Speaker 1: Before the world knew his name, Frank Gust sat at
Speaker 1: his mother's kitchen table and quietly admitted that he killed
Speaker 1: a woman, a confession she and no one else believed
Speaker 1: until the truth tore through Western Germany. Behind that facade
Speaker 1: of a quiet family man was a sadistic murderer who
Speaker 1: hunted women, desecrated their bodies in the most horrific ways,
Speaker 1: and reveled in death. Eventually he would be caught, but
Speaker 1: his warnings about killing again, if ever released, rang loud
Speaker 1: across the country, and it sent chills down everyone's spines
Speaker 1: when they learned he may be released as early as
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six. This story forces a chilling question what
Speaker 1: happens when a self proclaimed killer insists he should never
Speaker 1: walk free. This is the story of Frank Gust, aka
Speaker 1: the Rhinerue Ripper.
Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked.
Speaker 1: And Grim, a true crime podcasting. The following material intend
Speaker 1: more Matural audience listener discretion. It's beginning to look a
Speaker 1: lot like Christmas?
Speaker 2: Is it now?
Speaker 1: It's snowed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have snow now officially it's stay.
Speaker 1: And I think I think so. We have snow it's December,
Speaker 1: it's right around the corner and then the New year everything.
Speaker 2: So yeah, we're decorating. Actually tonight finally we.
Speaker 1: Need to get rum and eggnog though, I'll get some. Yeah, okay, good,
Speaker 1: I'm glad we have the rum.
Speaker 2: We have the rum.
Speaker 1: We have one of the ingredients. We just need the
Speaker 1: other one. So and that also, it's good. I've got
Speaker 1: a question, maybe we should put a poll out there
Speaker 1: or something sometime. What are people's opinion on eggnog, because
Speaker 1: I know that's a very big divide on some people
Speaker 1: with the holidays. Is some love eggnog and others hate it.
Speaker 1: I don't know if there's anyone who's like really in between.
Speaker 1: It's just two sides to the coin.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and I recently started drinking it again because
Speaker 2: I didn't drink it forever for years, remember mm hmm.
Speaker 1: And then I added rum to it, and you're like, okay,
Speaker 1: I can get down with this.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's because I got I was like,
Speaker 2: I got sick one time and I had drank eggnog
Speaker 2: or something. You know how that is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it just ruins the tap or something it does.
Speaker 2: But now I'm all for eggnog.
Speaker 1: All for eggnog. There's another thing too that some people
Speaker 1: like really seem to love and other people are not
Speaker 1: so so much for it. And that's paid And we
Speaker 1: know we have some amazing people who definitely love Patreon,
Speaker 1: such as Xander Reagan, Lindsey Pearson, Tara Brown, Jason Rubio,
Speaker 1: and Tina Stansbury who all signed up to our Patreon
Speaker 1: and are amazing people supporting the show right on. Did
Speaker 1: you like that segue?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was quite a segue.
Speaker 1: Did you see it coming?
Speaker 2: No? I did, yes at all.
Speaker 1: I was aiming for you to not see it coming.
Speaker 2: So this intro gave me the chills?
Speaker 1: Did it?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Why is that? I don't What about it gave you
Speaker 1: the chills? Is there something that stood out?
Speaker 2: Uh? Yeah, for someone themselves to literally think that they
Speaker 2: should not be leaving prison but they still may. Oh
Speaker 2: that is I don't know, that's not okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot about that in this story. It
Speaker 1: is a heavy, heavy aspect to it, and if you're ready,
Speaker 1: maybe we should just dive right into it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess so. I mean them themselves is saying
Speaker 2: they're not rehabilitated. So it's like Okay, Yeah, let's just
Speaker 2: get into it, because I'm already on the edge of
Speaker 2: my seat here.
Speaker 1: Well, I will tell you there's more to it than
Speaker 1: him just saying he's not rehabilitated. Okay, I'll put it
Speaker 1: that way. It's even darker than that.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: On a quiet evening in nineteen ninety nine, long before
Speaker 1: most people had ever heard his name, Frank Gust sat
Speaker 1: across from his mother, Dagmar, at her kitchen table while
Speaker 1: she laid out a spread of tarot cards. It was
Speaker 1: a ritual that she often turned to, and it was
Speaker 1: nothing mystical or dramatic per se, nothing that plays out
Speaker 1: in the grand scheme of this story. It was just
Speaker 1: something that she did, something that gave her comfort after
Speaker 1: a hard day. Now, the house was dim and calm,
Speaker 1: the kind of place where you know heavy truths should
Speaker 1: have echoed, should have actually hit home, but somehow the
Speaker 1: truth today never did. She was flipping over cards, and
Speaker 1: with one she paused. The death card had flipped over
Speaker 1: and was staring up at her. She laughed it off
Speaker 1: at first, the way people do when you know something
Speaker 1: feels a little heavy to acknowledge, and she began to
Speaker 1: reshuffle the deck and now here. I have read some
Speaker 1: conflicting reports where potentially she shuffled, redealt the deck again
Speaker 1: and the death card came up a second time, but
Speaker 1: I was unable to confirm it. But there are reports
Speaker 1: that that possibly played out that way regardless, she was
Speaker 1: shuffling the deck, and across from her her son Frank
Speaker 1: watched quietly, and then in a cold voice, he just
Speaker 1: simply said, I killed a woman. He said it so casually,
Speaker 1: just a fact that he just placed on the table,
Speaker 1: as if her mother was placing his mother, sorry, was
Speaker 1: placing cards on the table. No different now his mother,
Speaker 1: Dagmar blinked. She was confused. She knew her son was
Speaker 1: a little different. She waited for the punchline, like it
Speaker 1: was a joke, but there wasn't one, not even a smile,
Speaker 1: as if he were waiting for a reaction. He just
Speaker 1: simply he sat there. She shook her head and waved
Speaker 1: her hand, told him, you're always telling such stories. But Frank, well,
Speaker 1: he didn't argue. He just nodded slightly, kind of agreeing,
Speaker 1: and stood up from the table and carried that truth
Speaker 1: back into whatever private world he lived in. Whoa, And
Speaker 1: that was it. What his mother didn't realize, what no
Speaker 1: one in his family realized or understood at the time,
Speaker 1: was that Frank wasn't making anything up. This wasn't a joke,
Speaker 1: he wasn't confused, he wasn't being dramatic, And by the
Speaker 1: time he spoke those words, he had in fact already killed.
Speaker 1: He had been living a double life for years, in fact,
Speaker 1: slipping through shadows no one even thought to look into.
Speaker 1: In the coming months, the press would give him the
Speaker 1: nickname the Ryan were a Ripper, a nod to Jack
Speaker 1: the Ripper, not because he copied the crimes, but because
Speaker 1: he seemed to take satisfaction in making sure his victims
Speaker 1: were found posed in ways that jolted the entire community.
Speaker 1: And decades later, long after he would eventually confess, long
Speaker 1: after investigators would finally piece together the truth, Germany would
Speaker 1: set a date on the calendar twenty twenty six, the
Speaker 1: year that he might walk out of prison. But to
Speaker 1: understand how someone becomes this kind of monster, we need
Speaker 1: to go back, We need to start at the beginning.
Speaker 1: Frank Gust entered the world in May of nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 1: May twenty fourth, in fact, in Oberhausen, Germany, it was
Speaker 1: an industrial region where life often felt heavier than the
Speaker 1: steel it produced. From the very first hours of his life,
Speaker 1: the foundation was already cracked. His father was a chronic
Speaker 1: alcoholic who didn't bother showing up for the hospital where
Speaker 1: he was birthed until three days later.
Speaker 2: Holy heck.
Speaker 1: Yeah, most parents, you know what, they Russian with excitement,
Speaker 1: but while instead his dad spent those days drinking at
Speaker 1: lawe bars.
Speaker 2: Well, and so then his mom also just had to
Speaker 2: deliver this baby all alone.
