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Speaker 5: You are now listening to True Murder The most shocking
Speaker 5: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 5: written about them Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. Every
Speaker 5: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 5: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 5: host journalist and author Dan Zupansky. Good Evening. Peter Curtin,
Speaker 5: a German who had been sent to prison for deserting
Speaker 5: his comrades, sat in a cell contemplating what to do
Speaker 5: when he got out. He had no control within the
Speaker 5: prison wall, and it drove him mad. The things had
Speaker 5: happened to him while in custody unlocked oppressed sadistic feelings
Speaker 5: within Peter and forced him to unleash a level of
Speaker 5: sexual deviancy on innocent victims in and around Dusseldorf, Germany
Speaker 5: that no one will ever forget. Young girls, women, and
Speaker 5: men would succumb to horrific attacks, including being bludgeoned by
Speaker 5: a hammer and stabbed to death. In several instances. Peter
Speaker 5: admitted to drinking blood from his victims and needing the
Speaker 5: act of rape and murder to reach orgasm. Oddly, the
Speaker 5: man lived a double life and his love for his
Speaker 5: wife drove him to turn himself in. Had he not
Speaker 5: done so, the monster would have continued to keep the
Speaker 5: country locked in fear for many more years. The books
Speaker 5: were featuring this evening His Monster, The True story of
Speaker 5: serial killer Peter Curtin, with my special guest journalist and
Speaker 5: author and detectives C. L. Swiney. Welcome back to the program,
Speaker 5: and thank you very much for a great into this interview.
Speaker 5: C L. Swinney, Hey, good morning.
Speaker 6: Thanks for the second invite. I had a lot of
Speaker 6: fun last time, so I'm hoping we can duplicate that
Speaker 6: success today.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, this is not taking anything away from list of ten.
Speaker 5: This is one of the most infamous and notorious killers
Speaker 5: in true crime history. It really does fit the bill
Speaker 5: as one of the most shocking killers in true crime history.
Speaker 5: Let's get to the reason why, other than this incredible
Speaker 5: case itself, Why and how you came to be the
Speaker 5: author of Monster?
Speaker 6: Well, he's this story is about Peter Curtin. And I've
Speaker 6: been kind of I've done nine to true crime books now,
Speaker 6: and I kind of do books that are in the
Speaker 6: United States or feature serial killers from the United States,
Speaker 6: and then I do something from Europe, specifically around the UK.
Speaker 6: So I was in the process of finished one book
Speaker 6: and starting up a new case, and I started doing
Speaker 6: some research for one of my other books and this
Speaker 6: name Peter Curtin kept coming up. The thing that kind
Speaker 6: of grabbed me about him was he's known as the
Speaker 6: Vampire of Dusseldorf, and that kind of piqued my interests.
Speaker 6: So that's what started it was just the title that
Speaker 6: the media had given this serial killer back when he
Speaker 6: was apprehended and when he started investigating his cases. So
Speaker 6: you know, serial killers and themselves fascinate me, but one
Speaker 6: called the Vampire of Dusseldorf really kind of caught my eye.
Speaker 5: Absolutely. Now, as you're right, in your book you opened
Speaker 5: with one of the crimes, one of his first heinous crimes.
Speaker 5: But let's maybe go backwards and talk about his early life.
Speaker 5: And you say he was born in moheim, Rhine across
Speaker 5: from Cologne, Germany, came from a big family, eldest of
Speaker 5: thirteen and a poor family. Tell us about his father
Speaker 5: and the family life that he experienced.
Speaker 6: So Peter is one of those guys who I believe
Speaker 6: his environment, specifically his socialization at his family environment was
Speaker 6: a very contributing factor to how he ended up becoming.
Speaker 6: But his family. He was one of thirteen. Two of
Speaker 6: his siblings passed away during his young childhood. So that
Speaker 6: alone would be tough for a lot of people to handle.
Speaker 6: When when you're a young child and you lose two
Speaker 6: of your thirteen siblings, you know, it's just hard. Death
Speaker 6: is hard on any of them. But Peter's environment was
Speaker 6: actually made much worse by his alcoholic and abusive father.
Speaker 6: His dad was terrible. There's no other, you know, definition
Speaker 6: that I could think of, except for he himself was
Speaker 6: a monster. So he was an alcoholic and he's abused
Speaker 6: his wife in front of the kids. He would be her.
Speaker 6: Peter would would see this, he would try to stand
Speaker 6: up to her, but the father was way too strong
Speaker 6: and way too violent for Peter to do much. You know,
Speaker 6: when he's he's in his teenage, he's you know, he
Speaker 6: started seeing this when he's around ten, and through his
Speaker 6: young teens, he's trying to defend his mom, but doesn't
Speaker 6: work out. He ends up kind of flowing the target,
Speaker 6: if you will, of his dad's rage from his wife
Speaker 6: or from his Peter's mom to him himself. And so
Speaker 6: his dad starts physically and verbally abusing Peter. But in
Speaker 6: one particular incident when Peter was about thirteen, kind of
Speaker 6: changed things for the family dynamic. Peter's father was actually
Speaker 6: arrested for having what they called we used to call
Speaker 6: it incest, but he Peter's father abused his own daughter
Speaker 6: and he got arrested and convicted for that. And when
Speaker 6: he left to go to prison, Peter's mom took the
Speaker 6: rest of the plan and they kind of separated and
Speaker 6: moved to Dusseldorf. So that that was the environment. So
Speaker 6: you can imagine growing up young, losing to your siblings.
Speaker 6: You have an abusive and alcoholic father who then ends
Speaker 6: up raping his own one of his own daughters and
Speaker 6: goes to prison. So that was the home life, if
Speaker 6: you will, that Peter was exposed to.
Speaker 5: You also talk about, and I think we should include
Speaker 5: them because it's another good example of some of the
Speaker 5: shaping of his character. You talk about when he goes
Speaker 5: on a camping trip with two other boys, tell us
Speaker 5: about this life.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's when the creepiness for me in the case
Speaker 6: starts to come out, you know, for the red flags
Speaker 6: if you will, that we talk about you know, today
Speaker 6: out things you see that clearly makes people wonder. So
Speaker 6: Peter's on a Peter gets invited to a camping trip.
Speaker 6: During that trip, they were doing a lot of canoeing,
Speaker 6: and at some point on the second day of this
Speaker 6: camping trip, Peter essentially throws a kid overboard. And Peter
Speaker 6: had experienced a growth spurts, so he was a little
Speaker 6: bit bigger than the rest of the other kids in
Speaker 6: that camping trip, and he was physically stronger than all
Speaker 6: the kids, and essentially he throws this kid overboard and
Speaker 6: makes it appear as though he's trying to rescue the kid,
Speaker 6: the victim, but he ends up holding the kid down
Speaker 6: underwater and basically drowns him. So that was that had
Speaker 6: to be an indicator of things going wrong. But Peter
Speaker 6: was very manipulative. He was already starting to learn how
Speaker 6: to manipulate people. So as that story came out, when
Speaker 6: they got down to the spot they were supposed to
Speaker 6: meet up with the adults. You know, Peter had convinced
Speaker 6: the other kid in the boat, hey, this was an accident.
Speaker 6: We tried, Yeah, yeah, we tried. He started making himself cry,
Speaker 6: and they told this story to the adults and they
Speaker 6: ended up rescuing or retrieving the body of the child victim.
Speaker 6: But that was the first thing. So we know now
Speaker 6: that he had held the kid down and killed it
Speaker 6: and murdered this you know child or young child like
Speaker 6: he was, but he had convinced the adult that it
Speaker 6: was an accident, and that to me was the big
Speaker 6: red flag. There'd be events that follow that time, but
Speaker 6: that was the one that was like, okay, we you've got,
Speaker 6: you know, some serious issues here with this child.
Speaker 5: Now, I don't know if this is according to and
Speaker 5: me can tell us who this is according to. But
Speaker 5: at you say, when they moved to Dusseldorf, every boy
Speaker 5: is looking for a male figure, an adult male figure,
Speaker 5: for influence, and so he needs somebody that doesn't beat him.
Speaker 5: But he's the local dog catcher. So tell us what
Speaker 5: the local dog catcher is interested in and how much
Speaker 5: on what he influences young Peter to experience.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So, so source wise, this comes from from Peter himself,
Speaker 6: from his statements, including a court documents and prison records.
Speaker 6: So that's where the sources for this story. But it
Speaker 6: comes directly from Peter himself. Peter was very proud of
Speaker 6: what he had done and become. So he was very
Speaker 6: open with his information, which is to me a little
Speaker 6: bit spooky to hear that. But so, yeah, he runs
Speaker 6: into a local guy. He's a dog dog catcher, you know, decent,
Speaker 6: decent job and anale, a male, an older male, kind
Speaker 6: of not necessarily a father figure, but like maybe an
Speaker 6: older brother. And he starts hanging with this guy quite
Speaker 6: a bit. So he's not hanging with his or kids
Speaker 6: his age. He starts hanging with this dog catcher. At
Speaker 6: some point, the dog catcher starts saying, hey, won't you,
Speaker 6: you know, come with me. Maybe I'll kind of show
Speaker 6: you the the ropes if you will. Peter's yeah, yeah,
Speaker 6: he's he's all for it. Unfortunately, this dogcatcher was an
Speaker 6: also despicable human being. His deal was he used to
Speaker 6: torture and then kill many of the animals that he
Speaker 6: would catch, and at some point he started talking about
Speaker 6: getting Peter to do so. And Peter his claim is
Speaker 6: that he resisted the temptation, if you will, to kill
Speaker 6: or torture the animals, but at some point he basically
Speaker 6: it admits to getting involved with torturing and killing the animals,
Speaker 6: but it doesn't stop there, so for me, that's that's
Speaker 6: too much. But he continues. The dogcatcher starts showing him beastiality.
