All language subtitles for Episode 02 Loachim Kroll

For three decades,
a relentless serial killer

was targeting women across
the industrial heartland

of West Germany.

Between 1955 and 1976,
he confessed to killing at least

14 victims, the youngest of them
a 4yearold girl,

but the authorities had no idea.

The fact that he got away
with this for so long,

I think we should really ask
ourselves a lot of questions.

How does somebody like this go
under the radar for that long?

He killed with such stealth

that others were blamed
for his murders.

Everyone kept saying he was
the alleged child murderer,

and that drove my father
to his death.

In 1976, the police captured
the actual killer,

a 43yearold man
named Joachim Kroll.

He demonstrated how
he'd killed his victims

in a series of chilling
reconstruction pictures.

In my view, Kroll is among
the most depraved serial killers

we've seen in Europe
in the 20th century.

Joachim Kroll, the man dubbed
the Duisburg Cannibal,

had carved his place in history

as one of the world's
most evil killers.

It was a series of murders that
shocked the whole of Germany.

For 21 years, between
the mid1950s and the mid'70s,

Joachim Kroll murdered
at least 14 people

by strangling them to death.

His youngest victim,
Marion Ketter,

was just 4 years old.

The discovery of her dismembered
body in the summer of 1976

left the nation in a state
of complete disbelief.

For years, Kroll took care
to strike away from his home

in Duisburg,
a town in Ruhrgebiet,

West Germany's
industrial heartland,

but Marion Ketter lived
right on his street.

Police were knocking on doors,

searching for the missing
4yearold girl in July, 1976,

when they made
a gruesome discovery.

Bernd Jagers was a young
detective on the detective

on the Duisburg murder squad.

The whole thing was
only discovered

because Joachim took a girl
from the neighborhood.

Before that,
he would travel further,

and the crime scenes
were far away from Duisburg.

That is the reason why it
took us so long to catch him.

This time, he took a girl
from the neighborhood

who he knew by sight.

He took her to his flat,
sexually abused her

and then killed her.

When a 4yearold goes missing,

the alarm bells
go off everywhere.

Of course,
you use a lot of personnel

to try and find this girl,
and when we got there,

other colleagues were
already on the scene,

and we then went inside the flat
and experienced

something terrible.

The story of this twisted
killer begins

more than 80 years ago.

Joachim Kroll was born on
April 17, 1933,

the sixth of nine children.

His family lived
in Upper Silesia

in the far east of Germany

until they got driven out of
the end of the second World War.

Joachim Kroll was
the son of a coal miner

born in East Germany.

Weakly, unprepossessing child,
barely intelligent,

he had an IQ of 79.

They lived in
very cramped circumstances,

only two rooms
for a family of 11.

always in
financial difficulties.

And also his relationship
with the family

weighed heavily on him because
he was hardly able to develop

any kind of close relationship
with his siblings.

Joachim Kroll was lonely
in his own family

because he learned that he
didn't matter much as a human.

He didn't experience
any motherly

or fatherly love at home,

and therefore couldn't develop
a feeling of selfworth.

He was withdrawn and shy.

He was afraid to even speak

because he was
physically abused.

He was a bit of a victim,
a bit of an outcast,

even within his own family,
and then when he went to school,

he didn't really
fit in there, either.

He had quite a low IQ.

He wasn't particularly bright.
He was a bit slow.

So that made him a bit
of a target there,

and then later on, he was
drafted into the Hitler Youth.

You know, perhaps his father
thought this was a way

of sorting him out and making
him, you know, a real man,

but that didn't really
work out either

because he didn't fit in
with that particular culture.

So here is somebody who's always
been something of an outsider,

somebody who doesn't
always fit in,

who isn't really
accepted anywhere.

When the Red Army came,
all the Germans were driven out,

and for the Kroll family,
it was an odyssey

because they went from
place to place to find

another home somewhere.

Kroll had to watch women being
raped, people being killed,

how small boys played
with explosives

and blew themselves up
in the process.

So as a young man, Joachim Kroll

had already been
badly traumatized.

You have to bear in mind

that Joachim had always
been teased and bullied.

Even in his own family,
he was always the loser.

