America's First Serial Killer: H. H. Holmes (Herman Webster Mudgett)

Herman Webster Mudgett was born in 1861 in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, to an affluent family that was the first White settlers in the township.  Although Herman enjoyed a privileged childhood, he was ruled by a mother with strict religious ideologies and an authoritarian father who routinely administered harsh discipline.  And while Herman excelled in school–a boy of unusual intelligence, ambition, and drive–he was constantly bullied and abused by his classmates, causing him to spend his boyhood friendless, isolated, and alone.  Showing an interest in human anatomy from about the age of ten, Herman naturally gravitated toward the study of medicine after high school, and was accepted at the prestigious University of Michigan Medical school in 1882, the first university-owned hospital in America.  Read more . . .