MELEIGHA SCHIMMOLLER

H.H. HOLMES AMERICAS FIRST SERIAL KILLER

• I choose H.H. Holmes because he was the first labeled “serial killer” in America.

EARLY LIFE

• H.H Homes real name was Herman Webster Mudgett • He was born in Gilmanton,

New Hampshire in 1860• He is the Son of Levi Horton

Mudgett and Theodate Page Price• Herman’s father showed him

“love” by beating him on a pretty regular basis.

• Herman kept to himself during his childhood. • He did manage to have one

friend by the name of Tom but he died in an accident while exploring with Herman. Tom had fallen from the upstairs landing of an old house the two were in and Herman saw the accident very clearly.

• Since Herman was a smaller boy, he was an easy target for the bullies around town.

• One incident stuck with him. Two older classmates waited until the doctor left his office. Once the doctor left, the two older boys forced Herman into the office where they forced him over to a skeleton. Herman was hysterical as the skeletons bony fingers touched his face.

• By the age of 11, he was conducting “experiments” on animals.

• After a year of college in Vermont, Herman transferred to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

• He graduated with a medical degree in 1884.

• By then he was a con artist who would claim thousands from insurance companies.

• He would take out a policy in a fake name, would then find a corpse and then tell the insurance company that the dead body was the person on the claim.

Wife's And Kids

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• July 8th, 1878- Holmes married Clara A. Lovering of Alton, New Hampshire

• January 28th, 1887- He married Myrta Z. Belknap of Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was still married to Clara at the time. He filed for divorce from Clara, but it never became final.

• Holmes and Myrta had a daughter born on July 4th, 1889 named Lucy Theodate Holmes.

• January 9th, 1894- He married Georgiana Yoke

• On top of the 3 wives, Holmes also had a lover. Her name was Julia Smythe. She was the wife of Ned Connor, one of Holmes trusted associates

Construction

• While in Chicago, Homes came across a drugstore.

• The owner was suffering from cancer while his wife Mrs. Holton minded the store.

• Holmes got a job there a convinced Mrs. Holton to sell the store to him.

• After Mr. Holton passed away he murdered Mrs. Holton and told people that she was visiting relatives in California.

• When people got suspicious about why she didn’t come back he told them that she loved it to much there that she decided to move there.

• Holmes bought a lot across from the drugstore, where he built his three-story block-long castle. • It was opened as a hotel for

the Worlds Columbian Exposition in 1893

• Holmes repeatedly changed builders during the initial construction, to ensure that only he fully understood the design of the castle he was creating• It also decreased the chances of any

of the builders reporting him to the police • Over the period of three years,

Holmes selected female victims from among his employees, lovers and hotel guests, that he would torture and kill

How He Killed

• Holmes castle was elaborately constructed • Some of his victims were locked

in soundproof bedrooms fitted with gas lines, that allowed him to asphyxiate them at any time • Some victims were locked in a

huge bank vault near his office, so he could hear them scream, panicked and eventually suffocate

• The victims bodies were sent by chute to the basement, where some were dissected, stripped of flesh, crafted into skeletons and sold to medical schools

• Holmes also cremated some of the bodies or placed them in lime pits

• He also had two giant furnaces as well as pits of acid, bottles of poisons and a stretching rack

• Through the connections Holmes had gained in medical school, he had very little difficulty selling skeletons and organs

• Holmes also had a room where he performed hundreds of illegal abortions.

• Some of his patients died as a result of this procedure, their corpses were processed and sold as skeletons also

• H.H. Holmes method of operation was that he would make all of his victims take out an insurance policy. He would pay all the premiums, but he was also the primary beneficiary.

Second Castle

• Following the worlds fair, Holmes left Chicago• He went to Fort Worth, Texas• He inherited property from

the railroad heiress sisters, one of who he promised to marry, but he murdered both• He started building another

castle, but abandoned the project soon after he started

First Arrest

• In July 1894, Holmes was arrested for the first time, for a horse swindle

• While in jail, he talked to Marion Hedgepeth about an insurance scam on Holmes himself for faking his own death

• He promised Hedgepeth $500 if he told Holmes a lawyer that could be trusted

• Holmes plan failed when the insurance company became suspicious and refused to pay

• Holmes did not press his claim, instead he concocted the same plan with his associate Pitezel

• Pitezel was to set himself up as an inventor, under the name B.F. Perry, and be killed and disfigured in a lab explosion

• Holmes was to find a cadaver to play the role of Pitezel

• Holmes then killed Pitezel

Second Arrest

• After the death of Pitezel, Holmes manipulated Pitezel’s wife to let him take custody of Nellie, Howard and Alice

• A Philadelphia detective, found the decomposing bodies of Alice and Nellie in Toronto

• He the followed Holmes to Indianapolis, where Holmes rented a cottage

• He drugged, cut up and then burned Howard’s body

• Traces of the boys teeth and bones were found in the chimney at the cottage

• In 1894, the police were tipped off by Holmes cell mate Hedgepeth

• Holmes escape ended when he was finally arrested in Boston on November 17th, 1894