Speaker 6: So these animals they start having sex with, and again
Speaker 6: you have to sit and wonder, you know, how Peter's
Speaker 6: mind was working and how this dog catcher had convinced
Speaker 6: him to do so. But you know, we know Peter
Speaker 6: killed a child on purpose when he was a few
Speaker 6: years younger. Now he meets a dog catcher and he's
Speaker 6: he's murdering and killing these dogs and then having sex
Speaker 6: with these animals. You know that that's a recipe for disastery,
Speaker 6: that there's no way somebody normal would do that or
Speaker 6: come of that kind of childhood, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: Not just to be graphic, but I think it's important
Speaker 5: since I got you to say where this source was
Speaker 5: and is from Peter himself, and we'll talk about more
Speaker 5: of what Peter has to say about his own life.
Speaker 5: But one of the features of this of the dog
Speaker 5: catcher and then of course of Peter being influenced by that,
Speaker 5: is that that they have a particular feature involving the
Speaker 5: slitting of the throat and then tied into the sexual orgasm.
Speaker 5: Can you tell us what that is because later we
Speaker 5: won't talk about why it's important, but people will understand
Speaker 5: why that's so important in this.
Speaker 6: Yeah. So when he when he was experiencing these beastiality
Speaker 6: things of the dogcatcher, he clearly and proudly told the
Speaker 6: court because he had a he had a short trial
Speaker 6: was only ten days, but most of the trial was
Speaker 6: pretty much Peter just having the floor and it just
Speaker 6: you know, the way he talked, his charismatic way, and
Speaker 6: what he was saying was so fascinates everybody. He's pretty
Speaker 6: much held the court and one of the one of
Speaker 6: the things he liked to do was when he would
Speaker 6: drop a little bombshell on somebody when he was speaking.
Speaker 6: He liked the reaction. He kind of craved the reaction
Speaker 6: of people when he dropped these little bombshells and then
Speaker 6: he would add to him and every time he would
Speaker 6: add to it, seeking more kind of attention. In this scenario,
Speaker 6: when he told the court and the people present and
Speaker 6: reminds you there was a line of people trying to
Speaker 6: get into this this trial, even even back then. He
Speaker 6: then noticed when he said beastiality, that the people in
Speaker 6: the courtroom are you know, repulsed and and and afraid
Speaker 6: and scared, and he continued with that. So what he
Speaker 6: advised the court and later the dog catcher UH testify
Speaker 6: to and he was also arrested. Consequently, after Peter turned
Speaker 6: himself in was they would also less slight uh slice
Speaker 6: the throats of some of their animals, and for for
Speaker 6: several times the dogcatcher would mimic as though he was
Speaker 6: like sucking the blood of the neck of these these
Speaker 6: dying dogs or dead dogs, trying to convince Peter to
Speaker 6: do it. Well, Eventually, like everything else the dogcatcher had done,
Speaker 6: he convinced Peter to give a try, and they both
Speaker 6: kind of talked about when he had that first taste
Speaker 6: of blood, Peter kind of craved it and kind of
Speaker 6: got off on it and had a sexual tie to
Speaker 6: it where he could almost ejaculate from the sense of
Speaker 6: the animal's blood. So he actually would suck the blood
Speaker 6: from these wounds. So it was another example within that
Speaker 6: whole disgusting story of the Dogcatcher that just somebody somewhere
Speaker 6: should have known, but only people knew her were Peter
Speaker 6: and the Dogcatcher.
Speaker 5: Let's skip ahead to nineteen fourteen and you talk about
Speaker 5: he was in Kaiser's army. He joined willingly, but regretted
Speaker 5: that decision. So tell us what the conditions were that
Speaker 5: he joined and why he would regret the decision and
Speaker 5: what was that outcome of that decision.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so he he did join the military. He did so,
Speaker 6: you're right, he did so willingly, but he was looking
Speaker 6: forward to kind of causing mayhem. He wanted to murder
Speaker 6: as many people as he could. He had fascinations in
Speaker 6: his mind of what he would do to these people
Speaker 6: if he was on the front mines, if you will,
Speaker 6: and what he could get away with legally in his mind.
Speaker 6: But the structure of having rank above him ordering him
Speaker 6: to do stuff did not sit well with him at all.
Speaker 6: From a young age, once his dad was arrested and
Speaker 6: taken away, he kind of was in control of his
Speaker 6: own destiny. In his mind, he was in charge and
Speaker 6: he did what he wanted to do, and so when
Speaker 6: he got into the military world, he did not do
Speaker 6: well with having others ordering him around. He just basically
Speaker 6: was bleed. He was in charge of himself and nobody
Speaker 6: could tell him what to do, and when that became
Speaker 6: too much, he basically deserted. So Peter left the military. Obviously,
Speaker 6: you know, when you enlist and you're involved in military,
Speaker 6: you're not allowed to do that. And Peter, Peter, he
Speaker 6: doesn't care. Laws and structure don't don't exist in Peter's
Speaker 6: mind at this point in his life. So he makes
Speaker 6: a run for it, but he's he basically doesn't go
Speaker 6: on the run. He just basically walks away. That comes
Speaker 6: back to the to the higher ups in the military.
Speaker 6: They go look for him. He's where he said he
Speaker 6: would be, you know, kind of challenging them, like you know,
Speaker 6: what are you gonna do about it? And they pick
Speaker 6: him up and they they take him to a military
Speaker 6: prison for being a deserter, and that starts a whole
Speaker 6: new chapter of anger in Peter's mind.
Speaker 5: You talk about the seven years he was in prison,
Speaker 5: what was his behavior in prison? And tell us about
Speaker 5: his behavior in prison.
Speaker 6: So as you know, you can imagine if you go
Speaker 6: from the structure of the military, of everybody telling you
Speaker 6: what to do, and you're you're upset about it, you
Speaker 6: don't want to do it, so you so you walk away. Well,
Speaker 6: you know these German prisons around that time frame, you know,
Speaker 6: in history were probably much worse as far as structures concerned.
Speaker 6: So Peter thought he had it rough when he was
Speaker 6: in the military, but now he's just he's in the
Speaker 6: middle of probably the worst in his mind, what he
Speaker 6: would attest to is the worst time of his life,
Speaker 6: the worst period of his life. And when somebody says that,
Speaker 6: and you know their their history of the physical and
Speaker 6: mental abuse from his father, the losing of his siblings,
Speaker 6: the murders, you know that he committed as a child,
Speaker 6: the bestiality and all the other stuff. And now this
Speaker 6: guy says being in custody is the worst time of
Speaker 6: his life. That's saying something, and it shows you how
Speaker 6: deeply it impacted Peter. But his statement that he gave
Speaker 6: to the court and two investigators when he turned himself
Speaker 6: in in this case was that the primary reason he
Speaker 6: became a serial killer was because every single day, every hour,
Speaker 6: and every minute he was in custody, he wanted to
Speaker 6: make people pay for him being in custody. So he
Speaker 6: sat in those cells, figured out how he wanted to
Speaker 6: kill people who he wanted to kill, and if they
Speaker 6: ever let him out of a cell, he got in trouble.
Speaker 6: So he actually caught two more years of incarceration because
Speaker 6: he was like a you know, and that's why we
Speaker 6: used the term monster for the story. If Peter got
Speaker 6: out of his cell, he would attack or try to
Speaker 6: kill an inmate or staff member. So this was like
Speaker 6: a caged animal in this prison. And eventually he gets released.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you talk about his stay in solitary confinement, which
Speaker 5: he kind of liked because he hated he thought he
Speaker 5: was superior to others intellectually and socially, especially the people
Speaker 5: in there. But interestingly too, he seems like he can adjust.
Speaker 5: And he gets out and he doesn't tell his sister
Speaker 5: about his military prison stay or the result and tell
Speaker 5: us through his sister. She lets him stay in Altenburg
Speaker 5: near Dresden. What happens as a result with his sister
Speaker 5: and tell us who he meets.
Speaker 6: So he goes. So Peter gets out and he kind
Speaker 6: of like, you know, a lot of times when people
Speaker 6: get out of jailed, there a lot of times we're
Speaker 6: looking for a fresh start.
Speaker 5: If you will.
Speaker 6: And Peter, Peter had a lot of time to think,
Speaker 6: but he also kind of missed his missed his family life.
Speaker 6: Like he would kind of on the piphery, he would
Speaker 6: kind of to keep tabs of his family, you know,
Speaker 6: the remaining people in his family. And so he looked
Speaker 6: up and tried to reconnect with his sister, and you know,
Speaker 6: she was she was glad, super glad to welcome him
Speaker 6: back into the house. And she's like, you know, hey, Peter,
Speaker 6: where have you been. And Peter just said, well, it's
Speaker 6: been out and about. You know, he didn't really explain
Speaker 6: what had happened and and how his mind was working.
Speaker 6: So he's talking to his sister as an older brother
Speaker 6: would to a to his sister, but his mind's already
Speaker 6: kind of moving forward as to you know, when when
Speaker 6: is he going to start killing He's not, he has
Speaker 6: no idea ideations of killing his sister, but he's thinking
Speaker 6: about it. And then he ends up meeting a girl,
Speaker 6: which was she became an intricate part of this whole
Speaker 6: entire case. So he needs his wife to be proposes
Speaker 6: to her quickly. She says yes, and they start, you know,
Speaker 6: they're married couple. But interestingly enough, his wife that he
Speaker 6: proposed to was also a murderer, unbeknownst to Peter. So
Speaker 6: this gal was on the altar and was supposed to
Speaker 6: get married to Osla and he no showed he left
Speaker 6: her at the altar. This lady tracks down her her
Speaker 6: fiance at the time, and kills him for leaving her
Speaker 6: out the altar. She goes to prison, she serves her time,
Speaker 6: and then she gets released and she's out in the
Speaker 6: world and ends up meeting Peter Curtin. Can you imagine.
Speaker 6: I mean, it's kind of bizarre. You know, two murders
Speaker 6: that are on the earth and they bump into each
Speaker 6: other and they end up getting married. So it was
Speaker 6: pretty wild.
