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| July 1937: There were labor problems in the Flats that summer and the National Guard had been called in to maintain order. A young guardsman standing watch by the W. 3rd Street bridge saw the first piece of victim #9 in the wake of a passing tugboat. Over the next few days, police recovered the entire body, except for the head, from the waters of the Cuyahoga River. The abdomen had been gutted and the heart ripped out, clearly indicating a new element of viciousness in the killer’s approach. The victim was in his mid to late thirties; he was never identified. | |
| April 1938: A young laborer on his way to work in the Flats saw, what he at first thought was a dead fish, along the banks of the Cuyahoga River. Closer inspection reveled it to be the lower half of a women’s leg, the first piece of victim #10. A month later police pulled two burlap bags out of the river containing both parts of the torso and most of the rest of both legs. For the first time Coroner Gerber detected drugs in the system. Were the drugs used to immobilize the victim or was she an addict? The answer might come when they found the arms; they never did. She was never identified. | |
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August 16, 1938: Three scrap collectors foraging in a dump site at E 9 and Lakeside found the torso of a woman wrapped in a man’s double breasted blue blazer and then wrapped again in an old quilt. The legs and arms were discovered in a recently constructed makeshift box, wrapped in brown butcher paper and held together with rubber bands. The head had been similarly wrapped. Gerber noted that some of the parts looked as if they had been refrigerated. While searching for more pieces, the police discover the remains of a second body only yards away. Ironically, these two bodies had been placed in a location that was in plain view from Eliot Ness’s office window, almost as if taunting him. Both victims, #11 and #12, were never identified. |
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