Nearly end of August 1895, H.H. Holmes was in jail in Philadelphia awaiting sentencing for life insurance fraud. He had pleaded guilty and he thought he would

receive a couple years in prison at the most. But before the judge decided Holmes' sentence,

the Philadelphia authorities decided to investigate the death of Benjamin Pitzel as a murder.

Holmes had initially claimed that his former associate was alive and in hiding as a part of the

life insurance scam. Then Holmes changed his story and said Pytzel had taken his own life.

As the Philadelphia authorities learned more about the boastful criminal in their custody,

they believed the truth was that Holmes had murdered his accomplice. Then they became increasingly suspicious that Holmes may have murdered three of Pytzel's children,

15-year-old Alice, 12-year-old Nellie, and 8-year-old Howard.

District Attorney George Graham entrusted the case to his friend, Inspector Frank Geyer.

In the summer of 1895, Geyer had

crisscrossed part of the U.S. to try to find the missing children. In Toronto, Canada,

Geyer had found the bodies of Alice and Nellie buried in the basement of a rental house.

Then, Geyer returned to one of his early stops, Indianapolis, on a hunch.

He had verified that Holmes had been there with the children, and he hadn't found any evidence

of the murder of Howard Pitzel, but he tried again. Newspapers tracked Geyer's mission,

and readers eagerly awaited every new development. The attention turned Geyer into mission, and readers eagerly awaited every new development.

The attention turned Geyer into a celebrity detective, and it also led to tips from the public.

In Indianapolis, after days of searching, a tip came in from a real estate agent. It was about a small rental cottage in the suburb of Irvington.

The cottage was in a secluded neighborhood,

which would have been a great place to conceal criminal activity.

Knowing that Alice and Nellie's bodies had been buried in the basement of the rental house in Toronto,

Geyer immediately started digging in the basement of the cottage in Irvington.

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