Richard von Krafft-Ebing

Despite the term serial killer was discovered in mid 20th century, the study has been conduct on that matter much earlier.

Dr Richard von Krafft-Ebing, a German neurologist, an alienist at the Feldhof Asylum and professor of psychiatry in Strasbourg, believed to be the earliest person responsible in documented research on sexual homicide, serial murder, and other areas of sexual proclivity in his book, Psychopathia Sexualis.

However, in this book which was published in 1886 did not recognize the criminals as serial killers or sex crimes. The killers were all characterized as “monsters” with animal-like appetites.

They were paralleled with vampire and werewolf legends, they were no longer humans. Krafft-Ebing used termed “joy murder” or “lust murder” (lustmord) to describe the criminal action.

One of the criminal recorded in this book was an Italian youth named Vincent Verzeni who committed two strangulation murders and attempted more. In Krafft-Ebing note, stated:

“As soon as he has grasped his victim by the next, sexual sensation are experienced… accompanied by erection and ejaculation. Usually simply choking them satisfied him, and then he allowed his victims to live…”

Psychopathia Sexualis

Grab the book “Psychopathia Sexualis” by Dr Robert von Krafft-Ebing in English Translation here

or through this URL:

http://hotfile.com/dl/101544740/b4ce249/Psychopathia_Sexualis.pdf.html

Serial Murder – Multi Disciplinary Perspectives for Investigators

The discovery of serial killer terminology had give huge contribution in fighting crime despite whoever claimed on the discovery.

Before the terminology occurred, expertises and authorities had difficulties in classifying some of the murder cases. One of them was Colin Wilson while compiling the Encyclopedia of Murder.

He stated in the Serial Killer Investigations that he noticed a variety of murder that he was unable to fit into the old classifications.

The difficulties only solved after the discovery and the term become more important when it helps identified the probable characteristics of a suspect in a process the police called as criminal profiling.

This classification or criminal profiling process is important to the authorities for them to identify the enemy, what level of threat they are facing and what approach they need to use?

The importance of profiling and classifying the cases was shown by the father of criminal profiling, Dr James A Brussel when he end the 16 years of New York nightmare by helping the authorities identified George Metesky a.k.a. Mad Bomber.

But who belong to the serial killer classification?

Yet until today, there was no firm definition about serial killer and how to classifying it. Multi definitions have been created for over thirty years by law enforcement, clinicians, academia and researchers.

But all the definitions are not solid yet and open for discussion and arguments.

The closest definition was by the Federal Bureau Investigation and it was stated in the Serial Murder: Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives for Investigators (2008) which define serial killer as the unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender(s), in separated events.

Gordon Cummins

In 1942, the streets of London were blacked out at night to stop lights giving the German bombers an easy target. It was against his backdrop that 28-year-old RAF aircraftman Gordon Frederick Cummins took to the streets and began a killing campaign.

The first victim was 40-year-old chemist’s assistant Evelyn Hamilton whose body was found on February 9, 1942, in an air raid shelter in Montagu Place, Marylebone.

She had been strangled and marks on her throat showed that her killer was left handed.

The next night Cummins murdered 35-year-old Evelyn Oatley (also known as Nita Ward), a former showgirl at the Windmill Theatre, at her flat on Wardour Street, Soho.

Her throat was cut and she had been mutilated with a tin opener. More left-handed fingerprints were found.

The third murder happened the next day, February 11, when Margaret Florence “Pearl” Lowe, a 43-year-old prostitute, was killed in her flat on Gosfield Street, Marylebone.

A silk stocking was tied around her neck and her body as mutilated with a razor blade, a knife and a candlestick.

Pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury called her attacker “a savage sexual maniac”.

A few hours later police found a fourth victim – 32-year-old Doris Jouannet (also known as Doris Robson), who had been killed in the two room flat in Paddington she shared with her husband. Her naked body had been mutilated.

On St Valentine’s Day 1942 Cummins attacked Greta Hayward in a doorway near Piccadilly Circus but was disturbed and fled. In his hurry he left his gas mask behind.

Cummins then attacked another prostitute, Kathleen King, also known as Mrs Mulcahy, at her flat near Paddington Station. She fought back and Cummins fled, this time leaving behind his RAF uniform belt.

The gas mask had the serial number 525987, which was traced to Cummins, who was arrested on February 16. When his billet in St John’s Wood was searched, police found a number of items belonging to his victims.

Gordon Cummins was tried at the Old Bailey on April 27, 1942 for the murder for Evelyn Hamilton. THe trial was over in a day and the jury took just 30 minutes to return a verdict of guilty.

