Source: Wikipedia

"Like the man-eating tigers of the tropical jungle, whose appetites for blood have once been aroused, I roamed about this world seeking whom I could destroy" H.H. Holmes

• D.O.B. : May 16, 1860
• D.O.D. : May 7, 1896
• Murderers committed: ?

Dr. Holmes, for unexplained reasons, seems to have been forgotten by many true crime enthusiasts. At the same time he was committing his crimes, "Jack the Ripper" was terrorizing London. Many people do not realize that Holmes was Americas first documented Serial Killer. There are several different accounts of Holmes's activities, not the least of which is the doctor's own confession written in 1896. While doing my research for this archive I have discovered many, many different versions of the story. Some even claim the Doctor is responsible for over 200 murders, but I have found no evidence to back up any of these statements. Nobody can seem to agree on what actually took place. What I have written here is what I hope to be one of the most accurate accounts.

Dr. Holmes was born Herman Webster Mudgett on May 16, 1860, in Gilmantown, New Hampshire. Herman was often beaten regularly by his drunken father, and the local neighborhood bullies. At an early age he was fascinated by all aspects of surgery. He would often capture stray animals and perform strange and crude experiments on them.

Herman graduated high school at the age of 16, and in 1878 married Clara A. Lovering at, at the age of 18, whom he soon abandoned with one child in New Hampshire.

He graduated medical school at the University of Michigan, located in Ann Arbor in 1884 at the age of 24. While studying medicine at the University of Michigan, He would steal corpses, render them unrecognizable with acid, and then collect on the life insurance policies he had previously taken out under fictitious names. Herman got away with several of these frauds before a nightwatchman caught him removing a female corpse, hence he was kicked out of the university for "unusual activities".

In 1886 Herman Mudgett moved to the Chicago suburb of Englewood, Ill, after abandoning his wife and committing a variety of felonies, even defrauding one of his own in-laws. He was know as a swindler, and decided it was time for a new lease on life and took on the alias: Henry Howard Holmes, AKA: "DR H.H. Holmes".

Holmes eventually amassed a nice fortune through his frauds and schemes, using multiple aliases and often failing to follow through on payments for his many deals arranged on credit and with work perfomred by unpaid laborers.

In early 1887 Holmes soon wed Myrta Z. Belknap, but without finalizing his initiated divorce from his first wife Clara. Holmes had met Myrta the prior year during a visit to her home town, Minneapolis. Through this marriage Holmes was able to exploit the wealth of Myrta's great-uncle by marriage, Jonathan Belknap of Big Foot Prairie, Illinois.

In the spring of 1888 Myrta became pregnant with their daughter Lucy, and that summer Myrta's parents followed the couple back to the Chicago area, where they lived with Holmes and Myrta on John St. in Wilmette, in a house that Homes built through contractors and workers that he also defrauded and never paid.

Within a year, Holmes had left Myrta and Lucy in the Wilmette home with her parents, and his visits to the family home in Wilmette from Chicago became increasingly rare..

In 1888 Holmes was hired as a chemist at a popular drugstore located on the northwest corner of 63rd and Wallace in the later-annexed suburb of Englewood, on the South Side of Chicago.

In 1888, Holmes bought a vacant lot across Wallace from the pharmacy business and began to build a "hotel" which took up the whole block. Holmes later named his building the World's Fair Hotel, in his bid to capitalize on and exploit travellers to the nearby upcoming 1893 Chicago Exposiition. Holmes' massive and uncoventional building became known to the neighborhood as "The Castle."

During construction Holmes changed contractors several times and shuffled the workers around frequently so that no one was ever able to get a clear idea of the floor plan or what the building was for. Most of the rooms had gas vents that could let off lethal or sleep inducing gases, the vents could only be controlled from a closet in Holmes's bedroom. Many of the rooms were soundproof and could not be unlocked from inside. It was a three-story building with shops on the first floor and a bizarre labyrinth of windowless rooms, false floors, secret passages, trapdoors, a well equipped surgery area as well as several instruments of torture, such as an "elasticity determinator," a contraption he claimed could stretch experimental subjects to twice their normal length. Those who viewed it said it appeared to be a medieval torture rack. A few rooms were lined with asbestos, and the place was filled with doors that opened to brick walls, stairways to nowhere, an elevator without a shaft and a shaft without an elevator. There was an airtight and soundproof vault, human-sized greased chutes leading from the living quarters to the cellar. The bedrooms had peepholes and were equipped with asphyxiating gas pipes connected to a control panel in Dr. Holmes' closet. Holmes was nothing if not thorough.

