True Crime History | The UNSOLVED Case of the CLEVELAND TORSO KILLER

It was just after 8 a.m. on September 5, 1934 when a man was collecting driftwood here in Euclid Beach when he thought he had found a tree trunk and walked over and realized it was not a tree trunk. Join me today on a walk with story as we talk about the mad butcher of kingsbury run or the

cleveland

torso

killer

in

cleveland

ohio hello I'm jen from walk with story and today we're going to talk about the cleveland

torso

killer

or the mad bircher of kingsbury run these murders occur in the 1930s during the throes of the great depression black tuesdays occur in october 1929 and over the course of the next four years 13 victims will be discovered between 1934 and 1938, all linked to a serial killer and that a serial killer was enough to bring in the infamous elliott ness but not even he could bring the killer to justice here in euclid beach in cleveland ohio is where victim zero was found and they claim his was a victim zero because they didn't realize she was part of this

crime

wave until all the other victims were cataloged on September 5, 1934, she was found here only her torso, her head was never found nor her hands, she had been She died for a couple of days, but what was interesting about her was not just her head and her hand.

She was never recovered, but some type of substance had been put on her skin to preserve it, which gave it a leathery red color and that is what will link her

case

to the other

case

s and also victim 7 as well. will be found here. in Euclid Beach on February 23, 1937 and will be found near the same location, which also leads people to believe that victim zero is part of Cleveland's torso. The killer's victim zero was also named Lady of Lake Euclid Beach. here in cleveland ohio was known for having an amusement park here i think this circle here was some kind of carousel finding bodies here wasn't very good for tourism although this is the 1930's during the depression so people are searching the waters of the lake for driftwood so they could burn it to make a fire, this is how victim zero was discovered.

I'm in the Kingsbury Run area of ​​Cleveland, Ohio, and after the stock market crash of October 1929, the 1930s in Cleveland were hit pretty hard by unemployment, about 50 percent unemployment occurs here. in cleveland the country is experiencing high unemployment six million people are unemployed in 1931 and in 1933 thousands of banks close so no one can get home loans anywhere and can get a job so this area becomes a neighborhood They called it Hooverville because President Hoover was president during the stock market crash in 1929. He didn't do anything to really help recover the infrastructure and protect the banks and that's when the banks went bankrupt. and that was crippling for the economy in the United States. these makeshift communities happened where the unemployment of these people who were immigrant minorities they didn't have any other family here in America they couldn't really speak the language they built these makeshift houses to live in and kingsbury run became a famous hooverville shanty town in cleveland the name hoover becomes synonymous with many different things that are used at that time, you will hear the vacuum cleaner blanket, which is like a newspaper, then someone covering themselves with the newspaper is the vacuum cleaner blanket, the vacuum cleaner flag , it's your pocket pulled out to show that I don't have any money that turns into a vacuum cleaner flag and it's right on a railroad line, which is important because there are vacant lots here that people can live on and it's also important for the transportation, so this is the 1930s, this is when people are homeless, when is the the tram always attracts jump on a train jump off a train to transport you have no ties you have no money you have no possessions so get around city ​​to city trying to find work trying to find food was a way of life this is where the torso of Cleveland The killer will operate out of most people believe he lived here.

I say him when I talk about the Cleveland torso killer because we know that 12 of his victims fought, seven were men and five were women. I was clearly promised that there was no man. They believe in the Cleveland Turtle. The killer was a man due to his strength, so most of the victims were bled, cleaned and dismembered and then put on some type of carrying device, a cape, a hat, a jacket, a blanket and They discarded them. 1930's shantytown, you're not going to see a lot of cars, so you'd have to carry that and you'd have to carry it to another place, so this person would have to be relatively strong to transport a person from one place to another and it's because that they believe that Cleveland was a murderer, so what makes this case have so many

unsolved

victims, many of the faces, the heads were recovered, we were able to find what those people look like, but no one identified them, why most of The victims come from this marginal neighborhood and it has addicts, it has alcoholics. we have the abandoned of society, we have alternative lifestyles that in 1930 are not viewed favorably, so they live on the outskirts and operate within groups of people who do not want to get involved with the police and do not want to talk to the police .

So if someone goes missing or recognizes the murder victim, they don't even want to talk to the police to tell them who he is, which is why in this particular case there are only two victims out of the 12 that were identified. The other 10 will never get names. They are Jane Does and John Doe. I'm at 49th and Praha in Cleveland, Ohio, which was the location of Jackass Hill at Kingsbury Run. This is where victims one and two of the Cleveland torso killers were found. On September 23, 1935, two children were walking up the hill playing and saw what they thought was a pair of pants or a jacket, they untangled it and a person's head came out and they called the police, of course they found the bodies of two men about 30 feet away from each other.

