Halloween Arrives Early: Adventures in Hollywood Part 2

More macabre adventures in Hollywood!

* The Museum of Death

I've been meaning to go to the Museum of Death for a while and it's a bit of a mystery because pictures of the inside are not allowed. Although it's rather small, the building is chock full of so many random things about death. The first room is dedicated to serial killer art and correspondence as well as merchandise such as trading cards and plushies and some of their belongings like Pogo the Clown's shoes. Some pieces are as depraved as you would expect, but John Wayne Gacy's were childlike and bright, mostly of himself as Pogo. A room is dedicated to local murders, such as the Manson murders, the Black Dahlia, the Simpson murders, along with other lesser known ones. The amount is shockingly high. Most entries have crime scene photos, evidence, or other related artifacts, like the swastika quilt made by the Manson family.

Both authentic and replicas of execution devices are displayed, such as Kevorkian's and an electric chair. The electric chair is shown with the unwashed clothing of someone killed in it. (Ew.) The mummified severed head of the Bluebeard of France, Henri Desire Landru, whose crimes echo those of Belle Gunness, rests in a glass case. A macabre replica of the Heaven's Gate Cult suicide is displayed (including artifacts from the event) with the countless newspaper headlines and information around it. A small display case was dedicated to the Jonestown Massacre with pictures and newspapers headlines. Random giant photos of rotting hands and cross-sections of brains are shown with no explanation. A placard would have been nice. There's a small nook dedicated to cannibalism, but it was disappointingly small. A poster of Cannibal the Musical (which had practically none in it) took up most of the space and it was void of recent events.

One room was dedicated to funerary practices of different cultures, embalming and preparation techniques and equipment, a collection of mortuary advertisement fans, advertisements for less conventional choices for the body after death, and death photography of the Victorian era. I found this room particularly fascinating because it's interesting to see how people in different cultures and time treated death. An instructional video on how to embalm a corpse plays in the background. An impressive collection of human and animal skulls are displayed that even include elephant and hippo skulls. A room is dedicated to taxidermy and even includes some pets of famous people like Jayne Mansfield. A small hallway is dedicated to celebrity deaths such as James Dean.

The Museum of Death is a collection of interesting, macabre, and gruesome things. Overall, I enjoyed the experience. A couple of things did bother me. First, much of the hallways and in many of the rooms have graphic crime scene photos from many different eras. I was not expecting so much of it and it's the hardest part of the place to handle. I also feel it's exploiting the victims in the photos. My second problem is the size of the place. Every surface has something on it and all the walls are crowded with pictures, placards, letters, artifacts, etc. It's hard to see everything especially when trying to dodge other patrons. Getting a larger building and spacing things out would help. Third, the smell of some rooms wasn't pleasant, probably due to their macabre origins, and only some of the rooms were air conditioned. If you plan to go, avoid the summer. Even with these issues, the Museum of Death is worth the price of admission if you have a strong constitution.

More to come!

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America

The Devil in the White City tells the stories of two men who made a big impact during the time of the 1893 World Fair held in Chicago: architect Daniel H, Burnham and serial killer H.H, Holmes. Most of the novel focuses on the planning and building of the World Fair by Burnham and all of its problems, pitfalls, and successes. Practically everything that could have gone wrong did, including the poor health and death of his partner, the great economic downturn, the growing demand to pay workers a living wage, the interference of government officials, disastrous weather destroying buildings, and hard to work with land. With all of these obstacles, its opening was a bit lackluster with so many things incomplete. Later on, it proved to be successful anyway, spanning 690 acres, breaking the record for outdoor event attendence, and welcoming over 27 million visitors. The biggest innovations were in the use of electricity to power the fair and the original Ferris Wheel.

While the fair is entertaining in its own right, the more interesting part of the book was about H.H. Holmes, amateur architect, opportunist, and serial killer. He started out as a con artist, using his charm and manipulative nature to start businesses and never pay any debts. His murder spree either targeted people who were in his way financially or women he dated and/or married after he had grown tired of them. After masquerading as a doctor and owning a pharmacy, he took advantage of the World Fair hype to build his own hotel. He built it over a long time, hiring and firing many workers without paying any of them. The resulting building was dark and odd with apartments and retail spaces. Unbeknownst to the occupants and employees, many hidden chambers, hidden passages, heavy duty locks, and hidden gas lines. The basement was outfitted with a huge furnace, lime pits, and acid pools to dispose of bodies when he was done with them. The building surprisingly attracted many people wanting to go to the fair. He only allowed women to stay and redirecting male customers to nearby hotels.

