H. H. Holmes

Born: Herman Webster Midgett, May 16 1861 in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, U.S.

Apprehended: November 17 1894 for first degree murder,

Died: May 7 1896 (aged 34) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., death by hanging

Other names: Henry Howard Holmes
                          Henry M. Howard
                          Henry Gordon
                          Alexander Bond
                          O.C. Pratt
                          D.T. Pratt
                          A.E. Cook
                          G. Howell

Victims: 27+

Span of crimes: 1891-1894

Locations: Illinois, Indiana, Ontario

The case of the infamous H. H. Holmes and his “Murder Castle” or “Murder hotel” is surrounded by a lot of speculation and controversy. Seeing as how it is one of the oldest cases of serial killers it is not very well documented or investigated, so a lot of the information is unclear. Holmes is most famous as being America’s first serial killer despite there being a number of cases before him. He is famous for building the infamous “Murder Hotel” in Chicago which was never actually officially finished or open as a hotel. Holmes is believed to have built the hotel to use for the upcoming World’s Columbian Exposition, though that has never been confirmed. He confessed to over 27 murders, only 9 of which have been verified and some have been proven to be false confessions, though he is suspected of having killed over 200 people. Holmes is also known for being a con artist and bigamist, being the subject of at least 50 lawsuits in Chicago alone. Despite all the murders and scams he has committed during his lifetime, Holmes was convicted and charged for only one, the murder of his friend and accomplice Benjamin Peitzel.

PERSONAL LIFE

Henry Howard Holmes is a very memorable name, but that is not the real birth name of the person we all know to be one of the most famous serial killers of all time. H.H. Holmes’ real name was actually Herman Webster Mudgett. He was born in a fairly wealthy and quite religious family in Glimanton, New Hampshire, U.S. on may 16 1861. His father Levi Horton Mudgett came from a family of farmers which was their main source of income, but despite that being quite enough for the family, he still took quite a few side jobs including a teacher, a house painter and many more, while the mother, Theodete Page Price was a devout Methodist and was a school teacher prior to marriage. Holmes was the middle of 5 children, having one older sister named Ellen, an older brother named Arthur, a younger brother Henry and a younger sister named Mary. There have been a lot of rumors of Holmes being abused as a child and having a drunk of a father and his mother raising him and his siblings as a daily guide for parenting but none of these claims have ever been confirmed and it is speculated that this information has only been added recently as an attempt to connect him to the standard serial killer profile we are familiar with today.

Although there has never been any kind of home abuse documented, his life outside of his home was a lot different. He was by no means a loner, he had a few friends, however he was bullied at school for his good grades and slightly odd demeanor. One of the main subjects of the bullying being his crippling fear of the doctors. One time these kids took Holmes to the local doctor’s office and made him stand in front of and touch a human skeleton, locking him there for a small amount of time which is believed to have been the beginning of Holmes’ fascination with the human body. After that there have been speculations of Holmes capturing and dissecting living animals, but same as with the abuse, that has never been confirmed and is believed to be added just so Holmes can fit the profile of a serial killer as we know today. Another one of the controversies surrounding Holmes is the death of his childhood friend Tom. Holmes is believed to have murdered Tom at the age of 11 by pushing him off a ledge while exploring an abandoned building and disguising it as an accident, but once again this has never been confirmed.

Holmes was highly intelligent and graduated high school at the age of 16 and immediately started taking teaching jobs while also working with his father in the farming business which is how he would eventually meet Clara Lovering who he would marry at the age of 17. Two years into their marriage they had a son together by the name of Robert Mudgett. At the age of 18, Holmes enrolled in the University of Vermont, but was dissatisfied with the school he left after only a year. At the age of 22, Holmes enrolled in the University of Michigan’s Department of Medicine and Surgery, graduating only two years later. While enrolled, Holmes worked in the anatomy lab under Professor Herdman and then the chief of anatomy instructor. He was also an apprentice of Dr. Nahum Wight who was a noted advocate for human dissection. This was the official start of H.H. Holmes’ crime spree. While working as an apprentice he had an access to a lot of dead bodies who he would make up fake identities for and claim insurance money. Shortly before his graduation, Holmes’ wife Clara took their son and left him, but never officially divorced him and it is believed that Clara left because of Holmes’ abusive behavior towards her. After his graduation Holmes started travelling throughout the states taking different jobs in different places. After travelling to Moores Forks, New York, there was rumors that Holmes was seen with a little boy who later disappeared. Holmes claimed that the boy moved back to Massachussetts and seeing as no investigation was ever done, he left town quickly after. He travelled to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where after working for a few days as a keeper at Norristown State Hospital he quit and took a job at a drugstore. After a boy died as a result of consuming medication he had bought from Holmes who denied having any involvement, he quit and left the city immediately. This was about the time when the man named Herman Webster Mudgett had officially changed his legal name to the now infamous name of Henry Howard Holmes.

