Seriously Mysterious - Missing Persons, Unsolved Murders & Historical True Crime · John Lordan - Respectful True Crime Content Creator, Advocate and Host

Eliot Ness & The Butcher of Kingsbury Run

·21 min

The episode opens by placing Eliot Ness in Cleveland in December 1935, treating the move as a real turning point rather than a routine job change. Ness arrives as the city's safety director, a role that gives him a wider reach than before. The narration frames Cleveland as the place he now has to manage, especially as he starts reorganizing the police and fire departments. From there, the story moves to the first major discovery in the case. On January 26, 1936, two baskets are found in a snow-covered factory yard. Inside are parts of a female victim wrapped in newspaper. The body is incomplete and, at first, cannot be identified. Weeks later, after the snow melts, the rest of her body is found except for the head. Police identify her by fingerprints as Lawrence Polillo. The episode does not leave that identification hanging in the abstract. It notes that she was a known alcoholic, had two failed marriages, and had turned to prostitution for a living. The story then jumps to June 5, 1936. Another headless body is found near the rapid transit tracks in Kingsbury Run. This victim is male. The narration pays close attention to the tattoos, since they may offer the only real trail. A heart with an arrow is tattooed on one calf. The other calf carries the name Jiggs. The initials WCG appear on an arm with an anchor and a flag. The other arm includes the names Helen and Paul along with a dove. Those marks point to identity, memory, and the possibility of a lead. The episode uses those details to build tension without turning the case into spectacle. It keeps returning to what can be verified and what is still missing. It also connects the murders to the city Ness is trying to reshape. The result is a chronological, evidence-led account of a case that only gets stranger as the facts accumulate. The story stays grounded in physical evidence, public reaction, and the limits of what investigators could actually prove at the time.

As heard by us

A careful Cleveland true-crime account that leans on chronology, evidence, and a slow build of unease.

The episode tracks Elliot Ness after he becomes Cleveland's safety director in December 1935, then settles into the grim body discoveries that follow.

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Why you'd press play

If you want a slow, evidence-first descent into Cleveland's 1936 murders.

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