murder hotel chicago tour

Entertainment

Serial Killer H.H. Holmes' Infamous Hotel Met A Mysterious End

History's new documentary series American Ripper dives into the bloody history of H.H. Holmes. The Chicago serial killer is infamous not just for the multiple murders he confessed to committing (the actual total is probably higher), but the resources he dedicated to conning and then killing his victims. The tricked-out hotel he had built for the purpose of more easily satiating his urges probably saw more mayhem and murder than any other travel accommodations, but could the morbidly curious still spend a night at the "murder castle"? If you dared, could you visit H.H. Holmes' hotel and see the site of an undetermined number of deaths?

Those interested in taking a haunted tour of the base of Chicago's most infamous serial killer will be disappointed to learn that Holmes' hotel is no longer standing. According to The Chicagoist, an aspiring entrepreneur purchased the building after Holmes was hanged for murder, intending to make it into a tourist attraction. "On Aug. 19 [1896] at 12:13 a.m., a railroad night watchman spotted flames coming through the Castle's roof," the piece reads. "Seconds later, explosions blew out the first-floor windows, and the fire was out of control by the time help arrived. 90 minutes after the fire was reported, the roof had collapsed and most of the building demolished ." The source of the fire was not determined, though it's possible that some neighbors may have rather seen the building destroyed than turned into a circus.

While the building where Holmes committed his most atrocious crimes has fallen, a new building has been erected in its spot. If you choose to walk onto these possibly haunted grounds, you'll be able to do so during regular business hours. You can even buy stamps while you're there.

That's right – The only building that still exists on the land where H.H. Holmes built his modern dungeon is the Englewood Post Office . While most of the area formerly occupied by the Murder Castle is now overtaken by grass and foliage, the post office erected on its land serves as the closest thing to a H. H. Holmes landmark. What was once a place of isolation and death is now the home of helpful USPS staff members, P.O. boxes, and medium-sized wait lines.

Despite the unassuming nature of the post office, its loose affiliation with the Holmes "murder castle" has turned it into a makeshift tourist attraction. While the ground it sits on is probably considered by some to be a prime location for multiple hauntings, it seems that this establishment provides more services than scares. The post office's Yelp page provides far more insight into the quality of the post office itself (free street parking!) than reports of hauntings or relics from Holmes' time on the site.

While the post office has absolutely no affiliation with Holmes and features no official acknowledgement of the site's bloody history, the address itself is still a popular destination for everything from Chicago walking tours to investigators of the morbid and paranormal . While Holmes likely never intended for his "murder castle" to become a government building, there is one detail about the site that reveals something about the building that used to stand there.

While the Englewood post office only takes up part of it, the castle itself took up the entire block and was also three stories high. So if you visit, you can compare the building that currently stands there to the comparatively massive scope of Holmes' hotel. It just so happens that you can also send a package while you're there.

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The 11 best crime tours of Chicago

Explore the seedy underbelly of Chicago on these fascinating crime tours

Chicago is well known for its towering architecture, amazing restaurants  and beautiful beaches , but the city also has a notorious history of Prohibition-era organized crime and violence. Some of Chicago’s most beautiful streets have dark pasts, and you can explore the oftentimes grisly history on a Chicago crime tour. Guides unearth the city’s darkest stories, and some of them even make stops at local restaurants and bars to help set the scene. While the tours may be a bit eerie, some can be experienced on your own schedule, whether in-person or virtually. Experience Chicago's history hidden in plain sight on the best Chicago crime tours.

RECOMMENDED: Check out the full guide to the best Chicago tours

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Best Chicago crime tours

1.  Chicago Crime and Mob Tour

Follow in the footsteps of infamous gangsters like charming bank robber John Dillinger and Polish mobster Hymie Weiss on this bus tour. You’ll hear stories about the who’s who of Chicago organized crime, drive by a few murder locations and spot the historic courthouse where many criminals were thrown in the clink.

2.  Untouchable Tours' Original Gangster Tour

For more than 30 years, Untouchable Tours has been driving tourists back and forth across the city—not to see sights like the museum campus or the Willis Tower, but instead to see the staircase in front of a church that’s covering up bullet holes and the empty lot where the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre took place. The two-hour tour features guides that take on the persona (and snappy garb) of ’20s gangsters. Guides tell the tales of prohibition-era Chicago and what it was like when gangsters like Al Capone, Bugs Moran and Hymie Weiss walked the streets.

3.  Gangsters and Ghosts Tour in Chicago

The towering skyscrapers and shining facade of Cloud Gate might make the Loop seem glitzy and glamorous, but it was once a hotspot for vice. In the ’20s and ’30s, this nabe was the epicenter of bootlegging and gangbanging in Chicago. Take a walking tour through the area to spy speakeasies, secret underground tunnels and maybe even a ghost or two.

4.  Vice, Crime and Gangsters in Chicago: A Self-Guided Audio Tour

There are endless upsides to taking tours of a city, but there are downsides as well—most notably, not being able to explore at your own pace. That’s not the case with the self-guided Vice, Crime and Gangsters in Chicago tour. The 31-stop audio tour starts at the Dusable Bridge and winds its way through notorious locations in the Loop and River North, including Chicago’s first vice district and the site of the Lager Beer Riot. It’s narrated by professor, urban historian and former journalist Richard Junger, who has written books on Chicago history.

5.  Chicago Night Crimes Tour

See the sites of grisly killings under the dark of night on this evening bus tour. You’ll visit the Biograph Theater where Dillinger met his end, the site of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and other infamous locations. The bus even stops at a few historic watering holes like Harry Caray's so you can raise a glass to the city's dearly departed criminals.

6.  Lincoln Park Hauntings Ghost Investigation Tour

On the surface ghost tours and crime tours are two separate entities. But how does one become a ghost? Death. And how does someone’s death become notable enough to end up on a tour? It’s got to have some sort of criminal element, right? This ghost investigation tour is led by a paranormal investigator who takes guests through some of the eeriest locales in Lincoln Park, including the site of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. It also offers an opportunity to use paranormal activity-detecting equipment to help you determine if you just saw a ghost or a very exhausted DePaul student.

7.  Private Al Capone Gangster Tour

Al Capone’s trademark look – thick eyebrows, jaunty hat, heavy overcoat and a cigar hanging from his lips – became the basis of the stereotype of the mafia man. Capone got his start in New York as a member of the Five Points Gang before founding the Chicago Outfit and wreaking havoc on the Midwestern city. Follow in his nefarious footsteps on this tour around the city in a private town car – in true mafioso style.

8.  Chicago Prohibition Tour

Speakeasies might be a cutesy drinking trend today, but during Prohibition, they were downright seedy establishments full of corruption and crime. This boozy tour visits four historic bars that still serve Prohibition-era cocktails. Sip old-school drinks as you learn how organized crime outfits built their businesses on booze.

9.  Private Chicago Mafia and Blues Evening Tour

After a long night of making dirty deals and plotting the downfall of their enemies, Chicago mobsters used to unwind with some booze and live music at a mafia-friendly bar. You’ll do the same on this private guided tour that hits several historic landmarks before stopping for a drink at a bar formerly owned by Capone himself.

10.  The Devil in the White City Tour

In addition to a thriving mob community, Chicago was also home to one of the country’s first known serial killers: H. H. Holmes. The insurance scammer and con man lured hundreds of people to the three-story hotel that would later be known as the Murder Castle: a labyrinth of trap doors, peepholes, dead-end stairways, gas chambers and crematorium that he used to murder his victims and dispose of their remains. To this day, authorities still don’t know how many people he might have killed. Learn the disturbing facts of the case on a Weird Chicago walking tour.

11.  Sin and Suds Beer Tour

Booze and crime go hand in hand—especially during Prohibition, when mobsters made a killing running bootlegging operations and underground speakeasies. Discover the deep-seated connection between beer and vice on this tour of several Chicago watering holes, including the bar that holds the oldest liquor license in the city. $62

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Discover Chicago's Secrets with Magnifico Tours

At Magnifico Tours, we’ve reimagined Chicago exploration, intertwining the city’s mysteries and tales into our adventures. While our specialty lies in crafting detective intrigue within our Chicago Walking Tours, we embrace the rich tapestry that is Chicago’s history, from its notorious gangsters to its spectral legends, and from its architectural marvels to its vibrant cultural districts like Old Town.

The Chicago Murder Mystery Tour invites you to step into a detective’s shoes, solving mysteries as you navigate the city’s landmarks. And alongside the sleuthing adventure, our Private Chicago Magnifico Tour offers a unique Spanish-language journey through Chicago’s cultural wonders.

With Magnifico, every tour is a story, every moment a clue in the grand narrative of Chicago.

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The Chicago Murder Mystery Tour

Embark on a thrilling journey through Chicago’s Gold Coast with our Chicago Walking Tours. Not only will you delve into the city’s mysteries and legends from Al Capone to the Playboy Mansion. A must-experience for every true-crime aficionado.

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The Private Chicago Magnifico Tour

Embark on a 2-hour journey through Chicago’s vibrant history with our expert guides. Dive into tales of Al Capone, architectural wonders, and our city’s rich Latin culture. Spoiler Alert: You’ll also get to know where NOT get Deep Dish Pizza!

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Our guests often find themselves immersed in the rich and varied tales of Chicago, exploring narratives that span from the spectral to the criminal, from the architectural to the historical. Whether it’s the allure of Chicago Gangster Tours, the spine-chilling tales reminiscent of Chicago Ghost Tours, or the architectural marvels that might be explored in a Chicago Architecture Tour, our adventures touch upon diverse threads of stories that make up the fabric of the city.

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Our tours, while specializing in mystery and detective-themed experiences, also provide glimpses into other fascinating aspects of Chicago. Whether it’s the notorious past explored in Chicago Gangster Tours, the spectral stories you might find in Chicago Haunted Tours, or the architectural wonders celebrated in Chicago Architecture Tours, Magnifico ensures a rich and varied exploration of the city

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Regardless of rain or shine, our tours proceed. Plus, we offer easy rescheduling options.

Whether you’re exploring the city on foot with our Chicago Walking Tours, delving into the city’s notorious criminal past akin to Chicago Gangster Tours, or exploring the spectral stories similar to those in Chicago Ghost Tours, we ensure your adventures with Magnifico Tours are seamless and memorable. Find answers to common queries below, and prepare to step into the multifaceted stories of Chicago with us.

The closest parking garage to the Murder Mystery tour is located at 110 E Pearson St. And for the Magnifico Chicago Private Tour, the closest parking can be found at 505 N Michigan Ave.

Yes, it is a walking experience! The Chicago Murder Mystery is an interactive game that takes you through the city, revealing thrilling stories and showing you sites as you also solve a crime. The crime-solving bit is an interactive experience; if you don’t feel like taking part, you can opt out!

No worries, you are not obligated to perform. We often have families come where some wish to participate and others play as encouraging audience members. In the event where everyone is shy and less interested in playing, your tour can take on a more typical walking tour experience.

Our team is 100% responsive within a 24 hour period, and can be best reached by email [email protected] and Phone/Text/Whatsapp at 872-310-7645. Tickets are 100% refundable until 24 hours before a tour. If you need to cancel within 24 hours of the tour, you may reschedule onto any future tour. Again, please reach out by email or phone/text/Whatsapp.

