Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - “The S-Bahn Murderer of Berlin” Paul Ogorzow Pt. 1

Episode Date: June 28, 2021

Coming of age alongside Adolf Hitler's political rise, Paul Ogorzow took his cue from the Nazi party, and looked at some of his fellow Germans as little more than rodents to be stamped out. He took advantage of World War II to carry out his terrifying attacks around Berlin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Due to the graphic nature of this killer's crimes, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of murder, sexual assault, physical violence, and Nazi ideology. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. Gerta Cargall was not having a good Friday night. After a long, exhausting week working at a factory in the outskirts of Berlin, she wanted nothing more than to get home to her bed. The city was under a wartime blackout, and Gerdas' character, was almost completely dark.

Combined with the motion of the train, it was soothing, and she'd fallen asleep and missed her stop. She managed to switch trains and started heading back in the right direction. But she could see a ticket inspector heading down the aisle towards her. No longer on her original train, she knew she was going to be charged to fine, one she couldn't afford to pay. Gerda looked up at the uniformed young man and told him what had happened.

She braced for the worst, but the man smiled sympathetically. It happens all the time, he told her. Ride with me and you'll be fine. She gladly accepted the friendly stranger and followed him into an empty carriage. But soon after the train left the station, the man turned to Gerda and he was unrecognizable. Gone was the kind ticket inspector, replaced with a man possessed. Looking at his face, Gerda was terrified. She knew she'd made a terrible mistake.

Hi, I'm Greg Poulson. This is Serial Killers, a Spotify original from Parcast. Every episode, we dive into the minds and madness of serial killers. Today, we're exploring the killing spree of Paul O'Gorzo, Berlin's S. Bond Murderer. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Hi, everyone. You can find episodes of serial killers, and also, other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Today we'll look at our Gorzo's rise through the ranks of the Nazi party, how we took advantage of wartime blackouts to frighten and attack women, and watch as his attacks escalate to murder on board Berlin's railroad system. In part two, we'll cover Ogorzo's murder spree aboard the S-Bond trains and how investigators finally brought him down. We've got a all that and more coming up. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Bonnie and Clyde, the lonely hearts killers, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. These are infamous criminal duels. But you don't need to break any laws to find your perfect business partner because you have Shopify. It's the commerce platform that can help you with literally everything,

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Between 1940 and 1945, Nazi Germany systematically killed more than 6 million Jewish people and millions of others, who were part of groups that the Third Reich deemed, quote, undesirable. Over the decades since, there have been many attempts to make sense of this unfathomable atrocity, and in particular how so many ordinary Germans were persuaded to join the Nazi movement. At the Nuremberg trials where Nazi war criminals were prosecuted, many the accused famously defended themselves by saying they were just following orders. This begs the question, can good people really be persuaded to join an evil cause, or does evil simply give bad people an excuse to indulge their worst impulses?

In the case of Paulo Gorso, it was certainly the latter. He was born in 1912, in a small village in what was the last, then East Prussia. He was the child of a farm worker, Marie Zaga, and a father whose name wasn't listed on his birth certificate. There's very little information available about Paul's early life until he was adopted at the age of 12. That was in 1924 when he was taken in by a farmer named Johan O'Gorzo and relocated with him to Germany. They ultimately settled in the small town of Nowan, about 37 kilometers west of Berlin. O'Gorzo had a stable, there, first working as a laborer on his father's farm and later at a nearby steel factory,

but he found his true calling in a rising political movement that was reshaping the nation. O'Gorzo came of age along the far-right National Socialist German Workers' Party, more commonly known as the Nazi Party. They promoted violent nationalism, anti-Marxism, and anti-Semitism. Though it now stands as an indelible symbol of monstrosity and mass murder, the Nazi party was then on the fringes of German politics, but its influence was growing with the assent of charismatic orator Adolf Hitler. In 1930, as soon as O'Gorzo turned 18, he joined the Nazi party. Three years later, when the Nazi seized power, many other Germans began joining.

