Talk:H. H. Holmes

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the H. H. Holmes article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1: 12 months

A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on November 17, 2017 and November 17, 2019.

Biography

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles

Crime and Criminal Biography: Serial, mass, and spree killers Mid‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Crime and Criminal Biography articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Crime and Criminal BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject Crime and Criminal BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Crime and Criminal BiographyCrime-related articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by the Serial Killer task force (assessed as High-importance).

Chicago Low‑importance

	Chicago portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Chicago, which aims to improve all articles or pages related to Chicago or the Chicago metropolitan area.ChicagoWikipedia:WikiProject ChicagoTemplate:WikiProject ChicagoChicago articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Illinois Low‑importance

	Illinois portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Illinois, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Illinois on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.IllinoisWikipedia:WikiProject IllinoisTemplate:WikiProject IllinoisWikiProject Illinois articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Pennsylvania Low‑importance

	Pennsylvania portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Pennsylvania, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Pennsylvania on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PennsylvaniaWikipedia:WikiProject PennsylvaniaTemplate:WikiProject PennsylvaniaPennsylvania articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

This article has been viewed enough times in a single week to appear in the Top 25 Report. The week in which this happened:

November 1 to 7, 2015 (20th)

Holmes's vs Holmes'

There has been lot of switching between Holmes's and Holmes' in this article's history. The AP style guide says to do Holmes', and that is what a lot of people are used to, but the wikipedia style guide says Holmes's, so thats what we need to stick with. Thanks. PrismaCosmos (talk) 23:45, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That is another example of why schoolteachers give students a reduced or failing grade on assignments that borrow from Wikipedia. The person(s) who wrote the Wikipedia style guide evidently slept through their English classes in school. — Foxtrot1296 (talk) 03:28, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Number of victims

The victim count has been reported as 9, 27, or 200+

The 9 number is the Pitezel family, plus Julia & Pearl Conner, Emeline Cigrand, and Minnie & Nannie Williams. Of these 9 Holmes was only proven to have killed Ben Pitezel. Only the Pitezel family was confirmed to be dead, the other 5 never were.

27 is how many people Holmes confessed to killing. (Note: some of these people were still alive at the time of the confession).

The 200+ number is nonsense from tabloids.

So the final victim number is 1 confirmed, and 9 total suspected. PrismaCosmos (talk) 18:56, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I still think there could be more. Where there’s smoke… 72.48.253.175 (talk) 01:10, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Devil in Me video game

The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me has been cut from the popular culture section a few times, again today as "junk". Why is a notable piece of media that draws on the Holmes story considered junk and not worth mentioning? Belbury (talk) 15:12, 29 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This helps our readers understand the topic how? Moxy🍁 15:17, 29 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A reader may be curious about the cultural legacy of the murders, whether there have been any major works of fiction based on the story. This appears to be one, and maybe the only one. Belbury (talk) 15:43, 29 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We have many games and TV shows that are simply name dropping essentially.... with zero historic accuracy or value. Moxy🍁 19:49, 29 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pitezel

The name Pitezel is mentioned early in the article but with no explanation. Only later is it explained that this was a collaborator of Holmes. 81.108.8.238 (talk) 11:32, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed it (without having seen this talk page thread, actually). Loki (talk) 19:42, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]