Further reading for The Beast of Jersey/ The Cleveland Torso killer

The Jersey Monster: A Sex-Fiend’s Fifteen-Year Reign of Terror

In the Wake of the Butcher: Cleveland Torso Murders, Authoritative Edition, Revised and Expanded

Between the years of 1960 and 1971 the British Channel Island of Jersey was terrorized throughout the nights by a man dressed in a rubber mask and nail studded wristlets, he would brutally attack women and children.

Original suspicion fell on and eccentric fisherman Alphonse Gastelois, who was arrested but soon released due to lack of evidence. But police and local suspicion was to remain and his cottage was burnt down in what was believed to be arson. Fearing for his life, Alphonse left Jersey and lived a life of self-imposed exile. even though he was, in the end, cleared of all suspicion.

July 17, 1971 a police officer stopped Edward Paisnel, after he ran a red light and then tried to flee from the police as he had stolen the car earlier in the night. While searching the car, the police find, several pointed stick and other pieces of the notable “Beast costume”

Edward was convicted of 13 counts of assault, rape, and sodomy and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

and an old timey torso killer….

Cleveland OH, 1930’s as few as twelve to as many as twenty victims were killed in the same manner, always beheaded, often dismembered, and occasionally having their torso severed in half. Some of the victims also showed to have chemical treatment applied to the body and all the male victims were castrated.

The victims were usually drifters whose identities were in most of the cases never determined. Most of them were the “working poor” of the era and could not afford to live but the depression era Shanty towns making them easy pray for the killer.

There were a few suspects in the case, most notably, Francis Sweeney, a veteran of World War I. He was part of a medical unit that conducted amputations, he was interviewed by the detective who oversaw the investigation and was said to have “failed to pass” to polygraph test, but you have to remember that polygraph testing at this time was still in its infancy. However, an arrest never came to fruitarian.

As late as 1997 theories were still being brought to the surface, one being that the murders were all committed by different people. This was based on an assumption that the autopsy results of the time were inconclusive and the only thing known for certain was that the victims were all dismembered.

Episode 102

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