Herman Billik was a Bohemian-born fortune teller and hypnotist who lived in Chicago at the start of the twentieth century. Between March 1905 and November 1906 a single household in the city's Pilsen district lost a father, a mother and several daughters. Billik had become close to the family, and in December 1906 he was arrested. A Cook County grand jury indicted him on six counts of murder. He was tried on one of them, the count for the death of Mary Vrzal, and on July 18, 1907 a jury found him guilty. He was sentenced to death.
The case did not end with the verdict. A teenage member of the family whose testimony had carried the trial later said it was false, and a Catholic priest organized a public campaign for a review. Billik was reprieved more than once, the Illinois Supreme Court left his conviction standing, and in January 1909 Governor Charles S. Deneen commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. In January 1917 Governor Edward F. Dunne pardoned him in full, stating that he was convinced of Billik's innocence. Billik died in Cook County Hospital in May 1917.
Because he was tried on only one of the charged deaths, and because that conviction was pardoned on grounds of innocence, the legal record is narrower than the number of deaths suggests. The other deaths in the family were charged but never tried, and no court found Billik responsible for them.
Billik was born in Bohemia. The Whiting-Robertsdale Historical Society gives the year as 1866 and the family surname as Zajicek; Chicago court and ledger records use Zajicek, Sizek and Billik. He emigrated to the United States at about the age of nineteen and married in Cleveland, Ohio, on April 5, 1895. The couple had four children.
By the late 1890s he was in Whiting, Indiana, an industrial town on Lake Michigan, where the Whiting-Robertsdale Historical Society records him as a fortune teller and hypnotist. He left Whiting before 1900.
Around 1900 he set up in the Czech neighborhood of Pilsen on Chicago's West Side, advertising himself as "Professor Herman." At his trial he acknowledged that he had taken money from the family under false pretenses and that he was not a genuine hypnotist. He denied that he had harmed anyone.
In 1904 Billik became acquainted with a Chicago family, the Vrzals, who lived in Pilsen. Martin Vrzal was the head of the household; his wife and several children, among them Mary, a teenage son and younger daughters, lived with him. Billik was welcomed into the home and remained a regular presence over the next two years.
The deaths came one after another. Martin Vrzal died in March 1905. His daughter Mary died in July 1905, and a second daughter followed in December 1905. Two more of the youngest daughters died in the second half of 1906, in August and November. The National Registry of Exonerations lists the dates and ages as Martin, 47, on March 26, 1905; Mary, 20, on July 27, 1905; and three younger daughters on December 27, 1905, August 29, 1906 and November 30, 1906.
Martin Vrzal's life insurance policy, which named his children, had left the family with some money, and by the end of 1906 little of it remained. Police later suspected that Billik and the mother of the household had been involved in an affair and had planned to profit from the insurance. Billik denied the affair, and the mother was never tried or charged.
The National Registry of Exonerations says police had at first paid little attention to the series of deaths. In early December 1906 the Chicago American published an article suggesting that something was wrong in the household and pointing to Billik. Police arrested him on December 4, 1906. The next day the mother of the household died by suicide, as her death was ruled.
After her death her son told police that Billik had influenced her. He was questioned for hours. A coroner's jury held him for the grand jury.
In February 1907 the coroner reported findings in three of the deaths that the prosecution treated as support for the charges. The grand jury indicted Billik on six counts of murder. The Northwestern University Homicide in Chicago 1870 to 1930 database, which transcribes the Chicago police homicide ledger, lists the charge as murder and names five other members of the family as the persons concerned. The presiding judge ruled that each count would be tried separately, and the prosecution chose to begin with Mary's.
The trial on the Mary Vrzal count opened on July 3, 1907, in Cook County. The prosecution's case depended heavily on the testimony of Mary's fifteen-year-old brother and on the circumstances: Billik's closeness to the family, the insurance money and the way the deaths had followed one another.
The defense argued that another member of the household had more to gain from the deaths than Billik did, since a surviving daughter inherited the house and the family business. Billik took the stand. He admitted that he had cheated the family out of money and that his claim to hypnotize was false, but he denied any affair and denied causing any death. On July 18, 1907 the jury found him guilty of the murder of Mary Vrzal, and the court sentenced him to death.
