H.H. Holmes
America's First Serial Killer and the Hotel He Built to Kill In
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The book details Holmes' murders, particularly those of Benjamin Pitezel and three of his children, which were committed in the hotel he constructed. It covers his insurance fraud schemes that helped fund his killing spree, his capture by Chicago police in 1894, and his execution in 1896. The chapters also examine Holmes' personal life and relationships, showing how he manipulated people for both financial gain and sexual gratification.
Holmes' story is not the elaborate murder castle legend popularized by later books and films. His actual crimes involved fewer victims than commonly believed, and most of the horrific details about trapdoors and gas chambers were added by sensational newspapers. Anyone interested in true crime and American history will find this account of one of America's first documented serial killers compelling.
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Herman Webster Mudgett, who would become known as H.H. Holmes, entered the world on May 16, 1861, in Gilmanton, New Hampshire. His parents were Levi Horton Mudgett and Theodate Page Price, both of whom traced their roots back to the original English settlers of the region. The young Herman had two older siblings, Ellen and Arthur, as well as a younger brother named Henry. By the time he was a teenager, Holmes was attending Phillips Exeter Academy, and by sixteen, he had graduated from Gilmanton Academy with honors.
Holmes’ parents were both devout Methodists. His father, from a farming family, worked as a farmer, trader, and house painter at times, and was reportedly a heavy drinker who cruelly beat his children. Holmes was bullied by classmates due to his exceptional academic performance. In one incident, he was forced to stand before a human skeleton and place its hands on his face, meant to scare him. At first terrified, he later found the experience fascinating and said it helped him conquer his fears. That event sparked a deep fascination with death, leading him to begin dissecting animals.
Holmes attended the University of Vermont in 1879 for a single year before moving on to the University of Michigan’s Department of Medicine and Surgery in 1882. He earned his degree in June 1884, despite performing only averagely in school. During his time there, he worked in the anatomy lab under Professor William James Herdman, who was the chief anatomy instructor at the time. The two were reportedly involved in body snatching to obtain cadavers for medical study. Holmes had previously apprenticed in New Hampshire with Nahum Wight, a figure known for supporting human dissection. Later, when he was suspected of murder and said he was merely an insurance fraudster, he admitted to using cadavers to scam life insurance companies more than once during his college years.
After separating from his first wife in 1884, Holmes relocated to Mooers, New York, where a rumor emerged that he had been seen with a young boy who later disappeared. Holmes claimed the boy went back to Massachusetts, but no investigation was launched, and he left town quickly. He then made his way to Philadelphia, where he was employed at Norristown State Hospital, though he resigned after only a few days. Next, he took a position in a drugstore, but after a child died following medicine purchased there, Holmes denied any involvement and immediately left the city. Before moving to Chicago in August 1886, he changed his name to “Henry Howard Holmes” to avoid recognition by victims of his earlier schemes.
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Soon after arriving in Chicago, H.H. Holmes took a job at a drugstore owned by Elizabeth Holton. He worked hard and eventually bought the store from her. The location was in the Englewood area of the city.
Holmes didn’t kill Dr. E. S. Holton, the drugstore’s original owner. Instead, he bought an empty lot across the street and started building a two-story mixed-use structure in 1887. The first floor had retail spaces, including a new drugstore, and the second floor held apartments. Later, when Holmes refused to pay the architects or Aetna Iron and Steel, they took him to court in 1888. By 1892, he had added a third floor, claiming he planned to turn it into a hotel for the upcoming World’s Columbian Exposition.
Contemporary accounts say Holmes built the hotel to trick tourists visiting the Exposition into coming there so he could kill them and then sell their bones to nearby medical schools. Even though he had a past of selling stolen bodies to those schools, he got them through body snatching, not murder. There's no proof he ever killed people at the Exposition. The yellow press of that time called the building Holmes' "Murder Castle", saying it had secret torture rooms, trapdoors, gas chambers, and a basement crematorium—none of which were true.
The hotel Holmes built was not the grand, maze-like structure some claimed it to be. In reality, the third-floor space was modest and unfinished, left incomplete because of disputes with the builders. It did have a few hidden rooms, but they were not meant for murder—they were used to stash furniture he’d bought on credit and never intended to pay for. Holmes did not kill Miss Kate Durkee, who was very much alive. In his confession, he described how he usually ended lives by suffocation, using chloroform, gas fumes, or trapping victims in airless vaults. He also admitted to starving people and burning them alive in his "castle."
