Psychopathy of H.H. Holmes, Research Paper Example

Introduction

The US history has experienced many cases of inhuman serial murderers throughout the period of several centuries. There have been many resonant cases that made the public shiver from horror and compassion for the victims as well as contempt and hatred towards the criminals; however, the very first serial killer found and accused in the USA has for a long time been in the shadow of successive crimes committed after his execution. The name of H.H. Holmes has been refreshed only recently, with the work of Larson The Devil in the White City and the work The Deprived. It is still not clear what the number of his victims was because of the remnants being hard to identify; Holmes was an unpunished terror for those kept in imprisonment in the castle he built on the money of his first victims and got to prison only by accident.

Holmes’ real name was Herman Webster Mudgett; he came to Englewood in 198o and worked as a pharmacist. According to the description of Rumsey, Holmes was a swindler and murderer, charming outside and ruthless inside. In some time his thirst for wealth became apparent, which marked the beginning of his criminal activities. He took the power over the drugstore in which he worked and began to make his dream of the “Holmes Castle” true on the money gained from financial machinations and from murdered people. What is even more important to note is that Holmes possessed significant power over women, being able to charm them, to make them trust him. Many of his victims turned out his mistresses; others were women without relatives who were not looked for upon their disappearing. This implies more inferences about the nature of Holmes – he was an evil, clever and predictive man who was obsessed by money and who killed at first for enrichment and later for both enrichment and pleasure. His thorough plan of the castle that turned out also a fortress for Holmes’ victims, the diverse means for tortures and execution imply a psychological disorder that revealed itself in cruel murders. Holmes has been officially recognized as a psychopath as soon as the term was coined; for his contemporaries he remained a beast, a devil or a living horror, which can be seen from the names of books written on serial killers or the work of Larson discussed in the context of the present work as well.

Logically, it is necessary to direct the discussion of Holmes’ life and horrific deeds at finding out the details known about him during the period of his presence in Chicago, as well as addressing the issues of comparing the empirical knowledge about Holmes with the theoretical and clinical manifestations of psychopathy. It goes without saying that a ruthless man guided by no moral principles and bearing no responsibility for his actions is a psychopath. However, the evidence offered in the present work was collected from various sources dedicated personally to Holmes, to the examination of his psychological state of character as well as to purely psychological works investigating the evolution of the term ‘psychopathy’ and its applicability to different kinds of behavior.

Life of H.H. Holmes

Holmes became famous for his inhuman, ruthless atrocities that he committed in his “Holmes Castle” situated at the corner of Sixty-Third Street and Wallace Avenue – Casey (97) named him an ‘exterminator’ who committed an average of one murder per week, still managing to remain a respected and honored member of his society. He came to Chicago in 1890 and started to work as a pharmacist in the store of Mrs. Doctor Holden who trusted him more and more because of his courtesy, intelligence and charm. His efforts yielded good results both from the point of view of sales and attitude of the owner – profit grew, and in a year Holmes already took a position of the drugstore manager. In 1891 Julia Conner and her husband and a 8-year-old daughter came to Chicago looking for a job and came to H.H. Holmes to apply for a position. Holmes hired them and helped them stay in Chicago (Casey 97).

In 1892 Mrs. Doctor Holden mysteriously disappeared and Holmes took over the drugstore – it was the moment when he started to build his “Holmes Castle” not far away from the place of his work. His sick imagination drew awful pictures of sophisticated architecture for the castle, which was the initial plan for his psychopathic personality – even the constructor, George Bowman “found the experience of working for Holms somewhat chilling” (Larson 66). However, Holmes had a legitimate justification for the construction process – the next year was hosting the World’s Columbian Exposition called the White City in Chicago. It was a huge fair to which hundreds of people from the whole USA wanted to come, so Holmes decided to earn money on visitors by building a hotel in which they could stay (Casey 98). Nobody supposed that the hotel would become the place of last stay for so many people.

One can have a reasonable question on seeing the grand project that Holmes accomplished within a short period of time – about a year. From various sources it has become known that Holmes raised money on financial fraud and machinations; he cashed bad checks, he floated loans from non-existent properties; he doctored the books of the drugstore by transferring it from one false owner to another one and mortgaging it in fictitious names (Casey 99).

These abilities revealed themselves not out of the blue sky; Holmes used to be caught and punished for scamming and fraud in his early years, which became known from his memoire he composed when already being accused and waiting for his execution in Philadelphia (Ramsland). In college he committed the first truly criminal action – he presented a fraudulent book earning money from it. On receiving a diploma and opening the medical practice, he tried to continue his financial frauds, but with no success. He tried to help one of his clients to simulate his own death and to get the insurance before continuing his criminal activities in Chicago (Ramsland).

