Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - “The S-Bahn Murderer of Berlin” Paul Ogorzow Pt. 2

Episode Date: July 1, 2021

Having graduated from brutal assaults to murders, Paul Ogorzow felt untouchable as he rode the rails, throwing his victims off speeding trains. But every train has to stop somewhere, and Paul's was headed for one very specific ending: swift and brutal justice. 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. On a winter's evening in the eastern side of Berlin, the tension in the air was as tangible as the cold. World War II had been raging for a year and a half, leaving residents of the city in a state of persistent dread. But as she waited for a train, At home, 39-year-old Johanna Fouked was on edge for a different reason. For months now, there had been whispers of a killer stalking the S-Bahn train lines, targeting

women traveling alone. A pregnant mother of three, Johanna felt especially vulnerable as she stood alone on the darkened platform. But she felt relief flood through her when she caught sight of a railroad employee nearby. The young man looked trustworthy with his starched S-Bon uniform and an unassuming smile. As she approached him, he asked, can I help you? Johanna asked if he would ride with her to her destination, which was just one stop away. The railroad worker said he'd be more than happy to escort her home. When the train pulled into the station, she followed him into an empty compartment,

relieved she'd found someone to keep her safe. Johanna had no idea she'd just stepped into the clutches of the S. Bon murderer himself. 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 delving back into the crimes of Paul O'Gorso, Berlin's S. Bonn murderer. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Hi, everyone. You can find episodes of serial killers and all other Spotify originals from podcast for free on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. In our last episode, we explored how O'Gorzo got his first taste of power as a member of the

Nazi party and how he took advantage of World War II blackouts to harass, attack, and kill women. Today, we'll cover O'Gorzo's escalating murder spree through 1941, the complex wartime investigation into his crimes, and the swift justice that awaited him. We've got all that and more coming up. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Whether you're hiring for a role or searching for a killer, the hunt can be exhausting.

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Somehow I lost eight whole hours. Listen now on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. In 28, Paul O'Gorzo felt content for the first time in his life. After a long run of botched attempts, he'd finally succeeded in murdering a woman in October of 1940, and the feeling was extraordinary. He wanted to do it again and soon, but he knew he had to be careful. He'd been careless with his early attempts, leaving behind a string of survivors who had alerted the authorities. But O'Gorzo wasn't too worried.

He had endless advantages on his side. Berlin had been under a wartime blackout order for more than a year now, requiring most lights to be dimmed or turned off after dark. This made it easy for him to stalk and attack lone women and get away with it. None of his victims had been able to identify him, likely because of government-mandated darkness. As a loyal Nazi party member and high-ranking officer in the SA, O'Gorzo felt untouchable. The feeling of authority he got from the party only bolstered his ego. and his desperate lust for more power. On the evening of November 4, 1940,

around a month after he murdered Gertruda Ditter in her own home, Ogorso donned his work uniform and returned to his hunting ground. After his shift at the station ended that night, Ogorso hopped aboard a train headed east. He stalked through the darkened Espan carriages, searching for a new victim. 30-year-old Elizabeth Bendorf had just finished her shift selling tickets at the Friedrichshagen S. Bond Station. As she boarded the train, O'Gorzo gestured at her to follow

him, offering her a more comfortable seat in the second-class carriage where they'd be alone. Elizabeth figured this was simply a professional courtesy. After all, they were both railroad employees, and O'Gorzo seemed friendly. Little did she know his mind was consumed with darkness. And hidden beneath the sleeve of his starched uniform was a long heavy piece of lead cable. For a few moments, the pair made small talk sitting across from each other. All the while, Ogorzo was watching the door out of the corner of his eye, hoping that nobody else would join them in the second-class carriage. Then, as soon as the train left the station,

O'Gorzo pulled out the cable and hit Elizabeth hard over the head. But he didn't strike with enough force to knock her out, so she screamed. Panicked, O'Gorzo kept hitting her until she fell silent. Assuming she was dead, he dragged Elizabeth toward the door of the train compartment. As he did so, he sexually assaulted her. He didn't have time to rape her. The train was only moments from its next station, but he apparently briefly touched her in a sexual manner.

