The Real Life Murder Castle of H.H. Holmes

Herman Webster Mudgett is regarded by many as America’s first serial killer, and for good reason.

The New Hampshire native is best known as H.H. Holmes, which is a derivative of his adopted alias, Dr. Henry Howard Holmes.

Before his arrest and subsequent execution in 1896, H.H. Holmes was the proprietor of a three-storey hotel building in downtown Chicago known as the World’s Fair Hotel. Where guests check in but never check out.

The Murder Castle

Nicknamed the Murder Castle by law enforcement agents, the building contained 100 rooms, dead staircases, rooms without windows and a host of bizarre features. Though the exact number is unknown, it is estimated that over 200 people lost their lives inside H.H. Holmes murder castle.

The murder castle has been the inspiration behind several novels and even TV series, the latest being the fifth season of the American Horror Story (which starred Lady Gaga), in which the hotel-themed plot revolved around the murder castle and its insane proprietor.

The man, who would later admit to murdering 28 people, built the murder castle a few years after arriving in Chicago in August 1886. Upon his arrival, H.H. Holmes got a part-time job at a drug store owned by a Dr. E.S. Holton, a man who was dying of cancer.

After the death of the good doctor, Holmes offered to acquire the drugstore from Dr. Holton’s wife, an offer that she accepted, on condition that she would continue living in the building. It soon became apparent to Mrs. Holton that Holmes was not going to honour his side of the sale agreement, so she sued Holmes. After filing the law suit, Mrs. Holton was never seen again. Those who enquired into her whereabouts were informed that she had relocated to California to be close to family.

With the Holtons out of the picture, H. H. Holmes acquired a bigger lot right across the street. On this lot, Holmes wished to build a hotel that would become the hallmark of his murderous life. Being the insane genius that he was, Holmes hired different contractors to construct different sections of the building. This meant that no one apart from Holmes knew the layout of the building.

The opening of the hotel could not have been more perfect for Holmes, as it coincided with the 1893 World’s Fair. It is probably for this reason that Holmes named his hotel the World’s Fair Hotel. The drug store, which he now owned occupied the ground floor while the 100 windowless rooms and his personal office occupied the top floors. The rest of the building was designed for commercial use to belie the building’s true purpose. The three storey hotel building contained 60 hotel rooms.

Now: 

Then:

The Serial Killer

Before its acquisition by Holmes, the vacant lot at 601-603 W.63rd Street housed the World’s Columbian Exposition hostelry. Since Holmes could not fulfil his murderous desire on his own, he hired a carpenter by the name of Benjamin Pitezel, whose criminal history made him the perfect henchman.

Pitezel became Holmes’s right-hand man, and one of the investigators of the Holmes case would later describe him as Holmes’s tool. The completion of the hotel meant that Holmes could at last embark on his murderous campaign, which lasted for four years.

Apart from being a serial killer, Holmes had also made a name for himself as a swindler, and a fraudster. During his time as a student at the University of Michigan Department of Medicine and Surgery, Holmes took out insurance claims on cadavers. As if that were not enough, the would-be serial killer disfigured corpses so that they looked like they had been involved in accidents. Disturbingly, Holmes found a way to profit from his hobby, by selling skeletons to universities and forcing his employees, most of whom were women, to take up life insurance policies and name him as the sole beneficiary.

The 100 murder rooms of the World’s Fair Hotel had different purposes. Some of the rooms were used for asphyxia while others were used for incinerating victims. The room used for asphyxia was soundproof and was fitted with gas lines that allowed Holmes to asphyxiate his victims any time he wished. The incineration chamber, on the other hand, was lined with iron plates and fitted with blowtorches. Holmes also had a room dedicated to the hanging of his victims. This room was in the second floor of the building.

Another room used by Holmes was a concealed room that could only be accessed through a trapdoor in the ceiling. Inside this room, victims would be left to starve to death. This room was sealed by a brick wall to prevent victims from escaping.

To evade capture and detection, Holmes invented an ingenious alarm system that was installed in all the hotel’s doors. This alarm system would alert him whenever someone was roaming inside the hotel, especially in the upper floors. This meant that Holmes monitored his guests and employees closely.

Since no murder castle can be complete without a mechanism of dealing with the corpses, H.H.Holmes employed various mechanisms of dealing with the corpses. One such mechanism relied on a metal chute or a makeshift elevator that transported the corpses to the basement.

In the basement, Holmes would use his medical training to dissect some of the bodies and others, he would peel off the flesh to remain with a skeleton. These were the skeletons that he would later sell to medical schools as skeleton models. Some of the corpses, Holmes would bury in a lime pit for disposal purposes. Two giant furnaces were used to burn evidence as well as corpses.

The Victims

In addition to the furnaces and lime pit, the murder castle also featured a host of poisonous liquids, corrosive acids as well as a stretching rack. Many of Holmes’s victims were his employees, obviously because of the life insurance policies they took out, and mistresses. H.H. Holmes had many mistresses most of whom ended up dying in his murder castle.

One such mistress was Julia Smyth, who was the wife of Ned Connor, who was one of Holmes’s employees. Ned worked in Holmes’s drug store and quit after he found out about the affair between his boss and his wife.

