The Little River news., 1922-05-24
True Detective Stories THE SECRET OF HOLMEHURST

'vdE discovery oL lle DouS ol o'
 F. Perry in his home at 1916
 Callowhill street, Philadelphia, by a man who had come in to see about securing patent, did not cause any sensation at the time, for the coroner's jury gave speedy verdict Of death from accidental causes" There was clear evidence that some sort of an explosion had taken place. A shattered bottle which had manifest ly contained some sort of infammable material, broken pipe filled with partly burned tobacco and a charred match, lay beside the body.
 All autopsy showed that Perry had died from congestion of the lungs caused by the inhaling of flames or chloroform, the latter having pre- sumably formed the contents of the broken bottle. So, as there were no claimants for the body and no estate, Perry's remains were inferred in the Pottsr's field. There they would have remained undisturbed if 1t had not been for the evidence of convict in the SC. LOUIS prlSOn.
 Shortly after Pe7y's death, the Philadelphia branch hbf the Fidelity Insurance company received letter from Jephtha D. Howe, an attorney in St. Louis, stating that "B. F. Perry was really Benjamin F. Pitezel, who had carried a $1O,O0O life insurance with the Fidelity company. The only person who could be found to identify the body was man named H. H. Holmes, of Wilmette, H., who will tend the exhuming of the body. Holmes and Howe met in the office of the company, presumably as strangers, and the former clearly identified the body of the dead man as that of his friend, Pitezel. Satisfied, the insurance Piteze4'S attorney, and reimbursed Holmes for his expenses.
 The details of the case were re- ported in the St. Louis newspapers, and few days later, Marion Hedg speth, q convict serving a sentence for train robbery, informed the gover- nor of the prison that he would like to give him some information which he considered most important.
 ''If you will examine the records of the prison" said Hedgspeth, you will find that there was a man here last summer by the name of H. H. Howard. He was in for fraud, I think, but was released on bail. While he was here, Howard asked me if I knew any lawyer whom I could recommend In connec- tion with swindling scheme which he had in mind-a plan which ought to net at least $1O,OOO without any trouble. He promised me $500 for my information and I gave him the lawyers name, but I never got my five hundred"
 "The name of the lawyer l recom- mended to Howard was Jephtha D. Howe and Howard is undoubtedly the man named Holmes who Is mixed up with that insurance case in Philadelphia. The details of the case agree exactly with the scheme, as Howard outlined it to me last sum- mer."
 As soon as this information reached Philadelphia, the insurance company, detailed an experienced detective named Geyer to arrest Holmes and to investigate his antecedents, for it was clear that Pitezel had not met his death throu, h accident, but had been deliberately murdered After a months search, Holmes was traced to New England and finally arrested.
 This, however, proved to be practical ly the beginning of the case for, the further back Geyer went into Holmes history, the more gruesome details he discovered. In endeavoring to find out what had become of Mrs. Pitezel and her five children, Geyer found in the cellar of a house in Toronto-a house rented by Holmes under the name of Canning-the bodies of two children later identified as Alice and Etta Pitezel From Toronto the trail led to Indianapolis, by way of Detroit and Cincinnati, and it was in Indian apols that Geyer discovered the body of HoAcrd Pitezel, aged ten, jammed into the chimney of the furnace in a house which had been rented some time before by a man who answered to the description of Holmes.
 It was in the course of his search through Indiana and Illinois that Geyer came upon the most startling dis covery of the entire case-the mysterious building in Chicago known as Holmes Castle" or "Holmehurst." The prisoner had personally superin- tended the erection of this structure and investigation proved that 1t con tained an air-proof, sound-proof vault, communicating with the cellar by means of secret staircase. Buried in the cellar floor and half-consumed by quicklime were found the remains of at least five persons who had been lrred to Holmehurst and there mur- dered.
 All of these crimes had been commit ted some time before the Pitezel af