Herman Webster Mudgett better known under the alias of
Dr. Henry Howard Holmes, was one of the first documented American serial killers in the modern sense of the term. In Chicago at the time of the
1893 World's FairThe World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...
, Holmes opened a hotel which he had designed and built for himself specifically with murder in mind, and which was the location of many of his murders. While he confessed to 27 murders, of which four were confirmed, his actual
body countA body count is the total number of people killed in a particular event. In combat, a body count is often based on the number of confirmed kills, but occasionally only an estimate.-Military use:...
could be as high as 200. He took an unknown number of his victims from the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, which was less than two miles away, in his "World's Fair" hotel.
The case was notorious in its time and received wide publicity through a series of articles in
William Randolph HearstWilliam Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...
's newspapers. Interest in Holmes's crimes was revived in 2003 by Erik Larson's
The Devil in the White CityThe Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America is a 2003 non-fiction book by Erik Larson presented in a novelistic style. The book is based on real characters and events. Leonardo DiCaprio purchased the film rights in 2010.The book is set in Chicago circa...
, a best-selling non-fiction book that juxtaposed an account of the planning and staging of the World's Fair with Holmes's story.
Early life
Mudgett was born in
GilmantonGilmanton is a town in Belknap County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 3,777 at the 2010 census. Gilmanton includes the villages of Gilmanton Corner and Gilmanton Ironworks...
,
New HampshireNew Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
to Levi Horton Mudgett and Theodate Page Price, both of whom were descended from the first non-native settlers in the area. According to the 2007
Most EvilMost Evil is an American forensics television program on Investigation Discovery presented by forensic psychiatrist Michael Stone of Columbia University. On the show, Stone rates murderers on a scale of evil that he has developed...
profile on Holmes, his father was a violent alcoholic, and his mother was a devout Methodist who read the
BibleThe Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
to Herman. He claimed that, as a child, schoolmates forced him to view and touch a human skeleton after discovering his fear of the local doctor. The bullies initially brought him there to scare him, but instead he was utterly fascinated, and he soon became obsessed with
deathDeath is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....
.
On 4 July 1878, Mudgett married Clara Lovering in
AltonAlton is a town in Belknap County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 5,250 at the 2010 census. It is home to Alton Bay State Forest and Mount Major State Forest. Alton includes the village of Alton Bay, a long-time resort located beside Lake Winnipesaukee.The primary settlement in...
,
New HampshireNew Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
; their son, Robert Lovering Mudgett, was born on February 3, 1880 in
LoudonLoudon is a town in Merrimack County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 5,317 at the 2010 census. Loudon is the home of New Hampshire Motor Speedway....
,
New HampshireNew Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
(as an adult, Robert was to become a Certified Public Accountant, and served as City Manager of
OrlandoOrlando is a city in the central region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat of Orange County, and the center of the Greater Orlando metropolitan area. According to the 2010 US Census, the city had a population of 238,300, making Orlando the 79th largest city in the United States...
,
FloridaFlorida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
).
Mudgett graduated from the
University of Michigan Medical SchoolThe University of Michigan Health System is the wholly owned academic medical center of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. UMHS includes the U-M Medical School, with its Faculty Group Practice and many research laboratories; the U-M Hospitals and Health Centers, which includes University...
in June 1884 after passing his examinations. While enrolled, he stole bodies from the laboratory, disfigured the bodies, and claimed that the people were killed accidentally in order to collect insurance money from policies he took out on each deceased person. He moved to Chicago to pursue a career in pharmaceuticals. He also engaged in many shady businesses, real estate, and promotional deals under the name "H. H. Holmes", by which name the rest of this article refers to him.
On January 28, 1887, while he was still married to Clara, Holmes married Myrta Belknap in
MinneapolisMinneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...
,
MinnesotaMinnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
; their daughter, Lucy Theodate Holmes, was born on July 4, 1889 in Englewood,
IllinoisIllinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
(in adult life, Lucy was to become a public
schoolteacherA teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...
).
Holmes lived with Myrta and Lucy in
WilmetteWilmette is a village in New Trier Township, Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is located north of Chicago's downtown district and has a population of 27,651. Wilmette is considered a bedroom community in the North Shore district...
,
IllinoisIllinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, and spent most of his time in Chicago tending to business. He filed for
divorceDivorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
from Clara after marrying Myrta, but the divorce was never finalized. He married Georgiana Yoke on January 9, 1894 in
DenverThe City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...
,
ColoradoColorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
while still married to Clara and Myrta. He also had a relationship with Julia Smythe, the wife of one of his former employees; Julia later became one of Holmes's victims.
