Currently, the emergence of fictions such as Mindhunter , True Detective or The Alienist seem to have contributed to the theme about serial killers arouses more interest than ever . If you are also attracted to the genre, it is imperative that you know the story of Herman Webster Mudgett (better known as Dr. Henry Howard Holmes): the first serial killer in the United States of which there is evidence.
A lurid story hides behind his name, takes on special relevance because it has developed an incipient methodology at the time of commit the murders , building a suitable hotel to carry out this task. Then, in Supercurioso we tell you the details of the case of the first serial killer, which in this case goes back to the nineteenth century.
H. Holmes: the chilling first American serial killer
Childhood and youth: the birth of an obsession
Born on May 16, 1861 in Gilmanton (New Hampshire), and being the son of an alcoholic father, his status as a good student at school earned him a few enemies: his companions came to force him to take a skeleton of science from his hands and place his face against the skull . Years later Holmes would declare that this experience would have been so fascinating to him that from that moment he lived obsessed with the idea of death, which probably prompted him to become the first serial killer.
At eighteen he married a rich young woman named Clara Loering, thanks to the fortune of which he would be able to pay for his studies at the School of Medicine and Surgery at the University of Michigan. It would be during his stay in the institution when he would begin to show a disproportionate interest in anatomy classes, especially in those in which the corpses were dissected, also stealing several corpses from the laboratory and disfiguring them to pass them off as victims of accidents, in order to collect insurance policies . Around him, rumors began to emerge that he was subjecting his wife to extreme violence and that he was seen with a child who later disappeared. However, despite all the accusations, a police investigation never started.
Construction of the "Castle of terror"
While still married to Clara, Holmes later married Myrta, with whom he had a daughter in 1889. Although the three were officially living in Wilmetter, Illinois, Holmes spent most of his time in Chicago, where She worked in a pharmacy that she ended up acquiring based on counterfeiting and misappropriation of funds, making the owner disappear later. . He decided to buy a lot just in front of the street, with the idea of turning it into a huge hotel, whose size would make the neighborhood known as "The castle."
The construction of the building was carried out by different companies and workers, whom Holmes hired temporarily for a short time after canceling their services and not paying them. His goal was that nobody could get to know thoroughly all the details that hid your hotel , whose interior housed labyrinths of corridors that seemed to have no end, doors that led to walls, stairs that did not lead anywhere or doors that could only be opened from the outside.
Under the floor an electrical installation was concealed that allowed him to follow the movements of his victims by means of an indicator panel; he could open gas taps in different rooms to suffocate his victims without having to go to the scene of the crime; It had different instruments of torture and had a forklift and two slides that transported the corpses to the warehouse, where The meat remains were incinerated or dissolved in tanks filled with acid, while the organs were sold to medical clinics and the skeletons to medical schools.
The end of the adventure: arrest, confession and execution
To remedy the limited income generated by the hotel, our first serial killer decided to burn the top floor of the building in 1893 even with people inside; previously, of course, I would have contracted insurance with up to four different companies with the intention of overpaying compensation. However, the investigation that opened forced him to move to Texas, where he would commit a series of scams that would lead him to be imprisoned for a period of time . Once released on bail, he launched a new operation that consisted of the wife of his accomplice Pitezel collecting the compensation after the fake death of the husband, presenting as his an anonymous corpse completely disfigured because of an accident. However, the first serial killer Holmes changed his mind and decided to kill his friend for himself, keeping all the money of the first and killing his children.
Frank Geyer was the detective in charge of tracking down Holmes, and it was he himself who discovered the bodies of Pitezel's daughters, aided by the denunciation of a former Holmes cellmate. In this way, on November 7, 1984, Holmes was arrested in Boston and in October 1896 he was tried for the murder of his right hand, convicted and sentenced to death. Holmes confessed to having killed 27 people and the attempted murder of 50 is possible that the number was greater; in fact, some modern investigations calculate the number of their murders amounted to two hundred. However, his confessions were quite inconsistent, having pleaded innocent in some of them while in others he claimed to have been possessed by Satan . Finally, on May 7, 1896, he would be hanged without showing any hint of anxiety, fear or depression.
We hope you found it interesting to know the story of the first serial killer in the United States. As always, in Supercurioso we encourage you to leave us a comment with all your impressions. Did you know the case of the first registered serial killer? Which of all the details of this case have you found most surprising? Do you know other serial killers in the story? We will be wanting to know your opinion.