THE DEMON BUTCHER OF PALOS PARK

In the 1890s, in Palos Park, a man by the name of Butcher had a butcher shop that was doing well until a big depression hit America. Livestock was hard to come by and many other butchers and stockyards went out of business. Butcher had good links and was able to stay in business but had to raise his prices due to the shortage of meat.
A shipment of beef came one day and Butcher's trainee was carrying the load to the basement meat locker. He tried to take to much at one time and he fell down the stairs. His neck snapped and he died on the spot.
Butcher didn't know what to do, he thought that the police would think that he pushed him down the stairs. Instead of telling anybody he hid the body in the meat locker.

When the young man's parents came looking for him Butcher told them that he hadn't seen him in several days. The boy's father was skeptical about the story and went to the police. Detectives questioned Butcher at length. They left but Butcher became more and more uneasy about the situation. Seeing that livestock was getting harder to come by, Butcher came up with a ghastly idea.
He went back to his shop in the dark of night and cut up part of the boy's body, then wrapped it up and sold it as beef. His customers thought the meat was great and wanted more. Butcher cut up the rest of the body until it was all gone. He was worried that if his customers couldn't get more of the meat that they would start asking where they could get it for themselves.
So butcher would go out at night and find hoboes from the railroad and bums that he knew wouldn't be missed. He offered them free food to get them to come to his shop. He murdered them and sold them as beef. His customers just loved the meat but the supply disappeared and he had the problem of not having any stock again.
When the first child disappeared the people were worried but couldn't imagine that there was a murderer among them. When more children went missing they started wondering what really happened to Butcher's apprentice. A mob of local men broke into his shop and started searching. In the meat locker they found packages of body parts all over and the remains of one child hanging from a meat hook.
The angry mob went to his house and dragged him out on the lawn. They attacked him with knives axes and hammers. They cut off his head and buried it under the fire pit on Indian Hill. His body was buried in a nearby cemetery and his name was the only thing on the gravestone.
It is reported that you can hear his meat cleaver banging against the headstone and they say it is the sound of Butcher cutting up his victims.

THE DEMON BUTCHER OF PALOS PARK