Chicago and the "Murder Castle"
While in Chicago during the summer of 1886, Holmes came across Dr. E. S. Holton's drugstore at the corner of S. Wallace and W. 63rd Street, in the neighborhood of
EnglewoodEnglewood, once known as "Junction Grove" , is one of the 77 official community areas of Chicago. At its height, over 97,000 people lived in its approximately 3 square miles , but the neighborhood's population has since dropped dramatically...
. With Holton suffering from cancer, his wife minded the store. Overwhelmed by personal sorrow and the responsibility of managing a business, Mrs. Holton gave Holmes a job. Holmes proved himself to be a stellar employee. Mr. Holton died and Holmes used his well-practiced skills of charm and persuasion to comfort and reassure the grieving widow. He subsequently convinced Mrs. Holton that selling the drug store to him would relieve the burdened woman’s responsibilities. It was agreed that Mrs. Holton could remain residing in her upstairs apartment. Holmes’ proposal seemed like a godsend to the elderly woman and she agreed. Holmes purchased the store mainly with funds obtained by mortgaging the store’s fixtures and stock, the loan to be repaid in substantial monthly installments of one hundred dollars (approximately some three thousand dollars a month in 21st century dollars). Once Holton died, however, Mrs. Holton mysteriously disappeared. Holmes told people that she was visiting relatives in
CaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. As people started asking questions about her return, he told them that she was enjoying California so much that she had decided to live there.
Holmes purchased a lot across from the drugstore, where he built his three-story, block-long "Castle"—as it was dubbed by those in the neighborhood. It was opened as a hotel for the
World's Columbian ExpositionThe World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...
in 1893, with part of the structure used as commercial space. The ground floor of the Castle contained Holmes's own relocated drugstore and various shops, while the upper two floors contained his personal office and a maze of over one hundred windowless rooms with doorways opening to brick walls, oddly angled hallways, stairways to nowhere, doors openable only from the outside, and a host of other strange and labyrinthine constructions. Holmes repeatedly changed builders during the construction of the Castle, so only he fully understood the design of the house, thus decreasing the chance of being reported to the police.
During the period of building construction in 1889, Holmes met Benjamin Pitezel, a carpenter with a past of law breaking who Holmes exploited as a stooge for his criminal schemes. A district attorney later described Pitezel as Holmes’ “tool…his creature.”
After the completion of the hotel, Holmes selected mostly female victims from among his employees (many of whom were required as a condition of employment to take out life insurance policies for which Holmes would pay the premiums but also be the beneficiary), as well as his lovers and hotel guests. He tortured and killed them. Some were locked in soundproof bedrooms fitted with gas lines that let him asphyxiate them at any time. Some victims were locked in a huge soundproof bank vault near his office where they were left to suffocate. The victims' bodies were dropped by secret chute to the basement, where some were meticulously dissected, stripped of flesh, crafted into skeleton models, and then sold to medical schools. Holmes also
crematedCremation is the process of reducing bodies to basic chemical compounds such as gasses and bone fragments. This is accomplished through high-temperature burning, vaporization and oxidation....
some of the bodies or placed them in
lime pitsIn Liming for parchment or leather processing, the hides are soaked in an alkali solution by a drum/paddle or pit-based operation where four main objectives are met...
for destruction. Holmes had two giant furnaces as well as pits of acid, bottles of various poisons, and even a stretching rack. Through the connections he had gained in medical school, he sold skeletons and organs with little difficulty.
Capture and arrest
Following the World's Fair, with creditors closing in and the economy in a general slump, Holmes left Chicago. He reappeared in Fort Worth,
TexasTexas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, where he had inherited property from two railroad heiress sisters, to one of whom he had promised marriage and both of whom he murdered. There he sought to construct another castle along the lines of his Chicago operation. However, he soon abandoned this project, finding the law enforcement climate in Texas inhospitable. He continued to move about the United States and Canada, and it seems likely that he continued to kill. The only murders verified during this period of time were those of his longtime associate Benjamin Pitezel and three of Pitezel’s children, Alice, the disabled Nellie and son Howard.
In July 1894, Holmes was arrested and briefly incarcerated for the first time, for a horse swindle that ended in St. Louis. He was promptly bailed out, but while in jail, he struck up a conversation with a convicted train robber named
Marion HedgepethMarion Hedgepeth – also known as the Handsome Bandit, the Debonair Bandit, the Derby Kid and the Montana Bandit – was a famous Wild West outlaw.-History:...