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After years of preparation, the city of Chicago opens the Chicago World's Fair - a 600-acrea modern marvel meant to memorialize the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' discovery of th... Read all After years of preparation, the city of Chicago opens the Chicago World's Fair - a 600-acrea modern marvel meant to memorialize the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' discovery of the New World. But as America's best and brightest engineers race to construct the fairgroun... Read all After years of preparation, the city of Chicago opens the Chicago World's Fair - a 600-acrea modern marvel meant to memorialize the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' discovery of the New World. But as America's best and brightest engineers race to construct the fairgrounds, Dr. H.H. Holmes is constructing his own architectural "masterpiece" - THE MURDER CASTL... Read all

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Murder Castle

By: History.com Editors

Updated: January 23, 2020 | Original: July 13, 2017

The 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago —known at the time as the Columbian Exposition—celebrated the 400th anniversary Christopher Columbus ’ arrival in the Americas. The enormous exhibition featured many wondrous exhibits, including the United States’ first gas-powered motorcar, the Daimler quadricycle, and a 1,500-pound statue of the Venus de Milo made of chocolate. However, the World’s Fair became better known for a structure that was more gruesome than organizers could have imagined—the so-called “Murder Castle” of H.H. Holmes, America’s first documented serial killer.

Who Was H. H. Holmes?

H. H. Holmes was born Herman Webster Mudgett in New Hampshire in 1861. As an adult, he abandoned his young wife and child in 1885 to move to Illinois . Once there, he changed his name to Holmes, reportedly as an homage to the fictional English detective Sherlock Holmes, the literary creation of author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle .

Soon after his arrival in the Chicago area, Holmes took up work at a pharmacy located near Jackson Park. Eight years later, Jackson Park would become the site of the 1893 World’s Fair.

The Columbian Exposition, as it was called, was designed by some of America’s leading architects, including Frederick Law Olmstead, and included exhibits from more than 40 countries.

The event attracted more than 27 million visitors to Chicago, an incredible number considering the limited transportation options of the time. Holmes took advantage of some of the many visitors to the city, including young women who came to Chicago for jobs at the fairgrounds.

The ‘Murder Castle’

Historians believe Holmes, a masterful and charismatic con artist, had swindled money from his drugstore employers. He purchased an empty lot in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago, and built a labyrinthine structure with shops on the first floor and small apartments above.

This edifice became known as Holmes’ booby-trapped Murder Castle. According to sensationalist reports, the space featured soundproof rooms, secret passages and a disorienting maze of hallways and staircases. The rooms were also allegedly outfitted with trapdoors over chutes that dropped Holmes’ unsuspecting victims to the building’s basement.

The basement, claims said, was a macabre facility of acid vats, pits of quicklime (often used on decaying corpses) and a crematorium, which the killer used to finish off his victims. All of these descriptions, however, were described by what were likely overly embellished or even fabricated news reports in the 1890s.

READ MORE:  Did Serial Killer H.H. Holmes Really Build a ‘Murder Castle’?

Holmes’ Victims

While reports suggest Holmes killed as many as 200 people in his sinister lair, his actual number of victims may have been much lower. The number of his victims is still debated by historians.

Holmes was apprehended soon after he fled Chicago, in October 1893, following the conclusion of the World’s Fair. He was arrested in Boston and eventually suspected of murdering his assistant, Benjamin Pitezel, and two of Pitezel’s children.

Interestingly, while on the run, Holmes had misled Pitezel’s wife as well, collecting the insurance money for his former assistant and living with his widow and three of their children. Police eventually discovered the body of one of the murdered children, and this discovery led to Holmes’ arrest.

Following his arrest, Holmes claimed to have killed more than 200 people in his Murder Castle. He ultimately confessed to murdering Pitezel and two of his daughters. And experts now believe he may have, in fact, killed as few as nine—still a significant number, but not the scores the killer claimed.

While in captivity, awaiting his trial and sentencing, Holmes authored an autobiography, Holmes’ Own Story , in which he wrote, “I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing.”

The most famous literary work on Holmes, however, is the best-selling non-fiction novel The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, which was published in 2003.

After a brief incarceration, Holmes was hanged for his crimes in Philadelphia in 1896. His body is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery outside the Pennsylvania city.

What Happened to the Murder Castle?

Despite Holmes’ arrest and execution, rumors have persisted for more than a century that the serial killer bribed authorities to avoid punishment. The theories suggest that Holmes was allowed to escape and that officials hanged another man.

In response to these rumors, in March 2017, Holmes’ descendants, who live in Delaware , petitioned to have his remains exhumed so that they can undergo DNA testing. The results concluded the remains did in fact belong to Holmes.

Meanwhile, the fate of the site of the killer’s exploits is also shrouded in intrigue. With Holmes, allegedly, safely ensconced in prison, in 1895, the Murder Castle was gutted by fire, after witnesses reportedly saw two men entering the building late one night.

The building itself remained standing until 1938, when it was torn down. The site is now occupied by the Englewood branch of the U.S. Post Office.

The Site of the Infamous Murder Castle: Exploring Illinois . World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893: Paul V. Galvin Library Digital History Collection, Illinois Institute of Technology . Blood Loss: The decline of the serial killer: Slate . Serial Killer H.H. Holmes’ Body Exhumed: What We Know: Rolling Stone .

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Chicago Hauntings: The Story Of H.H. Holmes' Murder Castle, And Sightings In The Basement Of The Englewood Post Office Standing In Its Place

By Adam Harrington , Blake Tyson

October 30, 2021 / 8:00 PM CDT / CBS Chicago

CHICAGO (CBS) -- If you go to the corner of 63rd and Wallace streets in the Englewood community today, you will find a U.S. Post Office.

The Post Office is a modest, somewhat institutional yellow brick building – one of many built during the New Deal era under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The Chicago Transit Authority Green Line runs on an elevated trestle just behind the Post Office, while a weathered concrete freight train embankment runs just to the east. An eagle carved in stone hangs over the front doors of the Post Office, while a sign with three yellow triangles in a once-black, now faded blue circle next to the doors evokes a past time of menacing uncertainty – denoting a fallout shelter in the building.

We'll get back to the Englewood Post Office. This story is mainly about the building that stood there before the Post Office was built.

The Post Office does not stand perfectly on the footprint of that earlier building. Tony Szabelski of Chicago Hauntings Ghost Tours says it would have encompassed the eastern part of the present-day Post Office footprint, and the grassy knoll that separates the Post Office from the freight train embankment.

That earlier building is most infamously known as the Murder Castle. We don't know exactly how many people H.H. Holmes – one of America's first serial killers – murdered in the building around the time of the World's Columbian Exposition a few miles to the east in Jackson Park in 1893. But its horrors are the stuff of legend, albeit subject to a challenging task of separating fact from myth.

The Crime Museum tells us H.H. Holmes was born Herman Webster Mudgett in New Hampshire. He graduated from high school early and attended medical school at the University of Michigan – where the Crime Museum says the story is he stole cadavers from the school's laboratory, disfigured or burned them, and then planted the bodies to suggest they'd been killed in accidents – while taking out insurance policies on the deceased people in question and collecting the money.

Holmes moved to Chicago around 1885 after finishing medical school, and began working at a pharmacy under the name Dr. Henry Howard Holmes, the Crime Museum tells us. The pharmacy appears to have been located on the northwest corner of 63rd and Wallace streets, where an Aldi store with a vast parking lot can now be found.

The commonly-heard story goes that the drugstore was owned by an elderly man with terminal cancer named Dr. E.S. Holton, whose wife took over the store when he died. Holmes went on to buy the store from Dr. Holton's wife, the legend claims. Mrs. Holton disappeared, and Holmes claimed to everyone that she'd moved to California – and she was never heard from again, the story goes. The implication is that most believed Holmes probably killed her.

But in a 2013 article, Adam Selzer of Mysterious Chicago reports some aspects of this tale are not accurate. He reported it turns out that Dr. E.S. Holton was not Mr. Holton, but Mrs. Holton – the initials stood for Elizabeth Sarah. Dr. Holton and her husband, William, also actually outlived Holmes by several years and were still living in Chicago after Holmes was executed – the old pharmacist dying of cancer was a myth that was apparently spread by Holmes himself, Selzer reports.

What is known is that Holmes did take over the pharmacy, and had the building that became known as the Murder Castle constructed across the street between 1889 and 1891. The Crime Museum reports Holmes hired and fired numerous crews during the construction period so they wouldn't be able to figure out what he was really up to with the building.

The building was originally two stories high – with storefronts including a drugstore on the ground floor, and apartments above. Holmes went on to add a third story.

Once the building was completed, the story goes that Holmes began placing classified ads for jobs for young women, as well as advertising the hotel as a place to stay. The story goes that hotel employees and guests were also required to have life insurance policies, and Holmes himself paid the premiums provided that they list him as the beneficiary, according to the Crime Museum account.

Soon afterward, many women started disappearing, the story goes.

When the World's Fair came to Chicago – drawing tourists from around the world – the story goes that Holmes' Castle was billed as the World's Fair Hotel.

Inside Holmes' castle, the story goes that the rooms could not be locked from the inside of the room – only outside. Meanwhile, everything back in those days was lit with gas lamps, and the story goes the connections to the gas lamps were outside the room – set up such that Holmes could turn on the gas and asphyxiate people at will.

Szabelski notes that there were reports that the building also had a lot of strange oddities to it when it was built. There were doors and stairwells that led to nowhere, and hidden and closed rooms throughout the building. Stories claim that parts of the walls moved, and there were chutes that led down to the basement. In a December 1943 article for Harper's Magazine , writer John Bartlow Martin used most gruesome terms to describe that basement:

"The cellar was perhaps the most remarkable section of the building. It was fitted with operating tables, a crematory, pits containing quicklime and acids, surgical instruments, and various pieces of apparatus which, resembling mediaeval torture racks, never were satisfactorily explained. (Some thought Holmes used these appliances to wring from his victims the whereabouts of their wealth; others said he used them in experiments which he hoped would prove his pet theory that the human body could be stretched indefinitely, a treatment that, ultimately, would produce a race of giants.) Holmes sometimes destroyed the bodies of his victims completely; sometimes, aided by a needy skeleton articulator who answered his advertisement in the paper, he stripped the flesh from their bones and sold the skeletons to medical institutions."

However, Selzer reports in his book, "H.H. Holmes, The True Story of the White City Devil" , that some of these stories amount to so much mythology. While reports say Holmes told investors he planned to use the building as a hotel for World's Fair guests, Selzer writes the castle never actually went into operation as a fully-functioning hotel at all. Selzer also writes the secret chambers in the building really served the purpose of hiding stolen furniture rather than disposing of bodies.

Selzer also reports that only one of Holmes' victims was known to be a tourist visiting the World's Fair. And as to those elaborate torture chambers and other architectural horrors, Harold Schecter, author of the book "Depraved: The Definitive True Story of H.H. Holmes, Whose Grotesque Crimes Shattered Turn-of-the-Century Chicago," chalks them up in a History.com article to the sensational yellow journalism of the era in which details were sometimes concocted.

There are claims that Holmes killed as many as 200 people - though Selzer told History.com that this claim is a "throwaway line" that does not have a basis in fact. Holmes confessed to 27 murders, but even that figure is dubious, inasmuch as some of the people he claimed to have murdered were actually still alive, Selzer told History.com.

Szabelski notes the story goes were at least nine or 10 people who we know would have been last seen with Holmes in the so-called Murder Castle, and who were never seen again.

Holmes later left Chicago and found his way to Texas and then to St. Louis, where he was arrested and jailed for a swindling operation involving the sale of stolen horses, the story goes. While in jail, the story goes that Holmes engaged his cellmate – Wild West outlaw Marion Hedgepath – to set up an insurance scam where Holmes would take out a $10,000 policy on his own life and then fake his own death.

Holmes tried to take out the policy after being released on bail, but the insurance company became suspicious – so Holmes instead went to Philadelphia and concocted a similar scheme in which his longtime business partner, Benjamin Pitezel, would be the one to fake his own death, the story goes. But Holmes actually killed Pitezel, and went on to kill Pitezel's three children. The bodies of daughters Alice and Nellie were found buried in Toronto, and the body of son Howard in Indianapolis, multiple accounts say.

Holmes was tried and convicted of Ben Pitezel's murder, and was hanged in a public execution at Moyamensing Prison in Philadelphia on May 7, 1896.

