H.H. HOLMES - ONE SICK BASTARD

Reality Can Be Stranger Than Fiction

H.H. Holmes (2004)

I must admit although I should have known about this man, I had no idea until I was watching a TV series on Netflix and they mentioned him... after looking around I actually found a sort of autobiographical movie on him and what do you know - not only was he real but they got their facts straight. If you've never heard of him, his real name was Herman Webster Mudgett before he changed it, and he's famous (or, rather, infamous) as being America's very first serial killer. In fact the term 'multiple killer' was coined just for him. Up until then there had never been the likes of him in the United States (and unfortunately it's much more common today).

Being a man brought up in a strict religious and regimented background, Herman was a genius but probably sociopathic from the start. His fear of dead things and being tormented by bullies because of it perversely turned his interest towards medicine. While in college, he delighted in being able to 'operate' and cut on cadavers, feeding his growing blood lust. Unlike most psychopaths who go on to become criminals, he finished college and actually became a doctor. He also developed and perfected the con of misdirection, fraud, and other crimes, bilking people and businesses out of tons of money, including a pharmacy which he is thought to have probably killed the previous owners. As he moved toward the midwest he changed his name to H.H. Holmes to fool bilked creditors and suspicious lawmen.

No one really knows how many Holmes killed before his final incarceration and hanging. Some say as little as nine while others estimate it could well be over two hundred. He is most famous for erecting a majestic building in Chicago which was desperately trying to recover from the great fire, three stories and a block long, which was dubbed 'the castle' because of its opulence. He got away with building it cheap by hiring builders, letting them work for a while, then firing them under the guise that they did a substandard job - not paying any of them of course. This was part of his con, but also so no one really had any idea what the inside of his building entailed on the second and third floors, the first floor being home to several shops. The second and third, as well as the basement, were his personal playrooms, to torture, maim, starve, and dispose of the bodies of his victims.

The event of the 1893 World's Fair was a terrific opportunity for Holmes - renovating the top floor with lavish rooms filled with furniture he never intended to pay for, he was able to lure many a woman (probably men too) to his 'castle' to stay the night. With no one ever telling their relatives where they were going, and only knowing they were attending this Fair, there was no way of tracking them. Once inside the 'castle' the labryrinth type structure trapped unsuspecting guests - hallways and doors that led nowhere, and everything made to disorientate and trap the victims.

Being the king of the con, he married three wives, each unaware of the others, and several mistresses, some of which ended dead in his 'castle'. He made quite a bit of money selling well articulated skeletons to medical schools, who never asked where they came from. But it was some of his victims that would prove to be his downfall. During the period of building construction in 1889, Holmes met Benjamin Pitezel, a carpenter with a past of lawbreaking, whom Holmes exploited as a stooge for his criminal schemes. A district attorney later described Pitezel as Holmes's 'tool... his creature.' Following the World's Fair, with creditors closing in and the economy in a general slump, Holmes left Chicago. He reappeared in Fort Worth, Texas, 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. He continued to move about the United States and Canada, and it seems likely that he continued to kill. 

He was arrested briefly and made a crucial error - he promised jail mate Marion Hedgepeth a portion of proceeds he planned to make on an insurance swindle, and then stiffed him. Hedgepeth in his anger decided to rat out Holmes and he was again arrested, this time facing actual murder charges in Boston in 1894. 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. Holmes's victims were mainly women (and primarily blonde), but included some men and children, including three of the children of his former partner in crime (and the unfortunate dupe of his insurance fraud scheme), Pitezel.

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). Times being what they were he was actually paid by a newspaper to give his 'confession' although it is highly suspect. On May 7, 1896, Holmes was hanged at Moyamensing Prison in Philadelphia. Until the moment of his death, Holmes remained calm and amiable, showing very few signs of fear, anxiety or depression. To the end he showed his inhuman detachment and lack of regret for what he had done.