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The Cleveland Torso Murderer, also known as the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run, was an unidentified
serial killer A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A * * * * with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...
who was active in
Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the United States, U.S. U.S. state, state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along ...
,
Ohio Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...
, United States, in the 1930s. The killings were characterized by the
dismemberment Dismemberment is the act of cutting, ripping, tearing, pulling, wrenching or otherwise disconnecting the limbs from a living or dead being. It has been practiced upon human beings as a form of capital punishment, especially in connection with ...
of twelve known victims and the disposal of their remains in the impoverished neighborhood of
Kingsbury Run Kingsbury Run is the name that refers to an area on the southeast side of Cleveland, Ohio, located near the suburb of Shaker Heights. The area stretches westward through Kinsman Road. It contained a natural watershed that ran through East 79th Str ...
. Most victims came from an area east of Kingsbury Run called "The Roaring Third" or "Hobo Jungle", known for its bars, gambling dens, brothels, and vagrants. Despite an investigation of the murders, which at one time was led by famed lawman
Eliot Ness Eliot Ness (April 19, 1903 – May 16, 1957) was an American Prohibition agent known for his efforts to bring down Al Capone and enforce Prohibition in Chicago. He was the leader of a team of law enforcement agents, nicknamed The Untouchables. ...
, then Cleveland's Public Safety Director, the murderer was never apprehended.


Murders

The official number of murders attributed to the Cleveland Torso Murderer is twelve, although recent research has shown there could have been as many as twenty. The twelve known victims were killed between 1935 and 1938. Some investigators, including lead detective Peter Merylo, believe that there may have been thirteen or more victims in the Cleveland, Youngstown, and
Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...
areas between the 1920s and 1950s. Two strong candidates for addition to the initial list of those killed are the unknown victim nicknamed the "Lady of the Lake," found on August 13, 1997, and Robert Robertson, found on July 22, 1950. The victims of the Torso Murderer were usually drifters whose identities were never determined, although there were a few exceptions. Victims numbers 2, 3, and 8 were identified as Edward Andrassy, Florence Polillo, and possibly Rose Wallace, respectively. Edward Andrassy and Florence Polillo were both identified by their fingerprints, while Rose Wallace was tentatively identified via her dental records. The victims appeared to be lower class individuals – easy prey in Depression-era Cleveland. Many were known as "working poor", who had nowhere else to live but the ramshackle Depression-era shanty towns or "
Hooverville A "Hooverville" was a shanty town built during the Great Depression by the homeless in the United States. They were named after Herbert Hoover, who was President of the United States during the onset of the Depression and was widely blamed for ...
s" in the area known as the
Cleveland Flats The Flats is a mixed-use industrial, recreational, entertainment, and residential area of the Cuyahoga Valley neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio, USA. The name reflects its low-lying topography on the banks of the Cuyahoga River. History In 179 ...
. The Torso Murderer always
beheaded Decapitation or beheading is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and most other animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood, while all other organs are deprived of the au ...
and often
dismembered Dismemberment is the act of cutting, ripping, tearing, pulling, wrenching or otherwise disconnecting the limbs from a living or dead being. It has been practiced upon human beings as a form of capital punishment, especially in connection with ...
