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Peter Kürten (26 May 1883 – 2 July 1931) was a German serial killer known as both The Vampire of Düsseldorf and the Düsseldorf Monster, who committed a series of murders and sexual assaults between February and November 1929 in the city of Düsseldorf. In the years prior to these assaults, Kürten had amassed a lengthy criminal record for offenses including arson, theft and attempted murder. He also confessed to the 1913 murder of a 9-year-old girl in Mülheim am Rhein. Kürten became known as both the ''The Vampire of Düsseldorf'' and the ''Düsseldorf Monster'' because the majority of his murders were committed in and around the city of Düsseldorf. He was considered a vampire because he drank the blood of a killed swan in December 1929 and he also made attempts to drink the blood of some of his human victims. == Early life == Peter Kürten was born into a poverty-stricken, abusive family in Mülheim am Rhein, as the third eldest of thirteen children. As a child, he witnessed his alcoholic father repeatedly sexually assault his mother and 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, when he drowned two young boys with whom he had been swimming. Kürten moved with his family to Düsseldorf in 1894 and from 1899 he received a number of short prison sentences for various crimes, including theft and arson. Kürten progressed from torturing animals to attacks on people. He committed his first recorded murder in 1913, strangling a 9-year-old girl, Christine Klein, during the course of a burglary. He managed to get away undiscovered. His crimes were then halted by an eight-year prison sentence for several more thefts. In 1921, he left prison and moved to Altenburg, where he got married in 1923. In 1925, he returned with his wife to Düsseldorf, where he began the series of crimes that would culminate in his capture, trial, death sentence and subsequent execution. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Peter Kürten」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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