James Jessen Badal - In the Wake of the Butcher. Clevelands Torso Murders

M Y BOOK Recording the Classics: Maestros, Music and Technology had hardly made it to the shelves when I approached John Hubbell and Julia Morton of The Kent State University Press in the summer of 1996 with a proposal for a book on the Kingsbury Run murders. At the time, I doubted there was enough information available to justify a full-length book only on the killings, and I felt that a chronicle stitched together solely from contemporary newspaper and magazine accounts would be of little interest or value. All I had at the time was some significant information about the crimes known to few others. Would the Press be interested in the possibility of such a project without my making a formal proposal? With their encouragement I dug for more information, tracked people down, and worked to fashion a detailed and coherent narrative over the next three years. Through it all, people at the Press offered their interest and encouragement, sharing insometimes enduringmy excitement as people came forward to tell their stories and previously undiscovered major sources of information suddenly opened up. My thanks to them for that continuous, enthusiastic support. My thanks also to my editor Joanna Hildebrand Craig for her skill, sensitivity, and patience.

In late winter of 1999, Anne Kmieck, then curator of the Cleveland Police Historical Society Museum, phoned me with the news that she had obtained the address of Marjorie Merylo Dentz, daughter of the chief investigator on the case. Mrs. Dentzs father, Detective Peter Merylo, had been assigned to the murders full-time in the summer of 1936, and he worked on them almost exclusively until his retirement from the police department in 1943. He was the cop the press and the public most closely associated with the case. At the time of his departure from the force, the press suggested that the indefatigable detective had taken his personal files with him. Students of the Kingsbury Run killings, therefore, have been taunted for nearly sixty years by the possibility that Peter Merylos papers still existed, and his daughter confirmed that her fathers files were, indeed, in her familys possession. Mrs. Dentz graciously made all of her fathers papers available to me and diligently manned a copy machine for over nine straight hours duplicating the fragile documents. A year later she found another box of material stored in her garage, the existence of which she had been previously unaware. Without hesitation, she returned to the copier and sent me a second formidable pile of documents. Many of the photographs that appear in this book are also from her fathers files and her familys private collection.

In the spring of 2000, an article about the publication of this book appeared in the Plain Dealer. The Sunday it ran, I received a phone call from writer/brewmaster Dave Satula, who, after introducing himself, lamented, You beat me to it! How could two people in the same city delve into the same subject for so long without ever encountering or even hearing of the other? He willingly shared his research, and his generous cooperation allowed me to flesh out pertinent details of the case. Thanks to our conversations, I also was forced to revisit some of my basic assumptions about the crimes that resulted in subtle but important changes in the manuscript.

My thanks to the administration of Cuyahoga Community College for allowing me time off from teaching to do some of the major research necessary and to the Board of Trustees of the Cleveland Police Historical Society for its generous cooperation.

I owe a considerable debt to some people who, by their own requests, will remain anonymous. My sincerest thanks to the following for their assistance: Brian E. Albrecht (staff writer for the Plain Dealer), members of Edward W. Andrassys family, Dr. Daniel W. Badal, William Becker (archivist, Cleveland State University Press Collection), David Bernatowicz, Louis Bodnar (funeral director), Marilyn Bardsley, Commander Robert Cermak (Cleveland Police Department, retired, and chairman of the Board of Trustees, Cleveland Police Historical Society), Judith Cetina (manager of the Cuyahoga County Archives), Nikhil Chand (Technology Learning Center representative, Cuyahoga Community College, Eastern Campus), Dr. Thurston Cosner, Anne Louise Dolezal, Mary Joan Dolezal, Kathy Fana (office supervisor at the morgue), Dr. Marge Geiger, Paul W. Heimel (author of Eliot Ness: The Untold Story), David Holcombe (curator and director of the Cleveland Police Historical Society Museum), Marilyn Jeck, Steve Jerziorski, Tomi Johnson, Richard Karberg, Anne T. Kmieck (former curator of the Cleveland Police Historical Society Museum), John Kostura, Anne Krupa, Richard Wallace LaGassie, Mary Lucak, Robert Mancini, Rebecca McFarland (vice president of the Cleveland Police Historical Society), Thomas Mullady, Michael Nevin, Delmar OHare (volunteer at the Cleveland Police Historical Society Museum), Paul F. Perhacs, Allen P. Pinell, Walter Piszczek, Cynthia Quinlan, Bill Redmond, Tim and Barbara Riley, Arnold Sagalyn (former special assistant to Eliot Ness), Andrew R. Schug (member of the Board of Trustees, Cleveland Police Historical Societygood friend, skilled and fanatical researcher), Ann Sindelar (Western Reserve Historical Society Library), James L. Singler (former registrar at the Ohio Veterans Home, Sandusky), Jan Skaar (Medical Records, the Ohio Veterans Home), Noel A. Slagle (retired assistant professor of Health Education, Cuyahoga Community College), Bob Smith (Holy Cross Cemetery), Don Stragisher, Mark Stueve (Old Erie Street Bookstore), Mary M. Suva (Cuyahoga Community College copy center), Carolyn Svetz (records management officer, Cuyahoga County Archives), Ed Vance, Linda Walker (Brooklyn Police Department), Joanne S. Witbeck, Michael Zaverton (attorney at law), Michael Zemba, and Kenneth A. Zirm (attorney at law, Walter and Haverfield). Thanks also to the staffs of the Cleveland Public Library, the Cleveland State University Library, and the Western Reserve Historical Society Library.