Then he pulled the sliding door open and threw Elizabeth's body from the moving train. We don't have much insight into O'Gorzo's state of mind during these attacks, but reports suggest that this moment, when he threw her, threw his prone victims out of the moving train was the part that he relished the most. Vanessa is going to take over on the psychology here and throughout the episode. Please note, Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but she has done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg.

Disposing of a body is often seen as a purely practical aspect of murder, a way for the killer to cover his tracks. But this wasn't the case with Agorzo. He seemingly got a thrill out of hands. handling his victim's body after he had incapacitated her. On several occasions, he sexually assaulted women when he believed they were dead. It's possible that this was motivated by O'Gorzo's misogynistic expectations of women. He wanted them to be subservient and easy to control.

The authors of a 1989 paper on necrophilia for the Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law found that the most common motive for necrophilia is possession of a an unresisting and unrejecting partner. Last time, we discussed O'Gorzo's feelings of rage towards women, and his obsessive and unfounded belief that his wife was unfaithful. If his ultimate desire was to possess and fully control women, it's little wonder he enjoyed assaulting and disposing of his victims when they were either dead or near death.

Once he'd satisfied this perverse desire, he watched Elizabeth's limp form, into the night and felt at peace. Then he headed home to his family without a care in the world, confident that he had killed again. But he was wrong. Elizabeth survived not only O'Gorzo's brutal assault, but also her fall from the moving train. Just like Gerda Cargall, the first woman O'Gorzo attacked on the Esbon, she lived to tell the tale of her attack.

Berlin police found her a few hours later and rushed her to the hospital. for she was treated for a severe concussion. Eight days later, she was finally well enough to be questioned by the police. Unfortunately, she didn't remember much about her attacker, but her memory of the circumstances was clear, and despite her shaky recollection, her testimony was a turning point in the case. Two months prior, police had been dismissive of Gerta Cargill's claims that she'd been attacked,

because she'd been drinking that night. They figured she'd fallen from the train by accident and wanted to save face by blaming a mysterious assailant. But Elizabeth hadn't been drinking. It was easy for the police to verify that she had only just finished her shift at the station when she was attacked, and her testimony made them look at Gerdes' story in a new light.

From this point onward, the police began investigating both attacks as attempted murder. This meant that the case was escalated to the criminal police sigh, better known as the Cripo, the detective force within Nazi. Germany. The Cripo didn't draw any connection from these attacks to the murder of Gertruda Didder, the woman O'Gorzo killed in her own home, but they did investigate the possibility

that the S-Bahn attacks were linked to the attacks on women in the city's gardens, where O'Gorzo first started stalking women at night. With the connection in mind, they began questioning residents of the area. Meanwhile, both Elizabeth and Gerta had described their attacker as a railroad employee wearing a dark uniform. This narrowed things down a little, and over the next few weeks, the police interviewed some 30 suspects. Somehow, O'Gorzo was not among them. It's not clear how much he knew about the investigation, or when he figured out that Elizabeth

and Gerta had survived. But if he knew that the women were alive and being questioned, it wasn't enough to put him off. He laid low for a while, but after a month, he was feeling confident enough to strike again. On the night of December 3rd, Ogorzo noticed a young woman sitting alone in the second-class compartment. Her name was Elfrida Franca, and she was a 26-year-old nurse returning from work. The compartment was otherwise empty. Unlike before, Ogorso didn't need to lure Elfrida into a false sense of security. He already had her exactly where he wanted her.

There would be no small talk this evening. O'Gorzo walked up to Elfrida, pulled out a piece of heavy rebar from his sleeve, and struck her hard in the head. This time he made sure to use enough force to knock her out with one blow. In fact, he used enough force to fracture Alfredo's skull, causing her immediate and fatal brain damage. As usual, O'Gorzo knew he only had a few minutes. He dragged her body to the door, opened it up, and tossed her out. into the night. Then he threw her belongings out after her. The thrill was intense, but fleeting. It disappeared into the darkness along with Alfrida's body.