Vummins was hanged at Wandsworth Prison, during an air raid, on June 25, 1942.

Leonarda Cianciulli

Born on 14 November 1893 at Montella di Avellino, Italy, Leonarda Cianciulli had an unhappy childhood. In 1914 she married Raffaele Pansardi, a clerk in the local register office.

They made their marital home at Lariano in Alta Irpinia but in 1930 an earthquake destroyed it. They moved to Correggio, in the province of Reggio Emilia.

Cianciulli fell pregnant 17 times, suffered three miscarriages and ten of her children died at an early age. The other four Cianciulli protected with the ferocity of a lioness.

A gypsy fortune-teller had told her, “You will marry and have children, but all your children will die.” She went to another gypsy who told her, “In your right hand I see prison, in your left a criminal asylum.”

In 1939, as her eldest son Giuseppe was about to be conscripted, Cianciulli claimed to have been visited by the Virgin Mary who told her to sacrifice humans for her sons.

Her first victim was Faustina Setti who was told that a husband had been found for her in Pola. Swearing her to secrecy, Cianciulli persuaded Signorina Setti to write some letters and postcards to her friends and relatives to be posted when when she reached Pola.

Cianciulli killed her with an axe and dragged the body into a closet, cut it into nine parts and gathered the blood in a basin.

As she later told police:

I threw the pieces into a pot, added seven kilos of caustic soda, which I had bought to make soap, and stirred the whole mixture until the pieces dissolved in a thick, dark mush that I poured into several buckets and emptied in a nearby septic tank.
As for the blood in the basin, I waited until it had coagulated, dried it in the oven, ground it and mixed it with flour, sugar, chocolate, milk and eggs, as well as a bit of margarine, kneading all the ingredients together. I made lots of crunchy tea cakes and served them to the ladies who came to visit, though Giuseppe and I also ate them.

On September 5, 1940 Cianciulli murdered Francesca Soavi who was promised work at a Piacenza girls’ school. She was also convicted to write postcards and then murdered.

The third and final victim was Virgiana Cociappo, a 53-year-old former opera singer, who was murdered on September 30, 1940.

She ended up in the pot, like the other two; her flesh was fat and white, when it had melted I added a bottle of cologne, and after a long time on the boil I was able to make some most acceptable creamy soap. I gave bars to neighbours and acquaintances. The cakes, too, were better: that woman was really sweet.

She was arrested after the sister-in-law of her last victim went to the police. Cianciulli readily confessed and was sentenced to 30 years in prison and three years in a criminal asylum.

She died of cerebral apoplexy in a Pozzuoli asylum on October 15, 1970.

Eugene Weidmann

The last person publicly guillotined in France, Eugene Weidmann was born at Frankfurt-am-Main in Germany on February 5, 1908.

A career criminal, he led a gang of teenage thieves before moving to Paris and progressing to more serious crimes including six murders. He stole cars and while on test drive, would shoot the owners in the back of the neck. He also strangled one victim.

He was arrested on December 8, 1937 after a shoot-out at his home in St Cloud. When asked if he had any remorse for his victims, he replied:

Remorse, what for? I didn’t even know them.

He confessed to police that he and his confederates had planned to kidnap wealthy people and demand high ransoms.

Two of his accompliances were acquitted but Weidmann and Roger Million were convicted and sentenced to death. Million’s sentence was later commuted but at 4.50am on June 17, 1939 Weidmann was beheaded in Rue Georges Clemenceau (in front of the Palais de Justice, Versailles.

The day before every vantage point overlooking the guillotine site was rented out at fantastic prices. From his cell weidmann could hear the hammering of his guillotine being eracted and laughter of the revellers in cafes, waiting for the entertainment to begin.

Even the morning drizzle didn’t dampen the enthusiasm.

The executioner Henri Desfourneaux, known for being very slow at the job, entered the record books as having officiated at the last public execution in France.

It was also his only performance in front of a public audience. He was very nervous.

Dressed in black he set up the guillotine at 3am. Due to delays and miscalculations the decapitation took place in daylight rather than the break of dawn, which allowed photographers to take clear pictures.

Weidmann was allowed a few puffs on a cigar and a mouthful of rum in his cell. The bascule, or see-saw plank to which the victim is strapped then tripped and loaded under the blade, had been badly adjusted and it took Desfourneaux three attempts to get Weidmann’s neck into the crescent shaped head-holder correctly.