When one of them did something,
his siblings would always say

"Joachim did it,"
so he would be beaten again.

There's quite a few pieces
of the jigsaw puzzle

falling quite neatly
into place here for Kroll.

So he started off life
as an outsider,

not really got many decent
social relationships.

He's quite isolated,
and he's somebody

who is becoming
increasingly introverted,

and that's always
a dangerous thing.

While working on farms
as a teenager,

Kroll was regularly beaten
by his superiors

whenever he made a mistake.

He went to work on a farm,
quite a tough environment.

He didn't get on
particularly well

socially in this environment.

He worked with people
on the farm.

This included women, who he
would make inappropriate

passes at because he just didn't
have the social skills

to form normal relationships
with the opposite sex.

He was quite aggressive
in his approach to them.

So he was often rejected
by the women

that he would try
and develop relationships with,

and I think that that served to
just isolate him even further.

During his time on the farm,
Kroll also developed

a morbid fascination
with the butchery of animals.

Back in those days,
slaughtering animals on farms

isn't the kind of cold, clinical
approach that's taken today.

It was incredibly brutal.
It was incredibly bloody.

He wasn't repulsed
by these scenes of gore

and blood and violence
that other people might be.

When he saw a pig being
slaughtered for the first time,

it had a lasting effect on him.

He started sweating.
His pulse was racing.

It was basically a very positive

and almost ecstatic experience
that he didn't expect to feel.

He was completely overwhelmed
by these sensations

that were
totally unknown to him.

So he's a bit different,

and he's developing a tolerance
to violence and to death.

Kroll's delight in the blood
and gore of the slaughterhouse

even manifested into
sexual acts with animals.

If fantasies of sexual violence
develop during puberty,

and he was in puberty
when he was working on farms,

then you can never
get rid of them.

There, he experienced
these sexual things,

which aroused him -
the warm blood

and where
he satisfied himself.

Then afterwards, he lived out
his fantasies on the animals

with sexual acts with cows
and anything that was available,

and something like that
will never go away.

When we look at sex,
we look at what is it?

What does it represent?

Essentially,
it represents power.

Now, here's somebody who hasn't
had a lot of power,

who hasn't had a lot of control
over the things

that have been happening
in his life,

but when he's involved
in the slaughtering of animals,

he's feeling in control
in this situation.

And this is something
that he quite enjoys.

It's the first time,
I think, in his life

that he's got control
over what's going on.

Kroll's fantasies
translated into behavior

that was becoming
more and more grotesque.

When he lived in a hostel
for single men,

and he took a cat
into his room,

he had this idea
that he wanted to see

what the insides looked like.

He took a hammer, struck the cat
and skinned it

and took a closer
look at its intestines.

And that really does show
this kind of childlike curiosity

that he's got and the complete
lack of boundaries around

how to behave appropriately.

His violence towards animals
took a more humanlike turn

when Kroll began experimenting
with blowup dolls.

Because Kroll didn't manage
to get access to women,

he procured himself
several rubber dolls instead,

which he draped with clothing,

but then also hanged them
with a rope

and imagined that
the women would then die.

He got a particular
kick out of that.

It was only a matter of time
before Kroll's perverse behavior

would lead him to kill.

When he was arrested
three decades later

for the gruesome murder
of 4yearold Marion Ketter

in July, 1976,

the police found communication
with Kroll extremely difficult.

Well, we just simply thought

if someone does
something like this,

other things or fantasies
must have played a part.

Kroll was so withdrawn
that police decided

he might open up more
if just one detective tried

to form a rapport with him.

I said to our boss, "I would
like to talk to Joachim alone."

So the two of us sat down
in the interview room,

and I tried
with absolute mundane

and trivial subjects
to get through to him.

To get through to this man now
was, of course, not easy.

I then tried with something
we found out

through interviews
with his neighbors -

that he would often work
on the moped that he owned,

that he would fix it
and adjust it,

and that he also repaired
his own television,

and so I tried
to go down this route,

and all of a sudden,
I noticed that he realized,

"Someone is listening to me
when I talk about myself

and is actually
asking questions,"

and that was the moment when
trust was gradually built up,

where I was fortunate enough
to kindle a spark of trust,

so he'd also discussed
other things with me.