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Speaker 5: Now tell us about their marriage after this, you know,
Speaker 5: let's let's put it this way, uncommon union. Let's what
Speaker 5: was their marriage like and what did he do for work?
Speaker 5: And just tell us about what the marriage was characterized by.
Speaker 6: So they had a you know, a unique marriage is
Speaker 6: how I would describe it. They weren't intimate with each other,
Speaker 6: so that was kind of odd to me that he
Speaker 6: was married and there was there was no intimacy there.
Speaker 6: But Peter lived two different lives. He was a a
Speaker 6: quote unquote family man with with his wife. He put
Speaker 6: food on the table for her. He actually held a
Speaker 6: job and became kind of like a union rep for
Speaker 6: for various factories nearby, and people liked him. People rallied
Speaker 6: behind Peter. He had that again, that charismatic way about
Speaker 6: him where you would want to follow this man. And
Speaker 6: so he provided for his wife. He got her a
Speaker 6: place to stay, he took care of her. I mean,
Speaker 6: he cared for her quite a bit. He loved her,
Speaker 6: There's no doubt in anybody's mind that he loved her.
Speaker 6: But he lived this second life. As he was married,
Speaker 6: or when he was married, he started collecting victims women,
Speaker 6: young girls or young women. You know that we're in
Speaker 6: the area that he started murdering. And so he would
Speaker 6: live a life of a murderer. So he was killing
Speaker 6: women on the side, if you will. And then but
Speaker 6: when he was doing it, many of the murders were
Speaker 6: related to a sexual desire. So we talked about how
Speaker 6: he wasn't intimate with his wife. He needed that intimacy
Speaker 6: or recall it. We talked about earlier that he often
Speaker 6: needed violence to reach to get aroused and to reach
Speaker 6: in ejaculation. He needed pretty much death or ultimate control
Speaker 6: over something to reach that. So he's not having the
Speaker 6: relations with his wife, so he's getting it from these
Speaker 6: women that he's preying upon on the streets of Dusseldorf
Speaker 6: and then murdering him and then coming home and putting
Speaker 6: a sack of food on the table and they make
Speaker 6: dinner and they hang out. So two different, extremely different
Speaker 6: ends of the spectrum.
Speaker 5: You right, we'll just go backwards just a bit, but
Speaker 5: just to show the escalation that he didn't start off
Speaker 5: a killer right away. While he did, but I mean,
Speaker 5: in between nineteen twenty five and nineteen twenty eight, you
Speaker 5: say that he attacked four women, but he had sex
Speaker 5: with their unconscious bodies, but he didn't kill them. And
Speaker 5: then on February third, nineteen twenty nine, he spotted a
Speaker 5: woman named Maria Kohon. He followed her, grabbed her, stabbed
Speaker 5: her wildly, but he wanted her to survive and to
Speaker 5: be able to tell police. You say he stabbed her
Speaker 5: twenty four times. So tell us about these attacks before
Speaker 5: we talk about his escalation to murder.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So that particular case with Maria That's an interesting
Speaker 6: one because when I say that, when I say that
Speaker 6: that he wanted to get caught by police or he
Speaker 6: wanted her released to talk to police, that's not uncommon.
Speaker 6: There's other people that I've wrote about who would do
Speaker 6: things to try to get law enforcement involved. Herbert Mullen
Speaker 6: comes to mind from Santa Cruz. I wrote about him,
Speaker 6: and he did things to try to get law enforcement's
Speaker 6: attention Edmund Kemper used to do stuff to try to
Speaker 6: get law enforcement's attention and actually called him from a
Speaker 6: payphone and turned himself in and stuff. So what I'm
Speaker 6: saying on this one with Maria was that he easily
Speaker 6: could have killed her, and he wanted he was enjoying
Speaker 6: a cat and mouse game with law enforcement. None of
Speaker 6: the victims that survived could really describe him very well.
Speaker 6: There was obviously media sensation everywhere every newspaper was even
Speaker 6: this case from Germany spread to the United States.
Speaker 3: It was so so.
Speaker 6: Uh it will be a good term. It was just
Speaker 6: it caught everybody by by storm. We have wars going
Speaker 6: on across the continents, and then we have this guy
Speaker 6: in Germany they assumed was a guy, you know, praying
Speaker 6: on these women. So Peter, he's working night shift. I
Speaker 6: was telling you he was working in a factory. He
Speaker 6: comes out of that work shift for that day thinking
Speaker 6: I need to basically I need to kill somebody. He's
Speaker 6: looking for that and that release if you will, and
Speaker 6: that's what he he called it. But he's he's she's
Speaker 6: a lady. You're right. Her name was Maria, and he
Speaker 6: grabs her, a whole her. He does the whole attack
Speaker 6: if you will. He stabs her numerous times. I think
Speaker 6: twenty four was the number that you had quoted, and
Speaker 6: I think that was close. But Maria actually she actually
Speaker 6: gets away. But and what's interesting about Maria was her
Speaker 6: memory of the event was a specifically of her attacker
Speaker 6: was pretty good, and the police were excited because not
Speaker 6: that she was attacked, but that they were starting to
Speaker 6: get a little bit of a lead going for their
Speaker 6: their case. But after she explained to them what he
Speaker 6: looked like, her attacker looked like. Unfortunately, he looked like
Speaker 6: you know, the majority of the men in that area
Speaker 6: at the time, so it was kind of like, not
Speaker 6: not that big of a league basically for law enforcement.
Speaker 6: But Maria was pretty persistent with the police about hey,
Speaker 6: you need to need to catch this guy. You need
Speaker 6: to you know, this is not good. And she was
Speaker 6: kind of kind of aggressive with law enforcement, which was
Speaker 6: good because they were kind of running in circles. They
Speaker 6: didn't have much to go with. So that case kind
Speaker 6: of or that attack with her kind of opened things
Speaker 6: up a little bit because she would give them pieces,
Speaker 6: small pieces of her attacker. And then eventually she's like, hey,
Speaker 6: I remember meeting this guy, and she tells the story
Speaker 6: from beginning to end and actually ends up taking where
Speaker 6: police to where she thinks she was raved by this guy,
Speaker 6: which also opens up the case.
Speaker 5: Now, while the police are still investigating, you talk about
Speaker 5: Rosa Oliger eight years old, and now you're right that
Speaker 5: Rosa's parents were aware of the attacks and Dusseldorf, but
Speaker 5: they led her outside the play one day to tell
Speaker 5: us what Peter was doing at.
Speaker 6: That time and what he does. Yeah, so you know,
Speaker 6: you can imagine like this, this is something that happens
Speaker 6: in all societies or all cultures where there may be
Speaker 6: certain events going on. You know, in this case, there
Speaker 6: was a serial killer praying on children and young women.
Speaker 6: Whereas a parent, you know, you keep telling them no,
Speaker 6: you keep telling them no. But at some point you
Speaker 6: just you know, hey, okay, go go outside for a
Speaker 6: little bit, and you keep an eye on him and
Speaker 6: keep an eye on him, and you're watching him like
Speaker 6: a hawk, and then you get diverted, and then that's
Speaker 6: when fate comes through and scoops up your child or
Speaker 6: you know. It doesn't happen a lot, but that's kind
Speaker 6: of how this one went with Rosa. So her folks
Speaker 6: want her, they allow her to go out outside of
Speaker 6: the house. Peter had already been kind of watching her
Speaker 6: from afar this. He had seen her before when he
Speaker 6: was going to work, so he was kind of like
Speaker 6: a a hunter of these these victims of his and
Speaker 6: he saw an opportunity. So Rosa being you know, a
Speaker 6: young young girl, she's like fresh out of the house.
Speaker 6: She wants to go checks the out. And if you
Speaker 6: have children, you know that they can disappear in a heartbeat.
Speaker 6: So she she wanders off a little too far from
Speaker 6: the front of the house, and Peter was already in
Speaker 6: that area and within seconds, uh, he he sees her,
Speaker 6: scoops her up and covers her mouth so she can't talk,
Speaker 6: and then he takes her away just just a short
Speaker 6: amount away but into a brush area, and he chokes
Speaker 6: her out, chokes her unconscious.
Speaker 5: And how what does he how does he proceed?
Speaker 6: This one's a rough one man. So he ends up
Speaker 6: stabbing her, and he stabs her in heart, in the neck,
Speaker 6: and this is a I mean, it's hard to talk about,
Speaker 6: but he ends up having relations with her sexually, and
Speaker 6: and you know, it's that whole thing of taking you know,
Speaker 6: control of this this victim and what he needed. But
Speaker 6: he had an orgasm after he was attacking her, basically,
Speaker 6: and when he stabbed her in the neck, he had
Speaker 6: hit an artery that wouldn't wouldn't she would have survived,
Speaker 6: not no matter if anybody had even found her at
Speaker 6: the moment it happened. But so she almost died instantly,
Speaker 6: which I don't know for for me, the whole scenario
Speaker 6: just you know, happy that that's how it went. But
Speaker 6: he was actually this was one of the ones where
Speaker 6: this case was used in court to talk about he
Speaker 6: wasn't mentally experiencing any issues or he wasn't psychotic because
Speaker 6: he felt in this one that somebody may have seen him.
Speaker 6: So he he tries to dispose of the evidence and
Speaker 6: he ends up. He ends up having some gasoline in
Speaker 6: his pocket and he covers her and he likes her
Speaker 6: on fire. So it's one of the more gruesome murderers
Speaker 6: that he committed. But it also showed that Peter was
Speaker 6: not crazy. He knew that there would be evidence, and
Speaker 6: he knew that police would be looking for him, and
Speaker 6: so he was trying to cover his tracks. So that
Speaker 6: was one of the more gruesome, one of the more
Speaker 6: terrible attacks that he had done in this string of attacks.
Speaker 5: Why I wanted to mention this one too because it
Speaker 5: does set up his moo and his signature and also
Speaker 5: conveys in this crime what a lot of these psychopathic were.
