Bela Kiss

By 1916 the property of 17 Rakcoczi St, Cinkota in Hungary had been empty for two years. With the world at war it was near impossible to find the previous occupants or owners. So the District Court decided to sell the property. The property was quickly bought by blacksmith Istvan Molnar and his wife and family.

The family moved in shortly after and began renovating the poorly looked after house. Molnar was particularly interested in clearing out the workshop so he could fit his own tools and hardware. The workshop was in complete disaray, there were seven large sealed oildrums in one corner, on top of those was a large pile of old timber and building supplies. Molnar thought it looked as though someone was trying to conceal the drums.

He tried to open one of the heavy drums but it was tightly sealed shut. Molnar thought he'd come back to them later, he had plenty to do around the house. He told his wife about the drums, and how they were heavy and sealed shut. His wife suggested that he should open the drums as they may contain valuable petrol.

So once he had returned to the workshop, Molnar took to trying to open the drums. It took several attempts with a wrench before he opened the first drum. The blacksmith, instantly wretched at the smell permeating from drum. He ran outside reeling from the smell.

His wife came to see what was wrong and looked inside the open drum, she fainted.

Inside the oil drum was the naked corpse of a woman. She had been shoved into the drum feet first and then squashed down inside before the drum was sealed airtight. The seal preserved the body.

The police arrived and quickly the other drums were also unsealed and as suspected they all contained the remains of women. The dead women were all middle-aged and were not on the criminal records files so people turned their energies to finding the previous tenant.

 According to neighbours the previous occupant had always kept to himself and no-one had even known his name. They believe he had gone to fight in the war but were unsure.

The detective in charge of the case, Geza Bialokurszky believe the women had all disappeared in or around 1913 so he compiled a list of missing woman from 1911-1915. The list began as a lengthy compilation of 400 names. But that was quickly whittled down to fifteen after those who were older or younger than the seven bodies were taken off the list. The remaining fifteen names all had one thing in common, they had no living relatives.

So Det Bialokurszky began the arduous task of tracking down the women on his list.

The woman on the list was 36 year old Anna Novak. Anna had suddenly left her employment as a cook in 1911. Her boss found it strange as the woman had been a reliable worker before she disappeared and when she did go she left all of her belongings and her identification papers behind in a trunk at the restaurant. 

In the trunk Det.  Bialokurszky found a page from the Pesti Hirlap newspaper. On it was an advertisement that Anna had circled.

Widower urgently seeks acquaintance of mature warm-hearted spinster or widow to help assuage loneliness mutually. Send phot and details, Poste Restante Central PO Box 717. Marriage possible and even desirable.

With the identification papers and fingerprints off the trunk the police were able to identify Anna as one of the women in the drums.

The next port of call was the post office to see who had owned the postbox in the advertisement. According to the postmaster the box was owned by a man called Elemer Nagy of 14 Kossuth St, Pestszenterzsebet. Police thought they had their man and raced to address only to find is a vacant block. Det.  Bialokurszky knew he was dealing with no ordinary killer. This one was cunning and clever. 

Det. Bialokurszky headed to the newspaper Pesti Hirlap to search their archives for the advertisement they had found in Anna's possession. Det. Bialokurszky found twenty inserts of the advertisement over the years and so he wanted to see the bills- to see who paid for them. The bill was to Elemer Nagy and gave a different address to those already investigated. So off the police went again, however this was also a false lead. The address belonged to a funeral parlour. The killer was laughing at the police.

So now Det. Bialokurszky went public with what he had. He published the signature of Nagy in the pe that someone may indeed recognise it.

Immediately after the signature was published, police received several answers. One was from 27 year old Rosa Diosi. She told Det.  Bialokurszky that the man they seek was Bela Kiss. She had been the man's mistress until he had gone to war. The last she heard was that he had been captured and was incarcerated in a Serbian Prisoner of War camp.

Rose went on to say that though the man seemed meek and mild he was sexually insatiable, she could never please him no matter how many times a day they had sex. She said she had met him through an advertisement in Pesti Hirlap. Many other women told police a similar story about meeting Kiss through the advertisment. However many had short-lived relationships with Kiss. He would take everything they had of value and leave.

Checking with the army they found that Bela Kiss had been conscripted into the armed forces in July 1914. They had a photo of Kiss on file. With knowledge of his sexual conquests, police showed the photos around known prostitute areas. Many of the girls recognised Kiss immediately.

Kiss had pawned almost everything had taken from the women. He would spend the money on prostitutes.

Another woman on Det. Bialokurszky list was identified through the pawned items. Maria Tooth was one of the earliest victims of Kiss. She had fallen in love with the swindler and wanted to get married. Kiss quickly dispensed of her by killing her and putting her in a drum.

Det. Bialokurszky believed that Kiss had probably killed more than the seven women and so the other residences that Kiss had lived at also were investigated.  Bialokurszky was right. Another five bodies were recovered. 

Though the manhunt continued for many years, Kiss was never found. It is suspected he was killed during the war, but no-one is sure.

Bibliography: Giant Book of Serial Killers: Colin and Damon Wilson, The Book Company

Written by Korey Sifuentes

Copyright © 2002  by [The Crime Web].

Except as provided by the Copyright Act 1968, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system  or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the author.
Original Written: February 1, 2002

Updated: February 10, 2002