Herman Webster Mudgett (May 16, 1861 – May 7, 1896), better known as Dr. Henry Howard Holmes or H. H. Holmes and also known by the aliases Alexander Bond, Harry Gordon, J.A. Judson and Robert E. Phelps, was an American con artist and murderer active between 1891 and 1894. By the time of his execution in 1896, Holmes had engaged in a lengthy criminal career that included insurance fraud, forgery, swindling, three or four bigamous marriages, horse theft and murder. Known as the Beast of Chicago, the Devil in the White City or the Torture Doctor, he committed his most notorious crimes in Chicago around the time of the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893.
Holmes was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Benjamin Pitezel, his accomplice in several of his cons. However, Holmes confessed to twenty-seven murders, including those of some people who were verifiably still alive. It is believed that he also killed three of Pitezel's children, as well as three mistresses, the child of one mistress and the sister of another. Holmes was hanged on May 7, 1896.
Much of the lore attached to Holmes concerns the so-called "Murder Castle", a three-story building he commissioned on W. 63rd Street in Chicago. Details about the building, along with many of his alleged crimes, are considered exaggerated or fabricated for sensationalistic tabloid pieces with some accounts estimating his body count could be as high as 133. Many of these inaccuracies have persisted due to the combination of ineffective police investigation and hyperbolic yellow journalism of the period, which are often cited as historical record. Official findings suggest that the W. 63rd Street property was used for business, and that the irregular architecture was a product of fraud, rather than being designed to fulfill violent fantasies.
Holmes gave various contradictory accounts of his life, initially claiming innocence, and later that he was possessed by Satan. His propensity for lying has made it difficult for researchers to ascertain the truth on the basis of his statements. For example, he claimed that Dr. Robert Leacock, a fellow medical school classmate, was one of his first murder victims, and that he killed him in 1886 for insurance money; however, Leacock died on October 5, 1889, in Watford, Ontario, Canada.
Since the 1990s, Holmes has often been described as the first serial killer in U.S. history. In his book about Holmes, author Adam Selzer writes: "Just killing several people isn't necessarily enough for most definitions [of a serial killer]. More often, it has to be a series of similar crimes, committed over a period of time, usually more to satisfy a psychological urge on the killer's part than any more practical motive." He adds: "The murders we can connect 'Holmes' to generally had a clear motive: someone knew too much, or was getting in his way, and couldn't be trusted. The murders weren't simply for love of bloodshed but a necessary part of furthering his swindling operation and protecting his lifestyle."
H. H. Holmes was born as Herman Webster Mudgett on May 16, 1861, in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, the third child of Levi Horton Mudgett and Theodate Page Price, both of whom were descended from the first English settlers in the area. He had two older siblings, Ellen and Arthur, and one younger brother, Henry. As an adolescent, Holmes attended Phillips Exeter Academy before graduating high school with honors from Gilmanton Academy at age 16.
Holmes' parents were both devout Methodists. His father was from a farming family, and at times worked as a farmer, trader and house painter. He was also reportedly a heavy drinker who cruelly beat his children. Holmes also faced bullying by classmates due to his outstanding academic capabilities. In one incident, he was forced to stand in front of a human skeleton and put the skeleton's hands on his face in an effort to frighten him. Initially terrified, Holmes later discovered the experience to be intriguing and claimed that it helped him overcome his worries. Holmes subsequently developed an obsession with death as a result of the encounter, and began dissecting animals.
In 1879, Holmes enrolled at the University of Vermont for one year. In 1882 he transferred to the University of Michigan's Department of Medicine and Surgery. Despite his mediocre academic performance, Holmes graduated in June 1884. While enrolled, he worked in the anatomy lab under Professor William James Herdman, then the chief anatomy instructor, and the two were said to have been engaged in facilitating body snatching to supply medical cadavers. Holmes had apprenticed in New Hampshire under Nahum Wight, a noted advocate of human dissection. Years later, when Holmes was suspected of murder and claimed to be nothing but an insurance fraudster, he admitted to using cadavers to defraud life insurance companies several times in college.
In 1884, shortly after his separation from his first wife, Holmes moved to Mooers, New York. A rumor soon spread that he had been seen in the company of a little boy who later disappeared. Holmes claimed the boy went back to his home in Massachusetts. No investigation took place and Holmes quickly left town. He later traveled to Philadelphia and was hired as a keeper at Norristown State Hospital but quit after a few days. He then took a position at a drugstore in Philadelphia, but while he was working there a boy died after taking medicine that was purchased at the store. Holmes denied any involvement in the child's death and immediately left the city. Before moving to Chicago in August 1886, he changed his name to "Henry Howard Holmes" to avoid the possibility of being exposed by victims of his previous scams.
Soon after his arrival in Chicago, Holmes came across a drugstore at the northwest corner of South Wallace Avenue and W. 63rd Street in the Englewood section of the city. The drugstore's owner, Elizabeth Holton, gave Holmes a job; he proved to be a hardworking employee, eventually buying the store.
Contrary to several accounts, Holmes did not kill Dr. E. S. Holton, the drugstore's original owner. Holmes purchased an empty lot across the street, where construction began in 1887 for a two-story mixed-use building, with apartments on the second floor and retail spaces, including a new drugstore, on the first. When he declined to pay the architects or the steel company, Aetna Iron and Steel, they took him to court in 1888. In 1892, Holmes added a third floor, telling investors and suppliers he intended to use it as a hotel during the upcoming World's Columbian Exposition.
Contemporary accounts report that Holmes built the hotel to lure tourists visiting the Exposition in order to kill them and sell their skeletons to nearby medical schools. Although he did have a history of selling stolen cadavers to medical schools, Holmes had acquired these wares through body snatching rather than murder. Likewise, there is no evidence that Holmes ever murdered Exposition-goers on the premises. The yellow press of the period labeled the building as Holmes' "Murder Castle", claiming the structure contained secret torture chambers, trapdoors, gas chambers and a basement crematorium; none of these sensationalised claims were true.
Other accounts stated that the hotel was made up of over a hundred rooms and laid out like a maze, with doors opening into brick walls, windowless rooms and dead-end staircases. In reality, the third-floor hotel was moderately sized, largely unremarkable and uncompleted due to Holmes's disputes with the builders. It did contain some hidden rooms, but they were used for hiding furniture Holmes bought on credit and did not intend to pay for. Holmes did not kill an alleged "Castle" victim, Miss Kate Durkee, who turned out to be very much alive. In his confession, he stated that his usual method of killing was to suffocate his victims using various means, including an overdose of chloroform, overexposure to lighting gas fumes and trapping them in an airless vault. Holmes also claimed to have starved victims and to have burned them alive in his "castle".