And tonight, O'Gorso wanted more. He got off the train at the next station and walked restlessly through the darkened residential streets. Within an hour, he saw 19-year-old Imgaard Friza walking home and made his move. He knocked Imgard unconscious, raped her, and left her for dead. She was alive when her body was found, but her injuries were severe. Ingard's skull was fractured by the force of O'Gorzo's blow, and though she was rushed to the hospital, she died there later the same day. Meanwhile, Alfrida's body was also found within hours,

and her murder was immediately linked to the attacks on Elizabeth and Gerta. The Cripo were now confident that they were dealing with a serial killer on the S-Bahn and wanted to publicize this fact, both to warn women of the danger and to seek information from the public. But their hands were tied. Yoseb Gerbels, the Reich Minister of Propaganda, had an iron grip on the German press and censored any information that would damage morale or make them look weak. Both would endanger the war effort.

The story of a serial killer stalking women on the S-Bahn would do both, and so news of the attacks was suppressed. Under these less than ideal conditions, Wilhelm Lutka, head of the Cripo's serious crimes unit, set out to investigate the case. He knew he had to find a way to keep the railroad safe without causing panic, and so he launched an ambitious undercover operation. Lutka deployed police officers to ride the Espan at night, posing as ordinary passengers. Some of these officers were women, while others were men simply disguised as women.

By using themselves as bait, the police hoped they could catch their killer in the act. And O'GORZO was about to walk right into their trap. Up next, police circle ever closer to the Espan murderer. The CIA. They're the first line of defense for the United States, analyzing intelligence to thwart any possible threats and keep us safe. Some of their involvements are made public, and others aren't.

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Now back to the story. As Christmas approached in 1940, the mood in Berlin was hardly festive. World War II had been raging for over a year, and between the blackouts, the officers away on the front lines, and the constant threat of bombings, the city's residents were on edge. And unbeknownst to most of those residents, Berlin's rail system was also being terrorized by a serial killer, Paul O'Gorzo. The police had formulated a plan to try and catch the murderer whose identity remained a mystery, officers in plain clothes were planted on S. Bond trains disguised to look like

civilian women traveling alone. The hope was that one of these decoys would catch the murderer's eye and that he could be apprehended in the act. And the plan worked almost perfectly. In his book, A Serial Killer in Nazi Berlin, the chilling true story of the S. Bond murderer, author Scott Andrew Selby describes an extraordinary near-Miss. According to this report, O'Gorzo approached a female police officer, believing her to be a civilian. But once he got up close, something about her spooked him, so he turned around and walked back the way he'd come. Thanks to his connections in the Nazi party and the SA, O'Gorzo had heard about the undercover police effort. It's not clear why he suspected that this woman was a police officer.

It's possible that she appeared too stoic and unafraid to be a civilian. In any case, O'Gorzo was a person. being much more cautious now. He knew that the police presence on the espon was beefed up at night, because that's when all of his attacks had been. So he adapted. He planned his next attack for just before dawn on a Sunday morning when the trains were close to empty. In the early hours of December 22nd, 30-year-old Elizabeth Boongena boarded the second-class compartment of an S-Bomb train. She was on her way to see her husband for Christmas at the Army base where he was stationed.

She was alone in the compartment except for O'Gorzo, and in the darkness she didn't see him coming until it was too late. O'Gorzo hit Elizabeth in the head and threw her from the moving train, along with her purse. When the police found her body a few hours later, they initially suspected that she had taken her own life. Suicides were common around the holidays. But once they discovered her belongings, which had clearly been thrown. from the train after her, they realized the Espan murderer had claimed another victim.

By this time, Ogorzo was already miles away, waking up in a sleepy suburb beside his unsuspecting wife. He felt peaceful after killing, and he wouldn't wait long to strike again. In the early hours of Sunday, December 29th, O'Gorzo boarded a train that was almost empty. Within moments, his eye fell on Gertrude Zevert. Gertrude was in her 40s and traveling alone in the second-class compartment. O'Gorzo suppressed a smile. Perfect. He gripped the iron rebar concealed in his sleeve and made his move. He walked right up to Gertrude and struck her hard in the head. She immediately crumpled to the floor, unconscious but still alive. Wasting no time, O'Gorzo threw Gertrude and her belongings out of the moving train.

