HH Holmes THE FIRST SERIAL KILLER

DIGGING UP THE TRUTH ABOUT THE MAN WHO CLAIMED HE MURDERED DOZENS OF PEOPLE

- Callum McKelvie

The horrifying crimes of serial killers have long held a macabre grip on the public's imagination.

The United States has seen 3,613 serial murderers between 1900 and 2020, compared to England's 176, and the first documented case dates from two centuries ago: HH Holmes. He bragged of slaughtering 27 people, but later accounts suggest the number may have been far higher. These victims are said to have met their demise in Holmes' 'Murder Castle' - a labyrinthine nightmare of secret passages, acid baths, gas chambers and basement dissecting tables. Today, Holmes has metamorphosed into a contemporary boogeyman, his crimes almost an urban legend. So what is fact and what is fiction in the story of America's first serial killer?

Born Herman Webster Mudgett on 16 May 1861, as a young man Holmes clearly demonstrated a keen intelligence. Although he would later say he considered himself to be “below the average” in “mental ability", his intellect made him an easy target for classroom bullies. It’s said that one day they forced the quiet lad to touch the bones of an anatomical skeleton (either in the schoolroom or the local doctor's office, accounts differ) hoping to terrify him. The effect, however, was quite the opposite. As Holmes stared into the skull's empty sockets, he found a strange feeling consuming him. This experience began his lifelong obsession with death - some sources state that as a child he carried out dissections on small animals and even dogs.