Johann Hoch was born in Germany in 1855, but came to the United States in his youth, dropping his birthname, John Schmidt. Hoch actually used many names throughout his travels in America, using the last name of one of his early victims, Catherine Hoch, often. Mrs. Hoch had become ill and perished shortly after thier 1895 marriage. Her fate was usually the end result when women made the mistake of marrying the mysterious immigrant bluebeard.

Hoch moved throughout the country bigamously marrying a constant string of single women, many of which he located from newspaper "lonely hearts" ads. Some he simply swindled and skipped town, others he chose to murder, raking in substantial insurance settlements and cleaning out his wives bank accounts. The exact number of women that he murdered is a mystery but the minimum that police felt certain about was around fifteen.

Police in a few jurisdictions were aware that Hoch was up to no good, but could never find the evidence necessary to arrest him. In one instance, exhuming one victim, investigators found that all her vital organs had mysteriously been removed. The embalming procedures of the day also were a problem. Hoch used arsenic to dispatch of his victims. The embalming fluid used often in that time contained massive quantities of arsenic also, rendering any tests on the corpses useless. Finally a new fluid was used on victim Marie Walcker's body. Examiners then found the telltale traces of arsenic needed to help bring Hoch to justice.

Armed with concrete evidence at last, photos of Hoch were circulated throughout the U.S. and he was recognized in New York City as a man living, of course, under an alias. Hoch was arrested along with his arsenic-filled fountain pen and convicted in the Walcker murder. He was hung on February 23, 1906, claiming innocence until the end. Some of the mystery of Hoch's missing wives was resoved in 1955 when a pile of bones were found in a wall of a Chicago home once occupied by the swindeling murderer. The remains remain unidentified and most of his victims bodies were never recovered.