At 10.30 p.m. on the night of September 2, 1894, H.H. Holmes and his wife, Georgiana,

boarded a train in Philadelphia. In the case of Holmes, they were

making a quick getaway. In the case of Georgiana, she probably didn't know what was happening.

They had been in Philadelphia for only a month before Holmes told her abruptly that his business

in the city was done. He had used the story that he was a copy machine salesman, but somewhere in the

back of Georgiana's mind, it must have felt strange that they were leaving so soon after arriving,

again. Philadelphia was the third city in four months from which they had left with great haste.

They had rushed out of Fort Worth, Texas in June. Whether

Georgiana knew it or not, they left because Holmes was wanted for horse theft. They had hurried

north to St. Louis, where Holmes and his longtime accomplice Benjamin Pitzel set up a variety of scams.

But Holmes had been arrested for fraud twice in July, which forced Holmes and

Georgiana to head to Philadelphia. It's impossible to know exactly how Holmes explained

everything to Georgiana, but he was a masterful liar. Whatever he told her, she believed it. She

never thought he was guilty of the things for which he had been arrested

or the things he was rumored to have done. At that time, on September 2nd, the rumors did not

include any substantial talk of murder, but they would very soon. About 12 hours earlier, Holmes had

killed his associate, Ben Pytzell.

For years, Holmes and Pytzl had been talking about committing life insurance fraud. The plan was for Pytzl to take out a life insurance policy on himself.

Then he and Holmes would fake Pitesl's death.

Holmes would dig up a recently buried body from a graveyard

and stage a scene which made it look like Ben Pitzel had died an accidental death.

Ben Pitzel would go into hiding while Holmes created fake documents

...