True Crime All The Time - Peter Kurten

Episode Date: June 1, 2020

Peter Kurten was a German serial killer who operated in the early 20th century. The press dubbed him as the Vampire of Dusseldorf because he experimented with drinking the blood from some of his victim's wounds. Kurten grew up in household filled with depravity, his father subjected the entire family to verbal, physical, and sexual abuse. These experiences would have a profoundly negative influence on his life.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the life and crimes of Peter Kurten. He committed the majority of his crimes in 1929 when he terrorized the city of Dusseldorf, Germany. But his exploits were published around the world striking fear into all those who read about them. Kurten's childhood was so messed up that it's impossible to think that his need for sexual gratification through brutality didn't in part stem from his experiences.You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation informationAn Emash Digital productionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 185 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in True Crime, Mike Gibson. How are you? I'm good, man. You're going to ask me how I'm doing? How are you doing? You don't have to. It's just, uh, it seems kind of impolite not to.

Well, look, you know, we just did Patreon. We did. So I already know how you are you. But you're right. How are you, man? No, I'm, I'm doing great. All right. We're not going to shoot.

the bull too much because we did just record a full Patreon-only episode on Cordell Farrington. I talked a lot. Out of the Bahamas, you did talk quite a bit. It ran longer than I thought it would. You know, for those of you that are on Patreon that came out last night, for those of you that are thinking about supporting the show, now is a great time. And Gibbs, honestly, the amount of support that we're getting, it blows me away. It does.

And it couldn't come at a better time because I think people will. realize that, you know, there's just not a lot of ads that are going out on the episodes these days. Obviously, that's because of everything that we're going through and businesses have pulled back. And we knew that was going to happen. Sure. We're just kind of in the, in the middle of it right now. So, you know, our Patreon folks are really helping us, you know, pull through. So let's go ahead and give some shout out.

Let's do it. We had Vicki Gordon. Hey, Vicki. Richard. What's going on, Richard? Shannon Ruger. Hey, Ruger. Kaleen Elliott.

What's going on, Kaleen? Allison Mitchell. Hey, Allison. Bev Jones. What's going on, Bev? Jen Danger jumped out at our highest level. Stranger Danger. Kim, Bartholomew.

Hey, Kim. Felicia Tooks. Hey, Tukes. Kim. What's going on, Kim? Stephanie Wacom. Hey, Stephanie. She jumped out at our highest level.

Awesome. As did Kathleen Kelly. Hey, Kathleen. As did Alicia Wibu. All of them jumped out of our highest level. The Wiboo. The Wiboo. Yeah.

Teresa Ballou. Hey, Teresa. Kim Benson. Hey, thanks, Kim. Regina. Hey, McKinney. Nicole McAow jumped out to our highest level. Macau.

That's what I'm saying that. Okay, is that it? I thought there was going to be something else. Like, pow-p-pah. Coming after it. Nadia Bonjelli jumped out of our highest levels. Bonjelli. Yeah, I like the way you say it better.

Carrie Judge. And last but not least, quad. Well, hey, Carrie. And hey, quad, all four of you. Yep. So four people got together. they decided that we'll name our band Quad and we'll get on Patreon. Wouldn't it be terrible though if their band was called Quad but there was only three of them?

Like they didn't understand. They lost one of the members or they just didn't know. They didn't know. They said, hey, quad sounds good. They didn't realize it meant, you know, four. Gibbs, if we go back into the vault, this week we selected Katie Burjee. What's going on, Katie? Been with us a long time.

We appreciate the new support, the long-term support. We also had some great PayPal. donations as well. Matthew Lohman gave a sizable donation. Hey, Matthew. We had Denise Hayes. Hey, Denise. Layla Ruas gave a sizable donation as well. Ruaz. Yeah. Hope I'm saying that correctly. Because I know she's reached out to me before to tell me how to say it. I feel bad because I can't remember. So hopefully I'm saying it right. Maybe it's Rlaus. Maybe. Yeah. And then we had Karen Martin. So big thanks to all those folks as well. Yeah, thanks, Karen.

So we mentioned the Patreon episode that's out. We also have an episode out right now on True Crime All the Time Unsolved. We're talking about the Unsolved murder of Rhonda Henson. Yeah. So headed to North Carolina. This case goes back to 1981. Yeah, down near, we're kind of near Charlotte again, you know. Just before Christmas of 1981.

And she goes to a Christmas party and then she's found murdered. And from there, we go into all the unsolved aspects of the case and all that stuff. It's a good case. So check that out. All right, Gibby, are you ready to get into this episode of true crime all the time? I am. We had some help with this one. So I have to give a big shout out to Hannah Pearson, who helped with the research and writing of this episode.

Well, thank you, Hannah. Yeah. And we're headed to Germany. Have you ever been to Germany? I have never been to Germany. Remember, I wasn't allowed to travel out of the U.S. for a very long, long time. That's true. I've never been either.

Really, the only thing I know about Germany is beer. Yeah. Pretzels, vener-snitzel, and Lederhausen. I know you like your vener-snichels. I know you like your leader-hosen. You have some. I know you do that you use on stage in your magic mic-type act. It's a big draw.

It's not one of my favorites. I have to be honest with you. it kind of reminds me of that scene with Chevy Chase and European vacation. Yeah. Where they're in Leaderhosen, they're doing the dancing. Slaping each other right now. Yeah. That's kind of the, this, what your act reminds me of. But I don't judge and I know you have to do what you have to do to get by. Yeah. Well, you know, times are rough. Times are rough right now. We just said, times are rough right now, you know. So whatever I got to do, whatever I got to wear.

Well, and the worst part is you have no audience. So, I. I mean, you go to do these acts and there's nobody allowed in there. So I feel like it's kind of a waste of your time. But I feel good about myself. As long as you do, man. You know, at the end of the day. So we're talking about Peter Curtin. And this guy was a real monster.

Yeah. Who became known as the vampire of Dusseldorf. He was a German serial killer who had nine confirmed murder victims, but many more victims in total. And, you know, we'll get into that. He terrorized Dusseldorf for about a year and a half back in the late 1920s. And he killed in a number of ways, leaving police baffled as to exactly how many killers that, you know, that they were looking for. How many killers did they have going around Duseldorf during this time frame? It was him. I'm not saying they didn't have more killers, but he was committing his murders in such a way that it was really throwing police off.