The police found Gertrude lying near the tracks later that morning. She was rushed to the hospital where she died of her injuries the next day. The Espan murderer had claimed another victim. It's striking that on so many occasions, O'Gorzo failed to actually kill his victims in the moment. As we discussed last week, he botched numerous murders in the garden area near his home before eventually moving his activities to the Esbond. Though Gertrude did succumb to her injuries, the fact that she initially survived both the attack and the fall

shows that O'Gorzo's ammo was not very effective. Overkill is common at murder scenes. That is disproportionate and excessive violence far beyond what's necessary to kill. But underkill is less common. Why wouldn't O'Gorzo make sure that his victim was dead before throwing her from the train? Why risk leaving a surviving victim to identify him? It's hard to know why O'Gorzo would behave this. recklessly, but we can speculate. Criminal behavior experts have noted that it's common for seasoned

serial killers to become overconfident and start cutting corners. According to a 2008 briefing from the FBI, this is often misunderstood as the killer wanting to get caught, when in fact, they simply get sloppy. The Bureau explains, as serial killers continue to offend without being captured. They can become empowered, feeling they will never be identified. O'Gorzo truly believed that he was untouchable. He had good reason to think this. He was a model citizen in Nazi Germany, an Aryan family man, a proud party member, and valued SA officer. He didn't need to concern himself with finishing the job properly or carefully disposing of the bodies. He could afford to get sloppy. Or so he believed.

This sloppiness became more evident in the early hours of January 5th when O'Gorzo returned to the S-Bahn for yet another Sunday morning murder. Only this time he had no weapon with him. It's hard to understand how he could have made such a basic mistake, but it's possible O'Gorzo was getting bored of the same old M.O. And wanted to kill his next victim with his bare hands. Still, given the looming threat of a police patrol, it seems bizarre to risk the possibility that is a lot of the same.

victim might scream for help. Nonetheless, Ogorzo forged ahead. He saw Hedvik E. Bauer, a 27-year-old woman, and attacked, squeezing her throat tightly in his hands. Without the ability to knock his victim unconscious, O'Gorzo had a much harder time subduing her. Head Vick fought back, punching and kicking him, and it took all his strength to finally overcome her. Once she was unconscious, O'Gorzo rushed to throw her body. from the moving train before it reached the next station. Yet again, O'Gorso had failed to actually kill his victim in the moment, but Hedvick died of her injuries in the hospital later that same day,

before police could interview her about the attack. Six women had now been attacked on the Esbon, and four had died. Lutka, the lead investigator, was getting more and more frustrated by his inability to publicize the case. How was he supposed to stop this maniac if he was. couldn't even ask the public for information. He eventually persuaded Yosev Gerbels, the Reich Minister of Propaganda, to allow a single article to be published in a Berlin newspaper, explaining the facts of the case and asking

anyone with information to come forward. So on January 7, 1941, the piece ran under the headline, attacks on the espon. At the same time, police launched an initiative to keep women safe on the trains, a late-night escort service, women traveling alone could make a formal request to have a man accompany them on their journey to ensure they got home safely. In order to be considered for escort duty, a man had to meet very narrow criteria. He had to be both a member of the Nazi party and a member of the SA, the party's paramilitary branch whose officers were known as brown shirts. If this sounds familiar, That's because Paul O'Gorzo was both a loyal party member and a brown shirt.

In fact, he was now a Sharfuerre, a squad leader in the SA. He was exactly the kind of man the police wanted as an escort to keep the women of Berlin safe from the S-Bahn murderer. And sure enough, he volunteered for the job. As sloppy as he was, O'Gorzo wasn't foolish enough to actually attack any of the women he was assigned to escort. Each request for an escort was logged by the police, as were the details of which escort was assigned to which passenger. If anything happened to a woman under his care,

it would take no time for the authorities to trace the crime back to him. Perhaps for this reason, O'Gorzo went several weeks without killing. The sheer ludicrous thrill of his situation was enough to sustain him for a while. Being tasked with protecting the very women he had been terrorizing was yet more evidence to O'Gorzo that he was untouchable. The state would always protect him and reward him for his loyalty to the party. With this renewed feeling of confidence, O'Gorzo was ready to strike again. He began carrying the rebar around with him again,

