Public+Safety+World's+Fair

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​**__H. H. Holmes: The Killer of the Fair__ "Herman W. Mudgett" **

"**I was born with the devil in me. I could not Help the Fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing -- I was born with the "Evil One" standing as my sponsor beside the bed where i was ushered into the world, and he has been with me since**" - H. H. Holmes

 " **I Believe I am growing to resemble the devil."**- H. H. Holmes  **Dr. Herman Webster Mudgett, otherwise known by his alias Henry Howard Holmes, was born in 1860 in Gilmanton, New Hampshire. Holmes graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School in 1884 and later moved to Chicago to practice pharmacy under his new name, H. H. Holmes. Holmes married Clara Lovering in 1878, but in 1887 he married Myrta Belknap, making him a bigamist. Holmes, again, married his third wife Georgina Yoke in 1894 and even had relations with another women named Julia Smythe who would sadly become one of his many victims. During the summer of 1886, Holmes came across Dr. E.S. Holton, a drug store owner who had cancer and was soon to die. Holmes got a job working for Holton and convinced Holton’s wife, who was working the shop, to let him buy the shop and that she could live upstairs even after Holton’s death. After Holton died, Holmes got the drugstore and murdered Holton’s wife. This would lead to the start of his most horrific act, creating his Murder Castle.** =__Murder Castle__ H.H. Holmes bought a empty lot across from his drug store that he had been eyeing and built his three-story, block-long Murder Castle. He said it was a “Hotel” for the people that were attending the World’s Columbian Exposition. While the bottom floor contained his drug store and many shops, the upper two stories had: - Doors that opened to brick walls - Stairways to nowhere. - Many secret rooms . - Doors that only opened from the outside. The Worlds Fair hotel was an ugly building that was dull and not to flashy. The crematory on the interior of the basment was kept at three thousand degrees. Holmes was very meticulous to rid himself of all evidence of his gruesome crimes. Holmes would always inspect the builders as they constructed his hotel, each one finding faults in the work. As a result none of the workers stayed long, which was his plan. This was because he wanted to make sure no one could know where all the rooms were inside. Holmes used many different workers to construct the “Hotel” so no one would be able to know the entire lay out of the castle when it was complete. Most of Holmes’s victims were female, lured to the home by promises of jobs or even marriage. = ** Holmes would: **
 * - Lock victims in soundproof rooms and pour poisonous gas through air vents into those rooms.
 * - Discard the bodies down a secret chute that went to the basement.
 * - Dissect the dead bodies, strip them of flesh, and craft the skeletons into models that he would sell to medical schools.
 * - Cremate bodies or put them in pits of acid.
 * - Use the most remote room in the castle to perform hundreds of illegal abortions and kill the mothers.



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 * On May 7th, 1896, H. H. Holmes was hung in a prison in Pennsylvania. When he was hung, his neck did not immediately break and so he slowly died, twitching for over 15 minutes. Holmes requested that he be buried in concrete because he did not want anyone digging up his body and dissecting him like he dissected his countless victims. The Murder Castle was burnt down and destroyed, and years later a U.S. Post Office was built in its place. Strange things have been reported to happened there, such as dogs would bark and whine as they walked passed.**

<span style="color: #ff0000; display: block; font-family: 'Batik Regular'; font-size: 13.2pt; text-align: center;">One of the strangest things of all, is most definitely the Holmes curse... <span style="display: block; font-family: Batik Regular; font-size: 11pt; msobidifontsize: 12.0pt; text-align: center;">Merely two months after Holmes was buried in two tons of concrete, Dr. William Matten, witness at Holmes’ case, dropped dead on the spot due to blood poisoning. But this isn’t the only bizarre case. The coroner and Dr. Ashbridge, the judge who sentenced Holmes to death, each died of an “unknown illness.” The superintendent of the prison that held Holmes suddenly committed suicide, a father of one of the victims was burned severely in a freak gas explosion, and the office of Holmes’ claims manager caught fire and everything was burned to ashes except a portrait of Holmes. Also, a priest that prayed with Holmes before his execution was found dead behind his church and Linford Biles, another jury member was electrocuted in a bizarre accident involving electrical wires. One freak event having to do with someone associated with Holmes would be mere chance, but not seven or more. Maybe there is a Holmes curse after all....

**__// Works Cited //__** “A Big Swindle.” //Los Angeles Times// [Los Angeles] 19 Nov. 1894: 1. //ProQuest Historical Newspapers//. Web. 11 Dec. 2009. <[]>.

“H. H. Holmes.” //The Serial Killer Database//. TruTv, n.d. Web. 15 Dec. 2009. <[]>.

“H. H. Holmes Biography .” //www.biography.com//. A&E television network, 2008. Web. 11 Dec. 2009. [].

“Holmes St. Louis Record.” //New York Times// 7 Nov. 1895: 9. //ProQuest Historical Newspapers//. Web. 11 Dec. 2009. <[]>.

Jordan, Jennifer. “The Devil in the White City.” //Mystery Magazine//. lifeloom.com, Fall 2003. Web. 12 Dec. 2009. <[]>.