That's why he was good at what he did. I hate to say that, but. No, I think you're right. I think he was good at what he did. Now, what he did was terrible. Sure. And everybody will think that, but just like with anything in life, you have people that are good at whatever they choose to do.

Sure. Right or wrong. And then you have people that are not so good. You have people that kill one time and they're caught within two hours. Yeah. That's great. Absolutely. That's what we want.

On the flip side of that, you have some killers that are really good at it and that's scary. Very scary. Yeah. But this is a guy who scared not only Dusseldorf and really not only Germany, he scared the world. His crimes were printed in newspapers all over the world. And let's face it, it was a. world that was much less desensitized than the one that we live in now. Well, very clear about that. You know, 1920s, this would be scary today. But back then, I think it was nightmare inducing.

Probably people were wearing garlic around their necks to ward off the vampire. Absolutely. Peter Curtin was born on May 26, 1883 in Mulheim and Rhine, Germany. I think some of I'm pretty close to Cologne. He was one of 13 children. He had two older siblings who died in infancy. The entire family lived in a rented one-room apartment. And when you talk about Peter's father, this was a really terrible, horrible guy, Gibbs. He was an alcoholic.

There were reports that Peter's mother was an alcoholic, too. So both them were. But his father was abusive. He regularly beat Peter's mother and pretty much all the kids. But what he would also do is he would gather all the kids in their apartment and he would force the mother to have sex with him in front of the children. Come gather around kids. It's family time.

Grab your seat. Don't be shy. Get up close. And me and mom are going to put on a show for you. That is something that most of us can't even fathom. It was bad just walking into my parents by accident. Yes. Traumatizing.

To be forced to have to witness that? Again and again, no way. Most people don't even want to think about their parents being sexually active. Exactly. I don't want to think about it. I definitely didn't want to hear it. And you don't want to picture it. And when I saw that one time, I was like, oh my gosh.

How do I ever get that out of my head? So there you go. But it's important to talk about because, okay, what's this going to do to Peter, right? As he grows up and gets into his adult life, as a kid, he was pretty good in school. You know, got decent grades. But gradually, his grades started to suffer probably, and I think most likely because of the physical and emotional abuse that he experienced. experienced at home from his father, Peter's father began molesting his own daughters over time. And years later, he went to prison for a little stretch of time for sexually assaulting his

13 year old daughter. Can't stress enough. This was a horrible guy. Yeah, horrific. Again, you and I don't make excuses for killers. We never have. We never will. But it's important to talk about the childhood. And we don't always have it, but I think here we do. And we're going to see, now, maybe it's not all this, but it's going to be hard to argue that this isn't a part of what helps to make Peter Curtin into what he'll ultimately become. Right. Soon after the father went away, Peter's mother filed for divorce and moved the family to Dusseldorf, where she remarried. Now, a lot of people would ask the question. Why would she stick it out with this man who physically and emotionally was abusive,

not only to her, but to her children as well. There were a lot of papers from back during this time period because we're talking the 1910 into the 1920s when Peter starts to commit his crimes. But there were a lot of newspaper articles that talked about, you know, she couldn't leave. This was just how it was back then. Like she had no options. Nowhere else to go. Yeah, it's sad, but it was true.

And it was reported as so in, you know, a lot of papers of the time. It's also been reported in by people that have looked back at this case and realized that, you know, during that time, women had very few options. I think even today you can make that same claim. There's really, for some women, there's not a lot of options today to get out of a violent relationship because they have nowhere else to go. No family around. No where nobody can support their needs.

So they stay. Yeah, I will say it this way. It's easy to say or ask the question, well, why didn't you just leave? Yeah. But you and I have talked to a lot of people. We've heard from a lot of people who listen to the podcast that have been in these types of relationships that have pointed out to us that, hey, it's not always that simple. Yeah.

As just walking away. There's threats. There's fear. There's intimidation. There's a lot of things that go into it. Yeah. And sadly, but it's true. There's financial ties that are keep people from moving on, right?

Yeah. Sometimes that's a part of it. How am I going to feed my kids if I leave? When Peter was five years old, Gibbs, he attempted to drown one of his. friends. Okay. At five years old. Five years old. Yeah. Wow. Then when he was nine, some strange things started happening. You know, first of all, he befriended this dog catcher who lived in his apartment building. He sometimes would accompany this guy while he was doing his job. What Peter learned was that, you know, this man abused animals. Okay. So, yeah, he was a dog catcher, but,

But he abused these animals pretty severely, I think. So he learned that. That was okay to do. Yeah. Yeah. And he started doing it himself, right? He saw this man doing it. He started modeling his behavior after him as well.

Like a lot of kids will do. Yep. He started running away from home when he was very young. And this isn't the, you know, I'm packing my suitcase and walking to the end of the driveway. come get me before I leave. I'm just trying to show you that I'm semi-serious. He would be gone for days, weeks at a time. I mean, we're talking six, seven, eight years old. Yeah. Nine years old. Just gone. Living on the streets, mingling with petty criminals, learning how to steal and do whatever he had to do to survive. Right. But that's not even the worst thing he would do as a kid. It was at nine

years old that many people believe Peter committed his first murder. Nine years old. Can't imagine that. No, you were still in the first grade. I don't know how you would have accomplished that. But here's what happened. He pushed a kid off of a raft as they were, you know, going down the stream or the river or whatever it was. He knew this kid could not swim. And then when another boy that was with them attempted to help this kid, Peter pushed that kid's head down in the water, and both of these boys ended up drowning. Now, ultimately, authorities ruled that both deaths were accidental. Yeah. Because what proof could they have had? We've all been in the pool or in the lake or whatever playing a young age, you know, dunking each other. Oh, yeah. I don't know if I ever dunked somebody

and thought, you know what? I'm going to hold them. I'm not letting him up. I'm not going to let him up this time. Yeah, it was always you jumped up. You put your hands on top. You put your hands on top of their head, tried to push them down. But you let go. They bob up. They try to push you down. Right.

No, this kid had murderous intent at nine years old. He may have had it at five. Sounds like he did. But he definitely had it at nine. When he was 13, Peter began a relationship with a 13-year-old girl. And it's been. reported that he became very frustrated with this relationship. He wanted it to be a sexual relationship at 13. His 13 year old girlfriend didn't want that. Right. Because most 13 year olds do not.

She probably wasn't used to the whole family show either. No. No, probably didn't grow up that way. So Peter's frustrated. And he began having sex with animals. sheep, pigs, goats. Some of these are animals that lived in stables close to his house. So he'd walk out to the stables and, and I guess unleash his sexual frustration. Mount one up, upon these poor farm animals.

Now, sadly, I think that happened more often than we'd like to think about back in the 1800s, early 1900s. I can't even get, how they would mentally. I don't get that. You're like, hey,

well, it's a good thing you don't get it because if you said, oh yeah, I understand that. We're shutting it down right now. The podcast is over. Get the hell out of my studio, out of my house,

and you and I are done. Yeah. So I'm glad you said you don't understand it. Thank you. I don't. No, I just, I don't get it.

You know, I don't, it's something that, we joked about as kids growing up you know you would talk about are you going to go walk the farm really because i never joked about that at all well some of the conversations i had they were you know what you're yeah i think you're you're your tmi in a little bit yeah maybe i am you're letting some some things out of the vault but yeah it was just you know kids teasing kids but but but at no time did you ever think anyone was actually doing no no no it was gross disgusting

Well, Peter was doing it. Yeah. And I don't understand why he thought that was okay. But that wasn't even, you know, the end of it. He later said that he would stab the animals with a knife. At the same time, he was having sexual relations with them, and that he derived an immense amount of satisfaction from doing this. And this is something that we're going to see throughout the,

the life and crimes of Peter Curtin. He's a sexual sadist. He derived sexual gratification through the misery of other people. Well, absolutely. And it's something that will become apparent. And animals. Well, in animals too. Yeah, people and animals.

Yeah, he didn't care. It was around this age that he also attempted to sexually assault his sister. So, I mean, again, you talk about a jacked up family, the live sex. shows, the physical, emotional abuse that was going on. Right. The father sexually molesting the daughters, Peter attempting to sexually molest his sister. That was a horror show there. There was no limits. No. Everything was up for grabs. Even, I mean, I still have a hard time the fact that they made all the kids watch. Watch them. Like, grab the popcorn kids. Well, don't say they. Well, he, he did. The father did. I don't think the mother, no, the mom didn't want anything to do with it. She was an unwilling participant. Right. You know. But still, I mean, it's just, but we'll talk about it as we go along, right? There's not going to be Gibbs. I don't think much debate about whether this jacked up childhood had, you know, a major influence on what he is going to do later in life. There's just no way. Peter dropped out of school.

when he was 14 years old, began an apprenticeship as a molder. He did this for about two years until he made the decision that he was going to steal as much money as he could find from his house and from the place where he was working. And he ran away to Koblenz. And it was there that he began a relationship with an 18 year old sex worker who, according to Peter, as he would state later would do anything he wanted sexually. But just about a month after he ran away, he was arrested for theft and received a one month sentence in prison. This was his first encounter with the law.

And it would be the first of what would be about 17 different stents in prison for Peter Curtin. When he got out of prison that first time, he committed murder within. a few months. Peter claimed that in November of 1899, he picked up a woman and strangled her while they had sex. There's really no records to corroborate this statement. Right. This is just a murder that Peter later took credit for. And if you believe him, it was the first murder directly related to his sexual gratification coming from him hurting someone. Yeah.

Definitely a trend that we'll see. He took that choking thing way too far. But I think he did so on purpose because that's what got him off. And I think that's the part that a lot of people don't understand. There's always been talk about a link between sex and violence. Sure. There are some people that are aroused by violence. this guy was aroused that to a very large degree, most likely because he had experienced so much of it as a child.

That's what I'm going to say. Daily growing up. Yeah. I mean, for him to get excited about anything at this point, he probably is going to take it up because, like you said, he's been exposed to all this at a young age. And then for that period of time before you went off the jail, he had the sex worker that was willing to do any and everything with him. he's at a very young age, have done it all. How are you going to take it to another level?

And he's been with animals. Done a lot in his short life so far. Yeah. Not a lot of good stuff, but he's done a lot. Exactly. In 1900, Peter was arrested for fraud twice.

He was also arrested for attempted murder and was sentenced to four years in prison. When he was released in 1904, he was drafted into the German army and was assigned to serve in the 98th. infantry regiment, but Army life was not for him. He didn't like it. He didn't want to be there. And so he left. Not surprised. I'm not surprised either. They don't like it when you leave. And we do see that with a lot of serial killers, right? They go into, you know, whatever country they're at, whatever branch of service that most time they didn't have leaving well before they're supposed to, either because they're forced out or because of other reasons.

And I guess Gibbs after he went AWOL, if, you know, that's what I, that's what they call it here. I don't know what they call it over in Germany, but he started setting fires. And apparently what he would do is, you know, most of these fires were set in barns. He would set a fire and then he would get away at a distance and watch the fire burn. And he would watch the firefighters try to put it out. Now, his reasoning later on was that. that it excited him. Yeah. The thought of the animals inside the barn being burned alive. That excited him. Well, we know that a lot of killers like to torture animals. We know that they like

to do arson-like activities. And he's just marrying the two together. Yeah. The whole other level. He's putting them together at the same time. Peter was sent to prison from 1905. to 1913. So they caught up with him for deserting the military. Like I said, they don't like that. No, you're going to go away. And really immediately upon his release, this is when Peter Curtin committed his first confirmed a murder. We've talked about some other murders that he's either confessed to or been linked to. This is his first confirmed a murder. And this is what he later said about it. in his own words. It was on May 25th, 1913. I had been stealing, specializing in public bars or ends, where the owners lived on the floor above. In a room above and in at Koln, Mulhine, I discovered a child

of about 10 asleep. Her head was facing the window. I seized it with my left hand and strangled her for about a minute and a half. The child woke up and struggled but lost consciousness. I had a small but sharp pocket knife with me and I held the child's head and cut her throat. I heard the blood spurt and drip on the mat beside the bed. It spurred it in an arch right over my hand. The whole thing lasted about three minutes. Then I locked the door and went back home to Dusseldorf.

