It's one of the first known instances of serial killing in the United States. From 1934 to 1938, at least 13 victims were murdered and decapitated along Cleveland's "Kingsbury Run" riverbed by a killer who was never formally identified or charged.
This Saturday, June 6th, Kingsbury Run, a feature-length drama written and directed by East Liverpool, Ohio police detective Jon Price, will have its premiere in Cleveland at the Capitol Theatre. It follows a 2003 documentary about the case, The Fourteenth Victim, and a 2018 independent feature titled The Kingsbury Run.
What makes the case so compelling is that Eliot Ness arrived on the scene as Cleveland's new Safety Director shortly after the crime spree began, to clean up America's so-called "most dangerous city." He was successful on other fronts, but when it came to the "Torso Murders," although Ness eventually zeroed in on a prime suspect, anonymously labeled Dr. X, no arrests or trial ever came about.
'Ness had a suspect who he believed was undoubtedly the killer," states the Cleveland Police Museum's case file. 'This suspect continued to taunt Ness for years after the killings had stopped.'
'Most likely, Dr. X was Francis E. Sweeney, an intelligent, skilled and very troubled surgeon who lived near Kingsbury Run,' the file continues. 'Despite a week-long interrogation by Ness and other high-level investigators, Sweeney never confessed. However, immediately after Sweeney committed himself to a sanitorium, the murders stopped.'
Price and his producer Brian Jones were previously involved with short films, but this is their first feature-length effort. In recent years, non-profit the DNA Doe Project has been working with the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office to try and identify some of the unknown "Torso Murders" victims.
Former Navy SEAL diver Angelo Oddo, who also helped with Kingsbury Run's art direction, leads the film as Detective Merlyo, while Jim Osso, a retired Ohio corrections officer, portrays Ness. Michael Carrino meanwhile is Dr. Edward Francis Sweeney. Some of the movie was shot at East Liverpool's historic Thompson House, completed in 1876.
[Facebook: Kingsbury Run]
I went to a showing of this movie today. The discussion before the movie was decent. I assumed that this would be a documentary. It was an attempt at a drama. I hate to pan the efforts of the people that made this movie, but I would rate it a D-. You could barely make out the dialogue. The actors were terrible. Scenes were way too long. If you had some teenagers who made a movie on their cell phones, you would probably have a better movie. Half the audience left at the intermission. Nice try for the directors, but this was God awful.
ReplyDeleteWow. Thanks for the feedback. Half the audience walking out at intermission is never good.
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