TRUE DETECTIVE STORIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 78, 1 April 1922, Page 19

TRUE DETECTIVE STORIES.

I REMARKABLE CRIMES j RECALLED. XXXI.—THE SECRET OF HOLMESHTTRST. (Copyright, 1921, by "The Wheeler Newspaper Syndicate."') The discovery of the body of B. F. Ferry in his house at 131, Ca_ow_iH Street, I'hUadelphia, by a man who had come in to see i about securing a patent, did not cause any sensation at the time, for the coroner's jury cave a speedy verdict of "death from accidental causes." There was clear evident c that some sort of an explosion had takea . place. A shattered bottle which had manifestly contained some sort of inflammable material, a broken pipe filled with partly burned tobacco and a charred match, lay beside the body. An autopsy showed that Perry had died from congestion of the lungs caused by the inhaling of flames or chloroform, the latter having presumably formed the contents of the broken bottle. So, as there were no claimants for the body and no estate. Perry's j remains were interred in the Potter's Field. Shortly after Perry's death, the Philadelphia branch of the Fidelity Insurance Company received a letter from Jephtha D. 1 Howe, an attorney in St. Louis, stating that "B. F. Perry" was really Benjamin F. Fite—el, who had carried a 10,000 dollar life insurance policy with the iFidelity Company. j The only person who could be found to identify tbe body was a man named H. H. Holmes, of Wilmette, 111., who willingly i came to Philadelphia to superintend the exhuming of the body. Holmes and Howe met in the oflice 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 company paid the insurance to Howe, Pitezel's attorney, and reimbursed Holmes for his expenses. The details of the case were reported in the St. Louis newspapers, and a few days later, Marion Hedgespeth, a convict serving a sentence for train robbery, informed the governor of the prison that he would like to give him some information which he considered most important. "If yon -will examine the records of the prison," said Hedgespeth, "you will find jthat 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 ball. While he was here, Howard asked mc if I knew any lawyer whom I could recommend in connection with a swindling scheme which he had in mind—a plan which ought to net at least 10,000 dollars witout any trouble. He promised mc 500 dollars for my information and I gave him the lawyer's name, but I never got my five hundred." "That's all very interesting," said the governor of the prison. "But why is it important?" "Don't you read the papers?" retorted Hedgespeth. "The name of the lawyer I recommended 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 mc last summer." 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 through accident, but had been deliberately murdered. After p. month's search Holmes was traced to New England and finally arrested in Boston. This, however, proved to be practically the beginning of the case for, the further back Geyer went into Holmes' history, the more gruesome details he discovered. In endeavouring 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 Indianapolis that Geyer discovered the body of Howard Pitezel, aged ten. jammed into the chimney of tbe furnace in a house which had been rented some time before by a man who answered to the description of Holmes. Evidently the plot had included the destruction of the entire Pitezel family, in order that Holmes might collect the insurance without opposition. It was in the course of his search through Indiana and Illinois that Geyer came upon the most startling discovery of the entire case—the mysterious building in Chicago, known as "Holmes' Castle" or "Holmeshurst." The prisoner had pensonaUy superintended the erection of this structure and investigation proved that it contained nn air-proof, sound-proof vault, communicating with the cellar by means of a secret staircase. Buried in the cellar floor and half-consumed by quicklime were found the remains of at least five persons who had been lured to Holmeshurst and there murdered. Ail of these crimes had been committed some time before the Pitezel affair, aud had it not been for the fact that Hchxes overlooked the promise which he had made to a convict in the St. Louis prison, it Is quite possible that be would have remalne-1 at liberty, a constant and deadly peril to everyone with whom he came in contact. But Detective Geyer returned to Philadelphia with more than enough evidence to secure conviction, and Holmes paid the penalty.