Frank Geyer
{{Short description|American police detective}}
{{Infobox police officer
| name = Detective Frank P. Geyer
| image = File:Philadelphia City Detective Frank Geyer.jpg
| caption =Geyer in 1896
| currentstatus =
| department =City of Philadelphia Police Department
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1853|7|28}}
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1918|10|4|1853|7|28}}
| nickname =
|rank=
|birth_place=Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
|death_place= Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
|resting_place=Hillside Cemetery, Roslyn, Pennsylvania|badgenumber=840, 887, and detective badge|serviceyears=27 years at City of Philadelphia Police Department|laterwork=
|spouse= {{marriage|Mary Elizabeth Rilley|1885}}
|children = 1 daughter
}}
Franklin P. Geyer (July 28, 1853 – October 4, 1918) was an American police detective from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, best known for his investigation of H. H. Holmes, one of America's first serial killers. Geyer was a longtime city employee of the Philadelphia Police Department, and in 1894 was assigned to investigate the Holmes-Pitezel Case. He published the story in his book The Holmes-Pitezel Case: a history of the greatest crime of the century and of the search for the missing Pitezel children.{{Cite book
| publisher = Philadelphia
| last = Geyer
| first = Frank P.
| author2 = Lawrence J. Gutter Collection of Chicagoana (University of Illinois at Chicago) ICIU
| title = The Holmes-Pitezel case; a history of the greatest crime of the century and of the search for the missing Pitezel children
| access-date = 2014-12-16
| date = 1896
| url = https://archive.org/details/holmespitezelcas00geye
}}{{Cite book|title=City of Philadelphia Police Roll Books 1876-1885|last=Philadelphia City Archives|publisher=Philadelphia Police|year=1876–1885}}{{Cite news|title=Holmes Nemesis to Leave Force|date=August 16, 1903|work=Philadelphia Inquirer}}{{Cite book|title=Detective in the White City: The Real Story of Frank Geyer|last=Crighton|first=JD|publisher=RW Publishing House|year=2017|isbn=978-1-946100-02-3|location=Murrieta, CA|pages=28–29, 236–237}}
Son of Reuben K. Geyer and Camilla Buck, Frank Geyer died at the age of 65 due to La Grippe (Spanish Flu) and his funeral was attended by hundreds of policemen and detectives.{{cite web | url=https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1918_10-04_Frank_Geyer_Death_Certificate.jpg| title=Franklin P. Geyer death certificate | date=4 October 1918 | publisher=Wikimedia Commons | access-date=January 22, 2017}}{{Cite book|title=Detective in the White City: The Real Story of Frank Geyer|last=Crighton|first=JD|publisher=RW Publishing House|year=2017|isbn=978-1-946100-02-3|location=Murrieta, CA|pages=251}}
Holmes–Pitezel case
H.H. Holmes's recorded crimes began in Chicago in 1893 when he opened a hotel called The World's Fair Hotel for the World's Columbian Exposition. The structure, built by Holmes, would later be known as the 'Murder Castle', as demonstrably false press accounts averred that labyrinthine constructions on the top two floors were used by Holmes to torture and kill numerous victims. Reports by the yellow press claimed the structure contained secret torture chambers, trap doors, gas chambers and a basement crematorium; none of these claims were true.{{Cite web|last=Little|first=Becky|title=Did Serial Killer H.H. Holmes Really Build a 'Murder Castle'?|url=https://www.history.com/news/murder-castle-h-h-holmes-chicago|access-date=2022-01-12|website=HISTORY|language=en}} Even a 1937 article in the Chicago Tribune described: "There were rooms that had no doors. There were doors that had no rooms. A mysterious house it was indeed -- a crooked house, a reflex of the builder's own distorted mind. In that house occurred dark and eerie deeds."{{Cite news | url=http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-serial-killer-white-city-flashback-1026-20141025-story.html#page=1 | last =Benzkofer | first =Stephan | date = October 24, 2014 | title =Chicago's first serial killer | newspaper =The Chicago Tribune}} While Holmes' "Murder Castle" is a total fabrication, it is true that he killed multiple times, partly in furtherance of an insurance fraud scheme. In doing so, Holmes left a complicated trail of evidence through several US states and the Canadian province of Ontario.
