Silas Jayne

popular name: Peter Genna

date_of_death: May 13, 1948

age: 67

cause_of_death: Natural causes

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Peter and Sam Genna arrived to Chicago in April of 1906, having been sponsored by a brother in law and both being described as farmhand/laborers. Their four brothers would later follow them to America where they would form a powerful prohibition era gang known as the "Genna Crime Family". From 1921 to 1925, the family was headed by the six Genna brothers, known as the Terrible Gennas. They were allies with fellow Italian gang the Chicago Outfit. After a bloody gang war led to the violent demise of Angelo, Mike and Antonio, the remaining Genna brothers fled Chicago and the remaining Genna gang was eventually absorbed by the Chicago Outfit. Peter eventually returned to Chicago but opted for the quiet, legal endeavor of running an olive oil import company until his death from natural causes.

popular name: Charles Stuart

date_of_death: January 4, 1990

age: 30

cause_of_death: Suicide by drowning

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: “My wife’s been shot! I’ve been shot!” screamed Charles "Chuck" Stuart into his cell phone as he drove through the Mission Hill area of Boston. Paramedics responding to the call for help found that both Charles and his wife had been shot. Chuck initially pinned the blame on a robbery by a black male, however his story began to unravel and authorities soon realized that he shot his wife in the head and then shot himself in the stomach. Facing two counts of 1st degree murder, Charles Stuart drove to the Tobin Bridge over the Mystic River, and jumped to his death.

popular name: H. H. Holmes

date_of_death: May 7, 1896

age: 34

cause_of_death: Execution by hanging

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: The country’s first serial killer was a smooth-talking doctor who ran a murder hotel in Chicago. The tale of H. H. Holmes and his Murder Castle is perhaps one of the most fascinating cases in American criminal history. Born Herman Webster Mudgett, he was a bright young doctor who had graduated from high school at sixteen and always had a penchant for anything to do with death. While enrolled in the University of Michigan’s Department of Medicine and Surgery, he worked under Professor William James Herdman in the university’s anatomy lab. The pair were said to have aided body snatching to supply bodies as medical cadavers, which Mudgett then burned or disfigured with acid, then planted to it look as if they had been killed in an accident. Mudgett began taking out insurance policies on these people—before he stole, disfigured, and planted them—and would later collect the insurance money once the bodies were discovered. After graduation, Mudgett started a new job working at a Philadelphia drugstore. When a child died after taking medicine purchased from the drugstore Mudgett was employed at, the young doctor denied any involvement and immediately left the city. Before he moved to Chicago, he changed his name to avoid any connection to his previous scams. Herman Webster Mudgett, M.D., donned the name Henry Howard Holmes. In 1893, the bustling city of Chicago won the honor of hosting the World’s Columbian Exposition. While the World’s Fair brought millions of visitors from all over the world, nearby, a clever killer hid in plain sight, capitalizing off of the slaughter of naive tourists. For the next two years Holmes either killed or is suspected of killing around two dozen people using his murder mansion residences to facility cruel and diabolical murder of men, women, and even children. He was finally caught and convicted of murder in 1894 and executed in 1985. Until the moment of his death, Holmes remained calm and amiable, showing very few signs of fear, anxiety, or depression. Despite this, he asked for his coffin to be contained in concrete and buried ten feet deep, because he was concerned grave robbers would steal his body and use it for dissection. Despite popular belief, Holmes's neck did not break; he instead strangled to death slowly, twitching for over fifteen minutes before being pronounced dead. He was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Yeadon, Pennsylvania.