Kroll was ready
to talk to the police.

They had no idea that the quiet
man sitting before them

was responsible
for the barbaric killing of

at least 14 people
over the past 21 years.

His confession would stun
the whole of West Germany.

As detectives continued
with their interrogations,

Kroll began to open up.

My colleague, Bernd Jagers,
did it all the right way.

He's the one who
broke the ice because

without his special
relationship with Kroll,

all these murder confessions

would probably
never have been possible.

So therefore, he deserves
the very highest respect.

He gave Kroll the feeling,
"I don't see you as

a beast or maneater,
but just as a human being,

and that's exactly
how I'll treat you.

Let yourself go, do that,"
and Kroll did that,

and then, day after day,
he confessed to new murders.

Kroll told detectives that
he'd committed his first murder

when he was 22 years old,
in February, 1955,

just three weeks after
the death of his mother.

Joachim Kroll's
murderous career

started when the only person
he could relate to,

his mother, died.

His mother was, above all,

the most important person
in Kroll's life,

in contrast with his father,
who beat him regularly.

She was the only
positive figure in his life.

He looked up to her
and didn't have to be afraid.

So when this pillar broke,
there was no halt

to his sexual
pathological development.

The victim was 19yearold
Irmgard Strehl.

Kroll had attacked her
in the town of Ludinghausen,

an hour's drive
northeast of Duisburg.

So he sees this woman, and he
tries to make a pass at her,

to grab her and kiss her,

and understandably,
she doesn't react well to this.

That rejection stunned him
so much that he thought,

"I'm a human being,
and I want to live my sexuality,

so I have to find another way,"

and so violence
was the only solution.

As a result, he kind of
shuffles her off into the woods,

where he sexually assaults her,

and he kills her,
and then he mutilates her body.

So this is somebody
who appears to be,

you know,
kind of subhuman in a way.

Why don't we put
his first murder in context?

The only way that
he's felt powerful

and that he's felt in control

is when he's been
killing animals on the farm.

So when he kills
his first victim,

this is another
exercise of power.

It's another exercise
of control.

But what's particularly
important about this one

is that he's crossed a line.

He's killed a human being.
He's killed an individual.

And I think this is a line

that he will cross
time and time again.

Kroll began to confess
to a murderous career

that had lasted
for the previous 21 years.

He had developed
a familiar M.O. -

sneaking up behind people
and strangling them to death.

Kroll was one of the few people

who almost fulfilled the
stereotype of a serial killer.

He did have slightly
staring eyes and a small,

rather weasely, ratlike face.

He tended to be furtive
in all his movements.

He targeted women,
but they had to be inert.

Well, the only way that Kroll
could be assured

that his female victims
were inert was to kill them.

He would strangle them rapidly,
often by surprise,

usually in isolated places.

He was the sort of chap
you probably would have wanted

to cross the street to avoid.

The main effect of
strangulation

is that it blocks
the blood supply to the brain

and it blocks the blood coming
back from the brain to the body.

That's far more
immediately damaging

than pressure on the windpipe
or blocking off the air supply.

So once you've blocked
the blood supply to the brain,

once the arteries
aren't supplying it with blood,

you've literally got
about 10 seconds

before you lose consciousness,
so it's quick.

As Detective Bernd Jagers

continued with his
daily interrogation of Kroll,

the story began to captivate
the German press,

who dubbed the killer
"The Duisburg Cannibal."

His nickname at one point
was the Ruhr Cannibal

or the Ruhr Hunter
because he regularly boasted,

in the wake of his capture,
that he ate the victims.

He said it was the only meat
he could eat.

You have to explain
that back then,

there were all kinds of stories
published in the press,

wild stories,
none of which were true.

Let's say that BildZeitung

published interviews
wordforword in the newspaper,

but we never actually
talked to the BildZeitung.

They published such things as,
"Now Joachim Kroll

is being given cake
or potato fritters

so that he will confess
to the next murder."

This is, of course,
total nonsense.

Now we were there every day,

also the weekends in order
to keep Joachim's spirits up.

So I just asked him,
"What would you like to eat?"