Speaker 1: Correct, So she's sitting there in hospital and well, he's
Speaker 1: wasting what little money they had, and she's alone. And yeah,
Speaker 1: that was that. That's terrible. Within three months of this happening,
Speaker 1: Frank's mother, Dagmar, filed for divorce, and she suddenly found
Speaker 1: herself raising two young boys alone, juggling poverty, exhaustion, and
Speaker 1: emotional fallout from you know what, a husband simply drifting
Speaker 1: out of their lives. She worked constantly to keep them afloat,
Speaker 1: leaving long stretches of time where Frank was left in
Speaker 1: the care of others, or at times even simply being
Speaker 1: left alone. For a brief period. His grandmother stepped in, though,
Speaker 1: offering some stability and affection as well, you know, things
Speaker 1: that were missing at home. But when her health declined,
Speaker 1: Dagmar had no choice but to place Frank in a
Speaker 1: full time nursery. The facility kept him fed, clothed, and supervised,
Speaker 1: yet it lacked something essential warmth. The caretakers for context,
Speaker 1: They weren't exactly cruel, but they were distant. There wasn't
Speaker 1: hugging there. There wasn't soothing, something like something a child
Speaker 1: was already deprived of in this situation. Something that Frank
Speaker 1: was missing was that constant love. And now the cold
Speaker 1: atmosphere left a mark that would never truly fade. By
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three, Dagmar managed to pull together enough savings
Speaker 1: to move her small family into a modest but comfortable home.
Speaker 1: It should have been a fresh start, and for a
Speaker 1: short while it even felt like one. Frank especially loved
Speaker 1: quiet Sunday mornings. He would crawl into bed beside his mother,
Speaker 1: something he would later remember as one of the only
Speaker 1: times he felt safe in school. Frank was small, thin,
Speaker 1: and emotionally fragile, exactly the type of child that bullies
Speaker 1: would seek out. Things continued to deteriorate around him, not
Speaker 1: just at school, though, but at home too. When Frank
Speaker 1: was eight, Dagmar began a relationship with a man, man
Speaker 1: who moved into the house and immediately asserted control. He
Speaker 1: believed emotions were weakness and discipline was the cure for everything.
Speaker 1: Frank Sunday mornings with his mother soon vanished. Overnight. His
Speaker 1: grandmother moved out, and his older brother eventually left as well,
Speaker 1: and the house grew quieter, colder, and more oppressive. Under
Speaker 1: his new stepfather's strict rule, Frank's childhood anxieties intensified. He
Speaker 1: began wetting the bed, withdrawing emotionally and avoiding confrontation because
Speaker 1: he knew punishment waited around every single corner. The home
Speaker 1: that should have felt safe while it became a place
Speaker 1: where he tiptoed through his own life. Outside those walls,
Speaker 1: something even darker took hold. While escaping his home to
Speaker 1: spend time with his grandmother on the street and is
Speaker 1: where he often hung out, Frank met an older neighbor
Speaker 1: who seemed friendly at first, a sympathetic ear during a
Speaker 1: time when he desperately needed someone. However, the man wasn't
Speaker 1: exactly offering kindness. He had something else going on. See
Speaker 1: he was an opportunist, and Frank became a victim. The
Speaker 1: neighbor's friendliness quickly turned into grooming, and within weeks he
Speaker 1: began sexually abusing Frank, taking advantage of a lonely and
Speaker 1: emotionally neglected child who didn't understand what was happening. Now,
Speaker 1: that man eventually brought in other adults into the home too,
Speaker 1: and the abuse became something coordinated and repeated, with many
Speaker 1: of these individuals taking advantage of a child, a circle
Speaker 1: of predators, exploiting a boy who had no protection and
Speaker 1: no one to confide in.
Speaker 2: So he's basically just the poster child of I'm going
Speaker 2: to be a serial killer when I.
Speaker 1: Grow up, really basically. And what's something that's really common
Speaker 1: in children who grew up to become serial killers.
Speaker 2: Abuse?
Speaker 1: Well, yes, yes, but there's usually a telltale sign when
Speaker 1: the child does something, a specific telltale sign hurts an animal.
Speaker 1: There you go.
Speaker 2: Okay. I was like, please don't be that.
Speaker 1: The last piece of the puzzle is exactly that, and yeah,
Speaker 1: we're about to get to that.
Speaker 2: No, okay, well right now it's so terrible, Like I'm
Speaker 2: just sitting here feeling bad for him, and I hate
Speaker 2: that because he's going to go on to do horrendous things. Yes,
Speaker 2: and that feeling bad for him will probably go away.
Speaker 2: But no one really does deserve to grow up this
Speaker 2: way either.
Speaker 1: No, I agree, But there is something different about this
Speaker 1: case though. With Frank, he went through some abuse, don't
Speaker 1: get me wrong, and it's horrific shit that he went through,
Speaker 1: something no one, no child, should have to ever endure.
Speaker 1: But still there seems to be a strange disconnect from
Speaker 1: what he commits as an adult to what he went through.
Speaker 1: I personally don't see a connection between the two. It's
Speaker 1: almost like, yeah, he went through that stuff, but it
Speaker 1: did not make him who he was. It's almost like
Speaker 1: he was that already. Okay, And with this which can
Speaker 1: be for sure, oh definitely. But with this animal situation
Speaker 1: we're about to discuss here, is it kind of I
Speaker 1: wrote it and I'll explain it. It really kind of
Speaker 1: starts to show that that flip side of the coin.
Speaker 1: You'll get it when I talk about it.
Speaker 2: Don't worry, Okay, is it a dog?
Speaker 1: Don't worry.
Speaker 2: We're all oh, okay.
Speaker 1: Now, all these events, the abuse, the sexual abuse, particularly,
Speaker 1: they were all buried deep inside Frank for years never
Speaker 1: spoken aloud, but they were affecting and potentially shaping his
Speaker 1: developing mind. Then came the moment that psychologist would later
Speaker 1: describe as his turning point, and this is a very
Speaker 1: important point in his story. I round eight or nine
Speaker 1: years old, Frank bought a guinea pig with his pocket money.
Speaker 1: It was small, harmless, and entirely his. But when he
Speaker 1: brought it home, his father refused to let it stay.
Speaker 1: Frank tried to, you know, take it to his grandmother's,
Speaker 1: another place that he would go to, but she too
Speaker 1: dismissed it basically as being a filthy rodent and told
Speaker 1: him to get rid of it now. Instead of returning
Speaker 1: it or trying to hide it, Frank took the guinea
Speaker 1: pig outside. He pinned it down, and he smashed it
Speaker 1: with a large stone, killing it instead. Now, what happened
Speaker 1: afterwards revealed the first undeniable sign of what he was becoming,
Speaker 1: or potentially what he already was. Instead of being broken,
Speaker 1: instead of being scared and torn over this and upset,
Speaker 1: he reached into this smashed dead animal's warm body and
Speaker 1: felt a rush, the sensation of the heat, the texture,
Speaker 1: the act itself. It did something to him. He didn't recoil,
Speaker 1: he didn't panic, He studied and reveled in the situation.
Speaker 1: Later he admitted that it was the moment he realized
Speaker 1: he wanted more, a lot more.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's really fucking alarming.
Speaker 1: And for that reason alone, I have trouble connecting his
Speaker 1: abuse as a child to this because he didn't cry
Speaker 1: or was upset over the death of his guinea pig.
Speaker 1: He loved it. That's something that an eight or nine
Speaker 1: year old you don't.
Speaker 2: You can't instill that well at getting a rush from
Speaker 2: feeling the inside of this thing's warm body. That is
Speaker 2: too much.
Speaker 1: Yes, the only way you can instill that in a
Speaker 1: person is if you surround them with that as soon
Speaker 1: as their birth. And he wasn't. He was surrounded with
Speaker 1: other violence, yes, yeah, but certainly not blood, the textures,
Speaker 1: the visceral gore, and that's what he.
Speaker 2: Loved, I guess. But it was also his upbringing that
Speaker 2: led him to that moment, right, I mean if he didn't,
Speaker 2: if he was allowed to keep this guinea pig, he
Speaker 2: would never have, you know, smashed its head open and
Speaker 2: had the opportunity, I guess, to feel inside and get
Speaker 2: this rush.
Speaker 1: You don't know that for sure.
Speaker 2: Well I'm going to I feel like that might be
Speaker 2: the case, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know anyways. By the time Frank reached his
Speaker 1: early teens, whatever innocence he once had was shrinking fast.
Speaker 1: The world had taught him that vulnerability was dangerous, that
Speaker 1: affection was inconsistent, and that pain was predictable. But something
Speaker 1: else had taken route to a curiosity that had already
Speaker 1: crossed one boundary with the guinea pig, and now it
Speaker 1: was looking for a new place to grow. At around
Speaker 1: thirteen years old is when Frank discovered the local morgue.
Speaker 1: The morgue became a place where no one judged him,
Speaker 1: no one hit him, and no one left him. The
Speaker 1: dead couldn't hurt him, and they couldn't stop him either.
