True Crime Campfire - Unsolved: Three Dark Mysteries

Episode Date: May 1, 2020

There are few things more irresistible, more frustrating, more fascinating than an unsolved mystery. Today, we have three of them for you: One modern, two vintage. Each of these stories is terrifying and disturbing in its own way. For each, the answer lies tantalizingly just out of reach. We have to admit that we can never know it for sure. But we doubt you’ll be able to resist the lure of these mysteries and the theories that surround them. Sources:https://www.historicmysteries.com/roland-t-owen-murder-room-1046/Buzzfeed "Unsolved," Episodes "Murder in Room 1046," "The Tromp Family's Bizarre Journey," and "The Ghastly Cleveland Torso Murders""Unsolved Mysteries" (TV show), Episode featuring Cleveland Torso Murdershttps://www.cleveland.com/life-and-culture/erry-2018/10/55d2b5ea596983/clevelands-infamous-torso-murd.htmlhttps://www.clevelandpolicemuseum.org/collections/torso-murders/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-37293494https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/60elhm/update_on_the_tromp_familyaustralian_case_of/Follow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfireFacebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail] a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. There are a few things more irresistible, more frustrating, more fascinating than an unsolved mystery. Today we have three of them for you. One modern. two vintage. Each of these stories is terrifying and disturbing in its own way. For each, the answer lies tantalizingly just out of reach. We have to admit that we can never know it for sure, but we doubt you'll be able to resist the lure of these mysteries and the theories that surround them. This is Unsolved, Three Dark Mysteries. Case number one, a murder in room 1046, aka the murder of Roland T. Owen. So, campers were in Kansas City, Missouri, January 2nd, 1935. So this is a vintage case.

Our first, if I remember rightly, very cool, right? Katie loves vintage cases, so I'm excited for her. We have two of them. I'm so excited. A young man calling himself Roland T. Owen checked into the hotel president. He was well-dressed, looked to be between 20 and 35 years old with brown hair. He had a scar on his head above one ear, and he had what they call a cauliflower ear. The technical medical term for this is paracondrial hematoma, if you want to get fancy. Happens a lot with boxers and people who've been knocked in the head a lot. So the ear gets injured, and they form like a blood clot or some kind of other fluid accumulates in there,

and it just kind of looks like cauliflower. So, anywho, he had one of those, and he was really nice, polite checking in just a very ordinary seeming pleasant young fella. A bellhop named Randolph Proppes showed him to his room, room 1046, and he later said Owen didn't have hardly anything with him, which is kind of unusual for

somebody checking into a hotel. All Roland T. Owen had on him was a brush, a comb, and a tuba toothpaste. That was it. So, traveling light. Soon after he checked in, a maid named Mary Soptic went to the room to ask if she could do some cleaning. Owen said, sure, come on

in, you can clean. But he asked her not to lock the door on her way out. He said he was expecting a friend to visit him soon. Soptic said he seemed off, either really worried about something or scared. She wasn't sure which. The whole time she was in the room, he kept the curtains drawn shut and only allowed one dim light on. He was basically just sitting there in the dark. And I feel sorry for the poor maid trying to get her work done in that light, right? Yeah. Mary did her cleaning as quickly as she could, and she pretty much got the hell out of there. But she had to come back later that day at four o'clock in the afternoon to bring him some towels. And when she got there, she found Roland T. Owen lying on the

bed in the dark, completely dressed with the door unlocked. Weird, right? Yeah. And she saw a note on the table that said, Dawn. I will be back in 15 minutes. Wait. And that's mailed on D-O-N. So I'm guessing Dawn was the friend he told the bellhop would be there to visit him soon. So all was quiet for the rest of that day. The next day, January 3rd, the maid Mary Soptic came back. This time she noticed that the door had been locked from the outside. So she knocked and Roland T. Owen told her to come in so she used her pass key and again she found this dude just sitting alone in the dark. And obviously someone had locked him in which is just creepy as hell to me. Mm-mm. Yeah. Well, Soptic was doing what she had to do in the room. The phone rang and Owen answered it and the maid overheard him say

no, Don, I don't want to eat. I just had breakfast. No, I'm not hungry. This guy Dawn popping up again, hmm, right? So, Mary Soptic had to come back again at 4 that afternoon to bring more towels, and this time, when she approached the door to the room, she heard two male voices inside. The door was locked, so she knocked. A voice said, who is it? And when she said she'd brought towels, what she described as a rough male voice said, we don't need any. So Mary left, despite knowing that there weren't any towels in the room. I guess she'd taken them away to be washed when she came by in the morning. So these people had no towels. That night, a woman staying in room 1048 said she heard loud voices, both male and female, arguing and cursing. Now, she didn't report it at the time, only later after the news got out that there'd been a murder on her floor. And also, there was a party going on that night in room 1055 on the same floor, so it's possible that what she heard was unrelated, but it's worth noting, I think. The next morning, January 4th at 7 a.m., the hotel phone operator noticed that the phone in room 1046 had been off the hook for quite a while. So she sent a bellhop, the same one that had checked Roland T. O&N. Probst, upstairs to ask the guest in that room to please put the damn phone back on the hook.

So I'm not sure about this, but I imagine if you're an oldie-timey phone operator, if somebody took their phone off the hook, you'd have to like sit there listening to the buzz noise and it would be annoying, right? So when the bellhop probes got up to room 1046, he found the door locked and the do-not-disturb sign on the doorknob. But he was on a bell-hop admission, so he knocked on the door anyway. Several times. No response. Finally, a voice said, come in, turn on the lights. But, I mean, you know, the door was locked. And whoever said that made no move to unlock it. So when Probes knocked again and nobody let him in, he gave up.

And he said, put your phone back on the hook and just left. He assumed what was going on was that Roland T. Owen was probably in their drunk. Can I just say that this is such a vintage problem to have? Oh, yeah. Kids these days are like, phones with cords, why? And yet, you had to send an entire man upstairs to hang up a goddamn phone.

Yep, yep. Why? Because we didn't have the cordless ones yet. You little shits? Anyway. You couldn't just dial numbers. You had to be connected by the operator. Get it together. an hour and a half later at 8.30 a.m., the phone was still off the hook. So, yet another bellhop, Harold Pike, was dispatched to try to get this annoying mofo to, for the love of God, hang up his phone. This poor operator has had it.

