Chicago detectives already believed Henry Spencer responsible for several brutal murders when he delivered an even more astonishing confession in October 1913. After being questioned through the night, Spencer calmly claimed that he had killed twenty-five people during a violent career stretching across northern Illinois.
He described victims shot along city streets, beaten with a hammer inside saloons and homes, and thrown into Lake Michigan.
Spencer spoke without visible remorse, telling investigators that he used whichever weapon seemed easiest. He even led authorities to a hidden hammer that he claimed had been stained with the blood of numerous victims.
Police could not immediately confirm every killing, and Spencer himself appeared uncertain about two of them.
Even so, investigators believed that at least several of his confessions might solve some of Chicago’s most baffling murder cases.
Spencer Confesses Killing 25 Victims in Murder Career
CHICAGO, Illinois. — Henry Spencer, slayer of Mrs. Mildred Allison-Rexroat and confessed murderer of many others, made a second confession today in which he related 25 killings.
He was uncertain as to two of the murders, but told the logical story of each of the others. Additional murders confessed today by Spencer were:
Bartender in a saloon on Park Row, Chicago, beaten with a hammer.
Unidentified man walking along Indiana Avenue, Chicago, shot.
Two farmers beaten to death at Zion City, Illinois, bodies thrown into Lake Michigan.
Man and wife at Round Lake, beaten to death and robbed.
Hit With Hammer
Spencer made the second statement after he had been kept awake all night. II hit them with a hammer or shot them, whichever was easier,” he said in an unconcerned manner.
“I believe Spencer is telling the truth,” said Captain Halpin. “I am positive he killed Mrs. Rexroat, Fannie Thompson, and Policemen Pennell and Devine, two of our most mysterious murder cases.
“Spencer is bloodless and nerveless. He is not a maniac, but a most abnormal criminal. So far as I observe he has been little affected by smoking opium.”
Expects Sentence
“There is only one thing coming to me,” said Spencer, almost cheerfully, pointing significantly at his throat.
Spencer said he was an associate of Harry Vandin and Harvey Niemeyer of the band of notorious Chicago car barn bandits, who were hanged here.
The unusual prisoner told the detectives he was the arch murderer of history, a lover of death; that he killed to avenge himself against society, because of mistreatment he underwent at the hands of almost everyone who knew him when a boy.
The hammer, which, he declares, bears the blood stains of nearly a score of victims, was carried over the country as a cherished tool of death. The hammer was found at Wayne, Illinois, where Spencer had “planted” it. He had intended to lead Mrs. Rexroat to the place where the hammer was, then changing his mind, deciding it would be easier to shoot her.
Source: The Richmond Palladium and Sun Telegram. Richmond, Ind. October 6, 1913.
