The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-04-11
Confession rlade by rlurderer II.
II. Holmes.
SLAUGHTERED FOR FUN.
al WAS BORN WITH THE DEVIL IN
ME-"
His Early Yearning For Human
BIoOd-Twenty-Sev Victims on
His List, and it Was Not His
Fault There Were Not More
The Most Brutal, Revolving and
Disgusting of All His Crimes

PHILADELPHIA, April 1O-The
morrow morning print what purports
to be sentences from the confession
alleged to have been made by murderer
H. H. Holmes.
Among other things the story says:
In prefacing the confession, which
covers in full nearly three newspaper
pages, written in Holmes own hand
writing, and detailing with a minute
ness that is simply at time revolving,
the arch-mutilator and author of TWEEN
ty-seven murders, as he admits him
self to be, states with something like
pathos that he does SO simply that he
may obtain enough money to educate
his boy. Holmes writes of his blood
curdling atrocities with an abandon
that simply appals one. Not
ONE GRAIN OF REMORSE
seems to enter into the construction of
that document.
He says: Il was born with the devil
in me. l could not help the fact that
l was murderer, no more than the
poet can help the inspiration to song,
nor the ambition of an Intellectual man
to be great
This inclination continues Holmes,
came to me early in life. 1 remem-
Der when mere lad my ambition was
to study medicine that L might know
the relative effects of poisonous gases,
that l might fully become acquainted
with their uses, and learn to be an eX-
pert in handling them.
Il am convinced that since my i'm
prisonment l have changed woefully
and gruesomely, from what L formerly
was in feature and in figure.
From what 1 can see, believe fully
that l am growing to
RESEMBLE THE DEVIL:
that the osseous parts of my head Dnd
face are gradually assuming that elon-
gated shape so pronounced in what is
called the degenerate head and the
similitude is almost completed. In
fact, so impressed am l with this be-
lief, that l am convinced that 1 have
no longer anything human in mig
Holmes confession from this on
speaks of his early experiences of his
boyhood days on the farm UP in YER
mont, and the life he led until he en-
tered the college to study medicine in
Michigan.
1t was not until he had graduated,
fully equipped with the knowledge of
poisons and the easiest way to sever
the simple thread of life, that Holmes
began his career as a murderer and
mutilator When he began, he ad-
mits himself, he was ruthless and
NEVER ONCE HALTED
until he took twenty-seven lives.
And | would have committed six
other MURDERS" he added, had not
certain occurrences interviewed"
Possibly one of the worst, most bru-
tai, revolving and disgusting crimes
this arch-mutilator ever committed,
was one he speaks of, in a chapter de-
voted to his boy-the son of his first
wife. The only explanation he offers
is that he did it simply to crafty his
love for mutilation.
at was shortly after I was mar
ried," he declares, land our boy was
then but a youngster. l called him
from the road where he was frolick-
ing about likeran innocent, with. a, lot
of other lads and took him out to, a
rear barn / don't know what 1t was
that possessed me, but L took sur
gical knife along Withme. 1t was SIM
ply the craving of the murderer a@lthln
me that inspired me to make a subject
of my little one"
With the utmost abandon any with
here and there an expressed sign OIL
regret, Holmes then tells how he went
through the operation of mutilatlng MS
own son. Finished with that, Holmes
felt satisfied, and did not murder MS
boy outright.