Timothy O'Bryan

popular name: Dr. Francis E. Sweeney

date_of_death: July 9, 1964

age: 70

cause_of_death: Natural causes

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: From 1935 to 1938, 12 bodies – some people say 13 - were dumped in the area known as Kingsbury Run, a creek bed that ran from East 90th Street and Kinsman Road to the Cuyahoga River. The victims included seven men and five women. Most were hobos and prostitutes, people living on the edge at a time when Cleveland was hard hit by the Great Depression. Many weren't missed for months. Then 80 years after Frank Dolezal was murdered in his prison cell as the suspected serial killer, multiple investigators have uncovered both old and new evidence that most certainly points to Dr. Francis Sweeney as the actual Cleveland Torso Murderer. Dr. Sweeney perfectly fit the profile of the Cleveland Torso Murderer and had the medical expertise required for dismembering human bodies. Alas we was never arrested as he committed himself to a mental hospital after extensive questioning by Eliot Ness, special agent assigned to the killings. He died in 1964 and was interred at Calvary Cemetery in Cleveland, OH.

popular name: Sam Giancana

date_of_death: June 19, 1975

age: 67

cause_of_death: Homicide - gunshot wounds

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Sam Giancana started out as a wheelman for Al Capone and worked his way to the top of Chicago's illegal gambling operations. He had many ties with politicians, including the Kennedys, and was called to testify regarding Mafia involvement in a CIA plot to assassinate Castro. Giancana himself was killed in his own home before giving testimony.

popular name: H. H. Holmes

date_of_death: May 7, 1896

age: 34

cause_of_death: Execution by hanging

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: The country’s first serial killer was a smooth-talking doctor who ran a murder hotel in Chicago. The tale of H. H. Holmes and his Murder Castle is perhaps one of the most fascinating cases in American criminal history. Born Herman Webster Mudgett, he was a bright young doctor who had graduated from high school at sixteen and always had a penchant for anything to do with death. While enrolled in the University of Michigan’s Department of Medicine and Surgery, he worked under Professor William James Herdman in the university’s anatomy lab. The pair were said to have aided body snatching to supply bodies as medical cadavers, which Mudgett then burned or disfigured with acid, then planted to it look as if they had been killed in an accident. Mudgett began taking out insurance policies on these people—before he stole, disfigured, and planted them—and would later collect the insurance money once the bodies were discovered. After graduation, Mudgett started a new job working at a Philadelphia drugstore. When a child died after taking medicine purchased from the drugstore Mudgett was employed at, the young doctor denied any involvement and immediately left the city. Before he moved to Chicago, he changed his name to avoid any connection to his previous scams. Herman Webster Mudgett, M.D., donned the name Henry Howard Holmes. In 1893, the bustling city of Chicago won the honor of hosting the World’s Columbian Exposition. While the World’s Fair brought millions of visitors from all over the world, nearby, a clever killer hid in plain sight, capitalizing off of the slaughter of naive tourists. For the next two years Holmes either killed or is suspected of killing around two dozen people using his murder mansion residences to facility cruel and diabolical murder of men, women, and even children. He was finally caught and convicted of murder in 1894 and executed in 1985. Until the moment of his death, Holmes remained calm and amiable, showing very few signs of fear, anxiety, or depression. Despite this, he asked for his coffin to be contained in concrete and buried ten feet deep, because he was concerned grave robbers would steal his body and use it for dissection. Despite popular belief, Holmes's neck did not break; he instead strangled to death slowly, twitching for over fifteen minutes before being pronounced dead. He was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Yeadon, Pennsylvania.