Genghis Khan: Lord of the Steppes / Season 1, Episode 3
The Women
EPISODE 3: THE WOMEN
INTRODUCTION: THE FORGOTTEN
History remembers H.H. Holmes. Books are written about him. Films dramatize his crimes. His name has become synonymous with American serial murder.
But who remembers his victims?
They were real people—women with dreams and ambitions, lives and loves. They came to Chicago seeking opportunity in America's fastest-growing city. They met a charming doctor who promised them the world.
They deserve to be remembered as more than just numbers in a body count.
CHAPTER 1: JULIA SMYTHE CONNOR
Julia Smythe was born in Iowa, the daughter of a prosperous family with expectations. She married young, to a man named Ned Connor, and believed she was starting a life of comfort and respectability.
The marriage was a disappointment.
Ned was unremarkable—neither successful enough to fulfill her ambitions nor passionate enough to make her happy. When they moved to Chicago and Ned found work at Dr. Holmes's jewelry store in the Castle, Julia saw something in the charming proprietor that her husband lacked.
Holmes saw something too. Julia was intelligent, attractive, and increasingly desperate for escape from her unhappy marriage. She was also becoming attached to him—dangerously so.
Their affair began subtly. Lingering glances across the jewelry counter. Private conversations in Holmes's office. Eventually, physical intimacy in one of the Castle's many rooms.
When Julia became pregnant, she believed Holmes would finally leave his own wife and marry her. She didn't know he was already married to at least two other women, none of whom he'd bothered to divorce.
"I trusted him completely," she would have said, if she'd survived to testify. "He seemed so sincere."
Holmes convinced Julia to undergo an abortion—a dangerous procedure in the 1890s. Whether she died from the procedure itself or was killed afterward remains unclear. What is certain is that Julia Smythe Connor, and her unborn child, died in the Castle sometime in 1891.
Ned Connor eventually left Chicago, confused about his wife's fate but too broken to investigate. He would learn the truth only after Holmes's arrest.
CHAPTER 2: EMELINE CIGRAND
Emeline was beautiful.
That fact dominated every description of her—golden-haired, elegant, possessed of the kind of beauty that made men stare. She worked as a stenographer at a sanitarium in Dwight, Illinois, a respectable position for a young woman of her time.
Holmes noticed her during a visit to the facility. He always noticed beautiful women.
"I'm looking for an assistant," he told her. "Someone intelligent, organized, presentable. I can offer excellent wages and accommodations in my building in Chicago."
Emeline accepted. The salary was better than she earned at the sanitarium. The accommodations—a room in the Castle—seemed convenient. The employer himself was charming and attentive.
She arrived in Chicago in 1892, full of hope for her new life.
Holmes seduced her within weeks. He spoke of marriage, of building a future together, of the life they would share. Emeline fell deeply in love with the man she believed would be her husband.
Her letters home grew less frequent. She mentioned the demanding nature of her work, the long hours. She didn't mention that Holmes was increasingly possessive, that he controlled her access to the outside world, that she was becoming a prisoner in the Castle without realizing it.
Emeline Cigrand disappeared sometime in late 1892. Holmes told anyone who asked that she had moved away—married, perhaps, or taken a position elsewhere.
Her body was likely processed through the Castle's basement, her beautiful golden hair dissolved in acid or burned in the kiln.
CHAPTER 3: THE WILLIAMS SISTERS
Minnie Williams came to Chicago in 1893, just as the World's Fair was opening.
She was not beautiful like Emeline. Contemporary descriptions called her "plain" and "unremarkable." But she possessed something Holmes valued more than beauty: property.
Minnie had inherited real estate in Texas—property worth thousands of dollars, enough to attract the attention of a predator like Holmes.
He courted her with the same charm he'd used on Julia and Emeline. He promised marriage. He spoke of their future together. When he suggested she transfer her property to his name—for safekeeping, for convenience, for their upcoming life as husband and wife—she agreed.
The transfer was completed in April 1893. Minnie Williams had just signed over everything she owned to a man who intended to kill her.
But first, her sister arrived.
Annie Williams came to Chicago to visit Minnie, curious about the charming fiancé her sister had described in letters. Annie was younger than Minnie, prettier, more vivacious.
Holmes, being Holmes, seduced her too.
For a brief, surreal period, Holmes was romantically involved with both sisters simultaneously. He played them against each other, using jealousy and manipulation to keep them both off-balance and dependent on him.
The exact sequence of their deaths remains uncertain. Some historians believe Holmes killed Annie first, using the murder to torment Minnie before disposing of her as well. Others suggest Minnie was killed first, with Annie following once she became suspicious.
What is certain is that both sisters died in the Castle in mid-1893. Holmes sold Minnie's Texas property and moved on to his next victims.
Their family spent years searching for them. The truth would not emerge until after Holmes's arrest.
CHAPTER 4: THE PATTERN OF VULNERABILITY
These women shared certain characteristics that made them targets.
Isolation
All were separated from family and support networks. Julia was trapped in an unhappy marriage, emotionally alone. Emeline had moved to a new city for work. The Williams sisters were Texans, far from home.
Holmes deliberately cultivated isolation. He discouraged contact with family. He controlled correspondence. He created worlds where he was the only anchor.
Ambition
These were women who wanted more—more than small-town life, more than unhappy marriages, more than limited opportunities. Holmes offered them a vision of something better, then used that ambition to bind them to him.
Trust
Victorian society taught women to trust respectable men—doctors, businessmen, employers. Holmes embodied respectability while concealing monstrosity. His victims believed what they saw.