In late 1866 he got married for the second time to a woman named Myrta Belknap with the promise to divorce Clara. He filed for divorce from Clara a few weeks after his new marriage, claiming infidelity on her part. The claims couldn’t be proven and the suit went nowhere. Surviving paperwork indicates that Clara was never even informed. The divorce was never finalized and was dismissed on June 4 1891 on the grounds of “want of prosecution”. Holmes and Myrta went on to have a daughter named Lucy Theodate Holmes, born on July 4 1889 in Englewood, Chicago. Holmes lived with his wife and daughter in Wilmette, Illinois, but spent most of his time in Chicago tending to business. He later went on to marry once again to a woman named Georgina Yoke on January 17 1894 in Denver, Colorado, while never actually divorcing any of his two previous wives.

THE MURDER HOTEL

Holmes arrived in Chicago in 1886 where he began officially identifying by his new name H. H. Holmes. There he came across a pharmacy owned by Elizabeth S. Holton where he got a job and eventually bought the pharmacy off Holton. There has been some speculations about Holmes having murdered Mrs. Holton and her husband, but that has since proven to be a hoax. The theory goes that Mr. Holton was an old man who had suffered from cancer. After his tragic death Holmes made a deal with the old widowed Mrs. Holton that she would sell him the store as long as she could live in an apartment right above it. Mrs. Holton tried to sue Holmes for non-payment but eventually dropped the suit and moved to California, but speculations circulated that Holmes had actually murdered them both. However, this theory is completely wrong from the start, Mr. and Mrs. Holmes were not an elderly couple and may have actually been even younger than Holmes himself and after selling their pharmacy to Holmes they moved and actually stayed friends with him a while after selling him the pharmacy. They went on to live on well into the 20^th century, their deaths not being linked to Holmes in any way.

After buying the drugstore, Holmes purchased the lot right across the street which is where in 1887 the construction of a two-story mixed-use building began with retail spaces and a new drugstore on the first floor, and apartments on the second. When Holmes refused to pay the architects, the company sued him in 1888. In 1892 Holmes decided to add a third floor of the building telling investors that he was intending to use it as a hotel for the upcoming World’s Columbian Exposition, but the third floor was never actually finished, some sources say that he had used that as his living space or office, though that has never been confirmed. Holmes purchased a lot of furniture he never paid for and so a search was made which revealed more than anyone could have expected. The building was full of secret rooms where Holmes would store the stolen furniture, but that was only the beginning. They also found lots of hidden passages leading nowhere, soundproof rooms, mazes of hallways that seemed to go nowhere, trapdoors, there were chutes in many of the rooms which lead straight to the basement where there were acid vats and a crematorium to dispose of victims’ bodies. Holmes would use this hotel to lure victims to their untimely death, he would torture and murder them, preform all kinds of surgeries and experiments on them before eventually getting rid of the evidence by either polishing the skeleton after detaching it from the body and selling it and the organs to medical schools, or he would dissolve the victim in an acid bath or cremate them. After Holmes’ arrest in 1894 the hotel was set on fire by an anonymous arsonist and was rebuilt and used as a post office until 1938.

VICTIMS AND FAKE DEATH

Despite being convicted of only one murder, Holmes has confessed to 27 murders, 9 of which have been confirmed, but he is suspected of over 200 murders. Though he has confessed, some of his confessions have proven to be false as the people he confessed to murdering were found well and alive. The only murders that have been definitively proven were Ben Peitzel and his three children, Alice, Natalie and Howard. Julia and Pearl Connor, Emeline Cigrand and Minnie and Anna Williams are the rest of the confirmed victims, but their bodies have never been found.

One of his earliest victims is believed to have been his mistress Julia Connor and her 12 year old daughter Pearl. Julia’s husband Ned worked for Holmes at the pharmacy’s jewelry counter, but after finding out about Julia’s affair with Holmes he quit his job and moved away leaving Julia and Pearl with Holmes. Julia gained custody of Pearl and resided in the hotel before they both disappeared on Christmas Eve 1891. Holmes claimed that Julia had died of an abortion but that has yet to be proven. Allegedly Julia fell pregnant with his child and demanded marriage to which Holmes agreed as long as she did not keep the child. Holmes supposedly then poisoned her with chloroform and poisoned and mutilated her daughter Pearl. Some sources say that although forensic evidence was rudimentary at the time, bones found in the basement most likely belonged to Pearl Connor.

