Some might be surprised to find out that H.H. Holmes didn’t always act alone — he enlisted the aid of another con artist named Benjamin Pitezel. The two men cooked up a scheme that involved Holmes taking a $10,000 life insurance policy out on his partner, who then faked his death (per History). After the payout, the two men were to split the proceeds. Holmes had other ideas.
Holmes was imprisoned briefly in the Midwest for fraud (per Britannica). When he was released, he reconnected with the “dead” Pitezel in Philadelphia. He murdered his partner but convinced his widow Carrie that he was alive and had gone into hiding. He convinced her to leave with him and bring three of her children in tow. Holmes is believed to have thought that these particular kids knew about the insurance scam, and he eliminated them, too. He and Carrie Pitezel were arrested on November 17, 1894. Holmes insisted that his partner was alive and had the missing children with him. But Detective Frank Geyer decided to work on his hunch that the three Pitezel children had been murdered (via Rebecca Frost).
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Geyer undertook the arduous task of retracing Holmes’ steps after he had connected with Carrie Pitezel. This proved to be confusing, as Holmes had moved the entourage around various parts of the United States under different names and had even stayed across the border in Toronto for a time. But Geyer’s determination to find out what happened to Alice, Nellie, and Howard Pitezel eventually paid off.