Castle Search

• After the custodian of the castle informed the police that he was not allowed to clean the upper floors, police began an investigation over the course of a month, uncovering Holmes’ methods of committing murders and then disposing of the bodies

• His number of victims had been estimated between 20 and 100, but could be as high as 230, based on the missing person repots of the time

• Only 27 victims have been verified, police have said that some of the bodies on the basement were so badly dismembered, that it was hard to tell how many bodies there were

• Holmes victims were mainly blonde women, but some of his victims did include children and men

• The bottom floor had been used for Holmes himself. • It contained a drug store,

candy store, jewelry store and a restaurant • The third floor had been

divided up into small apartments and guest rooms that had never been used

• The second floor had been made up of winding passages with doors that opened up to brick walls, hidden stairways, concealed doors, blind hallways, secret panels, hidden passages and a vault that was only big enough for one person to stand in. This room was an alleged gas chamber

• In addition, the second floor also had 35 guest rooms

• Half the rooms had sleeping chambers, which housed Holmes workers or tenants he seduced

• Some of the rooms were made without windows and could be made air tight

• Other rooms were fitted with trap doors that led to smaller rooms below, and also some were equipped with gas jets so that he could suffocate or burn the victim

• The second floor also contained Holmes private apartment, that contained a bedroom, bath and two small chambers that were his offices

• Under the rug in the bathroom the police found a trap door with a stairway that went to a small room that had two doors leading off of it

• One door went to stairs that lead out to the street

• The other door lead to a chute that went to the basement

• The “chamber of horrors” shocked the police even more

• They found Holmes blood covered dissecting table, his laboratory or torture devices, sharpened instruments and various jars of poison

• They also found the acid vat and crematorium

• Buried in the floor the police found a pit of corrosive acid and two quicklime pits

• Dozens of human bones and several pieces of jewelry were found and could be traced to Holmes's mistresses

Trial

• Holmes was put on trial for the murder of Pitezel and confessed

• He was also convicted of 27 murders and 6 attempted murders in Chicago, Toronto and Indianapolis

• He gave accounts of his life, initially claiming innocence and then later he said he was possessed by Satan

Sentence

• On May 7th 1896, Holmes was hung at Moyamensing Prison A.K.A Philadelphia county Prison

• Until the moment of his death Holmes remained calm and showed very few signs of anxiety, fear or depression

• Holmes neck did not snap immediately, instead he died slowly, twitching for over 15 minutes

• He was pronounce dead 20 minutes after the door had been sprung

Last Wishes

• Afraid of body-snatchers, Holmes had made a request: He wanted no autopsy and he instructed his attorneys to see that he was buried in a coffin filled with cement.

• Holmes also made the request because he didn’t want people to dig him up and dissect his body, like he had done to so many people

• He was taken to Holy Cross Cemetery south of Philadelphia and two Pinkerton guards stood over the grave during the night before the body was finally put in a double grave also filled with cement.

• No stone was erected to mark it, although his presence is recorded on a cemetery registry.

Victims

• April 9th, 1896, weeks before Holmes execution, he signed a statement of gruesome details telling how he murdered the 27 people he was convicted of • Just before his hanging on

May 7th, Holmes retracted his confession, saying he only killed two women• This is his partial list:

Dr. Robert Leacock • From New Baltimore,

Michigan • Leacock was a former

schoolmate of Holmes • He was killed in 1886

by Holmes for $40,000 in life insurance

Dr. Russell • He was a tenant of the castle • He was hit with a chair during

an angry debate over rent • With his body, Holmes began

the practice of selling corpses to medical schools

Julia and Pearl Corner • Killed Christmas

Day 1891• They were killed

because they either knew to much or for insurance money

• Julia’s skeleton was sold to a medical school

Mr. Rodgers• From Virginia • Struck on the head by an oar during a fishing trip, when Holmes found out he had some money

Lizzie

• She was a maid at the castle • The first victim to be suffocated in the vault • Holmes was afraid that his married janitor would run her of

Minnie Williams • She was poisoned and buried in the basement

Nannie Williams •Minnie’s sister

• She dies in the vault after being forced to sign over everything she had to Holmes

Benjamin F. Pitezel• Buried alive for $10,000 in insurance money

Alice and Nellie Pitezel• Children of Benjamin

Pitezel• Were placed in a large

trunk and gassed through a hole in the lid and buried

Howard Pitezel • Also a child of Benjamin Pitezel• He was poisoned, dismembered and

burned

Emeline Cagrand • Holmes

stenographer and his mistress • He suffocated

her on the same day he was suppose to marry her

• Holmes did not kill Emeline for money, he killed her for lust.

• Only in a dead state could he achieve the ultimate sexual thrill

• Holmes asked her of she could go get a envelope from his vault

• She stepped in the vault to retrieve the envelope

• She did not hear Holmes come up behind her or the vault getting dark

• The vault shut and it became her tomb • He listened to her scream for her life • Aroused by the power of life and death, Holmes

exposed himself and masturbated to Emeine's screams