Last Podcast On The Left - Episode 340: Peter Kürten Part II - Dr Chuckles

Episode Date: November 10, 2018

On the conclusion to our series, we cover the worst of Peter Kürten's murder spree from his carnival double murder to the depths of his vampiric tendencies, plus his dubious confession claims and his eventual execution. 

Hey there, Ben Kissel here for Last Podcast Network. I want to tell you about my show, A Blinkin's Top Hat. For more than nine years, Marcus and I have strived to present you with the most accurate and honest political podcast out there. In these turbulent times, it's our intention to unite the country with impassioned debate that reaches out to the rational Americans who find their voices more muffled every day. Every week, I use my political science background, my experience running for office, along with my lifelong passion to stand up for the downtrodden, the wrongfully accused, and the invisible

man and woman to bring you news like you haven't heard before. Let's face it, traditional news has failed us. We promise to always tell you the truth the best we see it, and I personally guarantee to not be swayed by hyper-partisanship, but be guided by facts. To listen, search Abeligan's Top Hat on any podcast platform, or go to LastPodcastNetwork.com and find it under Shows. Hail yourselves, everyone! Now back to Last Podcast on the left. There's no place to escape to. This is the last time. On the left. That's when the cannibalism started.

What was that? Yeah, you gotta put, you know what you should start doing? I'm gonna say this so that the audience knows that you're gonna change the style. You should start Guy Fieri. You should do the Guy Fieri for the headphones. And you put it backwards like this.

It's hurting my ears. Oh, that would be good. It doesn't. Oh, I'm squishing my nose. That's not bad. Guy Fieri, yeah. Is this the start of the show? This is the start of the show.

No kidding. It is. Slam it. This is Flavortown town what a way to start also it's a horrible thing to say given our subject matter this is not flavor town as a matter of fact whatever is well i'm gonna say this guy is out of bounds but not in a good way no that's a problem is that out of bounds can't then also be used the bad way it can only be used the good way all right i have to say the name of the show. This is the last podcast on the left.

Thank you for tuning in. I am Ben Kissel with newly hairstyled Marcus Parks. It's for the Halloween party tonight. I got an FBI wife. Looks good. Thank you. And we got Henry Zebrowski. My pubic hair has been turned into a pompadour.

What do you mean? That's just for my home. It's for my family. I will say, I feel that all of this episode is miles outside of Flavortown. Yes, absolutely. Okay, we are on to part two of the Vampire of Dusseldorf. Dusseldorf!

Have you ever been to Dusseldorf? Dusseldorf? No, I've never been. Peter Curtin! Now, is Dusseldorf, is that different? No, I know it's a different city than Berlin or these other places. They don't name all the cities different things, but it's the same city. But Berlin is fashionable, right? And it's got all the discotheques.

It's got a lot of people with their titties out. And it's a lot of artists and people like put themselves in hooks and weird dance parties. It's supposed to be the coolest place in the world. But is Dusseldorf just like, is that where you go to get the beer steins? Or is it like a chiller place? Is it more like like a San Diego? Honestly, all I know is I wish Dorf would have been on Dusseldorf. Dorf on Dusseldorf would have been amazing.

Dorf does Peter Curtin. Dorf as Peter Curtin. Dorf as Peter Curtin. That is another mid-90s reference to a very funny comedian who he walked on his knees. Tim Conway. And called himself Dorf. I will say that

it's the greatest compliment I ever received on a set was that one of the camera operators on A to Z said I reminded him of Tim Conway. At least he didn't say Dorf. That's good. I love it.

So when we last left Peter Curtin, he was planning a summer break in order to build back up his tolerance for murder as the dopamine returns were starting to diminish, as they always do. Man, he was looking for a little bit of a break, but the only thing he found was nothing but trouble. Whoa.

That is interesting. So a lot of people go on family vacations during the summertime. Maybe they recoup from their hard job working at TJ Maxx, perhaps. And he had to recoup so he could get enough energy to murder again. Yeah. So he could return. It's like an addict type of thing. You know, every time you use a drug, you kind of get diminishing returns each time.

You have to use more and more and more. The same thing happens with serial killers. So we can blame Germany's lax vacation laws on this. Well, they always vacation. It must be so nice to work in Europe. But it's kind of like weed. We can take a, I believe the term is a tolerance break. Yeah.

Where it's like, well, you go and essentially you build yourself back up because the exquisite pleasure he experienced upon his last murders, he wanted to get it again. And partially, again, his need for control, his need for every single thing to be kind of like the way, like, I will endlessly research breakfast burritos, right, in L.A. to find a premium experience. And I'll go way out of my way for no reason, miles and miles and miles and miles out of my way

to get a new, fresh, succulent breakfast burrito. And so in that way, I understand Peter Curtin. Right, right. You've got to do a lot of research to get what you want, I guess. Now, by the way, this episode, gold star, right, the whole time, basically? Pretty much. Yeah, pretty much the whole time. Just so you know.

Now, remember, by this point, two people in Dusseldorf were recently dead by Peter Curtin's hand, and one was damn near killed by Peter Curtin. But the thing was, police didn't think that the nightmare of the vampire of Dusseldorf was over just because Curtin took the summer off. They actually thought that they'd caught the vampire himself when they arrested a man named Johann Stausberg. Stausberg was described by different sources as an imbecile, an idiot, and a cretin. Now this is back in the day when a doctor can look at you and legally be like,

okay, let's check your knees. That's one. Oh, backwards, that's not good. Let's check your face. It's not looking bright. Okay, I will put this as you are, and this is a prescription I'm writing for you to take as a pharmacist.

An idiot. And the only way for you to fix this is to purchase is one prescription for unt hammer that your loved ones will use to end your life. The Germans, they really let you know what they think. Say what you want. This is, unfortunately, it was

a medical description. Yeah, medical cretinism. Okay,. Yeah, medical cretinism. Okay, now what is medical cretinism exactly? It means you're all jacked up. Yeah. Jacked up. Yeah, it's jacked up. It's physical and mental abnormalities.

Okay. Yeah. But as we know, idiots are just as capable of great violence as the rest of us. Yes. And Stausberg was no exception. While he was not the vampire of Dusseldorf, he had still tried to strangle two women on the street from behind with a noose. Okay. Jeez. It is, these crimes on their own are very creepy.

Yeah. Because it's women walking alone at night, and they said they felt the same thing. He was a very big man, and he'd come up and be like, no, you're mine. You're mine. He would whisper in their ears as he snuck up behind him. And he just straight up was carrying a noose around. Yeah, can you just do that? Isn't that a red flag for everyone walking around? Be like, the guy with the noose, he probably is doing something bad.

I tell you what, I've been staying in Soho. And if you put it in like a fucking Filene's bag or you put it in a Macy's bag, it's fashion. And you just go there. But he would go behind women and he would just stick a noose on them and just start dragging them into the woods. Yeah. It was fucked up. Sounds like a match that Mankind and The Undertaker had. And I believe Mankind got hung, although I don't think that was a Mankind match.

No, he was using the- Or Undertaker got hung. He was using the Quasimodo MO. I see. Yeah. And he was, of course, easily tracked down. And he didn't kill anyone. He absolutely didn't kill anyone. They were attempted murders.

