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The Cleveland Torso Murders · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, you're welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh.
0:13
Speaker 1: There's Chuck. Jerry's out there somewhere with a magnifying glass
0:17
Speaker 1: and toothpick. We don't know what toothpicks for, but this
0:22
Speaker 1: is stuff you should not Yes, content warning episode, everybody.
0:26
Speaker 1: This is one of our I was about to stay rare.
0:30
Speaker 1: They're they're fairly rare, but one of our true crime
0:32
Speaker 1: episodes that is very grizzly, gruesome, gruesome, but took place
0:38
Speaker 1: in the nineteen thirties, so there's something about old and
0:42
Speaker 1: gruesome that makes it a little more palatable for me. Totally.
0:46
Speaker 1: I don't know why, but you're absolutely right time, I
0:49
Speaker 1: guess you know. Yeah, he heals all wounds to murders. Yes,
0:54
Speaker 1: it doesn't. Well, heals all wounds except for some of
0:57
Speaker 1: the things that happened in the Torso murders, because you
0:59
Speaker 1: can't come from that. It's pretty crazy. You you were
1:03
Speaker 1: familiar with the Torso murders already, right, I had heard
1:05
Speaker 1: of these, and the more I read about them, the
1:08
Speaker 1: more I was shocked at that there wasn't a good
1:10
Speaker 1: period movie about this. Yeah. Absolutely, so But if you
1:14
Speaker 1: haven't heard the Torso Killer, that's fine, You're You're definitely
1:17
Speaker 1: not alone. A lot of people haven't, which is kind
1:19
Speaker 1: of surprising because these are they're unsolved murders. There were
1:23
Speaker 1: a lot of them, and you know, they took place
1:27
Speaker 1: in the background of a city that was like driven
1:30
Speaker 1: into a frenzy by this ghastly serial murderer who was
1:35
Speaker 1: who continued their murders despite this extraordinarily large, you know,
1:40
Speaker 1: man hunt to try to find them, an unsuccessful man
1:43
Speaker 1: hunt still to this day. Yeah, I mean, it has
1:45
Speaker 1: all the makings of a good movie. Um, it's got
1:48
Speaker 1: a and we'll we'll reveal who this person is. We'll
1:51
Speaker 1: hang onto it for a second. But they had a
1:54
Speaker 1: famous investigator. Oh sorry, yes, and he definitely was the
1:58
Speaker 1: famous investigating Yeah you thought I meant who the murderer was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah,
2:03
Speaker 1: you've got some false starts. You've got some um Coen
2:06
Speaker 1: Brothers esque whimsy with with the dog discovery. I thought
2:11
Speaker 1: you'd like that. Yeah, I did like that, And um, yeah,
2:14
Speaker 1: it has all the makings of a great movie in
2:15
Speaker 1: a cool period setting, which was depression era nineteen thirties Cleveland, Ohia,
2:22
Speaker 1: which is almost indistinguishable from current day Cleveland. Come on,
2:28
Speaker 1: we love Hey man, I'm from Toledo. I can totally
2:30
Speaker 1: backs Detroit. I was. That's my birthright. That is your birthright. Um.
2:36
Speaker 1: So let's go back to September of when a woman's
2:39
Speaker 1: torso is washed up on the shore of Lake Erie.
2:44
Speaker 1: Her legs are amputated below the knee. There is no head,
2:49
Speaker 1: which is why I said torso. And it's a suspicious
2:53
Speaker 1: way to find a body, a very suspicious way. She
2:56
Speaker 1: was never identified. They called her the Lady of the Lake.
3:00
Speaker 1: And this was just sort of the beginnings. Nothing was
3:03
Speaker 1: put together at this point because it would be two
3:05
Speaker 1: years before any other murders took place, and that they
3:09
Speaker 1: finally sort of put together that the Lady of the
3:11
Speaker 1: Lake was perhaps Victim zero, uh, really victim one, but
3:15
Speaker 1: they called her Victim zero of who would become known
3:18
Speaker 1: as the Torso murderer or the mad Butcher of Kingsbury. Yes, um,
3:25
Speaker 1: Kingsbury run. And like you said, it would be about
3:28
Speaker 1: two years before they started to connect the dots. But
3:31
Speaker 1: in that time between the time the Lady of the
3:33
Speaker 1: Lake was found, um about a year past and then
3:38
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, two more bodies were found, and
3:41
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, because two bodies were found together,
3:44
Speaker 1: this really started to capture people's attention to the lady
3:47
Speaker 1: of the lake. It was a weird thing. It was
3:48
Speaker 1: a terrible thing to find, but it was singular. This was,
3:52
Speaker 1: you know, like by definition, not singular, finding two bodies
3:57
Speaker 1: at once that were both dismembered. Um. And they were
4:01
Speaker 1: found in the area of Kingsbury Run, which is where
4:04
Speaker 1: the mad butcher take takes his name. That's right, Um.
4:08
Speaker 1: They were both men. In this case, they were uh,
4:12
Speaker 1: they were castrated. They were also decapitated, which would become
4:16
Speaker 1: sort of a signature. The decapitation and in any kind
4:20
Speaker 1: of dismembering really would become the signature hallmark of this murderer. Uh.
4:24
Speaker 1: And it's interesting in that victim, one of these two men,
4:28
Speaker 1: was actually one of the only ones that they got
4:31
Speaker 1: a fairly positive I d for Um actually got some
4:34
Speaker 1: fingerprints and it matched a man named Edward Uh Andrewsi.
4:39
Speaker 1: And he was sort of a petty thief that had
4:42
Speaker 1: you know, the police had brought in before. So he
4:45
Speaker 1: was believed to be gay and this if he was,
4:47
Speaker 1: you know, which all accounts should say that he was.
4:49
Speaker 1: This was at a time when in the nineteen thirties,
4:53
Speaker 1: certainly it was still illegal, and it was also listed
4:57
Speaker 1: as a mental disorder in the to call not the
5:00
Speaker 1: d m V, d U the d m V. The
5:06
Speaker 1: d m V didn't look too highly on it either. No,
5:08
Speaker 1: that's right. So he I think was one of only
5:11
Speaker 1: two that was ever even positively identified of what would
5:15
Speaker 1: end up being probably maybe twelve murders. Yes. Um. And again,
5:23
Speaker 1: these guys were found together, not together, like they were
5:27
Speaker 1: like within, you know, a very short distance of one another,
5:30
Speaker 1: so that they were found virtually at the same time.
5:33
Speaker 1: And whenever you find, you know, a body missing its head,
5:36
Speaker 1: that that is attention grabbing. And when you find two
5:39
Speaker 1: bodies both missing their heads, that really starts to get
5:42
Speaker 1: the presses juices running. Um. And like we said, these
5:46
Speaker 1: were found around Kingsbury Run, and Kingsbury Run is basically
5:50
Speaker 1: like an old riverbed that cuts through Um. I believe
5:54
Speaker 1: the west side of Cleveland. Uh No, I'm sorry that
5:57
Speaker 1: I think the east side of Cleveland down to the
6:00
Speaker 1: Coyahoga River, and it was basically like the place where
6:03
Speaker 1: all of the oil companies and all of the heavy
6:07
Speaker 1: industry along the river and along the lake would dump
6:09
Speaker 1: all of their waste. The city put a sewer in there.
