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Contact: Mark Stone/216.228.1441
mail@storytellersmediagroup.com

For Immediate Release
June 10, 2003

Cleveland, OH – G-Man Eliot Ness and the Kingsbury Run Torso Murders subject of a feature length documentary entitled The Fourteenth Victim.

Can the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run – who might be exposed once and for all by means of DNA – claim Cleveland’s best-known Safety Director as yet another victim?

Storytellers Media Group, Ltd explores this and other mysteries in the June 2003 release of The Fourteenth Victim - Eliot Ness and the Torso Murders.

On the heels of his Chicago triumphs over Al Capone’s empire, America’s favorite G-Man was recruited in 1935 to be Safety Director of Cleveland. A gifted leader, Ness set about cleaning up “the most dangerous city in America” and within three years Cleveland earned the National Safety Award. He was seen as a boy scout, but in fact was a bit of a bon vivant who hobnobbed with the power elite and was married three times.

For Ness, modernizing safety standards, toppling gangsters and ridding the city of organized crime and corruption was one thing – tracking down the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run was quite another. Also known as the Torso Killer, the Butcher appeared from nowhere when Ness took office, left 13 dismembered victims in his wake and slashed through newspaper headlines of the day. For three years, and even beyond, this shocking specter scared the citizens of Cleveland to their core. The investigation is said to have been a defining episode that entangled Ness and profoundly affected him, cutting short his life.

During production of The Fourteenth Victim, breaking developments prompted Cleveland area authorities to reactivate the case by performing DNA tests in 2003 on trace evidence found on postcards sent to Ness in his latter years. This evidence may point ever more clearly toward Ness’ “secret suspect,” whose own audacity provided today’s investigators – via Eliot Ness himself – with the very evidence that could make a posthumous conviction possible. The Fourteenth Victim addresses the reappearance of this evidence, and leaves results of the renewed investigation by the Cuyahoga County Coroner and the Cleveland Police Department to follow-up installments in Fall 2003.

Primary sources of photographs for The Fourteenth Victim were provided through a partnership with the Cleveland Police Historical Society. Archival materials also came from Cleveland State University Special Collections, Cuyahoga County archives, Cleveland Public Library, Western Reserve Historical Society and private collections. The documentary features interviews with authors Paul Heimel and James Badal, Cleveland historian Rebecca McFarland and well-known Cleveland artist and friend of Eliot Ness, Viktor Schreckengost. Original music evoking the Ness era was created by composer Carl Michel and performed by The Carl Michel Group.

For program availability and airdates of The Fourteenth Victim – Eliot Ness and the Torso Murders, call producer Mark Stone at (216) 228-1441, or Robert Cermak with the Cleveland Police Museum at (216) 623-5055. For additional information on Storytellers Media Group visit www.storytellersmediagroup.com.

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