I mean, he would have to be 10 feet tall to kill someone. You need gravity in that situation, right? Can you kill someone just with a noose alone? Yes. It happened in the movie Clue. We just covered it with the Iceman. Kuklinski said he used the tree method, where he'd grab the guy up with the rope around his neck,

and then he'd hoist him up onto his shoulder and just wait until he stopped kicking. Sure. Okay. All right. But due to the nature of this guy's crimes, police figured it was worth a shot to ask him about the recent murders and attacks. Just, it's worth a shot. Honestly. What great police.

No, I guess we do have good police here, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, mostly it's just because this guy kind of fits the whole bill. It's like he's attacking women randomly. All of Dusseldorf is kind of going insane from the last little streak of attacks. And unfortunately, he looks the part. Yeah. Okay.

And to their surprise, this guy confessed to all of the crimes on the spot. Really? Yeah. I mean, sure, most of the details he gave about the crimes were completely wrong, but the cops justified that by saying that Stausberg was an epileptic, which he was, and as such, was prone to bouts of memory loss. Wow. Now, Stausberg did get some things right, and since Stausberg couldn't read,

cops figured that he couldn't have gotten that information from newspapers, so it was likely that he was telling the truth. Finally, though, the piece that solved the puzzle for the cops was that when they spoke with Stilesburg's mother, she told them that her son had confessed to the Rosa Olinger murder to her on February 9th, months before he was arrested. Okay, so we have a lot of evidence pointing to this guy here. And they need a conviction. There was no evidence. He just said that he did it. But the problem is at the same time, we'll get into this. It seems to be a lot of the information he could have gotten from other people.

Yeah. And also, he was a weird, cruel man. And I think there's a part of it is that when the news came out about a little girl died, he literally was like, oh, you wanted it. Right. So this is a really great summer vacation so far for Peter Curtin, except for when he had that John Candy-like sunburn from, of course, summer rental when you fall asleep on the beach. I'm sure he got his – maybe his nose because I think he was still fully covered on the beach, I'm sure. He was always fully covered. But this is the greatest gift that anyone could possibly give this creep.

I actually don't think so. Peter Curtin, at the same time, did not want people confessing to crimes that were his. It's very BTK-esque, which is why he's going to go on to continue to do these crimes. All summer long when it's supposed to be his break. do these crimes all summer long when it's supposed to be his break. Oh. And with that, with a confession and with what the mother said, Stasberg was

charged and under Article 51 of the Weimar government, since he was an individual of diminished responsibility and questionable sanity, he was sent to an insane asylum to be locked away forever. Case closed. Okay. And so the people of Dusseldorf rested easy for the summer of 1929. Pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum.

Must have been a pretty fun summer. Yeah. But when August came, the vampire returned, and he began a murder spree that would pale in comparison to what the people of Germany had already endured at his hands. Yikes. On August 14th, 1929, pale in comparison to what the people of Germany had already endured at his hands. Yikes. On August 14th, 1929, Peter Curtin was wandering the Dusseldorf Zoo thinking about God knows what. I tell you what.

He sits here eating some popcorn. Look at that platypus. And you wonder, what was God thinking? Was he just having a fun day? They do look funny, don't they? He's a funny little creature and some monkeys they got the red little bots yeah that's fun to see and all that stuff and no one ever gets at them for pulling out their penises right you know never chastise

them okay son we'll go out of the zoo now he He was fun for a little while, but it's getting scary. But this trip to the zoo, it marked the beginning of a new phase in Curtin's career. He was no longer just content to randomly attack strangers on the street. Now, Curtin wanted to toy with his victims. He wanted to draw out the process.

So while he was at the zoo, he met a servant girl on her day off named Maria Hahn. They made plans for a date the next day, and Peter took her to a beer garden, then dinner. I don't know why it seems extra attractive to meet a German servant girl. It seems kind of fun. Well, German people are beautiful people. That they are.

Not in a master race way, okay? Thank you. Because a lot of people are beautiful people. I think a lot of people. You are sweating. Libyans are gorgeous people. I love a good Libyan. They're great people.

Your spit is turning into beer. Oh, man. Well, after they had dinner, went to the beer garden, Peter Curtin led Maria Hahn out to a deserted meadow and began the longest, cruelest, most drawn-out murder of his career. He strangled her until she passed out. Then, when she woke up, he did it again. BTK. Jesus.

When she came to once more, Curtin stabbed her in the throat with his scissors, and when the blood gushed forth, he pressed his mouth to the wound and drank her blood until he vomited. Oh, so this is again with the scissors. I guess he really, even though it was a fail the first time he used the scissors. The scissors become a favorite of his. Oh, my God. Because, and I think it's no mistake, I think he's doing it on purpose, is that he did a pointed, specific puncture, like he would do in order to get a spurt of

blood. And even then, Maria was still alive. As she begged for her life, Curtin stabbed her in the chest, then repeatedly stabbed her in the head, until she mercifully slipped away. Curtin said the whole process had taken an hour. Jeez.

So after Maria was dead, Curtin rolled her body into a ditch and threw some branches over for cover. When he got home that night, his wife was already asleep, but the next morning she immediately noticed quite a few bloodstains on Curtin's clothes. So here we have some bloodstains. Right.

Yeah. Now the two got into a fight about it, so Peter figured he'd better actually hide this body, lest it be discovered and his wife would make the connection between the bloodstains and the murder of Maria Hahn. Because she starts blaming me for deaths, the next thing I know, I don't get my tuna fish casserole on Fridays. And that's not good. So this is the first time that she, is this the first time that she suspects that he is doing something nefarious. I guess so. Well, this is the first time that there's actually evidence that he's like, come home. And she's seen like there's bloodstains on your clothes.

What have you been doing? He'd been out all night long, too. It must be a lot of blood, right? It's a fair amount of blood. Yeah. So once again, after work, Curtin went home, grabbed a shovel and headed back out to the crime scene where he picked up Maria's body, took it to a fallow cornfield, and buried her in a deep grave, relishing the act the entire time. It's kind of like when you go down the different block when you want to go to the grocery store to get the nice cup of coffee from the new hipster coffee shop, and you're like, why don't I do this all the time? Interesting.

Well, it's totally different. This involves a homicide. Your analogy involves coffee, and this is a murder. Because if my analogies did involve me talking openly about the several murders of women that I would have had to have done to know the distinct pleasures of doing this, then I would be incriminating myself, wouldn't I, Benjamin Kissel? That's a good point. Keep talking about coffee. But Curtin wasn't done yet.

A few weeks later, he said he returned to Maria's grave and dug up the body with the intention of nailing it to a tree in a mock's crucifixion. But the body was too heavy, so he just reburied it. But the thing was, he could not let his work go unnoticed. If nobody found the desecrated body, then in his mind, the job was only half finished, and there was ultimately no point. In Peter's mind, it's like it never happened. Okay.

Yeah. It's very interesting. Yeah. It's like it never happened. Okay. Yeah. It's very interesting. Yeah.

So in November, he sent letters that gave the exact location of the body to several newspapers, making sure to tell them that the perpetrator of this crime was indeed the vampire of Dusseldorf. And in that letter, he gave them the exact location of Maria Hahn's body. This is the one. I wish I could have found the actual copy of the letter. I couldn't find it. I don't know if it's because they don't have the same obsession with serial killers, except now we know. But I feel like

at the time, nowadays we blow it up to like a media frenzy or in the 70s and shit during the serial killer heyday of the United States of America. I don't know. Remember what we were saying last episode. Yeah. They loved true crime, but I wonder, but that was after the facts of the crime. I wonder if at the time the newspapers did not want to blow it up as much. I know they were trying to keep a lid on as much information as they could.

