Devil's Disciple

About the Book

Some say he was Jack the Ripper, but Herman W. Mudgett, alias Dr. H. H. Holmes, was far too busy piling up corpses on this side of the Atlantic to have ever traveled abroad. The basement of his infamous Chicago “Castle” (which The Chicago Times described as a “murder factory”) boasted a crematory, lime pits, acid vats, and torture devices. Also in the basement was his “human elasticizer,” a basic torture rack that he believed could be employed to create a race of giants. Born in Gilmanton, NH, in 1860, Mudgett/Holmes attended medical school at the University of Michigan, graduating with the class of 1884. To finance his studies, he took out life insurance policies on people he knew, and then delivered a corpse in order to collect…a con on which he would fall back many times during his short life. When the Holmes Castle was searched in 1895, the police found evidence of as many as 200 bodies. The job as “typewriter” at the Castle was truly a dead-end job. Most of the pretty young women who entered his employ became his lovers, and then his victims. Holmes’ final confession began with these words: “Yes, I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer no more than the poet can help the inspiration to song, nor the ambition of an intellectual man to be great. I was born with the evil one standing as my sponsor beside the bed where I was ushered into the world, and he has been with me since.” An incredible and chilling true story, Devil’s Disciple: The Deadly Dr. H. H. Holmes, is the biography of a real-life Jekyll & Hyde, told in the killer’s own words whenever possible.

About the Author

     Judy Miller Snavely is an award-winning journalist who has been honored for her fiction writing, as well.  She is a member of the Oklahoma Writers Federation, Inc., Mystery Writers of America, and Sisters in Crime.  She serves as Publicity Chair for Oklahoma Writers Federation, and assists with organizing regional conferences for Mystery Writers of America.  Judy has judged several writing contests, from short essays to book-length fiction.  She is available for speaking engagements, conferences, and book signings, and serves as mentor to promising new writers whenever possible.

     While in high school in Skiatook, OK, Judy began her writing career as co-editor of her school paper and was an editor and contributor to her college’s student paper.  She studied theology through the Seminary of the South in Sewanee, TN, and holds an associate’s degree in journalism. 

Devil’s Disciple: The Deadly Dr. H. H. Holmes is the first in a series of books on amazing (but forgotten) killers from America’s history.  The next book in this series will be about husband-and-wife innkeepers who turned murder into a family activity (ca. 1850).  The release of that book is slated for spring of 2007.

     Judy’s first novel, The Eighth Angel, will be released later this year.  That book is also the first of a series following the professional and personal career of Deputy Sheriff Katy Pearce.  The second Katy Pearce novel will be on bookshelves in late 2007.

      A native Oklahoman, Judy lives in Sand Springs, OK, with her husband of thirty-five years, Wiley; dachshund Oscar Mayer; and four spoiled cats – Freeway, Harley, Bandit, and Smokey.  Her daughter, Samantha, is a biologist at the Dallas Zoo and teaches at a local two-year college.