The second confirmed victim was Emeline Cingard. She was a secretary at a rival clinic whom Holmes had set eyes on. After offering her a salary doubled from the current one she was receiving, Cingard accepted the job in May of 1892. Cingard and Holmes had a hidden intimate relationship whose beginnings have never been known. Cingard disappeared in December that same year. Some sources say that Holmes claimed that she had gotten married to her fiancé Robert Phelps had left town, though there has never been any mention of Robert Phelps before this to anyone who had known Cingard. Holmes allegedly showed a typed out wedding card and a newspaper clipping of their wedding, but people suspect that Holmes himself had typed out the letter and submitted the newspaper announcement. During the investigation of Holmes’ castle, a footprint was found on a vault door that is believed to have belonged to Emeline Cingard.

The next victim of H.H. Holmes was an actress from Boston named Minnie Williams. Minnie came from a very wealthy family from Texas and Holmes saw that as an opportunity to swindle some more money, but it wasn’t as simple as the rest. Minnie had a sister named Nannie who she shared her fortune with. Holmes approached her offering her a job as his personal stenographer and she accepted. Holmes persuaded Minnie to sign off her deed to a man named Alexander Bond which was one of his aliases. In April 1893 she transferred the deed with Holmes as the notary. Minnie fell for Holmes and they rented an apartment in Chicago’s Lincoln Park introducing themselves as husband and wife. Holmes then wrote a letter to Minnie’s sister asking her to come and surprise her sister and to not tell anyone of this, and Nannie agreed. Nannie told her aunt that she planned to accompany “brother Harry” to Europe. Supposedly once Nannie arrived, Holmes told her to go inside one of the vaults to surprise her sister and locked her in. Regardless of how true the vault story is, neither Minnie or Nannie have been seen alive after July 5 1893.

His last confirmed victims are linked to his attempted fake death to claim insurance money for himself. Holmes was arrested in July 1984 for stealing horses, though some sources claim his arrest was for selling mortgaged goods in St. Louis, Missouri. He spent some time locked up before being released on bail, but why he was locked up there is two theories. While in jail, Holmes made friends with convicted outlaw Marion Hedgepath who was serving a 25 year sentence for larceny, jail breaking and armed robbery. Holmes told Hedgepath about his elaborate scheme to claim his own insurance money. Hedgepath connected Holmes with a corrupt lawyer and was promised $500 for his help and to keep quiet. Holmes was directed to a young St. Louis attorney by the name of Jeptha Howe. Jeptha worked alongside his older brother Alphonso who was unaware of anything that was going on, unlike his brother who was fascinated by the idea. There is no information about Holmes’ plan, but it had failed due to the insurance company becoming suspicious and refusing to pay.

Since Holmes himself could not claim insurance, he had persuaded his friend Benjamin Peitzel to do it instead. Peitzel agreed to fake his own death and have his wife Carrie collect the insurance money which she would then split with Holmes and Howe. Peitzel would claim to be an inventor under the name B.F. Perry and tragically die in a lab explosion which would deform his entire figure. In Peitzel’s place there would be a cadaver with his exact measurements which his wife and children would identify as Benjamin and his wife would be able to claim the insurance money. Unfortunately for Holmes, Peitzel at the last minute got cold feet and did not want to go through with the plan, so Holmes decided to instead kill Peitzel himself by knocking him out with chloroform and setting his body on fire using benzene, however forensics later showed that the chloroform was administered post-mortem, presumably to make it look like a suicide to exonerate Holmes should he be charged with murder.

Holmes claimed to Benjamin Peitzel’s wife that her husband was well and alive living somewhere in London and that they would be reunited soon. Carrie Peitzel, being fully in on the initial insurance scheme believed Holmes and agreed to let him take the three middle children, 13 year old Alice, 9 year old Nellie and 7 year old Howard. The supposed plan that Holmes told Carrie was that he would take the three children and travel across the states and Carrie would do the same with the other two children and meet up in London where her husband Benjamin would be waiting for them. He told her this would be the plan so that when they did go to London they would not look suspicious. Cara believed him and Holmes took the three kids in his custody. They would move in parallel paths, though Holmes would always lie to Carrie about their whereabouts of her three missing children. During all this, Holmes was married to his third wife Georgina Yoke who was completely unaware of any of this. Holmes obviously did not plan on having to take care of the children so he murdered all three of them. The first one to be killed was Howard. Some sources say that Holmes drugged the boy before chopping him up and burning him on a stove. Howard’s teeth and bits of bone were found in the chimney of a cottage located in Indianapolis by Detective Frank Gayer. Prior to finding Howard, Gayer was investigating Holmes’ rental house at 16st Vincent Street in Toronto and in the cellar found the two naked decomposed bodies of the two Peitzel girls. Holmes confessed to the murder and told police that he had killed the girls by forcing them into a large trunk and locking it, after which he had drilled a hole large enough to fit one end of a hose whose other end was connected to a gas line to asphyxiate the girls.

