Herman Billik: Hypnotist, Fortune Teller and Murderer

Anthony Borgo September 2024

Whiting, Indiana, like many of the cities that represent the Calumet Region, is the epitome of the melting pot.  With the construction of the railroads and later the Standard Oil refinery, the Whiting area became a haven from all sorts of immigrants.  These men and women brought with them their cultures, traditions and superstitions. And, as long as there were people who held onto these ancient beliefs, there was always going to be someone to take advantage of them.

Herman Zajicek was born in Bohemia, which is today known as the Czech Republic, in 1866.  At the age of nineteen, he immigrated to the United States.  Herman eventually settled in Cleveland, Ohio where on April 5, 1895, he married Mary Cermak.  Herman and Mary had four children: Frank, Herman Jr., Around the late 1890s, Herman Zajicek arrived in Whiting, Indiana, now under the name Herman Billik.

According to a December 20, 1906 Hammond Times article, Billik was, “plying his trade as a charmer, palm reader and hypnotist.”   The Great Billik was remembered for his involvement in strange incidents involving the occult.  In addition, Billik was well-known among Whiting’s more superstitious residents. 

Herman Billik set up shop in an office building on John Street near the Goebel’s Opera House.  His practice was all things supernatural specializing in hypnosis, spells and curses.  An associate of Billik, Joseph Vacha, detailed one of Herman’s curses.

A mother objected to the engagement of her son to a widow.  So, she consulted the Great Billik to break it up. Herman promised her that the deed would be done at a cost of three dollars about $100 in today’s dollars. “To make his charm effective, however, he said that it was necessary for him to have one of the young man’s socks and his handkerchief, and that furthermore permission be given him to enter the home of the young man while everybody in the family was asleep.”  

The mother said anything to break off the engagement and complied with Billik’s requests, of course without her son’s knowledge.  Whatever may or may not have happened, “it is known that the young man and the widow broke up their engagement shortly after Bilik’s midnight visit.” However, before the turn of the century Herman Billik pulled up stakes one night never to be seen in Whiting again.

But, that’s not where the story of Herman Bilik ends. As it turns out he did not go too far.  According to a Chicago Tribune article, around the turn of the century records indicate that Bilik had set up shop at 645 West 18th Street in the East Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago.  The neighborhood was known as a safe haven for Czech immigrants who worked in the mills, sweatshops and railroad yards.  The article states that Billike, “made a practice of duping women with money.” He was now known as Professor Herman. “Billik boasted that he made as much as $100 a day.”

In 1901 the professor left Chicago for Cleveland, Ohio.  Apparently one of the many women who visited his flat daily threatened to expose him as a fraud. After some time of avoiding the heat he returned to Chicago where he returned to selling potions and telling fortunes.

In 1904, Mary Vrzal visited Billik’s shop in search of a love potion.  Vrzal was the twenty-two-year-old daughter of Chicago businessman Martin Vrzal.  Sometime during Herman and Mary’s interlude Mary mentioned that her father owned a thriving milk business.  Billik, ever the opportunist, went to visit Mr. Vrzal at his work.  The two men spoke in their native tongues and Billik convinced the businessman that he had a vision that one of Martin’s enemy was actively trying to destroy him.

Martin Vrzal trusted the “Great Billik” perhaps because they were both Czech immigrants or because Vrzal was in fact in the midst of an intense battle with a competitor. As a result, Martin invited Herman into his home to meet his family and cast a spell on his enemy.  What transpired over the next few years, would make for an interesting topic of a true crime podcast.  What is clear however is that the Vrzal family members began turning up dead.

The Chicago businessman would go first.  Martin Vrzal died on March 27, 1905.  Upon his passing a $2000 life insurance policy was left to his children.  The policy would be worth approximately $75,000 today.  Martin was followed by his daughter Mary a few months later and her sister Tilly later that December.  Their insurance policy at this time had $1400 remaining.  Another two daughters were killed in the first few months of 1906, leaving only a few hundred dollars of the life insurance behind.  The only Vrzal family members that were left were Martin’s wife Rosa, their eldest daughter Emma, and their only son Jerry.