Ultimately the assistant executioner had to pull Wiedmann forward by his hair and ears. As the blade finally dropped, it was accompanied by the eerie whistling sound that is heard at beheadings.

The photographs so shocked the public that a week late, a statute was passed that all executions henceforth would be carried out in private.

Unable to talk to people, he buried himself in violent culture, spending much of his time watching films, especially enjoying those in which people died after being stabbed by Samurai swords

He began to fantasize about re-enacting the scenes he watched.

On August 22, 1938 when he was 14-years-old, he attempted to rape two women but they fought back so he murdered them. Three years later, on August 18, 1941 he committed his third murder and two days later he killed three more people.

On September 27, 1941 he murdered his brother, and severely injured his father, sister, sister-in-law, and nephew. He kept urges in check for a year but on August 30, 1942 he murdered a couple, their son and daughter and failed to rape a second daughter before fleeing the scene.

As with many other war-time criminals, the chaos caused by the conflict prevented the authorities from stopping Nakamura and the news blackout halted dissemination of information about his crimes.

The was finally arrested on October 12, 1942 and charged with nine murders, and confessed to two more. On November 11, 1942 his father, Fumisada Nakamura, took his own life in shame at what his son had done.

Despite a plea his his defence that he was insane, Nakamura was tried, found guilty and executed

Joe Ball

In the days of Prohibition, Joe Ball was a bootlegger but afterwards he became the landlord of The Sociable Inn on Highway 181 in Elmendorf, Texas.

The bar had two selling main points – it had the sexiest waitresses in the area and a pool in the backyard in which five alligators lived. Ball would throw them meat or occasionally, a live cat or dog for the entertainment of his patrons.

Ball was born on January 7 1896 and by the mid 1930s seemed to have a great life – booze, broads and bonhomie. He slept with most of his staff, which accounted for the fact that he had been married three times.

When his third wife disappeared in 1937, it was thought that she had left because she had discovered Ball’s affair with 22-year-old Hazel ‘Schatzie’ Brown, the latest barmaid to decorate the bar and Joe Ball’s bed. Then, Hazel vanished too.

Barmaids came and went and no one paid any mind, on one apart from Lee Miller, a Texas Ranger. He wondered why Hazel had told no one she was leaving town and why her bank account was untouched.

Then a neighbour reported a terrible smell emanating from a rain barrel near The Sociable Inn.

The police visited the establishement and the proprietor told them that he had no idea where Hazel had gone and that the smell was coming from meat for the alligators.

The policemen, John Gray and John Klevenhagen, returned the next day, September 24 1938, and told Ball that they were taking him to San Antonio for questioning. He asked to shut down the bar and walked to the till, pulled out a revolver and, after briefly waving it at the police, shot himself in the head.

At first investigators believed that Joe Ball had killed all the missing barmaids and fed them to his pet alligators. Then police found the third Mrs Ball, alive and well.

She had known of the killings and fled, not wanting to be the latest victim. She told police about handyman Clifford Wheeler, and he revealed the story.

He took police to the remains of Hazel Brown and Minnie Gotthard, another waitress and Ball bedmate. It is believed that Ball killed up to twenty women but no remains of the rest were ever found.

However, none of the rotting flesh in the alligator pond wass found to be human. In 1939, Wheeler was sentenced to two years in prison.

Marie Becker

Marie Alexandrine Becker was born in 1877 and lived in Liege, Belgium. She married and fell into the stereotypical life of a bored, middle-aged woman in the town.

Then one day in 1932, while she was visiting the local market, Lambert Beyer, the local Lothario, chatted her up as she bought vegetables.

She was flattered by the attentions of the younger man and they began a passionate affair. Becker decided that, in order to be able to fulfill her dreams and desires, she would need to kill her husband.

She made sure that the life insurance was up to date and then gave him a fatal dose of digitalis. Becker spent the insurance money on opening a smart dress shop.

She spent all her spare time with her lover until he bored her and in November 1934 she poisoned Beyer with the same drug.

He had left Becker money in his will and she had an income from the dress shop but it was not enough to finance her new life of nightclubs gigolos.

At the start of July 1935, Marie Castadot, an elderly friend, fell ill and Becker offered to nurse her. On July 23, Castadot died.

Realizing that it was relatively easy to poison, Becker began killing friends and customers – all of whom left Becker a little something in their wills. It is thought that she killed 11 people before a friend mentioned that she was being annoyed by her husband and wanted him to go away or died.

Becker said:

If you really mean that, I can supply you with a powder that will leave no trace.