In 1890 the proprietress of the drugstore across Wallace from the hotel, an elderly widow, mysteriously disappeared. Holmes quickly took over the business, and began selling patent medicines of his own invention by mail order, including fake "cures" for alcoholism.

Upon completion of the "castle", Holmes soon tapped into a city water line in his cellar, mixed the water with vanilla, and sold it for 5 cents a glass as an elixir called Linden Grove Mineral Water. He was eventually caught but no charges were ever filed. On another occasion he purchased a huge safe on credit, then moved it into his castle, he built a room around it with only a tiny exit. When creditors eventually came to haul it away, humorously they couldn't get it out.

In this period, on a visit to Boston, Holmes met Minnie R. Williams, a wealthy but rather plain young woman. She was flattered by Holmes' attentions, and he was no doubt scheming after her wealth, since he had always otherwise involved himself with quite attractive women. Holmes, being a classic psychopath, was skiiled at manipulation of people around him, and his superficial charm would often win over whatever initial skepticism he faced, once people were drawin into his presence.

Minnie and her younger sister Anna Williams had been orphaned while young, and they were raised by various uncles in ther home state of Mississippi. Minnie was under the recent guardianship of Rev. Dr. W. C. Black, who then had sent her to Boston for schooling. Her sister Anna became a school teacher in Midlothian, Texas. It was apparently the connection to the wealth of Rev. Black that Holmes sought through this Boston relationship with Minnie.

In early 1893, Minnie followed Holmes to Chicago, and it is known through Minnie's letters that they became engaged that April. They quickly married soon after, when Holmes convinced Minnie to have a small ceremony, with no family members, and only a preacher present. But Holmes was still legally married to both Clara and Mryta. There is no record of this marriage in the Cook County registers, but it probably occurred in late April or early May.

Minnie had always known Holmes in Boston by the his alias of "Henry Gordon." He informed her that for "business reasons" people in Chicago all knew him by an alias of H. H. Holmes, and that she should not show surprise when she was presented by the Holmes name in his affairs. And that she should not reveal his "true" name of Henry Gordon to anybody in Chicago as well.

After a short time of living with Minnie in The Castle on the South Side, Holmes found her presence there to be too close to his nefarious activities there, which were likely ramping up due to the upcoming opening of the Fair. So on June 1, 1893, Holmes and Minnie moved all the way acrros town, to the Norh Side, where they took a flat at 1220 Wrightwood Ave. Minnie remained in residence there, while Homes conducted daily operations across town at The Castle.

Minnie had written to her sister Anna in Texas, and Anna soon joined the couple at the Wrightwood flat. During that month, they attended the newly opened Fair. On July 5, 1893, under the pretext of showing The Castle to Anna, Holmes lured her to the buiiding. It was likely at a time when the building was empty of residents, who would have been out enjoying the Fair.

Later that same day, Holmes also summoned Minnie from the Wrightwood flat to the South Side building. Neither sister was ever seen again. Holmes disposed of their travelling trunks and their belongings, sending articles off in various directions, and he complicated their trail with stories about the sisters travelling east, and relocating in Europe. Two bodies later unearthed from a pit in the basement were thought to be their remains.

During the Great Chicago World Fair in that summer of 1893, (the entrance to which was only a few blocks from Holmes's establishment), when the city filled with visitors, Holmes would rent rooms and/or lure girls and young ladies to his "castle" where he would attempt to seduce them before drugging them. They were then popped into one of the empty shafts that ran through the building. The hapless girls would come round only to find themselves trapped behind a glass panel in an airtight death chamber into which Holmes would pump the lethal gas. Afterwards the body would be sent down a chute to the basement which contained vats of acid and lime and, in the center of the room, a dissecting table. Mudgett would cut up the corpses, removing particular organs which took his fancy and dispose of the remains in the vats. After killing them, Holmes would sometimes sell the bleached skeletons to medical universities.

In 1894 Holmes wed Georgiana Yoke, again not bothering to divorce his previous wife. His charm and good looks wooed countless women, and enhanced his talents as a schemer.

Only one man knew the truth of what was going on in the "castle", Herman Pitezel, Holmes lackey and accomplice. A weak man, Pitezel was easily controlled by Holmes. Despite his cleverness though Holmes was going broke. He knew his Chicago gig was almost up. In desperation, Holmes murdered two visiting Texan sisters and, rather than quietly dispose of their remains, he set fire to there house in an attempt to get the insurance money. The insurance company refused to pay and the police began an investigation into the blaze. Strangely, the police work was not pursued vigorously enough to produce any evidence of Holmes bloody activities; but the killer did not know this, and so he fled.