So of course, you wanted to know about ghost stories. Many people say the basement of the Post Office that now occupies the Murder Castle site can be very creepy, Szabelski tells us. They report hearing sounds or seeing shadow figures.

There is a portion of the basement of the current building that crosses over to a section that would be underneath the grassy area to the east. That section of the basement reportedly looks much older, and many people believe it would have been part of the original basement for Holmes' murder castle.

Finally, there's the question of what became of the murder castle after Holmes left it behind. Most reports say after a police investigation was completed at the building, someone named A.M. Clark took it over with plans to turn it into a macabre museum. Many reports say soon after that – in 1895, sometime before Holmes was executed – the building burned to the ground.

The second part is not true. Selzer points out in his book that while there was a fire that damaged the building at that time, the upper two floors were rebuilt afterward – and the building remained until it was finally torn down in the 1930s to make way for the Post Office.

The story of Holmes and the Murder Castle reentered the popular conscience in 2003, when Erik Larson's book, "The Devil in the White City," became a bestseller.

Video produced by Blake Tyson. Written story by Adam Harrington.

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Adam Harrington is a web producer at CBS News Chicago.

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The Lawyer's Magazine

Chicago World’s Fair Hotel – Built for Murder by H.H. Holmes

By Parkaman on April 28, 2017 0

The World’s Fairs Hotel

It all dates back to the Chicago World’s Fair, the biggest event ever to hit the city, and hotel space was at a premium. So no one looked twice when local resident H.H. Holmes broke ground and began working on a hotel that would go on to take up an entire city block.

What those watching from the sidelines did not know was that H.H. Holmes had more than lodging on his mind. In fact, if he had his way, many of the guests who checked into his property would never check out. The murderous history of this newly-built hotel would put fictional counterparts like the Overlook Hotel and the Bates Motel to shame.

H.H. Holmes was actually an alias, and this notorious murderer was known by many different names during his short and violence-filled life. But no matter what name he used, it is clear that the hotel he built was designed to be a place of murder, not a place of rest.

Built for Murder

Mr. Holmes was able to keep his plans secret through a number of clever devices, including changing contractors and individual workers on a regular basis. Ostensibly done to punish poor workmanship, these staff changes were actually designed to stop outsiders from becoming curious about the strange nature of the project they were working on.

There were also hidden staircases, hallways to nowhere and blind turns designed to disorient victims and make escape impossible. All in all, it was a hotel designed for murder, and during the course of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, that design was put into practice.

In what later be dubbed the Murder Castle, H.H. Holmes perpetrated one of the worst murder sprees in American history, perhaps becoming the first known serial killer in the country. Even after all these years, hard numbers are hard to come by, since many of the dead were domestic workers, maids, prostitutes, drifters and others whose deaths were less likely to arouse suspicion.

While hunting strangers in the corridors of the hotel was a favorite pastime of Holmes, one of his earliest victims was Julia Smythe, Holmes’ mistress and the wife of a man named Ned Conner. Conner moved away when he learned of the affair, leaving Julia and her daughter Pearl behind with a man who would ultimately become one of history’s most prolific serial killers.

The very layout of  the hotel Holmes created is straight out of a horror novel. Rooms could be locked from the outside, making escape impossible. One third floor room, where at least one victim met their end, was designed like a bank vault or giant safe, complete with padding to muffle screams. That room was also equipped with a gas pipe, which Holmes used to asphyxiate his victims.

There was also an elaborate system for rendering and disposing of victims. When police began their investigation, they discovered a hidden shaft that led directly the basement of the hotel. In the basement, detectives found a number of disturbing items, including quicklime pits and even a butcher’s table.

They also found evidence of the victims, including bloody clothing and a watch. That watch, a woman’s model, was eventually traced to a woman named Minnie Williams. Minnie was known for her beauty, and her fortune of at least $75,000. That fortune no doubt attracted the attention of Holmes, and he may have used the money to finance his attempted escape.

Minnie’s sister also fell victim to Holmes and his murderous plans. Among the items found in the basement turned dungeon was a garter buckle. That buckle had belonged to Minnie’s sister.

It is known that H.H. Holmes killed at least nine, although he confessed to some 30 murders when he was later arrested. Some criminologists and historians put the death toll for Mr. Holmes far higher, with figures running as high as 200. No matter what the final body count, the case of H.H. Holmes and his Murder Castle remains one of the strangest, and one of the most troubling, in American history.

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H.H. Holmes Murder Castle: An Inspiration for American Horror Story Hotel

By Ben Wilson

The modern horror genre is roughly 200 years old, and we have been consuming this genre in television for over 100 years. The stories and characters in television are often inspired by real people. A recent American anthology horror television series, American Horror Story, has drawn inspiration from a variety of notorious American serial killers. The Hotel Cortez in the fifth season, American Horror Story: Hotel, is said to be based on the structure that H.H. Holmes designed for killing and torturing people, also called Murder Castle.

The History of H.H. Holmes’s Life in Chicago

One of the most notorious tracts of land in Chicago is the small block along 63rd street where H. H. Holmes-- “America’s Serial Killer” --once built his “Castle for Murder.” When, in 1887, Herman W. Mudgett (alias H.H. Holmes) was hired as a shopkeeper in a drugstore in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood, he had been officially “missing” for two years. Still a very young man, the not-quite 30-year-old Holmes had already substantially ruined his life. About a decade earlier, he had married local girl Clara Lovering and settled down in New York for a time, where he worked as a schoolteacher before hearing the call of higher education. Holmes moved with Clara to Michigan, where he began medical school. The couple’s time together was brief, however. Holmes sent his young wife home to her New Hampshire family; soon after, he was thrown out of school for stealing cadavers from the college anatomy lab and criminally charged for using them in insurance scams. He then “disappeared.”

A year later, Holmes was hired in Englewood, and his boss, a woman by the name of Holden, soon went missing herself. Though family members, friends, and fellow businesspeople were alarmed, Holmes explained that Holden had decided to move to California and had sold the business to him.

Holmes wasted no time in finding a second wife, ignoring the fact that his pending divorce from Clara Lovering was stuck in the legal system and, thus, not finalized.  His new fiancée, Myrtle Belknap, was the daughter of North Shore big-shot John Belknap. Two years after their wedding, Belknap left Holmes. Their marriage had been an odd one at best; Myrtle lived in Wilmette with her family while Holmes continued to live on the city’s South Side.

Murder Castle Location: Crime in Plain Sight

After his second wife’s walkout, Holmes began construction of an enormous “hotel” on the property he’d purchased across from the old Holden drugstore. With money from further insurance scams, Holmes raised his Englewood “castle” to awesome heights.

H.H. Holmes Hotel Layout

Plans for the hotel, however, resembled a funhouse of some sort: the triple-story wonder contained 60 rooms, trap doors, hidden staircases, windowless chambers, laundry chutes accessed from the floors, and a stairway that led to a precipice overlooking the house’s back alley.

In only a year, the “World’s Fair Hotel” was completed, and its owner sent out word that many of its plentiful rooms would be available to out-of-town visitors to the Columbian Exposition. And so the horror began.

Detectives and later scholars surmised that a high number of the fair’s attendees met gruesome ends at the hands of Holmes in the “hotel” he built as a giant torture chamber. It was later discovered that the building contained walls fitted with blowtorches, gassing devices, and other monstrosities. The basement was furnished with a dissecting table and vats of acid and lime. Alarms in his guest rooms alerted Holmes to escape attempts. Some researchers believe that many were kept prisoner for weeks or months before being killed by their diabolical innkeeper.  Others believe Holmes was not really “into” killing. That it was all for the money.

How Holmes Lured Victims

Along with his hotel of horrors, Holmes had other ways of attracting victims. Placing ads in city papers, he offered attractive jobs to attractive young women. Insisting on the top-secret nature of the work, the location, and his own identity, he promised good pay for silence. In the competitive world of turn-of-the-century Chicago, there were many takers.

Far from satiated, Holmes also advertised for a new wife, luring hopeful and destitute girls with his business stature and securing their trust with what must have been an irresistible charm.

After disposing of numerous potential employees and fiancées in his chambers of terror, Holmes decided to seriously find another mate. In 1893, he proposed to Minnie Williams, the daughter of a Texas realty king. Williams shared Holmes’s violent nature and lawless attitude. Soon after they met, Williams killed her sister with a chair. Her understanding, empathic fiancé dumped the body into Lake Michigan. Yet, the two were not to live horrifically ever after.

Holmes employees Julia Connor and her daughter, Pearl, were distraught at the news that their boss would be taking a new wife. Julia had been smitten with Holmes at the expense of her own marriage, and she and Pearl had worked with their employer to pull off a number of his insurance swindles. Not long after objecting to the coming union, Julia and Pearl disappeared. When Julia’s husband, Ned, came calling for them, Holmes told him that his family had moved to another state. In reality, Julia’s alarm over Holmes’s imminent marriage stemmed not only from mere longing but from the fact that she was pregnant with his child. Her death was the result of an abortion that Holmes had performed himself. Stuck with Pearl as an annoying witness, he poisoned the child.

In 1894, the Holmeses went to Colorado with an Indiana prostitute in tow. Georgianna Yoke had moved to Chicago to start afresh and had answered one of Holmes’s marriage ads in a local paper. Introduced as Holmes’s cousin, Minnie and Holmes saw the same thing in Yoke: a girl with wealthy parents and a substantial inheritance awaiting her. In Denver, Minnie witnessed her husband’s marriage to Yoke, and from there the trio went to Texas, transferred Minnie’s property to Holmes, and conducted a few assorted scams.

Not long after, the group returned to Chicago and Minnie, Yoke, disappeared.  Around the same time, Holmes’s secretary, Emmeline Cigrand, was literally stretched to death in the Castle basement along with her visiting fiancé.

Catching the Devil in the White City

Finally, in July of 1894, Holmes was arrested for mortgage fraud. Though his third wife sprung him with their dirty bail money, Holmes had used his short time behind bars to launch yet another scam. Holmes planned to run a big insurance fraud at the expense of early accomplice Ben Pitezel, who had served time for one of their swindles while Holmes had walked away. Hoping to eliminate the possibility of Pitezel’s squealing on their earlier capers, Holmes planned to get richer by rubbing the man out. With a shyster lawyer in tow, Holmes killed Pitezel in his Philadelphia patent shop after taking out an insurance policy on Pitezel’s life.

When Holmes neglected to pay a share of the winnings to his old cellmate, Marion Hedgepeth (who had helped him plan the swindle), Hedgepeth turned in Holmes’s name to a St. Louis cop, who made sure the tip got to Pinkerton agent Frank Geyer.

While Geyer dug up the dirt on Holmes, Holmes was digging graves for fresh victims. After Pitezel’s death, Holmes had told his widow, Carrie, that some of Ben’s shady dealings had been found out, and that he had therefore gone to New York incognito. Holmes then took Carrie and the Pitezel children under his dubious care. The family did not know their husband and father was dead.

While on the road with Georgianna and the remaining Pitezels, Holmes decided to send Carrie back east to stay with her parents. The Pitezel children were left in the hands of Holmes, who first killed Carrie’s son, Howard, in an abandoned Indiana house, and then gassed her daughters after locking them in a trunk while the group was staying in Toronto.

Next, Holmes returned to his first wife Clara and, after explaining that he had had amnesia and mistakenly married another woman, was forgiven.

Whatever devilish plans Holmes had for his first love were thwarted when he was charged with insurance fraud. Holmes pleaded guilty while Frank Geyer searched the castle with police. What they found was astounding: the torture devices, the homemade gas chambers, the shelves of poison and dissection tools, the vats of lime and acid; all revealed the true criminality of the man being held for mere fraud.

Evidence of the purpose of the grim house was easy to find: a ball of women’s hair was stuffed under the basement stairs, Minnie’s watch and dress buttons remained in the furnace, bits of charred bone littered the incinerator. Through the hot summer of 1895, crews worked to unearth and catalog all of the building’s debris. Then, in late August, the Murder Castle burned to the ground in a mysterious fire, aided by a series of explosions. Gasoline can verified arson, but no one could tell if it was one of Holmes’s many adversaries or the man himself that had done it.

