H.H.Holmes

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Born Herbert Webster Muudgett in 1861 he went to medical school in the early 1880s. He would spend 40 hours a week in dissection class and began selling dead bodies to the school. He could make $20-$30 per body and did this for 4 years. He began also taking out life insurance on some who died from questionable means. Even killed their families to cover up the deed. He went on to kill his best friend and business partner in 1892 and with the $20,000 he received from the life insurance he bought the property at the corner of 63rd and Wallace in the Chicago suburb of Englewood. He started out with a drug store and barbershop on the ground floor but went on to build three more floors of rooms, 30 rooms on each floor. He changed his name at this time to H.H.Holmes and named the building "the castle". He employed different carpenters to do different parts of the building so none of them knew what was being created. He had a vault on the top floor which he used to torture and starve his victims until they signed over paperwork he needed to steal their lands or other property. The rooms were built in a maze which helped to confuse his victims. He piped noxious gas into rooms through the gaslights. One room had a bottomless closet and others had trap doors, and shutes that led to the basement. In the basement, he had a dissection lab, a crematorium, and two vats, one with carbolic acid and another with bleach. He was handsome and flirtatious, able to get women to move in and come to work for him as maids and secretaries. During the Columbia Exposition in 1893, Chicago was abuzz with thousands of people who came to see the exposition and The World's Fair that year. Many of these stayed in The Castle. He even opened an employment agency to get more victims. He was finally taken into custody in 1894. He admitted to 27 murders but authorities believe the number may be more like 200. Before his execution on May 7, 1896 (age 34) he requested that he be buried 10 feet under concrete so that his body could not be dissected. He is said to be a sadist who enjoyed watching people suffer.