Holmes' Own Story: In Which the Alleged Multi-murderer and Arch Conspirator Tells of the Twenty-two Tragic Deaths and Disappearances in Which He Is Said to Be Implicated, With Moyamensing Prison Diary AppendixMudgett, Herman W.
General
Holmes' Own Story: In Which the Alleged Multi-murderer and Arch Conspirator Tells of the Twenty-two Tragic Deaths and Disappearances in Which He Is Said to Be Implicated, With Moyamensing Prison Diary Appendix
Mudgett, Herman W.
Mudgett, Herman W., 1861-1896; Serial murderers -- Illinois -- Chicago -- Biography
This time I had opened the window in this room as well, and presently
was able to ascertain that he was dead. I then went to the hallway and
sat down upon the stairs. I do not know how long I sat there, nor what
I thought in the meantime. I had not yet wholly recovered from the
effects of the chloroform, and was dazed. This was not due to having
come suddenly upon a dead body, for my medical experience of years
before had rendered me accustomed to disagreeable sights and scenes—but
the man had been to me far more than an ordinary employee; one whom,
although most of our tastes were dissimilar, I had always liked and had
had fewer disagreements with than would likely have been the case had
he been my own brother. And to come upon him thus had unmanned me.
I know the thought never came to me while sitting there that it might
be dangerous for my own safety, the street door being then unlocked.
After a time I returned to the room and made a careful examination.
He lay upon his back, his lower limbs fully extended, one arm folded
upon his chest, the other thrown out at his side.
His head was slightly raised by means of a coarse colored blanket,
closely folded. He was fully dressed, except his coat and vest which
hung on a chair beside him. The pockets of his trousers were turned
inside out, and in the waistband was a letter within an envelope
addressed “C. A. P.”[2]
If asked to express an absolutely true opinion as to how long he had
been dead, I should say not more than six hours.
Upon the chair was a large gallon bottle laying upon its side, so
arranged that it would nearly empty itself, it being held in position
upon one side by a hammer and upon the other by a small block of wood;
from the bottle, and connected thereto by a perforated cork in which an
ordinary quill toothpick had been inserted, there trailed a long piece
of small rubber tubing, terminating at its free end in the towel I had
removed upon first entering the room. This tube was constricted midway
by a piece of cord tied about it, so that the flow of liquid would be
slow.
Owing to the time that had elapsed after his death all the chloroform
that could escape from the bottle, in the position in which it lay, had
passed through the tube, filling his mouth and, as I later learned from
the Coroner’s physician, his stomach as well; this one fact alone being
sufficient to prove to any scientific person, or physician at least,
that any one having a medical training would not, if obliged to use
chloroform for such a purpose, carry it to such an extent if he wished
it to appear later that the man died as the result of inhaling the
vaporous fumes of chloroform and benzine, that had exploded in a bottle
held in the victim’s hands.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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