Mad Butcher’ Amid Tumult Politics Was a Contact Sport in Cleveland Spreads Panic During the 1930S, and Never More Than on Aug
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THE PLAIN DEALER . SUNDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1998 5-D OURCENTURY 1938 ATA GLANCE Parties elect leaders ‘Mad Butcher’ amid tumult Politics was a contact sport in Cleveland spreads panic during the 1930s, and never more than on Aug. 16, 1938, when Democrats and Republicans held simultaneous conventions 12 blocks apart Ness’ future clouded to elect county chairmen. The police, antici- pating trouble, had uniformed men promi- by slow action on case nently stationed at both meetings. editor of The Plain Dealer had sar- The leading Republican candidates were By Fred McGunagle castically suggested that everybody George Bender and Rees Davis. The Plain was hunting the killer except Ness. Dealer described one of the incidents, when Three unemployed men were scav- Now Ness put 20 detectives on the Sam Levin, a city official, tried to interrupt enging in the lakefront dump on Aug. case. Because Coroner Samuel Bender: “Bert Haddad, Bender’s floor man- 16, 1938, when they made a grisly dis- Gerber theorized the killer’s surgical ager, jammed Levin to the floor and a seething covery — three neck vertebrae, seven skill suggested a “mad doctor,” they crowd of Bender and Davis partisans were dorsal vertebrae, 22 ribs and two pel- rounded up people recently released starting to mix it up when police quelled the vic bones, all neatly wrapped in from mental hospitals and doctors uprising.” When the tumult died down, Bender brown paper.A skull and more bones who had been dismissed from their had been elected. were nearby. hospitals. Under the guise of fire in- At the Democratic meeting, former Mayor The discovery sent a shudder spections, they combed the near East Ray T. Miller was challenging longtime Chair- through the city. The “Mad Butcher” Side to find the killer’s “murder lab.” man Burr Gongwer, who had been a Plain had left No. 11. Hundreds crowded to Finally, a frustrated Ness led a Dealer reporter and Mayor Tom L. Johnson’s the site near E. 9th St. to watch police small army of police in an early secretary. Police had to send two additional search. One of the onlookers noticed a morning raid on hobo camps, taking squads to back up those already there. After foul odor and looked for the source. It the hobos to jail and then burning what The Plain Dealer described as “nearly an was No. 12, in nine pieces. down their shacks. Many saw the raid hour of punching, booing, yelling and applaud- In his 1950 book, “Butcher’s as a grandstand stunt. The Press edit- ing,” Gongwer declared the convention out of Dozen,” crime writer John Bartlow orialized, “The throwing into jail of control and recessed it. Martin said of the Butcher: “Let us men broken by experience and the The Miller supporters refused to leave and, say it: He was that almost unknown burning of their wretched places of after the Gongwer supporters had stomped creature, a master criminal. ... It can habitation is not likely to lead to the out, proceeded to elect Miller chairman. Two be argued powerfully that he was the solution of the most macabre mystery days later, a meeting of the “recessed” con- greatest murderer of all time.” in Cleveland history.” vention, which the Miller camp boycotted, re- Police had tried everything since But the murders stopped — at least elected Gongwer. Cleveland now had two finding the first victims in April 1936. officially. Police didn’t realize it at groups claiming to be the Democratic organiz- They even sent out undercover detec- the time; they continued to detail ation. tives as “Butcher Bait.” They rode much of the department to the case. PLAIN DEALER FILE the rails and lived in hobo camps Despite similar murders in the New- Eventually, the Miller forces collected affi- where the Butcher found many of his castle, Pa., a short time later, and de- The front page of The Plain Dealer, April 3, 1939, depicting the panic that davits showing 568 of the 1,132 precinct com- victims. The bodies were expertly spite similar murders in other cities ensued from the 12 murders. mitteemen had voted for him. He was recog- dissected, drained of blood and over the next decade, including the nized as the official chairman. cleaned of any clues. They showed up “Black Dahlia” case in Los Angeles — political connections, Ness allowed every few months, just about the time the Butcher is officially listed as hav- him to be committed to a mental hos- • the uproar over the last body was dy- ing murdered 12. (Later authors Jerry Siegel pital. He would not tell Fraley the ing down. agreed a woman found a year before name. and