[8] Peter Kürten was born into a poverty-stricken, abusive family in Mülheim am Rhein on 26 May 1883, the oldest of thirteen children (two of whom died at an early age).

[12] Being the eldest surviving son, Kürten was the target of much of his father's physical abuse and frequently refused to return home from school as a result.

[19] To relieve his sexual urges, Kürten resorted to acts of bestiality with sheep, pigs and goats in local stables, but later claimed he obtained his greatest sense of elation if he stabbed the animals just before achieving orgasm.

[13] This apprenticeship lasted for two years before Kürten stole all the money he could find in his household, plus approximately 300 gold marks from his employer,[22] and ran away from home.

[21] Released in the summer of 1904, Kürten was drafted into the Imperial German Army; he was deployed to the city of Metz in Lorraine to serve in the 98th Infantry Regiment, although he soon deserted.

That autumn, Kürten began committing acts of arson, which he would discreetly watch from a distance as emergency services attempted to extinguish the fires.

The majority of these fires were in barns and haylofts, and Kürten would admit to police he had committed around twenty-four acts of arson upon his arrest that New Year's Eve.

Kürten strangled the child, then slashed her twice across the throat with a pocket knife, ejaculating as he heard the blood dripping from her wounds onto the floor by her bed and on his hand.

For the first time in his life, Kürten obtained regular employment, also becoming an active trades union official,[38] although, with the exception of his wife, he formed no close friendships.

The more serious charge was later dropped, although Tiede's allegations were pursued, thus earning Kürten an eight-month prison sentence for attempted seduction and threatening behaviour.

Waiting until Kühn was shielded from the view of potential witnesses by bushes, Kürten pounced upon her, grabbing her by the lapels of her coat and shouting the words, "No row!

[43] On 8 February, Kürten strangled a nine-year-old girl named Rosa Ohliger into unconsciousness before stabbing her in the stomach, temple, genitals and heart with a pair of scissors, spontaneously ejaculating as he knifed the child.

Five days later, on 13 February, Kürten murdered a 45-year-old mechanic named Rudolf Scheer in the suburb of Flingen Nord, stabbing him twenty times, particularly about the head, back and eyes.

[53] Following the Hahn murder, Kürten changed his choice of weapon from scissors to a knife in an apparent effort to convince police more than one perpetrator was responsible for the unfolding crime spree.

Sending the older girl, Luise Lenzen, on an errand to purchase cigarettes for him upon the promise of being given 20 pfennig,[57] Kürten lifted the younger child, Gertrude Hamacher, off the ground by her neck and strangled her into unconsciousness before cutting her throat and discarding her body in a patch of runner beans.

[59] Neither girl had been sexually assaulted, and the fact only Lenzen's footprints were found within seven meters of her body suggests she may have attempted to flee from her attacker before collapsing.

As had been the case with Reuter, Dörrier agreed to accompany Kürten for a drink at a café before the pair took a train to Grafenberg, to walk alongside the Kleine Düssel river.

[63] On 7 November 1929, Kürten encountered a 5-year-old girl named Gertrude Albermann in the Flingern district of Düsseldorf; he persuaded the child to accompany him to a section of deserted allotments, where he seized her by the throat and strangled her, stabbing her once in the left temple with a pair of scissors as per his modus operandi.

[63] When Albermann "collapsed to the ground without a sound", Kürten stabbed the child 34 further times in the temple and chest before placing her body in a pile of nettles close to a factory wall.

[65] By the late summer of 1929, the murders committed by the individual the press had dubbed "The Vampire of Düsseldorf" were receiving considerable national and international attention.

[69] Two days after the murder of Gertrude Albermann, a local communist newspaper received a map revealing the location of the grave of Maria Hahn.

[69] An analysis of the handwriting revealed the author was the same individual who had anonymously informed police in a letter dated 14 October[72] that he had killed Hahn and buried her body "at the edge of the woods".

[78] Kürten calmly agreed and offered to lead Budlick to a hotel, although he instead lured her into the Grafenburg Woods, where he seized her by the throat and attempted to strangle her as he raped her.

Knowing that his identity was now known to the police and suspecting they may also have connected him to the crimes committed by the Vampire of Düsseldorf, Kürten confessed to his wife he had raped Budlick and that because of his previous convictions, he may receive fifteen years penal labour.

[79] The majority of his assaults and murders had been committed when his wife had been working evenings, and the number of stab or bludgeoning wounds Kürten inflicted upon each victim had varied depending upon the length of time it had taken him to achieve an orgasm.

[89] However, Kürten contradicted these claims by proclaiming to both Berg and legal examiners that his primary motive in all his criminal activities was to both "strike back at [an] oppressive society" for what he considered the injustice of his being repeatedly incarcerated throughout his life, and as a form of revenge for the neglect and abuse he had endured as a child.

"[30] Having first claimed that his initial confession had been simply to allow his wife to recoup the reward money offered for the capture of the Düsseldorf Vampire,[97] several days into his trial, Kürten instructed his defence attorney that he wished to change his plea to one of guilty.

[13][n 5] Upon cross-examination, Kürten's defence attorney, Alex Wehner,[103] did challenge these experts' conclusions, arguing the sheer range of perversions his client had engaged in was tantamount to insanity.

Kürten displayed no emotion as the sentence was passed, although in his final address to the court, he stated that he now saw his crimes as being "so ghastly that [he did] not want to make any sort of excuse for them".

[111] Following Kürten's 1931 execution, his head was bisected and mummified; the brain was removed and subjected to forensic analysis in an attempt to explain his personality and behaviour.