Post by hi224 on Jan 6, 2021 21:42:40 GMT
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Torso_Murderer
Now you may know Eliot Ness as the guy who took down gangster Al Capone. He then went to Cleveland and tried to clean up Cleveland's notoriously corrupt police department.
Bribing cops was common place at that time and Ness was having none of it. He cracked down hard on cops taking bribes and against local organized crime. Needless to say this didn’t make Ness a lot of friends. When the torso murders started he interrogated one of the suspects using a polygraph test. This is one of the earliest known usages of polygraphs by police.
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.[3] The twelve known victims were killed between 1935 and 1938.[4] Some investigators, including lead Cleveland detective Peter Merylo, believe 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 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.[5]
The murderer preyed on lower class victims in Cleveland's shanty towns known as "Hoovervilles" after former President Hoover who did next to nothing as the Great Depression ravaged the economy. The killer decapitated his victims and often castrated them.
The Torso Murderer always beheaded and often dismembered his or her victims, occasionally severing the victim's torso in half or severing their appendages.[8] 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. Many of the victims 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 infancy, these factors further complicated identification, especially since the heads were often undiscovered.[9]
Now here is where it gets crazy. Apparently the murderer had heard of Ness' exploits against Capone and found out he was helping to investigate the Torso Murders. The killer then decides to taunt Ness.
www.clevelandpolicemuseum.org/collections/torso-murders/
August 16, 1938: Three scrap collectors foraging in a dump site at East 9th and Lakeside found the torso of a woman wrapped in a man’s double breasted blue blazer and then wrapped again in an old quilt. The legs and arms were discovered in a recently constructed makeshift box, wrapped in brown butcher paper and held together with rubber bands. The head had been similarly wrapped. Gerber noted that some of the parts looked as if they had been refrigerated. While searching for more pieces, the police discover the remains of a second body only yards away. These two bodies had been placed in a location that was in plain view from Eliot Ness’s office window, almost as if taunting him. Both victims #11 and #12 were never identified.
Now thats some Hollywood shit if I ever heard it. Hollywood often ahs serial killers taunting the police, but in reality this rarely happens.
Meanwhile the cops are under tremendous public pressure to solve the case. So hey why not create the perfect suspect?
July 1939: County Sheriff Martin O’Donnell arrested fifty-two-year-old Bohemian brick layer Frank Dolezal for the murder of Flo Polillo. Dolezal had lived with her for a while, and subsequent investigation revealed he had been acquainted with Edward Andrassy and Rose Wallace.
His “confession” turned out to be a bewildering blend of incoherent ramblings and neat, precise details, almost as if he had been coached. Before he could go to trial, Dolezal was found dead in his cell. The five foot eight Dolezal had hanged himself from a hook only five feet seven inches off the floor. Gerber’s autopsy revealed six broken ribs, all of which had been obtained while in the Sheriff’s custody. To this day no one thinks Frank Dolezal was the torso killer. The question is: why did Sheriff O’Donnell?
Despicable. Imagine trying to pin these truly horrific crimes on a totally innocent person. I have nothing but contempt for cops who do this kind of shit.
Ness was convinced the killer was a psycho Doctor named Dr Francis Sweeney. But there was one problem - politics!
www.neatorama.com/2017/11/29/Americas-Jack-the-Ripper-and-the-Downfall-of-Eliot-Ness/
To Ness’s credit as head of the Butcher investigation, he did soon identify a ‘Secret Suspect’, one who to this day remains the prime suspect, this being a psychotic doctor named Francis Sweeney. Unfortunately for Eliot Ness, Dr. Sweeney was first cousin to a partisan democratic congressman, one who had already called for Eliot Ness’s ouster, as well as that of Cleveland’s mayor, another republican. It was this relationship that caused Ness’s suspect to remain top secret (his name was first revealed in the 1990’s), for one can imagine Congressman Sweeney’s reaction to a republican Eliot Ness accusing his cousin, Dr. Francis Sweeney, of being the Butcher.
But Ness goes totally crazy. Because politics in getting in his way of investigating the doctor, He doesn't just interrogate the guy, he literally kidnaps him for weeks at a time!
Ness, under incredible pressure to catch the killer, cut corners and bent rules. He held Dr. Sweeney captive in a hotel for an intense interrogation lasting several weeks, a violation of civil liberties even in 1938, finally being forced to release him due to lack of hard evidence even though he was convinced of Sweeney’s guilt. He hired off-the-books undercover investigators. He also conducted searches of very questionable legality. What would be the last of the Torso Murders in August 1938 drove Ness to one final desperate act.