Speaker 5: Many of these psychopathic killers would like to insert themselves
Speaker 5: into an investigation in their narcissistic sense that they want
Speaker 5: to be involved in a very curious with the entire
Speaker 5: thing on the effect on other people. So tell us
Speaker 5: what he does to be able to do this? At
Speaker 5: the crime scene, he goes to a tavern, So tell
Speaker 5: us about what what does he do?
Speaker 6: Yeah, and this is the second time he would do this.
Speaker 6: So what Peter does, and we briefly talked about earlier,
Speaker 6: he kind of rolled the courtroom and needed to be
Speaker 6: the center of attention. But he enjoyed the chaos and
Speaker 6: the strife and the drama and all that stuff. And
Speaker 6: so when he one of the reasons he lit her on,
Speaker 6: you know, his victim on fire Rosa was because he
Speaker 6: had already anticipated going across the street to a tavern
Speaker 6: and drinking some beer and watching police. He had a
Speaker 6: strong hatred for law enforcement, which kind of stemmed from
Speaker 6: all his contacts as a youngster. He just didn't like them.
Speaker 6: They were the law, and he didn't like the law,
Speaker 6: and so a lot of hatred for them. So in
Speaker 6: this particular incident, he actually goes across the street and
Speaker 6: starts drinking beer and watches how this whole discovery of
Speaker 6: this young victim plays out. At one point, uh he
Speaker 6: he he starts playing like a little cat's mouth game
Speaker 6: with what he perceived to be a rookie officer and
Speaker 6: ends up having an actual discussion with an officer just
Speaker 6: right outside the crime scene. And uh, this officer was young,
Speaker 6: he was a rookie. They had a little bit of
Speaker 6: a discussion, and that officer was brought to court and
Speaker 6: he was just kind of stunned that he had actually
Speaker 6: been speaking to a serial killer, and the guy was
Speaker 6: just so cool and calm. But when they separated one
Speaker 6: the officer had no idea that during that discussion Peter
Speaker 6: was thinking of killing him, but he didn't see an
Speaker 6: escape route at the time, so he let he let
Speaker 6: that fascination go. But he actually thanked the officer for
Speaker 6: his time and trying to console him about this this
Speaker 6: terrible that occurred that, of course Peter had caused. And
Speaker 6: Peter replied with, I hope you get that son of
Speaker 6: a bitch, you know, so he's toying and taunting law enforcement.
Speaker 6: That's kind of how Peter's mind worked.
Speaker 5: But that was you talked about, right. You talk about
Speaker 5: this carnage here too, and the Dusseldorf residents demanding answers.
Speaker 5: So as you write in a book, describe really the
Speaker 5: outrage and the panic that ensues from this.
Speaker 6: Yeah, this was this whole incident was so there was
Speaker 6: some attacks and there was some murders, and there wasn't
Speaker 6: just Peter killing at this time. There was other murders
Speaker 6: occurring in the area, but this particular one, especially when
Speaker 6: the media caught started printing on the covers of their newspapers,
Speaker 6: you know, the vampire has struck again, the vampire dusel dwarf,
Speaker 6: you know, and painted the picture of what they saw
Speaker 6: at these crime scenes. And these were just just brutal,
Speaker 6: gruesome crime scenes. And it was almost all females, young
Speaker 6: girls like Rosa who was eight, and girls that were
Speaker 6: in their teens, late teens and early twenties. So nobody
Speaker 6: was really safe, and so the whole public was caught
Speaker 6: between being fearful from living in their own town to
Speaker 6: demanding answers from the police. And many times, you know,
Speaker 6: I'm in law enforcement, and I tried. I'm big on accountability,
Speaker 6: especially you know, in twenty seventeen, it seems like that
Speaker 6: word is kind of a buzzword in law enforcement about
Speaker 6: officers should be accountable too, and I agree with that,
Speaker 6: and oftentimes I'll point out when law enforcement has done
Speaker 6: things wrong and we try to work around it and
Speaker 6: learn how to do better. But in this case, the
Speaker 6: police were investigating these murders, but they had no leads.
Speaker 6: And you have to also appreciate that we're in twenty
Speaker 6: seventeen right now. Nineteen twenties and thirties, there wasn't the
Speaker 6: same tools to investigators that we have now. They just
Speaker 6: they weren't there. So, you know, investigating a eight year
Speaker 6: old victim that's been burned and murdered behind some bushes
Speaker 6: in nineteen twenty eight, you know, is different than doing
Speaker 6: it in today's you know, twenty seventeen. So the police
Speaker 6: were upset and furious too. They had nothing to release
Speaker 6: to the media. They had no sketches, they had no
Speaker 6: descriptions of the suspect other than they believed him to
Speaker 6: be male. So you had a community rising up saying
Speaker 6: enough's enough, and a police department and investigators saying, we agree,
Speaker 6: but we don't know who are chasing. So the sentiment
Speaker 6: and the anger was everywhere. The people were outraged, and
Speaker 6: in this particular incident, it was that six day period
Speaker 6: where a woman was found stab which was Maria, and
Speaker 6: then this young girl was found murdered, and the residence
Speaker 6: demand answers but they couldn't get any. And so that's
Speaker 6: where it started to get to a point where where
Speaker 6: kind of like vigilante justice was coming, where the men
Speaker 6: of the community were like, if they see anybody touching
Speaker 6: a female at all, they're just going to kill him,
Speaker 6: you know, kill him on site. And the police like, no,
Speaker 6: we can't do that either. So that's how bad it
Speaker 6: had gotten and how frustrated the residents were. Meanwhile, Peter
Speaker 6: Curtin knew all that was happening, believed he was orchestrating
Speaker 6: it all, and could not have been happier of the
Speaker 6: complete control in his mind he had of that entire community.
Speaker 5: You right, that just to throw a monkey wrench into everything,
Speaker 5: he kills a man named Rudolph Sheer February fourteenth, nineteen
Speaker 5: twenty nine, five days after Ross's murder, and this is
Speaker 5: in the suburb suburb of Dussel Dwarf. So tell us
Speaker 5: as quickly what happens with this? What do police find
Speaker 5: before we talk about further attack?
Speaker 6: So he so, yeah, this was the one male and
Speaker 6: this is was not a person that Peter gave many
Speaker 6: details about. But Rudolph was a cabby and he ends
Speaker 6: up picking up Peter. And it's kind of unclear what
Speaker 6: exactly prompted this this attack by Peter, but essentially he
Speaker 6: he stabs Rudolph numerous times and ends up killing this
Speaker 6: guy and leaving him in his cab on the side
Speaker 6: of the road, and then a bicyclists finds him and so,
Speaker 6: but there was a couple of little things that law
Speaker 6: enforcement picked up upon. So they call out an investigator.
Speaker 6: It's a male that's been killed, not a female, and
Speaker 6: so they start trying to piece together what happened there.
Speaker 6: But there was no connection between a male victim a
Speaker 6: cave if you will. Police assumed some type of a
Speaker 6: scuffle broke out about the fare and the costs for
Speaker 6: that ride, if you will, and so they did not
Speaker 6: think it had anything to do with these females that
Speaker 6: were being killed, and so they weren't connecting him. They
Speaker 6: weren't in devestigating as though they were connected. But it
Speaker 6: was really kind of another contact with law enforcement and
Speaker 6: Peter though, and that was kind of kind of strange
Speaker 6: because in this case there's a lot oftentimes with serial
Speaker 6: killer cases, there are serial killer serial killers like you
Speaker 6: talked about, who come back to the scenes, who monitor
Speaker 6: what they've done and how it's being played. But Peter
Speaker 6: was actually communicating with these law enforcement people like he
Speaker 6: would actually have conversations. He would he would try to
Speaker 6: say that he was here to help. But at this
Speaker 6: scene where he had killed this guy, he comes back,
Speaker 6: you know. We talked about that and Peter introduced himself
Speaker 6: to a detective. He knows he's a detective, he's seen
Speaker 6: him in the community before, and he talks to this
Speaker 6: this detective about this case. That one point, Peter's considering
Speaker 6: again trying to kill this detective because he has no
Speaker 6: The only person Peter cares about is himself and then
Speaker 6: his wife, but she's so distant from the story, it's
Speaker 6: it's kind of strange. So he wants to introduce himself
Speaker 6: to this detective and he starts telling him about what
Speaker 6: he thinks happened at this murder scene, and the detective
Speaker 6: is kind of fascinated by what Peter's telling him, and
Speaker 6: he's like not One thing that gets the detective is
Speaker 6: that Peter is examining the scene verbally with the detective
Speaker 6: in a manner of which this detective believes that Peter
Speaker 6: has some kind of law enforcement background, so he actually
Speaker 6: asked him if he was a copp or not. And
Speaker 6: Peter's like, no, no, no, I'm not a cop. I
Speaker 6: just what I kind of you know, what I'm seeing,
Speaker 6: you know, and then he just calmly walks away. So
Speaker 6: again another run in with law enforcement at a murder
Speaker 6: scene that he had created, you know, pretty wild.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, and then you talk about in February to August
Speaker 5: nineteen twenty nine, again he resorts back. He randomly attacks
Speaker 5: women and young children, but he doesn't kill them, and
Speaker 5: he switches his weapon of choice from knife to hammer,
Speaker 5: and he used a rope to render some of these
Speaker 5: people unconscious. And then we go to to August fourteenth
Speaker 5: and Maria Hewn, which is eleven years old. So before
Speaker 5: we talk about that, we're going to stop just for
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Speaker 5: were talking about Maria hun eleven years old. Police don't
Speaker 5: even know this woman's murdered until they get a letter
Speaker 5: sent to them, to a newspaper and the police. So
Speaker 5: tell us about this incredible case and what Peter Curtin
Speaker 5: does in this.
Speaker 6: So with this young girl, she was eleven years old,
Speaker 6: another younger victims on the younger side for Peter. He
Speaker 6: kills her and but doesn't leave her out in the open,
Speaker 6: kind of kills her in a location that's a little
Speaker 6: bit off the beaten path, but nobody locates her. But
Speaker 6: he This is the kind of beginning the streams of
Speaker 6: him starting to really toy with law enforcement with these letters.