, who was serving a 25-year sentence. Holmes had concocted a plan to swindle an insurance company out of $10,000 by taking out a policy on himself and then faking his death. Holmes promised Hedgepeth a $500 commission in exchange for the name of a lawyer who could be trusted. He was directed to Colonel Jeptha Howe, the brother of a public defender, who found Holmes’s plan to be brilliant. Holmes's plan to fake his own death failed when the insurance company became suspicious and refused to pay. Holmes did not press his claim; instead he concocted a similar plan with his associate, Benjamin Pitezel.
Pitezel had agreed to fake his own death so that his wife could collect on the $10,000 policy, which she was to split with Holmes and the shady attorney, Howe. The scheme, which was to take place in Philadelphia, was that Pitezel should set himself up as an inventor, under the name B. F. Perry, and then be killed and disfigured in a lab explosion. Holmes was to find an appropriate cadaver to play the role of Pitezel. Holmes instead killed Pitezel. Forensic evidence presented at Holmes's later trial showed that chloroform was administered
after Pitezel's death, presumably to fake suicide (Pitezel had been an alcoholic and chronic depressive). Holmes proceeded to collect on the policy on the basis of the genuine Pitezel corpse. He then went on to manipulate Pitezel's wife into allowing three of her five children (Alice, Nellie and Howard) to stay in his custody. The eldest daughter and baby remained with Mrs. Pitezel. He traveled with the children through the northern United States and into Canada. Simultaneously he escorted Mrs. Pitezel along a parallel route, all the while using various aliases and lying to Mrs. Pitezel concerning her husband's death (claiming that Pitezel was in hiding in
South AmericaSouth America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
) as well as lying to her about the true whereabouts of her other children—they were often only separated by a few blocks. A Philadelphia detective, Frank P. Geyer had tracked Holmes, finding the decomposed bodies of the two Pitezel girls in
TorontoToronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
. He then followed Holmes to
IndianapolisIndianapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Indiana, and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population is 839,489. It is by far Indiana's largest city and, as of the 2010 U.S...
. There Holmes had rented a cottage. He was reported to have visited a local pharmacy to purchase the drugs which he used to kill Howard Pitezel, and a repair shop to sharpen the knives he used to chop up the body before he burned it. The boy's teeth and bits of bone were discovered in the home's chimney.
In 1894, the police were tipped off by his former cellmate,
Marion HedgepethMarion Hedgepeth – also known as the Handsome Bandit, the Debonair Bandit, the Derby Kid and the Montana Bandit – was a famous Wild West outlaw.-History:...
, whom Holmes had neglected to pay off as promised for his help in providing Howe. Holmes's murder spree finally ended when he was arrested in
BostonBoston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
on November 17, 1894, after being tracked there from Philadelphia by the
PinkertonsThe Pinkerton National Detective Agency, usually shortened to the Pinkertons, is a private U.S. security guard and detective agency established by Allan Pinkerton in 1850. Pinkerton became famous when he claimed to have foiled a plot to assassinate president-elect Abraham Lincoln, who later hired...
. He was held on an outstanding warrant for horse theft in Texas, as the authorities had little more than suspicions at this point and Holmes appeared poised to flee the country, in the company of his unsuspecting third wife.
After the custodian for the Castle informed police that he was never allowed to clean the upper floors, police began a thorough investigation over the course of the next month, uncovering Holmes's efficient methods of committing murders and then disposing of the corpses. A fire of mysterious origin consumed the building on August 19, 1895, and the site is currently occupied by a U.S. Post Office building.
The number of his victims has typically been estimated between 20 and 100, and even as high as 200, based upon missing persons reports of the time as well as the testimony of Holmes's neighbors who reported seeing him accompany unidentified young women into his hotel—young women whom they never saw exit. The discrepancy in numbers can perhaps best be attributed to the fact that a great many people came to Chicago to see the World's Fair but, for one reason or another, never returned home. The only verified number is 27, although police had commented that some of the bodies in the basement were so badly dismembered and decomposed that it was difficult to tell how many bodies there actually were. Holmes' victims were primarily women (and primarily blonde), but included some men and children.
Trial and execution
While Holmes sat in prison in Philadelphia, the Chicago police started to investigate his operations in that city, as the Philadelphia police sought to unravel the Pitezel situation—in particular, the fate of the three missing children. Philadelphia detective Frank Geyer was tasked with finding answers. His quest for the children, like the search of Holmes's Castle, received wide publicity. His eventual discovery of their remains essentially sealed Holmes's fate, at least in the public mind.
