To many of the dead man's friends it seemed remarkable that the body had not sooner been discovered, more especially as the Lake View police had started out to search the catch basin on the day after the trunk was found, and continued at the work for nearly a week. This was satisfactorily explained, however, by Alderman Maxwell, of the city council, who was one of the searching committee. It appeared that there were four catch basins at the intersection of Evanston avenue and Fifty-Ninth street, the body being discovered in the one on the south-east corner. The committee, aided by fifteen police officers and six volunteers, had commenced their operations at Evanston avenue and Sulzer street, where the trunk was found, and went east and west from that corner. From here they had gone through the basins north and south along Evanston avenue, but no clues being discovered, they arrived at the conclusion that the trunk had been left for a blind, and that, in all probability, the body had been hidden some distance away. They had consequently gone to Graceland and looked through the basins up and down the avenue and on the cross streets for a distance of several miles. This occupied an entire week, until, tired and disgusted, they had stopped, by sheer bad luck, two blocks north of Fifty-Ninth street. Hence it was that the catch-basin in which the body had been hidden was missed.
All that night the body rested on the little table in the morgue, with an automatic sprinkler pouring water upon the face and breast. Decomposition advanced with such terrible swiftness, however, that by morning it was apparent that unless the process of embalming was resorted to without delay it would soon be unrecognizable. One of the earliest arrivals was John T. Cronin, of Bradford, Kansas, the only brother of the dead man. He wept bitterly, and sobbed and moaned when taken into the morgue, and at once recognized the corpse, not only from its facial characteristics, but also from a malformation of a portion of the body that the physician had kept secret from even his most intimate friends. He was with difficulty persuaded to leave the bier, and, prostrated with grief, was half carried from the room. The county authorities now took charge of the case. From the police department the following proclamation, over the signature of Chief Hubbard, went to every station in the city and was read to the men at the morning muster: