SERIAL KILLERS

SATARO FUKIAGE

2009-11-21T21:24:00.001+07:00

Sataro Fukiage (吹上佐太郎 Fukiage Satarō, February 1889 – September 28, 1926)

Was a Japanese rapist and serial killer. He killed at least seven girls. He murdered his first victim in 1906, and killed six girls between 1923 and 1924. He was tried for three out of six cases, but his exact number of victims is unknown.

He raped a number of women besides the murder victims and according to one theory, he raped at least 93 girls.Some estimates say he raped more than 100 women.

Early life

He was born in Shimogyō-ku, Kyoto. His family forced him to work at the age of nine under the East Asian age reckoning.He frequently changed jobs. At the age of 11, he had sex with a girl about 17 years old, for which he lost his job.At 12, he was arrested for theft. Fukiage learned kana and math during the two months he spent in jail. He was arrested again for theft soon after his release, but learned classical Chinese while in jail the second time.

Fukiage had sex with a 54-year-old woman at the age of 17. He later raped the woman's 11-year-old daughter and some other girls in their neighborhood.

First murder and imprisonment

On September 24, 1906, he raped and murdered an 11-year-old girl at Kinkaku-ji.^[4] The victim was an acquaintance of his. At the time he was culturally considered to be 18 years old, although he was 17 years old under the western age system. In jail, he studied the works of Confucius, Mencius, Socrates, Aristotle and Nichiren. He was released in 1922 and found employment, but he was fired due to his criminal past. In April 1923, he was arrested for molesting a four-year-old girl, but was released.

Later murders and arrest

Between June 1923 and April 1924, he raped and murdered six girls, ages 11 to 16. He was arrested on July 28, 1924. He confessed to 13 murders, but later recanted, and insisting that he had murdered only six girls and that a police officer had asked him a leading question. He wrote a book, The Street (娑婆, Shaba^?). He was sentenced to death on May 17, 1925. The Supreme Court of Japan upheld his death sentence on July 2, 1926.

Death

He was executed by hanging on September 28, 1926. The media reported that he went to die nobly, unlike many prisoners. In his book, he requested that parents take care of their children.

LEWIS HUTCHINSON

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Lewis Hutchinson,

A Scottish immigrant to Jamaica, was the first recorded serial killer in Jamaica's history and one of its most prolific.

Hutchinson, better known as the Mad Master and Mad Doctor of Edinburgh Castle, was born in Scotland in 1733 where he is believed to have studied medicine. In the 1760s, he came to Jamaica to head an estate called Edinburgh Castle. He was said to have legally obtained the house (now a ruin) but to have maintained his group of cattle through the theft of strays from neighbours. This would not be the only accusation made of Hutchinson.

Shortly after Hutchinson's arrival in Jamaica, travellers began to disappear and suspicion started to mount. For many miles, Edinburgh Castle was the only populated location on the way from Saint Ann's Bay and, not knowing that they would become the target of Hutchinson's rifle, travellers would rest at the castle, only to succumb to the Mad Doctor's attack. Hutchinson murdered for pure sport, what may be described as a thrill killing, as passers-by from all races, shapes, sizes, and incomes were fair game.

What is true about Hutchinson's killings is debatable. He would shoot lone travellers and was said to feed on the flow of his victims' blood as well as dismember them. He, or according to some sources his slaves, would then toss the remains in a cotton tree or a sinkhole for animals to feast on. That sinkhole became known as Hutchinson's Hole. At the height of his villainy, he would invite guests to his castle to be entertained before killing them.

Hutchinson's reputation for debauchery made him notable as many would avoid him out of fear. His slaves' tales of terrible treatment and the gruesome details of the murders made him legendary. This is why he was allowed to roam free for a time until he shot an English soldier by the name of John Callendar. John Callender attempted to apprehend Hutchison. After Hutchinson shot Callender, he bolted south to Old Harbour and boarded a ship. The Royal Navy, commanded by Admiral Rodney, caught Hutchinson before he could escape.

Shortly after being caught, he was tried and found guilty. In 1773 he was hanged in Spanish Town Square. Although the final toll won't be known, upon searching his home after his arrest, approximately 43 watches and a large amount of clothes were found. The records of his trial stand in the National Archives.

ROBERTO SUCCO

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Roberto Succo also known as Roberto Zucco, (Venice April 3, 1962 – Vicenza May 23, 1988) was an Italian serial killer who murdered several people in Europe in 1987 and 1988.

Murders

Succo committed his first known murders on April 9, 1981 when he fatally stabbed his mother and strangled his father, a Police officer; they had refused to lend him their car. He then escaped, hiding his parents' bodies in the bathtub covered in water and lime to retard the discover of the murders, and taking away his father's service pistol. After Succo was caught, he was judged mentally ill and he was sentenced to 10 years in a psychiatric prison in Reggio Emilia. While in the facility, he studied and earned a degree in political science.

On May 15, 1986, after serving five years of his sentence, Succo escaped from the psychiatric hospital. He evaded police and left the country to travel to France by rail. In the next few years, Succo committed numerous crimes ranging from burglary to rape to murder; in France, he raped and killed two teenage girls, murdered a physician, and two Police officers who were about to capture him.

He kidnapped, hijacked, and terrorized people across at least four European countries. He was considered Public Enemy number one by France, Italy and Swiss Confederation.

On February 28, 1988, he was caught in his hometown of Mestre (a district of Venice). On March 1, 1988, during the course of an escape attempt he fell off the roof of the prison in which he was detained. He committed suicide in his cell on May 23, 1988.

Biographies

In 1988, Bernard-Marie Koltès wrote a play (Roberto Zucco) inspired by Succo's life and crimes. At the same time, French journalist Pascale Froment was working on a non-fiction book entitled Je te tue. Histoire vraie de Roberto Succo assassin sans raison (1991) about Succo's life, and she and Koltès corresponded on the subject. Je te tue later became the basis for the film Roberto Succo, directed by Cédric Kahn. In the wake of the film, Froment's book was reissued in 2001 under the title Roberto Succo.

Kahn's movie tells the story of Succo's life without judging his actions. This neutral point of view was criticized by the French police.

From THE INDEPENDENT

When Cédric Kahn's film Roberto Succo was first screened in Cannes last year, the French director found himself under fire from two sets of critics. One camp was made up of people who had admired his earlier films, in particular the taut psychosexual drama L'Ennui, and wondered why such a distinctive art-cinema director had gone on to make what seemed a mainstream true-crime drama. The other, more vociferous camp was composed of French police officers who objected to Kahn's film supposedly glorifying its subject, a multiple murderer who ran wild in France in the mid-1980s. Police from the Haute-Savoie region, where Succo was active, demonstrated outside the Cannes Palais, and the controversy followed the film around France on its eventual release.

When Cédric Kahn's film Roberto Succo was first screened in Cannes last year, the French director found himself under fire from two sets of critics. One camp was made up of people who had admired his earlier films, in particular the taut psychosexual drama L'Ennui, and wondered why such a distinctive art-cinema director had gone on to make what seemed a mainstream true-crime drama. The other, more vociferous camp was composed of French police officers who objected to Kahn's film supposedly glorifying its subject, a multiple murderer who ran wild in France in the mid-1980s. Police from the Haute-Savoie region, where Succo was active, demonstrated outside the Cannes Palais, and the controversy followed the film around France on its eventual release.

Released in Britain a year later, Kahn's film looks neither such a scandal, nor such an anomaly. Anyone who admired the chilly intensity of L'Ennui will recognise a similar tone in his sober, distanced recreation of Succo's career, with its jigsaw impression of a disturbed figure whose true nature evades understanding much as Succo himself evaded capture.

Kahn has described his film's subject as "pure madness". Succo, he explains, represents "a madness you can't rationalise – he's not just a little bit mad, he's an extreme case." In 1981, Succo, aged 18, from the Venetian suburb of Mestre, murdered his mother and father. Five years later, he escaped from psychiatric custody and went on the run in France, where he committed a number of apparently motiveless murders, including those of two policemen. Killing himself in prison in 1988, he was commemorated as the anti-hero of the play Robert Zucco by French dramatist Bernard-Marie Koltès. This Brechtian, almost fairy-tale work depicts Zucco as a satanic, almost mythical figure, but Kahn found himself more intrigued by the Succo described in a book by journalist Pascale Froment.

"In the play he's a sort of black angel. The play's very poetic, very exalted – it's about a killer hero, an anarchist. The great thing about the book is that it offers no explanation of him. There's just this juxtaposition of incoherent facts, which ends up forming a portrait."

Kahn's great achievement is to give the semi-legendary figure a real, strikingly ordinary presence. Played by unknown Italian non-professional Stefano Cassetti, the screen Succo with his piercing eyes could be a glamorous figure, but instead comes over as a mundane, rather pathetic poseur, an overgrown schoolboy trying on fantasy roles (gangster, secret agent, terrorist) to impress people.

Kahn's film depicts Succo as someone whose life was ruled by randomness: whether or not he killed depended on how he felt, or where he happened to find himself. "He wasn't a serial killer – that's someone who kills methodically, creating a certain mise en scene around death. With Succo, it's a matter of circumstance – it's chaos. He's a megalomaniac who sees himself as being above the world, having the power of life and death over people who get in his way. A psychiatrist could explain it, but I didn't want to get into that area."

What Kahn pursues instead is a pair of parallel observations. On the one hand he juxtaposes disconnected incidents in Succo's life, particularly interludes with his captivated but bewildered ingenue girlfriend; on the other, he gives us a terse police procedural drama, focused on the investigations of a taciturn inspector. This is the aspect that baffled some critics, Kahn's new interest in conventional thriller terrain. But it is hardly unusual for auteur directors to venture at least halfway into the mainstream. "What's tempting," Kahn says, "is to visit a genre without being a prisoner of genre."

In fact, Roberto Succo is not so far from Kahn's previous work. Like his Alberto Moravia adaptation L'Ennui, it is the story of one person helplessly fascinated by another. Succo's girlfriend comes under his spell just as in L'Ennui, a middle-aged male academic became erotically obsessed with an equally lawless young woman. But Kahn is loath to trace patterns: "I can't analyse the connections between my films because I'm the one making them. I don't make films in a very intellectual way."

Starting out as an assistant editor working for Maurice Pialat, Kahn graduated to his own debut feature in 1992, the small-town drama Bar des rails, then followed it with Trop de bonheur, commissioned for a series of films about tormented adolescence (Olivier Assayas, André Téchiné and Claire Denis also contributed). He claims to have no idea what he has taken from influences such as Pialat and Jean Eustache, except "a certain relation to reality, an investigation of human nature. But I can't define the links with film-makers I admire. I can't really find traces of their work in mine."

Perhaps this refusal of self-analysis extends to what seems a bizarre oversight on Kahn's part, one which people haven't stopped pointing out to him, namely, that Stefano Cassetti, his choice to play Roberto Succo, looks uncannily like Kahn himself. "I hadn't noticed it. It's just a coincidence." There is just the hint of a significant pause. "But then there's no such thing as coincidence."

LEONARDA CIANCIULLI

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Leonarda Cianciulli (1893-October 15, 1970)

Was an Italian serial killer. Better known as the "Soap-Maker of Correggio", she murdered three women in Correggio between 1939 and 1940, and turned their bodies into soap.

Early life

Cianciulli was born in Montella di Avellino and had an unhappy childhood. Her mother didn't love her because her pregnancy was due to a rape. While still a young girl, Leonarda attempted suicide twice. In 1914 she married a registry office clerk, Raffaele Pansardi: her parents didn't approve that marriage, as they planned her to marry another man. Leonarda claimed that on this occasion her mother cursed them. The couple moved to Lariano in Alta Irpinia. Their home was destroyed by an earthquake in 1930, and they moved once more, this time to Correggio, where Leonarda opened a small shop and became very popular as a nice, gentle woman, a doting mother and a nice neighbour.

Cianciulli had seventeen pregnancies during her marriage, but lost three of the children to miscarriage; ten more died in their youth. Consequently she was heavily protective of the four surviving children. Her fears were fueled by a warning she had received some time earlier from a fortune teller, who said that she would marry and have children, but that all of the children would die. Reportedly, Cianciulli also visited another Gypsy who practiced palm reading, and who told her, “In your right hand I see prison, in your left a criminal asylum.” Cianciulli was a superstitious woman, and seems to have taken these warnings very much to heart.

Murders

In 1939, Cianciulli heard that her eldest son, Giuseppe, was to join the Italian army in preparation for World War II. Giuseppe was her favorite child, and she was determined to protect him at all costs. She came to the conclusion that his safety required human sacrifices. She found her victims in three middle-aged women, all neighbours. Some sources record that Cianciulli was something of a fortune teller herself, and that these women all visited her for help; others state merely that they were friends of hers seeking advice. Whatever the reason, Cianciulli began to plan the deaths of the three women.

Faustina Setti

The first of Cianciulli's victims, Faustina Setti, was a lifelong spinster who had come to her for help in finding a husband. Cianciulli told her of a suitable mate in Pola, but convinced her to tell nobody of the news. She further convinced Setti to write letters and postcards to relatives and friends; these, to be mailed when she reached Pola, were merely to tell them that everything was fine.

On the day of her departure, Setti came to visit Cianciulli one last time; Cianciulli offered her a glass of drugged wine, then killed her with an axe and dragged the body into a closet. There she cut it into nine parts, gathering the blood into a basin. In her memorial (titled "An embittered soul's confessions") Cianciulli described what happened next in her official statement:

I threw the pieces into a pot, added seven kilos of caustic soda, which I had bought to make soap, and stirred the whole mixture until the pieces dissolved in a thick, dark mush that I poured into several buckets and emptied in a nearby septic tank. As for the blood in the basin, I waited until it had coagulated, dried it in the oven, ground it and mixed it with flour, sugar, chocolate, milk and eggs, as well as a bit of margarine, kneading all the ingredients together. I made lots of crunchy tea cakes and served them to the ladies who came to visit, though Giuseppe and I also ate them.