Finally, the police got involved.  The police initially suspected that Herman and Rosa had been having an affair.  They surmised that Herman promised that he would marry Rosa and live off the insurance money if they poisoned Herman’s wife and child and Rosa’s husband and children.  However, Herman neither poisoned nor left his own family.  He did somehow end up with the insurance money.

Detectives deduced that Billik double crossed Rosa, who poisoned her family under Herman’s influence.  As the law closed in, Mrs Vrzal took her own life - by poisoning herself.  Rosa’s son Jerry accused the Whiting fortune-teller of hypnotizing his mother into committing suicide. When police officers brought Rosa’s daughter Emma to see her mother’s body, she exclaimed, “Now you must get that man Billik. I want him hung,” She then wrote a note stating that, “Billik gave father medicine - and gave some to Mary.”

After bringing Billik into the police station, detectives searched his apartment and found letters from Rosa Vrzal.  One letter was signed “with ten thousand kisses - Rosa.”  The police continued to interrogate Billik for over five hours.  In addition they took a series of bizarre photographs of Herman and his family while he was questioned at the Hyde Park Police Station.

The inquest continued into 1907, where the coroner demanded that the bodies of the Vrzal family be exhumed and tested for poison.  As prosecutors began building their case against Billik more witnesses began to come forward with incriminating testimonies against Billik.  In February, the coroner’s tests were completed and he found arsenic in Martin, Rosa and Tillie, but concluded that the poison was administered over a period of weeks. The new evidence was enough for the jury to indict Herman Billik on six counts of murder.

The case went to trial in May 1907.  The judge agreed to have each charge of murder be charged as a separate hearing. Billik would have to be found not guilty six times to avoid sentencing. The murder of Mary Vrzal began on July 3, 1907.  Although the evidence against Billik was damning, the defense made a strong case that Emma had more to profit from the deaths than Herman. On July 18, 1907, the “wielder of dark art” was found guilty and was sentenced to be hanged.

There were still many questions and evidence that pointed to Emma as the murderer.  Father P.J. O’Callaghan, a Catholic priest, began to dig up support and information to help with Billik’s appeal.  None more important than Jerry Vrzal who admitted that he lied during his testimony against Billik. He stated that Herman never gave the family potions nor plotted against them.

And as if this story couldn’t get any stranger.  Emma Vrzal’s husband William Niemann suddenly became sick and died a few days later.  When investigated it was determined that, “many details of circumstantial evidence which had been collected against her were successfully explained by her testimony.” The witness that proved Emma’s innocence was somehow Emma herself.  In Steve Shukis’ book Poisoned he states, “It seems clear that there were people in positions of power that did not want arsenic to be found in the body of Emma’s husband.”

The defense attorney, O’Callaghanm and Jerry Vrzal continued to help Billik.  On April 18, 1908, Illinois Governor granted Billik a reprieve to review new evidence.  Over 20,000 people from Chicago’s immigrant community signed a petition on Herman’s behalf.  In addition, O’Callaghan gathered over 400 of Billik’s fellow prisoners at the Cook County Jail to pray for Billik.  Governor Dunne commuted Herman Billik’s sentence to life in prison.

Herman Billik spent the next several years in prison where he continued to proclaim his innocence.  In 1916 he received a new trial.  The evidence was examined with new eyes leading to Billik’s pardon in January 2017.  Unfortunately, Herman Billik passed five months after his release from prison.  Leading Chicago figures from the Chief of Police to the State Attorney did everything in their power to keep the cloud of suspicion over Billik so that they did not be charged with condemning an innocent man.

After Herman Billik’s pardon Emma Vrzal told the Chicago Tribune, “If ever a man deserved hanging, Herman Billik did.  I am the one who first suspected that he killed my father and my sisters. I exposed him. I had him arrested. I never ceased in my efforts at vengeance until I saw him sent to the penitentiary. I have nothing in my heart but bitterness for Billik now.  I could cheerfully stone him to death.  It would be a joy to me to pull on the rope that choked his life out.” The lady doth protest too much, methinks.