Disturbing. extremely disturbing. We're talking about a very young girl here. She actually turned out to be nine. Nine-year-old Christine Klein. The very next day, Peter visited a bar across from where he murdered Christine, just so he could observe and hear what people were saying about the murder. He would later say that this brought him joy, gratification to hear. how disgusted and outraged the people were about the murder. After Christine's funeral, Peter would frequent her grave and would become sexually aroused from handling the soil at the burial site.

So messed up. Just from holding the soil in his hand, knowing that he had killed this poor, innocent girl that was underneath. And her body's there. And that turned him on. Who knows what he did with that? I'm just saying he's that sick. So disturbing.

Yeah, I mean, it's probably not a leap to think that he did a little something, something while he was there at the at the grave site. That's sick to think about. But he's a sick individual. Yeah, he is. This guy was a monster. We set it up front. Two months later, he strangled 17 year old Gertrude Franken. and then a few days after the murder, Peter was arrested for some arson crimes.

He had been committing and some burglaries. He was sentenced to six months in prison. But because he had a record, right, he had a number of offenses on his record. His sentence was extended by two years. This is in the early 1920s. Yeah. And that seems very logical to me. you and I have done a ton of cases where we're talking about the 1970s, 1980s, and the United States.

And it's like, are they not taking into account the number of prior offenses? And it seems like, no, they weren't. No, they were not. At least here they did. He was released in April 1921. And he moved to Altenberg to live with his sister. His sister introduced Peter to an acquaintance named August Schaft. who was a former sex worker.

She had also been accused of shooting and killing her previous fiance. The two married Peter and August in 1922 or 1923. So he obviously wasn't too scared of her or her reputation. But even though he was now married, Peter later admitted to only being able to become sexually aroused with his wife when he was imagining being violent to others. So he had to think about hurting somebody while he was, you know, having relations with his wife. Sure.

You know, I'd like to use the word relations. Yeah, that's the word of the day. Relations. Relations. I can relate. Not long after he got married. Peter went to prison again for eight months after he sexually assaulted two mates. But he only served six months of the sentence.

And he was released on the condition that he must move to Dusseldor. So they were like, okay, we're going to let you out, but you got to get the hell out of here. Yeah, we're done with you. We don't want you here. Move back to Dusseldorf. But this is a strange period in his life because if you believe him, he was relatively calm for about six, seven years. He's married. He's having what I assume.

is some type of regular sex with his wife. Right. And maybe he's getting by with the imagining of hurting someone while, you know, doing the act. Yeah, or that or she turned it up a little bit for him. Or he did a bunch of other stuff that he just didn't admit to. We don't know. Right.

Because really, you know, when you look at the murders of Peter Curtin, most of them were committed in the year 19, On February 3rd of that year, he stalked an elderly woman named Apollonia Coon. And he attacked her, dragged her into the bushes. Gibbs, he stabbed her 24 times with a pair of scissors. Scissors. Yeah. It was reported that many of the stab wounds were so deep that the scissors hit her bones.

So the rage was definitely there. Well, yeah, to get a pair of scissors, you're not talking to. talking about a surgical instrument or a very sharp knife, you're talking about a pair of scissors. You are stabbing so hard that you're hitting bone. But somehow this woman survived her attack, but just five days later, February 8th, Peter strangled nine-year-old Rosa Olegur until she was unconscious. He then stabbed the young girl 13 times in her stomach, her head, her genitals, even her heart. And when he talked about the crime later, because a lot of what we know comes from him talking about his crimes later, he said, he became sexually aroused. It got him off while he was

stabbing her. He also talked about drinking the blood from her stab wounds. And obviously, this is where you get into the moniker, the vampire of Dusseldorf. He tried to hide Roselle d'Or. He tried to hide Rosa's body before setting her on fire with kerosene, and he said when he did that, he became aroused again. But despite his attempts to dispose of Rosa's body, her remains were found the next day. Peter only waited five days to commit his next murder. On February 13th, he murdered Rudolph Shear, a 45-year-old mechanic, stabbed him 20 times in the head, back, and in his eyes. So you had a couple of murders, an attempted murder. All three had the same pattern of attack, murder weapon, and cause of death.

So that led investigators, and rightfully so, to believe that the same person was involved in all three attacks. Peter's claim to have attempted to strangle four more women between March and July of 1929, one of which he said, he disposed of in the Rhine River. But none of these attacks were ever confirmed. And I think gives at the end, we'll probably talk about the number of attacks that this guy's, you know, suspected of. And it's staggering. Peter's next confirmed victim was Maria Hahn, who he murdered on August 11th.

Peter had met Maria on August 8th. And he asked her out on a date. after they spent a few hours together. The two went to a meadow where Peter strangled her. He stabbed her and he sat on her until she died. Yeah, was not going to leave until she was dead. And this wasn't quick.

You know, according to him, this took about an hour for her to die. So you know what that tells me, Gibbs, that he enjoyed that hour-long process. Oh, I'm sure it definitely aroused him.

I'm sure it did. And got him off somehow. He sat on her for an hour as her life faded and was ultimately extinguished. Yeah. And he enjoyed it. This is like a Tommy Lynn sells. He's getting the enjoyment of seeing the very last breath leave the body. And you know what?

That scares the shit out of me. That there are people out of. there that not only would do something like this, because we know this stuff happens, but to get the level of enjoyment that they claim to get. Yeah. Watching another person die, that should be scary. And it is to me. Yeah, it's just not as simple as killing them and walking away.

They're hanging out to the very, very end. Peter then buried Maria's body in a cornfield. Now, his intentions were to return later, dig up her body. and nail it to a tree. But according to him, she was too heavy. He couldn't make this happen. So he reburied her body somewhere else. And this was a place that he frequently returned to.

