RedHanded - Episode 69 - The Vampire of Bucharest

Episode Date: November 8, 2018

In 1970 a serial killer stalked the streets of Romania's capital, assaulting over twenty young women and brutally murdering at least four. He was quickly dubbed "the vampire of Bucharest" after his victims were found with chunks of their flesh missing and holes poked in their necks, as if someone had been feeding on them. When the killer was eventually captured further twists surfaced as authorities began to wonder if vampirism and serial killing ran in this man's family...   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah.

I'm Saruti. And welcome to Red Handed, where Halloween is finally over. I feel like we've been doing Halloween for my entire life. I feel like my entire life has been one long Halloween. Not that I'm complaining, it was fun. And also, you say Halloween is over, but this episode is literally about a vampire from Transylvania. It is, yeah, how funny. Obviously, we drove around Transylvania. It is, yeah, how funny. Obviously, we drove around Transylvania last week,

so I thought it would be a good, the perfect opportunity to do a Transylvanian vampire. Exactly. Because there is one, a real one. And there isn't the one that everyone's probably thinking, which is, what's her name? Elizabeth Baltry. Do you think so?

I would have gone Vlad the Impaler for the most famous Transylvanian vampire. Just got so much choice for you to pick from and we we went to Vlad's house we did we did go to Vlad's house it was a good day it was on my birthday wasn't it oh yeah of course I thought it looked really cool from the outside and we tried so desperately hard to find like a good view to take a photo of it but like all of my photos from that just look like I'm standing in a car park. You can't see the car seat.

Because we were standing in a car park. We were standing in a field that had some cars in it. Driving all over. And just still ended up taking pictures in a car park. Didn't really work. No, it was cool. It was good to see. Had some great soup there.

Forgot to go shopping, which was sad. The petrol is outrageously cheap. It was. so you can drive around looking for a viewpoint all you want we are not doing the very obvious vlad the impaler or the maybe second most obvious elizabeth baltry we're going to go for somebody else somebody else entirely quite a modern one in terms of transylvanian vampires and it has been a little bit more challenging to cover this case than we thought it would because of the lack of material in English. We have found that with other cases,

but I just thought it was too good not to do. So we've soldered on. Key culture point before we get going. Until 1989, Romania was a communist country, but it was never part of the USSR, unlike its neighbours, Moldova and Ukraine. And this is important because the vast majority of the action in our story today happens in 1970 and in 1971. And this case does kind of fall into the communist countries claim never to have serial killers category. And if you're familiar with the case of Andrei Chikatilo, this won't be news to you.

It's such a weird phenomenon. Serial murders of any sort just didn't exist in communist utopia. Except obviously that they absolutely did. But this attitude means that when we do come across serial and spree killers like Andre Chikatilo and our subject today, there tends not to be too much information on them because it's all just sort of swept under the rug a bit. But as usual, we've done our best at sifting through and stitching together the story for you. And like Hannah said, in the USSR and its communist neighbours, killers were very much

seen as a capitalist disease. I think very much crime was seen as a capitalist disease because if you've got a successful communist regime, if everybody is supposedly equal and fighting for the greater good, there should be no reason to have crime, right? There's no reason to steal from your neighbor if everyone has the same. Absolutely. I think that's the idea. In theory, that is the idea. But in practice, that very much isn't the case. And obviously, if you just take that to the next level, of course, serial killers, all of that cannot be happening unless you're exposed to sort of the evils of the Western world. This kind of thing is absolutely seen as a capitalist disease. So when our killer today was found out, it was an enormous deal in the news.

All of his murders took place in the space of just two years. In the spring of 1970, an unprecedented crime wave swept across Bucharest. Women were followed home by a strange man. He would stalk them as they walked home in the early hours of the morning. All of his victims worked in restaurants and all of them had blonde hair. Sometimes he would attack them, sometimes he would rape them and sometimes he would kill them. Some of these women survived being followed home by this shadow man

but some would not be so lucky. Four women died in the Bucharest crime spree and their mystery killer was known only as the Vampire of Bucharest. He earned himself this nickname because the bodies of his victims were often found with bites taken out of them. The imprints of human teeth were clearly visible in their skin when their bodies were found by police. It seemed his favourite areas to munch were unsurprisingly the breasts and genitals of his victims. The chunks of flesh removed from their dead bodies were never recovered from the crime scene, indicating that he either

kept them or he had eaten them. And to add to this vampiric checklist, survivor Florica Marcu told the police that the man she assumed to be the vampire of Bucharest had followed her home, attacked her and punctured two holes in her neck from which he drank her blood. It was also discovered by the police that the vampire of Bucharest was having sex with his victim's corpses after they had died. And not only that, but we have ourselves another wet werewolf because this vampire would only strike during extreme weather conditions

like snowstorms, heavy rains, high winds or fog. It's like he really just needed the right atmosphere to go off and do his killings. This is the thing. Is it that they are just like, I don't know, what's that thing that people get? SADs? Seasonally associated depression. Yeah, I fully get that. I hate the winter. Do you think it's just like there's something really inextricably linked to whatever sort of clinical condition that people like this guy or the wet werewolf that we originally talked about in the case that you did in Hong Kong? Do you think it's just actually linked that closely to the weather or is it just a coincidence? I don't know. I do think that your environment does

have an effect on you. Otherwise, seasonally associated depression wouldn't be a thing but obviously these are very extreme cases and how long have we been doing this now nearly two years is that right less than that no 18 months yeah we've only come across two cases where the weather has played a significant role it's interesting there because i was reading about it and i guess this is obviously very very extreme cases of that i, people with just general sads aren't going around killing people because it's a bit wet outside. But is it just some sort of idiosyncratic expression of some other sort of weird clinical disorder that they have? And it just seems to be expressing itself like this? Or is it just an absolute coincidence?

