Wikipedia provides us with a wealth of information on virtually every conceivable subject, containing
over 6.3 million articles in the English language alone. Some pages are more macabre than others,
however, detailing the lives and crimes of individuals who are remembered for the truly
disturbing behavior that cemented their names in infamy forever.
5. Charles Domery
Charles Domery was a Polish soldier born in 1778 and he would become a man with a ferocious
appetite, a condition that he shared with his father and 8 brothers. The only illness
that he ever suffered was as a child when there was a smallpox outbreak in his family,
all of whom survived.
Doctors who studied his condition would note that he normally went to bed at about 8pm
and would immediately begin to perspire. He would wake up at around 1am, extremely hungry
and he would devour any food that he could find. He would go back to bed at around 2am
and sleep until 5 or 6am when the sweating would stop, only to begin again when he next
ate.
While serving in the Prussian army against France during the War of the First Coalition,
he complained that the rations given to Prussian soldiers were not sufficient and he defected
to the French army on the condition that he receives more food.
He was in good health, but his appetite was unstoppable and it was recorded that, while
serving in the French army, he ate 174 cats in one year. He would also ingest up to 5
pounds of grass every day if food was scarce and on one occasion, he attempted to eat the
leg of a fellow soldier who had been hit by cannon fire, only being prevented from doing
so by crew members of the ship they were serving on.
In February of 1799, he was imprisoned by British soldiers and taken to Liverpool where,
despite receiving 10 times the normal amount of rations, he ate the prison’s cat and
the candles used in the prison. During an experiment, he devoured 16 pounds of raw beef,
12 candles made from beef fat and four bottles of stout-like beer with no ill effects. He
would also eat any of the medications that were refused by fellow prisoners and never
suffered any side effects.
After this massive meal, he was reported as being in good spirits, dancing and smoking
his pipe while drinking more beer. There has been much speculation as to what caused his
condition but, to this day; it is not known why he had such a massive appetite.
4. Linda Hazzard
Although Linda Hazzard had no medical degree, she took advantage of a loophole that allowed
her to practice medicine in Washington State. She studied under a Medical Doctor named Edward
Hooker Dewey, who was a protagonist of fasting as he believed that all disease and physical
ailments were a result of overeating.
Around 1903, Linda met her husband, Samuel Hazzard and the couple would scam and cheat
their way through life, though it would be discovered that Samuel was already married
and he would end up serving 2 years in jail for bigamy.
In 1910, Samuel was released and they moved to Seattle where Linda would open a sanitarium.
Patients would either be treated at the facility or at their home called Wilderness Heights
in Olalla, though locals referred to it as Starvation Heights.
Patients would be treated through fasting which lasted for days, weeks or often months.
They would be put on diet that allowed them to drink small amounts of tomato and asparagus
juice, occasionally also being given a teaspoon of orange juice. Some of the patients under
her care made it out alive and would go on to praise her efforts, though dozens passed
away but she claimed that they had died from cancer or cirrhosis of the liver.
She would go on to author 3 books on the science of fasting and how it cured imbalances in
the body, ridding it of all disease. She was convicted of manslaughter in 1912 when it
was discovered that she had forged Claire Williamson’s will after she died in her
care. Williamson’s sister was rescued from the facility, weighing less than 60 pounds.
Linda would receive a sentence of 2 to 20 years and she would be released after serving
2 years, later receiving a full pardon. In 1920, she opened another asylum called the
“School of Health” but it would burn down in 1935. Three years later, Linda would pass
away from starvation while attempting to cure herself by fasting.
3. Lizzie Borden
On the 19th of July, 1860, Lizzie Andrew Borden was born in Fall River, Massachusetts. She
and her older sister, Emma, were raised in a religious household, attending the Central
Congregational Church in Fall River.
In 1863, when Lizzie was just 3 years old, her mother passed away and her father married
Abby Gray with whom Lizzie would go on to have a strained relationship, since she believed
that Abby had only married her father for his money.
After a family argument in 1892, Lizzie and Emma decided to take some time to themselves
and they travelled to New Bedford where they had an extended vacation. Upon their return,
Lizzie decided not to stay with her family, but took up residence in a local rooming house,
only returning to her family home 4 days later.
The mood in the family home had grown tense over the previous few months after Andrew
had gifted Abby’s family with real estate and when Abby’s stepmother was given a house,
the two sisters demanded that they be given the house that they grew up in. Andrew sold
the property to them for $1, only to buy it back a few weeks later for $5,000, which would
equate to $144,000 today.
On the 3rd of August, 1892, Lizzie and Emma’s uncle, John Morse arrived for a visit and
he was invited to stay for a few days. The following morning, Lizzie, Abby, Andrew, John
and the family’s maid, Maggie Sullivan were present for breakfast, after which Andrew
and John visited in the living room for about an hour.
