Dr. Henry Holmes Research Paper

Criminalistics I:
Research Paper
Week #7

Wendy Galvan

Instructor: Amber Metz
August 27, 2014 Criminalistics I:
Research Paper; Dr. Henry Howard Holmes The 19th century was known as an eccentric time period where many changes took place. Changes ranging from topics such as art, literature, poetry and even the fashion style. However, right beneath the surface also arose a figure, a man, who go down in history. One would believe the only way to become a part of history would be by changing the world, bringing something positive, not in this case. It has been almost a decade and a half since the infamous Dr. Henry H. Holmes walked the streets of Chicago; bringing a reign of terror along with him. This particular man would be recognized

Attending the university and working towards getting his medical degree, Holmes was surrounded by corpses and easy access to medications. As a medical student [in order to keep up with tuition]… he stole [the] corpses, which he used to make false life insurance claims (Erik Larson, 2003). With these insurance claims he managed to emphasis and perfect his fraud technics that would later be used throughout his criminal career. As a young boy Holmes preferred to operate on living animals, [had a good precision], became skilled in disabling the creatures without killing them(Depraved, 1994 Harold Schechter pg 11)but while attending the university, Holmes would also use some of the corpses to experiment and perfect his precision skills needed to cut a body without hitting any fatal veins. However, the start of Holmes’s criminal career did not start with the murders, it started with his skills to persuade businesses in investing on other false businesses throughout the nation including

The more he managed to get away with things, the more risks he wanted to take. However, Holmes found the new chapter to his life once he laid his eyes on Chicago, with it being the second largest city at the time, Holmes found his next home. In order to keep a stable position in Chicago he needed a job, luckily for him, a drugstore on 63rd Street, and the main thoroughfare of Englewood, was looking for a clerk. The owner of the drugstore, Mrs. Dr. Holden, had a position opening for a prescription clerk and given with his medical background, Mrs. Dr. Holden did not hesitate to give him the job (Troy Taylor, 2003). With the many charms Holmes had to his personality; he attracted attention to the store, mainly with the female population in the