Who knows? It's just interesting. It's an interesting point. The other thing that's really interesting is how specifically he picked his victims so he would follow women home in the early hours after they'd finished their waitressing shifts all of his victims worked in restaurants and this could indicate a few things perhaps he had a particular problem with waitresses and wanted every waitress in Bucharest dead or is it just that if you're working in hospitality,

you're much more likely to be walking home on your own at night? Either way, the vampire killer would follow his victims home as they walked alone in the middle of the night. He would attack them using a hammer, a small axe, an iron bar, or a knife. He carried these weapons around in a small bag, like a doctor's bag of death. Sometimes he would attack these women in their homes. And sometimes he would do it in the street, presumably because sometimes he just couldn't wait until they were home. This is the thing, I really feel like they are all such similar victims. Like his victim selection is very specific. Blonde waitresses walking home at night, all in bacaress.

Like he's not trying to even slightly deviate. And apart from the location in which he attacks them, even his attacks are quite similar, aren't they? They are quite similar. And I think as we go on, this will sort of explain itself a bit more. But it's a real juxtaposition of the way he attacks people because he picks people in such a specific way. They're all a specific kind of person. But when he attacks them, it's frenzied. Like nothing about it is calculated.

Oh, yeah. I mean, I think you can definitely be sort of like the disorganized mind. I mean, but he's not that disorganized because he comes with a kill kit. It's just like frenzied because of his particular style. It's just that incredible violence and that frenzied attack and the fear on them in that blitz attack that seems to get him off. But I think every other thing about him in terms of serial killer methodology, like the victim selection is so specific, the kill kit he has, the stalking of his victims, and it's incredibly high risk. He's doing it in the street

or in their homes. I feel like he's quite an organised killer, which it becomes an interesting point to remember later on, I think. But before we get there, the women of Bucharest, of course, they were fucking terrified. They were scared across the entire city. Women didn't walk anywhere by themselves after 9pm. I certainly wouldn't, if there was somebody like this running around, especially on a rainy day. And the hysteria was only worsened by the police refusing to release any information on the case why is it so that if they do catch somebody they haven't exposed all of the details and they can actually figure out who it is or is it that whole communist mindset of there's nothing really happening we don't want to freak people out but by accident

we are freaking everyone out i think it's possibly a bit of both i definitely think there is a let's just pretend this isn't happening and let's certainly make sure that no one thinks that they're connected but that's the strange thing about reading about this case it really is presented like nobody got raped in Bucharest ever it's like oh this massive crime spree that just sprung out of nowhere in the 70s like I just find that quite hard to believe it's a major city I really I don't buy into this idea that every crime in the 70s like I just find that quite hard to believe it's a major city I really I don't buy into this idea that every crime in the city was being committed by this one guy you know and it had never happened before and it and obviously like that's not the case but that's the way this case is presented as like the only criminal in communist Bucharest oh absolutely but that's very

very common we see that again you know just to reference Andre Cicatillo. It was the same and it was like, how are you even going to say that Andre Cicatillo was the only person? He was literally born into a holocaust, like people were doing horrific things all around him. That's why he became the way he was. In this, I wonder also if there's an element of total denial that crimes like this could possibly take place in a utopian society like this probably lends itself to why people were so freaked out when this did come out. And I do think it's almost like a weird contradiction because on one hand, they want to pretend that these issues or these cases aren't related. But on the other hand, they want to think that they're all by the same person because there can't

possibly be two people like this. Putting all their crime eggs in one basket, I think, with this time. Absolutely. You never want to do that. And of course, it is just conjecture. But it really does seem like the police were trying to keep as much of a lid on this as they possibly could, whatever their reasons were. But by not telling the public anything, rumours just started to fly. This killer could be anywhere and he could be anyone. That is the most terrifying type of killer. And people had no idea who they should be looking for. All they knew was that at least 23 women had been attacked by the same vampire. The incredibly specific MO assured the police that the Bucharesti crime wave may be the work of the same person. The investigation to find the vampire of Bucharest was launched in the last few months of 1970.

And the investigation was called Operation Vulture. Over 2,500 suspects were interviewed by investigating officers and to me that really does sound like the police were really struggling to zone in on anyone. They really didn't know what they were even looking for. It's a weird thing I read another statistic they were like oh 60, 6,000 males were ID'd in the investigation for finding the vampire Bucharest. They literally, anyone who comes across their path, they're like, oh, let me see your ID. Because, I don't know, you might look like a vampire. They're shooting in the dark.

