“I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than a poet can help the inspiration to sing.” -H.H. Holmes
7th May 1896. In Philadelphia, USA, a man hangs at Moyamensing Prison for over 15 minutes, twitching and slowly nearing death. He calmly succumbed to being the victim of the subject of his fascination for years prior, until it consumed him whole.
Origins
Dr. Henry Howard Holmes or H.H. Holmes has been deemed the first serial killer of America. Born May 16, 1861 as Herman Webster Mudgett, Holmes was highly intelligent and academically capable, which caused him to be bullied in his younger years. One common instance, that is cited all the time, is when the hands of a skeleton were forcibly placed on his face. This situation is said to be the cause of his interest in anatomy and death.
After this instance, he made a hobby of killing and dissecting animals. Speculation also suggests that Holmes killed his childhood friend at the age of 11 by pushing him off a cliff, which was his first murder. It is also said that his early fascination with death was the reason he chose to pursue medicine later on in life.
Holmes studied in the University of Michigan’s Department of Medicine and Surgery under Professor William James Herdman. In the 19th century, state legislature required medical students to learn human anatomy through dissection. The University of Michigan, being the largest medical school in the country at the time, had both an “unusually large appetite” for cadavers to dissect and also greater access to these cadavers. Holmes participated in graverobbing and stealing of laboratory cadavers to conduct his own research. Some of these stolen cadavers he placed life insurance policies on and damaged and disfigured these then planted the bodies to collect the money from the insurance.
A Note On Yellow Journalism: The next section of this article details 2 different stories about H.H. Holmes’ life. Due to the prominent and sensational Yellow Journalism of the time period (journalism comprising little or no legitimate, well-researched news and instead using eye-catching headlines for increased sales), some facts about Holmes and his ‘Murder Castle’ are said to have been false. But, due to the prominence of the more sensationalised accounts of his story and also the inability to confirm either of the stories due to the fact that H.H Holmes had a “propensity for lying [that] has made it difficult for researchers to ascertain the truth on the basis of his statements”, we will be looking into both accounts.
The more popular account will be Account 1 and the other one given by Adam Selzer will be Account 2, while all the facts will be italicised.
Insurance Fraud and The Murder Castle
Throughout his life, H.H. Holmes committed insurance fraud multiple times. After graduating from medical school, he relocated to Chicago and worked in a pharmacy under the alias Dr. Henry H. Holmes. Holmes then acquired the pharmacy and built a 2-storey building which his neighbours called the “Castle” across from it.
How he acquired the pharmacy is uncertain. Account 1 states that the owner of this pharmacy, Dr. E.S. Holton soon passed away due to terminal cancer and Holmes managed to acquire the pharmacy from his widow. Subsequently, Mrs. Holmes disappeared and Holmes said she moved to California, but she was never found again. On the other hand, Account 2 says that Dr. E.S. Holton was actually Mrs. Holmes - Dr. Elizabeth Sarah Holton. Dr. Holton and her husband actually outlived Holmes while still living in Chicago. The story of the old pharmacist passing away of cancer is a myth said to be spread by Holmes himself.
It is also said that Holmes fired and hired different construction crews so no one had a clear idea of what exactly he was doing - building a ‘Murder Castle’. After the construction was complete, Holmes placed ads in newspapers offering jobs to women and listing the ‘castle’ as a place of lodging.
Account 1 believes that the castle was a hotel. Additionally, guests and employees of the hotel had to have life insurance policies with him listed as the beneficiary. But, Account 2 states that the first 2 floors of the ‘castle’ housed shops and long-term rentals and when he was building the 3rd floor he told people that it was going to be a hotel to swindle investors and suppliers.
In 1892, the Chicago World’s Fair or World's Columbian Exposition was held to celebrate 400 years since Columbus had found America. Millions of people from all around the world would be coming to Chicago to attend this fair.
It is said in Account 1 that Holmes took this opportunity to lure and seduce tourists into staying at his hotel to kill them, while Account 2 states that the hotel never began operating as a full-fledged hotel and was, as mentioned before, a ruse to deceive people.
John Bartlow Martin in 1943 said, “The cellar was perhaps the most remarkable section of the building. It was fitted with operating tables, a crematory, pits containing quicklime and acids, surgical instruments, and various pieces of apparatus which, resembling mediaeval torture racks, never were satisfactorily explained.”