Probably in anger and frustrations, Ned moved away leaving behind Julia and their daughter, Pearl. Smyth later confronted Holmes demanding that he marry her as she was pregnant with his child. Holmes agreed on condition that Julia would abort the baby. However, in classic Holmes’s style, he killed Julia and her daughter just before Christmas.

After the Christmas festivities, Holmes hired Charles Chappell to articulate the body of his would-be wife. Based on the agreement reached between Holmes and Chappell, the latter would put Julia’s arms in a bag and articulate them at his home.

Holmes assisted by an unidentified man later went to Chappell’s home and presented him with the rest of Julia’s body cut into two pieces. Holmes’s developed a liking to Chappell’s work as he hired him to articulate two other bodies, that of a man and a woman.

However, Holmes declined to pay Chappell and Chappell refused to hand over the two skeletons to Holmes. Probably to quell his guilty conscience, Chappell cooperated fully with the police when Holmes was arrested and even handed over the skulls to the police for examinations.

Sadly, Holmes’s escapades did not end with Julia Smyth as he also courted several other women, one of whom later became his personal stenographer.

Minnie Williams and H.H. Holmes met while the latter was on a trip in Boston. After dating for a while, Holmes returned to Chicago, where he often sent Minnie love letters. In 1893, Minnie moved to Chicago and was offered a job as Holmes’s personal stenographer. In true Holmes’s style, he convinced Minnie to transfer the deed to her property in Fort Worth Texas to a man by the name of Alexander Bond, one of Holmes’s aliases.

After Minnie had agreed to transfer the deed, Holmes signed it over to a man named Benton T Lyman, one of Pitezel’s aliases.

Holmes’s plot against Minnie did not end there as he persuaded her to invite her sister, Annie to Chicago. Annie was given a personal tour of the hotel upon her arrival. Unknown to her or her sister, this was all part of a grand scheme to defraud them of their Fort Worth property. Holmes killed Annie using his office vault, which was lined with gas lines. Holmes sent Annie to fetch a file for him, and while she was inside, he closed it and released the gas.

The killing of Minnie and Annie Williams was one of many fraud schemes that Holmes carried out against wealthy women all over America. Holmes would con the women into marrying him and would later kill them and inherit their property. It was one of these schemes that led to Holmes’s arrest in 1896, in Boston, Texas.

With deteriorating economic conditions caused by the panic of 1893, Holmes left Chicago for Fort Worth Texas to lay claim to the Fort Worth property left behind by the Williams sisters.

 

The Killing of Pitezel

While in Texas, it is believed that Holmes contemplated constructing another murder castle there but later abandoned the project. Holmes resorted to roaming throughout USA and Canada swindling wealthy women.

During this time, little is known about the number of people he murdered. Holmes was arrested for the first time in 1894 and incarcerated on horse swindling charges. Holmes’s stint in the gaol did not change him. Holmes later put into motion a fraud scheme that would culminate in the death of his long-time partner, Pitezel.

The objective of the scheme was to defraud an insurance company of $10,000. The plan was to be carried out in Philadelphia, where Pitezel would present himself as an inventor under an alias, B.F Perry. Perry was to be killed and disfigured in a lab explosion, and Holmes was to find a suitable cadaver. However, Holmes killed Pitezel using chloroform and used Benzene to burn his body. He later collected the insurance payout and convinced Pitezel’s wife and her children to go and live with him.

Holmes later killed two of the Pitezel children by asphyxia and buried their bodies in the basement of a rental house in Toronto, Canada. The bodies were found by a detective who had been following Holmes.

The detective discovered that one of the girl’s feet had been cut off. In his investigations, he theorised that this was done to make identification difficult as the girl had club foot. The other child, Holmes murdered in Indianapolis using drugs bought from a local store. Holmes subsequently cut the boy’s body into pieces and burnt them. This became apparent when the boy’s bones and teeth were discovered in the chimney.

The Arrest and Trial of Holmes

Holmes was finally arrested in 1896 in Boston for swindling. The investigations led to detectives uncovering Holmes’s murder trial that ended up in the World’s Fair Hotel. During the investigations, detectives uncovered a host of bizarre and disturbing appliances and features inside the murder castle. One such feature was a surgical table that was found in the basement of the building. In his defence, Holmes claimed that he was possessed by the devil and that he was much a murderer as a poet was poetic. However, Holmes was only tried for the murder of Pitezel and his three children.

After the trial and upon his conviction, Holmes admitted to murdering over 20 people. However, it is estimated that the number of his victims could be as high as 200. Holmes was convicted and handed the death penalty.

On May 7, 1896, the man who had seduced and slaughtered over 28 women all over the US was hanged in the Moyamensig Prison in Philadelphia.

The building that was at the centre of his murderous life was torched prior to his execution in 1895. However, in an ironic twist of fate, the building survived and remained in use until 1938 when it was torn down to give way for the Englewood branch of the United States Postal Services as it remains to be today.

However, tales of its murderous past are still rife in Chicago and other parts of the world, thanks in part to the many books written about the man behind the murder castle.

Sources: Tvguide.com; Harpers.org; Biography.com