Depraved: The Definitive True Story of H.H. Holmes, Whose Grotesque Crimes Shattered Turn-of-the-Century Chicago (Pocket Star Books True Crime)
by Harold Schechter
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Book Summary Information
Author: Harold SchechterEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-08-04
ISBN: 1439124051
Number of pages: 432
Publisher: Pocket Books
Book Reviews of Depraved: The Definitive True Story of H.H. Holmes, Whose Grotesque Crimes Shattered Turn-of-the-Century Chicago (Pocket Star Books True Crime)
Book Review: The Curious Case Of Mr. Herman Webster Mudgett
Summary: 5 Stars
Author Harold Schechter has made a successful career of writing books with titles like Deviant: The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein, the Original Psycho, Bestial: The Savage Trail of a True American Monster, Fatal : The Poisonous Life of a Female Serial Killer, Deranged: The Shocking True Story of America's Most Fiendish Killer and so on, all about American serial killers. In Depraved: The Definitive True Story of H.H. Holmes, Whose Grotesque Crimes Shattered Turn-of-the-Century Chicago, he takes us to visit the bustling, largely newly-rebuilt Chicago of the 1880s, the trolling grounds of Herman Webster Mudgett, better known to history as Dr. H. H. Holmes.
Holmes, like his contemporary Jack The Ripper became nefarious. Holmes is known as "America's First Serial Killer." Doubtless, he was not the first true American serial killer, but he was both grotesque and gothic, and became famous in part due to the reflected fame of Jack The Ripper. Like The Ripper, it could be said that he gave birth to the twentieth century.
Holmes was exhaustively covered in the contemporary press. This highly cultured, well-dressed Victorian gentleman of impeccable manners and seemingly independent means was a con man, thief, bigamist, rapist and killer. Unsurprisingly, he was not a doctor, though he amassed and kept a collection of skeletons in his closet (literally) that he donated to medical schools around the Midwest.
No one is really certain how many people Holmes killed. His lair, near downtown Chicago, was a large building with crenellated corner towers, known colloquially as "The Castle." Holmes turned The Castle into a true house of horrors with heremetically sealed gassing rooms, greased body chutes, hidden trapdoors and secret passages, and a large furnace in the basement for burning bodies. Chicago, being what it was at the time, attracted transients, ne'er-do-wells, working girls, itinerant laborers, immigrants, country folk relocating to the city, the unemployed seeking jobs, and pinch-penny tourists. Seeking cheap accommodations near the heart of the city, these people were attracted to the available space in The Castle. How many guests Holmes entertained over the years is anyone's guess, but for certain, far fewer checked out than had checked in.
Holmes' murderous career might have continued indefinitely, had he not overreached himself in an insurance scam called the "Dead Man's Shuffle," in which a nameless corpse is presented in place of a still-living insured who then collects his own life insurance proceeds. Holmes became greedy. Not only did he kill the living insured, Benjamin Pietzel, and steal his share, he killed several of Pietzel's children. Mrs. Pietzel, hearing nothing from her family, but plenty of excuses from Holmes, went to the police. Although initially unwilling to prosecute the well-known and respected doctor, Holmes' own inconsistent alibis alerted the police that not all was well. Holmes was arrested for murder, The Castle was "tossed," and evidence of multiple murders came to light.
It was after his arrest that Holmes wrote a lurid book, claiming that demonic possession was the cause of his crimes. These stories made him more famous. He even wrote undeliverable letters to The Ripper.
Holmes was eventually executed, but his bizarre career was fodder for the tabloid press and a template for serial killers of the 20th Century.
More Depraved: The Definitive True Story of H.H. Holmes, Whose Grotesque Crimes Shattered Turn-of-the-Century Chicago (Pocket Star Books True Crime) reviews:
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Summary of Depraved: The Definitive True Story of H.H. Holmes, Whose Grotesque Crimes Shattered Turn-of-the-Century Chicago (Pocket Star Books True Crime)
The heinous bloodlust of Dr. H.H. Holmes is notorious -- but only Harold Schechter's Depraved tells the complete story of the killer whose evil acts of torture and murder flourished within miles of the Chicago World's Fair. "Destined to be a true crime classic" (Flint Journal, MI), this authoritative account chronicles the methods and madness of a monster who slipped easily into a bright, affluent Midwestern suburb, where no one suspected the dapper, charming Holmes -- who alternately posed as doctor, druggist, and inventor to snare his prey -- was the architect of a labyrinthine "Castle of Horrors." Holmes admitted to twenty-seven murders by the time his madhouse of trapdoors, asphyxiation devices, body chutes, and acid vats was exposed. The seminal profile of a homegrown madman in the era of Jack the Ripper, Depraved is also a mesmerizing tale of true detection long before the age of technological wizardry.Herman Mudgett, who called himself Dr. H. H. Holmes, seemed the epitome of the late 19th century "Golden Age": he was a well-dressed, charismatic, self-made entrepreneur (think Andrew Carnegie). Unfortunately for his many victims, he was also a liar, bigamist, debtor, con man, and murderer. The setting for several of his murders was the bizarre urban "castle" he built in Chicago--a ramshackle construction with mazelike corridors, soundproof rooms, sealed vaults, oversized furnaces, and chutes leading down to the cellar. Holmes's undoing was an insurance scam in which he planned to use a corpse supplied by a doctor to fake his partner's death, but ended up killing the partner, his wife, and his five children. The Boston Book Review wrote, "[Harold] Schechter's account of this charming, repulsive monster is both an astonishing piece of popular history as well as a near clinical analysis of as sinister a killer as this country has ever produced."
Also recommended: Schechter's books about Albert Fish (Deranged) and Ed Gein (Deviant).
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