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Portrait of H. H. Holmes
Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Perpetrator

H. H. Holmes

Born
16 May 1861
Died
7 May 1896, aged about 35
Record
Wikidata Q360680 · Wikipedia

Perpetrator in H. H. Holmes and the Pitezel Murders

Born Herman Webster Mudgett; swindler and bigamist convicted of murdering Benjamin Pitezel and hanged.

1891–1896 · Chicago, Illinois; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Toronto, Ontario · Executed

Swindler, bigamist and killer of at least nine people, hanged in 1896. The '200 victims' and the murder castle of legend are another matter. Read the case.

Dated events

  1. Herman Webster Mudgett, later H. H. Holmes, is born in Gilmanton, New Hampshire.

  2. Now calling himself Henry Howard Holmes, he arrives in Chicago and goes to work at an Englewood drugstore.

  3. Julia Conner and her daughter Pearl disappear from Holmes's building on 63rd Street.

  4. Emeline Cigrand, Holmes's stenographer, is last seen.

  5. Nannie Williams writes that she will travel with Holmes; neither she nor her sister Minnie is seen again.

  6. Jailed briefly in St. Louis, Holmes discusses an insurance swindle with the train robber Marion Hedgepeth.

  7. Benjamin Pitezel is killed in Philadelphia, and Holmes collects the $10,000 insurance on him.

  8. Holmes kills Howard Pitezel near Indianapolis and Alice and Nellie Pitezel in Toronto.

  9. Holmes is arrested in Boston after being followed by Pinkerton agents.

  10. A Philadelphia jury convicts Holmes of the first-degree murder of Benjamin Pitezel.

  11. Hearst newspapers publish Holmes's confession to 27 murders, several of them demonstrably false.

  12. Holmes is hanged at Moyamensing Prison in Philadelphia.