Speaker 1: He even began breaking in at night, slipping through windows
Speaker 1: or doors he'd left prompt open during staff shifts. Sometimes
Speaker 1: the bodies were somewhat fresh, sometimes not. It didn't matter
Speaker 1: to him. What mattered was the ritual, the privacy, the stillness,
Speaker 1: and the complete lack of resistance. He didn't just touch
Speaker 1: the bodies, he altered them. One night, he took a
Speaker 1: corpse apart, cutting it, repositioning it, and placing it in
Speaker 1: a way that would horrify the next person to walk
Speaker 1: into the morgue. He decapitated the body, laid the head
Speaker 1: by the entrance, and arranged the torso on a bench
Speaker 1: as if waiting to be discovered. And the next morning
Speaker 1: a grave digger opened the door and nearly collapsed from
Speaker 1: the shock of the site he found.
Speaker 2: No kidding, You have to be shitting me that he
Speaker 2: just did this. Yes, he did, in the middle of
Speaker 2: the night. Yeah, to some poor deceased body.
Speaker 1: And he reveled in doing this too. It was also
Speaker 1: like he liked the idea of someone finding his work.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just dissecting the remains. He liked the thought
Speaker 1: of like the terror going through another person's mind because
Speaker 1: of something he had created. Okay, so outside the morgue,
Speaker 1: though his life had become a strange mix of isolation
Speaker 1: and secret gratification, he spent long afternoons wandering cemeteries too,
Speaker 1: just that calming silence was everything, and when the weather
Speaker 1: was mild enough, he would even sleep there, curled up
Speaker 1: between graves, surrounded by the one environment he felt something
Speaker 1: close to peace. So it's clear that his abuse and
Speaker 1: upbringing certainly pushed him towards this, this life of you know,
Speaker 1: the graves, the morgues, the bodies, the silence, that sort
Speaker 1: of situation. But the connection I have yet to see
Speaker 1: is where he gets that and then enjoys visceral body massacres. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the enjoyment of terrorizing other people.
Speaker 2: This is pretty messed up. But I can understand the
Speaker 2: whole cemetery thing and thinking, you know, it's like a
Speaker 2: place of peace and quiet in a sense for sure.
Speaker 2: So there's certain bits in there, especially at home where
Speaker 2: he has to walk on eggshells and stuff. He's allowed
Speaker 2: to just be.
Speaker 1: There, I agree, But where it jumps from that to
Speaker 1: the horrors because graveyards they're a place of peace, they
Speaker 1: really are. Yes, there's dead there, but they're in peace.
Speaker 1: They're laying, they're resting. It's a place of love and peace.
Speaker 1: And he takes that and he turns it into this
Speaker 1: obsession with blood, the obsession with instilling fear in other people.
Speaker 1: That's the connection that I think he was born with
Speaker 1: that love and lust for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it definitely it goes way too far next level.
Speaker 1: So now back in town, he scavenged animal carcasses too,
Speaker 1: and leftovers from butchers or veterinarians, and he'd take them
Speaker 1: home in bags. In private, he relived the same sensations
Speaker 1: that started with that guinea pig, the warmth, texture, and
Speaker 1: the control. But soon even those dark actions would morph again.
Speaker 1: He didn't just want to handle organs. He wanted the
Speaker 1: thrill of a body still holding its pure warmth, of
Speaker 1: a heart that had only recently stopped beating, or perhaps
Speaker 1: was even still beating.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, this is getting scary.
Speaker 1: He began imagining what it would feel like to do
Speaker 1: everything he'd done only with a fresh body, a fresh
Speaker 1: human body, one that hadn't grown cold. Now, however, he
Speaker 1: did carry a strange fear of horses, and that is
Speaker 1: important for this. But with his new fascination, that would
Speaker 1: turn around, and while it quickly became a curiosity. Instead,
Speaker 1: he imagined what it would feel like to cut into
Speaker 1: a body that size, one that could potentially mimic the
Speaker 1: warmth and even the weight of a human torso. So,
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety two, under the guise of taking up hunting,
Speaker 1: Frank applied for a license. It wasn't dear or a
Speaker 1: small game he was interested in, though the moment the
Speaker 1: license was approved, he purchased a firearm, and any illusion
Speaker 1: of hunting as a hobby vanished. One afternoon, deep and
Speaker 1: wooded area, far from anyone who might intervene, Frank found
Speaker 1: exactly what he was waiting for. A lone horse grazing quietly.
Speaker 1: He pulled up his rifle and pulled the trigger, shooting once,
Speaker 1: watching the horse collapse to the ground, and approaching the
Speaker 1: trembling body with calm, he knelt beside the horse, cut
Speaker 1: it open, and reached deep inside the still warm cavity.
Speaker 1: Later he described the experience as calming and almost peaceful,
Speaker 1: as though the warmth around him soothed something violent inside
Speaker 1: his chest. It was another moment that changed him, and
Speaker 1: now he'd crossed that line with a large animal, the
Speaker 1: barrier between him and his ultimate fantasy, well, at this
Speaker 1: point it had all but vanished.
Speaker 2: That is so freak and disturbing. Oh my goodness, I
Speaker 2: can't I can't even like handle listening to that, to
Speaker 2: be honest. Fair enough, shit, was this a wild horse
Speaker 2: or like someone's horse.
Speaker 1: I'm not actually too certain of that. I don't know,
Speaker 1: Oh man, I'm assuming it was probably not a wild horse.
Speaker 1: I don't know if Germany has wild horses, but I'm
Speaker 1: assuming it was a domesticated horse.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, because for some reason, I'm just getting like
Speaker 2: such vivid visuals of this, which I just hate, and
Speaker 2: that should not be something that's calming or soothing.
Speaker 1: No it's not. And I'm glad that you're getting those
Speaker 1: visuals because that's what I'm trying to pay.
Speaker 2: Oh well, thank you for that.
Speaker 1: You're welcome for that. So Frank began carrying his pistol
Speaker 1: that he had everywhere with him. He began driving back
Speaker 1: roads at night for no reason other than to see
Speaker 1: who might be walking alone. If he saw someone standing
Speaker 1: on the side of the highway, you know what, he
Speaker 1: might slow down. And if he spotted a woman alone,
Speaker 1: he might watch her. The truth was, harming animals had
Speaker 1: become too easy, it was too predictable, and it wasn't enough,
Speaker 1: not anymore, and by nineteen ninety four, the distance between
Speaker 1: fantasy and reality had narrowed to a single choice. He
Speaker 1: didn't exactly know when it was going to happen or
Speaker 1: who it was going to be, but he knew the
Speaker 1: opportunity would eventually walk right into his path and one
Speaker 1: rainy day it did. That night, Catherine told Umps and
Speaker 1: Cross Paths with Frank gust and it didn't begin like
Speaker 1: the opening scene of a horror story. It was ordinary,
Speaker 1: damp and uneventful, an evening where people hurry home through
Speaker 1: rain without giving anyone around them much thought. Catherine was
Speaker 1: twenty eight, a South African woman living in the Netherlands
Speaker 1: and traveling through Europe. She was smart, independent, and used
Speaker 1: to navigating unfamiliar places on her own. On a particular
Speaker 1: evening in nineteen ninety four, when she found herself stranded
Speaker 1: near a quiet stretch of rural road in Germany, she
Speaker 1: was hoping someone would give her a lift back towards
Speaker 1: town where she was staying, and when Frank pulled his
Speaker 1: car over, well, he didn't look dangerous. He looked like
Speaker 1: any other passing driver willing to help a traveler stuck
Speaker 1: in bad weather. Catherine climbed in his car, grateful for
Speaker 1: the ride, and the two of them made small talk
Speaker 1: while the wipers dragged across the windshield. From the outside,
Speaker 1: it could have been any casual interaction from strangers, but
Speaker 1: inside Frank's mind, the moment felt entirely different. Everything he'd
Speaker 1: imagined was finally within reach, and the rain, well, it
Speaker 1: made it even easier. No witnesses or traffic, and no
Speaker 1: one to question why a stranger had pulled over. He
Speaker 1: drove her off the main route, turning down a smaller
Speaker 1: lane that cut through a wooded area. Now Catherine assumed
Speaker 1: he just knew a short cut or was avoiding a
Speaker 1: flooded road, and that's why he was driving this way.
Speaker 1: She didn't question it. At some point, Frank pulled the
Speaker 1: car over on a quiet stretch of forest road and
Speaker 1: stepped out for an unknown reason. Then he claimed he
Speaker 1: dropped his keys outside and he was looking for them.
Speaker 1: Catherine joined him to help, bending towards the ground in search,
Speaker 1: and in that moment, when she was down into the
Speaker 1: dirt looking around for those keys, he drew his pistol
Speaker 1: and shot her from behind.
Speaker 2: That was too easy for him.
Speaker 1: Hey, yep, one moment she's just simply helping look for keys,
Speaker 1: and the next she's gone.
