The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America

In June 1895 Detective Frank Geyer visited a physician by the name of Mudgett but more commonly known as H. H. Holmes, incarcerated for insurance fraud in Philadelphia’s Moyamensing Prison. From Fort Worth, Holmes had moved to St. Louis, and finally Philadelphia, committing frauds on the way. In Philadelphia, Holmes had faked the death of Ben Pitezel to defraud the Fidelity Mutual Life Association of nearly $10,000. The company hired Pinkerton Detective Agency to investigate. It was becoming gradually clearer that Holmes had not faked Pitezel’s death but murdered him, and now Geyer’s job was to locate the three of Pitezel’s five children last seen with Holmes.

Geyer had recently lost his wife and daughter in a house fire when he interviewed a “glib” Holmes, who insisted the children were traveling with a woman called Minnie Williams. Holmes claimed to have obtained a cadaver that resembles Pitezel and instigated an explosion in a rented property ironically close to the city morgue. Holmes assisted in identifying the cadaver and nonchalantly lanced the identifying wart on Pitezel’s neck. His 15-year-old daughter Alice identified her father’s teeth. Holmes had taken Alice, 11-year-old Nellie, and 8-year-old Howard, telling their mother, Carrie, that their father was desperate to see them.