But O'Gorzo was an early adopter, and getting in on the ground floor conferred status. As such, he rose quickly within the ranks. O'Gorzo became part of the Sturmop-Tai-Lung. Also known as the SA, this was the party's paramilitary branch who were essentially the muscle, big, brutish men who did the party's dirty work. This often involved beating up people who were either marginalized or part of an opposing political group. Distinct from the regular army, the SA were known as thuggish vigilantes, and the mere sight of them could strike fear into the hearts of ordinary people throughout Berlin. As a new recruit among their ranks, O'Gorzo got his first taste of real power. Vanessa is going to take over in the psychology here and throughout the episode.

Please note, Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or a psychiatrist, but she has done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg. Over the decades since the term was first coined, many systems have been used to classify serial killers. One of the most common divides killers into four categories that describe their primary motivation, visionary killers, mission-oriented killers, hedonistic killers, and power-control killers. This last type of killer gets pleasure from controlling and dominating their victims and from stalking their prey.

According to criminology professor Scott Bonn, the power control killer enjoys getting to decide when, how, and under what circumstances his victims will die. We'll see as this story unfolds that Ogorson's story unfolds that Ogors fits the mold of a power control killer, which might be why he was drawn to the SA. For the time being, though, his acts of violence were limited to those that were sanctioned by his Nazi superiors. O'Gorzo's career outside of the party was also gathering steam. In 1934, he was hired as a manual laborer for Germany's National Railroad, Deutsche Reichsbahn.

Among other lines, his company ran Berlin's Esplan train, a rapid transit system transporting thousands of passengers into and around the city each day. Though he started out at the bottom of the ladder, laying track for the railroad, O'Gorzo soon worked his way up in the Reichsbon, just as he had in the Nazi party. In the mid-1930s, he was hired as an assistant signalman at Rommelsberg Depot and interchange in the eastern suburbs of Berlin. With his career now on a roll, it was time for O'Gorzo to turn his attention to the home front.

Marriage and children were a major part of the Nazi ideal. In fact, in 1933, Hitler introduced a law for the encouragement of marriage, which gave incentives to Aryan couples to wed and procreate. As an ambitious young party member, O'Gorzo needed a wife and children at home, and he was determined to secure the picture-perfect life. So in 1937, he married a saleswoman named Gertruda Siegelman, and the couple soon had two children. Two years after the wedding, O'Gorzo moved his family to the residential neighborhood of Carl's Horst. It was an easy commute to his job at the train depot, just 10 minutes by bike or 40 by foot.

To outsiders, O'Gorzo looked to be living the suburban dream. Being so close to work meant he didn't have to spend too much time away from his family, and neighbors often saw him playing with the children out in the garden of his apartment building. At work, he was known as a reliable and efficient employee, adept at multitasking, calm in a crisis. But O'Gorzo's respectable façade hid a fiery and irrational nature, which emerged only behind closed doors. O'Gorzo was obsessed with the idea that Gertrude was cheating on him.

More than once, he came home early from work, planning to catch her in the act. But he never did, because Gertruta was always faithful. But the truth didn't matter. O'Gorzo was certain that his wife was cheating, and that conviction made him increasingly violent and abusive towards her. No matter what Gertruda said or did, she couldn't convince him otherwise. This irrational belief might speak to something deeper in O'Gorzo, in irrational but powerful sense of rage towards women.

The lack of information about O'Gorzo's childhood means we have to speculate a little here. However, we know that he was an illegitimate child in the parlance of the time and may not have had a father figure until he was adopted at 12. It's possible that Orgozzo resented his mother for having him outside of wedlock. Perhaps he saw this as an indication that she was untrustworthy or had loose morals, and this attitude about women eventually seeped into his marriage. Whatever the case, Ogorzo's misogynist rage eventually spilled out into the open.

The route between Argoz's home and workplace took him through a quiet, almost bucolic plot of gardens. These areas were common throughout Germany at the time, full of lush fruit trees, manicured bushes, and small allotments where residents grew their own produce. For most people, the gardens were a respite, a calming and restorative place to begin and end the workday, but for a gorzo, they were a hunting ground. In the summer of 1939, World War II was still a few months away, but it was already transforming Berlin. In preparation for potential attacks, the German guns were in the German government. government ordered the city to prepare for blackouts at short notice, meaning that all light

sources would be cut off after dark. In some public spaces outside of the city center, like the gardens, blackouts went into effect immediately. The goal was to make it harder for British bombers to find targets, but it had an unintended consequence of making the city more hospitable for a predator like O'Gorzo. Soon after midnight on August 13, 1939, O'Gorzo was prowling the garden of the Friedrichs-Felda district near his home. In the distance, he saw a woman in her early 40s, Lena Budzinski, who was walking home from the train station along the darkened garden path.

