By Serial Killer Magazine
Henry Spencer was arrested in a rooming house near the Chicago levee district on the night of October 5, 1913, nine days after a dancing teacher named Mildred Allison Rexroat was shot beside a railroad track in DuPage County and laid on the rail so a freight train would destroy the body. Within hours the Chicago police put him in front of the chief of detectives and a room full of newspapermen, and he talked.
He admitted killing Rexroat. Then he claimed twenty more, going back about two decades, and gave the chief an itemized list.
What makes the session worth reproducing is not the number. The police disputed it on the night it was given and it has never been established. It is the form. Spencer was not being questioned privately by detectives and paraphrased afterwards; he was speaking in a room that contained working reporters, one of whom put a question to him directly and got an answer that ran as dialogue. So the text below is his own speech rather than a police summary, and it is in his own register, which is flat, practical and mostly about money.
Two things had already been recovered from his room: Rexroat’s bloodstained rattan suitcase, and the revolver he said he shot her with. The wire copy says plainly that without them the rest of the statement would probably have been disbelieved outright.
The one victim he could name was Fannie Thompson, and that name mattered. Luman C. Mann, the son of a wealthy Chicago family, had been tried for the Thompson killing years earlier and acquitted after a long trial. The paper records that Spencer’s account of how she had been tied up matched the evidence from Mann’s trial.
He also told the room he was an opium smoker, and a detective present is quoted attributing the vagueness of his story to the habit.
The autobiographical passage at the end is his claim about himself, not a finding. He says he never knew his own name, that he got ten years as a boy for a stolen suit of clothes bought for a nickel, that he attacked a guard and was hung up by the arms and starved, and that solitary confinement is what changed him. "I think it was the solitary that really got me. When I came out I wanted blood - anybody’s blood." A man freshly arrested on a capital charge has obvious reasons to offer a cause, and nothing in the statement was tested under oath.
Spencer was tried for the Rexroat murder alone. The Illinois Supreme Court affirmed the conviction in People v. Spencer, 264 Ill. 124 (1914), recording the victim as Mildred Allison, alias Mildred Rexroat, the place as near Wayne in DuPage County, and the sentence as death. He was hanged in 1914. The other twenty killings were never adjudicated.
SOURCE AND RIGHTS. The Ogden Standard, Ogden City, Utah, October 6, 1913, page 5, carrying wire copy datelined Chicago. Public domain: a United States newspaper published before 1930. The transcription below is taken from the Library of Congress optical character recognition layer of the original page scan, held in Chronicling America, LCCN sn85058396. The scan itself was not re-read from the image, and OCR of 1913 newsprint is imperfect. Obvious artifacts have been normalized where the intended word is unambiguous; where a word cannot be established it is marked unclear. Nothing has been added, reordered or rewritten. The newspaper’s own headline stack has been removed and the subheadings it printed through the story have been kept.
CLASSIFICATION. This is a press-room confession statement containing a reporter question and answer exchange, and it is filed here as one. The session was convened by the Chicago police and the murder list was given to the chief of detectives rather than to the press. It is not a clean journalistic interview and should not be described as one.
WHAT THE DOCUMENT GETS WRONG. Its own opening paragraph puts the murder at Wheaton while its victim list says Wayne; Wayne is correct and Wheaton is the county seat, probably substituted in the lead as the better known name. One list heading reads 1911 where the body text and the following heading require 1912. Spencer says it cost him four or five hundred dollars a week to live and then that he spent seven hundred in two nights. The itemized list does not total the twenty of the headline, and a Mrs. Connors of St. Joseph, Michigan appears after the closing remark about the police being unable to account for the victims, which suggests the wire copy was assembled from more than one take. Delavan Lake is printed two ways. All of it is left as printed.
Chicago, Oct. 5. - Mrs. Mildred Allison Rexroat, dancing teacher, who was shot to death at Wheaton, Ills., a week ago was the victim of a murderer who, according to his confession, had killed twenty others in as many years. Henry Spencer, arrested in a room near the South Side levee district last night, confessed that he not only killed Mrs. Rexroat but that he had slain twenty persons. He was positively identified as the mysterious "Mr. Spencer" with whom Mrs. Rexroat left Chicago on the night she was killed. Mrs. Rexroat's bloodstained rattan suitcase was found in his room, as was the revolver with which he said he had killed her.
The police, while in doubt as to the full truth of Spencer's story, are confident that they have found a wholesale murderer and that he will be proved to have killed at least several of those whose deaths he described in a long confession last night. Spencer's confession was so startling that it probably would have received no credence had not the bloody suitcase and the revolver confirmed at least part of his statement.
Killed Two Policemen.
All of the murders except two, he declared, had been for the purpose of robbery. The two policemen, Pennell and Devine, shot to death [YEARS UNCLEAR] ago, he said, he killed to escape being arrested.
"I intended to kill Mrs. A. J. Scofield, the proprietor of the rooming house where I have been living," he said. "If I had not been arrested at just this time, I would have killed her."