Holmes' Execution

Holmes was sentenced to death in Philadelphia, where he had killed his old accomplice. On May 7, 1896, he was hanged, to the relief of a nation and, particularly, Chicago, the city that had unknowingly endured the bulk of his insanity. Some claimed that at the moment of his hanging, Holmes cried out that he was the notorious London butcher, Jack the Ripper. Others swear that when Holmes’s neck snapped, a bolt of lightning struck the horizon on the clear spring day.

The fact that Holmes remained alive with a broken neck for nearly 15 minutes after the execution fueled the belief that his evil spirit was too strong to die. Rumors of a Holmes curse abounded during the months and years that followed.

Dr. William Matten, a forensics expert who had testified against Holmes, soon died of unexplained blood poisoning. Next, Holmes’s prison superintendent committed suicide. Then, the trial judge and the head coroner were diagnosed with terminal diseases. Not much later, Frank Geyer himself fell mysteriously ill. A priest who had visited Holmes in his holding cell before the execution was found beaten to death in the courtyard of his church and the jury foreman in the trial was mysteriously electrocuted. Strangest of all was an unexplained fire at the office of the insurance company that had, in the end, done Holmes in. While the entire office was destroyed, untouched was a copy of Holmes’s arrest warrant and a packet of photos of Holmes himself.

The eerie string of Holmes-related deaths stretched well into the twentieth century, ending with the 1910 suicide of former employee Pat Quinlan who, many believed, had aided Holmes in his evil enterprises at the Murder Castle. Those close to Quinlan told reporters that the death had been long in coming; for years, they said, Quinlan had been haunted by his past life with Holmes, plagued with insomnia, driven at last to the edge and over. Some still say that it was Holmes himself that had haunted the boy and that the Monster of 63rd Street had finally gone away, taking with him the one person who could reveal all the secret horrors of Holmes’s brutal heart.

Sites of Holmes' Lingering Spirit

While the Murder Castle is long gone from the Englewood landscape where H.H. Holmes once walked, his evil spirit seems to inspire the bad seeds scattered in his old neighborhood. While the working-class and the woefully poor struggle to make a life here, others continue Holmes’s gruesome tradition, carrying out the serial murders and random slayings that have long plagued the South Side Chicago neighborhood and its bordering areas. Those Englewood residents familiar with the area’s dark history may pause at the corner of 63rd and Wallace and wonder about one man’s legacy. Chilled by half-remembered rumors and all-too-real headlines, they may hurry home, looking behind and listening, remembering the old neighborhood and the secrets it keeps.

After his capture, Holmes confessed to killing 27 people in his Murder Castle, only a fraction of which police were able to confirm. Many historians, however, believe his brief claim of killing more than one hundred victims was closer to the truth: there are some who believe his victims may have numbered as many as 200 or more.

No excavation of the site was ever done.

During the filming of “The Hauntings of Chicago” for PBS Chicago’s station WYCC, our team interviewed postal employees on staff at the Englewood branch of the United States Postal Service, which was built directly adjacent to the Murder Castle property after it was torn down in 1938. Several employees attested to strange goings-on in the building, especially in the basement, which some people believe shares a foundational wall of the original Castle, which stood on the corner next to the current post office structure.  One employee shared a chilling story of hearing a sound in the basement and poking her head around a corner to see if her colleague was there. She called out to her but heard no answer and saw nothing down the hall but a row of chairs lined up against the wall. A minute later, when she returned to the hall, the chairs had all been stacked up on top of each other.  Other employees have seen the apparitions of a young woman in the building or on the grassy property where the Castle once stood, and the sound of a woman’s singing or humming has also been heard in various parts of the current building.

Descendant of Holmes' Encounter with His Spirit

Most compelling of all have been the experiences of Holmes’ own descendent, Jeff Mudgett, who has visited the site numerous times since discovering the gruesome ancestor in his family line. Attempting to make peace with this dreadful reality of his life, Mudgett wrote the book Bloodstains—a heartfelt journey through his revelations and remembrances, and his hopes to help heal the family lines of his grandfather’s victims.

Mudgett went on to pursue the truth behind his ancestor’s chilling, death row claim that he was London killer Jack the Ripper. The beginnings of his search are documented in the History Channel’s miniseries, “American Ripper,” which culminates in the exhumation of Holmes’ body from its grave in Holy Cross Cemetery in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania.

Jeff Mudgett is not finished with his search for answers from his ancestor’s shrouded story. Part of his plans included the exhumation of the Murder Castle site and the placement of a memorial plaque there, where an untold number of victims died during that matchless Chicago year of triumph and tragedy.

When Jeff first visited the site of the Murder Castle employees of the Englewood post office told him of the basement, "Don't go down there. It's a terrible, haunted place."  Mudgett experienced severe physical and emotional effects from the visit.  He says:

"Before I walked down those steps I was a non-believer.  Absolutely non.  I would have walked into any building in the world. An hour later, when I came out, my whole foundation had changed. I was a believer."

Bone-chilling stories and accounts like these inspire some of our most terrifying horror movies. While the thrill of fabricated jump scares is entertaining, it doesn't compare to visiting the haunted places in Chicago where real horror occurred and seeing the places where there are multiple accounts of their spirit lingering.

Visit Prairie Avenue's historic district, the World's Fairgrounds, and Murder Castle on our Devil in the White City Tour. We hope to see you there if you dare.

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How Captain James Cook Got Away with Murder

By Elizabeth Kolbert

On Valentine’s Day, 1779, Captain James Cook invited Hawaii’s King Kalani‘ōpu‘u to visit his ship, the Resolution. Cook and the King were on friendly terms, but, on this particular day, Cook planned to take Kalani‘ōpu‘u hostage. Some of the King’s subjects had stolen a small boat from Cook’s fleet, and the captain intended to hold Kalani‘ōpu‘u until it was returned. The plan quickly went awry, however, and Cook ended up face down in a tidal pool.

At the time of his death, Cook was Britain’s most celebrated explorer. In the course of three epic voyages—the last one, admittedly, unfinished—he had mapped the east coast of Australia, circumnavigated New Zealand, made the first documented crossing of the Antarctic Circle, “discovered” the Hawaiian Islands, paid the first known visit to South Georgia Island, and attached names to places as varied as New Caledonia and Bristol Bay. Wherever Cook went, he claimed land for the Crown. When King George III learned of Cook’s demise, he reportedly wept. An obituary that ran in the London Gazette mourned an “irreparable Loss to the Public.” A popular poet named Anna Seward published an elegy in which the Muses, apprised of Cook’s passing, shed “drops of Pity’s holy dew.” (The work sold briskly and was often reprinted without the poet’s permission.)

“While on each wind of heav’n his fame shall rise, / In endless incense to the smiling skies,” Seward wrote. Artists competed to depict Cook’s final moments; in their paintings and engravings, they, too, tended to represent the captain Heaven-bound. An account of Cook’s life which ran in a London magazine declared that he had “discovered more countries in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans than all the other navigators together.” The anonymous author of this account opined that, among mariners, none would be “more entitled to the admiration and gratitude of posterity.”

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Posterity, of course, has a mind of its own. In 2019, the two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of Cook’s landing in New Zealand, a replica of the ship he’d sailed made an official tour around the country. According to New Zealand’s government, the tour was intended as an opportunity to reflect on the nation’s complex history. Some Māori groups banned the boat from their docks, on the ground that they’d already reflected enough.

Cook “was a barbarian,” the then chief executive of the Ngāti Kahu iwi told a reporter. Two years ago, an obelisk erected in 1874 to mark the spot where Cook was killed, on Kealakekua Bay, was vandalized. “You are on native land,” someone painted on the monument. In January, on the eve of Australia Day, an antipodean version of the Fourth of July, a bronze statue of Cook that had stood in Melbourne for more than a century was sawed off at the ankles. When a member of the community council proposed that area residents be consulted on whether to restore the statue, a furor erupted. At a meeting delayed by protest, the council narrowly voted against consultation and in favor of repair. A council member on the losing side expressed shock at the way the debate had played out, saying it had devolved into an “absolutely crazy mess.”

Into these roiling waters wades “ The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook ” (Doubleday), a new biography by Hampton Sides. Sides, a journalist whose previous books include the best-selling “ Ghost Soldiers ,” about a 1945 mission to rescue Allied prisoners of war, acknowledges the hazards of the enterprise. “Eurocentrism, patriarchy, entitlement, toxic masculinity,” and “cultural appropriation” are, he writes, just a few of the charged issues raised by Cook’s legacy. It’s precisely the risks, Sides adds, that drew him to the subject.

Cook, the second of eight children, was born in 1728 in Yorkshire. His father was a farm laborer, and Cook would likely have followed the same path had he not shown early promise in school. His parents apprenticed him to a merchant, but Cook was bored by dry goods. In 1747, he joined the crew of the Freelove, a boat that, despite its name, was designed for the distinctly unerotic task of ferrying coal to London.

After working his way up in the Merchant Navy, Cook jumped ship, as it were. At the age of twenty-six, he enlisted in the Royal Navy, and one of his commanders, recognizing Cook’s talents, encouraged him to take up surveying. A chart that Cook helped draft of the St. Lawrence River proved crucial to the British victory in the French and Indian War.

In 1768, Cook was given command of his own ship, H.M.S. Endeavour, a boxy, square-sterned boat that, like the Freelove, had been built for hauling coal. The Navy was sending the Endeavour to the South Pacific, ostensibly for scientific purposes. A transit of Venus was approaching, and it was believed that careful observation of the event could be used to determine the distance between the Earth and the sun. Cook and his men were supposed to watch the transit from Tahiti, which the British had recently claimed. Then, and only then, was the captain to open a set of sealed orders from the Admiralty which would provide further instructions.

The Endeavour departed from Plymouth, made its way to Rio, and from there sailed around the tip of South America. Arriving in Tahiti, where British and French sailors had already infected many of the women with syphilis, Cook drew up rules to govern his crew’s dealings with the island’s inhabitants. The men were not to trade items from the boat “in exchange for any thing but provisions.” (That rule appears to have been flagrantly flouted.)

The day of the transit—June 3, 1769—dawned clear, or, as Cook put it, “as favourable to our purposes as we could wish.” But the observers’ measurements differed so much that it was evident—or should have been—that something had gone wrong. (The whole plan, it later became clear, was fundamentally flawed.) Whether Cook had indeed waited until this point to open his secret instructions is unknown; in any event, they pointed to the true purpose of the trip. From Tahiti, the Endeavour was to seek out a great continent—Terra Australis Incognita—theorized to lie somewhere to the south. If Cook located this continent, he was to track its coast, and “with the Consent of the Natives to take possession of Convenient Situations in the Country in the Name of the King of Great Britain.” If he didn’t locate it, he was to head to New Zealand, which the British knew of only vaguely, from the Dutch.

The Endeavour spent several weeks searching for the continent. Nothing much happened during this period except that a crew member drank himself to death. As per the Admiralty’s instructions, Cook next headed west. The ship landed on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island on October 8, 1769. Within the first day, Cook’s men had killed at least four Māori and wounded several others.

A ship like the Endeavour was its own floating world, its commander an absolute ruler. A Royal Navy captain was described as a “King at Sea” and could mete out punishment—typically flogging—as he saw fit. At the same time, in the vastness of the ocean, a ship’s captain had no one to turn to for help. He had to be ever mindful that he was outnumbered.

Cook was known as a stickler for order. A crew member recorded that Cook once performed an inspection of his men’s hands; those with dirty fingers forfeited the day’s allowance of grog. He seemed to have a sixth sense for the approach of land; another crew member claimed that Cook could intuit it even in the dead of night. Although in the seventeen-seventies no one knew what caused scurvy, Cook insisted that his men eat fresh fruit whenever possible and that they consume sauerkraut, a good source of Vitamin C.

