Hallways that lead to nowhere, soundproof rooms with trap doors and chutes that drop into vats of acid. This is what some unexpecting guests encountered when checking into H.H. Holmes Chicago hotel in the 1890s. Listen to the story of how a man started out as a grave robber, turned into a con artist, and eventually became one of the most deranged serial killers in America’s history.
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TuneIn1890s Chicago
In the 1890s Chicago is the 2nd largest city in the US. In 1893 they held the world’s fair. It was also known as the Columbian Exposition.
On the corner of Wallace and 63rd street in Chicago, H.H. Holmes started a barbershop. He then built a hotel that would later be known as the Murder Castle.
Early Life
H.H. Holmes was born Herman Webster Mudget in New Hampshire in May of 1860.
His parents were Levi Horton Mudgett and Theodate Page Price, both of whom were descended from the first English immigrants in the area. Mudgett was his parents’ third-born child. He had an older sister Ellen, an older brother Arthur, a younger brother Henry, and a younger sister Mary. Mudgett’s father was from a farming family, and at times he worked as a farmer, trader, and house painter
After school, he began teaching and also took tutoring jobs. In 1878 he married Clara Lovering.
Medical School
H.H. Holmes enrolled at the University of Vermont but didn’t like it and left after a year. His medical schooling starting Sept 21, 1882, at the University of Michigan. The setup for medical school at the time was 2 lectures a week. Then every day he would practice those lessons on cadavers.
At the time medical school was $100 – $200 per year and he was just scraping by.
As a way to make money, he began grave robbing and selling the bodies to the school’s janitor. The janitor was responsible for procuring the cadavers. Because there was a shortage when obtained in the legal way (about 20%), he had to find other ways.
When it came time to graduate he barely made it, finishing at the bottom of his class. They even had to take a 2nd vote to see if he would get his medical degree.
Life After Graduation
At that point, he split with his first wife and moved to upstate New York chasing after another woman. He was engaged to her when rumors came around that he was already married. He was sent packing and by 1885 had almost nothing.
H.H. Holmes started looking for other ways to get rich and brought in his friend Robert L Leacock to help. Their idea was to procure $40k in life insurance on a man’s life made out to his wife and daughter. They would then use corpses to stage the death of the wife and daughter making it look like they had been murdered and the man committed suicide out of grief.
H.H. Holmes would be the final beneficiary and once he received the money he would split it with the family who faked their deaths. The problem was they couldn’t procure the corpses, so H.H. Holmes decided to go through with the scheme, but to fake his own death.
In 1886 he was working in a drugstore to have enough cash to pay for life insurance premiums and sent divorce papers to his first wife. He then married Myrta Belknap, who was in on the whole thing. Some say that he married Myrta before his divorce papers were sent and some say the divorce was never finalized.
After months of trying to find a corpse that would match him, he was unsuccessful. He became so distressed that he was suicidal and was committed to a psychiatric unit.
H.H. Holmes Commits His First Murder
After two months of treatment, he was released. Shortly following he found the perfect body double for himself, but it wasn’t a corpse, it was his best friend, Robert Leacock. He took him to a hotel in Chicago and gave him Laudanum poisoning him. He then put the body on ice in the tub.
After killing his best friend he placed his own ids on the body. He collected $20,000 and used those funds to move with his wife to Chicago in 1887, changing his name to Henry Howard Holmes. H.H. Holmes opened a Barbershop and a drug store. He also began the construction of a two-story building across the street. The lower levels would be shops and above would be apartments and offices.
Money Making Schemes
As he had with his best friend he began to use murder as a money-making scheme.
In one case an investor wrote him 2 small checks to which he added 00s and thousands. He then murdered the investor. He took him down to see the kiln/furnace in which he had invested and once he was inside Holmes shut the door and burned him alive.
At the same time, he continued grave robbing, even selling the caskets.
It was with one of his business partners, Dr. Russell, that he got into a disagreement about rent and “accidentally” struck him on the head, killing him. He would continue to write insurance policies over to himself or would sell the bodies to the University of Chicago medical school.
The Murder Castle
In 1892, he added a third floor to his building, telling investors and suppliers he intended to use it as a hotel during the upcoming World’s Columbian Exposition. The hotel portion was never completed. In 1892, the hotel was somewhat completed, with three stories and a basement. The first floor was the storefront. The second story consisted of his elaborate torture rooms, which contained a chute that led to the basement. The third floor held more apartment rooms. There were soundproofed rooms and mazes of hallways, some of which seemed to go nowhere. Many of the rooms were outfitted with chutes that would drop straight down to the basement where Holmes had acid vats, quicklime, and a crematorium to dispose of his victims’ bodies.
The second floor was even more confusing, containing 51 doors and six hallways. Thirty-five rooms were ordinary bedrooms, but others were either airtight and lined with asbestos-coated steel plates or completely soundproofed. Some were tiny with low ceilings, no bigger than closets. Most of these rooms were rigged with gas pipes connected to the same control panel in Holmes’ closet and equipped with special peepholes. Many were fitted with alarms that sounded in Holmes’ quarters if a “guest” tried to escape. The Castle’s second story also contained trapdoors, secret passageways, hidden closets with sliding panels, and most terrifying, large, greased shafts leading directly to the basement.