Some sources also record that Cianciulli apparently received Setti's life savings, 30,000 lire, as payment for her services.

Francesca Soavi

Francesca Soavi was the second victim; Cianciulli claimed to have found her a job at a school for girls in Piacenza. Like Setti, Soavi was convinced to write postcards to be sent to friends, this time from Correggio, detailing her plans. Also like Setti, Soavi came to visit with Cianciulli before her departure; she, too, was given drugged wine and then killed with an axe. The murder occurred on September 5, 1940. Soavi's body was given the same treatment as Setti's, and Cianciulli is said to have obtained 3,000 lirefrom her second victim.

Virginia Cacioppo

Cianciulli's final victim was Virginia Cacioppo, a former soprano said to have sung at La Scala. For her, Cianciulli claimed to have found work as the secretary for a mysterious impresario in Florence; as with the other two women, she was told not to tell a single person where she was going. Virginia agreed, and on September 30, 1940, came for a last visit with Cianciulli. The pattern to the murder was exactly the same as the first two; according to Cianciulli's statement:

She ended up in the pot, like the other two...her flesh was fat and white, when it had melted I added a bottle of cologne, and after a long time on the boil I was able to make some most acceptable creamy soap. I gave bars to neighbours and acquaintances. The cakes, too, were better: that woman was really sweet.

From Cacioppo, Cianciulli reportedly received 50,000 lire and assorted jewels.

Discovery and trial

Cacioppo's sister-in-law grew suspicious at her sudden disappearance, and had last seen her entering Cianciulli's house. She reported her fears to the superintendent of police in Reggio Emilia, who opened an investigation and soon arrested Cianciulli. Cianciulli immediately confessed to the murders, providing detailed accounts of what she had done.

Cianciulli was tried for murder in Reggio Emilia in 1946. She remained unrepentant, going so far as to correct the official account while on the stand:

At her trial in Reggio Emilia last week Poetess Leonarda gripped the witness-stand rail with oddly delicate hands and calmly set the prosecutor right on certain details. Her deep-set dark eyes gleamed with a wild inner pride as she concluded: "I gave the copper ladle, which I used to skim the fat off the kettles, to my country, which was so badly in need of metal during the last days of the war...."

She was found guilty of her crimes and sentenced to thirty years in prison and three years in a criminal asylum.

Cianciulli died of cerebral apoplexy in the women's criminal asylum in Pozzuoli on October 15, 1970. A number of artifacts from the case, including the pot in which the victims were boiled, are on display at the Criminological Museum in Rome.

DONATO BILANCIA

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Donato Bilancia: (born July 10, 1951 in Potenza, Italy)

Is an Italian serial killer.

Bilancia killed at least 17 people in Liguria, Italy from October 1997 to May 1998. On April 12, 2000 he was sentenced to 17 terms of life imprisonment for murder in 17 cases plus one additional sentence of 14 years of prison for one case of attempted murder.

Biography

Bilancia was born in Potenza on July 10, 1951, before his family moved to Genova in 1956. He grew up having a difficult relationship with his family and early on turned to theft and burglary as a source of income. In 1975 he was arrested for thievery and later, in 1976, was arrested again for robbery, but was able to escape from custody.

In 1982 his brother, carrying his infant child, threw himself before a train in a Genova train station, which reportedly had a grave effect on Donato and caused his mental disorders to become more defined.

In 1990 he was seriously injured in a car accident and remained in a coma for several days.

Besides theft and burglary, he began to gamble on a regular basis and later declared to the Carabinieri that he used to win and lose great sums of money in a single night, but had always remained an "honest" player who paid his debts and maintained his word. He went by the name 'Walter' in the clandestine gambling houses he visited.

First Murders

On October 16, 1997, Bilancia killed Giorgio Centanaro in his house, strangling him with adhesive tape. However, the death was falsely determined to be derived from natural causes because the investigators didn't find any clues that pointed to murder. Bilancia confessed the crime after his arrest, saying that he killed Centanaro because he had dishonoured him and had cheated at the gambling table.

On October 24, 1997, he killed Maurizio Parenti and his wife Carla Scotto in their house for the same reason, thinking that Parenti and his first victim Centanaro were gambling partners. He fled the house with 13 million Italian lire (about 6.500 Euros or 9.500 US-Dollars) and some valuable items.

On October 27, 1997, he killed Bruno Solari and his wife Maria Luigia Pitto after he broke in their house to rob them.

On November 13, 1997, he killed Luciano Marro, a money changer living in Ventimiglia, and fled with 45 million Italian lire (about 22.500 Euros or 33.000 US-Dollars).

On January 25, 1998, he killed Giangiorgio Canu, a night security guard, in Genova and later stated that his only motive was his intention to take revenge on the police forces.

The Prostitute Killings

On March 9, 1998, Bilancia shot to death Stela Truya, an Albanian prostitute, in Varazze.

On March 18, 1998, he killed Ukrainian prostitute Ljudmyla Zubskova in Pietra Ligure with a bullet to her head.

On March 20, 1998, he robbed and killed another money changer, Enzo Gorni, again in Ventimiglia. The victim's brother in law witnessed Bilancia's escape in a black Mercedes.

On March 24, 1998, Bilancia attempted to kill transsexual "Lorena" Castro in Novi Ligure, but Castro figured his intentions and fled with the help of two security guards that were patrolling the area. Bilancia immobilized both guards with gunshot wounds, and upon catching up with Castro shot her in the chest and left her for dead. Afterwards, he returned to the wounded guards, Massimiliano Garillo and Candido Randò, and executed them with bullets to their heads.

On March 29, 1998, he killed Nigerian prostitute Tessy Adobo in Cogoleto. This murder was a turning point for the investigation since the crime was connected to the murder of Stela Truya and, later on, to the murders of the other prostitutes. It was the ballistic studies of the RIS of Parma that revealed the uniqueness of the weapon used.

The Railroad Murders and The Liguria Monster

When the investigating police forces came up with an increasingly detailed profile, Bilancia altered his modus operandi. A detailed criminological profile had been established mainly thanks to the testimony of surviving witness Castro who could contribute accurate information on her attacker's black Mercedes as well as numerous details regarding his appearance, leading to the issue of an accurate identikit of the "Monster".

On April 12, 1998, Bilancia used his burglar skills to picklock a bathroom on the La Spezia-Venezia InterCity, where he shot passenger Elisabetta Zoppetti to death.

On April 14, 1998, he killed another prostitute, Kristina Valla.

On April 18, 1998, he killed passenger Maria Angela Rubino on a train between Genova and Ventimiglia.

Following the killer's move from the relatively segregated environment of street prostitution to a totally random choice of his victims on trains, the case of the Liguria Monster immediately became national top news on television and in newspapers. The police forces' intense investigation into the serial killings further fueled the public interest. At that time, two suspects were investigated, but ultimately none of them had any involvement in the case. Meanwhile, the police kept searching for the two cars used by the killer, a black Mercedes and a white Opel Kadett.

Then, on April 21, 1998, Bilancia robbed and killed his last victim, gas station attendant Giuseppe Mileto, in Arma di Taggia.

The Capture

The final turning point in the investigation came when the Carabinieri received a report on the theft of a black Mercedes, which had been given to a man for a test drive, but has never been returned. Upon checking on the vehicle's recipient, the Carabinieri found an almost perfect match between Bilancia and the composite sketch established with Castro's help. Moreover, cross-ckecks of the tire tracks found at some of the crime scenes with those of the seized Mercedes produced identical matches, as did comparisons of Bilancia's DNA (collected from cigarette butts and from a cup of coffee) with DNA traces of the killer collected in the field.

Donato Bilancia was arrested on May 6, 1998, and, after few days, gave a spontaneous confession of all the murders, including the death of Giorgio Centenaro, which had previously been assumed to be a natural death.

On April 12, 2000, the Genova court pronounced the sentence of 17 terms of life imprisonment for the murders and an additional 14 years for the attempted murder of Lorena Castro.

Wolfgang Abel and Mario Furlan

2009-11-21T21:05:00.000+07:00

Wolfgang Abel and Mario Furlan

Were arrested for a series of murders in Italy between 1977 and 1984. They claimed innocence, saying they were scapegoats for a police force that could not find the real criminals.

The crimes

At each of these crime scenes was a leaflet, written in Italian, headed with the name 'Ludwig' over a Nazi eagle and swastika. Each had a slogan, such as "We are the last of the Nazis" and "Death comes to those who betray the true god"^[1], and explained the reason for each murder. According to the leaflets the victims were chosen because they were "sub-human"; being homosexual, prostitutes, drug addicts; and needed to be eliminated.

Abel and Furlan's criminal career together began in August 1977, when they burned a Gypsy drug addict alive.

In Padua they stabbed a casino worker to death. This was followed shortly by the beating and stabbing of a homosexual waiter in Venice who died from his thirty-four knife wounds.
In Vicenza they axed a prostitute and crushed the skulls of two priests with a hammer.
They burned a sleeping hitch-hiker to death in Verona.
In Trento a homosexual priest was killed with a nail hammered in his forehead, followed by a chisel with a wooden cross on it.
On March 3, 1984, in Mantua Abel and Furlan, dressed in Pierrot costumes, were caught dousing the carpet and furniture in a crowded discotheque with gasoline.

Trial and after

Despite being arrested in March 1984, their trial did not begin until December 1986, the intervening time spent in jail. The trial lasted until January 1987 when they were found guilty of 10 out of 27 counts of murder, and in February they were sentenced to 30 years in prison. However, in the appeal procedures both men were eventually released. They had only served three years, most of it before their trial.

Abel moved to Mestrino and Furlan to Casale Scodosia.

NICOLAI BONNER

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Nicolai Bonner (Hebrew: ניקולאי בונר‎)

Is an Israeli serial killer, who in the year 2005, under heavy influence of alcohol (vodka), murdered 4 immigrants from the former Soviet Union, 3 of them homeless, in industrial area of Haifa. The victims were all beaten, their faces bruised, and then their bodies were set on fire. The victims were found in an industrial area of Haifa, Israel's third largest city, major port, and center of heavy industry, the bodies badly burned and charred black beyond recognition. Bonner had done this so as to hide all evidence.

Bonner was born in Moldavia, and immigrated to Israel in 2000 with his Jewish wife, who later died of tuberculosis. After his capture, Bonner claimed he degraded the homeless partly because he could not get over his wife's death. Two months after his first murder, the Israel national police began to link Bonner to the murders, after the body of Valeri Soznov was discovered. Evidence gathered linked the murders to Bonner, who was subsequently arrested and brought to trial.

On May 6th, 2007 Bonner was sentenced to life imprisonment, 4 consecutive life terms and additional 17 years imprisionement for other crimes: 5 years for attempted murder, 9 years for aggravated rape, and 3 years for other charges including aggravated assault and interfering with judicial proceedings.

From HAARETZ.COM

Serial murderer sentenced to four consecutive life terms

By Fadi Eyadat, Haaretz Correspondent

The Haifa District Court Sunday sentenced Nicolai Bonner, 33, to four consecutive life sentences for the grisly serial killings of four immigrants from the former Soviet Union, three of them homeless.

The victims were all beaten, their faces bruised, and then attempts were made to set their bodies on fire.

He was also sentenced to five years' imprisionement for attempted murder, nine years' impriosonement for aggravated rape, and three years for other charges including aggravated assault and interfering with judicial proceedings.

Bonnet had maintained his innocence, saying that he had confessed to the crimes under pressure, that he had been drunk at the time and that he had made the statement for fear that his family might be hurt if he did not.

His statements failed to persuade the judges. They noted that, apart from his confession, he had also led interrogators to the scenes of the murders.

Bonner moved to Israel from Moldova in 2000. His wife contracted tuberculosis, and passed away in January of 2003. One month after the death of his wife, with a rapidly deteriorating emotional state, Bonner requested a leave of absence from his job at a Jaffa pipe factory.

Bonner's defense attorney Ofer Cohen had requested that the court take his circumstances into account when considering his sentence, citing the defendant's unstable mental state.

Although the first murder occurred in 2005, police did not suspect a serial murderer until the third body of Valeri Soznov was uncovered two months later, and similarities were noted between the crime scenes.

SAEED HANAEI

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Saeed Hanaei or Said Hanai (سعید حنایی, died April 8, 2002)

Was an Iranian serial killer.

Crimes

Hanaei targeted female prostitutes, in the eastern city of Mashhad. He often targeted drug addicts, because he felt that he was helping rid the city of moral corruption.

The killings were referred to as the "spider killings" by the Iranian press due to the fact that Hanaei lured the women to his home and had sex with them before strangling them and dumping their bodies. Hanaei killed 16 women before he was apprehended by the police.

Execution

Following a high-profile case, he was praised by some fundamentalists. He was found guilty and hanged at dawn on April 8, 2002 in Mashhad Prison.

In popular culture

The incident was the subject of the 2002 documentary And Along Came a Spider.

Shock rocker Alice Cooper's 2008 album, Along Came A Spider, is a concept album, following Hanaei's crimes.

From THE GUARDIAN

The beast of Mashhad

Saeed Hanaei believed prostitutes were a 'waste of blood'. So he murdered 16 - and became a hero for Iran's Islamic militants. Dan De Luce on a shocking documentary

When the drought ended and the rains came, Saeed Hanaei believed that it was a sign from God that his killing spree had divine approval. "I realised God looked favourably on me. That he had taken notice of my work," Hanaei said. With 12 prostitutes already dead by his hands, Hanaei carried on his "work" and strangled at least four more women after luring them to his house in the Iranian city of Mashhad.

