In 1816 Ohio county commissioners were authorized to construct ‘poor houses’ in order to provide temporary relief to needy residents of the state. In 1850 the name "county poorhouse" was changed to that of "county infirmary" to help lessen the negative connotation associated with the institutions. The infirmary also served as a place for the housing of some of the state’s orphaned children. This was necessary, since the practice of legal adoption of non-related children was extremely uncommon until the twentieth century. Many childless couples had serious doubts about the future potential of poor, abandoned and illegitimate children. Concerns about inheritance of "bad blood" were widespread, and even families who were motivated to take a child in rarely took the necessary steps to establish a permanent relation though legal adoption. For many children, life became one of an indentured servant. A contract would be written that entitled the child to food, clothing, shelter and medical attention, in exchange for working without wages until he or she reached adulthood. Unfortunately, the welfare of the child depended almost entirely upon the kindness of the person named in the contract. If the person taking in the child was motivated only by a desire to make the maximum profit from the free labor, this sometimes led to the child being denied adequate food, shelter and even necessary medical treatment. And there often was very little recourse for protection against such abuse.
     Fortunately, or so it seemed at the time, fate had a better life planned for a two-year-old orphan girl by the name of Tressie Doty who was living at the Miami County Infirmary in Troy, Ohio. In 1873 Peter and Elizabeth Little went to the institution in search of a child to call their own. While there the Littles were taken with the blue-eyed, lisping baby. At the first sight of Elizabeth, the child threw her little arms about the woman’s neck and seemed greatly pleased to meet her. Touched by Tressie’s actions the Littles took her home and gave her the name Bessie.
     In 1879 Peter was offered a job as foreman at the Ohio Rake Company in Dayton. The family moved to the city and eventually settled in a home at 1637 West Second Street. Bessie thrived in the new city, the teachers at school saying that she seemed to be unusually bright and a rapid learner. She was a constant church member and well-known for her beauty and kindness.  
     Meanwhile, Albert J. Frantz was growing up in Tadmor, Ohio. The knowledge that they were going to have another child must have come as a surprise to Albert’s parents, since his father Jacob was 52 and his mother Phoebe was nearly 45 at the time of his birth in 1875. With Phoebe’s death in 1888, a father that was slowly becoming an invalid and a family that were going their separate ways, the farm became too much for Albert and his sister Martha to keep up with. In 1895 Jacob and his two children came to Dayton and picked out a smaller residence at 1609 West Second Street. Albert took a position as a stenographer and collector for the Mathias Planing Mill Company. He joined the College Street Dunker Church and was known as an exemplary young man and dutiful boy.
     Living as they did in the same neighborhood, it wasn’t long before Albert and Bessie met. Although Bessie had never had a serious relation with anyone before, she was soon smitten with Albert. The two met almost every day for a year. The visits became so numerous that people began to talk about the couple. Part of this was due to the fact that Bessie was 23 years old, nearly three years older than young Albert.
     On July 17, 1896 Mrs. Little, while walking out to her stable, was surprised to find the lovers in a compromising situation. Outraged, Bessie’s mother insisted upon an immediate marriage. Albert nervously stated that he would have done so already, except for the fact that he was not yet of legal age and could not marry without his father’s permission, which the old man refused to give. Forbidden to see Bessie anymore, Albert promised to try his best to change his father’s mind.
     Taking matters into her own hands, Mrs. Little decided to send Albert’s father a letter, telling of what had occurred between their two children. She also made it quite clear that Bessie was adopted and that the girl came from "low stock". She ended the letter by saying that, after finding out about Bessie’s behavior, she was glad that the girl was not her real daughter. Jacob declined to answer back.
     Less than a week later, Albert was caught sneaking out of Bessie’s bedroom. Claiming that it had to end one way or another, Bessie’s parents give her an ultimatum; either she had to quit seeing Albert or leave home for good. Unable to live without Albert, Bessie decided to leave her home.
     On July 25, Bessie moved into the Cooper Hotel. While there the lonely girl befriended Mrs. Hale Bell, the hotel’s bookkeeper. Bessie told her of the situation and how she was living in hope from day to day that Albert’s father would change his mind. Mrs. Bell worried about her new friend. After seeing Albert, Bessie would be in a happy mood, but when a day or two would go by, she would become depressed and speak of wanting to commit suicide. On one occasion she spoke of how, while crossing a bridge on a streetcar, she had been sorely tempted to jump into the river.
