"In the antisocial personality, badness and madness seem to shade together. Sometimes, antisocialsā crimes are so incomprehensible and morally repugnant that the act alone makes us doubt their sanity. For example, the normal person has no way of identifying with Jeffrey Dahmer, who killed, had sex with, and ate the bodies of many of his victims, or with Herman Mudgett [...], whose evil adventures ended when he was hung just before the end of the nineteenth century.
Mudgett, a graduate of the University of Michiganās Medical College and a practicing pharmacist in Chicago, excelled at insurance fraud and the seduction of young women, at least 27 of whom were killed after signing papers that made Mudgett the recipient of their insurance and savings. Drugged with chloroform after a night of prenuptial sex, each would awaken trapped in the elevator shaft of an elaborate three-story office building, specially designed by Mudgett to conceal his nefarious activities. This building, outfitted with trap doors, soundproof rooms, peepholes, enormous furnaces, and vats of acid to dissolve human remains was dubbed his āCastle.ā Savoring the terror of the trapped girls, he would pump in poison gas and then haul their lifeless bodies onto the dissecting table for the removal of parts that held for him a special fascination."
Obviously Mudgett is the idol of TUSCL's own One Whose Name Shall Not be Mentioned, Mr. Chloroform, the FRAMOS Kid.