the victims, occasionally severing the victim's torso in half or severing their appendages. In many cases the cause of death was the decapitation or dismemberment itself. Most of the male victims were
castrated Castration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which an individual loses use of the testicles: the male gonad. Surgical castration is bilateral orchiectomy (excision of both testicles), while chemical castration uses pharmac ...
. Some victims showed evidence of chemical treatment being applied to their bodies, which caused the skin to become red, tough, and leathery. Many of the victims were found after a considerable period of time following their deaths, occasionally in excess of a year. In an era when
forensic science Forensic science, also known as criminalistics, is the application of science to criminal and civil laws, mainly—on the criminal side—during criminal investigation, as governed by the legal standards of admissible evidence and criminal ...
was largely in its infancy, these factors further complicated identification, especially since the heads were often undiscovered. During the time of the "official" murders,
Eliot Ness Eliot Ness (April 19, 1903 – May 16, 1957) was an American Prohibition agent known for his efforts to bring down Al Capone and enforce Prohibition in Chicago. He was the leader of a team of law enforcement agents, nicknamed The Untouchables. ...
held the position of Public Safety Director of Cleveland, a position with authority over the police department and ancillary services, including the fire department. While Ness had little to do with the investigation, his posthumous reputation as leader of
The Untouchables Untouchables or The Untouchables may refer to: American history * Untouchables (law enforcement), a 1930s American law enforcement unit led by Eliot Ness * ''The Untouchables'' (book), an autobiography by Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley * ''The U ...
has made him an irresistible character in modern "torso murder" lore. Ness did contribute to the arrest and interrogation of one of the prime suspects, Dr. Francis E. Sweeney. In addition, Ness personally conducted raids into hobo shanties and eventually burned down Kingsbury Run, from which the killer took their victims. His reasoning for burning down the shanty towns was to catalog fingerprints to easily identify any new victims, and stated that it was also done to get possible victims out of the area in an attempt to stop the murders. Four days after the shantytown burning, on August 22, 1938, Ness launched an equally draconian operation of questionable legality, where he personally dispatched six two-man search teams on a large area of Cleveland, stretching from the Cuyahoga River to E. 55th Street to Prospect Avenue under the guise of conducting city fire inspections. This area of the city had long been supposed as the location of the Torso Murderer's "laboratory." Among the detectives dispatched and charged to look for signs of the Torso Murderer's activity in the area were Detectives Orley May, Emil Musil, Peter Merylo, and Martin Zalewski – men who had worked the case from the beginning and must have felt the frustrations of the case most strongly. While the search never turned up any new or incriminating information that could lead to the arrest and conviction of the Torso Murderer, the systemic search did serve to focus renewed public attention on the inadequate and unsanitary living conditions in the downtown Cleveland area. The teams uncovered hundreds of families living in hazardous fire traps without toilets or running water. The interests of social reform did ultimately come to light even if those of law enforcement did not. At one point in time, the killer taunted Ness by placing the remains of two victims in full view of his office in city hall. The man who Eliot Ness believed was the killer would also provoke him by sending him postcards.


