| rdfs:comment | - Eugene Victor Tooms was a genetic mutant serial killer who was capable of squeezing his body through narrow gaps; his unique muscle and bone structures allowed for extreme elongation and contortion of his body. He also had an incredibly low metabolic rate, allowing him to slip into hibernation periods lasting thirty years at a time. Between these periods of hibernation, Tooms would feed on human livers; usually five livers were consumed by murdering random citizens and removing the organ from each victim with his bare hands. Tooms would typically hibernate at the same location, in a nest made of newspaper strips glued together with his own bile. (TXF: "Squeeze", "Tooms")
- In 1873, Tooms was born in Baltimore, Maryland. At one point in his life, he was enrolled in college. In 1903, details about Tooms were recorded in the Baltimore County Census, in which he was said to be living in an apartment at 66 Exeter Street. This building was where, by 1993, he had assumed a space for himself in an old coal cellar that contained his nest and several personal belongings taken from his victims. Also in 1903, Tooms killed Edwardo Jeffers, the occupant of a room above the one he was reportedly living at. Tooms was working as a dog catcher employed by Baltimore Animal Regulations at this time.
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| abstract | - Eugene Victor Tooms was a genetic mutant serial killer who was capable of squeezing his body through narrow gaps; his unique muscle and bone structures allowed for extreme elongation and contortion of his body. He also had an incredibly low metabolic rate, allowing him to slip into hibernation periods lasting thirty years at a time. Between these periods of hibernation, Tooms would feed on human livers; usually five livers were consumed by murdering random citizens and removing the organ from each victim with his bare hands. Tooms would typically hibernate at the same location, in a nest made of newspaper strips glued together with his own bile. (TXF: "Squeeze", "Tooms")
- In 1873, Tooms was born in Baltimore, Maryland. At one point in his life, he was enrolled in college. In 1903, details about Tooms were recorded in the Baltimore County Census, in which he was said to be living in an apartment at 66 Exeter Street. This building was where, by 1993, he had assumed a space for himself in an old coal cellar that contained his nest and several personal belongings taken from his victims. Also in 1903, Tooms killed Edwardo Jeffers, the occupant of a room above the one he was reportedly living at. Tooms was working as a dog catcher employed by Baltimore Animal Regulations at this time. In 1933, Tooms murdered five victims, killing two of them in Powhattan Mill, but he accidentally left fingerprints at three of the five locations where he had committed each murder. (TXF: "Squeeze") One of Tooms' victims was a young male; Tooms gnawed on his rib-cage at a point near the location of the victim's liver before burying the body in cement at the Ruxton Chemical Plant, which was under construction, but Tooms failed to sufficiently hide a piece of the liver and it was later found while the chemical plant was still not complete. (TXF: "Tooms") The Powhattan Mill murders were investigated by Sheriff Frank Briggs who, despite having previously seen numerous bloody murders, was shocked by the killings. (TXF: "Squeeze") Even though no evidence linked Tooms to the piece of liver unearthed in the Ruxton Chemical Plant, Sheriff Briggs correctly assumed it was from one of Tooms' victims who had not yet been found as it did not match any of the other bodies. A particular missing person was correctly suspected of being the victim who was unaccounted for, though this suspicion would only be confirmed sixty years later. The piece of liver ended up in Briggs' possession and, sixty years later, he would admit to having a strong hunch that Tooms had hidden the body because there was something about it that could prove his guilt. (TXF: "Tooms") In 1963, Tooms killed another five victims, accidentally leaving two fingerprints, both at Powhattan Mill. By this year, Tooms had been granted responsibility of driving a van in conjunction with his job. Frank Briggs realized that the recent murders and those in 1933 had been committed by the same killer. As he was not permitted to officially investigate the recent killings due to having been assigned a desk job by the Baltimore Police Department, Briggs nevertheless unofficially investigated the murders, collecting evidence concerning them and taking several surveillance pictures, including one of Tooms and another of the building where he lived. One of the victims Tooms killed between 1903 and 1963 had the last name Walters and another had the surname Taylor. Tooms would take a small item from each victim, such as a hairbrush from Walters and a coffee mug from Taylor; the victims' families reported the small personal affects missing in each case, a fact that Frank Briggs learned. Although these eleven murders were officially unsolved, evidence and information about the killings was recorded in an X-File. (TXF: "Squeeze")
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