In Account 1, some believed Holmes used these appliances to gain information about his victims' wealth, while others believed they were used to prove his theory that the human body could stretch indefinitely and create giants.
Holmes sometimes, aided by an assistant, stripped the flesh from his victims bones and sold the skeletons to medical institutions.
It is often believed that Holmes killed almost 200 people but Adam Selzer in Account 2 stated that that was a “throwaway line”. Holmes confessed to 27 murders but his word could not be trusted since some of the people he claimed to have murdered were still alive. “He did kill nine or 10 people, but it wasn’t hundreds and hundreds. It wasn’t in a hotel, and it wasn’t World’s Fair patrons,” Selzer said.
The Pitezel Killings and Holmes' Arrest
Holmes was arrested for stealing horses from Texas and shipping them to St. Louis, but selling them made him a fortune. He was imprisoned in St. Louis and, while in prison, he made an agreement with his cellmate, Marion Hedgepath. He said that he would take out a life insurance policy on himself of $10,000 and would provide Hedgepath with a $500 commission in exchange for the name of a lawyer who he could trust if he faced any problems. He was released shortly after and attempted to take the policy out on his own life, but the insurance company was suspicious of him and that plan fell through.
He joined forces with Ben Pitezel, to defraud an insurance company by faking Pitezel’s death. The life insurance on his life of $10,000 would go to his wife (but ultimately to Holmes). But, instead of finding a cadaver to fake Pitezel’s death, Holmes decided to kill him. He rendered him unconscious using chloroform and then set fire to his body. He then managed to manipulate Pitezel’s widow into giving him the $10,000 from the life insurance and giving him custody of 3 of her 5 children. Subsequently, he murdered all 3 children as well.
Hedgepath, angry that Holmes did not keep up his end of the deal, told the police about the scam Holmes had planned. The police finally caught up with Holmes in Boston and arrested him on an outstanding warrant of the horse swindle he had committed in Texas. Holmes seemed ready to flee the country which raised the police’s suspicion. They had found 2 of the Pitezel children’s bodies and they decided to investigate his ‘Murder Castle’. After encountering his various odd traps and murder contraptions, they found some bodies in the basement dismembered and destroyed beyond belief.
While in police custody, Holmes confessed to insurance fraud and 27 murders (this number was increased by him to about 130 later on and police found the possibility of him having murdered 200 people. But, it is not possible to confirm how many murders truly occurred because of unreliable information from the time).
Dr. Henry Howard Holmes, Herman Webster Mudgett, was executed at the age of 34 on the 7th of May 1896 by hanging. He was buried encased in concrete (as per his wishes) and, on this day, ended the life of America’s first serial killer.
America’s First Serial Killer
“His childhood full of neglect, violence, and isolation, are why many believe Holmes’s childhood is a contributing factor in his journey of becoming a serial killer and living a life riddled of crime and lies.”
It is difficult to analyse his motives without concrete evidence of who he killed, how he killed them or any tangible details about his life and actions. But, from what we know, we can say that his childhood was a factor that influenced his crimes. As a child, he was not cared for properly which probably instilled some sociopathic tendencies in him - Durica said “But he was probably…if we were going to diagnose him today, we’d say he’s closer to a sociopath. A con artist. A grifter. A perennial liar.”
His experience as a child, when the hands of a skeleton were forcibly placed on his face, determined his fascination with death and anatomy. His graverobbing, murders and experiences in medical school all where he dissected human beings just reflect his morbid curiosity about death and the dead. Continuing to harbour his interest in death, his attention diverted to life insurance and being able to profit off of death. He could gain money by faking a death or, better yet, actually killing someone. That could’ve potentially provided an incentive to commit the murders he did.
America’s First Serial killer is and will always be surrounded by a shroud of mystery. But, the more we delve into how these killers are created, the more we are able to understand how their minds work(ed).
PS: Here are some books that talk about H.H. Holmes and his life
Depraved: The Shocking True Story of America's First Serial Killer by Harold Schechter [the first book that characterised H.H. Holmes as a serial killer]
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson [the book that revived interest in H.H. Holmes]
H. H. Holmes: The True History of the White City Devil by Adam Selzer [a new perspective on the almost 2 century old story of H.H. Holmes]
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