Béla Kiss

Béla Kiss (1877 – ?) was a Hungarian serial killer. He is thought to have murdered at least 24 young women and attempted to pickle them in giant metal drums that he kept on his property. Béla Kiss was a tinsmith who had lived in Cinkota (a town near Budapest) since 1900. He was an amateur astrologer and allegedly fond of other occult practices. In 1912 Kiss hired a housekeeper, began to correspond with a number of attractive women and sometimes took them to his home in Cinkota. However, his housekeeper, a Mrs. Jakubec, never really got to know any of them. Townsfolk also noticed that Kiss had collected a number of metal drums. He had told the town police who questioned him that he filled them with gasoline in order to prepare for the...