Trollheart

What is a serial killer?

Opinions seem to vary on what exactly constitutes a serial killer, as opposed to a mass murderer or what is known as spree killer, with some versions claiming a serial killer can only be identified as such if he or she has killed three or more people, while others maintain some sort of “cooling-off period” (which is a phrase that has never been satisfactorily defined) must be included. However I’m going to go with the definition given by the FBI, which states that it must be “a series of two or more murders, committed as separate events, usually, but not always, by one offender acting alone”. They also came up with a second, accepted definition which was worked out at a symposium of law enforcement, this of serial murder: “The unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender(s) in separate events.”

This would seem to accurately describe most serial killers, however we do have issues, as we’ll see a lot later, with the likes of Ian Huntley, who “only” killed two girls, and both of them at the same time. So does that make him a serial killer? By any definition, no it does not. But I feel I may need to include him anyway, if only due to my own vivid recollections of the investigation and the reports of the crime. I may make a special section for famous killers who are not necessarily serial killers. Hey, what do you care? It’s my journal. My own personal criterion for a serial killer would be that they have to have killed with their own hands, otherwise how do you not include megalomaniacs such as Hitler, Pol Pot and Stalin? But then you run up against Manson, and who could not describe him as a serial killer? Yet he was very clever not to get any literal blood on his hands, having his acolytes carry out the killings. So it’s not a good road to go down for me, and anyway what do I know?

All I will say is that government or state-sanctioned murder can surely not be viewed through the lens of a serial killer, nor can killings that take place at a time of war. I’m not saying bad things aren’t done in wartime, but overall, generally, they’re not described or prosecuted as murder, otherwise every soldier in any army would be a killer, and tried as such. Yes, they are killers, but like Sir Francis Drake identifying as a privateer when really he was a pirate, but with the blessing of the Queen, once your country has supported and even ordered the killings, legally you’re more or less in the clear. Vietnam? Now that’s a whole different quagmire in which I do not intend to place my size sevens!

Of course, no matter how much or little we’re interested in murder and serial killings, through sheer weight of news coverage and the march of history we all know the main ones - Jack the Ripper, The Boston Strangler, The Night Stalker, Son of Sam, The Yorkshire Ripper, Dhamer, Nilsen and of course Manson, but did you know there are reports of serial killers from the time before Christ? Ancient Rome, ancient China, even an Irish one in the fourteenth century, and of course our old friend Countess Bathory, all figure in the annals of crime and murder of much more than just two people down through history. Naturally, they weren’t called serial killers as the term had yet to be invented, but they fulfill the criteria. Speaking of which…

Building the Perfect Beast: Characteristics of a Serial Killer

You’d think the definitions we just read about would be enough to classify a killer as a serial one, wouldn’t you? But no: there are a whole lot of different aspects to serial killers. Not all of them satisfy all the criteria of course, but these are the general expected signs that mark a man or a woman as being one who will kill, kill and kill again until they’re caught or killed.

They don’t have to be crazy, but it helps!

(All right, sorry: I said I wouldn’t be flippant. But I couldn’t resist it…)

Nobody will be surprised to hear that a major factor in many - though not all - serial killers is an unbalanced mind. They may suffer from mental problems, hear voices, have an inability to deal with the world around them, feel paranoid, crave attention and control, engage in predatory behaviour such as stalking or hunting their victims, and experience no sense of guilt, and few emotions. They may not stand out in a crowd, may be quite debonair and charming.

There’s often a history of some sort of abuse, usually by a family member or trusted friend, they may have an unhealthy obsession with body parts, symbolic items that serve as substitutes for body parts, and though not by any means typical, behaviour such as cannibalism, blood-drinking and necrophilia can be part of their makeup. They can be slow developers, both mentally and emotionally as well as sexually, and were often bullied when younger. Some start off their careers by torturing animals, or in somewhat rarer cases, other children. They tend to have low esteem, brought about either by abuse or neglect by one or both parents, may come from broken families, or from families where violence was a factor.

They may have been involved in petty crime when younger, have suffered rejection by one or more lovers (or in some cases merely imagined it when a love interest whom they have not had the courage to approach meets someone else, or perhaps moves away), have been known to be late-age bedwetters, and find it hard to hold down a steady job, leading to many of them becoming drifters or even vagrants. This often assists their attempts to kill, as they can move from state to state or country to country, picking up low-paying, menial jobs as they go and quitting them when it’s time to move on. There is some argument about their perceived intelligence, but generally it seems to be agreed that they tend to have lower than average IQ.

This is of course not always true: as with just about everything to do with serial killers, many break the mould and confound the theories, being settled, respected family men holding down good jobs and able to kill with impunity due to these very characteristics. They are unsuspected because they may be, to use a very overused phrase, pillars of the community, and apart from this lifting them above suspicion, it can also allow them to flourish under the protection (intentional or not) of people in power, who will vouch for them, refuse to suspect them or entertain any doubts that they know the person well enough to know they could not possibly be a killer, and also, of course, seek to protect themselves and their reputations. It can naturally be social and/or business suicide to have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with, and taken the part of someone who is then proven or admits to being a serial killer. I don’t know if it happens in real life (though I guess we’ll find out) but I wouldn’t be too surprised if there were people of “high social standing” who have shielded killers in the full knowledge of what they are, in order to maintain their own reputation.

Signature of a Serial Killer

You hear this all the time in the cop shows - the guy has a signature, and quite often it does seem to be the case. It can help lead to the capture of the killer, or at least to identify his commission of the crime when he sticks to known trademarks. Note: I say he because though there have been female serial killers, they are far less numerous than and comprise a much smaller percentage of the breed than male ones. The way cuts are made, items removed from the body, trophies (discussed further on), type of victim (gender/hair colour/ethnicity/working background etc), type of weapon used, location and so on. Not all exhibit such signs of course, but when a serial killer considers himself a true artist, he may deliberately stick to these tropes, either to goad the authorities, showing them it’s him and there’s nothing they can do about it, or to brag to other killers, essentially showing off his handiwork and autographing it. A horrible thought, but it seems to be the way some do think.

Signatures of course build into a profile, and help investigators to come up with a reasonably accurate idea of who this person is, how he grew up, and most importantly, where he can be expected to strike next, or who his next victim might be. We’ve already discussed profiling in the piece about Robert Ressler and Ernst Gennat, the latter of whom is credited with almost inventing, or at least refining the science, and it’s fair to say that, certainly in the USA, where it seems serial killers proliferate most, any attempt to catch a serial killer begins with, or at least is unlikely to succeed without a proper profile. This tells the detectives, FBI agents or cops what sort of person they’re looking for, gives them a glimpse into the killer’s mindset, and allows them to put that information out on the television networks in the hope that someone may have seen the killer, or at worst, that should they know of or see such a person that they can take the necessary precautions.

Signatures can be dodgy to rely on alone, though, as there are many “copycat killers” who, either out of respect for the killer and wishing to emulate him or in order to throw off the cops will duplicate his signature, though if the serial killer himself is still at large this could I suppose backfire badly, as often they might take offence at someone copying them. Whether all of this happens in real life or just on TV is something I don’t know, and again as I say we’ll find that out as we go along.

Types

There are distinct types of serial killer, distinguished by the way they approach their victims - their motive, in other words.

Visionary

While this word has a far different and more normal meaning among those who are not serial killers, here it means that the killer believes, or pretends as a defence to have believed, that he was told to kill. The old “voices in the head” or “God told me to” defence.

Mission-oriented

A serial killer with a clear aim. This could be to, for instance, rid a certain area of a certain type, be it Jews, prostitutes, gays, women etc. In their twisted minds, they can see what they do as a service to society, winnowing out the undesirables.

