H.H. HOLMES AND THE KILLER CASTLE

Full Name: Herman Webster Mudgett
Gender: Male
Race: Caucasian
Birth: May 16, 1861 in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, USA
Death: May 7, 1896 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Cause of Death: Execution by hanging
Nicknames: Arch Fiend/ Dr. Death/ Torture Doctor
Murder Count: 15+ murdered victims (possibly 100’s) -(Claimed 27)
Murder Time Frame: 1880’s-1894/ Unknown age of first murder, 33 yrs. Of age at last murder.
Murder Locations: Canada- Toronto, Ontario/ USA- Chicago, Indianapolis, Philadelphia
Preferred Prey: Acquaintances and his hotel guests
Killing preferences: Bludgeoning, burning, poisoning, gassing, suffocation, dismemberment.
Victim Disposal: Burned some victims in his furnace, buried some in his cellars, hid one victim in a Chimney, placed some in acid and lime, de-fleshed some and sold their skeletons to medical schools.
Signatures: Used the alias “Dr. Henry Howard Holmes” (Dr. H.H. Holmes), rigged his hotel with trapdoors and tortured/ murdered his guests who were visiting the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair
Trophies: Money and skeletons

Herman Webster Mudgett would engage in a number of shady Businesses, real estate, and promotional deals under the name, Dr. H.H. Holmes. His greed would prove to be the impetus behind one of the bloodiest serial killers in history. Holmes was also known as the first serial killer in the USA.

On May 16, 1861 in a small New Hampshire town known as Gilmanton, a child was born to Levi Horton Mudgett and his wife, the former Theodate Page Price. A male child that brought smiles to his families faces. This was the day that Herman Webster Mudgett was born.  His father was a strict disciplinarian and his mother was just cold and un-loving. Herman was often bullied as a child. One day when Herman was 5 with his fellow classmates realizing his fear of doctor’s offices they forced him inside and made him touch the skeleton that hung there. Although Herman was deathly afraid upon touching it, he found a great fascination with the skeleton that would remain with him his whole life.

“It was a wicked and dangerous thing to do to a child of tender years and health”, Holmes {Mudgett} reculected of the experience years later.

Herman could often be found sitting inside his room reading Jules Verne or Edgar Allen Poe, he was fascinated by their words. Also known as a “Mama’s boy, he spent most of his time alone. Herman showed an early interest in science by building a wind machine that generated noise to scare birds out of the family fields and also wanted to build a perpetual wind machine. He loved coming up with new ideas and getting to see them in action. Just knowing he could do it gave him great confidence.

Herman did have one close friend as a kid, a child named Tom. They would spend time just playing together. One day while they were out playing alone in an old abandoned farm house, Tom fell through the second story as the old boards gave way underneath him. Tom took a tradgic fall which killed him. Herman examined Tom’s body for a moment, how lifeless and still it was. Then Herman ran all the way home not speaking a word about Tom’s whereabouts. With everyone asking him questions about the incident, Herman said nothing of it except that, he just fell. Herman never spoke of it and never had any close friends after this.

Herman grew up to become a handsome charming young man, everyone seemed to love his witty personality. Quite an intelligent man, Mudgett would go on to graduate from Gilmanton Academy where he graduated with honors at the age of 16.Shortly after graduating Herman went on to become a teacher. July 4, 1978, two years later, aged 18, he would marry a young woman, his high school sweetheart, by the name of Clara Lovering. For the first couple of years together the couple was happy and even had a baby boy. But Herman was not happy with being tied down and so in 1886, Herman left Clara and the male child and took off to Chicago. Clara would not see Herman again.

He enrolled into the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor where he graduated from eventually. But while enrolled there Herman came up with a cunning scheme. In the morgue where the dead bodies were kept, Herman decided to steal the corpses and take out life insurance policies on everyone of them. He would then disfigure them to a state where he would claim that they died in a horrible accident. Mudgett would then claim the policies that he had taken out on each and every corpse. The University shortly found out about this after a night watchman caught him taking a female corpse out one night and dismissed him from the school for good. Herman moved to Chicago to practice medicine. and even got a job at a local pharmacy. It was a summer day in 1886 when he visited Dr. E.S Holton’s drugstore, located at the corner of Wallace and 63rd in Englewood. Dr. Holton was dying of cancer and his worried wife minded the store alone. Mudgett introduced himself as Dr. Henry Howard Holmes and politely offered to help run the store. Without a question asked Mudgett was hired and everyone’s fate was at hand. Not long after he was hired Dr. Holton died, but business seemed to prosper as the local ladies would visit the store frequent just to have a look at the handsome druggist. The grieving widow left Holmes with more and more responsibility until one day Holmes offered to buy the store. The widow agreed under the condition that she continued to live upstairs and get paid . Holmes agreed, but when he kept failing to pay her the Mrs. Holton sought legal help. In no time at all, she disappeared and was never seen again. When friends of Mrs. Holton would come into the store and ask about her, Holmes would quickly reply that she got so depressed living above the store by herself that she left for California. No one gave it a single thought that Holmes had quickly moved into the store and now owned everything.