Victims

Most researchers consider there to be 12 victims, although some have counted as many as 20. Evidence suggests a woman dubbed "The Lady of the Lake" could be included. There was a second victim who was also considered to be a victim of the Torso Killer in 1950 named Robert Robertson due to the fact that his head was also cut off. Only three victims were positively identified; the other ten were six
John Doe John Doe (male) and Jane Doe (female) are multiple-use placeholder names that are used when the true name of a person is unknown or is being intentionally concealed. In the context of law enforcement in the United States, such names are ofte ...
s and four Jane Does.


Possible victims

Several noncanonical victims are commonly discussed in connection with the Torso Murderer. The first was nicknamed the "Lady of the Lake" and was found near Euclid Beach on the
Lake Erie Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also ha ...
shore on September 5, 1934. Only parts of her were found and matched with parts found at another shore in Perry. She had an abdominal scar from a likely
hysterectomy Hysterectomy is the surgical removal of the uterus. It may also involve removal of the cervix, ovaries ( oophorectomy), Fallopian tubes ( salpingectomy), and other surrounding structures. Usually performed by a gynecologist, a hysterectomy may b ...
which was common and made it more difficult to identify her. After she was found, several people reported seeing body parts in the water, including a group of fisherman who believed to have seen a head. She was found virtually in the same spot as canonical victim number 7. Some researchers of the Torso Murderer's victims count the "Lady of the Lake" as victim number 1, or "Victim Zero". Like the Lady of the Lake, John Doe I had some kind of substance on his skin (though his skin abnormalities could possibly be due to burning) when his body was found; however, at the time the similarities were not connected. The chemical was believed to have been a substance using lime chloride. It is supposed that the killer meant to use a quickening lime to decompose the bodies quicker but mistakenly used lime that would preserve bodies instead. The headless body of an unidentified male was found in a
boxcar A boxcar is the North American (AAR) term for a railroad car that is enclosed and generally used to carry freight. The boxcar, while not the simplest freight car design, is considered one of the most versatile since it can carry most ...
in
New Castle, Pennsylvania New Castle is a city in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Lawrence County. It is northwest of Pittsburgh, and near the Pennsylvania–Ohio border, just southeast of Youngstown, Ohio. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, ...
, on July 1, 1936. Three headless victims were found in boxcars near
McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania McKees Rocks, also known as "The Rocks", is a borough in Allegheny County in western Pennsylvania, along the south bank of the Ohio River. The population was 5,920 at the time of the 2020 census. It is part of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. In ...
, on May 3, 1940. All bore similar injuries to those inflicted by the Cleveland killer. Dismembered bodies were also found in the swamps near New Castle between the years 1921 and 1934 and between 1939 and 1942. In September 1940 an article in the ''
New Castle News The ''New Castle News'' is a six-day (Monday through Saturday) daily newspaper published in New Castle, Pennsylvania, and covering Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, Lawrence County. It is owned by CNHI. The ''News'' also publishes an 8,700-circulati ...
'' refers to the killer as "The Murder Swamp Killer". The almost identical similarities between the victims in New Castle to those in
Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S ...
, coupled with the similarities between New Castle's Murder Swamp and Cleveland's
Kingsbury Run Kingsbury Run is the name that refers to an area on the southeast side of Cleveland, Ohio, located near the suburb of Shaker Heights. The area stretches westward through Kinsman Road. It contained a natural watershed that ran through East 79th Str ...
, both of which were directly connected by a
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States, with its first section opening in 1830. Merchants from Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of ...
line, were enough to convince Cleveland Detective Peter Merylo that the New Castle murders were the work of the "Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run". Merylo was convinced the connection was the railroad that ran twice a day between the two cities; he often rode the rails undercover looking for clues to the killer's identity. On July 22, 1950, the body of 41-year-old Robert Robertson was found at a business at 2138 Davenport Avenue in Cleveland. Police believed he had been dead six to eight weeks and appeared to have been intentionally
decapitated Decapitation or beheading is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and most other animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood, while all other organs are deprived of the i ...
. His death appeared to fit the profile of other victims: He was estranged from his family, had an arrest record and a drinking problem, and was on the fringes of society. Despite widespread newspaper coverage linking the murder to the crimes in the 1930s, detectives investigating Robertson's death treated it as an isolated crime. In 1939 the "Torso Killer" claimed to have killed a victim in
Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
. An investigation uncovered animal bones. In addition to the murders in Cleveland it is also suspected that there are connected murders before and after in Sandusky and Youngstown, as well as
New Castle, PA New Castle is a city in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Lawrence County. It is northwest of Pittsburgh, and near the Pennsylvania–Ohio border, just southeast of Youngstown, Ohio. As of the 2020 U.S. Census ...
, and Selkirk, NY. If they are connected this would raise the body count, and raise more questions about travel ability. It would also create a longer timeline of murders and victims over the span of the years. In a time where most major travel was still by railway, and Cleveland being a major hub between some of these cities, it would be much more difficult to find viable suspects. It has also been theorized that the Cleveland Torso murder case has some connection to the Black Dahlia murder.


