America's First Serial Killer

Monday was the sesquicentennial of the birth of the man known to history as America's first documented serial killer — H.H. Holmes.

Serial killing was not a new thing when Holmes (whose real name was Herman Webster Mudgett) started killing people in the second half of the 19th century so I must conclude that he was not this country's first serial killer — and I'm reasonably sure he wasn't the first to confess to killing someone.

But he did confess to more than two dozen murders — and the authorities of the day, using the forensic technology they possessed, confirmed nine of them. Thus, by the most common legal definition of serial killing, Holmes was a serial killer.

By some estimates, he may have been far more prolific than the legal community could have imagined. His actual body count may well have been more than 200.

He began his life of crime as a swindler, but he soon moved on to more sinister things.

For the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, Holmes opened a three–story "World's Fair" hotel. It was a block long, and it was located a short distance from the fair, an attractive option for out–of–towners.

It was a real house of horrors, though, a maze with dead ends, rooms with no windows, stairs that went nowhere, doors that could be opened only from the outside. Holmes' victims — and, of the ones who have been confirmed, many were women who worked for him in his hotel or the other commercial ventures in the building, but there may also have been several who were in town strictly to visit the fair — never had a chance.

Holmes wanted it that way. He was the only one who fully understood how his hotel was designed because he kept changing builders. It kept suspicion down and tongues from wagging.

Holmes, too, had been a medical student. He apparently dissected many of the bodies and sold parts to medical schools through the connections he had established when he was younger. Thus, getting rid of the evidence was ridiculously easy.

After the fair concluded, Holmes left Chicago. He resurfaced for a time in this part of the country and tried to build a hotel in Fort Worth that was similar to the one he had in Chicago, but he gave up on that and wandered around North America for awhile.

Holmes might have gone undetected if not for the fact that he was arrested in St. Louis for a horse swindle. He was bailed out, but, while behind bars, he became friendly with Marion Hedgepeth, a train robber in whom he confided a scheme for faking his own death and having his wife collect on the insurance.

Hedgepeth was promised payment for providing the name of an attorney who would participate in the scheme, but Hedgepeth wasn't paid so he blew the whistle.

And the whole thing unraveled.

The legal system didn't dawdle over things like appeals in those days. Less than two years after his arrest in St. Louis, on May 7, 1896, Holmes was hanged.

He was a little more than a week away from his 35th birthday.