Just in time for the Halloween season, Villainy, or H.H. Holmes’ Own Story arrives at the Whitefire Theatre. It’s the incredible true story of H.H. Holmes (1861-1896), America’s first serial killer. Born Herman Webster Mudgett, his favored alias was H.H. Holmes, reportedly assuming the name in tribute to the fictional master of mystery, Sherlock.
A master seducer of women, Holmes was ultimately married to three women simultaneously. His many crimes included arson, insurance fraud, torture and murder. He confessed to 27 murders in a memoir, written in a response to a lucrative offer from newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst. Having received training in the medical profession, Holmes sometimes dissected the bodies of his victims, selling their skeletons to medical schools. In the most brazen portion of his career, Holmes had a “murder castle” with a pharmacy, a torture chamber, apartments for young women who disappeared mysteriously…all just three miles east of the Columbian Exposition (the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair), giving rise to Holmes’ nickname, “the Devil in the White City.”
Villainy is the story of a master of evil, and of the women he loved and manipulated.
Ages: 14 to adult.
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