They actually, it seems like in Germany at the time, they were better at it than we ever were. Yeah. Well, there was a little World War II, and it was quite a lot. Maybe it got exploded. Yeah, it could have gotten exploded. Everything sort of got destroyed. So maybe that was one of them.

I don't know. Actually, you make a very good point there. Quite a few records of Germany were destroyed in that time, and it could also have been destroyed by the Nazis, who were doing their best to erase the past of Germany as much as they possibly could. But that's not to say that Peter Curtin wasn't still killing in the meantime between the murder in August and him sending the letter in November. In fact, as I said earlier, the Maria Hahn murder kicked off what was to be the most vicious and prolific spree of Peter Curtin's life. Later on, in the same week that he killed Maria Hahn, Peter Curtin approached 26-year-old Gertrude Schilte

as she was on her way to meet up with a few friends for an afternoon lark. I am not maligning whatsoever, but it's always interesting when you remember Gertrudes were young once. When we think of the name Gertrude, it's just such an older name. 26-year-old Gertrude, you never even think about that.

When I was a kid, Gertrude was the name of the old witch that my grandfather said lived in the abandoned house far into the ranch. Meanwhile, you know back in the day when Gertrude had that snapper out there and she was letting her when she was hanging him high and all that stuff. Back in the day, Gertrude was hot. I feel like it's how it always is. And now it's coming back around. Everybody's named Mildred and Bertholdt and stuff like that. And now we're going to have 80-year-old Nicolettes and Allisons. I just can't wait until nursing homes are filled with Stephanies and Ashleys.

Oh, that's fine. I will name my kid Herbert. Herb. I like that name. It's my grandfather's name. Oh, Herb is a real good name. Herb Kessel. Herb Kessel.

You know he's a good farmhand. Mine's going to be Skeletons. You're going to name your kids Skeletons? Yeah, multiple Skeletons. You think that's going to be good for them going through life being named Skeletons? They better start working hard in order to get over what has already been done to them.

That is the premise of A Boy Named Sue. Oh yeah. Well, Curtin, still chasing the thrills he'd originally felt at the beginning of his career, he decided to try his hand at murder at two o'clock in the afternoon. Jeez. So he walked up to Schulte and introduced himself as Baumgart. Mr. Baumgart. Herr Baumgart.

Hello. Very nice to meet you. My name is Herr Baumgart. Herr Baumgart. And that's how you do it. You have to practice it like that in the mirror in order to be good at it. You go, I don't see a minute missing Herr Baumgart. Herr Baumgart.

My name is Herr Baumgart. That's how he does it because he added to his own accent. He had to practice his own accent. Yeah. Sure, sure. Well, what he did, he told her that she was beautiful. He pretty much started doing the whole, like, dickhead catcalling thing. He told her she was beautiful, that she kept walking.

Then he started getting more and more lewd as she continued on her way before he finally just straight out said, we should go somewhere and have sex. And when she said that she would rather die, Curtin screamed, Then you shall die! Sure, not good. He then pulled out his dagger and stabbed her in the back so hard that the blade broke.

Thankfully, though, Gertrude Schulte survived. God, he was, like, building it up on his own, like, just, like, while she was walking down the street just to see what it would take to finally push him. Yes, and again, I am not at all maligning Gertrude, but if someone proposes something that you don't want to do, say, I would rather have a pizza. Have a pizza! Have a pizza! Full dominoes, like he takes them over to the dominoes, or the little Caesars

where you can go and you can just go to the hot boxes where you can grab them. But even though Curtin didn't succeed in murder, there was still something about stabbing and running away that gave Curtin a thrill. So he did the same thing three more times in one night on August 21st. What are the people doing? Yeah.

Don't people see this happening? No. No. Well, we'll get to it in here in just a second. Quick and purposeful action really can, when you're not looking for it, you have no clue a massacre is about to happen. It can really blind when you're not looking for it you have no you have no clue a massacre is about to happen like it can really blindside you that shock if someone just grabbed you and there's something about that about how you can get away with quite a bit with very confident motions well the first two that were stabbed that night were women one of whom got at the very least a

request for accompaniment before getting a stab in the back, but the other just got a silent stab in the ribs. The third was a drunken man lying in a ditch. Curtin stabbed him in the back as he was trying to crawl out, then Curtin hid nearby and watched as the old-timey EMTs

saved the man's life. Hup, hup, hup, come on, let's go grab his boots, grab his boots. So we got to push his legs, push his legs so we get the bad blood out from his abdomen up to his brain. Very good. I will begin to open up his skull

so his brain will have enough pressure to ease off so the bad blood can come out of his brain. Very good. Now I shall stab him in the eyes.

I have to stab him in the eyes to release the pressure from the inside of his skull. Well, it's almost like you don't want the EMTs to show up, huh? Yeah, man. That's crazy. And yet, despite these sprees, the police were nowhere near to catching Peter Curtin. But that one dude who admitted to all that stuff before, he's still locked away, right?

Oh, yeah. He's locked away in the insane asylum for choking the women with the nooses. Oh, that's what they got him on, not the confession. for choking the women with the nooses. Because that's what he got. That's what they got him on. No, not the confession. Technically, they got him on the confession. They got technically he is guilty for the Rita Olinger crime and all that shit. All of the piecing together of everything happened after Pete and Peter Curtin was arrested and he decided to confess. And so they thought they got the vampire Dusseldorf.

And then when the Maria Hahn happened, the letter came out. And then they're like, oh, shit. Oh, no. So they're looking again. Yeah. Yeah. Give you an idea of how badly people were scared. Eight hundred thousand leads and suspicious persons were reported to the Dusseldorf police.

To be fair, the Germans are very good at snitching. It can be used for very nefarious negative reasons. In this case, positive, though. See, and it's sometimes every broken clock is always right twice. Yeah, that's what they say. But Peter Curtin is now controlling Dusseldorf. Because, again, think about that. Because that's what it is.

It's the very common trope of a horror movie. You think you got the bad guy, and then he snaps awake. It's like the idea of everyone went like, ah, we got the vampire of Dusseldorf. Beersteins all around. Oh, look at this. Give one to the child.

He likes the beer. It helps him play with the other children. Oh, and the sausages. Put it in the pants of the little girl. She takes it to her mother. There's nothing wrong with it.

Nothing so sexual about it. Well, maybe that's why they created pockets. A clock is right four times a day if you think about the minute hand and the second hand.

Thank you. The minute hand and the hour hand and the second hand it could be right six times a day. No, I'm like I'm literally about

to start crying blood. No, if you think about the hour is correct so it's 2 p.m. and then it's 15 minutes so it could actually be right six's 2 p.m. No, asshole. No, no, no. 15 minutes. You can't just say, no, no, no, no. So it could actually be right six times.

No, it's incorrect. You are thinking about a clock completely wrong. A time is the coordination of the minute and hour. All three of them. Minute, hour, and second. So it can only be correct time. Individually, they can also be correct. Well, no, that would mean it would be correct 24 times in a day.

Why? Because if you're only counting the minute hand... No, I'm not just counting the minute hand. I want to retire from the podcast. Well, hey, buddy. Wait a couple of years, and then you can get whatever clock you want. I mean, I don't know what kind of... You probably want to get a clock that's right more than two times a day.