They really are. It's interesting because it's part of it you could say, well, they're trying really hard. They are fingering all these suspects. They are looking into all of these people, following up on all these suspects that could possibly be this guy but it is quite bizarre i mean i guess that that is absolutely the hardest type of killer or the hardest type of criminal to catch but it is interesting because he does have such a specific mo but let's go through the vampire's victims one by one to get to grips with what the police had to go on the first attack that the police knew of happened on the 8th of April 1970.

Elena Oprea was murdered in her own home. Her neighbour heard the noise coming from her apartment and interrupted the attack right in the middle. The vampire was forced to flee. He didn't rape Elena, probably because he was scared off before he got the chance. Then, on the 1st of June 1970, the vampire of Bucharest followed home,

Florica Marcu, after her shift at a restaurant. This attack is the one that earned him his name. He beat Florica until he knocked her out, outside her home. And when she was unconscious, he dragged her to a nearby cemetery, where he raped her. He poked holes in her body, from which he drank her blood. Something must have scared him off this time too because unlike Elena the month before the vampire of Bucharest left Florica alive and ran off into the night and I did think that maybe this was because he was interrupted again or could it be that his intention was not to kill any of the women but maybe that was a consequence of what he really wanted from them it's scary because he attacks

these women in the dead of night. He drags her to a nearby cemetery where he rapes her. Who's in the cemetery at the dead of night to scare him away? Maybe it's almost like, I know sometimes he just genuinely does get scared away, but it's almost like he flips in and out of it. He's in the middle of this incredibly frenzied attack and then he comes to, not comes to his senses because he doesn't try help them. So it's not like he's, you know, can't be like, oh, split personality disorder.

Suddenly he's horrified by what he's done. It's almost like he's like, oh, I'm done. I got what I needed. I'm out of here. It's so sudden. I don't think, I mean, looking at just the two, the two instances that were, and obviously there are a lot more, but the two we've just covered, one of them, the woman is murdered. The other one is not.

It just doesn't seem, and he's interrupted both times so the killing clearly isn't the end game because he'd killed Elena but he wasn't done yeah oh the killing definitely isn't the end game I don't think I think he is I think he's a product killer he wants something from them the blood and then he rapes them after they're dead in most cases so I don't think that the killing is the is the end goal here no i don't think so so he leaves florica in this cemetery uh god knows what scared him off or i quite like that idea of him sort of not like it but um it's an interesting point that it is like he flicks in and out of like a sort of jekyll and Hyde situation. Florica was saved by a truck driver

who was passing the cemetery after the sun had come up and she went straight to the police who took her statement. But at this point, they didn't believe that they were dealing with a serial attacker. But this changed on the 19th of July, 1970, when Olga Barataru was attacked on her walk home. She sustained serious injuries, was raped and left alive by the vampire just like Florica.

It's almost like, you know, in Bram Stoker's actual book, that's exactly what the vampire does. He doesn't kill them immediately. He feeds off them, comes back to them again and again, weakening them. I'm not saying that, you know, that this is because he thought he was a vampire and he was going to come back for them, But it kind of fits with the whole legend. But again, I just think it's a coincidence. I don't know why he's not killing them. But after this attack, we have a really long cooling off period. Either our vampire went into hibernation or his crimes weren't reported

or maybe the weather just wasn't right. What happened to our killer between the end of July 1970 and the beginning of February 1971, we'll never know. But by the 15th of February, he was back on his game. And perhaps he was inspired by the truly gut-wrenching horror that is Valentine's Day. Because on the 15th of February 1971, Georgita Stefku was attacked on her way home by the vampire. And again, she survived. Then just 48 hours later, on the 17th of February

Elisabetha Floria was attacked and again she escaped with her life. This is the shortest cooling off period we have seen from him so far. Just 48 hours between the two attacks and again he didn't wait long until the next one. On the 4th of March Fanica Illy was attacked by the vampire on her way home but she died as a result of her injuries. She was brutally beaten by the vampire with implements from his bag of tricks. He also had sex with her dead body after he'd killed her. After this, the vampire went quiet for an entire month. He resurfaced on the 8th of April 1971 when he attacked another woman, Georgita Popa.

He stabbed Georgita 48 times in her chest, head and limbs. Head stabbing is the worst. I was thinking about that and like to stab someone in the head, it's the worst thing. How are you going in through the ear, through the eye? Like what, how are you doing that? You just stab someone in the skull. You just need a strong knife and a lot of strength. A lot of strength. Yeah, you'd have to be a strong person, I think. And after this attack, unsurprisingly, Georgita died from the stab wounds

and the vampire of Bucharest stamped on her ribs and bit parts of her corpse. The portions of her flesh that he had bitten off were not recovered by the police at the crime scene. On the 1st of May 1971, Stannis Arrokin managed to fend off the vampire as he attempted to sexually assault her on her way home. But on the 4th of May 1971, he would kill again. Mihaela Ursu was on her way home when she was attacked, raped and murdered by the vampire. But this wasn't enough for him. The vampire was interrupted in the middle of his attack and whatever it was he was looking for from Mahela,

he clearly didn't get it, even though he had killed her. Because just two hours later, the vampire found Maria Lorduck and he attacked her as well. He repeatedly hit her with an iron bar from his doctor death bag but Maria miraculously despite her injuries managed to escape. And it's interesting because it's like he's starting to devolve now like the cooling off periods are getting shorter and shorter and it's kind of like the Jack the Ripper case which I know you hate but he attacks two women in one night for the first time from what we can tell and it's almost like this is when he gets a bit sloppy because he's starting to devolve into that

frenzied mode i'm unsure whether i think there's definitely like a ramping up but i'm unsure if there's any i don't think he's trying not to get caught no i don't think he's trying not to get caught i think if the police had been taking this case seriously from the start after they had a few victims they would have caught him long ago because i don't think yeah i don't think he's trying not to get caught at all and just the brutality with which he's attacking these women like and like i said before the locations he's doing this so publicly the only thing you can even hint at him doing to cover it up his attacks is that he does them at night that's it but finally after maria makes her escape we get our first break in the case.

