He was arrested for this swindle and sent to jail. During this time, Holmes stole horses from Texas, shipped them to St. Once the World’s Fair had ended, Chicago’s economy was in a slump therefore, Holmes abandoned the Castle and focused on insurance scams – committing random murders along the way. committing insurance scams with his accomplice, Benjamin Pitezel. Through it all, Holmes traveled throughout the U.S. In other cases, he would choose to cremate or place the bodies into pits of acids. Sometimes he would send the bodies down the chute, dissect them, strip them of the flesh and sell them as human skeleton models to medical schools. The basement was designed as Holmes’ own lab it had a dissecting table, stretching rack, and crematory. Throughout the building, there were trap doors, peepholes, stairways that led nowhere, and chutes that led into the basement. Some of these rooms were soundproof and contained gas lines so that Holmes could asphyxiate his guests whenever he felt like it. The first floor of the Castle had several stores the two upper levels contained Holmes’ office and over 100 rooms that were used as living quarters. After being lured into the hotel, many of these out-of-town visitors would never be seen again. He knew many visitors would be searching for lodging near the fair and believed many of them would be women whom he could easily seduce into staying at his hotel. When Holmes heard that the World’s Fair was coming to Chicago, he looked at it as an opportunity. The event was scheduled from May to October, and attracted millions of people from all over the world. In 1893, Chicago was given the honor of hosting the World’s Fair, a cultural and social event to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ discovery of America. People in the neighborhood eventually reported that they saw many women enter the Castle, but would never see them exit.
Most of his fiancés and wives would suddenly disappear, as did many of his employees and guests. Holmes paid the premiums as long as they listed him as the beneficiary. He also placed ads presenting himself as a wealthy man looking for a wife.Īll of Holmes’ employees, hotel guests, fiancés, and wives were required to have life insurance policies. He designed and built a 3-story hotel, which the neighborhood called the “Castle.” During its 1889 construction, Holmes hired and fired several construction crews so that no one would have a clear idea of what he was doing he was designing a “Murder Castle.” After construction was complete in 1891, Holmes placed ads in newspapers offering jobs for young women and advertised the Castle as a place of lodging. Holmes claimed that she moved to California, but this could never be verified.Īfter Holmes had become the owner of the drugstore, he purchased an empty lot across the street. The widow soon went missing and was never seen again. When the owner of the drugstore passed away, he left his wife to take over the responsibilities of the store however, Holmes convinced the widow to let him buy the store. In 1884 Holmes passed his medical exams and in 1885 he moved to Chicago where he got a job working at a pharmacy under the alias Dr. The scandal behind it was that Holmes would take out insurance policies on these people before planting the bodies and would collect money once the bodies were discovered. While enrolled in medical school, Holmes stole cadavers from the laboratory, burned or disfigured them, and then planted the bodies making it look as if they had been killed in an accident. Holmes studied medicine at a small school in Vermont before being accepted into the University of Michigan Medical School. After graduating high school at 16, Mudgett changed his name to Henry Howard Holmes, and later in life would be known as H.H. It may have been this interest that led him to pursue medicine. It is said that at an early age he was fascinated with skeletons and soon became obsessed with death. In 1861, Herman Webster Mudgett was born in New Hampshire.
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