INTRO

His name was Herman Webster Mudgett, but he was better known as Dr. H. H. Holmes.  Although he is referred to as America’s first serial killer, his crimes occurred after those of others such as Thomas Neill Cream and the Austin Axe Murderer.  But he did trap, torture, and murder hundreds of people in the span of his life.  His case was notorious in its time.  He was born in Gilmanton, New Hampshire on May 16, 186 and was the son of Levi Horton Mudgett and his wife, formally Theodate Page Price.  His father was a wealthy and respected citizen and had been the local postmaster for nearly 25 years.  Early in life, Herman dropped his name and become known as H. H. Holmes.  That was the name he used in medical school and for his crimes.  As a child and young man, he constantly got in trouble.  It was also remembered that he was cruel to animals and children.  The only thing that seemed good about him was that he was an excellent student.  Holmes was married three times to Clara A. Lovering (1878), Myrta Z. Belknap (1887, bigamously), and then Georgiana Yoke (1894).  He had a daughter with Myrta named Lucy and a son with Clara.  He was also the lover of Julia Smythe, wife of Ned Connor.  She later became one of his victims.  During the time he got married to Clara, he was studying medicine in at a small college in Burlington, Vermont.  Holmes used his wife’s money to pay for his tuition while he was there.  But as a student he was beginning to dabble in depravity.  He transferred to a new school in 1879 and while there, he figured out a way of stealing cadavers from the labs.  He would disfigure the faces, then place them somewhere so that it would look as if they had been killed accidentally.  When the bodies of his “relatives” were discovered, he got paid the insurance policies for their death that he had made before hand.  After one of his biggest swindles where he had an insurance on a body for 1$2,500, he left Ann Arbor and abandoned his wife and infant son.  Clara never saw her husband again.  He disappeared for a span of six years, and no one knows for sure what he was doing during that time.  When he showed up again, he started working in a drug store in Englewood which was owned by Mrs. Dr. Holden, who mysteriously disappeared a little while later.  Holmes took over the store, and no one questioned it.  After a short trip to Indiana in 1889, his new criminal era began.