Vampire of Dusseldorf

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1040, 2 August 1930, Page 18

Vampire of Dusseldorf

Arrest of Man

Who Terrified

All Germany

Multi-Mu rde re r

Identified By

Frightened Girl

BULL, confession of the ghastly series of murders which horrified the world and spread stark panic through the city

where they ’ were committed has been made by tbe man who terrified citizens referred to in whispers as the “Vampire of Dusseldorf.” Responsible witbiu a short time for the murder of ten women and murderous assaults ou 20 more, the Vampire set the most skilful detectives at defiance. With amazing audacity he tos.4ed them clues and dared them to ferret him out. And then —a girl of 22 beat tbe police at their own game and gave them the. information that led to the multi-murderer’s arrest. The Vampire, over-confident, had made his first error —an error that will probably cost him his life. Calmly awaiting his trial, the human tiger daily describes to the police how he committed the crimes .hat baffled them for so long, and confesses that he was actuated by an overpowering lust for blood, while outside the prison walls seethes an angry mob, thirsting to lynch the slayer of their wives and daughters. Resembling in their gruesome nature the “Jack the Ripper” crimes that once struck terror into the heart or East London, the blood-curdling activities of a fiendish murderer terrorised the 350,000 inhabitants of the German city of Dusseldorf for over a year. Now the slayer stands revealed as Peter Kuertin, 47, an out-of-work ma,son, who lived in a tenement in the centre of the city, and was regarded by his neighbours as a respectable citizen. Never for a moment did they suspect that Kuertin was the Vampire who made it death for women or girls to venture out alone after night had fallen.

Almost as amazing as his crimes were the incidents that led up to his arrest. His ghoulish murders had com pletely baffled the German detectives Tliay had clues in plenty—deliberately left by the murderer, who appeared to delight In making fools of the police. Suspect after suspect was arrested and released, and it looked as if the Vampire was to remain at largo satisfying, in sensational fashion, his lust for blood, when a servant girl’s letter, addressed to a person who could not be found, fell into the hands of the police and revealed the murderer.

Slim, fair and blue-eyed, this 22-year-old girl tells a dramatic story of her terrible encounter with the “Terror” in the depths of a forest on the border of the town. Sho had met a young man who promised to take her to a home for girls, where she could spend the night. Instead, however, ho took her into a park. An elderly man came along and re? cued her from the youth, declaring that he would take her to a girls’ home and suggesting that first she should go to his house for supper. Never sus pecting that he was the dread Vam pire, she accepted. After supper he led her again to the wood, and then his manner swiftly changed, and in tones charged with blood-chilling menace he said:— m “Nobody can see you. Nobody can hear you. What would you do if I tried to kill you?” Desperately the horr’fled girl fell on her knees and Implored the man to let her livo. “Could you find your way to my house?” he asked. “No,” replied the girl, and the answer saved her life, for the Vampire merely threw her to the ground and disappeared from her view among the trees. At the girl’s home nobody believed her tale, which only came to the ears

of the police when a letter to a girt friend describing her experience was wrongly addressed and fell into Uieir hands. “They came to see me,” she explained, “and I told them I could show them where the man lived. And then I could not. The police and I were walking about for two hour?. Once, as I afterward discovered, wo were in the right house, but not on the right floor. So the police gave up the search. I went on, and at last I was able to give the authorities the man’s exact name and addre.ss.” Like all the scenes in this amazing drama, tense excitement marked the murderer’s arrest. A large force of armed police surrounded the tenement where he lived, and the rumour spread like wildfire that at last the police had tracked down the terror. Angry mobs assembled in the street, and as they led their captive for'.’u the police had the utmost difficulty in preventing h'm from being lynched Once at tile police station he was co? fronted with Fraulein Gertrude Schulte, a 25-year-old servant. Often before she has been confronted with prisoners suspected of the crimes, bib always she has failed to identify any of them. This time it was different Hardly had she smilingly entered th i room when she abruptly stopped, aud her face paled. “Oh, my God!’’ she gasped. “That is he.” It was all she managed to say, for the next moment she fainted. It waS after this that Kuerten said: “Now I will admit everything. There is no point in denying any more.” Kuerten then, with the utmost coolness, recounted to the police how he had committed the various crimes. He stated that even his wife did not know that he was the Vampire until a short time ago. When he confessed to her she became insane and is now iu a lunatic asylum. Kuerten declared to tbe police that if he had not been arrested he would undoubtedly have committed a new murder in a few days, as he was already feeling the irresistible lust for blood surging up in him. Apa rt from tile Vampire’s own confession, the police have now established his responsibility for six,murders and four attempted murders. Kuerten is also alleged to have confessed that it was he who killed a nine-year-old boy in 192 G while trying to break into a public-house near Essen. Ho cut the throat of the boy in order that he might not give the alarm, and an uncle of the boy, an American citizefl, was at the time accused of the murder, but after being taken into custody he was released. There is a girl, too, whom Kuerten declares that he strangled in a forest near Cologne 30 years ago, when no one suspected him of the crime. Asked how he could have committed such crimes, he replied: “Yes. How does one come to do such things? I wanted to avenge myself. I spent so many years in prisou that I wanted to avenge myself on humanity.” He was asked whether he did not feel remorse after murdering little children. “Herr Commissioner,” he answered, “X afterward far more quietly than you.” Kuerten was interviewed Jast November by the police when they were searching for the Vampire after he had been denounced by a suspicious resident of the house in which he lived. Kuerten, however, managed io deceive the detectives and to prevent them from searching his apartment, where a complete wardrobe of clothing such as that worn by the Vampire has been found.

The prisou where Kuerten lies his trial is surrounded -ill day by a moh, that seethes with anger and breaks out every now and again with the shout, “Death to the murderer!”