6:13
Speaker 1: It was just meant to be kind of like a
6:15
Speaker 1: waste land, like a literal wasteland. Um. And it kind
6:21
Speaker 1: of stayed that way until the depression hit. And by
6:24
Speaker 1: the time the depression had things were so bad that
6:26
Speaker 1: people were looking to to basically live wherever they could
6:30
Speaker 1: for free, and they started taking up residents in Kingsbury Run.
6:33
Speaker 1: So by the time the Kingsbury Run murders, the Tords,
6:37
Speaker 1: the Torso murders started, Um, this was like a full fledged,
6:40
Speaker 1: full swing shanty town. Basically a Great Depression era Hoover town.
6:44
Speaker 1: It's what they call them, Yeah, exactly. Um. So it
6:48
Speaker 1: was a Graham scene down there anyway. Uh, certainly the
6:51
Speaker 1: fringes of society. Um. During the course of the investigation,
6:55
Speaker 1: there were accusations of the press that they weren't working
6:58
Speaker 1: as hard as they needed to because these were people
7:00
Speaker 1: on the fringes of society and sort of forgotten about.
7:04
Speaker 1: And I think one of the other people identified. It
7:08
Speaker 1: was a few months later in January nineteen thirty six,
7:12
Speaker 1: when they found the body of Flow Palilo Florence Pollilo
7:16
Speaker 1: was a waitress and bartender and sex worker who was
7:20
Speaker 1: discovered once again dismembered, wrapped in newspaper and a couple
7:24
Speaker 1: of bushel baskets, and then about a week and a
7:26
Speaker 1: half later found other parts of her body. So she
7:29
Speaker 1: was sort of found in in it's very grizzly, but
7:33
Speaker 1: found in pieces over the course of a week and
7:35
Speaker 1: a half in different places. Right, So, so far as
7:39
Speaker 1: far as anybody can tell, we're up to three and
7:42
Speaker 1: possibly four victims if you include the Lady of the Lake.
7:46
Speaker 1: But it wasn't until the following June, about six months
7:48
Speaker 1: after flow Palilo was discovered, because again, remember these people
7:53
Speaker 1: were they actually lived on the fringe of society. So
7:57
Speaker 1: just like today, just like Robert picked in the pig
8:00
Speaker 1: farmer from Vancouver, so many other serial killers um find
8:04
Speaker 1: their victims um and like the just I guess, the
8:07
Speaker 1: lowest stations of society because they're the most vulnerable, they
8:10
Speaker 1: have the least protection, And that's kind of what was
8:13
Speaker 1: going on. That's why it took so many victims for
8:16
Speaker 1: the press to finally be like, Okay, there's something really
8:18
Speaker 1: going on here. And finally in June, I believe of
8:22
Speaker 1: ninety six, victim number four as far as canonical victims go,
8:27
Speaker 1: but possibly the fifth victim was discovered. Um, his head
8:31
Speaker 1: was found first by two boys who are playing hookey
8:34
Speaker 1: and fishing along the Coyahoga. No, I can't because they
8:39
Speaker 1: found like a bald up pair of trousers and I
8:42
Speaker 1: guess grabbed them and found that there's something in it.
8:45
Speaker 1: When they opened it up, there was the head of
8:47
Speaker 1: a man in his twenties. But I've never been identified,
8:51
Speaker 1: like so many of these victims. Yeah, and not to
8:54
Speaker 1: trivialize any of this, but again, that stuff is very
8:58
Speaker 1: ripe for for movie making. Totally, this whole thing is,
9:01
Speaker 1: and it really is surprising that no one's done this yet,
9:04
Speaker 1: Like you wouldn't you know, you would write something like
9:06
Speaker 1: that in a screenplay and this actually happened. There's so
9:09
Speaker 1: there's I didn't see. I haven't read it, but there's
9:12
Speaker 1: a graphic novel and maybe it's a series called Torso
9:16
Speaker 1: that is um about all this, and I'm guessing that
9:19
Speaker 1: would probably be a pretty good basis for the movie. Yeah,
9:22
Speaker 1: so victim for uh, they were making great efforts to
9:25
Speaker 1: find out who this man was. So they actually, um,
9:29
Speaker 1: the police circulated a photo of his face and made
9:33
Speaker 1: a death mask. If you don't know what a death
9:36
Speaker 1: mask is, I encourage you to go listen to our
9:37
Speaker 1: episode on death masks. It's basically what you would think.
9:41
Speaker 1: It's a it's a recreation of this man's head and
9:44
Speaker 1: they put this thing along with a tattoo map. He
9:47
Speaker 1: had tattoos all over himself. Um, an illustrated map of
9:51
Speaker 1: his tattoos in this death mask on display at the
9:53
Speaker 1: Great Lakes Exposition of nineteen thirty six, where you know,
9:58
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand people could walk. I mean it was
10:00
Speaker 1: a smart idea in one way, because they had a
10:03
Speaker 1: you know, could blast it out in the best way
10:06
Speaker 1: possible to try and identify who this person was. But
10:08
Speaker 1: it was also again like something from a movie. These
10:11
Speaker 1: people going to an exposition all of a sudden are
10:14
Speaker 1: walking behy these this uh tattoo map and the death
10:18
Speaker 1: mask of this man. Uh. And I'm sure the question
10:21
Speaker 1: came up, like, well, why is it? Where's the rest
10:25
Speaker 1: of his body? Why didn't they just show pictures of
10:26
Speaker 1: the tattoos. They're like, stop asking questions, do you know
10:29
Speaker 1: the guy or not? No, go get some ice. Cream exactly,
10:33
Speaker 1: move along. Nothing to see here. But yeah, despite that,
10:36
Speaker 1: you know, very public um search for an identification. He
10:40
Speaker 1: was never still has never been identified, and his tattoos
10:43
Speaker 1: were really he had people's names tattooed on him. He
10:46
Speaker 1: had a cartoon character named Jigs tattooed on him. So
10:50
Speaker 1: this guy, you know, you could see his face, they
10:52
Speaker 1: had all the tattoos, and he still has never been identified.
10:55
Speaker 1: But his his discovery, and I think the very public,
10:58
Speaker 1: like the cops circle related a photo of his head
11:01
Speaker 1: on a gurney in the morgue at first before they
11:04
Speaker 1: made the death mass, among other um uh police agencies
11:08
Speaker 1: around the area, and I'm sure to the press as well.
11:11
Speaker 1: Um So it was kind of public, even though it
11:15
Speaker 1: was kind of quiet, but it got the press's attention,
11:17
Speaker 1: and the press started to connect the dots, and all
11:20
Speaker 1: of a sudden, we now were connecting the Lady of
11:22
Speaker 1: the Lake to this latest guy and all of the
11:25
Speaker 1: other ones as well, and it became very clear that
11:28
Speaker 1: there was what they call the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury
11:32
Speaker 1: run on the loose um in Cleveland, and no one
11:36
Speaker 1: had any idea who it was or when or if
11:39
Speaker 1: they were ever going to stop. Yeah. I think there
11:41
Speaker 1: were seven more victims over the next two years. Victim
11:46
Speaker 1: eight were skeletal remains, but they did think they identified
11:50
Speaker 1: this person as Rose Wallace. Uh, woman in her forties.
11:55
Speaker 1: She had gone missing about a year earlier, and there
11:58
Speaker 1: was quicklime use to decomposed this body. And this one
12:02
Speaker 1: interestingly had evidence of more of a clumsy dismemberment. Um.
12:08
Speaker 1: To me, this one stands out a little bit as
12:10
Speaker 1: one that possibly might not be a victim and could
12:13
Speaker 1: have been misattributed, uh, to the to the mad butcher.
