Like many of his serial killing kind, neighbours described Peter Kürten as a meek, god-fearing, church going family man. Little did they know that this mild-mannered act masked the actions of a sexually deviant psychopath who would stop at nothing in his mission to terrorize the women of Düsseldorf.
The case of Peter Kürten represents something of a watershed in the investigation of serial killers. Before he was executed, Kürten was interviewed by Professor Karl Berg, a psychiatrist, who built up what would now be called a psychological profile. He described Kürten as a narcissistic psychopath and a sexual pervert. It was 15 years before Berg’s work became widely known outside Germany, but it was the first time the technique of profiling had been applied to such crimes and, in later years, it would become a central tenet in the investigation and capture of many other serial killers.
Kürten talked openly and extensively about his life and crimes with Professor Berg, and the details revealed would be ones which would crop up again and again in the lives of other serial killers. Kürten’s father was an alcoholic who regularly beat him and sexually abused his mother and sister in front of him. In his early teens he helped a dog catcher to kill stray dogs and began to derive sexual pleasure from torturing them to death. He became an arsonist, setting fire to people’s houses to see the reaction the fire would get, and there were suggestions he had tried to kill young children by drowning them when he was swimming in a river. After the family moved from Cologne to Düsseldorf, he got a string of jobs but couldn’t hold on to any of them and so he began a career as a petty criminal. The police arrested him for theft and minor sexual offences, and he served a number of terms in prison. Gradually the scale of his offending increased. In May 1913 he committed the first of his known murders, killing a thirteen-year-old girl he chanced upon after he had broken into a house. He strangled her and then cut her throat with a pocket knife. The girl’s uncle was charged with the murder and, although he was acquitted, rumours persisted about him. He died a broken man a few years later. No doubt Kürten looked on from a distance, enjoying the effect his crime had on others, as he had done as an arsonist. A few months later he killed another young girl. This time he strangled her while they were having sex.
World War I stopped this first killing spree. He was drafted into the army and deserted almost immediately. He was caught and sentenced to eight years in prison. By the time he got out, in 1921, he appeared to be a changed man. He moved away from Düsseldorf, got married and found a steady job. When asked about him after his arrest, neighbours described him as a mild-mannered church-goer. It was not until he moved back to Düsseldorf that his second killing spree began. It was as if being back in the surroundings where he had killed before had set him off once again.
The pattern developed in the same way. Petty crime, arson, followed by opportunist attacks on women. It was several years before he began to kill again. In February 1929 he attacked a woman in the street, stabbing her 24 times without actually killing her. A week later he raped and murdered an eight-year-old girl. He stabbed her repeatedly with a pair of scissors and hid her body on a building site, returning later and attempting to dispose of the remains by burning them. It was the beginning of a reign of terror in Düsseldorf that would last until he was finally caught a year later.
Attacks continued regularly, not all of them fatal. The police didn’t appear to have any idea who the madman was, and the newspapers dubbed him the Vampire of Düsseldorf and wrote lurid stories about him drinking the blood of his victims. Two girls, one 13, the other 5, were killed at the same time. One was strangled and the other had her throat cut. The city was in a state of panic. Several of the women who survived attacks gave accurate descriptions of Kürten to the police, but they made no progress in finding the murderer.
Towards the end of September Kürten changed his method. Perhaps too many people were surviving after he stabbed them with a knife or scissors. Whatever the reason, he began to bludgeon his victims to death with a hammer. He began to send details of where the bodies were to the police, in imitation of Jack the Ripper, who, he would later say, he held in great admiration. In May 1930 he attacked Maria Budlies. He first talked her into coming to his apartment, where he attempted to rape her. He then took her into some nearby woods and attacked her again, but didn’t kill her. Initially she didn’t report the attack to the police, but wrote to a friend about it. The letter was wrongly addressed and was opened in the post office to try to discover the address of the sender. The details of the attack it contained were passed on to the police and they persuaded her to show them where her attacker lived. Kürten evaded arrest at first, but, after admitting his crimes to his wife, she turned him in and he was arrested.
Kürten was charged with nine murders and seven attempted murders. He confessed and gave details to the police of many more crimes. At his trial he entered a plea of insanity, but this was rejected and he was found guilty on all charges. He told Professor Berg about the pleasure he got from hurting people, and how the sight of blood made him sexually excited. On 2 July 1931 he was sent to the guillotine, where, just before being beheaded, he asked his executioner if he would live long enough after his head was cut off to be able to hear the blood gushing out of his body.