Oh, God, oh, God. Creighton, I guess. You probably want to get a clock that's right more than two times a day. You idiot. Oh, God. Oh, God. Creighton, I guess. The police in Dusseldorf, they were so desperate that they followed up on damn near every one of those 800,000 leads. I'm pretty sure they didn't follow up on every single one of them. Oh, yeah. Yet, there was still much more tragedy to come.

For three days after his stabbing spree, Curtin would commit his only double murder. On the night of August 23rd, Peter Curtin traveled to the Dusseldorf Fair in search of a victim. While wandering the grounds, Curtin spotted 14-year-old Louise Linzen and her friend, 5-year-old Gertrude Homaker.

And when the two girls left the fair through an alleyway, Peter followed. He caught up to him, used his charm, and innocently asked Louise if she would mind running to the store to buy him a pack of cigarettes. Different times. Yeah, but you're an adult male. You can go to the store yourself. My father used to send me for cigarettes all the time. Yeah, my father used to send me for snuff all the time.

Slightly different stories. That is slightly different stories because this was a stranger in an alleyway and we were at home. I would have went if a stranger asked me to because I thought it was fun to go buy cigarettes. Sure. Well, what Peter Curtin told her was like, you go do that. I'm going to sit here

and I'm going to watch Gertrude. You don't have to take her with you. I'll take care of it. And Louise, she did as she was told because it was an adult. She left the five-year-old alone with Curtin. As soon as Louise was gone, Curtin carried Gertrude out into some nearby bushes and repeated what he'd done with Christine Klein,

strangling the little girl and sawing her throat open with his pocket knife. He then returned to the alleyway and waited for Louise. When she got back, he dragged her to the same location and cut her throat so deeply that he came close to decapitating her. Now, this is where there are some things are there's a weird discretion. There's a weird, I don't know what the term is, discrepancy about whether

or not this is true or not but according to him and some people it said that he then bit the wound and chewed on it like that's what they said and they said they did find two marks on her but they weren't sure if it was true or not but it was was either way. It's disgusting. Yes. He said, oh, yeah, what he said is that he licked the blood from the throat of the young girl and laid down next to the corpses just taken in the atmosphere. Jesus. He then folded up his knife and walked away, leaving behind one of the most gruesome crime scenes Dusseldorf had ever seen. Okay, how many people in Germany at this time were just walking around covered in blood? Wouldn't this guy be covered absolutely head to toe in blood?

I don't know. How could he be? Because if you do it real carefully and you're not trying to get it all over you, and if you've done it a bunch and you understand the way the blood I mean this is all terrible all of this is terrible but if you understand the mechanics of how the blood shoots out when you've

done it and you've done it a bunch of times and you know how to avoid it and then maybe it does come to the time where like you know there were butchers walking around blood was a little bit more common to be seen I don't know I don't know and then all of, and you just do it. And you also just do it with a blinding confidence

like you're a person just walking down the street. I'll tell you what, in New York, if I saw somebody walking down the fucking street covered in blood, I'd keep walking. Might just be a new fashion trend or something. Honestly, I would just keep walking mostly just because in order for me to deal with that man, my day is now over. Yeah.

You've got a lot to do. Yeah. And the other thing is that these weren't like berserker kills in the way that, say, like Richard Chase did a berserker kill. He was very controlled the entire time. In fact, they said when he almost decapitated this girl, they said it was very unlike him because the way that it was cut, it seemed like he had done it angrily.

Like that somehow this girl had made him mad and it didn't have the same cleanness that all the other ones had. It seems like he just kind of goes in these little rages in the middle of doing it, which is the reason why the multiple stab wounds of all of these denotes

powerful, powerful rage. Yeah, obviously. Now, as far as the investigation went at this point, there really wasn't even a consensus that they were looking for just one guy. As it happens, in berserker cases like this, with no real pattern, people had a hard time accepting that one man could be capable of all this.

Exact same thing that happened with Richard Ramirez. In fact, most people thought they were looking for four murderers. The one person who thought otherwise, though, was our old friend who ate his way out of the police up for us from episode one, Inspector Ernst Gannott. Yes, yes, and I will be on my way to go solve another unpatriot's crime. First, what I must have is more venison. Oh, so much gravy. All over my knees.

My wife can't defend me, penis. It doesn't have to. I'm too busy solving many crimes. I mean, you solved the Peter Curtin case. It doesn't have to. I'm too busy solving mini-cremes. I mean, you solve the Peter Curtin case, eat away, my friend. They just bring him a new pitcher of cream every day. Every case.

But just like Detective Gil Carrillo in the Richard Ramirez case, Inspector Gannott was the one who noticed that the same footprints were found at each and every crime scene. But unlike the Ramirez case, in which the avia aerobic footprints were a key part of the investigation, the Curtin footprints didn't really do much to advance the case. Well, now we know for certain that the killer has feet.

Oh, wow. That limits it down. As it was, three more people would die, while at least another 18 would be attacked before Peter Curtin was finally captured. And here's where things are going to get pretty relentless in this episode. Okay. Here it is. This is the point. All of this has just been fun and light.

Oh, you know, it's kind of feel like, you remember when we went on the, no, you couldn't make it in Italy. When we went on a boat ride. To in Italy. We went on a boat ride. We went on a boat ride that was just wonderful. And it was just like we had champagne and berries. Yeah. But then you went to just see a bunch of corpses. Yeah. That's what we're doing here.

That's literally what we did. All of this episode so far has been a lovely boat ride outside of Italy. We were on the boat. Yeah. Now we're going to be looking at some corpses. Well, I enjoyed our time just in Naples around the wonderful people. They're very nice, all alive. I like that

about them. Good. No problem. Good. Thank God. Thank God. Unless you, I'm so glad you weren't walking around Naples being like, there could be a heck of a lot more dead people around here. I love Naples, because every time you sit down, they give you olives and chips. Oh, very nice.

They're fun. The first victim in this spree was Sophie Ruckel, who was riding her bike when Curtin dashed out from a side street, grabbed her off her bike, and hit her in the head with a chisel, knocking her out but not killing her. The next was Maria Raduch. Curtin attacked her at midnight, but she managed to get away and scream for help, sending Curtin running away with people in pursuit. Curtin got away, but amazingly, to answer your question, Ben,

this was the only time he was ever chased. Wow. And he kind of liked it. Yeah. It's all of this shit, because there's something about, it's not just getting the body and retaining the body, because when we talk about process killer

versus product killer and all this stuff, it's more like he liked just creating the fear. He liked this idea that he could be fucking anywhere and he was and he was running out and he didn't even care if he fucking killed you. He just wanted to know I could have killed you. How the hell did this guy get away? The pictures

do not make him look like the most athletic of dudes. You got fucking inspectors 400 pounds inspect a fucking crying field. The inspector's going to be slowly walking behind, but some kid's got to be able to catch him. Actually, to answer your question, Ben, first, he actually took great care of himself. He ate well. He exercised. He made sure that he had the strength to take care of this. And to address him just wanting to scare people, one time he chased after a couple with a pistol

just shooting it in the air. And in that moment, he ejaculated. Oh, my God. Honestly. Always. He knows how to do it. He knows how to do it for himself. And that's really important.

The one positive thing we can learn from this is being like, make sure you take care of you. Yeah, absolutely. Well, that explains why the Germans, didn't they lose? They lost in the old Olympics there. Jesse Owens. Yeah. Didn't Jesse Owens destroy them?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You will see all the way. Very thorough history lesson. Thank you. Yeah, well, Peter Curtin was in prison, so the Germans couldn't use him. Peter Curtin was dead. Thank God.