And Along Came a Spider
Production year: 2002
Country: Rest of the world
Runtime: 52 mins
Directors: Mazair Bahari

And Along Came a Spider, which had its UK premiere at the Edinburgh festival yesterday, tells the disturbing tale of a murderous psychopath who found an alarming degree of ideological sympathy among Islamic militants in Iran. The serial killer and his trial attracted a media frenzy in Iran and exposed deep divisions in a society where a conservative-minded minority feels threatened by social change.

The director of the documentary, Maziar Bahari, says he believes Hanaei was a murderer by nature who was catapulted to folk-hero status by religious extremists. "Hanaei was living in a very claustrophobic environment and he could somehow justify his killings through ideological slogans that are acceptable in that environment," Bahari says. "He is basically a terrorist. He's not as technologically advanced as some, but the result is the same."

Bahari's documentary provides an extraordinary glimpse into the attitudes of a working-class district in Mashhad and the desperate world of prostitutes entrapped by drug addiction, poverty and patriarchal cruelty. Newspapers dubbed the murders the "spider killings" because of the way victims were drawn into Hanaei's home and then strangled with a scarf. He then dumped the bodies by the roadside or in open sewers, wrapping them in their chadors, the long, flowing black garments that cover a woman from head to toe.

Hanaei confessed to the killings, smiled for news photographers and proudly told the court that he was fighting a crusade against moral corruption and vice. He and his lawyer cited an ambiguous provision in Iranian and Islamic law that refers to sinners as a "waste of blood", arguing that Hanaei deserved lenient treatment.

The case provoked a debate between reformers who condemned the authorities for failing to catch him earlier and some conservatives who shared the killer's disgust with a rise in prostitution.

"Who is to be judged?" wrote the conservative newspaper Jomhuri Islami. "Those who look to eradicate the sickness or those who stand at the root of the corruption?" Such sentiments are expressed by the killer's merchant friends at the Mashhad bazaar, one of whom says with a laugh: "He did the right thing. He should have continued."

The argument over the spider killings represented a kind of microcosm of a wider battle still being waged in Iran over the proper role of Islam in society. Reformists in parliament and government have tried to push for a relaxation of the country's theocratic system, advocating what they call a "democratic interpretation of Islam". Their opponents fear the reformists will only undermine Islam and open the floodgates to secular, western influences.

The most disturbing defence of Hanaei comes from his own 14-year-old son, Ali, who says his father was cleansing the Islamic republic of the "corrupt of the Earth". "If they kill him tomorrow, dozens will replace him," Ali says. "Since his arrest, 10 or 20 people have asked me to continue what my Dad was doing. I say, 'Let's wait and see.' "

Those who sympathise with Hanaei remain powerful and vocal, but the majority of Iranians want to see a more tolerant, less ideological society, according to Bahari. "I think they are in the minority, and their numbers are decreasing," he said.

Between the scenes of Hanaei recounting his crimes in a matter-of-fact tone, we see haunting photos of the victims before and after they were killed and we meet two children whose mothers were murdered. Interviews with 10-year-old Sahar and eight-year-old Sara provide some of the documentary's most powerful moments.

Firoozeh, the 14th victim, went out to buy opium one day at about 5.30pm, says her daughter, Sahar. "We were all waiting for her but she never came home." We see a drawing in crayon from Sara, with a bearded Hanaei in handcuffs, her mother lying dead and a little girl kneeling in despair. Sahar looks away from the camera and says she hasn't spoken to anyone at school about what has happened. She says she wants to be a journalist when she grows up because she hopes to document what happened to her mother.

Hanaei served as a volunteer in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, and described his murders as a "continuation of the war effort". He first became obsessed with "street women" after his wife was mistaken for a prostitute by a taxi driver. We learn from a journalist that Hanaei went looking for men who were soliciting prostitutes and got beaten up. "So he turns to the people who don't have the power to fight back," says the journalist, Roya Karimi.

Hanaei had plenty of opportunities to prey on the powerless in Mashhad, a city with all the ingredients for a thriving prostitution trade. While millions of pilgrims visit the city's holy Shia shrine every year, massive amounts of opium pour over the border from neighbouring Afghanistan and are transported through the city. Growing levels of poverty and unemployment, with rural families migrating to cities, have fed the increase in "street women".

The spider case forced the invisible world of prostitution into the public arena and government officials can no longer pretend otherwise. But prostitution remains a sensitive issue and Bahari's documentary, which has been shown throughout Europe, has yet to be broadcast in Iran. The criminal code's vague reference to victims deemed to be a "waste of blood" has come under increasing scrutiny from lawyers.

Despite Hanaei's confession in prison that he had "improper relations" with his victims, some ideologues still sympathise with the spider killer. This month a hardline paramilitary group, Ansar-e Hizbollah, warned in its weekly publication that declining morality among women could lead to more such killings: "It is likely that what happened in Mashhad and Kerman could be repeated in Tehran."

Although Hanaei was sentenced to death, he was shocked and angry when the moment came for his hanging in April last year. Unlike at his highly publicised trial, there were no cameras around to record how he screamed in protest, baffled that his ideological allies never came to his rescue. "Even until the last second before his execution, Hanaei thought someone in the government would come to save him," Bahari says.

Hanaei's case had sparked debate and morbid fascination but not much mourning for the death of the 16 "street women". And Along Came a Spider commemorates these women and grants them a degree of dignity they never received while they were alive.

· And Along Came a Spider is at the Filmhouse tonight and on Wednesday. Box office: 0131-623 8030.

MOHAMMED BIJEH

2009-11-21T20:55:00.001+07:00

Mohammed Bijeh (Persian: محمد بيژه) (February 7, 1975 – March 16, 2005)

Was an Iranian serial killer. He confessed in court to raping and killing 16 young boys between March and September 2004, and was sentenced to 100 lashes followed by execution. All the boys were between 8 and 15 years old. In addition, he killed two adults.

Execution

On March 16, 2005, in front of a crowd of about 5,000, his shirt was removed and he was handcuffed to an iron post, where he received his lashings from different judicial officials. He fell to the ground more than once during the punishment, but did not cry out. A relative of one of the victims managed to get by security and stab Bijeh. The mother of one of the victims put a blue nylon rope around his neck, and he was hoisted about 10 meters in the air by a crane until he died. He was hanged in Pakdasht, Iran, the town near the desert area where the killings occurred.

From BBC

Iran's 'desert vampire' executed

An Iranian serial killer who murdered at least 20 children has been executed in front a large crowd of spectators.

Mohammad Bijeh, 24, dubbed "the Tehran desert vampire" by Iran's press, was flogged 100 times before being hanged.

A brother of one of his young victims stabbed him as he was being punished. The mother of another victim was asked to put the noose around his neck.

The execution took place in Pakdasht south of Tehran, near where Bijeh's year-long killing spree took place.

The killer was hoisted about 10 metres into the air by a crane and slowly throttled to death in front of the baying crowd.

Hanging by a crane - a common form of execution in Iran - does not involve a swift death as the condemned prisoner's neck is not broken.

Calm and silent

The killer collapsed twice during the punishment, although he remained calm and silent throughout.

Spectators, held back by barbed wire and about 100 police officers, chanted "harder, harder" as judicial officials took turns to flog Bijeh's bare back before his hanging.

The condemned collapsed twice during the pre-execution flogging

Bijeh was stabbed by the 17-year-old brother of victim Rahim Younessi, AFP reported, as he was being readied to be hanged.

Officials then invited the mother Milad Kahani to put the blue nylon rope around his neck.

The crimes of Mohammed Bijeh and his accomplice Ali Baghi had drawn massive attention in the Iranian media.

They reportedly tricked children to go with them into the desert south of Tehran by saying they were going to hunt animals. They then poisoned or knocked their victims out, sexually abused them and buried them in shallow graves.

They were found guilty of the murders of between 19 and 22 people, but local people believe the toll to be higher.

Baghi has been given a 15 year prison term.

AHMAD SURADJI

2009-11-21T20:48:00.001+07:00

Ahmad Suradji

was a serial killer in Indonesia. Suradji, a cattle-breeder born in 1951, was executed July 10May 2, 1997, after bodies were discovered near his home on the outskirts of Medan, the capital of North Sumatra. He buried his victims in a sugarcane plantation near his home, with heads of the victims facing his house, which he believed would give him extra power. 2008. He was also known as Nasib Kelewang, or by his alias Datuk. He admitted to killing 42 girls and women over a period of 11 years. His victims ranged in age from 11 to 30, and were strangled with a cable after being buried up to their waists in the ground as part of a ritual. Suradji was arrested on

He told police that he had a dream in 1988 in which his father's ghost told him to kill 70 women and drink their saliva, so that he could become a mystic healer. As a sorcerer or dukun, women came to him for spiritual advice or on making themselves more beautiful or richer. His three wives—all sisters—were also arrested for assisting in the murders and helping to hide the bodies. One of his wives, Tumini, was tried as his accomplice. The trial began on December 11, 1997, with a 363-page charge against him, and although Suradji maintained his innocence, he was found guilty on April 27, 1998 by a three-judge panel in Lubukpakam. He was sentenced to death by firing squad and executed on July 10, 2008

From SKY NEWS

Ahmad Suradji, 57, was killed by firing squad despite a last minute appeal from human-rights group Amnesty International.

Bonaventura Nainggolan, spokesman for the Attorney General's Office, said: "He appeared resigned to his fate.

"His final wish was to see his wife. We fulfilled this."

He added: "He pretended to be a shaman who could heal any kind of disease. If someone asked to be healed, both their possessions and their lives were taken."

Suradji lured his female victims to a sugarcane field near his home in western Indonesia.

He then buried them up to the waist and strangled them before reburying their bodies with the heads pointing toward his house.

Suradji also drank their saliva, believing it would enhance his powers.

The serial killer was arrested in May 1997 following the discovery of a body in the field in Lubukpakan, a village in North Sumatra province.

Dozens of other corpses were later found nearby.

A district court found the sorcerer guilty a year later of killing 42 women and girls, between the ages 11 and 30, over an 11-year period.

Many Indonesians believe in witchcraft and Suradji claimed he had the power to influence people's futures.

The victims were believed to have been seeking his help in making their husbands or boyfriends faithful.

Suradji's wife, Tumini, was also sentenced to death for assisting with the murders, but her sentence was later reduced to life in prison.

CHARLES SOBHRAJ

2009-11-21T20:41:00.003+07:00

Hatchand Bhaonani Gurumukh Charles Sobhraj (born April 6, 1944),

Better known as Charles Sobhraj, is a French serial killer of Indian and Vietnamese origin, who preyed on Western tourists throughout Southeast Asia during the 1970s. Nicknamed "the Serpent" and "the Bikini killer" for his skill at deception and evasion, he allegedly committed at least 12 murders. He was convicted and jailed in India from 1976 to 1997, but managed to live a life of leisure even in prison. After his release, he retired as a celebrity in Paris; he unexpectedly returned to Nepal, where he was arrested, tried and sentenced to life imprisonment on August 12, 2004.

While Sobhraj is widely believed to be a psychopath—he has a manipulative personality and is incapable of remorse—his motives for killing differed from those of most serial killers. Sobhraj was not driven to murder by deep-seated, violent impulses, but as a means to sustain his lifestyle of adventure. That, as well as his cunning and cultured personality, made him a celebrity long before his release from prison. Sobhraj enjoyed the attention, charging large amounts of money for interviews and film rights; he has been the subject of four books and three documentaries. His search for attention and his overconfidence in his own intelligence are believed responsible for his return to a country where authorities were still eager to arrest him.

Early years

Sobhraj was born as Gurmukh Sobhraj to an unwed Vietnamese mother and an Indian father (Sindhi tailor) in Saigon. The father soon deserted the family. The mother blamed the child. Stateless at first,he was adopted by his mother's new boyfriend, a French army lieutenant stationed in Indochina. However, he was neglected in favour of the couple's later children. Sobhraj continued to move back and forth between France and Indochina with the family, not feeling at home in either place. As a teenager he developed personality problems and turned to petty crime.

Sobhraj received his first jail sentence (for burglary) in 1963, serving at Poissy prison near ParisHowever, not only did he weather the harsh conditions of jail, he managed to manipulate the prison official into granting him special favours like being allowed to keep books in his cell, etc. At around the same time he met and endeared himself to Felix d'Escogne.

After being paroled, Sobhraj moved in with d'Escogne and shared his time between moving in the high society of Paris and the criminal underworld. He soon started accumulating riches through a series of scams and burglaries. During this time, he met and began a relationship with Chantal who was from a conservative Parisian family. On the night he proposed to her, Sobhraj was arrested for evading police while driving a stolen car. He was sentenced back to prison time in Poissy for eight months. Chantal remained supportive during his prison time. Sobhraj and Chantal were married upon his release.

Soon after, facing mounting suspicions by French authorities, he and a now pregnant Chantal left France for Asia to escape arrest. After travelling through Eastern Europe on fake documents and robbing people who befriended them, they arrived in Bombay in 1970. Here Chantal gave birth to a baby girl.While in Bombay, the couple made a good impression on the expatriate community there. In the meantime, Sobhraj resumed his criminal lifestyle by running a car theft and smuggling operation. The profits from this operation of which were used towards his growing gambling addiction.

In 1970, Sobhraj was arrested and imprisoned after an unsuccessful armed robbery attempt on a jewellery store in Hotel Ashoka. Sobhraj did manage to escape with Chantal's help and faking illness, but they were re-captured shortly afterwards. He borrowed money for bail from his father in Saigon and soon after fled to Kabul in Afghanistan.