Harold was not going to take any bullshit. He didn't even bother trying to wheedle the guy into letting him in. He just unlocked the door with pass key and went in. Now, the lights were, as usual, turned off in the room. But in the light from the hallway, Harold could see a male figure. lying on the bed, butt-ass naked, seemingly passed out drunk, and there was some kind of dark stain around him in the bed. He also noticed that the phone stand was knocked over. Now, this just floors me, and I know it shouldn't. After 20 years of true crime consumption, I really ought to be

used to this by now, but it still floors me that Harold, the bellhop didn't say, like, I don't know, excuse me, sir, are you okay? You know, he didn't shake him by the shoulder and say, hey, that's stain, that's not blood or anything, is it? He didn't wonder if this unresponsive, naked dude on the bed needed help, apparently. He just set the phone stand back upright. He put the phone back on the hook

like he'd been sent there to do, and he left. Just, what the fuck, Harold? Really? I mean, I get why he assumed the guy was passed out drunk. I think that's probably what most of us would assume, granted. And, you know, it's possible he assumed that the dark stain was pee, and I mean, I get

that nobody wants any part of that. I get it, but I don't know, maybe I'm just a care bear, but I feel like I'd probably want to check on the guy if it was me, you know? Because even if you're just really drunk, like you can aspirate on your own puke, like all kinds of stuff can happen. People get alcohol poisoning. They knew that in the 30s, you know? But Harold just buggered off back to his bell hopping duties, so he didn't give a shit. Whitney. 1930s people working in customer service were paid primarily to mind their own fucking business and shut up. That's probably true, yeah. There was no extra.

pay for finding a dead body. Harold had one job, and by God, he was going to do it and not ask any questions. That's very much exactly what happened, yes. Although, to be fair, I doubt there's any extra pay for finding a dead body in a hotel today either. It's not like we've become more

enlightened on that score. Although I really feel like you deserve a little bit of hazard pay if you stumble upon a corpse in the course of your bell hopping duties. I'm a monster because I was going to say a finder's fee. That is dark. I love it.

Okay. So, fast forward to 1030, 1045 a.m. The operator noticed that, God dang it, the phone in room 1046 was now off the flipping hook again. It's off the hook again. Weird. So she sends Bellhop A, Proops, back up there to see what the hell is going on now. And when Probs opened the door, he walked into a horror movie. Roland T. Owen was on the floor about two feet from the door.

just imagine how flipping creepy this would be if you were probes okay he's on the floor about two feet inside the door he was down on his knees and elbows and he was holding his head in his hands and there was blood all over his head and he looks like he's just barely conscious so probes flipped on the overhead light and i can only assume his heart dropped into his feet because there was blood everywhere everywhere it was like somebody had filled up a super soaker with blood and just sprayed down the entire room. Just everywhere. Blood on the bed, on the floor, on the walls on the ceiling. Blood on the bathroom. Blood on every surface you could see. It was horrendous. And unsurprisingly, Owen had just horrific injuries. This poor guy had been tied up with a cord around

his neck, wrists, and ankles. He'd been tortured. He'd been hit repeatedly in the head. His skull was fractured. And he'd been stabbed several times in the chest. His lung was punctured. Marks on his neck suggested he'd been strangled, but despite all of that, Roland T. Owen was still alive, barely, which is insane. How do you survive all that? And he was conscious. So when the cops arrived, they asked him, you know, who did this to you? Who else was in the room with you? And Roland said, no one, I fell against the bathtub. Uh, yeah, sure, man. You fell against the bathtub. That's it. that's convincing. But, you know, this guy lost a ton of blood and he was barely holding on to consciousness. So, you know, your first instinct is, well, he didn't want to dob this person in. He didn't want to, you know, reveal who did this to him. But it's also possible, I guess, that he had just lost so much blood that he was confused and delirious and really didn't know where he was. So really

not sure which it is. So, of course, an ambulance rushed Roland T. Owen to the hospital. And when doctors examined him, they found something really interesting and really creepy. Owen had received his injuries six to seven hours before he'd been discovered. Wow. Six to seven hours, campers. This means that when the first bellhop went to check on the phone, Owen was already badly hurt. Yeah, and think back. Remember when the bellhop knocked on the door and a voice said, come in, turn on the light.

Who the fuck was that? Was that the killer? Oh, my God. And what would he have done if the bellhop had come in and turned on the lights? Oh, so creepy. That just, that detail. I literally am covered in goosebumps right now. Yeah.

Thinking about that. Oh, God. It's ultra creepy. Cops didn't find any weapons in Owen's room, and they also couldn't find any of his stuff. So the sad little assortment of things he'd checked in with, his comb, his brush, his tube of toothpaste, were gone. taken as trophies I can't imagine why anybody would steal a comb and some toothpaste you're not gonna be able to get any money for that stuff you can't fence a tube of toothpaste so you know I guess it is possible that he thought some of those items might help identify the victim or him or something but honestly it seems most likely to me that the killer took that stuff as a trophy or a souvenir which is just hecking yikes because that's a whole other level we're working on there if this dude is taking trophies The cops also found four fingerprints on the phone in Owen's room. They were small, so the examiner thought they might have been from a woman.

Now, remember the woman in room 1048, who heard a man and woman cursing at each other in the middle of the night. Could there have been a woman involved in this somehow? Doctors did their best to save him, but sadly, Roland T. Owen died of his injuries in the hospital on January 5th. and the police said about trying to notify his next of kin. When he'd checked into the hotel a few nights before, Owen had said he was from Los Angeles. But the cops found no record of Roland T. Owen in L.A. Was it possible he wasn't using his real name? I mean, Roland T. Owen does sound like the name a movie star would use to check into hotels undisturbed.

He does, actually. Yeah. It's a very Hollywood name. Owen's body was taken to a funeral home for viewing. and the story of the murdered mystery man spread fast. People from all over the region began reaching out to the police to see if Owen might be there missing loved one. But every time, it failed to check out. Meanwhile, the cops focused on the mysterious dawn.

Was he the rough male voice behind the door, the one who said, Come in, turn on the lights, and we don't need any towels? But the police had nothing to go on. besides the name. So it shouldn't surprise anyone to hear that they had no luck figuring out who this guy might be. On March 3rd, as the investigation continued, the Kansas City paper announced that Roland would soon be buried in a potter's field, which is a cemetery for very, very poor people or people with no family to claim them. Soon after that story ran, the funeral home got an anonymous call. The caller said that Owen didn't need to be buried in a potter's field. They'd send

the money for a proper burial. And on March 23rd, lo and behold, the money showed up, wrapped in a newspaper. Not only that, but a florist delivered flowers from an anonymous sender. The card said, Love Forever Louise. Who the hell is Louise? We don't know. Now, a year and a half later, a woman named Ruby Ogletree saw an article in the magazine American weekly about the Roland T. Owen case. The article included a description in an artist's sketch of Owen. And Ruby quickly realized that the murdered man calling himself Roland Owen was her 17-year-old son, Artemis Ogletree. Oh man, 17. That's so sad. And also, damn, that is a hell of a name. Yes. Artemis Ogletree. Like, it sounds like an eccentric Victorian gentleman

who, like, built a hot air balloon and wants to use it to circumvent the globe. 60 days or something. Or he's got some kind of like tonic, you know, that he's like hawking from town to town. Yes. Like a magic snake oil kind of tonic that will revitalize your health and great for dyspepsia. That's Artemis Ogletree. Mm-hmm. So our Artemis had left his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama two years earlier in 1934. And campers, this is really interesting and really creepy. Ruby had received three letters, supposedly from Artemis, in the spring of 1935. Now remember, Artemis, aka Roland T. Owen, was murdered in the winter of that year. Several months before these letters were written. Oh, it's so creepy. As we see often, in posthumous letter situations, the letters had

been typed, and that had confused Ruby. She knew her son didn't know how to type. Also, the tone of the letters was slangy and unfamiliar to Ruby. She said Artemis never used slang around her. He would have considered it disrespectful. Once she realized her son was dead, Ruby wondered, was someone writing to her, pretending to be him? Oh, who? Who? Why? Creepy. Police eventually learned that Artemis Ogletree had also stayed at the St. Regis Hotel in Kansas City with another man. The elusive dawn, maybe? The investigation went cold eventually, but in the early 2000s, Dr. John Horner wrote up the story for the Kansas City Public Library, and after the story came out, he got a call out of the blue. The caller said that they had a box full of stuff related to the

