, we still don't have the answer to. the dna test that is intended to answer this fundamental question, did he swindle his way out of his own execution, we don't have those results yet, but that's obviously the question that everyone is still hanging on in terms of figuring

out, how did this story actually end? rosemary: what else do we know about his personal life? was he married? did he have close family in philadelphia? george: you know, he was seen as kind of a popular guy in the beginning, hard as it is to believe. when upon first meeting, he was one of those sort of charismatic type figures who was able to make friends quickly. unfortunately, at least for many of the women in his life, it didn't end well, especially during his chicago period. these would be women who he'd kind of charm on the front end of things, either romantically or ask them if they needed a job working at his, you know, his so-called murder hotel in chicago, offer them work. and, you know, so he was charismatic on the front end and started relationships with a number of the women who he later murdered. so, he did marry a couple of times, often, you know, trying to get money out of it ultimately. so, continuing sort of his reputation as a swindler. but he moved around the country, and he only really ended up in philadelphia running from his other

scams, if that makes sense. rosemary: george, do not go anywhere. in just a minute, we'll be joined by writer matt lake. matt edited a book of h.h. holmes' writings and journals. but first, tomorrow is memorial day. of course, we can't forget that. how much do you know about this day of remembrance? memorial day used to be called something else. do you remember the original name? find out if you're right when we come back.

rosemary: before the break, we asked if you knew what memorial day was originally called. if you answered decoration day, you are right. now, back to our discussion about the notorious h.h. holmes. he's been called america's first serial killer, tried and convicted right here in philadelphia. joining me again is nbc10 investigative reporter george spencer, and local writer matt lake. matt edited the book "holmes: a serial killer in his own words." it's a book of the writings, letters, and journals of h.h. holmes.

matt, thanks for joining the conversation. matt: pleasure to be here. rosemary: so, matt, we'll start with you. the grandson of h.h. holmes believes that he was jack the ripper, what do you believe? matt: well, jeff, mind you, has--he was--he's done a great deal of investigation into this. he's dug up a lot of convincing arguments. it's really hard to tell. it's entirely possible. he's made some very convincing arguments to that effect. there are other convincing arguments to the effect that when he mentions london, for example, when h.h. holmes mentioned london, it could be london, ontario. he spent a lot of time in ontario. in fact, he committed two of his final murders there in toronto. so, you know, for every argument he makes, there's a counterargument. george: it's a pretty fabulous narrative, but there are a lot of questions i think you and i have talked about, matt, about how realistic it was, especially imagine this is not the day of plane travel, you know? this is in the, what, late 1800s, right? so, there are questions about how realistic it was somebody could have made it from chicago to london,

committed all of these acts as jack the ripper in london, made it back to the united states. it would have been a pretty tight timeline, i think. matt: it's true, his stomping ground really was the northeastern united states and into canada. so, it would be unusual for him to stray out. the timeline does work, it does work. but realistically, you know, this was his stomping grounds. rosemary: here's my question: if he's going to sell his confession, i mean, you'd seemingly want to sell a confession of 27 murders compared to 2 murders, correct? george: right, and the question i think that also behind that is this, why sell your confession while you're in jail, right? what are you going to do with that money? and matt, i mean, i know you have ideas about it. this guy was a guy who liked money, matt, right? i mean, he was always, all of his crimes, even, i mean, we know him as a murderer, but he was a swindler kind of from the beginning. matt: that's right, yeah, he was--he didn't--he had no remorse about killing, but he didn't enjoy it. he enjoyed making money.

most of his murders were related to he would sign a deal, get people's money off them, and then, you know, "let's walk into this room here and have a celebratory drink. he'd slam the door and he would turn on the gas. gassing was his modus operandi, airtight rooms where he would suffocate people so that it was--he didn't have to get his hands dirty. he seemed to be that kind of a guy. after they died, he would render their skeletons down and sell their skeletons to doctor's offices. george: always making money. matt: it's all about the cash. rosemary: so, in terms of this remorseful letter to the priest who gave him the bible, do you believe that he had a change of heart? matt: it reads very sincerely. he thanks father daley for all his work in saving him from eternal damnation. he asks father daley to pray for his soul after he died. but he was a people pleaser. yeah, this is the kind of thing that would make father daley feel good about himself, and that was really what he did,

with a profit motive usually. but it was force of habit. this man--this is default mode, let's charm people. rosemary: mm-hmm, in terms of the family, the descendants of h.h. holmes, have you gotten any sense of what they believe and why this is important to sort of, for lack of a better word, unearth-- matt: this is breaking news, this part about the bible is, you know, so it's been out in the air for about a week now. and so, i'm not sure that-- george: the family just revealing that detail about having this bible and sort of the final artifact, that's very recent. i think in terms of holmes' family and considering that there's definitely--there remains some financial incentive in all of this, wouldn't you say, matt? to bring the holmes story--there's tremendous interest in this story. and so, there is capitalizing on the possible narratives around whether or not he actually died, whether he might have been jack the ripper.

there's profit to be made in a story that has really captured people's imaginations. rosemary: so, in terms of h.h. holmes', as you put it, rendering down these skeletons and bodies, did he have any medical training, i mean? matt: he was, his original name was mudgett, a great name. but he was a medical doctor. he trained as mudgett as a medical doctor. and then he had many aliases, but he did most of his business as h.h. holmes. and so, yeah, he was a trained doctor, he knew what he was doing. and part of the medical connection was that he would take out life insurance policies on people. and as a medical man, he had ways of getting cadavers. these were, you know, available for dissection practice and so forth. so, there was a lot of talk about him, you know, sort of killing people--not actually killing people, taking it, making insurance fraud, and then substituting another body.