When police were investigating the crime scene of Mihaela Ursa's murder, they found an Agatha Christie-level clue. This really is the kind of clue you just dream of. Under Mihaela's body, there was a doctor's note. So he's careless. He's not cleaning up after himself. Nothing. And this doctor's note was so bloody that what it actually said or which doctor it came from couldn't be discerned. But what was clear was the letterhead. The letterhead on the doctor's note was from the Bucharest University Hospital, which meant that the killer was more

than likely to be a student. And this meant that for the police, it was just a process of elimination to find the killer. They managed to figure out that the doctor's note was from Dr Octavian Lennisfer, who worked at the university hospital. After questioning Dr Octavian and going through his medical records, the number of students who could have been given the note under Mahela's body became smaller and smaller.

Using this and the bite marks left in the victim's body, the police were able to identify the vampire of Bucharest to be 24-year-old Aion Romaru. Immediately, I find this just mind-blowing. He's 24. Yeah, he's a kid. 24. These are the

crimes of like a 54-year-old man. Isn't it? Yeah. It's shocking. It's completely shocking. Just not in terms of like, oh, he's so young and doing this. It's just that by this stage, most serial killers don't even know what they want. They don't even realize that this is what gets them off. Ion has gone to that stage already. He seems to have skipped past the sort of petty crimes that we usually talk about in the escalation of a serial killer and gone straight to rape, attack, murder, necrophilia, vampiric feeding. It's crazy. The note from the university hospital was an epilepsy diagnosis

and Dr Octavian had been one of six doctors to diagnose Aion Romaru with epilepsy just months before. Aion Romaru was studying veterinary science. He was repeating his third year when Mahela's body was discovered. In the time it took the police to figure out who the infamous vampire of Bucharest was though, he had struck again, twice. He attacked both Vittoria Tatt and Eleanor Boulsey on the night of the 6th of May 1971. Both women again survived their encounters. On the 27th of May, the police were sure that Ayan Ramaru was their man, so officers went to his student halls of residence to arrest him. But he wasn't there, so they searched his room, but they didn't find an axe an iron bar

a knife or a hammer or anything. Ayan Romaru returned to his halls at about one o'clock in the afternoon carrying a bag containing an axe an iron bar a knife and a hammer. The police knew that this had to be their guy but who was he? What was making someone so young follow women home in the middle of the night beat them to death and eat them? This is the thing. Even before they sort of sneak attack him at his student halls, they know it's him because they found his doctor. They've matched the bite marks on a body to his mouth, so they know it's him.

And then he just walks back into his halls of residence in the middle of the day. This isn't even at nighttime. Just carrying his death bag with him. Like he's completely unaware. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle,

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Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. We don't know too much about his childhood, but here is what we do know. Iron was born in October 1946, and and his father Florea Amaru certainly wasn't going to win any dad of the year competitions. Ion witnessed his dad beat his mum on a daily basis until he abandoned the family and moved to the capital when Ion was still a boy. Ion was forced to repeat the ninth grade and I think that's like year 10 so I think you're about 14, 13, 14-ish. Is that how old you are are in year 10 maybe yeah because like you're 16 when you're in year 11

yeah so 15 and he was forced to repeat the ninth grade because he was having a sexual relationship with his teacher's daughter and I read that she was underage but surely so is he if he's 14 15 and I think that the age of consent in Romania is 14 so but I might be wrong so let me know she must have been even younger than that I wonder what the age of consent in Romania is 14 so but I might be wrong so let me know she must have been even younger than that I wonder what the age of consent in Romania was in 1970 though that's the thing yeah I can imagine maybe there just wasn't anything but maybe if she was incredibly young but if they're saying she's underage then there must be some sort of level of overage yeah that's true either way he's having a sexual relationship with his teacher's daughter which is not going to ingratiate you to anyone, really.

And for sleeping with his teacher's daughter, he's forced to repeat the school year. And this punishment doesn't seem to make loads of sense because he's having sex with his teacher's daughter. Presumably the teacher doesn't like this very much and isn't Ian's biggest fan. But then the punishment is to make the two spend another year together. No, I don't understand.

I don't understand it either. I'm surprised the teacher didn't want him to be absolutely out of their sight for good. Unless he was like, I'm going to make this year the worst year of your fucking life. Yeah, maybe. Or I want to keep an eye on you. Who knows what this teacher did to him, but he wasn't like a star pupil even after this happened. By the age of 18, he was being arrested for aggravated assault. And despite this, Ion managed to make it out of school in 1966.