Ogletree case. They'd found it in the personal effects of an elderly person who passed away. It was a bunch of newspaper clippings and something else, too. They said they had something. object, it sounded like, that had been referenced in some of the old newspaper articles, something related to the case. But the doofus either couldn't or wouldn't say what it was. Oh, this just makes me, what the fuck? Why even call then? If you're listening, Anonymous caller, you either pony up or you sit your ass down. That's just nothing but frustrating. It's not helpful. Right? Dang. It's like, uh, yes, I have a noun here that may help solve a 75-year-old cold case? What is it, you ask? Why, it's a person, place, or thing or idea? It's just something. We don't know

what the fuck it is. For God's sakes. Anyway, with that little tantalizing detail hanging in the background, let's get into some of the main theories surrounding the case. My favorite part is the theories. The first theory is that Don killed Artemis and acted alone. He was the voice behind the door. So what was Don's motive? Could he and Artemis have been romantic? or sexually involved? We do know that Artemis had stayed in another hotel with a man before he was murdered. Now, obviously, that doesn't prove anything about a sexuality. I mean, friends can stay in hotels together without being sexual partners. So can business associates? But it's worth speculating. Was this a hookup gone wrong? A fight between two lovers that got out of hand? Yeah, it could be. Although,

if it was an argument, I mean, it got way out of hand. I mean, we're talking actual torture here. And it seemed like it went on for some time. So I'm wondering, could Don have had some kind of serious beef with Artemis? For example, could they have been in love with the same person? Could they have been partners in something criminal? And did Don decide he didn't want to cut Artemis in on the proceeds? Or maybe think Artemis had like double-crossed him in some way? Now, the criminal theory is one that I have never heard anybody else put forward.

I mean, somebody might have. It's just as far as I know, I thought of this one on my own. So no offense to Artemis's memory or his story. family or anything. It's just a thought. But I think it does kind of make sense, especially when you consider the fact that Artemis didn't want to reveal his attacker's identity when he had the chance. If he was involved in something criminal, he might not have wanted to reveal his partner in crime. I mean, he would obviously be thinking and hoping that he would survive the attack and he wouldn't want to be thrown in jail afterward, right, or risk another attack from this guy. So another

possibility, of course, is that this was a thrill killing or a sexually motivated one. So you mentioned and maybe they were lovers. They could have been lovers, or it could have been a hookup gone wrong. Something like something that John Wayne Gacy or Jeffrey Dahmer might have done, like a serial killer or budding serial killer. So what makes me wonder about this is the restraints, the strangulation marks, right? And the torture. And the fact that Artemis was found naked.

So another popular theory is that Don killed Artemis in concert with someone else. now there's some interesting evidence to support this one on the night of the murder an elevator operator we just got to stop for a second because it floors me that elevators used to have actual human beings in them to run them it just cracks me up i guess it was too much for people to press their own damn buttons or whatever i don't know it's just kind of funny to me so anyway there was an elevator operator and this guy saw what he described amusingly as a commercial woman now what he meant was she was well-dressed and pretty and she reminded him of a woman in an ad. He said she was going to the 10th floor and she was looking for room 1026. Now that's interesting

because our murder happened in room 1046, right? She said she was going there to meet a man but she'd been unable to find him. Now was this Artemis or Don? Could she have mixed up the rooms 1026 and 1046 and that was why she hadn't been able to find this guy that she was looking for? Now the same woman was also seen with a man from the ninth floor, interestingly enough. And remember, there were fingerprints on the phone in Artemis's room that might have been left by a woman. And there's that woman in room 1048 who overheard a man and woman arguing and cursing at each other that night. So could it have been this commercial woman in Artemis or this woman in Dawn, or all three of them maybe? And the woman just didn't distinguish two different male voices. All of those things are possible, I think.

So the next popular theory is that Artemis was killed for revenge because he cheated on somebody. So there was a tabloid-y sensationalistic news article that put this theory forward at the time. It was juicy as hell and of course the readers ate it up. After the announcement came out about Artemis being buried in a potter's field, a woman allegedly called one of these newspapers and said, Owen will not be buried in a pauper's grave. His funeral is being paid for. and when they asked her to identify herself and tell them everything she knew about the case

the woman said and I'm going to say this in my 1930s voice so hope you're ready for this she said never mind I know what I'm talking about he got into a jam that's how people talked in the 30s y'all watch old movies if you don't believe me so the paper also reported that around the same time they got that phone call a man called the funeral home that had the body and said don't bury Owen in a Popper's grave, I want you to bury him in Memorial Park Cemetery. Then he'll be near my sister. I'll send funds to cover the expenses. Supposedly, the guy went on to say that Artemis, aka Roland T. Owen, had cheated on a girl he was engaged to. And he said that in room 1046, he, Artemis slash Owen, and the heartbroken girl had had a, quote, little meeting.

And before he hung up, he said, cheaters usually get what's coming to him. Cheaters usually get what's coming to them, right? Then a local florist got a call asking for 13 American Beauty Roses sent to Roland T. Owens' funeral. And the caller said, I'm doing this for my sister. Interesting, right? So which of these theories do you think has the most traction, Katie? Okay, campers. You guys know that I cannot stand unsolved mysteries because I need to know the answer.

Yeah. But I'm going to do my best. because this case has burned itself into my retinas. So I'm leaning towards like a romantic trist gone wrong. Right. So I know we talked about the missing items being an indication of somebody taking trophies, but it's also possible they were sentimental. Like maybe the comb had his initials on it or something.

Sure. And maybe he just panicked. Now, my main reason for thinking this, and this is such a throwaway line, is because of his conversation on the phone while the maid was in the room about breakfast, where he was like, no, I'm not hungry. I just ate breakfast. Because why would he be eating together with somebody that he was in trouble with? Yeah, that's a good point. And also, that's kind of an intimate thing, isn't it? You know, to say, have you eaten?

Do you want to go grab something to eat? You know, you wouldn't do that with just anybody. so and just going back for a second to the items in the room it's also possible that if they were lovers they might have shared the comb and the toothbrush and he might have had his finger who might have been worried his fingerprints were on them yep so yeah all right well that's interesting yeah i think that's definitely one of the most likely theory is that they were romantically involved and that it just got out of hand and also remember i mean the serial killer or thrill killer theory and the romantic tris gone wrong theory are not mutually exclusive It could be both. No. And, I mean, we have to keep in mind. Artemis was so young. Absolutely.

