H.H. Holmes

Holmes married thrice in his life. His first marriage was on July 4, 1878, with Clara Lovering just after he had finished his high school. The couple had a son, Robert Lovering Mudhett, who would grow up to be the city manager of Orlando, Florida.

His second marriage was to Myrta Belknap in Minneapolis, Minnesota, whom he married on January 28, 1887, while still being married to Clara. They had a daughter together, Lucy Theodate Holmes, who became a public schoolteacher in her adult life.

His third and final marriage took place on January 17, 1894 in Denver, Colorado, with Georgina Yoke. He was married to both Clara and Myrta at the time. He did file for a divorce with Clara in 1887 but it never came through and he remained married to all three women till his death.

H.H Holmes was born on May 16, 1861, to Theodate Page Price and Levi Horton Mudgett. The third among four siblings, Holmes was named Herman Webster Mudgett at birth, a name which he discarded later in his life.

Although his family was affluent, Holmes had a difficult childhood as his father was an alcoholic and he was also bullied at school. His other siblings, Ellen, Arthur and Henry, also earned their father’s wrath.

He graduated from the local high school in 1877, at the age of 16. Two years later, he went to the University of Vermont but left it midway as he was not satisfied with the curriculum there. Finally, he went to the University of Michigan where he studied Medicine and Surgery and obtained a degree in the same in 1884.

While at the University of Michigan, Holmes was involved in a scam of stealing cadavers from the laboratory, performing experiments on them and claiming insurance money for them. After leaving the university, he spent the next two years moving from job to job and running small scams.

From 1884 to 1886, he did a number of odd jobs at various places including Mooers Forks, New York, and Philadelphia before finally moving to Chicago, his notorious hunting ground. He was involved in a few cases regarding the disappearance of a boy in New York and the death of another in Philadelphia. He denied involvement in both these cases and changed his name to Henry Howard Holmes before moving to Chicago.

In the August of 1886, he arrived in Chicago and immediately got a job at a drugstore owned by Elizabeth S. Holton and her husband. Mr. Houston mysteriously disappeared in the months that followed and was believed to be dead. Holmes bought the drugstore from Mrs. Houston who, like her husband, disappeared mysteriously after that. He ran some more scams from the drugstore and when he had enough money for funding his future plans, he left the business.

From the proceeds of his scams at the drugstore, he purchased a piece of land across the drugstore where he went on to build an elaborate three-storied hotel which the locals dubbed as “The Castle”. Built on 601-603 West 63rd Street, this building would go down in history as the site for all the horrors that he would perpetrate on scores of people. The hotel was formally named the ‘World’s Fair Hotel’, as it was meant to host the people who would come to the Columbian Exposition held in 1893.

The hotel, which would later become one of the most infamous buildings in the history of America, was a complete maze with a host of rooms, deceptive doors and hallways, stairways that would mislead people and a number of other confusing and misleading structures. It was constructed in such a way that none of his victims could find a way out in case they tried to escape.

Holmes was finally apprehended by the police on November 17, 1894, in Philadelphia after they got a tip from an inmate named Hedgepeth, who was one of his accomplices in the insurance scams. His first conviction was that of insurance fraud, but the police had grown suspicious of his activities at the ‘Castle’ and decided to investigate there. What they found were skeletal remains of scores of victims, including children, and a number of other evidences which confirmed beyond any doubt that Holmes had killed all those unfortunate people.

By then, it was also clear that he had murdered Pitezel and his children as well and he was convicted of those crimes in 1895. During the trial, he confessed to the murder of 27 other people but his stories were full of inconsistencies and false statements. The police confirmed nine of his alleged 27 murders but based on the evidences found and the account of the neighbours, they suspected that the number could be anywhere between 20 and 100.

Holmes was finally found guilty and sentenced to death by the court of Philadelphia for the murder of Benjamin Pitezel and hanged on May 7, 1896 at the Philadelphia County Prison. His beloved ‘Castle’ was gutted by fire following several explosions in August 1895.