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At the height of the 1893 World’s Fair, Chicago dazzled the world with electricity, innovation, and the promise of a shining future. Just miles away from the White City, another structure quietly took shape — a building designed not to inspire wonder, but to erase people.

This episode of Flat Circle traces the life and crimes of H. H. Holmes, a man who understood systems better than morals. A trained doctor, practiced con artist, and meticulous manipulator, Holmes used trust as camouflage — hiding fraud, violence, and murder behind the familiar comforts of a pharmacy and a hotel.

We follow Holmes from medical school to Chicago’s South Side, through the architecture of the so-called “Murder Castle,” and into the lives of the women who knew him not as a monster, but as a lover, employer, or friend — including Julia Connor, whose quiet disappearance reveals more about Holmes than any sensational legend ever could.

This is not a story about myth or exaggerated body counts. It’s a story about how cities forget, how institutions fail to look closely, and how evil often wears the face of professionalism, charm, and convenience.

The Castle is gone.
The man is dead.
But the system that made him possible still feels uncomfortably familiar.

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In the early hours of December 30, 2025, a house in Columbus, Ohio did not wake up.

Inside, Dr. Spencer Tepe, a local dentist, and his wife Monique Tepe were shot and killed. Their two young children were found alive inside the home. Nothing appeared to be stolen. No firearm was recovered. Police reported no signs of forced entry.

Days later, an arrest was made in Illinois. Michael David McKee, a physician and Monique Tepe’s former husband, was taken into custody and later charged with aggravated murder.

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In 1999, police opened the door of a disused bank vault in Snowtown, South Australia… and found eight barrels filled with bodies. What they uncovered became one of the most disturbing criminal cases in modern history.

In this episode, we go deeper than headlines ever dared:

• Who were the victims?
• How did four men build an invisible killing ring in a small town?
• What happened in that vault — and why did it go unnoticed for years?
• How did a terrified 19-year-old ultimately crack the case wide open?
• And why does Snowtown still carry a stain it can’t wash away?

Explore the psychology, the method, the terror, and the legacy of the “Snowtown Killers.”

This isn’t just true crime.
This is a descent into how evil hides in plain sight — and how ordinary lives become threads in a web they never saw coming.

🔗 Trigger Warning: Graphic violence, torture, murder, and psychological manipulation. Listener discretion strongly advised.