美国首位连环杀人犯(1)

未能成功加载,请稍后再试
0/0

He has come down through history as America's first serial killer, the incarnation of pure evil. He was the first of a new breed of American celebritythe handsome, debonair and super intelligent mass murderer.

His legend, fueled by his own insatiable appetite for exaggeration, would turn him into a monster, 'the arch-fiend of the age' and the 'greatest criminal of this expiring century'.

His "Murder Castle", situated at the heart of the world's greatest exhibition, was reputedly the scene of unspeakable horrors. Yet, the truth about Dr. H. H Holmes is far removed from the sensationalism that surrounds his name.

No one did more to turn the gossip into legend than Holmes himself, which makes it all the more difficult to get to the truth about the Devil in the White City. "I was born with the Devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, more than a poet can help the inspiration to sing."

Early Life The man who would come to call himself Henry Howard Holmes was born with the far less impressive name of Herman Webster Mudget on May 16, 1861 in Gilmanton, New Hampshire.

By all accounts his parents were upright and respectable people, with the child's upbringing being quite unremarkable. Later stories that his father was a violent alcoholic who would smother his children with chloroform soaked handkerchiefs to 'teach them a lesson' are the result of a newspaper writer's overactive imagination.

Yet, there is one incident in Herman's youth which clearly did have a profound impact on his later life. . . When he was about 13, two older boys dragged him into the local doctor's office

a place that Herman was terrified of due to the lurid tales he'd been told of the body parts that were left lying around. The bullies brought the terrified boy face to face with a human skeleton.

But rather than frightening him, the human bones fascinated the child. This fascination grew into an adult desire to study medicine. Holmes had another early fascinationwomen.

By the age of sixteen he was working odd jobs when he fell head over heels in love with a beautiful young woman by the name of Clara Lovering. Herman met Clara while working on her father's farm. Soon after, they were both at a church social.

下载全新《每日英语听力》客户端,查看完整内容