 Born in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, under the name of Herman Webster Mudgett.  Father was an alcoholic, and his mother was a religious woman, who read him the Bible.  Bullies at school forced him to view and touch a skeleton, but he was fascinated with it, and became obsessed with death.

 Married Clara Lovering in 1878, and had a child, Robert became an accountant and was the City Manager of Orlando, Florida.  Graduated from University of Michigan Medical School in While there, he stole bodies from the ward and collected their life insurance claims.  While still married to Clara, he married Myrta Belknap in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Their child, Lucy, became a schoolteacher.  Lived with Myrta until 1894, then married Georgiana Yoke, while still married to Clara and Myrta, when he moved to Denver, Colorado.

 Got a job at a drugstore when he was 24, owner was dying of cancer.  After the owner died, he bought the store from the widow, but was in debt.  After he didn’t pay his monthly mortgage, the wife sought legal action against him, but she “mysteriously disappeared”.  Holmes told people of concern that she had moved to California.

 After the drugstore and two of his marriages, he purchased a lot across from the drugstore.  He built his three story “Castle” for the 1893 World Fair in Chicago.  The first floor contained the drugstore and various shops people could visit, and the top two floors contained his personal office and maze of 100 windowless rooms, used for killings.  He exploited the criminal past of one employee, Benjamin Pitezel, and made him help with his murders.  The rooms had doors that led to brick walls, stairwells to nowhere, and odd angled hallways.  He changed builders multiple times to that he was the only one who knew the entire layout of the building.

 There were no specific victims, only unnamed ones.  After the completion of the hotel, Holmes selected various female employees, who were required to take out life insurance because of their employment, and put them in the rooms upstairs.  He also took people he was in relationships with, as well as hotel guests, to the labyrinth upstairs.

 Victims were taken up to the rooms, and usually killed within a day of being up there.  These soundproof rooms were fitted with gaslines so he could asphyxiate his victims whenever.  Others were locked in a soundproof bank vault, and left to die.  Holmes also had vats of acid and multiple poisons which he used to kill.

 Holmes made the hotel for easy and efficient kills.  He collected life insurance policies on his employed victims.  He also dissected his victims, stripped them of flesh, and sold the body parts to medical schools.  Eventually skeletonized certain bodies and made them in the models for medical schools.

 Holmes abandoned the Castle in Chicago, moved to Fort Worth, Texas, and planned to do the same thing.  However, Holmes found that the law enforcement in Texas was much more strict, so he left.  He traveled from town to town, in the US and Canada.

 In July, 1894, Holmes was incarcerated for the first time, for horse swindling. He was bailed out quickly.  While in jail, he formed a plan with an inmate, Marion Hedgepath.  Plan included taking an insurance policy out on his life, and then faking his death, however, it failed when the insurance company refused to pay, due to suspicion.

 Holmes made the same plan with his long time associate, Pitezel.  Instead of faking his death, he instead killed Pitezel and took the $10000 for himself.  He took custody of 3 of Pitezel’s children, and traveled around the Northern US.  He killed 2 of the children in Toronto, and the other in Indianapolis.

 A member of the Pinkerton Government Services, Detective Frank P. Geyer, was assigned to look for Holmes and the 3 children.  Geyer found the corpses of the 2 girls in Toronto, and the remains of the boy in Indianapolis, which essentially sealed Holmes’ fate.  Hedgepath, Holmes’ former inmate, gave the police information about him, and he was arrested in on November 17 th, 1894.

 Holmes was first tried for the murder of Benjamin Pitezel, to which he confessed.  Was then tried for 30 murders in Chicago, Indianapolis, and Toronto, found guilty.  Throughout the trial, he gave multiple accounts from his life. He first claimed innocence and said he was possessed by Satan, but was denied the plea for insanity.

 H.H. Holmes was hanged at Moyamensing Prison, in Philadelphia, where he was kept prisoner.  While awaiting his execution, Holmes showed no sign of fear or anxiety, and was very calm.  His neck did not snap, but he instead was strangled over the course of 15 minutes.  Was pronounced dead on May 7 th, 1896.

 Estimated kills.  9 were confirmed, but he confessed to 27.  Killed from 1888 to 1894  Convicted of 4 counts of 1 st degree murder, and 6 counts of attempted murder

 Biography. A&E, Web. 4 Nov  Cliff Notes. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Web. 4 Nov  Fold3. Ancestry, Web. 4 Nov The Chicago Tribune from August 18th, 1895, about H.H. Holmes and his life.  TruTV. TEM, Web. 4 Nov  Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., Web. 4 Nov