He passed all of his subjects. He even apparently did well enough to get into the faculty of veterinary medicine university, despite apparently being semi-literate and having a very limited vocabulary. This is the weird thing. So I read that in order to get into the veterinary university, you needed a 5.5 out of 10 overall, which to be a vet doesn't seem that high. No, you need very, very good grades to be a vet. But somehow he does it. And this is probably why Romaru had to repeat several years of his university training because he got in,

but he clearly probably shouldn't have been there because he kept failing years. Yeah, and he's semi-literate he can barely read. I don't know it's very weird it's very weird it's like he's just attracted to that role probably because he can just pull apart at animals maybe. He's not very good at that because he keeps failing his years and again how many years are you allowed to fail and still continue to train to be a vet. That's weird that they gave him so many chances. And at university, Ion, unsurprisingly, was very reclusive. His roommates found him to be really odd and generally they just totally ignored him. We all had university flatmates like that.

One of mine in first year, I would not be at all surprised if he turned out to be someone like this. Really? Oh, such a weird guy. I think you have to give an example. You can't just be like, he was a weird guy and then move on. I mean, just not to the point of like he was tearing up small animals in his room, as far as I knew. But he would just do weird things. Like, just if we had people over, he would be very angry.

He would text me things when we had people over and we had music on saying like, there's not enough oxygen in the room. What? Yeah, I know. And I'd be like, what the fuck are you on about? And he never went out. So it couldn't be like, oh, when he's out, we'll all hang out together. Because this was just like luck or not luck that I ended up living with him.

He was just like a total random. Just random selection. Random selection. He was such a weirdo. And he played the trombone and he would practice every day in his room and I'd be like so you're allowed to practice a trombone trombone which is not a quiet instrument no it's not a quiet instrument so you're allowed to practice the trombone in your room but I'm not allowed to have people over he was such a fucking weirdo oh my god I just

remembered the most hilarious university hall story that I've ever heard it didn't happen to me but someone I used to work with at the Roald Dahl Museum actually did a fine art degree. And in her halls, there was this guy who was just a bit off. And his room was next to the kitchen. And his room just started to smell really odd, just like really just not what it should have been smelling like. And it started to get really bad like over a period of weeks and months. So, am I going to say her name? No. I'll change her name. So Lucy... Good fake name. Yeah, it was a good fake name.

Collected all of the other flatmates except this one guy, and she's like, we've got to do something about this. We have to confront him about why his room smells so bad. And his room smelled so bad because inside his room, he was making a sculpture out of his own shit no word of a lie that is absolutely true he would weigh what he was eating and then weigh his shit carry it through the kitchen to his bedroom and then make this sculpture which i believe was actually of himself out of his own shit so they reported him to the university being like this is we can't have just a shit mountain in our

halls so the university had to buy him a fridge to keep it in in the art department i haven't frozen the call hasn't frozen i just don't know what to say i like i had to buy him a poo fridge why are they buying him a fridge he's got serious issues because it's a fine art degree there he like no no no no no no he's got ish he needs help that is that is fucking pathological oh my god i totally forgot about that story so funny i really feel like you should tell me before so i could have come up with something to respond to that because i don't know what i didn't know i was gonna say it i'd suppressed it in the recesses of my mind. I will stop complaining. Yeah, trombone guy doesn't sound so bad now, does he?

Over poo sculpture man. I don't even know what to say. Where were we? What is happening? Oh my God. What university was this? Oh, good question. It was like an arty uni.

Bournemouth, maybe? Of course it was. Wow. Everyone's just pretending like that's not a massive issue. Okay, good. Anyway, back to me talking about this. Kind of makes this guy seem not that weird now. Kind of feel bad that his housemates were being quite mean to him and ignoring him all the time.

And this guy, they were complaining for things that don't seem that bad now. Because one of his college roommates reported that Ion would stay up all night and walk the halls of the dorms and not sleep at all. He's not helping with his vampire vibes. He's not. But now that I've heard what your mate's roommate did,

that doesn't seem that weird. No, he's just going for a bit of a walk. I'd probably just allow that. Yeah, he's just a night owl. Leave him alone. And one night, apparently he stayed outside a room all night because he knew that there was a young woman in there. he stayed outside a room all night because he knew

that there was a young woman in there he stayed outside the door on his own all fucking night that is weird i believe he was in like separate sex halls so i think what has happened is someone's got a girl over and he's just standing outside listening all night wow that's too much still not as bad it's not really a surprise that poor little Ion didn't get many invites to any parties. On top of his nighttime walking tours of the halls and limited academic aptitude, after completing his first year of uni, Romaru was diagnosed with esophageal spasms, for which the cause was unknown. But basically, it means that food doesn't always reach your stomach

and can get stuck in your esophagus, which is obviously not great for you, medically speaking. Yeah, I've read a few different accounts of this diagnosis, and it's not 100% clear what they mean, which I think might just be down to a translation issue. But some of the accounts say that these esophageal spasms were a nervous reaction, so like a symptom of an overactive nervous system.

It's kind of like those people who were like terrified to eat certain foods. Yeah. Have you ever watched Freaky Eaters? That is one of my favourite shows. You love trash TV. It's like your fave. I've never watched Freaky Eaters. I've never watched Freaky Eaters, no.