17. 17. Yeah. And so, like, he was probably naive. Oh, very much. Yeah. He could have been drawn into some bad stuff. Yeah, I wish somebody had seen Dawn.

Like, we knew how old he was and everything. I mean, that would be so helpful to have a little bit more of those dynamics. But, yeah, I mean, it could have been a new relationship. And Artemis just didn't know that he had hooked up with somebody who had really dark fantasies and was a super creep. Yeah. You know, it could be both. So. All right, so okay, campers, moving on to Unsolved Mystery number two, the Trump family's wild ride.

This is Banans. So we're in Sylvan, Australia, which is a rural area not too far from Melbourne. It's August 29, 2016. The troms, and that is T-R-O-M-P-S, are by all accounts a normal, close-knit family of five. There's the parents, 51-year-old Mark, or at least he was 51 in 2016, 53-year-old Jacoba, and their three-grown children, 29-year-old Rihanna, 25-year-old Mitchell, and 22-year-old Ella. People knew them as stable, healthy, successful people. They run a berry farm and an earth-moving company, so like big bulldozers and stuff like that to move large amounts of dirt,

and they all work together on the family biz seven days a week so very hardworking people and just a very average family here no big obvious signs of any trouble to come whatsoever but on august 29th of 2016 with no warning whatsoever no history of this kind of behavior and without telling anyone the trump family suddenly fled their family home just took off and went on this bizarre road trip that we are about to tell you about now at first all anybody knew was that they were missing, like all five of them. And when their employees and friends got concerned about them and reported it to the police, the cops gained entry to their house and found it in total disarray. It was obvious they'd left in a hurry. They'd taken off in one of the daughter's SUV.

There were big piles of paper everywhere, and they left their cell phones behind, and their passports and their credit cards. So they left everything you'd think you'd want to take if you were going on a trip, right? So it was weird, and before you know it, the media got hold of the story because it's kind of bizarre and for a while all of Australia was just riveted to the story of this family like where were they what were they doing why so as

I said the local police had found the family's cell phones and credit cards and passports so the first thought that they had was that maybe the family wanted to be off the grid for some reason but they really weren't sure what was going on so what the hell were they up to well on the first night they drove all night 500 miles to a place called Batherst. Oh, and shortly after they started driving, this is crazy, about 20 miles down the road. The parents apparently realized that their son Mitchell had brought his cell phone along, and they made him throw it out the window. Oh, my God.

Like of the moving car. Because according to Jacoba, they can use that to track us. So we have a they in the mix now. Who's they? We don't know. but they made him chuck his phone out the window so they kept driving and eventually ended up 500 miles away in badhurst so that's day one day two august 30th mitchell peeled off and abandoned the family at about 7 a.m so he's gone the other four kept going to a place called the genolan caves i hope i'm pronouncing that right which i assume is like a tourist spot and now once they got to the caves the two sisters riana and ella now they broke off from the parents and went off on their own. And campers, they stole a car.

So, again, these are people with no criminal history, no history behavior like this, stole a car, drove the stolen car to a town called Goldburn. And once they got to Goldburn, they reported their parents missing. The parents that they just left. Like, what? Why? Like, you just saw them. You stole a car to get away from them.

Why are you reporting them missing? It's so bizarre. Okay, so after reporting Mark and Jacoba missing, Rihanna and Ella split up. Everybody keeps peeling off. It's so weird. Like, every place they go, somebody takes off on their own. Now, Rihanna was eventually discovered in the bed of a dude's pickup truck. Imagine this. This poor guy was driving down the highway, enjoying the beautiful Australian day,

probably listening to Hotel California on the radio. Having the time of his life. And, you know, January is like summer there. So it's probably a gorgeous day. And all of the sudden, he feels this big thunk against the back of a seat. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

That's so weird. So the guy pulled over and in the bed of his pickup, he found Rihanna Tromp. She was catatonic. She couldn't remember her name, where she was from, or where she was. My Lord. Now, imagine how fucking creepy this would be campers. Oh, it's so creepy. You're just driving along, minding her own business, and suddenly you find this dazed, creepy

girl in the back of your truck who doesn't know her own name. Yikes. It's like the end of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It is like the end of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, yes. So, of course, he called the police. And they came and got her and took Rihanna off to try and figure out who she was and what was going on. Meanwhile, the other sister, Ella, had managed to make her way back home. And by the time she got there, the police were searching the Trump house.

And we already got into this a little bit earlier, but let's go into a little more detail about what the police found there. So first of all, the door was unlocked, so they didn't have a break in. Like Whitney said, the house was in total disarray. And they found evidence that the family had gone through years and years worth of the farm's financial records. There were piles of paper everywhere, all over the house. But it seemed like there was a method to the madness. They were organized piles, one for each year and one for each family member. And on the family members' paper piles, their cell phones and passports and credit cards were laid neatly on top.

It seems like the trumps must have been methodically going through all of their documents looking for something. That's day two. Day three was Wednesday, August 31st. Mitchell returned home by train that day, and meanwhile, parents Mark and Jacoba drove to Wenger Wangaretta. Man, I love Australian place names. They're so much fun. They really are. And once they got to Wingaretta, they split up. Every place they go. It's every place. Every single place they stop, somebody peels off. So Jacoba headed north while Mark stayed there in Wangaretta. Now, police believe, and we agree, that Mark is connected to a creepy incident near Wangaretta on this night. It was about 10 p.m. A young couple was out driving. They were out. actually playing Pokemon Go. So these people are just mining their own biz, just looking for Pikachu or whatever. And all of the sudden, a car, the same make and model and color as the one Mark Trump was driving started tailgating them. He was so close to their rear bumper that they could

barely see his headlights. Just right up on their ass. I hate tailgater so bad. If you're a tailgater, you are going in the true crime campfire woodchipper. It's just dangerous and stupid. Don't do it. It's like my dad always says, just drive your drive. Just drive. drive your drive. God's sake. Don't get mad. So after a few moments of this, the young man pulled over to let the asshole pass, but when he pulled over, the tailgator pulled over and just sat there idling behind them. This happened several times, and the young people were getting more and more freaked out. Eventually, the tailgater, Mark Trump, according to the police, got out of his car and like something out of a fucking horror movie ran towards them.

Oh, hell no, uh-uh. Then he stopped dead in his tracks in the middle of the road and just stared at them. That's even worse than the running somehow. Like a fucking psycho. Like, you know what it's like? It's like the fucking groundskeeper and get out. This whole experience is like a fucking horror movie. By the way, I'm sitting in the dark in my apartment right now and I'm...

