Most Terrifying Things About America’s First Serial Killer

The Scheme That Brought Holmes Down

Holmes was pretty fond of insurance fraud, having performed schemes without a hitch since his college days. However, it was his final insurance scam that ended up being the one that brought him down. He convinced Benjamin Pitezel to fake his own death, so his wife could collect $10,000 in life insurance.

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Nowadays that $10,000 would be worth roughly $200,000 now. Pitezel’s wife would then split the payment with Holmes. The whole caper was supposed to revolve around a cadaver, which was a task that Holmes was very familiar with. This meant Holmes had to find a cadaver that looked like Pitezel. This didn’t turn out to be an easy task and was a whole lot of effort. Instead, of attempting to exert any effort in finding a suitable cadaver, Holmes instead decided to kill Pitezel. He knocked him out with chloroform and set him on fire while he was still alive.