Of Cook’s inner life, few traces remain. When he set off for Tahiti, he had a wife and three children. Before she died, Elizabeth Cook burned her personal papers, including her correspondence with her husband. Letters from Cook that have been preserved mostly read like this one, to the Navy Board: “Please to order his Majesty’s Bark the Endeavour to be supply’d with eight Tonns of Iron Ballast.” Cook left behind voluminous logs and journals; the entries in these, too, are generally bloodless.

“Punished Richard Hutchins, seaman, with 12 lashes for disobeying commands,” he wrote, on April 16, 1769, when the Endeavour was anchored off Tahiti. “Most part of these 24 hours Cloudy, with frequent Showers of Rain,” he observed, from the same spot, on May 25th. The captain, as one of his biographers has put it, had “no natural gift for rhapsody.” Sides writes, “It could be said that he lived during a romantic age of exploration, but he was decidedly not a romantic.”

Still, feelings and opinions do sometimes creep into Cook’s writing. He is by turns charmed and appalled by the novel customs he encounters. A group of Tahitians cook a dog for him; he finds it very tasty and resolves “for the future never to dispise Dog’s flesh.” He sees some islanders eat the lice that they have picked out of their hair and declares this highly “disagreeable.”

Many of the Indigenous people Cook met had never before seen a European. Cook recognized it was in his interest to convince them that he came in friendship; he also saw that, in case persuasion failed, the main advantage he possessed was guns.

In a journal entry devoted to the Endeavour’s first landing in New Zealand, near present-day Gisborne, Cook treats the killing of the Māori as regrettable but justified. The British had attempted to take some Māori men on board their ship to demonstrate that their intentions were peaceful. But this gesture was—understandably—misinterpreted. The Māori hurled their canoe paddles at the British, who responded by firing at them. Cook acknowledges “that most Humane men” will condemn the killings. But, he declares, “I was not to stand still and suffer either myself or those that were with me to be knocked on the head.”

After mapping both New Zealand’s North and South Islands, Cook headed to Australia, then known as New Holland. The Endeavour worked its way to the country’s northernmost point, which Cook named York Cape (and which is now called Cape York). The inhabitants of the coast made it clear that they wanted nothing to do with the British. Cook left gifts onshore, but they remained untouched.

Cook’s response to the Aboriginal Australians is one of the most often cited passages from his journals. In it, he seems to foresee—and regret—the destruction of Indigenous cultures which his own expeditions will facilitate. “From what I have said of the Natives of New Holland they may appear to some to be the most wretched People upon Earth; but in reality they are far more happier than we Europeans,” he writes.

The earth and Sea of their own accord furnishes them with all things necessary for Life. They covet not Magnificient Houses, Household-stuff, etc.; they live in a Warm and fine Climate, and enjoy every wholesome Air. . . . They seem’d to set no Value upon anything we gave them, nor would they ever part with anything of their own for any one Article we could offer them. This, in my opinion, Argues that they think themselves provided with all the necessarys of Life, and that they have no Superfluities.

If Cook’s first voyage failed to turn up the missing continent or to calculate the Earth’s distance from the sun, imperially speaking it was a resounding success: the captain had claimed both New Zealand and the east coast of Australia for Britain. (In neither case had Cook sought or secured the “Consent of the Natives,” but this lapse doesn’t seem to have troubled the Admiralty.) The very next year, Cook was dispatched again, this time in command of two ships, the Resolution and the Adventure. Navy brass continued to insist that Terra Australis Incognita was out there somewhere—presumably farther south than the Endeavour had ventured—and on his second voyage Cook was supposed to keep sailing until he found it. He crossed and recrossed the Antarctic Circle, at one point getting as far as seventy-one degrees south. Conditions on the Southern Ocean were generally terrible—frigid and foggy. Still, there was no sign of a continent. Cook ventured that if there were any land nearer to the pole it would be so hemmed in by ice that it would “never be explored.” (Antarctica would not be sighted for almost fifty years.)

Once more, Cook hadn’t found what he was seeking, but upon his return he was again hailed as a hero. Britain’s leading scientific institution, the Royal Society, granted him its highest honor, the Copley Medal, and the Navy rewarded him with a cushy desk job. The expectation was that he would settle down, enjoy his sinecure, and finally spend some time with his family. Instead, he set out on yet another expedition.

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“The Wide Wide Sea” focusses almost exclusively on Cook’s third—and for him fatal—voyage. Sides portrays Cook’s decision to undertake it as an act of hubris; the captain, he writes, “could scarcely imagine failure.” The journey got off to an inauspicious start. Cook’s second-in-command, Charles Clerke, was to captain a ship called the Discovery, while Cook, once again, sailed on the Resolution. When both vessels were scheduled to depart, in July, 1776, Clerke was nowhere to be found. (Thanks to the improvidence of a brother, he’d been tossed in debtors’ prison.) Cook set off without him. A few weeks later, the Resolution nearly crashed into one of the Cape Verde Islands, a mishap that Sides sees as a portent. The ship, it turned out, also leaked terribly—another bad sign.

The plan for the third voyage was more or less the inverse of the second’s. Cook’s instructions were to head north and to look not for land but for its absence. The Admiralty wanted him to find a seaway around Canada—the fabled Northwest Passage. Generations of sailors had sought the passage from the Atlantic and been blocked by ice. Cook was to probe from the opposite direction.

The expedition also had a secondary aim involving a Polynesian named Mai. Mai came from the Society Islands, and in 1773 he had talked his way on board the Adventure. Arriving in London the following year, he entranced the British aristocracy. He sat in on sessions of Parliament, learned to hunt grouse, met the King, and, according to Sides, became “something of a card sharp.” But, after two years of entertaining toffs, Mai wanted to go home. It fell to Cook to take him, along with a barnyard’s worth of livestock that King George III was sending as a gift.

Clerke, on the Discovery, finally caught up to Cook in Cape Town, where the Resolution was docked for provisioning and repairs. Together, the two ships sailed away from Africa and stopped off in Tasmania. In February, 1777, they pulled into Queen Charlotte Sound, a long, narrow inlet in the northeast corner of New Zealand’s South Island. There, more trouble awaited.

Cook had visited Queen Charlotte Sound (which he had named) four times before. During his second voyage, it had been the site of a singularly gruesome disaster. Ten of Cook’s men—sailors on the Adventure—had gone ashore to gather provisions. The Māori had slain and, it was said, eaten them.

Cook wasn’t in New Zealand when the slaughter took place; the Adventure and the Resolution had been separated in a fog. But, on his way back to England, he heard rumblings about it from the crew of a Dutch vessel that the Resolution encountered at sea. Cook was reluctant to credit the rumors. He wrote that he would withhold judgment on the “Melancholy affair” until he had learned more. “I must however observe in favour of the New Zealanders that I have allways found them of a Brave, Noble, Open and benevolent disposition,” he added.

By the time of the third voyage, Cook knew the stories he’d heard were, broadly speaking, accurate. Why, then, did he return to the scene of the carnage? Sides argues that Cook was still searching for answers. The captain, he writes, thought the massacre “demanded an inquiry and a reckoning, however long overdue.”

In his investigation, Cook was aided by Mai, whose native language was similar to Māori. The sequence of events that Mai helped piece together began with the theft of some bread. The leader of the British crew had reacted to this petty crime by shooting not only the thief but also a second Māori man. In retaliation, the Māori had killed all ten British sailors and chopped up their bodies. Eventually, Cook learned who had led the retaliatory raid—a pugnacious local chief named Kahura. One day, Mai pointed him out to Cook. The following day, the captain invited Kahura on board the Resolution and ushered him down into his private cabin. Instead of shooting Kahura, Cook had his draftsman draw a portrait of him.

Mai found Cook’s conduct unfathomable. “Why do you not kill him?” he cried. Cook’s men, too, were infuriated. They made fun of his forbearance by staging a mock trial. One of the sailors had adopted a Polynesian dog known as a kurī. (The breed is now extinct.) The men accused the dog of cannibalism, found it guilty as charged, then killed and ate it.

Sides doesn’t think that Cook knew about the cannibal burlesque, but the captain, he says, sensed his crew’s disaffection. And this, Sides argues, caused something in Cook to snap. For Cook, he writes, the “visit to Queen Charlotte Sound became a sharp turning point.” It would be the last time that the captain would be accused of leniency.

As evidence of Cook’s changed outlook, Sides relates an incident that occurred eight months after the trial of the dog, this one featuring a pregnant goat. The Resolution had anchored off Moorea, one of the Society Islands, and animals from the ship’s travelling menagerie had been left to graze onshore. One day, a goat went missing. Cook was told that the animal had been taken to a village on the opposite end of the island. With three dozen men, he marched to the village and torched it. (Most of the villagers had fled before he arrived.) The next day, the goat still had not been returned, and the British continued their rampage. Such was the level of destruction, one of Cook’s men noted in his journal, that it “could scarcely be repaired in a century.” Another crew member expressed shock at the captain’s “precipitate proceeding,” which, he said, violated “any principle one can form of justice.”

Having wrecked much of Moorea, Cook couldn’t leave Mai there, so he installed him and his livestock on the nearby island of Huahine. A few years later, Mai died, apparently from a virus introduced by yet another boatload of European sailors.

Cook spent several months searching fruitlessly along the coast of Alaska for the Northwest Passage. But, on the journey north from Huahine, he had stumbled upon something arguably better—the Hawaiian Islands. In January, 1778, the Resolution and the Discovery stopped in Kauai. The following January, they landed at Kealakekua Bay, on the Big Island.

What the Hawaiians thought of the strange men who appeared on strange ships has been much debated in academic circles. (Two prominent anthropologists, Marshall Sahlins, of the University of Chicago, and Gananath Obeyesekere, of Princeton, engaged in a high-profile feud on the subject which spanned decades.) Cook and his men happened to have landed on the Big Island at the height of an important festival. The captain was greeted by thousands of people invoking Lono, a god associated with peace and fertility. According to some scholars, the Hawaiians gathered for the festival saw Cook as the embodiment of Lono. According to others, they saw him as someone playacting Lono, and, according to still others, the whole Cook-as-Lono story is a myth created by Europeans. What Cook himself thought is unknown, because no logs or journal entries from the last few weeks of his life survive. It is possible that he just let his record-keeping slide, and it is also possible that the entries contained compromising information and were destroyed by the Admiralty.

After Cook had been on the Big Island for several days, King Kalani‘ōpu‘u appeared with a fleet of war canoes. (He had, it seems, been off fighting on another island.) At first, Kalani‘ōpu‘u welcomed the British—he presented Cook with a magnificent cloak made of feathers, and he dined several times on the Resolution—then he indicated that it was time for them to go. It’s unclear whether the King’s impatience reflected the religious calendar—the festival associated with Lono had concluded—or more mundane concerns, such as feeding so many hungry sailors, but Cook got the message. The expedition soon departed, only to suffer another mishap. The foremast of the Resolution snapped. There was no way for it to go forward, so both ships made their way back to Kealakekua Bay.

It was while the British were trying to repair the Resolution that someone made off with the small boat and Cook decided to take the King hostage. The captain had often resorted to this tactic to get—or get back—what he wanted; it had usually worked well for him, but never before had he dealt with someone as powerful as Kalani‘ōpu‘u. Cook was leading the King down to the beach—Kalani‘ōpu‘u seems to have been convinced he was being invited for another friendly meal—when warriors started to emerge from the trees. Sides argues that Cook could have saved himself had he simply turned and run, but, as one of his men put it, “he too wrongly thought that the flash of a musket would disperse the whole island.” In the fighting that ensued, Cook, four of his men, and as many as thirty Hawaiians were killed. As was customary on the island, Cook’s body was burned. Some of his singed bones were returned to the British; those that remained in Hawaii, according to Sides, were later paraded around as part of the festival associated with Lono.

