The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America Part IV, Chapter 3 Summary

The Tenant

  • Geyer continues his search for the children, piecing together clues from their letters and testaments from witnesses who encountered Holmes. He was hard to forget.
  • Geyer receives a tip from a man claiming he lived next door to a residence Holmes briefly occupied.
  • Holmes had apparently asked him to borrow a shovel. To plant a vegetable garden, right? Wrong.
  • Geyer enters the property Holmes would have stayed in and dig around in the cellar. There he finds the bodies of two little girls.
  • To her own shock and horror, Carrie identifies the bodies as Alice and Nellie.
  • The coroner infers that the girls were suffocated.
  • Their brother Howard remains missing.