     On August 20, unable to continue to pay for the hotel on his small salary of $5 a week, Albert had Bessie move into a room at Minnie Freese’s boarding house on South Jefferson Street.
     On August 27, Bessie ate supper at the boarding house and then left rather hastily at 6:10 pm, claiming that she should have been gone at 6 o’clock. Mrs. Freese would later claim that Bessie had been in the best of spirits, saying that she was going to Boulevard Park, near Fifth Street, to meet her lover, Albert. Mrs. Freese watched as Bessie hurried towards St. Clair Street to catch a streetcar. That was the last time Bessie was seen alive.
     The next day Albert went to Mrs. Freese’s boarding house and asked for Bessie. The landlady told him that Bessie had left the night before and said that she was going out riding with him. He claimed not to have seen Bessie for the last two days. When Mrs. Freese asked if they should contact the police, Albert told her not to, saying that he was not too worried about the matter since Bessie had told him she was contemplating going home to see her parents. He was so sure that Bessie would soon be back that he agreed to pay another weeks’ rent in advance.
     That evening the fire department was summoned to the home of Albert’s father to extinguish a fire in his barn. After getting the blaze under control, the firemen found the remains of a horse and the blackened irons of what had once been a buggy.
     The next morning Albert called on Bessie to tell her of the burning of the barn and the destruction of his horse and buggy. When told that Bessie had still not returned, he asked that Mrs. Freese contact Bessie’s parents and see if she was with them.
     About 3 pm on September 2, 1896, E. L. Harper, Jr. of Cincinnati, was enjoying a pleasant day of the late summer season by swimming about the point where the Stillwater river flows into the Great Miami. As he neared the shore Harper spied what he thought might be a shoe stuck under a stick in the water. Swimming closer, however, he discovered the decomposed body of a woman.
     Before nightfall the body had been taken to O. P. Boyer’s undertaking establishment. The woman’s body was bloated to the point of bursting out of its clothing. A terrible stench emanated from the body and but few could stand to remain in the room while an examination was made. Coroner Lee Corbin’s report stated that it was a case of suicide. The corpse was then placed in a zinc-lined pine box, the body being too swollen to fit in a regular coffin, and arrangements were made for burial in the potter’s field at Woodland cemetery.
     The next morning, under a tent especially erected at the cemetery and beside the open grave which it was to rest, the body was subjected to a more thorough autopsy by Dr. Fred Weaver, assistant police surgeon and his father Dr. J. M. Weaver. They, too, failed to find any signs of violence.
     Nothing was found on the woman to tell who she was. She was believed to be between 20 and 30 years old, five feet two inches tall, with medium brown hair and a rather high forehead. A tooth on the upper jaw and just to the right of the incisions was practically covered with gold. She had been wearing a brown, one piece dress and fairly new button shoes that had been purchased at Diers and Tanner shoe store on South Main Street.
     Dr. Levitt E. Custer, a dentist who practiced in Dayton, was able to identify the body as belonging to Bessie Little. This led to an examination of her room at the boarding house. There the police found an undelivered letter written by her and addressed to Albert’s father, Jacob Frantz. In the letter Bessie declared that she was pregnant by Albert and begged the father to allow them to marry so that her honor and reputation might be preserved.
     Albert Frantz was summoned to police headquarters. Frantz was perfectly cool and collected during the lengthy interview that followed as to his acquaintance with and relationship to the girl. He stated he had last seen Bessie on August 26 and had been spending the past few days since then looking for her. He did admit taking Bessie to see a Dr. Otho Francis who, upon examination, announced that she was pregnant. When asked why Bessie might commit suicide, Albert stated that perhaps she had killed herself due to depression. He confessed that he had recently told her that he could not marry her since he only made five dollars a week. A consensus was soon reached that Bessie had burned down the Frantz’s barn for revenge, then killed herself due to the shame of being pregnant.
     It was also rumored that, several days before the discovery of Bessie’s remains, a prominent attorney had been contacted by two men who had wanted to determine their legal responsibility of holding back knowledge they had of a woman’s body in the river.
      On September 4 three boys, Frank Ross, Frank Shipley and William Zigler, turned over to the police two tortoise shell hair combs they had found the day following Bessie’s disappearance. They had discovered the combs while crossing a newly constructed bridge connecting Ridge Avenue with was then known as "Idylwild". One of the combs had been found in a pool of blood on the bridge, the other about twenty-five feet away. Bessie’s parents were contacted and they identified the combs as belonging to their daughter.