God, I love that show. It is so fucking weird. Literally these, and I know, I know that these people have like, they probably have something like this. Maybe it gets stuck in their throat. They panic and it's like a nervous reaction to putting certain things into their mouth and swallowing it. But honestly, it's grown people. And then you have this like psychiatrist who's like trying to help them through it.

I don't know. Watch it. It's less torturous than I've just made it sound. And I do love trash TV. My recent one being 90 Day Fiance, as you know. And you were like, is it for people trying to get visas? For one of them it is. The other one thinks they're in love. So yeah, either this esophageal spasm situation was a physical symptom or either it was a psychological one. Which one is true? I'm not sure. Or both.

Or both. But basically his esophagus was contracting at the wrong times and food was getting stuck. So maybe he felt like he couldn't eat normal food and he had to eat people. Yeah, that's what I mean. Freaky eaters. Halloween edition. Halloween edition. It's normally just like people who can't eat anything but potato or can't eat anything

but like pot noodles. They can only eat people. He can't eat anything apart from munching on people's genitals. That would be freaky. Try and wean them off with like toenails or something. It's still people. You can eat them. In the episodes, they always do a scene where it's like,

and this is how much mashed potato you've been eating in a year. And it's like, this is how many people you've eaten in a year. It's just a pile of breasts that he's munched on. Which is a boob mountain. Okay, I'm going to stop. I'm going to stop planning episodes for Freaky Eaters. Carry on. Someone commission this TV show immediately.

So at this stage, he's been diagnosed with esophageal spasms. He also gets diagnosed with what I've only seen described as, in inverted commas, mental problems. But that's just so drastically unhelpful. But that's all I can find. And it's certainly not specific enough for us to speculate on his mental health in any detail. But I think we can pretty safely say that he's not 100% all right. And I also don't think we can stress enough how young he is when this all happens. He's a student. And yes, he has been held back, which is why he's still at university.

But he's only 24 and in his third year when he's arrested. But the other thing I found really interesting is with the evidence they have, like the bite marks and the doctor's note, surely they can only arrest him for Mahela's murder. They don't have shit for anything else. And this is when the case gets weird. All three of the other vampire murders and 20 assaults were all linked to Aion Romaru without the same level of evidence that they had for Mahela's attack and murder. I'm not saying that he didn't do it. He probably did. I'm just saying that it's really interesting that these are the only rapes and murders that seem to be happening at the time. The whole crime wave was attributed to one man. That idea, again,

that there is no crime in Utopia, just one bad egg. So Operation Vulture had a staggering 6,000 members of law enforcement assigned to it, 100 cars and 40 motorcycles. It really seems like, as far as the authorities were concerned, there was no other crime happening that needed to be policed. So they all just mucked in together to catch the only criminal in Romania. Apparently. And that does fit the narrative. This idea, yes, there is one bad man out there doing all these horrible crimes. Don't be afraid. We've got 6,000 members of our great law enforcement working on it.

We're going to catch him and then we'll be returned to a utopia. And if we do catch him and he's all fucked up, it's probably because he's been influenced by the West in some way. Now, when Romaru was arrested with his death bag, he remained totally silent. He was taken into custody by the authorities and didn't say a word. He just stared into space, showing absolutely no emotion at all. He was totally detached. And I think this and the sheer volume of his crimes,

the short time span that he did them in, and the very little care he took in not getting caught gives Ayan Romaru some serious Richard Chase vibes. And really, I think he might be verging on spree killer rather than serial killer. It's interesting because towards the end, after his break, he definitely seems to be slipped into spree killer mode rather than serial killer mode but without sort of any in-depth mental analysis it's so hard to pinpoint anything about him because we just don't have the information but i think and obviously this is just my opinion but i think he was just really unwell but the only thing we have on his mental state is inverted commas mental problems the authorities were expecting to arrest some sort of bestial monster, a super Mr. Hyde character that had been stalking Bucharest under the cover of darkness for his prey. But they arrested a young man in clear mental distress. But nevertheless,

Bucharest breathed a sigh of relief when the vampire was behind bars and the attacks did seem to stop. Romari was charged originally with the four murders of Elena Oprea, Fanika Illy, Georgita Popa and Mahela Ursu. But even in questioning, he remained totally silent. And this went on for two months. For two months of officers questioning him, he says, not a word. So two months into the wall of silence, the police are absolutely at their wits end. So they decide to bring in a criminal to try and get Ion to talk. But of course, it wasn't a real criminal. It was an undercover police officer posing as a thief.

And he must have been a great undercover copper because he got Ion to confess, not only to the four murders that he was accused of, but also to more than 20 violent crimes over the past year. We don't know if the 20 attacks Aion admitted to during questioning were the extent of his crime spree. There may have been many more, but he was only charged with three murders. First off, Aion Romaru tried to plead insanity, but the police weren't having any of it. Romaru claimed that he didn't realize that the women he had assaulted, tortured, eaten, and murdered were in any form of pain. He claimed

to not understand that they were suffering or even that they were dead. And this is why I wonder whether he actually intended to kill his victims or whether he had another aim when he attacked them. I don't know what it is. I don't know what his ultimate thing was with these bodies. Maybe it was to have sex with them. Maybe it was to eat them. All of that. But it really doesn't seem like killing them was what he wanted to do no and i also wonder if he even knew yet because he is only 24 and most killers realize slowly over time after more and more kills it becomes solidified exactly what it is that gets them off and i wonder if he

was still in that phase of trying out figuring out what turned him on figuring out what he wanted from these victims. And I don't know, I think maybe it was just the intense violence, the excitement of the attack, and their death was neither here nor there. It's hard for us to know. So police took Ion to the places where he had committed these crimes. And the police also asked his previous victims to take part in identity parades. Allegedly, Aion's victims visibly trembled when confronted with their attacker. During their manhunt for the vampire of Bucharest, the police arrested Aion's father, Florio Romaru, three times, but each time he was released.