Suspects

Authorities interrogated around 9,100 people during the investigation to find the Torso Murderer. The case became the biggest police investigation in Cleveland history: Many were investigated and 1,000 crimes were solved from the dedicated police investigations. There were only two main suspects of the Torso Murders: Frank Dolezal and Francis E. Sweeney. On August 24, 1939, a Cleveland resident named Frank Dolezal, 52, a white male, who at one point lived with Polillo and also had connections to Andrassy and Wallace, was arrested as a suspect in Florence Polillo's murder; he later died in suspicious circumstances in the Cuyahoga County jail while in the custody of Cuyahoga County Sheriff Martin O'Donnell (1886–1941). Dolezal was posthumously exonerated of involvement in the Torso slayings. Willie Johnson was an African American male who was once a suspect. He had been identified by a witness while he was disposing of a body. He had links to two of the victims, Rose Wilson and Flo Polillo. Willie Johnson was not officially tried for the Torso Murders; however, he was tried for a different murder and was sent to the electric chair in March 1944. Most investigators consider the last canonical murder to have been in 1938. One suspected individual was Dr. Francis E. Sweeney, a white male. Born May 5, 1894, Sweeney was a veteran of
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
who was part of a medical unit that conducted amputations in the field. After the war, Sweeney became an
alcoholic Alcoholism is, broadly, any drinking of alcohol that results in significant mental or physical health problems. Because there is disagreement on the definition of the word ''alcoholism'', it is not a recognized diagnostic entity. Predomina ...
due to pathological anxiety and depression derived from his wartime experiences. (His heavy drinking began in 1929; by 1934 his alcoholism lead to a seperation from his wife)Additionally, during his military service, Sweeney was gassed in combat, which resulted in nerve damage. Sweeney was later personally interviewed by
Eliot Ness Eliot Ness (April 19, 1903 – May 16, 1957) was an American Prohibition agent known for his efforts to bring down Al Capone and enforce Prohibition in Chicago. He was the leader of a team of law enforcement agents, nicknamed The Untouchables. ...
, who oversaw the official investigation into the killings in his capacity as Cleveland's Safety Director. Before the interrogation, Sweeney was detained, and he was found to be so intoxicated that he was held in a hotel room for 3 days until he sobered up. During this
interrogation Interrogation (also called questioning) is interviewing as commonly employed by law enforcement officers, military personnel, intelligence agencies, organized crime syndicates, and terrorist organizations with the goal of eliciting useful inf ...
, Sweeney is said to have "failed to pass" two very early
polygraph machine A polygraph, often incorrectly referred to as a lie detector test, is a device or procedure that measures and records several physiological indicators such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity while a person is asked an ...
tests. Both tests were administered by polygraph expert
Leonarde Keeler Leonarde Keeler (October 30, 1903 – September 20, 1949) was the co-inventor of the polygraph. He was named after the polymath Leonardo da Vinci, and preferred to be called Nard. He was a Berkeley high school student and amateur magician. He ...
, who told Ness he had his man. Ness apparently felt there was little chance of obtaining a successful prosecution of the doctor, especially as he was the first cousin of one of Ness's political opponents,
Congressman A Member of Congress (MOC) is a person who has been appointed or elected and inducted into an official body called a congress, typically to represent a particular constituency in a legislature. The term member of parliament (MP) is an equivalen ...
Martin L. Sweeney, who had hounded Ness publicly about his failure to catch the killer. After Sweeney committed himself, there were no more leads or connections that police could assign to him as a possible suspect. From his hospital confinement, Sweeney sent threatening postcards and harassed Ness and his family into the 1950s; the postcards only stopped arriving after his death. Sweeney died in a veterans' hospital in
Dayton Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater Da ...
on July 9, 1964. Sweeney was a viable suspect, but the evidence was circumstantial and would have no bearing. In 1929 he was a surgical resident at St. Alexis hospital in the Kingsbury Run area. He also had an office on the street where a man named Emil Fronek said a doctor tried to drug him in 1934. Fronek's story was discounted as he could not relocate the building with police the next day. Upon finding a victim with drugs in her system and looking through buildings it was found that Sweeney did have an office next to a coroner, in the area where Fronek had suggested he had been drugged. He would practice in their morgue, a clean and easy place to kill victims and not leave a mess due to the building being used to hold the dead anyway. In 1997, another theory postulated that there may have been no single Butcher of Kingsbury Run—that the murders could have been committed by different people. This was based on the assumption that the autopsy results were inconclusive. First, Cuyahoga County Coroner Arthur J. Pearce may have been inconsistent in his analysis as to whether the cuts on the bodies were expert or slapdash. Second, his successor, Samuel Gerber, who began to enjoy press attention from his involvement in such cases as the
Sam Sheppard Samuel Holmes Sheppard, D.O. ( – ) was an American neurosurgeon. He was exonerated in 1966, having been convicted of the 1954 murder of his pregnant wife, Marilyn Reese Sheppard. The case was controversial from the beginning, with extensive ...
murder trial, garnered a reputation for sensational theories. Therefore, the only thing known for certain was that all the murder victims were dismembered. Elliot Ness was said to have taken the killer's identity to his grave. Peter Merylo believed that the Torso Murderer could be a transient who was
riding the rails ''Riding the Rails'' is a 1938 Fleischer Studios animated short film featuring Betty Boop and Pudgy the Pup. Although some sources claim that this film was nominated for an Academy Award, it does not appear in the official Academy Awards database ...
. Most of the murders occurred within the vicinity of railroad tracks. Peter Merylo went undercover as a hobo to investigate this idea. He believed that this was the reason why there were murders in other states that were similar to the Torso Murders in Cleveland.