Which is quite normal.

He would say,
"I would like a piece of cake."

Then of course,
we would go and get cake,

but that was just about
being human

and not to get
a murder confession.

No one would confess to murder
because of that.

You have to imagine
Kroll is built up in the media

as a monster, a maneater,
a cannibal, and then the police

go and serve him
with his favorite food.

In the end, it was also just
a tactic to get Kroll to talk,

and using these means
has to be allowed.

Having gained
the confidence of Kroll,

the police got a clear insight
into the perverse fantasies

that ultimately motivated him
to commit his appalling crimes.

He needed this killing.

He needed this seeing
how to kill,

and that gave him
sexual gratification,

but the corpses in themselves
no longer interested him.

He just left them.

He did not cover them up,
nothing at all,

and then he got the bus or train

or whatever home
in a completely normal way.

Kroll tended to minimize
his behavior,

and, as criminologists,

we call this
techniques of neutralization.

So rather than describing them

as the horrendous
things they are,

he described them
as these funny feelings,

you know, something that was
a bit of a quirk

or something that was a bit odd.

So he's minimizing
what he's doing

by describing it in that way.

Between 1955 and 1976,

Kroll told detectives that
he'd killed at least 14 people

and that he could take them
to some of the crime scenes.

Officers decided to drive him
to a series of

cold case locations throughout
the Ruhrgebiet region.

They hoped by allowing him
to reenact the murders,

it may help them identify
his unknown victims.

The police captured photographs

of these macabre
reconstructions.

We as interrogators
had no files, nothing at all.

We drove behind them.

They stop somewhere, then
Joachim got out, and we asked,

"Joachim, have you been
here before?"

and if he recognized something,
then he said,

"Yes, I have been here before."

He then looked at it all
and went with us into the forest

depending on what
crime scene it was.

He then could describe
how it had looked at that time.

That was incredible.
He had a photographic memory.

He did not know where he was,

but he just had
this photographic memory.

Kroll would try and identify
a specific tree or shrub,

but he couldn't always find
what he was looking for.

We would find a few places
where a forest used to be,

but now they were
highrise buildings.

Then he didn't know anymore,
and he said, "I'm sorry.

I can't say if I was here.
I don't know."

Of course, this was
sometimes frustrating,

but you have to live with that
after such a long time.

Kroll took the police
to the town of Essen,

half an hour's drive
from his home in Duisburg

where he told them how he killed
61yearold Maria Hettgen

outside of her house in 1969.

He walked around
the lake all day.

It was nice weather
and had this feeling.

It had slowly turned to dusk,
and he wanted to go home,

but then he saw the old lady,
whom he immediately addressed

and said, "Do you want
to have sex with me?"

She did not want to, of course.

He snatched her and pulled her
into a wooded area,

and then he killed her there.

He doesn't seem to have
a particular victim type,

which is something that we do
tend to see in serial killers.

So this could suggest
that these crimes

are completely opportunistic,
that he's not consciously

targeting a particular
group of people.

Using the information gathered
in these factfinding missions,

the police were able
to piece together

Kroll's history of murder.

We could only use
what Joachim Kroll told us

during the reenactment
during the interrogation,

and we would ask
a few questions

about whether or not
anything more had occurred.

Well, we asked,
"Joachim, what did you do then?

What happened then?"
Questions like that.

These answers convinced us that
he is not inventing the stuff

and that he really wants
to get it off his chest.

After spending
three months with Joachim

and looking into
more than 100 cases,

at some point
the defense said,

"That's enough.
Joachim Kroll will no longer

go into the car
with the police."

So we could not continue to go

to all the unsolved
crime scenes.

This may have also resulted
in solving other unsolved cases.

That was a shame.

As new crimes
were revealed to detectives,

they soon realize that Kroll
was confessing to murders

that had already been solved.

Some of these innocent men
who had been wrongly accused

were in prison
and some had even ended up dead.

He had confessed to the murder
of 14 people and led detectives

to the location
of many of the crime scenes.

One of these victims
was 13yearold Jutta Rahn.