He was so successful with the pharmacy and side scandals that he bought a three story house right across the street and began drawing up plans to make it into a pharmacy on the bottom floor, a furnace room in the basement, and guests rooms upstairs that he’d soon rent out. He also had boutiques and shops on the first floor and the third floor housed his personal offices and personal living quarters. The second floor would prove to be one of the most terrible real life houses of horror imaginable. He had over 100 rooms in all and began construction right away. He hired a contractor, and a crew of over 800 men to finish what everyone would soon come to know as, The Castle. Holmes himself called the building his castle which was made up of three stories and was a maze like hotel. This is where he tortured and killed many of his unknown victims. The contractor vanished shortly after the castle was built as so did the man who helped put the nine room
 furnace/basement together.

The castles middle floor had doors that opened to brick walls, stairways to nowhere, hidden gas jets, peepholes, secret alarm bells activated by opening apartment doors, hidden passages, kilns, trap doors, glass bending furnace,  a shaft without an elevator and an elevator without a shaft. There was an airtight and sound-proof vault, torture chambers, dissecting tables, a crematorium, chemical vats, quicklime pits, and human-sized greased chutes leading from the guests rooms to the basement.

Dr. Holmes was also said to have had an, “Elasticity Determinator”, a machine he claimed could stretch experimental subjects to twice their normal length in order to produce a race of giants. Those who viewed it (and lived) said it appeared to be a medieval torture rack. This building was built around the same time the Chicago fair and exhibit came to town. Many had rented rooms from Holmes.

At one point Holmes had rented a whole bunch of new furniture and found himself unable to pay for them. When the bailiff’s came to search the castle and take the things, they were nowhere to be found. It was only after they had bribed Holmes’ janitor that they found the merchandise. In fact it was all stored away in an empty room and then the room was wallpapered over making it look inconspicuous. The furniture was recovered. Unfortunately another company who had rented Holmes a safe was not so lucky. Holmes had built the room around the safe so when they came to reposes it the doorway was too narrow. Holmes threatened if they damaged his Hotel he’d sue so the safe company dropped the whole matter.

Now with the Castle complete guests, mostly women began pouring in from everywhere. Most were travelers. Beautiful women who trusted Holmes to never be seen again. After Holmes would get his guests settled into their rooms he began plotting their death. Once inside the rooms the dead bolts would lock quickly and the gas jets were activated. Most dying within a matter of minutes. Their were glass peep holes in which Holmes could watch as they suffered. Their bodies were then pushed down the shoots which led to the basement and there they were either burned or de-skinned in order to sell the skeletons. Some of his victims were even children.

After doing this and getting away with it for a couple years, detectives began to catch on to Holmes’ scheme. After all was said and done and Holmes was arrested, the cops couldn’t believe what they had wandered upon. Secret rooms, rotting bodies and plans only a mad man could draw up. Holmes was sentenced to death by hanging. On the afternoon of May 7 1896 Holmes stood there on the platform with the trap door underneath his feet not sweating a drop but pleading to the crowd that the death of his good friend and his children was not his doing in anyway. The chief warden then loosened the noose and wrapped it around his neck. Holmes then replied, “Don’t’ bungle the rope and make it quick”. With his request it was done. The trap door fell and his body fell quickly six feet. His head hung to the left and his body twirled round. His legs kicked wildly for  a few moments then his body hung still.

While in prison awaiting his execution Holmes asked that his body be buried 10 feet deep covered in cement so that no grave robber could steal his body parts from him. His request was carried out and to this day his grave is unmarked. Upon all the pain and torture he put upon everyone else his biggest fear was having the same thing done to him. How ironic.