Joe Shuster It was almost as if the Butcher were Nos. 1 and 2 was a Butcher victim; Fraley had a poor reputation for ac- started collabo- taunting authorities — and the latest they labeled her No. 0). curacy — he had hyped Ness’ Chicago rating on comic bodies were within sight of City Hall, exploits in “The Untouchables” — books while they where Safety Director Eliot Ness had • and the 1961 book attracted little at- were students at his office. Not since Nos. 1 and 2 had In 1961, four years after Ness had tention. However, in 1996, Marilyn Glenville High the Butcher left two victims to be died, Oscar Fraley wrote a book Bardsley documented on an Internet School, with found together. called “Four Against the Mob,” in Shuster illustrat- site that the suspect had been Francis Ness, a victim of his own reputation which he said Ness had told him he E. Sweeney, a doctor who suffered ing Siegel’s plots. as a crime fighter, was under growing had found a suspect he believed to be In 1934, Siegel from mental illness and alcoholism pressure. After the discovery of No. the murderer. Because he couldn’t and was a first cousin of U.S. Rep. had an idea for a 10 four months earlier, a letter to the prove it and because the suspect had new kind of su- Martin L. Sweeney. perhero. It took As for Ness, his once-brilliant ca- until 1938 to get it reer began to go downhill with the published, in the Butcher case. He upset proper Cleve- first issue of “Ac- landers by divorcing his second wife The first Superman tion Comics.” and marrying a third. He began to drink more heavily, and in 1942, was comic in 1938. “Superman” involved in a hit-skip accident. Not was an instant PLAIN DEALER FILE long afterward, he resigned as safety sensation, spawn- director. In 1947, he ran for mayor, ing radio and television shows, a Broadway Eliot Ness, casting a vote for himself but lost badly. His business attempts musical and a series of movies. Siegel and in the 1947 mayoral election. failed, and when he died in 1957 at Shuster, however, had signed away their the age of 53, he was insolvent. rights to the character for $130 and were com- plishments far exceeded his TV- mitted to drawing it for a paltry sum. When In 1997, the Cleveland Police His- torical Society discovered that his hyped Chicago exploits. Police bag- they sued to recover the copyright in 1948, pipers from Cleveland and Chicago they were fired. ashes never had been properly dis- posed of. At a memorial service in gave him a proper sendoff as his They failed to win back the copyright, but Lake View Cemetery, biographer ashes were scattered in a lake. got $100,000 in the suit. In 1978, after a cam- Paul Heimel told several hundred McGunagle is a Cleveland free- paign led by the Cartoonists’ Guild, Warner people that Ness’ Cleveland accom- lance writer. Communications Inc., which had acquired the copyright, agreed to pay them each $20,000 a year for life. Siegel died in 1992 and Shuster in 1996. Superman still flies high at 60. Ness as an icon Eliot Ness’ Cleveland exploits — the murders. The first Ness biogra- • along with those of his nemesis, phy came in 1997: Paul Heimel’s Indians President Alva Bradley said the “The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury “Eliot Ness: The Real Story.” The 1938 Indians would “reflect the personality, Run”— have produced a cottage torso murders make up a third of the desire to win, the animation of our new industry of books in the last 11 John Stark Bellamy’s 1998 “The manager, Oscar Vitt.” Nineteen-year-old Bob years. They started in 1987 with Maniac in the Bushes and More Feller won 17 games; so did Mel Harder, and the first of five “Eliot Ness in Tales of Cleveland Woe.” Johnny Allen won 14. Two rookies contributed Cleveland” novels by Shamus mightily: left fielder Jeff Heath hit .343, just Award-winning mystery writer Marilyn Bardsley’s biography of missing the batting championship, while third Max Alan Collins, who pronounced Ness and fictional diary of the baseman Ken Keltner hit .276 with 26 home Ness “the most famous real-life killer are on the Internet at: runs. Hal Trosky hit .334, Earl Averill .330 and American detective of all.” www.crimelibrary.com Frankie Pytlak .308. In 1989, Steven Nickel wrote “Torso: The Story of Eliot Ness A musical, “Eliot Ness ... in The Indians battled the Boston Red Sox for and the Search for a Psychopathic Cleveland” ran briefly in Denver the pennant right up to the Tribe’s final series PLAIN DEALER FILE Killer.” John Peyton Cooke’s 1994 early this year. with the Detroit Tigers. The Indians managed “Torsos” was a fictional version of — Fred McGunagle to keep Hank Greenberg, who had 58 home Coroner Samuel Gerber examines a foot from one of the murder victims.