Is the Torso Murderer the Same as the Torso Killer?

Have you ever heard of the Torso Murderer? I thought it sounded familiar when it first came up in “Phantom Hand,” the premiere episode for season 2 of The Holzer Files.

However, when I looked into it more I realized I was probably confusing it with the Torso Killer. Both were serial killers but only one was ever caught.

The Torso Murderer and what The Holzer Files team uncovers is one of the things I alluded to in my chat with Dave Schrader, Cindy Kaza and Shane Pittman. They stumble upon a spooky true crime connection in their first episode that has largely been forgotten.

I didn’t want to give too much away then, but the season premiere is tonight so now it’s okay to explore it further.

Terror in the Todd House

In the first episode of The Holzer Files season 2, Dave, Cindy, and Shane head to Cleveland, Ohio, to see if they can dig up any new dirt about a curious case Hans Holzer once investigated but never really found any answers to or solved.

I believe it was back in the 1960s when Mr. and Mrs. Todd had written to Holzer about an alarming incident they’d experienced at their home in the Mason Court Apartments. They were haunted by noises coming from their basement, which was accessed by a trap door in their living room. The only way in and out of the basement was through that door.

I forget why they nailed the door shut. Had they seen a hand that had disappeared? I think so, but I don’t recall. However, after going down to investigate and finding no discernible explanation, they nailed the trap door shut.

The next day, however, the nails started coming up, as if something down in the basement was trying to open that door. That’s when the Todd family called the cops.

As their son, Tony Todd (no relation to the actor who played the title killer in the Candyman movie) told Dave, Cindy, and Shane, the cops came to investigate and saw something that alarmed them enough to shoot at it.

But nothing was there. It was a phantom hand.

#Freaky

Kingsbury Run and the Mason Court Apartments

Dave met with Cleveland historian Dan Ruminski who explained that the area where the Mason Court Apartments once stood (they’ve since been torn down) was in an area called Kingsbury Run, which had been established in the late 1800s.

It was not a pleasant area. Many immigrants ended up living there in cardboard and tarpaper shanties. It saw it’s fair share of disease, death, and murders, but among the worst was a series of killings that happened between 1935 and 1938. 

Someone busied themselves literally butchering people. Even more disturbing, he’d display their body parts for others to find, such as torsos, hands, legs, arms, and some skulls.

At least 12 bodies were found, but some suspect there could’ve been even more that weren’t initially linked to the same killer. However, only two victims were ever identified

Is that why the Todd family was haunted years later in the same area? Had one of the victims been trying to reach out and get, if not, justice, some acknowledgment?

Because the Todd family wasn’t the only one who had contacted Hans Holzer about paranormal activity in that area. He’d received dozens of letters from other people around the same time the Todds had reached out to him.

The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run

The Torso Murderer wasn’t always known as that. At first, they called him the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run.

On their website, the Cleveland Police Museum has a page dedicated to the Kingsbury Run Murders, a.k.a. The Torso Murders.

At one point even Eliott Ness was brought in to help try and solve the case because, understandably, people were horrified someone was going around chopping people up like that.

On August 18, 1938, Ness orchestrated a raid on the “Hobo jungles of the Run.” The move wasn’t well-received, though, because even though Ness rounded up 63 men, no evidence of the killer was found and none were really arrested. Also, he burned their shanties to the ground. (Can you imagine? With all we know these days about forensics and police work, even those of us who are civilians? Talk about potentially destroying valuable evidence.)

The Torso Murderer’s Killing Streak Ends

The last victim credited as a victim of the Torso Murderer was a John Doe found on August 16, 1938. (Two days before the Ness raid on the Run.) Actually, two bodies were found in about the same area on August 16, 1938. The other was a Jane Doe.

The weird thing is, the murders did stop after the Ness raid.

Then almost a year later, in July 1939, a man named Frank Dolezal was arrested for the murder of one of the early victims, number 3, Flo Polillo, who was found in January 1936. He had lived with her and he was acquainted with the first victim, Edward Andrassy.

Dolezal ended up confessing to all the murders, but as the Cleveland Police Museum’s site stated, it “…turned out to be a bewildering blend of incoherent ramblings and neat, precise details, almost as if he had been coached.”

Few believed he was the killer. He ended up hanging himself so he never stood trial. The Kingsbury Run Murders and the Torso Murderer’s reign of terror remains an unsolved mystery to this day. And likely will because most of the evidence and records from back then have been destroyed.

Torso Murderer Pennsylvania Connection?

In The Holzer Files “Phantom Hand” episode, Dave, Cindy, and Shane end up at Old B & O Roundhouse, a train museum with paranormal activity. It’s not far from Kingsbury Run and what was the Mason Court Apartments, like only a half a mile away. That’s where most of the Torso Murderers victims were found.

Could someone who worked on the trains have been the Torso Murderer?

Train crews stopped at the Cleveland roundhouse for rest and repairs. Along the lines that lead to Pennsylvania, other bodies matching the same MO as the Torso Murderers victims were found too. Could they be connected?

The Holzer Files didn’t solve that mystery, but it would make a good episode of Unsolved Mysteries. Maybe even some savvy true crime podcasters are already working on digging up new information.

But the Torso Murderer isn’t the only serial killer with that moniker. He was the first, but there is another one.

The Torso Killer

Richard Cottingham’s killing spree started in 1967. It ended when he was caught in 1980.

He claims to have killed between 85 and 100 women during that time. Only nine victims have been confirmed and attributed to him, though.

Like the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run, Cottingham often dismembered his victims. Often the only thing left behind was a torso.

Unlike Cleveland’s Torso Murderer, whose victims included both men and women, Cottingham only killed women. Also, his hunting ground wasn’t in Ohio but in New York.

Also, three of his victims survived and testified against him. He is currently serving a sentence of 173 to 197 years in prison at the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton.

What’s Up with the Torsos?

Were these two serial killers really fascinated by torsos in particular, or were their names the clever concoctions of the press?

I don’t know, but it’s a little disturbing there were two with a similar MO just a few decades apart.

The Tattooed Man

There’s a lot more to both stories, and all of the victims have stories of their own. However, the Cleveland Torso Murderers fourth victim, “the tattooed man,” has an interesting post-mortem story.

It was said that some of the victims were beheaded while still alive. He was one of them.

As his name implies (because he was among the John Does), his body sported several tattoos. As Mental Floss reported, “A plaster cast of the man’s face and a diagram showing all the tattoos on his body were displayed at the Great Lakes Exposition. More than 11 million people attended the exposition in the two summers it was open, but none could identify ‘the tattooed man,’…”

Very sad.

It makes me wonder if the victims could’ve been identified with today’s modern technology and procedural knowledge, had it been employed back then. And if that also might’ve helped catch the killer.

Newspaper Clippings

I’m always fascinated by what the papers reported about real-life events like these, so I put my Newspaper.com account to work again and scrounged up the following clips:

Cleveland Torso Murders Wed, Sep 14, 1938 – 14 · The Dispatch (Moline, Illinois) · Newspapers.com

Fank Dolezal arrest and confession Sat, Jul 8, 1939 – Page 2 · The Akron Beacon Journal (Akron, Ohio) · Newspapers.com

Richard Cottingham convicted Wed, Oct 13, 1982 – 1 · The Herald-News (Passaic, New Jersey) · Newspapers.com

Cottingham looks more like a banker or something, not a serial killer, doesn’t he?

Check-In

Had you ever heard of either the Torso Murderer/Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run or the Torso Killer, Richard Cottingham?