Holmes

Louise Jackson

Who Am I?

Herman Webster Mudgett

Born: May 16 1861. Gilmanton, NH

I have been many things in my life, a physician,

a hospital keeper, a drug store employee and a hotel

owner. Now I am dead for my crimes. I died on May

7

th, 1896. I had a good run, I out did the now famous

Jack The Ripper in London and killed many people.

Some want to claim I am Jack The Ripper, but alas I

can not take credit for his crimes, he is a master of the

craft in his own right and it wouldn’t be fair to him for

me to take credit. I am a fair and reasonable man,

although many would not say that I am because of what

I built and did to people. Well, to you they are people,

to me they were a means to an end and a stain on

humanity. OK, so I did kill women and children, but

they were or were going to become a problem for

society and I couldn’t let that happen. I am after all a

gentleman. I am a gentleman in society, but if you knew

me behind these walls you would not think so highly of

me I am sure.

I have been killing since as long as I can

remember, but I have only been charged with the one

crime, because unlike my counterpart in London, I have

a clever way to get rid of the bodies or victims as you

call them. To me they make me money and are being

put to good use and are getting people off of the streets.

Why do you think I became a doctor and drug store

employee? To perfect my craft. I am a learned man and

a gentleman under the right circumstances. My parents

aren’t the brutes that people make them out to be. Yeah

those profilers want to think I was abused and I started

off killing animals and abusing other children and

animals but I did not. I was as normal as anyone else

growing up when I did.

I have been a happily married man and father, if

I was as cold and heartless as these would be profilers

say I am then how could I have done that? Answer me

that? OK so my son went missing after my wife left me

and returned home to her family and then ultimately did

the worst she could do and marry someone else, but that

was not my fault. Or was it? Who was my first victim?

Well, let me finish telling my story and I will let you in

on all the details.

How It All Began…

I married my first wife Clara Lovering on

January 28, 1887. It was a happy marriage and we had a

son, he was a good child. His name was Robert, I have

learned that he became a certified public accountant and

served as the city manager of Orlando, Fl. That’s makes

me very proud to know, I would have liked to know my

son, but I had other plans for my life and he is better off

not knowing me or the monster I am called. I was in

University when we married and to make ends meet I

would sell insurance and file insurance claims. Nothing

wrong with that is there? Well, I guess when you are

filing for monies on behalf of “widows” and using

cadavers from the University as the proof of the dead

and then pocketing the money then I guess that would

be fraud, but hey I have to make a living and support

my family and people don’t die off fast enough for me

to make a profit. So I got a little ambitious and I

improvised, others have done the same, why am I being

persecuted for it

Well, now let me tell you a tale, an accidental

death if you may, this would be the first and generate

my love of killing, before I did it out of necessity and I

would only use already dead bodies, but after this I

would love killing and want to use fresh bodies to ply

my craft and fraud. I was travelling on a train in a

sleeper car so as not to be around other passengers,

because well, people get on my nerves with all their

nonsensical ramblings about their mundane and boring

existences they call lives, after about an hour into my

trip a young boy of about 4 years old made his way into

my car. I didn’t mind that but this child was just being a

nuisance, climbing all over the seats and hanging out of

the windows, you know the sort. Anyway while we

were sitting in the car, the ticket master came through

and saw the boy asked if he was my child. I told him no

and I didn’t know where he came from, but that he was

ok to stay while they found his parents. Anyway, while

they were off looking for the child’s parents he was

hanging out the open window again and looking at all

the amazing stuff flying by, when i looked up from my

paper he was dangling precariously out the window. I

just went back to my paper as this wasn’t my child and

it had been about an hour since anyone had come by.

All of sudden I heard a gush of wind and saw his legs

zipping out of the window. All I did was get up and

close the window and went back to my paper. Yes you

may say it is cold and heartless and I should have raised

the alarm, but like I said no one was obviously missing

the child from the length of time he was in my car.

When we got to the stop I left without a second

thought. Now there was all kinds of commotion coming

from the train, as someone had alerted the ticket master

to having lost their child. I just put my head down and

slinked off into the crowd. She should have been more

careful and worried about where he was about 2 hours

ago. Oh well she lived and learned from that mistake.