Speaker 6: He would send the same letter that he sent to
Speaker 6: the newspapers as he would send to the police. I
Speaker 6: kind of think of the Zodiac Killer, if you will,
Speaker 6: who who also did that quite often during his case
Speaker 6: and the change you mentioned briefly the change and weaponry
Speaker 6: and stuff and how he was doing it, And that's
Speaker 6: because he was bored. He testified that he just grew
Speaker 6: tired of stabbing. He wanted to see what happened to
Speaker 6: the his victims with rope and strangulation. You wanted to
Speaker 6: see what happened with hammer attacks and various things he
Speaker 6: could use to murder his victims. So that tells you,
Speaker 6: you know, how far his brain was deteriorating, and how
Speaker 6: many people he had killed already, that he's getting bored
Speaker 6: now with what he's doing. So he sends a letter
Speaker 6: to the police about Maria and leads them to where
Speaker 6: her body can be found. So she was killed in
Speaker 6: August and they find it find her remains in November.
Speaker 6: But there was an inspector, the leaf chief inspector for
Speaker 6: the Ducesdorf police name was Ernest Jannant, and he had
Speaker 6: been keeping tabs of this entire case and he had
Speaker 6: an opinion that one person was doing him. And with
Speaker 6: this Marina case, uh and some of the other cases
Speaker 6: where he was finding similar patterns in the manner in
Speaker 6: which the victims were killed. He also found a footprint
Speaker 6: at two of the different locations for different homicides. In
Speaker 6: this this case, he believed and started convincing his coworkers
Speaker 6: that there was one person responsible for everything. And that
Speaker 6: was kind of a unique concept in the the you know,
Speaker 6: the twenties about serial killers. He was not the first,
Speaker 6: obviously serial killer, but it was just something that the
Speaker 6: police didn't want to come out openly and say because
Speaker 6: they were already dealing with the public that was was
Speaker 6: was so fearful of their situation. But this inspector Ernst,
Speaker 6: he just started putting together like a folder and started
Speaker 6: collecting data. And it kind of started with the letters
Speaker 6: that they started getting from Maria and then little pieces
Speaker 6: of evidence. But what the evidence was good for was
Speaker 6: to convinced law enforcement that it was possibly one person
Speaker 6: doing them all.
Speaker 3: But that was it.
Speaker 6: It didn't give them any other leads. It wasn't like
Speaker 6: they collected a piece of hair or a strand of
Speaker 6: clothing or a fingerprint or something like that. They didn't
Speaker 6: have that kind of strong evidence. But again, it was
Speaker 6: kind of helping move the case forward and getting everybody
Speaker 6: in the community on the law enforcement side together on
Speaker 6: the same page, which was helpful in this case as
Speaker 6: it plays out.
Speaker 5: You talk about a burrow of Dusseldorff August twenty third,
Speaker 5: nineteen twenty nine, and this story is this case, this
Speaker 5: incident is demonstrative of his ability to be charismatic and
Speaker 5: for people to trust them. This is a case of
Speaker 5: Louise lens En and grew Trude Homaker fourteen years old
Speaker 5: and five years old. And you talk about an annual fair,
Speaker 5: and Peter Curtin is there. Tell us about these two
Speaker 5: young girls and their fate.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and these are two of the other My thing is,
Speaker 6: I've been in law enforcement for seventeen years. I have
Speaker 6: a soft spot in my heart for crimes with children,
Speaker 6: and so again, this is one of those ones that
Speaker 6: I had a really difficult time gathering information and putting
Speaker 6: it on paper. So these two girls go to this
Speaker 6: annual fair. It's a well, it's one of the things
Speaker 6: they really look forward to as children because ones older,
Speaker 6: least is older. I think she was the older girl.
Speaker 6: She's kind of like bringing her sister along, and so
Speaker 6: it's a family thing for the two girls. But as
Speaker 6: the fair starting to break down and the two girls
Speaker 6: are getting ready to go home, Peter Curtin is at
Speaker 6: this fair looking for a victim, and he doesn't see
Speaker 6: these girls right away. In fact, there was other girls
Speaker 6: that cause attention, but he was being more selective at
Speaker 6: this point because he didn't want any evidence left behind.
Speaker 6: So he's floating. So you can imagine it's just for me.
Speaker 6: It's a very eerie thought of a serial killer going
Speaker 6: to a local fair where he knew there would be
Speaker 6: hundreds of kids and searching continuously for victim one victim,
Speaker 6: and in this case he ended up getting two. So
Speaker 6: that to me is just kind of really eerie. But
Speaker 6: he ends up seeing those two girls and he starts
Speaker 6: getting excited. And the girls are heading home, and they're
Speaker 6: using the back alleys because they know the shortcuts to
Speaker 6: get home, and Peter, who was a master at his
Speaker 6: game of murder and stalking and tracking people, he gets
Speaker 6: in front of them and materializes out of basically the
Speaker 6: shadows of one of these back alleys and talks to
Speaker 6: the to the girls, and Louise was fourteen, and he
Speaker 6: basically asked her, hey. He gives her a couple of
Speaker 6: dollars and said, hey, would you go get some cigarettes
Speaker 6: for me? And Louise is like, you know, it does
Speaker 6: not seem to be interested in doing so, but eventually
Speaker 6: he you know, she does have some extra money in
Speaker 6: her in her hand. She knows that it's too much
Speaker 6: for the cigarettes, and she was hoping to maybe pocket
Speaker 6: the lower remaining bit of money. I mean, at least
Speaker 6: that's what Peter thought her mindset was. But she ends
Speaker 6: up going and so she leaves her sister there believing
Speaker 6: and her mind that Peter is. You know, he's an adult.
Speaker 6: You can trust an adult, you know. Once she clears
Speaker 6: the alley way goes goes out of sight, Peter grabs
Speaker 6: Gertrude and basically has his way with her. He strangles
Speaker 6: her to death, and he made mention of that when
Speaker 6: he squeezed her neck so hard that he thought her
Speaker 6: eyes might pop from her skull. I mean, that's how
Speaker 6: a month of much of a monster Peter was.
Speaker 5: But he chokes her.
Speaker 6: Unconscious, and then unfortunately, he takes his knife, and he
Speaker 6: had several pocket knives, but he always had a knife
Speaker 6: on him. He slides her, slices her throat and obviously
Speaker 6: killing her instantly. But he he did not have, you know,
Speaker 6: any kind of sexual relation with with Gertrude, but he
Speaker 6: just basically disposed of her body. And then he walks
Speaker 6: back out into the alleyway, waiting for the weeks to
Speaker 6: come back. And she comes back. She's starting to see
Speaker 6: that her daughter, her sister's not there. She's not sure
Speaker 6: what's going on. And Peter reaches out his hand and
Speaker 6: asks her, hey, did you get my cigarettes? And she's
Speaker 6: she kind of nods and before she could have any
Speaker 6: more time to try to calculate where her sister is
Speaker 6: and what kind of danger she's in. Peter grabs her
Speaker 6: and does the same thing. He chokes her out, but
Speaker 6: he then when she's unconscious, does the sexual stuff with her.
Speaker 6: He fondles her body, he reaches orgasm, but then like
Speaker 6: his like her sister, he's the same knife to slice
Speaker 6: her throat and kills her as well. So it was
Speaker 6: a very kind of terrible situation of fate, if you will.
Speaker 6: These girls are trying to walk home after this really
Speaker 6: nice fare and they run across a serial killer. So
Speaker 6: it was a bad, super bad scene. But this is
Speaker 6: one of the ones where the police thought, after they investigated,
Speaker 6: that they find these girls and they think that there
Speaker 6: was some bite marks near where he had sliced the
Speaker 6: throat of Gertrude, and that's was kind of furthering this
Speaker 6: whole vampire thing where they thought the suspect Navy had
Speaker 6: drank some of his victim's blood, and then Peter confirmed
Speaker 6: in court later that he had He actually had tasted
Speaker 6: her blood.
Speaker 5: So it was.
Speaker 6: This one was for me the most gruesome of all
Speaker 6: of his killings because it was a young child. The
Speaker 6: sexual thing the slitting of the throat thing and then
Speaker 6: actually tasting her blood. It was just almost too much,
Speaker 6: almost too much to talk about.
Speaker 5: Now you talk about two days after Louise and Gertrude
Speaker 5: were found, which was a day after they were killed.
Speaker 5: There's a perceived break in the case. And so tell
Speaker 5: us about this Johannes Strasburg and what happens in this case.
Speaker 6: Which one was there an I'm sorry.
Speaker 5: We're talking about Johannes Strasburg and and what happens with
Speaker 5: He's he's attacked a couple of women, and so then
Speaker 5: tell us what happens with in this investigation tied to
Speaker 5: those other attacks.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so Strasburg was he was also attacking people in
Speaker 6: that area, and but he suffered from epilepsy and police
Speaker 6: kind of didn't think that he was the guy doing
Speaker 6: these murders. But when when they were getting when offers
Speaker 6: was getting desperate, they sought him out and located him
Speaker 6: after he had was accused of a pretty violent attack
Speaker 6: on a on a girl named Penny and another girl
Speaker 6: named Flake, and Strasburg without hesitation when police said, well, okay,
Speaker 6: you attacked these girls. Did you attack Rosa that we
Speaker 6: talked about or even Rudolph the Cabby Strasburg said yeah,
Speaker 6: I did. And so at first police were excited because
Speaker 6: they're like, holy cow, we may have caught her killer.
Speaker 6: But one of the senior detectives at the time and
Speaker 6: they call them investigators there, he said, well, why don't
Speaker 6: you describe to me, you know, how you killed Rudolph,
Speaker 6: And he didn't really have the ability to explain it.
Speaker 6: So then he asked him, well, how did you kill Rosa?
Speaker 6: And again he could not explain.
Speaker 5: How he.