In Romania, a close family member cannot be forced to testify. Aion was still maintaining an insanity defence by the time he got to trial, but it was decided that mental illness did not cloud Aion Romaru's judgement at all. The judge rejected his plea and decided that Aion knew exactly what he was doing. In light of this decision, Romaru retracted his insanity plea and in protest refused to say a word for the rest of the trial. The judge sentenced Aion Romaru to death by firing squad. He appealed his conviction several times but none of his appeals were successful and on the 23rd of October

1971 Ayan Romaro's execution was carried out by firing squad. He had to be dragged into the courtyard of the prison the whole while screaming that he wanted to live and that his father was the guilty one. He begged the guards to bring his father to the prison so that he could see what was being done to his son. The guards tied him to a post in the courtyard of the prison, which he wrapped himself all the way around in an attempt to escape. This made it very difficult for the firing squad to aim at Romaru, and the execution took much longer than it needed to. Ayan Romaru died riddled with bullets. He was buried in his hometown of Corbia, and his grave remains

unmarked. The only psychologist who seems to have had a proper look at Ayan Romaru's case was Dr. Tudorel Butoi. After Romaru's death, Dr. Butoi watched the videotapes of Romaru's interrogations several years after he was executed. Butoi reckons that Romaru's violent and frenzied crimes were compensation for the inferiority complex that he had struggled with his whole life. He was the classic social misfit. And he never managed to speak to women. He just hung around outside their doors. Dr. Boutoy, rather more controversially, also argues that Aion Romaru suffered from clinical lycanthropy.

And what he means by this is Aion Rimaru genuinely thought that he was an animal. People who suffer from clinical lycanthropy believe that they have the ability to transform into animals or that they have already become animals. And despite the lycan in the title, that's not exclusive only to wolves. My problem with this is, well, one of many, but my main problem is that he's never spoken to Ayan Romaru. All of this is put together after he's dead. So this is just from watching videotapes of his interviews, but it's not like he's done an in-depth psychological study on him while he's

still alive. The only thing that this diagnosis seems to be based on from Dr. Butoi is Romaru only ever hunting at night and when the weather was extreme. I don't think that's enough for a clinical lycanthropy diagnosis, personally. You're right. It does seem a bit of a jump, like he's doing this because of the weather. But a lot of other traits that fit with clinical lycanthropy do seem to fit with Aaron Romaru's behavior. And it does link almost what you were saying before, that it could be with clinical lycanthropy do seem to fit with Aonomaru's behavior. And it does link almost what you're saying before that it could be with clinical lycanthropy. It doesn't seem to be sort of a clinical diagnosis on its own. And I know we have people who are experts in this field listening. So do let us know what you know about this. In a lot of cases I have read, it does seem

to be that it is just a different way of presenting other types of clinical disorders like bipolar like schizophrenia or something else or depression like he could have had a number of other things that could have just been presenting in this way due to potentially something that happened in his childhood or something else that we just don't know about him yeah i think it's it's very like theatrical of this dr butoi to be diagnosing him with clinical lycanthropy after his death, after having spoken to him. But it doesn't seem like it could have been impossible. No. And I think it's hard because we have so little information about his mental health. But is it possible that he thought the weather was telling him what to do?

Or did he think his energy came from the bad weather? Does the weather explain his varying cooling off periods. That's an interesting point. And we do know that people who have sort of delusional thinking, like Richard Chase, he thought, he genuinely thought he had to drink that blood in order to not die. He thought his organs had been removed. He thought his penis had been removed.

He thought his chest was on backwards. Yeah, stranger things have happened than someone thinking the weather is telling them what to do. Yeah, Richard Chase thought his blood had turned to powder and he had to drink this other people's blood in order to survive. I think, yeah, you just never know how somebody's delusions are going to manifest. So it absolutely could have been. But again, we're totally shooting in the dark. These are just our sort of opinions and thinkings around this case. No one knows exactly what it was. But there is one last twist to this case, because it's not over there. One year to the day after Ion had been executed, Ion's father, Floria, fell off a train. Well, actually, it doesn't seem like

he fell so much as he was pushed off by security, which seems even more harrowing, because he died from that fall. And we don't know too much, as we said before, about Ayan's upbringing, but we do know that his dad was an abusive piece of work. And after he died, Floria Romaru's body was subjected to forensic testing and the size of his shoes, his height, and crucially his fingerprints matched the evidence and testimony for a series of murders that took place in Bucharest in 1944, so about 30 years before. So two years before Ion's born is when these murders are happening. So could it be that murder was just in Ion Romari's blood? Did he have a genetic