Though Sides says he wants to “reckon anew” with Cook, it’s not exactly clear what this would entail at a time when the captain has already been—figuratively, at least—sawed off at the ankles. “The Wide Wide Sea” portrays Cook as a complicated figure, driven by instincts and motives that often seem to have been opaque even to him. Although it’s no hagiography, the book is also not likely to rattle teacups at the Captain Cook Society, members of which receive a quarterly publication devoted entirely to Cook-related topics.

Like all biographies, “The Wide Wide Sea” emphasizes agency. Cook may be an ambivalent, even self-contradictory figure; still, it’s his actions and decisions that drive the narrative forward. But, as Cook himself seemed to have realized, and on occasion lamented, he was but an instrument in a much, much larger scheme. The whole reason the British sent him off to seek Terra Australis Incognita was that they feared a rival power would reach it first. If Cook hadn’t hoisted what he called the “English Colours” on what’s still known as Possession Island, in northern Queensland, it seems fair to assume that another captain would have claimed Australia for England or for some other European nation. Similarly, if Cook’s men hadn’t brought sexually transmitted diseases to the Hawaiian Islands, then sailors from a different ship would have done so. Colonialism and its attendant ills were destined to reach the many paradisaical places Cook visited and mapped, although, without his undeniable navigational skills, that might have taken a few years more. ♦

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Daily Southtown | ‘At a safe distance’: Expert to discuss poison…

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Daily southtown | ‘at a safe distance’: expert to discuss poison and its uses in murder at frankfort library.

With luck, most people won’t need to know what it feels like to be dosed by deadly cocktails, taste a killer curry or have a brush with a lethal umbrella.

But just in case, a program is scheduled this month at the Frankfort Public Library District that could save lives. Medical biochemist and author Neil Bradbury will explore the effects of poisons on the human body and discuss the motives of murderers during A Taste of Poison, from 7 to 8 p.m. April 9 at the library.

“Hopefully what is going to happen is you will learn something,” Bradbury said. “For example, you will learn the symptoms of different poisons, so if you are poisoned you can tell the paramedics which poison you’ve been poisoned with.

“I also expect you’ll have some fun. You’ll be exposed to true crimes, a little history. Ultimately, I hope you’ll have an enjoyable evening.”

The program is free and open to anyone but requires registration because space is limited.

“True crime and murder mysteries have always fascinated people. They are always the top sellers in books. You can go on any TV channel and see some kind of murder mystery, “CSI”-type shows,” Bradbury said. “I think it’s also true that I point out in the book that everybody eventually gets caught and convicted, so there is some sense of justice that even though they try to get away with murder, they are ultimately caught.”

Bradbury, a professor of physiology and biophysics at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science in North Chicago, is a graduate of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and the University of Wales School of Medicine. He became interested in poisons and the killers who use them when he was young.

“As a child I loved reading murder mysteries: Agatha Christie, Conan Doyle, PD James. People like that. In a lot of their stories, poisons were used, but I found it frustrating that a lot of times it wasn’t described what the poisons did.

“Someone was killed with cyanide. Why is that bad? Why does it kill you?” he asked. “I found it frustrating that that information wasn’t there. I became curious. As a scientist, it kind of bugged me that I didn’t understand what was going on.”

That, paired with his love of history, inspired his 2022 book, “A Taste of Poison: Eleven Deadly Molecules and the Killers Who Used Them.”

“I couldn’t find the kind of book that I wanted to read about the topic, so I decided I’d write the kind of book I want to read. It combines history, science, true crime – hopefully not in an entirely morbid fashion, but I wanted it to be available to explain the science.”

Another hope for the book is that it will help people discover that science can be fun, no matter what they may have experienced in school.

“Part of writing the book for the general public is to convey a sense that science is accessible and you don’t have to have a degree. It can be fun and interesting,” he said. “It seems that murder and true crime and poison, any TV shows you can think of, focus on that end: to explain the science of the body in a way people can appreciate. And put a twist on poison and true crime that I didn’t find out there before.”

Bradbury’s book was selected as part of the Illinois Reads program for 2024, which means libraries will have it available and a special book signing will take place at the Illinois State Fair later this year when all of the books in the program will be presented. “It’s now available in nine languages,” he added.

He said his family has been very supportive about his passion, although one person was a little wary at first.

“Initially my wife was a little concerned about finding poisons on the computer that I was looking up, although she was comforted that the book had been published and she was in no danger. … I suppose if I had been planning it, leaving the pages on the computer wouldn’t be the best way!” he joked.

Bradbury had a hard time deciding which poisons to include in the book, which took him about two years to write.

“The way in which I did it was by appreciating that not every poison works in exactly the same way. They all have different effects on the body,” he said. “I wanted to get a broad range of different poisons and how they work. Some affect the nervous system. Some poisons affect every part of the body by shutting down its energy. The poisons work in slightly different ways, so that was the way I went about selecting these 11.”

He actually has a favorite poison: polonium, a radioactive poison used in 2006 to assassinate former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, who had fled Russia amid a government shakeup. He was poisoned when it was placed in a pot of tea in a restaurant at a hotel in London, where he was living as an expatriate.

“The reason I find this particularly interesting is because I have had afternoon tea at that exact restaurant,” Bradbury said. “I will confess that the last time I dragged my family over to London, one of the things I absolutely demanded we do was have afternoon tea in the restaurant at the hotel where Litvinenko was poisoned.

“We all survived,” he joked. “I thought it was fascinating to be within inches of where this murder took place. It was not natural. The people who committed the poison actually did escape. They flew back to Moscow and there is no extradition for them even though there are arrest warrants for them in London.”

Bradbury’s love of poisons is reflected on his website, neilbradbury.org, which features a photo of the Poison Garden at Alnwick Castle in Northumberland, England. The castle should be familiar to fans of “Harry Potter” movies because many scenes were filmed there.

“I was privileged to be invited to be an honorary tour guide last year at the poison garden. I was with some of the head gardeners taking tours around for people who came to visit the gardens. We went through the poison garden discussing plants present in the poison garden,” he said.

“In an average year they have an average of 143 people who faint during the tour. I was responsible for four of those, apparently,” he said, adding that the fainting is “entirely psychological” because of the stories involved.

He  pointed out that he was in the gardens for three days. “There’s nothing in the air. There’s nothing that’s really deadly. … There really is no danger involved in going on a tour.”

The garden was originally designed “as an outreach by the duchess for education against drugs so they have drug plants there, marijuana, cannabis plants, cocaine,” Bradbury explained. “It was an outreach tool for drug prevention and they do bring high school groups around but they’ve also expanded to include a lot of poisonous plants.”

Bradbury and his book are a perfect fit for the Frankfort library, according to Rebecca Cerf, of adult library services, who also leads the library’s Coffee Cake & Crime book discussion group.

“I thought a book about using various poisons as a means of murder would be an interesting read for our group and a discussion with Dr. Bradbury at the library would be even more fun and engaging,” she said.

The Coffee Cake & Crime book club will discuss his book April 5, and the Nonfiction at Night book club will discuss it on April 8. His presentation is the next night.

“Dr. Bradbury’s discussion of the various molecules that make up each of the poisons covered in his book and how they affect the body will give an interesting and scientific insight, but the discussion of real-life cases and examples of how they have been used will make for a fascinating presentation,” Cerf explained. “I really can’t say why people are fascinated with mysteries, but there seems to be a psychological basis for people to be drawn to disaster/danger but be at a safe distance to observe and potentially learn from it.”

Ever the librarian, to accompany the book clubs and the presentation, Cerf planned to put up a “poison book display” that will feature books geared toward mysteries involving poisons.

No library card is required to register for the event, which can be done at the website or by calling 815-469-2423.

Bradbury is appreciative that the discussion groups and others enjoy reading his book. “Honestly, it makes me feel very gratified that people find this interesting. That was part of what I hoped for when I wrote the book is that people would be interested in the topic and would see it from a different angle that maybe they haven’t thought about it for,” he said. “So the fact that they find it worthy of their time is very gratifying to me.”

Melinda Moore is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown. 

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Ronna McDaniel, TV News and the Trump Problem

The former republican national committee chairwoman was hired by nbc and then let go after an outcry..

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

From “The New York Times,” I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.”

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Today, the saga of Ronna McDaniel and NBC and what it reveals about the state of television news headed into the 2024 presidential race. Jim Rutenberg, a “Times” writer at large, is our guest.

It’s Monday, April 1.

Jim, NBC News just went through a very public, a very searing drama over the past week, that we wanted you to make sense of in your unique capacity as a longtime media and political reporter at “The Times.” This is your sweet spot. You were, I believe, born to dissect this story for us.

Oh, brother.

Well, on the one hand, this is a very small moment for a major network like NBC. They hire, as a contributor, not an anchor, not a correspondent, as a contributor, Ronna McDaniel, the former RNC chairwoman. It blows up in a mini scandal at the network.

But to me, it represents a much larger issue that’s been there since that moment Donald J. Trump took his shiny gold escalator down to announce his presidential run in 2015. This struggle by the news media to figure out, especially on television, how do we capture him, cover him for all of his lies, all the challenges he poses to Democratic norms, yet not alienate some 74, 75 million American voters who still follow him, still believe in him, and still want to hear his reality reflected in the news that they’re listening to?

Right. Which is about as gnarly a conundrum as anyone has ever dealt with in the news media.

Well, it’s proven so far unsolvable.

Well, let’s use the story of what actually happened with Ronna McDaniel and NBC to illustrate your point. And I think that means describing precisely what happened in this situation.

The story starts out so simply. It’s such a basic thing that television networks do. As elections get underway, they want people who will reflect the two parties.

They want talking heads. They want insiders. They want them on their payroll so they can rely on them whenever they need them. And they want them to be high level so they can speak with great knowledge about the two major candidates.

Right. And rather than needing to beg these people to come on their show at 6 o’clock, when they might be busy and it’s not their full-time job, they go off and they basically put them on retainer for a bunch of money.

Yeah. And in this case, here’s this perfect scenario because quite recently, Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee through the Trump era, most of it, is now out on the market. She’s actually recently been forced out of the party. And all the networks are interested because here’s the consummate insider from Trump world ready to get snatched up under contract for the next election and can really represent this movement that they’ve been trying to capture.

So NBC’S key news executives move pretty aggressively, pretty swiftly, and they sign her up for a $300,000 a year contributor’s contract.

Nice money if you can get it.

Not at millions of dollars that they pay their anchors, but a very nice contract. I’ll take it. You’ll take it. In the eyes of NBC execs she was perfect because she can be on “Meet the Press” as a panelist. She can help as they figure out some of their coverage. They have 24 hours a day to fill and here’s an official from the RNC. You can almost imagine the question that would be asked to her. It’s 10:00 PM on election night. Ronna, what are the Trump people thinking right now? They’re looking at the same numbers you are.

That was good, but that’s exactly it. And we all know it, right? This is television in our current era.

So last Friday, NBC makes what should be a routine announcement, but one they’re very proud of, that they’ve hired Ronna McDaniel. And in a statement, they say it couldn’t be a more important moment to have a voice like Ronna’s on the team. So all’s good, right? Except for there’s a fly in the ointment.

Because it turns out that Ronna McDaniel has been slated to appear on “Meet the Press,” not as a paid NBC contributor, but as a former recently ousted RNC chair with the “Meet The Press” host, Kristen Welker, who’s preparing to have a real tough interview with Ronna McDaniel. Because of course, Ronna McDaniel was chair of the party and at Trump’s side as he tried to refuse his election loss. So this was supposed to be a showdown interview.

From NBC News in Washington, the longest-running show in television history. This is “Meet The Press” with Kristen Welker.

And here, all of a sudden, Kristin Welker is thrown for a loop.

In full disclosure to our viewers, this interview was scheduled weeks before it was announced that McDaniel would become a paid NBC News contributor.

