Serial Murderer. Born in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, he studied medicine and worked as a druggist in Chicago. A good looking, natural-born con man, he had a special flair or attracting the ladies of that time. During the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, he was the owner/proprietor of the infamous "Murder Castle". It had hidden rooms, concealed stairways, trap doors, false walls, chutes, an elevator with no shaft and an elevator shaft with no elevator. He ran ads for a secretary in Chicago papers. Once employed, he wooed them with promises of marriage. He convinced them to sign over their insurance and savings to him as a part of the "deal". After spending the night in his bed, he chloroformed them as they slept, dragged them to the open elevator shaft and threw them in. Waiting for them to regain consciousness, he gassed them and watched them die. Afterwards, he looped a rope around their neck, pulled them up the shaft, dumped their bodies down a chute leading to the basement and dismembered them. These were the "lucky" ones. Some were simply butchered alive and screaming inside his soundproofed rooms. The estimate is that over 200 women died there. Mudgett moved first to Fort Worth, Texas and then to Philadelphia where he devised an insurance scam using a family named Pitezel as accomplices. He killed Mr. Pitezel with poison and he along with Mrs. Pitezel claimed the insurance monies. He killed the Pitezel children by gassing the two girls in a trunk and somehow killing the small boy whose skull was found in a stove. After getting a tip from a prison acquaintance of Mudgett advising them of the scam, the insurance company hired a Philadelphia "super detective", Frank P. Geyer, to find him. Geyer tracked Mudgett down and brought him to trial for the murder of Mr. Pitezel. He was hanged at the Moyamensing Prison gallows on May 7, 1896, the most prolific mass murderer in United States history.
Serial Murderer. Born in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, he studied medicine and worked as a druggist in Chicago. A good looking, natural-born con man, he had a special flair or attracting the ladies of that time. During the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, he was the owner/proprietor of the infamous "Murder Castle". It had hidden rooms, concealed stairways, trap doors, false walls, chutes, an elevator with no shaft and an elevator shaft with no elevator. He ran ads for a secretary in Chicago papers. Once employed, he wooed them with promises of marriage. He convinced them to sign over their insurance and savings to him as a part of the "deal". After spending the night in his bed, he chloroformed them as they slept, dragged them to the open elevator shaft and threw them in. Waiting for them to regain consciousness, he gassed them and watched them die. Afterwards, he looped a rope around their neck, pulled them up the shaft, dumped their bodies down a chute leading to the basement and dismembered them. These were the "lucky" ones. Some were simply butchered alive and screaming inside his soundproofed rooms. The estimate is that over 200 women died there. Mudgett moved first to Fort Worth, Texas and then to Philadelphia where he devised an insurance scam using a family named Pitezel as accomplices. He killed Mr. Pitezel with poison and he along with Mrs. Pitezel claimed the insurance monies. He killed the Pitezel children by gassing the two girls in a trunk and somehow killing the small boy whose skull was found in a stove. After getting a tip from a prison acquaintance of Mudgett advising them of the scam, the insurance company hired a Philadelphia "super detective", Frank P. Geyer, to find him. Geyer tracked Mudgett down and brought him to trial for the murder of Mr. Pitezel. He was hanged at the Moyamensing Prison gallows on May 7, 1896, the most prolific mass murderer in United States history.
Bio by: Richard Blunk
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