even as he escorted women safely to their homes, and soon enough, another opportunity dropped right into his lap. On the evening of February 11th, O'Gorzo finished his volunteer shift escorting women home and headed back to the station to catch a train. As he waited on the platform, 39-year-old Johanna Fokt approached him. She was a pregnant mother of three, and standing alone on the platform in the dark, she was flooded with a sudden feeling of dread. She knew about the Espan killer and felt uneasy traveling alone,

but she had forgotten to make a formal request for an escort that night. When she saw Agorzo in his uniform, she decided to ask him for help. Her destination was just one station away, she explained. Would he mind accompanying her on her journey? O'Gorzo smiled politely and told her he was happy to help. The 28-year-old couldn't believe his luck. Since this wasn't an official escort assignment, there would be no paperwork linking him to Johanna.

He was free to indulge the vicious urge that had been building for weeks. When the train arrived, O'Gorzo followed Johanna on board and led her to the empty second-class compartment. As soon as they left the station, he struck. This time, he'd remembered his weapon. He hit Johanna over the head with the rebar again and again until she passed out, then threw her from the moving train.

By the time police found her a few hours later, Johanna was dead and O'Gorzo was long gone, whisked away aboard the murder scene itself. With a seventh attack confirmed, the Cripo ramped up police presence on board Espan trains, inside stations, and in public locations across the city. This made it far too risky for Agorzo, even at his most impulsive, to try killing again. For months, he bided his time, but he wasn't worried. He knew the amount of manpower the Cripo was throwing at this problem wasn't sustainable,

especially in the middle of a costly war. Sooner or later, things would go back to normal. That summer, his patience was rewarded. On June 22nd, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, violating a non-aggression pact they had signed just two years earlier. As a result of this turn in the war, the German police had to reallocate resources to the front lines, meaning they had to wind down their patrols aboard the S-Bahn.

At least, that was what Agorzorzor's. heard. In fact, the Cripo had spread this rumor deliberately. They knew he had now gone for months without a murder and suspected he was surely waiting hungrily for his moment to strike again. Perhaps if they made it look as though the coast was clear, he'd emerge. It worked. Hearing the news, Ogorzo felt emboldened. He wouldn't go back to the S-Bahn yet, though. He knew it would take some time for the patrols to stop entirely. Instead, he'd return to his room. Coming up, O'GORSO gets swift and brutal justice. You tell yourself, no one wants your college-era band teas,

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The 28-year-old was now a seasoned serial killer with a body count of seven and no intention of stopping, despite the vast police effort underway to capture the S-Bahn killer. Despite this moniker, O'Gorzo was. him particularly attached to the Espan as a murder location. It had simply been convenient, an easy place for him to take advantage of his uniform and position of authority. But now that the trains were crawling with police, he was ready to go back to his old hunting ground. On July 3rd, Ogorso left work for the night and caught a train to the Rummelsberg-Ebbahn station. It was here that he had met Gertrude Ditter, his first murder victim. As Ogorso got off

At the train, he noticed several women getting off too. Most of them were alone, so he had his pick of potential marks. His eye fell on 35-year-old Frida Kotziel. As she peeled away from the crowd and headed down a darkened neighborhood path, he followed her. In the past, O'Gorzo had sometimes engaged his victims in small talk before attacking. His uniform and unassuming manner usually put people at ease. But tonight, the act wasn't working. He tried to talk to Frida, asking if he could accompany her home, but she said no and picked up her pace.

Figuring the subtle approach wasn't going to work, O'Gorzo pulled the rebar out from his sleeve and hit Frida hard in the back of the head several times. The blows were brutal, fracturing her skull and killing her instantly. When he attacked women on the trains, O'Gorzo had only a few minutes between stations, leaving him very little time to enjoy the moment. but now he wasn't in a rush. He raped her body and then left it lying in the darkness. When the authorities found Frida's body the following morning, they had no doubt this was the work of the S. Bond killer. Aside from the location, the M.O. was identical.

