Research Paper On H. H Holmes

    During the 1893 Columbian Exposition, H.H. Holmes was one of the first serial killers of America. Holmes would lure his victims into his building which he transformed into his “murder castle.” First he would manipulate his victims by coming off as a

Herman Webster Mudgett, a.k.a Dr. H. H. Homes was a notorious criminal in the 1800's. He is well known for his big insurance schemes and the murder castle he constructed, where he "killed at least 27 women during the World's Fair in Chicago" (Brown 2015). He took delight in pulling off scams with cadavers. He also enjoyed mutilating animals when he was young and as an adult, he began mutilating corpses. He had a rough past that leads him to be very sadistic. Holmes went through many obstacles in life that lead him up to this point.

H.H. Holmes personifies the stereotypical murder. Throughout his killing spree, Holmes pretended to be a gentleman, even marrying some of his victims. When Holmes was interrogated later, he described himself as Satan.(6) Using a friendly outward appearance, Holmes was able to escape suspicion when the victims’ family questioned disappearances. Holmes gave those families false hope that the victims would be found, or had just run away and had not died. When in reality Holmes had brutally murdered each one and hid all of evidence.

After Graduating he moved to Chicago where he started learning the trades of the pharmacy, where also he started to engage in many shady businesses under his better-known name, H. H. Holmes. When he first came in to Chicago he found a local drug store on the corner of Wallace and 63rd Street owned by Dr. E.S Holton and his wife who lived in the upstairs level of the drug store. The older man was dying of cancer and Mrs. Holton knew she would be left alone to run the store, Holmes saw this as his window of opportunity and used

The antagonist of the novel, H.H. Holmes, is depicted as quite the ladies’ man. Larson helps the reader to recognize that Holmes’ good lucks and charms will help him lure in his future murder victims later in the novel. Holmes has no apprehension when it comes to making a mess of people’s lives’. Especially, when it comes to getting what he wants. Throughout, the story Homes continues to convince multiple women to marry him without legal documentation. He then disposes of them in various ways, gaining joy from their deaths. Holmes always concocted a story to get the attention off of him when asked

To clarify, Henry Howard Holmes known as H. H. Holmes was America’s first serial killer. As a child, Holmes was terrified of the doctor, however a few bullies from his school forced him to touch the real skeleton in their doctor’s office which started his obsession with human anatomy. When Holmes was a teenager he interned at his local doctor’s office and later went to Michigan State for a medical degree and became a skilled doctor. Holmes took out fake insurance policies on the bodies he used in medical school after pouring acid on their face so they were unrecognizable in order to afford college. In 1889 Holmes designed and built a hotel to assist his murders.

Herman Webster Mudgett better known as H.H Holmes was born May 16th, 1861 in Gilmanton, New Hampshire (Biography). His mother is Theodate Page Price and his father is Levi Horton Mudgett (Holmes). He had 3 siblings and he was the 3rd child. His siblings names were

His ambition was to create a game which involved the suffering of others. Killing people created him a sort of pleasure, “Holmes was enjoying himself. He had arranged the insurance fraud for money, but the rest of it was for fun. Holmes was testing his power to bend lives of people” (Larson 355). Holmes always looked for people that he saw as weak and he used them to create his game which to him was to see how far he could go in changing a person’s life. While Geyer was investigating the disappearances of the Pitezel children he said that all criminals had a motive but no one really saw clearly what Holmes’ motive was. Later Geyer was drawn to the conclusion of Holmes wanting to have power over people’s lives. Holmes wanted to control people and produce others a suffering as he did when Carrie Pitezel was put in a hotel by Holmes in front of the hotel her children were in, without any of them knowing, that was his game. In the novel both Burnham and Holmes had ambitions but both had very different ambitions, which led their lives in different paths. Burnham by having the ambition to want Chicago to prosper became America’s best architect. Holmes’ ambition took him to jail and eventually to his death. The novel The Devil in the White City, illustrates that everything is not what it seems using the character Holmes and the creation of the World’s Fair. Holmes was known as a charming doctor that starstruck every woman that he laid an eye upon. It was said by

