Is an infamous 1890s serial killer actually buried in his tomb?

CHICAGO — The remains of notorious Chicago serial killer H.H. Holmes are set to be exhumed to try to solve a 120-year-old mystery: Did the "Devil in the White City" fake his own execution?

History tells us that Holmes — whose macabre murder spree during the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago was detailed in Erik Larson's 2003 best-seller "The Devil in the White City" — was hanged in Philadelphia in 1896 and buried at nearby Holy Cross Cemetery.

But Holmes, whose birth name was Herman Mudgett, was long rumored to have applied his infamous skills of deceit to his own fate, and one legend has it that he paid off jail guards to hang a cadaver in his place so he could escape to South America.

Following a request by a descendant of Mudgett, a court in Pennsylvania has issued an order allowing the remains to be unearthed, according to a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, which owns the cemetery.

The University of Pennsylvania's Department of Anthropology will conduct forensic testing on the remains to see if it is indeed Holmes, a university official said.

Shortly before Holmes' execution, he confessed to some 27 killings, including the slaying of his own son — purportedly his first victim.

Though the body count has always been in doubt, the murders he was convicted of were indisputably ghastly.

"The atrocities of which he was convicted are almost unparalleled in the history of crime — shocking alike for their enormity and the cold-blooded, deliberate way in which they were committed," the Chicago Tribune reported in 1896. "He attributed his natural relish for crime to the fact, as he put it, 'He was born with the devil in him.' "

The Tribune also reported that after his execution, Holmes' body was encased in seven barrels of cement, weighing about 3,000 pounds. He had requested that measure to "ensure his body against the vandalism or scientific curiosity of ghouls."

Holmes, a pharmacist who had studied at the University of Michigan, lived at 63rd and Wallace streets in the present-day Englewood neighborhood of Chicago.

As a skilled con artist who pawned off water as medicine, Holmes was suspected of killing several people, sometimes as elaborate scams to collect their life insurance, other times to cover his tracks.

Some of his victims, many of whom were single women, were slain in what the press dubbed his Murder Castle, a three-story hotel modified with trap doors, hidden passageways and a crematorium.

Adam Selzer, an amateur historian in Chicago, is among those still trying to separate the fact from the fiction of Holmes' life. Selzer's new book, "H.H. Holmes: The True History of the White City Devil," asserts that the rumor that Holmes faked his own execution is, like much of what has been written about him, absurd.

Holmes' death was witnessed by about 70 people, including many who knew and didn't like the man, he said. Similarly, despite later pulp writers' wild speculation about how many people Holmes killed, the evidence points to nine or 12 victims, Selzer said.

Selzer calls Holmes' legend "a new American tall tale," saying he was a con man and "pathological liar" who after getting caught sat "in a prison cell spinning yarns for the press."

After conducting guided tours about Holmes in Chicago, Selzer said he spent about 10 years doing his own research on the story.

"I found out how different the real story was from the legend," he said.

Selzer sees the exhumation as a wild goose chase, saying: "Coffins are like a box of chocolates. You'll never know what you'll find."

The latest mystery related to Holmes will be featured in an upcoming History channel show, the network confirmed. No air date has been set.