The Devil in White City

H. H. Holmes

"The Devil in the White City" Just one of his many alias.

H. H. Holmes also known as Henry Holmes, but he was born Hermann Webster Mudgett,New Hampshire 1861.

As a kid he was shy, very smart, but he was bullied alot by his school mates. After graduation Holmes went to the University of Michigan where he got a medical degree.This helped him with his twisted and gruesome crimes.

Holmes is credited to being one of the first serial killers in America,known as "The Devil in The White City. "one of many alias. 

Chicago 1886

Holmes got a job as a pharmacist working for Mr. and Mrs. Holten,shortly after Mr. Holten fell sick and died. After the strange death Holmes talked Elizabeth Holden into signing the business over to him, and shortly after Elizabeth disappeared. 

Murder Castle 

Holmes buys a three story building across the street from the pharmacy,Holmes has the building remodeled but used three different contractor's so nobody would catch on to the usual design.The first floor was shopping, the second floor was office's,and the third floor was the hotel, the rooms were sound proof,there were hidden corridor's, an incinerator in the basement with a shoot for the bodies to go go down, an air tight vault which he used to suffocate people to death, he had a hanging room and much more. There was one person who was there through out the construction Benjamin peitzel a carpenter with a shady past.

1892 The world fair hotel opened for business.Many people checked in but never checked out, Holmes even put adds in the newspaper for help and even put adds out looking for a wife. Holmes would tell them to empty there savings for they would need it for there start up, so when they arrived Holmes would rob and kill them women. Holmes met a woman Mini Williams who was a wealthy railroad Aires she had a large properties in Fort Worth Texas that Holmes talked her out of, soon after Mini disappeared.

1894,the world fair has ended, now the police are concerned with the 50+people missing but Holmes was not a suspect,but fled to Texas anyways.There he stole a horse and was arrested but made bail. He had faked his death and forgot to collect the insurance, but he did remember to collect the insurance money on peitzel death.Holmes then married pretzels wife and adopts his three kids, in the end Holmes killed them all near Canada. 

The End

One of Holmes Insurance acquaint turned him in after he didn't make good on a insurance payment,so he was arrested on the horse theft again and sat in jail over a year while his life was being investigated.

May 7,1896 Holmes was hung, his neck didn't break it took him 12 minutes to die.Holmes confessed to 27 murders, 9 were confirmed but the toll could be up past 200.

Grave of H H Holmes

Was H. H. Holmes Jack the Ripper?

Many researchers believe that H. H. Holmes did not die. He started his spree again and Jack The Ripper was actually new name of H. H. Holmes. I have searched a lot on this question but i couldn't find a complete answer. Here is research of journalist:

"I've read a lot of serial killer literature and was the editor of a Jack the Ripper periodical for a number of years. As far as I know, I was the first person to suggest H.H. Holmes was Jack the Ripper. Unfortunately, I did so as a joke about how silly of an idea it would be.

Ripperology has a serious problem. OK, well, several, but let's focus on this one first: people like to name people they already know about as being the famous killer despite there being no real reason. Walter Sickert, Vincent van Gogh, Lewis Carroll, Jose Rizal, Richard Mansfield, Thomas Neill Cream, Lord Randolph Churchill and Prince Albert Victor, among many others, have been identified as Jack the Ripper by various authors. It's all nonsense with fantastic stories that fall apart the second you look into it. It's one of many reasons why others treat the field like believers in flying saucers or Bigfoot. (And both of those have been named in some of the more outlandish theories too...)

I think it was the Ripper writer Alan Sharp, who is now a comedian, once told a story to explain the phenomena. I'm sure I'll get it wrong, but it goes something like this: A man was walking down the street when he noticed someone looking under the light of a lamp post. The man asked what he was doing and the other replied that he lost some change down the street and was looking for it. The original man asked why he was looking under the lamp post if he dropped the coins nearly a street away, and the other replied that the light was so much better where he was.

Believing that H.H. Holmes is Jack the Ripper is similar. He is at least proven to be a killer, unlike most of these others, and was alive during the murders (which sometimes even the theorists don't check, believe it or not). But there's nothing to suggest he was in London at the time of the Ripper murders, killed in a different way and so forth and so on. Because you have probably heard of him already, he gets more press than much more likely candidates (and even they aren't that likely).

I've read some of the Holmes theories, and they sound far fetched to the extreme. A certain train running from Philadelphia to Chicago has a certain number, and something else has the number if you squint just so, so Holmes was obviously the Ripper. What? No, even if that were true, which it probably isn't, that has nothing to do with, well, anything.

Worse than that, the primary pusher of this theory is Jeff Mudgett, the great-great-grandson of H. H. Holmes. So instead of just advancing a nutty theory, he has ties to it, shades of the author of Uncle Jack (who was caught forging some documents to try to implicate his relative), or Steve Hodel and Gary Stewart, who claimed without real evidence to be the sons of the Black Dahlia killer and the Zodiac killer, respectively. My fiancee pointed out that relatives of a real killer are usually quiet and embarrassed about it but that some people instead want to tell the whole world something that isn't even true. Is writing about the real H. H. Holmes too much work? Why would an ancestor try to bring extra shame to his family name? Fame, money, a TED talk of his own? It just doesn't make sense.

It's unfortunately a non-starter, like most of the theories of the Ripper"

This answer was given by Dan Norder.

Original link: Dan Norder Answer