In Kabul, the couple continued robbing tourists on the "hippie trail" only to be arrested once again. But Sobhraj escaped, the same way he had in India, feigning illness and drugging the hospital guard. This time Sobhraj fled to Iran leaving his family behind. Chantal, although still loyal to him, wishing to leave their criminal past behind, returned to France and vowed never to see him again^.

Sobhraj spent the next two years on the run, using as many as 10 stolen passports and visiting several countries in East Europe and the Middle East. He was joined in Istanbul by André, his younger brother. Sobhraj and André quickly became partners in many crimes in both Turkey Greece. Both were eventually arrested in Athens. After an identity-switch plan gone wrong, Sobhraj escaped in his usual manner. But he left his brother behind. André was turned over to the Turkish police by Greek authorities. He had to serve an 18-year sentence. and

Murders

On the run again, Sobhraj financed his lifestyle by posing as a mysterious drug dealer to impress tourists and defrauding them when they let their guard down. In Thailand, he met Marie-Andrée Leclerc from Lévis, Quebec, one of many tourists looking for adventure in the East. Subjugated by Sobhraj's personality, Leclerc quickly became his most devoted follower, turning a blind eye to his crimes and his philandering with local women.

Sobhraj started gathering followers by helping them out of difficult situations, indebting them to him while he actually was the very cause of their misery. In one case, he helped two former French policemen, named Yannick and Jacques, to recover their passports that he himself had stolen; in another, he provided shelter and comfort to another Frenchman named Dominique Rennelleau, whose apparent dysentery illness was actually the results of poisoning by Sobhraj. He was also joined by a young Indian named Ajay Chowdhury, a fellow criminal who became his lieutenant. Sobhraj wanted to start a criminal "family" of sorts, in the style of Charles Manson's.

It was then that Sobhraj and Chowdhury committed their first (known) murders in 1975. Most of the victims had spent some time with the "clan" before their deaths and were, according to some investigators, potential recruits who had threatened to expose Sobhraj. The first victim was a young woman from Seattle, Teresa Knowlton, who was found burned like many of Sobhraj's other victims. Soon thereafter, a young American Jennie Bollivar, was found drowned in a tidal pool in the Gulf of Thailand, wearing a flowered bikini. It was only months later that the autopsy and forensic evidence revealed the drowning to be murder.

The next victim was a young, nomadic Sephardic Jew named Vitali Hakim, whose burned body was found on the road to the Pattaya resort where Sobhraj and his clan were staying.

Dutch students Henk Bintanja, 29, and his fiancée Cornelia Hemker, 25, were invited to Thailand after meeting Sobhraj in Hong Kong. Just as he had done to Dominique, Sobhraj poisoned them, and then nurtured them back to health to gain their obedience. As they recovered, Sobhraj was visited by his previous victim Hakim's French girlfriend, Charmayne Carrou, coming to investigate her boyfriend's disappearance. Fearing exposure, Sobhraj and Chowdhury quickly hustled the couple out; their bodies were found strangled and burned on December 16, 1975. Soon after, Carrou was found drowned in circumstances similar to Jennie's, and wearing a similar-styled swimsuit. Although the murders of both women were not connected by investigations at the time, they would later earn Sobhraj the nickname of "the bikini killer."

On December 18, the day the bodies of Bintanja and Hemker were identified, Sobhraj and Leclerc entered Nepal using the couple's passports. There they met and, on December 21-22, murdered Canadian Laurent Ormond Carrière, 26 and Californian Connie Bronzich, 29. (The two victims were incorrectly identified in some sources as Laddie DuParr and Annabella Tremont.) Sobhraj and Leclerc then returned to Thailand, once again using their latest victims' passport before their bodies could be identified.

Upon his return to Thailand, Sobhraj discovered that his three French companions had started to suspect him, found documents belonging to the murder victims, and fled to Paris after notifying local authorities.

Sobhraj then went to Calcutta, where he murdered Israeli scholar Avoni Jacob for his passport, and used it to move to Singapore with Leclerc and Chowdhury, then to India and - rather boldly - back to Bangkok in March 1976. There they were interrogated by Thai policemen in connection with the murders, but easily let off the hook because authorities feared that the negative publicity accompanying a murder trial would harm the country's tourist trade.

Not so easily silenced, however, was Dutch embassy diplomat Herman Knippenberg, who was investigating the murder of the two Dutch backpackers, and suspected Sobhraj even though he did not know his real name. Knippenberg started to build a case against him, partly with the help of Sobhraj's neighbour. Given police permission to conduct his own search of Sobhraj's apartment (a full month after the suspect had left the country), Knippenberg found a great deal of evidence, such as victims' documents and poison-laced medicines. He would from then on accumulate evidence against Sobhraj for decades, despite the lack of cooperation by law enforcement.

The trio's next stop was in Malaysia, where Chowdhury was sent on a gem-stealing errand, and disappeared after giving the jewels to Sobhraj. No trace of him was ever found, and it is widely believed that Sobhraj murdered his former accomplice before leaving with Leclerc to sell the jewels in Geneva. However, some sources say that Chowdhury was spotted in Germany much later and hunt for him is still on.

Soon back in Asia, Sobhraj started rebuilding his clan, starting in Bombay with two lost Western women named Barbara Sheryl Smith and Mary Ellen Eather. His next victim was Frenchman Jean-Luc Solomon, who succumbed to the poison intended to incapacitate him during a robbery.

In July 1976 in New Delhi, Sobhraj and the three women tricked a tour group of post-graduate French students into accepting them as guides. He then drugged them with pills which he pretended were anti-dysentery medicine. However, when the drugs started acting too quickly and the students started dropping unconscious where they stood, three of them quickly realized what was happening and overcame Sobhraj, leading to his capture by police. During interrogation, Barbara and Mary Ellen quickly cracked and confessed everything. Sobhraj was charged with the murder of Solomon, and all four were sent to Tihar prison outside New Delhi while awaiting formal trial.

Prison time

Conditions inside the notorious prison were unbearable; both Barbara and Mary Ellen attempted suicide during the two years before their trial. Sobhraj, however, had entered with precious gems concealed in his body and was experienced in bribing captors and living comfortably in jail.

Sobhraj turned his trial into a show, hiring and firing lawyers at whim, bringing in his recently-paroled and still-loyal brother André to help, and eventually going on a hunger strike. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison instead of the expected death penalty. Leclerc was found guilty of the drugging of the French students, then later paroled and returned to Canada when she developed ovarian cancer. She was still claiming her innocence, and reportedly still loyal to Sobhraj, when she died at home in April 1984.

Sobhraj's systematic bribery of prison guards at Tihar reached outrageous levels. He led a life of luxury inside the jail, with TV, and gourmet food, having befriended both the guards and the prisoners. He would walk in and out of jail whenever he wanted.Revelling in his notoriety, he gave interviews to Western authors and journalists, such as Oz magazine's Richard Neville in the late 1970s, and Alan Dawson in 1984. He freely talked about his murders, while never actually admitting to them, and pretended that his actions were in retaliation against Western imperialism in Asia.

He also needed to find a way to prolong his sentence, since the 20-year Thai arrest warrant deportation and almost certain execution. So in March 1986, on his tenth year in prison, he threw a big party for his prisoner and guard friends and, having drugged them with sleeping pills, walked out of the jail. against him would still be valid on his intended release date, leading to his

Shobhraj was quickly caught in Goa and had his prison term prolonged by 10 years, just as he had hoped. On February 17, 1997, 52-year old Sobhraj was released, with most warrants, evidence and even witnesses against him long lost. Without any country to deport him to, Indian authorities let him return to France.

Celebrity and re-capture

Sobhraj retired to a comfortable life in suburban Paris. He hired a publicity agent and charged large sums of money for interviews and photographs. He is said to have charged over $15 million for the rights to a movie based on his life.

In September 17, 2003 Sobhraj was unexpectedly spotted in a street of Kathmandu by a journalist. The journalist quickly reported this to the Nepalese authorities who arrested him two days later in the casino of the Yak and Yeti hotel. Sobhraj's motives for returning to Nepal remain unknown. He was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Kathmandu district court in August 20, 2004 for the 1975 murders of Bronzich and Carrière. Most of the evidence used against him in this case was drawn from that painstakingly gathered by Knippenberg and Interpol.

Sobhraj appealed against the conviction claiming that he was sentenced without trial. His lawyer also announced that Chantal, Sobhraj's wife in France, was filing a case before the European Court of Human Rights against the French government, for refusing to provide him with any assistance.

Sobhraj's conviction was confirmed by the Kathmandu Court of Appeals in 2005.

Current status

In late 2007, news media reported that Sobhraj's lawyer had appealed to the current French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, for intervention with Nepal. Sobhraj's lawyer claims that he has been the victim of racism.In 2008, Sobhraj announced his engagement to Nihita Biswas (aged 20) from Nepal.The couple has announced marriage in France if Sobhraj was released by the Nepalese supreme court. On 7 July, 2008, issuing a press release through his fiancee Nihita, he claimed that he was never convicted of murder by any court and asked the media not to refer to him as a serial killer.Later, it was claimed that he married his fiancee Nihita Biswas on October 9, 2008, on the occasion of Bada Dashami, a Nepalese festival, in a much famed, but not publicised wedding, that took place in the jail itself.On the following day, Nepal jail authorities dismissed the claim of his marriage. They said that Nihita and her family had been allowed to conduct a tika ceremony, along with the relatives of hundreds of other prisoners. They further claimed that it was not a wedding but part of the ongoing Dashain festival, when elders put the vermilion mark on the foreheads of those younger to them to signify their blessings.

Bibliography

Julie Clarke & Richard Neville (1980). The Life and Crimes of Charles Sobhraj. Pan Macmillan. ISBN 0-330-27001-X.
Thomas Thompson (1979). Serpentine. Carroll & Graf Publishers. ISBN 0-7867-0749-6.
Julie Clarke & Richard Neville (1989). Shadow of the Cobra. Penguin Books Ltd. ISBN 978-0140129373.
Farrukh Dhondy (2008). The Bikini Murders. Harper Collins India.

In popular culture

The made for TV movie Shadow of the Cobra (1989) is based on Sobhraj
On the TV series Law & Order: Criminal Intent, the character of Nicole Wallace, portrayed by Olivia d'Abo, is loosely based on Marie-Andrée Leclerc. In the episode "Slither" (which was originally to be titled "Serpentine"), Michael York appears as Bernard Fremont, Wallace's mentor and former partner-in-crime, who is clearly based on Sobhraj
Reports are on that Madhur Bhandarkar, who made popular reality films in Bollywood is on talks to make a biopic of Charles Shobraj.

AUTO SHANKAR

2009-11-21T20:37:00.001+07:00

Auto Shankar (January 21, 1954 – April 27, 1995)

Is the nickname of an Indian serial killer.

Murders

Shankar and his gang were found guilty of six murders, committed over a period of two years in 1988–1989.They were tried for the murders of Lalitha, Sudalai, Sampath, Mohan, Govindaraj and Ravi.The bodies of the victims were either burnt or buried inside residential houses.

In late 1988, over a period of approximately six months, nine teenage girls from the Thiruvanmiyur section of Chennai disappeared. In the beginning, investigators believed that the girls had been sold into prostitution by families unable to afford wedding dowries, but the consistent denials by their kin forced them to seek another explanation.

Late in December, a schoolgirl named Subalakshmi claimed that an auto rickshaw driver had attempted to abduct her in front of a wine shop. Working undercover in the local wine shop back-rooms, detectives learned of a rumour that an auto driver called Shankar was behind the crimes, disposing of the bodies by cremating them and pouring the remains into the Bay of Bengal. The following morning, the police picked up the suspect who overnight became known to the nation as "Auto Shankar".

Trial

Shankar's trial was completed by the Chengalpattu sessions court; He was sentenced to death along with two of his associates, Eldin and Shivaji, on May 31, 1991.

During his trial, Shankar blamed films for "making a devil of him"; however, a month before his execution, he told reporters that he had kidnapped the girls for powerful state politicians, subsequently disposing of them after his patrons had raped them.Auto Shankar was hanged in Salem Central Prison.

Associates

In 2002, Shankar's five accomplices were sentenced to six months of Rigorous Imprisonment after having been found guilty by a Magistrate.The accomplices were Shankar's brother, Mohan, Selva (alias Selvaraj) and the jail warders Kannan, Balan and Rahim Khan.They were found guilty of criminal conspiracy and resistance or obstruction by a person to his lawful apprehension.

Subsequently, Mohan was also found guilty of the six murders and was given three life sentences.Mohan had earlier escaped from the Chennai Central Prison in August 1990 and was re-arrested in Pune on June 25, 1992.

Responses

K. Vijay Kumar, the Tamil Nadu Additional Director-General of Police, claimed that cinema was solely responsible for making Shankar a criminal.He mentioned this during a seminar on "Crime and Media" in Kerala.

The trial has become widely known across the nation since the Supreme Court invoked the American free speech doctrine and the case became oft-quoted in relation to cases of expose.

RAMAN RAGHAB

2009-11-21T20:32:00.002+07:00

Raman Raghav (1929–1995)

Was a psychopathic serial killer who operated in the city of Mumbai, India in the mid-1960s. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia after his arrest. Very little is known about Raghav's early life or circumstances that led him to commit the crimes.

Serial Killings

A series of brutal murders in the outskirts of Mumbai rocked the city in August 1968. Pavement and hutment dwellers were bludgeoned to death while they slept. All the murders took place at night and were committed by using a hard, blunt object.This was witnessed by Krithika who then released this information to the Mumbai police. A similar series of murders had taken some years earlier (1965-66) in the Eastern suburbs of Mumbai. In that year, as many as 19 people had been attacked, out of whom 9 victims had died.One of them being Krithika's relative.

