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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 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.

One of the first victims was Edward Anthony Andrassy

Born Sep. 3, 1906
Cleveland
Cuyahoga County
Ohio, USA

Death Sep. 21, 1935
Cleveland
Cuyahoga County
Ohio, USA

Murder victim. Edward Andrassy was one of the first victims of the Cleveland Torso Killer, or Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run. He worked as a hospital orderly and eventually turned to petty crime. On September 23, 1935, the bodies of Andrassy and an unidentified man were found at the base of Jackass Hill in Kingsbury Run. Both men had been decapitated and emasculated. The police examined Andrassy's background in an effort to identify the Torso Killer, but they were unsuccessful. Edward Andrassy remains one of only two of the Mad Butcher's twelve or so victims to be identified.
The most brutal of the Torso Murderer's killings was that of Edward Andrassy. He was found in Kingsbury Run, naked, except for a pair of socks. His blood had been drained from his body, and his head and genitals were surgically removed. The autopsy showed that he was alive when the decapitation took place.

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The next victim, number 3, was Flo Polillo

January 1936: A woman discovers about half the body of a female neatly wrapped in newspaper and packed in two half-bushel baskets. The baskets were left alongside the Hart Manufacturing building on Central Avenue near East 20th Street. Everything except the head was recovered about ten days later in a vacant lot on nearby Orange Avenue. As in the case of Edward Andrassy, the cause of death had been decapitation. For some reason, however, the killer had waited for rigor mortis to set in before disarticulating the rest of the body. Fingerprints again would allow the identification of one Florence Polillo, waitress, bar maid and prostitute. At the time of her death she resided at East 32nd Street and Carnegie, right on the edge of the Roaring Third.

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Victim number 4 was known as the Tattooed man as he was unidentified.

20 to 30 year old white male who was discovered June 5, 1936 Cleveland, Ohio.*The coroner commented the victim looked to be of Slavic or possibly Scandinavian descent. Vitals:
* Height: 5'10 - 5'11"
* Weight:*155 lbs.
* Hair Color:*Reddish-brown to Black
* Eye Color:*Blue


His head was found near the Shaker Rapid Transit tracks. His torso was found between the New York Central and Nickel Plate tracks by an old freight shed. The body was nude but unmutilated, and was found only about fifteen hundred feet away from the head.*

There was no blood on the ground, indicating he had been killed elsewhere and his head and torso then flung into the wastes of Kingsbury Run.

He had six tattoos: One on the left calf was the character Jiggs from the comic strip Bringing Up Father. On the right calf was an anchor under a superimposed Cupid. On the right forearm was "Helen-Paul" over a dove. A butterfly on the right shoulder. On the left forearm was crossed flags. Also on the left forearm were the initials WCG with an arrow through a heart. The tattoos may have suggested a naval background of the victim.

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Rose Wallace was victim number 8.

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Other random images.

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Ness was tormented by postcards from a possible suspect from an asylum.

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.

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.

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.

August 18, 1938: At 12:40 A.M., Eliot Ness and a group of thirty-five police officers and detectives, raid the hobo jungles of the Run. Eleven squad cars, two police vans and three fire trucks descend on the largest cluster of makeshift shacks where the Cuyahoga River twists behind Public Square. Ness’s raiders worked their way south through the Run eventually gathering up sixty-three men. At dawn, police and fireman searched the deserted shanties for clues. Then, on orders from Safety Director Ness, the shacks were set on fire and burned to the ground.

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Victim number 1 Edward Andrassy’s death mask.

[Susan]

Excellent post.

[ASerbianAnon]

Great post!

[Karma]

Interesting. Thanks