After Holmes was arrested, a fire destroyed much of his hotel, started by an unknown arsonist. The building was mostly rebuilt and later used as a post office until 1938. Besides his infamous "Murder Castle," Holmes also owned a one-story factory he said was for glass bending. It's unclear if the furnace there was ever used for that purpose, but some speculated it may have been used to destroy evidence of his crimes.
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Holmes met Benjamin Freelon Pitezel while working in the Chemical Bank building on Dearborn Street. Pitezel was a 38-year-old carpenter with a criminal history, and he had come to showcase a coal bin he'd invented in the same building. The two became close, and Holmes soon began using Pitezel as an accomplice in various crimes. A district attorney later called him "Holmes's tool... his creature." By July 1894, with insurance companies pushing for charges related to arson, Holmes fled Chicago. He resurfaced in Fort Worth, Texas, where he had inherited land from the Williams sisters at the corner of what is now Commerce Street and 2nd Street. There, he tried again to start construction on a building without settling debts with suppliers or contractors.
In July 1894, Holmes was arrested and held in St. Louis on charges of selling mortgaged goods. While in jail, he met a convict named Marion Hedgepeth, who was serving twenty-five years. Holmes told Hedgepeth about a plan to cheat an insurance company out of ten thousand dollars by faking his own death. He offered Hedgepeth a five-hundred-dollar reward for the name of a trustworthy lawyer. That led him to St. Louis attorney Jeptha Howe, who thought the scheme was clever and agreed to help. But when the insurance company grew suspicious, Holmes dropped the plan. Instead, he came up with another idea involving Pitezel.
Pitezel conspired to fake his own death so his wife could collect a $10,000 life insurance payout, with Holmes and Howe set to divide the money. The plan took place in Philadelphia, where Pitezel was to pose as inventor “B.F. Perry” and be killed in a lab explosion. Holmes was tasked with finding a body to impersonate him. Instead, on September 4, 1894, Holmes chloroformed Pitezel and set his body on fire with benzene. The burned remains were discovered at 1326 Callowhill Street and buried in a potter’s field under an accidental death ruling. Three weeks later, Howe came to claim the insurance, bringing Holmes to identify the corpse. Both Holmes and Pitezel’s wife, Carrie Alice Canning, confirmed it was Pitezel. The scheme succeeded, and Holmes collected the payout.
Holmes convinced Canning that Pitezel was still alive and agreed to let three of her children stay with him. Alice Pitezel was thirteen, Nellie nine, and Howard Robert seven years old. He traveled with the three through the Northeast and into Canada, while guiding Canning on a different path. Using false identities, he told Carrie that Pitezel had fled to London and concealed the real locations of her missing children. Just before crossing into Canada in Detroit, mother and children were separated by only a few city blocks.
Holmes was living under false pretenses, staying at a different location with his wife while hiding his true activities. In his confession, he claimed Pitezel had still been alive when he used chloroform on him, before setting him on fire. But forensic findings at his trial revealed the chloroform was administered after Pitezel was already dead—likely an attempt to stage a suicide and shield Holmes from murder charges. He admitted to killing Alice and Nellie on October 25, 1894, by locking them inside a large trunk. He drilled a hole in the lid and attached a hose to a gas line, letting them suffocate. Their naked bodies were buried somewhere beneath his home.
Frank Geyer, a Philadelphia Police Department detective assigned to track Holmes and locate missing children, began following Holmes' trail in June 1895. He found decomposed bodies of the two Pitezel girls in Toronto, writing: "The deeper we dug, the more horrible the odor became, and when we reached the depth of three feet, we discovered what appeared to be the bone of the forearm of a human being." Geyer also found letters written by the children that Holmes had kept, leading to further searches of Holmes' Chicago property and eventually to Indianapolis, where Holmes had rented a home in the Irvington neighborhood. According to reports, Holmes visited a local pharmacy to buy drugs he used to kill Howard Pitezel on October 10, 1894, and a repair shop to sharpen knives he used to dismember the boy's body before burning it. The boy's teeth and bones were later found in the home's chimney.
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Holmes was finally caught in Boston on November 17, 1894, after being followed there from Philadelphia by the private Pinkerton National Detective Agency. He had been spotted by authorities because they suspected him of planning to leave the country with his third wife, whom he had married just weeks before. At the time, Holmes was being held in Texas on a warrant for horse theft, which had raised even more suspicions about his intentions. His arrest marked the end of his killing spree, as investigators moved quickly to bring him to justice.
In July 1895, after Alice and Nellie's bodies were discovered, Chicago Police Department and journalists focused on H.H. Holmes' former hotel in Englewood, now called the "Castle." Detectives and medical expert followed bloodstained evidence from Julia Conner's dining room into hidden chamber, then down trapdoor and elevator shaft to basement. There they found clot of blood mixed with human hair, children's underwear soaked in blood, handkerchief drenched with blood, and rope with bloodied knots. In janitor's quarters, investigators uncovered two theatrical trunks bearing erased initials "M.R.W.", later linked to Minnie R. Williams. At same time, authorities confirmed that Pitezel had lived under name Robert E. Phelps in Philadelphia, and Emeline Cigrand's father wrote from Indiana about photograph of his daughter found at "Castle," which matched picture from Cigrand family album.
Though sensational claims were made, no solid proof emerged to convict Holmes in Chicago. Only weak evidence pointed to murders inside the "Castle": a fragment of bone that might be Julia Conner’s; remains of a child, possibly Pearl Conner’s; a burned gold watch chain and dress buttons, likely from Minnie; and a tuft of female hair found in a chimney. Because of this, Holmes was instead tried for the killing of Pitezel in Philadelphia, where the case had the strongest chance of success.
In October 1895, H.H. Holmes stood trial for the murder of Emma Gordon Pitezel, was found guilty, and sentenced to death. By that time, it was clear he had also killed the three missing Pitezel children. After his conviction, he confessed to a number of murders across Chicago, Indianapolis, and Toronto. He was paid $7,500 by Hearst newspapers for his confession. While writing in prison, Holmes noted how much his face had changed since he’d been locked up.
On May 7, 1896, H.H. Holmes was hanged at Moyamensing Prison. He stayed calm and friendly right up until his death, showing little fear or distress. Still, before he died, he asked that his coffin be wrapped in concrete and buried six feet underground. He was worried that grave robbers might take his body for dissection. When the noose was applied, Holmes’ neck didn’t break. Instead, he strangled slowly, twitching for more than ten minutes before being declared dead.
After his execution, H.H. Holmes was laid to rest in an unmarked grave at Holy Cross Cemetery in Yeadon, Pennsylvania. On New Year’s Eve 1909, Hedgepeth, who had been pardoned for testifying against Holmes, was killed during a robbery when Chicago police officer Edward Jaburek shot him at a bar. The Chicago Tribune reported on March 7, 1914, that with the death of Patrick Quinlan, the former janitor of the "Castle," the secrets of the crime scene would never be fully revealed. Quinlan had poisoned himself with strychnine, and his body was discovered in his room bearing a note saying, “I couldn’t sleep.” His family claimed he had been tormented for months, plagued by visions and delusions.
In August 1895, the "Castle" caught fire. At around 9 p.m., two men were spotted entering the back of the building. About thirty minutes later, they were seen leaving quickly and running away. There were several explosions, and soon the structure was engulfed in flames. Investigators found a gas can half-full under the back steps. The building survived the blaze and continued to be used until it was demolished in 1938. The site is now occupied by the Englewood branch of the United States Postal Service.
In 2017, after claims Holmes had somehow escaped his fate, his remains were dug up for examination by Janet Monge from the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Because his coffin had been encased in concrete, his body hadn’t decayed as expected. His clothing was nearly intact, and his moustache was still there. His teeth confirmed he was indeed Holmes, and then he was buried again.
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In Alton, New Hampshire, on July 4, 1878, H.H. Holmes married Clara Lovering. They had one son together, Robert Lovering Mudgett, who was born on February 3, 1880, in Loudon. Robert grew up to become a certified public accountant and later served as city manager of Orlando, Florida. When Holmes was eighteen, he enrolled at the University of Vermont in Burlington, but after only one year, he left the school because he was unhappy with it.
Holmes was married to Clara when she lived with him, but after a violent relationship, she returned to New Hampshire in 1884 and stayed in touch only briefly. In late 1886, while still legally bound to Clara, he married Myrta Belknap in Minneapolis. Soon after, he sued for divorce, claiming Clara had been unfaithful. Those accusations were never verified, and the case did not move forward. Records show that Clara was probably never told about the legal action. The divorce was never completed and was dropped on June 4, 1891, for lack of activity.
Holmes and Myrta had a daughter, Lucy Theodate Holmes, born on July 4, 1889, in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood. Lucy grew up to become a public schoolteacher. The family lived in Wilmette, Illinois, while Holmes continued spending most of his time in Chicago running his affairs. In May 1893, he began presenting his mistress Wilhelmina "Minnie" Williams as his wife. Then, on January 17, 1894, in Denver, Colorado, he married Georgiana Yoke—while still legally tied to both Clara and Myrta.
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