American Demon

Cypress College Bookstore Verified independent store

→

Boston had its Strangler. California had the Zodiac Killer. And in the depths of the Great Depression, Cleveland had the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run.On September 5th, 1934, a youn g beachcomber made a gruesome discovery on the shores of Cleveland's Lake Erie: the lower half of a female torso, neatly severed at the waist. The victim, dubbed ''The Lady of the Lake,'' was only the first of a butcher's dozen. Over the next four years, twelve more bodies would be scattered across the city. The bodies were dismembered with surgical precision and drained of blood. Some were beheaded while still alive.Terror gripped the city. Amid the growing uproar, Cleveland's besieged mayor turned to his newly-appointed director of public safety: Eliot Ness. Ness had come to Cleveland fresh from his headline-grabbing exploits in Chicago, where he and his band of ''Untouchables'' Show more