At the time a suspicious looking man found loitering in the area had been picked up by the police. His name was Raman Raghav, a homeless man, and he was already in police files, having spent 5 years in prison for robbery. However, as no hard evidence could be found against him (none of the survivors had seen this man) the police let him go.

When the killer struck again in 1968 the police launched a manhunt for him. Ramakant Kulkarni, then the Deputy Commissioner of Police CID (Crime)took over the investigation and spearheaded a massive combing operation in the city. This time the police not only managed to nab him, they got him to confess.

He admitted that he had killed 23 people in 1966 along the GIP (Great Indian Peninsular Railway as the Central Railway (India) was then known) line and almost a dozen in 1968 in the suburbs. However, it is likely that he killed many more. It was his casual approach to killing that led the police to suspect that he did not remember the exact number of people he had killed.

During the time Raman Raghav was in operation, there was widespread public anxiety and panic in Mumbai. Inhabitants of slums and apartments dreaded sleeping out in the open or with open windows and balconies.

Arrest

Sub-inspector of police Alex Fialho recognised Raman Raghav from file photographs and descriptions provided by those who had seen him. Fialho detained and searched him in the presence of two respectable witnesses from the area. The suspect gave his name as Raman Raghav, but old records disclosed that he had several aliases like "Sindhi Dalwai", "Talwai", "Anna", "Thambi" and "Veluswami". The suspect carried, on his person, a pair of spectacles, two combs, a pair of scissors, a stand for burning incense, soap, garlic, tea dust and two pieces of paper with some mathematical figures. The bush shirt and khaki shorts which he was wearing had bloodstains and his shoes were full of mud. His fingerprints with those on record confirmed that the suspect was indeed Raman Raghav alias Sindhi Dalwai. He was arrested under section 302 Indian Penal Code on charge of the murder of two persons; Lalchand Jagannat Yadav and Dular Jaggi Yadav at Chinchawli village, Malad, Greater Bombay.He was described as tall, well-built and dark-complexioned.

Investigation and Trial

The preliminary trial was held in the court of Additional Chief Presidency Magistrate. For a long time, Raghav refused to answer questions. However, he began to answer their questions after the police fulfilled his request for dishes of chicken to eat. He then gave a detailed testimony, describing his weapon, and his modus operandi. After this the case was committed to Sessions court, Mumbai. When the trial started in the court of Additional Session Judge, Mumbai on 2 June 1969, the counsel for defence made an application that the accused was incapable of defending himself on account of unsoundness of mind and he also submitted that even at the time of committing the alleged offences the accused was of unsound mind and incapable of knowing the nature of his acts or that they were contrary to the law.

The accused was therefore sent to the Police Surgeon, Mumbai, who observed him from 28 June 1969 to 23 July 1969 and opined that,

"The accused is neither suffering from psychosis nor mentally retarded. His memory is sound, his intelligence average and is aware of the nature and purpose of his acts. He is able to understand the nature and object of the proceedings against him and not certifiably insane."

With this medical opinion, the trial proceeded. The accused pleaded guilty. During the trial a psychiatrist of Nair Hospital, Mumbai was cited as a defence witness. He had interviewed the accused in Arthur Road Prison on 5 August 1969 and gave evidence that the accused was suffering from Chronic paranoid schizophrenia for a long time and was therefore unable to understand that his actions were contrary to law.

In defence, it was said, "The accused did commit the act of killing with which he is charged. He knew the nature of the act, viz. killing human beings, but did not know, whether it was wrong or contrary to law". The Additional Sessions Judge, Mumbai, held the accused guilty of the charge of murder and sentenced him to death. Raman declined to appeal.

Before confirming the sentence, the High Court of Mumbai ordered that the Surgeon General, Mumbai, should constitute a Special Medical Board of three psychiatrists to determine whether the accused was of unsound mind, and secondly, whether in consequence of his unsoundness of mind, he was incapable of making his defense.

The members of the Special Medical Board interviewed Raman on five different occasions for about two hours each time. In their final interview when they bade him good bye and attempted to shake hands with him, he refused to do so saying that he was a representative of 'Kanoon' (God) who would not touch people belonging to this wicked world. The examination report was as follows.

"Details about childhood history are not available. No reliable history about mental Illness in his family is obtainable. According to the data available, He was always in the habit of stealing ever since he was a child. He hardly had any school education. He was known to be reclusive. Since his return from Pune in 1968 he had been living in jungles outside the suburbs of Mumbai."

"X-rays of skull, routine blood examination, serological tests for syphilis, cerebrospinal fluid examination including tests for syphilis, urine and stool examination and EEG examination were non contributory.He was of average intelligence and there is no organic disease to account for his mental condition."

"Throughout the five interviews he showed ideas of reference and fixed and systematized delusions of persecution and grandeur. The delusions which the accused experienced were as follows:

That there are two distinct worlds, the world of 'Kanoon' and this world in which he lived.

A fixed and unshakable belief that people were trying to change his sex, but that they are not successful, because he was a representative of 'Kanoon'.

A fixed and unshakable belief that he is a power or 'Shakti'.

A firm belief that other people are trying to put homosexual temptations in his way so that he may succumb and get converted to a woman.

That homosexual intercourse would convert him into a woman.

That he was "101 percent man". He kept on repeating this.

A belief that the government brought him to Mumbai to commit thefts and made him commit criminal acts.

An unshakable belief that there are three governments in the country - the Akbar Government, the British Government, and the Congress Government and that these Governments are trying to persecute him and put temptations before him."

The final verdict

Raman Raghav's sentence was reduced to life imprisonment because he was found to be incurably mentally ill. He was lodged at Yerwada jail, Pune, and was under treatment at the Central Institute of Mental Health and Research. When a panel of doctors who examined him at the directive of the High Court found that he would never be cured, the High Court reduced his sentence to life imprisonment in its judgement of 4 August 1987. A few months later Raghav died at Sassoon Hospital. He had been suffering from kidney trouble.

Legacy

Raman Raghav is thought to be India's worst and most horrific serial killer. Indian filmmaker Sriram Raghavan produced a 45-minute short film on Raman Raghav, starring Raghuvir Yadav in the lead role.

In the mid-1980s, another serial killer emerged in Mumbai, terrorising the population of Sion Stoneman," he was not captured despite intensive efforts of police. and neighbouring localities. Given the nickname "

THUG BEHRUM

2009-11-21T20:29:00.001+07:00

Thug Behram (or Buhram), (ca 1765 – 1840)

Of the Thuggee cult in India, was one of the world's most prolific killers. He may have murdered up to 931 victims by strangulation between 1790–1840 with the ceremonial cloth (or rumal, which in Hindi means handkerchief), used by his cult.Behram was executed in 1840 by hanging.

While Behram is sometimes credited with 931 murders, James Paton, an East India Company officer working for the Thuggee and Dacoity Office in the 1830s who wrote a manuscript on Thuggee, quotes Behram as saying he had "been present" at 931 cases of murder, and "I may have strangled with my own hands about 125 men, and I may have seen strangled 150 more."

2006 Noida serial murder investigation

2009-11-21T20:18:00.000+07:00

The 2006 Noida serial murder investigation

Began in December 2006 when the skeletal remains of a number of missing children were discovered in the village of Nithari, India on the outskirts of Noida, a planned industrial township in Uttar Pradesh near New Delhi. On December 26, 2006, a rich and politically connected Punjabi businessman, Moninder Singh Pandher, and his servant, Surender Koli, were arrested by the Noida Police on the suspicion of murdering a call girl named "Payal". Charges under various sections of the Indian Penal Code included rape, murder, kidnapping and criminal conspiracy. Pandher and Koli were sentenced to death on February 13, 2009.

Events leading to primary investigation

A view of a public place in Noida

On December 2006, two Nithari residents claimed they knew the location of remains belonging to children who had gone missing in the previous two years: the municipal water tank behind house D5. Both had daughters who had disappeared, and they suspected Surender Koli, the domestic help at D5, had something to do with the disappearances. The residents claimed they had been repeatedly ignored by local authorities, therefore they sought the help of former Resident Welfare Association (RWA) President S C Mishra. That morning, Mishra and the two residents searched the tank drain, and one of the residents claimed to have found a decomposed skeletons in the drain. hand, after which they called the police. By the time police arrived, local residents claimed they had found three partial

Anxious parents of the missing children rushed to Nithari with photographs. Koli, under the alias Satish, later confessed to killing six children and a 20-year-old call girl known as "Payal" after sexually assaulting them.

The residents alleged that the police were corrupt and involved with the rich people. Demands were made for an independent probe into the matter. One of the residents asserted that the police were claiming credit for discovering the bodies when it was the residents who dug them up. The police denied having found fifteen bodies. They reiterated that they had discovered skulls, bones and other body parts, and said they were unable to give a figure for the number of victims. The victims' identities and number could only be established with DNA tests. The police then sealed the house and did not allow news media anywhere near the scene of crime.

The Central government tried to ascertain the facts behind the discovery of the skeletal remains and whether it had "inter-state ramifications".Law and order is a state's subject but the Home ministry asked for details about the magnitude of the crime.

It was later revealed by the media that Pandher was picked up by the police on December 26 and Koli on December 27 in connection with the disappearance of "Payal". After Koli's confession, the police claimed to have started digging up the nearby land area and discovered the children's bodies.

Two policemen were suspended on December 31 in connection with the serial murders as angry residents charged the house of the alleged mastermind. The policemen were suspended for dereliction of duty in the wake of the allegations by the locals that the police had refused to take any action when they were informed about a number of children missing.

The situation at Nithari got aggravated as an irate mob of villagers fought pitched battles with the police, both pelting stones at each other, just outside the residence of the accused. The police also detained a maid named Maya whom they suspected had a hand in procuring women for the businessman. As more body parts were dug out from near the premises of the house, hundreds of local residents descended on the spot and alleged that there was an organ trade angle to the grisly killings of young children.A doctor living close to the Pandher residence, Navin Choudhary, had been under police suspicion a few years prior in connection with an alleged kidney racket at his hospital. Searches were conducted throughout the properties owned by him, and the investigators could not derive any information to support the claim.

Primary investigation

On January 1, 2007, the remand magistrate granted the police custody of the two until January 10, 2007, as the investigators said that further interrogation was required to complete the recovery of victims' remains. The court also granted permission for Narco Analysis.^[7] On the same evening, police conducted a raid on Pandher's Chandigarh residence. His wife and son were interrogated and questions were asked about Pandher's habits. Police sources disclosed that their relationship with him was "strained", which was later found untrue. His behaviour was "normal". A senior police inspector revealed that there would be a series of searches conducted at Pandher's Ludhiana farmhouse and nearby places. The recent child kidnapping cases in Chandigarh—Pandher's hometown—were re-opened and nothing was found.

It was on the next day that 15 of the 17 skeletons discovered in the village were identified. Ten of them were identified by Koli when he was confronted with the photographs of the missing children. Five others were identified by family members after being shown belongings recovered from the scene.The torsos of the bodies were missing and the investigating team was looking into possibilities of the motivation of the killings to be that of organ trade. The police said that there were at least 31 child victims.

Security was increased as police expected more disturbance, following two days of violence near Pandher's residence. In a press statement, Chief Justice of India Y. K. Sabharwal asserted that the investigation was at a preliminary level, and neither the courts nor the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) were involved at that point.

Inquiry committee report

The Central Government, however, constituted a high-level inquiry committee to go into the police lapses, during the period of reporting and investigation. Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Mulayam Singh Yadav said that he would await the report of the committee looking into the issue before making the decision whether there should be a CBI probe into the matter. The committee is headed by the Joint Secretary, Women and Child Development Ministry, Manjula Krishnan. Under the terms of the reference,

This committee would take stock of the efforts made by the Noida police in locating the children who went missing.
It would assess the level of cooperation and assistance provided by the local administration, to locate the missing children and unite them with their families.
It would go through the modus operandi and the motives of the accused.

The panel met the parents of the victims to record their statements even as the police determined that out of the 17 confirmed people killed, 10 were girls. Parents of eight of the sexually abused children were given compensation of Rs. 12 lakh. The DNA samples from the human remains were sent to forensic laboratory in Hyderabad for the identification of the victims while forensic samples were sent to the laboratory in Agra for determining the age, cause of death and other details. It was determined that Payal was the only victim identified as adult in this case, with all other 11 victims below the age of 10.Seven of the eight families that had been provided compensation of Rs. 2 lakh on January 3, 2007 returned their cheques in protest. However, the cheques were soon returned back to them. They demanded houses and jobs in compensation as well.

After reeling under a lot of relentless pressure and public outcry, the Uttar Pradesh Government suspended two superintendents of police and dismissed six policemen for dereliction of duty. This action followed the report by the four-member committee.On January 17, 2007 the inquiry committee submitted its reports severely indicting the Uttar Pradesh police for "gross negligence" in handling the cases of missing persons. The committee said that the local administration was negligent and irresponsible while dealing with the missing persons reports and did not rule out organ trade as a possible motive behind the killings.

