In the summer of 1929, fear spread across the city of Dusseldorf as a homicidal maniac stalked the streets. This particular killer was fond of molesting, rapping and killing little girls and young women.
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Just in one day-August 23,1929- he killed two girls aged five and fourteen and attempted to rape a 26 year old woman.
This monster's identity was unknown but people started calling him " The Vampire of Dusseldorf " .
The terror fostered by the killer was tearing apart the social life of this working class city, an unspoken curfew was imposed as friends stopped talking to each other, strangers were harassed and children were locked up by their parents.
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Peter Kurten, had been a poverty stricken unhappy child, abused by his alcoholic father that as early as age of 9 was introduced to the grotesque pleasures of animal torture and bestiality by a neighbor.
While still a child , he drowned a friend in the Rhine river, the evil was within his soul. As a teenager, he became a prolific arsonist and slaughtered sheep, goats and pigs on a regular basis.
On May 25, 1913, he killed his first victim as the Vampire of Dusseldorf. More murders followed as did sexual assaults and other violent acts.
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His killing spree would go on until the night of May 14, 1930, when a new arrival to the city, Maria Budlick, stepped off a train at Dusseldorf station. A man offered to show her the way to a women's hostel. Budlick refused when she realized that he might be the so called Vampire.
The man became angry and argued with Maria, at that point a middle age man with polite manners appeared and chased the first man off. This man seemed harmless so when he invited her to his apartment for dinner , she accepted.
After eating, he volunteered to escort her to the hostel. On the way her supposed benefactor pulled her to a forest preserve and sexually abused her.
The next day she led the police to his apartment , they put Kurten under surveillance.
Knowing his time was over he told his wife that he was the Dusseldorf Vampire, Kurten's wife reported this to the police, who picked him up the same day.
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Kurten cooperated fully, providing complete details of his terrible deeds. He revealed during his trial, in a low monotone voice a life of depravity that included drinking his victim's blood.
Peter Kurten was executed on July 2, 1931, at Klingelputz Prison in Cologne.