O'Gorzo started following Lena. He didn't make much effort to be quiet, and she soon realized she wasn't alone, afraid she broke into a run, praying she wouldn't trip on the pitch black path. As she reached the gate of her property, she heard heavy breathing behind her and felt a blinding pain in the back of her head.

It took her a moment to realize that O'Gorzo had hit her. Without hesitating, he stabbed her in the back four times. Concussed, dazed and losing blood rapidly. Lena couldn't think clearly. Extraordinarily, though, she was able to gather her strength and make an adrenaline-fueled dash for safety. She made it inside her house and frantically lock the door behind her. Outside, O'Gorzo fled.

His first attempt at murder hadn't gone remotely to plan. Frustrated and humiliated, he went home to lick his wounds. Meanwhile, Lena survived to tell her story. At the hospital, she was questioned by police, who asked her to describe her attacker's appearance and voice. But O'Gorzo hadn't spoken, and the path was too dark for her to make out his face. She had no solid information to give them. Even if she had, the chaos of wartime would soon mean the police's resources were stretched thin.

On September 1st, 1939, just two weeks after O'Gorzo's attack on Lina, Germany invaded Poland. World War II had begun. Up next, O'Gorso uses the war to his own murderous advantage. Every so often, something so impactful happens it has the power to be able to. capture the attention of a whole country. An event so deadly or dumbfounding, it has no choice but to live on in infamy. Hi, parcasters, it's Ashley Flowers and I'm exposing the most sinister cases from the darkest corners of the globe in my new True Crime Limited series, International Infamy.

Every Tuesday, come along as I guide you on a wicked world tour. 15 different countries, 15 infamous crimes. Take a trip to Iceland where six people confessed to a murder that never actually happened. Journey to Mexico, where Alucha Libre wrestler moonlights as a serial killer, and travel to New Zealand where two friends hatch a deadly plan to become famous. Each episode of International Infamy explores the twists and turns of a notoriously high-profile case, zeroing in on the cultural details which make the crime unique to its location, and explaining why it couldn't have happened anywhere else.

Follow my new Spotify original from Parcast, International Infamy with Ashley Flowers, and catch a new episode every week. Listen free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Now back to the story. In the fall of 1939, as World War II took hold across Europe, 27-year-old Paul O'Gorzo had what appeared to be a model life for a young German of the time. He had a wife and children in the Berlin suburbs, a respectable German. working for the city's railroad, and was a valued member of the reigning Nazi party.

But despite his party affiliation, O'GORSO had no particular interest in doing his part to support the war effort. Instead, he was taking advantage of the wartime conditions to fulfill his own perverse and violent urges. With so many men called to serve on the front lines, Berlin's suburbs were now full of housewives who suddenly found themselves alone and vulnerable, Given the blackout conditions during the evenings, that vulnerability was only heightened. As a man who wanted desperately to humiliate, scare, and harm women, O'Gorzo was surrounded by temptation, but he was also cautious after his attack on Lena Budzinski hadn't gone to plan. He didn't think she'd seen enough of his face to identify him, but he couldn't be sure,

so while he wasn't worried enough to stay away from the gardens, he retreated into more mild offenses for a while, attacks designed to scare but not physically harm. Over the next few months, O'Gorzo ambushed numerous women by shining his flashlight directly into their eyes. It might sound like a juvenile prank, until you consider just how disorienting it is to go from total darkness to bright light in the middle of a quiet city park. Picture it, you're engulfed by darkness, carefully making your way along a path that's illuminated only by the night sky. Suddenly, your eyes are flooded with a light so bright that you're forced to squint. Blinded, dazed, and frightened, you hear a stranger's voice shouting crude, sexual remarks