     The police knew the area well. There were few houses in the neighborhood at the time, the road leading to the eastern end of the bridge hardly more than a trail. It was a lonesome spot, the bridge having not yet been opened to traffic. Police Chief Thomas J. Farrell and his men hurried to the bridge and found the statement of the boys to be correct. There were blood spots for a distance of about 20 feet leading to the railing of the bridge and a large blotch on the railing itself. It was noticed that a buggy wheel had rolled through the blood and had left a bloody impression on the new flooring of the bridge. This led the police to the conclusion that a struggle had been involved and that Bessie had not committed suicide after all.
     Bessie’s body was disinterred. The doctors found what appeared to be two bullet wounds in the right ear. Upon opening the skull it was discovered that the brain contained many tiny leaden splinters, while near the base of one ear was a larger piece, prevented from passing out of the skull only by the thickness of the skin on the outside. The amount of lead was equivalent to that of two 32 caliber slugs. The mystery of her death had been solved.
     The bloody tracks also made the police reconsider the cause of the stable fire. If Albert had brought Bessie to the bridge and murdered her, then his buggy would have had traces of blood on it. The stable fire would have destroyed any evidence the buggy might have contained. 
     Chief Farrell called Albert to police headquarters for another "sweating". After being interrogated for over an hour Albert finally admitted that he was with Bessie when she was shot. He stated that on the evening of August 27, the two had met at Robert Boulevard Park, near the Fifth Street Bridge. They then took a ride through Dayton View, Riverdale and the suburbs, ending up at the Ridge Avenue bridge. Albert claimed that she had asked to be driven there so that she could try and see a boat that had capsized a few days before. He stated that when he turned his head to look into the water, Albert heard a shot. His horse became frightened and ran across the bridge. A second shot rang out and that was when Albert realized that Bessie had shot herself. Thoughts of arrest and imprisonment flashed through his brain. Acting on impulse he threw both her body and the gun into the river.
     It was deemed important to find the gun and try and trace where and by whom it had been bought. Ben Graham, a professional diver out of Newport, Kentucky, was called in. Equipped with all the tools necessary for deep-sea diving, Graham spent days walking beneath the waves of the Stillwater, combing every foot of its bottom for a distance of many yards both below and above the bridge.
     Thousands lined the banks of the Stillwater river to watch Graham at work. People hurried to the scene the moment they had eaten breakfast, rushed back to grab a hurried lunch, then returned to struggle for a favored vantage point where they could watch the as the bottom of the river was scoured for the weapon. Many actually carried their lunch and made an outing of it, so fearful that they might miss the thrill they knew would come when the mud-drenched weapon would be lifted from the water. But the revolver was never found. For a dozen years after the crime, rusted old revolvers were carried to police headquarters and offered by the finders as the possible link in the Bessie Little case.
     On September 15 Albert Frantz was held without bond on the charge of murder in the first degree. On October 29 he was arraigned and entered a plea of not guilty.
      The trial was scheduled to be held before Judge Oren B. Brown. Albert Frantz sat with defending attorneys Judge John W. Kreitzer and William H. Van Skaik by his side. City Prosecutor Benjamin F. McCann, County Prosecutor Charles H. Kumler and former County Prosecutor John C. Patterson represented the state.
     On December 17, the prosecution began the trial by painting Albert as a cold-blooded killer who, knowing that he had thrown the body into the river, had gone the next day to Mrs. Freese and asked for Bessie, wondering where she was , and wanting to pay her board a week in advance. The State claimed that Frantz had a motive to kill the girl. He had grown tired of Bessie and was fearful of a suit for breach of promise. This would have meant the possible loss of the $1,700 which he was to receive from his mother’s estate when he reached the age of twenty-one.
     The defense tried to show how Bessie was unhappy and had morbid thoughts in the time before her death because Frantz’ father would not let them marry. This was strongly shown in the letter found in the room, and her talk with the bookkeeper at the hotel.
     Despite the furious objections of the defense, Bessie Little’s head was allowed to be brought into court as evidence. The girl’s head had been kept in a jar of alcohol at police headquarters. Before the trial, all of the skin was removed from the skull, except for the right ear, which showed the proof that two shots had been fired. In order to make a point during the trial, Dr. Fred Weaver was asked to remove the skull from the jar. Not surprisingly, this caused quite a stir among those who witnessed the scene.