4. Henry H. Holmes was a very dangerous, and disturbed man. He loved money and tricking people into thinking that he could be trusted. That’s why I believe that both money, and control were possibly to two of his main motives. It is important to try to understand the motives of a person like Holmes so that situations similar to this can be avoided in the

Dr. H. H. Holmes has a passion for murder, and he hides his true personality behind an act of a charming man managing a hotel. Since Holmes uses his creativity to disrupt the lives of innocent people, he brings out the Black City of Chicago. As a result of Holmes’s passion for murder, he has to keep his psychotic talent secret. Only very few people know Holmes’s true lifestyle, and if they do, he kills them. Holmes weaves his way into to his victims’ lives to manipulate them for his personal benefit.. Even though the White City masks some of Chicago’s problems, evil still

Holmes had been born into a wealthy New Hampshire family and was given the name Herman Webster Mudgett (America’s Serial Killers). “If Mudgett or his brother or sister were bad, their strict Methodist parents sent them to the attic for a full day without speaking or eating,. Mudgett’s father was especially abusive after he’d been drinking - which was often” (Spikol). However, his father was a wealthy and respected citizen and had been the local postmaster for nearly twenty five years (Taylor). It is surprising an important member of the community was a child abuser. The abuse of his father may be one of the

James Eagan Holmes was born on December 13, 1987, in San Diego California. He was weighing 7 lbs. 20 inches. His mother called him the miracle child (Oneil, 2015). Growing up, James was a cute, happy little boy from a doting family, a nice kid who was gentle with his dog and his baby sister. He was wanted, he was encouraged and he was taken to piano lessons and soccer practice and neighborhood birthday parties. He was at the center of a pack of exceptional boys who ruled his Northern California

H. H. Holmes was born as Herman Mudgett on May 16th 1861, and lived in a rural town in New Hampshire. Holmes had a privileged childhood and expressed interest in the medical field. He grew up during the period of the civil war and newspapers were always filled with images of death on the battlefield. These images had a significant influence on Holmes and he used this as an outlet to practice his desire to become a doctor. Holmes would capture wild animals and begin experimenting on them by dissecting them with a pocket knife (Biography.com). This eventually evolved into Holmes entering medical school at the University of Michigan. This is where he studied and mastered the art of surgical dissection. Holmes graduated in 1884 at the top of his class as a surgical doctor (Dorfman). After college, Holmes moved around a bit until he settled down in the south side of Chicago Illinois where he worked for a

He had two children, one son and one daughter. He went out of sight for six years after abandoning Clara and his son. He would always somehow come up with some con as to where he was and what he was doing during the time of his victims' deaths. The police had always questioned him, but had never really pinned anything on him. No one wanted to believe that Holmes was an evil master mind. He was so handsome and charismatic. His tall stature and piercing blue eyes made women often swoon at the sight of him. He could also talk anyone into anything at the sound of his voice and the medical, knowledgeable jargon he used. He even got an old lady to give him her husbands pharmacy after his death sometime after he arrived to Chicago. Other sources said that he killed her and inherited the pharmacy without anyone knowing what happened. Either way the old woman should have been happy that such a noble man was running her pharmacy. He was always the perfect assistant, making sure that her money was going towards helping the company in any way. He would even meet up with venders, creating a stable environment for her and her dying husband. He eventually killed her but when others would ask he stated that she had moved to California, but had no forwarding address (Taylor, Troy).

Burnham, along with Chicago, was unaware of the trouble that would be caused during and after the making of the fair, and Holmes was a man who benefitted from the miraculous beauty that Burnham and his fellow architects were able to show to the world. H.H. Holmes was able to become, as Lauren Barrow says, “[t]he most innovative and calculating killer of his time.” Holmes single handedly changed the way that people look at others, and at Chicago.