One of the local papers I later read said that I was the

last person seen with the boy alive. Well, that is true,

but they were claiming I had, had something to do with

his disappearance. Now that just was not true. He had

fallen from a speeding trains window, I hadn’t had

anything to do with that. I have been blamed in several

disappearances and deaths that I had nothing to do with

over the years. But this really was the first death I had

seen that had made me want to be a part of the action as

it were and to feel the last breath be sucked out of the

persons lungs and to see the light fade from their open

eyes. Cold? Yes, but I am a monster after all so the

papers are so fond of saying. No one really knows me

or what I am or whether I have feelings or not, so how

can they label me a monster? Now, Clara was back

home in New Hampshire with her family by this time

because she was as unhappy in our marriage as I was,

and she felt she didn’t know me and she didn’t want to

be around or a party to my misdeeds as she called them.

She also claimed that I was violent with her and she had

our housemates back up on this. I was a violent man,

but I did not lay a hand on her unless she provoked me

to it. She sure did like the money that came from those

deeds, but however, now she was back in New

Hampshire with her family and she was too busy trying

to replace me, which was fine with me. She had only

married me for prestige and money, and when she

realized that wasn’t going to happen she left me. I

wasn’t the doctor or lawyer with money she had hoped

for, to her I was just a common con man, making a

living off of others ignorance and misfortune.

I had left New Hampshire and was living in

Mooers Forks, New York when the incident with the

boy happened and because I was scared of what could

happen if they found out I had just let the boy fall out

the window and not raised the alarm, I left town pretty

quickly. I then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,

where I took a job as a hospital keeper in the

Norristown State Hospital. I worked there only a few

days, but left because cleaning up after patients is not

what I had gone to medical school to do. They also said

I had a bad attitude towards the patients and was violent

with some of them, not true, but hey I don’t really care

as that was not the job for me anyway. I then took a job

in a drugstore, my job was to make medicine and fix the

prescriptions of patients. I enjoyed this work and I got

to experiment with different drugs and to see what they

would do. I also got to know what could make someone

sick and not arouse suspicion. While I was their

working a mother accused me of selling her poison and

of killing her son with medicine she had purchased at

the drugstore. I did not do this, I would have liked to

have taken the credit, but alas I was not the one, but

because there was a lot of heat coming my way, I left

town pretty quickly.

Now I moved on to Chicago, the city I would

come to call home and settle in as you were. I changed

my name before arriving due to all the scams I had been

involved in trying to make a living, and they were

coming after me pretty hard, so I changed my name to

Dr. Henry Howard Holmes. While in Chicago, I met

and married my 2nd wife Myrta Z. Belknap. She was

originally from Minneapolis Minnesota. We were

married in Pennsylvania, but left shortly thereafter. We

had a beautiful daughter Lucy Theodate Holmes. I gave

her my mothers middle name. I loved my mother

despite what people may think. My daughter became a

success despite what her father was called by becoming

a Public Schoolteacher. Both of my children were

successes in their own right despite having me as a

father and I am very proud of them.

Married life is not all it is cracked up to be, and

I grew bored of Myrta. So, while I was in the city and

taking care of my business, I would have affairs with

many women. Now when I moved here to Illinois I

worked for Mr. Elizabeth Holton in their drugstore.

They have said I was a good employee and truth be told

I liked the couple and I worked hard because they

trusted me and always paid me on time and never

questioned my work. I was such a good employee that

when they were ready to sell the store they gave me

first bid and naturally I accepted. I was now the proud

owner of my own drugstore and could do what I

pleased and not have to worry about answering to

anyone. Now owning my own drugstore was great and

all but I wanted more, and I wanted more access to

being able to kill without being found out, so my

solution to this was to buy the lot across the street from

this drugstore and build a multi-use building. Bottom

floor store front, second floor apartments and third floor

would be a hotel for the upcoming Worlds Columbian

Exposition. I also had a wife called Georgina Yoke who

I married on January 4, 1894. In order to make this

work I had to get rid of Myrta and my daughter, but I

loved my daughter more than life, so I just left them in

the suburbs and sent them money when I could and left

them on their own. I would go and visit my daughter

though. Georgina and I were happy like always for a

short time, but then she started to want children and

more of my time than I wanted to give, so I found me a

new mistress, Julia Smythe.

After the ground floor was complete and open I

had a drug store there and had an employee called Ned

Connor. Julia was his wife, although they were also

tenants of mine in the apartments I had not seen her and

him together so I did not know they were married.

When I met her I did not know she was married as she

was not forth coming with that information. We had

been together a little over 6 months when I finally

found out, that infuriated me so much that one evening

while she was visiting me in my office at the back of

the drugstore I confronted her about it.