By this point, the police had established that the S. Bond killer was also responsible for the deaths of Gertruda Ditter and Imgard-Friza, though neither had died on the train system. Since they still suspected the killer worked for the railroad, the Cripo embarked on a mass interrogation of Espon employees. Over the course of a week, they interviewed thousands of workers about their movements and about any suspicious activity they'd noticed. Unlike last time, O'Gorzo was one of the men interviewed, but he was cleared early in the process because records showed that he'd been at work at the signal tower when some of the murders took place. Then one of O'Gorzo's co-workers made them think twice. He told the police that he'd seen O'Gorzo ditch his post by climbing a fence.

When the co-worker had asked where he was going, O'Gorzo replied that he was going to see a woman. This made his alibi worthless. Some of O'Gorzo's other colleagues also reported that he'd made some misogynistic comments about women. This wasn't in itself incriminating, but it was enough to turn the authorities' attention back to him. Though lead investigator Wilhelm Lutka and his colleagues were surely relieved to be closing in on a suspect, it was a complicated victory. Given the racist ideology at the heart of the

Nazi government, it's likely that police were under some pressure to focus their attention on undesirable suspects rather than Aryan Germans. But the evidence against O'Gorzo was undeniable, even for a state as morally bankrupt as the Nazis. The Crippo had no choice but to bring him in for questioning. On July 12, as Orgozzo was relaxing in the garden of his apartment complex, A group of uniformed officers appeared. A chill ran down his spine, but he tried to play it cool. The officers told him that he was under arrest. They cuffed him and took him into custody,

and before leaving, they confiscated his railroad uniform. The uniform was sent to a lab for forensic analysis, and O'Gorzo was taken to the Cripo headquarters for questioning. When the interrogation began later that day, O'Gorzo projected total confidence. he denied everything. He insisted that he'd never left his post at work, and had certainly never climbed a fence to do so.

He was a loyal and hardworking employee, he told them indignantly. But the police kept pushing him. They made it clear that they weren't buying his saintly act, and so O'Gorzo changed tack. He admitted that the co-worker's story was true, but he had an explanation. He had snuck out of work for a rendezvous with a woman he was having an affair with, he said.

He'd concealed it because he didn't want his wife to find out. This seemed plausible enough to the police, especially when O'Gorzo's mistress confirmed their affair. Seeing that they were buying his lies, the killer kept up the ruse. When the forensic analysis showed that there were microscopic blood spatters on his railroad uniform, O'Gorzo had an explanation for that, too.

He claimed that his wife had been sick recently and had bled on him. Remarkably, his wife backed him up. But the pattern of the bloodstain suggested that it had come from a struggle, and when he was questioned about his usual route to work, O'Gorzo's story began to fall apart. O'Gorzo admitted that he'd occasionally harassed women in the garden area by shining his flashlight in their eyes during blackouts. Still, he insisted that was as far as he'd ever gone.

Perhaps he thought that by admitting a little guilt, he could get the Crippo to back off. The investigators weren't letting up. Hoping to catch Ogorso in a lie, they escorted him to the garden area and asked him to point out the precise locations of his petty crimes. O'Gorzo crumbled under the pressure. He couldn't keep his own sins straight in his head.

And instead of pointing out the sight of one of his minor crimes, he led police right to the scene of one of his violent attacks. Soon after this inadvertent confession, the police brought in two of O'Gorzo's surviving victims and asked them if they recognized him. One of the women was Gertrude Nisvant, who O'Gorzo had stabbed outside her parents' house. She recognized him immediately and named him as her attacker. For so long, O'Gorzo had felt untouchable.

He was a good German, an early and loyal Nazi party member and a squad leader in the S.A. And though his confidence was shaken, he felt sure that if he could speak to the man in charge, this could all be straightened out. Wilhelm Lutka, the lead investigator, was more than willing to sit down with O'Gorzo, and he brought along a few props to the interrogation room, including the skulls of some of O'Gorzo's victims. Lutka was determined to get a confession,

and he didn't have to wait long. There in the room, Ogorzo begged Lutka for mercy. He knew that he was facing the death penalty for his crimes, and he was terrified, Desperate to curry favor, he emphasized his position in the party, his S-A. connections, and his exemplary record. At this point, he was trying to save his own life. Lutka wasn't interested in helping.

