H. Holmes : The First American Serial Killer

A serial killer is traditional defined as the separate killings of three or more people by an individual over a certain period of time, usually with breaks between the murders. (Angela Pilson, p. 2, 2011) This definition has been accepted by both the police and academics and therefore provides a useful frame of reference (Kevin Haggerty, p.1, 2009). The paper will seek to provide the readers with an explanation of how serial killers came to be and how they are portrayed in the media.

    During the 1893 Columbian Exposition, H.H. Holmes was one of the first serial killers of America. Holmes would lure his victims into his building which he transformed into his “murder castle.” First he would manipulate his victims by coming off as a

He had two children, one son and one daughter. He went out of sight for six years after abandoning Clara and his son. He would always somehow come up with some con as to where he was and what he was doing during the time of his victims' deaths. The police had always questioned him, but had never really pinned anything on him. No one wanted to believe that Holmes was an evil master mind. He was so handsome and charismatic. His tall stature and piercing blue eyes made women often swoon at the sight of him. He could also talk anyone into anything at the sound of his voice and the medical, knowledgeable jargon he used. He even got an old lady to give him her husbands pharmacy after his death sometime after he arrived to Chicago. Other sources said that he killed her and inherited the pharmacy without anyone knowing what happened. Either way the old woman should have been happy that such a noble man was running her pharmacy. He was always the perfect assistant, making sure that her money was going towards helping the company in any way. He would even meet up with venders, creating a stable environment for her and her dying husband. He eventually killed her but when others would ask he stated that she had moved to California, but had no forwarding address (Taylor, Troy).

Henry Howard Mudgett, better known as H.H Holmes, to most is just a ghost story. He is nothing more than a black mark on America’s extensive history, a part of history that is skipped over more often than not. However, H.H Holmes was an important part of United States history. Without the horrors of H.H Holmes, we would not have as strong of a law enforcement as we do today. H.H Holmes helped open a new world of research to psychologists and without him, psychologists would not have as much knowledge of the impacts of poor mental health as they do today. Because of H.H Holmes, the government would not know how to punish crimes of such high degree, or how to contribute certain factors such as mental illness for such crimes. H.H Holmes helped

Holmes had been born into a wealthy New Hampshire family and was given the name Herman Webster Mudgett (America’s Serial Killers). “If Mudgett or his brother or sister were bad, their strict Methodist parents sent them to the attic for a full day without speaking or eating,. Mudgett’s father was especially abusive after he’d been drinking - which was often” (Spikol). However, his father was a wealthy and respected citizen and had been the local postmaster for nearly twenty five years (Taylor). It is surprising an important member of the community was a child abuser. The abuse of his father may be one of the

Serial Killers are nothing new to today’s society. Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy shocked our nation with their violent, brutal, and at times unbelievable crimes, although none of them were as notorious as Herman Webster Mudgett better known as Dr. H.H. Holmes. A man that carried himself as a smart, intellectual member of society, but in reality he was a smooth talking conman and very disturbed individual. A man who designed and built a building with torture rooms that would serve as his play house. Being born and raised in Chicago, I enjoy learning about its rich history. I had heard about this serial killer before, but I was not aware of his complete story. I am taking this

Dr. H. H. Holmes has a passion for murder, and he hides his true personality behind an act of a charming man managing a hotel. Since Holmes uses his creativity to disrupt the lives of innocent people, he brings out the Black City of Chicago. As a result of Holmes’s passion for murder, he has to keep his psychotic talent secret. Only very few people know Holmes’s true lifestyle, and if they do, he kills them. Holmes weaves his way into to his victims’ lives to manipulate them for his personal benefit.. Even though the White City masks some of Chicago’s problems, evil still

To clarify, Henry Howard Holmes known as H. H. Holmes was America’s first serial killer. As a child, Holmes was terrified of the doctor, however a few bullies from his school forced him to touch the real skeleton in their doctor’s office which started his obsession with human anatomy. When Holmes was a teenager he interned at his local doctor’s office and later went to Michigan State for a medical degree and became a skilled doctor. Holmes took out fake insurance policies on the bodies he used in medical school after pouring acid on their face so they were unrecognizable in order to afford college. In 1889 Holmes designed and built a hotel to assist his murders.

While he confessed to 27 murders, Holmes was only linked to nine of them. However, it is said that he is responsible for as many as 200 murders. "I could not help the fact that I was a murderer… The inclination to murder came to me as naturally as the inspiration to do right comes to the majority of persons." (Bio staff).

H.H HOLMES, THE FIRST AMERICAN SERIAL KILLER, IN THE FOLLOW RESEARCH PAPER WE WILL BE LOOKING AT PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF HIS CRIMES TROUGH HIS EARLY CHILDHOOD TILL HIS EXECUTION IN THE LATE 1800’S

When answering the question(s) should James Eagan Holmes, who convicted of 24 counts of murder and 140 counts of attempted murder for the July 20, 2012 shooting of the Century movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, is a tough one. For one thing, I do feel he is mentally unstable and has a chemical imbalance in his brain. When it comes down to it, he should be put the rest, because I feel as, do some of the juniors or in the medical field, that he planned the whole event. The question was the MI the cause of the event, or was the event cause from his will to

The media has been one of the most important and changed aspects in American History. Anytime you turn on your television, there is a chance you will see at the bottom of your screen “breaking news”. Manslaughter, Amber Alerts, homicides, suicides and any other crime may run across your screen in red. Does this really help the situation at hand?

The origin of term "serial killer" was coined by former FBI Special Agent Robert Ressler, one of the establishing individuals from the Bureau's world class Behavioral Science Unit (otherwise known as the "Mind Hunters" or the "Psych Squad"). In Robert Ressler 1992 memoir, Whoever Fights Monsters, Ressler states that, in the mid 1970s, while going to a conference at the British police academy, he heard an individual refer to crimes in series, signifying "a series sexual asaults, robberies, fire related crimes, or murders." Ressler was so awed by the expression that, after going back to Quantico, he started to utilize the expression "serial killer" in his own lectures to depict "the murder of individuals who do one murder, then another and another in a repetitive manner." However, there is an issue with this story, since there is a reported confirmation that this expression existed no less than twelve years before Ressler as far as anyone knows invented it.

“The serial killer ‘is an entirely different criminal,’ ”The term serial killer is misleading on the ground that each murder is intended to be the last.” We see them as a figure of “the dark side of human potential,” but they believe they’re “on a heroic quest for the biggest score possible” They believe they are “the archetypal figure of impurity, the representative of a world which needs cleansing.” However, society knows that serial killers are not heroes, and they’re not cleansing the world. “The figure of the serial killer is violent impurity personified, and it is a construction that necessitates figures of violent purity to confront it.” While it can be argued whether having mental disorders should prevent a serial killer from being capitally punished, it is proven that many serial killers suffer from “paranoid schizophrenia, manic-depressive psychosis, or psychopathology.” It’s even said that “this crime is actually a form of disease. Its carriers are serial killers who suffer from a variety of crippling and eventually fatal symptoms, and its immediate victims are the people struck down seemingly at random by the disease carriers.” Serial killers usually have a stressor in their life that makes them start killing, and when they do “homicidal mania becomes ‘a necessity… linked to the very existence of a psychiatry which had made itself autonomous but needed thereafter to secure a basis for its intervention by gaining recognition as a component of public