No. I like, I'm not specifically not looking behind me because I can't deal with this right now. I really wouldn't. I really wouldn't. No. And so anyway, so he's just staring at this couple. And then he just slowly turned around and walked into Wangarretta's Marriwa Park, leaving his car by the side of the road and disappeared from view. I think I just wet myself just listening to this. Jesus. Murphy. Oh my God. Bless their hearts, this poor couple. Like all they wanted was just to find Pikachu. Was that too much to ask? Yikes. Yikes is right. And police searched Mariaha Park, but they couldn't find Mark Trump or anybody else.

The car was right where he left it. It still had the keys and the ignition. Police also think Mark may have been responsible for a room being broken into and used at a wangaretta motel, by the way. So, okay, that was. day three. Day four was Thursday, September 1st. Jacoba Trump took public transportation to a town called YAS. I love that there's a town called YAS in Australia. It's just hilarious to me. Yoss Queen. It must be pretty fabulous, I imagine. Yeah, I think Queer Eye did an episode there once, actually. I think they did, actually. So Jacoba arrived in Yoss, and she tried to book a room at a motel there,

But something about her behavior must have troubled people in the lobby because a kind-hearted person ended up taking Jacoba to a hospital. And of course, by now, the story of the trumps was everywhere. So when they arrived at a hospital, the staff recognized her from the news and called the police, who arrived to pick her up. So now they had been slowly collecting all the trumps, like Pokemon. Got to catch them all. and Mark was now the only member of the family still quote-unquote missing or at large or whatever you want to call it. And on Saturday, September 3rd, five days after leaving home in a mad rush, Mark was found wandering down a road in Wangaretta. Police asked him a few questions

and did a mental health assessment on him. And he spent about five hours at the police station before a family member came and picked him up. And as he was leaving, he flipped off a bunch of beady and people who had showed up outside. Oh, that's real nice. So charming. He did apologize for that later, though, and for the whole episode in general. And he said he was grateful for people's concern and whatnot. Yeah.

Nice way to show a dude. The next day, Mitchell and Ella appeared on TV. They thanked the police and the media for finding their dad, but they didn't give any real information about their time on the road. They said they were still perplexed about the whole thing themselves. And they really did seem perplexed. I'm kind of embarrassed. I'd be super embarrassed.

I can totally understand that. The investigator who had been in charge of the missing person's case was a guy named Mark Knight. And according to him, the family had no signs or history of drug use and tested negative on a drug panel. No outstanding debts, so nobody was after them for money. And no involvement in a cult or religious sect. So what the hell happened, Whitney? Yeah, it's bizarre. Let's talk about a few theories.

Okay, so theory one is based on a phenomenon called Folli Adieu, which is French for the madness of two. It's basically when more than one person, it doesn't just have to be two despite the Duh, more than one person share a delusion. The most famous case of Foliadieu involved a French couple, they were married, and they both became convinced that someone was coming into their apartment at night and trying on their shoes and leaving lint and dust on all the surfaces, which is just so weird, but they were both completely convinced of it. So this happens, and it happens a lot in true crime cases, you know.

So in the Trump's case, it would be folly assank because there's five of them, but apparently the parents had actually been exhibiting some signs of paranoia and acting a little funny leading up to this, like nothing really extreme, but in hindsight people remembered it. And maybe because they were such a close family and they worked together seven days a week, and they worked a lot, maybe just the combination of overwork and being kind of isolated together, they just sort of worked each other up into a state of paranoia, and it just kind of took off from there, and it just took them a few days to snap out of it.

Maybe, right? So theory two is really interesting. You remember we told you the trumps have a berry farm, right? And an earth-moving business. So some people have theorized that they may have all been poised. Or exposed to some kind of chemical in the course of their work Or even some kind of like weird ass hallucinogenic like fungus or something which I would imagine Australia has in spades because it's crazy Willy Wonka land when it comes to the flora and fauna like they have the worst spiders. I will never set foot as much as I love Australia and Australians and especially Australian accents I'm scared shitless to set one toe on the continent of Australia because of the flipping spiders. Not to mention the shark. and the jellyfish.

Poisonous octopi. Lord have mercy. Like, y'all are brave just live in there. So God knows what kind of hallucinogenic fungi might live in the soil or whatever. So Katie, you have thoughts about this one, right? So tell us your theory, if you will. Oh, yes. So speaking of fungus, there is a type of fungus called ergut.

Right. That turns into a hallucinogen in rye bread. Huh. Wait a minute. Okay, I'm sorry. I need you clarify something. Are you saying if you put it, in rye bread, that somehow the making of the rye bread or the combination of it with other ingredients

will make it hallucinogenic? Or are you just saying, like, a lot of times ergot is in rye bread and ergot is hallucinogenic? As far as I know, it is specific to rye. That's so weird. Okay. Yes. That's bonkers. And it can cause a whole batch of badness in your brain, including mania, melancholia, and paranoia, or psychosis. In fact, there are several historians that contribute a lot of the instances of accusations of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials to Ergut poisoning in some regions. That's fascinating. Ergit also causes several gastrointestinal symptoms and convulsions in severe cases.

But it's as good a theory as any, especially since the Trump family was isolated and eating from the same stores. Yeah, we don't know. They might have had the poops. I mean, I wouldn't want to go on TV and mention that part. They might have had gastrointestinal symptoms. We don't know. so who knows for sure but it's just weird as hell

and you know we hope the trumps will all be okay from here on out and that they're getting any help they might need and don't beat yourselves up okay because we all do weird shit every now and again yeah and just move on with your lives you've given us a great story we thank you for that y'all are cool with us okay So, moving on to our last story, and it is a doozy. This is the case of the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run, otherwise known as the Cleveland torso killer, and I have got to warn you, if you're sensitive, this one might be a little

rough for you, more than any case we've ever done, probably, because this guy was a monster, and there are going to be some gnarly details. So little content warning, body parts, and mutilation, and other such awful things. Okay, so proceed at your own risk. So campers were in Cleveland, Ohio, September 1934. Another 30's case. A young man out walking on the shore of Lake Erie found the lower half of a woman's torso washed up on the beach. The thighs were still attached but amputated at the knees.

The skin was red, tough, and leathery from some kind of chemical preservative. Now let that little detail sink in for a second. The body was that of a woman in her mid-30. A few more body parts were recovered in the area, but her head was never found, and to this day, she's known only as the Lady of the Lake. A romantic name for a very unromantic crime. And we should say, actually, that some people don't count the Lady of the Lake as one of the official torso killers victims, but I can't imagine why not. And I suspect you're going to agree with me once you learn the details of the other definitely official cases. I just think it's absurd to leave her out.

I think the details fit perfectly. I'm not sure why some people don't think she fits. So we're counting her, as do a lot of the experts on the case. So one year later, in September 1935, so note September again, right, two teenagers were out messing around at the foot of jackass hill, which is apparently a thing that exists in Cleveland, which I love, obviously. Oh, my God. We had a jackass hill in the town where I grew up. No way. And without fail, my father, every time we drove past it, would say, go take a run up Jackass Hill.