Her husband had come to me earlier that day

about it and I had told him that I would not come

between a man and his wife on purpose, but if he did

not back off and kept threatening me I would make him

and her disappear. This must have been a very good

threat because he left town that same afternoon.

Probably why Julia came to me that evening. I am

getting ahead of myself here. I don’t want to go right

into how my first official kill happened here, but I have

come to the part in the story where I need to tell you

about it. So I have now told you how I began my

killing, with the accidental death and disappearance of

my son, but now I must move on to my first official

killing and why.

My First

Julia Smythe: Chicago.

Julia, came to me the night of her husband

Ned’s disappearing from Chicago, he was later found

hiding out in another city, too scared to be in the same

city as me, because he said I had made such a

convincing threat to his life. Anyway, he wasn’t a good

employee anyway. They weren’t good tenants also,

they were noisy and Julia thought of herself as a singer

and quite frankly she was tone deaf! Anyway, on to the

story at hand. Julia came to me one evening after the

drugstore had closed. I was doing my monthly bills and

taking account of the till and sorting out the employees’

wages so I didn’t like to be interrupted. Julia knew this

as she had tried to come to me here a couple times

before and I had told her not to interrupt me during this

time and I would call upon her when I was ready. Julia

like all women doesn’t listen very well. So, that was

strike one, second strike was her husband having left

me an employee less and told me she was his wife,

which she had not told me, it wouldn’t have mattered it

might actually have made her more appealing, but I

detested liars, and third she was accusing me now of

her husband’s disappearance.

She sat across from my desk with her skirt

pulled up revealing her calf and which bothered me in

some way, like she was trying to precure a client like a

common prostitute, she was clicking her finger nail on

her teeth impatiently and telling me all about her

husband leaving in the middle of the night and leaving

her nothing, and how she felt I had, had something to

do with his death. If it wasn’t the clicking of the

fingernail that was driving me mad it was the

accusation. I was being accused as it was of the death of

one of my creditors in the building of my hotel, John

DeBrueil, who had died unfortunately of apoplexy,

nothing to do with me, just an unfortunate death, but

because I was in his credit and all the scams being

claimed I was doing here, I was suspect number one.

Anyway, she was beginning to frazzle my nerves with

the incessant whining and clicking on her teeth. I

slammed my pen down, spewing ink all over my

papers.

She jumped at this and came out of her whining

revery and stared at me wide-eyed and shocked. I told

her if she didn’t be quiet and let me finish I wouldn’t be

responsible for my actions. At this she seemed to find

her composure again and she stood up and slammed her

fists on the desk and leaned into me and told me to

make it wait until the morning because she was more

important. To me no woman is more important than my

money. This infuriated me so much I lost my head and

jumped to my feet and grabbed her around her neck and

just kept squeezing, she managed to wriggle loose

because I was trying to do this across the desk and

bolted for the door to my office when she caught her

breath. I rounded the desk so fast I was between her and

the door in seconds. I hit her across the nose and blood

spirted out and onto her dress, she looked at me in a

dazed and confused fashion then lurched for the door

again. This time I whirled her around and grabbed her

into my body as quick as lightning and then placed my

arm around her neck and started to squeeze. She

struggled for a couple of minutes, but it as futile against

my snake like arm and strength squeezing her like a boa

constrictor. She slumped against me and I dropped her

limp body to the floor.

I couldn’t leave her or finish her off here in my

office, so I had a chute built into many of my rooms

and this one being one of them, I dropped her limp

body into the chute and closed the door. I heard her

body bang into the edges of the chute and then the last

time after a couple of seconds a loud thud as she landed

on the basement cement floor. She would be out for a

little while, so I finished up my work and closed my

office then went on down to my basement, where I

could dispose of Julia’s body. I revved up the furnace

of my crematorium I had, had built down there. I took

my coat and waist coat off and hung it on the coat rack,

I took my lab coat off of the rack and put it on. I then

dragged Julia over to my work area. It was a surgical

table with all my instruments on a long bench beside it

and nice bright lights with which to work in. I put my

arms under her arms and picked her up and put her on

the table. I had to first make sure she was dead, so I

poured chloroform onto a rag and stuffed it into her

mouth and covered her nose completely. By this time

she was barely breathing anyway. I then stripped her of

all her clothes and threw them in the furnace.