Cleveland Torso Murderer

The Cleveland Torso Murderer
An exposition dedicated to the Cleveland Torso Murders at the Cleveland Police Museum. (from left to right: Death masks of the victims Andrassy, Polillo, "tattooed man"/#4, Wallace? #8)
Other names	Cleveland Torso Murderer, Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run
Killings
Victims	12–20
Country	United States
State(s)	Cleveland, Ohio

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.

The official number of murders attributed to the Cleveland Torso Murderer is twelve, although recent research has shown there are as many as twenty. 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 or dismemberment 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. Ness did contribute to the arrest and interrogation of one of the prime suspects, Dr. Francis E. Sweeney, as well as the demolition and burning of the Kingsbury Run, from which the killer took his victims. At one point in time, the killer even taunted Ness by placing the remains of two victims in full view of his office in city hall.