Hedonistic

Hedonism, in case you don’t know, is the idea of surrendering yourself up to pleasure, often without a care for the consequences. But when you’re a serial killer, that pleasure can take some very dark forms indeed. Hedonistic killers are sub-divided into three distinct classes:

Lust

Speaks for itself really. A killer who gets off sexually on murder. They are the ones most likely to indulge in torture and domination, keeping their victims alive as long as possible in order to gratify their sexual urges. They’re also the types who are most likely to ejaculate over the corpses, or maybe while the victim is alive. Gross. They would also be the ones least able to control their killing, as the desire for sexual release grows, pushing them to further murders. Because of the closeness needed to their victims in order to get their rocks off, lust killers tend to use weapons that require a close and personal touch, such as knives, garrottes or even hands. They’re unlikely to kill from a distance, which is impersonal and thus does not get them where they want to go.

Thrill

A thrill killer could also be described perhaps as a hunter killer (nothing to do with Terminator, now!) though not all of them hunt. But they do enjoy the thrill either of the chase, or just in the pain and terror they cause. Unlike lust killers though, they are not too interested in long, slow deaths or torture, preferring to perfect their skill rather than prolong the death of the victim. They tend to select total strangers, though they may have stalked them for some time before launching their attack, and seldom if ever indulge in sex with them.

Comfort or Profit

Simply put, they kill for gain, usually financial. These are the insurance murderers, the ones who tend to use poison and keep to their own family and friends as their victim circle. They often run up debts and need to make a big score in order to pay them off, but sometimes the murder has been well planned in advance. A lot of female killers tend to be comfort killers, as it requires the least exposure, danger and knowledge of weaponry, plus women in general are more trusted for things like ministering to the sick and feeding relatives.

Power or Control

Not too hard to understand. These killers have a need to have power over their victims. They were often abused and in return may abuse their victims, including sexually, though in this case the sex is humiliation and payback for what happened to them - with the victims often playing the role of the abuser or one who knew about it and did nothing to stop it - rather than being motivated by lust. The Power/Control serial killer gets no joy or release from sex, merely using it as a tool to punish and redress what he sees as wrongs perpetrated upon him when younger.

Idolisers/Sensation Seekers

There are also serial killers who, well, kill to be famous. These people love the spotlight, and while they of course don’t want their identity to be known, they enjoy watching and reading about their crimes on the news or in the papers, and laughing at the efforts of the police to catch them. They may also admire, even idolise and try to emulate other killers, and other media figures. They may also enjoy spreading fear through the reports of their exploits.

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Timeline: 331 BC - 1440 AD

Given many factors, including class divisions, law enforcement, lack of popular press and unsympathetic authorities, you’re not going to find too many reports of serial killers in the time before Christ, although there probably were many more than we now know about. I suppose in some ways, what we would term murder today might not have seemed such a crime back then - slaves could be whipped or beaten to death completely within the law, wives could be abused, even killed, commoners could fall victims to high-class gentlemen looking for sport, and so on. So surely it went on, but was not reported. But some were, at least after the fact.

In every case we will be prefacing the account with the salient details, most of which are self-explanatory, but some may need clarification, so: “Type” refers back to the discussion on what drives killers, and how they are classified - lust/hunter/mission/visionary etc - while “Hunting ground(s)” tells where the killer operated, where he or she killed or stalked their victims. “Caught by” rather obviously refers to either the law enforcement authority or individual(s) who tracked them down and arrested them, or perhaps those who reported them and alerted the relevant authorities. In some cases this may not be a person but an organisation, though given the timeline we're dealing with here there may indeed have been mob justice involved, and in rare cases it may be that the killer turned themselves in.

Epithet is the name the killer either was known by or by which they wished to be known - Jack the Ripper, for instance, was known only as "The Whitechapel Murderer" until the receipt of the letter to Abberline which forever enshrined him as "Jack the Ripper". Some of these, of course, will have no epithets, popular nickname or media nickname, as the advertising and marketing infrastructure was not around so early to create such, and media was something completely unknown, to say nothing of the amount of people who could not even read. But where we have one, or even where one was later assigned by historians, they'll be noted here.






Killer: Unnamed, but part of what was known as The Poison Ring
Epithet: n/a
Type: Comfort (?)
Nationality: Roman
Hunting ground(s): Rome, Italy
Years active: 331 BC
Weapon(s) used: Poison
Signature (if any): n/a
Victims: Believed to be about 90
Survivors: Unsure
Caught by: The intervention of a serving woman
Fate: Died at their own hand

A weird one, this. Seems there were two patrician (noble family) women going around poisoning men. No idea why, but their deaths - about ninety of them before the women were stopped - were apparently believed to be the results of a plague. When the women were challenged that the potion they said was medicinal was poison, then both - both! - seem to have said “Look! We’ll show you it’s harmless!” and drank the bloody thing. Whereupon they died instantly. Can’t figure that one out. If they knew the potion was deadly, why drink it, especially since they weren’t forced or coerced to do so? In the wake of the discovery a whole cabal of poisoners was uncovered, who became known collectively as the “Poison Ring”. They were judged to be mad, which, given what the other two did, would seem a safe diagnosis.

As far as I can see, this Poison Ring is the earliest example of serial killing, and oddly enough, involved a whole lot of people. Serial killers are usually loners, trusting few people and eager to get their own hands dirty with the blood of their victims, so they seldom hand off the killings to anyone else. There have been instances of pairs of serial killers, but they are rare. A whole group? Almost unique.

Perhaps as unique as the next one we’re going to look at.


Killer: Emperor Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus “Caligula”
Epithet: n/a
Type: Lust
Nationality: Roman, duh!
Hunting ground(s): Rome, Italy
Years active: 37 - 41 AD
Weapon(s) used: Everything and anything
Signature (if any): He’s said to have enjoyed gagging his victims so that they were denied their last breath to cry out
Victims: Impossible to tell
Survivors: Same
Caught by: Praetorian Guard
Fate: Assassinated

Here we run up against one of my own personal criteria and see how it fails. You may remember in the introduction I stated that figures like Hitler, Pol Pot etc would not, for me, qualify as serial killers as they operated under state-sponsored murder. However, it must be said that this wasn’t necessarily murder at the behest of, or with the agreement of the state. This was murder ordered by, authorised by and indeed carried out by one man, the emperor, who believed himself a living god, and nobody could deny him. It was, in effect, tantamount to having a serial killer in charge of not only a country but an empire (although Caligula did confine his madness to the capital).

At any rate, Peter Vronsky in his excellent Sons of Cain: A History of Serial Killers From the Stone Age to the Present, includes him as one of the first ever examples of a serial killer, almost a thousand years before the term was coined, and who am I to argue?

So, let the madness begin!

Who doesn’t know about Caligula? One of the most feared, hated and quite simply mad emperors of ancient Rome, Caligula came to power and initially seemed to be a good ruler, but then in around 37 AD he fell ill, and when he recovered he was never the same. One of the first things he did was to go to the senate, having heard that the senators had prayed to the gods to take them in his place, and demand they kept their promise now that he had been spared. So one by one, they all had to commit suicide. Whether you can count that as part of his victim tally or not I don’t know, but I imagine a serial killer who impels his victims to take their own lives can be blamed for their deaths, so I’d say yes. After all, if they had refused to do as the emperor asked, they surely would have been slain anyway, so they probably just took the easiest and essentially most honourable way out.

When he reinstated the treason trials so hated of his predecessor, Caligula went further, ordering the executioner to keep the condemned alive as long as possible, torturing them and also inviting, read, ordering, their family and friends to come and watch their suffering. He was said to have often quoted the phrase “I can do anything to anybody” and was also to have said at a banquet, laughing evilly, “I have only to give the word and all of your throats would be cut.”

