AW: [DL] A Survey [so Marguerite has something to read ;-)]

["Markus Finster" <markus.finster@chello.at>]

>
> I'm unfamiliar with Holmes, so I can't comment.  Can you elucidate?

Check out the link I provided with his nomination: www.crimelibrary.com.
From anoterh serial killer website (www.mayhem.net) comes the following
information (the 200+ means, he's probably responsible for over 200
murders.):

H.H. Holmes (200+) Born Herman Webster Mudgett, Dr. Holmes started his
criminal career as a medical student by stealing corpses from the University
of Michigan. He used the corpses to collect insurance money from policies
taken out under fictitious names.

When he moved to Chicago he started a drugstore empire from which he made a
fortune. He built a hundred-room mansion complete with gas chambers, trap
doors, acid vats, lime pits, fake walls and secret entrances. During the
1893 World's Fair he rented rooms to visitors. He then killed most of his
lodgers and continued his insurance fraud scheme. He also lured women to his
"torture castle" with the promise of marriage. Instead, he would force them
to sign over their savings, then throw them down an elevator shaft and gas
them to death. In the basement of the castle he dismembered and skinned his
prey and experimented with their corpses.

When police grew suspicious about H.H's activities, he torched the castle
and fled. In the burnt hulk of the building, authorities found the remains
of over two hundred people. H.H. was caught when one of his insurance
schemes was unravelled by Pinkerton detectives. He was hanged on May 7,
1896, after one the first sensational crime trial in America. Not only was
Herman the first American serial killer he was also, according to author
Scheckter, the first "celebrity psycho." Although he never had the
historical presence of his contemporary Jack the Ripper, he did leave behind
an impressive trail of blood unequaled for almost eighty years.