Spencer told the police that he had killed ten persons since his last release from the Illinois state prison in September 1912, and four, a man and a woman and Policemen Pennell and Devine, before that. Following is a list of killings Spencer related to Chief of Detectives Halpin:
List of Murders.
Prior to September 12, 1911 [DATE AS PRINTED; the paper's own following section uses September 12, 1912]:
Unknown man and wife at Fox Lake, Ill., in September, 1911, and bodies thrown in lake.
Unknown man who brushed against him at Forty-second street and Indiana avenue last spring. Shot, the body dragged into alley and robbed.
Patrolman Timothy Devine and Charles Pennell, shot when they surprised Spencer and a man named Murphy in the act of forcing the door of a house. Murphy died in the penitentiary, Spencer said.
Fannie Thompson, murdered in a rooming house at Twelfth street and Michigan avenue. Robbed of diamonds worth $1,2[00] [FIGURE UNCLEAR]. Luman Mann, son of a wealthy Chicagoan, narrowly escaped conviction on circumstantial evidence for this crime.
From September 12, 1912, to September 26, 1913:
Two women at Delevan Lake, Wis., in June, killed with hammer and bodies thrown into water.
Aged man in Jackson Park last spring. Met the man at Illinois Central station and went with him to Jackson Park. Shot him and threw body into swan pond. This was about six months ago. Robbed body of $600.
Woman in house at Fulton and Halstead street, about eight months ago. Killed her with hammer. Burned her clothing and robbed the house.
Woman in house about two blocks from county hospital. Again used hammer and burned the clothing. Got $140 and some rings.
Woman in Walkerville, Ont.
Woman in New York. Came with her to Chicago and then both went to Detroit. He beat her to death and took her money, burning clothes and body. Did not know name. "They all lie to you," he said.
His first wife at Fort Montgomery, N. Y. Beat her to death and took $300 in money and diamonds worth [FIGURE MISSING FROM AVAILABLE SCAN].
English immigrant woman. Killed her near We[stern] avenue and threw her body into drainage canal. Body was recovered but identity was never established.
Saloon keeper on Van Buren street near Aberdeen street. Shot man and wounded his wife while robbing saloon.
Mrs. Mildred Allison Rexroat, murdered at Wayne, Ills., September 26.
The police cannot account for all of the victims Spencer claims to have slain. The only victim Spencer was able to name was Fannie C. Thompson, who probably is the woman he said he killed before he left the penitentiary.
Mrs. Connors, killed at St. Joseph, Mich., and robbed of jewelry.
Luman C. Mann, the son of a wealthy family here, was tried six years ago for the murder of the Thompson woman and acquitted after a long and sensational trial. Spencer gave a clear account of the way he claimed to have tied up the Thompson woman at the time of the killing and his recital conformed to the evidence that was brought out at Mann's trial.
Tells Gruesome Story.
Spencer told his [WORD UNCLEAR] calmly to Captain Halpin and a roomful of detectives and newspapermen.
"I've been a thief all my life," he declared. "I killed all these women to get their money. I found it was the easiest way to live. It cost me four or five hundred dollars a week to enjoy myself the way I wanted to in these cabarets and dives and the easiest and quickest way to get the money was to get some girl off by herself and kill her.
"Mrs. Rexroat was easy. She thought she was working me the same way she worked the farmer. She thought I was a farmer like her husband and she could work me the same way. I let her think so. At first I was going to take her to Michigan and kill her there but finally I decided it would be less trouble to take her a little way out on the car line and get it over in a businesslike way. She thought we were going to be married. She came along just as I told her."
Shot Victim Through Head.
"When we got out at the station it was nearly eight o'clock. We turned around and walked down the track until we got where it was dark. I took her by the right arm, pulled out my gun and shot her through the head. Then I laid her on the railroad track so she would be torn [WORD UNCLEAR]. I took what few dollars she had and her diamond ring. I opened her suit case and dumped her stuff out of it and brought it back to Chicago with me. I took the next train back, about 10 minutes after I shot her.
"I didn't want the ring. I never go near pawn shops, that's the way people get caught. I gave the ring to a girl, just a common girl I met on the street. She went to New York Tuesday or Wednesday."
Spencer said that he had married four women, killing the first one near West Point, N. Y. He did not know exactly how many years ago. One wife is living in Detroit, he said, and another in Chicago.
Details of Alleged Murders.
Spencer gave details of his alleged murders at the Wisconsin and Michigan resorts where he said he had spent most of the summer as a hotel thief, committing an occasional murder.
"I killed the two girls at Paw Paw lake for their money and rings," he said. "One of them let me see she had some money with her and so I shot her and sunk her body in the lake. The other girl I killed the same way but she didn't have much money. The girl at Delavan lake I shot with the same gun with which I killed Mrs. Rexroat.
