H. H. Holmes
Herman Webster Mudgett, better known as Dr. Henry Howard "H.H." Holmes, was an American con artist and serial killer active between 1891 and 1894. By the time of his execution in 1896, Holmes had engaged in a lengthy criminal career that included insurance fraud, forgery, swindling, three or four bigamous marriages, horse theft, and murder. Known as the Beast of Chicago, the Devil in the White City, or the Torture Doctor, his most notorious crimes took place in Chicago around the time of the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893.
Holmes was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Benjamin Pitezel, his accomplice in several of his cons. However, Holmes confessed to 27 murders, including those of some people who were verifiably still alive. It is believed that he also killed three of Pitezel's children, as well as three mistresses, the child of one mistress and the sister of another. Holmes was hanged on May 7, 1896.
Much of the lore attached to Holmes concerns the so-called "Murder Castle", a three-story building he commissioned on W. 63rd Street in Chicago, Illinois. Details about the building, along with many of his alleged crimes, are considered exaggerated or fabricated for sensationalistic tabloid pieces with some accounts estimating his body count could be as high as 133 or even 200. Many of these inaccuracies have persisted due to the combination of ineffective police investigation and hyperbolic yellow journalism of the period, which are often cited as historical record.
Holmes gave various contradictory accounts of his life, initially claiming innocence, and later that he was possessed by Satan. His propensity for lying has made it difficult for researchers to ascertain the truth on the basis of his statements. For example, he claimed that Dr. Robert Leacock, a fellow medical school classmate, was one of his first murder victims, and that he killed him in 1886 for insurance money; however, Leacock died on October 5, 1889, in Watford, Ontario, Canada.
Since the 1990s, Holmes has often been described as a serial killer. In his book about Holmes, author Adam Selzer writes: "Just killing several people isn't necessarily enough for most definitions . More often, it has to be a series of similar crimes, committed over a period of time, usually more to satisfy a psychological urge on the killer's part than any more practical motive." He adds: "The murders we can connect 'Holmes' to generally had a clear motive: someone knew too much, or was getting in his way, and couldn't be trusted. The murders weren't simply for love of bloodshed but a necessary part of furthering his swindling option and protecting his lifestyle."
Early life and education
Holmes was born as Herman Webster Mudgett on May 16, 1861, in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, the third child of Levi Horton Mudgett and Theodate Page Price, both of whom were descended from the first English settlers in the area. He had two older siblings, Ellen and Arthur, and one younger brother, Henry. As an adolescent, Holmes attended Phillips Exeter Academy before graduating high school with honors from Gilmanton Academy when he was 16.Holmes's parents were both devout Methodists. His father was from a farming family, and at times worked as a farmer, trader and house painter. He was also reportedly a heavy drinker who cruelly beat his children. Holmes also faced bullying by classmates due to his outstanding academic capabilities. In one incident, he was forced to stand in front of a human skeleton and put the skeleton's hands on his face in an effort to frighten him. Initially terrified, Holmes later discovered the experience to be intriguing and claimed that it helped him overcome his worries. Holmes subsequently developed an obsession with death as a result of the encounter, and began dissecting animals.
In 1879, Holmes enrolled at the University of Vermont for one year. In 1882, he transferred to the University of Michigan's Department of Medicine and Surgery. Despite his mediocre academic performance, Holmes graduated in June 1884. While enrolled, he worked in the anatomy lab under Professor William James Herdman, then the chief anatomy instructor, and the two were said to have been engaged in facilitating body snatching to supply medical cadavers. Holmes had apprenticed in New Hampshire under Nahum Wight, a noted advocate of human dissection. Years later, when Holmes was suspected of murder and claimed to be nothing but an insurance fraudster, he admitted to using cadavers to defraud life insurance companies several times in college.
Murders
Holmes moved to Chicago in August 1886, which is when he began using the pseudonym "H. H. Holmes". Soon after his arrival, he came across a drugstore at the northwest corner of South Wallace Avenue and West 63rd Street in the Englewood section of Chicago. The drugstore's owner, Elizabeth Holton, gave Holmes a job; he proved to be a hardworking employee, eventually buying the store.Contrary to several accounts, Holmes did not kill Dr. E. S. Holton. Holmes purchased an empty lot across the street, where construction began in 1887 for a two-story mixed-use building, with apartments on the second floor and retail spaces, including a new drugstore, on the first. When Holmes declined to pay the architects or the steel company, Aetna Iron and Steel, they took him to court in 1888. In 1892, he added a third floor, telling investors and suppliers he intended to use it as a hotel during the upcoming World's Columbian Exposition.