from somewhere that feels uncomfortably close. This is the deeply creepy experience that many women had with Argozzo during the fall of 1939. Many reported the incidents to the police, but because they couldn't see past the glare of his flashlight, they couldn't give a description of their attacker. But merely scaring his victims didn't keep Ogorzo satisfied for long. Under the cover of darkness, he stalked and terrorized the women of his neighborhood. All told, Ogorso reportedly attacked more than 30 women. But for this story, we're only going to describe the attacks that amounted to attempted murder, because those are the incidents we have clear details of. Four months after his attack on Lena Budzinski, Ogorzo was ready to try killing

again. In the pre-dawn hours of December 14, 1939, he was stalking his regular path through the gardens. A little way ahead of him, he saw 19-year-old Herta Yablinsky walking home from the Esban Station. Though Herta was exhausted after a long day at work, she was alert enough to notice the footsteps behind her, but squinting through the darkness, she couldn't see anybody. Trying to quell her panic, Herta began running as fast as she could, desperate to make it back to her house. Behind her, Ogorzo was in hot pursuit. Though Herta knew the path well, the absolute darkness made it treacherous. O'Gorzo was larger than Hertha and more accustomed to navigating the gardens in the dark. Within moments he caught up to her and

grabbed her. Without hesitation, Ogorzo stabbed Hertha in the neck, then again and again. miraculously, he missed both her arteries and her vocal cords. This meant that Herta was able to scream, loudly enough to spook O'Gorzo. With her cry echoing out into the dark, he fled the scene in a panic. After his previous failures, O'Gorzo already had good reason to fear being caught, and now he'd left yet another survivor to tell the tale. For a while after his attack on Hertha, he laid low, resorting to low-level crime like ambushing women with this flashlight.

These incidents are another indication of O'Gorzo's deep craving for power and control. Though he took a break from violent crime, he still got a thrill out of catching women off guard, terrifying and disorienting them, and humiliating them with crude sexual remarks. According to research psychologist Marissa Harrison, humiliation is often linked to the desire for domination and control by ambushing women and women and violence. verbally harassing them, O'Gorzo wanted to make them feel powerless, thereby making himself feel powerful. These seemingly nonviolent attacks had the advantage of being much less interesting to law enforcement. The Berlin police were aware that somebody was attacking women in the gardens that night,

but since nobody had been killed and there was little evidence for them to pursue, the case went nowhere. By the summer of 1940, as the war raged on, O'Gorzo's confidence, was building. There was no indication that either of his surviving victims had been able to identify him, and he was ready to try and kill again. Surely he figured the third time would be the charm. Around 1.30 a.m. on July 27th, O'Gorzo set his sights on 25-year-old Gertrude Nizvant, who was walking through the gardens to her parents' house. Once again, O'Gorzo didn't make much effort to be stealthy, and Gertrude soon realized that some of the same. was following her. She walked more quickly, trying not to panic. Maybe someone else was simply

walking home from the station the same way as her. But when she reached her parents' house, Gertrude saw Orgoso emerge from the darkness. He was standing just a couple of paces away, with an unreadable expression on his face. Then, in a calm tone, he asked, are you going in here? Gertrude was confused, but not panicked. Was this man trying to hit on her? Tired. Tired. and a little impatient, she told him yes. Then she told him that if he didn't leave her alone, she would cry out for help. O'Gorso's response was chilling. He simply said, Don't cry yet. Then in a flash, he hit her hard over the head and stabbed her in the neck with his pocket knife. When he stabbed her again, Gertrude screamed, and O'Gorzo fled the scene.

Gertrude was O'Gorzo's third attempt at murder, and his third third. failure. But despite the mounting body of evidence, it's not clear how seriously the police were investigating these attacks. So three weeks later, Ogorzo tried again. This time, he was determined to make sure his victim couldn't scream for help. In the early hours of August 21st, 40-year-old Yuley Schumacher was walking home through the darkened gardens, after getting off a late shift at work. Suddenly, her vision was flooded by an unbearably bright light. temporarily blinding her. It was O'Gorzo and his flashlight.

As Yuli yelped an alarm, O'Gorzo hit her over the head with a heavy lead cable, knocking her unconscious. Once he made absolutely sure she was out, O'Gorzo raped her. After that, he walked away. When Yulee came round and alerted the authorities, she didn't remember much about her attacker at all.