george: and--go ahead, matt. matt: oh, i was going to say it was insurance scams that was his undoing. george: that was his bread and butter, and that's finally what took him down in philadelphia was this insurance scam. what was it, 13th and callowhill, right? where that's where he had his final office and committed the insurance fraud that really ended up taking him down. rosemary: george, what's next in this saga? george: well, certainly, everybody wants to know the primary question that the family was after, was he actually buried in that gravesite? did he somehow, you know, miraculously through some final swindle, swindle his way even out of execution? so, that's the question we will be following over the coming months. rosemary: george spencer, matt lake, thank you both for your work. and thanks for joining us, appreciate it. both: thank you. rosemary: now to our next memorial day quiz, how much do you know about the day we celebrate tomorrow? according to memorialday.org, with the traditional observance, the u.s. flag is raised, then solemnly lowered to half-staff. how long should it remain there? all day, until noon, or until the end of the week?

find out if you're right when we come back.

rosemary: before the break, we asked how long the flag should stay at half-staff on memorial day. is it all day, until noon, or until the end of the week? if you said until noon, you're right. that's according to memorialday.org. the demise of the union in the workplace may be overblown and overstated. while it's true union membership has declined over the past 3 decades, the numbers year over year are down only slightly. the bureau of labor statistics reports less than a 1% dip from 2015 to 2016. and at least one union with membership in the philadelphia area is seeing some gains. seiu, the service employees international union, is the largest property service workers union in the country. local 32 bj organized more than 2,000 janitors in the philadelphia suburbs and in delaware in 2006. in 2012, the union organized more than 2,800 security

officers working in universities, hospitals, and commercial offices in philadelphia. and just this year, local 32 bj organized more than 1,400 subcontracted airport workers at philly international. joining me now are gabe morgan, the vice president of local 32 bj for pennsylvania and delaware, and derrell vereen gibbs, a union member who works as a security officer. thank you both for being with us. so, gabe, tell us more about the diversity of your membership. gabe morgan: well, 32 bj, which is the largest private sector union in philadelphia, and as you said, the largest private sector union in the world, has--we have members who speak 17 languages. we represent the majority of workers who clean and maintain and guard buildings from providence, rhode island, all the way to northern virginia, and out west to pittsburg. so, we're really a union that looks like americans look in cities throughout the northeast. rosemary: derrell, you are a security officer at a local university. how has being in the union impacted your life?

derrell gibbs: being in the union is much better than not being in the union. i mean, wages, healthcare, a voice that allows for you to impact your future. i mean, it's way better. rosemary: seiu has been very vocal, politically speaking, most recently during international worker's day on may 1. what did you hope to accomplish, and did you achieve that goal? gabe: you know, our goal, as always, is to try and figure out how to lift workers out of poverty, and how to make it so that folks who are working for a living can provide for themselves, provide for their family. and you know, that day and many other days like it have been about raising wages, protecting worker's rights. and workers now in this country are facing an onslaught against those rights in a way that we really haven't seen since our grandfathers' or even great-grandfathers' time. so, one day doesn't make it, but we're going to keep fighting until we win. rosemary: derrell, is the political activism of the union, is that something that drew you in, attracted you to it? derrell: not originally, but once you get involved,

especially with 32 bj, there's no way you cannot be involved politically. i've even gone through--they have a program called the scla, which actually teach you how to be more politically involved, and then help that build your community. and we're much about community. rosemary: do you think, though, it puts a target on your back, so to speak? gabe: i think that in this country, any worker who's making a decent living in the service sector on some level has a target on their back because the majority of americans working the service sector, which is the majority of americans, do not experience the kind of pay increases that working people used to experience. but the other thing i'd say is--and i think the biggest point about 32 bj or seiu is that we understand that whether you're in a union or you're not in a union, all workers deserve to make a decent living. and so, we of course fight hard for our existing members, but our members also fight hard for their entire community. so we fight just as hard to raise the minimum wage or get paid sick days for everybody as we do to fight in our own jobs.

rosemary: the strength, of course, of any union is the ability to strike. i mean, that's what makes unions very different from, you know, non-unionized--the non-unionized workforce. critics, of course, would argue that it disrupts the labor and it strains the future relationship between management and employees. how do you respond to that? gabe: you know, half of the city population of philly, working population, makes less than $15 an hour. all across the country, people are seeing their wages be suppressed as manufacturing jobs have gone away. people are going to work for huge multi-national service sector companies that pay minimum wage or less. and so, the question's really not whether to strike or not strike. the question is, are american workers going to have the rights to be able to fight to lift themselves out of poverty in the service sector just like, once upon a time, they were able to do in manufacturing? rosemary: in the beginning of this segment, we mentioned the new union membership that seiu has brought in over the past few years. why do you think you've been able to mobilize people in this area?

gabe: because i think workers in this country, if they have an opportunity to try and do something about their circumstances, will. and our experience has been, you know, thousands of philadelphians who clean buildings came together, fought to raise wages, thousands who guard buildings came together. we've seen folks at the airport for 4 years, they've seen their wages go from as little as $5 an hour to $12 an hour. so, i think what the big difference is is we're really focused on those places where people work in the service sector. and when you fight, you win. rosemary: gabe morgan and derrell vereen gibbs, thank you so much for being with us, appreciate it. both: thank you.

rosemary: that's it for this edition of "nbc10 @issue," thank you for joining us. on this memorial day weekend, we leave you with a moment to pause and remember the heroes who died defending our country and our freedom. ♪

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