Herman Mudgett Essay Example for Free

Herman Mudgett Essay Problem Statement H. H. Holmes was dubbed the first male serial killer in the United States; however, his profile did not entirely fit the characteristics of a male serial killer. Should H. H. Holmes be considered a â€Å"Black Widow†? Purpose Imagine a killer who enjoyed torturing his victims with a variety of methods, but got paid for it. Meet Dr. H. H. Holmes or also known as â€Å"The Torture Doctor†. He was a serial killer who hit Chicago in the late nineteenth century. He killed with the intention of receiving money, mostly in the form of insurance claims. Criminologists have characterized this as a trait mostly belonging to female serial killers. It is â€Å"Black Widows† who kill relatives for the insurance money. Therefore Holmes should be classified as having similar characteristics to a â€Å"Black Widow† or that of a female serial killer. Findings Herman Webster Mudgett born May 16, 1861 to Levi and Theodate Mudgett in Gilmanton, New Hampshire had a privileged life. His family was wealthy and he was a bight child. (5) His household was run with a strict Methodist structure and his father was a violent alcoholic. He was bullied in school and in one instance forced to face a real skeleton which is believed to be the start of his fascination with corpses. (2) He became curious with Anatomy after that. Mudgett expressed a huge interest in medicine and was enrolled in the University of Michigan in 1882. He excelled in Chemistry and Anatomy and they seemed to be a natural talent for him. He was extremely eager to work on the cadavers. (2) He graduated in 1884. â€Å"This was a unique feature for a serial killer because most serial killers do not finish school.† (2) It is not because they are not intelligent enough; it is because they lack the motivation. This is where Mudgett was different; he had the persistence and motivati on to finish school. It was easier because it was something he did enjoy and it was a gateway for his early crimes. Mudgett would steal corpses from the medical school after making false insurance claims on a person, naming himself the beneficiary. He would distort the bodies making it look like an accident and then identify the body as the person he took the claim out on. (1) This is most likely the reason he stayed in school; he was making a profit. This is where he started using his alias Henry Howard Holmes or H. H. Holmes and Herman Mudgett would eventually cease to exist.(2) His crime spree and fascination with corpses would continue well after medical school. After a string of insurance fraud and traveling the country Holmes made it to Chicago. He began working at a drug store owned by an ill Dr. Holton in the neighborhood of Englewood. Holton died not long after and Holmes convinced Mrs. Holton to sign over the pharmacy to him and then she mysteriously disappeared. (5) While owning the drug store he continued to scam people sometimes selling false drugs and avoiding paying back his credit. (2) Holmes did enjoy making money and tricking people, but he wanted more. Holmes bought an estate on 63rd street and Wallace right across the street from the pharmacy that would later be called the â€Å"Murder Castle.† The construction of the building was very curious. Holmes was the architect and always kept a change of workers so he was the only one who ever knew the full structure of the building. (2) It was three stories with the ground floor belonging to commercial buildings including his relocated drug store. The top two were designated for his murderous fantasies. It had a labyrinth structure and consisted of false doors, windowless rooms, chutes, and trap doors. (5) The Castle â€Å"was equipped with secret passages, trapdoors, soundproof rooms, doors that could be locked from the outside, gas jets to asphyxiate victims, and a kiln to cremate the bodies.† (3) The basement is what held even worse horrors. There was a furnace big enough to hold a human body and huge acid baths. There were also tables where he could perform on the bodie s. (2) The Castle would open a door for Holmes to make even more money. Holmes was a man who would make money off of anything he could and his killings were no different. After he had tortured and killed he victims he would clean and mount their bones. In the basement â€Å"some were meticulously dissected, stripped of flesh, crafted into skeleton models† (5) He would then sell the skeletons to medical schools and doctor’s offices.(2) He had gained connections with these places, so no one questioned him. (5) He was living out his fantasies and making money off of it and now the perfect opportunity was about to come along. The 1893 World’s Columbian Exchange in Chicago would take place only a couple miles from Holmes’ home â€Å"The Castle.† The fair lasted from May to October. Holmes opened his building for the visitors and furnished and ran it like a hotel. â€Å"Unfortunately, some of his guests did not survive his hospitality.† (1) Just like most serial killers Holmes picked easy targets; tourists. Few people would know exactly where they were staying and it would be awhile before anyone reported them missing. However Holmes did differ from other male serial killers in that he did not stick to a type. Most of his victims did happen to be women, but he also killed children and men. Disappearances associated with the fair were linked to his castle (1) Outside of using his castle on unknowing tourists he was a seducer of women. Many of Holmes’ victims were women whom he had seduced and tricked into signing over their life savings. He usually employed females to work for him â€Å"many of whom were required as a condition of employment to take out life insurance policies for which Holmes would pay the premiums but also be the beneficiary† (5) and these women would later become his victims. Some of these women he killed where women who he had tricked in to giving him their property after they thought he was going to marry them. One example was Julia Conner and her daug hter Pearl. She was a mistress of Holmes and got pregnant. She demanded marriage and Holmes agreed if he could perform an abortion. Julia agreed, but mysteriously vanished along with her daughter. (2) He also promised Emiline Segrand marriage if she gave him her life savings. He sealed her in his vault where she suffocated to death. (2) He did have a marriage that actually went through, three in fact. He did have three marriages that all happened to coincide with each other. His first wife Clara Lovering was before he went to medical school. He filed for divorce at the time of his second wife, but it failed to go through. After he began using his alias H.H. Holmes he married Myrta Belknap in 1887. He lived with her and their daughter, Lucy, in Illinois for a while before he made it to Chicago. Holmes married