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for bloodstains on the bathtub in Frank Dolezal’s apartment. Also present are Sheriff Martin L. O’Donnell (second from left) and Head Jailer Michael Kilbane (fourth from left).
Cleveland Press
Archives, Cleveland State University.
    Dolezal added a nail to his own coffin when he finally “admitted” that he socialized and drank with Edward Andrassy and Rose Wallace (the tentative identification assigned to victim no. 8). Though the
Plain Dealer
reported that the case against Dolezal had obviously been strengthened by his admission, the fissures in the dam continued to spread. Edward Andrassy’s father, Joseph, insisted to the
Press,
“I never saw that fellow [Frank Dolezal] in my life.” (The official assumption was that the two were at least acquainted.) Also, without providing any explanation, the
Plain Dealer
cautiously indicated, “There appear to be some question [
sic
] as to whether Dolezal is the ‘mad butcher of Kingsbury Run’ and is responsible for all twelve of the torsos discovered in Cleveland between September, 1935, and last August.” In the meantime, Sheriff O’Donnell occupied himself by arranging for his prisoner to take a lie detector test at the police department in East Cleveland (the only municipality to own one), lining up chemist Dr. Enrique E. Ecker of Western Reserve University to validate G. V. Lyons’s analysis of the supposed bloodstains in Dolezal’s bathroom, and checking hospital records to see if the scar on Dolezal’s arm could be linked to the knife fight Edward Andrassy told his sister about in the days before his death.
    S ATURDAY , J ULY 8
    Frank Dolezal amended his story: as the
Press
so quaintly put it, “Dolezal Amplifies Confession.” It seems he was mistaken when he initially told his interrogators that he had dumped Flo Polillo’s head into Lake Erie along with other parts of her body. Upon further reflection, he remembered that he had actually burned her head under an East 34th bridge after pouring gasoline over it. The press dutifully reported these changes in the basic story, but the stark contrast between the two versions of the head’s fate passed by without editorial comment—at least for the time being. The sheriff and some of his deputies immediately and, apparently, in relative secrecy—the few photographs that document the excursion show only Dolezal, the sheriff, and his men—whisked their prisoner over to East 34th so he could point out the exact spot where this minor conflagration had taken place. A half-hour search turned up only a few bones, later identified by Coroner Gerber as having come from a dog, cat, or sheep.
    Dolezal’sadamant refusal to admit he had been responsible for any of the torso killings other than Flo Polillo’s murder raised the issue of whether those victims may have been dispatched and disarticulated by someone else, that Frank Dolezal’s guilt only extended to the death of victim no. 3, Flo Polillo. Could there be two perpetrators? Consequently, Coroner Sam Gerber announced that he would restudy all the autopsy protocols and related evidence since the killings began. Gerber was something of a Johnny-comelately to the Kingsbury Run murders. He had been elected to the coroner’s office in 1936. The first six victims—seven if one includes the Lady of the Lake killed in 1934—had been murdered on A. J. Pearce’s watch; and, thanks to his activist, hands-on approach, Gerber’s predecessor had already placed his own indelible stamp on all the evidence in the coroner’s office related to those murdered during his tenure. The groundbreaking torso clinic had also been Pearce’s brainchild, not Gerber’s. By publicly announcing his intention to reexamine all the killings—not just those that had occurred since his election—Gerber was, in a sense, taking ownership of the entire murderous cycle. Whether he realized