Soon Holmes turned up in Texas, where he traced relatives of the sisters he had murdered. Having integrated himself with them, he tried to swindle them out of a $60,000 fortune. They were suspicious so he again took to the road, this time on a stolen horse. Police caught up with him in Missouri where, using the name H. M. Howard, he was charged with a further fraud attempt. With the help of a crooked lawyer, he was granted bail, and promptly left town.

Holmes next turned up in Philadelphia where he concocted an elaborate scheme.... Herman Pitezel, took out a life-insurance policy on himself for $10,000 with Holmes as beneficiary. The plan was that Pitezel would "disappear" to Philadelphia and Holmes would produce a false corpse, identify it as Pitezel's and share the payoff with Pitezel's family. But.... Instead, Holmes burned his pal alive in Philadelphia and collected the money. But someone tipped off the police about the scheme, and Holmes fled with the Pitezel's eldest daughter. Telling Mrs. Pitezel that her husband was hiding in a nearby city, Holmes convinced her to follow him, and for months the trio moved separately and together around the United States and Canada, taking the four other Pitezel children with them. During the group's wanderings Herman Pitezel's body was discovered near Indianapolis, and Holmes killed three of the five Pitezel children. The bodies of Alice and Nellie Pitezel were found in a cellar in Toronto, the girls had been stuffed into a trunk and gassed. Now their are three different versions as to how the police caught up with Holmes. The first is that detectives traced Mudgett through his mother who told them the whereabouts of her son, the second is that while Jailed in Missouri, Holmes shared a cell with the infamous train robber Marion C. Hedgepeth, "The Handsome Bandit", perhaps wanting to brag about his own criminal prowess, Dr. Holmes told Mr. Hedgepeth about the Pitezel scam. and Hedgepeth squealed. And the third is that, aided by Mrs. Pitezel, the police captured Holmes.

At any rate Holmes was charged with murder. The police searched Holmes place in Chicago, and numerous human fragments, including several complete skeletons, were discovered throughout the premises.

On August 19, 1895. not long after the authorities began inspecting and uncovering the evidence hidden and buried inside The Castle, the massive structure was burned to the ground, in what was suspected to be an arson by persons unknown, perhaps in an attempt to hinder the investigation. No arrests for that incident were ever made.

Holmes continued to protest his innocence loudly. Holmes plead not guilty to killing Pitezel, and his trial began on Oct. 28, 1895. Holmes fired his lawyers and questioned the prospective jurors himself. None-the-less he was convicted in the "trial of the century", of first degree murder on November 4, 1895, and sentenced to death. He quickly became known throughout the land as: "Holmes, the Arch Fiend".

"I was born with the devil in me", "I couldn't help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than a poet can help the inspiration to sing. And I was born with the Evil One standing as my sponsor beside the bed where I was ushered into the world. He has been with me ever since."

In 1896, while awaiting execution, Holmes received an offer from the Hearst newspaper syndicate to write a confession. In the confession Holmes claimed to have killed 27 people. Investigators could neither confirm nor disprove Holmes's assertion because the contents of the iron tanks and crematory, although recognizably human remains, could not be differentiated. Holmes later recanted his confession and several people he had claimed to have murdered turned up alive. "The confession is a mixture of truth and falsehood. Holmes never could help lying," said George Graham, Philadelphia's district attorney at the time.

On May 7, 1896, at Philadelphia's Moyamensing Prison, as he stood with his head in the hangman’s noose, Holmes loudly exclaimed: "As God is my witness, I was responsible for the death of only two women! I didn't kill Minnie Williams! Minnie killed-" But at that moment, the trap door sprung and Herman Webster Mudgett, a. k. a. : Harry Holmes, died.

Before death, Holmes had repeatedly refused requests for donation of his own brain to science, and he was greatly concerned about the prospect that his corpse would be desecrated, due to his notoriety. So he made extreme arrangements for his own burial. His body was placed in an oversized coffin, in a bed of wet concrete. The coffin was then filled with concrete over his body. The heavy coffin was then transported to Holy Cross Cemetery, where it was in turn placed into a deep, concrete filled double grave, noted in cemetery records as Sec. 15, Range 10, Lot 41, graves 3 & 4. Then the entire grave and coffin was covered in what the records describe as "ten feet of cement." No memorial stone marks the site, which now sits as an open grassy area among other nearby marked graves.

Upon his death, the New York Times reflected, "It takes a very convinced opponent of capital punishment to maintain that any better disposition could have been made of the wretch Holmes".

