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14 Horrifying Facts About H.H. Holmes And His Nightmarish Castle

Amanda Sedlak-Hevener
Updated September 23, 2021 493.1K views 13 items

H.H. Holmes, also known as Henry Howard Holmes, was born Hermann Webster Mudgett in 1861. He changed his name after graduating from high school and embarking on a medical career that provided him with the skills needed to conduct his twisted experiments and gruesome acts. 

What H.H. Holmes did to his victims lives on in infamy, as he is credited with being one of the first serial killers in America. Holmes built his murder castle - named for its specific purpose of providing him with a place to slay his targets - in Chicago, and opened its doors to tourists visiting the nearby World's Fair in 1893. Some, if not all, of those tourists never made it home from the White City. What did the Devil in the White City do to them?

Holmes was detained by police in 1894 for insurance fraud, although the charges against him quickly expanded to include murder. He received a capital sentence, and was hanged in May 1896. It's believed that he took hundreds of lives, although he only confessed to ending 27. These H.H. Holmes facts are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

 

  • He Built a Hotel-Turned-Murder Castle

    He Built a Hotel-Turned-Murder Castle

    Holmes used the money that he received from committing insurance fraud to construct his "murder castle" in Chicago. It was technically a three-story hotel, complete with a uniquely constructed second and third floor. There were gas chambers, trap doors, hidden rooms, disorienting maze-like hallways, chutes leading down into the basement (perfect for dumping cadavers), and other horrific features. In some rooms blowtorches were set up while another was dubbed "the hanging room." He also had each floor set up so that if someone moved around on it, an alarm system would sound.

    The structure was technically a hotel, but it quickly became used as a machine for ending lives.

  • He Made His Fiancée Vanish Without A Trace

    Holmes met Minnie Williams while out of town on a business trip. Williams was a teacher in Texas, and she fell for him very fast. They entered into a relationship, and she moved to Chicago to be with him. Her sister Annie joined them, too. Holmes proposed to Minnie, and suggested that she give him ownership of her property in Fort Worth, Texas.

    After the transfer went through, she disappeared without a trace. Only some of her belongings, including a distinctive gold chain, were ever found. 

  • He Suffocated His Fiancée's Sister In A Hotel Bank Vault

    He Suffocated His Fiancée's Sister In A Hotel Bank Vault

    Annie Williams was the sister of his wealthy fiancée Minnie. Unlike Minnie, who vanished, Annie's remains were later recovered from Holmes's creepy hotel. His hotel had been designed with a bank vault, which he used to keep records, store valuables - and commit heinous acts.

    He asked Annie to go into the vault and retrieve some files for him, and then he swung the door shut, sealing her inside. She perished of suffocation after slowly using up all of the oxygen in the vault. Investigators found scratches from her fingernails, showing that she had tried to claw her way out.

  • He Gassed A Friend And Set Him On Fire, Then Took His Children

    He Gassed A Friend And Set Him On Fire, Then Took His Children

    The demise of Benjamin Pitezel was a tricky one, since he was one of Holmes's co-conspirators, as well as one of his targets. He and Holmes arranged for Pitezel to fake his own passing so that Holmes could collect his life insurance money. Some of that money would then go to Pitezel himself.

    However, the plan went awry when Holmes actually ended Pitezel. Holmes then ran off with several of Pitezel's children. 

  • He Took The Lives Of Three Of Pitezel's Children

    He Took The Lives Of Three Of Pitezel's Children

    Holmes ended the Pitezel children's father, Benjamin, in order to collect on his life insurance policy. 

    He then ran off with three of Pitezel's children - Alice, Nellie, and Howard - and took them to Toronto, where he soon took their lives, as well. 

  • He Asphyxiated His Victims With Gas Or Left Them To Perish In A Sealed Room

    He Asphyxiated His Victims With Gas Or Left Them To Perish In A Sealed Room

    Holmes's hotel was filled with all kinds of treacherous spaces. The rooms had well-sealed windows and doors that made it easy for Holmes to turn them into gas chambers. All that he had to do was lock the door and turn on the gas jets that he had built into the space.

    There was also a room that had no windows or doors. The only access to it was via a trapdoor in the ceiling. Holmes would drop a person down there, seal up the trapdoor, and let them perish of thirst and starvation.