Master of the Murder Castle

When the police began searching the business/apartment complex at Sixty-third and Wallace in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago in 1895, they were horrified by what they saw. There were confusing passageways, trap floors, walk-in vaults that sealed airtight, with hoses that allowed all the air to be removed. Sequestered away was a dissection room, still littered with the tools that had cut apart over a dozen people. And, buried deep in the basement was a high-powered incinerator, capable of burning at a temperature more than hot enough to burn a human body. Chicago Police—and indeed, the rest of the world—had never encountered anything like this. Unlike the mass murders of before, this was methodical, a process of killing that had become a matter of efficiency the likes of which greatly surpassed the actions of any other man. Hundreds of miles away, Herman Webster Mudgett, under the alias of H.H. Holmes, sat in his jail cell awaiting trial for the murder of Benjamin Pitezel. He had been accused of killing nine people, although later estimates have placed that number as high as one hundred, in roughly an eleven-year time span. As he penned his first memoir in an attempt to prove himself the innocent victim of happenstance, Holmes’ “Murder Castle” revealed a horror show that would earn Holmes the title of America’s first serial killer.

Holmes was born in the small town of Gilmanton, New Hampshire under the name Herman Webster Mudgett. His childhood was relatively normal, at least according to Holmes, although he showed a lack of fear or concern about death from an early age. He graduated from the University of Michigan’s medical program in 1884 and promptly moved to Chicago, starting as an assistant at the Holton's drugstore. The owners soon "left" the area, and he became the sole owner. After a short period of time, he moved his operations to Sixty-Third and Wallace, and began construction of his “Murder Castle,” which was completed in 1890. According to a newspaper report, Holmes was “good-looking, well dressed, suave, bland, courteous, and business-like. Those with whom he had to do described him as ‘a gentleman born’,” traits which he used to his advantage (The Chicago Tribune 1896). He was the sort of respectable young man that any worker would be proud to call their friend or any woman would be proud to bring home to their family. Throughout his life, he married four different times, and fathered several children. Of course, none of the wives knew that they had married the same man, but it turns out that their marriage is what saved them from the fates that befell many of others who were unfortunate enough to have interacted with Holmes. Everything about his appearance and personality was specifically designed to create a false sense of security. He was a predator, and the anomie of the city provided him with the perfect hunting ground to satiate his hunger.

In the midst of the highly mechanized city, Holmes' "Murder Castle" was a gruesome perversion of the efficiency that had become the hallmark of the "Windy City." The ground floor featured a series of small shops, including a pharmacy and jewelry store, with a series of apartments on the floor above it. Though its front was innocent enough, it was the features behind the scenes that revealed Holmes' horrible other practices. One of the central elements was a walk-in vault located in his office, complete with a series of tubes which allowed Holmes to remove all the air from the vault, suffocating those within, and a furnace in the basement which allowed him to easily dispose of bodies. Though most were disposed of via the furnace (making the estimation of how many people he murdered hard to calculate), he sold others to a body dealer, who in turn sold them to universities to be used as medical cadavers. His murders were cold, calculated, and premeditated, just like the city that he had made his personal killing grounds.

Unlike many other serial killers, his targets were mainly chosen out of convenience. Nearly every one of his victims was his employee or his friend. The majority of his workers were young women, who had moved to the city to take advantage of the new opportunities opening up for women in the urban world. These young women, hailing from small towns, were completely alone in the city and Holmes became their mentor and good friend. However, his victims weren't limited to single women. As the number of his workers that turned up "missing" began to rise, Holmes made a series of decisions that would eventually lead to him being caught and convicted. Realizing the absence of several of his workers was bound to attract the attention of the police once again (Holmes had been involved in several fraud cases), he lured Benjamin Pitezel, whose family had been incredibly close with Holmes for several years, into his home late one night, and murdered him. Then, to make it seem like it was a suicide, he filled the body with chloroform and presented it to a coroner's office. After collecting the life insurance money, Holmes fled Chicago with Pitezel's three children, whom he murdered along the way utilizing a miniaturized version of his vault with several large trunks. He fled to Philadelphia, where he was eventually caught. In autumn of 1895, he was convicted of murder and given the death penalty. As he waited for his execution, he published yet another statement, in which he confessed to twenty-seven murders. While nine murders are confirmed to be the work of Holmes, historians believe that this number was much higher. On May 7, 1896, he was executed, and his body was buried under several layers of concrete, in honor of his final request.

While other serial killers have conducted reigns of terror, none can compare to that of Holmes. He was America’s first, setting a precedent continued on by the likes of Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy. His cold, calculating nature and the horrible efficiency with which he held human life stands as a horrifying example of the human capacity for evil. Though the “Murder Castle” that made him famous has since been torn down, the horrors conducted there linger like ghosts, blotting America’s history with a legacy of murder and mayhem that the world still feels today.