As soon as the construction of “Holmes Castle” was finished, Julia’s husband disappeared. Julia moved to live with Holmes in his newly-built house with her daughter, not knowing that the series of murders had begun. Afterwards there appeared many people who were visitors of the fair and who became mistresses of Holmes due to his charm and power to manipulate women. The Texas heiress Minnie Williams came to live with Holmes, followed by her sister’s arrival in 1893. At first Minnie’s sister Anne disappeared, followed by Minnie herself – Holmes explained to people seeking these women that they left or went to visit their relatives. Every time he committed a murder he found a victim that had no family and close relatives, thus making them disappear easily, without being looked for. This made up the genius of Holmes who managed to keep his perversion and devilishness secret for several years.

What made him so attractive for women who followed him irresistibly and agreed to live with him in his castle? As Larson poses it, “Holmes was a handsome, warm and obviously wealthy, and he lived in Chicago, the most feared and magnetic of cities” (61). These observations prove the point – Holmes was extremely popular with women due to his charm and wealth, the large hotel he owned in Chicago, which certainly could not leave the young women looking for welfare in life indifferent. However, in case of Holmes they found only tortures, horror and death but not a happy and rich life they aspired.

The atrocities of Holmes would have probably continued in the mysterious castle if he had not made a mistake with his “all-around assistant” Benjamin Pitezel (Larson 67). Holmes lacked money badly and ensured the life of one of his captives for $10,000; afterwards Pitezel surely died and Holmes came to collect the money for the insurance.

“Holmes at once stepped into the breach, took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, put on the rubber gloves, and taking a surgeon’s knife from his pocket, cut off the wart at the back of the neck, showed the injury to the leg, and revealed also a bruised thumb-nail which had been another mark of Pitezel” (Irving 178).

The financial scheme should have worked out, but it didn’t because the body of Pitezel the identity of which Holmes verified was exhumed and the bodies of dead Pitezel’s children were found in the basement of a house previously rented by Holmes. As soon as the police started the investigation about Holmes’ participation in the fraud scheme, it became evident that he was the main recipient of the whole sum of money and the body was not Pitezel’s, so Holmes tried to convince the policemen that it had been their joint undertaking and now Pitezel escaped with his three children (Irving 179-180). Nonetheless, three bodies of children found finally proved Holmes’ guilt and initiated his arrest as well as a detailed inspection in his castle that revealed the unimaginable and unseen.

As soon as the police came to inspect the house of Holmes, they found secret rooms, doors, stairs to nowhere, moving walls and other elements that made the house resemble to a “rabbit warren” (Casey 101). Besides, the alliances for tortures and executions shocked the policemen and the common public; the house contained an asphyxiation chamber, a dissecting room, vats of acid, a gas-fired crematorium and other tools for corporal punishment and murder (Casey 101). Besides the tools, the police found a pile of human bones in the house – the approximate estimate showed figures that equaled 200 victims, though it is still unknown how many of them were there.

In general, it is hard to bring the story of Holmes’ atrocities to coherence because of the variability of data. Holmes personally confessed in killing about 20 people. Proving his testimony, the police found out that many of supposed Holmes’ victims were alive, so nobody knew how many of those named and not named by Holmes were lying in his secret chambers. H.H. Holmes did not at first confess that he was the murderer and continued to state that he had no relation to the chambers and human bones in his house. However, in the end his fault was proven.

H.H. Holmes was hanged at the Moyamensing prison in 1895. However, the surprising fact that he was actually sentenced to hanging not for all crimes he had committed but only for the fraud with the Pitezel body and death of his three children. Dozens of victims that were calling for revenge in the silent walls of his castle remained nameless and without justice established on their death. Nowadays the deeds of Holmes are considered at a different angle than they used to be considered more than a century ago. The next section will explore how the disease of Holmes is related to his actions and what basics of psychopathy can be found in the theoretical literature on psychology.

Holmes and Psychopathy

No researcher, psychiatrist or the representative of the common public will doubt the fact that the case of Holmes represents a clear psychological disorder that governed the serial killer’s actions. It is impossible to imagine a person who would commit such atrocities being completely aware of the evil they bring to surrounding people and would not feel any shame or guilt for the committed crimes. There is an appropriate term in modern psychology that identifies such kinds of psychological disorders – psychopathy (or sociopathy). Psychopaths are those people who are intellectually normally developed and realize all deeds they commit by intellectual means. However, they possess moral invalidity – they have no remorse and do not feel any shame for their actions, they cannot bear responsibility for themselves and others and do not realize the whole realm of consequences their actions cause (Millon, Simonson, Birket-Smith and Davis 4). As Wilson (67) states, psychopathy is realized in the “capacity of an offender to engage in deranged acts without exhibiting the delusions (false beliefs) and emotional instability associated with psychotic behavior”. In other words, psychopathy is deviance in action that does not complement with emotional turmoil, which in itself is suggestive of a mental disorder (Wilson 67).