We should keep in mind, as pretty much any historian has noted, that the only accounts we have of Caligula’s life - and therefore his depravities and his many murders - come from second-hand sources who lived a long time after his death. Many of these might be eager, or at least quick to paint him in the worst light possible, yet it seems likely that most of what has been reported is grounded in some sort of truth. I’ve been able to confirm that the story about him making his horse a consul is not true - some sources say it was a stab at another senator (I might as well make my horse a consul you’re so bad etc) and others say he thought about it, might have been going to do it, but inconveniently for him got killed before he could.

Anyway, with all that in mind, we have this account from Seneca the Younger (4 BC - 65 AD) in his essay De Ira (“On Anger”):

Only recently Gaius Caesar slashed with the scourge and tortured . . . both Roman senators and knights, all in one day, and not to extract information but for amusement. He was so impatient of postponing his pleasure—a pleasure so great that his cruelty demanded it without delay—that he decapitated some of his victims by lamplight, as he was strolling with some ladies and senators on the terrace of his mother’s gardens . . . What was ever so unheard of as an execution by night? Though robberies are generally concealed by darkness, the more public punishments are, the more they offer as an admonition and warning. But here also I shall hear the answer, “That which surprises you so much is the daily habit of that beast; for this he lives, for this he loses sleep, for this he burns the midnight oil.” But surely you will find no other man who has commanded that the mouths of all those who were to be executed by his orders should be gagged by inserting a sponge, in order that they might not even have the power to utter a cry. What doomed man was ever before deprived of the breath with which to moan? . . . If no sponges were to be found, he ordered the garments of the poor wretches to be torn up, and their mouths to be stuffed with the strips. What cruelty is this?

What indeed? There are also reports that he slept with his own sister, Julia Drusilla, got her pregnant but then feared the child would overthrow him and so disembowelled her afterwards. Nice. He was certainly famous for his cruelty, and status was no bar to his perversions. Considering himself a living god, there was nobody who could stand against him, but he got his in the end when a party of Praetorian guards murdered him, Julius Caesar-like.

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Killer: Liu Pengli
Epithet: n/a
Type: Hunter/Thrill
Nationality: Chinese
Hunting ground(s): Jidong, China (about where Shandong is now)
Years active: Second century BC
Weapon(s) used: Unknown
Signature (if any): Other than robbery, unknown if any
Victims: 100 plus
Survivors: Unknown
Caught by: Testimony from the son of a victim to the emperor
Fate: Banished and made a commoner; commuted from death sentence

Surely then one of the earliest, if not the first Thrill Serial Killer, Prince Liu Pengli tended to go out with slaves and known criminals in his gang and attack, rob and murder people, for no other reason than that he enjoyed it. His reign of terror was finally brought to a halt when, as described briefly above, the son of one of the victims went to the emperor and accused him. What evidence was produced is not known, nor how a noble could be accused, but for whatever reason the emperor believed the accuser, or the crime was proven or admitted to, and the court demanded that Liu be executed. But as he was a nephew of the ruler, he instead had his royal titles taken from him and was kicked out of the kingdom. To some extent, maybe, this could have been a fate worse than death, which might have allowed Liu some semblance of honour; but being busted down to a commoner must have been the ultimate humiliation for him.

Killer: Anula of Anuradhapura
Epithet: n/a
Type: Comfort
Nationality: Sri Lankan
Hunting ground(s): The royal palace
Years active: 47 - 42 BC
Weapon(s) used: Poison
Signature (if any):
Victims: 4 known
Survivors: None known
Caught by: King Kutakanna Thisa
Fate: Burned alive

Seems this lady was one of those machiavellian women who preferred being on the throne to being the power behind it. She poisoned her husband of twelve years, King Coranga, repeated the process with his successor and continued like this for about four months before she was deposed, caught and executed for her crimes. No motive is given for her killings, but since she seized power it can be assumed that was the object; this, and the use of poison as her weapon of choice, basically leads me to identify her as a comfort killer.

Killer: Locusta
Epithet: n/a
Type: Contract?
Nationality: Roman
Hunting ground(s): Rome
Years active:
Weapon(s) used: Poison
Signature (if any):
Victims: At least 5, possibly 7 or more
Survivors: Unknown
Caught by: Emperor Glaba
Fate: Executed

The best known and most accomplished poisoner in the empire at the time of Nero, I have my doubts about this one to be honest. It’s in the list, but from what I read Locusta did not kill for any gain other than financial or as ordered by the emperor. She seems to have been a sort of “house poisoner” or official poisoner in Nero’s court, and was ordered by the emperor’s mother, Agrippina, to poison her uncle Claudius, so that her son could ascend the throne. While in the service of Nero she was called upon to get rid of Claudius’s son, Britannicus. When the poison didn’t work quickly enough, Nero took her into a dungeon and whipped her personally until she made it work.

Someone who works like this, under essentially the orders of another, and does not choose their victims, should not, I feel, be categorised as a serial killer, but more of a contact killer, even an executioner operating under the sanction of state, in this case. I would be very dubious about including her. Nevertheless, just in case, there she is.

Killer: Dhu Shanatir
Epithet: n/a
Type: Lust
Nationality: Yemenite
Hunting ground(s): Palace
Years active: 478 - 490
Weapon(s) used: Hands
Signature (if any): Victims were sodomised and thrown out of a window
Victims: 100
Survivors: One known
Caught by: One of his victims, Zara’h
Fate: Stabbed in the arse () and decapitated

Ah, the privileges of power, the power of privilege! Dhu Shanatir ruled Yemen from 478 to 490 and had a propensity for inviting young boys up to the palace for a bit of grub, which turned out to be more a bit of grab, as he poked them and then like toys he was finished with threw them out the window of his palace. No accounts exist as to what happened to the corpses, but you have to imagine the scene, don’t you? “Servant! Another one for the pile! Clean up on aisle six!” and off the slave goes with a wheelbarrow or whatever. Seriously though: this dude is known to have killed at least a hundred young boys before one turned the tables on him, stabbed him in the backside and then lopped off his head, and nicked his kingdom. Fair enough, I say. Oh yeah: Zara’h (who became known as Dhu Nawas) held on to the head, keeping it in the window of what was now his palace. Whether it faced out or not I don’t know, but if it did, it would have been fitting that he spent eternity with his eyes fixed on the spot where he had dumped so many of the pride of the nation’s youth.

Killer: Dame Alice Kyteler
Epithet: n/a
Type: Comfort
Nationality: Irish
Hunting ground(s): Kilkenny
Years active: 1302- - 1324
Weapon(s) used: Poison (maybe)
Signature (if any):
Victims: 3 - 4
Survivors: n/a
Caught by: Kind of hard to say really. There was a trial (she was accused by the children of her last husband - so, her own children basically) and the trial was conducted by the Bishop of Ossory, Richard de Ledrede
Fate: Legged it to England; fate after that unknown.

The interesting thing about this, apart from it being I guess the first recorded instance of an Irish serial killer, is that Kyteler (of Flemish descent, hence the odd and hardly Irish name, but she was born in Kilkenny) was not so much tried for murder as for witchcraft. As the paranoia about witches grew across Europe, and the Inquisition tightened its grip on its adherents, Ireland was no safe haven for the ungodly. Far from it: from the earliest times, once the Celts had been defeated, the druids banished or killed, Ireland was one of the most Christian countries on Earth, and almost exclusively Catholic. Occupied by the English, Protestantism never caught hold, except in the north, in Ulster, so strong was the Catholic faith. So when the Church said root out witches, that’s just what their footsoldiers did.

Richard de Ledrede, the Bishop of Ossory and known as a “scourge of heresy and witchcraft”, having heard that Kyteler was accused of killing her previous husbands, decided to use her as a basis for a trial for witchcraft, and she was arrested. Some of the antagonism towards her may have been due to the fact that she was quite rich, being a moneylender, and by that token very unpopular; possibly, too, some people hoped to duck out of their debts. After all, if she was found guilty (and we all know the only penalty for a woman “proven” to be or “confessing” to be a witch) then their slate would be wiped clean.

