H. Holmes: The First Serial Killer

H.H Holmes was born May 16th, 1861, in Gilmanton, New Hampshire. His legal name was Herman Webster Mudgett. When he was young he was bullied. His peers discovered that he was afraid of doctors so they made him stand in front of a human skeleton at a doctors office. Holmes was afraid at first but soon intrigued by the experience. It may have led to his fascination and unhealthy obsession.
Holmes was a con-artist. His first committed crimes were fraud and scams. Holmes went to the university of michigan to study medicine. He would steal corpses and he used them to experiment on and to get false insurance claims. He was known to be the first serial killer in the U.S. He moved to Chicago in 1886. The first job that he got there was at a local …show more content…
He would hire and rehire construction workers constantly so that he was the only one who knew every nook and cranny in the building. The third floor of the building was where people could live or just stay, he would torture and kill those victims. Holmes has trap doors and secret chutes so he could transport the bodies to the basement where he would burn them in the kiln. The second floor contained asphyxiation rooms where gas jets would seep into the rooms. The first level was just used for exclusive shops. The second and third levels were entwined with mazes, secret hallways, trap doors, stairs that lead to nowhere, and gas pipes that attached to a control panel in the Holmes’ bedroom. The blueprints included 51 doorways that opened to brick walls, 100 windowless rooms, stairs that led to nowhere, two furnaces, and a body-sized chute to an incinerator. His killing spree was from 1886 up until 1894. All the locations of the murders were Indiana, Pennsylvania, Illinois, sporadic areas all across the United States. He even murdered in canada. Holmes had several methods of murder. He was most fond with torturing people. He killed anything he could get his hands on, men, women, and even