And we crushed him. Do you think they would have used convicted serial killer Peter Curtin versus Jesse Owens? Honestly, what a cool, that's a cool cartoon. Convicted serial killer Olympics. Well, after

that attempt, Curtin decided that if he was going to attack, it was going to have to be swift, brutal, and over in a second. That's when Peter started leaving the house with a hammer in his pocket. What I would say is this is where if you are one of the true sickos like us that really wants to see what it's like to have these words come out of the mouth of a serial killer. Read The Sadist. Yeah. And listen to Peter Curtin, the way he describes each step of the way he would go about these many attacks. He was very organized. And you can see in the way he describes it, the pleasure he has and the control he took

and how in his description of his crimes, how you can see he's gone over this memory again and again and again until he has, as you have said, ejaculated again and again and again. So each one is this little fun little story in his mind. Well, his first victim using the hammer was Ida Reuter. He'd met her at a railway station and had convinced her to go for a walk in the woods, but as night fell, she told him that she wanted to go back to town. Peter agreed, but as they were walking back, Peter pulled out his hammer and hit her in the right temple, fracturing her skull. He then dragged her unconscious body down to the meadow, where he raped her and ended her life by caving in her skull completely he did much the same to elizabeth doria curtain followed her for a mile before he dragged her

behind a bush and killed her with five swings from his square-headed hammer if you saw the pictures of the aftermath too not the actual crime, but they have the pictures of the skull and the status. And they are just shattered. It's very, very intense. The amount of energy he hit people with. So we got a crowbar, a hammer, scissors. A tiny knife. A tiny knife. And then his hands.

Just straight up strangling people. And didn't he use an axe? The broad side of the axe? The hatchet. Yeah, he used the hatchet. Just choppa. So he doesn't have a tool. So that explains why they think it might be multiple people too right multiple people uh multiple

ages multiple sexes like they're they're just they have no idea whether there's one guy doing this or if the entirety of dusseldorf has just lost its fucking mind jeez however not all who were attacked by curtain's hammer died frau mirror was walking home at 8 o'clock on October 25th when Curtin sidled up to her and said, quote, Aren't you afraid? Quite a lot of things have happened here already. He then took out the hammer and gave her a thwack. But Frau Mührer had a tough constitution

and left the hospital two weeks later shaken but otherwise healthy. Okay. But with the next victim, a one Frau Wanders, the hammer handle broke and the head went flying, never to be found again. Another horrible episode of Dick Clark's serial killers goof-em-ups and bloopers. Yeah, absolutely. So that's a big key piece of evidence, though, there. Yeah, but they never found it. And Peter Curtin actually tried going back because he didn't.

He wanted it. He wanted it. He misses his hammer. Yeah, he missed his hammer. But Frau Wanders didn't die. Okay. But after she left, he went back to the area and he searched through the bushes because he was hitting her so hard. And he had hit other people so hard that the handle of the hammer snapped and the head flew off back behind

him and he just he never found it again. And then he's going to do the scratch in his back with a signal. Thank God I brought my scratching stick because if not, my back would be itchy. Absolutely. That that weapon, it will not cut. Forged in Fire. Yeah. It's a great show.

Forged in Fire. That's right. Forged in Fire. It's OK. It's weird. It's a great show, Forged in Fire. That's right, Forged in Fire. It's okay. It's weird. It's a really nerdy show. Is it the show where they just cut open milk gallons and stuff with swords and shit? And a lot of pigs, and they have to make their own sword.

Oh, I love that. It's all about making your own sword, yeah. Yeah, the people are really, it's an interesting kind of nerd culture. Yeah. Yeah. Forged nerds is a very weird subculture. It's where I cross the line. That is my line.

I will not collect swords. They make them. I really want to collect swords, though. It's hard to not want to. I love holding swords and just swinging a sword. Yeah, of course, man. It's great. That's why I have the one whip.

The whip is fun around in the office. I could do that alone. You think this is a good conversation to have when we're talking about the world's worst serial killer? I'm just saying it's, I can, there is fun to be had if you're innocent about it. Yeah. If you're innocent about it, you're just like playing make-believe. You're fucking Alderaan.

What's his name? From fucking Mjolnir. Not Mjolnir. What's his name? Aragorn. Alderaan? Aragorn. Alderaan.

Alderaan is where Princess Leia's from. Yeah, yeah. No kidding. Alderaan is Star Wars. I remember because Aragorn's fromeraan? Aragorn. That's Alderaan. Alderaan is where Princess Leia's from. Yeah, yeah. Alderaan is Star Wars. I remember because Dagobah is from Lord of the Rings. Yes, and Dagobah is where Yoda's from.

So he's looking for the hammerhead. He's looking for the head of the hammer there. And he never found it. Never found it. Yeah, and he left the hammer behind.

And the hammer attacks had ended. And with that, Peter's murder spree was almost at an end. But for his very last murder, Peter returned to the scissors. His last murder victim was five-year-old Gertrude Alberman. Good God.

One day, as her parents were having a distracted conversation in the park, Curtin, who'd been stalking the child for weeks, snatched up the little girl and walked her a mile away where he choked her and stabbed her over 50 times. Now, was he a pedophile as well? Did he desecrate the body and all that kind of stuff? I mean, he did do that. I wonder because I don't think it had anything to do specifically with children in terms

of sexuality. I think it was about twisting innocence yeah i think it was the same thing why he did it with all the various women which is also why he had a problem with um he never murdered sex workers because he thought that they were below him yeah he said that he hated women that he would never do that because he stabbed one woman frau frau wanders was uh yeah she was a she was a sex worker and he said that he found her repulsive so in this perverted disgusting brain he wouldn't kill anyone he thought was below him yes well it was so what did he think about the kids he did he think that they were above him or something it wasn't necessarily like above or below it wasn't necessarily a

superiority thing he just knew that if he killed a sex worker no one was going to give a shit and what he wanted was to make people feel terrible he wanted to he wanted to crack open the fabric he wanted to cut the fabric of society he looked at them and the way he described them each time when he would say them in his confession afterwards he'd call them beautiful creatures yeah he'd say look at this creature of beauty it is this unspoiled thing and he would try not to, because that was his thing. He would only kill women that he found to be beautiful and little kids that he thought represented beauty. And he did desecrate the bodies, but he did it in a way, I mean, because we're not going into the detail. The way that he did it showed that he wanted you to see that I could have fully sexually assaulted these kids, but I didn't. Yes.

Yeah. He often, his big thing was to masturbate over the bodies. Like, I mean, you know, like BTK with the Oterra murders. Yes. Very much the same thing. But yes, Henry makes a very good point where he liked to show that I could have, but I didn't. Albert Fish. Albert Fish.