But during a forensic exam at the hospital, a doctor found seaman, confirming that there was a rape, operating in the Friedrichsfeldegarden district. Taking all of the evidence into account, the police classified all four of the attacks so far on Lena Budzinski, Herta Jablinsky, Gertrude Miesvant, and Yuli as attempted murders. They were also aware of O'Gorzo's other less violent attacks

that had taken place in the same area. It's not clear why O'Gorzo didn't go through with killing Yuli, given he'd attempted murder several times before. Perhaps he thought the head wound had been fatal, or perhaps he simply wasn't in the mood for more bloodshed that night. That changed soon enough. A couple of weeks later, O'Gorzo attacked another woman who he saw walking home alone through the gardens.

At least, she seemed to be alone. In a pitch-black clearing between two rows of allotments, O'Gorzo struck. The woman barely had time to scream before his hands closed around her neck. He squeezed hard. trying to simultaneously silence her and make her lose consciousness. The woman fought him hard, knowing that help was nearby. Unbeknownst to O'Gorzo, her husband and brother-in-law were on their way to meet her, and as soon as they heard her screaming, they came running.

The two men pulled O'Gorzo away and beat him savagely. He was able to flee the scene and hide among the bushes. But once again, he'd left yet another survivor who could identify him. and this time there were two other witnesses. There were now eight people out there who had either survived or witnessed his crimes and might be able to identify him to police. Clearly, O'Gorzo's strategy wasn't sustainable. But despite his fear of getting caught, abandoning his violence free wasn't even a consideration

for him. And it soon occurred to the wannabe killer that he had another option. O'Gorzo realized he'd been overlooking a huge advantage, By virtue of his work for the railroad, he had unfettered access to the S-Bahn train system and a uniform that gave him the appearance of authority. With so many men at war, the trains were mostly full of women traveling alone. Looking at O'Gorso, they would see a young man at work, an authority figure they could trust. In other words, he'd found a perfect new hunting ground.

Coming up, O'Gorzo begins his killing spree, a boy. the Espan. Now back to the story. In August of 1940, 27-year-old Paul O'Gorzo was on edge. He'd made a huge mistake, attacking a woman he believed to be alone, who was actually with her husband and brother-in-law. He was beaten savagely in the bungled attack, but managed to get away. Days later, he was still looking over a shoulder, worried that police would track him down. But O'Gorzo had a plan, new way to find victims that was far more efficient and far safer than stalking neighborhood gardens at night. O'Gorso's job working as a signal man for the Berlin-Espan train line gave him ample opportunities

to hunt for victims. And thanks to the escalating war across Europe, another advantage soon dropped into his lap. On August 25, 1940, British bombs fell on Berlin for the first time. In response, Germany initiated the Blitz, a 267 day-long onslaught of bombing on cities across Britain. Throughout the Blitz, cities in both Germany and Britain expanded their mandated blackouts, turning out as many light sources as possible to make it harder for bombers to find targets at night. Blackouts had already existed in some areas outside of the city center, like the gardens where O'Gorzo had previously hunted for his victims,

but now the blackouts expanded to include all public spaces. Crucially, this included carriages on above-ground trains, like the S-Bahn. As a result, the trains were almost completely dark at night, as were the station platforms. Only every other light bulb was permitted to be on and could be used only at half the normal light level. The result was a dusky, murky kind of semi-light. Having worked on the railroad for years, O'Gorzo knew the train. like the back of his hand. Even in the near darkness,

he could move around and between the cars with confidence. Additionally, his uniform lent him an air of trustworthiness. Nobody would look twice at a young Espon employee patrolling the carriages at night. It was the perfect scenario for a budding young killer, desperate to finally find a victim he could overpower. On the night of Friday, September 20, 1940, O'Gorzo put his new plan into action,

Walking calmly through one of the train compartments, he cast his gaze from left to right, squinting carefully into the darkness. Soon enough, his eye fell on a young woman who looked nervous. Her name was Gerta Cargall, and she was in trouble. Exhausted after a long week at work, Gerta had fallen asleep on a different Espan train and missed her stop. She got off the first train and onto Orgosos,

which would take her back to her original destination. But because of her mistake, her ticket was no longer valid, and she knew she'd have to pay a fine if a conductor stopped her. O'Gorzo watched Gerda shifting nervously in her seat. As he approached her, he made a point of smiling and asking politely if she was all right. As Gerta explained what had happened, O'Gorzo nodded sympathetically. He knew exactly how it felt to be dog tired at the end of the week, he told her. People fell asleep on the trains all the time, and he was sure the ticket inspector would understand. Gerta felt reassured having an Espan employee on her side, and she felt even better when O'GORZO offered her a free ticket upgrade, inviting her to ride with him in the more comfortable and spacious second-class car.

