Frank Geier started his career with the city of Philadelphia Police Department.

On May 6, 1876, as a patrolman, in January 1888, he was promoted to detective, and in

1894 was assigned a new case involving suspected insurance fraud by H.H. Holmes.

This should have been a straightforward case, but as Geier scratched the surface, he uncovered

a lot more than he bargained for.

Geier later wrote a book about the case, titled The Holmes Pytzel Case, a history of the

greatest crime of the century, and of the search for the missing Pytzel children.

I'll be using this book to tell you this part of the H.H. Holmes tale in the words of

the police detective involved, using quotes throughout.

The preface begins, quote, it is not possible to find in the annals of criminal jurisprudence

a more deliberate and cold-blooded villain than the central figure in the story.

Not would the most careful research among the records of the prominent murder trials

that have absorbed public attention during the past century disclosed the careful planning

that made possible the apprehension of Holmes.

The prosecution to an almost miraculous ending of the search for the missing children, or

the equal of the forensic skill, and cunning the woeve to close the web, in which this man

of many names, in many murders, was entangled.

The investigation started with a letter from Mary and C. Hedgepath, who was incarcerated

awaiting sentencing for train robbery to the St. Louis Police Department, dated Tuesday

October 9, 1894, which read, dear sir, when H. M. Howard, and listeners, please note,

this was another alias used by Holmes, when he was in Missouri.

When H. M. Howard was in here, some two months ago, he came to me and told me he would like

...