The Cleveland Torso Murderer

Also known as the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run. Another elusive killer that was never caught. His official tally was 12, but some believe that he killed up to 40. His bloody rampage spanned from 1935 to 1938. Some believe he was active from 1923 to 1950. He decapitated most of his victims and cut off their limbs. Unwittingly he caused the downfall of Eliot Ness who failed to capture him. The Mad Butcher apparently was very knowledgeable of anatomy leading many to believe he might have been a surgeon. The Butcher's precise cutting style also linked him to the Black Dahlia murder in Los Angeles.

Ness believed the Butcher was a medical student from a prominent and politically active Cleveland family. The name of the suspect was never released due to the family's powerful connections. Curiously, the murders stopped in August of 1938 when Ness forced the student doctor into a hospital. The killings resumed briefly in 1950 when he was let out and stopped when he was hospitalized once again n.
In 1939 the sheriff's department extracted a confession from a Bohemian immigrant named Frank Dolezal.

When the confession was questioned Dolezal recanted and was soon found hanged in his jail cell. It is believed his apparent suicide was in fact a cover-up for the brutal treatment he recieved from the police.