Nowadays we think we're safe. We think we know what's out there, what kind of people are out there. But, what if we really had no idea what anyone was thinking, if we were never really safe. At many point in time, malicious serial murderers have been terrorizing small towns and big cities for longer than most people can remember. On this website I'll be telling the stories behind some of the world's most infamous (and in some cases unknown) serial murderers.
H. H. Holmes
H. H. Holmes was a con man and America's first known serial killer, not to mention one of the most intricately intelligent ones. But before he took H. H. Holmes as his pseudonym, he was born in Gilmanton, New Hampshire on May 16th, 1861 as Herman Webster Mudgett. Third-born child to mother Theodate Page Price and father Levi Hornton Mudgett. He had an older sister, Ellen, an older brother, Arthur, a younger sister, Mary, and a younger brother, Henry. His father was a farmer, giving him alot of access to animals, both live and dead. Later on in his life, people made attempts to fit him into the traditional serial killer construct by saying he seemed to have a fascination with torturing animals, but his interest in the bodies of humans and other animals actually seemed to start later on in life when he went to the University of Michigan's Department of Medicine and Surgery. Sources from his childhood claimed he didn't have the upbringing of the usual "serial killer type" (i.e. lack of interest in death/dead things, lack of abuse to him as a child, from a nice farming family)
When Herman was 16, he graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy (which is still standing as one of the oldest and most elite coeducational schools for boarding and day students in the United States). Upon graduating, he took teaching jobs in Gilmanton, and later in the nearby city Alton, Illinois.
On July 4th, 1878, he married his first wife, Clara Lovering, in Alton, Illinois, and on February 3rd, 1880, Clara gave birth to their son, Robert Lovering Mudgett in Loudon, New Hampshire.
At age 18, Herman enrolled in the University of Vermont in Burlington, Vermont, but he didn't take much of a liking to it, so he enrolled in the University of Michigan's Department of Medicine and Surgery 1882. During his time at the school, he worked in the anatomy lab under the guidance of Professor Herdman, then he worked under the chief anatomy instructor. in June of 1884 he had passed all of his exams and graduated the program. Herman had also been apprentice to Dr. Nahum Wight, who was a known advoate for human dissection.
Years later, upon being named a suspect for murder, Herman denied his actions and claimed he was nothing but a mere insurance fraudster, saying that he used cadavers in college to trick life insurance companies, which couldn't be disproven because it was an actual fact, but that wasn't the only fraud he'd committed.
After graduating, Herman found work as a travelling book salesman which brought him to Chicago which was an entirely new type of world to him
Before becoming the serial killer that we know as H. H. Holmes, Herman Webster Mudgett attended the University of Michigan, but spent quite a lot of time as a travelling book salesman, during which he'd con booksellers into giving him books to sell on credit, give them a random alias, and never pay the debt back. Since it was the late 1800's, it wasnt difficult to get by on a fake name.
He would also take advantage of being allowed to study cadavers, he would use them to commit insurance fraud to life insurance companies. He would go in to the life insurance companies and take out an insurance policy on the identity of the cadaver, a few days to weeks later, he would then go in and say the person died, and collect the insurance claims.
After university, Mudgett decided to move to Chicago for a fresh start. He decided he wanted to invest in real estate holdings.