Speaker 2: That's fricking and sad, so to Frank.
Speaker 1: The murder itself wasn't the climax of this situation, though.
Speaker 1: This was just the beginning of it all. He dragged
Speaker 1: her deeper into the forest where the trees hid everything
Speaker 1: he was about to do. He removed her clothing, sexually
Speaker 1: violated her corpse. Then, moving with a calmness, he took
Speaker 1: out his knife and opened her abdomen, sinking his hands
Speaker 1: into the warmth. He'd imagined since childhood, the fantasies he
Speaker 1: had practiced on animals and more corpses. It was all
Speaker 1: now real, and the thrill was everything he dreamed of.
Speaker 1: When he finished, he began staging her body. He severed
Speaker 1: her head and hands, scattering them in different parts of
Speaker 1: the woods. It wasn't just to hide her identity, though,
Speaker 1: as it is in many other cases. Frank wanted whoever
Speaker 1: it was who was going to find her to feel shaken, confused, horror,
Speaker 1: all of it. And then he placed her torso where
Speaker 1: it would be noticed sooner rather than later, letting nature
Speaker 1: and chance do the rest, and it wouldn't take long
Speaker 1: for her to be found. In fact, Catherine's remains were
Speaker 1: discovered the very next day.
Speaker 2: Goodness, gracious, this guy is about as messed up as
Speaker 2: you get.
Speaker 1: Exactly why I'm trying to say. I don't think you
Speaker 1: can teach or instill this into a person. I think
Speaker 1: this was already in him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just sitting here wide. I'd like just shocked.
Speaker 2: I don't feel like a case has shocked me to
Speaker 2: this extent for a while, because this is really really
Speaker 2: fucked up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is so the state in which she'd been
Speaker 1: left shocked. Everyone police believed at first that whoever did
Speaker 1: this had medical training, and others assumed that there must
Speaker 1: be more than one person involved. The level of violence
Speaker 1: felt unreal, and it was extremely theatrical. Now, in the
Speaker 1: days after Catherine's murder, something strange happened. Frank didn't try
Speaker 1: to hide. He didn't go quiet or act paranoid. If anything,
Speaker 1: he became a little more talkative. The killing had given
Speaker 1: him the sensation he'd been chasing for years, but it
Speaker 1: also left him buzzing with a need to share it,
Speaker 1: almost like he wanted someone to pull the truth out
Speaker 1: of them, like he needed to brag about it.
Speaker 2: It's like it gave him life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So instead of staying silent, he chose the one
Speaker 1: person he believed might listen, his girlfriend. Her name was Asyl,
Speaker 1: and she'd never seen anything violent or vicious from him.
Speaker 1: Frank was withdrawn at times, awkward and brooding, but nothing
Speaker 1: about him suggested he was capable of brutality, nothing like
Speaker 1: what unfolded in the forest. So when he sat down
Speaker 1: one day with her and calmly said that he had
Speaker 1: killed a woman, she laughed it off. How else is
Speaker 1: someone supposed to react when their quiet, strange boyfriend calmly said,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm a murderer.
Speaker 2: Well, to be honest, I'm kind of surprised he even
Speaker 2: has a girlfriend.
Speaker 1: Fair now, she assumed he was just trying to shock her,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe fishing for attention or attempting some sort
Speaker 1: of dark joke. So Frank doubled down, and he tried
Speaker 1: to tell her again, and he even showed her Catherine's
Speaker 1: ID card that he had taken, proof that would have
Speaker 1: settled off alarms for it, like basically anyone for most people.
Speaker 1: But Azel still didn't believe him. The ID must be fake,
Speaker 1: she thought, part of some odd disturbing prank. He's going
Speaker 1: the extra mile to really sell this, And when the
Speaker 1: disbelief well didn't fade, Frank took her to the very
Speaker 1: place that he buried Catherine's severed hands.
Speaker 2: Oh whoa, Okay, he really wants her to believe this.
Speaker 1: He does, He took her out there and began digging
Speaker 1: in the dirt until he resurfaced her remains, or part
Speaker 1: of her remains. Azel froze staring at these severed hands
Speaker 1: coming out of the dirt, but not in fear. The
Speaker 1: site paralyzed her even deeper into denial. She told herself
Speaker 1: the hands couldn't be real. It had to belong to
Speaker 1: a mannequin, or a prop or something. She went home
Speaker 1: shaken and unsure what exactly to believe or even to do,
Speaker 1: and instead of calling the police, she told a few
Speaker 1: friends what Frank had said, and they too shrugged it off.
Speaker 1: Frank was odd, sure, but a serial killer, no, impossible.
Speaker 1: They dismissed him the same way that she did, and
Speaker 1: they did nothing about it.
Speaker 2: Oh, I do not like this because I'm assuming he
Speaker 2: goes on to hurt more people and they literally could
Speaker 2: have stopped this.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Uh wrong, Okay, that is that's a piss off right there.
Speaker 1: So meanwhile, Frank kept pushing outwards, almost as though he
Speaker 1: were begging someone to intervene. He confessed again, not to
Speaker 1: a stranger, but this time to his mother. It happened
Speaker 1: during a casual evening at home when his mother Dagmar
Speaker 1: was eating tarot cards. The death card appeared and Frank
Speaker 1: blurted out that he had killed this woman, a hitchhiker,
Speaker 1: and he framed it as an accident at first, but
Speaker 1: the details spilled out in a way that didn't fit
Speaker 1: any sort of accident. His mother listened, confused and brushed
Speaker 1: it off, just like everyone else did so far. Frank
Speaker 1: was dramatic. Sometimes he told odd stories. Surely he didn't
Speaker 1: mean this literally. Frank had essentially waved a crimson red
Speaker 1: flag of blood in front of other people. He gave
Speaker 1: them details, he showed them evidence, He walked one to
Speaker 1: the actual crime scene and dug up body parts. But
Speaker 1: each time he reached out, people recoiled from the truth
Speaker 1: and chose denial over action. No one filed a report,
Speaker 1: no one asked follow up questions. They simply went back
Speaker 1: to their lives, believing that the real monsters in the
Speaker 1: world were far away from them.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, he did choose people that loved him, right,
Speaker 2: so true, they of course wouldn't want to believe this.
Speaker 1: But if you have severed hands, oh okay, well that
Speaker 1: being from the dirt, I know at that.
Speaker 2: Point, like even if it was you and we've been
Speaker 2: together a long time. I'd be like, you fucked up.
Speaker 2: I'm phone at the police now.
Speaker 1: In the following weeks, Frank slid back into a version
Speaker 1: of everyday life that looked perfectly ordinary from the outside,
Speaker 1: as though he simply stepped over line and then continued walking.
Speaker 1: After separating from Azel, Frank moved into the next phase
Speaker 1: of his life, one that looked somewhat stable. At some
Speaker 1: point he began a new relationship, though her name was
Speaker 1: never released publicly, and the two eventually married. Two neighbors.
Speaker 1: He looked settled, a man with a steady job, a husband,
Speaker 1: someone who blended into the rhythm of the working class
Speaker 1: life without attracting any sort of attention. Nothing about his
Speaker 1: domestic routine hinted at the violence brewing under the surface.
Speaker 1: If he came home withdrawn her irritable, people assumed it
Speaker 1: was work stress. We all go through that. When he
Speaker 1: claimed the basement of his house as his private space,
Speaker 1: no one questioned it either. Behind that closed door, his
Speaker 1: fantasies would continue to evolve. That basement was his private world,
Speaker 1: the only space where the facade dropped. While his wife
Speaker 1: tended to their daughter upstairs, Frank dissected animals behind a
Speaker 1: locked door. He hunted at night, returned home with carcasses,
Speaker 1: and used the quiet hours to peel back the layers
Speaker 1: of fantasies that had been with him since childhood. The
Speaker 1: violence didn't fade after Catherine's murder. In fact, it's no
Speaker 1: surprise to say it only intensified instead. Being a husband
Speaker 1: didn't steadi him. Being a father didn't anchor him. If anything,
Speaker 1: the contrast made the violence sharper and more necessary. By
Speaker 1: the mid nineties, the double life was fully formed. One
Speaker 1: Frank kissed his daughter good night, and the other began
Speaker 1: driving through red light districts after dark. He didn't outwardly
Speaker 1: stalk anyone yet, but he was one and waiting, letting
Speaker 1: his mind fill in the details of the scenario he
Speaker 1: wanted to create, and he soon began spending more time
Speaker 1: near Essen's Central station, a busy hub where people came
Speaker 1: and went without leaving much of a footprint. Frank blended
Speaker 1: in easily.
