North America’s First Serial Killer: H.H. Holmes

Serial killers have always been a topic that’s filled with intrigue and the utmost curiosity. What makes them tick? Why do they choose the methods that they do? Our brains pique as we try our best to fathom how someone could go about actually murdering hundreds of people in such disturbing ways. But all details of why or how aside, who was the first serial killer in North America? In what ways did he set the tone for serial killers in the decades that would soon follow? His name was H.H. Holmes, and in this article, we’ll answer all questions of intrigue on the matter.

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H.H. Holmes was born in 1861 to an otherwise normal household. His father was a farmer and his mother took care of the home. Though they were devout Methodist people, records of H.H. Holmes’ life indicate that they were incredibly loving and supportive towards him. It came as quite a shock that within twenty three years’ time, their son would become a cold blooded, yet methodical and almost sophisticated in style—serial killer.

He attended medical school at The University of Michigan and actually ended up graduating with honors from there. However, it would be during his time at medical school that he would discover his love and fascination for corpses and of course, killing, and cutting people up. At first, as a way to release these feelings without actually killing anyone, he would often beat his wife. She left him almost immediately and moved to a different state.

Holmes moved away as well, but he moved to New York. However, he did not move away to begin a new life because of the divorce. A story had been circulating that he had been the very last person spotted with a little boy who had recently come up severely mutilated and of course, murdered. No one believed Holmes’ side of the story in which he claimed that the little boy simply must’ve ran away, so to get away from the heat of accusations, he packed up and left town.

Whether or not he actually was guilty of that particular murder is still unknown to this day. What he was guilty of at the time, however, was insurance fraud. He would use cadavers that he had easy access to in medical school for life insurance claims and banked the money away. His insurance fraud would soon blossom into full blown bloodthirsty atrocities.

After a few failed jobs as a keeper at a hospital and a technician at a pharmacy, he moved several more times before finally landing in Chicago. While he was there, he purchased an old hotel and used the money he had fraudulently acquired from the life insurance policies to renovate it into a place that had secret chambers, one hundred rooms that were entirely windowless, over fifty trap doors, a large incinerator, the entire basement as a large medical lab, and many other strange implementations to easier torture and kill his victims. The first annual World Fair came into town shortly after the building was complete, which was perfect for H.H. Holmes to carry out his ultimate plan.

Since he was sure that the World Fair would be attracting a multitude of travelers, he decided to lure in his victims by offering affordable lodging in his murderous hotel. Almost all of the rooms within his building were completely soundproof and also had gas lines that ran through them. Once Holmes was able to get his guests settled nicely in their rooms, he would often begin leaking a toxic gas into their lodges which ended up killing them slowly and quite painfully. If he was feeling especially murderous, when the guests would ask for direction to their room in the enormous castle-type structure, he would often lead them straight to the incinerator where they, as well as their suitcases, would be burnt up immediately upon entrance. He would take the bodies that were salvageable and disfigure them, and even sell their skeletons to nearby medical schools. During this particular World Fair, Holmes ended up murdering over one hundred people.

He eventually abandoned his murder castle after realizing he made much more money from insurance fraud, and at least it wasn’t killing anybody. Within a year or so, he ended up getting caught for insurance fraud and was arrested. After a thorough investigation into Holmes’ entire life, authorities quickly connected him with two murders, and the two led to many, many more. H.H. Holmes admitted to the charges of insurance fraud, but it wouldn’t be until after his sentence to death that he would admit to any of the murders, and he did so by way of journaling.
Holmes was executed by hanging in 1896. Instead of his neck instantly breaking as is usually the result of being hanged, the rope ended up somehow strangling him to death, causing him to die slowly and painfully over the course of fifteen minutes.