Because now, she’s actually interviewing a member of the family who’s on the same payroll.

Right. Suddenly, she’s interviewing a colleague.

This will be a news interview, and I was not involved in her hiring.

So what happens during the interview?

So Welker is prepared for a tough interview, and that’s exactly what she does.

Can you say, as you sit here today, did Joe Biden win the election fair and square?

He won. He’s the legitimate president.

Did he win fair and square?

Fair and square, he won. It’s certified. It’s done.

She presses her on the key question that a lot of Republicans get asked these days — do you accept Joe Biden was the winner of the election?

But, I do think, Kristen —

Ronna, why has it taken you until now to say that? Why has it taken you until now to be able to say that?

I’m going to push back a little.

McDaniel gets defensive at times.

Because I do think it’s fair to say there were problems in 2020. And to say that does not mean he’s not the legitimate president.

But, Ronna, when you say that, it suggests that there was something wrong with the election. And you know that the election was the most heavily scrutinized. Chris Krebs —

It’s a really combative interview.

I want to turn now to your actions in the aftermath of the 2020 election.

And Welker actually really does go deeply into McDaniel’s record in those weeks before January 6.

On November 17, you and Donald Trump were recorded pushing two Republican Michigan election officials not to certify the results of the election. And on the call —

For instance, she presses McDaniel on McDaniel’s role in an attempt to convince a couple county commissioner level canvassers in Michigan to not certify Biden’s victory.

Our call that night was to say, are you OK? Vote your conscience. Not pushing them to do anything.

McDaniel says, look, I was just telling them to vote their conscience. They should do whatever they think is right.

But you said, do not sign it. If you can go home tonight, do not sign it. How can people read that as anything other than a pressure campaign?

And Welker’s not going to just let her off the hook. Welker presses her on Trump’s own comments about January 6 and Trump’s efforts recently to gloss over some of the violence, and to say that those who have been arrested, he’ll free them.

Do you support that?

I want to be very clear. The violence that happened on January 6 is unacceptable.

And this is a frankly fascinating moment because you can hear McDaniel starting to, if not quite reverse some of her positions, though in some cases she does that, at least really soften her language. It’s almost as if she’s switching uniforms from the RNC one to an NBC one or almost like breaking from a role she was playing.

Ronna, why not speak out earlier? Why just speak out about that now?

When you’re the RNC chair, you kind of take one for the whole team, right? Now, I get to be a little bit more myself.

She says, hey, you know what? Sometimes as RNC chair, you just have to take it for the team sometimes.

Right. What she’s really saying is I did things as chairwoman of the Republican National committee that now that I no longer have that job, I can candidly say, I wished I hadn’t done, which is very honest. But it’s also another way of saying I’m two faced, or I was playing a part.

Ronna McDaniel, thank you very much for being here this morning.

Then something extraordinary happens. And I have to say, I’ve never seen a moment like this in decades of watching television news and covering television news.

Welcome back. The panel is here. Chuck Todd, NBC News chief political analyst.

Welker brings her regular panel on, including Chuck Todd, now the senior NBC political analyst.

Chuck, let’s dive right in. What were your takeaways?

And he launches right into what he calls —

Look, let me deal with the elephant in the room.

The elephant being this hiring of McDaniel.

I think our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation.

And he proceeds, on NBC’S air, to lace into management for, as he describes it, putting Welker in this crazy awkward position.

Because I don’t know what to believe. She is now a paid contributor by NBC News. I have no idea whether any answer she gave to you was because she didn’t want to mess up her contract.

And Todd is very hung up on this idea that when she was speaking for the party, she would say one thing. And now that she’s on the payroll at NBC, she’s saying another thing.

She has credibility issues that she still has to deal with. Is she speaking for herself, or is she speaking on behalf of who’s paying her?

Todd is basically saying, how are we supposed to know which one to believe.

What can we believe?

It is important for this network and for always to have a wide aperture. Having ideological diversity on this panel is something I prided myself on.

And what he’s effectively saying is that his bosses should have never hired her in this capacity.

I understand the motivation, but this execution, I think, was poor.

Someone said to me last night we live in complicated times. Thank you guys for being here. I really appreciate it.

Now, let’s just note here, this isn’t just any player at NBC. Chuck Todd is obviously a major news name at the network. And him doing this appears to just open the floodgates across the entire NBC News brand, especially on its sister cable network, MSNBC.

And where I said I’d never seen anything like what I saw on “Meet the Press” that morning, I’d never seen anything like this either. Because now, the entire MSNBC lineup is in open rebellion. I mean, from the minute that the sun comes up. There is Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.

We weren’t asked our opinion of the hiring. But if we were, we would have strongly objected to it.

They’re on fire over this.

believe NBC News should seek out conservative Republican voices, but it should be conservative Republicans, not a person who used her position of power to be an anti-democracy election denier.

But it rolls out across the entire schedule.

Because Ronna McDaniel has been a major peddler of the big lie.

The fact that Ms. McDaniel is on the payroll at NBC News, to me that is inexplicable. I mean, you wouldn’t hire a mobster to work at a DA’s office.

Rachel Maddow devotes an entire half hour.

It’s not about just being associated with Donald Trump and his time in the Republican Party. It’s not even about lying or not lying. It’s about our system of government.

Thumbing their noses at our bosses and basically accusing them of abetting a traitorous figure in American history. I mean, just extraordinary stuff. It’s television history.

And let’s face it, we journalists, our bosses, we can be seen as crybabies, and we’re paid complaining. Yeah, that’s what we’re paid to do. But in this case, the NBC executives cannot ignore this, because in the outcry, there’s a very clear point that they’re all making. Ronna McDaniel is not just a voice from the other side. She was a fundamental part of Trump’s efforts to deny his election loss.

This is not inviting the other side. This is someone who’s on the wrong side —

Of history.

Of history, of these moments that we’ve covered and are still covering.

And I think it’s fair to say that at this point, everyone understands that Ronna McDaniel’s time at NBC News is going to be very short lived. Yeah, basically, after all this, the executives at NBC have to face facts it’s over. And on Tuesday night, they release a statement to the staff saying as much.

They don’t cite the questions about red lines or what Ronna McDaniel represented or didn’t represent. They just say we need to have a unified newsroom. We want cohesion. This isn’t working.

I think in the end, she was a paid contributor for four days.

Yeah, one of the shortest tenures in television news history. And look, in one respect, by their standards, this is kind of a pretty small contract, a few hundred thousand dollars they may have to pay out. But it was way more costly because they hired her. They brought her on board because they wanted to appeal to these tens of millions of Americans who still love Donald J. Trump.

And what happens now is that this entire thing is blown up in their face, and those very same people now see a network that, in their view, in the view of Republicans across the country, this network will not accept any Republicans. So it becomes more about that. And Fox News, NBC’S longtime rival, goes wall to wall with this.

Now, NBC News just caved to the breathless demands from their far left, frankly, emotionally unhinged host.

I mean, I had it on my desk all day. And every minute I looked at that screen, it was pounding on these liberals at NBC News driving this Republican out.

It’s the shortest tenure in TV history, I think. But why? Well, because she supports Donald Trump, period.

So in a way, this leaves NBC worse off with that Trump Republican audience they had wanted to court than maybe even they were before. It’s like a boomerang with a grenade on it.

Yeah, it completely explodes in their face. And that’s why to me, the whole episode is so representative of this eight-year conundrum for the news media, especially on television. They still haven’t been able to crack the code for how to handle the Trump movement, the Trump candidacy, and what it has wrought on the American political system and American journalism.

We’ll be right back.

Jim, put into context this painful episode of NBC into that larger conundrum you just diagnosed that the media has faced when it comes to Trump.

Well, Michael, it’s been there from the very beginning, from the very beginning of his political rise. The media was on this kind of seesaw. They go back and forth over how to cover him. Sometimes they want to cover him quite aggressively because he’s such a challenging candidate. He was bursting so many norms.

But at other times, there was this instinct to understand his appeal, for the same reason. He’s such an unusual candidate. So there was a great desire to really understand his voters. And frankly, to speak to his voters, because they’re part of the audience. And we all lived it, right?

But just let me take you back anyway because everything’s fresh again with perspective. And so if you go back, let’s look at when he first ran. The networks, if you recall, saw him as almost like a novelty candidate.

He was going to spice up what was expected to be a boring campaign between the usual suspects. And he was a ratings magnet. And the networks, they just couldn’t get enough of it. And they allowed him, at times, to really shatter their own norms.

Welcome back to “Meet the Press,” sir.

Good morning, Chuck.

Good morning. Let me start —

He was able to just call into the studio and riff with the likes of George Stephanopoulos and Chuck Todd.

What does it have to do with Hillary?

She can’t talk about me because nobody respects women more than Donald Trump.

And CNN gave him a lot of unmitigated airtime, if you recall during the campaign. They would run the press conferences.

It’s the largest winery on the East Coast. I own it 100 percent.

And let him promote his Trump steaks and his Trump wine.

Trump steaks. Where are the steaks? Do we have steaks?

I mean, it got that crazy. But again, the ratings were huge. And then he wins. And because they had previously given him all that airtime, they’ve, in retrospect, sort of given him a political gift, and more than that now have a journalistic imperative to really address him in a different way, to cover him as they would have covered any other candidate, which, let’s face it, they weren’t doing initially. So there’s this extra motivation to make up for lost ground and maybe for some journalistic omissions.

Right. Kind of correct for the lack of a rigorous journalistic filter in the campaign.

Exactly. And the big thing that this will be remembered for is we’re going to call a lie a lie.

I don’t want to sugarcoat this because facts matter, and the fact is President Trump lies.

Trump lies. We’re going to say it’s a lie.

And I think we can’t just mince around it because they are lies. And so we need to call them what they are.

We’re no longer going to use euphemisms or looser language we’re. Going to call it for what it is.

Trump lies in tweets. He spreads false information at rallies. He lies when he doesn’t need to. He lies when the truth is more than enough for him.

CNN was running chyrons. They would fact check Trump and call lies lies on the screen while Trump is talking. They were challenging Trump to his face —

One of the statements that you made in the tail end of the campaign in the midterms that —

Here we go.

That — well, if you don’t mind, Mr. President, that this caravan was an invasion.

— in these crazy press conferences —

They’re are hundreds of miles away, though. They’re hundreds and hundreds of miles away. That’s not an invasion.

Honestly, I think you should let me run the country. You run CNN. And if you did it well, your ratings —

Well, let me ask — if I may ask one other question. Mr. President, if I may ask another question. Are you worried —

That’s enough. That’s enough.

And Trump is giving it right back.

I tell you what, CNN should be ashamed of itself having you working for them. You are a rude, terrible person. You shouldn’t be working for CNN.

Very combative.

So this was this incredibly fraught moment for the American press. You’ve got tens of millions of Trump supporters seeing what’s really basic fact checking. These look like attacks to Trump supporters. Trump, in turn, is calling the press, the reporters are enemies of the people. So it’s a terrible dynamic.

And when January 6 happens, it’s so obviously out of control. And what the traditional press that follows, traditional journalistic rules has to do is make it clear that the claims that Trump is making about a stolen election are just so abjectly false that they don’t warrant a single minute of real consideration once the reporting has been done to show how false they are. And I think that American journalism really emerged from that feeling strongly about its own values and its own place in society.

But then there’s still tens of millions of Trump voters, and they don’t feel so good about the coverage. And they don’t agree that January 6 was an insurrection. And so we enter yet another period, where the press is going to have to now maybe rethink some things.

In what way?

Well, there’s a kind of quiet period after January 6. Trump is off of social media. The smoke is literally dissipating from the air in Washington. And news executives are kind of standing there on the proverbial battlefield, taking a new look at their situation.

And they’re seeing that in this clearer light, they’ve got some new problems, perhaps none more important for their entire business models than that their ratings are quickly crashing. And part of that diminishment is that a huge part of the country, that Trump-loving part of the audience, is really now severed from him from their coverage.

