Book Project by Cabot VanNieuwenhuyzen

American Demon by Daniel Stashower

27cxvannieuwenhuyzen — 2025-04-23 15:29:32 UTC

Eliot Ness

27cxvannieuwenhuyzen — 2025-04-23 15:32:01 UTC

He is fearless, determined, confident, and persistent. Important actions he has done are take down Al Capone, strive to find Torso Killer, and purify the Cleveland police department

Significant Events

27cxvannieuwenhuyzen — 2025-04-23 15:34:01 UTC

A woman's dead body shows up on the beach of Lake Eerie and she was so brutally murdered that they can’t get a proper ID

This causes much of Cleveland and the police department to be on high alert. Very extensive searches for the killer have taken place.

A killer still hasn’t been caught. Many more bodies have been found, but they were unidentifiable. The entire city of Cleveland is being terrorized and the citizens are scared. If something doesn’t happen soon, many are worried a killer will never be caught.

Eliot Ness recently moved to Cleveland and immediately dove into this case. He spent many hours searching for the killer.

Eliot Ness led a raid on an illegal casino. Many were scared of the casino's owner so he never got in trouble. That was until Eliot Ness stepped in. He assembled tons of police officers and forced their way into the casino.

Taking down the casino made many people aware of his power. They all started to believe from this point on that he could actually take down the Killer

Setting

27cxvannieuwenhuyzen — 2025-04-23 15:41:32 UTC

The events happen during the 1930s in Cleveland. It spans over the course of 4 years. It takes place during the Great Depression so much of society is poor and not nearly as advanced as they need to be to catch this killer. Most of the killings took place in a section of Cleveland called Kingsbury run. Kingsbury run was notorious for being a lawless and dangerous area. This meant that the people murdered by the Torso Killer were not missed. The police didn’t take as much notice early on in the case for that reason.

Author’s Purpose

27cxvannieuwenhuyzen — 2025-04-23 15:43:45 UTC

I think the theme of this book is “Those who commit a crime will always be convicted.” I think this is the overall message because much of this book is spent on how hard the police worked to catch this killer. DNA samples have been found from the bodies left by the killer. This means that eventually someone will be linked and convicted of these crimes. I think the author was very interested in this case personally. He did an amazing job of collecting different sources from this time period and stitching them together. His interest in this topic impacted greatly how he wrote the book. When reading it, it is very easy to tell how much he cared for this topic.

Rhetorical Appeals

27cxvannieuwenhuyzen — 2025-04-23 15:46:53 UTC

Ethos: Many of the detectives put on this case were trusted, credible people of the community. The author would go into detail about the reasons why they were put on the case and helped convey their credibility

Pathos: The author went very in depth on every person murdered. He would go into detail about who they were and the life they lived. This really made the reader connect with them on a personal level.

Logos: The author would use many different statistics and data sheets about past murderers in the book. This help push the story forward and explained the reasoning for every action the detectives took that seemed minuscule/inconsequential.

Quotation

27cxvannieuwenhuyzen — 2025-04-23 15:48:24 UTC

“Cleveland’s detective bureau launched a massive effort, putting in hundreds of hours of overtime. When conventional methods failed to bring results, they pushed themselves to devise fresh ones. A veteran detective named Peter Merylo even set himself out as bait, disguised in hobo gear…” Pg. 190

Song

27cxvannieuwenhuyzen — 2025-04-23 15:51:33 UTC

The overall message of this song is to never give up and I think that relates greatly to the Cleveland Police Department. They spent years on this case and never surrendered even when it seemed impossible. Many are still trying to find out who the killer was today. They also are never gonna give up.

Francis E. Sweeney

27cxvannieuwenhuyzen — 2025-04-23 15:55:26 UTC

This is the real identity of the person who many believe was the torso killer.

Florence Polillo

27cxvannieuwenhuyzen — 2025-04-23 16:00:22 UTC

One of the Torso Killers victims

Newspaper Clipping

27cxvannieuwenhuyzen — 2025-04-23 18:34:54 UTC

This is a newspaper clipping from a Cleveland publishing company during the 1930s

WKYC Covering the Cleveland Torso Killer

27cxvannieuwenhuyzen — 2025-04-23 18:38:20 UTC

Citations

27cxvannieuwenhuyzen — 2025-04-23 18:56:47 UTC

Stashower, Daniel. American Demon, Minotaur Books, New York, 2022

American Demon. (Online Image) MacMillan Publishers, 23 Apr 2025

Elliot Ness. (Online Image) Wikipedia, 23 Apr 2025

Kingsbury Run. (Online Image) Cleveland Historical, 23 Apr 2025

Francis Sweeney. (Online Image) New York Post, 23 Apr 2025

Florence Polillo. (Online Image) Cleveland Police Museum, 23 Apr 2025

Newspaper Clipping (Online Image) Tales From The Underworld, 23 Apr. 2025

“Sia - Never Give Up (from the Lion Soundtrack) [Lyric Video].” Sia, YouTube. 3 Jan. 2017. Online. 23 Apr. 2025

”New effort to identify victims of Cleveland’s infamous Torso Murders.” WKYC Channel 3. YouTube. 10 July. 2024. Online. 23 Apr. 2025.