Boston police inspectors and a Pinkerton detective apprehended Holmes in 1894 in Boston on a coroner's warrant for insurance fraud perpetrated in Philadelphia; however, Boston officials did not find the warrant sufficient to hold Holmes so they contacted Fort Worth, Texas for an outstanding warrant of horse theft. Holmes volunteered to be extradited to Philadelphia for the insurance fraud as he felt he would receive a much lighter sentence. Texas was notorious for rendering harsh sentences to horse thieves. The City of Philadelphia Police Department sent Detective Thomas Crawford to Boston to bring H. H. Holmes and his accomplice, Mrs. Carrie Pitezel, to Philadelphia for a trial.{{Cite book|title=The Holmes-Pitezel case: a history of the greatest crime of the century and of the search for the missing Pitezel children|last=Geyer|first=Frank P.|publisher=Publishers' Union|year=1896|location=Philadelphia, PA|pages=143–44}}{{Cite book|title=Detective in the White City: The Real Story of Frank Geyer|last=Crighton|first=JD|publisher=RW Publishing House|year=2017|isbn=978-1-946100-02-3|location=Murrieta, CA|pages=138–41}}{{Cite news|title=The Holmes Case|date=August 3, 1895|work=Decatur Daily Republican|page=6}}
Philadelphia city detective Frank Geyer was tasked with investigating and the trail led him through the Mid West and Toronto, Canada, where he found the remains of two of the Pitezel children.{{cite web | url=http://torontoist.com/2014/09/historicist-h-h-holmes-in-toronto | title=Historicist: H.H. Holmes in Toronto | publisher=Torontoist | author=David Wencer | access-date=November 24, 2014}} They were the children of Benjamin Pitezel, Holmes's former partner in crime, whom he had murdered to commit life insurance fraud. Pitezel, however, was only involved in fraud and had no knowledge of the murders.
The initial investigation was concerned with the insurance fraud but it soon became apparent that Holmes had killed Pitezel. In June 1895 Frank Geyer left Philadelphia to retrace Holmes's steps. His findings in Toronto led to further investigations of Holmes's Chicago property, which sealed his fate. Geyer used information from the unsent letters written by the Pitezel children which, for an unknown reason, were kept by Holmes. In Toronto, he found the bodies of Alice and Nellie Pitezel. He continued his search and found the burnt remains of Howard Pitezel, the third child, in a house Holmes had rented in Irvington, Indianapolis.{{cite web | url=http://www.allthingscrimeblog.com/2014/03/28/the-monstrous-h-h-holmes-and-his-murder-castle-inc | title=The Monstrous H.H. Holmes and His Murder Castle Inc. | publisher=All Things Crime Blog | author=Darcia Helle | access-date=November 24, 2014 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141203054138/http://www.allthingscrimeblog.com/2014/03/28/the-monstrous-h-h-holmes-and-his-murder-castle-inc/ | archive-date=December 3, 2014 }}
Holmes was found guilty of murder in the first degree and executed in May 1896 at the age of 34. Wildly exaggerated accounts have estimated Holmes' total number of victims at around 200,{{cite web | url=http://www.harpers.org/archive/1943/12/0020617 | title=The Master of Murder Castle: A Classic of Chicago Crime | publisher=Harper's Weekly | author=John Bartlow Martin | author-link = John Bartlow Martin | access-date=November 24, 2014}} but with no sources to back up the figure. Erik Larson, who wrote extensively about Holmes in The Devil in the White City (2003), thought this was a gross exaggeration. Holmes himself confessed to 27 murders, although some of the people he claimed to have killed were still in fact alive. Modern thought links Holmes to the murders of Ben Pitezel and his three children, as well as very possibly (though by no means unquestionably) to five women he had various personal and business dealings with in the late 1880s and early 1890s, and who disappeared at various points and were never found.Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City, Vintage Books, 2003, p 385).{{Cite web|last=Little|first=Becky|title=Did Serial Killer H.H. Holmes Really Build a 'Murder Castle'?|url=https://www.history.com/news/murder-castle-h-h-holmes-chicago|access-date=2022-01-12|website=HISTORY|language=en}} The murder of Ben Pitezel was the only murder for which Holmes was charged and convicted.
