He ultimately confessed to murdering Pitezel and two of his daughters. Police eventually discovered the body of one of the murdered children, and this discovery led to Holmes’ arrest.įollowing his arrest, Holmes claimed to have killed more than 200 people in his Murder Castle. Interestingly, while on the run, Holmes had misled Pitezel’s wife as well, collecting the insurance money for his former assistant and living with his widow and three of their children. The number of his victims is still debated by historians. While reports suggest Holmes killed as many as 200 people in his sinister lair, his actual number of victims may have been much lower. Holmes Really Build a ‘Murder Castle’? Holmes’ Victims All of these descriptions, however, were described by what were likely overly embellished or even fabricated news reports in the 1890s. The basement, claims said, was a macabre facility of acid vats, pits of quicklime (often used on decaying corpses) and a crematorium, which the killer used to finish off his victims. The rooms were also allegedly outfitted with trapdoors over chutes that dropped Holmes’ unsuspecting victims to the building’s basement. According to sensationalist reports, the space featured soundproof rooms, secret passages and a disorienting maze of hallways and staircases. This edifice became known as Holmes’ booby-trapped Murder Castle. He purchased an empty lot in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago, and built a labyrinthine structure with shops on the first floor and small apartments above.
Historians believe Holmes, a masterful and charismatic con artist, had swindled money from his drugstore employers. Once there, he changed his name to Holmes, reportedly as an homage to the fictional English detective Sherlock Holmes, the literary creation of author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. As an adult, he abandoned his young wife and child in 1885 to move to Illinois. Holmes was born Herman Webster Mudgett in New Hampshire in 1861.
CASTLE LAYOUT SERIAL
Holmes, America’s first documented serial killer.
However, the World’s Fair became better known for a structure that was more gruesome than organizers could have imagined-the so-called “Murder Castle” of H.H. The enormous exhibition featured many wondrous exhibits, including the United States’ first gas-powered motorcar, the Daimler quadricycle, and a 1,500-pound statue of the Venus de Milo made of chocolate. The 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago-known at the time as the Columbian Exposition-celebrated the 400th anniversary Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the Americas.
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