Nearly a century after the "Torso Killer" terrorized Cleveland, DNA testing is underway to identify victims

Almost a century after a serial killer known as the "Torso Killer" stalked Cleveland, Ohio, authorities are using DNA testing to identify his victims. 

The killer, who was also known as the "Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run," murdered and dismembered at least 12 people between 1935 and 1938, according to the Cleveland Police Museum. Many of the bodies were decapitated and the heads never found, making identification difficult. Bodies were rarely found whole, and just two of the victims were ever identified. 

The killer was never formally identified or arrested, but police believe it was a surgeon named Francis E. Sweeney, who would have had access to facilities to dismember bodies and known how to do so. Sweeney was interrogated by police for a week, but he never confessed to the crimes, according to the Cleveland Police Museum. However, after he committed himself to a sanitorium, the murders stopped.