America’s First Serial Killer. The Devil Doctor. H. H. Holmes. A man thought of as the first modern serial killer and one perceived to have killed over two-hundred people while only confessing to 27 and being convicted of one. One who claimed he was possessed by Satan to commit his crimes and was beginning to resemble him as well.
That was all a lie, of course. The Satan part, not the killings. No, he definitely committed those, and he is not ashamed to admit it. He’s already dead, so there’s no need to lie to escape death.
The middle child of five born in a Methodist household, people have speculated he felt smothered by his family and committed several acts of violence as a child that hinted at his future actions. This, like the Devil connection, is also false. He had a normal childhood. Sure, he wasn’t one for his parents’ beliefs, but he wasn’t some crazed sociopath from birth.
He went to school and got married at seventeen, their son being born two years later. He went to university in Vermont before leaving after one year and going to Michigan and entering their university’s Department of Medicine and Surgery. Some speculate this is where he gained a love for cutting people open, especially when, after he graduated, he apprenticed under someone who advocated for human dissection. Once more, false. It simply interested him and had potential for well-paying jobs. He even used his knowledge to defraud life insurance companies to help pay for college using cadavers.
Herman was said to grow violent toward his wife, causing her to move back to New Hampshire, never hearing from him again while still legally married to him. He moved as well to New York before leaving soon after when a young boy disappeared and he was suspected as responsible. The boy is thought to be his first murder, and his abuse to his wife just a prelude to his future actions. False, at least partially (sensing a trend?). The boy really did just move away as Herman said in his defense, but he did treat his wife that way. She was his to do with as he wished, and if she couldn’t accept that, then he did not need her.
After another case of a child supposedly dying when he was on Philadelphia, he moved to Chicago and bought a drugstore and the empty lot across from it, building what would become the World’s Fair Hotel.
From here, he would begin his killings, but not before being married two more times while still married to his first wife and going through a divorce with his second. The building was designed by himself with the aid of several different unaffiliated construction companies as not to make them aware of what they were helping build.
Killing his tenets and even some of his employees while selling the valuable parts of their bodies and dissolving the rest to remove the evidence, he continued to profit until he killed his employee Benjamin Pitezel in a scheme to collect the life insurance money, a scheme where he also happened to pick up another wife. He overreached, however, when he realized Ben’s children may ruin the plan and killed them as well, not disposing of the evidence properly as he would’ve in his hotel.
After he was caught, he admitted to twenty-seven different death under the pretense that he was possessed by the Devil when he did them and currently, saying his own appearance was shifting toward the demonic. Even so, he was only found guilty of the murder of Benjamin, being hung soon after.
So ended the life of this killer, a man whose motivations are still fairly murky. Why go to such extremes? Was it merely greed, or was he driven by something people don’t know about? Whatever the case, probably the only one who could answer is Herman himself.“My, you are unwilling to simply accept certain matters. Fine then. The truth.
On my fifth birthday, I was thrown by two of my particularly abhorrent schoolmates into the currently deserted office of our village doctor once they learned of my rather childish fear of what lied within.
I say childish, but it was surely monumental at the time. One could say it still is something that plagues many to this day. However, I find that I must thank them. They locked me within a closet, sending me directly into the arms of the display skeleton within. With plenty of time to consider the situation before me, I found myself becoming more fascinated than repulsed with the lifeless body I found myself entangled in.
If I were to track it back, that would be the moment I became interested in… medicine.
A photographer came to our village, afflicted with lameness. I performed several errands for him in hopes of getting my picture taken. When I returned from an errand, I found him removing his leg, the concept of a prosthetic completely foreign to my young mind and quite disturbing at the time. The man took my picture that day, waving his false leg about and causing me to show a most fearful face immortalized in picture.
Further was my interest in the medical field.
You know I spent my entire childhood savings upon a watch? T’was a cheap object, false gold and false quality, but a shining object within my mind. A treasure, but one that lost its luster as so many things do.
Oh. I should skip ahead? Well, I suppose you are not inclined to listen to what appear to be such trivial details in your mind.
In college, studying in the medical course, I made a friend. One of the few I would allow myself even during my… later years. A Canadian fellow that met his end before my own. Poor man. I am grateful he did not share in the same pain my other associates must have felt at my conviction.
It was during this time I took a summer job at a firm, something necessary to pay my expense. Of course, I still had a healthy portion to keep for myself, but what I remember of that trip that sticks with me is Chicago. Something within that city called to me.
My wife? Whatever would I talk about her for? She has no bearing in this.
After I had graduated, I moved to New York after receiving a letter to teach at a winter school from which I received little profit. Being contacted by my university friend, we developed the scheme to defraud the life insurance companies, which you are already aware of, giving me no reason to recount it to you. I must say, though, that it was quite the work of brilliance and improvisation.
The children? Well, I can assure you I had nothing to do with their death and supposed death. Now, would you kindly cease your interruptions. I will tell you all that is necessary for you to know.
I traveled to Chicago where I first used the name Henry Howard Holmes. It was there I purchased a drugstore and was able to make a profitable living for the first time in my life that I enjoyed. Of course, such is the envy and opportunity of others, and my landlord saw fit to increase my rent to match my new earnings.
This forced me to purchase, at great expense to myself, the empty lot across from my store whereupon I, of course, had a building constructed. Such actions drove me into debt from which I would struggle to extract myself.
I met a man. A carpenter named Benjamin Pitezel. A dreamer and not one for excessive conversation, but his quiet demeanor was one I found favorable. A man very much like myself, beaten by the world as I had been. Shame about his demise. He worked for me six years faithfully, and I found it quite tragic.
Hm? Oh, yes. I was the one who killed him. I was also forced to take the lives of his children. Unfortunate business, that. Certainly moreso due to it being my… I suppose downfall is the correct term.
We will adjourn that for the moment. I see you are growing tired of my ‘ramblings’, so I will endeavor to lead us forward in a more rapid manner.
I expanded my business, increasing my income and, yes, my hotel as well. The bottom floor was where I placed several of my different business with the second being my… well, I’m certain there are those who would classify them as ‘torture rooms’, but they were merely just a means to attain more product. The third floor was created for more rooms as the second, but I unfortunately was unable to complete it.
Yes, during this time I was active in… luring is such a vulgar term. Many guest’s came to stay to be near the World’s Fair, and they, as with my employees, were unmissed from the proceedings or many of their families. Sadly, we return to Ben.
To place it in simple terms, I wanted the money for myself. Frankly, I deserved that money. I have worked too hard to simply share such a profit with another, even if he was one I had grown fond of.
Perhaps it was punishment for my… No. Greed isn’t the right word. For my refusal to adhere to conventions that would lower myself despite all my effort. Whatever the case or wording, they discovered them because, out of respect for his years of service, I left their bodies relatively whole rather than disposing of them as I usually would.
So, I attempted to play he fool when the police visited themselves upon me. My own family’s beliefs had given me a fairly effective excuse to fall back on. Possession. Disbelief driven by insanity. Unfortunately, I was too intelligent for my own well-being. Everything was too well designed, too well crafted for a truly insane man driven by a belief in the devil.
I held on to the defense though in perhaps some vague hope it could sway them to simply place me in an asylum. I confessed to several of my acquisitions all while claiming possession, but they did not believe me. Likely because I did not believe myself.
So, I was hung, and only nine days from my birthday. Truly, if God exists, he chose that to taunt me.
Now that you are fully aware of my life, will you end your pointless searching? I have an appointment I do not wish to miss.”
Originally Posted by Kabalisto Koga
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