Kroll had strangled and killed
her in the town of Breitscheid

in 1970, six years
before his arrest,

but in a time
before DNA evidence existed,

the police had focused
their investigation

on Jutta's boyfriend.

For the police and also
for the prosecutor,

the matter was resolved,

and because of that,
it was not on the list,

and then Joachim went with us
into the forest

and explained what he had done.

This was the first story
where we then said,

"Hey, we have somebody here
who is in the know.

We're not here with somebody
who is not quite so clever.

He wants to show us
what he's done,

and now we have a crime
for which someone else

has almost been sentenced,
and he has another

20 to 30 people
that he might have killed."

A blood group classification
expert later confirmed

that Jutta's boyfriend could
not have been the perpetrator,

and he was acquitted,
but he was not the only man

who had been mistakenly
accused of a Kroll murder.

One man had even made
a false confession

about killing 16yearold
Manuela Knodt,

who was in fact murdered
by Kroll in 1959.

After some time, this man
went to the police

and told them
that he killed this girl.

He really went to prison
for the crime

but then said during his trial,
"It wasn't me.

I only said that because
I had financial problems,

family problems.
I was on the street.

I needed somewhere to go
and confessed to this crime."

It was, of course, no longer
treated as an unsolved case

by the police.

The case had been closed.

It had come to a trial,
and he had been convicted.

Following Kroll's
arrest in 1976,

the convicted man wrote
an astonishing letter,

which was published
in the press.

This man had already turned
to our boss at the murder squad.

He wrote a letter then saying
that he was not the perpetrator,

and that the perpetrator must
still be walking around free.

We went to that scene,
to the crime scene,

and Joachim got out and said,
"Yes, I was here, too."

He went into the forest
and again

looked for a very specific bush

and a specific place,
and he said, "Here it was,"

and we immediately did
a reconstruction.

So that was the second story
where an innocent person

had served time in prison,

and the matter
was considered as solved.

Another man who was falsely
accused was Walter Quicker,

a farmer from Walsum,
a suburb of Duisburg.

He lived less than a mile
from the spot

where 11yearold Monika Tafel
was killed in June, 1962.

The young happened to be out
and about that day

and bumped into Joachim Kroll,

who was out looking for
a new victim to kill and rape.

Without the slightest
hesitation,

he kept turning around to check
if anyone could see him,

approached the girl,
dragged her into a field,

strangled her, and then
sexually assaulted her.

But in 1962, Joachim Kroll
was just a phantom,

and a few days after the brutal
killing of Monika Tafel,

the police arrested
Walter Quicker.

His daughter, Marlies, was just
6 years old at the time.

My father was suspected
of raping and murdering

an 11yearold girl 150 meters
from his family home.

People who lived in the area

and also from among
his acquaintances made claims.

They expressed suspicions,
which the police reacted to.

And I think it was
five days after

the child's body was found,

they arrested him
at his workplace.

No one could have seen him

because on the day of the
disappearance, he was at work.

So in that sense,
he also had a kind of alibi.

He was accused, and I know
that some people

who were very close to me

made negative comments
about my father.

The murder of Monika
had left the community

in a state of shock.

People were keen to keep
their children within sight

because no one knew
where the killer lived

or when he'd strike again.

This created an oppressive
atmosphere in the area,

and at the same time,
people voiced their suspicions.

One person suspected the next.

It was a hard time for everyone,

and no one insisted
that it wasn't him.

The accusations were there,
apart from my mother.

She always said,
"It wasn't him."

Walter was only held
in police custody

for a few days before
being released without charge,

but people in the area
continued to see Marlies' father

as the killer.

So after he was released,
people avoided him,

and people called out
behind him, "Murderer,"

and stuff like that.

It was the case that people
really avoided him in the area.

Just six months
after his arrest,

the false accusations became
too much for Walter to take.

On the evening of
the 10th of December,

he left the house, and that was
the last time he was seen.

On the 15th of December, 1962,

he was found hanging
from a tree by some children.

I was 9 years old when I really
grasped what had happened,

and it appalled me.

It touched me inside,
and I often stood

and looked at the spot
where the girl was murdered.

When Kroll confessed
to the murder

of 11yearold Monika Tafel
following his arrest in 1976,

it came as a huge relief
to Marlies,

but in a way,
Walter Quicker had become

yet another victim
of Joachim Kroll.

