Essay Sample on Serial Killer: Dr. Henry Howard Holmes

Introduction

Dr. Henry Howard Holmes commonly known as H.H. Holmes was an American serial killer from Chicago. His real name was Herman Webster Mudgett. He is widely considered as the first serial killer in America because he is the first case of a documented serial killer in America. He was born on 16th of May 1861 in Gilmanton, New Hampshire. He was the son of Levi Horton Mudgett and Theodate Page Price. He took up the name Henry Howard Holmes after he started practicing medicine at a pharmacy in Chicago. Other than a serial killer, Holmes was also a con artist and fraudster who was involved in multiple cases of insurance fraud. He killed most of his victims in a building near World's Columbian Exposition that happened in Chicago. The house that would later be known as 'Murder Castle' was equipped with secret passages, gas jets, and even a kiln to cremate the bodies of his victims (Brown, Hickey and Harris 1). The serial killer was also guilty of being legally married to more than one wife without the knowledge of the other women. Seduction was among the techniques that he used to lure his victims. He died on 7th of May, 1896 through hanging in Moyamensing Prison in Pennsylvania, at the age of 34.

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Reign of Terror

Holmes reign of terror started from 1872 in Gilmanton and ended on 1894. According to Brown, Hickey, and Harris, Holmes' childhood friend Tom was the first human victim that he murdered(3). Although the event was documented as an accident where Tom fell from a landing of an abandoned house, witnesses say that Holmes was standing behind Tom close enough to push him. That was in 1872 at the age of 11. His teenage years didn't have any recorded incidences of crime until he enrolled at the University of Michigan School of Medicine. At the University he reportedly procured dead bodies to study and use for his research. He also used the dead bodies for some of his scams to defraud insurance companies. He received his Doctor of Medicine(M.D) from the University of Michigan in 1884 and went ahead to adopt the alias Dr. Henry Howard Holmes. As a doctor, Holmes had access to all the resources that he needed to continue killing. According to Biography.com Editors, Holmes moved to Chicago and started working for a couple at a pharmacy in 1885(2). After some few years Holmes took over the business and was initially rumored to have killed the couple, but the allegations turned out to be false. He later started the construction of a hotel opposite his pharmacy that would later be known as the 'Murder Castle.' The castle was completed in 1892 after four years of construction and some meticulous renovations. His rain of terror ended in November of 1894 during his arrest.

Trademarks

Some serial killers tend to have a particular trademark in the way they perform their murders. For most serial killers, the technique involves some form of rape and torture before killing the victims. The case was somehow different for Holmes. For his female victims, he seduced them into sleeping with him before murdering them. There was no documented incident of rape involving Holmes. The victims that he was sexually involved with did so under their own will without any form of coercion. They court each other for some period while Holmes waits for the perfect opportunity to strike. Although not all them, his murders had some financial motive behind them. For example, Holmes convinced Minnie Williams who was one of his lovers to transfer her property in Texas to one of his aliases before murdering her along with her sister. However, one trademark of Holmes killing was the disendowment and removing flesh from his victims' bodies using powerful acids. His preferred mode of disposing of the bodies was cremation, but when the circumstances did not allow, he opted to bury them (Brown, Hickey, & Harris 1).

