In the late 1800’s there was a man who went by the alias of H.H Holmes who no one would have thought would later be referred to notoriously as America’s first serial killer. He would act out some of his wildest and most atrocious fantasies on an unsuspecting public in Chicago, most notably during the 1893 World’s Fair. Born Herman Webster Mudgett, to European settlers in 1861, an affluent family with an abusive, alcoholic father and a pious yet submissive mother, he would somehow be steered into a dark and foreboding adulthood. Early in childhood and what would be one of many catalysts for his later deeds, he was once taken into an empty science classroom by a group of bullies who would proceed to terrorize the young boy with a skeletal body used for demonstration purposes. Later recalling that he was brought to his knees in anxiety and horror as they took the skeletal fingers and caressed his face, he then in seemingly a flash of fate, noticed something happening that turned that horror into a sick and almost comforting enchantment. This newly discovered fascination as a young boy, turned to the mutilation and dissection of stray and wild animals found nearby his home where one could suggest a monster was in the making.
Holmes would later as a young man go to medical school, where he was a prodigal student and an eager learner. While there, as a very intelligent, yet devious young man he would revert to scams and fraud by stealing cadavers from the university and filing insurance claims on them as their sole inheritor, staging their bodies in gruesome and unfortunate accidents. He would also take these opportunities to further his dissection study and then proceed to boil and chemically reduce the bodies to skeletons where he would sell those to other universities and science labs. He made such a good living with his frauds, and selling of skeletal remains that he became consumed and his childhood lean towards torture would begin to focus on the living, the healthy and the innocent.
In 1888, Holmes would begin design and construction of a hotel, two blocks from where the heralded 1893 Chicago’s World’s Fair would be held, with the sole intention of a grand opening date to welcome those travelers and guests. A mysterious structure with an even more mysterious construction regiment, as it would turn out. Per the diabolical insight of Holmes and utmost secrecy of his final project’s design, he would hire and then fire a week later his builders only to hire a new crew that would be fired a week after that. This odd practice would continue until its completion and the reason would reveal a maze like building, designed with windowless rooms, false walls, vents that piped in gases and chutes that would be known later to drop bodies from any floor down into what could be only called a torture chamber of the most gruesome experimentation. No one the wiser of his scheme, the hotel would open without a hitch.
Weeks before the Fair, the streets of Chicago were being flooded by thousands of visitors who were seeking lodging in a foreign city. With a new dawn in America during the peak of the second industrial revolution, a free spirit proliferated the railways and induced people to just get up and go explore the greatness of their country and so many arrived in Chicago without family knowing of their travel plans or their destinations. This worked to Holmes advantage in almost every conceivable way. Much like today’s most famous roach killing product, people checked into his hotel, but they never checked out.
The horrors didn’t begin or end with death, for the unfortunate that made the mistake of checking in to the spider’s nest that was Holmes ultimate torture device. Upon arrival, they would enter a grand lobby that appeared to be as any other posh hotel in the city. Beautifully constructed arches and layout that was inviting and comforting. After checking in and being seen to their rooms, people would be excused for having a feeling of being watched as if by ghostly eyes as Holmes with childlike anticipation beheld his guest from secret viewing areas behind the inconspicuous walls. The voyeurism would only be a prelude to something much more ghastly, as depending on Holmes’s busy schedule, a concoction of chemicals would eventually seep into their room rendering them unconscious and ready for the next step of their fate. Opening up a vacancy for other guests, the bodies would be carried off by Holmes and led to one of many laundry chute like doors and carefully tossed in where it would make its descent to the basement. Often the person would awake to find themselves strapped tightly to a gurney, not able to move a muscle and with a fear we can only imagine. Disoriented, they would struggle to find themselves in a dimly lit room, with the flickering of a macabre light bouncing off of blood soaked walls and the whimpering of an evil and encapsulating suffering of other unsuspecting hotel guests. This is where the horror would fulfill Holmes ultimate fantasies and be brought to life, and his guest’s unfortunate and torturous demise... but not a quick demise. For you see the evil doctor, never seeing his victims as a compassionate doctor should, would dissect them while they were still very much alive, which being a thorough man, could take several months.
For careful and meticulous planning Holmes had taken every precaution in case suspicions arose, so he had built in sound proof rooms and furnaces as well as large vats containing gallons of acid to completely dispose of anything that would lead someone to suspect that you, his guest, had ever existed in the first place. In fact the hotel was raided on several occasions by the Chicago police and they never turned up anything until the hotel burned to the ground years later after Holmes arrest, at which time he was suspected of killing over 200 victims even though he only claimed 27.
Here is where the story gets even more chilling, if it hasn’t already made you dig your fingernails into your palms as you check the vents in your room for anything you may not have noticed before. In the Fall of 1888, while construction crews were breaking ground on Holmes’s hotel, it was noticed that he was mysteriously unaccounted for, for many weeks. Meanwhile, at the exact same time of Holmes disappearance, there was another chapter being written into the annals of the monstrous capabilities of man just across the Atlantic. In August of 1888, the body of Mary Ann Nichols would be discovered slaughtered with a doctor’s precision, cutting from pelvis to breast plate, on the streets of Whitechapel London and would later be claimed as the first victim of a certain individual dubbed Saucy Jack, or as you may better know him… Jack the Ripper. The second body, a Miss Annie Chapman a week later would be eviscerated in the same brutal matter, this time almost decapitating the victim and then displaying the carefully butchered body parts in all of their horrific glory. Three weeks later another two victims would be found, the first with only her throat slit, bringing about the theory that he was almost caught this time. His next prey, thought to come from frustration from a job not completed, would happen only three hours later, indoors, where he would have the time he needed and desired to do his best work. Disemboweling the victim and removing the heart and lungs and wrapping her entrails around her neck like a sickening gift of endearment, this was perhaps the most ensanguined murder. The theory is that this is where Holmes learned he much preferred closed doors and privacy to do what he did best, and to take his dear sweet time with it.
Other evidence and theories would come from H.H Holmes’s (or Mudgett’s) great, great, great grandson while researching his ancestry, as he had both killers handwriting analyzed and it was discovered that the two were a 97.95 percent match. There is also the taunting of Jack to Scotland Yard through letters after the abrupt stop to the killings, using American euphemisms such as “Boss” referring to the Scotland Yard police and a statement saying he was now comfortably away relaxing on the other side of the Atlantic. The last strange coincidence I’ll mention, was the reporting of a well-educated English speaking man being witnessed traveling the same time and area, shopping his skeletal bodies to the local universities.
Holmes, first "official" American murder was a few short months later in early 1889. A Mrs. Holden who filed fraud charges against him when he took over her pharmaceutical business, before his hotel was fully constructed. H.H Holmes even though largely counted as the first American serial killer, is relatively unknown when compared to the likes of Jack the Ripper, but that may have been largely by design if they were in fact the same person. Holmes enjoyed what he did and was in no way looking for any attention unlike Jack’s public persona. He in fact planned for a long fruitful life of the worst kind of debauchery, but in 1895 he was caught and found guilty and hanged shortly thereafter.
There is much more to this story and many more coincidences between the two, but I will leave it to those who are interested, to further investigate this on their own. I found this story fascinating and a little nightmare inducing when I first discovered it and it became even more profound when you factor in the possibility that H.H Holmes and Jack the Ripper may be one in the same person. If you guys like brief detours into other interesting topics like this one from time to time, give me a thumbs up and I’ll sprinkle in a good one here and there. Hope you enjoyed this little trip into the macabre, even if tonight you blame me for having to sleep with one eye open.
Ready, set…Bigfoot!
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