Speaker 2: There.
Speaker 1: A man waiting in a car raised no suspicions, and
Speaker 1: one evening he spotted a woman Savena. She was thirty
Speaker 1: years old. The sex trade in Germany was legal, but dangerous.
Speaker 1: And women working around the station were used to cars
Speaker 1: pulling up, windows rolling down, and quick negotiations would be
Speaker 1: decided in seconds. When Frank eased his vehicle towards her,
Speaker 1: she stepped closer without hesitation. To her, it was just
Speaker 1: another routine job. She discussed a price, climbed into the
Speaker 1: passenger seat, and the car pulled away. He drove towards
Speaker 1: a quieter industrial zone, far from the bustle of the
Speaker 1: station and the patrol patterns of police. There were no
Speaker 1: witnesses or cameras, darkened side streets, and the low hum
Speaker 1: of passing freight trains. Once he stopped the car, the
Speaker 1: shift happened quickly. He reached for his weapon and shot
Speaker 1: her before she could ever react. The moment she slumped
Speaker 1: against the seat, the familiar script took over. The necrophiliac
Speaker 1: compulsions and horror all unfolded in that car, and then
Speaker 1: he pulled her out, dragged her to a nearby clearing,
Speaker 1: and set to work. He mutilated her body in the
Speaker 1: same cold precision, working quietly and methodically, and when he
Speaker 1: was done, he positioned her remains, deliberately, arranging her in
Speaker 1: a way that was designed to force attention He wanted
Speaker 1: the scene to be found quickly, and he wanted the
Speaker 1: horror to spread. Someone discovering the body was part of
Speaker 1: that ritual and part of his satisfaction, and by morning,
Speaker 1: a passerby stumbled upon the scene. Police officers arrived soon,
Speaker 1: and it didn't take long to notice the similarities between
Speaker 1: this murder and Catherine's. The brutality, the staging, the intentional
Speaker 1: shock value. It all matched. While they were not prepared
Speaker 1: to declare a serial killer outright, the idea certainly lingered,
Speaker 1: and the investigators knew they weren't dealing with an impulsive,
Speaker 1: one time killer. It was too violent and too personal.
Speaker 1: Frank watched the news coverage the way other people might
Speaker 1: watch sports highlights of their favorite team, with quiet satisfaction.
Speaker 1: The police were beginning to see a pattern, sure, but
Speaker 1: the pattern recognition meant nothing when the man responsible looked
Speaker 1: like everyone else and no one believed that he was
Speaker 1: a killer. Two years passed before he would kill again,
Speaker 1: but the pause didn't signal restraint. Frank had settled deeper
Speaker 1: into the illusion of normalcy. He went to work, came home,
Speaker 1: shared meals, and slept in sane bed as his wife.
Speaker 1: Yet underneath that routine. This compulsion hadn't faded. In fact,
Speaker 1: he'd simply been waiting for the right moment when it
Speaker 1: would resurface once again. Her name was Sandra, a twenty
Speaker 1: six year old sex worker who operated around the same
Speaker 1: red light district where Savena had operated On most nights.
Speaker 1: Women worked the strip. They knew which clients were safe,
Speaker 1: They knew which were regulars, and which should be better
Speaker 1: off left alone. But like any other time in his life,
Speaker 1: Frank didn't stand out as dangerous. Sandra approached his car,
Speaker 1: He offered payment, and she accepted. He drove them out
Speaker 1: of the city the way he did in the past,
Speaker 1: following familiar roads until the glow of the street lamps
Speaker 1: faded behind them, and this time, though he didn't rush,
Speaker 1: he wanted the build up. When he pulled over and
Speaker 1: turned off the ignition of the vehicle, he asked if
Speaker 1: she would agree to being tied up now. Sandra didn't
Speaker 1: flinch at the request, though some clients, well, they like
Speaker 1: to use restraints. It's not exactly uncommon, really, and so
Speaker 1: what she did was negotiate a higher price, and Frank
Speaker 1: quickly agreed, knowing that he wouldn't be paying it.
Speaker 2: Anyways, Yeah, it didn't matter to him at all.
Speaker 1: Once she was in the back seat, he used rope,
Speaker 1: tape and cable ties, the exact tools that he'd been
Speaker 1: using when rehearsing in his basement for years. In private,
Speaker 1: Sanders still thought she was fulfilling just a simple request,
Speaker 1: a fantasy, not stepping into a trap. It was only
Speaker 1: when she was fully restrained to the tone shift Frank
Speaker 1: began talking with a strange calmness, describing to her what
Speaker 1: he wanted to do, what he really wanted to do,
Speaker 1: how he imagined opening her chest, and what he thought
Speaker 1: of beating heart might feel like in his hands.
Speaker 2: Oh man.
Speaker 1: Now she was, of course terrified, but still she thought, well,
Speaker 1: he might just be role playing again, that's kind of
Speaker 1: part of her job. The fantasy is all that is,
Speaker 1: very much so part of sex work. She didn't realized
Speaker 1: what he was speaking was truthful. And then something else happened.
Speaker 1: In the middle of the assault, Frank suddenly stopped. He
Speaker 1: pulled out his own rifle and placed it against his throat,
Speaker 1: and he told her to pull the trigger. Things were
Speaker 1: all too real at this point, and Sandra tried to
Speaker 1: talk him down. Terrified but still hoping that she could just,
Speaker 1: you know, get out of this situation if she stayed calm,
Speaker 1: and for a moment it seemed like he might just
Speaker 1: unravel completely. But whatever crack had opened closed again just
Speaker 1: as quickly. He removed the gun from her hands, cut
Speaker 1: the restraints, stepped back, as if he had suddenly decided
Speaker 1: to just let her go, and she didn't hesitate. She
Speaker 1: bolted from the car, with her clothes torn, running barefoot
Speaker 1: towards the road, and she only got a few meters
Speaker 1: before Frank lifted the rifle and fired three shots, and
Speaker 1: Sandra collapsed dead.
Speaker 2: I thought that she might get away.
Speaker 1: Unlike the earlier murders, he didn't spend long at this scene.
Speaker 1: He mutilated her, but not in the same ritualistic detail
Speaker 1: he had given Catherine or Sphenia. The staging was simpler,
Speaker 1: a little rushed, as if the emotional tone had you know,
Speaker 1: it had upset his pattern. Still, the signatures remained. It
Speaker 1: was unmistakable enough for investigators to link it. Within minutes
Speaker 1: of arriving. News of a third victim spread fast. The
Speaker 1: public was already on edge and slipped into full on panic.
Speaker 1: Women avoided traveling alone at night patrols were increasing, and
Speaker 1: investigators privately admitted they were, in fact now dealing with
Speaker 1: a serial killer who showed no signs of slowing down.
Speaker 1: The brutality, staging, the way the victims were left to
Speaker 1: be found, all of it pointed towards a twisted spree.
Speaker 1: Frank meanwhile, returned home before dawn, cleaning himself up, and
Speaker 1: slipped back into the quiet rhythms of family life once again.
Speaker 1: In fact, Sandra's murder should have been the point where
Speaker 1: Frank lost control, where you know, those cracks begin to
Speaker 1: show more and more, where someone grows bolder, they get sloppier,
Speaker 1: where someone close to him might spot something that didn't
Speaker 1: add up. But instead, life carried on with its usual rhythm.
Speaker 1: He still went to work, came home with his wife
Speaker 1: and daughter, still blended into everyday life so convincingly that
Speaker 1: no one questioned the long hours he spent alone or
Speaker 1: you know, away at nights. Around this time, his wife's aunt, Girlinde,
Speaker 1: entered the picture more closely, i should say, Newly divorced
Speaker 1: and struggling with loneliness. She reached out to Frank and
Speaker 1: his wife for support. She'd always being close to them,
Speaker 1: especially their daughter, and the idea of having family nearby
Speaker 1: felt comforting. When she suggested that, you know what, they
Speaker 1: could stay for a while with her. It was family
Speaker 1: pulling together during a difficult time. Frank agreed, and within
Speaker 1: days the three of them had settled into Gerlinda's home.
Speaker 1: The arrangement was temporary, but it created a sense of
Speaker 1: closeness was needed, and one Frank quietly used to his advantage.
Speaker 1: Shortly after they arrived, he laid down one condition he
Speaker 1: needed the basement. The basement was to be off limits.
Speaker 1: No one was to enter, no matter what. His explanation
Speaker 1: was vague, something about privacy, needing a personal space. But Girlnde, well,
Speaker 1: she didn't question it. Neither did his wife. The basement
Speaker 1: became his sanctuary, and whatever he did down there remained hidden.
