Reluctant Historian, Descendant of America’s First Serial Killer Jeff Mudgett to Return to Gig Harbor

It was to be just another family gathering the day Jeff Mudgett, successful professional and lawyer, found out news that would forever change his world. Grandmother Mudgett, who had long suspected her family was related to General Robert E. Lee had hired professionals to validate her suspicion. What she disclosed at the family table was the truth that they were not at all related to the famous Civil War general, however, they were related to a much more infamous character, Dr. H.H. Holmes, a.k.a. Herman Webster Mudgett, America’s first serial killer and designated psychopath.

“I’d never heard of the man”, Jeff recalls, “but my brother who was closest to my grandmother had done some research and told us about our twisted relative, information that was met with light- hearted jokes about finding out our particular family’s ‘odd egg’. My grandfather, generally a quiet, stoic guy, abruptly sat up, overturning his chair and knocking a framed picture off the wall behind him. ‘We will never speak of him in this house!’ he demanded, all the while fixing his piercing gaze on me. I was caught totally off guard and couldn’t imagine what I had to do with anything!

In retrospect, perhaps he somehow knew that I was the one person in the room who would not let this knowledge rest. And I didn’t. I became obsessed with my murderous legacy and devoted the next six years travelling and finding out all I could about Herman Webster Mudgett. The result is my book, Bloodstains, the account of my years of research into what made my great great grandfather the monster he became.”

Herman Webster Mudgett was the ultimate conman and manipulator, and went by aliases which made research more difficult to access. He became a medical doctor, went on to buy a pharmacy, and made enough money through dubious insurance schemes to build a ‘Murder Mansion’ above his pharmacy with twenty rooms to rent for visitors to the 1893 Chicago Exposition. The mansion was complete with; stairways that led nowhere, rooms without windows, gas lines throughout the building, a basement furnished with an autopsy table, a container full of lime and an enormous oven capable of extreme heat.

The hotel was meant to draw in visitors to the World’s Fair, particularly young, attractive women looking for work. Guests, wives, and girlfriends mysteriously disappeared, never to be heard from again.

All the while, Holmes sold skeletons to local hospitals and continued to scam suppliers and business associates. He was ultimately hanged in 1896, for the murder of his associate, Benjamin Pitezel,  whom Holmes had managed to enlist for the purpose of collecting life insurance money for his ‘fake’ death. Holmes was to have substituted a cadaver in place of his partner’s body in a fire. Not only did he kill his associate, he also killed three of Pitezel’s children.

“Before his death,” Mudgett tells, “Holmes had admitted to 27 murders, but it is suspected he killed many more, possibly in the hundreds. Like so many predecessors of our age, serial killers feel superior to the law, and will toy with them for the real truth.”

“In my research, I found that a ‘Holmes” was listed as a passenger on a steamship to London, which would have placed Holmes in London during the time of the Jack the Ripper murders. We do have letters from him mentioning his time in London. The London police have always thought their ‘Jack’ had medical knowledge, in that the bodies of his original victims had ovaries surgically removed, a task far too intricate for a layman under nighttime conditions. We have sent letters from Holmes while he was in prison with samples of the ‘Dear Boss’ letters Jack the Ripper sent to the police. An English handwriting analyst, one recommended by the London library, has verified that both letters were written by the same hand.” In addition, Jeff discloses, “I also sent the samples to the University of Buffalo, where they were 97.95% sure of similarity in writing style.”

Jeff Mudgett will be at the Lodge at Mallard’s Landing Saturday, July 28^th, for book signing and questions between 2:00 and 5:00 pm.

On Friday, the 27^th,  the Lodge will be showing a movie about Dr. H.H. Holmes at 6:30 pm.in the Cinema. To learn more about Bloodstains, visit bloodstainsthebook.com.