The Killing of Emma Gross (35 page)
'...Further, the multiplicity of stabs in the one series of victims and the absence of stabbing in the case of the other series, along with the hammer blows, all argued against one and the same criminal. And to these factors was added the view that Stausberg had been responsible for the February attacks, an opinion which held good until the November findings on Albermann. It was in particular for a criminal who dealt death with a hammer that we sought...'
The ensuing investigation instigates raids on underworld premises across Prussia, extending as far as Berlin. Düsseldorf Kripo offer large rewards for Elisabeth Dörrier's handbag, Ida Reuter's handbag or Gertrud Schulte's purse. Police dress a mannequin in Dörrier's nightclub clothes. Plainclothesmen enter Düsseldorf's cabarets and dance halls carrying a long black box containing the mannequin; they stop the music and then show the mannequin on stage: a combined appeal for witnesses and a public service reminder to remain vigilant.
Police release two positive statements to the public:
1) Berlin Kripo graphologist Dr Schneikert examines 600 letters and sketch maps sent in after November, concluding that two were written by the same person as the November letter;
2) Gennat announces he and his men are searching for the mistake every criminal makes 'once in the course of his career, and which in the end is bound to lead to his capture. Hitherto, in his opinion, the Düsseldorf Ripper's one mistake was his yearning for publicity.' (Seaton-Wagner) Within six months, the killer will make his mistake.
Sun 23 Feb 1930
Hildegard Eid survives a rape and attempted strangulation in the Grafenberg woods. Her attacker takes her home and makes her promise not to tell anyone what happened. A week later on Sun 2
nd
March he visits her at home and, weirdly, she goes out with him again, visiting several beer gardens before accompanying him back to his flat in Mettmannerstrasse. They go to bed but are interrupted by the man’s wife returning home before coitus can take place. At the wife’s insistence, Eid dresses and allows the wife to escort her back home. Eid fails to report anything untoward to the police.
March 1930
Two young women, Marianne del Sant and Irma Becker, survive rape and strangulation attempts in the Grafenberg woods on separate nights. On the 30
th
, Syvilla Wil is talked into having sex on a park bench with a man she’s just met. According to the statement she gives later (after Kürten’s arrest and confession), this man doesn’t attempt to harm her.
April 1930
F
ive more women suffer sexual attacks involving attempted strangulation. All survive.
Wed 30 Apr 1930
Charlotte Ulrich goes to the Grafenberg woods with a man she meets that evening. Upon reaching the woods, Ulrich’s companion hits her on the right temple with a hammer. Ulrich collapses, screaming, feels a second blow to the temple and loses consciousness, waking up alone in the woods to find her hands covered in blood and her bag missing. On staggering to the nearest railway station and asking for help, she rejects advice to go to the police. Ulrich is up and about again after two weeks’ recuperation at the home of some kindly strangers. Later, it transpires she wouldn’t go to the police because she was wanted for theft. She ends up serving a three-month jail term. While she’s in jail, Berg examines her to find that the hammer attack had fractured her skull. ‘This case proves a striking instance of the power of the will to accelerate recovery,’ Berg later notes, somewhat dryly.
May 1930
Berg and Seaton-Wagner's accounts of events at this point match on essentials but differ on dates, and, oddly, the name of the killer's next victim. Berg has her name as Maria Butlies, Seaton-Wagner as Maria Büdlick. Generally, I prefer to give Berg the benefit of the doubt, but what follows is my attempt to reconcile the two.
