Coco Holmes (Jenette Holmes)

Jenette Holmes was Coco’s aunt. Like her future niece and their common ancestor, Sherlock Holmes, Jenette was a consulting detective. She was killed in 9/11 and was the last Holmes family member to work as a detective until Coco later continued the legacy.

Early in the morning of September 11, 2001, Jenette entered the South Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City, and walked past the silver trident arches, through the door, and under the row of national flags in the tower’s lobby. She went to the elevator, and took it to the sky lobby. From there, she took another elevator to the 89th floor. She was going to work on an embezzlement case for one of the companies in the tower. Suddenly, at 8:46 AM, Jenette heard a huge roar and a gust of air. She looked out the window and saw a large passenger jet flying low, and to her shock, getting closer and closer to the World Trade Center. The plane, the hijacked American Airlines Flight 11, then hit the North Tower, producing an almost deafening explosion. The explosion reverberated all over the World Trade Center complex as Jenette felt the whole South Tower vibrate. Fire and smoke spewed out of the other tower. Jenette feared something was up, as she saw the plane fly right into the tower without trying to avoid it. She also noted that the plane tilted to one side, as if they were trying to hit more floors of the building with the wings.

The South Tower was then hit by another hijacked plane, United Airlines Flight 175. As the plane impacted the tower, Jenette Holmes was almost knocked to the floor as the building shook. She was trapped above the plane’s impact zone. Fires burning in the floors below consumed all oxygen in the building. Workers in the upper floors of the towers resorted to breaking windows for extra air, and hanging out of them. Jenette grabbed her expensive adding machine and threw it through a window to break it. She stood by the window and was ready to jump herself if the fire reached her. But she would be spared from burning alive. In the final seconds of her life, Jenette heard some huge cracks, as the fire warped the tower’s floors, and pulled columns inward. The tower collapsed, killing Jenette and most others inside the tower. The other tower held out for another 29 minutes before it collapsed.

Coco was born 2 1/2 years after 9/11, never getting to meet her aunt. She thinks highly of her ancestors and the more than a century-long family legacy in detective work, and her aunt is no different. Coco’s father, though never interested in detection or his family history, later told her the story of her aunt and other ancestors. This helped inspire Coco to become a private detective when she grew up. 

When Coco turned 16, her father gave her Sherlock’s magnifying glass. Jenette Holmes had left it at home on 9/11. The original lens and metal ring had been lost decades ago, but Coco’s parents purchased a tiny amount of steel and glass that had been part of the Twin Towers. They then commissioned a glassworker and blacksmith to make a new lens out of the materials to be fitted to the handle, the same handle used by Sherlock Holmes himself over a century ago.