Angered that his investigation into the Doc was thwarted Ness goes way over the line and decides to start burning the city to the ground! No shit.
Ness figures the killer lives in one of the shanty towns he preys on and decides the only option is clear: Burn it to the ground!
www.clevelandpolicemuseum.org/collections/torso-murders/
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.
The press severely criticized Ness for his actions. The public was afraid and frustrated. Critics said the raid would do nothing to solve the murders.
And
www.neatorama.com/2017/11/29/Americas-Jack-the-Ripper-and-the-Downfall-of-Eliot-Ness/
Believing the Butcher preyed exclusively on transients, Ness ordered the shantytowns in Kingsbury Run to be set ablaze and the men who lived there, many of them the working poor, arrested. Ness meant to deprive the murderer of victims — and fingerprint the men in case they became victims. But in 1938, when one in five workers nationwide was unemployed, this scorched-earth destruction of the indigent population’s homes and meager belongings troubled Cleveland's conscience. The Cleveland Press blasted Ness for his "misguided zeal". Ness's stellar reputation for heroic integrity had given him freedom to operate outside normal channels, but, under intense pressure, he decided that the end justified the means.
This did not go over well with the public and was the beginning of the end of Ness' public career. After the shanty town burning incident he was caught covering up his own drunk driving crash. His reputation in shatters, he left office and eventually became a broke down forgotten drunk telling war stories about Al Capone to random bar flies in dive bars. He lost all his money, went through multiple divorces and was largely forgotten by the public. It was only after he died that his autobiography was published and he rocketed to fame posthumously.
Meanwhile the Torso Murders were never solved.
Whats creepy is this notation a the end of the article from the Cleveland police museum
The Kingsbury Run Murders remain one of the most perplexing cases in our nation’s criminal history. Rumors abound as to who may have been the killer. One thing is very clear: Eliot Ness had a suspect who he believed was undoubtedly the killer. This suspect continued to taunt Ness for years after the killings had stopped. All official police records on this case have been lost, destroyed, or removed.
and according to wiki
After Sweeney committed himself, there were no more leads or connections that police could assign to him as a possible suspect. From his hospital confinement, Sweeney sent threatening postcards and harassed Ness and his family into the 1950s.[24][25] Sweeney died in a veterans' hospital in Dayton on July 9, 1964.[24]
Now you may know Eliot Ness as the guy who took down gangster Al Capone. He then went to Cleveland and tried to clean up Cleveland's notoriously corrupt police department.
Bribing cops was common place at that time and Ness was having none of it. He cracked down hard on cops taking bribes and against local organized crime. Needless to say this didn’t make Ness a lot of friends. When the torso murders started he interrogated one of the suspects using a polygraph test. This is one of the earliest known usages of polygraphs by police.
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.[3] The twelve known victims were killed between 1935 and 1938.[4] Some investigators, including lead Cleveland detective Peter Merylo, believe 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 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.[5]
The murderer preyed on lower class victims in Cleveland's shanty towns known as "Hoovervilles" after former President Hoover who did next to nothing as the Great Depression ravaged the economy. The killer decapitated his victims and often castrated them.
The Torso Murderer always beheaded and often dismembered his or her victims, occasionally severing the victim's torso in half or severing their appendages.[8] 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. Many of the victims 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 infancy, these factors further complicated identification, especially since the heads were often undiscovered.[9]
Now here is where it gets crazy. Apparently the murderer had heard of Ness' exploits against Capone and found out he was helping to investigate the Torso Murders. The killer then decides to taunt Ness.
www.clevelandpolicemuseum.org/collections/torso-murders/
August 16, 1938: Three scrap collectors foraging in a dump site at East 9th and Lakeside found the torso of a woman wrapped in a man’s double breasted blue blazer and then wrapped again in an old quilt. The legs and arms were discovered in a recently constructed makeshift box, wrapped in brown butcher paper and held together with rubber bands. The head had been similarly wrapped. Gerber noted that some of the parts looked as if they had been refrigerated. While searching for more pieces, the police discover the remains of a second body only yards away. These two bodies had been placed in a location that was in plain view from Eliot Ness’s office window, almost as if taunting him. Both victims #11 and #12 were never identified.
Now thats some Hollywood shit if I ever heard it. Hollywood often ahs serial killers taunting the police, but in reality this rarely happens.
Meanwhile the cops are under tremendous public pressure to solve the case. So hey why not create the perfect suspect?