To understand why Holmes can be completely regarded as a psychopath, one should conduct research in the sphere of defining psychopathy and stages the formation of this diagnosis went through to finally be shaped in the modern understanding. It was first defined by Benjamin Rush in the early 1800s as the condition in which a person is under the influence of instincts and abstract fury that govern his or her conduct (Millon et al. 4). Later J.C. Prichard defined it as “moral insanity”, meaning a person with intellectual adequacy but living by “affections” that engage him or her in socially deviant behavior. They are unable to realize the ‘natural rights’ of people, thus neglecting them in the process of their activity that often turns out to be of criminal nature (Millon et al. 5). These characteristics are clearly felt in the conduct of Holmes who had no moral responsibility for the actions he conducted – it is enough to recollect that his victims mainly were young women who he managed to charm, to seduce and to rob. He killed those who trusted him, loved him and maybe even loved him – he longed for manipulating people, governing and controlling them before killing (Ramsey).

The same features can be explained in terms of Kraepelin’s description of psychopathy as a wish to humiliate and hurt and in classification of psychopaths into four categories: morbid liars and swindlers, criminals by impulse, professional criminals and morbid vagabonds (Million et al. 10). Holmes fits into two categories at once – he is both the morbid liar and swindler due to his charm and courtesy noted by many authors (Larson; Casey) and a professional criminal because of such characteristics as being well-mannered and socially appropriate and at the same time calculative, self-serving and manipulative (Millon et al. 10).

Summing the characteristics of psychopaths known before the 20^th century, one can see that the psychopath is the person who has no normal mental capacity (Millon et al. 8). Afterwards characteristics of psychopathy were formatted in a more concise list that formed an antisocial personality disorder (APD). Psychopaths are known to disregard and violate the rights of other people; they fail to conform to social norms; they are deceitful; they show reckless disregard to safety of other people and lack remorse; they are consistently irresponsible (Patrick 3).

Conclusion

These traits describe the personality of Holmes very well – he never felt remorse to women who trusted and followed him without any doubts; he wanted wealth and was ready for anything to achieve welfare. According to the opinion of Schmid (51), Holmes became an American archetype of an American guided by profit and wish for welfare who could apply his “restless, nervous energy” and “practical, inventive turn of mind” into both evil and virtue with an equal success. Holmes showed the role of greed, violence and money in the formation of the American nationhood (Schmid 51). Surely, it is only a supposition about such a grand role of Holmes in the US history, psychology and identity, but the fact that the concept of serial murder is generally associated with the USA speaks for itself in the present discussion.

H.H. Holmes was an immoral and degenerate personality who never stopped before anything for the sake of money; he was guided by thirst for richness in his inhuman, violent atrocities and never felt the responsibility for his actions. His figure of a psychopath who was ruthless and inventive in his violence and perversion will remain as a shivering example of the extremes in which people are pushed by their affections and instincts. Such psychopathic personalities exist in the modern society as well, and they are not surely serial killers, but the personality disorder like this may have very dangerous outcomes for the society in which the individual lives, which can be clearly felt on the sad examples of Holmes’ victims.

Works Cited

Casey, J. Robert. Chicago Medium Rare – When We Were Both Younger. Read Books, 2007.

Irving, Henry Brodribb. A Book of Remarkable Criminals. BiblioBazaar, LLC, 2007.

Larson, Erik. Devil in the White City. Vintage, 2004.

Millon, Theodore, Simonsen, Erik, Birket-Smith, Morten, and Roger D. Davis. Psychopathy: antisocial, criminal, and violent behavior. Guilford Press, 2003.

Patrick, J. Christopher. Handbook of Psychopathy. Guilford Press, 2007.

Ramsey, Mike. ‘The Killer With Cachet’. Copley News Service. 2003. 8 April 2010. < http://www.hhholmes thefilm.com/copleyarticle.html>

Ramsland, Katherine. H.H. Holmes: Master of Illusion. TruTV Crime Library: Criminal Minds and Methods. 2003. 8 April 2010. < http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/ serial_killers/history/holmes/index_1.html>

Schmid, David Frank. Natural born celebrities: serial killers in American culture. University of Chicago Press, 2005.

Wilson, Wayne. The psychopath in film. University Press of America, 1999.