12:18
Speaker 1: That's just my personal feeling. I don't I don't know
12:20
Speaker 1: if anyone else is saying this, but it's the one
12:22
Speaker 1: that stands out to me as being slightly different, same
12:25
Speaker 1: as the same, same to me. Yeah, she uh, the
12:27
Speaker 1: killer clearly lacked a dismemberment plan in that case. Is
12:32
Speaker 1: that a band? Yeah? Are they good? Yeah? They were
12:37
Speaker 1: really good. They were maybe math rock. I think they
12:42
Speaker 1: were at the very least they were alternative. Victim nine
12:48
Speaker 1: was had his heart removed. Um. Victim ten had morphine
12:54
Speaker 1: in her system. And I think they're they're not quite
12:58
Speaker 1: sure how they all died. I think at one point
13:01
Speaker 1: they thought most of them died by the decapitation, but
13:04
Speaker 1: some were found with uh their blood completely drained from
13:08
Speaker 1: their body. Like I said, this one woman had morphine
13:10
Speaker 1: inter system, which could make sense. We'll get to something
13:14
Speaker 1: else later on of a potential victim that never happened,
13:17
Speaker 1: where drugs might have been a factor. But um, you know,
13:21
Speaker 1: it's it's sort of all. You know, there were men,
13:22
Speaker 1: they were women, There were black people, there were white people.
13:24
Speaker 1: There wasn't any real rhyme or reason, it seemed like,
13:27
Speaker 1: aside from the fact that they were probably culled from
13:30
Speaker 1: this area of Ohio, yes, uh. And the fact that
13:34
Speaker 1: you know the first two men were emasculated, um, that
13:37
Speaker 1: there were women involved too. That somebody's hard to been
13:40
Speaker 1: ripped out like there was. There was clearly a sexual
13:43
Speaker 1: element of the whole thing, which made the idea that
13:45
Speaker 1: they were men and women victims UM very confounded. You
13:51
Speaker 1: just don't normally see that in a sex killer. You
13:53
Speaker 1: see one or the other, and it's usually the sex
13:57
Speaker 1: that the person is oriented to. Um are the victims.
14:01
Speaker 1: And then you know, just to kind of to to
14:03
Speaker 1: cap that point off, the killer left victims eleven and
14:06
Speaker 1: twelve within a few yards of one another um on
14:10
Speaker 1: a dump like a trash dump, and one was a woman,
14:14
Speaker 1: Victim eleven was a woman, and victim twelve was a man.
14:17
Speaker 1: Should we take a break? We should because Cleveland doesn't
14:21
Speaker 1: know it at the time, but those of us looking
14:23
Speaker 1: through uh, looking backwards through history can tell you that
14:27
Speaker 1: this was the last canonical victims in August of night.
14:31
Speaker 1: So the killer, as far as anybody knows, is done.
14:34
Speaker 1: That's right, and most of the grizzling stuff is out
14:36
Speaker 1: of the way, and we'll be back to reveal the
14:38
Speaker 1: famous investigator right after this. How's that for a tease?
15:13
Speaker 1: It was I can't take it anymore, Chuck, please, please?
15:16
Speaker 1: Who is it? It's my favorite thing when you play
15:18
Speaker 1: coy Uh. It was Mr Elliott Nessus, very famous for
15:23
Speaker 1: being the head of the Untouchables, for putting uh Al
15:28
Speaker 1: Capone behind bars, good friend of Sean Connery's very good friend.
15:33
Speaker 1: Oh that was great. That wasn't very good, because you
15:36
Speaker 1: don't bring your knife to a gunfight. To bring a
15:39
Speaker 1: gun your dummy. Yeah, I think that was the line.
15:42
Speaker 1: If you wanted to do country, well, you gotta have
15:43
Speaker 1: ansh in there, right. But there was no sad didn't
15:47
Speaker 1: I I thought that was. I thought I nailed it.
15:50
Speaker 1: There aren't no s is in that sentence, right, They're implied.
15:55
Speaker 1: And I would have done that had there been ses
15:57
Speaker 1: don't bring a knife to a gun dunch. How's that right?
16:01
Speaker 1: You're burger gone your job? All right? Back to the
16:06
Speaker 1: serious stuff. Elliott Ness was the after that working what
16:11
Speaker 1: was that Chicago? I think, oh, yeah, that was He
16:14
Speaker 1: became the alcohol uh investigator in charge of the alcohol
16:19
Speaker 1: tax unit for Northern Ohio and August of thirty four,
16:23
Speaker 1: and then the Republican mayoral candidate Harold Burton, who would
16:26
Speaker 1: go on to win, said, you know what, Ness, you're
16:29
Speaker 1: a famous guy. I like the cut of your jib um.
16:33
Speaker 1: Let me make you in December nine the safety director
16:37
Speaker 1: for Cleveland, and let me nudge you towards this outstanding
16:42
Speaker 1: case that we have. So yeah, when he was hired,
16:46
Speaker 1: the the case wasn't quite clear that it was a
16:48
Speaker 1: big old case when he came in just after like
16:52
Speaker 1: a couple of months after victims one and two were found,
16:55
Speaker 1: and just a couple of weeks before flow Polilo was out,
17:00
Speaker 1: So it wasn't evident that that there was a serial
17:03
Speaker 1: murderer on the loose. Um, but that also means that
17:07
Speaker 1: Elliott Nest came in right at the beginning of this thing,
17:10
Speaker 1: so he was the public safety director for it. He
17:12
Speaker 1: became the face of the frustrated police effort to capture
17:16
Speaker 1: the Torso killer, right although the lead investigator, what was
17:21
Speaker 1: that guy's name, Peter Maurillo, Yeah, he was. He was
17:29
Speaker 1: I don't know about obsessed, but it became sort of
17:31
Speaker 1: his main focus of work was to tirelessly find out
17:36
Speaker 1: who this murderer was. And I assume that it's weird
17:39
Speaker 1: because I really don't know what a safety director was.
17:41
Speaker 1: I don't think is that even still a thing? Uh? Yeah,
17:45
Speaker 1: I think there's a public safety director position still there.
17:48
Speaker 1: They basically are in charge of the police department, the
17:50
Speaker 1: fire department, all that stuff. You're there the head of that.
17:54
Speaker 1: They're like they probably the liaison between the mayor in
17:57
Speaker 1: those services, but not the guardian angels because they do
18:01
Speaker 1: what they want to do. Hey man, they're staying on
18:03
Speaker 1: their own too. Uh. The coroner A. J. Pierce of
18:07
Speaker 1: the case, I think he was the first corner on
18:09
Speaker 1: the first case, said you know what we need to do.
18:12
Speaker 1: We need to get together, we need to have a
18:13
Speaker 1: little summit and start sharing information. I'm gonna call it
18:16
Speaker 1: the Torso Clinic, which was interesting. I don't know if
18:19
Speaker 1: he did or the press did, yeah, either way, because
18:22
Speaker 1: the press was very much involved in this whole run obviously.
18:25
Speaker 1: But at this conference is where he first put forward
18:28
Speaker 1: a profile, which was this is someone who would not
18:32
Speaker 1: stand out in Kingsbury one. Uh, then someone who knew
18:36
Speaker 1: the area could blend in, uh, somebody, you know. We
18:39
Speaker 1: think it's a man who is a powerful man because
18:42
Speaker 1: they need to be able to you know, it takes
18:45
Speaker 1: a lot of work to dismember a body and to
18:48
Speaker 1: haul these bodies around and drop them off in different places.