There you go. All right. Well, after the murder, Curtin said that he almost set the girl's body on fire, just like he had with Rosa Olinger. But he decided this time to try something different. Instead, Curtin carried the body a half mile away to an abandoned factory. There, Curtin covered the body in a burial mound of garbage that he just found strewn around the

grounds. He then marked it with a cross and two days later, he sent a letter to a newspaper named Thyheit that said this. Murder at Papendel in the place marked with a cross a corpse lies buried. And he'd sent the same letter to

the police. And after he knew the police had received the letter, Curtin staked out a hiding spot and giddily watched as the police uncovered the body. Again. Again. But this time he didn't even, he didn't speak to the police this time. He just sat and giggled from a hiding spot and just watched all of them. Of course, like watched all of them fall apart over having to dig through garbage to find a little girl's body right yeah it's the giggling yeah it's the giggling yeah uh and oh you giggled the whole time i did also i did forget that um i did forget that detail when he was uh strangling uh the girl at the fair to death yeah he just

giggling the entire time just giggling maniacally and you know and he he learned that he learned that from uh the dog catcher you remember the dog catcher used to do the same he used to giggle he used to laugh and laugh when he was torturing and killing dogs out of all the forms of laughter giggling is the most nefarious yeah it's the scariest one a good chuckle good chuckle, a chuckle's a chuckle. The giggle, it's a long chuckle. Yeah, there is no horror movie called Dr. Chuckles. Oh. However.

Yeah, I mean, sounds actually pretty cool. Yeah, but Dr. Giggles. Now that's a great, Dr. Giggles is a fantastic 90s horror movie. Classic. Absolute classic. Now, after that murder, Curtin took a break from crime completely for three months. But starting in February of 1930,

he embarked on a series of assaults that lasted until his eventual capture in May of that year. And it was all due to the courage of one young woman named Maria Budlik. Maria had arrived in Dusseldorf on May 14th by train. She'd been to Dusseldorf before, but was still a little unfamiliar. So when a man approached her and offered to take her to a women's hostel that Maria had been to before, she agreed.

But when the man started leading her in what she knew to be the wrong direction, she got suspicious and told him that she could find her own way. Thank you very much. The two started arguing, and another man walked by and stepped in. That man was Peter Curtin. Oh, no. Oh, yeah, buddy. He opened with the very classic, is this man bothering you?

Yeah. Because he came in and he'd be like, some men are pigs. They do terrible things. And he went and he was like, I will take you where you need to go. I mean, he's all dressed up. I will say the three times I was mugged, well, one of the times I was mugged

was by a guy in a suit. And the rest of the country is now getting mugged by a guy in a suit. Very, very good. I love that you always bring it back to your mugging experience. You have been mugged a strange amount of times. Three times.

I got beat up in the street. It's because of wine. I'm noticeable. I'm castable. That's what it is. That's right. Oh, my God. So this chick, I guess, out of the frying pan into the fryer here.

Yeah. Now, after Curtin, quote, unquote, saved Maria, he somehow convinced her to come back to an apartment he'd rented at 71 Metmonastrasse. But when she refused to sleep with him, they left. But when they left, Curtin led her to a secluded spot in Grafenberger Woods and raped her. But he didn't kill her. Instead, he let her go. Only because he'd been seen with her earlier by the man who had first met her at the train station. But it was like a buddy of his, a guy who knew him.

Yeah. And they said hello and they said back and forth. And it's interesting that he thought that the crime of sexual assault was less than the murder. Like the fact that like, well, I still raped this woman and my buddy saw me, but. This guy is he really is he may be the worst yeah he is definitely he's among the worst that we've ever gotten

he's a true villain this is just a guy where it's very difficult to find because it's like when we go over some of these serial killers we've done this so often now right it's like you go through and there's probably our 30th serial killer somewhere on there 20 or 30 I'm writing a fucking book about him now since like we're living in the world of them and a part of it's like pan to through and there's probably our 30th serial killer. Somewhere on the 20 or 30. I'm writing a fucking book about him now since we're living in the world of them. And a part of it's like Panteram.

You know, it's like back in the day we sort of like found that weird sort of like he had like a hero side and all these kind of other things we can feel. With Kurt and I have nothing. I look at him and just being like they should have just killed him when he was a baby. Yeah. Oh, my God. Well, they kind of did in a perverted kind of way with that upbringing of his. Yeah. Now, Maria did not report this to the police immediately, but

she did detail the attack in a letter to a friend, saying that she'd most likely been in the presence of a murderer. When the friend read the letter, she immediately made the connection to the vampire of Dusseldorf and convinced Maria to report the crime. Now, Curtin had counted on Maria Budlik not remembering where his apartment was because

she was, you know, somewhat unfamiliar with the city. But this ended up being a fatal underestimation. After reporting the crime, she was able to take two plainclothes officers and Inspector Gannat straight to 71 Metmonastrasse. Wait a second, you're going to need to get some form of cart to get me there, but as soon as we do, oof, I'm going to need several loaves of ice cream and I'm going to need several beer steins of Paulina in order for me to get my sinking cap greased onto my tiny Yemen scalp.

Whatever it takes, buddy. Unfortunately, Curtin wasn't there when they arrived, but while Gannot was elsewhere in the boarding house searching for clues, Whatever it takes, buddy. Unfortunately, Curtin wasn't there when they arrived. But while Gannat was elsewhere in the boarding house searching for clues, and Maria was waiting in the hallway on the second floor, Peter Curtin walked up the stairs. He walked right past Maria, looked at her, and she said that he had this look of stunned confusion on his face. Like he couldn't believe that she actually,

he couldn't believe that he was actually about to face some consequences oh yeah he just thought he was invincible he thought that he had always been totally in control yeah so he entered his room and after just a moment he left again with his hat over his eyebrows walked right past two plainclothes officers and vanished that's the one thing we're missing these days not being in the 30s is being able to pull up the trench coat labels and pull down your hat and be able to disappear who could that ever be well after he left like maria i mean she just of course i mean she just froze because when she saw peter curtain like it was just terror overcame her uh and she you know she froze but once peter left she regained her composure and he told inspector ganot that the man they were looking for had just came and went.

And so they tried running into the night to catch him. But Curtin was gone. I cannot run. I must be ruled. Rule me before all these copper streets are really meshing with my stomach. They should have done it. They would have got him that night. But after this, Curtin knew that the walls were about to start closing in because he'd rented the room using his own name.

So he knew it was only a matter of time before the police tracked him down. So Curtin decided that it was time to come clean with his wife, at least partly. He told her what had happened with Maria, but he did it, you know, in the way that piece of shit psychopaths, like when they confess to something, but they don't really take... I kind of am involved in something fucked up, and I did this shit, but you know how it is, but I'll probably be in jail for like 15

years. I mean, who gives a fuck? When it comes down to it, I'm gonna be fucking on trial anyway, so, well, let's go to lunch. Let's have a nice day. Yeah, that was pretty much it. Let's try to fucking have a nice day. But in response to this, Augusta finally kicked his ass to the curb and said, get the fuck out of here. I don't want to see you

anymore. So Curtin moved into a lodging house in another part of Dusseldorf. So, you know, why didn't he just skip town there? Well, that's a question we're going to be asking again and again because here is where things get real goddamn murky peter's story and the story that gets told over and over again that completes the romantic myth that people

somehow attach this absolute fucking monster is that peter curtain confessed to his wife completely on may 23rd and peter said the reason why he confessed to his wife was so she could turn him in and get the reward money, which was the last act of a man who hated the world but loved his wife. Oh, my God. And the reward money was his way of taking care of her. Oh. And this, you know, and this shit, this gets propagated like it's on the fucking Wikipedia

page, and it's in all the online articles that you're at, and it's like the crux of a monster by C.L. Sweeney, and it's total fucking bullshit. Okay. According to Augusta herself, as told in the sadist, it didn't happen anywhere close to that. Detectives had already tracked her down at work based on Maria Budlik's report. But she didn't have any idea where he was staying. She just said, I kicked him out. I don't know where he is.

