Cleveland Torso Murders

CASE BACKGROUND

Cleveland, Ohio. 1935.

In the 1930's The Great Depression hit Cleveland and it became notorious for Crime. Amongst the corruption a series of murders began, the perpetrator of which would become known as "The Cleveland Torso Killer", The Madman of Kingsbury Run" or even "The Butcher of Bakersfield."

He would go on to kill and dismember at least twelve victims and even managed to evade capture by the legendary lawman Eliot Ness of the Untouchables!

Kingsbury Run. circa, 1930.

Most of his victims came from an area east of Kingsbury Run called The Roaring Third, known for its bars, gambling and brothels. Another name for this area was "The Hobo Jungle", as it was home to many vagrants!

Homeless washing in Kingsbury.

General consensus is that one perpetrator killed twelve people between 1935-38, but there's speculation that the same individual could be responsible for up to twenty victims.

Investigator, Peter Merylo, believed there may have been additional murders around Youngstown and Pittsburgh in the 20s and the 50s aswell. This would include the "Lady of the Lake"- September 5, 1934, and Robert Robinson - July 22, 1950.

Detective Peter Merylo.

The Murderer usually killed drifters, making identification very difficult. Many of whome were known as "working poor" and had nowhere to live but the shanty towns in the area, also known as the Cleveland Flats.

Hobo Shack in Roaring Third.

Hobo Shack in Roaring Third.

All the victims were beheaded and often dismembered along with most of the male victims being castrated. In many cases the cause of death was the decapitation itself. Some of the bodies had a peculiar detail, their skin had been treat with an unknown chemical.

A lot of the victims were found over a year after their demise, being as forensic science was in its infancy, this furthered the unlikelihood of identification.

Eliot Ness.

During the time of the 1934-38 murders, Eliot Ness held the position of Public Safety Director, and had authority over the police and fire department.

Although Ness had a great reputation as leader of The Untouchables, in reality, he had little to do with the torso investigation. However, when he did, you could say he was extreme in his actions, personally conducting raids into the shanties and eventually going so far as to burn down the whole of Kingsbury Run.

At one point the killer taunted Ness by actually placing the remains of two victims in full view of his office window.

MURDERS

Map of canonical Victims.

Victims in Order of Discovery:

• Lady of the Lake - September 5, 1934

• Edward Andrassy - September 23, 1935

• John Doe I - September 23, 1935

• Flo Polillo - January 26/February 7, 1936

• John Doe II "Tattooed Man" - June 5, 1936

• John Doe III - July 22, 1936

• John Doe IV- September 10, 1936

• Jane Doe V - February 23, 1937

• Jane Doe VI " Rose Wallace" - June 6, 1937

• John Doe VII - July 6, 1937

• Jane Doe VIII - April 8, 1938

• Jane Doe IX - August 16, 1938

• John Doe X - August 16, 1938

Victims In Order of Demise:

0. The Lady of the Lake

1. John Doe I

2. Edward Andrassy

3. Florence Genevieve Polillo (Martin)

4. John Doe III

5. John Doe II (The Tattooed Man)

6. Jane Doe VI (Rose Wallace)

7. John Doe IV

8. Jane Doe V

9. Jane Doe VII

10. John Doe X

11. Jane Doe IX

12. Jane Doe VIII

Non-Canonical (Possible) Victims.

September 5, 1934 - The Lady of the Lake

1921-1939 - The Murder Swamp Murders

May 3, 1940 - Mckee's Boxcar Murders

1947 - The Black Dahlia

Police searching Lake Erie.

Firstly... the earliest Possible victim was nicknamed the "Lady of the Lake" and was found near Euclid Beach on the Lake Erie shore, in virtually the same spot as the seventh victim. Some researchers refer to the "Lady of the Lake" retroactively as "Victim Zero"

Lady of the lake. 1934.

September 1934: A young man finds the lower half of a women's torso, with the legs missing below the knee, washed up on the shores of Lake Erie just east of Bratenahl. The County Coroner S. Gerber, noted the victim had been around 35 at the time of death and that somel sort of chemical had been applied to the skin, turning it red and leathery.

Cuyahoga County Coroner Samuel Gerber with a doll possibly sent by the killer.

The subsequent search yielded few body parts and the head was never found. The woman was never identified and there would be a two year wait before this case was included in the official Torso series.

CANONICAL VICTIMS

Jackass hill, as of 2021.

September 1935: Two teenage boys discover the decapitated, emasculated corpse of a white male at the base of Jackass Hill. The body, wearing only a pair of socks, was cleaned and drained of blood. There were rope burns around the wrists. The cause of death was the decapitation. Fingerprints identified this victim as Edward Andrassy, he was 28 years old.

Edward Andrassy.

