Dr. Henry Howard Holmes Mugshot

I cannot tell a lie? George Washington may have said that but it's certainly not something Herman Webster Mudgett, aka H H Holmes, would have said. He couldn't tell the truth! He was the 3rd born of Levi Horton Mudgett and Theodate Page Price, having an older brother and sister and a younger brother and sister. Mudgett graduated from medical school in 1886 and moved to Chicago to set up a pharmacy. But he didn't stop with the pharmacy, he also built a hotel across the street which later became known as the "Murder Castle". Why? Because during the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, he was thought to lure women to the hotel, make them get life insurance in order to work for him, and then kill them. No one caught on, the women simply disappeared. Several years later, however, a friend/accomplice in insurance fraud Ben Pritezel as well as his wife and 2 children were found murdered. Holmes was arrested in the murders. He was tried, found guilty, and hung in 1896. Per his request, his coffin was covered by concrete so no one could disturb his grave. (His request may have been influenced by the fact that when he was in medical school, he dug up graves and sold the cadavers to medical schools.) Mudgett/Holmes sold his story to Hearst Publications for approximately a quarter of a million dollars in today's money. In that story, he claimed to have killed 130 people. When he was arrested, he claimed to have killed 27. Holmes/Mudgett had married 3 times. He and his first wife had a son and he reportedly abused her. She left and never looked back. While still married to his first wife, he married his second wife, filing for divorce from his first wife a few weeks later (never finalized). He and his second wife had a daughter. Then while still married to his first and second wives, he married the third. Read his obituary H. H. Holmes: Obituary