-
birth
parents: Levi Horton Mudgett and Theodate Page Price -
becomes "obsessed with death"
after malicious classmates expose him to a human skeleton in a local doctor's office. begins dissecting animals -
graduates high school
age 16 -
first marriage
to clara lovering in alton -
Period: to
enrolled in the university of vermont
he finds the school unsatisfactory -
son is born
named robert lovering mudgett -
Period: to
enrolled in the university of michigan's department of medicine and surgery
stole cadavers from lab, claimed insurance money by disfiguring the bodies so their deaths looked accidental -
marriage falls apart
abandons wife and son, completes scams and engages in suspicious behavior for the next couple of years, skips town from new york to massachusetts to philadelphia during this time and changing his name to henry howard (h.h.) holmes as a result -
arrives in chicago
gets a job at elizabeth s. horton's drugstore. after her husband dies, he buys the store with monthly installments of $100. he leaves once he earns enough money to fund himself, and purchases the empty lot across the street. -
marries myrta belknap
still married to clara lovering. divorce papers were filed, but never finalized -
meets benjamin pitezel
during construction, holmes met benjamin pitezel, a carpenter with a criminal past. he becomes holmes' right-hand man. -
daughter is born
named lucy theodate holmes -
Period: to
construction of the world's fair hotel
holmes was constantly hiring and firing construction workers during this time so nobody would fully understand the floor plan of his block-long, 3 story building featuring oddities such as stairways leading to nowhere, doorways opening up to brick walls, oddly angled hallways, and other confusing, almost maze-like qualities. -
Period: to
string of murders
holmes used his murder castle to lure victims, mostly female employees of the hotel. some were locked in rooms such as gas chambers, others were left in a soundproof bank vault to suffocate, etc. he installed a unique alarm system on all of the doors, allowing him to know whenever a guest was moving around the hotel. through chutes or dumbwaiters, he transported his victims' bodies down to the basement, which contained lime pits, dissecting equipment, a stretching rack, and more. -
minnie williams moves to chicago
homes (she knew him as henry gordon) had previously entered into a relationship with williams, a railroud heiress,while on a business trip. they exchanged love letters until she moved to chicago. -
minnie williams transfers fort worth deed
holmes convinced her to transfer her texas property to alexander bond (another alias of his). afterwards, holmes/gordon proposed to williams and invited her sister, annie williams, to his hotel. he suffocated her in the bank vault. minnie also mysteriously "vanished". -
marries georgiana yoke in denver, colorado
while still married to both clara and myrta -
arrested for selling mortgaged goods. rip pitezel
after forming a connection with a crooked lawyer while incarcerated, holmes fails to fake his own death in order to collect $10,000 in life insurance (the company became suspicious). benjamin pitezel decided to conduct the same swindle, but he actually really died. herman set him on fire. also he killed ben's children too -
arrested again
his old cellmate snitched and the police looked through the murder castle -
put on trial for the murder of benjamin pitezel
surprise: he was found guilty -
hanged
he ded