appeared to be an almost insurmountable obstacleâat best, Herculean, at worst, absolutely impossible. The Grand Jury would reconvene on Monday, July 24 for a week; and Acting Prosecutor John J. Mahon was reluctant to take the remaining shreds and tatters of the Dolezal affair before that legal body without some sort of review. He, therefore, announced to the press he would personally be going over the police records of the torso killings inâwhat the
Plain Dealer
described asâa search âfor clews not generally known by persons outside the police department which would tend to give credence to Dolezalâs reported confession.â It was the sort of reassuring but ultimately meaningless pronouncement public officials often make when they find themselves caught in a bind. The hunt for the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run ranked as the most massive and intense police investigation in Cleveland history; the combined departmental records coupled with the papers from the coronerâs office would total literally thousands upon thousands of pages. (Peter Meryloâs surviving reports alone add up to a stack of paper over a foot high.) The notion that anyone in the prosecutorâs office not already deeply immersed in the details of the case could sift through this veritable Everest of documentation in time for a presentation before the Grand Jury five days later is ludicrous. It would take legions of clerks and other legal personnel months to process all the existing information, and Mahon finally conceded that his office would have to wait until the Grand Jury reconvened in September to outline its case and seek an indictment.
Mahon clearly knew he was in trouble. âIt was about this time that I was called into the county prosecutorâs office and asked what I knew about Frank Dolezal,â Merylo writes in the memoirs he coauthored with
Cleveland News
reporter Frank Otwell. âI told the prosecutor [apparently John Mahon, although Merylo does not specifically name him at this point], and I suspect he knew it already, that I had Frank Dolezal in on two occasions and that if I had thought there was enough to make a case on him, I would not have turned him loose.â When Mahon cautioned the detective that he would probably be called to testify before the Grand Jury, Merylo fired back, âI canât tell the grand jury much more than I have already told you about the suspect.â Then he stormed out of the office thundering indignantly that when he arrested anyone, he didnât need to subpoena the sheriff to help him make the case.
In the two weeks following his arrest, Frank Dolezal was the cityâs biggest story. All three Cleveland dailies followed and reported on every new development in the emerging case against him; Sheriff OâDonnell and his deputies initially became instant celebrities courted, quoted, and photographed by a press establishment eager for details. Everything about Dolezal became grist for the voracious newspaper mill. Reporters dug into his background, explored his work history, ransacked his personal life, and canvassed his acquaintances in an ongoing campaign to keep the story of him and his alleged connections to the Kingsbury Run murder-dismemberments on the front pages of city papers. They mulled over his apparent jovial sociability when he was sober and leered at his rages and crying jags when the demons of alcohol possessed him; they examined his reported craving for knives and traced in detail all the lurid tales of his odd behavior willingly supplied by his neighbors. Newspapers ran photographs of the dilapidated East 20thâCentral Avenue neighborhood to show the suspicious proximity of some of the relevant sites in the Kingsbury Run murder cycle: Frank Dolezalâs old apartment on Central, the bar at the corner of East 20th and Central where he and Flo Polillo both drank, the spot behind Hart Manufacturing where the initial set of her
Plain Dealer
described asâa search âfor clews not generally known by persons outside the police department which would tend to give credence to Dolezalâs reported confession.â It was the sort of reassuring but ultimately meaningless pronouncement public officials often make when they find themselves caught in a bind. The hunt for the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run ranked as the most massive and intense police investigation in Cleveland history; the combined departmental records coupled with the papers from the coronerâs office would total literally thousands upon thousands of pages. (Peter Meryloâs surviving reports alone add up to a stack of paper over a foot high.) The notion that anyone in the prosecutorâs office not already deeply immersed in the details of the case could sift through this veritable Everest of documentation in time for a presentation before the Grand Jury five days later is ludicrous. It would take legions of clerks and other legal personnel months to process all the existing information, and Mahon finally conceded that his office would have to wait until the Grand Jury reconvened in September to outline its case and seek an indictment.
Mahon clearly knew he was in trouble. âIt was about this time that I was called into the county prosecutorâs office and asked what I knew about Frank Dolezal,â Merylo writes in the memoirs he coauthored with
Cleveland News
reporter Frank Otwell. âI told the prosecutor [apparently John Mahon, although Merylo does not specifically name him at this point], and I suspect he knew it already, that I had Frank Dolezal in on two occasions and that if I had thought there was enough to make a case on him, I would not have turned him loose.â When Mahon cautioned the detective that he would probably be called to testify before the Grand Jury, Merylo fired back, âI canât tell the grand jury much more than I have already told you about the suspect.â Then he stormed out of the office thundering indignantly that when he arrested anyone, he didnât need to subpoena the sheriff to help him make the case.
In the two weeks following his arrest, Frank Dolezal was the cityâs biggest story. All three Cleveland dailies followed and reported on every new development in the emerging case against him; Sheriff OâDonnell and his deputies initially became instant celebrities courted, quoted, and photographed by a press establishment eager for details. Everything about Dolezal became grist for the voracious newspaper mill. Reporters dug into his background, explored his work history, ransacked his personal life, and canvassed his acquaintances in an ongoing campaign to keep the story of him and his alleged connections to the Kingsbury Run murder-dismemberments on the front pages of city papers. They mulled over his apparent jovial sociability when he was sober and leered at his rages and crying jags when the demons of alcohol possessed him; they examined his reported craving for knives and traced in detail all the lurid tales of his odd behavior willingly supplied by his neighbors. Newspapers ran photographs of the dilapidated East 20thâCentral Avenue neighborhood to show the suspicious proximity of some of the relevant sites in the Kingsbury Run murder cycle: Frank Dolezalâs old apartment on Central, the bar at the corner of East 20th and Central where he and Flo Polillo both drank, the spot behind Hart Manufacturing where the initial set of her
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