8. Harry Howard Holmes (Herman Mudgett)
Harry Howard Holmes, born was Herman Mudgett, was the first serial killer to be hanged in America. He went to the University of Michigan Medical School in 1884 to become a doctor. During this time, he often stole bodies from the school laboratory and disfigured them, and then claimed that the people had been killed accidentally. Through this, he was able to collect insurance from policies that he took out on each person. After he graduated, he moved to Chicago. Here, he convinced a local pharmacy worker to allow him to take over ownership of a hotel. At the hotel he experimented with bodies, often letting the women he chose to be victims suffocate to death. The bodies were often dissected, stripped of their flesh and made into skeleton models. He then sold the bodies to medical schools.
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