18:51
Speaker 1: And we think he also might have some anatomical knowledge,
18:55
Speaker 1: not saying that he's necessarily a doctor or a surgeon, uh,
18:59
Speaker 1: kind of to jack the ripper thing. But but this,
19:02
Speaker 1: this person clearsly clearly knows their way around a knife
19:05
Speaker 1: in a scalpel. Yeah, because I mean, if you really
19:08
Speaker 1: closely examine a body and like look at the places
19:11
Speaker 1: where you know the body was separated with the knife,
19:13
Speaker 1: you can find hesitancy marks, you can find the hacking. Um,
19:19
Speaker 1: there's all sorts of clues and telltale signs and apparently
19:21
Speaker 1: this guy had a lot of confidence and had a
19:25
Speaker 1: lot of skill or knowledge about anatomy. So, like you said,
19:28
Speaker 1: maybe not a doctor, but at the very least a
19:30
Speaker 1: very skilled butcher who had studied human anatomy um before.
19:35
Speaker 1: But eventually they finally were like, this is probably some
19:39
Speaker 1: sort of doctor. Yeah, And I think they eventually learned
19:42
Speaker 1: that most of the victims died within a few dame
19:46
Speaker 1: a few days of being discovered, and most were moved,
19:49
Speaker 1: except for victim five, where they found a blood bath.
19:53
Speaker 1: You know that was this didn't happen to the other
19:56
Speaker 1: crime scenes. It was virtually no blood to be found,
19:58
Speaker 1: and in fact, I think one was completely drained of blood.
20:02
Speaker 1: Oh really, so that I mean that takes I don't
20:05
Speaker 1: know if that happened naturally just because of the nature
20:09
Speaker 1: of of dismemberment or it was a purposeful thing. But
20:12
Speaker 1: only one body was found kind of clearly murdered there, right,
20:17
Speaker 1: So um, yeah, I think that the fact that the
20:20
Speaker 1: blood wasn't on the scene and it wasn't in the
20:23
Speaker 1: body any longer means that had to go somewhere. So
20:26
Speaker 1: that the fact that they were dismembered um and the
20:31
Speaker 1: and packaged I mean, like a lot of them were found.
20:34
Speaker 1: You know. Um, the one unidentified tattooed man, his head
20:37
Speaker 1: was wrapped in trousers, but other people's were wrapped in
20:40
Speaker 1: newspaper or brown paper like they were meat. Um, someone
20:45
Speaker 1: was was put in a makeshift box. Um, there was.
20:49
Speaker 1: There was a lot of time dedicated to the dismemberment
20:54
Speaker 1: of these bodies, and that that that leaves a lot
20:56
Speaker 1: of evidence and you need a place where you're not
20:59
Speaker 1: going to be in erupted and that's not easy to
21:01
Speaker 1: come by. So that became a really like big point
21:04
Speaker 1: is you know, we were pretty sure that this person
21:08
Speaker 1: is is snatching victims from the from the Kingsbury Run area. Um,
21:14
Speaker 1: but where are they committing these acts? And they tried
21:18
Speaker 1: to find that that place as much as they tried
21:20
Speaker 1: to find the killer. Yeah, I mean that would be
21:22
Speaker 1: a big clue if they had some murder room, uh
21:25
Speaker 1: Dexter style. Sure, but just giveaway every time. That's coming back.
21:30
Speaker 1: By the way, I don't know if you ever watched Exter,
21:32
Speaker 1: what do you mean it's coming back? They're bringing Dexter
21:35
Speaker 1: back man with the original like Michael C. Hall. No, Yes,
21:40
Speaker 1: they are, indeed, And I had mixed feelings because we
21:42
Speaker 1: love that show for a long time, but it is
21:44
Speaker 1: the end. It is one of the shark jump here
21:46
Speaker 1: shows of all time. It's it's like the shark itself jumped,
21:51
Speaker 1: I think. So it's insane, it's amazing. I mean, I
21:55
Speaker 1: love Michael c Hell though. We were just now finishing
21:57
Speaker 1: six ft Under again, so I'm always happy to see
22:00
Speaker 1: him again. But I'll give it again. You see Colden July.
22:03
Speaker 1: M Mmm, no, what is that. It's a little bit
22:07
Speaker 1: like a straw Dogs type story. Um, but he's like
22:12
Speaker 1: having a battle Don Johnson. It's just really like, if
22:15
Speaker 1: you want I know, it's weird casting, but if you
22:18
Speaker 1: want to just experience like a constant, you know, mid
22:22
Speaker 1: to low level dread for two hours, Like, let's go
22:25
Speaker 1: ahead and watch that. It's well done in that respect.
22:27
Speaker 1: Or watch the Lighthouse. Probably it's probably better. It's so good.
22:32
Speaker 1: Let's just stop talking about this and talking about the
22:34
Speaker 1: Lighthouse for the rest of the time, all right. So, uh,
22:38
Speaker 1: Peter Morillo, who, like we said, was a lead detective,
22:41
Speaker 1: he's sort of obsessed with this thing. He starts not
22:43
Speaker 1: only focusing on uh, this land down by the river.
22:47
Speaker 1: But I didn't mean that, but that's what it was.
22:51
Speaker 1: But he started focusing on the rail roads and these
22:56
Speaker 1: these hoboes the railroads. Okay, you know where trains run
23:01
Speaker 1: on sure, yeah, I just never heard it pronounced the
23:03
Speaker 1: way you did, the first railroad. It was hilarious. I
23:09
Speaker 1: gotta lighten this up. So I were talking about this
23:11
Speaker 1: membered towards exactly. Um. So he started looking in these
23:14
Speaker 1: box cars and I don't I mean as hobo an
23:18
Speaker 1: offensive word. Can you still say that? Don't think so.
23:21
Speaker 1: I think it's a point of pride, a term of
23:23
Speaker 1: pride for people to still ride the rails. Okay. Um.
23:29
Speaker 1: So he's still out there doing his thing at this
23:32
Speaker 1: press conference, um Elliott and s ends up holding a
23:36
Speaker 1: meeting with the head of Scientific Investigation Bureau. His name
23:39
Speaker 1: was David Cowell's uh and an editor of the Cleveland Press. Um.
23:45
Speaker 1: So this is a big deal. They're actually getting the
23:46
Speaker 1: press involved at this point, right, But secretly, this wasn't
23:50
Speaker 1: a press conference. This is like a secret meeting. Oh
23:52
Speaker 1: no, no no, not a press conference at all. This was
23:53
Speaker 1: very much in secret. But he's involving the press, and
23:56
Speaker 1: they said, here's what we're gonna do. Ness says let's
23:59
Speaker 1: you go and aout eight tough guys that can go undercover,
24:03
Speaker 1: that that know a lot of bad guys in Cleveland
24:06
Speaker 1: and have all those connections, will get them the police
24:08
Speaker 1: support they need, and we'll fund them. How did they
24:11
Speaker 1: fund them with the press is money? What does that
24:13
Speaker 1: even mean? I don't know. I think that like maybe um,
24:17
Speaker 1: the owners of the newspapers chipped in, like the wealthy
24:20
Speaker 1: owners chipped in quietly to stuff off of the books.