When people started disappearing around him, Holmes claimed they moved, eloped, went back home, or just left in the night with no word. It was years before he was even suspected of anything because of his manufactured, affable personality. It's chilling to think that people could disappear without a trace and it could be months before anyone would even look for them at that time. After he killed, Holmes would dissect the bodies, then sell the skeletons to medical schools as they wouldn't ask any questions about where the body came from. This whole situation with the fair seemed like a coincidentally perfect situation for him to be able to target numerous people and go unnoticed for so long. At his trial, he confessed to murdering 27 people, but it could have easily been many many more. He was suspected of killing his associate Pietzel for insurance money and then killing Pietzel's three children in especially grisly ways. The investigation of these murders was the most interesting part of the novel as it was written more narratively to show the detective's journey.

The Devil in White City is an easy book to read, but it's deceptive. I expected it to mostly be about H.H. Holmes because of the title. At least I expected half of the book to be about him, but it was much less. While the Chicago World Fair is engaging, I read this book for the true crime aspects and they were lacking. H.H. Holmes is a horrific person who got away with a shocking amount of crimes before being put to death. His audacity and the volume of his murders are both shocking and fascinating, making the fair chapters eventually tedious to get through.

My rating: 3/5 fishmuffins

Podcast Friday: My Favorite Murder

My Favorite Murder is an amazing true crime podcast hosted by comedians Georgia Hardstark and Karen Kilgariff. You might think "murder and comedy? That sounds awful!" but you would be wrong. Georgia and Karen are a hilarious duo that casually discuss a variety of murders, their own lives, mental illness, flaws of our legal system, and so much more. I've listened to every single episode and I want more. The humor isn't at the expense of murder victims or anything offensive like that. They find humor in dark situations to combat the horror and shock they feel.

The murders they discuss come from all time periods and places. Some are infamous like the unsolved JonBenet Ramsey case, the murders of serial killers such as John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy, and near murders plucked from the show I Survived. Some of the lesser known ones are the most shocking like the Lululemon murder where a woman murdered her coworker, then attacked and tied herself up to make it look like an intruder. It was all over the coworker witnessing her left of crazy expensive yoga pants. The hosts are quick to say they are not well researched. They get most of their information from Wikipedia, Murderpedia, TV shows, or documentaries on the events, but the conversations are what I value more than the events reported.

Karen and Georgia usually talk for at least twenty minutes before they get to murders. Often, they talk about their own journeys in therapy and struggles with anxiety, depression, and past abuse of drugs and alcohol. Their transparency about their struggles with and treatment of mental illness has been instrumental for numerous listeners to go out and get help for themselves. It's refreshing to hear people talk so frankly about this because there are still social stigmas despite so many people being affected. They are quick to admit any mistakes they made in their corrections corner and keep listeners informed about merch, live shows, and whatever else they want to talk about.

The murders bring about a lot of surprising discussions about a variety of different subjects. They criticize social pressures that condition women to be polite at the expense of their personal safety. Karen and Georgia coined the phrase "Fuck politeness" and "Stay sexy. Don't get murdered" to encourage more people to put their safety first, be a little rude, and apologize later if it turns out they were wrong. Blame for crimes is always firmly on the perpetrator and never on the victm, but they encourage people to look out for themselves and recognize danger. Both women have shared stories where they made poor decisions that put them in dangerous situations eerily similar to many of the murders they cover. They also discuss the sorry state of our justice system that often botches investigations, doles out way too short sentences for murderers, leaves thousands of rape kits unprocessed for years, doesn't take the murders of sex workers and people of color seriously, and doesn't seek to treat people with mental illnesses.

These ladies aren't perfect and they strive to better themselves and do something about these horrible attitudes. Some of the money from their merchandise is donated to End the Backlog to test those rape kits and advocate for comprehensive rape kit reform legislation and policies at all government levels. When they first talked bout sex workers, Karen and Georgia used the word "prostitute" and said some callous things about them. A listener called them out and it led to a good discussion on how sex workers' murders are often dismissed because they are not seen as people to not only law enforcement, but also to the general public. They realized their mistake, apologized, and changed their behavior. Now, they are quick to criticize reports that describe a woman as a sex worker before anything else and even changed the story to identify her as a mother first to show how just a little word change makes a huge difference.

Their podcast has led to a huge force of "murderinos" who total over 120,000 on Facebook. They share hometown murders (which Karen and Georgia do present during their Minisodes), organize meetups, discuss various murders or TV shows or documentaries, ask about finding a therapist, and so much more. Karen and Georgia encourage people to make their own My Favorite Murder merchandise, so many Etsy pages are shared with cool creations. Murderinos are mostly women and I have seen very little craziness or rudeness while on their page. (Except this one crazy lady who insisted atheists are evil and Muslims will enslave everyone. She's not the norm and exited the group quickly afterwards.)

Each episodes ends on a cheerful note as Georgia asks her cat (not goat or baby) Elvis if he wants a cookie. It's so charming to hear him meow down the hall and run over for his cookie. (Once her other cat Mimi meowed for it and I almost died it was so cute.) It serves to let the listener (and the hosts) recover from the often depressing subject of murder. Listening to these ladies every week is one of the things that makes my miserable hour long commute to and from work just a little brighter.

My rating: 5/5 fishmuffins