Speaker 2: How do you not question that? I'd be like, hell, no,
Speaker 2: you're not getting a full basement just to yourself, and
Speaker 2: I can't even know what is going on down there.
Speaker 2: Fair Yeah, you would not be okay with that either.
Speaker 1: No, I'd be like, what I want to go down there?
Speaker 2: What's down there?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: It would make both of us go and like have
Speaker 2: to look.
Speaker 1: Probably definitely Now Frank's compulsions were still operating in that basement.
Speaker 1: He was still killing animals, still reenacting the fantasies, and
Speaker 1: the longer he stayed in her home, the more openly
Speaker 1: he seemed to carry those urges. And one night, long
Speaker 1: after the others had gone to bed, Girlinde and Frank
Speaker 1: found themselves alone in the living room. The divorce had
Speaker 1: shaken her confidence, and she began talking openly about her loneliness.
Speaker 1: Frank listened as she spoke, and he began describing parts
Speaker 1: of his own past too, not the sanitized versions that
Speaker 1: he would tell most people, but the darker ones that
Speaker 1: he had mentioned before. At first, she didn't understand what
Speaker 1: he was saying, the cruelty to animals, the more break ins,
Speaker 1: the violence that he claimed to be committing. It sounded impossible,
Speaker 1: and when he began describing the murders in detail, she
Speaker 1: dismissed it as morbid fantasies or disturbing attempts at humor,
Speaker 1: just like anyone else had did before. However, he didn't
Speaker 1: stop talking, and the more that she pushed back on
Speaker 1: the topic, the more serious he became, and eventually she
Speaker 1: came to realize he wasn't joking. Something shifted in her expression,
Speaker 1: a flicker of fear, disbelief maybe, whatever it was, Frank
Speaker 1: read it instantly, and in that moment his internal balance changed.
Speaker 1: After that Girlnde disappeared within days.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, here, I was finally thinking this shit was
Speaker 2: going to stop. But no, she.
Speaker 1: Wasn't the kind of person to vanish without explanation. Her
Speaker 1: car was still home, belongings were untouched, and her routine
Speaker 1: had just while it ended abruptly, Frank and his wife
Speaker 1: claimed they had no idea where she had gone, And
Speaker 1: in the months after she vanished, the tension inside the
Speaker 1: family changed in subtle but noticeable ways. His wife avoided
Speaker 1: the basement well entirely. Sure she had asked questions or
Speaker 1: something before, but she was not even wanting to go
Speaker 1: near it, it seemed now.
Speaker 2: And sorry, this was the wife's act. Or yeah, the
Speaker 2: wife's act correct, okay now.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, his mother, Dagmar she also grew increasingly uneasy. The
Speaker 1: confession he had made during their terarot session still in
Speaker 1: her mind, refusing to fade no matter how many times
Speaker 1: she tried to convince herself that he'd only been joking
Speaker 1: or she was rationalizing it. She replayed the moment constantly,
Speaker 1: the shuffle of the cards, the death card rising to
Speaker 1: the top, and Frank watching her move and deal this,
Speaker 1: and then saying he had killed a woman. It sat
Speaker 1: in her stomach like a stone. Everyone else dismissed it.
Speaker 1: His girlfriend, everyone, even she herself, had chosen not to
Speaker 1: believe something so unthinkable. But now his wife's aunt, Gerlinda,
Speaker 1: had vanished, and the timing gnawed at her. She didn't
Speaker 1: go to police, though she couldn't bring herself to not
Speaker 1: to cross that line. But she did something she hadn't
Speaker 1: done before. She told a trusted friend exactly what Frank
Speaker 1: had once confessed to her. She told her about the
Speaker 1: day the tarot cards, and then about how Girlinde had vanished,
Speaker 1: and how the coincidence it no longer felt like a coincidence. Thankfully,
Speaker 1: the friend didn't dismiss her, She didn't laugh or wave
Speaker 1: it off like every single other person had so far. Instead,
Speaker 1: she went straight to the police.
Speaker 2: Finally someone has some sense to them. Hey, yes, well
Speaker 2: the aunt would have done something too, for sure. Yes,
Speaker 2: and he saw that.
Speaker 1: Which is why he put a stop to it. Now
Speaker 1: the police listened, and the brutality of the recent murders,
Speaker 1: the victim profiles. All of these things seemed to align
Speaker 1: too precisely to ignore, and for the first time, Frank
Speaker 1: Gerse landed squarely on the investigator's radar. They approached Frank calmly.
Speaker 1: At first. They just asked a few questions, and they
Speaker 1: said they wanted a DNA sample. It was a small request,
Speaker 1: standard procedure, nothing to worry about if he's innocent, right,
Speaker 1: But Frank said no. He didn't hesitate either, it was
Speaker 1: just a flat out refusal. And then he added a
Speaker 1: sentence that froze them where they stood, saying, quote, you
Speaker 1: don't need my DNA. I'm the man you're looking for.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, I wasn't an expecting that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The admission came so calmly that one of the
Speaker 1: officers actually like thought they'd misheard him. They're like, wait,
Speaker 1: what'd you say?
Speaker 2: Well, that doesn't happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But Frank didn't stop. He began talking about the murders,
Speaker 1: about picking up the women at essen station, about the
Speaker 1: forest clearings, about where he left bodies, all of it.
Speaker 1: He described details that had never been released publicly, angles
Speaker 1: of cuts, objects left behind, the way the remains were arranged.
Speaker 1: He spoke with the same flat tone that anyone would
Speaker 1: use when discussing I don't know the weather in small
Speaker 1: talk with a coworker standing at the water cooler. It
Speaker 1: was just a matter of fact to him. When officers
Speaker 1: entered the basement at Gerlundy's home for the first time,
Speaker 1: everything fell into place. The walls were lined with animal hides,
Speaker 1: carefully scraped and preserved. Tools were laid out on tables,
Speaker 1: a collection of knives, saws, restraints, tapes, and even components
Speaker 1: of beginnings of homemade explosives. The scene was well, it
Speaker 1: was organized, methodical. It was the private studio of a
Speaker 1: man who'd spent years refining his violence in secrecy. What
Speaker 1: they didn't find was Girlinde. Her disappearance remained the one
Speaker 1: piece Frank never fully explained. He hinted many times at
Speaker 1: what he had done, and investigators believed that she was
Speaker 1: dismembered and discarded across multiple locations, but her remains were
Speaker 1: never recovered.
Speaker 2: That's interesting that he would just be so free with
Speaker 2: everything else. But I guess because you know, she was
Speaker 2: kind of family, and he just decided that he would
Speaker 2: not share the full details of that one.
Speaker 1: I don't know. For some reason yet might have been
Speaker 1: more personal or who knows.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or he didn't want his wife to know the
Speaker 2: extent of what he did to her or something. I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not too sure. I don't think he would
Speaker 1: have been that personal. I don't think he has that
Speaker 1: in him. I think he's too much of a psychopath
Speaker 1: to really care about his wife's emotions, honestly, I really do.
Speaker 2: Well, or maybe even I just had this thought, like
Speaker 2: he wasn't super present for that one, right, It wasn't
Speaker 2: like a planned out one. It was sort of spur
Speaker 2: of the moment, and so it didn't have the meaning
Speaker 2: to him.
Speaker 1: All of them were spur of the moment, I.
Speaker 2: Guess, but hers was less then. I feel like he.
Speaker 1: Waited for an opportunity to present itself to him, and
Speaker 1: yet in this case he was forced to act.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it is a bit different.
Speaker 1: It is different, yes. Now, When detectives brought him in
Speaker 1: for formal questioning, there was no struggle or bargaining. In fact,
Speaker 1: they tried to begin with procedural questions, but Frank took
Speaker 1: control almost immediately. He didn't wait for accusations, He didn't
Speaker 1: wait for evidence. He simply repeated what he'd already told them.
Speaker 1: He was responsible all of it. The women at the
Speaker 1: essen station, the hitchhiker, the staging dismemberment. He listed dates, locations, movements,
Speaker 1: and tools with clarity that made it obvious he had
Speaker 1: reheard first these events in his mind over and over.
Speaker 1: He wasn't boasting, though, he was just spilling it all,
Speaker 1: like pressure had built up and it was simply time
Speaker 1: to let it out. One investigator slid crime scene photos
Speaker 1: across the table, asking him to confirm which images of
Speaker 1: remains and body parts matched which victim. Frank nodded without emotion,
Speaker 1: naming each woman quietly and matching photos of each part
Speaker 1: to a person so matter of factly, Even though the
Speaker 1: authorities had struggled for years to identify some of them,
Speaker 1: he knew.
