JACK THE RIPPER CRIMES

Hokitika Guardian, 10 January 1931, Page 2

JACK THE RIPPER CRIMES

ACCUSED EXAMINED

DECLARED TO BE SANE BY

DOCTORS

[United Press Association.—By Electrio Telegraph.—Copyright.]

BERLIN, January 8. ; Doctors, after a prolonged investigation into the mental condition or Peter Kuerton, who is accused of the - Dusseldorf - “Jack- the Ripper ’ crimes, decided that lie is responsible for bis actions and the prosecution is preparing for bis trial. Kuerton’s confessions, to which he returned alter attempting to withdraw them, are regarded as making his conviction certain.

FIENDISH MURDERS

CASES IN DUSSELDORF

More than a score of fiendish murders of girls and women, and vicious assaults created a state of panic in the city of Dusseldorf towards the end of 1929. A number of arrests was made at the time, but nothing was proved, and the, shrewdest brains of Germany’9 police . were baffled. Peter 5 Kuerten, aged forty-seven, employed in ft local tool factory, was arrested in May Inst, and it was stated that ho had confessed to ten murders and ten assaults on women. His statements fitted in with the known facts, and he was identified by girls he was supposed to have attacked, who talked with him, The police announced that, apart from the confession, they had definitely connected Kuerten with six murders or attempts. Kuerten is said to have a bestial character. He told a newspaper correspondent that “t !, e sooner they finish me the better,” and declared that if he had not bren arrested he would have committed' a new murder shortly, as he was already feeling the blood lust urging up, and had “to take another life or bust.” When aged only sixteen he strangled a girl in a wood. Eighteen months later lie strangled a nine-year-old-boy.

During the period over which the crimes extended he chatted over the cases with his fellow-workers, and once declared that the murderer should not only be beheaded, but also torn into small pieces. Those in the factory considered Kuerten peculiar, as lie was always engossed in the subject of women, especially girls in their ’teens. As a result of Kuerten’s confession his wife is suffering from a mental breakdown.

In spite of the arrest of Kuerten. Dusseldorf again got in a state of nnnie owing to the discovery, on the day after the arrest, of the strangled body of a twelve-year-old. girl on the doorstep of n- house In the centre of the city. The police attempted to allay the panic with the statement that the child was accidentally strangled, but a doctor stated that manual stramrulation mar Vs were on the neck. The ponulnee refused to he calmed, and declared that this was the real vampire’s retort to Kuerten’s boast that- he was a fiend.