H.H. Holmes (Herman Webster Mudgett, born 16 May 1860, died 7 May 1896) is known as the first serial killer who achieved nationwide fame in the US – and for a very good reason indeed. He was one of the cruelest, most perfidious, and yes, most successful serial killer of all time!
No one knows exactly how many fell victim to H.H. Holmes, but estimates place the number at over 200. Based in Chicago, he worked as a doctor and pharmacist. He was married twice, and following that he started to build up his assets – he lured widows into his grasp with his charm, then killed them and took their money.
At the beginning of the 1890s, he bought a squalid hotel, and refurbished it just in time for the 1893 Chicago world exhibition. This hotel, which he called „the Castle“, was, simply speaking, a house of horrors. The basement was a maze of windowless rooms, complete with trapdoors, an acid bath, a room which could be filled with glass, secret alleys, doors that could be only opened in one direction, hidden rooms, a torture room and so on. He did everything in his power to turn this hotel into a living, breathing human trap, one that only he knew the way out of.
In the coming years, he fixated upon young women who had come to Chicago to find jobs. He offered them a room in his hotel, then killed them in his horror house. His victims must have experienced terrible, terrible things before their last minutes. It’s difficult to imagine the terror of being chased through a maze, only to run directly into the arms of death. To make matters worse, he even sold some of their skeletons to medical departments at universities.
Holmes was only busted because he tried to commit insurance fraud. He burnt down the house and tried to remove all evidence of the goings-on. However, investigators discovered human body parts as well as the secret basement, and Holmes went on the run. During the pursuit, he continued killing people, and was only caught in 1895. He was executed on the 7th of May, 1896. His hotel was destroyed, and a post office now stands in its place. Who knows what spirits still lurk there today?