Speaker 2: It was just easy for him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And when asked why he had positioned and arranged
Speaker 1: a body so deliberately, he explained that he liked the
Speaker 1: moment someone discovered what he'd done. He liked knowing that
Speaker 1: the horror spread outward, affecting strangers he'd never met. It
Speaker 1: wasn't just the killing alone, it was the aftermath of
Speaker 1: all of it. That satisfied him. They asked him about Linde, too,
Speaker 1: but that was the one topic he danced around. He
Speaker 1: didn't deny harming her, he didn't deny disposing of her,
Speaker 1: but he never offered specifics, not where she was, not
Speaker 1: what happened, not whether there was a struggle or anything.
Speaker 1: It was as though he considered that different as we
Speaker 1: were discussing, maybe more of a private story, who knows,
Speaker 1: but he had no intention of sharing it. Regardless, with
Speaker 1: all of this, before they even had time to carry
Speaker 1: the evidence out of that basement, investigators knew for certain
Speaker 1: they had finally unmasked the killer. But the mystery was
Speaker 1: no longer who he was. It was why he decided
Speaker 1: to confess so openly, and when asked, Frank gave a
Speaker 1: very simple answer, quote, no one ever believed me before
Speaker 1: I told them, all of them, but they laughed or
Speaker 1: ignored me. You're the first people who listened. In that moment,
Speaker 1: police realized he hadn't just suddenly confessed to this. He'd
Speaker 1: been dropping confessions for years. This wasn't something out of
Speaker 1: the blue. It wasn't a surprise, something that no one
Speaker 1: could have predicted. People knew, but the problem was not
Speaker 1: a single one of them had taken him seriously. Now
Speaker 1: at least someone finally had. The trial for Frank gust
Speaker 1: began in September of the year two thousand and By
Speaker 1: the time he entered the courtroom, the case against him
Speaker 1: was overwhelming, to say the least. The confessions alone were
Speaker 1: enough to secure conviction, but the physical evidence taken from
Speaker 1: the basement, DNA matches, from crime scenes, all of it
Speaker 1: aligned with his own chilling account. There was no loopholes
Speaker 1: to exploit and no arguments that could soften what he
Speaker 1: had done. Even his own lawyers, well, they seemed to
Speaker 1: understand that the proceedings were little more than a formality.
Speaker 1: There was nothing they could do. Frank walked into that
Speaker 1: courtroom and he offered the same quiet expression that he
Speaker 1: maintained during his arrest. What unsettled observers most was the
Speaker 1: absence of emotion, no remorse or theatrics, just a man
Speaker 1: sitting almost comfortably in the space where his violence had
Speaker 1: finally been acknowledged. Psychiatrists testified in the early trial, and
Speaker 1: their conclusions were stark. Frank was a sexual sadist with
Speaker 1: necrophilia tendencies so deeply rooted that treatment offered little hope
Speaker 1: of change. One expert described his compulsions as chronically anchored,
Speaker 1: meaning they weren't impulses that he could outgrow or suppress
Speaker 1: long term. Another stated plainly that he posed quote an
Speaker 1: ongoing and extreme risk to society end quote, with a
Speaker 1: psychological profile that made rehabilitation nearly impossible. Now, Frank didn't
Speaker 1: attempt to dispute any of this either. In fact, when
Speaker 1: given a chance to address the court, he didn't apologize.
Speaker 1: He didn't express guilt. Instead, he made a request. He
Speaker 1: asked for the death penalty. Unfortunately for him, though Germany
Speaker 1: had abolished capital punishment decades earlier, long before he was
Speaker 1: even born, but Frank still asked for it. He told
Speaker 1: the court that being alive was dangerous.
Speaker 2: Okay, someone even asking for this.
Speaker 1: Though, Yeah, he's telling them. He's like, this is dangerous
Speaker 1: me being alive and is not for him either. He's
Speaker 1: saying it's dangerous for others.
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
Speaker 1: So, he explained that his fantasies hadn't faded during the
Speaker 1: months in custody, and that he doubted they ever would.
Speaker 1: He if ever released, he warned he would kill again.
Speaker 1: He said it without anger, without drama, without an attempt
Speaker 1: of shock. This wasn't a man trying to enlist a reaction.
Speaker 1: It was simple and honest.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was just the way it was.
Speaker 1: Yep. But the judge reminded him that the execution, while
Speaker 1: it wasn't an option, the harshest penalty available was life
Speaker 1: in prison, and even then parole reviews were in fact
Speaker 1: part of the system. Frank responded by saying he hoped
Speaker 1: they would never let him out. He said it would
Speaker 1: be a mistake, one that would cost another life.
Speaker 2: What, Oh my goodness, I can't okay, And okay, I'll
Speaker 2: just keep listening for now, all.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay. So the courtroom sat in uneasy silence as
Speaker 1: he spoke, very much so as you're trying to sit
Speaker 1: here in uneasy silence right now.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: Family members of victims watched him with a mixture of
Speaker 1: grief and disbelief, trying to process the fact that the
Speaker 1: man responsible for their nightmares was sitting so calmly in
Speaker 1: front of them and warning them of a future to come.
Speaker 1: On September twenty first, two thousand, Frank gust was convicted
Speaker 1: of four murders and sentenced to life imprisonment. Officials emphasized
Speaker 1: the severity of his crimes, calling them amongst the most
Speaker 1: brutal the region had ever seen. Reporters outside the courthouse
Speaker 1: struggled to summarize the case in neat headlines. Some focused
Speaker 1: on the comparison to Jack the Ripper, others with his
Speaker 1: necrophilia confessions, and a few on his request for his
Speaker 1: own execution inside the prison system. While Frank briefly agreed
Speaker 1: to therapy, he lasted six months before abruptly quitting. His
Speaker 1: explanation was as flat as everything else. He said therapy
Speaker 1: wouldn't change him, and he didn't want people wasting resources
Speaker 1: on someone who wasn't fixable. After the sentencing, Frank was
Speaker 1: transferred to j VA Whirl, a high security prison known
Speaker 1: for housing some of Germany's most dangerous offenders. His marriage
Speaker 1: unsurprisingly collapsed after the weight of the truth, with his
Speaker 1: wife cutting off contact, divorcing him, and left to rebuild
Speaker 1: a life outside the shadow of what he had done.
Speaker 1: For most people, that would have marked the end of
Speaker 1: any intimate connection, but Frank found one of those people
Speaker 1: who were willing to connect with a killer in prison,
Speaker 1: someone willing to write him, and over time those letters
Speaker 1: shifted into something resembling a relationship, and eventually he remarried
Speaker 1: from behind bars. It was a strange continuation of the
Speaker 1: double life that he maintained for years, a man capable
Speaker 1: of playing partner and monster at the same time. Then,
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty came a decision that's done the public
Speaker 1: and members of law enforcement. Despite everything he said about himself,
Speaker 1: despite his refusal to participate in treatment, and despite the
Speaker 1: violent nature of his crimes, Frank was granted escort day release.
Speaker 1: Oh no, under German law, even high risk inmates maybe
Speaker 1: granted short supervised trips outside prison walls as part of
Speaker 1: a gradual reintegration process. For someone like Frank, those crimes
Speaker 1: involved sexual sadism, necrophilia, and mutilation, and it felt unthinkable
Speaker 1: to let someone like that out for even a day.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it can't just be that allowed for everyone
Speaker 2: in there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's the thing, it is, Okay. The idea
Speaker 1: of him walking through the city streets, even with guards
Speaker 1: at his side, sparked absolute outrage. Victims families voiced their
Speaker 1: fear of the system was, you know, the system was
Speaker 1: forgetting the severity of what he'd done. That's what they
Speaker 1: were upset with But German officials they defended the decision.
Speaker 1: They're basically saying that, you know what, it's tightly controlled,
Speaker 1: it's necessary for long term treatment. And to them, reintegration
Speaker 1: was part of a process, not a reward. They're not
Speaker 1: rewarding him, They're doing what needs to happen.
Speaker 2: In their mind, and it's like, yeah, rule is a rule.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Frank didn't fight the conditions. He followed every single rule,
Speaker 1: took every supervised step, and returned to his cell without
Speaker 1: any incident. Yet nothing about his compliance reassured the people
Speaker 1: who remembered his warnings. According to reports, he never recanted
Speaker 1: his claim that he would kill if released again. He
Speaker 1: never softened it or tried to convince anyone that he
Speaker 1: had changed. Still, the calendar continues to move forward. Under
Speaker 1: German sentencing law, even life imprisonment includes a point at
Speaker 1: which parole can be considered, and Frank has reached that
Speaker 1: threshold years ago already, which means the debate over his
Speaker 1: potential release is not hypothetical anymore. His official release date
Speaker 1: is listed as potentially being twenty twenty six, depending on
Speaker 1: evaluations with officials, and no confirmation has been made publicly
Speaker 1: about whether parole will be granted or not. What is
Speaker 1: known is this, The applications exist, reviews have been conducted,
Speaker 1: and evaluations are ongoing behind closed doors. Even now, decades
Speaker 1: after his arrest, the story of Frank Guss doesn't rest quietly.