The charges LeDrede brought against Alice Kyteler were:

denying the faith of Christ and the Church
cutting up animals to sacrifice to demons at crossroads
holding secret nocturnal meetings in churches to perform black magic and undermine/overpower the church
using sorcery and potions to control Christians
possession of a familiar, Robin Artison, a lesser demon of Satan
murder of husband

However when he tried to have her arrested, the Bishop found out that Alice had powerful friends, among them the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and he ended up in prison himself! On his release, he was no less determined to prosecute Alice, and renewed his efforts, this time securing her arrest. This time the charges were slightly different:

Committing heresy
Sacrificing to demons
Communing with demons
Magically excommunicating/usurping the church
Making love and hate potions to corrupt Christians
Murdering her past husbands
Engaging in a sexual affair with a demon

He managed to get a confession out of one of Alice’s servants, Petronella de Meath, after torturing her, and she was paraded through the town and then burned at the stake. Alice however escaped from prison and fled to England, and that’s the last that was ever heard of her.

One footnote though, is the “confession” wrung out of Petronella de Meath. You have to imagine most of this was suggested or dictated to her, and she merely confirmed it, either by signing (if she could write) or in some other way. It’s fantastic nonsense, of course, but it got her turned into a living cinder.

On one of these occasions, by the crossroads outside the city, she had made an offering of three cocks to a certain demon whom she called Robert, son of Art (Robertum filium Artis), from the depths of the underworld. She had poured out the cocks' blood, cut the animals into pieces and mixed the intestines with spiders and other black worms like scorpions, with a herb called milfoil as well as with other herbs and horrible worms. She had boiled this mixture in a pot with the brains and clothes of a boy who had died without baptism and with the head of a robber who had been decapitated ... Petronella said she had several times at Alice's instigation and once in her presence, consulted demons and received answers. She had consented to a pact whereby she would be the medium between Alice and the said Robert, her friend. In public, she said that with her own eyes she had seen the aforesaid demon as three shapes (praedictus daemon tertius), in the form of three black men (aethiopum) each carrying an iron rod in the hand. This apparition happened by daylight (de die) before the said Dame Alice, and, while Petronella herself was watching, the apparition had intercourse with Alice. After this disgraceful act, with her own hand she (Alice?) wiped clean the disgusting place with sheets (kanevacio) from her own bed.

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Killer: Gilles de Rais
Epithet: n/a
Type: Lust
Nationality: French
Hunting ground(s): Champtocé-sur-Loire and Machecoul, France
Years active: 1432 - 1440
Weapon(s) used: Various
Signature (if any):
Victims: Believed to be anything from 100 to 200 (one estimate claims 600)
Survivors:
Caught by: The Bishop of Nantes
Fate: Hanged and burned

In terms, then, of actual sexual serial killers who killed for their own pleasure, it seems we have a candidate for the first, not counting Caligula, who I still think is something of a special case. It was said that Gilles de Rais, a baron in medieval France, consorted with - or tried to consort with - demons and dabbled in the occult, but none of his spells came to anything. Frustrated, he turned to luring children to his castle, where they would be fed and clothed and made a fuss of before being sodomised (yes, this again unfortunately) and then, well. Some were torn open and their intestines ripped out, some were beheaded, some were burned, some were drowned - and, oh dear: it seems some were, ah, interfered with after their deaths.

Although there have been efforts to exonerate him and paint him as a victim of the Catholic Inquisition, I tend to the belief that the stories are, mostly, true. His accomplices, after all, both corroborated them and so far as I can read, they weren’t tortured. They must have known that pleading guilty to aiding this sadistic madman would earn them a spot on the gallows right beside him, as it did, so if there was no truth in it why confess? So let’s just assume then that he was guilty. If he was, then he certainly seems to have amassed the biggest body count up to that point, at least of the killers known. Like I say above, the true number has never been ascertained, and though one estimate does claim he murdered up to 600 children, this seems unlikely, even given his protected status as a noble. So the slightly more conservative figure of 100 - 200 seems more likely. Either way, it’s a damning total.

The man’s sadism seems to have been boundless. Accounts speak of him sitting on the stomachs of children who were dying by his hand or at his command, and laughing as they died; of picking up severed heads and admiring them, and, as mentioned above, of doing things to their dead bodies. He’s also known to have hung up his victims alive and masturbated over them. Nice guy. And these are kids, remember: his victims are said to have ranged in age from six years old to eighteen, mostly boys but not all.

His undoing seems to have come when he captured a cleric in May 1440 and attracted the attention of the Bishop of Nantes, his crimes soon coming to light after his arrest, and within a month he had confessed. He was charged on counts of heresy, sodomy and murder, found guilty - along with his accomplices - and hanged and then burned on October 26. The shame was so great that afterwards his family changed their name. Twice.

Timeline: 1564 - 1682


Killer: Peter Stumpp
Epithet: “The Werewolf of Bedburg”
Type: ?
Nationality: German
Hunting ground(s): Bedburg, Cologne
Years active: 1564 - 1589
Weapon(s) used: Hands and teeth
Signature (if any):
Victims: 14
Survivors: None
Caught by:?
Fate: Broken on the wheel, beheaded and burned

A supposed real-life werewolf, Peter Stumpp (many other spellings and aliases, but let’s go with this one) confessed to having dabbled in the black arts, having had congress with demons and as a result having received a magic belt which allowed him to shape-shift into the form of a werewolf. In this form he carried out fourteen of the most atrocious murders, mostly children, entailing tearing them apart and eating them. This included two fetuses which were said to have been torn from the bodies of two pregnant women and consumed while their hearts were “hot and raw”. He was said to have killed and eaten his own son, whose brain he consumed, and also confessed to having incest with his own daughter.

Because this was in the sixteenth century, and therefore claims of witchcraft and lycanthropy were readily accepted, we will never know for sure how he killed his victims, but it seems likely he simply tore them apart. As most were children this may not have been too difficult particularly if he was in the grip of a murderous psychosis at the time.

After his trial he was (unsurprisingly) sentenced to death, which included being broken on the wheel - a system that allowed the flesh to be torn from his body while he was yet living - his arms and legs were chopped off to prevent him returning from the grave, then his head was severed and his body burned, his head placed on a pole on top of a monument to warn others against consorting with dark powers.

Killer: Peter Niers
Epithet: n/a
Type: Comfort ?
Nationality: German
Hunting ground(s): France, Germany, Netherlands
Years active: 1566 - 1581
Weapon(s) used: Various
Signature (if any):
Victims: 544 confessed to (under torture)
Survivors: None
Caught by: Townsfolk of Neumarkt
Fate: Broken on the wheel and quartered while still alive

More superstition and acts of magic abound in the oft-told story of Peter Niers, leading member of a band of thieves and robbers who roamed the German countryside, ranging as far as France and the Netherlands. Niers was said to be a powerful magician, and used the fetuses of pregnant women he slew to perform dark arts, which were supposed to confer on him certain powers, including that of invisibility and shape-shifting. Again we’re dealing with the sixteenth century here, where such claims would be taken very seriously, though there are accounts of his using various disguises, which is probably more likely.

As part of a robber band, Niers ranged far and wide but it was in his native Germany he was caught. The story is that he left his literal “bag of tricks” behind him in the tavern, so he hadn’t the magical artifacts needed to allow him to shape-shift, or whatever he did. When he was recognised at the local baths it wasn’t long before he was arrested. Thereafter he was tortured over three days, which is why you kind of have to take his confession with a pinch of salt. But when he did confess he was given a pretty gruesome death: broken on the wheel like our friend the Werewolf of Bedbugs, sorry Bedburg, and then quartered - while still alive!


