An insane serial killer known as the Vampire of Dusseldorf or the Dusseldorf Monster, Peter Kurten spent his entire life striving for bloodlust and the deepest darkest desires one could imagine.
His crimes were unspeakable which included burglary, torture, assault, rape, cannibalism, and murder. In records, the list of his victims is over 30 but according to his confession, it’s up to 70. The more you read about Peter Kurten the worse it gets.
Early Life
Peter Kurten was born on May 26, 1883, in Mulheim, Germany. He had 12 siblings and he was number 3. Peter’s childhood was not easy, his parents lacked resources so they lived in absolute poverty. In addition, Peter’s father mistreated his mother and abused his sisters. The atmosphere in that house was terrifying, the children grew up surrounded by violence and trauma.
Before he even entered his teens, he attempted to drown one of his playmates. He befriended a local dog catcher who taught him how to torture and kill the animals he caught.
Peter also revealed mutilating the innocent animals in a bid to achieve an orgasm. He was soon forced to end his insane behavior when a man caught him stabbing a pig.
Later, it became known that he enjoyed hurting animals, which he cruelly abused even at that age. Soon he ran away from his home stealing money and afterward, he basically survived by stealing. He was caught several times and had to go to jail.
His First Assault
Peter was just 16 by the time when he first came out of prison. That same year Peter’s crimes escalated once again. He found an 18-year-old girl potentially working as a sex worker and convinced her to go with him to a secluded area.
The girl listened but Peter had much more in mind than just soliciting her services. Whilst they were engaging in sexual activity and he was close to finishing Peter began strangling the girl and continued even when she’d lost consciousness.
Peter believed that she was dead and left her. Though no contemporary sources exist to prove her death meaning it was either not recorded or the woman actually survived and simply didn’t report her assault to the authorities.
Peter claimed that this experience taught him that this was the only way that he could achieve sexual gratification. And it was this revelation that would have dire consequences for so many years.
Murder Spree
It is believed that after this revelation he began to murder people for his sexual gratification. His first murder was of Kristine Klein.
He entered a house with the intention of grabbing everything he could find, that was his job. But in one of the rooms he saw a young girl named Kristine Klein, barely 13 years old, sleeping. He silently checked that there were no other people in the house, and returned to her room to kill her.
He slashed her throat with a knife, as he himself would recount years later. At the time of the event, the young woman’s father was accused of the murder. And all because Peter Kurten had left a handkerchief with his initials on it in the room. These matched those of Kristine’s father, so he was investigated.
A few months later, his killing spree continued. In a new robbery, he met 17-year-old Gertrud Franken. This time, he decided to kill his victim by strangling her with his bare hands. It was the second such case in Düsseldorf, so it is said to have marked the beginning of a series of tragic deaths.
The next were two sisters. By this time, the police were madly trying to find the person responsible for these events, but Kurten, far from being intimidated, was totally unleashed.
Challenging the Police
Peter was proud of his own actions and began to mock the authorities. He even dared to send them a map showing the whereabouts of the body of a girl named Gertrude Albermann.
His ego was such that he went one step further in his macabre actions, he began to drink the blood of his victims. The police stations were swamped with information about possible suspects, but Kurten was still at large and no one could find him.
During those years he was also imprisoned on several occasions. Then, in 1930, a serious mistake landed him in court. Peter noticed a beautiful young woman named Maria Büdleick. He saw her getting off the train at Düsseldorf station and protected her from a stalker who was prowling around her.
The young woman gratefully agreed to let him accompany her to the student residence. But Kurten managed to take her to his house. There, the young woman refused him. But he, far from giving up, told her that now, yes, he would take her to the dorm.
Arrest and Execution
Instead, he took her to a nearby forest, where he abused her and left her for dead. But the young woman had not died and was able to go to a police station to report what had happened. Soon, he was arrested.
To everyone’s surprise, Kurten confessed to more than 70 crimes, all related to his obsession with death. He said that sometimes he even set fire to buildings to watch people come out of them burning.
The vast number of his victims and the wide publicity of his crimes led to Peter having to stand trial in shackles. He was held in a metal cage that was heavily guarded. This was both to stop any attempts at escaping on Peter’s part but also to stop any of the victim’s families from reaching him whilst he was in court where he claimed that he felt ‘No Remorse’ for his crimes or for his victims.
Peter also loved blood, which is why he was nicknamed The Düsseldorf Vampire. He was sentenced for a total of nine murders and his sentence was death. He accepted the penalty in silence, without a single protest.
In the following weeks, he spoke to the confessor and wrote letters to the victim’s families and another one to a ghost.
Finally, he was executed by guillotine on July 2, 1931, in Cologne. Before his death, he asked:  “After you cut off my head will I be able to hear the blood gushing from my neck? That would be the best pleasure to end all pleasure.”
The cannibalistic vampire was finally dead.
Mummified Head
As you can, this gentleman had a perverse mind. After he was decapitated, his head was dissected by the scientists so his brain could be studied to see if there were any abnormalities present that could have caused him to become the monster that he was. In fact, he was studied by a multitude of psychiatrists.
His head was later mummified and currently, the head is exhibited in the Ripley’s Museum in Wisconsin Dells, in the U.S.A. Would you prefer to go and have a look at that demented head?
