Death mask of victim; sketch showing approximation of Rose Wallace at the time she disappeared.
Death mask of victim; sketch showing approximation of Rose Wallace at the time she disappeared.
Date of Discovery: June 6, 1937
Location of Discovery: Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, Ohio
Estimated Date of Death: 1 year prior
State of Remains: Skeletal
Cause of Death: Homicide by decapitation
Estimated Age: Unknown
Race: Black
Sex: Female
Height: 4'11" or shorter
Weight: Unknown
Hair: Black, curly and kinky
Eye Color: Unknown
Distinguishing Marks/Features: On examination there is an extremely wide nasal aperture. The alveolar ridges are quite prominent with considerable prognathism. The texture of the bone is quite fine. Due to this, the wide nasal aperture and the prominent alveolar prognathism together with the penchant for gold crowns prominently displayed on the teeth suggest the victim to be a Black female.
Dentals: Unknown. Extensive dental work with gold crowns.
Fingerprints: Unknown.
DNA: Unknown.
Clothing: Unknown. Extensive dental work with gold crowns.
Jewelry: Unknown
Additional Personal Items: Unknown
The victim was located beneath the Lorain-Carnegie bridge on June 6, 1937. Lying in a rotting burlap bag, along with a newspaper from June of the previous year, was the partial skeleton of a woman who had been dead approximately one year. She was tentatively identified as Rose Wallace, however, it was estimated that victim number 8 had been dead one year when found, which casts some doubt that the victim was Wallace, who was known to have disappeared only ten months earlier. Dental work was considered a close match both by police experts and by her son, who felt certain that the victim was his mother. A definitive identification was not possible however, since the dentist who performed the work had died years before.
The skeleton had been wrapped in a piece of newspaper that carried an advertisement for a certain performance at the Palace Theater in June of 1936. Detective Orley May contacted the manager at the theater. The manager confirmed that the Nils T. Grantlund girls performed a review at the theater in June of 1936 and that they were playing in New York City at the time this victim was discovered. He did not recall any of the girls missing from the company while they were in Cleveland. The police were sent a letter referencing a long-dead dentist and proposing that the victim was a prostitute named Rose Wallace. After a lengthy investigation of Rose Wallace’s life and her August 1936 disappearance, both Dr. Gerber and Sergeant Hogan rejected the identification. Detective Merylo however firmly believed the victim to be Rose.
The unidentified female became known as "victim 8." The Cleveland Torso Murderer was an unidentified serial killer active in the Cleveland, Ohio, area in the early 20th century. The official toll of the murderer was 12, killed between 1935 to 1938, but some believe that there may have been as many as 40+ victims in the Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Youngstown, Ohio, area between the 1920s and the 1950s. Two strong candidates for addition to the list of those killed are an unidentified victim known as "Lady of the Lake," found on September 5, 1934, and Robert Robertson, found on July 22, 1950.
The serial killings officially stopped in 1938. The last victim, Victim Ten, was killed in April of 1938 even though remains of Victims Eleven and Twelve were found in mid-August of that year.
The other unidentified victims believed to be related to this case are 885UFOH, 1788UMOH, 121UMOH, 1789UMOH, 1790UMOH, 886UFOH, 1791UMOH,888UFOH, 1792UMOH and 889UFOH.
Agency Name: Cuyahoga County Coroner's Office
Agency Contact Person: N/A
Agency Phone Number: 216-721-5610 or 216-698-4267
Agency E-Mail: N/A
Agency Case Number: Victim 8
NCIC Case Number: Unknown
NamUs Case Number: Not listed
Former Hot Case Number: 252
Cleveland Police Museum
Torso Murders - The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
Wikipedia: Cleveland Torso Murderer
Cleveland Torso Murders
Crime Library: The Kingsbury Run Murders or Cleveland Torso Murders
The Maniac in the Bushes
Torso by Steven Nickel
Added: 2/27/07; Last Updated: 3/5/18
Questions or comments? Please contact appropriate member of the Area Team
** Listed information may be estimated.
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