Killer: Christman Genippertheinga
Epithet: None
Type: Comfort
Nationality: German
Hunting ground(s): Fraßberg, Germany
Years active: 1569 - 1581
Weapon(s) used: Unsure - hands?
Signature (if any):
Victims: 964
Survivors: None; technically, one
Caught by: Betrayed by the woman he had sexually enslaved
Fate: Broken on the wheel

Another feared robber, but one who stayed in the one lair, a cave high up in the hills, which afforded him a good view of the roads leading into the town, Christman Genippertheinga would attack French and German travellers, even killing his own partners if it suited him. He met a young woman shortly after he arrived in the area and menaced her into being his slave, and swearing never to betray him. By him she had six children, all of whom Christman killed, and then hung up from the roof of the cave. It was said that as the wind moved the bodies to and fro he would sing “Dance, der little children, dance; Genippertheinga your father is making the dance for you.”

When the girl finally persuaded him to let her go visit relatives in the town, she, held fast to her oath (which were sacred things in those days; they believed you could go to Hell for breaking one) cried at a stone, and villagers brought her to the mayor, who assured her that her immortal soul would not suffer if she told them what was wrong. When Christman was arrested her howled at her for betraying him, but he admitted to the murders, actually upset that he had not reached his goal of one thousand. It took him nine days to die on the wheel, as the executioner deliberately kept him alive by giving him strong drink, so that he might suffer as much as possible and last as long as they could stretch his agony out for.

There is uncorroborated evidence that Christman may have also been a cannibal, eating his victims (including the hearts of his children) and even force-feeding his slave human flesh, but the story changes on down through the decades and it’s hard to be sure. All we can be sure of is that he was definitely a killer, a serial killer, and a monster.

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Killer: Gilles Garnier
Epithet: “The Werewolf of Dole”, also “The Hermit of St. Bonnot”
Type: Lust
Nationality: French
Hunting ground(s): Dole, Franche-Comté province
Years active: 1572 - 1574
Weapon(s) used: Hands, teeth
Signature (if any):
Victims: 6 (though the account says he confessed to 4, I count 6 in all)
Survivors: None
Caught by: Villagers
Fate: Burned at the stake

A hermit living in the town of Dole in France, Garnier (sorry, I have to say it: you’re worth it!) got married and found that it was more difficult to procure food for two than one. He said that he met a spirit in a wood one night who gave him the power to change into a werewolf. After this he attacked, ate and killed up to six children from the ages of 9 to 12. He would also tear off flesh or body parts to bring home to his wife. Whether she was aware of where the meat came from, or indeed whether she ate it, is not recorded, nor are even the most minimal details about her.

Some villagers saw him with a child’s body in his arms as they made their way home from the fields one evening, and Garnier was arrested. Again, no details as to whether he was tortured, confessed or made any plea, but he was burned at the stake for the crime of lycanthropy. Whether that included, overrode or ignored murder and cannibalism I don’t know.


Killer: Countess Elizabeth Bathory de Ecsed
Epithet: “The Blood Countess” and “Countess Dracula”
Type: Lust
Nationality: Hungarian
Hunting ground(s): Castle of Csejte
Years active: 1585 - 1610
Weapon(s) used: Various
Signature (if any): Torture, mutilation etc
Victims: Anything from 80 to 650
Survivors: About 300
Caught by: Thurzó, Palatine of Hungary
Fate: Imprisoned in her castle until her death in 1614

Having been born into wealth and power, Countess Bathory’s many alleged torture and killings don’t appear to have a cause, other than she was rich and powerful. It may have been her upbringing, but of course there would have to have been an innate sense of sadism there for such a predilection to have grown. While abductions have been mentioned, it’s assumed these were carried out by her servants, and it seems Bathory pretty much stayed in her castle and stalked her victims there - mostly servants, and it seems all female - or had them brought to her, from the surrounding villages. Lurid accounts of her debauchery have passed into popular myth now, and it’s hard to know what’s fact and what is fiction, but she’s accused of beating, burning, freezing and in other ways torturing the young women and girls who worked for her, of bathing in their blood (in an effort to remain young) and of cannibalism.

Much of this, it’s said, could have been a political conspiracy to bring down a powerful woman who had much property, but either way it’s not been conclusively proved on either side. Her servants were quickly executed after having given their evidence, but Bathory was allowed to live, as the scandal of her execution would have been too much for her powerful family to survive. She was imprisoned in her castle, under house arrest, and died there at the age of 54.

Werewolf or Killer?

Before I go on, a brief interlude. It became quite common in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (and even on into the seventeenth) for people to be accused of being, or believe they had been transformed into werewolves. This presents something of a problem to me. If a man is believed, and believes himself to be, a creature such as this, is he then eligible to be counted as a serial killer? If we do that, should we not then start recounting all the lives lost to real wolf attacks (and maybe bears and who knows what else)? Can a supposed werewolf be accused of serial murder?

I debated including such stories as I read them, particularly this one, but as I read it I came across a ruling the court made in this case, which serves to slightly clear up the distinction. Again it’s from Peter Vronsky’s Sons of Cain, and is in fact part of the story of the subject of our next serial killer. He notes: The court essentially ruled that werewolves are not people literally transformed into wolves but people possessed by the Devil to behave as if they were transformed into werewolves. It was the best explanation we had for serial killers back then.

Killer: Jean Grenier
Epithet:
Type: ?
Nationality: French
Hunting ground(s): Coutras, near Bordeaux
Years active: 1603
Weapon(s) used: Hands and teeth
Signature (if any):
Victims: Unknown; by his own testimony at least 4
Survivors: One known of
Caught by: Parents of Marguerite Poirier, an intended victim (and the survivor spoken of above)
Fate: Originally sentenced to death, but due to his age and remorse, and a new, more enlightened understanding of the causes of lycanthropy, commuted to life servitude in a monastery.

Surely the youngest known serial killer we’ve come across so far, Jean Grenier was only thirteen years old when his father kicked him out of the house. The story goes that he vomited up a load of body parts, including human ones, and his stepmother ran away in disgust and would not come back until he had been banished from the house. Wandering alone, filthy and hungry, the boy accosted young girls and told them he was a werewolf, and that he had tasted of human flesh, but that of girls was tastier. He of course frightened them off, but when he attempted to attack one later, in the guise of a werewolf (according to the girl, the abovementioned Marguerite Poirier anyway) she beat him off with a stick, and when she told her parents about the attack the graphic nature of her description, along with the curious deaths and mutilations of children at that time in the area, led the authorities to investigate, and Grenier was arrested.

Far from concealing his crimes, he confessed, telling the court that he had met a dark man in a forest when younger; this man had provided him with the ability to turn into a wolf. He claimed that some of his victims he shared with another wolf, but the court in 1603 no doubt said “Zut alors! This is not ze Dark Ages! This is ze seventeenth century, mon Dieu! We are enlightened people and do not believe in ze werewolf! Sacre bleu!” or something.

And they set out to prove he was not a werewolf.

A sentence of death had been handed down, death by hanging, with the body then to be burned afterwards, but given the age of the child and his unfortunate circumstances, and his confession, rather strenuous lengths seem to have been gone to in order to save his life. They prepared a defence of insanity, showing that the boy could not have been engaged in witchcraft (which was the crime he had been charged with, not murder) as he had been able to take the dress off one of his victims rather than ripping it off her as an animal would do. This proved, according to them, that Grenier merely thought he was a werewolf, was lost in what we would call today a deep psychosis, and therefore, having not actually transformed into an animal could not be accused of witchcraft.

