The Making of a Murderer Anonymous College

The antagonist and an integral part of The Devil in the White City, H. H. Holmes is a character that is oftentimes difficult to fully understand. Attempting to grasp why Holmes committed such terrible crimes is a natural curiosity and is explored briefly by the author Erik Larson at the end of the book. From his childhood to his hanging in Philadelphia, it is majorly clear that Holmes was not an ordinary person by any stretch of the word. Taking into account internationally famous serial killers like Jack the Ripper, Holmes’ medical background and Holmes’ psychological issues, the motives for his killings are plenty and vary drastically.

In the late 1800s, coinciding with the time that Holmes’ was taking victims into his Murder Castle, Jack the Ripper committed his now infamous killings of an unknown amount of female prostitutes in London. This news entranced and obsessed millions in and out of England. Never before had there been a serial killer of this caliber and many Americans were obsessed. “Every Chicago resident who could read devoured these reports from abroad, but none with quite so much intensity as Dr. H. H. Holmes” (Larson 70). The unknown murderer could have brought something out in Holmes that was deeply hidden...