The Chilling Legacy Of H.H. Holmes: America's First Serial Killer

"I was born with the very devil in me," famously stated H.H. Holmes. "I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to song, nor the ambition of an intellectual man to be great. The inclination to murder came to me as naturally as the inspiration to do right comes to the majority of persons."

On May 7, 1896, Henry Howard Holmes was executed by hanging for the murder of his associate Ben Pitezel. Despite Holmes' confession of killing 27 other people—some of whom were later found alive—he was officially linked to nine murders. Some estimates suggest his victims could have totaled up to 200, but these claims were often exaggerated.

Holmes Was a Wanted Man When He Arrived in Chicago

By the time Holmes (real name Herman Webster Mudgett) arrived in Chicago in 1886, he was a wanted man. As a con artist and bigamist, he fled from one town to another, evading prison time for various scams. He was infamous for committing insurance fraud by stealing and mutilating medical cadavers, pretending they were victims of accidents to collect money.

However, Holmes had even more sinister plans brewing in his mind. Soon after settling in Chicago, he found work as a pharmacist. It wasn't long before he began constructing a "Murder Castle," a three-story building that occupied the entire block of 63rd and Wallace streets. He marketed it as the World's Fair Hotel to attract tourists flocking to the 1893 Columbian Exposition. His preferred victims? Young female drifters looking for an exciting new life in the city.

The infamous Murder Castle was described in a 1937 article by the Chicago Tribune as "a queer house." The article detailed that it had chimneys sticking out in odd places, stairways leading to nowhere, and winding passages that confused visitors. It was a reflection of the builder's distorted mind—a place where dark and eerie deeds occurred.

Holmes' Victims

The Pitezel family were some of the known victims of Holmes: father Ben and his three children, Alice, Nellie, and little Howard. Tragically, the family was killed during the fall of 1894. Instead of using a cadaver, Holmes murdered Ben as part of his insurance fraud scheme, knocking him out and setting him on fire.

On July 15, 1895, the bodies of Alice and Nellie were discovered in a Toronto cellar. Later, investigators found teeth and bones that belonged to Howard in a cottage in Indianapolis that Holmes had rented. Among Holmes' other presumed victims were Julia and her daughter Pearl Connor, Emeline Cigrand, and sisters Minnie and Nannie Williams.

While the bodies of Julia, Emeline, and the Williams sisters were never found, rumors circulated that Holmes sold their cadavers to medical schools. He claimed that Julia and Emeline died during illegal abortions. Julia was supposedly his lover, and Emeline had been his secretary, whom he eventually proposed to.

During a search of Holmes' hotel, authorities recovered Minnie’s watch chain and Nannie’s garter buckle from one of the ovens. Although forensic evidence was limited at the time, bones discovered in the basement likely belonged to 12-year-old Pearl Connor, whom Holmes was accused of poisoning. Witnesses claimed to have seen Holmes and his janitor removing a large trunk the day after Emeline disappeared.

Although there was a lengthy list of other potential victims, these nine were convincingly linked to Holmes' killing spree. Just before his execution, Holmes remained calm and pleasant, requesting to be buried ten feet deep in a cement encased casket to thwart grave robbers who might want to dissect his body.

When Holmes was finally hanged, it was said that his neck did not snap. Instead, he suffered a slow death, twitching for twenty minutes before being pronounced dead.