The Women of the Murder Castle — Gilded Chicago's Darkest Crime

Chicago, at the height of the World's Fair era. Four women pass through the orbit of one man in a South Side building he built himself — and none of them are seen again. Julia Conner and her young daughter Pearl vanish from his Englewood residence on Christmas Eve, 1891. Emeline Cigrand, Minnie Williams, and her sister Anna follow in the years after, each disappearance folded into shifting explanations and a paper trail of insurance policies, property transfers, and assumed names. It would take a fraud case in another city entirely to bring investigators back to what had happened in that building — and even then, the full record was never settled. This video traces the full story, drawn from the record. 0:00 A city rebuilt: Chicago in the Gilded Age 9:00 The building at Sixty-Third and Wallace 20:00 Julia and Pearl Conner 32:00 Emeline Cigrand 41:00 Minnie and Anna Williams 50:00 The Pitezel case and the unraveling 58:00 Trial, confession, and final sentence 1:03:00 What the record could never resolve #truecrime #history #historicalcrime #gildedage #chicagohistory #unsolved #crimehistory #americanhistory #Holmes #worldsfair