24:24
Speaker 1: That's my impression of what you ever chipped in the
24:26
Speaker 1: most gut to break the story, Hender, But well no,
24:29
Speaker 1: I think at the same time, it was a technique
24:31
Speaker 1: for bringing the press into the fold so that there
24:34
Speaker 1: weren't outsiders drumming up trouble for the cops anymore. Because
24:38
Speaker 1: the Cleveland press really made the They didn't make the
24:42
Speaker 1: police look bad. They pointed out just how badly the
24:45
Speaker 1: police were handling this or ineffectively, which is not to
24:48
Speaker 1: say that the police were um not trying really really hard.
24:53
Speaker 1: Top postedly. I saw a figure of ten thousand suspects
24:56
Speaker 1: were interviewed over four years during the course of this investigation.
24:59
Speaker 1: They just couldn't find the guy. They could not find
25:02
Speaker 1: this killer, and the press kind of almost gleefully kept
25:05
Speaker 1: pointing that out right, So this is in a way
25:09
Speaker 1: attempt to assuage them and bring them into the inner
25:12
Speaker 1: circle a bit, right. That's that was my impression. Yeah,
25:16
Speaker 1: all right, So the police are they got these undercover
25:19
Speaker 1: guys working there. They're seeing they're checking cars randomly at
25:22
Speaker 1: all hours. They're canvassing laundromats and places where you wash
25:27
Speaker 1: your clothes. So you know, if there are people like
25:29
Speaker 1: trying to get bloodstains out of something, they're kind of
25:32
Speaker 1: doing everything they can at this point. Uh. And this
25:34
Speaker 1: is where the Coen Brothers sort of a moment comes in,
25:37
Speaker 1: which is in Sandusky a dog and Sandusky is about now,
25:43
Speaker 1: it's about an hour or ten minutes away by car.
25:45
Speaker 1: I don't know what it would have been back then,
25:47
Speaker 1: but probably less than two hours, I would say, even
25:49
Speaker 1: in an old timy car. A dog shows up in
25:52
Speaker 1: Sandusky with a human leg in its mouth. I want
25:56
Speaker 1: to say that literally happened in a Coen Brothers movie.
25:59
Speaker 1: It might have just been a bone of a body,
26:03
Speaker 1: but I can't think of which one it might be.
26:05
Speaker 1: Someone will someone will write in and tell us, But
26:07
Speaker 1: it sounds like a Barton Fink kind of thing. It is,
26:09
Speaker 1: but it's not, or I might be thinking of the
26:12
Speaker 1: kids who ripped the two pay off the guy in
26:15
Speaker 1: uh Miller's Crossing. I remember that part, although I remember
26:21
Speaker 1: one of the neighbors lost his to pay in the
26:23
Speaker 1: burbs and they thought it was Evidently, there's definitely a movie,
26:27
Speaker 1: it might not have been Coming Brothers where dog shows
26:29
Speaker 1: up with the body part in its mouth. Probably more
26:31
Speaker 1: than one movie, but this dog shows up in its
26:33
Speaker 1: mouth and Marello goes to Sandusky and it turns out
26:38
Speaker 1: that the leg was actually surgically removed during a during
26:42
Speaker 1: a real surgery, not a not a serial killer surgery,
26:46
Speaker 1: and just didn't get disposed of right, ended up in
26:48
Speaker 1: the lake, ended up in the dog's mouth, right. But
26:51
Speaker 1: the police were so hyped up at the time that
26:54
Speaker 1: they traveled Sandusky to chase down this lead, which, like
26:57
Speaker 1: all the other ones, went absolutely no where um. And
27:01
Speaker 1: so there was there was again like just a tremendous
27:05
Speaker 1: amount of public pressure, including something you mentioned earlier, to
27:09
Speaker 1: a lot of allegations and accusations that the police weren't
27:12
Speaker 1: doing enough because these people were not wealthy, were not
27:17
Speaker 1: well thought of, They were, you know, very poor. The
27:20
Speaker 1: poorest of the poor during the Great Depression were the
27:22
Speaker 1: ones who were having who are suffering this this serial
27:25
Speaker 1: killer UM. And so there was a tremendous amount of
27:29
Speaker 1: of pressure UM. And I think my impression is is
27:33
Speaker 1: that that pressure UM is one of the I guess
27:38
Speaker 1: the thing that drove Elliott Ness to Um to do
27:41
Speaker 1: something really terrible. Because the killer was picking from the
27:46
Speaker 1: shanty towns of Kingsbury Run. Elliott Ness got it in
27:49
Speaker 1: his head that if you did away with Kingsbury Run,
27:51
Speaker 1: you do away with the killings. And so he raided
27:54
Speaker 1: the homeless camps at Kingsbury Run and roused at everybody
27:58
Speaker 1: and then ordered the place burned to the ground. Yeah,
28:02
Speaker 1: and I'm sure he thought this was a great idea
28:04
Speaker 1: at the time, but he really didn't think it through
28:06
Speaker 1: because the people of Cleveland did not take kindly to
28:10
Speaker 1: that Um. They they hated him for what he did.
28:13
Speaker 1: And this was during the depression and everyone was struggling basically,
28:17
Speaker 1: or not everyone, but most people were struggling at this
28:19
Speaker 1: point unemployment rate of in Cleveland, and so the idea
28:24
Speaker 1: of this big shot Chicago g man coming in and
28:30
Speaker 1: and basically running these homeless people out of their only
28:33
Speaker 1: option and burning it to the ground was not a
28:36
Speaker 1: good look at all. However, it that was there were
28:42
Speaker 1: no more murders after that. I know, it's strangely, it
28:45
Speaker 1: seemed to have worked, and it depends we'll talk more about.
28:48
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of different views of whether the
28:51
Speaker 1: murders stopped or not. But as far as canonical victims go,
28:54
Speaker 1: this this he burned the place to the ground two
28:57
Speaker 1: days after victims eleven and twelve or found, and after
29:00
Speaker 1: that there were no more victims. So it didn't solve
29:03
Speaker 1: the murders by any stretch of the imagination, but it
29:05
Speaker 1: seemed to have put an end to him. Weirdly, Yeah,
29:08
Speaker 1: I think before we take a break, we should mention
29:10
Speaker 1: there was one and get into the who we think
29:14
Speaker 1: it's probably the real suspect. There was one suspect in
29:17
Speaker 1: Cuyahoga County, uh that the sheriff brought in name. He
29:21
Speaker 1: was a bricklayer named Frank dole Zeal who did confess
29:25
Speaker 1: he was brought in for the murder of Flow Palilo,
29:28
Speaker 1: originally because he had lived with her for a little while,
29:31
Speaker 1: but supposedly he knew Rose Wallis and Edward ANDREWSI as well.
29:35
Speaker 1: But then they looked into it, and by all accounts
29:38
Speaker 1: that confession was um not just induced, but in the
29:44
Speaker 1: days where you would literally beat a victim into confessing. Yeah,
29:49
Speaker 1: and um then murder him in his cell after he
29:51
Speaker 1: recanted his confession. So was he murdered. Yeah, Well, he
29:56
Speaker 1: he hung himself, but he hung himself from a hook
29:58
Speaker 1: that was shorter than he was, which I mean, I
30:01
Speaker 1: guess if you really really want to die, you might
30:04
Speaker 1: you you could do that, you could overcome them the
30:08
Speaker 1: urge to stand up, disinclination towards self harm, I guess
30:11
Speaker 1: you'd put it. But uh, his his friends at the
30:15
Speaker 1: time seemed to be like now that he was murdered.
30:18
Speaker 1: So it's at the very least his confession was beaten
30:21
Speaker 1: out of him. And no, no serious scholar of the
30:23
Speaker 1: crime believes that um Frank do zeal was was the killer.