The remaining counts were not brought to trial. The National Registry of Exonerations states that he was suspected in the deaths of Martin and three of his daughters but was tried only for Mary's death.
Public doubt grew soon after the verdict. Father P. J. O'Callaghan, a Catholic priest, took up Billik's cause and pointed to evidence that suggested a different explanation. In February 1908 Mary's brother said that the testimony he had given at trial was false and that he had given it under pressure from police. The Registry states that police had coached him.
The death in late 1907 of the husband of one of the surviving daughters drew the attention of Billik's supporters, and an inquest gave a cause that did not point to foul play. Findings that emerged in 1908 were later cited by supporters in arguing that suspicion had fallen on the wrong man.
Billik's conviction went before the Illinois Supreme Court, which found no reversible error in early 1908. The Chicago police ledger transcribed by Northwestern University records the Supreme Court's confirmation on February 20, 1908.
An editorial in The Public, a Chicago reform weekly, in June 1908 described the denial of a new trial, which it suggested might have rested on technical grounds, and reported that the Illinois Board of Pardons had declined to recommend a pardon on the reasoning that the remaining evidence would still support a conviction. The editorial rejected that reasoning, argued that only a jury could weigh what remained, and noted that other indictments against Billik were still pending.
The National Registry of Exonerations records that on June 12, 1908 Judge Kenesaw M. Landis granted a reprieve about ten minutes before the scheduled execution, and that on December 11, 1908, when the execution had been rescheduled, Lieutenant Governor Sherman granted another.
On January 22, 1909 Governor Charles S. Deneen commuted Billik's sentence to life imprisonment. The Registry records that the governor cited the importance of the brother's false testimony to the conviction and sentence. The Chicago police ledger notes the commutation to life at the penitentiary in Joliet.
Billik served several years in prison and continued to say that he was innocent. At the end of 1916 he received a new hearing. The brother again gave a revised account of what he had said at trial. On January 4, 1917 Governor Edward F. Dunne granted Billik a full pardon, saying that he was convinced of his innocence. The Registry states that the pardon followed the principal witness's recantation and new evidence pointing to a different person.
Billik died in Cook County Hospital on May 24, 1917, about four months after his release. His cause of death was not reported.
Billik was convicted of one death, and that conviction was pardoned. No court found him responsible for the other deaths in the family, and the charges for those deaths did not proceed. Because the deaths happened on separate dates over eighteen months, they were charged as separate counts; that charging does not mean that any court found him responsible for more than one.
Several matters remain unsettled. The grounds on which the Illinois Supreme Court affirmed the conviction are not on record, and the dates of the Supreme Court's decision and of some of the deaths vary between accounts. The National Registry of Exonerations states that new evidence pointed to a different person. No court tried anyone else for the deaths. The Whiting-Robertsdale Historical Society records that a surviving daughter, speaking after the pardon, still said she blamed Billik.
1866: Billik is born in Bohemia (year as given by the Whiting-Robertsdale Historical Society).
April 5, 1895: He marries in Cleveland, Ohio.
Late 1890s: He works as a fortune teller and hypnotist in Whiting, Indiana.
About 1900: He settles in Pilsen, Chicago.
1904: He becomes acquainted with the Vrzal family.
March 1905 to November 1906: Martin Vrzal and several of his daughters die.
December 4, 1906: Billik is arrested.
December 5, 1906: The mother of the household dies; her death is ruled a suicide.
February 1907: The coroner reports findings in three of the deaths.
1907: A grand jury indicts Billik on six counts of murder; each is to be tried separately.
July 3, 1907: The trial on the Mary Vrzal count begins.
July 18, 1907: Billik is found guilty and sentenced to death.
February 1908: Mary's brother says his trial testimony was false.
Early 1908: The Illinois Supreme Court leaves the conviction in place.
June 12 and December 11, 1908: Reprieves are granted.
January 22, 1909: Governor Charles S. Deneen commutes the sentence to life imprisonment.
Late 1916: Billik receives a new hearing.
January 4, 1917: Governor Edward F. Dunne pardons him in full.
May 24, 1917: Billik dies at Cook County Hospital.