Holmes: The Rise Of Serial Killers

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Holmes was known as a “prototype killer, to whom the prospect of dying did not bring fear.” (Raving Psychology). This trait was particularly useful when he first started his life of crime back in medical school. He would “[steal] bodies from the laboratory, which he later disfigured, so that he could claim insurance on the allegedly accidental deaths.” (Raving Psychology). Many thought he was just putting in extra hours of learning, but in reality he was using his skills to his advantage and using these skills for profit and to swindle banks. This is the start of many instances where he would use horrific deeds for his own personal gain. In 1886, not long after he graduated medical school, he moved to Chicago, Illinois. He went under the alias, …show more content…

Not only was he able to duck under the radar using different aliases, but he was able to do that very thing for years. He carefully avoided the authorities and hid out from right under their noses. “Holmes also proved how terrible our law enforcement was back then, and was a reason for law enforcement to improve. Not to mention the fact that he basically made the descriptions for psychopath serial killers, so we would know what to look for when it comes to danger.” (Holmes’s Effect Today). The tracking of Holmes took way longer than necessary because authorities never thought that the charming hotel owner could ever murder anyone. Moreover, the tracking only started after people found the missing Pitezel girls in Toronto. A summary of the whole incident said, “A Philadelphia detective had tracked Holmes, finding the decomposed bodies of the two Pitezel girls in Toronto. He then followed Holmes to Indianapolis. There Holmes had rented a cottage. He was reported to have visited a local pharmacy to purchase the drugs which he used to kill Howard Pitezel, and a repair shop to sharpen the knives he used to chop up the body before he burned it. The boy's teeth and bits of bone were discovered in the home's chimney.” (Blanco). Had this had happened in modern times then Holmes would have been apprehended moderately fast, but because the law enforcement faced …show more content…

His childhood background made him the poster child of mental illness and traumatic experiences gone untreated. Holmes helped the law enforcement by introducing the concept of serial killings and how they can be dealt with in a swift manner. Tricks such as finding fingerprints and tapping into phones would not have existed had it not been for H.H Holmes. Holmes also showed the extreme negative side effects of letting a mental illness go untreated, something that we make sure does not happen in modern times. Had Holmes sought treatment for his anxieties and traumas, he would probably not have been as inclined to use harm as an outlet. The subject of H.H Holmes is of great importance because he affected the history of our nation and was crucial to the development of modern society, authoritative and medical wise. People can’t help but wonder what would have happened if H.H Holmes did not exist as a killer. What would have happened if he never found out about life insurance benefits? What would have happened had Holmes not have such a distraught childhood? Questions will forever be asked about this man, but the answers lie six feet under in an all concrete

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