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@the story

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In actuality, Eliot Ness amounted to far more than one half of yet another American match between cops and robbers, or a modern marshal living out the Western mystique by running the bad guys out of town - though he certainly did do all that and more. Like the rest of us, Ness was multidimensional - he was a bit of a bonvivant who enjoyed a drink or two, hung out with some of Cleveland's prominent artistic circles of his time, and cared about the downtrodden. He suffered two disappointing and childless marriages, yet finally met his soul mate in Elisabeth, with whom he adopted a son, Robert. Eliot Ness is routinely described by those who knew him or studied him as kind, quiet, tenacious, curious, humble and hard working.

His time in Cleveland, Ohio - compared to that in Chicago - ran far deeper and longer, and cast Eliot Ness as not just Director of Public Safety and modern reformer of a lax and shady municipal structure, who made the city of Cleveland a more livable one. Ness also became a reluctant but intrepid warrior in a decidedly darker, chilling and supreme battle between nothing less than the forces of good and evil. And whether it seems a matter of fate or just timing, it appears Ness did, indeed, find and crush the killer - but at tremendous cost to Eliot Ness.

The case of the Torso Murderer left behind whatever innocence remained from the 1900s; it needed no twentieth century mythologizing to be rendered, in turn, gripping and decidedly frightening, still calling for resolution, well into a new millennium. Such conflict was also testament to the bravery and tenacity of Cleveland's finest: rank and file detectives like Peter Merylo, as well as other police officers under Ness' command who for years chased down every lead, unearthed unspeakably grisly remains, and suffered the indignities of going underground to ferret out this inhuman abomination

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But was the case ever cracked? Only recently has the haze truly begun to lift...

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For Ness, his face off with the Torso Murderer was plainly the turning point in his reputation and career - much of which he sacrificed in an effort to stop the killer in his tracks. Ness's reactions to such brutality were human ones, and he was never the same again.

There is no question that Eliot Ness did as much as any lawman to bring order to a town that clearly was careening out of control before he arrived on the scene. Yet the Torso Murders continued to tear through the headlines of Cleveland's daily papers while Ness remained steadfast at the helm of a new crime-fighting paradigm.

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The man is far more complex than the myth...

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There is a record to be set straight; stark facts are often more compelling than fiction. Such is the case of Eliot Ness, and with the assistance and commentary of premier experts on the subject, such will be the tenor and tone of The Fourteenth Victim - Eliot Ness and the Torso Murders.

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