That same year Frank Geyer published his book detailing the case. In the book George S. Graham, District Attorney of Philadelphia, described the story as "one of the most marvellous [sic] stories of modern times".{{cite web|url=http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/history/holmes/castle_2.html|title=H. H. Holmes: Master of Illusion|author=Katherine Ramsland|publisher=Crime Library - Criminal Minds & Methods|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141129185543/http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/history/holmes/castle_2.html|archive-date=November 29, 2014|url-status=dead|access-date=November 24, 2014}}
Several popular books falsely claimed Detective Geyer's wife and twelve-year-old daughter died in a fire shortly after he was assigned to investigate H. H. Holmes and the three missing Pitezel children.{{Cite book|title=Depraved: The Definitive True Story of H. H. Holmes, Whose Grotesque Crimes Shattered Turn-of-the-Century Chicago|last=Schechter|first=Harold|publisher=Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster|year=1994|location=New York, NY|pages=247–48}}{{Cite book|title=The Devil's Dozen: 12 Notorious Serial Killers Caught by Cutting-Edge Forensics|last=Ramsland, PhD|first=Katherine|publisher=Berkley Books|year=2009|isbn=978-0-425-27077-6|location=New York|pages=21–22}}{{Cite book|title=The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America|last=Larson|first=Eric|publisher=Vintage Books, a Division of Random House, Inc.|year=2003|isbn=0-375-72560-1|location=New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/devilinwhitecity00lars/page/340 340]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/devilinwhitecity00lars/page/340}}{{Cite book|title=A Competent Witness: Georgiana Yoke and the Trial of H. H. Holmes|last=Nickels|first=Judith|publisher=CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform|year=2014|pages=155}}{{Cite book|title=Beating the Devil's Game: A History of Forensic Science and Criminal Investigation|last=Ramsland, Ph.D|first=Katherine|publisher=Berkley Books|year=2007|location=New York|pages=152}}
However, Geyer's beloved wife and daughter never died in a fire and continued to live well past his death in 1918.{{Cite book|title=Detective in the White City: The Real Story of Frank Geyer|last=Crighton|first=JD|publisher=RW Publishing House|year=2017|isbn=978-1-946100-02-3|location=Murrieta, CA|pages=3–8}}{{Cite book|title=Franklin P. Geyer (age 31, detective) married Mary Elizabeth Rilley (age 27) on March 9, 1885|publisher=Methodist Midtown Parish Church Marriage Record, 1885}}{{Cite book|title=Department of Records, Philadelphia City Births, December 27, 1886|last=Edna Camilla Geyer}}{{Cite book|title=1900 United States Census, Philadelphia, PA for Frank Geyer, Detective, Mary Geyer, wife, Edna Geyer, daughter}}{{Cite news|title=Pupils Pass to Higher Studies [Edna C. Geyer]|date=June 28, 1901|work=Philadelphia Inquirer|page=9}}{{Cite news|title=Strohm-Geyer [Edna Camilla Geyer married Orrie Curtis Strohm, daughter of Philadelphia city detective Frank Geyer]|date=April 23, 1908|work=Bridgeton Evening News|page=6}}{{Cite news|title=Bury Detective F. P. Geyer [Geyer's estate bequeathed to his wife, Mary, and daughter, Edna C. Strohm]|date=October 9, 1918|work=Philadelphia Inquirer|page=10}}
Other work
In 1896, Detective Geyer became an author and inventor. He authored the Holmes-Pitezel case: a history of the greatest crime of the century and of the search for the missing Pitezel children, which became an instant best seller. Shortly after its release, his "Shutter or Door Fastener" patent application was approved by the United States Patent Office on March 10, 1896, Patent No. 556,141. After 27 years with the City of Philadelphia Police Department, Geyer opened the Frank P. Geyer Detective Agency, located at 1328 Arch Street in Philadelphia and investigated high profile cases, mostly in the Pennsylvania and New Jersey areas. In 1907, he invented the "Safety-Lock for Pocket Books and Hand Bags, which was approved by the Patent Office December 3, 1907, Patent No. 872,619.{{Cite book|title=Detective in the White City: The Real Story of Frank Geyer|last=Crighton|first=JD|publisher=RW Publishing House|year=2017|isbn=978-1-946100-02-3|location=Murrieta, CA|pages=210–14, 242–45}}{{Cite news|title=Geyer Detective Agency Ad|date=September 13, 1908|work=Philadelphia Inquirer|page=3}}{{Cite news|title=Miscellaneous Bills [Bucks County paid Detective Geyer for services]|date=January 26, 1916|work=The Central News|page=7}}{{Cite news|title=Fake Mustaches|date=September 6, 1909|work=Wilkes-Barre Times|page=9}}{{Cite news|title=Strong Murderer Declares Medium|date=March 29, 1911|work=Philadelphia Inquirer|page=16}}
File:Detective-Frank-Geyer-Patent1896.jpgFile:Detective-Frank-Geyer-Patent1907.jpg
External links
- https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/25051750/franklin-p-geyer
References
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Category:American private investigators
Category:Philadelphia Police Department officers
Category:19th-century American inventors
Category:20th-century American inventors
Category:Deaths from the Spanish flu pandemic in Pennsylvania