At this time of night, second class was invariably empty, meaning Gerta would be all alone with O'Gorzo. But she wasn't thinking about that. She was thinking about how helpful this train employee was being and how badly she could use a break tonight. so she accepted the offer and followed O'Gorzo into the empty, darkened second-class compartment. Just moments after the door closed, O'Gorzo turned to Gerda, his face barely illuminated by a half-lit incandescent bulb. But even in the dim light, his face looked suddenly different. His kind expression was gone. Before Gerda had time to react, O'Garzo put his hands around her neck and began to strangle her.

But he'd underestimated her. Gerda was a factory worker and her job involved a lot of manual labor. She was strong. She fought Ogorso tooth and nail, struggling to break free of his grip and trying to push past him toward the train door. But before she could make it, she collapsed. The oxygen deprivation finally overwhelming her. Gerta had simply passed out, but Ogorso believed he had killed her. For a moment, he allowed himself to endanger her.

enjoy it, the pure thrill of having finally taken a life after so many failed attempts. But Agorso knew he didn't have much time to bask, nor was there time for him to rape Gerda before the train reached its next stop. The Espon stations weren't very far apart. Panicked, Agorzo dragged Gerdas dead weight over to the train door, slid it open, and threw her from the moving carriage. Then he tossed her belongings out after her to ensure there was no evidence for anyone to find. By the time the train arrived at the next station, there was no trace of Gerda left behind. You can tell a lot about the mindset of a serial killer by the way he disposes of his victim's bodies, whether the body is posed or dismembered or preserved. O'Gorzo threw

Gerda out of a moving train, as if she were nothing more than trash. This clearly indicates a total lack of remorse and humanity, but it also tallies with the Nazi ideology. At its core, Nazism was about the dehumanization of certain groups, including those who were Jewish, Romani, LGBTQIA plus, or disabled. Nazis famously referred to Jewish people and other targets as rats. According to David Livingston Smith, a philosopher and professor who writes extensively about the psychology of cruelty, dehumanization often lays the groundwork for murder and genocide. In an interview with MPR, Smith noted that it's very difficult psychologically to kill another human being up close and in cold blood or to inflict atrocities on them, but dehumanizing

a victim or a group of victims can make it easier to overcome this psychological barrier. Having been a Nazi since he was 18, O'GORSO was well accustomed to seeing other people as less than human. He'd spent his entire adult life steeped in a mindset that made it acceptable and desirable to eradicate individuals that were deemed inferior. It's not hard to see how he made the leap to killing in his downtime. But for a would-be serial murderer, O'Gorzo was terrible at actually killing people. Just like his four previous victims, Gerta survived. Despite having been both strangled and thrown from a moving train, she awoke on an embankment near the tracks, in pain, but, but, and but able to scream for help.

After Gerda was taken to the hospital, the police investigated her claim that a man had thrown her from the train, but they reportedly dismissed much of her story as a hoax designed to cover up the embarrassing truth. She had been drunk and fell off the train. There was a sliver of truth here. Gerta had apparently enjoyed a couple of drinks before getting on the train, but there's no indication she was drunk when O'GORSO attacked her.

Still, this version of events was good enough for the police. Accidents had become common on the railroad ever since the blackouts began, and even if the authorities did believe Gerda, there was nothing to link this attack to those in the gardens of Friedrichs Felda. Despite his sloppiness, O'Gorzo was in the clear. As far as O'Gorzo knew, he had finally killed someone, and the adrenaline high was dizzying. Just as he thought, the train was an ideal place for him to find victims, and he was already looking forward to his next hunt. He was feeling so confident,

in fact, that he decided to experiment with something different. On the evening of October 1, 1940, O'Gorzo was standing on the platform of the Rummelsberg-espon station when 20-year-old Gertruda Ditter caught his eye. She was beautiful and alone, one of the many women whose husband was away at war. That night, she felt especially isolated in the dark of the station. Now a seasoned predator, Ogorzo knew how to spot vulnerability in his targets. He strode boldly up to Gertruda in his starched uniform and asked her out on a date. In contrast to his usual M.O., O'Gorzo had no intention of attacking Gertruda that night. He didn't try to persuade her to go anywhere with him. Instead, he was playing the long game.