And every time he did, he became aroused thinking that, you know, this person that he killed was lying in this underneath this spot right here. Three months after killing Maria. Peter sent an anonymous letter to police confessing to her murder. And he included a map of where she was buried and her remains were found on November 15th. He later said, I thought how nice it would be if I had something of the kind to go and sit by when I took a walk. I mean, this was this guy's thinking. Yeah.

You know, I want to be able to go out for a walk and stop at a spot where I know one. of my victims is, how nice would that be? Now, it's a little strange that he would get so much enjoyment out of that, but then tell police where to find the body. I'm still trying to figure out what would he have done if he'd nailed her to the tree, you know, what was he trying to do there? I don't know. Shock value maybe. Yeah. Try to shock people. Don't try to get into this guy's head, man. There's no way. We may not get you back. Probably wouldn't. After the, the murder of Maria, Peter switched his murder weapon from scissors to a knife in an attempt to throw police off his trail. And I think it's pretty strange to kill as many people as he did

using a pair of scissors. But that's very distinctive, right? You don't find a lot of serial killers running around using scissors as their murder weapon of choice. No, maybe this is why moms always say, don't be running around the house with scissors in your hand. I think it's one reason. Yeah, for sure.

So he switched it up, and on the morning of August 21st, Peter stabbed an 18-year-old girl, a 30-year-old man, and a 37-year-old woman in three separate attacks. Wow. None of these victims died. They all lived,

and they were able to tell police. that their assailant had not said anything to them before they attacked. They just attacked and started stabbing. A few days later, Peter murdered five-year-old and 14-year-old foster sisters Louise Lenson and Gertrude Hamaker. So he sent Louise to get cigarettes for him. And as soon as she left, he strangled Gertrude until she was unconscious and then he cut her throat. then when Louise returned Peter strangled and stabbed her and he sucked the blood out of her wounds.

Gibbs, let's face it. You do not get labeled the vampire of whatever. Right. Unless you were doing some stuff that's way out there. That's way out there. Involving the blood of your victims. Just the very next day. Peter attacked 27-year-old Gertrude Schultz.

by stabbing her in the head, neck, back, and shoulder. Incredibly, she survived her attack. But she wasn't able to give any information to police other than the fact that she thought her attacker was around 40 years old. Peter attempted to murder two more people in September of 1929. One he tried to strangle and one he tried to stab. And I think gives us a good time to take a minute. just to talk about the amount of time in between Peter's killings.

I mean, you and I have done a ton of cases, very common for serial killers to, you know, have that kind of cooling off period. Maybe it's a couple of weeks. It's a month. It's two months. It's six months. Whatever it is. I mean, when you look at the trend of his murders, he's waiting a day in a lot of

instances, five days, maybe a week, sometimes he doesn't even wait a full day to murder multiple people. It's an astounding rate when you look at it that way. It's really as if there's almost no time off in between his murders. He is just out constantly looking for someone to kill. He's a full-time serial killer, man. Now, we talked about sexual gratification. Does he need that much sexual gratification? Is that what is propelling him to murder so often? It could be, right? I mean, if that's what he gets out of it,

then you almost have to make the conclusion that, you know, that's what he's after. Yeah. He's not killing people just to be killing them. My understanding is he's killing them to get the sexual gratification that he's after. Right.

That tells me that he needs it a lot. Yeah, because I think his sexual appetites fairly large for him to get that satisfaction, he's going to have to continue doing what he's doing. That's what it seems like. Yeah. On September 30th, 1929, Peter persuaded 31-year-old Ida Reuter to go to a cafe with him and join him on a walk along the Rhine River. And Gibbs, this is one thing we haven't talked about. Peter Curtin, by all accounts, was a pretty good looking dude.

And he must have been very charming. Smooth talker. Smooth talker, maybe along the lines of a Bundy, let's say, right? A precursor to a Bundy because he was able to convince a lot of women to be alone with him, to walk with him, to go somewhere with him. It was said that he was very polite. Normally he was well dressed and, like I said, somewhat attractive. So I think you put all those together and it's probably the reason that he was.

was able to lure as many women to their deaths as he was. I mean, obviously, this is the 1920s. There's no tender. You're not hooking up. No. On a blind date through some app. Got to work a little bit harder back then. Yeah. You're just meeting people in town and trying to get them to go somewhere with you alone. He had that skill. While they were near the run, Peter hit Ida in the head with a hammer both before and after sexually assaulting her. Peter killed this woman with the hammer. And then 11 days later, he met 22-year-old Elizabeth Doria outside of a theater. And he asked her to go for a drink with him at a local cafe. They took a train to Grafenberg. And while they were walking along the Klein-Dusel River, Peter hit Elizabeth on the head with a hammer.

before he sexually assaulted her. But she didn't die right away. Elizabeth's body was found the next morning. She was still a lot. But she later died from her injuries. That'd be rough laying there. Oh, brutal. Nobody to come home.

Helpless. On October 25th, Peter attacked two women with a hammer. Thankfully, both of them survived. During the second attack, the hammer broke. And many people have speculated that that's what allowed these women to survive. And then about two weeks later on November 7th, Peter met Gertrude Alverman. This was a little five-year-old girl, Gibbs, and Peter Curtin convinced her to join him

in a deserted garden where he strangled and stabbed her at the same time. When Gertrude collapsed, Peter continued to stab her more than 30 times. This is a little five-year-old. Five-year-old girl stabbed her 30 times and left her to die. So we talked about the vampire of Dusseldorf, right? The media by this time had dubbed the killer with this moniker. And it had intrigued people all over the world. I mean, this became not only a national, but an international sensation.

Oh, I'm sure it was all over the press. Well, the crimes were horrific. Yeah. You've got a killer on the loose. That's the type of stuff that grabs people's attention. Police at the time believed that they were dealing with multiple perpetrators. And I mentioned it, I think up front. A lot of that was due to the fact that Peter Curtin changed up his methods of murder.

Right. He strangled. He stabbed with scissors. He stabbed with a knife. He started hitting people with hammers. Gibbs, it was said that. police interviewed about 9,000 people. And at one time, they had around 900,000 names.

That's huge. On their suspect list. Do you know how long it takes to interview 9,000 people? I don't even know how long it takes to put together 900,000 names. I was going to say, how long it takes to put those 900,000 names on a piece of paperback in. They didn't have a computer. Somebody is sitting there writing down these names.