Believers of superstition may wish to note that not only was there the death of a sitting jury member during the trial, but that within a few years of Holmes execution a great number of people associated with the case, prison officials, lawyers, and relatives, died suddenly, some of them under unexplained circumstances.

The Holmes "crime of the century" was also the subject of "The Holmes-Pitezel Case", a "True Detective" story, published in 1896 in Philadelphia "by permission of the district attorney and the mayor." Just how many people Herman Webster Mudgett, a. k. a. : Harry Holmes, truly murdered is unknown, for this is a secret he took with him to his grave and we will never be certain of the exact number of victims that lost there lives in "Murder Castle"....

Holmes' life and crimes were most recently and thoroughly researched and docunmented, against the background of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, in the popular 2003 book by Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City.

NOTE: Holmes was descended from many of the founding families of Hampton, NH, including Batchelder, Sanborn, and Dearborn. Holmes was also distantly related to the well known Frank and Jesse James brothers.

1870 census, Gilmanton, Belknap, New Hampshire

Household Gender Age Birthplace 

• Levi H Mudgett M 43 New Hampshire
• Therdate P Mudgett F 43 New Hampshire
• Ellen P Mudgett F 18 New Hampshire
• Arthur P Mudgett M 13 New Hampshire
• Herman W Mudgett M 9 New Hampshire
• Henry L Mudgett M 5 New Hampshire
• "Person Details for M B Holmes in household of Jno A Ripley, "United States Census, 1900"". FamilySearch.org. Retrieved 12 December 2014
• "Colorado Statewide Marriage Index, 1853-2006," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/KNQH-NNX : accessed 16 December 2014), Henry M Howard and Georgiana Yoke, 17 January 1894, Denver, Colorado, United States; citing p. 16256, State Archives, Denver; FHL microfilm 1,690,090 .
• "Holmes Cool to the End". The New York Times. 1896-05-09. Under the Noose He Says He Only Killed Two Women. He denies the Murder of Pitezel. Slept Soundly Through His Last Night on Earth and Was Calm on the Scaffold. Priests with him on the Gallows. Prayed with Him Before the Trap Was Sprung. Dead in Fifteen Minutes, but Neck Was Not Broken. Murderer Herman Mudgett, alias H. H. Holmes, was hanged this morning in the County Prison for the killing of Pitezel. The drop fell at 10:12 o'clock, and twenty minutes later he was pronounced dead.

Updated from MyHeritage Family Trees by SmartCopy: Dec 15 2014, 16:58:53 UTC

Serial Murderer. Born in Gilmantown, New Hampshire he studied medicine and worked as a druggist in Chicago. A good looking, natural born con man he had a special flair or attracting the ladies of that time. During the Chicago World Fair of 1893 he was the owner/proprietor of the infamous “Murder Castle”. It had hidden rooms, concealed stairways, trap doors, false walls, chutes, an elevator with no shaft and an elevator shaft with no elevator. He ran ads for a secretary in Chicago papers. Once employed he wooed them with promises of marriage. He convinced them to sign over their insurance and savings to him as a part of the “deal”. After spending the night in his bed, he chloroformed them as they slept, dragged them to the open elevator shaft and threw them in. Waiting for them to regain consciousness, he gassed them and watched them die. Afterwards he looped a rope around their neck, pulled them up the shaft, dumped their bodies down a chute leading to the basement and dismembered them. These were the “lucky” ones. Some were simply butchered alive and screaming inside his soundproofed rooms. The estimate is that over 200 women died there. Mudgett moved first to Texas and then to Philadelphia where he devised an insurance scam using a family named Pitezel as accomplices. He killed Mr. Pitezel with poison and he along with Mrs. Pitezel claimed the insurance monies. He killed the Pitezel children by gassing the two girls in a trunk and somehow killing the small boy whose skull was found in a stove. After getting a tip from a prison acquaintance of Mudgett advising them of the scam, the insurance company hired a Philadelphia “super detective”, Frank P. Geyer, to find him. Geyer tracked Mudgett down and brought him to trial for the murder of Mr. Pitezel. He was hanged on the Moyamensing Prison gallows May 7, 1896, the most prolific mass murderer in United States history. (bio by: [fg.cgi?page=mr&MRid=283" target="_blank Richard Blunk)] Maintained by: Find A Grave Record added: Jan 01, 2001

Find A Grave Memorial# 2415

• Reference: Find A Grave Memorial - SmartCopy: May 6 2018, 1:55:04 UTC