Every time. So, you know, I've never met your dad, but I like him. So I just, you can tell him that for me. He seems like my kind of dude. He listens to the show. Oh, I like you, Katie's dad. You seem fun. So Jackass Hill was on the southeast side of the city right next to a place called Kingsbury Run.

Now, Kingsbury Run was a rundown area where very poor. and homeless folks lived, many of them in kind of a makeshift shanty town. In a vice article about how poverty makes people more vulnerable to violent crime, journalist Claire Malone describes the Kingsbury run of the 30s as the place, quote,

where the industrial guts of the city were spilled, which I think is a really good turn of phrase. So, anywho, these two kids were out at Jackass Hill when they stumbled upon the decapitated, castrated body of a white male. Poor kids. Oh my God. So the body was clean, naked except for a pair of socks, which is just an added humiliation for this poor man, bless his heart, because that's so not a good look naked in socks. Bless his heart.

Nope. He was also totally drained of blood and there were rope burns around both wrists. The coroner determined that he'd been decapitated alive. This was actually the cause of death, which is just horrifying. Oh, my God. I can't even imagine what this man's last moments must have been like. Ugh. This is one of the top five worst ways to die for me, for sure. Oh, my God, absolutely. So, fingerprints ID the victim as 28-year-old Edward Andrassy, a hospital orderly with a bit of an arrest record, but I'm not sure exactly what for. He was rumored to be gay, but of course a lot of gay folks were deeply closeted in the 30s, so who knows for sure. But Andressey was a handsome guy, and he remained handsome even in death. How do we know? Well, because his head was discovered a few days after.

the two teenagers found his body, and it wasn't alone. The head was discovered alongside another body. This one was an older man. He had also been decapitated and castrated, and I'm sorry, I know that's an awful detail. Like the Lady of the Lake, this body also showed signs of the same chemical preservative, which is one of the main reasons why I think she's got to be included. Like, how often do you find bodies with a chemical preservative in them, you know? So this man who was probably around 40 to 45 had been dead about two weeks.

He's never been identified to this day, which is just heartbreaking. And that's the case with a lot of these victims. Now, of course, these killings caused a stir, but for some reason the real hysteria didn't set in until about a year later. So now we're in January, 1936. A woman discovered the dismembered remains of a woman wrapped neatly in newspaper, packed into two baskets, and left in an alley in downtown Cleveland. now one thing you'll notice about this killer is that as time goes by he gets bolder and bolder about where and how he disposes of the bodies it's almost like he's saying look at me look what i did you can't stop me i'm going to strew bodies all over the city and there's nothing you can do like a freaking batman villain or something it's just creepy as hell like he's proud of it and he's taunting the entire city now these baskets only contained about half the victim's body there was no head and in fact her head was never recovered but the rest of her was found within about 10 days in a vacant lot not far from the original scene. Yet again, the cause of death with this victim was decapitation.

So this person had her head cut off while she was still alive. But this time, interestingly, the killer had waited for rigor mortis to set in before he dismembered her. So that suggests to me that maybe he was learning, kind of perfecting his technique as he went along. Maybe he found it was easier or something to dismember the body when it was stiff. Ugh. Fingerprints identified this woman as Florence Polillo, a barmaid and sex worker. She'd been dead from two to four days before she was found, and she lived in an area near Kingsbury run called the Roaring Third, which was a district full of bars and brothels and gambling halls.

Basically, all the kind of stuff you'd want to help you find relief if you were a down-on-your-luck victim of the Great Depression. So really, you know, kind of depressing place, but I imagine it was pretty raucous on Saturday night, too. Police soon learned that Edward Andrassy, one of the other victims, was irregular in that area, too. Killer's hunting ground? It was looking that way. Then in June 1936, two kids playing hooky from school found the decapitated head of a young man wrapped in a pair of trousers. Can you imagine? It was probably like the first time they'd ever cut class. They're like, oh, what's the worst that can happen? And then they stumble on a flip and severed head. Just holy shit. I bet they never be.

bunked off school again after that though let's go to school it's safe in school no severed heads in school see kids stay in school because you might find a decapitated head class you literally will stumble over a severed head just just so you know yeah so I can't imagine why but this was the case that really sent the city into an uproar yeah probably because two kids found the head I think that's probably exactly what it was. It's just such a gruesome juxtaposition of these two sort of innocent kids play in and then they found his head.

Soon after the same man's naked torso was discovered. It was clean and drained of blood and the cause of death was, once again, decapitation. The body bore six tattoos and the coroner got a good set of fingerprints, but they were still unable to

ID the guy. It's so crazy, especially with the tattoos you'd think somebody would recognize those. The police even had a plaster cast made of the victim's face and put it on display. But no one came forward to ID him. Man. So sad. So sad. All told, there would be 13 confirmed victims of the Cleveland torso killer. Six women, seven men, between 1934 and 1938. All were decapitated and many of the heads were never found. Not one body was found intact. There were also some additional suspected victims who aren't included in that official count,

but whose cases seem similar enough to warrant consideration. Now, we don't have time to go into all of these cases, but we'll share a few more highlights with you. In September 1936, a man tripped over, tripped over, the upper half of a man's torso. Police found the lower half in both legs in a nearby sewer.

The victim's head had been cut off in one stroke. That's bananas, one stroke. I mean, that's going to take, strength. It's going to take skill, and probably it's going to take some special equipment, maybe even something like a guillotine. To cut somebody set off in one stroke. Also, note, September again. Interesting, right? Months later, in February of 1937, a man found the upper half of a woman's torso washed up on the shore of Lake Erie. Unlike the other victims, the decapitation wasn't her cause of death. She was decapitated after death. Yeah, and I wasn't able to find out what her cause of death actually was,

which was really frustrating. It's possible that we just don't know, but it is very interesting to me that this lady was found in very similar circumstances and in the same place as the Lady of the Lake. So again, why the hell you wouldn't include the Lady the Lake in the official list of victims I can't imagine? Fast forward a few months to June 1937. A teenager found a human skull under the Lorraine Carnegie Bridge. Next to it, a burlap sack full of bones. This would turn out to be the sole black victim, a 40-year-old woman named Rose Wallace. Police were pleased to be able to ID her, but sadly, all the leads that created ended up falling flat. A month later, in July 1937, a leg floated up to the surface of the Cuyahoga River and was seen bobbing in the

wake of a passing tugboat. It must have been freaky as hell. Right? Such a surreal thing. Over the next week or so, more body parts surfaced in the river. Everything, in fact, except the head. The victim, a man who was never identified, had been brutalized beyond anything the investigators had seen up until then. The poor guy had been gutted. His abdomen ripped out and his heart had been removed. Yeah, that's a new level of violence for sure. And it might be an example of what criminal profilers refer to as escalation. Yep. In April 1938, a man spotted a woman's severed leg floating up in the Cuyahoga. A month

later, two burlap sacks floated up two containing most of the rest of the woman's legs and both halves of her torso. Y'all. She'd been bisected. Oh, my God. And this is really interesting. The coroner found drugs in her system.