Weds 14 May 1930
Maria Butlies travels from Cologne to Düsseldorf in search of work as a domestic servant. On the train she makes friends with a Frau Brucker, who promises to meet her at Düsseldorf's central train station to help find her accommodation. Butlies waits but Brucker does not show up. According to Butlies' statement, at 8pm a man approaches her and says he'll show her the way to a women's hostel. In fact, he leads her to the Volksgarten, at which point Butlies demurs. The man argues with her; a second man approaches the pair and demands to know the first man's intentions, scaring him off. This new stranger says he lives in a nice three-room flat in Mettmannerstrasse and would Butlies like to rest there for a while before going on to the hostel? Butlies agrees and they go. The flat turns out to be a poorly-furnished one-room attic flat. The man gives Butlies a cup of milk and a slice of bread and ham. This is around 11pm. After eating her food, Butlies insists on leaving. Stranger escorts her onto the tram, saying the hostel is a 'short tram-ride' away. Butlies notices the tram is heading out of town. They get off near some woods on the city's outskirts. The stranger leads Butlies deeper into the woods. Then he stops and says: 'You're alone with me in the middle of the woods. Now you scream as much as you like and nobody will hear you!' He kisses her, seizes her by the throat and throws her to the ground. Mindful of Düsseldorf Ripper stories, Butlies allows the man to rape her, hoping that compliance will save her life. When he's finished, the man asks if she remembers where he lives. Butlies lies and says no. The man leads her back to the tram line and leaves her there. This decision not to kill Butlies proves to be the mistake Gennat was waiting for.
Thurs 15 May 1930
Butlies finds refuge at a women's hostel run by nuns – the Gertrudishaus, or hostel of St Gertrude. She tells them of the attack but makes no effort to contact police.
Fri 16 May 1930
A man calling himself Franz Weidlich gets talking with a young woman named Gertrud Bell. They have sex in her rented room and make a date to meet again on Sat 24
th
May. ‘Weidlich’ doesn’t attempt to harm Bell physically, though this could be because her prying landlady drives him out of the building soon after coitus. Fate will soon intervene to ensure that ‘Weidlich’ fails to make his appointment.
Sat 17 May 1930
Butlies writes a letter to Frau Brucker detailing her rape. Blind luck intervenes to help the police: Butlies misspells Frau Brucker's name and her letter is delivered to a Frau Brugman, who takes the letter to Düsseldorf Kripo at headquarters.
Weds 21 May 1930
Late morning: plainclothesmen track down Butlies at the Gertrudishaus and ask her to try and find her attacker's address. Earlier that morning, Butlies had already tramped up and down Mettmannerstrasse trying to find the right house. She had asked inhabitants of different houses along the street if a 'fair-haired' and 'rather sedate' man lived there. At number 71, inhabitants recognised the description as matching Peter Kürten, a man who lodges in the attic flat with his wife. Around lunchtime Butlies leads the detectives to number 71. Waiting in the lobby, Butlies asks a woman passing through with her daughters if a man answering Kürten's description lives there. The woman turns out to be Kürten's landlady who lives in the flat next door to his. She escorts Butlies to Kürten's flat and lets Butlies in. Kürten returns home and surprises Butlies. He leaves with hat pulled low over his eyes, eluding the two detectives.
Fri 23 May 1930
Morning: detectives take Frau Kürten from work to interview her about her husband. At this point police know only that they are tracking a violent rapist. There is nothing in the case to point to Kürten's being the Düsseldorf Ripper besides the circumstantial fact that he has attacked a woman.
Evening: Frau Kürten informs police that her husband has arranged to meet her at the Church of St Rochus at 3pm next day. She tells detectives her husband has confessed to her to being the Düsseldorf Ripper. She denies all prior knowledge and appears to be in shock at the news.
Sat 24 May 1930
3pm: police surround the church square and arrest Kürten who surrenders without a struggle. Kürten's personal appearance is smart, including:
1) make up;
2) hair pomades;
3) well-brushed suit, creased trousers;
4) polished shoes;
5) slim;
6) good-looking (Berg) / plain (Seaton-Wagner);
7) thick yellow hair carefully parted;
8) blue eyes (clever looking: Berg);
9) small scar on right cheek (apparently hard to spot) – from quarrel in 1904;
10) despite being in his mid-forties (born 1883), witnesses and surviving victims have all underestimated his age at between 25 and 35.