She didn't have any idea where he was staying. She just said, I kicked him out. I don't know where he is. But the next morning when Peter came by her apartment and she told him that based on the questions the police were asking, she told him, you had to have done something awful for them to have come and talked to me like this. And he replied, quote, yeah, I did it. I did everything. And then he just left. I did everything. But he did it like in a braggy because he because

he left he left this whole profuse like i wanted to make sure she was always taken care of and i would be doing all the making sure she'd get some money and it's like no he kind of just dropped it on her lap because then he also kind of wondered in a weird hazy thing i think the reason why he didn't laugh i don't think the reason why he didn't run was because I think it's a little bit of being like, first of all, we'll see if they actually do get me. Yeah. And second of all, I mean, then the whole world will know my story. So they met for lunch the next day. They still went out to lunch.

Now what the hell is happening here? Well, because he's not really, he's just telling her, he's just giving her a little bit each time. Well, she's been gaslit out to hell. She's in a fake world. She's been sitting there wondering what it is about him, trying not to ask too many questions, but also because he said that he openly had affairs because that was a part of the original, original confession was saying I had affairs. She caught him a couple times.

Yeah. And so she knew that. So she was like, but it was a very common thing of like, well, he's just too much man for me. I have to let him go and be with other women, which means he was an he was I mean, he had raped her. He had done several things. He was an uncontrollable sexual maniac and couldn't couldn't keep it in his pants. And so she thought that's all it was.

But then it got to the point where it's like she's like, but we should go to lunch for closure. Yeah, that lunch is a little crazy here. I don't know how they're hungry, number one. Well, that's the thing is that Augusta was too distraught to eat. She couldn't eat at all. But Curtin, he ate. And he ate her lunch as well. Yep.

He had double lunch. Double lunch. He had double lunch. This did not bother him at all. In fact, his last meal, he had a Wienerschnitzel for his last meal. And then after he finished, he asked for seconds. And they gave it to him. Yep. Okay. And Wienerschnitzel for his last meal, and then after he finished, he asked for seconds. And they gave it to him. Yep. Okay. A Wienerschnitzel is a lot.

A Wienerschnitzel that's very big. All pounded out there. But after lunch, as the two of them were walking over the Rhine Bridge, Curtin confessed completely. He gleefully told her that he was the vampire of Dusseldorforf and that he'd done

everything they'd reported in the papers and worse besides. Then when he was asked why though, he said, quote, I don't know myself. It just came over me. It's like when I started playing guitar again and learned all the catalog of DMV, but mostly it was because I wanted to provide some kind of background music at parties. Oh, my goodness. But when Augusta naturally reacted in horror, and I don't know what other reaction he expected. Yeah, what did he expect? Peter said, according to Augusta, this is how he replied when she reacted in horror. I've done something very silly I ought not to have told you.

That was the silly thing? You're blowing it out of proportion Every day It's just like We just had lunch Wasn't it nice? Didn't we have a nice lunch together? And now you're all butthurt about it

Oh my god Yeah Augustus said that All that afternoon though And for the rest of the night He couldn't look her in the eye Oh he couldn't And he was overcome by a depression That she'd never

seen him experience. But, not a single goddamn thing was said about a reward. So, like, Henry, like,

I'm not sure if I can really, like, figure it out here. Like, why do you think he put on a show for her after he told her? Why do you think

he was all cast down and, you know, dog-eyed, like, you know, doe-eyed and all that shit? Like, why did, and also, why did he just kill her and run away? He was mad. So, again, I'm going to walk all the way down of the end of the, I'm going to go to the

end of the branch here. Right? I'm going to talk about, I'm not sure. In my mind, of all of this is true true because there's still always like a thing at the very end that he could have made up a bunch of shit yeah he could say who knows partially i think that has got a lot to do with it too it's just a sheer showmanship and the exhibitionism he showed about his crimes and his want for all of it to be true and showing everybody in the delight he got i think that this man was a plastic person.

I think a part of it was when he said, I ought not to have told you that was silly of me to do. That was essentially which being like, now you're going to be a fucking bummer.

After all of this, I think he was pouting because he knew he had to go to jail the next day that he was going to maybe turn himself in. I think that he didn't

want to kill his wife because I think that she was truly very close to him and there was because he had deigned to trust her with the real him he can't kill this person because he already she already became like a trophy slash too important to him yeah i think everybody was objects i think everybody was used for his own pleasure so i think just doing the show was simply being like can you just get over your bullshit so we can just have a nice night can't we just have a nice night like like basically gaslighting her again yeah that'll that'll that will ruin a night that i will say nothing can bring you back from a night not being ruined there but i did ask a question on twitter about about whether or not uh what about psychopaths feeling love and they say a lot of it's it's just kind of a shallow thing and it's about the idea of what in context to their lives what does

love mean yeah what is what can they get out of it they lack empathy physically they lack that they lack the the understanding of other people's world but they can love you for the purpose you serve in their life. And in this case, she served the purpose of making them seem normal, right? Yes. So that he could be like, it's not, you know. Have I talked about this? That's the trick part that you were mentioning before where this is like part of the game.

This fucking wedding ring on my finger, it has an effect. It definitely makes you appear less harmful as a person and i i feel like they're i you could see it like you can look like you're a harmless person if you're married because it's like all this kind of thing all you went to the little hubbub i think it was all a show yeah and it's also a good reminder if you're gaining weight because then you can't get it off which is uh or water retention or getting arthritis yeah you want to be careful well

at any rate the next day augusta curtain went to the police and told them everything her husband had told her the day before. And a trap was set where Augusta would meet Peter near Rilke's church the next day. And as Peter walked towards his wife on his last day of freedom, cops armed with revolvers sprung from every direction. And as they approached him, Peter just smiled, winked, and calmly said, quote, There is no reason to be afraid. Well, I don't know if that's true, but okay. Well, no, it's like the fucking

Joker going back into jail. He was so excited for this moment. So excited. His only thing was he said, like, I didn't think my wife would turn me over that quickly, but whatever. He's such a little bitch. Yeah, dude. But he also got all dressed up.

Yeah. He went. He got a bath. He took a shower. He got a shave. He got a shave. He put on his nice clothes. He wanted, because he knew he'd be photographed.

Ah, I see. Peter Curtin spent most of his trial just hard as the dickens, because he was having all of his shit said back to him. So he was aroused the entire trial? Entire trial. He was visibly aroused several times. They put him in a cage. Yeah.

Just like they did Andre Chikatilo. Yeah. So he was in a big cage in the trial. And also, he also recanted. He did his confessions. Then he recanted and then flipped back again. Yeah. And the court, they didn't help that much because they set up a display of the skulls of Peter's

victims in open court along with fake body parts with simulated wounds next to scissors, rope, knives and a couple of hammers. So he loved it. This is like a Broadway play, a saucy play for him. And he was the fucking star! Yeah. Jeez. And when it was all said and done, Peter Curtin

was found, of course, found guilty on all charges. I think it was 72 charges and done, Peter Curtin was found, of course, found guilty on all charges. I think it was 72 charges or 68, because after he was arrested, he sat down with Dr. Berg and he was like, let me tell you all the crimes I have committed. And he went through and listed every single crime when he did every crime. And he also and he said names when he could remember them. And that's how the that's how the police were able to go back and talk to all these people and track them down and ask them, like, hey, did you did this happen to you? And a lot of times they were like, yeah, not exactly as he said it. Like the woman that was hit in the head with the chisel, he told them that she was with another guy, that he'd hit them both with a chisel.