O'Gorzo suggested that he could come and see Gertruda sometime, flattered by his the attention, Gertruda said yes and gave him her address. Three days later, late on the evening of October 4th, 1940, O'Gorzo paid her a visit. Gertruda let him in, of course. She had agreed to this trist, and things began just as she'd expected. The couple exchanged flirtatious small talk over drinks, the subtext of their evening looming large from the beginning. O'Gorzo played his part well, that of an ordinary young man just looking to hook up when the opportunity struck, but he had a different, much darker goal in mind beyond betting a married woman.

At some stage, the mood abruptly shifted. O'Gorzo wrapped his hands around Gertruda's throat and squeezed, then stabbed her in the neck, severing her carotid artery. As Gertruda bled out, O'Gorzo pocketed his knife and slipped out of her house under the blackout darkness. He hopped onto a trained headed east. and arrived home to his family in the suburbs. As he lay down beside his wife, whose name, let's not forget, was also Gertruda,

perhaps his mind wandered to his latest victim. How long would it take for her body to be found? It wasn't long. The following day, an NSV employee arrived at Gertruda's house to check on her children. The NSV was the Nazi government unit overseeing, among other things, child welfare. For reasons that aren't clear, the authorities had been threatening to take Gertruda's children

into care for some time. Expecting a routine visit, the NSV employee instead stumbled upon a nightmarish scene. Inside the house, he found Gertruda's body on the kitchen floor. When the police arrived, they found a kitchen knife underneath Gertruda's body, which was sent for forensic examination. But soon it became clear it wasn't the murder weapon. There were also no defensive wounds or forensic evidence on the body. Despite this, it was clear that Gertruda's death was a homicide,

but there wasn't much else to go on. Investigators didn't connect her murder to any other crimes. The ammo was so different from any of O'Gorzo's prior attacks that they couldn't have. Not yet. O'Gorzo may well have planned on this. As a party insider, he likely had some insight into how the government operated and how thin resources were stretched by the war. By constantly changing his MO, he made himself almost impossible to track.

Then again, this might be giving Ogorzo too much credit. It's equally possible that he was simply a clumsy monster who got lucky. In the chaos of war, it was easy for a death like Gertrudas to fall through the cracks. And just like the war, Ogorzo was only just getting started. Thanks again for tuning into serial killers. We'll be back soon with Part 2, where we'll explore O'Gorzo's extensive murder spree on board the S. Bond throughout the height of World War II,

and how police finally brought him down. For more information on Paulo Gorso, amongst the many sources we used, we found Scott Andrew Selby's book, A Serial Killer in Nazi Berlin, the chilling true story of the S. Bond murderer, extremely helpful in our research. You can find all episodes

of Serial Killers and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify. We'll see you next time. Have a killer week. Serial Killers is a Spotify original from Parcast. Executive producers include Max and Ron Cutler, sound designed by Michael Langsner, with production assistance by Ron Shapiro,

Trent Williamson, Carly Madden, and Bruce Kitovich. This episode of Serial Killers was written by Emma Dibdin, with writing assistance by Joel, Callan, fact-checking by Haley Milliken, and research by Brian Petrus and Chelsea Wood. Serial Killers stars Greg Poulson and Vanessa Richardson. Hi, listeners, it's Ashley Flowers, and here's a quick reminder to check out my new True Crime Limited series, International Infamy. Every Tuesday, I'm taking you across the globe to look at 15 of the most notorious crimes

from 15 different countries. Some stories are sure to shock, some may leave you stumped, but all are quite the trip. Follow my new series, International Infamy with Ashley Flowers. Listen for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. I want to hear something spooky. Some Monster, it reminded me of Bigfoot. Monsters Among Us is a weekly podcast featuring true stories of the paranormal. One of the boys started to exhibit demonic possession.

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