CAPTURE AND ARREST

After the World’s fair had ended, Holmes left Chicago and went to his property at Fort Worth, Texas where he planned to build another building, much like the one we now know as “The Murder Castle”, but he soon abandoned that plan. After this Holmes continued moving around America and Canada where it is believed he had murdered more people, but the only ones that have been found and confirmed were those of the Peitzel family.

Holmes’ first arrest was in July 1894 for horse swindling, but he was very quickly bailed out. In his brief jail time he met another inmate named Marion Hedgepath and told Hedgepath his elaborate plan to fake his suicide. Holmes offered $500 to Hedgepath to connect him with a corrupt lawyer by the name of Jeptha Howe. Though his lawyer found his plan to be brilliant, the insurance company did not process his claim due to suspicion. After this Holmes constructed a plan to fake the death of his close friend Benjamin Peitzel and split his insurance money with his wife and the lawyer, however he instead murdered Peitzel and told his wife that Peitzel was infact well and alive waiting for them in London.

After Holmes had claimed the insurance money for Peitzel, he never actually shared any of it, not with Peitzel’s wife, not with Howe and not with Hedgepath. Hedgepath was informed about the change of plans and all the schemes that Holmes had planned by Howe and knowing that he would never get his share of money from Holmes, he decided to share all of it with the police. After hearing the claims Hedgepath had made, The Pinkertons, a detective agency at the time, tracked down Holmes from Philadelphia to Boston and arrested him on November 17, 1894. Holmes was held in custody for the swindle of some horses in Texas after appearing to try and flee the country with his current unsuspecting wife Georgina Yoke. After this, Detective Frank Gayer discovered the naked decomposing bodies of the two Peitzel girls first in the cellar while investigating a cottage Holmes had been renting at 16st Vincent Street. Next the detective found the teeth and bones of Howard Peitzel in the chimney of a cottage located in Indianapolis.

Following this investigation, the custodian of the hotel informed police that he was never allowed to clean the third floor, which was all the police needed to start a thorough search of the castle. Though there are many sensational claims, there was no evidence to convict Holmes in Chicago

In October 1895, Holmes was finally convicted for the murder of Benjamin Peitzel and sentenced to death by hanging. Following his conviction, Holmes was paid $7.500 by the Hearst newspapers for a confession. Holmes confessed to 27 murders and 6 attempts at murder, but it was later proven that some of his confessions had been completely false and his entire confession proved to be mostly nonsense.

Holmes gave so many false statements in his lifetime that it made it extremely difficult for researchers to ascertain the truth on the basis of his statements, at one point even claiming to be possessed by the devil. In his written confessions, Holmes mentions how his appearance had drastically changed since imprisonment, describing his grim appearance as “gruesome and taking a Satanical Cast”.

“I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing — I was born with the ‘Evil One’ standing as my sponsor beside the bed where I was ushered into the world, and he has been with me since.” – H. H. Holmes

Holmes was executed on May 7, 1896 at Moyamensing Prison, also known as Philadelphia County Prison. Up until his hanging Holmes remained calm and had requested that he be buried under blocks of cement 10 feet under the surface because he was afraid of having grave robbers dig up his body and sell it. Holmes’ execution was not quick, after being hanged his neck did not snap and he was strangled to death, his body twitching mid air and was pronounced dead 20 minutes after his actual execution took place. His wishes were honored and Holmes’ coffin was placed 10 feet underground under blocks of cement in Holy Cross Cemetery in Yeadon, Pennsylvania.

“Take your time, don’t bungle it.” – H. H. Holmes’ last words

The castle mysteriously went down in flames in August 1895. According to an article in The New York Times two men were seen entering the building between 8 and 9pm and rapidly exiting only moments after. Following several explosions the building burnt down, but it had survived the fire none the less. During an investigation a half empty gas can was found underneath the back steps of the building. It was torn down in 1938 and in its place they built a postal service.

SOURCES

https://www.britannica.com/biography/H-H-Holmes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._H._Holmes

https://www.biography.com/news/hh-holmes-victims

https://online.csp.edu/blog/forensic-scholars-today/hh-holmes-serial-killer