That evening, theatres and cabarets in the city interrupt their performances to announce Kürten's capture; cinemas flash the news onscreen. The public reacts sceptically, causing police to publish reports regularly during their interrogation of the suspect.
Sun 25 May 1930
Kürten's interrogation begins. The Chief of the Düsseldorf Murder Commission conducts the first interview in the presence of the Rhineland Police Chief, the Attorney General and the Public Prosecutor. Once first protocols are taken, the Chief of Police and Chief of the Murder Commission drive Kürten to the scenes of the crimes he has confessed to, to verify his statements on the spot.
Graphologist Dr Schneikert summoned from Berlin by telegram to study Kürten's handwriting.
Gertrud Schulte picks Kürten out of a line up. The missing tooth in Kürten’s upper right jaw seems to be a key aid to Schulte's memory.
Murder Commission releases a statement confirming Kürten as the attacker of Maria Butlies and Gertrud Schulte. Statement adds that it is seeking to establish proof of Kürten's guilt in the Maria Hahn murder.
Tues 27 May 1930
Crowds wait outside police headquarters to watch Kürten taken from magistrate's room to police cell.
Murder Commission publicly confirms Kürten as Maria Hahn's killer based on Kürten's confession, particularly his description of the spade used to bury the body; police subsequently find the spade near the scene. Police add that Dr Schneiket has confirmed Kürten as writer of the 'murder letter', which proves he also killed Gertrud Albermann. Police announce discovery at Kürten's flat of two pairs of scissors which Kürten claims he used on several of his victims. Police add that this claim tallies with the medical evidence. Karl Berg later writes that he believes Kürten used these scissors in his attacks on Ohliger, Scheer and Kühn in Feb 1929. Kürten says he changed weapons after this because the scissors broke.
25 – 30 May 1930
During his extended interrogation, Kürten is watched at night by three men picked for the job. These men report Kürten sleeps so soundly that he has to be woken in the mornings. Kürten also likes to talk to these men of the children he killed – assuring them that he never intended to hurt any of his child victims.
Detectives prove Kürten wrote his murder letters on the same thick white wrapping paper used at the shop where he bought groceries.
Kürten leads police to a bush in a park where he claims to have hidden two hammers used in the attacks. When they arrive, the hammers are gone. Police circulate their description and later two small boys hand them in.
Police find handbags of Ida Reuter and Elisabeth Dörrier in the front gardens where Kürten said he'd thrown them.
To police, Kürten claims his motive was compensatory justice: innocent blood of his victims to torment his tormentors and shock the society that imprisoned him for so many years. He claims this was why he wrote letters to police. Berg later claims Kürten specifically did not want to be known as a lust murderer. Therefore, accusations of this type in initial interviews are likely to anger and upset him.
Kürten's criminal record is extensive, totalling 17 prison sentences for theft, desertion from the army, discharging firearms and molestation. His first prison sentence was in 1897: two years for theft. His last was the six years from 1915 to 1921. His longest stint in jail was seven years in Münster from 1905 to 1912 for desertion. During interrogation, Kürten claims that in prison he was treated 'worse than a dog': he uses this to back up his declared motive of murdering to avenge himself on society.
Fri 30 May 1930
Kürten officially handed over as remand prisoner to examining magistrate.
Through the week,
Freiheit
and other left wing papers have been pronouncing their outrage at Johann Stausberg's April 1929 arrest and continued imprisonment. Police respond on 30
th
May with the following: 'All other cases are cleared up, but those of Ohliger and Scheer are still uncertain and wrapped in mystery.' In reality, it seems that Kürten has already confessed to the Ohliger and Scheer murders. Indeed, Kürten has also confessed to two murders in Altenburg, Thuringia, which Düsseldorf Kripo believes he couldn't possibly have committed. He also admits murdering Emma Gross, though, as Seaton-Wagner reports: 'here he had not the correct knowledge of time, place and position which he betrayed in all the other charges laid against him.' Police disregard this confession and Kürten later retracts it. Police never discover who killed Emma Gross.