Speaker 6: Killed Rosa either. So they started to wonder and decided,
Speaker 6: I don't think so, I don't think he's the guy
Speaker 6: who killed all these people that we were worried about.
Speaker 6: Because they also went and talked to her Strasburgh's mom
Speaker 6: and tried to get a sense, and they tell the
Speaker 6: mom tells police, yeah, my son told me that he
Speaker 6: killed Rosa. But that's all they had. So they had
Speaker 6: a mom saying, yeah, her son told her he killed
Speaker 6: this girl, Rosa. They had Strasburg, who had met very
Speaker 6: dramatic mental health issues, saying that he did it, but
Speaker 6: he couldn't explain how or when or any of the
Speaker 6: you know, the nuts and bolts, if you will of
Speaker 6: these murders, police started to believe that he wasn't the killer,
Speaker 6: and eventually Strasburgh's actually sent to an insane asylum. And
Speaker 6: it was not the end of the story though for
Speaker 6: Peter Curtin, because attacks continue to happen. Police did not
Speaker 6: believe Strosberg to be the suspect of all these murders,
Speaker 6: and it just kind of kind of took the wind,
Speaker 6: if you will, all the sales of law enforcement because
Speaker 6: they were hoping and praying that they had to kill
Speaker 6: her and Cussy. But when he was in court, when
Speaker 6: the case was investigated from Strasburg's point of view, and
Speaker 6: then he was sent to an attain asylum and attacks continued,
Speaker 6: they knew that they were on the wrong path.
Speaker 5: You also talk about August sixteenth, nineteen twenty nine, Gertrude
Speaker 5: Schultz and she had met Peter after her work ended,
Speaker 5: and again his charisma, he says, hello, you are very beautiful.
Speaker 5: Tell us what he does when she doesn't reject where
Speaker 5: she rejects his advances.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so he was very aggressive with her. She was
Speaker 6: also attractive and used to being hit upon, you know,
Speaker 6: men constantly hitting on her, and was an attractive male too,
Speaker 6: so but he was super aggressive with her, and he
Speaker 6: basically just comes out and says, hey, let's go have
Speaker 6: sex somewhere, and Gertrude, you know, kind of gets a
Speaker 6: nasty look on her face and is like and replies,
Speaker 6: I'd rather die. And you know, she had no idea
Speaker 6: obviously who she was talking to and and she had
Speaker 6: was kind of repulsed by this this guy just never
Speaker 6: met him before and demanding to have sex with her.
Speaker 6: So she she turns him off, tells him no, turns
Speaker 6: her back to him, and Peter calmly responds, well, you know,
Speaker 6: she says I'd rather die and turns her back, and
Speaker 6: Peter says, well die then, and he attacks her with
Speaker 6: a knife again with that he always had a knife
Speaker 6: on him, but he did not kill her, and it
Speaker 6: was he didn't have an explanation totally as to why
Speaker 6: he didn't kill her. But this was an attack that
Speaker 6: was in broad daylight. Many the other attacks, Peter had
Speaker 6: alley ways, bushes, the cover of darkness, things that he
Speaker 6: could utilize to his advantage while trying to commit murders
Speaker 6: or committee murders. This was a particular attack that was
Speaker 6: in broad daylight, and he I think what happened there
Speaker 6: was he didn't feel like he would get away with
Speaker 6: it if he stabbed her or slit her throat or something.
Speaker 6: He was okay with the attack, but not wanting to
Speaker 6: get a murder with this particular incident, so he did
Speaker 6: not kill her or finish the job if you will.
Speaker 6: But again, she's found, please show up. She's found, and
Speaker 6: she tells police she doesn't know who the guy is,
Speaker 6: and she describes an attractive male adult same height and
Speaker 6: weight and hair color is ninety nine percent of the
Speaker 6: people in the community. And again police were furious because
Speaker 6: they had no leads. But this was the one that
Speaker 6: pushed the residents signed to the boiling point where they
Speaker 6: were at the law enforcement headquarters. They were tracking down
Speaker 6: officers on the street and demanding what are you doing
Speaker 6: about these attacks? I mean, the police were in a
Speaker 6: spot where they were getting close to losing any control
Speaker 6: that they had of that town and what was left
Speaker 6: of the minimal amount of control they had. Because the
Speaker 6: residents with this particular attack, specifically another female, but this
Speaker 6: one being in broad daylight, just that was it. Everybody
Speaker 6: was on edge. Everybody demanded answers, and then it was
Speaker 6: kind of like, imagine a community just kind of walking
Speaker 6: on eggshells but really close to exploding, and that's where
Speaker 6: they were after that attack.
Speaker 5: It's incredible too. The carnage continues, and you talk about
Speaker 5: September sixth, nineteen twenty nine. Ida wrote her and she's
Speaker 5: third teen, She's found dead in a field, sexually assaulted,
Speaker 5: beat with her hands and fists. So he deviates from
Speaker 5: the other attacks, and you say, this is one of
Speaker 5: the most violent of the murders he's committed. And then
Speaker 5: an even more uncontrolled panic ensued, national international news. People
Speaker 5: wouldn't allow their children outside. Then there was one month
Speaker 5: of no killing, and then you talk about October twelfth,
Speaker 5: nineteen nineteen twenty nine, Elizabeth Dorry eleven years old. We
Speaker 5: have to just unfortunately to skip ahead to be able
Speaker 5: to take advantage of this only ninety minutes talking about this.
Speaker 5: But what is the You talk about the case that
Speaker 5: where a woman escapes Peter Curtin, but then she writes
Speaker 5: a letter to her friend. So tell us about this
Speaker 5: event that slowly, or at least a lot more quickly
Speaker 5: than it has happened, leads to Peter's demise.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so we we did go over a couple just
Speaker 6: roal briefly, a couple of other attacks and murders, but
Speaker 6: the one that kind of broke open the case, if
Speaker 6: you will, was the attack or the sexual assault of
Speaker 6: Maria Budlick. And she actually she is you know, she's
Speaker 6: a houseworker, if you will, and she ends up coming
Speaker 6: looking for jobs. She's kind of unemployed, so she's trying
Speaker 6: to find a job and again, you know, his fate
Speaker 6: would have it, she bumps into Peter Curtain at the
Speaker 6: train station, and you know, he immediately is attracted to her.
Speaker 6: He immediately decides that he is going to probably try
Speaker 6: to seduce her and kill her. But Maria has a
Speaker 6: sense about her over the months and years of these
Speaker 6: attacks that this guy seems a little bit off. She
Speaker 6: was the only one to have that hesitation, and so
Speaker 6: she she's looking at this guy. He's being kind to her,
Speaker 6: and but she's she's nervous. So she's in her mind
Speaker 6: thinking is this the is this the vampire? And she's like, no,
Speaker 6: this this man that she's talking to at the time,
Speaker 6: who we don't know who he is in the story yet,
Speaker 6: but he's like, hey, there's nothing to be afraid of.
Speaker 6: He's trying to you know, trying to convince her to
Speaker 6: go with him. Right, Well, another man kind of comes
Speaker 6: out of the shadows and basically asked Maria, hey, is
Speaker 6: this man bothering you? And Maria is like yeah, and
Speaker 6: and she kind of eyes the second man, but she's
Speaker 6: kind of like hinting what's her eyes and looking over
Speaker 6: at the first man, saying to this second uh, you
Speaker 6: know man, that this uh, this, this guy's bothering me.
Speaker 6: And so the second the second man, uh looks at
Speaker 6: the first and there's some words are exchanged, and very easily,
Speaker 6: the second man has convinced the first man he needs
Speaker 6: to leave. And so this man, the second man, becomes
Speaker 6: to the hero if you will. Well, that second man
Speaker 6: was Peter Curtin. So you can imagine the first man
Speaker 6: was looking to you know, the first guy was probably
Speaker 6: a bum and probably a disgusting person, but nothing in
Speaker 6: comparison to uh, to the first or the second guy,
Speaker 6: which ends up being Peter Curtin. So they you know, obviously,
Speaker 6: Peter's like, hey, you know, sorry about that, and maybe
Speaker 6: I can help you out. Where do you need to go?
Speaker 6: What's going on? And he starts, you know, working with
Speaker 6: with her. She's trying to get to a certain location.
Speaker 6: Peter's like, I know that's that you know, let me
Speaker 6: let me take you there. Unfortunately, he kind of diverts
Speaker 6: and takes her out into the woods. This this girl
Speaker 6: Marie is like, oh, now I'm in another croppy situation,
Speaker 6: if you will. And Peter's like, hey, you know, basically,
Speaker 6: hey can I can I have you mean? Meaning can
Speaker 6: he have sex with her? He's attracted to her as well,
Speaker 6: and she basically doesn't want to have sex, but he
Speaker 6: forces upon himself on her and rapes her out into
Speaker 6: the out in the woods. He thought basically that was
Speaker 6: his payment for rescuing her. That's kind of what he
Speaker 6: would talk about in court. But he so so now
Speaker 6: she's stuck. She's with this guy who has just raped her.
Speaker 6: She's just this young girl looking for a job, if
Speaker 6: you will. And he he then takes her like hey,
Speaker 6: he feels bad, kind of takes her back to his place. Well,
Speaker 6: he takes her back to a place that nobody knew
Speaker 6: about in this story, which was like his second part
Speaker 6: of his second life. So he's still during this whole time,
Speaker 6: he's still married with his his wife, but he had
Speaker 6: this little flat, if you will, where he was doing
Speaker 6: stuff that you know, nobody wants to talk about. So
Speaker 6: he lets her go. Maria's she's let go. She she
Speaker 6: was raped by him, but let go. Well, she Maria
Speaker 6: writes a letter and tells her friend about everything that
Speaker 6: happened and describes it in great detail. But this this
Speaker 6: girl that she wrote the letter to takes it to
Speaker 6: the police right away, like, hey, my friend's been raped.
Speaker 6: This is where it went and the whole details. Well,
Speaker 6: police spent a lot of effort because they feel like
Speaker 6: it's it could be related to this this vampire case.