Speaker 1: In fact, it, with the approach of the new year,
Speaker 1: is only gaining a louder voice now with a monster
Speaker 1: such as him. Investigators have of course mapped his childhood,
Speaker 1: psychologists dissected his compulsions, and journalists traced every step of
Speaker 1: his crimes, and still the core of his brutality and
Speaker 1: impulses remain unreachable and a mystery. We don't know how
Speaker 1: he got to become what he is. And most interesting
Speaker 1: of all, he didn't hide behind excuses. He didn't claim
Speaker 1: that he was innocent. He didn't even attempt to have
Speaker 1: the pretense of rehabilitation on his side. Instead, he described himself,
Speaker 1: plainly and factually for what he is. He too, knows
Speaker 1: that he's a monster, and he's not pretending otherwise. That
Speaker 1: certainly is what unsettles people most about his potential release
Speaker 1: as it draws near. It's the awareness that even he
Speaker 1: believes nothing in him can change. Cases like this force
Speaker 1: society to confront a question that is, while it has
Speaker 1: no comfortable answer. Is every offender capable of rehabilitation or
Speaker 1: are some people simply too dangerous to ever risk setting free.
Speaker 1: Frank has stated therapy is pointless, and more than once
Speaker 1: that if he ever walks out of prison, he would
Speaker 1: kill again. It's rare for a criminal to speak so
Speaker 1: directly about their own danger, and rareer still for the
Speaker 1: possibility of release to appear on the horizon. Anyways. That
Speaker 1: is why his name sparks so much fear. It isn't
Speaker 1: because people have forgotten what he did. It's because they
Speaker 1: remember all too well, and because that threat of that
Speaker 1: he once posed it has never been convincingly shut away.
Speaker 1: He's still a threat to the public. Whether he is
Speaker 1: ultimately granted freedom or kept behind bars is a decision
Speaker 1: that is in the hands of courts, psychiatrists, and parole boards.
Speaker 1: But for those who followed the case, and for those
Speaker 1: who lived through the years of the rhine Ruer Ripper
Speaker 1: and while he was still out there, one thought remains
Speaker 1: long after the details have faded. Some warnings aren't spoken
Speaker 1: to frighten others. They're spoken simply because they're true. And
Speaker 1: Frank Gerst more than anyone, has made it clear exactly
Speaker 1: who he is. And that's the story of the Rhine
Speaker 1: or Ripper.
Speaker 2: That's it. I feel like I need more because you're
Speaker 2: almost just like at this point where you've lost control
Speaker 2: and he might be getting out and I don't know
Speaker 2: what to think about that, and I feel like I
Speaker 2: can't have a story end. I need some more shit.
Speaker 1: He could be free in as little of one month's
Speaker 1: one month's time. In one month, he could be free
Speaker 1: killing again.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, because I can kind of understand in the sense,
Speaker 2: like you know, there are rules, right and like yes,
Speaker 2: people who commit crimes do fall under like an umbrella
Speaker 2: of sorts and they follow, you know, this path or whatever.
Speaker 2: But it can't be black and white for everyone in
Speaker 2: that situation. It just can't be, because then you're going
Speaker 2: to have this person who literally they're going to release
Speaker 2: him and he is going to do it again.
Speaker 1: Yes, I agree. So that's where that line comes in.
Speaker 1: Where is that line drawn in the sand? And that's
Speaker 1: what that uncomfortable question is, you know, who do we release?
Speaker 1: Can everyone be rehabilitated? And that sort of questioning is
Speaker 1: right now in the hands in this case of the
Speaker 1: law of psychiatrists, of the courts, the parole boards, everyone,
Speaker 1: they're trying to evaluate that now, whether they evaluate it
Speaker 1: to the truest extent of reality and the facts, or
Speaker 1: if they're simply going to go through and say, well,
Speaker 1: step ABCD and now he gets released and that's that
Speaker 1: and they don't do their job or do diligence. I
Speaker 1: guess we'll find out.
Speaker 2: Well, honestly, yeah, like the people who are on the
Speaker 2: parole board or whatever, they can't decide to let him
Speaker 2: out because he hasn't been following like all the steps
Speaker 2: that he's supposed to be in there right, Like he's
Speaker 2: not doing the therapy or trying to like I.
Speaker 1: Don't believe the therapy was mandated.
Speaker 2: Oh, for the love of God, I'm trying to in
Speaker 2: my head just be like, no, it's not gonna happen, okay,
Speaker 2: and you're not allowing me to do that.
Speaker 1: The problem is, as far as the court see, he
Speaker 1: was given life in prison, he.
Speaker 2: Served it, he hasn't caused any issues.
Speaker 1: In there, so therefore he has done his time and
Speaker 1: gets to walk. Theoretically speaking, I'm not sure that's exactly
Speaker 1: what's going to be now, psychiatrists have said in the
Speaker 1: past that he is a high risk individual. That's where
Speaker 1: the things may change. If they still see him as
Speaker 1: a high risk individual, they still see the potential to
Speaker 1: harm public, in danger for other people. That's where things
Speaker 1: can change and they can say, you know what, we
Speaker 1: can't let you free because you're just simply too dangerous.
Speaker 1: You will hurt again.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, but that's where due diligence matters. If people
Speaker 1: just simply are stamping papers because hey, he served time,
Speaker 1: he gets to walk, that's just that, then that's gonna,
Speaker 1: unfortunately serve as most likely some more people will lose
Speaker 1: their lives.
Speaker 2: Why are they doing this to people? It needs to
Speaker 2: just be no, it's.
Speaker 1: Not happening, I agree, and hopefully that's going to be
Speaker 1: the case.
Speaker 2: Huh holy shit, this is just insane. How old is
Speaker 2: this man? Because he actually probably wouldn't be very old
Speaker 2: either at this point, fifty sixties, I'm thinking, because yeah,
Speaker 2: he was like twenty in his twenties when he was
Speaker 2: doing these offenses.
Speaker 1: So he was born in sixty nine, and as of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, he is fifty six years old, still
Speaker 1: very much so young enough to be committing mm hmmm.
Speaker 2: Well, and also that's fairly young that how long can
Speaker 2: this go on? I feel, oh my gosh, at some
Speaker 2: point like he could very easily get out then, because
Speaker 2: that's a lot of years yet left to live.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even if they keep him behind for another life sentence,
Speaker 1: he'd still walk free.
Speaker 2: Holy okay, Wow, that's really quite terrifying.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we might bring in the New Year with
Speaker 1: this monster into the world. Hopefully, hopefully the world has
Speaker 1: a strong enough voice to keep him behind bars forever.
Speaker 1: Hopefully there's people in positions of power prevent him from
Speaker 1: walking free. Yeah, that is my New Year's wish for
Speaker 1: him to never be let go.
Speaker 2: I am going to sit here and believe that he
Speaker 2: will not be being let out. That's that's my thought.
Speaker 1: I'm crossing my fingers on that for sure. But either way,
Speaker 1: hopefully you guys enjoyed this episode, and if you have
Speaker 1: any way of, hey, you know what, getting in touch
Speaker 1: with maybe people on parrole board, maybe petitions out there.
Speaker 1: I'm going to look and if there's any petitions I
Speaker 1: can find, I'm going to be putting it in the
Speaker 1: description of this podcast because I think if we can
Speaker 1: do our part to keep this man locked up forever.
Speaker 1: We need to do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, especially the thing that's and I said at
Speaker 2: the beginning of this that your intro sounded really alarming,
Speaker 2: is that it's so the time is so close. And
Speaker 2: also like he asked to never be out. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: that's what's just so alarming about all this, Like this
Speaker 2: was his wish. He wanted to the death penalty. He
Speaker 2: hasked to be executed because he knew. Yeah, so that's
Speaker 2: why this is just yeah, it's really unsettling.
Speaker 1: So anyways, with that, thank you for being here. Check
Speaker 1: out the description of this podcast for more. And like
Speaker 1: I said, if I can find some sort of petition,
Speaker 1: it will be down there. But yeah, we appreciate you.
Speaker 1: Thank you for being here, and until next time, stay wicked.