Torso: The Story of Eliot Ness and the Search for a Psychopathic Killer

by Steven Nickel

In the 1920s, Eliot Ness gained fame as the leader of the Untouchables, a small band of law-enforcement agents who disrupted the activities of Al Capone and his organization. By 1934, Ness had moved to Cleveland to become director of public safety. But it was there that he met his nemesis in the form of a serial killer.

When Ness arrived in Cleveland, he quickly made his presence felt with a major overhaul of the police force and zealous raids to stop illegal gambling. Despite these early successes and some 2,400 officers at his disposal, Ness failed in his efforts to find the lone psychopathic killer whose trademark decapitations terrorized the entire city. Many of the 12 known victims were residents of hobo jungles and were so anonymous that only three of them were even positively identified.

In 1942, the killings stopped as mysteriously as they had begun in 1935. But the damage to Ness’s reputation as a guardian of the law and order was already done, and the stage was set for the downhill slide in his life. Set against the vividly drawn background of Cleveland during the Depression, the missing chapter in Ness’s career and the story of the grisly serial killer make compelling reading.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, History, Crime, Mystery

201 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 1989

Reviews

[Katherine Addison · Rating 2 out of 5]

About half of what's wrong with this book is that it was written in 1989. So the book that would actually have been extremely interesting, about the ways that racism, classism, and homophobia shaped the police response to, the press response to, the investigation of, and the failure to find the Cleveland Torso Murderer, is not the book that is actually present. (To be fair, I don't know that any of those things is the reason the Cleveland Torso Murderer was never caught. He seems to have been both extraordinarily lucky and extraordinarily careful. But even in Nickel's account, I can see prejudice shaping the questions being asked, and if you don't ask the right questions, you are highly unlikely to get the right answers.)

The other half of what's wrong with this book is all there in the subtitle. Nickel wants to write a book about Eliot Ness and the Cleveland Torso Murderer, specifically then way that the failure to catch the guy was part of Ness's slow fall from grace. But his own account makes it perfectly clear that that story is nonsense. Ness was barely involved in the hunt (except for, granted, one absolutely absymal clusterfuck), and his fall from grace has everything to do with some very poor life choices on his part. Yes, the raid on the encampment of homeless people that was Ness's best answer to the problem was a PR disaster, but it's not what destroyed his career as Cleveland's Safety Director. (Being the perpetrator in a alcohol-related hit-and-run accident? Yeah, that'd be the kiss of death. And the rest of Ness's downward slide looks to me, from Nickel's sketchy account, like what happens when a guy who's very very good at one thing stops doing it and then just doesn't even know who he is anymore.)

Essentially, it's a coincidence that in the years that the Cleveland Torso Murderer was preying on the homeless and destitute in Cleveland the city's Safety Director was a guy who happens to be extremely famous for his campaign against Al Capone. Nickel's efforts to make it look like something more (including the desperate grab at Ness's (equally desperate) claim to have found the murderer, even though he couldn't convict him or arrest him or even, apparently, investigate him--kind of creepily like Sir Robert Anderson's similar claim about Jack the Ripper) would need a lot more research to make them convincing.

That's the other problem. This is a dilettante's book. (And, yes, I know. Pot. Kettle.) Compared to something like And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank (649 p., 56 double-columned pages of citations, 4 double-columned pages of bibliography) it is painfully obvious how Torso (224 p., no citations, maybe a page and a half of bibliography) is barely even a swipe at the subject--either subject, since this is no more a biography of Eliot Ness than it is a study of the Cleveland Torso Murderer.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not long after his "Untouchables" days, Eliot Ness experienced many successes as Public Safety Director of Cleveland (OH). Unfortunately, capturing the 'Torso Murderer' was not among them. A relatively little known crime, this serial killer haunted Ness' time in Cleveland.

This book is both a look at Ness himself after his Chicago accomplishments, and an examination of one of America's greatest unsolved serial killings. If you are interested in either subject, this is an excellent purchase.