But when they found the woman, she was like, oh, no, yeah, a psychopath did rip me off my bike and hit me in the head with something. But I was definitely alone. Okay. Damn. But Peter Curtin, when he went to the guillotine, he at least gave the appearance of excitement. All right. So they gave the death penalty to the guy.

Yeah, of course. Very good, very good. On the day of his execution, he turned to Dr. Berg and famously said, quote, Tell me, after my head has been chopped off, will I still be able to hear, at least for a moment, the sound of my own blood gushing from the stump of my neck. That would be the pleasure to end all pleasures. Face down, man. You can't

let him see it. Unfortunately, the answer is yes, he probably could. Hell yeah, Marcus. 20 seconds or something, right? You get it or something like that. Quick story at the end here. In 1793, an assassin named Charlotte Corday was beheaded by the guillotine after murdering a prominent member

of the French Revolution. After the blade had fallen, a man named Legros quickly lifted the head from the basket and slapped it. And to the surprise of everyone in the audience, Charlotte's head got super pissed off. Jesus!

It's even a reanimator! Can you imagine that? Lifted up her fucking slapped head, you slapped it, and he goes, and he's like, off you gotta have friends like the late like the lead character in wolfenstein put you back together again yeah and then you know the head of charlotte corday slackened again as the oxygen left the brain but they said there was a very real and visible reaction. There was a very real look of anger and indignation. And that's what makes this fucking horrifying. Yeah, that's what actually makes the guillotine

one of the more terrifying ways to be executed rather than the most humane way as was touted by French revolutionaries. And we can only hope that Peter Curtin shared that terror. No, he loved it. It seems like this was the ultimate way to kill him in his own mind. Yeah, if he did have any terror, he didn't show it. Because as his head was positioned underneath the blade,

he was asked if he had any last words. He just smiled and said no. And the guillotine came down, neatly sliced off Curtin's head, finally putting an end to the vampire of Dusseldorf. Yay! All right!

It's a strange ending in that it's good, but then it's also like kind of what he wanted. It's just kind of like too late. Yeah. Wow. All right. Well, there it is. Peter Curtin. That's just kind of like too late. Yeah. Wow. All right. Well, there it is.

Peter Curtin. That's, you know, he's not really talked about that much. He's really not. Well, God, that's horrible. He's one of those that people don't talk about because of, and we've been talking about this with a lot of killers recently. It's like, he's one of those guys. He's kind of like Dean Corll where he's not talked about because he's so fucking brutal. Because his crimes are so awful, and they can't really be glossed over.

Like, you can kind of gloss over Ted Bundy's crimes. You can gloss over John Wayne Gacy. You don't have to get specific with those. You can just kind of say them. Well, because you've got the—with those, they're like flashes of, like, clown killer. Yeah. Ted Bundy is like a good looking guy. Jeffrey Dahmer is the cannibal.

What do you think about how the media played a role in framing all that stuff for us initially? Like when Peter Curtin was down, obviously, as you guys mentioned, there's no articles or anything. No, no, there are articles,

but there was not that one letter. That's not that one letter. We grew up like my idea of Ted Bundy was already formed before I even knew what the crimes were. The vampire. Same with that. Same with Dahmer. Yes. The vampire of Dusseldorf already formed before I even knew what the crimes were. The vampire. Same with that. Same with Dahmer. Yes. The vampire of Dusseldorf was a character.

It just doesn't. What we're talking about here is that if we want to get into like the sad, blase world that we're now in because of where we're at in terms of serial killer expertise, he's like a B level serial killer. So what you have is like you have all these kind like, what we used to call the heavy hitters, like all these guys, they're super, super famous ones. These guys are the step under. For me, it's just like, you just get to them next

because you've already blew through all these sort of pop cultural icons, iconic serial killers that have now become iconic because of our fetishization of them. Exactly, the media. And so part of it is the, but vampire, these are, he's famous.

For me, Peter Curtin's a famous serial killer. Because I've heard about him for so many years and it's really just until you get into the details of his crimes. And it's also the fact that, you know, this happened a hundred years ago. Yeah, or almost a hundred years ago in Germany right before a whole bunch of other really important shit happened in Germany.

Because, you know, especially you could say that, you know, it is, too, is that like a lot of these circles in the serial killer, quote unquote, boom of America. It happened in the 1970s, which is a great slash cheaper, easier way to time period to make a movie where like here in order to do the Peter Curtin movie, you got to rent cars. You got to, it's a whole fucking hundreds of BG and a fucking old timey clothes. It's a big deal. So that's why it hasn't really slid into a movie to me, but I'm certain there will eventually be. The lederhosen costs alone. Yeah.

Really increase that budget. A genuine lederhosen. I was looking into it. It's going to be up to like 200, 250. There it's, it's a comfortable, It's not so comfortable, but it's definitely expensive. Yeah, it is. Yeah, if you want the joys of a romper with none of the ease, but

you also love wearing leather all around your asshole, get some leader hosts. Surprisingly hot. Well, I'd like to thank research assistant Rachel Hsu for her help as always, as well as another thank you to Rachel Hsu for her help as always. Thank you, Rachel. As well as another thank you to Carolina for her help last episode as well.

Thank you, Rachel. Thank you, Carolina. Thank you. At this point in time, we have been performing for you live. We've been so excited to see you. We've been very excited to see you tonight. Actually, as this, we're recording this before we leave to go to Texas. So as this episode is coming out, we will be in Oklahoma City.

We will have done Dallas and Austin. Thank you very much for your kindness there. I want to thank the number one fan in Dallas who gave me $1 million. I really appreciated that. That was amazing that they did that. And I want to thank the fan in Austin that gave me a full exoskeleton that I can use to fight our government. Man, it was a heck of a trip. What a trip.

So hard to get back in the bag. Yes. Awesome, everyone. Well, thank you so much for listening. We really appreciate you. Check out our Patreon if you would like to. And if you want to come see us live, we got tickets on sale for Indianapolis on November 30th. Awesome. And Chicago's all sold out, but we will be in Chicago. want to come see us live, we got tickets on sale for Indianapolis on November 30th.

And Chicago's all sold out, but we will be in Chicago, so we will be seeing you there. Y'all have been wonderful. Y'all are wonderful. Follow LP on the left if you haven't thrown your phone into a river. Uh-oh. And hail Satan. Oh, thank you, Satan.

Uh-oh. Hail yourselves, everyone. Oh, hail Gein. Hail me. I'm in a Magoos-talations. In a Magoos-talations? Sure. Magoos-talations. You said it.

You said it. I said it. Yeah, yeah, baby. You said it, yeah. I'm like an edgy comedian. I'm like, I said it. I'm like, we know you have a microphone. Whoa.

Don't. Hey, Side Stories listeners. This is Henry Zebrowski. You may recognize me. I'm the host of this podcast along with the other fucking monster, Ben Kissel. And I'm here to tell you about Trollville, a new series brought to you and created by me, Natalie Jean, and Sina Ghaznavi. This show is about what happens when you take an internet troll and you watch his online behavior slip into his real life and see how does that change him is he ready to join society we've made this project with a lot of love on our own dime i'm

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