They were naked they had been decapitated they had been castrated and one of them was identified so this is the first identified victim of the Cleveland torso killer his name was Edward Andrasty and he was a hospital nurse for a couple of years and that's how they were able to identify him because his fingerprints were on it he had left that job he had dated people of questionable character they were both found in relatively the same way, except that victim number two had had an oily substance put on his skin to make it turn into a reddish leather type of quality that was like victim zero, that's how those murders come together.

It will be the coroner who will start looking at these bodies and will be the first to recommend that this is the job of a person according to the types. of cuts and how efficient it is done with the knowledge of the human body, so it is the coroner who first brings the idea to the Cleveland police department that this is one person's job, now it is just an overgrown area, but at that time it was part of kingsbury run in cleveland ohio on january 26, 1936 the body of florence paleo was found against a wall here 23 between 2315 and 2325 east 20th street, making this the third official victim of the killer of the torso of Cleveland and the second identified was a prostitute.

Again, people who don't want to talk to the police, so you don't have any good ideas about who she was with in her final moments, but the man she had lived with for a while was arrested and forced to confess that he had her. killed and so the police had believed they had caught the Cleveland torso killer, however, he had committed suicide in his cell shortly after and was never able to obtain any other cooperative evidence. On June 5, 1936, an unidentified John Doe was found in Kingsbury Run. and the tattoo will be called the tattooed man will have tattoos all over his body his photos will be taken and the tattoos the photos and tattoos will be taken and placed in the newspaper again no one comes close no one recognizes him although they do believe in 1930, if you are tattooed, probably You are a sailor or have been in prison.

They believe this gentleman was a sailor, but no one came forward again. Cleveland is on Lake Erie, so there would definitely be sailors in the area where they had cleaned it up. His blood had been drained, another reason to believe that the Cleveland torso killer had another location where he would actually commit the murder on him and then move the bodies to other areas again. He was never identified. If you look at the Cleveland Police Museum, they have the death masks. of these victims to try to identify them still today December 1939 he enters elliott ness welcome the mayor of cleveland pays him to come in and be director of security wants him to be in charge of cleaning up the city's prohibition, but then, when the cleveland torso killer is scaring residents, he asks you to catch the cleveland torso killer, so Eliotness puts a lot of people on that case.

He is bringing people together. She's investigating people. He believes that he has actually found the Cleveland torso killer. He questions him but can't find any. evidence connecting him the last murder victim is found on August 16, 1938 and that's it, he did it on August 18, 1938 burns kingsbury directs the shantytown displaces 300 people and burns a hundred shacks here now the murders are they stop for it to be effective and what it means but you're also displacing hundreds of people so I'm on 9th street in front of the lake here in cleveland ohio this is lake erie the cleveland browns stadium the rock and roll hall of fame It's right behind me and that's a children's science museum but in 1938 this was practically a garbage dump, but the city has cleaned it up.

It's a nice area to visit now and you don't think about the last victims of the Cleveland Torso Killer that were found in this area, so August 16th, the last two victims. of the cleveland torso killer, a man and a woman were found here, both decapitated, they will be jane doe 4 and john doe 6. the discovery of these victims is what will motivate eliot ness to burn kingsbury run but the murders will stop and no one will ever be brought to justice as the evil butcher of kingsbury run and eliot ness will always be disappointed that he could never find the killer so here I am in West Park Cemetery.

I wanted to talk a little bit about navigating cemeteries. The recommendation is always to go to the cemetery office, especially if you find a grave and the only thing it offers you is the cemetery. This cemetery is huge. There was no way for me to find this tomb on my own, not even in five hours. It would take me six hours. a whole day, so I stopped by the office, gave him his name, gave him the year he died and they were able to give me section 15, level 44, tomb75 and then they gave me a map to show me where it is in most of the cemetery offices. can i do that if your cemetery has an office sometimes in these older cemeteries they don't and i'm looking for frank dolezal's grave frank dolezal was the first suspect in this cleveland torso killer case now frank dolezal there is an investigator there it is a person who has done a lot, has invested a lot of time in investigating these

crime

s and has cleared his name and that person who has cleared his name bought him a tombstone that says he rests now because he hanged himself in a cell from a hook that was five feet away and seven inches off the ground and he was five foot eight again, they found seven broken ribs.

His confession is a bunch of gibberish with a bunch of very, very hard facts that the police knew, so people believed he was kind of forced to confess and he wrote it down based on what the police told him to say and then he wrote gibberish and then he wrote the confession. They don't believe he was the Cleveland torso killer because he has no medical knowledge. he was just running through those same crowds of people and since he knew victim three, he had lived with her at one point and he went to the same bars and places as edward and drossy that the police just wanted to find a suspect and he fit in pretty well and then , by committing suicide and never going to trial, it was just an easy way to put the case to rest, so here is his grave.