July 1939: County Sheriff Martin O’Donnell arrested fifty-two-year-old Bohemian brick layer Frank Dolezal for the murder of Flo Polillo. Dolezal had lived with her for a while, and subsequent investigation revealed he had been acquainted with Edward Andrassy and Rose Wallace.
His “confession” turned out to be a bewildering blend of incoherent ramblings and neat, precise details, almost as if he had been coached. Before he could go to trial, Dolezal was found dead in his cell. The five foot eight Dolezal had hanged himself from a hook only five feet seven inches off the floor. Gerber’s autopsy revealed six broken ribs, all of which had been obtained while in the Sheriff’s custody. To this day no one thinks Frank Dolezal was the torso killer. The question is: why did Sheriff O’Donnell?
Despicable. Imagine trying to pin these truly horrific crimes on a totally innocent person. I have nothing but contempt for cops who do this kind of shit.
Ness was convinced the killer was a psycho Doctor named Dr Francis Sweeney. But there was one problem - politics!
www.neatorama.com/2017/11/29/Americas-Jack-the-Ripper-and-the-Downfall-of-Eliot-Ness/
To Ness’s credit as head of the Butcher investigation, he did soon identify a ‘Secret Suspect’, one who to this day remains the prime suspect, this being a psychotic doctor named Francis Sweeney. Unfortunately for Eliot Ness, Dr. Sweeney was first cousin to a partisan democratic congressman, one who had already called for Eliot Ness’s ouster, as well as that of Cleveland’s mayor, another republican. It was this relationship that caused Ness’s suspect to remain top secret (his name was first revealed in the 1990’s), for one can imagine Congressman Sweeney’s reaction to a republican Eliot Ness accusing his cousin, Dr. Francis Sweeney, of being the Butcher.
But Ness goes totally crazy. Because politics in getting in his way of investigating the doctor, He doesn't just interrogate the guy, he literally kidnaps him for weeks at a time!
Ness, under incredible pressure to catch the killer, cut corners and bent rules. He held Dr. Sweeney captive in a hotel for an intense interrogation lasting several weeks, a violation of civil liberties even in 1938, finally being forced to release him due to lack of hard evidence even though he was convinced of Sweeney’s guilt. He hired off-the-books undercover investigators. He also conducted searches of very questionable legality. What would be the last of the Torso Murders in August 1938 drove Ness to one final desperate act.
Angered that his investigation into the Doc was thwarted Ness goes way over the line and decides to start burning the city to the ground! No shit.
Ness figures the killer lives in one of the shanty towns he preys on and decides the only option is clear: Burn it to the ground!
www.clevelandpolicemuseum.org/collections/torso-murders/
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.
The press severely criticized Ness for his actions. The public was afraid and frustrated. Critics said the raid would do nothing to solve the murders.
And
www.neatorama.com/2017/11/29/Americas-Jack-the-Ripper-and-the-Downfall-of-Eliot-Ness/
Believing the Butcher preyed exclusively on transients, Ness ordered the shantytowns in Kingsbury Run to be set ablaze and the men who lived there, many of them the working poor, arrested. Ness meant to deprive the murderer of victims — and fingerprint the men in case they became victims. But in 1938, when one in five workers nationwide was unemployed, this scorched-earth destruction of the indigent population’s homes and meager belongings troubled Cleveland's conscience. The Cleveland Press blasted Ness for his "misguided zeal". Ness's stellar reputation for heroic integrity had given him freedom to operate outside normal channels, but, under intense pressure, he decided that the end justified the means.
This did not go over well with the public and was the beginning of the end of Ness' public career. After the shanty town burning incident he was caught covering up his own drunk driving crash. His reputation in shatters, he left office and eventually became a broke down forgotten drunk telling war stories about Al Capone to random bar flies in dive bars. He lost all his money, went through multiple divorces and was largely forgotten by the public. It was only after he died that his autobiography was published and he rocketed to fame posthumously.
Meanwhile the Torso Murders were never solved.
Whats creepy is this notation a the end of the article from the Cleveland police museum
The Kingsbury Run Murders remain one of the most perplexing cases in our nation’s criminal history. Rumors abound as to who may have been the killer. One thing is very clear: Eliot Ness had a suspect who he believed was undoubtedly the killer. This suspect continued to taunt Ness for years after the killings had stopped. All official police records on this case have been lost, destroyed, or removed.
and according to wiki
After Sweeney committed himself, there were no more leads or connections that police could assign to him as a possible suspect. From his hospital confinement, Sweeney sent threatening postcards and harassed Ness and his family into the 1950s.[24][25] Sweeney died in a veterans' hospital in Dayton on July 9, 1964.[24]
