Peter Kurten
Peter
Kurten was born on May 26, 1883 in Koln- Mulheim. His father was a
violent alcoholic sexual sadist, who would force his wife into
perverse sexual practices infrom of their thirteen children. The
family always lived in fear of Kurten's father. He would beat and
punish the children any chance he had.
The
Kurten family on got a repreive from their father when he was caught
by Peter's mother attempting to have sex with one of the girls.
Peter's mother called the police and Kurten Snr was arrested and
jailed for some time.
Peter
Kurten's sexual appetite was similar to that of his father's. He
attempted to also have sex with the same sister that his father had
as well as with several of the girls in the area. A Dog-catcher who
was a lodger at the Kurten house also showed Peter a different kind
of sexual perversion.
The
dog-catcher taught Kurten how to masturbate dogs and torture them,
while having sex with the animal.
Kurten
also committed his first double murder at a very young age. When he
was only nine years od he pushed a friend into the Rhien River while
on a school excursion. The boy could not swim and struggled to keep
his head above the water. Another boy jumped into the river to save
the first child - Kurten held both boys' heads underwater until they
had drowned. The incident was considered a tragic accident until
Kurten confessed to the murders decades later.
The
killer's first murder occurred in the city of Köln on May 25th
1913. Kürten had been stealing throughout the spring, specialising
in public bars or inns where the owners lived in an apartment above
the premises.
"I
broke into a house in the Wolfstrasse an inn owned by Klein
and went up to the first floor. I opened different doors and found
nothing worth stealing; but in the bed I saw a sleeping girl of
about 10, covered with a thick feather bed."
Kürten
seized the girl by the neck and with both hands throttled her. The
child struggled for some time before unconsciousness and Kürten
then drew her head over the edge of the bed and penetrated her
genitals with his fingers.
"I
had a small but sharp pocket knife with me and I held the child's
head and cut her throat. I heard the blood spurt and drip on the mat
beside the bed. It spurted in an arch, right over my hand. The whole
thing lasted about three minutes. Then I went locked the door again
and went back home to Düsseldorf."
The
child's corpse was pallid. There was hardly any post-mortem staining
and the tongue was severely bitten. On the throat there were two
wounds separated from each other; the one shallow, only 1 to 2 mm
deep; the other deep, 9 cm in length. The upper wound suggested a
single stroke, the lower wound had been made by four movements.
Kürten's
first victim had been Christine Klein, a 10-year-old girl at school
in nearby Köln. Her father, Peter Klein, kept the tavern and
suspicion immediately fell on his brother Otto. On the previous
evening, Otto Klein had asked his brother for a loan and had been
refused; in a violent rage, he had threatened to do something his
brother "would remember all his life." In the room in
which the child had been killed, the police found a handkerchief
with the initials "P.K.," and it seemed conceivable that
Otto had borrowed it from his brother Peter.
Otto
Klein was charged with Christine's murder, but the jury, although
partly convinced of his guilt, felt that the evidence was not
sufficiently strong enough and he was rightly acquitted.
The
killer later remarked that all around him people were talking about
the murder and "all the horror and indignation did him
good." Kürten was safe from capture and his sadistic impulse
had been awakened. With his bloodthirsty appetite whetted, Kürten
soon began a series of axe and strangulation attacks on the people
of Düsseldorf.
The
period up until 1921 was spent in prison and, upon his entry to
Altenburg and subsequent marriage, Kürten seems to have lived a
perfectly normal and respectable life.
In
1925, Peter found his way to Düsseldorf and once again the town
proved to be a catalyst for his criminal inclinations
(To
be completed)
Kurten
victims
Victims
Unknown
(?) Died circa 1892
Kurten
confessed his responsibility in drowning 2 friends, at the age of 5.
Unknown
(?) Died circa 1900
Strangulation
experiment while having sex in the woods at Graffenberger. No body
ever found, so presumed she survived.
Christine
Klein (8) Died circa 1913
Throat
was slit after molestation. Dropped his embroidered handkerchief
during the burglary.
Unknown
(?) Died circa 1913
Kurten
attacked two strangers with an axe, saying that he derived sexual
pleasure from watching the blood flow.
Unknown
(?) Died circa 1925-1929
Exact
number unknown. Intermittent attacks for self-gratification. Death
by strangulation.
Unknown
(?) Died 3rd February 1929
Attacked
a woman walking home and stabbed her 24 times with a pair of
scissors. She survived the attack.
Rudolf
Scheer (45) Died 13th February 1929
Repeatedly
stabbed in the head and neck, while on his way home from a beer
cellar.
Rosa
Ohliger (8) Died 9th March 1929
Undisturbed
activity whilst he dragged the girl behind a hedge and stabbed her
13 times. Returned to the crime scene to burn the body.
Unknown
(?) Died early August 1929
Two
women and a man attacked on their way home late at night. They
survived.
Luise
Lenzen (13) Died 24th August 1929
Lured
with Gertrud Hamacher to a meadow where he strangled and stabbed
Luise, and slit Gertrud's throat
Gertrud
Hamacher (5) Died 24th August 1929
Refer
to the aforementioned entry.
Gertrud
Schulte (?) 24th August 1929
Attacked
on the same afternoon as Lenzen & Hamacher murders. Stabbed many
times before escaping. Managed to give the police their first good
description of the man they were seeking.
Maria
Hahn (20) Died late 1929
A
Servant girl who had been stabbed 20 times and buried on the banks
of the Rhine. Body undiscovered until late-Autumn. Intentions to
crucify the body to shock passers-by were compounded by the weight
of the body.
Ida
Reuter (31) Died 29th September 1929
Servant
girl, raped and battered to death with a hammer in a wood just
outside Dusseldorf.
Elizabeth
Dorrier (?) Died early October 1929
A
half-gypsy servant girl suffers the same fate as Ida Reuter.
Gertrud
Alberman (5) Died 7th November 1929
After
2 bungled attempts, the last of his many murders took place.
Strangled and stabbed 36 times with scissors. Notoriety akin to that
of Jack the Rippers "Autumn of Terror" in the 1880's.
Maria
Budlies/Budlick (?) Died circa May 1930
An
extraordinary situation where Kurten willingly released a victim.
Kurten was apprehended soon after, bearing almost striking
similarities to the case of the Boston Strangler.
Bibliography:
Serial Killers: Colin and Damon Wilson, The Book Company
Murder in Mind: Colin Wilson
Encyclopedia of Serial Killers:
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
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Original Written:
Updated:
February 12, 2002