Call girl angle

The two accused in the case were already in police custody while the skeletal remains of the young children were being unearthed from behind and in front of Pandher's residence. An FIRPayal's cellphone was being used although the SIM card she owned remained inactive. Through digital surveillance, the investigators were able to track down a number of people and could finally reach the man who sold the phone. The rickshaw cart puller affirmed that the phone belonged to someone from the Pandher residence. After the affirmation of the facts by the witness, Moninder Singh was called for interrogation, which subsequently revealed nothing. His aide and servant, Surender Koli was picked up the next day and he confessed killing the woman and dumping her body behind the house. The police started digging and henceforth recovered the skeletal remains of the missing children instead of Payal. had been filed on October 7, 2006. Investigations revealed that

Nand Lal, the father of the girl – Deepika alias Payal, alleged that the police had threatened and harassed him. He stated that it was because of the court intervention that the police officers registered the FIR. Nand Lal said that he was accused of being a blackmailer and his daughter was called a woman of easy virtue, which was a fact. It was also later found out that Nandlal was his daughter and daughter in law's Pimp. The girls were handed over to a Madam in Faridabad, who in turn would pay Nand lal a fixed amount of Rs. 30,000 per girl per month.

Suspicions of child pornography racket

The investigating teams seized erotic literature along with a laptop computer connected to a webcam, which immediately raised the apprehensions of the presence of an international child pornography racket. The police also recovered some photographs of Pandher with nude children and foreigners, during his four international visits, which was later discovered to be untrue. It was apprehended that Pandher supplied such pictures abroad and could link him to paedophilia. Later during the investigation it was found the Nude children in the pictures was Pandher's grand children. There was no link found of child pornography. The laptop and the webcam were later returned to the family, and was classified as a media created rumour.

Suspicions of organ trade and cannibalism

The police initially suspected an organ trade angle as to the motive behind the murders and raided the house of a doctor who lived in the neighbourhood of the prime accused. A team of officials was accompanied by a team of forensic experts to pick up probable evidence for tests. The police revealed that the doctor had been accused of similar crime in the year 1998, although the court had later absolved him in the same year. This was a second raid in a few days.^[19] The police was however, cautious with the news reports indicting the accused of cannibalism even before the polygraph tests had barely begun. They were left aghast when they learned that one of the accused had even confessed to the consumption of the victims' livers and other body parts. Such a possibility was, however, not completely ruled out by the investigating team, considering the amount of brutality the duo had allegedly committed on the victims.

Brain mapping and narco analysis

The accused duo were brought to the Directorate of Forensic Sciences, Gandhinagar city for undergoing a series of medical tests. Brain mapping and polygraph tests were conducted on January 4, 2007and narco analysis five days later.The police director told the scribes that both the accused had been cooperative during the tests and examinations. A senior director of the institute announced the conclusion of the extensive tests and declared that conclusion had been drawn. Surender Kohli had confessed to the crimes and had given his employer a clean chit and his unawareness to kohli's wrong doings. Surender Kohli also reveled that all deaths had taken place thru strangulation and then Rape them before he would take the bodies to his personal washroom and dismember them. Pandher was declared to be a womanizer and depressed. He had not taken any claim to the killings of the children and Payal. He suffered from alcohol dependency and was very busy with his business.

CBI investigation

After four days of discourse and mounting pressure from the Centre, the Uttar Pradesh government decided to hand over the inquiry to the Central Bureau of Investigation. The notification came after the Department of Personnel and Training, which governs the CBI sent a letter to the state government about making a proper request for a probe by the agency in line with the prescribed norms.

The two accused were taken away to the CBI headquarters in New Delhi on the night of January 11, 2007, a day before the investigation was to be transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation.The CBI continued its investigation and discovered three more skulls and human remains at the site of the serial killings. The investigators searched the drains outside the house and found three skulls, believed to be of the children and several body parts, including parts of legs, bones and torso. Several objects were found that are believed to belong to the victims. The exhibits were sealed and forwarded to forensic labs.

The Central inquiry committee that investigated the serial killings discovered serious lapses on the part of the police in handling the cases of missing persons. The published report was provided to the CBI to aid the agency in its probe. The reports were incriminating and proclaimed that the local police failed in their duty to admit their complaints over the past two years.

The discovery of several polythene bags containing parts of human torsos led the investigators to believe that it was unlikely that the accused had links to illegal organ trade. The CBI team discovered the bags in the drains outside the Pandher residence. After interrogating Surinder Koli, they came to a prima facie conclusion that "he is a psychopath who used to carry out the killings". Interrogators also said that it was possible that Pandher had no role to play in the murders.The seized materials were sent to laboratory for post-mortem, individualisation and DNA extraction. The materials received from the Uttar Pradesh police were also forwarded for forensic examination. Some liquor bottles, a double-barrel gun, cartridges, mobile phones, photographs, photo albums and a blood-stained grill were handed over to the CBI for extensive examination.Preliminary investigations revealed that the bones were not more than two years old. The CBI also revealed that only fifteen skulls had been found thus far, and not seventeen as claimed by the state police.

A three-member CBI team questioned the kin members of Surendra Koli in the Almora district.

In November 2007, the Supreme Court issued notice to CBI in case on the allegation by a relative of the victim that the investigating agency was trying to shield Moninder Singh Pandher, one of the key accused in the case.

Victims

The call girl was the only adult victim in the string of serial murders. Young girls constituted the majority of victims. Post mortem reports of the 17 sets of skulls and bones recovered showed that 11 of the killed were girls. The top doctors of the Noida Government Hospital revealed that there was a "butcher-like precision" in the chopping of the bodies.The post mortem reports revealed that there had been a pattern in the killings.A gory revelation was made by the AIIMSFebruary 06, 2007. It was also concluded that there were 19 skulls in all, 16 complete and 3 damaged. The bodies had been cut into three pieces before being disposed off by the servant Surender Koli. The CBI sources said that the manservant, after strangling the victims, severed their heads and threw them in the drain behind the house of his employer. Sources also revealed that he used to keep the viscera in a polythene bag before disposing it off in a drain, so as to prevent detection. The skulls and the other remains were forwarded to the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Hyderabad for further profiling.
on

Surender Koli and Moninder Singh Pandher

Pandher is an Businessman who studied from 1963-73 at the prestigious Bishop Cotton School in Shimla and graduated from St. Stephen's College, Delhi. He has been married since 1979 and fathers a son. Pandher has been claimed to be a perfect father and a good provider by the family.

Conviction

On 12 Feb 2009, both the accused Moninder Singh Pandher and his domestic help Surinder Koli were found guilty of their crimes, by a special sessions court in Gaziabad. This verdict left the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) red faced, as the CBI had earlier given a clean chit to Moninder Singh Pandher in all its chargesheets. Both the accused Moninder Singh Pandher and his domestic help Surinder Koli were given death sentence on 13 Feb 2009, as the case was classified as "rarest of rare".

Acquittal

On September 10th 2009, The Allahabad high court acquitted Moninder Singh Pandher and was not named a main suspect by investigators initially, but was summoned as co-accused during the trial.Pandher faces trial in the remaining 5 killings out of 19.

ELIZABETH BATHORI

2009-11-21T19:05:00.002+07:00

Countess Elizabeth Báthory (Báthory Erzsébet in Hungarian, Alžbeta Bátoriová in Slovak, Alžběta Báthoryová in Czech, Elżbieta Batory in Polish, August 7, 1560 – August 21, 1614)

Was a countessfrom the renowned Báthory family. She is possibly the most prolific female serial killer in history and is remembered as the "Blood Countess" and as the "Bloody Lady of Čachtice", after the castle nearTrencsén in the Kingdom of Hungary, (today's Slovakia), where she spent most of her adult life.

After her husband's death, she and four collaborators were accused of torturing and killing hundreds of girls and young women, with one witness attributing to them over 600 victims, though the number for which she was convicted was 80. In 1610, she was imprisoned in the Csejte Castle, where she remained bricked in a set of rooms until her death four years later.

The case has led to legendary accounts of the Countess bathing in the blood of virgins in order to retain her youth and subsequently also to comparisons with Vlad III the Impaler of Wallachia, on whom the fictional Count Dracula is partly based, and to modern nicknames of the Blood Countessand Countess Dracula.

Life

Early years

Báthory Erzsébet was born on a family estate in Nyírbátor, Hungary, and spent her childhood at Ecsed Castle. Her father was Báthory György of the Ecsed branch of the family, brother of Andrew Bonaventura Báthory, who had been Voivod of Transylvania, while her mother was Báthory Anna (1539–1570), daughter of Báthory István of Somlyó, another Voivod of Transylvania, was of the Somlyó branch. Through her mother, Erzsébet was the niece of Báthory István of Poland, King of Poland.

As a young woman she learned Latin, German and Greek.She was also interested in science and astronomy.

Married life

At the age of 12, Erzsébet was engaged to Nádasdy Ferenc. The union was probably a political arrangement within the circles of the aristocracy.

The couple married on May 8, 1575, in the little palace of Varannó, Slovakia. There were approximately 4500 guests at the wedding. Elizabeth moved to Nádasdy Castle in Sárvár and spent much time on her own, while her husband studied in Vienna.

Nádasdy’s wedding gift to Báthory was his home, Csejte Castle, situated in the Little Carpathians near Trenčín, together with the Čachtice country house and 17 adjacent villages. The castle itself was surrounded by a village and agricultural lands, bordered by outcrops of the Little Carpathians. In 1602, Nádasdy finally bought the castle from Rudolf II, so that it became a private property of the family.

In 1578, Nádasdy became the chief commander of Hungarian troops, leading them to war against the Ottomans. With her husband away at war, Elizabeth Báthory managed business affairs and the estates. That role usually included providing for the Hungarian and Slovak peasants, even medical care.

During the height of the Long War (1593-1606), she was charged with the defense of her husband's estates, which lay on the route to Vienna.The threat was significant, for the village of Čachtice had previously been plundered by the Ottomans while Sárvár, located near the border that divided Royal Hungary and Ottoman occupied Hungary, was in even greater danger.

She was an educated woman who could read and write in four languages.There were several instances where she intervened on behalf of destitute women, including a woman whose husband was captured by the Turks and a woman whose daughter was raped and impregnated.

In 1585, Erzsébet gave birth to a daughter, Anne. A second daughter, Ursula, and her first son, András, both died at an early age. After this, Erzsébet had two more children, Katalin and Pál, born in 1598. All of her children were cared for by governesses as Erzsébet had been.

Elizabeth's husband died in 1604 at the age of 47, reportedly due to an injury sustained in battle. The couple had been married for 29 years.

Arrest

Early investigation

Between 1602 and 1604, Lutheran minister István Magyari complained about atrocities both publicly and with the court in Vienna, after rumors had spread.

The Hungarian authorities took some time to respond to Magyari's complaints. Finally, in 1610, King Matthias assigned Juraj Thurzo, thePalatine of Hungary, to investigate. Thurzo ordered two notaries to collect evidence in March 1610.Even before obtaining the results,Thurzó debated further proceedings with Elizabeth's son Paul and two of her sons-in-law. A trial and execution would have caused a public scandal and disgraced a noble and influential family (which at the time ruled Transylvania), and Elizabeth's considerable property would have been seized by the crown. Thurzo, along with Paul and her two sons-in-law, originally planned for Elizabeth to be secreted to a nunnery, but as accounts of her murder of the daughters of lesser nobility spread, it was agreed that Elizabeth Báthory should be kept under strict house arrest, but that further punishment should be avoided.It was also determined that Matthias did not have to repay a large debt for which he lacked sufficient funds.

Arrest and trial

Thurzó went to Čachtice Castle on 30 December 1610 and arrested Báthory and four of her servants, who were accused of being her accomplices. Thurzó's men reportedly found one girl dead and one dying. They reported that another woman was found wounded, others locked up.

While the countess was put under house arrest (and remained so from that point on), King Matthias requested that Elizabeth be sentenced to death. However, Thurzo successfully convinced the King that such an act would negatively affect the nobility. Hence, a trial was postponed indefinitely.

The countess' associates however were brought to court. A trial was held on 7 January 1611 at Bicse, presided over by Royal Supreme Court judge Theodosious Syrmiensis de Szulo and 20 associate judges. Bathory herself did not appear at the trial.

The defendants at that trial were Dorottya Szentes, also referred to as Dorka, Ilona Jó, Katarína Benická, and János Újváry ("Ibis" or Ficko).

Dorka, Ilona Jó and Ficko were found guilty and put to death on the spot. Dorka and Ilona had their fingernails ripped out before they werethrown into a fire, while Ficko, who was deemed less guilty, was beheaded before being consigned to the flames. A public scaffold was erected near the castle to show the public that justice had been done. Katarína Benická was sentenced to life imprisonment, as she only acted under the domination and bullying by the other women, as implied by recorded testimony.

Last years and death

During the trial of her primary servants, Báthory had been placed under house arrest in a walled up set of rooms. She remained there for four years, until her death.

King Matthias had urged Thurzo to bring her to court and two notaries were sent to collect further evidence,but in the end no court proceedings against her were ever commenced.

On 21 August 1614, Elizabeth Báthory was found dead in her castle. Since there were several plates of food untouched, her actual date of death is unknown. She was buried in the church of Csejte, but due to the villagers' uproar over having "The Tigress of Csejte" buried in their cemetery, her body was moved to her birthhome at Ecsed, where it is interred at the Báthory family crypt.

Accusations

In 1610 and 1611 the notaries collected testimonies from more than 300 witness accounts. Trial records include testimonies of the four defendants, as well as 13 more witnesses. Priests, noblemen and commoners were questioned. Witnesses included the castellan and other personnel of Sárvár castle.

According to these testimonies, her initial victims were local peasant girls, many of whom were lured to Čachtice by offers of well-paid work as maidservants in the castle. Later she is said to have begun to kill daughters of lower gentry, who were sent to her gynaeceum by their parents to learn courtly etiquette. Abductions were said to have occurred as well. At the trial there were accusations of pagan practices andwitchcraft.