Andrassy's body in place of descovery.

Andrassy's Decapitated Head.

September 23, 1935: John Doe I was discovered on Jackass hill, while police searched for Andrassy's head and like Andrassy, he was emasculated aswell as decapitated. A chemical agent, similar to that used on the "Lady of the Lake" had been applied, which caused his skin

to also take on a red tone and leathery texture.

John Doe I: Treated Head and Body.

Florence Genevieve Polillo.

January 26 and February 7, 1936: Discovered neatly wrapped in newspaper and packed in two baskets, which a poor woman mistook for Ham!! The baskets were found alongside Hart Manufacturing, East 20th Street and on Orange Ave. Fingerprint identified the body as Florence Genevieve Polillo, a heavy drinking waitress and

prostitute. Well known to the police, she had some dubious acquaintances. She lived in East 32nd Street and Carnegie.

Basket found in E. 20th Street.

Basket found on Orange Ave.

Detectives search for Polillo's head.

June 5, 1936: "The Tattooed Man" became known as such, due to six unique tattoos he had, including the names “Helen and Paul” and the initials W.C.G. The underwear on the body had the initials J.D. written on the inside.

Head of tattoo man.

Tattoo map of body.

July 22, 1936:John Doe III was found on the Big Creek area of Brooklyn, west of Cleveland. Dismembered while still alive. This is the only body to be discovered on the Cleveland's West.

John Doe III.

September 10, 1936: John Doe IV was found near the Nickle Plate railroad tracks in Kingsbury Run. Only the top half the torso was discovered, his head was never recovered.

Searching for more of John Doe IV.

Detectives retreating body parts.

February 23 1937:Jane Doe V was found near the Euclid Beach area. The same area “The Lady of the Lake” was discovered. Her head was never found.

Jane Doe V.

Detectives went as far as to drain the

stream, but never recovered the head.

June 6, 1937: Rose Wallace was found in a burlap sack underneath the Lorain-Carnegie bridge. This was the only African-American victim. The body had been decapitated and was found to be missing a rib.

Death mask of the Possible Rose Wallace.

Crimescene of the "supposed" Rose Wallace.

July 6, 1937:Jane Doe VII was discovered floating in the Cuyahoga River near the Cleveland Flats. The victim was decapitated and the head was never recovered.

Two halves of Jane Doe VII.

April 8, 1938 and On May 2, 1938: The lower leg of Jane Doe VIII was discovered in the Cuyahoga River, near the Cleveland Flats. Later one of the victim's thighs was found floating in the Cuyahoga River just east of the West 3rd Street bridge.

Near the bridge a burlap sack containing a headless torso cut into halves, the other thigh, and the victim's left foot were found. The head along with the rest of the body were never recovered. This victim was the only victim found to have drugs within her system

Coroner Gerber examining foot.

August 16, 1938: Jane Doe IX was found in the East 9th Street Lakeshore Dump. The body had been decapitated.

Detectives and Gerber search lake Erie shore front for victims 11 and 12.

August 16, 1938: John Doe X was discovered at the same time as Jane Doe IX. His body had been decapitated and his head recovered from a can.

John Doe X

Gerber examining John Does X head. INVESTIGATION

An array of weaponry descovered during the investigation.

Throughout the investigation Detectives Merylo and Zalewski focused their efforts into three categories:

1. Tip-offs.

2. Questionable characters living in the Run.

3. Suspiciously acting doctors.

Using the above criteria, Merylo and Zalewski would look into 1,500 possible leads. One interesting lead was that of a secretive voodoo cult led by a man named Dorsey Wade, who had already been suspected in a previous murder involving a decapitation in 1928. The “Voodoo Doctor” would become a prime focus from November to December of 1938, However no charges were ever made.

Merylo in hobo disguise.

Both detectives also even spent three weeks living as vagabonds, in order to extract any helpful information from the transient community.

Detective Zalewski.

The Torso Clinic.

In late November, 1936, coroner Peirce organized what would become known as “The Torso Clinic”: a meeting where the coroner and the police could discuss what kind of person they thought might  be responsible for these crimes.

This could be considered an early example of profiling.

A more relaxed meeting

NESS RAIDS THE RUN

In the early hours of 18th of August, 1938, Ness sent a 25 man team into the slums of Kingsbury Run. These actions would devided many in the community.

They blocked all escape routes from the shanty villages.

The occupants of around 30 shacks were awoken by large searchlights or by loud banging on their doors.

The vagabonds were rounded up then detained in the local police station.

Transients being detained.

The shacks were then torn down and burned. All the down-and-outs had their fingerprints taken in order to identified their bodies or to be used in evidence, should they be accused of the the murders themselves.

18th of August, 1938.

