Peter Kürten

Peter Kürten (26 May 1883–2 July 1931) was a German serial killer dubbed The Vampire of Düsseldorf by the contemporary media. He committed a series of sex crimes, assaults and murders against adults and children, most notoriously from February to November 1929 in Düsseldorf. Kürten was born into a poverty-stricken, abusive family in Mülheim am Rhein, the third of 13 children. As a child, he witnessed his alcoholic father repeatedly sexually assault his mother and his sisters. He followed in his father's footsteps, and was soon sexually abusing his sisters. He engaged in petty criminality from a young age, and was a frequent runaway. He later claimed to have committed his first murders at the age of nine, drowning two young friends while...