Holmes was put on trial for the murder of Pitezel and confessed, following his conviction, to 30 murders in Chicago, Indianapolis and Toronto, (though some he confessed to murdering were in fact, still living) and six
attempted murderAttempted murder is a crime in England and Wales and Northern Ireland.-Today:In English criminal law, attempted murder is the crime of more than merely preparing to commit unlawful killing and at the same time having a specific intention to cause the death of human being under the Queen's Peace...
s. Holmes was paid
US$The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
7,500 ($ in today's dollars) by the
Hearst NewspapersThe Hearst Corporation is an American media conglomerate based in the Hearst Tower, Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. Founded by William Randolph Hearst as an owner of newspapers, the company's holdings now include a wide variety of media...
in exchange for this confession. He gave various contradictory accounts of his life, claiming initially innocence and later that he was
possessedDemonic possession is held by many belief systems to be the control of an individual by a malevolent supernatural being. Descriptions of demonic possessions often include erased memories or personalities, convulsions, “fits” and fainting as if one were dying...
by
SatanSatan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
. His faculty for lying has made it difficult for researchers to ascertain any truth on the basis of his statements.
On May 7, 1896, Holmes was
hangedHanging is the lethal suspension of a person by a ligature. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", though it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain...
at
Moyamensing PrisonMoyamensing Prison was a prison in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, designed by Thomas U. Walter and completed in 1835.-History:The prison's cornerstone was laid April 2, 1832, and it was finished in 1835...
, also known as the
PhiladelphiaPhiladelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
County Prison. Until the moment of his death, Holmes remained calm and amiable, showing very few signs of fear, anxiety or depression. Holmes's neck did not snap immediately; he instead died slowly, twitching over 15 minutes before being pronounced dead 20 minutes after the trap had been sprung.
On New Year's Eve, 1909, Marion Hedgepeth, who had been pardoned for informing on Holmes, was shot and killed by Edward Jaburek, a police officer, during a holdup at a Chicago saloon. Then, on March 7, 1914, the
Chicago TribuneThe Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
reported that, with the death of the former caretaker of the Murder Castle, Pat Quinlan, "the mysteries of Holmes' Castle" would remain unexplained. Quinlan had committed suicide by taking
strychnineStrychnine is a highly toxic , colorless crystalline alkaloid used as a pesticide, particularly for killing small vertebrates such as birds and rodents. Strychnine causes muscular convulsions and eventually death through asphyxia or sheer exhaustion...
. Quinlan's surviving relatives claimed Quinlan had been "haunted" for several months before his death and could not sleep.
See also
- George Chapman (murderer)
George Chapman was a Polish serial killer known as the Borough Poisoner. Born Seweryn Antonowicz Kłosowski in Poland, he moved as an adult to England, where he committed his crimes...
- Harold Shipman
Harold Fredrick Shipman was an English doctor and one of the most prolific serial killers in recorded history with 218 murders being positively ascribed to him....
- Jeffrey Dahmer
Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer was an American serial killer and sex offender. Dahmer murdered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991, with the majority of the murders occurring between 1987 and 1991. His murders involved rape, dismemberment, necrophilia and cannibalism...
- Jeffrey R. MacDonald
Jeffrey Robert MacDonald , is an American convicted in 1979 for the murders of his pregnant wife and two daughters in February 1970. At the time of the murders, MacDonald was an Army officer, medical doctor and practicing physician...
- John Bodkin Adams
John Bodkin Adams was an Irish-born British general practitioner, convicted fraudster and suspected serial killer. Between the years 1946 and 1956, more than 160 of his patients died in suspicious circumstances. Of these, 132 left him money or items in their will. He was tried and acquitted for...
- Marcel Petiot
Marcel André Henri Félix Petiot was a French doctor and serial killer. He was convicted of multiple murders after the discovery of the remains of 26 people in his home in Paris during World War II...
- Michael Swango
Joseph Michael Swango is an American serial killer and former licensed physician. It is estimated that Swango has been involved in as many as 60 fatal poisonings of patients and colleagues, though he admitted to only causing four deaths...
- Robert George Clements
Robert George Clements was a physician and a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons from Belfast, Northern Ireland. He is suspected of the murder of his fourth wife, who died of morphine poisoning. His first three wives also predeceased him, raising suspicions that he murdered them as well...
- Thomas Neill Cream
Dr. Thomas Neill Cream , also known as the Lambeth Poisoner, was a Scottish-born serial killer, who claimed his first proven victims in the United States and the rest in England, and possibly others in Canada and Scotland...
- William Palmer (murderer)
William Palmer was an English doctor who was convicted of murder in one of the most notorious cases of the 19th century.-Early life:...
External links