This, by the way, despite Marguerite’s testimony that she had been attacked by a wolf, not a boy. No mention is made of this as contradictory evidence against him. It’s hard to see how the decision was arrived at, but at any rate this was their statement at the end of the trial:

The court, in the end, takes note of the age and the imbecility of this young boy, who is so stupid and so mentally impaired, that children of seven or eight normally show more reasoning than he does. This boy is so malnourished and so undersized that one would not think him ten years old. . . . Here is a young boy abandoned and driven out by his father, who had a stepmother for a mother, who roamed the fields, without a guide and without anyone in the world to look after him, begging for his food, who had no instruction whatsoever in the fear of God, whose nature was corrupted by evil seduction, daily necessities, and despair, all conditions that the Evil Spirit exploited. The court does not want to contribute further to the misery of this young boy, whom the Devil had armed against other children. The court rules after due consideration of all matters, including the inconsistencies of his testimony and other aspects of the trial, to save his soul for God rather than judge it to be lost. Moreover, according to the report of the good monks who began to instruct and encourage him, he is already showing that he abhorred and detested his crimes, as witnessed by his tears and his repentance. The court dismissed and dismisses the appeals and, for the verdict resulting from the trial, condemned and condemns Jean Grenier to be locked up for the remainder of his life in one of the city’s monasteries. He is to serve this monastery for the rest of his life. He is prohibited from ever leaving there under the penalty of hanging or strangling.

Interviewed seven years later, Grenier confessed that he still had an appetite for human flesh, particularly that of little girls, and though he regretted and again confessed to his actions, he still believed that not only was he a werewolf, but that his father had been one too, which sort of makes the story of the man in the forest harder to credit, unless we’re supposed to believe that the stranger was in fact his father. Or had met the same man when he was younger. Grenier was withdrawn and sullen, stupid and slow when interviewed, but he seemed to gain animation when asked about his crimes, and described them in detail. He seemed to believe, however, that he was no longer a werewolf.

It should probably be noted, in the interests of clarity, that the boy spoken of above has nothing to do with the French philosopher of the same name, who lived from 1898-1971.

(Not a werewolf. Or a serial killer.)

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Killer: Björn Pétursson
Epithet: Axlar-Björn (Shoulder-Bear)
Type: Comfort?
Nationality: Icelandic
Hunting ground(s):
Years active: 1570 - 1596
Weapon(s) used: Possibly an axe
Signature (if any):
Victims: 9 - 18
Survivors: None
Caught by: Unknown
Fate: Hanged, broken on the wheel, body dismembered after death

In all of Iceland’s history it seems there was only ever one serial killer. That’s pretty good odds for not getting murdered if you go there I guess, although what the weather would have to say about that might be another matter. Inheriting the farm of his friend, Björn Pétursson is known to have murdered anything from 9 to 18 people, though the method is not known - possibly with an axe, possibly by drowning them. It can’t be confirmed, but he seems to have carried out the murders for gain, as he always took the possessions of his victims.

When arrested, Pétursson’s farm yielded more bodies than the nine he confessed to. He tried to bluff his way through this (why? If you’re going to be - literally - hung for nine, why not eighteen? What difference does it make?) by saying he had found the remains on his farm and had reinterred them, but his attempts came to nothing and he convinced nobody. He was hanged and then broken on the wheel, after which his body was dismembered and each piece put on a stake.

Interestingly, there seems to have been a kind of thread of evil running through the family. His wife, suspected as an accomplice and also sentenced to death, escaped by virtue (presumably) of being pregnant, but the fruit of her womb was rotten, and her son was hanged for rape. As if that wasn’t enough, his son was also executed as a criminal. Bad seeds, all.

Killer: Geordie Bourne
Epithet: None
Type: ?
Nationality: Scottish
Hunting ground(s): English East Marches
Years active: Unknown, died in 1597
Weapon(s) used: Unknown
Signature (if any):
Victims: 7 confessed to
Survivors: None known
Caught by: Robert Carey, Earl of Monmouth
Fate: Executed (no idea by what method, given that he was a thief and given the time, probably hanging)

Not a lot much to add really. Bourne was a thief and raider who ranged along the English East Marches where they bordered Scotland. He was an inveterate womaniser (“I lay with over 40 men’s wives”, he boasted, though whether this was consensual or not is unknown) and though he was a friend of the Scottish Middle March Warden Robert Ker, no plea for clemency or appeal was launched on his behalf. He had been captured in a raid by the Earl of Monmouth and beaten into submission, then brought to trial.

Killer: Catalina de los Rios Lisperguer
Epithet: La Quintrala (Mistletoe)
Type: Power/Control
Nationality: Chilean
Hunting ground(s): Santiago, Chile
Years active: (very approximately) 1624 - 1660
Weapon(s) used: Unknown, but probably poison
Signature (if any): n/a
Victims: 40
Survivors: 2
Caught by: n/a
Fate: Died of natural causes; never convicted for her crimes

The daughter of Chilean plantation owners and descended from Inca nobility, Catalina was nicknamed not for her murders, as such, but for the red colour of her hair, which was said to be like the quintral plant, a parasitic form of mistletoe native to Chile. However it was also postulated that the epithet derived from her practice of using the branches of this same plant to whip her slaves. She was a true Spanish beauty, daughter of a conquistador and so used to using people and getting her own way, and uninterested in the feelings of others. Murderous intent must have run in the family, as her mother and her aunt had been accused - though it was never proved - of poisoning the governor of Chile, Alonso de Ribera, out of spite, it says here, though I can’t uncover any historic enmity between the two families. La Quintrala though certainly took after her mother, accused of poisoning her own father when she served him dinner as he lay ill in bed. She did not stand trial for the crime though, even when her aunt reported it to the authorities, possibly due to the social standing of the family and the reluctance to create a scandal.

Her grandmother thought the best way to tame this twenty-two year old was to get her married off, and so Catalina married Colonel Alfonso Campofrio de Carvajal y Riberos, a man almost twice her age. She bore him a son, the only child she would ever have, but he did not survive, dying at age eight or ten. Two years after her marriage, and one year after the birth of her ill-fated son, her sister died and Catalina became even richer, inheriting her sister’s vast plantations. It was soon after coming into this inheritance that she is said to have begun to kill in earnest. Her first victim (not including her father when she was eighteen years old) was a servant or vassal whom it is said she invited to her home (though this is disputed by historians as Catalina is supposed to have written a love letter to him, and it was known that she was unable to write, and could barely read at all) and then stabbed, blaming his death on a servant who was then executed. The big mouth of Enrique Enriquez (no, really) de Guzman got him a knife in the back too, as he bragged about how he had been able to trifle with her affections, calling her a loose woman.

Things began to heat up when she moved to one of her properties, a plantation in the mountains of the suburbs of Santiago, and having killed a slave for no apparent reason (did a slaveowner need one?) she instructed that he not be buried for two weeks, and as her cruelty reached new extremes her slaves decided to head for the hills, rebelling - or, really, just running away: that’s not a rebellion - but were brought back and executed. She kept the local judges and lawyers in her pocket, as rich people do, and also relied on her family connections to protect her from any reprisals or accusations. However this could not last forever; people will turn a blind eye for so long, but eventually they will look to their own survival, and as complaints against the cruel mistress of the plantations and ranches mounted up, she was eventually taken into custody.

But while the wheels of justice could not be stopped, they could be slowed, and influence, threats and bribes, coupled with the general lack of appetite among the court (all of whom were picked from the noble classes, of course) to prosecute led to the very slow progress of the trial and her eventual acquittal. Well, really: who was going to advocate for slaves against a wealthy and powerful noblewoman? And who would benefit from her conviction? It wasn’t as if reparations would be paid to the families of the slaves, now was it? I think the prevailing attitude was, they’re dead, **** them, let’s move on. And where’s my big bag of cash, senora?

In 1654 her husband died (nothing is said about whether she was responsible, but it’s unlikely as she seemed to at least hold him in high regard even if she did not love him) and a new trial was opened in 1662, but she was by now quite ill and getting worse, and died in 1665 at the age of 61, never having atoned for, nor even been brought to justice for her crimes. As a sort of attempt to maybe buy history (and God) off, she left money in her will for masses to be said for the souls of her loved ones - including “those who had lived under her charge”, which perhaps might have been a tacit admission of her crimes, though far too late for her to be punished by any earthly power - and the establishment of chaplaincies. Despite this, she threw a dark and threatening figure across history and her assets were auctioned off after her death, her properties abandoned as nobody wanted anything to do with her. She remains a figure of hatred and anger in Chile, the symbol of the abusive woman and of the oppression of Spain on the country.

