Case History
The lower half of a women’s torso, thighs still attached, but amputated at the knees, washed up on the shores of Lake Erie just east of Bratenahl in Cuyahoga County, Ohio on September 5, 1934.

A subsequent search yielded only a few other body parts. The head was never found. She has never been identified - she is only referred to as “The Lady of the Lake”.

The coroner noted some sort of chemical preservative on the skin which had turned it red, tough and leathery. It wasn’t until two years later that this victim was included in the official killing total and thus became known as victim #0 in The Cleveland Torso murders, AKA the Kingsbury Run murders. It would be another year before the case began officially, and then it would be in another part of the city-the now infamous Kingsbury Run.

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 the unknown victim nicknamed the 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, the so-called Victim Ten, was killed in April of 1938 even though remains of so-called Victims Eleven and Twelve were found in mid-August of that year.

Investigators
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Agency Case Number:
"victim 0"

NCIC Number:

Please refer to this number when contacting any agency with information regarding this case.

Source Information:
Kinsbury Run Murders
The Crime Library
Kinsbury Run
Wikipedia