The descriptions of torture that emerged during the trials were often based on hearsay. The atrocities described most consistently included:

severe beatings over extended periods of time, often leading to death
burning or mutilation of hands, sometimes also of faces and genitalia
biting the flesh off the faces, arms and other bodily parts
freezing to death
surgery on victims, often fatal
starving of victims
sexual abuse

The use of needles was also mentioned by the collaborators in court.

Some witnesses named relatives who died while at the gynaeceum. Others reported having seen traces of torture on dead bodies, some of which were buried in graveyards, and others in unmarked locations. According to testimonies by the defendants, Elizabeth Báthory tortured and killed her victims not only at Csejte but also on her properties in Sárvár, Sopronkeresztúr, Bratislava, (then Pozsony, Pressburg), and Vienna, and even between these locations. In addition to the defendants, several people were named for supplying Elizabeth Báthory with young women. The girls had been procured either by deception or by force. A little-known figure named Anna Darvulia was rumored to have influenced Báthory but Darvulia died long before the trial.

The exact number of young women tortured and killed by Elizabeth Báthory is unknown, though it is often speculated to be as high as 650, between the years 1585 and 1610. The estimates differ greatly. During the trial and before their execution, Szentes and Ficko reported 36 and 37 respectively, during their periods of service. The other defendants estimated a number of 50 or higher. Many Sárvár castle personnel estimated the number of bodies removed from the castle at between 100 to 200. One witness who spoke at the trial mentioned a book in which a total of over 650 victims was supposed to have been listed by Báthory herself. This number became part of the legend surrounding Báthory. Reportedly, diaries in Báthory's hand are kept in the state archives in Budapest. Supposedly the diaries are difficult to read due to the condition of the material, the old language, the hand-writing and the horrific content.

László Nagy has argued that Elizabeth Báthory was a victim of a conspiracy, a view opposed by others.Nagy argued that the proceedings were largely politically motivated. However the conspiracy theory is consistent with Hungarian history at that time. There was great conflict between religions, including Protestant ones, and this was related to the extension of Habsburg power over Hungary.As aTransylvanian Protestant aristocrat Elizabeth belonged to a group generally opposed to the Habsburgs.

Folklore, literature and popular culture

The case of Elizabeth Báthory inspired numerous stories during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The most common motif of these works was that of the countess bathing in her victims' blood in order to retain beauty or youth.

This legend appeared in print for the first time in 1729, in the Jesuit scholar László Turóczi’s Tragica Historia,the first written account of the Báthory case. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, this certainty was questioned, and sadistic pleasure was considered a far more plausible motive for Elizabeth Báthory's crimes.In 1817, the witness accounts (which had surfaced in 1765) were published for the first time,demonstrating that the bloodbaths, for the purpose of preserving her youth, were legend rather than fact.

The legend nonetheless persisted in the popular imagination. Some versions of the story were told with the purpose of denouncing female vanity, while other versions aimed to entertain or thrill their audience. The ethnic divisions in Eastern Europe and financial incentives for tourism contribute to the problems with historical accuracy in understanding Elizabeth Bathory. During the twentieth and twenty first centuries, Elizabeth Báthory has continued to appear as a character in music, film, plays, books, games and toys and to serve as an inspiration for similar characters.

BELA KISS

2009-11-21T19:03:00.001+07:00

Béla Kiss (1877 – ?)

Was a Hungarian serial killer. He is thought to have murdered at least 24 young women and attempted to pickle them in giant metal drums that he kept on his property.

Life

Béla Kiss was a tinsmith who had lived in Cinkota (a town near Budapest) since 1900. He was an amateur astrologer and allegedly fond of otheroccult practices. In 1912 Kiss hired a housekeeper, began to correspond with a number of attractive women and sometimes took them to his home in Cinkota. However, his housekeeper, a Mrs. Jakubec, never really got to know any of them.

Townsfolk also noticed that Kiss had collected a number of metal drums. He had told the town police who questioned him that he filled them with gasoline in order to prepare for the rationing of the oncoming war. When World War I began, he was conscripted and left his house in Jakubec's care.

Search

In July 1916, Budapest police received a call from a Cinkota landlord who had found seven large metal drums. The town constable had remembered Kiss' stockpile of gasoline, and led needy soldiers to them. Upon attempting to open the drums, a suspicious odour was noted. Detective Chief Charles Nagy took over the investigation and opened one of the drums, against the protests of Mrs. Jakubec. There they discovered the body of a strangled woman. The other drums yielded similarly gruesome content. A search of Kiss' house resulted in a total of 24 bodies.

Nagy informed the military that they should arrest Béla Kiss immediately, if he was still alive - there was also a possibility that he was aprisoner of war. The name, unfortunately, was very common. Nagy also arrested the housekeeper Jakubec and asked the postal service to hold any possible letters to Kiss, in case he had an accomplice that could warn him. Nagy initially suspected that Jakubec might have had something to do with the murders, especially when Kiss had left her money in his will.

Jakubec assured police that she knew absolutely nothing about the murders. She showed them a secret room Kiss had told her never to enter. The room was filled with bookcases but also had a desk that held a number of letters, Kiss' correspondence with 74 women and a photo album. Many of the books were about poisons or strangulation.

From the letters Nagy discerned several things. The oldest of the letters were from 1903 and it became clear that Kiss was defrauding the women who had been looking for marriage. He had placed ads in the marriage columns of several newspapers and had selected mainly women who had no relatives living nearby and knew no one who would quickly notice their disappearance. He wooed them and convinced them to send him money. If they proved troublesome for him, he killed them.

Police also found old court records that indicated that two of his victims had initiated court proceedings because he had taken money from them. Both women had disappeared and the case had been dismissed.

Escape

On October 4, 1916 Nagy received a letter that stated that Kiss was recuperating in a Serbian hospital. Nagy arrived too late — Kiss had fled and substituted a dead body of another soldier in his bed. Nagy alerted all the Hungarian police. However, all the sightings police could check proved to be wrong.

On several later occasions, speculation arose that Kiss had perhaps faked his death by exchanging identities with a dead soldier during the war. He was supposedly sighted numerous times in following years and there were various rumors about his fate, including that he had been imprisoned for burglary in Romania or he had died of yellow fever in Turkey.

Sightings

In 1920 a soldier in the French Foreign Legion reported on another legionnaire named Hoffman (the name Kiss had been used in some letters) who had boasted how good he was at using a garrote, and who fit Kiss' description. "Hoffman" deserted before police could reach him.

In 1932, homicide detective Henry Oswald was certain he had seen Kiss coming out of Times Square Subway in New York City. There were also rumors that Kiss was living in the city and working as a janitor but they could not be verified.

Kiss' eventual fate remains unknown.

LAM KWOK-WAI

2009-11-21T19:01:00.001+07:00

Lam Kwok-wai (born 1971)

Is one of Hong Kong's two known serial killers.

He was convicted of 10 rapes and three murders. His murder weapon was his bare hands; he referred to his right hand as his "fork".

Victims (murders only)

Li Hing, female, age 50, body found in the Yau Oi estate Tuen Mun
Mak Siu-han, female. age 22, body found in Hing Shing House Tuen Mun
Lau Sui-man, female, age 23, body found in Hung Hom

Popular culture

Lam Kwok-wai is portrayed in the movie Tun Men se mo (The Rapist) (1994).

LAM KOR-WAN

2009-11-21T18:57:00.001+07:00

Lam Kor-wan (Traditional Chinese 林過雲, born 1955)

Was one of Hong Kong's two known serial killers. Another was Lam Kwok-wai.

Crimes

Lam, who worked as a taxi driver, would pick up female passengers, strangle them with electrical wire, take them to his family home, and dismember them. His English moniker, "The Jars Murderer", was coined when the police revealed that he had hoarded sexual organs in tupperware containers in his Tsim Sha Tsui bedroom on Kwei Chau Street. He was a keen photographer and frequently took pictures and video of his victims, at least once filming himself performing an act of necrophilia. The Chinese press nicknamed him "The Rainy Night Butcher" (Traditional Chinese 雨夜屠夫) because several of his attacks occurred during inclement weather.

Lam shared his bedroom with his brother, who was unaware of his activities; Lam worked the nightshift, so was able to dismember victims at home during the daytime without his immediate family finding out. The bodies were disposed of via his taxi in the New Territories and on Hong Kong Island, and all were eventually located.

Arrest and imprisonment

Lam was arrested by plain clothes officers on August 17, 1982. He had attempted to develop photographs of one of his dismembered victims at a Hong Kong Kodak shop. The shop manager in Tsim Sha Tsui tipped off the police and they were waiting for him when he returned to pick up the photos. On April 8, 1983, Lam was found guilty of four counts of murder and sentenced to death by hanging. Lam's sentence was latercommuted to life imprisonment in 1984, as was the tradition before the abolition of the death penalty in 1993. He is currently serving his life sentence at Shek Pik Prison.

Victims

Chan Fung-lan, female, age 22, body found in the Shing Mun River, New Territories.
Unidentified female, age 31, body found in Tai Hang Road, Hong Kong Island.
Leung Sau-wan, female, age unknown, body found near Tai Hang Road, Hong Kong Island.
Leung Wai-sum, female, age 17, body found in Tai Hang Road, Hong Kong Island.

Popular Culture

Lam Kor-wan is portrayed by Hong Kong actor Simon Yam in the movie Doctor Lamb (1992).

Lam was later portrayed by Lawrence Ng in a more fictional light in the 1994 film The Underground Banker in which Lam, now released from prison is a reformed Buddhist who is friendly and helpful to his neighbour and only returns to his psychotic killing state to help his neighbour take revenge on Triads who raped, murdered or maimed most of his family.

The 1999 film Trust me U Die is sometimes known by the alternate title The New Dr. Lamb, but has no connection to Lam Kor-Wan or the previous film except that both star Simon Yam.

ANTONIS DAGLIS

2009-11-21T18:54:00.000+07:00

Antonis Daglis (Greek: Αντώνης Δαγλής, born 1974)

Is a Greek serial killer who was convicted of the murders of three women and attempted murder of six others in Athens on January 23, 1997.Referred to as the "Athens Ripper",he was sentenced to thirteen terms of life imprisonment, plus 25 years.

Daglis, a truck driver preyed upon Athens prostitutes between 1992 and 1995. He had been a repeat juvenile offender since the age of 14. He had a prior record for a 1988 charge of seducing a minor, and in 1989 he was arrested for attacking a group of men at the Zappeion in Athens with a knife.

Daglis was initially suspected for two murders after he was arrested for the rape and abduction of an English woman named Ann Hamson. After his arrest, Daglis confessed to the rape, strangulation and dismemberment of two women and the attempted murder of a further six, and having robbed all eight women. He later admitted to dismembering the bodies of two women, Eleni Panagiotopoulou, 29, and Athina Lazarou, 26 with a hacksaw and disposing of them around Athens. Daglis subsequently confessed to the previously unsolved murder of a prostitute whose dismembered body was found in a dumpster in 1992.

During his trial, Daglis told the court, "I hated all prostitutes and continue to hate them. I went to meet them for sex but suddenly other pictures came into my head. I heard voices which ordered me to kill. Once I thought about strangling my fiancée, but I restrained myself."

CHARLES QUANSHAH

2009-11-21T18:45:00.001+07:00

Charles Papa Kwabena Ebo Quansah (born 1964)

Is a convicted Ghanaian serial killer who was arrested in February 2000 for the murder of his girlfriend Joyce Boateng.

While in custody, Quansah was subsequently charged with the murder of another woman, Akua Serwaa who was found strangled near KumasiSports Stadium, in Kumasi on January 19, 1996 and subsequently confessed to the strangulation deaths of nine women in the capital city of Accra. The deaths of thirty-four women were attributed to a serial killer beginning in 1993.^[1]

Quansah, a mechanic who lived in the Accra, Ghana neighborhood of Adenta, had been previously under police surveillance as a suspect in the killings.

Police and prison records reveal that Charles Quansah was jailed at the James Fort prisons for the offence of rape in 1986. After completing his sentence, he committed another rape and was jailed for three years at the Nsawam Prisons in 1987. Quansah was imprisoned again for robbery in 1996 at the Nsawam Medium Prisons in Kumasi, Ghana. After his release that year he relocated to Accra.

Charles Quansah's trial for the serial killings began on Thursday, July 11, 2002 at the High Court Criminal Sessions, Accra. He was subsequently convicted of the strangulation deaths of nine women and sentenced to be hanged until death.

In 2003, Charles Quansah spoke to the press and denied killing any of the nine women he was convicted of murdering or the further twenty-three women he was suspected of murdering and issued a statement proclaiming that he was tortured whilst in police custody.

From MODERNGHANA.COM

A 36-year-old driver mechanic, Charles Quansah has confessed to committing eight of the killings of over thirty women in the country.

A statement from the police said Quansah, alias Paapa Kwabena Ebo had been put on police surveillance for sometime now until he was arrested in February this year at his Adenta residence.

Charles Quansah also admitted to the police that he performed most of the killings through strangulations in Kumasi, Dansoman, Mataheko and Adenta between 1993 and 2001.

The statement said the police investigations into the serial killings in the country had been intensified in the last seven months with the setting up of a special investigation team, which includes experts in crime scene management and interrogation. The police also received assistance from the American Federal Bureau of National Investigations (FBI) in the form of scientific investigation support.

Meanwhile the FBI has collected physical evidence to their laboratory for further laboratory analysis and a report on these will confirm other pieces of evidence provided by Charles Quansah after which prosecution will be commenced.

Charles Quansah settled in Kumasi after his sentence and moved to Dansoman four years ago. He again moved to Adenta in September 2001. It will be recalled that over 30 women were murdered in mysterious circumstances, which created tension and anxiety among Ghanaians as well as the security agencies I KILLED 8 WOMEN - Serial killer confesses [Graphic] - THE long hunt by the police in Accra for the faceless person or people who for years, murdered women in succession, for no apparent reason, has finally yielded results.

