H. H. Holmes’ victims: Miss Kate Durkee

After a sort of weird diversion with Holmes’ supposed murder victims, we’re back to his more usual motive with the stated murder of Miss Kate Durkee: she had land and money. Holmes wanted it. So he killed her to get it.

In his confession, Holmes refers to her solely as “Miss Kate” and describes how he “acted as her agent” when she came to Chicago from Omaha. He talks himself down a bit, admitting that he’d used multiple names to hold property, act as a notary public, and carry on general business, just to name a few of his activities, and it’s another instance where he actually tries not to talk too much. Even though it’s his confession, he writes that this has all been written about before, in such detail, so … he apparently doesn’t have to actually go into it himself.

According to Holmes, he’d made contact with Miss Kate before she’d even come to Chicago. He said he had a good deal for her, so he should help her convert everything she had to cash. She agreed and then came up to Chicago to take her money. Holmes gave it to her and had her sign a receipt, which was apparently also dated, because he was thinking ahead. He’d need proof that he’d been honorable in his single dealing with Miss Kate, because she was about to become the next victim of his room-sized vault.

She died slowly, but Holmes doesn’t seem to have been overly affected by it, even though “her prayers are something terrible to remember.” He didn’t care – he had the forty thousand dollars, and he had the receipt she’d signed to prove he’d given it to her. Oh, but he also adds in a coda that he didn’t actually kill Miss Kate’s sister, as had been rumored. And that’s the end of it.

Although printing that Holmes had murdered Miss Kate Durkee led to an issue: she wasn’t actually dead. In fact, in 1896, after the confession was printed, she gave the statement “I have never been murdered – not by HH Holmes or by anyone else.”

Adam Selzer has a great write-up about Kate Durkee – I love how enthusiastic he is about her as a person. (Adam’s the one who wrote H. H. Holmes: The True History of the White City Devil. If you loved Devil in the White City, don’t read it – you’ll be sad that Holmes wasn’t half of who that book says he was. But, if you’re interested in the truth behind the myths …)

He explores more of her character, backing it up with a transcript from one of Holmes’ lawsuits. Kate Durkee’s answers to the questions put to her are … let’s call them “cagey.” She admits to having known Holmes for four years at the time, so it wasn’t a single instance of interaction, and it’s difficult to tell if she was attempting to play Holmes or if she’d gotten suckered by him like so many other people had. Miss Kate hadn’t lost forty thousand dollars by being locked in Holmes’ vault – her name had been on multiple property papers, including that of the Murder Castle.

So why did Holmes claim he’d killed her? The rumor that she’d become a victim had started after Holmes had first made headlines. She was no longer in Chicago, and there was a time when Holmes was named as the explanation for any possible wrongdoing that could be connected to him. Kate Durkee had been known to associate with Holmes; Kate Durkee hadn’t been around for a while; so therefore Kate Durkee had been murdered by Holmes. It was rumored, and Holmes was going to hang in two weeks, anyway, so why not use his confession to claim it?

(The alternate explanation is, of course, that Holmes himself didn’t actually write the confession. Whoever did would have heard the same rumors and used Kate Durkee to boost the number of victims. And again, it didn’t really matter – the papers sold and the uproar would have just drawn more attention to it. Holmes was set to hang, anyway, so it wasn’t like a false confession was going to make things worse for him.)

Miss Kate Durkee stands out because she can be proven both to have been a real person, and also not to have actually been his victim. But again, the reason Holmes gives for murdering her – money – falls in line with a number of deals he was known to have made. Holmes wanted money, and he wasn’t overly choosy about how he got it. In fact, it seems to have been more fun for him to swindle people than earn it honestly.

In Holmes’ confession, Miss Kate is reduced to just another victim too foolish to be careful. According to Adam Selzer, she’s not only feisty, but also perhaps a bit of a black widow – far more interesting, especially when she’s at the center of her own story instead of a side character in Holmes’.

Why do you think Holmes’ confession lists “Miss Kate” as a victim? After a lifetime of swindling (and at least a few murders), do you think he cared about a lie?