Killer: Giulia Tofana
Epithet:
Type: Profit
Nationality: Italian (at the time, The Papal States)
Hunting ground(s): Naples, Rome
Years active: 1633 - 1651
Weapon(s) used: Poison
Signature (if any): n/a
Victims: + 600 (admitted during torture)
Survivors: 0
Caught by: Papal authorities
Fate: Executed

Another case, it would seem, of like mother like daughter, Tofana’s mother was executed for having killed, possibly poisoned her husband, Giulia’s father, who it is also said was abusive to her, his daughter. She was also something of a dark entrepreneur, perfecting a poison herself (or the formula may have been passed down to her by her mother) and selling it to women who wished to escape abusive marriages. Divorce was not allowed, nor even envisioned, at this time, and any women who married - often against her will, at the wishes of her father - an abusive man had no option and no legal recourse but to stay with him. Therefore a large percentage of women took the only way out left to them, and began poisoning their husbands to escape from their marriage.

The poison was slow-acting, so as not to raise suspicions, and acting of another kind was something else she tutored her clients in: how to cry and grieve the loss, how to demand a coroner’s examination, so as to remove the possibility in the authorities’ minds that they might have been responsible. As Chambers’ Journal noted, in 1890, “To save her fair fame, the wife would demand a post-mortem examination. Result, nothing — except that the woman was able to pose as a slandered innocent, and then it would be remembered that her husband died without either pain, inflammation, fever, or spasms. If, after this, the woman within a year or two formed a new connection, nobody could blame her.”

Tofana disguised it as a cosmetic product, or a devotional healing oil, so that it could be hidden in plain sight without arousing any concerns. It was potent, only four drops needed to begin the process of death, tasteless, colourless and odourless, and over a course of days or weeks the victim would slowly pass away, in considerable discomfort and pain. The first dose caused weakness, exhaustion but was nothing compared to what the victim could expect on intake of the second: stomach pains, terrible thirst, vomiting and even dysentery.

For fifty years she plied her deadly trade, never suspected, and it was in fact one of her many customers whose betrayal led to her eventual arrest. The woman, who had bought her concoction, Aqua Tofana, a mixture of lead, arsenic and belladonna to poison her husband had second thoughts, and having already used the stuff in his soup had to warn him not to eat it. He of course became suspicious - perhaps due to the large amount of husbands dying before their wives at the time, or maybe he just really wanted that soup - and questioned her, probably using one of nature’s best-known and trusted inquisitors, the fist and the open hand, until she admitted she had poisoned his food.

He then turned her over to the authorities, who wrung from her - possibly under torture - the name of her supplier. A warrant was issued then for Tofana’s arrest, but she was so popular that she was warned in advance and legged it to a church, where she claimed sanctuary, as in this most holy of cities, it was uniquely qualified to do. Nobody would think ordinarily of breaching the sanctity of a church, even in pursuit of an accused murderer, as it was recognised as a place of sanctuary, a place apart from all others where those seeking the church’s protection could hide in safety.

This did not last long, however, as a rumour she had poisoned the town’s water supply led to her arrest, and under torture she confessed to over 600 murders in Rome. There may have been more, or less, as torture is always an unreliable way to get to the truth. But nevertheless she was certainly guilty of multiple murders and was executed, along with her daughter, and later some accomplices and customers in 1659. As a final insult, her body was thrown over the wall of the church that had provided her sanctuary.

Killer: Jasper Hanebuth
Epithet:
Type: Hunter
Nationality: German
Hunting ground(s): The Eilenriede Forest, Hannover
Years active: - 1652
Weapon(s) used: Gun, possibly rifle/musket
Signature (if any):
Victims: 19
Survivors: 0
Caught by: German police
Fate: Broken on the wheel

A highwayman who didn’t particularly care whether you stood and delivered or not, Hanebuth had been a mercenary in the Thirty Years War, and though a German had fought for Sweden. During his service it is said he performed many robberies and murders - to be fair, the war was so vicious and went on for so long that it seems everyone was doing the same thing - and when he was discharged at the end of his service, he teamed up with other ex-soldiers to prey upon, well, anyone they could really. Hanebuth, of low birth (his father had been a peasant in Hannover) was known to have a violent temper and would kill people for no reason, though if there was cash or valuables to be had, he’d have them too, danke schon!

It was his change of occupation that did for him in the end. He became a horse dealer, and acquired his stock through what would be called in the Old West two hundred years later rustling, i.e., he stole them from others. When he was reported by one horse owner for having stolen his livestock, he was taken into custody and tortured. But here’s where I feel it gets a little weird. He confessed, not only to the theft of the horse(s), but to nineteen murders also. Now, certainly, under torture a man or woman will say anything to stop the pain, but usually this is in response to questions from the torturer. I’m not certain Hanebuth was suspected of any murders (maybe he was, it doesn’t make it clear) but if not, why then venture information which was sure to get him executed? I don’t know what the penalty for horse theft was back in the seventeenth century, but I doubt it was death. Maybe it was; they executed people back then for crimes we would today consider quite trivial. Either way, by confessing to the murders he had signed his own death warrant, and there seemed no need. Though if he was suspected, of course, the interrogators may have demanded he confess.

Thinking about it, maybe it was this way: he was suspected of the murders but there was no proof (possibly due to his modus operandi of often shooting his victims from a distance, therefore being able to sod off before the law arrived, or any witnesses turned up?) and the cops had been waiting to catch him. When the horse rustling charge was made against him, perhaps they saw their opportunity to force him to admit to the killings, and so used the torture session as a means to gain a confession and so make him pay for all those murders. Oh wait: now I read he wasn’t tortured, just threatened with it, and confessed. Pussy.

All speculation, but in any event he was thrown in jail for a year (why, I don’t know; I doubt such things as appeal procedures existed back then, and if they did, a common soldier would surely have little recourse to them) after which he was taken out and broken on the wheel. They didn’t hang around (no pun intended) in those days. Notwithstanding the year in prison, he was sentenced on February 3-4 1653 and executed on February 4. Swift justice. Sort of.

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Killer: Catherine Monvoisin
Epithet: La Voisin
Type: Comfort
Nationality: French
Hunting ground(s): Paris
Years active: 1650 -1659
Weapon(s) used: Poison
Signature (if any):
Victims: 1,000 - 2,500
Survivors: 0
Caught by: French police
Fate: Burned at the stake

While it might be said that many female serial killers could be described as witches, this actually was one, or an aspirant anyway. Originally a fortune teller, she took to midwifery - and through this, the provision of illegal abortions - when her husband’s business went belly-up. She began expanding her business, making and selling supposedly magical artifacts, arranging black masses and eventually selling both aphrodisiacs and poison to her clientele. She was very successful, and could count the great and good of France among her customers - nobility and the aristocracy, the rich and the powerful - as her fame spread. Married with four children, she took lovers and, in a chilling foreshadowing of her eventual destiny, one of them was an executioner.

If you consider abortion to be murder, then she certainly murdered a whole ton of unborn fetuses, as she provided abortion services, again to the rich and powerful, but as the king himself, Louis XIV, ordered the investigation into her abortion business to be dropped (he had surely availed of it more than once himself, or had powerful friends who had, and evidently did not wish to kick off a scandal in which he might be implicated - more on that later) the figure is lost to history, known only to Catherine herself, if she even kept count, which is doubtful. It was probably just a job to her, and whether she considered the fetuses as living beings or not really matters little, as we will never know how many she terminated.

