May 3, 1940, was unseasonably cool and rainy, with temperatures dipping into the high 30s. At the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad scrap yard in McKees Rocks, John Salack of Pittock was demolishing and burning obsolete wooden rail cars. On the third car from the rear of a string of 50, Salack smelled something bad. He brought over Leroy Rust of McKees Rocks and inspector Harry Gross. These two clambered into the car and soon found the source of the stench: a man’s torso and limbs wrapped in burlap or covered with paper and placed in the corners of the car.

As police detectives and morgue attendants carted off the remains, workers found a second body, dismembered in the same way, in the seventh rail car from the end of the string. A few minutes later, the men found a third body in another car, this one beheaded, burned and having the 5-inch word “NAZI” carved into its chest, with the “z” facing backward. All the victims had been dead for weeks.

Investigators said the killer was skilled with a knife and knew something of human anatomy. Only one was identified — an Illinois burglar named James David Nicholson. The killer was never found.

Then as now, people speculated whether these crimes were committed by the “Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run,” perpetrator of the Cleveland torso murders. Those notorious, unsolved murders took place between 1935 and 1938 in the Flats area of Cleveland. Twelve deaths are officially credited to the killer, who dismembered his victims, often drifters — sometimes while they were still alive.

From Oct. 6, 1925, to June 22, 1942, 11 dismembered bodies were found in Pittsburgh’s rivers or a swampy area near New Castle.

Oct. 6, 1925: A hunter in the swampy area between the New Castle Junction and West Pittsburg saw a human leg protruding from under a fallen tree. His discovery turned out to be the nude, headless body of a young man partly buried in the marshes. Later, authorities found the victim’s head and clothing, minus the shoes.

Oct. 17, 1925: Some boys hunting squirrels found another headless body in the swamps, according to the Harrisburg Telegraph. The body wore a working shirt and a pair of underwear, the paper stated. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette disagreed, saying a rotted pair of shoes and a penknife were the only belongings authorities could find. A long-bladed knife was found nearby. Police began combing the swamps looking for more bodies. They suspected the area was being used by gangs as a corpse dumping ground.

Oct. 19, 1925: Three men helping the searchers found the skull of a woman in the swamps. By this time, the local mood was hysteria. By Oct. 21, authorities gave up searching the swamp, according to the Tyrone Daily Herald. The area was too large and the conditions too marshy to continue.

Around July 3, 1936: Railroad car inspectors at a slag dump near the P&LE Railroad yards in New Castle found a badly decomposed body in a box car. The remains were “practically a skeleton,” according to The Pittsburgh Press. “The head had been cut off with surgical precision.” The remains had no clothing and were wrapped in newspapers dating from July 20 and 21, 1933. The victim’s identity was never learned.

Oct. 13, 1939: Three boys hunting walnuts in the New Castle swamps stumbled upon the headless, nude body of a young man hidden by 6-foot-high weeds. The boys ran one and a half miles to tell police. According to a county detective, the killer had walked the victim, age 18 or 19, about 5 feet 6 inches and 120 pounds, into the woods, killed and decapitated him. The killer then built a fire and put the body face down on top of it. The hands and fingertips were also burned to destroy any fingerprints. On Oct. 18, a railroad car inspector found the victim’s head in a P&LE railroad car near the swamp. The car had been shifted, but used to be closer to the site of the body. Authorities believed that after the murder, the killer had tossed the severed head into the rail car. The victim had long, sandy hair, and the crime location was near a “Hobo Jungle” of homeless drifters. Neither the victim nor the killer was ever identified.

May 25, 1941: Two men who got off a freight train in Moon Township found a man’s leg washed up on the Ohio River bank. The leg was amputated at the right hip “as though the work of a skilled surgeon,” according to the Allentown, Pa., Morning Call. A second neatly amputated leg washed up the river bank at Neville Island on May 31.

Sept. 24, 1941: Three men picking scrap iron along the Monongahela River on the South Side found another headless body. The head was about 30 feet away. Police determined the dead man was Wallace Brown, 35, an auto mechanic and known criminal.

June 22, 1942: The Coast Guard found yet another decapitated body on the Monongahela near the Brady Street Bridge. The body was nude had only two identifying features – – two vaccination scars on the left arm and a surgical scar on the abdomen. Police identified the victim the next day as Ernest Alonzo, between 25 and 30, of Donora, an unemployed zinc worker with a history of heavy drinking. The bridge has been replaced by the Birmingham Bridge.

Famous lawman Eliot Ness, who had brought down mobster Al Capone, was safety director of Cleveland during the mid to late 1930s and investigated the torso murders. Evidence indicates Ness believed the killer was surgeon Francis E. Sweeney, who had conducted many amputations during World War I. Sweeney was the first cousin of a U.S. congressman who was highly critical of Ness’ work on the investigation. Historians have speculated that this connection may have protected him from prosecution. On Aug. 25, 1938, Sweeney committed himself to a mental hospital and stayed in institutions until his death in 1965. From the hospital, someone using Sweeney’s name wrote taunting postcards to Ness until Ness’ death in 1957.

All the cases remain unsolved.

Grady ''The Lobster Man'' Stiles Jr.