We couldn't find a definitive answer on which ones, but this was the only victim to have that. Yeah, and it's an interesting mystery. Like, did she have drugs in her system because she was a drug user or did the killer drug her? This is a killer who I think does seem to experiment and to try different things. So we have no way of knowing because like so many of this killer's other victims, this woman was never identified. So we don't know from her associates and friends if she was a

drug user or whatever. But I think it's at least possible that he drugged her. It's just creepy. Especially if he was playing around, which I hate to say it that way. But if he was playing around with his method, it might have been easier to keep her docile. Fast forward to August 1930. 29. Two bodies showed up. And guess where? Right outside the office window of Cleveland's top cop, safety director Elliot Ness. If that name sounds familiar, it should. This is the guy who brought down Al-motherfucking Capone in Chicago. But we'll get to him in a minute. For now, let's get back to the two bodies outside his window. A woman's torso had been wrapped in a man's blue blazer and an old blanket. they found her first. Her legs and arms were folded up inside a box and wrapped neatly in butcher paper like cuts of meat and held together with rubber bands. Her head was similarly wrapped, and this is fascinating campers. Some of the parts looked and felt like they'd been refrigerated. Yeah, and while they were looking around for more parts of the victim's body, the police found body number two a few yards away.

This body was a male, and he'd been decapitated like the others. His head was found inside an aluminum can. Yikes, man. Neither of these victims has ever been identified. We don't know if they were a couple or if they even knew each other. Interestingly, some of the victims seem to have been dumped right after death, while others were preserved and dumped weeks or even months later. Yeah, so he was holding on to some of them for a while, for who knows what reason.

I mean, could it have been that he wanted people found on certain? dates. We have a lot of September, I noticed, but they're not all September. So I don't know. I mean, could he have had something preventing him from taking the time to dismember and dump the body sometimes? So he had to keep them and come back and dispose of them later. Did he just enjoy keeping them sometimes? Did he hold on to the ones he quote unquote liked? I don't know. And there's no way to know. But it's an interesting question. So let's get back to the police response to these killings. And to Elliot Ness. This guy was a legend, the quintessential lawman of the time. Like I said, he and his band of untouchables brought down Al Capone in Chicago, not to mention a load of crooked cops and

other criminals. Ness became famous for that, and when these killings began, he'd been recently appointed Director of Public Safety in Cleveland. And it probably shouldn't surprise anyone to hear that Ness became obsessed with this case. He actually came up with the compelling psychological profile of the killer, long before criminal profiling became a regular part of homicide investigations. Yeah, Ness thought the killer would most likely be male, physically strong to lug around the bodies with a background in medicine or anatomy. Now, he based this on the fact that the dismemberment was done very precisely and cleanly. Makes sense to me. So Ness had an idea of the kind of monster he was hunting. Let's get into

of some of the tactics he and the Cleveland police tried in the four years these serial murders were happening. One was to conduct fake fire safety inspections, you know, to get around that pesky thing where you've got to have a warrant to go into somebody's home. And this really kind of cracks me up because it's like, what were you all expecting to find? Like did you think you're just going to walk into somebody's apartment and there'd just be bodies stacked up like firewood in the corner and like, ah, there he is, nab him. Like an entire, an entire guillotine in the corner. A bloody, like, dripping guillotine in the corner. What's that for? Oh, it's my kid's science project or whatever, you know.

I mean, killers can be real dumb, granted, but usually not that dumb. So that was one tack they used, and unsurprisingly, it didn't yield anything useful. They also sent two detectives undercover as, quote, unquote, hobos to infiltrate Kingsbury Run. These guys were undercover for two years, which is just bonkers. I mean, it was a really strong effort, you know, and there are pictures of them posing in, like, shabby clothes with their little sticks and bendels, just like real hobos. It was a good try, but again, nothing useful came of it in the end. And because of Ness's theory that the killer had a medical background, the investigators questioned and sometimes even surveilled lots and lots of medical personnel.

And even the city's own medical examiner fell under the microscope. Poor bastard. He's like having to autopsy these bodies. He's had a rough enough time of it. And now they're looking at him just because he's a doctor. And finally, when the killer left those two dismembered bodies underneath his office window Elliot Ness apparently just broke and he hauled in the residents of Kingsbury Run for questioning. He did not have a legitimate reason to do this in any way

shape or form. It was literally like, you're coming with us. Why? For being homeless. And while they were holding pretty much the whole population of the place at the police station, Ness had the entire Kingsbury Run shantytown burned to the ground.

Just holy shit. I mean, in one sense, it was a very Elliot Ness move, like a lot like some of the scorched earth balls to the wall type tactics he and the untouchables had used to bring down corruption in Chicago. But this was very different. And the people of Cleveland were furious as well they should be. I mean, this was just shameful. It was appalling. These people hadn't done anything to warrant this. They were the ones that the torso killer was victimizing.

And Ness himself thought the killer was a doctor. He wasn't one of them, for God's sake. So what the hell he was thinking? I can't imagine. But honestly, I just think the killer broke his brain. I think when the guy left those two bodies right outside his window, it was just too much for him. And something inside him just went boring. And I think he just lost his mind a little bit.

I think he couldn't handle this kind of evil going on in his city. I mean, this was by no means common by that, you know, back then at all. And I think he was humiliated that he couldn't stop it. and he had this reputation as the top cop in all the land, and he couldn't figure it out. And he just did this stupid, cruel, draconian thing as a knee-jerk reaction to being humiliated, I think. I couldn't agree more.

This is a perfect example of lawful evil. And it just goes to show that lawful evil is still evil. It's such a horrid thing to do to a vulnerable population. Yeah. And, you know, to the people of Cleveland's credit, they were so pissed. I mean, they just absolutely ripped Elliot Ness 15 new assholes over it. And he was roundly criticized. They thought it was just horribly cruel, and it was.

By the way, for those of you who are not Dungeons and Dragons nerds, that lawful evil is a D&D reference. It's like a moral alignment you can have where you work within the law, but you're still evil. Yeah. And I think you're absolutely right that this is a perfect example. Although it's not exactly within the law because he really. didn't have any reason to bring those people in the first place, so he was stretching it a little bit. So interestingly enough, the murders did stop after the burning of Kingsbury run. Now, some people took this to mean, hey, Ness was right. He must have been one of them, and it stopped the murders.

But I think that the most likely thing is it may have been that just by burning the shanty town down, Ness had just scattered the killer's target population to the winds and made hunting just a lot harder for him. so he may have just decided to move on to another hunting ground. So who was the Cleveland torso killer? Well, Elliot Ness thought he knew. He just didn't have enough evidence to take him to trial. His suspect was a guy named Dr. Francis Sweeney. Sweeney was the sion of a prominent Cleveland family.

His cousin was actually a political opponent of Ness's and the guy had publicly criticized the way Ness was handling the case. So that would make it extra interesting if Sweeney really was the guy. Sweeney was an alcoholic. He was abusive to his wife and children. He had a habit of disappearing for days at a time and not telling his family where he'd been, which I think is very compelling. He tended to neglect his medical practice and his patients, and he'd been in trouble for malpractice. And this is really compelling, too.