And you know, they didn't write like we do today. They had that really fancy writing. They dipped the ink in, you know, true it around. Was that calligraphy or something like that? No. No. I doubt they were writing in a calligraphy type style.

Who's got the list? And it was that one person. I got the list right here. And I'm into calligraphy. And they like would throw the list out and just go on. This, you know, all. Two days after Peter murdered little Gertrude Alvernan, he sent a map to a communist newspaper, which included the dump sites of both Maria Hahn and Gertrude, they did some

handwriting analysis and it confirmed that this map was from the same person who had sent a letter on October 14th that confessed to the murder of Maria. And I did read some things Gibbs about Peter Curtin that said he had a real love of geography. He was into maps and specifically geography. Gertrude Alverman was Peter's last confirmed victim, although he has claimed to have attacked 10 people between February and May of 1930. This included the attack of 20-year-old Maria Boodleck, who wrote about her attack and a letter to a friend, but she addressed the letter incorrectly. Even so, the letter was opened by a post office clerk on May 19th and then given over to the Dusseldorf police.

The chief inspector speculated that the man who attacked Maria Boodling might be the Dusseldorf murderer. So Maria agreed to lead detectives to Peter's apartment. She knew where it was because the two of them had stopped for a short period of time on the night that she was attacked. But Peter noticed the police and he fled to a different part of Dusseldorf until May 23rd. When he returned home, he confessed to his wife that he was the vampire of Dusseldorf. I don't know how you start that one off. Now, honey, I know I've been gone for a little while.

Let me tell you why. I'm the vampire of Dusseldorf. Yeah, that was me. I did all the... Yep. Can we move on from this, honey? No, no, we cannot. After his confession, he told his wife, she should go to the police,

turn him in and collect the reward money. And that's what she did the very next day. She went to police, told them that her husband Peter was responsible for all of the murders. And later that day, Peter Curtin was apprehended. And Gibbs, this might have been one of the easiest captures in the history of serial killers. His wife said, you know what? He's supposed to meet me at this church at one o'clock. And there he was.

very easy for police to nap. The guy gave himself up. Now, he knew the net was closing in on him. And he probably knew that it was just a matter of time. So he said, Hey, honey, I know I told you I'm the vampire of Dusseldorf,

but let's set this up so that you get the reward money. That'll make it all good. Yeah, I want to make sure you're taking care of when I'm not here anymore. Because clearly, I will not be here. anymore once I get arrested. And you're going to have to live the rest of your life being known as the husband of the

vampire of Dusseldorf. People are going to stare. It's going to be tough to get a job. You might need some money to get you through. He confessed to all the crimes attributed to the vampire of Dusseldorf. And all it was like 68 different crimes. 31 attempted murders, 10 murders, a bunch of attacks. He blamed the crimes on his horrible child.

childhood and he admitted to police that the sight of his victim's blood would sexually arouse him. While Peter sat in prison waiting for his trial, he was studied by a psychologist named Dr. Karl Burke. When he was interviewed, Peter admitted that the main reason he committed his crimes was for the sexual pleasure. So Dr. Berg and some other psychologists concluded that Peter Curtin was not insane. And he was completely able to control his actions. He was aware of his actions. He even appreciated his crimes. His trial began on April 13th, 1931. He was charged with nine counts of murder and seven counts of attempted murder. He pleaded guilty by reason of insanity to every single charge. And gives one very interesting aspect of his trial was that Peter,

curtain spent the entire time in court enclosed in like this iron cage that went all the way up to his shoulders. It was like maybe just his head was poking out. Yeah. And I think it was for his own safety because they were so afraid that the families of his victims were going to rush in and kill him. Well, if that was my daughter, he did that too. I would want to kill him too. It would definitely be on your Yeah, well, I'd be Russian. The prosecution read Peter's formal statement, but he claimed that his confession was made only so his wife could get the reward money. He said in court, why don't you understand that I am fond of my wife and that I'm still fond of her? I've done many wrongs, have been unfaithful over and over again.

My wife has never done any wrong. Even when she heard of the many prison sentences I have served, she said, I won't let you down. Otherwise, you'll be lost all together. Man, that's a good wife right there. That's a really good wife. He said, I wanted to fix for my wife a carefree old age. When they asked him why he set fires in 1929 and 1930, Peter said, when my desire for injuring people awoke. The love of setting fire to things awoke as well. The sight of the flames excited me.

But above all, it was the excitement of the attempts to extinguish the fire and the agitation of those who saw their property being destroyed. Yeah, he really, really liked that, didn't me? I understand the flames. We all like seeing the flames. Oh, I mean, who doesn't like fire to some degree? There's, There's a powerfulness to it. And, you know, who doesn't want to roast a hot dog or a marshmallow over an open fire? And you look at that fire and sometimes you get kind of get transfixed. Yeah. By its properties and all that.

Yeah. But to take great joy in the misery that fire causes to other people. Right. And, you know, I go back to what he's saying, right? He's saying all of a sudden. my desire to hurt people, it kind of woke up. Well, at the same time, my setting fire thing kind of woke up in me as well. It's almost like they went hand in hand.

Because I think at some level, they both accomplished a similar thing and arousal, a gratification of sorts. I don't know if the fire was, was sexual as it was with the actual stabbing and, hurting people, but there was definitely an arousal. He talked about it. A few days into the trial, Peter changed his mind. And he told his attorneys that he wanted to change to a guilty plea. He addressed the court by saying, I have no remorse.

As to whether recollection of my deeds makes me feel ashamed, I will tell you that thinking back to all the details is not at all unpleasant. I rather enjoy it. He really, really wants people to know how he felt. Not only is he saying, you know what, I have no remorse over it. When I sit around and think about it, it makes me happy. Yeah. That I've, you know, killed these people, that I've hurt people.