The culprit or at least one of them, is 36-year-old driver mechanic, Charles Quansah, who has confessed to killing eight of the women.

According to him, between 1993 and 2001, he killed women in Kumasi, and three Accra suburbs - Dansoman, Mataheko and Adenta.

Quansah, alias Paapa Kobina Ebo who hails from Komenda in the Central Region, said he killed them by strangulation.

Quansah was put under police surveillance for quite some time before he was arrested.

A police statement issued in Accra yesterday said he made the great confession on May 8, 2001.

He was arrested at his Adenta residence in February this year, following intensified investigations into the serial murders in the past 12 months, including the setting up of a special team which includes experts in crime scene management and interrogation.

He was sent to an Accra Court which remanded him in custody.

According to police and prison records, in 1986 and 1987, Quansah served jail terms at the James Fort Prisons and Nsawam Prisons respectively for rape.

After serving his sentence at Nsawam Prisons, he went to Kumasi Ayigya to settle there till after 1997 when he moved to Dansoman, Accra. In September 2000, Quansah moved to Adenta, Accra.

The statement said the Ghana Police have had assistance from experts of the American FBI in the form of what is known in the profession as Scientific Investigation Support (SIS).

The FBI has collected physical evidence to their laboratory for further scientific analysis and a report on these will confirm other pieces of evidence at hand in order to commence prosecution, the statement said.

He Was Tortured To Confess...... ... They Tried To get Him To Implicate JJ & Govt Minister Charles Quansah, the man accused of being responsible for the serial killing of 34 women has began talking again and indications are that he may soon cause enough trouble for some political heavy weights. The Insight newspaper says it has had the privilege of listening to a one-hour tape recording of Charles Quansah and can confirm that it is more than explosive. The paper says Quansah denied any involvement in the killing of the 34 women. “Our understanding is that the tape recording was done at the Medium Security Prison at Nsawam, where Charles Quansah is currently housed in the condemned cells. It is still not clear who did the recording and whether it was done with the approval of prison authorities”, the paper noted. However, a prison officer is known to have been interdicted for allegedly facilitating contact with Quansah by unauthorized persons. According to Quansah, his alleged confession to the murder of 34 women was obtained through torture. He describes in detail, several torture sessions in which he was burnt with pressing iron and beaten so severely that he bled profusely from his ears. One of the most interesting disclosures by Quansah is that his interrogators tried to get him to implicate former President Rawlings and his wife, Nana Konadu Agyeman in the serial killings. Quansah insists that he has never met the couple and that inspite of the gruesome torture, he refused flatly to name the former first couple because if he did, it would be a blot on his conscience for the rest of his life. Quansah also alleges that at a later date in his interrogation, a police officer (name withheld) told him that if he implicated a very senior member of the Kufuor administration (name also withheld) in the serial killing, he would be left off lightly. He does not explain why the police officer wanted the senior member of the Kufuor administration implicated in the murders. The Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Ghana Police are emphatic that Quansah was responsible for the murders, but his denial brings a new dimension to the case.

PETER STUMPP

2009-11-21T18:42:00.001+07:00

Peter Stumpp (died 1589)

Was a German farmer, and alleged serial killer and cannibal, also known as the "Werewolf of Bedburg".

Sources

The most comprehensive source on the case is a pamphlet of 16 pages published in London in 1590, the translation of a German print of which no copies have survived. The English pamphlet, of which two copies exist (one in the British Museum and one in the Lambeth Library), was rediscovered by occultist Montague Summers in 1920. It describes Stumpp’s life and alleged crimes and the trial, and includes many statements from neighbors and witnesses of the crimes. Summers reprints the entire pamphlet, including a woodcut, on pages 253 to 259 of his The Werewolf.

Additional information is provided by the diaries of Hermann von Weinsberg, a Cologne alderman, and by a number of illustrated broadsheets, which were printed in southern Germany and were probably based on the German version of the London pamphlet. The original documents seem to have been lost during the wars that swept over the Rhineland in the centuries that followed.

Biography

Peter Stumpp, whose name is also spelt as Peter Stube, Pe(e)ter Stubbe, Peter Stübbe or Peter Stumpf,and other aliases include such names as Abal Griswold, Abil Griswold, and Ubel Griswold, was born at the village of Epprath near the country-town of Bedburg in theelectorate of Cologne. His date of birth is not known, as the local church registers were destroyed during the Thirty Years' War (17th c.). He was a wealthy farmer and influential member of the rural community. In the 1580s he seems to have been a widower with two children; a girl called Beele (Sybil), who seems to have been over fifteen, and a son of an unknown age. In the years before his trial he had an intimate relationship with a distant relative called Katharina Trump (also spelt "Trumpen" or "Trompen").

Accusations

In 1589, Stumpp had one of the most lurid and famous werewolf trials in history. After being stretched on the rack, he confessed to having practiced black magic since he was twelve years old. He claimed that the Devil had given him a magical belt, which enabled him tometamorphose into "the likeness of a greedy, devouring wolf, strong and mighty, with eyes great and large, which in the night sparkled like fire, a mouth great and wide, with most sharp and cruel teeth, a huge body, and mighty paws." Removing his belt, he said, made him transform back to his human form.

For twenty-five years, Stumpp had allegedly been an "insatiable bloodsucker" who gorged on the flesh of goats, lambs, and sheep, as well as men, women, and children. Being threatened with torture he confessed to killing and eating fourteen children, two pregnant women, and theirfetuses. One of the fourteen children was his own son, whose brain he was reported to have devoured.

Not only was Stumpp accused of being a serial murderer and cannibal, but also of having an incestuous relationship with his daughter, who was sentenced to die with him, and he coupled with a distant relative, which was also considered to be incestuous according to the law. In addition to this he confessed to having had intercourse with a succubus sent to him by the Devil.

Execution

Composite woodcut print of the execution of Peter Stumpp in 1589 near Cologne.

His execution is one of the most brutal on record: He was put to the wheel, where flesh was torn from his body, in ten places, with red-hot pincers, followed by his arms and legs. Then his limbs were broken with the blunt side of an axehead to prevent him from returning from the grave, before he was beheaded and burned on a pyre. His daughter and mistress had already been strangled and were burned along with Stumpp's body. As a warning against similar behavior, local authorities erected a pole with the torture wheel and the figure of a wolf on it, and at the very top they placed Peter Stumpp's severed head.

Background

It is impossible to determine whether Stumpp really committed the crimes of which he was accused. He may have been a serial murderer, though there are a number of details in the London pamphlet that are inconsistent with the historical facts.

The years in which Stumpp was supposed to have committed most of his crimes (1582-1589) were marked by internal wars in the Electorate of Cologne after the abortive introduction of Protestantism by the former Archbishop Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg. He had been supported by Adolf, Count of Neuenahr, who was also the lord of Bedburg.

Stumpp was most certainly a convert to Protestantism. The war brought the invasion of armies of either side, the assaults by marauding soldiers and eventually an outbreak of the plague. Murder and violence were the rule.

When the Protestants were defeated in 1587, Bedburg Castle became the headquarters of Catholic mercenaries under the command of the new lord of Bedburg - Werner, Count of Salm-Reifferscheidt-Dyck, who was a staunch Catholic determined to re-establish the Roman faith.

So it is not inconceivable that the werewolf trial was but a barely concealed political trial, with the help of which the new lord of Bedburg planned to bully the Protestants of the territory back into Catholicism. If it had only been just another execution of a werewolf and a couple of witches, as sprang up around this time in various parts of Germany, the attendance of members of the high aristocracy – maybe including the new Archbishop and Elector of Cologne – would be surprising.

Furthermore, the trial remained a singular event, nor did the judges refer to the new paradigma of werewolfism (explaining the animal transformation as an infernal delusion).

In popular culture

The U.S. metal band Macabre recorded a song about Peter Stumpp, titled "The Werewolf of Bedburg"; it can be found on the Murder Metal album. And in the Pine Deep horror trilogy of Novelist and Folklorist Jonathan Maberry, Peter Stumpp is the supernatural villain Ubel Griswold. Since Griswold is actually one of Stumpp's historical aliases, Maberry decided to use the name of Ubel Griswold instead of openly telling people that the villain was the famous werewolf Peter Stumpp until later on in the 3rd Book of the series known as Bad Moon Rising.

NORBERT POEHLK

2009-11-21T18:38:00.001+07:00

Norbert Poehlke,

'The Hammer-Killer', was a German police officer who was found, after hissuicide in 1985, to have committed several bank robberies and murders.

The crimes

On May 3, 1984, 47-year-old Siegfried Pfitzer was found dead, shot in the head, at a highway rest stop in Marbach, West Germany. His car, found a quarter-mile from his body, was linked to a bank robbery the same day in Erbstetten. The assailant had smashed the teller window with a sledgehammer, and taken the money on the other side.

On December 21, 37-year-old Eugene Wethey was found shot dead in a rest stop nearGrossbottwar. A week later, Wethey's car was used in a bank robbery in Cleebronn by a man wielding a sledgehammer.

On July 22, 1985, 26-year-old Wilfried Scheider was found shot dead in a parking lot in Beilstein-Schmidhausen. He was shot with a Walther P5 pistol, a common police issue pistol. The victims car was found at the scene of a bank robbery in Spiegelberg.

End Of The Line

On September 29, while searching a Ludwigsburg railway station for bombs, anti-terrorist officers happened upon a police uniform in one of the lockers. The uniform was traced to Chief Inspector Norbert Poehlke, a veteran officer of 14 years in Stuttgart. Poehlke said it had been left there after a quick change for a family member's funeral. Police became suspicious when they discovered no recent family deaths, but that his daughter had died of cancer in 1984.

The investigation was picking up when, on October 14, Poehlke requested, and got, some sick leave. Several days later police went to his home to ask him some questions regarding the murders and robberies. With no one answering, and fearing Poelhke had fled, the police entered the house. What they found was Poelhke's wife shot twice in the head in the bathroom and in one of the bedrooms was his son Adrian, also shot dead.

Three days later, October 23, Poehlke and his other son, Gabriel, were found shot dead, a clear murder-suicide, in his car near Brindisi, Italy. Poehlke's pistol was confirmed as the murder weapon in the murders, and the case was closed.

STEPHAN LETTER

2009-11-21T18:29:00.002+07:00

Stephan Letter

Is a German serial killer known to be responsible for the killings of at least 29 elderly patients while he was working at a hospital as a nurse in Sonthofen, Bavaria. In December 2006, Stephan Letter was found guilty for 29 murders and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

From TIMESONLINE.COM

Germany's Angel of Death sentenced to life in prison

The broad shoulders of male nurse Stephan Letter, Germany’s Angel of Death, quivered today as he was sentenced to life imprisonment for killing 28 patients, making him the country’s worst serial killer since the war.

It marked the end of a nine-month trial that has stunned the sleepy mountain community of Sonthofen which was pronounced "The Alpine Town of 2005".

Choking back tears the milky-faced 28-year-old turned first to his lawyer - who had presented him as a mercy killer tormented by the suffering of others - and then to the public gallery where relatives of the dead had come to see justice done. He seemed to mouth four short words in their direction: "Es Tut Mir Leid" - I’m sorry.

Judge Harry Rechner, found Mr Letter guilty of murder in 12 cases, manslaughter in 15 and killing on demand in another as well as attempted manslaughter and causing grievous bodily harm.

In a highly unusual decision for Germany, he ruled that no upper limit should be placed on the life sentence, ensuring that Mr Letter could not be released after 15 years for good behaviour.

When doctors first suspected that Mr Letter had been fatally injecting patients with a cocktail of tranquilisers and muscle relaxants in 2004, a massive process of exhumation began. Bewildered tourists would pass forensic scientists in white hooded overalls on their way to dig up corpses: over 40 bodies were examined, all patients who had died during Mr Letter’s shifts.

Waltraud Schoenberger, a 55-year-old mother of two was one of those who welcomed the sentence. Her 79-year-old mother Beata Giehl was taken to the Sonthofen Clinic on April 30, 2003 with a suspected heart attack. By late afternoon however Mrs Giehl was chatting cheerfully with her daughters. By 10 o’clock that evening she was dead.

"I hope that this murderer stays in prison to the very end of his life," said Mrs Schoenberger. "Sure, he had a difficult childhood but it can’t be that everyone like that becomes a killer."

Cases such as that of Mrs Giehl were crucial to the final sentencing. They exposed the weakness of Mr Letter’s mercy-killing defence. Many of the patients that he fatally injected on his night shift were recent admissions and even the doctors had not had a chance to make a definitive diagnosis.

Mr Letter had claimed he was relieving excruciating pain or responding to pleas for a quick death. Yet trial testimony showed again and again that this was not plausible. His last victim, a 73-year-old Spanish woman, Pilar Del Rio Peinador, had been admitted to hospital with breathing problems but was already well enough to be planning a holiday in her homeland when she was fatally injected in July 2004.

Defence lawyer Juergen Fischer had presented Mr Letter as a complex, disturbed man. Mr Letter’s coordination had been poor as a child and his plainly disturbed mother had become convinced that he was mentally handicapped: over a period of several years she took him from one doctor to another.

His first ambition was to be a casualty doctor but mediocre school marks meant that he had to settle for nursing. At one hospital he fell in love with a female nurse who was suffering from a borderline personality disorder. Mr Fischer who had ordered a psychological examination of the young woman - to show how a crime could evolve from a relationship between two psychologically damaged people - said he was disappointed that the judge had not taken into account all the mitigating circumstances. His client is considering an appeal.