In popular culture

The 1998–1999 comic book series ''
Torso The torso or trunk is an anatomical term for the central part, or the core, of the body of many animals (including humans), from which the head, neck, limbs, tail and other appendages extend. The tetrapod torso — including that of a hu ...
'' by
Brian Michael Bendis Brian Michael Bendis (; born August 18, 1967) is an American comic book writer and artist. He has won five Eisner Awards for both his creator-owned work and his work on various Marvel Comics books.Bendis, Brian Michael and Oeming, Michael Avon, ...
and
Marc Andreyko Marc Andreyko (born 20 June 1970) is a comic book writer and screenwriter, best known for the true crime series '' Torso'' he co-wrote with Brian Michael Bendis and for co-creating the character Kate Spencer for DC Comics. Career Marc Andreyk ...
was based on the killings. The 2018 film '' The Kingsbury Run'' was based on a modern copycat of the murders. The murders and the hunt for the perpetrators were covered in an episode of ''
Unsolved Mysteries ''Unsolved Mysteries'' is an American mystery documentary television show, created by John Cosgrove and Terry Dunn Meurer. Documenting cold cases and paranormal phenomena, it began as a series of seven specials, presented by Raymond Burr, Ka ...
''. ''Eliot Ness and the Mad Butcher: Hunting America's Deadliest Unidentified Serial Killer at the Dawn of Modern Criminology'', by
Max Allan Collins Max Allan Collins (born March 3, 1948) is an American mystery writer, noted for his graphic novels. His work has been published in several formats and his '' Road to Perdition'' series was the basis for a film of the same name. He wrote the ''Di ...
and A. Brad Schwartz, was published on August 4, 2020. The Cleveland Torso Killer has been referenced in several episodes of ''
Criminal Minds ''Criminal Minds'' is an American police procedural crime drama television series created and produced by Jeff Davis (writer), Jeff Davis. The series premiered on CBS on September 22, 2005, and originally concluded on February 19, 2020; it was r ...
''. The murders have been covered in an episode of ''
BuzzFeed Unsolved ''BuzzFeed Unsolved'' (also known as simply ''Unsolved'') was a documentary entertainment web series created by Ryan Bergara for BuzzFeed that ran from February 4, 2016, to November 19, 2021. It first appeared on the YouTube channel ''BuzzFeed ...
''. The
podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...
''Crimes of the Centuries'' covered the Cleveland Torso Murders in its second season.

' The 2001
true crime True crime is a nonfiction literary, podcast, and film genre in which the author examines an actual crime and details the actions of real people associated with and affected by criminal events. The crimes most commonly include murder; about 40 pe ...
''In The Wake Of The Butcher: Cleveland's Torso Murders'' by James Jessen Badal was based on the killings. The murders are fictionalized in Amy Harmon's 2022 ''The Unknown Beloved: A Novel''. The
podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...
''Mysteriocities'' goes over the murders in ''Episode 16: The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run''

'


See also

*
Black Dahlia Elizabeth Short (July 29, 1924 – January 14–15, 1947), known posthumously as the Black Dahlia, was an American woman found murdered in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles on January 15, 1947. Her case became highly publicized ow ...
, a Los Angeles murder case that some investigators have suggested may have been committed by the same killer. * Orley May, detective who worked on the case *
Thames Torso Murders The Thames Torso Murders, often called the Thames Mysteries or the Embankment Murders, were a sequence of unsolved murders of women occurring in London, England from 1887 to 1889. The series included four incidents which were filed as belonging ...
, another series of murders in which the torsos of victims were left behind General: *
List of fugitives from justice who disappeared This is a list of fugitives from justice, notable people who disappeared or evaded capture while being sought by law enforcement agencies in connection with a crime, and who are currently sought or were sought for the duration of their presu ...
*
List of serial killers in the United States A serial killer is typically a person who kills three or more people, with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defines serial murder a ...


References


Notes


Citations


Bibliography

* * * Paperback. * * Hardback. * Paperback. * * * Collins, Max Allan and A. Brad Schwartz. ''Eliot Ness and the Mad Butcher: Hunting America's Deadliest Unidentified Serial Killer at the Dawn of Modern Criminology''. New York: HarperCollins, 2020. * Paperback. * Paperback, second edition 2002. * Paperback * * * Paperback.. * * Stashower, Daniel (6 September 2022). ''American Demon: Eliot Ness and the Hunt for America's Jack the Ripper.'' Minotaur Books. ISBN 1250041163.


External links


Cleveland Torso MurdersGoogle Map of the Torso Murders
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cleveland Torso Murderer 1935 in Ohio 1935 murders in the United States 1930s in Cleveland American serial killers Cleveland Division of Police Crimes in Cleveland Fugitives Murder in Ohio Unidentified serial killers Unsolved murders in the United States