H.H. Holmes- America's First Serial Killer
Dr. Henry Howard Holmes, born Herman Mudgett, is widely known as America's First Serial Killer. He was born in New Hampshire in 1861 and began his criminal career as a con artist and a grave robber. He would steal bodies and use them for insurance fraud and sell the bodies to local Anatomy Labs and Medical Academies.
Mudgett moved to Chicago in 1886 where he changed his name to H. H. Holmes and started working at a drug store. He began working for Dr. Elizabeth Horton, until he was able to buy the store and the empty lot across the street, which he turned into another drugstore with apartments on the second floor. In 1892, he added a third floor and started turning the building into a hotel for the Chicago World's Fair. During the fair, people would come and stay in his hotel, and they would disappear.
The Hotel became known as the 'Castle' or the 'Murder Castle' by locals. It is undetermined how many people died in the hotel or at the hands of H. H. Holmes. He was finally caught in 1895 in Boston after he killed his friend and criminal partner Benjamin Pitezel. During the trial it became evident that he killed the three missing Pitezel children as well. There was not enough concrete evidence to convict him of any of the murders at the World's Fair Hotel, but Holmes confessed to 27 murders. The circumstantial evidence found at the 'Castle' included pieces of adult and child bones, hair, and burned clothes and jewelry. He was paid $7,500 for his confession and rights to his story by Hearst Papers. Holmes was hung on May 7th, 1896.
In 1914, the hotel manager, Patrick Quinlin, killed himself because he was haunted by the hotel and haunted by H. H. Holmes. With him died the possible truth of how many people Holmes actually killed at the Chicago World's Fair, but the estimated number is over 130 people.