"When I got back to Chicago I met a man one night who looked as if he had money. I shot him in an alley in the South Side levee. He didn't have much money but enough for me to go to a hotel for a few days and there I met another man, an old fellow who said he was a broker. We got friendly and he let on to have a fine business and a lot of money. He looked like money. I was disappointed in that fellow. I got him to take a walk with me late one afternoon in Jackson Park and I shot him there and went through him. He didn't have near as much money as he said he had. He told me he had a lot more than I found. I rolled him into a swamp place where they were dumping. The papers had a lot about it and called it a case of suicide."
Beat Woman With Hammer.
"Another case the police called suicide was a woman killed on the northwest side. I killed her with a hammer, tore up her clothes and set fire to them. The last woman I killed was a few days ago two blocks west of the county hospital. I beat her to death with a hammer. She had two rings and $200. This murder was done with the hammer the police found wrapped up in a [WORD UNCLEAR] by the railroad track. They thought the hammer had something to do with the Rexroat murder."
Spencer declared he was a user of opium.
"It costs a lot of money to hold up your end in these cabarets. I spent $700 in two nights last week. I average two jobs a week all the time I am out of jail."
Spencer said that none of the jewelry he said he had taken from his victims ever would be recovered. "I never go into a pawnshop," he said. "When I sell any of it, it is to some private person, maybe on the street. I don't know their names. A lot of it I gave to girls."
The police doubt that Spencer had committed the large number of murders and holdups to which he lays claim, but are convinced that he is guilty of many of them. The man's jail record extends from his boyhood. He accounted for his immunity from trial for murder by saying that he would get apprehended for some minor crime and would take a short sentence and while he was in jail the murder mystery would be shelved and forgotten. Several of the murders he declared he had committed are known tonight probably to have been accomplished by Spencer in accordance with his confession. The Fannie Thompson, the killing of the two policemen, the murder of an old man in Jackson park, the killing of a woman near the county hospital, and the attempted killing of a family of four on the West Side all had been catalogued as mysteries.
Police To Investigate.
The entire list of crimes confessed by Spencer will be investigated by the police, who will check up how far the man's account is correct.
His coldly planned murder of the dancing teacher and the other killings of which he boasts were committed while the man was on parole from the state penitentiary for highway robbery. He was paroled to Major M. A. Messlein of the Volunteers of America and a short time [after] he was set at liberty he visited Captain Halpin and asked him to get him a job. Halpin obtained employment for Spencer, but the man held the job but two weeks.
Real Name Unknown.
The murderer's name, if it is ever learned, for he says he does not know it, will be ranked by the police with those of H. H. Holmes, who confessed to twelve murders and was suspected of a total of 27, and Johann Hoch, who admitted four murders and generally was considered guilty of many more.
"Is your name really Spencer?" a reporter asked.
"Oh, no. I never knew my parents and I never knew my name, except Harry," he replied.
"The first I remember was in the reform school at Feehanville," he went on. "That is my first recollection. They may have a record of my real name. I ran away from the school and was never found out. From that time on I lived with thieves and bad women. I never knew a good man or a good woman in my life.
"I got my first prison term shortly after running away from the school. A man sold me a suit of clothes for a nickel - that's how it started. I knew the suit had been stolen, but it didn't impress me as anything serious. That sort of thing was a part of my own life. The very next day [I] walked right into the shop from which it had been stolen and I was surprised when they arrested me. The prosecution and the judge wanted me to plead guilty and take a sentence of 30 days, but my lawyer said no. He said fight it out, and so I pleaded not guilty."
Got Ten Years.
"What do you suppose I got? I got ten years, and if there ever was any good in me that killed it. Ten years for a suit of clothes! I served the full term. I had about two years' good time coming to me, but I attacked a guard and lost it. They strung me up by the arms and they starved me. They put me in solitary confinement, too.
"I think it was the solitary that really got me. When I came out I wanted blood - anybody's blood. I wanted to kill people and see it run. They gave me ten dollars when they turned me loose, and eight of that I spent for a gun. I have been killing people more or less ever since. I liked it in a way; when I robbed anybody it was a sort of satisfaction to clean up the job by shutting up the victim's mouth forever."
Various Aliases.
At Joliet the murderer was known as Smith, as Burke and by one other name, he said. "I took the name 'Spencer' when I got out last time [WORD UNCLEAR] another ten-year sentence, but I got three years off for good behavior," explained the prisoner.
"Spencer" was garbed in a plain, well kept business suit, his linen was clean and his wavy chestnut hair carefully parted and brushed.
A detective, trying to visualize the monstrosity of the story to which he had just listened, described the man negatively.
"If I saw him behind a cashier's cage in a bank, or selling silk over a counter, I wouldn't have thought him unfitted for the part. He doesn't look like a tough."
Quiet Manner of Criminal.
His quiet manner of telling his story, with its incompleteness, its lapses and vagueness of detail, was regarded as symptomatic of his admitted addiction to the opium smoking habit.