Speaker 6: So they go searching for Maria. And that's when Maria
Speaker 6: is like, hey, this did happen. I'll show you where
Speaker 6: it happened. Not the woods, but I'll show you the
Speaker 6: the the flat or the apartment of where it occurred.
Speaker 6: And they she takes them there. They get into the
Speaker 6: house without a warrant, which you know today would be
Speaker 6: all bad, but back then that's how it worked. And
Speaker 6: as their police are looking around that flat, Maria and
Speaker 6: Peter across paths. So Peter, unbeknownst to him, he comes
Speaker 6: back to his flat after being out and about doing
Speaker 6: his own thing, he sees the inspectors sees Maria, and
Speaker 6: he just turns and walks away. Maria is so struck
Speaker 6: that she can't even talk. Eventually she's able to communicate
Speaker 6: and get out voice because she's so scared of this
Speaker 6: guy and tells the inspector, Hey, he's just you know,
Speaker 6: my attacker, that guy he just ran down the stairs. Well,
Speaker 6: Peter was really gifted at escape and he just disappears.
Speaker 6: So they were close, police were really close. But now
Speaker 6: they have this flat, They have kings in that flat
Speaker 6: that can help identify them who the who they believe
Speaker 6: the vampire is. And then that broke the case wide open.
Speaker 6: That was the key to the case was Peter firmly
Speaker 6: believing that his identity was done, that the police now
Speaker 6: knew who the vampire or the ducid or vampire, whatever
Speaker 6: you wanted to call him was, and it caused him
Speaker 6: great concern, so he had to go talk to his wife.
Speaker 5: Now he turns home, he knows that the police are
Speaker 5: tightening their noose around him and it's just a matter
Speaker 5: of time before he's apprehended. So you talk about this
Speaker 5: dichotomy here, this reaction from this psychopathic killer that has
Speaker 5: no remorse and has no love for anyone. But you
Speaker 5: talk about his wife, and so you what does he
Speaker 5: tell his wife about Maria Blick? And then what does
Speaker 5: he do as a resultant? What does he try to
Speaker 5: establish to her? What does he try to formulate a
Speaker 5: plan for her? What is that plant?
Speaker 6: Yeah? So he he he convinces himself to tell his
Speaker 6: wife the whole thing about Maria, and he confesses that
Speaker 6: he he attacked her. He leaves out all the other attacks.
Speaker 6: But his wife is she can't believe it. She's in disbelief.
Speaker 6: She cannot believe that her husband would attack somebody like that.
Speaker 6: And he basically says, hey, look there have been they've
Speaker 6: been offering money to catch me or identify me. My plan,
Speaker 6: you know is is I want to turn myself in.
Speaker 6: And his wife's absolutely against it. She says, no, I
Speaker 6: think you should. I think we should, you know, commit suicide.
Speaker 6: I think we should just stop.
Speaker 2: This is it?
Speaker 6: You know I killed somebody in the past. You you've
Speaker 6: attacked this girl. We shouldn't be on this planet together,
Speaker 6: So let's commit suicide. Well, Peter's too proud to do that.
Speaker 6: So Peter convinces her, Hey, that's not going to happen.
Speaker 6: What I want to do is turn myself in because
Speaker 6: you'll get the reward money. Or I want you to
Speaker 6: turn me in so you get the reward money because
Speaker 6: I won't be here to take care of you because
Speaker 6: I'm going to be killed for my crimes. I know
Speaker 6: that I'll be killed, So you know, can you do this?
Speaker 6: And she takes a couple of days. The police are
Speaker 6: scrambling trying to figure out who this guy is. They
Speaker 6: have their strongest leads, and meanwhile he's trying to convince
Speaker 6: his wife to turn him in. Eventually he convinces the
Speaker 6: wife to turn him in. She goes down to the
Speaker 6: police station says, hey, you know, my husband, Peter Curtain
Speaker 6: is the vampire killer because in the course of trying
Speaker 6: to convince her to turn him in, he has to
Speaker 6: give up everything and he confesses every crime that he
Speaker 6: did to his wife. So she's now like, holy crud, Wow,
Speaker 6: he is the guy. So she says, hey, Peter will
Speaker 6: be tomorrow at church. Uh, you know, send a lot
Speaker 6: of people and he will turn himself in and lo
Speaker 6: and behold. The next day, they police set up around
Speaker 6: the church. He's supposed to be there at three o'clock,
Speaker 6: nothing happens. Uh, they think they think it was three o'clock,
Speaker 6: but it turns out that their watches are off a
Speaker 6: little bit because precisely at three o'clock. They described it
Speaker 6: as a pleasant looking man just strolls into the church
Speaker 6: and everybody's you know, staring at him, and he kind
Speaker 6: of winks at them and says, hey, there's no need
Speaker 6: to be afraid. And it turns out that was how
Speaker 6: the case broke out, was Peter convinced his wife to
Speaker 6: turn him in and she was going to get the
Speaker 6: reward money. So it was pretty pretty, uh, pretty interesting
Speaker 6: how this thing played out.
Speaker 5: You talk of him being charged with nine murders and
Speaker 5: seven attempted murders, and in court he was secured into
Speaker 5: sort of a makeshift cage and the grizzly exhibits on
Speaker 5: display were the skulls the victims, rope, knives, scissors, and
Speaker 5: two hammers, a real shocking display. But before this, you
Speaker 5: talk about before the trial, he had requested, once arrested,
Speaker 5: to talk to the I guess prestigious Carl Berg, doctor
Speaker 5: Carl Berg and the author of The Saddest As You
Speaker 5: write a book about interviews with Curtin. So, as you
Speaker 5: write in the book, what does Carl Berg get to
Speaker 5: hear and what does Curtin tell Carl Berg.
Speaker 6: Yeah, they had they had numerous, you know, hours upon
Speaker 6: hours of discussions. Anybody who wants to get a good
Speaker 6: sense of the psychological, complete psychological makeup of Peter should
Speaker 6: check out that book. I mean, it's just the notes
Speaker 6: in and of themselves in great detail. But he Peter
Speaker 6: feels like a connection to Carl and tells him, you know,
Speaker 6: he confesses everything to him, and he kind of wants
Speaker 6: to see if you can get a rise out of
Speaker 6: out of him, and so they exchange stories and he's trying.
Speaker 6: What Carl's trying to do is determine He's already convinced
Speaker 6: himself that there's some type of psychological issue or mental
Speaker 6: health issue with Peter, and so he's trying to get
Speaker 6: enough data, if you will, from his interviews to prove
Speaker 6: to the court that Peter's crazy, if you will. And
Speaker 6: Peter catches on to what he's trying to do and
Speaker 6: kind of toys with him for a while, but eventually
Speaker 6: he convinces, you know, Carl that he's not crazy. That
Speaker 6: he chose to do this stuff on his on his
Speaker 6: own accord, and there was nothing psychologically wrong with him,
Speaker 6: which was kind of a shocker for Carl for that,
Speaker 6: for that time frame, for what had everything that Peter
Speaker 6: had done to just do it because he just just because,
Speaker 6: you know, the answer was just because you know, because
Speaker 6: he was mad that he was he was incarcerated for
Speaker 6: fleeing from the military. It just didn't sit well with Carl.
Speaker 6: So it was it stretched Carl's understanding of humans and
Speaker 6: it was kind of an interesting case for him as well.
Speaker 5: Now let's talk about the trial itself, and what was
Speaker 5: most interesting about this is that he actually made statements
Speaker 5: and testify that trial. So tell us about that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he's well, this was when for Peter the case
Speaker 6: really started, because he wanted to relive all the murders
Speaker 6: that he created, that he had committed, and he he
Speaker 6: every person in the courtroom, the judge, the attorney, the media,
Speaker 6: and the people in the courtroom held onto every single
Speaker 6: breath Peter took and he just absolutely enjoyed ruling the courtroom.
Speaker 6: And so he would at length go into detail each
Speaker 6: murder and confess, you know, to everything that he had
Speaker 6: done and how he toyed with law enforcement and why
Speaker 6: he killed each one and how he killed each one,
Speaker 6: and you know, it took ten days for him to
Speaker 6: describe in great detail what he had done or this
Speaker 6: this killing spree. So it was it was you can't
Speaker 6: really put a title on how the courtroom was because
Speaker 6: it was the first time somebody loved his nature would
Speaker 6: talk about it openly in court and with such great detail.
Speaker 6: But what really upset the people in the courtroom was
Speaker 6: he appeared giddy, He was happy. He enjoyed telling everybody
Speaker 6: how he had killed these people's community members, friends, families,
Speaker 6: and relatives. So the public was sensationalized by what was
Speaker 6: going on. But they also are very, very angry and
Speaker 6: could not wait for the judge to find him guilty
Speaker 6: and have Peter be exposed to the guillotine. So he
Speaker 6: went from ruling the courtroom to everyone in the courtroom
Speaker 6: wanted to kill them themselves. It kind of because of
Speaker 6: his his attitude and this lase fare of yeah, I
Speaker 6: killed all your friends and family, so what, So it
Speaker 6: kind of backfired for Peter a little bit.
Speaker 5: Yes, he was more than candid, and it was interesting
Speaker 5: to you talk about his final statement in court and
Speaker 5: then the judge interrupted him, didn't.
Speaker 6: He Yeah, so Peter would just take over to the courtroom,
Speaker 6: you know, and he he had very he had a
Speaker 6: lot of outbursts, but he was he was in the
Speaker 6: middle of one of these tirades where he was talking
Speaker 6: about the drinking of the blood and stuff that he
Speaker 6: had done on a couple of his victims, and the
Speaker 6: judge just judging everybody in there was like they had it,
Speaker 6: he had it. He interrupted them and basically told him off.
Speaker 6: You know, if you can say that in court, you know,
Speaker 6: he just basically told him to be quiet, remain quiet.
