Would You Risk Exploring These 4 Real Houses of Horror?

You know that moment in a horror film when someone sees a creepy house and decides to walk right on in, like a lamb to the slaughter?

The lairs of real-life serial killers and grave-robbers tend to be a bit more innocuous - at least on the outside. Read on for...

• The Little House (of Horrors) on the Prairie
• The Decorated Lair of Ed Gein
• The Murder Castle of H. H. Holmes
• The House of Human Dolls

The Little House (of Horrors) on the Prairie

At first glance, a homely homestead on the Kansas prairie wouldn't seem that sinister. It wasn't dissimilar to any other dwelling enabled by the Homestead act of 1862, which allowed settlers to claim a parcel of land and start taming their own little corner of the wilderness.

This particular homestead doubled as a rest-stop for travelers on the Osage Mission Trail, offering provisions and shelter for the night. It was owned by a German family known as the Benders, an older couple and a younger man and woman thought to be their children.

It was here that Dr. William York disappeared in 1873 as he searched for a friend named George Longcor and his daughter - both of whom had vanished months ago as they took the same trail.

Things were (as you've probably picked up) not what they seemed at the cozy homestead. When isolated travelers sat at the table to be entertained or fed, one of the Benders would step out from a curtain directly behind the seat and apply a hammer to their head. The stunned victim would be dumped through a trapdoor into the cellar and have their throat cut, allowing the Benders to plunder and dispose of the body at their leisure.

The "Bloody Benders" are thought to have killed as many as fourteen victims at the homestead, but they overreached with the murder of Dr. York. His brother was Senate member Colonel Alexander York, who tracked his kinsman to a shallow grave on the recently abandoned Bender homestead.

Nobody really knows what happened to the Benders after they fled. Though their image appeared in papers with a significant bounty attached, they were never caught. Perhaps they simply relocated and resumed their murderous scheme elsewhere?

The Decorated Lair of Ed Gein

Ed Gein is possibly the most influential serial killer to ever have lived. His crimes inspired Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Silence of the Lambs - and when you look at his life, you'll see exactly why.

Gein had a poor start, being saddled with an alcoholic father and a controlling, abusive and fanatically moralistic mother that (for some reason) he idolized. He also had a brother that he didn't get along too well with (he occasionally stood up to his mother.)

Gein may have actually killed his sibling. He went missing during a fire near the family farm and Gein reported the disappearance to the police... but was also able to lead investigators right to the body. It should also be noted that fires don't normally leave bruises on their victim's heads.

Though Gein generally stayed off everyone's radar, he became a person of interest in the 1957 disappearance of store-owner Bernice Worden. Gein had been seen with Worden shortly before she went missing, which led investigators to poke around his farm. The body of Worden was found hanging upside-down in a shed, shot, eviscerated and decapitated.

Naturally a rather more thorough search of the property ensued. As well as boxes of body parts (stolen from graveyards) and the head of a missing tavern owner, there were masks, a chair and even a bodysuit made of human skin.

You can probably see how he inspired those films now.

At trial Gein admitted to killing the two women (both of whom resembled his mother) but was deemed insane at the time of the crimes. His farm burnt down in 1958 and he died in a psychiatric hospital during 1984.

The Murder Castle of H. H. Holmes

While the Benders mentioned above used a trapdoor, cellar and curtain to facilitate their murders, conman and serial-killer H. H. Holmes commissioned a custom-designed hotel laced with features for the discerning psychopath.

Holmes was born Herman Mudgett and graduated from the University of Michigan medical school. He soon moved to Chicago and changed his name to Dr. Henry Howard Holmes - possibly in an attempt to avoid the wife, child and criminal accusations he left in New Hampshire.)

With the Chicago World's Fair set to be held in 1893, Holmes began construction on a hotel that would ostensibly house tourists... but no hotel needs airtight vaults, trapdoors and chutes, gas jets, acid vats and soundproofed rooms that the press claimed were built into the structure. Supposedly the fraudster's habit of not paying meant that construction workers didn't have enough time to realize what they were building.

Lodgers (and lovers) lured in by Holmes were ruthlessly dispatched, then either cremated in kilns or sold to local medical schools depending on how well they were known. Even his employees weren't spared - they were forced to take out life insurance policies, which Holmes would collect after murdering them. In fact, the vast majority of the murders seem to have been for financial gain rather than any outright bloodlust!

Holmes ran afoul of the law after a house fire led to claims of insurance fraud. Having left Chicago, he helped fake the death of an (insured) associate named Ben Pitezel... then killed him and kept the money for himself. These (and other) schemes eventually caught up with Holmes and he was tried for the murder of Pitezel, found guilty and sentenced to hang.

While Holmes was undoubtedly a killer, he was also a fraudster and it's not clear just how many of his exploits (sensationalized and probably exaggerated by the press) actually happened. Financially motivated to the end, Holmes confessed to over 130 additional murders... and sold his story to the Hearst Corporation!

The House of Human Dolls

Anatoly Moskvin may not have been a killer, but his arts-and-crafts hobby turned his home into a true house of horror.

Let me back up a bit. The city of Nizhny Novgorod in Russia had a problem between 2011 and 2012 - there'd been a spate of grave desecrations in cemeteries around the city, including a number of robberies.

Enter Anatoly Moskvin, local historian and cemetery explorer. He was an academic and author who claimed to have explored 752 cemeteries between 2005 and 2007. He'd hike 30km in a day to find a promising graveyard, sleeping rough in abandoned farms, drinking from puddles and even sleeping in an empty coffin one night. People who knew him claimed that he had some odd quirks... but they really didn't know the half of it.

In 2012 the police searched Moskvin's residence. It's not clear what aroused their suspicion - it could have been his grim hobby, but some local papers claim he'd been caught with a bag of bones.

Inside his flat and garage were 29 "dolls" made from mummified female corpses, each snatched from a local grave. They had been prepared and clothed in bright colors, with cloth used to cover their faces.

Moskvin unsurprisingly wound up in a psychiatric hospital. Apparently he was diagnosed with a form of schizophrenia and thought that (based on ancient beliefs) he could talk with the dead by sleeping near them!

Thanks for reading - perhaps you'd also be interested in...

• Burke and Hare: Anatomy Murderers on Vocal
• Wolf, Monster or Murderer: The Beast of Gévaudan on Vocal

Sources and Further Info:

• The Bloody Benders: Homestead of Horrors
• Ed Gein at Encyclopedia Britannica
• H. H. Holmes at the West End Museum
• H. H. Holmes at Encyclopedia Britannica
• Russian 'grave robber made dolls from girls' corpses'