HOLMES, HARRY HOWARD aka HERMAN WEBSTER MUDGETT: H H Homes & the Murder Castle TV - Carpe Noctem online - American Ripper in London TV -
He turned murder into a full time job. Dr H H Holmes was an entrepreneur who lusted after blood and wealth. The 1893 Chicago World’s Fair offered him the perfect opportunity to indulge in both: deeds so horrific they created a new category of criminal ... America’s first serial killer. H H Holmes & the Murder Castle
19th July 1895 that the police stormed a building known simply as the Castle. ibid.
The modern serial killer ... the public was transfixed by curiosity. ibid.
The beatings left a uniquely sinister mark. ibid.
The female guests didn’t notice the spy-holes. ibid.
Hundreds who had disappeared in the lead up to the World’s Fair – over the previous three years H H Holmes had murdered so many visitors to his World’s Fair hotel he had a backlog of bodies. ibid.
Holmes walked to the scaffold on 7th May 1896 still in the grip of his dissection room fantasy. ibid.
Herman Webster Mudgett (May 16, 1861 – May 7, 1896), better known under the alias of Dr Henry Howard Holmes, was one of the first documented American serial killers in the modern sense of the term. Holmes opened a hotel in Chicago for the 1893 World’s Fair, which he built himself and which was the location of many of his murders. While he confessed to 27 murders, of which nine were confirmed, his actual body count could be as high as 250, because he took an unknown number of his victims from the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair which was less than 10 miles away from his ‘World’s Fair’ hotel. The case was notorious in its time and received wide publicity through a series of articles in William Randolph Hearst’s newspapers. Interest in Holmes’s crimes was revived in 2003 by Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City, a best-selling non-fiction book that juxtaposed an account of the planning and staging of the World’s Fair with Holmes’s story. Carpe Noctem online article
A serial killer who haunted Chicago in the 1893 World’s Fair. Now modern science tries to determine if he pulled off the greatest con in history. Ripper in London: Devil in the Detail, History 2017
‘I am the descendant of the devil – my great-great-grandfather, H H Holmes – was America’s first serial killer. A conman and an evil genius he engineered a death factory in the late 1800s that claimed an uncountable number of lives. At the very same time another killer was slaughtering victims on the streets of London.’ ibid. Juff Mudgett
H H Holmes outsmarted the law for over ten years. He lured victim after victim into his murder castle in Chicago. He conned them out of their money and their property, and ultimately their lives. ibid.
While he confesses to killing twenty-seven people, five of the twenty-seven he named were later found alive, leading us to question what’s true and what’s invented. ibid.
Exposed to corpses at an early age: this fostered his passion for dissection. ibid.
‘That gap – that’s the exact period that Jack the Ripper was committing his murders in London.’ ibid. Jeff Mudgett
‘In 1888 Britain’s first serial killer – Jack the Ripper – went on a killing spree in London. He was never caught. But I know who the Ripper is – his real name is H H Holmes. He was America’s first serial killer. And he’s my great-great-grandfather.’ American Ripper in London II: The Butcher’s Blade, Jeff
‘We have a number of significant statements Holmes made regarding London.’ ibid.
‘H Holmes, 36, American’ … ‘He’s coming back from Liverpool to New York May ’89’. ibid. historian
‘Travelling the North Atlantic in winter is a rotten journey; if you’re travelling in December you clearly have to travel.’ American Ripper in London III: Whitechapel Runs Red, historian
‘The final Ripper killing was committed indoors which may have inspired Holmes to consider how do I replicate these killings back home.’ ibid.
‘The phrases in the letters were American.’ ibid. forensic linguist
‘The lodger was a medical man. An American’ … One of the leading suspects. ibid.
‘If you took this composite to a judge he’d issue a warrant.’ ibid. Jeff
‘Staring back at me is a very familiar face.’ American Ripper in London IV: Home Sweet Hell, Jeff
In Chicago in the Spring of 1889 H H Holmes hired a construction team to convert his property on 63 and Wallace into what we now know as the Murder Castle. His sinister intent was to build a place to kill and dissect his victims in private. ibid.
‘Carrie Brown was a quintessential Ripper victim: she was a prostitute, she was strangled and disembowelled. ibid. Fox
At the site of a cement warehouse that Holmes owned in 1891 they’ve discovered a field of depressions scattered across the river bed, signs that the proof they’re looking for could be hiding just beneath the surface in an undiscovered burial ground. American Ripper in London V
1893: The World’s Fair … One in every four Americans travelled to the Windy City to witness the marvel. ibid.
As many as 5,000 prostitutes worked in over 30 establishments over the city’s red light district. ibid.
Holmes may have used the cement warehouse as a front for disposing of bodies in order to pull off a large scale killing operation. American Ripper in London VI
He drew up plans to franchise the murder castle. ibid.
Holmes had a set of surgical knives. American Ripper in London VII
Holmes had at least two accomplices at the murder castle. ibid.
HOLMES, JAMES: The Batman Shootings TV - Huffington Post online - The James Holmes Conspiracy TV - Active Shooter. America. Under Fire TV -
Just after midnight on July 20th [2012] in a small town in mid-west America a masked gunman enters a theatre showing the premier of the new Batman film. The Batman Shootings, BBC 2012
James Holmes, aged 24: he dyed his hair orange, and when arrested tells the police he is The Joker. ibid.
Four men die because they put their bodies between the gunman and their girlfriends. ibid.
Columbine – twelve students and one teacher were killed when two high school seniors carried out a carefully planned attack. It was captured on the school CCTV. ibid.
The defendant in the Colorado movie theater shooting had the day of the attack marked ‘with a unique symbol’ on a calendar, a Batman mask and a violent drawing in his apartment, according to testimony Wednesday.
The discoveries were revealed during a pre-trial hearing on whether evidence seized from the apartment after the shooting can be introduced at James Holmes’ trial.
There was no testimony regarding the significance of the items. The Dark Knight Rises, the most recent Batman movie, was showing as 12 people were killed and 70 others were wounded in the July 2012 massacre.
Holmes’ attorneys have acknowledged their client was the gunman, but he has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to murder and related charges.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty and will have to prove he was sane during the attack. Huffington Post online article 23rd October 2013
‘This was such a senseless, senseless tragedy.’ Active Shooter: America. Under Fire s1e1: Aurora, Colorado, parents of victim, Sky Atlantic 2019
Aurora, Colorado: On July 20th 2012 The Dark Knight Rises premiered in the United States. ibid. caption
11.55 p.m.: The theatre was full: around 350 people inside. It was kind of like a party atmosphere. It was the opening of the Batman movie. The shooter purchased a ticket in advance; he went in in street clothes. ibid. rozzer
The shooting lasted 90 seconds. During that time, 70 people were shot. ibid. caption
On May 28th 2015 Dr Reid testified that the shooter was sane and fit to stand trial. ibid.