On October 2, 1936 the police received an anonymous letter telling them that they should take a look at the widow Becker. She was arrested soon after, her house searched and the bodies of her husband, lover and some of her friends and customers were exhumed.

When digitalis was found in all the bodies, Becker was arrested and charged with murder. Found guilty, she was jailed for life

Peter Kurten

Born on May 26, 1883, the third of 13 children in Cologne-Mulheim in Germany, Peter Kurten had an incestuous relationship with one of his sisters.

Kurten’s taste for sadism was awakened by the local dog catcher who taught the boy to masturbate the dogs and allowed him to watch while the dog catcher tortured them.

In 1892, two friends of Kurten’s drowned in the Rhine and it is likely that he was responsible for at least one, if not both, of the deaths.

When he was 13, Kurten began practising bestiality and discovered he got pleasure from stabbing a sheep at the same time he was having sex with it.

He was jailed for the first time when he as 15 – having been convicted of theft – the first of 17 sentences covering 27 years.

In November 1899 Kurten claimed he committed his first murder, strangling a girl during sex, but no body was ever found. He spent most of the period between 1900 and 1904 behind bars.

In 1905, having deserted from the army, he was jailed for seven years for theft. Released in 1912, he was convicted of a shooting in a restaurant and jailed again.

On May 25, 1913 in Wolfsrasse, Cologne, he murdered and sexually assaulted 13-year-old Christine Klein. Later that year, he was jailed for an unrelated offence

In 1921, he was released and met a woman who had shot a man who jilted her. This was the only human for whom Kurten felt normal affection. Even so, she did not agree to marry him until he threatened to murder her.

In 1925, they moved to Dusseldorf where Kurten began to reign of terror that led to him being dubbed the “Monster of Dusseldorf” attacking four women and starting 17 fires.

In 1929 his reign began in earnest assaulting men, women and young girls. In the autumn and winter of that year Kurten attacked and raped ten women and girls

On May 14, 1930 he “rescued” an unemployed maid, Maria Budlick, 21, from the advances of another man at Dusseldorf station and took her home where he fed her.

He then told her he was taking her to a hostel but as soon as they were alone he tried to have sex with her and strangle her. Asking her if she remembered where he lived, Maria said no, so Kurten let her go.

Reluctantly, she later led police to Kurten’s home. Realizing he faced arrest, he confessed to his wife and on May 24, she went to the police. The reign of terror was over.

Peter Kurten’s trial began on April 31, 1931 and a psychiatrist described Kurten as “the king of sexual perverts”. THe trial ended on April 23 and the jury took 90 minutes to find him guilty on nine murders.

He was beheaded at 6am on July 2, 1931. He is reported to have said:

I hope I hear my own blood gurgle

as he was led to te guillotine

They are reffered as ‘Serial Killer’

Public, criminalists and authorities might have referred Jack the Ripper as one of the infamous serial killer and among the earliest stated by history.

But the terminology only being discovered mid of 20^th century and yet many people tried to claim it.

Serial Killer Investigations by Colin Wilson mentioned the terminology was discovered in 1977 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Special Agent Robert Ressler.

It is learnt that Ressler was the first person used the term after a visit to Bramshill Police Academy, near London, where someone referred to a ‘serial burglar.’

However, Michael Newton in the The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers shows there are possibilities that the terms were discovered earlier by Criminologist James Reinhardt.

Reinhardt was said to be the person to take the first major step toward disentangling serial murder from other types of multicide in 1957 when he coined the phrase “chain killers” in his book Sex Perversions and Sex Crimes.

Simply stated, Reinhardt’s chain killers were those who left a “chain” of victims behind them, slaughtered over time, and he went on to provide more examples five years later in The Psychology of Strange Killers (1962).

Newton explained further in the encyclopaedia that the term “serial murder” itself surfaced in 1961, according to author Harold Schechter and Jesse Sheidlower, editor of the Oxford English Dictionary.

The quote, attributed to German critic Siegfried Kracauer in Merriam-Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (1961) reads:

“[He] denies that he is the pursued serial murderer.”

And yet before the Ressler claimed the term, forensic psychiatrist Donald Lunde mentioned “serial mass murder” in Murder and Madness (1976).

The word used in the term might be different – Reinhardt used chain instead of serial and others used murder and mass murder, not killers. But the meaning is same and it referred to the same classification.

So, who discovered it first?

Whatever the answer, from the moment the term being used people start to open old case files to refer it. British author, John Brophy was among the first applied the label to Jack The Ripper and others in his book The Meaning of Murder (1966).