30:28
Speaker 1: He didn't have any there was no evidence whatsoever any
30:31
Speaker 1: kind of surgical knowledge. There was like a lot of boxes.
30:34
Speaker 1: He just didn't check. It was basically, uh, he knew flow,
30:37
Speaker 1: and he may have known Edward and ROSSI, and he
30:40
Speaker 1: may have known Rose Wallace and the sheriff basically ran
30:43
Speaker 1: him in very publicly. All right, So let's take that
30:46
Speaker 1: break and then we'll come back and talk a little
30:48
Speaker 1: bit more about the investigation and who people now believe
30:54
Speaker 1: committed these horrible murders right after this, all right, so
31:28
Speaker 1: Elliott Ness has run everyone out of the Kingsbury run camps.
31:32
Speaker 1: Did not go over well. He then says, here's what
31:35
Speaker 1: we'll do. Let's skirt the warrant rules so we don't
31:41
Speaker 1: have to require warrants, and let's get together. Since I'm
31:44
Speaker 1: the safety director and I controlled the fire department too,
31:47
Speaker 1: let's get let's go around and start searching for quote,
31:50
Speaker 1: fire code violations end quote. Basically, so they don't have
31:54
Speaker 1: to get any kind of warrants and they can just
31:56
Speaker 1: basically go into people's houses and and just at will
32:01
Speaker 1: and search and do whatever they want to under the
32:04
Speaker 1: guise of searching for fire code violations. He was desperate,
32:07
Speaker 1: He was very desperate. And again they were looking not
32:10
Speaker 1: just for the killer, but really, more than anything, they
32:12
Speaker 1: were looking for that grizzly workshop, as the Cleveland plain
32:15
Speaker 1: Dealer had put in a place where he was, you know,
32:18
Speaker 1: draining the victims of their blood and dismembering their bodies.
32:21
Speaker 1: They didn't turn anything up, but it really kind of
32:24
Speaker 1: goes to show like just what lengths elliott Ness, who
32:28
Speaker 1: was considered like this squeaky clean law man was willing
32:32
Speaker 1: to go to this is extraordinarily um unconstitutional and underhanded,
32:39
Speaker 1: and he went he went to that degree and well
32:43
Speaker 1: beyond it turned out actually too very much. Uh. And
32:47
Speaker 1: I think we're at the point now where we can
32:48
Speaker 1: talk about this mystery person, right, Yeah, this is this
32:52
Speaker 1: is why I said. He went way beyond you know,
32:54
Speaker 1: um unlawful search of homes. He actually engaged in what
32:59
Speaker 1: amounts to kidney apping of a private citizen who he
33:01
Speaker 1: thought was the killer. Yeah, and he kept it very secret.
33:05
Speaker 1: He even used a pseudonym for this person. He called
33:07
Speaker 1: this person this gentleman gay lord Sundheim. Pretty good name,
33:12
Speaker 1: a good hotel check in name. Uh. And privately he
33:16
Speaker 1: you know, word gets around a little bit what's going on,
33:18
Speaker 1: But privately he would describe this person as an alcoholic,
33:22
Speaker 1: uh maybe bisexual, A doctor who came from a wealthy
33:27
Speaker 1: family and who had a relative in Congress who was
33:31
Speaker 1: protecting this person and took this man under the dark
33:36
Speaker 1: of night to a hotel room in Cleveland held there
33:38
Speaker 1: without charging him for two weeks where they interrogated this person. Yes,
33:44
Speaker 1: and apparently the guy who this gay lord Sundheim was
33:48
Speaker 1: in the middle of a bender when he was picked up,
33:51
Speaker 1: and uh, he had um. He was so profoundly drunk
33:55
Speaker 1: that it took him three days to become sober again.
33:58
Speaker 1: Not buy that, I don't, but when he when he did,
34:02
Speaker 1: I know, But you got to add those two. Um,
34:04
Speaker 1: thank you for keeping it, keeping it even keel though
34:09
Speaker 1: they were a little rough, and you're always okay the
34:12
Speaker 1: next day. I don't know what you're talking about. It's
34:16
Speaker 1: so weird, like alcohol affects us so differently. Man, I
34:19
Speaker 1: can have like a drink and a half these days
34:23
Speaker 1: and I'm like hating life the next day. No, I'm
34:25
Speaker 1: not talking about a hangover, but you're not still drunk
34:28
Speaker 1: the next day and two days or three days. I
34:32
Speaker 1: think that's what they were saying, is that this guy
34:34
Speaker 1: was he had like a hangover stupor basically that was
34:39
Speaker 1: my impression, not that he was still just flying high,
34:42
Speaker 1: but that hating it all right for three day But regardless,
34:47
Speaker 1: they kept him whether he was sober as a judge
34:50
Speaker 1: or you know, drunk as a skunk when they picked
34:52
Speaker 1: him up. They held them in this hotel room without
34:55
Speaker 1: charge and outside of the legal system for two weeks
34:58
Speaker 1: and interrogated him for up to eight hours a day. Yeah,
35:01
Speaker 1: but I think he did it, so who cares. That's
35:04
Speaker 1: exactly how Elliott ness was approaching this, and again everybody
35:07
Speaker 1: thought he was this squeaky clean lawman and he's engaged
35:10
Speaker 1: in kidnapping. But the thing is, he brought in the
35:13
Speaker 1: guy who was one of the early inventors of the polygraph.
35:17
Speaker 1: He invented the Keeler polygraph, and it was called that
35:19
Speaker 1: because his name was Leonard Keeler, and he I think
35:22
Speaker 1: he brought him from Chicago and Leonard Keeler administered a
35:26
Speaker 1: couple of different polygraph tests to this gay Lord Sondheim
35:30
Speaker 1: and said, if this isn't your man, I might as
35:32
Speaker 1: well throw my machine out the window if I say
35:34
Speaker 1: anything else, because that guy, that's the guy. It's definitely
35:39
Speaker 1: the guy. You gotta take that with a grain of salt,
35:41
Speaker 1: because especially today, polygraphs are just total junk science. But
35:46
Speaker 1: it's certainly um confirmed Nessa's suspicions that much more at
35:49
Speaker 1: the time, I think that that polygraph back then was
35:52
Speaker 1: there wasn't even machine. Keeler would just sit there and
35:55
Speaker 1: look for a bit of sweat to break out on
35:56
Speaker 1: the forehead, then punched the guy if it did. That's
35:59
Speaker 1: right exactly so Uh. The case was never solved. Um
36:04
Speaker 1: Ness's reputation obviously took a big hit. He eventually got
36:08
Speaker 1: out of Cleveland after a drunk driving hit and run
36:10
Speaker 1: accident that he was involved with and tried to cover up.
36:13
Speaker 1: So he left in great shame. But back to this
36:17
Speaker 1: gay lord sundheime. Later on, many years later, there were
36:22
Speaker 1: crime investigators and writers who put two and two together
36:26
Speaker 1: and basically identified and in fact, in one case, crime
36:30
Speaker 1: writer Maryland Bardsley came out and said, yeah, this this
36:34
Speaker 1: is who this person was. It was a former World
36:39
Speaker 1: War One Army medic who was discharged for mental instability
36:43
Speaker 1: following head trauma, which was big warning lights going off. Uh.