There's debatable as to weather the raid was an act of desperation or a well thought out plan. It may have marked the end for Ness in Cleveland, but it also marked the end of Cleveland's murder spree.

Skull of the final victim to be found.

The bodies found on 16th of August, seem to have been the last....

NON-CANONICAL (POSSIBLE) VICTIMS.

The Swamp Murders AKA pennsylvania torso murders

1921: An elderly woman is found decapitated within her own home near the area known as “The Murder Swamp” by New Castle, PA residents.

1923: The dismembered body of a young girl was found floating in the Beaver River located near the murder swamp.

October 6, 1925: The body of a decapitated man was discovered along the trails of the Murder Swamp. His head was found two days later, buried in the ground underneath a log. Also found near was a bundle of burnt clothing and a length of rope.

October 17, 1925: Teenage boys hunting near Murder Swamp uncover a human skeleton missing its skull. A hunt for the skull led investigators to seven more human skeletons.

October 16, 1934: Two men stumbled upon the body of a badly decomposed man, skull still intact. Buried along with the body was an empty whiskey bottle and an iron spike.

1939: The body of a man was discovered in a pile of burnt debris near the Murder Swamp.

Most of the Murder Swamp victims were never identified. Reports of bone fragments and skeletal remains being discovered in the area continued until at least the 1970s.

McKee's Boxcar Murders

Victim 1: Identified as a male, sliced into seven pieces and wrapped in a burlap bag. The man was missing his head and a Youngstown newspaper was scattered around the train car.

Victim 2: A male victim was decapitated and had the word “NAZI” carved into his chest. The letterers were approximately five inches high and the Z was purposely written backwards. The I extended down from the victim's neck.

Detectives recover bodies from boxcars.

Victim 3: Female found with her head missing and her body sliced into seven pieces. Her remains were wrapped in a burlap bag and covered under crumpled old newspapers.

Elizabeth Short "The Black Dahlia"

Letter in which the killer eluded to operating in California.

SUSPECTS

Frank Dolezal: lived in Cleveland with Flo Polillo for a while, he was also know to frequent the same bars as Edward Andrassy and Rose Wallace. Police arrested him on August 24, 1939, for the murder of Polillo.

Dolezal being detained.

Six weeks after he was arrested he was found hanged in his cell. It was discovered he had six broken ribs, which weren't present before his arrest.

Police search Dolezal's home, including the tub where he "admitted" dismembering Polillo.

Dolezal helping detectives search.

Although he had admitted to killing Florence in self-defense, his statement seemed erratic and is generally considered to be coerced.

Place where Dolezal "confessed" to burying a head.

Dr. Francis E. Sweeney: was a WWI veteran, he was experienced with amputation and was also a cousin of Congressman Martin L Sweeney. In 1934 he had lost his job, wife and custody of the kids, due to his alcoholism, which in turn made him abusive and violent. He was given two polygraph examinations, which he failed, but he seemed to think it was all a joke.

Showing signs of psychosis Sweeney committed himself to an asylum soon after.

Postcards sent to Ness, from Sweeney via the asylum he then resided in.

Phillip Russo: had been spotted on Jackass Hill with binoculars around the time that Edward Andrassy and victim no.2 were discovered but it turned out he was watching for a unfaithful housewife to give him the signal it was safe to visit. It should be noted almost two years later he was seen again, this time with a telescope! She must have moved further away!!!

Dr Hawk: had lost his license to practice and was a drug addict, he lived in the Jackass Hill area. Upon finally finding the man on a ward at Charity Hospital they discovered a 70-year-old weak and broken man.

Dr Dabney: had been committed to a mental hospital for the criminally insane after lopping off the head of a patient in Cuyahoga Falls. But there was no evidence to connect him with the Kingsbury Run Murders

Willie Johnson: took a cab to Kingsbury Run On June 28, 1942. While exiting the cab he dump a trunk under a bridge and threw the contents of a satchel into a nearby bush.

On witnessing this a young girl alerted the police. Before the police responded, three young boys decided to take a look insidethe bag, it contained a female torso. In the nearby bush they found the head and arms. The legs were later discovered at Johnson’s home. The victim was Identified as Margaret Frances Wilson, a 19-year-old prostitute.

Willie Johnson, a powerfully built 36 year old black man, originally from Helena, Arkansas, was known to the police. He had served time for robbery and was once questioned during a murder investigation.

Johnson said he got into an argument with Wilson which ended with him knocking her out before simply going to sleep and he awoke to find her in pieces on his floor. While on death row he changed his story. He now claimed that he was paid $25 to dispose of the body. However, he gave the name of an already cleared person as the murderer.

He was found guilty and sentenced to death. Upon hearing the verdict, he began acting erratically and was taken to an asylum for evaluation. It was more than a year before the official sentence.