Just as O'Gorzo had done with so many of his victims, he lured his suspect into a false sense of security. He feigned sympathy, playing along and saying that he'd be happy to help. He just needed to know exactly what O'Gorzo had done first. Hearing that, Ogorzo finally broke down and confessed to all of his crimes, eight murders in total, six attempted murders, and more than 30 other attacks. But even then, he claimed he wasn't at fault. Instead, he tried to exploit the Nazi party's bigotry to his own advantage. He claimed that he'd been diagnosed with gonorrhea by an incompetent Jewish doctor,

who then failed to treat him properly. As a result of the condition, he claimed, He developed a mental illness that drove him to kill. He needed to be in a psychiatric hospital, not prison. Unfortunately for Agorzo, gonorrho, gonorrhea does not cause psychiatric symptoms. It's possible that he meant syphilis, which does have the potential to cause mental illness if not treated correctly. Studies estimate that around 30% of untreated syphilis patients develop neurocifilis, a bacterial infection of the brain or spinal cord, which can cause paranoia. mood swings and other symptoms.

Naming the wrong sexually transmitted infection in his confession was a characteristically sloppy move from O'Gorzo, who seemed to believe he was above the law. He was wrong about that. When a doctor examined O'Gorzo later that week, he found no relevant physical or mental illness. This last desperate attempt to save himself had failed. On July 18th, O'Gorzo was publicly identified

as the S. Bond murderer. Two days later, the Nazi party revoked his membership and expelled him. The party publicly condemning a serial killer was hypocritical to say the least. It was this same year 1941 that the Holocaust started. Even as the Nazis denounced O'Gorzo as a bloodthirsty killer, they began a systematic genocide of Jews and other minority groups, which would become one of the largest mass murders in recorded history. And as Ogorzo was about to discover, the Nazi government's disregard for human rights knew no bounds. His privilege as an Aryan German would carry him only so far. O'Gorzo's case was sent to the special court, an innovation of Hitler's regime, making it possible for certain crimes to be tried very swiftly, without a jury.

Ogorso's crimes were deemed to be severe, not only because of the acts themselves, but also because of the context he could. committed them in. The Nazi government took a particularly harsh view of any crime that took advantage of the war, as O'Gorzo had done with the blackouts. On July 23rd, 28-year-old Paul O'Gorzo was indicted for eight murders and six attempted murders. The following day, he was tried. The trial lasted just six hours. The judge convicted O'Gorzo on all 14 counts and sentenced him to death. But there would be no long as to the trial. agonizing weight on death row. At 6 a.m. the following morning,

Ogorzo was executed by guillotine at Berlin's Pletensee prison. Less than two weeks after his arrest, he was dead. In his final moments, Ogorzo surely felt betrayed. Just when the Nazi government was at the height of its powers, it turned its back on him. His loyalty to the party hadn't protected him at all. For so long, he'd believed himself special enough, to get away with murder.

But there was nothing special about O'Gorzo. He was a brutish, emotionally stunted man who only got as far as he did in life thanks to a system that was stacked in his favor. It's not quite possible to say that Paul O'Gorzo received justice because there was no such thing as justice in Nazi Germany, but a swift, brutal, and unceremonious death

was precisely the ending he deserved. Thanks again for tuning into serial killers. We'll be back soon with a new episode. For more information on Paula 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 podcasts 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 Cuddler, sound design by Michael Langsner, with production assistants 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, it's Carter from Parcast. Every Thursday on Conspiracy Theory's CIA edition,

we're uncovering secrets hidden deep within the archives of the Central Intelligence Agency to bring you a special collection of episodes from shows across our network. Follow the new Spotify original from Parcast, Conspiracy Theory's CIA edition. Listen free only on Spotify. A beloved 75-year-old man washing up getting ready for bed is brutally beaten and killed.

Despite an exhaustive investigation, the killer avoids arrest and then strikes again. I'm Global News crime reporter Nancy Hixed. You might listen to a lot of true crime podcasts this year, but they're not crime beat. Search for and follow the award-winning podcast Crime Beat on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you find your favorite. favorite podcasts.