H. H Holmes Murder Castle Sparknotes

Murder Castle

“I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing. I was born with the evil one standing as my sponsor beside the bed where I was ushered into the world, and he has been with me since.” (qdt. in Roland 12) Mudgett, better known as H.H. Holmes, said this during a confession in 1896. Holmes is diligently studied and sometimes admired because, not only was he America’s first major serial killer, the depths of his intelligence for crime remain unchallenged. Herman Webster Mudgett was the most prolific killer in American history because of the elaborate design of his Murder Castle, ingenious ways of disposing of evidence, and finally the abundance of methods he uses to finance his lifestyle.

Holmes’ Murder Castle shows the dedication he had for his craft since he built it to aid in his appetite to destroy. Building plans began in 1892 as a method of attracting patrons for the World’s Fair scheduled for 1893. Acting as his own architect, Holmes concealed the

true nature of his plans by segregating tasks and constantly firing workers and hiring new ones. His true plans revealed a labyrinth of hidden passageways and hidden rooms for various forms of torture. Holmes had a vault installed in his own bedroom for suffocating victims and shoots hidden in wall panels leading to the basement for convenient body disposal. Holmes’ ingenious design of his home was irrefutable evidence of his superior intelligence.
Holmes had a vast number of ways to dispose of his victims’ bodies, thus eluding suspicion for years before capture, the most impressive of which was a kiln he had built in the basement of his home.

Holmes also used the basement for cleaning bones so he could sell the skeletons to medical schools and museums. Less frequently, Holmes buried his victims in various places like the basement of a sweet shop he owned and taking his victims out of town where he was not known so if the remains were found it would be difficult to trace the crime back to him. Finally, in Holmes’ confession, he tells of a man, that he declined to name, that he sold many of the bodies to for amounts between twenty-five and forty-five dollars per body. Between selling remains and insurance frauds Holmes many times profited from his murderous crimes. Mudgett’s creativity was well documented in the numerous forms of evidence disposal he

utilized.
Holmes found many ways to profit from his victims and many ways to make money without a legitimate job that would take away time from his true passion of the thrill of control that comes with extinguishing a life. Upon moving to Chicago, Holmes acquired a job at a pharmacy, where he inevitably murdered the owner and bought the store from the owner’s wife. During his time with the pharmacy, H.H. Holmes created a few ways to further the legal income from the store such as shame drugs claiming to cure alcoholism and baldness and a mail order medicine company. Holmes used murder in an abundance of different methods to acquire financial support such as falsely claiming life insurance policies of his murder victims, wife, and sister in law. The most sadistic of ways was kidnapping a wealthy banker and starving him for months in a secret room in his home while also nauseating him with poison gas until he signed over a check for 70,000 dollars. Holmes’ perspicacity for commerce and human nature allowed him to deceive people and attain funds from various sources further proving his superior aptitude for crime.
Anthony Boucher, a true-crime writer and editor, uses H. H. Holmes as an alias “out of pure admiration for a man who was, within his chosen field, superb both as an artist and as a craftsman” (qdt. in Schmid 268) H.H. Holmes’ methods were almost unimaginable in the late 1800’s; his intelligence was ahead of his time. The ingenious ways in which he provided for himself, disposed of bodies, and the complexity of his home have not been seen since making him not only the first but also the most prolific killer in American history.