H.H.Holmes
H.H. Holmes or Herman Webster Mudgett was America’s first known serial killer. The number of Holmes’ victims is unknown. The police tied nine murders to him, he admitted to twenty-seven, but it is rumoured that the number could be in the hundreds. Holmes is most known for his murder castle, a hotel in Chicago which contained hidden passages, trapdoors and even a body chute.
Not a huge amount is known about Holmes’ childhood, but later attempts at seeing patterns in serial killers, have Holmes torturing and killing animals, and suffering at the hands of an abusive father. Reports of his childhood don’t provide proof of either. In university, however, Holmes studied anatomy under a professor who was an advocate for human dissection.
In the summer of 1886, Holmes settled in Chicago and ran a pharmacy. He started construction on a building in the Eaglewood area of Chicago. This building was three stories and was named the World’s Fair Hotel in preparation for the 1893 Columbian Exposition which brought twenty-five million visitors to Chicago. To avoid suspicion, Holmes frequently changed construction workers or forced them to quit by refusing to pay. It is thought that H.H.Holmes was the only one who knew exactly how his hotel worked. The Chicago Tribune called the building queer and said “chimneys stuck out where chimneys should never stick out. Its stairways ended nowhere in particular, winding passages brought the uninitiated with a frightful jerk back to where they had started from.”
Holmes used his hotel to murder young women. He would seduce the women who stayed at his hotel, became engaged and then murdered them before collecting their finances. Some stories of the murder castle are rumoured to be exaggerated by the press at the time.
Holmes was also a conman. At the end of his time in Chicago, Holmes was in debt to many different people, so tried to make some quick money by committing insurance fraud. Holmes and a friend, carpenter Benjamin Pitezel, also agreed to fake Pitezel’s death and then split the $10,000 life insurance Holmes had taken out on his loyal assistant. After a stint in prison for fraud, Holmes collected on the life insurance after a body resembling Pitezel was found. The body was staged to look as if an explosion killed him, but was later found that there were traces of chloroform. The insurance agency were suspicious of Holmes and hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency to investigate.
Holmes was arrested in Boston for fraud in 1894. Whilst he was in prison, Pitezel’s wife claimed that Holmes had kidnapped three of her children. Holmes said that the children were with a friend of his travelling to London. When Scotland Yard could not find the children, Holmes’ various residences across the States and Canada were investigated. Two of the bodies were found in his Toronto apartment. Chicago police then raided the murder castle and found bones and other body parts, including the body of the friend who was supposed to be taking Pitezel’s children to London.
Holmes was eventually charged and sentenced to death for Benjamin Pitezel’s murder. Following his conviction, Holmes confessed to twenty-seven murders, some of who were still alive. On the 7th May 1896, Herman Webster Mudgett wore a black suit to his execution.
There are so many ridiculous rumours and conspiracies surrounding H.H.Holmes and his murder castle, which make it an interesting case. One that is the most baffling is that H.H.Holmes was Jack the Ripper. Not only does the timeline not make sense, Jack the Ripper was most likely a Whitechapel resident and the methodologies were different. The Murder Castle is beyond fascinating with its secret passages and trapdoors and false walls. Many stories have grown around the castle, purported by the media at the time.