You are talking about a true monster. Oh, absolutely. In Peter Curtin. Many witnesses testified for the prosecution that Peter Curtin was fully conscious and intentional for his crimes, including Dr. Berg, and a professor named Franz Sololi, who said that the only way Peter could get sexual gratification was through brutality. The defense was unable to discredit the professionals that testified for the prosecution, although Dr. Burke did say that he believed some parts of Peter's confessions were false. At one point in the trial,

Gibbs, they had Peter Curtin demonstrate for the court how he strangled his victims on some type of dummy. And as he did it, he said, I always strangle them in the same manner. I must stand just so. Otherwise, they would thrash about. You understand? And it would not be neat. He had it down. Man, just imagine sitting there, whether you're in the courtroom as an observer or, you know, as a juror watching this man who you're fully aware of has been accused of doing some of the most heinous things ever. Yeah. And he's got his hands wrapped around the neck of some type of dummy saying, this is how I do it. Giving him exact instructions. The trial lasted about 10 days and the jury retired on April 22nd to decide on their verdict took them less than two hours of deliberation before they

returned a guilty verdict on all charges. It took even two hours, you know? Well, you know, it takes a while to sit down, take a vote, you know. Maybe they wanted to order takeout. Maybe it was lunchtime. We don't know. 1920 takeout. I don't know what 1930, whatever was.

I don't know what 1930 takeout was like, but, you know, they had to get something for him at some point. He was sentenced to death, and it was said that Peter showed no emotion when the sentence was read. he never filed for an appeal after his conviction, but he did submit a petition later for a pardon to the minister of justice that was rejected. While awaiting his execution, Peter wrote apology letters to the families of his victims as well as a goodbye letter to his wife. And I found that very strange. Not the letter to his wife.

I understand that. The apology letter to the families of his victims, that seems out of place. for a guy like Peter Curtin here, admitted that he had no remorse about what he had done. He was actually kind of gleeful, right, thinking back about the actions that he had taken against people. While all of a sudden did he feel like it was necessary to apologize to the families of his victims? And knowing what he said, how could you take any apology from him?

Seriously. Yeah. I don't think I've been sincere. Yeah, was it a ploy because he didn't want to be executed? I don't know. I mean, he was only on death row for less than three months. So, you know, he had to get those letters out pretty quick. They didn't dilly dally, you know, back then.

He was given his last meal on the evening of July 1st, 1931. It consisted of little venus chnitzel. Your favorite? My favorite. A bottle of wine and some fried potatoes. There you go. Good little wine, fried potato. Those in your schnitzel.

Schnissel. So he finished the first serving. Then he got himself a second helping. And then he went to bed. In the very next morning, he was led to the guillotine. Before he was placed on the guillotine, Gibbs, he asked the prison psychiatrist. He said, tell me, after my head is 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.

The doctor said, yeah, you might be able to hear for a few seconds. And Peter said, that would be the pleasure to end all pleasures. He wanted to hear his own blood gushing out of the stump of his neck. Really want to hear that spurting out, didn't he? At 6 a.m. on July 2nd, Peter Curtin was beheaded. And there ain't no coming back from that. No, what's that done? Once that head hits the basket, it's over.

You're hoping it hits the basket. And doesn't tumble out into the crowd? Yeah. It's a free for all at that point. After he was executed, Peter's head was mummified and his brain was removed for forensic analysis. Peter's interviews with Dr. Karlberg were turned into a book called The Sadist. These were some of the very first interviews conducted with a person. known as a sexual serial killer.

And this led to Peter being called the king of the sexual perverts. He was one of the very first to really get this label, right? Yeah. As a guy who killed and derived sexual satisfaction from it. I mean, there's a lot to be learned there for sure. Oh, no doubt. Which is why I think they wanted to study his brain and, and, you know, take a look at it and say, this guy was so messed up. Let's figure out what we can learn from it. I don't know,

I don't know what the technology allowed for in the 1930s. But now one interesting fact is that Peter Curtin's head is currently on display at Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum in Wisconsin Dells. So you can go see it. I think I'll have to. I think you and I should take a road trip. Yeah, this is an hour from Chicago, man. When we're legally able to. Yeah. I'm just trying to think, whose job at Ripley's is that on a, you know, moving it, setting it up, making sure it stays, you know, because you don't want that to like. Well, do you have to like wipe it down, clean it? Is there some type of special? Is it in a jar? Like a leather moisturizer that keeps it. How's it displayed? I don't know. Let's go. Let's go. We'll see it. And then we'll find the person that does it and ask them all these questions. I'm sure lighting's key. Can have good lighting. You got to have good lighting.

You know. And it doesn't smell because I'm probably, you know. No, I don't think it would smell. After this, all these years, it probably doesn't. No, it wouldn't smell because it's just the face part. Yeah. Well, interesting. Like silence of the lambs.

I wonder if someone ever tries to pick it up and put it on top of their own face. Look at me. Look at me. I'm sure you're not allowed to touch it. And you're damn sure not allowed to take it and put it over your own face. like Ed Gein. Yeah. That's a no-no at the Ripley's, believe it or not in Wisconsin.

Probably in their big, big print right there on the door. It's like, do not. Do not feed the animals at a zoo. Do not touch Peter Curtin's face. I think in wrapping up this episode, Gibbs, Peter Curtin was a sadistic SOB. That much is certain. Oh, for sure. I think he enjoyed killing.

I don't think he ever had a minute of remorse about the thing. he did, but there's definitely a component of his childhood here that is very hard to overlook. This guy got sexual gratification through hurting others. He was a sexual sadist. He saw a ton of that as a child. And it's impossible to think that didn't play a major role in what he later became. And he scared the hell out of people. Oh, scares the hell of me thinking about what he did.

Well, even now. But as it was going on before they caught him, he definitely scared people while he was operating. You know, World War II would be, what, a decade or more later. And Dusseldorf was bombed extensively. Many people were killed, you know, a lot of buildings destroyed. But I read a quote from one of the survivors of the bombings who said, that still wasn't as scary as Peter Curt. Wow. Being bombed by the allies.

And you know some of that stuff was nonstop and it was massive. This person said such fright as curtain brought, we never knew before or sins. I think that's a powerful statement. I think it's a huge statement. So he was convicted of nine murders, but you know there were many more. And obviously we couldn't even talk about all of the attacks. I've seen the estimates of his potential murders in the high 60s, 70 range. Yeah, I think that's all believable.