[Bill reilly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story begins in September of 1934 with the discovery of a female torso on the shores of Lake Erie in Cleveland. The first victim, a woman in her thirties, was never identified. The next two bodies were found at a ravine near railroad tracks. Both were males who had been castrated. Prohibition had just ended and mobsters turned to drugs, prostitution and gambling for easy money. The police were corrupt and Eliot Ness was called in to clean up after his take down of Al Capone in Chicago. He was named director of safety in 1935 at the age of thirty-two. His “Untouchables” squad destroyed a good number of Scarface’s distilleries and the honest law man survived several assassination attempts. Ness wasted no time in cleaning up Cleveland’s corrupt police force. Meanwhile, he also inherited the Torso murders case. Hess drafted twenty-five detectives including two who worked undercover dressed as hobos to trap the killer. Of the first seven victims, five of the men were hobos and the two women prostitutes. The final hacked up bodies, numbers eleven and twelve were discovered in August of 1938. The coroner believed the killer to be a doctor. Thousands of leads led nowhere and Eliot Ness became a scapegoat. By 1940, the killer had moved on to Pennsylvania where more dismembered bodies were discovered. Ness divorced and remarried, which at the time in heavily Catholic Cleveland was a scandal. He next worked for the federal government as a public health official in charge of combating the spread of VD. Torso is more a biography of Ness than it is the story of unsolved murders. The book is a passable read.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Besides the subject being about one of my heroes - Eliot Ness - and about my hometown - Cleveland - this book is a great read for fans of true crime and the gangster age. Far from being a dry history book, the author keeps you interested by sparsely throwing facts about the areas and people he talks about, as well as enough "meanwhiles" to make sure the subject at hand doesn't get too cumbersome.

Probably the best story about the Torso Murders available today. Highly recommended.

[Michael Kiersznowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent "true crime" book. I enjoyed from beginning to end.

[Brittney Martinez · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used this book as research into the Torso Murders in Cleveland in the 1930s. But this book is just as much as about Eliot Ness as it is about the Mad Butcher that perpetrated the crimes. Ness wouldn't have been my first subject to focus on, but it certainly does add a lot more drama to an already thrilling story. The only reason why I'm not giving this 5 stars is that is completely ignores one of the biggest suspects in the case. I would have liked to read about that in-depth. Otherwise, this is a well-written book that I enjoyed reading.

[Erica · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very interesting look at Eliot Ness' career in Cleveland, and a gruesome retelling of the horrid torso murders that occurred there (along with numerous other murders for comparison).

[Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

Its a very gruesome story, but the involvement of Eliot Ness is the most interesting part

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book covers the career of Eliot Ness from his days fighting Bootleggers, and Capone in particular, to his decline in the post-Second World War era. In particular it looks at Ness’ involvement in the investigation of the unsolved Torso murders of Cleveland (Victims were butchered and usually the torso turned up first.). The book provided some social history on the 1930’s of which this reader was unaware. It also discussed the building up of the myth of Eliot Ness. The book was an interesting, quick read that was mercifully free of the excesses of most true crime books.

[Crystal · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the story is interesting, anyone without prior knowledge of the crimes in question would likely find the writing itself quite dry. The final chapter, meant to tie up loose ends and speculate about The Butcher, is really just an account of other serial killers and their tendencies, preferences, & etc. This book has made me wonder if our forensic technology today could solve this case, though.

[Jennifer Barbee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm sure that it is likely to be difficult to write a compelling story about an unsolved crime, but it has certainly been done before with Jack the Ripper and the Black Dahlia. Not so here, I'm afraid.

[KnowledgeGeek · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author was WAY too focused on Ness's history as an "untouchable" and filled in this book, which was, I thought from the title (silly me), supposed to be focused on the Cleveland Torso Murders, with a plethora of Ness's involvement their in. Therefore, it contains, in my opinion, far too much unrelated info on the Torso case. Disappointing.

[Fishface · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very, very well-written, but like all unsolved cases utterly frustrating. Allows us to see the legendary Elliott Ness totally out of his depth, dealing with a case nobody would have an easy time with. Gives a good picture of what the times were like and the difficulties of even identifying the victims in a world of nameless transients.

[Dawn-Lorraine · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading Bendis' graphic novel "Torso" I wanted to find out the details behind the case. This book has a lot of interesting information. There is more about Eliot Ness and his fight against corruption than I care to read about, but it was still good.

[Jacqueline Landry · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first time I read this on the recommendation of my then-spouse. I was in college, getting my degree in Criminal Justice. This book blew my mind and I stayed up all night to read it in one sitting. I've reread it a number of times and the gritty true crime story is fantastic.

[Joni · Rating 3 out of 5]

Story of a serial killer that terrorized Cleveland in the 1930's with 12 gruesome dismembered bodies, attributed to "Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run".

[Lyda Phillips · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating history of Cleveland and Eliot Ness's life after Al Capone, and a grisly, still unsolved, series of murders.