In fact, I was able to find it. It took me a while because there was overgrowth around him in August. 2010 was exonerated for the murders and they believe he was murdered in prison, but there should be rest now down here, we are going to rest now and that is what the investigator put in place to ensure that he was here, so I am in the cemetery of the Calvary here in cleveland and we're going to go to section 81 right here where dr. francis sweeney and we're going to talk about the main suspect for the torso killer.

He is in an unmarked grave that mcgreevy says for his sister. married name i can't find it here but i found s sweeney it's not francis sweeney because it's not checked but this is the section it's supposed to be in so i don't know if it's a relationship or not so i thought of sithere francis sweeney is eliot ness's number one suspect he is the person eliot ness takes to the hotel interrogates him for 10 days leaves him sober he gives him a polygraph in which he fails twice eliot ness tells him i think you are the murderer of the torso from cleveland and sweeney says to prove it and it is after that that the last two bodies found on august 16 are within sight of eliot nasa's window from his office, on east 9th street downtown where we were, which today is the hurricane hall of fame and the cleveland browns football stadium was where eli ness's office was in view of his window is where those last two bodies were found almost as if mocking him, that's when it burns Kingsbury shanty town and the murders will stop but sweeney is the number one suspect even today's case investigators believe sweeney was the crazy torso killer he was a doctor he was an alcoholic now that doesn't mean he could kill people but he was abusive of his wife and children his wife left him sounds like a real job his doctor's office was downtown, right? next to a morgue and the interesting thing about that or a funeral home is most of these bodies, he took the blood out of them and washed them, so the researchers were wondering what happens to the blood.

Where does the blood go now? 1930. There could be a lot of different places you could go, but it would be easy to get rid of the blood in a funeral home and operate in a funeral home. at home and because Sweeney's doctor's office was next to the funeral home, he had access to the funeral home, they allowed him to go in and dissect bodies and look at the bodies so that he had access to do that. He also enrolled in psychiatric clinics. I'm ready to go coach, just give me a chance, but a case investigator in this case was able to match his locations to the locations of the Cleveland Torso Killer, as well as checking into a psychiatric clinic in the 1930s, you had free access to come and go, someone would do it. continue to make fun of elliot ness for the rest of his career by sending him postcards and stuff so people will still think it was dr. francis sweeney who was making fun of him, but this is where the calvary cemetery is where dr. francis sweeney in cleveland, ohio, so I'm at St.

Mary's Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio, this is not far from Kingsbury Run, this is where victim one is buried. Edward as Drsky is buried here. I'm going to try to find his grave in a practically desolate cemetery, so there is no office here. Basically I'm going to have to look around and see what I can find, so here I am next to Edward Andrasty's grave and he is the victim of the Cleveland torso killer and Edward Andrasi worked as a hospital nurse and had finally turned to crime minor but it was because he had worked as a hospital orderly that they had his fingerprints on file and having his fingerprints on file was how they were able to identify him.

His rating was hard to find. He is in the middle of the cemetery. in the middle of Cleveland that seems to be no longer used, there is no office here. I was very lucky to have found her, so I'm going to leave a headache here. He remains only one of two victims who were positively identified. edward andrasi here at saint mary's cemetery in cleveland ohio, not far from kingsbury run, so i'm here at highland park cemetery in highland hills cleveland. I have been out of cleveland and am here in the dun field for the highland park cemetery.

It is not in the actual cemetery you have to leave the cemetery and turn onto another street and enter from the back it is not marked the street is not marked when you leave here it is very difficult to find but this is the potter's field that the victims of the torso killer of Cleveland were buried and are buried in plot 102, section three, so if anyone ever wanted to identify them today they could be exhumed. DNA evidence could be used, but I'm here, they have this rock here to mark. the potter's field looks like this whole area is basically kind of fixed up i see a flag in the distance on the other side but today i'm going to leave this heart stone for the victims of the cleveland torso killer i'm going to leave it here in this Victims of rock that never They got justice, don't forget my final thoughts as I walk away, the Cleveland torso killer was able to operate in an area where his victims were very vulnerable to the

history

of the time with depression and they were able to take advantage of that and his victims were never identified because no one wants to come forward to say they are friends with these people, they know these people, they hang out with these people and people don't really trust the police force in the 1930s, it was very corrupt.

Unfortunately, we will never know for sure who he was unless there is some confession, some book we can find and he will be a notorious serial killer in America. This will always bother Eliot Ness. This will be the black mark on Elliot Ness's career. I will never know who the Cleveland Torso Killer really was, at least now we know for sure that he no longer exists and will always be known as an

unsolved

mystery here in Cleveland, Ohio, in the next you.