Yeah. Much harder to track in the 1910s and 1920s. So I don't think it's out of the question that this guy killed a much larger number of people than what he was ultimately held accountable for. But that's it. That's it for the case of Peter Curtin. Gibbs, we've got some voicemails. You want to check those out?

Let's hear those. Hey, Mike and Gibby. It's Lauren from Louisiana. I just finished listening to 154, Tracy Burris, and you're talking about your daughter using up an entire water heater. And just made me laugh a little bit because I have two daughters and two stepdaughters, and my oldest is the worst. She will bathe for an entire hour, hour and a half,

and everyone in the house is not allowed to bathe, you know, an hour or two after her because the water is cold. and it drives everyone insane. I love the show. First time caller. I'm on, like I said, episode 154. Can't wait to get through this so I can listen to True Crime all the time on and I'm so excited to listen to your review podcast.

So anyway, stay safe. Keep your own time ticking. Bye. Hey, that's awesome. That is awesome. It's also a major problem with this when you have a bunch of girls. There's no doubt about it. Oh, man.

I've thought about switching to one of those tankless ones that's kind of more on-demand. Constant hot water. Because, you know, my oldest, she can be in there for an hour at least. Yeah. The other day, they were both taking showers or baths at the exact same time. And you knew you were screwed, didn't you? No hot water.

I basically said there's no, there's no reason for me to even take one the night. I'll wait, take mine in the morning. Now, she's going to be real disappointed when she gets to the part where the reviews her in was canceled. Yeah. So, sorry to let that. I find them out there somewhere, but. Yeah, they're out. in places, even though they've been taken off of the Apple feed, they're still in some places,

like, I guess once they get on there, they don't leave, but. And don't forget, when you go to listen to Unsolved, anything six months or older, or it's going to be on Stitcher Premium, you have to go out there and sign up for that free trial. Yeah. I don't know, we get so many people talking about reviews. I thought about bringing reviews back on TCAT Patreon. Yeah. Every now and then, just because you and I had a lot of fun doing it.

Yeah. If nothing else, I may put the... the ones we did out. And every now and then we may just throw one on. Just to spice it up. Just to spice it up a little. Hey, Sergey and Giddy. This is Tren.

I wanted to call to say hi. And I enjoy your show. I just got done listening to your show. And you were talking about muckbang watermelon. And it just cracks me up because I watch muckbang videos now, thanks to you guys. And your references to songs, I really like it when you start singing. And it's really funny when you have your random outburst of random songs that you guys refer to. It makes my day.

But anyway, just wanted to call and say hi. Have a great day. Be safe and keep your own time taking. Bye. Awesome. Love it. Now, I was not trying to steer people towards the muckbong videos. I actually have a hard time watching them.

My oldest is the one that loves them. Pong. Mugbong. Bong. I thought you were going to bust out in song. there. But to sit and watch people gorge themselves on like

50 Taco Bell tacos, it's a little rough, man. Hey, I did eat a whole watermelon the other night. Did you? Mm-hmm. You know, I love watermelon, but, and it's hard to stop, but at a certain point,

all that liquid kind of catches up with you. It sure did, too. It sits there in the old, in the old stuff. But it tastes good going in, man. I love watermel. I couldn't stop, man. I just kept going.

Hi, Mike, hi, Debbie. This is McKeel. I am from Billings, Montana, and I am a huge fan of your show. And I just want to say thanks for all you guys do. Yesterday, I actually listened to the episode of Earl Richmond Jr. And it's weird because this week we actually had a guy get sentenced for almost the same kind of crime. He murdered his ex-girlfriend because he, she started dating somebody new, but he left her kids sitting there in the mess that he created, left them alive sitting in her blood and guts and everything, and it's pretty messed up. And he only got 12 years. Also, I want to say thank you for the appreciation that you give to the officers that are in the jail. My Dioch works in the jail here in Billings. So I think that's awesome that you give so much appreciation. to them. I've heard it a few times on your podcast. So again, thank you for all you guys do. You guys kind of keep me going.

And keep your own time ticking. Thanks. Bye. Wow, 12 years. That sounds like Dexter. It does. You know, you murder somebody and leave their children sitting in their own blood. Twelve years don't seem right. Now, I don't know the case and the particulars, but. Sure, there must have been something there. Maybe not. Maybe not. Maybe just lenient. Well, she said that was the maximum. So whatever he was convicted of, that was it.

That's all they could give him, I guess. Hi, Mike and Gibby. I just listened to the podcast for Richard Farley. Pretty good stuff. What a story of how she had to reach inside her shoulder to pinch off the bleeding. I'm calling to see if maybe you guys would want to cover a story on Eric Robert Rudolph. He was the Centennial Park Olympic bomber that Richard Jule was accused of. Apparently, he did a couple more bombings.

before he was caught. I just thought that maybe you guys might be interested in covering that. If so, that would be pretty cool. Keep your own time ticking. Bye. Yeah, Rudolph is definitely on the list. You know, there's a bunch of cases gives when you get into the area of like Ruby Ridge and Waco and then, you know, the Timothy McVeigh bombing and then Eric Rudolph. There's a lot of cases that some of them are intertwined. And I've been thinking about you know, doing some of them. I have a hard time picking, which obviously I don't want to do like a whole month's worth of the same theme. But it would be interesting because some of those are really tied to each other. Like one spark the other. Yeah, led to this. And there's some really interesting factors that it's almost hard to do the one separately without bringing up some of these other ones. But definitely on the list. All right, we had mailbag. Yeah. Our good friend Mary Beth. Beth. long, send us some things for our desk. Awesome.

So they're like those little name plates that you see on rich people's desks. Right. One of them says undercover hero and the other says second in command. Oh, okay. She said that we could figure out who is who between us. I think you already got them figured out. You have them placed? I did.

Yeah. It wasn't too hard for me to figure out. Yeah. Thank you. I'm just messing with it. No, she cracks me up, though. Yeah. But we appreciate it.

Yeah, we do. And we appreciate everyone listening. That's it for another episode of true crime all the time. So for Mike and Gabi, stay safe and keep your own time ticking.