Using a mixture of superstition and religious belief, she purported to help her clients achieve their dreams - usually that their husband or wife would die so that they could marry, or that someone would fall in love with them - by selling alleged magical artifacts, love potions and arranging black masses, where the supplicant could pray to Satan for their wish to come true. It’s said the blood of babies was used in her ceremonies, but it’s not made clear whether the baby was killed during the black mass or whether it was already dead; perhaps a mixture of both. One of her most high-profile clients was Madame de Montespan, the king’s official mistress. This lady’s obsession with Louis XIV would lead to her convincing Catherine to poison the king himself, which in turn would lead to her own downfall.

Having lost the affection of the fickle monarch, de Montespan arranged for La Voisin to poison a petition which was to be given to the king, but this attempt failed due to his workload, and she returned the next day to try again. However the subsequent arrest of several fortune tellers who had also been identified as being in a network of poisoners led to her own arrest and she was taken into custody on March 12 1679. Though not tortured (probably for fear of the noble names she might let slip in an attempt to put an end to her suffering) she was allowed drink copiously. Being a known alcoholic, this served to loosen her tongue perhaps more easily than would pain, and she named several names, including many at court. Given that she did this, it seems odd then that torture was not used, since the same feared results were achieved. Anyway, that’s what happened.

She kept enough of her wits about her not to disclose her relationship with Mme. de Montespan, and especially her role in the attempted murder of the king, but did admit that there was a network of poisoners working in Paris (though she claimed not to belong to any, and tried to blame her contemporaries, such as Marie Bosse) - she was probably aware that Louis had issued an edict just after Christmas which instructed the entire poisoners ring be “exterminated by all methods regardless of the age, sex or rank” and knew she would receive no mercy if she was proven to belong to the cabal. In February she went on trial for witchcraft, and though some reports say she was tortured, others deny it, but in any event she was sentenced to burn at the stake. Oddly, if the torture did take place, it’s said to have done so after the verdict, which seems at best a little overkill and at worst pointless: they had secured a conviction, she was to burn, so what was the point of torture? Which conundrum makes it even less likely that it happened.

She remained defiant to the last, pushing away the priest who tried to attend her as she was dragged to the stake on February 22, and trying to kick away the straw piled up around it. Five months after her death her daughter revealed the link between her and Madame de Montespan, and the king, evidently realising the case was about to hit too close to home, sealed all testimony under a letter de cachet, which allowed him to close all proceedings and permanently imprison the remaining suspects.


Killer: Marie-Madeline d’Aubray, Marquise de Brinvilliers
Epithet:
Type: Comfort
Nationality: French
Hunting ground(s): Paris
Years active: after 1670(ish)
Weapon(s) used: Poison
Signature (if any):
Victims: 3 known, probably up to 33 or even more
Survivors: 4 known
Caught by: Extradited under police warrant
Fate: Beheaded

Another French aristocrat, Marie-Madeleine became angry at her father when he had her lover, Godin de Sainte-Croix arrested and thrown in the Bastille. Her father had been scandalised at his daughter’s behaviour, worried that it would reflect on his social standing, but may have sealed his own doom by having Sainte-Croix imprisoned, as it appears to have been due to this time in the famous French prison that he gained his knowledge of poisons from a famous Italian master of the art known as Exiii. He then, on his release, set up an alchemy business in order to be able to purchase and use the poisons ostensibly required for his work. Marie then learned from him how to make and use poison, and began plotting her revenge. The fact that Sainte-Croix married another woman when he was let out of prison probably didn’t go down too well with the Marquise either, and he went onto her list of enemies.

Having learned the basics of how to make and administer the poison, it’s said (though not corroborated, and impossible for it to be) that she visited hospitals and tested out the poisons on sick patients, killing at least 30 of them without ever being caught. Her own servants also became living petri dishes for her foul experiments, but soon she was ready to forget about the dry runs and go for the real thing, and in, appropriately enough, 1666 she started poisoning her own father. It should perhaps be pointed out that, though the Marquise claimed later that she had been abused as a child, she never accused her father and he was believed to have been a loving parent, if strict. It seems like her poisoning him was nothing more than getting him back for humiliating her and her lover. It was not a quick death - poisonings seldom are, the point of using them being to simulate death by natural causes, as indeed was attributed to her father after his autopsy - and though she entrusted a servant in her father’s house to administer the poison originally, when she was invited by her father to visit and stay with him, she took charge of it herself, and was with him when he finally passed away.

On his death, she inherited some of his fortune, but this was not enough and so she decided to do away with both her brothers too, and claim their share of her father’s estate. Again she employed a servant - whom she engaged for the household - to do the deed, and though one of the brothers was suspicious he nevertheless succumbed, with his sibling, to his sister’s poisoning and died in 1670, his brother shortly afterwards. There were, however, suspicions about the deaths: how close together they had been, how soon after their father’s death had occurred, and probably also the monetary gain the only remaining member of the d’Aubray family now stood to achieve, but no real objections were raised and no accusation was made. The deaths were ruled as being from natural causes, and Marie raked in the cash.

Re-enter the story Godin de Sainte-Croix, who was feeling rather ill, possibly due to getting a snootful of his own poisons, possibly not, but in any rate he popped his clogs and left behind some pretty incriminating evidence; letters between him and the Marquise detailing their poisonings, promises from her to him of money he needed for debts, rather coincidentally made at the time her father first began to feel a little peaky and, oh yes: poisons. Suspicion began to grow again, particularly when the servant who had poisoned the brothers, hearing that the Commissary Picard (make it so!) had the box of effects in his possession hied him there to demand money he was owed by Sainte-Croix. Shown the incriminating letters he then hied himself the fuck out of there, but was quickly captured, question, tortured - during which time he implicated the Marquise in the plot - and was summarily executed for his part in the crimes. Although her whereabouts at this time were unknown, the Marquise was sentenced in absentia and a warrant issued for her arrest.

Said Marquise then went on the lam, heading to England where she evaded the authorities for several years, moving from place to place and living off money sent to her by her sister. I’m assuming that at this point there would not have been much if anything in the way of co-operation between whatever served as the English police and the French, and both countries being almost continually at war, there would have been little appetite for the one to ask for help for the other, and for the other to afford that help. Basically, I imagine the French would have been left to sort it out for themselves, and how that worked, jurisdiction-wise, I have no idea. Anyway, once her sister died the money ran out, and she had to keep moving to different countries to stay ahead of the pursuit, but was finally caught in Antwerp. Oh. It says here the Belgian authorities turned her in and she was extradited. So much for what I know then. But the Belgians were probably more friendly towards the French than the English were, being all Europeans together I guess. I’d still reckon they got little cooperation out of les Anglaise.

Oddly enough, and in a classic case of bad planning, she had in her possession a letter entitled “My Confessions”, which detailed her crimes, her affairs and the illegitimacy of three of her children, one of whom she had unsuccessfully attempted to poison, along with her sister (the same one who sent her money? I don’t know, but if so, Jesus!) and her husband. On the way back to France she tried to do away with herself, but these attempts were thwarted and she arrived back in her home country to face trial, where she tried somewhat lamely to utilise an early version of the fifth amendment, refusing to answer any questions and pretending she knew nothing about her crimes. Later she changed her tactics and blamed everything on Sainte-Croix (so much easier to blame the dead) but was tripped up when one of her other former lovers testified that she had admitted to him of the poisonings, and that further, she and Sainte-Croix had attempted to poison him. She was, to nobody’s surprise, found guilty, beheaded and her body burned.

The conviction and execution of the Marquise de Brinvillier was the catalyst that kicked off a massive investigation with culminated in what became known as the Affair of the Poisons, in which many other poisoners were caught, tortured and executed, and many nobles and even members of the royal house were implicated, lending the king finally to seal the case rather than have the dam gates burst and drown his court.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018