36:48
Speaker 1: And he was an alcoholic another big warning light. And
36:50
Speaker 1: his name was Francis Edward Sweeney, who also happens to
36:54
Speaker 1: have a relative in Congress, right, a guy named Representative
36:59
Speaker 1: Martin Sweeney who was a huge critic of the Burton administration,
37:03
Speaker 1: of which Elliott Ness was a major part um, and
37:07
Speaker 1: he was just the kind of guy who was a
37:09
Speaker 1: political opponent to the degree that I'm sure Elliott Ness
37:13
Speaker 1: thought if he tried to arrest Clarence or um Francis Sweeney,
37:18
Speaker 1: he would, uh, he would he would be obstructed, you know,
37:21
Speaker 1: from up on high by this congress person. Whether he
37:24
Speaker 1: would have or not, I don't know. I saw some
37:27
Speaker 1: references to the idea that Martin Sweeney was well aware
37:31
Speaker 1: that Elliott Ness was looking at his cousin for this
37:34
Speaker 1: and was already getting in the way. Um, But I
37:37
Speaker 1: only saw that on one place, so I'm not sure
37:38
Speaker 1: if that's the case or not. Either way, his presence
37:41
Speaker 1: and his connection to Francis Sweeney was enough that Elliott
37:45
Speaker 1: Nest never charged Francis Sweeney, despite apparently going to his
37:48
Speaker 1: grave believing that that Dr Francis Edward Sweeney was the
37:52
Speaker 1: Cleveland Torso murderer. Have you seen a picture of the guy, dude,
37:56
Speaker 1: he looks like the definition of a towards our murderer.
37:59
Speaker 1: If you who if you like seriously, you have to
38:02
Speaker 1: be careful with that stuff, because can you ever end
38:04
Speaker 1: up a juror you can't be like you look like
38:06
Speaker 1: a killer. This guy looks like a Torso murderer. You're
38:10
Speaker 1: exactly right. Uh. The quick sidebar, I'm not sure if
38:14
Speaker 1: I ever mentioned it on this show. I know I've
38:15
Speaker 1: talked about on a movie Crush, but I want to
38:16
Speaker 1: recommend this great, great documentary And forgive me if I'm
38:20
Speaker 1: repeating myself here, but it's called Crazy not Insane. Uh.
38:24
Speaker 1: It's an HBO documentary about this doctor, doctor Dorothy at
38:29
Speaker 1: no Lewis, who basically spent her life trying to understand
38:32
Speaker 1: serial killers and one of the main she was kind
38:35
Speaker 1: of one of the first people to really try and
38:37
Speaker 1: understand what's actually going on, and she put together I
38:40
Speaker 1: think like three very common uh common commonalities among serial killers.
38:46
Speaker 1: But one of them is is head trauma. And that's
38:48
Speaker 1: why this really stands out of me about Frances Edward Sweeney,
38:52
Speaker 1: was that he was discharged from the Army because of
38:55
Speaker 1: head trauma leading to mental instability. It's a commonality and
39:00
Speaker 1: most serial killers is some sort of head trauma, especially
39:03
Speaker 1: when you're younger. Wow, that's interesting. I did not know that. Yeah,
39:07
Speaker 1: and the I may have thought I talked about on this,
39:10
Speaker 1: but it was uh the uh who was the guy
39:13
Speaker 1: in l a that that also just had a great
39:15
Speaker 1: docuseries on the night Stalker. Richard Ramirez he suffered multiple
39:21
Speaker 1: head traumas when he was younger as well. So I
39:23
Speaker 1: think it's it's I can't remember the third one. It's
39:25
Speaker 1: head trauma, some sort of physical uh, and even sexual
39:29
Speaker 1: abuse as a child. And then there was like one
39:31
Speaker 1: more thing and those are like that's just a recipe
39:34
Speaker 1: for ending up some sort of sociopath or serial killer.
39:38
Speaker 1: I think the third one is disappointing birthday presents. Yeah. Maybe,
39:41
Speaker 1: So it's a great you'd really love it's a really
39:45
Speaker 1: good documentary. Um, yeah, I'll check that out for sure.
39:48
Speaker 1: It sounds like it's totally at my alley. I'm actually
39:50
Speaker 1: a dog that I've not heard of it. Don't be
39:53
Speaker 1: a dog. I'm I'm a little dog, all right, come back. So,
39:58
Speaker 1: like you said, Marilyn Bardsley confirmed from one of the
40:01
Speaker 1: investigators that Francis Sweeney was gay Lord Sondheim. But that
40:06
Speaker 1: does not mean that Francis Sweeney was the Torso murderer.
40:10
Speaker 1: Although again, like you were saying, if you look at
40:11
Speaker 1: a picture of Francis Sweeney, that's totally the Torso murderer. Well,
40:15
Speaker 1: another stuff, you know, the head trauma, the medical training.
40:19
Speaker 1: He was a surgeon in residence at Saint Alexis Hospital.
40:22
Speaker 1: His career deteriorated because of his drinking right around the
40:26
Speaker 1: time the first murderer victims started showing up to Yeah,
40:30
Speaker 1: he also had a deal apparently with a local mortuary
40:35
Speaker 1: where they would give him bodies to practice surgery on,
40:38
Speaker 1: which would explain maybe the kill room or the dismemberment room.
40:43
Speaker 1: He would have a place to go, uh and dispose
40:46
Speaker 1: of these bodies without you know, they're being a big
40:48
Speaker 1: blood trail, you know, right, I mean, this is a
40:51
Speaker 1: place where it wouldn't seem weird that somebody was decapitating
40:54
Speaker 1: a body or draining the body of all of its blood.
40:57
Speaker 1: Like that's exactly the kind of place. And that didn't
41:00
Speaker 1: turn up until years later, And it was thanks to
41:03
Speaker 1: a guy named James Baddall who's written some books on
41:06
Speaker 1: it um on the Torso murderers, And he interviewed one
41:10
Speaker 1: of the one of the early investigators and found out
41:13
Speaker 1: that he had privileges at that funeral home and started
41:16
Speaker 1: to put two and two together. Yeah, there was one
41:18
Speaker 1: a couple of other things. Um, he did send taunting
41:22
Speaker 1: letters to Elliott Ness for years. Uh. Some one of
41:26
Speaker 1: them was signed F. E. Sweeney paranoidal Nemesis. But was
41:31
Speaker 1: this after he had been kidnapped by Ness? Yes, so
41:35
Speaker 1: he knew Ness by this time. And he also didn't
41:38
Speaker 1: say like I didn't you didn't catch me anything like that.
41:41
Speaker 1: I get the impression it was more like, you didn't
41:43
Speaker 1: catch the guy. You're terrible at this, everybody hates you.
