Over four years in the mid-to-late 1930s, someone murdered and dismembered more than a dozen people in Cleveland and dumped their bodies across the city’s east side.
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19 Investigates exclusive: Unidentified victims of Cleveland’s ‘Torso Killer’ to be exhumed, tested for DNA
19 Investigates has uncovered a new push to identify victims of one of Cleveland’s most infamous serial killers.
For nearly 90 years, the “Torso Murders” have remained unsolved, and most of the killer’s victims have not been identified.
In an exclusive interview with 19 Investigates, Dr. Thomas Gilson, Cuyahoga County’s Chief Medical Examiner, confirmed his office is teaming up with
DNA Doe Project in a new effort to identify victims of the 1930s cold case murders.
Who was the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run and who were his victims?
Over four years in the mid-to-late 1930s, someone murdered and dismembered more than a dozen people in Cleveland and dumped their bodies across the city’s east side.
Over and over, these horrifying discoveries were made across the area known as Kingsbury Run.
Many times only a torso was recovered.
“At this time, you know, this is in the middle of the Great Depression. There are a lot of transient people moving around the country, high unemployment,” Dr. Gilson said.
According to police, Edward Andrassy and Florence Pollilo were the only victims who could be positively identified through their fingerprints.
Another woman, Rose Wallace, was tentatively ID’d from dental records.
But for nearly 90 years, the identities of the torso killer’s other victims have remained a mystery, buried in unmarked graves in a potter’s field.
A new chance to identify the victims
Dr. Gilson told 19 Investigates DNA Doe Project, a non-profit organization, reached out to them.
Together, they’re trying to identify anywhere between one and three victims of the Torso Killer.
First, they’ll need to exhume their bodies.
Then experts in lab logistics with DNA Doe Project will select the best lab for the case once the remains have been evaluated.
They’ll try to identify the victims with investigative genetic genealogy, also known as IGG, by finding a common ancestor.
“In this case, what we’re going to try to do is look forward in time. So if I have a profile of somebody can I find, people who have ancestral DNA that’s similar to this person and then potentially find relatives to these folks and try to connect them. Very, very novel approach,” Dr. Gilson said.
The big challenge will be what comes before that step-- finding the victims’ bodies and seeing what shape they’re in.
“The exhumation is going to be tricky though, because these are people again who are living on the periphery of society. They’re buried in a potter’s field. We’re dealing with records that you know, are 90 years old. And you know, I think as much as people would like to think this is a very systematic orderly process, it isn’t,” Dr. Gilson said.
Will it finally be enough to identify some of these victims and even help solve this decades-old mystery?
“Can we finally get an answer on this? I think that’s the exciting potential of it. I think if we even came away knowing who some of these folks were, that would be a win for me,” Dr. Gilson said.
DNA Doe Project is funding the investigation into these victims’ identities.
They have no exact timeline yet as to how long this could take.