In his office was a vault in which gas could be pumped inside, he would use chloroform to subdue his victims then put them into the chamber. Once they were dead he could move them from his office to his private bathroom on the third floor without being seen. In his bathroom was a trap door that dropped the bodies to a bathroom below.
More Murders
This bathroom was connected to a dissection lab and at the back was another chute to get them to a holding platform that then led to the basement.
During all this time he lived with his wife and child in the Chicago suburbs.
As his confidence grew in business murders he ventured into sexual-based murders. He would charm and flirt with women and once they were in the hotel he would sexually assault them, chloroform them, and kill them.
He hired women for the shops and the hotel and even opened an employment agency.
Ned Conner came to lease the Jewelry shop that was a part of the hotel with his wife Julia and their 8-year-old daughter. Ned’s sister was also given a job, but the 17-year-old disappeared shortly into her stay. This disappearance took a toll on the marriage which ended. Julia began an affair with Holmes and was allowed to stay in one of the rooms with her daughter. Julia became pregnant and because of that, he killed her and her 8-year-old daughter.
New Business Partner
Holmes took on a new business partner, Ben Pitezel, who had invented a type of coal bin. Holmes was an investor and grew close with Ben who became his “muscle.”
He sent him out to scout and he found Émeline Cegant, a beautiful 23-year-old typist. In the winter of 1892, she disappeared and Holmes told the Castle residents and shopkeepers that she had left to marry. In reality, Holmes trapped her in his vault and gassed her to death.
Regrets?
In 1893 the World’s Fair began which drove guests to his hotel. At this time he also met Minnie Williams, a Texas heiress that answered an ad for a typist. Minnie had $50k worth of land to her name, but for H.H. Holmes, there was a problem. Minnie also had a sister who would have the first claim on the land.
H.H. Holmes met the sister at the train station when she came for a visit and took her to the hotel telling her Minnie was there. He led her into the vault and killed her using chemicals first to torture her. H.H. Holmes then took Minnie on a train trip where he poisoned her and buried her body. He said that Minnie’s was the only murder that he regretted because he loved her.
An Investigation Starts
A missing persons group was formed in Chicago and they began to investigate. In November of 1893, the police came to question him about money fraud and also questioned him about some barrels. He lied about what was in them, but their questions scared him enough to run.
He set fire to the top floor of the castle and on New Years he fled east. The plan was for Ben to open an office in Philadelphia and let the business run for a while before getting back to body selling and insurance fraud. At this time Ben had a wife and 5 children.
H.H. Holmes Tries to Murder An Entire Family
H.H. Holmes insured Ben’s life for 10k when they started the trip. Ben was told that a body would be substituted for his and they would fake his death. On September 2nd, 1894 Ben met H.H. Holmes in the office. Ben was tied at hands and feet and benzine was poured over his entire body before he was lit on fire.
He told Ben’s wife that the burned body was just a corpse and that he had gone on the run. H.H. Holmes took three of the children, claiming he would take them to their father. He killed 8-year-old Howard first, dismembering and burning his body. The pieces were stuffed into a chimney in Indiana.
He then took the girls Alice and Nellie to Canada and all the while they were writing letters to their mother, letters that Holmes never delivered. Holmes made his luggage trunk into a makeshift gas chamber. On October 5th, 1894 he put Alice and Nellie into the trunk and turned on the gas. When the girls were found, they were naked which led some to believe there may have been sexual assault, but nothing was noted in the autopsy.
H.H. Holmes rented a home in Burlington, Vermont, and was planning on killing the rest of the Pitezel family.
H.H. Holmes is Finally Arrested
Detective Frank Gier was sent by the insurance company who was suspicious of Ben’s death. H.H. Holmes was arrested in Boston for insurance fraud. He claimed that the body was just a stolen body that he pretended was Ben, and that was his only crime.
Frank Gier found the letters the girls had written and was able to use them to trace his steps. Gier found the home in Toronto where he discovered Alice and Nellie. A day later they broke into the Chicago hotel and found remains and bloodied women’s clothes.
A month later, Gier discovered the home in Indiana and found Howard’s remains.
H.H. Holmes went on trial for the murder of Ben Pitezel. He was found guilty and sentenced to death.
While in prison, and before his hanging, he was recorded confessing to 27 murders, but some sources say he had up to 200 victims. He was hung on May 7th, 1896. The murder castle was torn down in 1938.
Resources
- HH Holmes – Wikipedia
- HH Holmes – Childhood, Crimes & Facts – Biography
- Serial killer H.H. Holmes is hanged in Philadelphia
- Herman Webster Mudgett
- Chicago’s first serial killer – Lake County News-Sun
- Inside The Incredibly Twisted Murder Hotel Of HH Holmes