Serial Killer Peter Kurten #truecrime

From 1913 to 1929 a shadow loomed over Düsseldorf and the nearby city Cologne where he was born. No one was safe from this monster and it is believed he had murdered 2 children before his 10th birthday. Before he was done, at least 9 people lost their lives at his cruel hands.

Peter. Kurten. The Vampire of Düsseldorf.

Peter Kurten was born in 1883, 5 years before Jack the Ripper would stain the streets of London with blood and gore. He was the oldest of 13 children and everyone in his family suffered the abuse of their sadistic father. The father was a sadistic drunk who would stumble home to the one bedroom apartment the family shared to beat his wife and children before forcing himself onto his wife in front of the kids. It was not long before he would molest his daughters in the same way.

Because of the extreme poverty in which the family lived, Kurten learned to steal food at a young age to stave hunger. By the time he reached adulthood, he had already been in and out of jail many times. When reflecting on his crimes, Kurten would say that the brutality he suffered in jail and prison led to his wanting to get revenge on society through violence and murder.

The first deaths attributed to Peter Kurten occured when he was only 9 years old in 1892. While playing on the Rhine river with friends, he shoved another boy out of the raft they were in. When another boy jumped in to save him, Peter held his head under the water until he stopped thrashing. The incident was marked down as an accident.

During his childhood, Kurten also learned of other disgusting acts from a dog catcher who lived in the same building as his family. This man taught him to use animals for his pleasure and the two spent an indecent amount of time together assaulting animals.

At the age of 16 Peter Kurten fled his home, and soon after his father was arrested for the horrors he committed against his own 13 year old daughter. At this point, crime became Peters only means of survival.

The first murder Kurten committed as an adult was a 10 year old girl named Christine Klein. He was lurking on the streets of Cologne after being released from custody for theft, looking for something to steal, when he saw the child asleep in her bed. Her room was above an inn. He crept in to assault her before stabbing her to death. Fluids left by the killer showed how excited he was during the attack. The next day when her body was discovered, blame fell on her uncle who had argued and threatened her father the night before. Meanwhile the creature had gone to drink in a bar across the street so he could watch the results of the depraved murder. Peter followed the trial until at last the uncle was acquitted for lack of evidence. The disgusting creature also visited the young girls grave and would become excited as he handled the soil. The true culprit would not be discovered for 18 years.

Shortly after the murder of Christine Klein, Kurten attacked a 17 year old girl named Gertrude Franken. He was burglarizing her home when he came across her asleep in her bed. He strangled her, but was unsuccessful in killing her and fled before he was caught.

As the First World War loomed, Kurten was called up into the German army. However, discipline and honest work did not suit him and he deserted. He was soon caught and imprisoned throughout the war. While he was locked up, Kurten intentionally broke rules in order to stay in solitary confinement.

After he was released in 1921, he moved in with his sister in a city called Altenburg. Soon after arriving he met a former prostitute named Augute Scharf. She owned a candy shop and would become his wife. She had herself spent several year in prison for shooting a man for standing her up at the marriage altar.
The couple lived in Altenburg until 1925. Kurten found work as a moulder, which was the same occupation as his abusive father. During this time he also became a trade union organizer. However this brief period of peacefulness fell apart as Kurtens self control faltered.

In 1925, the couple moved to Düsseldorf and the creature known as Peter Kurten soon left his mark on the city.
Over the next 3 years he would commit arson and would attack at least 4 women. He strangled them until they were unconscious, sometimes during sex. In 1929 Kurtens restraint fell by the wayside and once again he gave in to his murderous impulses.

On the 3rd of February, he attacked a woman named Apollonia Kuhn. He pulled her into some bushes where they were concealed from view then stabbed her repeatedly with a pair of scissors. Luckily she survived rhe attack, but 1929 would be marked by other murders committed by Kurten.

An 8 year told girl named Rosa Ohlinger was walking in the city on February 8th when Peter Kurten attacked her. He stabbed her 13 times and then attempted to light her body on fire using gasoline but was not successful. Her remains were found shoved underneath a hedge. Less than a week later, he stabbed a mechanic named Rudolph Scheer to death. Again he returned to the scene of the crime to watch the investigation unfold.

In august of 1929, Kurten murdered 3 people, including 2 sisters. These killings began with the murder of Maria Hahn. Hahn was a young woman who hoped to find a husband. Kurten took her on a date and the two spent several hours with together on August 11 1929 before they went into a meadow. He stabbed her in the head and body using his scissors and also strangled her as he knelt on her chest. It is thought that her ordeal lasted over an hour before she died of her injuries. This time Peter Kurten did not want the body to be found as he feared that his wife might connect the murder to the bloodstains on his clothing. Hahn was buried in a field and Kurten visited the site periodically and even attempted to nail her to a tree to get the public outrage he craved. When she proves to be too heavy for the monster to lift, he returned her to the grave after fondling her corpse.

Gertrude Hamacher was 5 years old and her adopted sister Louise Lenzen was 14 when they crossed paths with the monster as they walked home from
A fair. He stabbed them to death on the 21st. He killed Gertrude first after sending her sister to buy him cigarettes in return for some money. When Louise returned he pounced on her, stabbing her repeatedly in the chest and throat. Kurten also but her neck and sucked blood from the wound. Bloody footprints led investigators to believe she had tried to flee her attacker.

On the 24th, Kurten murdered a woman whose identity is unknown.

In September Kurten branched out and chose another weapon to use on his next victim. He found a young woman named Ida Reuter alone in the woods outside Düsseldorf. Kurten beat her to death using a hammer.
#crime #serialkiller #horror #scary #vampire