Economic Vulnerability
Even women with property, like Minnie Williams, were economically dependent on men in the 1890s. Legal protections were limited. Once Holmes controlled their finances, they had few options.
CHAPTER 5: THE EMPLOYEES
Not all of Holmes's female victims were romantic targets. Some were simply employees who learned too much or became inconvenient.
Jennie Thompson
A typist who worked in the Castle's offices. She noticed irregularities—rooms that didn't appear on floor plans, sounds from the basement that didn't match Holmes's explanations.
She mentioned her concerns to a friend. Days later, she stopped coming to work.
Holmes told other employees she had found a position elsewhere. No one thought to investigate.
The Unknown Women
How many women passed through the Castle without leaving names?
Hotels didn't maintain the kind of records we expect today. Women traveling alone attracted attention but not documentation. Many of Holmes's victims were simply... gone.
Young women who came to Chicago seeking work and vanished. Travelers who checked into the Castle and never checked out. Their families, if they had families, might never have known where to look.
The Castle consumed them, and they were forgotten.
CHAPTER 6: THE WORLD'S FAIR VICTIMS
The Columbian Exposition brought unprecedented numbers of women to Chicago.
The Fair employed thousands of female workers—guides, demonstrators, performers in the Midway attractions. Many were young, single, and new to the city. They needed lodging, employment, protection.
Holmes positioned himself as a provider of all three.
His pharmacy employed women. His hotel housed them. His charm seduced them. And when they became inconvenient—when they asked too many questions, demanded too much, or simply attracted his predatory attention—they disappeared.
How many World's Fair visitors died in the Castle? Estimates range from a handful to dozens. The Fair's sheer scale made tracking individuals nearly impossible.
What is certain is that the summer of 1893 was Holmes's most active period. The supply of victims was unlimited. The opportunity was unprecedented. The Castle operated at full capacity.
CHAPTER 7: THE INSURANCE
Many of Holmes's victims were worth more dead than alive.
He would purchase life insurance policies on them—sometimes with their knowledge, sometimes without. He would forge applications, bribe medical examiners, create paper trails of fictional lives that existed only to generate payouts.
The premiums were expensive, but the returns were substantial. A young woman's death could yield thousands of dollars in insurance claims.
Holmes's ability to make bodies disappear was essential to these schemes. Insurance companies required proof of death. Holmes provided corpses—sometimes the actual victim, sometimes substitutes obtained from other sources.
The Castle's basement made identification difficult. By the time Holmes finished processing a body, there was nothing left to identify.
CHAPTER 8: THE SURVIVORS
Not every woman who entered the Castle died there.
Some left before Holmes decided they were disposable. Some escaped through luck or circumstance. A precious few survived to tell their stories.
The Testimony
After Holmes's arrest, investigators interviewed women who had known him, worked for him, or been romantically involved with him. Their stories painted a consistent picture:
A charming man who became controlling. Isolation from family and friends. Strange features in the Castle that didn't quite make sense. Other women who had been there before and were now gone. A growing sense of unease that they couldn't quite articulate.
These survivors had instincts that saved their lives. They noticed something wrong in Holmes's eyes, in his behavior, in the Castle itself. They left before becoming victims.
The Guilt
Many survivors felt guilty about leaving friends behind. Women who had worked alongside Julia or Emeline wondered if they could have done something—noticed the signs, raised an alarm, intervened.
They couldn't have. Holmes was too careful, too charming, too skilled at manipulation. The women who died were not fools who ignored obvious danger. They were victims of a predator who spent decades perfecting his craft.
CHAPTER 9: THE MEMORIAL
Who mourns these women now?
Julia Connor is remembered, when she's remembered at all, as an adulterer—a married woman who cheated with her husband's employer. History has been unkind to her, judging her choices rather than mourning her fate.
Emeline Cigrand is remembered for her beauty—reduced to her appearance even in death, her intelligence and ambition forgotten.
The Williams sisters are remembered as a pair, their individual identities merged into a single story of sibling tragedy.
The unnamed victims aren't remembered at all.
They deserve better.
They were women who wanted what everyone wants—love, security, opportunity. They came to Chicago in an era of possibility, seeking lives they could build for themselves. They met a monster who destroyed them.
Their names should be monuments. Their stories should be warnings. Their fates should remind us that charm can conceal horror, that predators walk among us, that the vulnerable deserve protection.
CHAPTER 10: THE LEGACY OF VULNERABILITY
H.H. Holmes didn't invent the exploitation of vulnerable women. He systematized it.
The Castle was built to attract victims—its businesses, its lodging, its promises of employment all designed to draw in isolated women with limited options. Holmes understood the social conditions that created vulnerability and weaponized them.
In the 1890s, women had few legal protections. Property laws favored men. Rape was rarely prosecuted. Murder of "loose women" attracted little attention from authorities more concerned with respectable victims.
Holmes exploited these systemic failures. He chose targets the system had already failed, then eliminated them with confidence that no one would investigate.
The women of the Castle were not just victims of one man. They were victims of a society that made them invisible, that valued their property over their persons, that mourned them less because of their gender and circumstances.
Understanding this context doesn't diminish Holmes's evil. It expands it. He was not an aberration—he was an extreme example of attitudes that pervaded his era.
EPILOGUE: NAMES
Before we continue the story of Holmes's crimes and capture, let us speak their names one more time:
Julia Smythe Connor, who wanted love and found death. Emeline Cigrand, whose beauty became her tomb. Minnie Williams, who trusted and was betrayed. Annie Williams, who followed her sister into darkness.
And the others—the unnamed, the unknown, the forgotten.
They lived. They hoped. They died.
They deserve to be remembered.
End of Episode 3