When Sweeney was younger, he'd been part of a medical team that did field amputations in World War I. So in addition to being a doctor, he had specific experience with amputations, which you could also call dismemberments, couldn't you? at one point Sweeney was in the middle of a bender and Ness tracked him down and hauled his ass in and held him for something like 10 days like without an arrest warrant you know you're not allowed to hold somebody that long for questioning but he did it

it was absolutely crazy and totally inappropriate but man he was just obsessed like I said he really wanted to get this guy and first he had to sober Sweeney up and then he just interrogated the shit out of the guy for days and days he also brought in the top polygraph examiner in the country the guy known as the father of modern polygraphs to administer two tests, Sweeney failed both of them spectacularly so badly

that the polygraph examiner said he would stake his reputation on Sweeney's guilt. And you know we're like eh about polygraph exams, but man, that examiner was positive. But Sweeney denied any involvement and eventually Ness had to release him because he didn't have any evidence. The final two murders with the bodies plop down right outside Ness's office window happened shortly after Ness Let Sweeney go.

Isn't that interesting? Yes. The biggest like fuck you to law enforcement that's happened so far right after this. And then in 1938 Sweeney committed himself

to a mental institution after which the murder stopped. So there's also that. Now in the institution Sweeney was diagnosed with a form of schizophrenia and for years and years after that Sweeney sent Elliot Ness

postcard after postcard taunting him about the case. He'd say these really tantalizing things like hinting at his guilt, but he never said anything that was definitive enough to give Ness cause for an arrest warrant. Very clever if he really was the killer. He was just clever enough

to stay within the bounds where Ness couldn't prove anything. And this shit went on until the 50s. So this guy obviously really enjoyed getting under Ness's skin whether he was the killer or not. Sweeney died in 1964 without ever, you know, going to prison or confessing or anything, or being cleared. Now, if all of that isn't enough to convince you of the potential there,

there's an interesting story that makes Sweeney an even more compelling suspect. In 1938, a transient, a quote-unquote hobo in the language of the day, named Emil Fronick, alleged that four years earlier, a doctor had taken him back to his office and tried to drug him. He told the police that it had happened somewhere between two specific streets. Police drove him around there, but they didn't see anything clearly marked a doctor's office, and Froneck couldn't remember the exact location of the place. So eventually, the cops dropped it. But then, decades later, a researcher discovered that Dr. Sweeney had an office in a nondescript building

right between those streets, and very close to the roaring third in Kingsbury run. Could Sweeney have lured people to his office with the promise of drugs or booze and then killed them? Yeah, and there was that one woman that had drugs in her system. There's an expert on this case named Dr. James Bidal, and he did some extensive research to trace Sweeney's movements during the four years the murders were happening. And he said the results he found were, this is a direct quote, creepy as hell. Sweeney's movements and the killers were apparently in lockstep. So, like Elliot Ness, Badaal believes Sweeney was the torso killer.

And some people believe the same killer was also responsible for a series of murders in Newcastle, Pennsylvania. Some believe he killed the Black Dahlia, too, though I have my doubts about that. that. Yeah, me too. There can be more than one creep in the country at the same time, y'all. Exactly. L.A. and Cleveland are pretty far apart. Yeah. This is like the people that think Jack the Ripper and H.H. Holmes are the same guy. Oh, man, that's a don't even get me started. That is so one of my pet peeves. Oh, I can't, I can't do that rant right now because we don't have the time. Anyway. Jack the Ripper and H.H. Holmes were not the damn same. They had different, my God.

They had different emo. Completely different. And completely different psychology. Like, it's just so far apart, I can't even. Oh, I'm sweating. I'm so angry. Okay. I told you not to get me started.

All right. We'll pull him back. We'll do an entire, just rant about this sometime. Anyway, there was another suspect briefly, and it's a very sad story. Mm-hmm. The cops of the 30s did not abide by many rules. And basically, this poor dude named Frank Dolazol got hauled in as a suspect in the murder of Florence Polillo, one of the identified victims. And the cops basically beat a false confession out of him.

And he committed suicide in his cell. It was awful. This dude definitely didn't do it. He was just somebody who lived in Kingsbury Run and knew a few of the victims. There was no way in hell he could be the killer. this guy needed not only the skill to drain and dismember these bodies, but also a private place to do what he did. And Dolazol didn't have any of that. Yeah, he might have literally had a guillotine. Yeah. I mean, you need like a house, like someplace away from, you know,

you're not living in a shanty town and doing this. Where your wall is literally just a thin piece of tin. Exactly. No, it doesn't make any sense. No, it does not. Some people have come to the conclusion that there was no single torso killer, that these murders were actually committed by multiple killers. Copycat crimes certainly do happen, and there can be multiple creeps prowling around. Yeah, and I get that, but for me, this is a stretch. I mean, these murders are so similar, and the circumstances surrounding them are so similar that, for me anyway, I'm pretty satisfied that there was probably just one killer. Yeah, especially because there's such a high level of organization and skill needed to commit these crimes as they were committed.

Yeah. The chances of having multiple killers in such a small hunting ground with the same equipment and the same signatures all at the same time is extremely, extremely improbable, unless they were working together, which is also very unlikely for this type of crime. Yeah, I completely agree. And, you know, I can understand why some people, because there were little differences, but to me, the little differences, I attribute more to a kill. killer who is, A, escalating and B, experimenting and doing things a little differently from time to

time to see how he likes to do it, as creepy as that sounds. But they do do that. And you see this a lot in killers that have such a complex emo. Yeah, absolutely. Because, I mean, you're hardly ever going to just see identical, identical, everything done the same every time. Look at Pumpkin Spice Ted Bundy. He did things so differently every single time. Yeah, he's a good example, actually. As you can imagine, there's a lot more to this story, but we don't have the time to go into all of it now. If you want to learn more about the torso killer case, there's a wealth of good information out there, including a great graphic novel called Torso by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Andriaco. And as always, we'll put all our sources in the description of the episode,

but we want to send a special shout out to the folks at BuzzFeed Unsolved because they were a valuable source for us for all three of these cases this week. Thanks y'all. So that was a wild one, right campers? You know we'll have another one for you next week. But for now, lock your doors, lightly lights, and stay safe until we get together again around the true crime campfire. And we want to send a shout out to a few of our newest patrons. Thank you so much to Cynthia, Eli, Michael, and Heidi. We appreciate you to the moon and back. And if you haven't yet become a patron, you're missing out. Patrons get every episode ad-free at least a day early, plus one extra episode a month, a free sticker, and other fun extras we're

working on as we speak. So stay tuned for more on those. So if you can, come join us. You can follow us on Twitter at TC Campfire, Instagram at True Crime Campfire, and be sure to like our Facebook page. If you want to support the show and get access to extras, please consider becoming a patron at patreon.com slash true crime campfire.