Truly…Depraved: H.H. Holmes

September 7th, 2009

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The H. H. Holmes story in Issue #51 depicts a real-life character from Chicago history. H. H. Holmes is as close to a ready-made backstory for a Haunt that I have ever seen. The variety of methods he used to kill people combined with the building that he designed specifically for his crimes is blueprint for a haunted house.

While researching the article, I came across several good sources of information. I have listed some of the resources below just in case you want to read more about this murderer. I would like to express my thanks to John Borowski and Rick Geary for giving me permission to re-produce their photos.

Books

Depraved: The Definitive True Story of H.H. Holmes, Whose Grotesque Crimes Shattered Turn-of-the-Century Chicago by Harold Schecter

Depraved was a great book with plenty of source material and was an easy read too.

The Strange Case Of Dr. H.H. Holmes by John Borowski

Primarily a collection of primary sources, this book contains Holmes’ own written confession along with other material from the day.

The Beast of Chicago: An Account of the Life and Crimes of Herman W. Mudgett, Known to the World As H.H. Holmes by Rick Geary

A graphical novel with some great illustrations from floorplans to skeletons.

Websites

www.hhholmesthefilm.com

A site created by John Borowski who created one of the texts above, the site provides you an opportunity to purchase his book, as well watch a film that Borowski produced about H. H. Holmes. There is a link that lets you watch it from Amazon.com for $1.99 which is worth it if you are interested at all.

Wikipedia H. H. Holmes

Contains quite a bit of info but not as much detail as the other resources.