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Selects: The Cleveland Torso Murders · Stuff You Should Know

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