Cleveland Torso Murderer

The Cleveland Torso Murderer (also known as the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run) was an unidentified serial killer who killed and dismembered at least 12 victims in the Cleveland area in the 1930s. murders: The official number of murders credited to the Cleveland Torso Murderer is twelve, although recent research has shown there may have been more. The twelve victims were killed between 1935 and 1938, but some, including lead Cleveland Detective Peter Merylo, believe that there may have been 13 or more victims in the Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Youngstown, Ohio, 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 September 5, 1934, and Robert Robertson, found on July 22, 1950. The victims of the Cleveland 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). Invariably, all the victims, male and female, appeared to hail from the lower class of society—easy prey in Depression-era Cleveland. Many were known as "working poor", who had nowhere else to live but the ramshackle shanty towns in the area known as the Cleveland Flats. The Torso Murderer always beheaded and often dismembered his victims, sometimes also cutting the torso in half; in many cases the cause of death was the decapitation itself. Most of the male victims were castrated, and some victims showed evidence of chemical treatment being applied to their bodies. Many of the victims were found after a considerable period of time following their deaths, sometimes a year or more. This made identification nearly impossible, especially since the heads were often not found. During the time of the "official" murders, Eliot Ness 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 has made him an irresistible character in modern "torso murder" lore. In 1939 the "Torso Killer" claimed to have killed a victim in Los Angeles California. An investigation uncovered animal bones. Suspects: On August 24, 1939, a Cleveland resident named Frank Dolezal, 52, was arrested as a suspect in Florence Polillo's murder, died under suspicious circumstances in the Cuyahoga County jail. After his death it was discovered that he had suffered six broken ribs—injuries his friends say he did not have when arrested by Sheriff Martin L. O'Donnell some six weeks prior.[9] Most researchers believe that no evidence exists that Dolezal was involved in the murders, although at one time he did admit killing Flo Polillo in self-defense. Before his death, he recanted his confession and recanted two others as well, saying he had been beaten until he confessed. Most investigators consider the last canonical murder to have been in 1938. One suspected individual was Dr. Francis E. Sweeney. Sweeney worked during World War I in a medical unit that conducted amputations in the field. Sweeney was later personally interviewed by Eliot Ness, who oversaw the official investigation into the killings in his capacity as Cleveland's Safety Director. During this interrogation, Sweeney is said to have "failed to pass" two very early polygraph machine tests. Both tests were administered by polygraph expert Leonard Keeler, who told Ness he had his man. Nevertheless, 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 Martin L. Sweeney, who had hounded Ness publicly about his failure to catch the killer. (Congressman Sweeney was a political ally of and was related by marriage to Sheriff O'Donnell and an opponent of Republican Cleveland mayor Harold Burton, who had appointed Ness). After Dr. Sweeney committed himself, there were no more leads or connections that police could assign to him as a possible suspect. The killings apparently stopped after Sweeney voluntarily entered institutionalized care shortly after the last official murders were discovered in 1938. From his hospital confinement, Sweeney would mock and harass Ness and his family with threatening postcards into the 1950s. He died in a veterans' hospital at Dayton in 1964. In 1997, another theory postulated that there may have been no single Butcher of Kingsbury Run because 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 murder trial, garnered a reputation for sensational theories. Therefore, the only thing known for certain was that all the murder victims were dismembered. In popular culture: David Fincher planned to make a film about the murders after making a movie about another unidentified serial killer, known as the Zodiac Killer. A graphic novel entitled Torso, created by Brian Michael Bendis and Marc Andreyko, became the source for the film. The adaptation was greenlit by Paramount Pictures in 2006 but eventually cancelled. In 2013, the plan to make the film was revived, and it was reported that David Lowery would direct the film.[13] Author William Bernhardt wrote a novel about the murders and Elliot Ness' involvement, titled Nemesis: the Final Case of Elliot Ness. Although generally non-fiction, it was written as a novel, and makes some assumptions. The only significant deviation from the true story is the ending. A climax is fictionalized where Ness confirms the killer was Sweeney, and captures him, but is prevented from arresting him due to political pressure. It does try to remain factual to the case otherwise, while still remaining entertaining. NBC is currently in the works to adapt this book into a mini-series. No release date or cast has been announced as of January 2014. In the 2012 film Seven Psychopaths, the Cleveland Torso Murderer (described as the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run) is one of the serial killers murdered by Zachariah Rigby and his accomplice. The Cleveland Torso Murderer (referred to as the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run) was mentioned in episode 415 of Criminal Minds when a serial killer copying other serial killers with each kill bases one of his murders after the aforementioned murderer. The murderer was also seen in a flashback in the same episode, in which he lured a victim. It was erroneously mentioned that the murderer lured his victims from gay bars before shooting, dismembering, and mutilating them. Also, Steven Parkett, who appeared in the Season Ten premiere, was heavily based on the murderer, even having a nickname similar to the murderer's alternate nickname ("The Mad Butcher of Bakersfield"). SCP-687, a work of SCP Foundation, implies that the murders were retroactively brought into existence through the use of a text adventure game with the power to change history. The horror roleplaying game Trail of Cthulhu bases its sample adventure around an investigation into the murders.