is third wife, Georgiana Yoke, in 1894 after his killing spree in Chicago. Each one of these women never became one of Holmes’ victims and would live out their lives not knowing he was a serial killer till he was caught. (5) The only person who ever knew about what Holmes did was Benjamin Pitzel. Benja min Pitzel became associated with Holmes when Holmes was first constructing the Castle. Pitzel was a carpenter who was a drunkard that could never hold a job down. Holmes needed a right hand man who was tough and would do anything for money; Pitzel fit this description and had already committed petty crimes. (2) Pitzel was married with five children and needed to provide for his family, so he did what Holmes asked him to. Together Pitzel and Holmes committed lots of fraud and forgery. When Holmes was forced to leave Chicago because creditors were closing in Pitzel followed. They went cross country and continued to commit more fraud and other suspected killings under different aliases. (5) During one of these crimes Holmes was incarcerated for the first time in his life. Running low on money and needing to escape plan. Holmes and Pitzel concocted a plan where they would get Pitzel’s wife to take out an insurance claim on him and then they would fake Pitzel death. (5) Before they could get started on the scam Holmes was arrested for a different crime that landed hi m in a Texas jail. For some reason Holmes spilled his entire plan to his cellmate Marion Hedgepeth, a convicted train robber. Hedgepeth gave Holmes the name of a shady attorney in return for $500 of the money he got. (4) Holmes was shortly bailed out by his new wife Georgiana Yokes. (2) Holmes was now beginning to make mistakes and the law was going to catch up with him. Now Holmes could get on to finish the scam of faking Pitzel’s death, but Holmes did not fake it, he actually killed his longtime associate. This was most likely his plan all along; he wanted to get rid of loose ends. Holmes and his attorney, acquired from his former cell mate, identified the body. Mrs. Pitzel unknowing it to be her real husband split the money with the two men, but in the end Holmes ended up with most of her share. (2) Holmes was becoming paranoid and realizing that he was making mistakes. â€Å"Becoming concerned that the five Pitzel children might expose him, he went away with three of the children, eventually killing them.† (1) There was still one mistake out there that would lead to his demise. Almost two months after Pitzel’s body was found Hedgepeth, the former cellmate, sent information about the insurance fraud to police when he never received his compensation from Holmes. Police sent the Pinkertons, a private security guard and detective agency; on Holmes’ trail (5) What they discovered would be horrifying. Holmes was caught on November 17, 1894 in Boston. His only outstanding charge was on a horse theft and detectives needed more to hold him. It was only when his old custodian from the Castle informed the authorities that he was never allowed to clean the upper floors did they found out about his murders past by â€Å"uncovering Holmess efficient methods of committing murders and then disposing of the corpses.† (5) Along with Holmes’ vast array of obvious torture equipment, pieces of human bones were discovered. None of the murders were proven because of the lack of evidence except for four that of Benjamin Pitzel and his three children. Police tracked down the children’s bodies when chasing Holmes across the country. The two girls were found in Toronto and the boy in Indianapolis. (5) Holmes reign had come to an end. It was never discovered how many people H. H. Holmes had actually killed, but missing people and peculiar activity always seem to surround him not including the fact that he had a killing house. No one will ever be certain; the only person who may have known the true story was killed by Holmes. Also Holmes confessed his innocence until the day he was hung on May 7, 1896 at age 34. (2) Towards the end, however, he did come clean but his story always seemed to change. He did confess to 27 murders, but some researchers have suggested it exceeds 200. (3) The one confession he did seem to stick with was that he said he resembled the Devil. (2) Whatever the number Holmes was a serial killer who learned how to make a profit off of it. Conclusion Dr. H. H. Holmes’s characteristics did not fit that of a normal male serial killer. For starters he finished college unlike most of his predecessors. It might have been due to the fact that he had endless cadavers to work on or because he was planning his criminal career. Holmes also received monetary gain from most of his victims. He did enjoy seducing and killing victims, but his motives did involve receiving money. This is a trait often associated with female serial killers. Criminologists distinguish traits from male and female serial killers. One of the traits associated with females is that their motives usually involve monetary gain. The â€Å"Black Widow† is a female serial killer who kills her husband or other relatives to receive the insurance money. Holmes fits this description because most of his victims were women whom he had seduced and promised marriage or employees after receiving rights to their property. Holmes fits characteristics of both genders, but the profile of a Male Black Widow fits him more than anything. Recommendations Holmes should be classified as a â€Å"Black Widow† even though he is a male. It is true the biggest trait of a â€Å"Black Widow† is the female part, but gender should not be as important as motive. Gender unconsidered Holmes clearly fit the description. Therefore criminologist might reconsider classifying primarily on gender. Looking primarily at gender leaves gaps and flukes that do not seem to fit the â€Å"normal† stereotype in profiling and Holmes proves that. Holmes is a â€Å"Black Widow.† Bibliography (1) H.H. Holmes. 2012. Biography.com 18 Apr 2012, 06:28 http://www.biography.com/people/h-h-holmes-307622 (2) H. H. Holmes Americas First Serial Killer. Dir. John Borowski. Waterfront Productions, 2004. Documentary. (3) John Philip, Jenkins. Mudgett, Herman Webster. Britannica Biographies (2011): 1. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 18 Apr. 2012 http://ezproxy.scottsdalecc.edu:2309/ehost/detail?sid=87fc7c73-9859-4344-a053-88394e30cdd1%40sessionmgr15vid=4hid=13bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=f5hAN=32418760 (4) Martin, John B. The Master of the Murder Castle: A Classic of Chicago Crime. Harpers Magazine. Harpers Magazine Foundation, Dec. 1943. Web. 18 Apr. 2012. http://www.harpers.org/archive/1943/12/0020617. (5) Wikipedia contributors. H. H. Holmes. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 16 Apr. 2012. Web. 18 Apr. 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._H._Holmes