Cleveland Torso Murderer
The Cleveland Torso Murderer, also known as the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run, was an unidentified serial killer who operated in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, in the 1930s. The killings were characterized by the dismemberment of thirteen known victims and the disposal of their remains in the impoverished neighborhood of Kingsbury Run. 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, the murderer was never apprehended. In 2024, the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office teamed up with the DNA Doe Project to exhume some of the unidentified victims and use investigative genetic genealogy to determine their identity.
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 or more. The twelve known victims were killed between 1935 and 1938. Some investigators, including lead detective Peter Merylo, believed that there may have been thirteen or more victims in the Cleveland, Youngstown and Pittsburgh areas between the 1920s and 1950s. Two strong candidates for addition to the "official" list 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 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. Andrassy and Polillo were both identified by their fingerprints, while Wallace was tentatively identified via her dental records. The victims appeared to be lower class individualseasy prey during the Great Depression. Many were known as "working poor" who had nowhere else to live but the ramshackle shanty towns, or "Hoovervilles", in the area known as the Cleveland Flats.
The Torso Murderer always decapitated and often dismembered his victims, occasionally severing the victim's torso in half or severing his or her appendages. In many cases the cause of death was the decapitation or dismemberment itself. Most of the male victims were castrated. Some victims showed evidence of chemical treatment being applied to their bodies, which caused the skin to become red, tough and leathery. Many were found after a considerable period of time following their deaths, occasionally in excess of a year. In an era when forensic science 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, leader of The Untouchables, was serving as Cleveland's Public Safety Director, a position with authority over the city's police and ancillary services, including the fire department. Ness contributed to the arrest and interrogation of one of the prime suspects, Dr. Francis Sweeney, and personally conducted raids into shantytowns and eventually burned them down. Ness' reasoning for doing so was to catalogue fingerprints to easily identify any new victims, and to get possible victims out of the area in an attempt to stop the murders.
Four days after the burning, on August 22, 1938, Ness launched another operation where he personally dispatched six two-man search teams on a large area of Cleveland, stretching from the Cuyahoga River to East 55th Street to Prospect Avenue, under the guise of conducting fire inspections. While the search never turned up any new or incriminating information that could lead to the arrest and conviction of the Torso Murderer, it did serve to focus renewed public attention on the inadequate and unsanitary living conditions in the downtown area. Teams uncovered hundreds of families living in hazardous fire traps without toilets or running water. The interests of the lower class did ultimately come to light even if those of law enforcement did not.
At one point, the Torso Murderer taunted Ness by placing the remains of two victims in full view of his office at Cleveland City Hall. The man who Ness believed to be the killer would later also provoke him by sending postcards.
Victims
Most researchers consider there to be twelve victims attributed to the Torso Murderer, although some have counted as many as twenty or forty. Evidence suggests a woman dubbed the "Lady of the Lake" could be included. Another possible victim from 1950, Robert Robertson, was found with his head was cut off in a manner similar to the confirmed victims. Only three victims were positively identified; the other ten were six John Does and four Jane Does. Exhumations of unidentified victims started in August 2024 after the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office partnered with the DNA Doe Project to identify the victims through genetic genealogy.Edward Andrassy
Edward Anthony Andrassy was discovered on September 23, 1935, in a gully at the base of Jackass Hill, where East 49th Street runs into a dead-end at Kingsbury Run. Andrassy's head was discovered buried near the rest of his body, which was found to be emasculated and wearing only socks. The autopsy report stated that Andrassy was decapitated in the mid-cervical region, with a fracture of the mid-cervical vertebrae. The coroner also noted that Andrassy had rope burns around his wrists. The cause of death was decapitation; hemorrhage and shock. He had been dead for two to three days.At one time, Andrassy had been an orderly in the psychiatric ward at Cleveland City Hospital. However, at the time of his death, he was unemployed and had no visible means of financial support.
John Doe I
The decapitated remains of another white male were also located in weeds at the foot of East 49th Street and Praha Avenue next to Andrassy. Evidence suggested that the unidentified victim's body was saturated with oil and set afire after death, causing the skin to become reddish and leathery. It also appeared as though the victim's body hair had either been shaved or burned off. The unidentified male became known as John Doe I.Florence Polillo
Florence Genevieve Polillo was discovered at 2315 to 2325 East 20th Street on January 26, 1936. Polillo was found dismembered and had been wrapped with paper and packed into half-bushel baskets, but her head was never discovered. The autopsy report stated that her cause of death was a slit throat. Due to the lack of the head, the coroner could not definitively rule her death a homicide.John Doe II (The Tattooed Man)
The decapitated torso of an unidentified man was located on June 5, 1936, between the New York Central and Nickel Plate Road tracks next to an old freight shed, in front of the Nickel Plate Road police building. His head was found near the Shaker Heights Rapid Transit tracks.The victim's body was nude but unmutilated and found only about fifteen hundred feet away from the head. There was no blood on the ground, indicating he had been killed elsewhere. A railroad worker testified that the head was not in the vicinity at 3:00 p.m. that day, and an eyewitness described seeing a late-model Cadillac close to the crime scene at about 11:00 p.m. that same night.
The physical evidence of the decapitation suggested it had been done while the victim was alive, and the autopsy report stated that the body was drained of blood. The head had been cut off between the first and second cervical vertebrae. There was no evidence of drugs or alcohol in the victim's body, and nothing to suggest that he had been tortured or bound before being killed.
John Doe II had six tattoos, hence the nickname "The Tattooed Man".
John Doe III
On July 22, 1936, the severely decomposed, decapitated remains of a white male were located near a homeless camp in the Big Creek area of Brooklyn, west of Cleveland. This was the only known West Side victim of the Torso Murderer. Police conducted a thorough search of the area and found the man's head, which was a skull at that point. Cheaply made, bloodstained clothing was found nearby. A pathologist discovered a large quantity of dried blood that had seeped into the ground beneath the man's body, indicating he was killed at that location.For the first time the murderer had ventured far away from Kingsbury Run, and instead of transporting the victim had killed him in the place he was discovered. The victim's long hair, poor clothing and location near the homeless camp suggested he was one of the many vagrants who rode in and out of Cleveland on the nearby railroad tracks. However, the advanced state of decay of the body made it impossible to get any fingerprints, and the head would have been decomposed and unrecognizable by that point. Searches through missing persons reports were unsuccessful. The unidentified male became known as John Doe III.