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

Reading of his increasing fame in the national newspapers, Holmes sat smugly in his cell. He wrote a largely fictional memoir and a letter to Carrie Pitezel designed to exculpate himself from blame, in which he claims, “I was as careful with the children as if they were my own” (352).

When the three parties moved again to Toronto, none of the hoteliers remembered seeing Howard. By this time Geyer had become a national celebrity and he and his partner followed up on one of many tips, from a Thomas Ryves. Ryves said Holmes had arrived at the house with little furniture, a large trunk, and asked to borrow a shovel, which he returned the following day. He never saw Holmes again. On St Vincent Street, Geyer borrowed the same shovel from Ryves, and discovered the nude corpses buried three feet beneath the basement. Nellie’s feet had been amputated. Mrs. Pitezel learned of the discovery of her children via the newspaper. She came to identify them. Holmes had killed them with gas piped into the trunk. Howard remained missing.