H.H. Holmes

Considered to be the first American serial-killer and possibly the most prolific, he was also a con-man and a bigamist. Holmes was a doctor who studied medicine at Ann Arbor. He then moved to New York where he practised briefly. His first brush with the law occurred there when some corpses where found in his possession. He fled to Chicago where he worked for a drug company. The owner mysteriously disappeared and he became the owner. Over the next few years several people who crossed his path also mysteriously disappeared. In 1891 he began construction of a hotel at the corner of 63rd street in Chicago. The building was built by several builders over time and had a labyrinthine network of passages that would become his 'torture chambers'. It was during the Chicago World Fair of 1893 that he did most of his killings when his victims checked into his hotel. His victims were mainly young attractive women. Holmes would drug them, have sex with their bodies and then drop them down a chute into a gas chamber. There he would watch through a glass panel as they slowly choked to death. Then he would dissect their bodies and dispose of it in acid baths, furnaces or quick lime. However it was for an insurance fraud in Texas that he was brought to the attention of the authorities again. Detective Geyer followed his trail through Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. The bodies of the Pietzel family were found in an Indianapolis boarding house and Holmes was arrested. On 30 November, 1895 he received the death sentence. Holmes wrote in his memoirs that he had killed 27 people. However when he was taken to the gallows he retracted his confession saying that he had done it just for a publicity stunt. Over 200 bodies were found in his Chicago death house * 'Holmes Torture Castle'.