The Bizarre and Twisted Evolution of HH Holmes Castle of Horrors

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The three story building looked normal from the outside, with shops and his personal drug store occupying the ground floor. The upper two floors were a maze of killing and torture rooms, lacking of windows and locking from the outside. Holmes put in gas lines in some of the windowless rooms where he would lock victims in and listen to them die as poison was pumped in.

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The basement was the most horrific site of all, fashioned with a furnace for torching bodies and dissection tables used to peel away the flesh from human bodies using strong acids. Of course, the skeletons left over were cleaned and specially prepared for shipment all over the United States to medical schools.

By 1892, the horror house was  ready for full capacity. Holmes took the initiative to add hotel rooms and a front desk, louring tourists off the streets-a way for him to fund is ghoulish tendencies perhaps. H.H. Holmes also placed ads in newspapers for job listings, tempting young women to the hotel and then killing and robbing them when they arrived.

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It wasn’t until 1893 that Holmes did the majority of his killing. During this time, the Chicago World’s Fair was in town, bringing hundreds of strangers to Chicago. The fair introduced Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix, Quaker Oats, and Cream of Wheat-convenience foods.

Over a six month span thousands of fair-goers went missing. It was later said that Holmes would take many of those travelers and put them all into on room and suck it dry of oxygen.

After the fair ended, Holmes grew bored and decided to leave Chicago, teaming up with Benjamin Pitezel and Marion Hedgepeth for one last scam in Philadelphia. All three men agreed to fake the death of Pitezel  and share the insurance policy they took out previously on him-sum being $10,000.

Holmes decided to murder Pitezel, kidnap 3 of his children, and run away with all of the money. Hedgepeth was angered and went to the police to rat out Holmes. By the time the police reached Holmes, all three children had been murdered. The authorities were directed to seize the hotel in Chicago where they found the most gruesome and detestable scene-leftover body parts, bones, cadavers, and human hair were scattered all over the hallways and the basement.

When Holmes was in custody he explained to the police that “I was born with the devil inside me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer any more than a poet can stop the inspiration to sing.”

Around the 1895, the hotel burned to the ground. “On May 7, 1896, Holmes was hanged at Moyamensing Prison, also known as the Philadelphia County Prison. Until the moment of his death, Holmes remained calm and amiable, showing very few signs of fear, anxiety or depression. Holmes’ neck did not snap immediately; he instead died slowly, twitching over ten minutes before being pronounced dead 15 minutes after the trap was sprung. He requested that he be buried in concrete so that no one could ever dig him up and dissect his body, as he had dissected so many others. This request was granted.”

No serial killer in history could ever be compared to a man that constructed a castle for the sole purpose of killing human beings, except perhaps Adolf Hitler who could share in this hellish accomplishments.

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