41:47
Speaker 1: But still taunting stuff. But yes, this would have been
41:50
Speaker 1: after he was kidnapped, because this was up into like
41:52
Speaker 1: the forties. Yeah, that's true. Uh. And then I think
41:55
Speaker 1: to me, one of the biggest red flags pointing in
41:59
Speaker 1: the direction of enye is I mentioned a nearer victim
42:02
Speaker 1: earlier in the episode. This was a transient. His name
42:07
Speaker 1: was E. Meal Fronick, and he was living in Cleveland
42:10
Speaker 1: and thirty four and one day he was lured into
42:13
Speaker 1: a doctor's office on the second floor along Broadway Avenue
42:17
Speaker 1: and the doctor said, here, I'll give you some shoes
42:19
Speaker 1: and a meal if you come up here. Frown. It
42:22
Speaker 1: goes up, eats a little bit of the meal, starts
42:24
Speaker 1: to feel lightheaded, and bolts and makes it to a
42:28
Speaker 1: train car and basically passes out for three days, and
42:32
Speaker 1: then later on I think in night was being interviewed
42:35
Speaker 1: after the cops here about this old Morello goes to
42:38
Speaker 1: pick come up, and they narrowed down the area to
42:42
Speaker 1: fifty streets along Broadway, where Sweeney had a doctor's office. Yeah,
42:49
Speaker 1: he couldn't specifically say that was the place where it happened,
42:52
Speaker 1: and that that author James but All says that he
42:55
Speaker 1: thinks he came in the back way rather than the
42:56
Speaker 1: front way where they were showing him. Um and and
43:00
Speaker 1: but he did say that's he had an office right there,
43:03
Speaker 1: right around that area, so uh, and he was there
43:06
Speaker 1: at the time. So I mean that's some pretty serious
43:09
Speaker 1: circumstantial stuff. But the thing is there's no smoking gun,
43:14
Speaker 1: there's no anything that says definitively and we probably will
43:17
Speaker 1: never have anything definitively it says it's Francis Sweeney. So
43:21
Speaker 1: we've kind of reached this point, this plateau where it's
43:23
Speaker 1: like you just basically choose a side. Either you know
43:26
Speaker 1: it's Francis Sweeney or it wasn't. And some people who
43:30
Speaker 1: say no, I don't think it was Francis Sweeney makes
43:33
Speaker 1: some pretty good cases. Um, there were other similar murders
43:37
Speaker 1: in the area starting in the twenties and going into
43:39
Speaker 1: the fifties. Um, that that really bore a lot of
43:43
Speaker 1: resemblance to the Torso murders. Um. And then other people say, okay, um,
43:49
Speaker 1: I feel the opposite of that, where there's like I
43:53
Speaker 1: don't think Rose Wallace was one of the victims. I
43:56
Speaker 1: think there were multiple killers doing similar ish stuff, maybe
44:00
Speaker 1: copycats even, um, And that it wasn't all just one person. Um, there,
44:05
Speaker 1: there's there's, there's is, and there's probably always going to
44:08
Speaker 1: be a lot of competing theories about what, you know,
44:11
Speaker 1: who is responsible. Yeah. The one theory that it wasn't
44:15
Speaker 1: him that I don't buy. Did you say where he
44:18
Speaker 1: was living in Sandusky? No? Huh? All right, So here's
44:22
Speaker 1: the deal. He Francis Sweeney was apparently enrolled or checked
44:27
Speaker 1: into the Soldiers and Sailors Home in Sandusky, which I
44:31
Speaker 1: guess is an old like a veteran's home, right, Yeah, yeah,
44:36
Speaker 1: I think yes, So that's what it seems like. So
44:39
Speaker 1: he was checked in there, and one of the reasons
44:41
Speaker 1: that people say he didn't do it was because he
44:43
Speaker 1: was checked in in this place in Sandusky, like a
44:45
Speaker 1: couple hours away, and I just don't buy that. They
44:48
Speaker 1: later came out and said, you know, they could come
44:50
Speaker 1: and go as they pleased. He could easily have if
44:53
Speaker 1: he didn't want to get caught be committing these murders
44:55
Speaker 1: in Cleveland and then going back to Sandusky as well. Right, Yeah,
45:00
Speaker 1: because he was there voluntarily, so he would not have
45:03
Speaker 1: been watched or monitored, or they wouldn't have kept tabs
45:06
Speaker 1: on him. And when they figured this out, it was
45:08
Speaker 1: years later, so no one would have been able to
45:10
Speaker 1: recall where he was or wasn't on a certain day.
45:13
Speaker 1: You know, I think it's Sweeney. Yeah, I think there's
45:17
Speaker 1: because of this picture, but there's so there were other
45:20
Speaker 1: murders in the area that you know, it could have
45:23
Speaker 1: still been Sweeney. To Some people connect the Black Dolly
45:26
Speaker 1: a murder to it because there was a taunting note
45:28
Speaker 1: that the cops got that said the cops can rest
45:32
Speaker 1: easy because the killers moved to sunny California. Um, but
45:36
Speaker 1: if you look at the Black Dolly murder, there's really
45:38
Speaker 1: not a lot of resemblance between the two. Um. The
45:42
Speaker 1: ms are really rather different, so that's probably not the case. Well,
45:47
Speaker 1: if you want to know more about the Cleveland, Torso murders.
45:51
Speaker 1: There's a whole rabbit hole on the internet and in books,
45:54
Speaker 1: including one by James Bidal and another by Maryland Bardsley.
45:58
Speaker 1: UM that you can follow, and uh, if you do,
46:01
Speaker 1: good luck with that. Since I said good luck with that,
46:03
Speaker 1: it's time for a listener mail. I'm gonna call this.
46:08
Speaker 1: Uh we we did not help out this, gentleman. Okay, Hey, guys,
46:14
Speaker 1: love the podcast. I've been listening for the past several years.
46:17
Speaker 1: I've almost gotten through. The whole library has some left
46:20
Speaker 1: from apparently. I work as a music musical instrument repair
46:24
Speaker 1: technician at a local university and independently in Greensboro, North Carolina,
46:28
Speaker 1: so I usually listen while I work on repadding clarinets
46:32
Speaker 1: and cleaning two butts. Nice cool job. Anyway, I was
46:35
Speaker 1: listening to your show this evening on Korean fan death,
46:38
Speaker 1: remember that or work? We talked about it. I don't
46:41
Speaker 1: think it was all about that, but it was. It
46:43
Speaker 1: was a short stuff about it. Was it? Okay? I
46:47
Speaker 1: remember that being like a top ten or something. Anyway,
46:50
Speaker 1: immediately thought, finally a way that I can find some
46:52
Speaker 1: legit reason for getting rid of the fan in our room.
46:56
Speaker 1: My fiance, Abby loves having a fan and that noise
46:59
Speaker 1: when you go to sleep. It's something I can deal with,
47:02
Speaker 1: but honestly I do not care for it. So when
47:04
Speaker 1: I finally got home, I told Abby, hey, we got
47:06
Speaker 1: a serious episode. Stuff you should know we should listen to.
47:09
Speaker 1: I started the episode without pre screening and trusted you
47:11
Speaker 1: guys would pull through for me. Needless to say, an
47:14
Speaker 1: interesting episode, but I did not get the confirmation bias
47:17
Speaker 1: I was looking for. Instead, we had a good laugh
47:20
Speaker 1: in a great evening, looking forward to getting the book,
47:23
Speaker 1: want you guys the best, and looking forward to anymore.
47:25
Speaker 1: And that is from John Goodman. Holy cow, John Goodman,
47:30
Speaker 1: we love you. In the Coen Brothers stuff. His name
47:32
Speaker 1: is John good I'm gonna plug his business. Goodman Custom
47:34
Speaker 1: would winds. If you're in the Greensboro, North Carolina area
47:38
Speaker 1: and you need that clarinet repadded, go to John Goodman
47:41
Speaker 1: for sure. And even if you're not, it's probably worth
47:44
Speaker 1: the drive, right, I mean, we're else you gonna do it, Charlotte, Yeah,
47:48
Speaker 1: come on keep back now. Well, thanks a lot, John Goodman.
47:51
Speaker 1: We appreciate that. Sorry we couldn't help you output at
47:54
Speaker 1: least you enjoyed the episode and ultimately in that what
47:57
Speaker 1: counts Yes. If you want to get in touch of this,
48:00
Speaker 1: like John Goodman did, you can send us an email
48:03
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48:09
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