How Did Holmes Manipulate His Crimes?

While the World Fair was going on in Chicago something more sinister was going on in the background. H.H. Holmes was the owner of a hotel, but this hotel was more like a labyrinth with dead ends and death traps (Hirschlag). This hotel was known as the “Murder Castle”, and it was here that America’s first serial killer was created, and even scarier, the public had no idea. After Holmes was arrested for the murder of his accomplice Benjamin Pietzel, investigators did some digging and found that in addition to the murder of Pietzel, Holmes had also killed his children (Martin). Holmes later confessed to 27 murders, but some of the people that he said he killed were still alive (Benzkofer). The atrocities committed by H.H. Holmes induced different

H. Holmes had two main reasons for his crimes: monetary gain and pleasure. When Holmes went to Medical school at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor he discovered that he could monetize dead bodies (Martin). Holmes eventually began to use his medical expertise to prepare his victim’s bodies, and sell them to medical schools and labs (Hirschlag). But the monetary gain from selling the bodies was not enough to justify the risk associated with killing, so Holmes would manipulate his victims to get them to list him as their insurance beneficiary, and receive their life insurance (Hirschlag). Despite all this, Holmes might have been able to make more money just being a doctor, so he must not just have killed for money, but something else: Enjoyment. Holmes thought of his killings as an accomplishment, going as far as to confess to more murders than he actually committed (Benzkofer). Despite his pride in his killings, Holmes knew it was wrong and tried to blame his actions on something else, saying “I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing”

H. Holmes were revealed to the masses, they were shocked and horrified. Before the public was informed of Holmes’ crimes, they were terrified of Jack the Ripper who killed shortly before Holmes (“Jack the Ripper Biography”). Most of those who had heard of Holmes probably thought of him as a legitimate businessman who owned a hotel (Benzkofer). The only people who thought Holmes was in any way malicious were those he conned, like the vault company (Martin). Holmes put a vault in to one of the rooms in his hotel, but then he shrunk the entrance to the room, so that the vault could not be removed without damaging the room (Martin). Then, Holmes did not pay for it, but the company that tried to sell the vault to him could not take the vault back, so Holmes was able to not pay for it (Martin). Once Holmes’ true nature was revealed, the information the public got were not facts, but exaggerations. The public heard that Holmes killed as many as two hundred, even though he only confessed to twenty-seven (Selzer, Benzkofer). But possibly even scarier were the methods Holmes killed his victims in like Locking them in a hotel room, and then pumping gas into the room to kill them. This was one of many methods that Holmes would kill his victims, and helped to contribute to the horror the public