Contemporary accounts report that Holmes built the hotel to lure tourists visiting the Exposition in order to kill them and sell their skeletons to nearby medical schools. Although he did have a history of selling stolen cadavers to medical schools, Holmes had acquired these wares through body snatching rather than murder. Likewise, there is no evidence that Holmes ever murdered Exposition-goers on the premises. The yellow press labeled the building as Holmes's "Murder Castle", claiming the structure contained secret torture chambers, trapdoors, gas chambers and a basement crematorium; none of these sensationalised claims were true.
Other accounts stated that the hotel was made up of over a hundred rooms and laid out like a maze, with doors opening into brick walls, windowless rooms and dead-end staircases. In reality, the third-floor hotel was moderately sized, largely unremarkable and uncompleted due to Holmes's disputes with the builders. It did contain some hidden rooms, but they were used for hiding furniture Holmes bought on credit and did not intend to pay for. Holmes did not kill an alleged "Castle" victim, Miss Kate Durkee, who turned out to be very much alive. In his confession, Holmes stated that his usual method of killing was to suffocate his victims using various means, including an overdose of chloroform, overexposure to lighting gas fumes, and trapping them in an airless vault. Holmes also claimed to have used starvation, and to have burnt victims alive in his "castle".
Holmes's hotel was gutted by a fire started by an unknown arsonist shortly after his arrest, but was largely rebuilt and used as a post office until 1938. Besides his infamous "Murder Castle", Holmes also owned a one-story factory which he claimed was to be used for glass bending. It is unclear if the factory furnace was ever used for this purpose; it was speculated to have been used to destroy incriminating evidence of Holmes's crimes.
Presumed murders
- Holmes's mistress, 31-year-old Julia Smythe, was the wife of Dr. Laurence Conner, who had moved into his building and began working at his pharmacy's jewelry counter. After Conner found out about Smythe's affair with Holmes, he quit his job and moved away, leaving Smythe and their 5-year-old daughter Pearl Conner behind. Smythe gained custody of Pearl and remained at the hotel, continuing her relationship with Holmes. Julia and Pearl both disappeared on Christmas Eve of 1891. Holmes initially claimed that Julia had left unexpectedly to visit her dying sister, but then changed his story and said that she had fled her former husband. Ultimately, Holmes later claimed that Julia had actually died during an abortion. Despite his medical background, Holmes was unlikely to be experienced in carrying out abortions, and mortality from such a procedure was high at that time. Holmes then claimed to have poisoned Pearl, likely to hide the circumstances of her mother's death. A partial skeleton, possibly of a child around Pearl's age, was found when excavating Holmes's cellar. Pearl's father was a key witness at Holmes's trial in Chicago.
- 23-year-old Emeline Cigrand began working in Holmes's building in May 1892 and worked for him for six months. Holmes reportedly hired Cigrand as a secretary due to her connection to a doctor who peddled a "vaccine" that allegedly cured alcoholism. Those who saw Cigrand in the weeks before her disappearance noted that she appeared to have lost interest in Holmes and their relationship. Cigrand was last seen in December 1892. Her parents were informed that she had left to marry a man named "Robert Phelps". Authorities hypothesized that she was pregnant by Holmes, possibly being a victim of another failed abortion that Holmes tried to cover up. Her empty luggage trunk was sent back to her mother in Anderson, Indiana; her skeleton was found by police at the home of a Chicago physician with the help of M. G. Chappel, who admitted having articulated three skeletons for H. H. Holmes.
- In early 1893, a 24-year-old one-time actress, Wilhelmina "Minnie" Williams, moved to Chicago. Holmes claimed to have met her in an employment office, though it is believed that he had actually met her in Boston several years earlier while he was then going by the alias "Harry Gordon". Holmes offered her a job at the hotel as his personal stenographer, and she accepted. Holmes persuaded Williams to transfer the deed to her property in Fort Worth, Texas, to a man named "Alexander Bond" which was an alias of Holmes. In April 1893, Williams transferred the deed, with Holmes serving as the notary. Holmes later signed the deed over to Pitezel, giving him the alias "Benton T. Lyman". In the following month, Holmes and Williams, presenting themselves as husband and wife, rented an apartment in Chicago's Lincoln Park. Minnie's younger sister, 18-year-old Anna "Nannie" Williams, came to visit, and on July 5, 1893, she wrote to her aunt that she planned to accompany "Brother Harry" to Europe. In it, she signed off with the message: "Brother Harry says you need never trouble any more about me, financially or otherwise. He and sister will see to me. I hope our hard days are over." Afterward neither Minnie nor Nannie were ever seen alive, and Holmes used Minnie's name in future scams.