The seals which had been placed upon her property were now broken and an inventory made of her possessions. The brother and sister-in-law testified that the best articles were missing, and the pot of money which she was supposed to keep by her was not unearthed, nor any other hidden treasures. In all this there was nothing to arouse any suspicion of foul play, except a dreadful odour pervading the room, which greatly incommoded the persons engaged in drawing up the inventory. It was argued that a closer examination of the premises ought to be made, but for lack of any suspicious evidence pointing to a crime having been committed, the further search was postponed. Nothing occurred until early in the new year, when it so happened that one day in January a laundress and her son wanted to dry linen in the attic of the house which Holzmann had occupied. In this attic, as was indeed the case throughout the wretched tenement, brooms and dustpans had never played a great part, and dust, old straw and other rubbish covered the floor and all the corners. Having kicked away some of the refuse with their feet, the two workers came upon something solid, which on closer inspection they discovered to be the thigh, leg and foot of a human body. Mother and son at once became convinced that these were the remains of the missing woman, and they hastened to acquaint the legal authorities with the facts of their ghastly discovery. A deputation from the courts of justice immediately proceeded to the spot and found, among the straw and refuse in the corner of the garret, a naked left thigh with the leg and part of a foot attached. About six paces further on, inserted between the chimney and the roof, was a human trunk without head, arms or legs. On closer search, an old petticoat with a bodice and a red neckerchief were disclosed, the whole thickly coated with blood. These garments were immediately identified by the persons living in the tenement as having been worn by the woman Holzmann.