John left the house at 8:48 to buy a pair of oxen which he would use to travel to his
niece’s home, stating that he would be back at the Borden’s at lunch time. Just after
9am, Andrew left for his morning walk during which time; Abby had gone upstairs to clean
the guest bedroom. While making the bed, she was struck in the side of the head with a
hatchet and after falling down face first, was struck 17 more times, ending her life.
When Andrew returned home, his key would not work and he called for Maggie to open the
door. She would later state that she heard Lizzie laughing at the top of the stairs when
she swore due to the door being jammed. Andrew lay down on the sofa for a nap and Maggie
returned to her room to rest after cleaning windows.
At 11:10, she heard Lizzie shouting: “Maggie, come quick. Father’s dead. Somebody came
in and killed him”. She found Andrew deceased and slumped over the couch where he had been
struck with a hatchet 10 or 11 times. Detectives determined that he had been killed at about
11 am.
The investigation that followed was botched, to say the least and despite Lizzie being
the prime suspect, she would ultimately be acquitted of both murders on June 20th, 1893.
As she left the courthouse, she would tell reporters that she was “The happiest woman
in the world”.
2. Carl Tanzler
Carl Tanzler was born in Germany in 1877, though he had many pseudonyms including Georg
Tanzler, Carl von Cosel and Count Carl Tanzler von Cosel. He worked as a radiology technologist
at the Marine-Hospital Service in Key West, Florida in 1927.
While growing up in Germany, he claimed that he had visions of his ancestor, Countess Anna
Constantia von Cosel who told him that his future true love was an exotic woman with
dark hair. He would claim to have these same visions while traveling in Italy some years
later.
On April 22 of 1930, a woman named Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos was brought for observation
into the hospital where he worked and he immediately recognized her as the woman from his visions.
During her time at the hospital, she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and Tanzler took it upon
himself to try and cure her with various medicines, electricity and X-ray equipment.
He professed his love to her and showered her with gifts, though it is believed that
she did not reciprocate his feelings. Elena would eventually succumb to the disease in
1931 and Tanzler paid for her funeral after which he constructed a mausoleum where he
visited her every evening. He claimed that Elena’s spirit came to him at her gravesite
and that she often asked him to take her away from there.
In April, 1933, Tanzler stole her body from the mausoleum, dressed her in stockings, gloves
and jewelry and kept her in his bed, spraying her with perfumes and preservation agents
to slow decomposition. After being caught while dancing with her corpse, he was arrested
and charged with wantonly and maliciously destroying a grave and removing a body without
authorization.
In 1940, he attended a preliminary trial, but the statute of limitations for his crime
had already passed and the charges were ultimately dropped.
1. H. H. Holmes
Henry Howard Holmes, also known as Herman Webster Mudget, was born on 16 May, 1961.
After graduating from Philips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, England, he would become
a teacher and he would marry Clara Lovering in 1878.
6 years later, he would graduate from the University of Michigan’s Department of Medicine
and Surgery while working in an anatomy lab under Professor Herdman. For a time, he also
served as apprentice to Nahum Wight who was known to advocate human dissection.
Clara would move back to New Hampshire in 1884 due to Holmes’ violent nature and he
would move to Mooers Forks in Clinton County, New York. Here, witnesses claimed to have
seen him in the company of a boy who later disappeared, though Holmes claimed that the
boy returned to his Massachusetts home and no investigation was ever launched. Holmes
would leave town quickly after the incident.
2 years later, he would move to Chicago and went on to buy the drugstore in Englewood
where he worked. He then bought an empty lot across from the store where he constructed
a two-storey, mixed-use building which included apartments on the second floor and retail
stores on the first.
He would later add a third storey, intended for use as a hotel, though this was never
fully completed and in reality, the building was intended for far more nefarious purposes.
The first floor was left as it was, serving as a storefront but, in 1894, it was discovered
that the second floor was made up of multiple torture rooms, complete with a chute that
led down to the basement.
The basement was outfitted with vats of acid, a crematorium and bags of quicklime. The chutes
were used to move the bodies of his torture victims to the basement where he would dissect
them and sell their bones and organs on the black market or to medical facilities.
Many of the rooms were soundproofed and the hallways were constructed like a maze with
dead ends that led nowhere. Multiple hidden passages and rooms were discovered that contained
hinged walls and false partitions along with airtight rooms that were connected to gas
pipes, serving as gas chambers.
In October of 1895, he was arrested and brought to trial for the murder of Benjamin Pitezel.
He confessed to a further 26 murders and 6 attempted murders and he was ultimately executed
in Philadelphia on May 7, 1896.