es, which led to the basement below, used as a victim cargo route. The basement contained vats of acid, airtight rooms with gas inlets, windowless torture rooms containing trays of surgical instruments. Also found were several female skeletons. At Holmes’s trial in 1895, in which Holmes acted as his own defense, a mechanic told of how he had worked for Holmes stripping flesh from bodies which he thought had come from the city mortuary. Holmes was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. While awaiting execution Holmes confessed to twenty-seven killings. He was hanged at Philadelphia’s Moyamensing prison on 7 May 1896. On 31 January 1974, a student at the University of Washington, in Seattle, Lynda Ann Healy, vanished from her room; the bed sheets were bloodstained, suggesting that she had been badly struck on the head. During the following March, April and May, three more girl students vanished with two more in June. In July, two girls vanished on the same day. It happened at Lake Sammanish. A number of people saw a good-looking young man, with his arm in a sling, accost a girl named Janice Ott and ask her to help him lift a boat on to the roof of his car, she walked away with him and did not return. Later, a girl named Denise Naslund was accosted by the same young man, she also vanished. He had been heard to introduce himself as 'Ted'. In October 1974 the killings shifted to Salt Lake City; three girls disappeared in one month. In November, the police had their first break in the case: a girl named Carol DaRonch was accosted by a young man who said he was a detective, he lead her back to his car and he snapped a handcuff on her wrist and pointed a gun at her head; she fought and screamed, and managed to jump from his car. That evening, a girl student vanished on her way to meet her brother. A handcuff key was found near the place from which she had been taken. Meanwhile, the Seattle police had fixed on a young man nam...