Speaker 6: And Peter just truckled and kept on going. You know,
Speaker 6: he didn't care. And he was in a cage environment
Speaker 6: where they couldn't just get into that cage quickly and
Speaker 6: they couldn't cover him up, they couldn't cover his mouth,
Speaker 6: and so he just kept on going. But his when
Speaker 6: he started talking about other killers and how he was
Speaker 6: hoping to reach the same numbers of some of these
Speaker 6: other killers in the history, the judge just basically demanded that,
Speaker 6: you know, stop that, you know, stop these remarks, he said,
Speaker 6: you know, because Peter was going down the line of
Speaker 6: saying something along the lines of man he called it,
Speaker 6: and Honting, but he was kind of glorifying a case
Speaker 6: the doctor Wolf and the woman. He called it, the
Speaker 6: socialist doctors, and they were accused of killing or through abortions,
Speaker 6: over five hundred babies. And Peter was getting excited and
Speaker 6: aroused talking about the murders and the death and the judges.
Speaker 5: I was it.
Speaker 6: Slammed the desk and said that's it. And then they
Speaker 6: finally got into the cage and got him and you know,
Speaker 6: twisted him up and took him out, you know, out
Speaker 6: of the courtroom.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he was sentenced to death. That didn't take too long.
Speaker 5: Ninety minutes later, guilty on all counts, sentenced to death
Speaker 5: for each murder. What you have in the book is
Speaker 5: that you open, interestingly enough with a murder. May twenty fifth,
Speaker 5: nineteen thirteen. And Peter Klein is at a bar where
Speaker 5: he's outside a bar owned by Peter Klein. And he's
Speaker 5: a beginning arsonist and a prolific burglar, you say, and
Speaker 5: he's looking for people to rob. And then you tell
Speaker 5: about a ten year old girl Peter Klein's daughter Christine,
Speaker 5: tell us about this and tell us why you think
Speaker 5: that it was such a long time between murders, which
Speaker 5: is again very very unusual.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that first one was kind of peter out in life,
Speaker 6: trying to make it and he was a burglar and
Speaker 6: kind of a shyster, and he would, you know, he's
Speaker 6: looking always for a quick buck and stuff. And I
Speaker 6: think what happened with that particular incident, and we'll just
Speaker 6: briefly hit it. But he stumbles upon this girl. I
Speaker 6: don't think he meant to go into that tavern. He
Speaker 6: went in there steal stuff. I don't think he went
Speaker 6: in there to kill anybody. But he saw this young girl,
Speaker 6: she was ten, and in the course of doing his burglary,
Speaker 6: in trying to steal stuff from people in this establishment,
Speaker 6: he stumbled upon her and he just snapped something about
Speaker 6: the something. I don't know if it's from his childhood
Speaker 6: or from the scenario or if. And there was not
Speaker 6: a lot of great details about this particular case because
Speaker 6: it was from nineteen thirteen, so it's hard for me
Speaker 6: to get police reports. There was none. I was using
Speaker 6: people's statements and recollections of incidents years later in the twenties. So,
Speaker 6: but something happened and it caused him to kill her.
Speaker 6: But during that time he did the same thing that
Speaker 6: he did later on, which was a pocket knife sliced
Speaker 6: her across the throat. But then he also had an arousal.
Speaker 6: He had a sexual arousal during that so he jack
Speaker 6: after the murder, and then he left the facility, left
Speaker 6: the tavern. But he shows up the next day and
Speaker 6: he's across the street again at another establishment, having beers
Speaker 6: watching this whole thing unfold. And that was that was
Speaker 6: the first one. That's the first known murder. But it's
Speaker 6: similar to all the rest or many of the rest
Speaker 6: because the pocket knife was involved, the sexual stuff after
Speaker 6: the fact, and then watching the chaos unfold with law enforcement.
Speaker 6: But then they're like, you said, huge gap. And it's
Speaker 6: strange because there are cases I have investigate other cases
Speaker 6: where there are these long gaps, and it's really hard
Speaker 6: to explain what the gaps were. But some of the
Speaker 6: gap in this particular case was his incarceration. He couldn't
Speaker 6: do serial killers. He couldn't do serial killing while in custody,
Speaker 6: so that tacked on about nine years to that gap.
Speaker 6: So that was one of the things. The other thing
Speaker 6: was he was married, he was working in a factory,
Speaker 6: became a union leader, and he had other things preoccupying himself,
Speaker 6: and he was having sexual relations where he did not
Speaker 6: have to rape to get it. He was just meeting
Speaker 6: girls and having sex, so his sexual desires were being met.
Speaker 6: I think all those things, in conjunction with that time
Speaker 6: incarcerated meant or led to that gap in the killings.
Speaker 6: But once he started the second round, there were very
Speaker 6: few gaps. That's when he went on his killing spree.
Speaker 5: What's very interesting is you opened the book with this,
Speaker 5: just the chaos and mayhem that Peter Curtin begins his
Speaker 5: onslaught on society. And the first victim out of this,
Speaker 5: other than the Christine Klein, is also her uncle. And
Speaker 5: it's just a bizarre set of circumstances where he had
Speaker 5: threatened his brother, he tried to loan some money, he
Speaker 5: needed a loan desperately, and then he said, I'm going
Speaker 5: to do something that you're going to regret all of
Speaker 5: your life. And then this murder of his niece occurs,
Speaker 5: and he is accused and he's acquitted. But just tell
Speaker 5: us just a little bit about this, because it's just
Speaker 5: a fascinating opening.
Speaker 6: To a story. Yeah, it was pretty pretty sad too, opening,
Speaker 6: because we have this young girl.
Speaker 4: And then.
Speaker 6: So the police obviously are trying to investigate this murder,
Speaker 6: and you know that they start doing their inquiry. Well
Speaker 6: hey hey, you know they asked her father, Hey, do
Speaker 6: you have any people that disliked you? Blah blah blah.
Speaker 6: Well he's like no, and so and obviously her father,
Speaker 6: Christine's father doesn't think his brother killed his daughter. He
Speaker 6: absolutely has no never would have ever got that. But
Speaker 6: the police talked to the brother, Carl, and he's like, yeah,
Speaker 6: you know, I was there, I've been around. That's my niece. Well,
Speaker 6: you know, jowny beefs with your brother. No, well we
Speaker 6: heard that you guys maybe had a fight. Oh yeah,
Speaker 6: I did have a fight. And then the police locked
Speaker 6: him into this statement and they accused him of committing
Speaker 6: the murder, which was really tragic because he didn't. We know,
Speaker 6: he didn't. He went to court and they dismissed the
Speaker 6: charges almost immediately. But because of the dynamic of the family,
Speaker 6: he ends up the uncle who was accused of killing Christine.
Speaker 6: He ends up killing himself. He commits suicide because of
Speaker 6: the the shame, the embarrassment, the accusations, all the stuff
Speaker 6: that was thrown upon him after having just a brief
Speaker 6: fight with his brother and being arrested for the murder
Speaker 6: of his niece. So it was super terrible situation and
Speaker 6: very sad, just kind of indicative of this whole case.
Speaker 6: There's so much sadness to it. But that's what happened.
Speaker 5: Yeah, in the end, right at the time he was
Speaker 5: killed by a guillotine. What was his demeanor, Well, right
Speaker 5: up to the end, so he was very.
Speaker 6: You know, obstinate, very like, you know, screw you, everybody.
Speaker 6: I've had it. I don't really care. He can't hurt me,
Speaker 6: he can't kill me, but he is He made a
Speaker 6: statement that was again I think, looking to rule the scenario,
Speaker 6: looking to cause shock in awe, and he asked, he
Speaker 6: basically said, hey, after my head is chopped off, well
Speaker 6: I'll still be able to hear, at least for a moment,
Speaker 6: the sound of my own blood gushing from the dump
Speaker 6: of my neck. And everybody just looked at him, like Jesus,
Speaker 6: this guy just doesn't quit. You know what kind of
Speaker 6: sick person? Asked that, and then he said he finishes
Speaker 6: us with well, that would be the pleasure to end
Speaker 6: all pleasures. So he just again he's looking for the
Speaker 6: shock and awe, you know, and he there, this is
Speaker 6: right at the moment that they're putting his head in
Speaker 6: the sack, and they said, hey, do you have any
Speaker 6: last questions or any last you know, expressions, and he
Speaker 6: said nope. And with that they dropped the blade and
Speaker 6: his head you know, fell into the sack, the burlap sack,
Speaker 6: and that was it. I mean, it was just that simple.
Speaker 6: It was so crazy of a case and it just
Speaker 6: ended with a second or two of a key team
Speaker 6: dropping and that was it.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Well, thanks his candidness and his willingness and need
Speaker 5: to tell somebody and relive these crimes. We do have
Speaker 5: early on this kind of wealth of information chronicling the psychopathic, narcissistic,
Speaker 5: totally remorseless lost killer as he's classified. I want to
Speaker 5: thank you very much for coming on and talking about Monster,
Speaker 5: the true story of serial killer Peter Curtin. Thank you
Speaker 5: very much, cel Swinny. For those that might want to
Speaker 5: check out other material, to have a Facebook page, webite
Speaker 5: that you might imparts with people that be interested.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you can find me on Facebook. Just type in
Speaker 6: cel Swinney. It is same for Twitter, and then if
Speaker 6: you type in Celswiney on Amazon dot com you can
Speaker 6: see all my other books. And then my email is available.
Speaker 6: If anybody wants to shoot a question my way or
Speaker 6: a comment or whatever concern, I get back to him
Speaker 6: as soon as I can. So I'm pretty open with
Speaker 6: that with the readers. So and I appreciate against your show.
Speaker 5: Well, thank you very much for coming on. I'm glad
Speaker 5: we could arrange reschedule the interview from yesterday, but thank
Speaker 5: you very much for this. It's been fascinating talking about
Speaker 5: serial killer Peter Curtin. Thank you very much, cel Swiney.
Speaker 5: Hope to talk to you again real soon. You have
Speaker 5: a great day.
Speaker 6: Thank you you too, sir. Thank you night