KILLER PROFILES: H.H. Holmes - The Master Of "Murder Castle"
With the recent news of Eric Larson’s novel “The Devil In The White City” being adapted for TV by Martin Scorsese and starring Keanu Reeves, we thought a proper inroduction to the main protagonist of the book/show should be introduced. His name was H.H. Holmes and here’s his story.
The dazzling World’s Columbian Exposition, called the White City in the press, brought millions of visitors to Chicago in 1893, among them naïve young farm girls or working women who wanted a taste of adventure. Many of these girls saw advertisements for a hotel conveniently close to the grounds of the great fair and decided to stay. A number of them were never seen again.
New Hampshire native Herman Webster Mudgett, alias Henry Howard Holmes, was from a devout Methodist family. He trained as a pharmacist, but was also a con artist and trigamist. At 17, he married Clara Lovering who was carrying his child, then in late 1886 he married Myrta Belknap in Minneapolis, with whom he had another child, Lucy Theodate. In 1894 he wed Georgiana Yoke in Denver, while still married to both Clara and Myrta.
It was in 1886 that Holmes came to Chicago, leaving Myrta and Lucy at their family home in Williamette, and found work at Elizabeth S. Holton’s drugstore in Englewood. He worked hard and eventually bought the store and then an empty lot across the street. Holmes saw the upcoming world’s fair as the means to indulge in his taste for murder, so he built a house especially for that purpose on the lot—an ornate three-story building, with commercial storefronts at ground level, his “special” rooms on the second floor, and hotel accommodations on the top floor. The sound-proofed torture rooms were geared for subduing and killing young women, with chutes and secret corridors that allowed their bodies to be transported to the basement, where they would be placed in quicklime or acid vats. Holmes had different construction firms work on the building so none knew specifically what the other group was doing.
THE SLAUGHTER BEGINS…
Holmes first victim was possibly his mistress Julia Smythe, the wife of a tenant, who gained custody of her daughter when her husband moved out. She and young Pearl disappeared on Christmas Eve, 1891. Another two women connected to Holmes, Emeline Cigrande and Edna Van Tassel, also disappeared. After Holmes convinced his stenographer, Minnie Williams, to sign over her property in Texas to him, she and her visiting sister vanished in 1893. He even killed his male assistant—his “creature”—Benjamin Pitezel for the insurance money, then went on the run with three of Pitzele’s five children, whom he eventually killed in horrific fashion, gassing the two girls and poising the little boy.
As for the missing female “guests” at the hotel, it was impossible to calculate how many victims there were, but after Holmes was arrested for the death of Pitezel, he confessed to 27 murders. Despite his confession of 27 murders (including some people who were verifiably still alive) while awaiting execution, Holmes was convicted and sentenced to death for only the murder of Pitezel.
Above: A Plan of H.H. Holmes’s “Murder Castle”, published in the Chicago Tribune, August 18th, 1895.
Much of the lore surrounding the "Murder Castle" along with many of his alleged crimes are considered likely exaggerated or fabricated for sensationalistic tabloid pieces. Many of these factual inaccuracies have persisted due to the combination of ineffective police investigation and hyperbolic tabloid journalism, which are often cited as historical record.
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.
Since the 1990s Holmes has often been described as a serial killer, however, Adam Selzer points out in his book on Holmes, "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." and "The murders we can connect him [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 operations and protecting his lifestyle.
On May 7, 1896, Holmes was hanged at Moyamensing Prison, also known as the Philadelphia County Prison, for the murder of Pitezel. Until the moment of his death, Holmes remained calm and amiable, showing very few signs of fear, anxiety, or depression. He was hanged nine days before his 35th birthday. Despite this, he asked for his coffin to be contained in cement and buried 10 feet deep, because he was concerned grave robbers would steal his body and use it for dissection. Holmes's neck did not break; he instead strangled to death slowly, twitching for over 15 minutes before being pronounced dead 20 minutes after the trap had been sprung.
The castle itself was mysteriously gutted by fire in August 1895. According to a newspaper clipping from The New York Times, two men were seen entering the back of the building between 8 and 9 p.m. About half an hour later, they were seen exiting the building and rapidly running away. Following several explosions, the castle went up in flames. Afterwards, investigators found a half-empty gas can underneath the back steps of the building. The building survived the fire and remained in use until it was torn down in 1938. The site is occupied by the Englewood branch of the United States Postal Service.
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