predisposition towards serial killing? What gives this argument a bit of weight is that the victims of the 1944 murders were remarkably similar to Aion's victims. They were all young women. The Fleurier followed home in the middle of the night, according to the police. They all lived in basement apartments and they were all killed in their own homes. The murders were violent and bloody and just like that of Aion Romaru's. I read that on top of these four murders, Floria was also suspected of six attempted murders, five rapes, one attempted rape, one robbery and three thefts. How they managed to

connect all of these to Floria Romaru after his death, I don't really know. But it does seem that communist Romania was only allowed one criminal't really know. But it does seem like communist Romania was only allowed one criminal at a time. And it does seem very convenient that they would catch Aion Romaru and then managed to pin a previous set of serial killings on his father. And none of this happens till after he's died and he can't defend himself. But what is really chilling is that both Florea and Aion Romaru's first victims were both called Elena. Dr. Boutoy argues that the similarities between the killings of father and son point towards a gene predisposing Aion to violent crime that was passed from father to son. And the murders were very similar and we bat around

the nature versus nurture argument quite a lot. And in this case I really think you can argue both sides either the gene is passed down and that's what makes Ion kill the exact same type of people that his dad killed or his abusive upbringing sent him in that direction it really has to be both to me because the gene passing down it you know the whole warrior gene thing the predisposition for psychopathy it all makes sense but the idea that he's killing exactly the same type of people exactly women who look very similar i don't know when they start to make the argument that this gene is passed down for him to kill exactly the same type of people that then starts to point more towards the sort of supernatural and the werewolf side of things rather than it just being his dad was a fucking piece of work he passed down genetic predisposition for violence and maybe psychopathy

or some sort of paranoid schizophrenia something, and then also abused him. I can buy into the possibility of there being some sort of predisposition towards psychopathy or perhaps even violence. But I think when it comes to the way he's killing and the people he's killing, that looks a bit more like grooming than a genetic code. Absolutely. I think it has to be both of those things that we've talked about before, because there are plenty of people who are abused and even groomed and things like this who never go on to continue to commit those crimes

or never do anything like this. So I think you have to have that sort of genetic predisposition for some sort of underlying issue and then pile on top of that the abuse and the neglect and all of that. And then it fires off as another person who behaves like this. And yeah, I absolutely agree. I think grooming is the word. If Floria was responsible for that spate of killings, you know, 25 years before, two years before Aion was born, it's like BTK. It stops after the kids are born and then he picks up the baton and runs with it. I don't know, maybe. Is it just a bit too good to be true though?

It's tying up some unsolved murders in the same city with the father of a known serial killer who's dead so he can't go to trial. Yeah. The forensic testing they put him through is that his shoes were the same size. And he was the same height. And his fingerprints matched. It's not irrefutable evidence and i don't think i don't think they'd be above

planting it to be honest it just i don't know it just seems like a bit too neat of an ending feel like it was just this one family that were doing all of the crime in the entirety of romania and we've got them now so do you know what i mean it all does seem a bit too good to be true didn't neatly tie a bow around this and push it all to one side. And he's pushed off the train by security. Maybe it was the plan. Maybe. That is the story of...

The real life Transylvanian vampire. Absolutely. And whatever Floria was doing or not doing, Ion Romaru was definitely a serial killer. As usual, follow us on the social medias at Red Handed The Pod. You can also jump into the Facebook group. And if you are a patron, I'm going to be posting. We did record some stuff in the car.

So we'll be releasing the car chronicles on Patreon. I will let you know on social media when we are putting those out. And if you want to become a patron yourself, you can do so. And we've got quite a few new names here to shout out so we didn't do any for the halloween episode so we've got a bit of a back we do so let's jump right in so we have lizette shields ali rogers kristin hashimoto renee yorkland john cullen jill m rainy marley robin georgiaingarten, Becky Lofthouse, Kathy Stearns, April Davidson, Nicole Farland, Kathy Stearns, April Davidson, Heather J. Lane, Suze Collier, Killer Rabbit,

Alex, Marianne Parkhurst, Pankhurst even. Do you want to do the rest? Sure. Sean Colley, David Paulson, Charlotte Karuba, Daniel Mills, Kelly Speck, Amanda Morse, Sophie Campbell, Megan Tilly, Claire M, Jade Cartwright, Rhian Owens, Yorg? Yorg? Is that how that is? I don't know. Sorry, Yorg, if I've said your name wrong. Yorg Eitner, Nadia Parker, Kathleen Noble, Laura Bauer, Lizzie in the Lab, Juan Miguel,

Emin Richards, Carolyn McKendrick, Saoirse Hickey, Sarah Cantor, Katie Leonara and Fi Lyle. Thank you guys so much for your support. And the car chronicles are funny, I promise. And also stickers, T-shirts, everything. There has been a bit of a delay. We're really sorry about that, but they will be going out very, very soon. We will see you next week. Bye.

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For more information about the show, visit our website at swindledpodcasts.com. So, get this. The Ontario Liberals elected Bonnie Crombie as their new leader. Bonnie who? I just sent you her profile. Her first act as leader, asking donors for a million bucks for her salary. That's excessive. She's a big carbon tax supporter.

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