They see the press as actually, in some cases, being complicit in stealing an election. And so these news executives, again, especially on television, which is so ratings dependent, they’ve got a problem. So after presumably learning all these lessons about journalism and how to confront power, there’s a first subtle and then much less subtle rethinking.

Maybe we need to pull back from that approach. And maybe we need to take some new lessons and switch it up a little bit and reverse some of what we did. And one of the best examples of this is none other than CNN.

It had come under new management, was being led by a guy named Chris Licht, a veteran of cable news, but also Stephen Colbert’s late night show in his last job. And his new job under this new management is we’re going to recalibrate a little bit. So Chris Licht proceeds to try to bring the network back to the center.

And how does he do that?

Well, we see some key personalities who represented the Trump combat era start losing air time and some of them lose their jobs. There’s talk of, we want more Republicans on the air. There was a famous magazine article about Chris Licht’s balancing act here.

And Chris Licht says to a reporter, Tim Alberta of the “Atlantic” magazine, look, a lot in the media, including at his own network, quote unquote, “put on a jersey, took a side.” They took a side. And he says, I think we understand that jersey cannot go back on him. Because he says in the end of the day, by the way, it didn’t even work. We didn’t change anyone’s mind.

He’s saying that confrontational approach that defined the four years Trump was in office, that was a reaction to the feeling that TV news had failed to properly treat Trump with sufficient skepticism, that that actually was a failure both of journalism and of the TV news business. Is that what he’s saying?

Yeah. On the business side, it’s easier call, right? You want a bigger audience, and you’re not getting the bigger audience. But he’s making a journalistic argument as well that if the job is to convey the truth and take it to the people, and they take that into account as they make their own voting decisions and formulate their own opinions about American politics, if tens of millions of people who do believe that election was stolen are completely tuning you out because now they see you as a political combatant, you’re not achieving your ultimate goal as a journalist.

And what does Licht’s “don’t put a jersey back on” approach look like on CNN for its viewers?

Well, It didn’t look good. People might remember this, but the most glaring example —

Please welcome, the front runner for the Republican nomination for president, Donald Trump.

— was when he held a town hall meeting featuring Donald J. Trump, now candidate Trump, before an audience packed with Trump’s fans.

You look at what happened during that election. Unless you’re a very stupid person, you see what happens. A lot of the people —

Trump let loose a string of falsehoods.

Most people understand what happened. It was a rigged election.

The audience is pro-Trump audience, was cheering him on.

Are you ready? Are you ready? Can I talk?

Yeah, what’s your answer?

Can I? Do you mind?

I would like for you to answer the question.

OK. It’s very simple to answer.

That’s why I asked it.

It’s very simple. You’re a nasty person, I’ll tell you that.

And during, the CNN anchor hosting this, Kaitlan Collins, on CNN’s own air, it was a disaster.

It felt like a callback to the unlearned lessons of 2016.

Yeah. And in this case, CNN’s staff was up in arms.

Big shakeup in the cable news industry as CNN makes another change at the top.

Chris Licht is officially out at CNN after a chaotic run as chairman and CEO.

And Chris Licht didn’t survive it.

The chief executive’s departure comes as he faced criticism in recent weeks after the network hosted a town hall with Donald Trump and the network’s ratings started to drop.

But I want to say that the CNN leadership still, even after that, as they brought new leadership in, said, this is still the path we’re going to go on. Maybe that didn’t work out, but we’re still here. This is still what we have to do.

Right. And this idea is very much in the water of TV news, that this is the right overall direction.

Yeah. This is, by no means, isolated to CNN. This is throughout the traditional news business. These conversations are happening everywhere. But CNN was living it at that point.

And this, of course, is how we get to NBC deciding to hire Ronna McDaniel.

Right. Because they’re picking up — right where that conversation leaves off, they’re having the same conversation. But for NBC, you could argue this tension between journalistic values and audience. It’s even more pressing. Because even though MSNBC is a niche cable network, NBC News is part of an old-fashioned broadcast network. It’s on television stations throughout the country.

And in fact, those networks, they still have 6:30 newscasts. And believe it or not, millions of people still watch those every night. Maybe not as many as they used to, but there’s still some six or seven million people tuning in to nightly news. That’s important.

Right. We should say that kind of number is sometimes double or triple that of the cable news prime time shows that get all the attention.

On their best nights. So this is big business still. And that business is based on broad — it’s called broadcast for a reason. That’s based on broad audiences. So NBC had a business imperative, and they argue they had a journalistic imperative.

So given all of that, Jim, I think the big messy question here is, when it comes to NBC, did they make a tactical error around hiring the wrong Republican which blew up? Or did they make an even larger error in thinking that the way you handle Trump and his supporters is to work this hard to reach them, when they might not even be reachable?

The best way to answer that question is to tell you what they’re saying right now, NBC management. What the management saying is, yes, this was a tactical error. This was clearly the wrong Republican. We get it.

But they’re saying, we are going to — and they said this in their statement, announcing that they were severing ties with McDaniel. They said, we’re going to redouble our efforts to represent a broad spectrum of the American votership. And that’s what they meant was that we’re going to still try to reach these Trump voters with people who can relate to them and they can relate to.

But the question is, how do you even do that when so many of his supporters believe a lie? How is NBC, how is CNN, how are any of these TV networks, if they have decided that this is their mission, how are they supposed to speak to people who believe something fundamentally untrue as a core part of their political identity?

That’s the catch-22. How do you get that Trump movement person who’s also an insider, when the litmus test to be an insider in the Trump movement is to believe in the denialism or at least say you do? So that’s a real journalistic problem. And the thing that we haven’t really touched here is, what are these networks doing day in and day out?

They’re not producing reported pieces, which I think it’s a little easier. You just report the news. You go out into the world. You talk to people, and then you present it to the world as a nuanced portrait of the country. This thing is true. This thing is false. Again, in many cases, pretty straightforward. But their bread and butter is talking heads. It’s live. It’s not edited. It’s not that much reported.

So their whole business model especially, again, on cable, which has 24 hours to fill, is talking heads. And if you want the perspective from the Trump movement, journalistically, especially when it comes to denialism, but when it comes to some other major subjects in American life, you’re walking into a place where they’re going to say things that aren’t true, that don’t pass your journalistic standards, the most basic standards of journalism.

Right. So you’re saying if TV sticks with this model, the kind of low cost, lots of talk approach to news, then they are going to have to solve the riddle of who to bring on, who represents Trump’s America if they want that audience. And now they’ve got this red line that they’ve established, that that person can’t be someone who denies the 2020 election reality. But like you just said, that’s the litmus test for being in Trump’s orbit.

So this doesn’t really look like a conundrum. This looks like a bit of a crisis for TV news because it may end up meaning that they can’t hire that person that they need for this model, which means that perhaps a network like NBC does need to wave goodbye to a big segment of these viewers and these eyeballs who support Trump.

I mean, on the one hand, they are not ready to do that, and they would never concede that that’s something they’re ready to do. The problem is barring some kind of change in their news model, there’s no solution to this.

But why bar changes to their news model, I guess, is the question. Because over the years, it’s gotten more and more expensive to produce news, the news that I’m talking about, like recorded packages and what we refer to as reporting. Just go out and report the news.

Don’t gab about it. Just what’s going on, what’s true, what’s false. That’s actually very expensive in television. And they don’t have the kind of money they used to have. So the talking heads is their way to do programming at a level where they can afford it.

They do some packages. “60 Minutes” still does incredible work. NBC does packages, but the lion’s share of what they do is what we’re talking about. And that’s not going to change because the economics aren’t there.

So then a final option, of course, to borrow something Chris Licht said, is that a network like NBC perhaps doesn’t put a jersey on, but accepts the reality that a lot of the world sees them wearing a jersey.

Yeah. I mean, nobody wants to be seen as wearing a jersey in our business. No one wants to be wearing a jersey on our business. But maybe what they really have to accept is that we’re just sticking to the true facts, and that may look like we’re wearing a jersey, but we’re not. And that may, at times, look like it’s lining up more with the Democrats, but we’re not.

If Trump is lying about a stolen election, that’s not siding against him. That’s siding for the truth, and that’s what we’re doing. Easier said than done. And I don’t think any of these concepts are new.

I think there have been attempts to do that, but it’s the world they’re in. And it’s the only option they really have. We’re going to tell you the truth, even if it means that we’re going to lose a big part of the country.

Well, Jim, thank you very much.

Thank you, Michael.

Here’s what else you need to know today.

[PROTESTERS CHANTING]

Over the weekend, thousands of protesters took to the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in some of the largest domestic demonstrations against the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since Israel invaded Gaza in the fall.

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

Some of the protesters called on Netanyahu to reach a cease fire deal that would free the hostages taken by Hamas on October 7. Others called for early elections that would remove Netanyahu from office.

During a news conference on Sunday, Netanyahu rejected calls for early elections, saying they would paralyze his government at a crucial moment in the war.

Today’s episode was produced by Rob Szypko, Rikki Novetsky, and Alex Stern, with help from Stella Tan.

It was edited by Brendan Klinkenberg with help from Rachel Quester and Paige Cowett. Contains original music by Marion Lozano, Dan Powell, and Rowan Niemisto and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.

• April 2, 2024   •   29:32 Kids Are Missing School at an Alarming Rate
• April 1, 2024   •   36:14 Ronna McDaniel, TV News and the Trump Problem
• March 29, 2024   •   48:42 Hamas Took Her, and Still Has Her Husband
• March 28, 2024   •   33:40 The Newest Tech Start-Up Billionaire? Donald Trump.
• March 27, 2024   •   28:06 Democrats’ Plan to Save the Republican House Speaker
• March 26, 2024   •   29:13 The United States vs. the iPhone
• March 25, 2024   •   25:59 A Terrorist Attack in Russia
• March 24, 2024   •   21:39 The Sunday Read: ‘My Goldendoodle Spent a Week at Some Luxury Dog ‘Hotels.’ I Tagged Along.’
• March 22, 2024   •   35:30 Chuck Schumer on His Campaign to Oust Israel’s Leader
• March 21, 2024   •   27:18 The Caitlin Clark Phenomenon
• March 20, 2024   •   25:58 The Bombshell Case That Will Transform the Housing Market
• March 19, 2024   •   27:29 Trump’s Plan to Take Away Biden’s Biggest Advantage

Hosted by Michael Barbaro

Featuring Jim Rutenberg

Produced by Rob Szypko ,  Rikki Novetsky and Alex Stern

With Stella Tan

Edited by Brendan Klinkenberg ,  Rachel Quester and Paige Cowett

Original music by Marion Lozano ,  Dan Powell and Rowan Niemisto

Engineered by Chris Wood

Listen and follow The Daily Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

Ronna McDaniel’s time at NBC was short. The former Republican National Committee chairwoman was hired as an on-air political commentator but released just days later after an on-air revolt by the network’s leading stars.

Jim Rutenberg, a writer at large for The Times, discusses the saga and what it might reveal about the state of television news heading into the 2024 presidential race.

On today’s episode

Jim Rutenberg , a writer at large for The New York Times.

Background reading

Ms. McDaniel’s appointment had been immediately criticized by reporters at the network and by viewers on social media.

The former Republican Party leader tried to downplay her role in efforts to overturn the 2020 election. A review of the record shows she was involved in some key episodes .

There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.

We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.

The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Dan Farrell, Sophia Lanman, Shannon Lin, Diane Wong, Devon Taylor, Alyssa Moxley, Summer Thomad, Olivia Natt, Daniel Ramirez and Brendan Klinkenberg.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Sofia Milan, Mahima Chablani, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Borelli, Maddy Masiello, Isabella Anderson and Nina Lassam.

Jim Rutenberg is a writer at large for The Times and The New York Times Magazine and writes most often about media and politics. More about Jim Rutenberg

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