Victims and Number of Deaths

Huge speculation exists over the exact number of victims that died from Holmes' hands. Holmes himself confessed to 27 murders but told his lawyer that he killed 133 people (Brown, Hickey and Harris 2). Some reports say that he killed between 20 to 200 people. The Chicago World's Fair Exposition kicked off in 1893 and provided the perfect opportunity for Holmes to feed his dark desires. Many of the murders happened during the World's Fair in Chicago. The victims included tourists as well as employees of the hotel. As explained by Brown, Hickey, and Harris, during the Fair, the employees who had been employed for less than two weeks were not entitled to receive any pay(4). Holmes used that opportunity to kill some of his employees to avoid paying them. He fired those that he could not murder. His downfall came through one of his favorite criminal activities that involved insurance fraud. He, along with two other accomplices, Benjamin Pitezel and Marion Hedgepeth, conspired to defraud an insurance agency by faking Pitezel's death. Holmes had met Hedgepeth while serving time for another crime he had committed the previous year. For some reason, Holmes decided it would be easier to kill Pitezel and take all the money. That action infuriated Hedgepeth, and he flipped on Holmes by reporting him to the authorities. Holmes also convinced Pitezel's widow that Pitezel was still alive and in hiding and she allowed him to travel with her two children who became the last people to die at the hands of the serial killer.

Childhood

Like many cases of serial killers, Holmes' childhood is one that has instances of physical abuse and parental neglect. He grew up in a privileged family where his parents were devout Methodists who expected nothing but discipline from him. His mother was a distant and reserved woman who used religion as the guidebook for raising her children. On the other hand, his father was a staunch disciplinarian that would go to extreme means to punish Holmes for going against his will. Some sources indicate that both parents were physically abusive towards him during his childhood. His father who was an alcoholic reportedly held kerosene-soaked rags to the mouth of Holmes and his siblings to shut them up (Brown, Hickey, & Harris, 3). To make matters worse, he was experiencing physical bullying in school.

Isolated from the rest of society, Holmes became unable to form meaningful relationships. He started developing transgressions that would soon lead him to commit an act of murder. Holmes sought refuge in the forest that was near his home. Then he began conducting experiments with small creatures and animals by dissecting them. It may have been a way to remove his frustrations but later developed into an obsession. He moved from dismembering insects and reptiles to mammals such as rabbits and dogs. His fascination continued throughout his teenage life, and he eventually moved to dissect humans.

Significant Events in His Life

One notable event has been described earlier where his father held a rag soaked in kerosene to silence him along with his siblings. Another significant development was the bullying and abuse he suffered at a doctor's office. In this particular occasion, his schoolmates blindsided him and forced him into a doctor's office where they took the hands of a skeleton and forcibly placed them on his face. Holmes later said that that particular event created his curiosity with anatomy and caused him to pursue medicine. Finally, there is the death of his childhood friend Tom who died under unclear circumstances. The official report states that the death was an accident, but some reports indicate that Holmes may have intentionally pushed his friend from the edge of a landing while they were visiting an abandoned building.

Theories to Explain His Conduct

When discussing serial killer behavior, it is essential to try and understand the reason for their actions from a theoretical view. In the case of Holmes, the attachment theory best explains his character and purpose for taking the serial killer route. According to the attachment theory, a break in the bond between mother and child may eventually lead a child to the life of crime (Lee and Choi 100). As a psychological theory, the attachment theory explains serial killer behavior as a product of the interaction between the thought process and practices. As Lee and Choi explain, the attachment theories differ from the biological approaches because they look at the relationships that exist between people(102). Using the attachment theory, Holmes relationship with the primary caregiver prevented him from having a successful development which led to other psychological conditions such as depression, stress and other mental states that pushed him towards committing acts of murder (Lee and Choi 102). The theory could also explain Holmes' preference for women as his victims.

Works Cited

Biography.com Editors. H.H. Holmes Biography. 2 April 2014. A&E Television Networks. PDF. 14 November 2018. <https://www.biography.com/people/hh-holmes-307622>.

Brown, Jerrod, Eric Hickey, and Blake Harris. "One of America's First Recorded Serial Murderers." Forensic Scholars Today 1.2 (2015): 1-6. PDF.

Lee, Ju-Lak and Kwan Choi. "Serial Murder: An Exploration and Evaluation of Theories and Perspectives." American International Journal of Contemporary Research 4 (2014): 99-106. PDF. 14 November 2018. < http://www.aijcrnet.com/journals/Vol_4_No_3_March_2014/11.pdf>.