My grandmother came out
with the remark,

"So it wasn't him after all."

This remark affected me
very deeply,

and I didn't ever discuss it
with anyone else

because I had to process
the fact

that the pressure
of being the daughter

of a suspected murderer
had disappeared.

My father had been
rehabilitated.

I don't know what other people
said about that afterwards.

I only know what I heard
and what I felt myself,

and that's the only thing
that counted for me.

Before Kroll was arrested,
a whole series of other men

came under suspicion
as part of the investigation,

and that is of course
particularly tragic

because these were always
men who, at the end of the day,

had nothing to do
with the crime.

Kroll saw no problem with that.

No, that's their problem.

That would be their difficulty.
I can get away with it.

And to get away with it
for 21 years

so consistently,
with so many deaths,

in such a small area
is horrifying,

but also remarkable.

In total, two men were
falsely accused or imprisoned,

and three men committed suicide
in relation to Kroll's murders,

another five victims
of the callous killer.

After his arrest in July, 1976,
it appeared to detectives

that Kroll was almost relieved
to be captured.

He wanted this sensation gone,

which had always led him
to commit these crimes.

So he really felt the need,
and he thought that

when he told his story
that it would go away somehow.

In terms of what Kroll
expressed about his punishment,

it is quite childlike
and quite immature in a way

because he thought that
he would just go to hospital

and his funny feelings
would be cured,

and then he'd be able
to go home.

So this implies quite a kind of
simplistic interpretation

of his own problems.

But Joachim Kroll could not
make these murders

simply disappear.

He would have to face justice
for his crimes.

Kroll may have gone on
to kill many more women,

but one costly mistake
had led to his capture,

and a gruesome discovery in his
home had stunned the country.

He presented to the world
as friendly,

plausible, agreeable
to his neighbors in Duisburg.

The local children
would visit him,

although I think sometimes
their parents

must have been
a little suspicious.

He was known as Uncle Joachim.

We also tried to speak to those
around the neighborhood,

asked who knows him,
who had contact with him.

People said he was a bit weird,
a bit odd somehow,

but he was
dear old Uncle Joachim,

and in reality, he was a wolf
in sheep's clothing.

Behind this facade
of Uncle Joachim

and, "Oh, I like to look
after you girls and boys,

and they come around to see me,
and I'll give them sweets,"

was this man who was
very, very angry,

who wanted to make society
well aware

that they were living
by a thread,

and he could cut it
at any moment that he chose.

Kroll usually did
his killing miles away

from his Duisburg home,

but in July, 1976,
suffering with a bad leg,

he finally struck
within his own community

when he kidnapped and murdered
4yearold Marion Ketter.

It was the mistake
that led to his capture.

His crime scenes
got closer and closer,

and therefore it was the dumbest
thing he could really do

was take a girl
from the direct neighborhood,

but as I said,
his feeling was greater,

and if he had thought about it,
he should have said,

"This, what I am doing now,
is nonsense.

They will catch me."

Doortodoor questioning
throughout the neighborhood

led the police
directly to Kroll.

Inside his home was
an horrific crime scene.

Detectives found a saucepan on
the stove with body parts in it.

Worse still were the contents
of the refrigerator.

There was this girl
completely dismembered,

upper arm, forearm placed
on corresponding shelves

so that he only had
to take something out

and add it to the pan.

That was unfathomable for us.

When we look at cannibalism,

we're essentially
looking at those

who consume
the bodies of other humans,

and this is something
that we do see

sometimes in cases
of serial murder,

and it is about power,
and it's about control again.

It's about completely
possessing your victim.

So not only have you
taken away their life,

you're now mutilating their body
and consuming it.

Kroll disposed of other
parts of the body

by flushing them
down the lavatory.

But that blocked the toilet

and that of his neighbor
below, as well.

The neighbor approached
him and said,

"Hey, something
is blocked here."

One of the horrifying things
of Kroll's crimes

was that he took pleasure

in taking out
the intestines of his victims,

and he told a neighbor who was
asking him what the smell was,

and he said rather flippantly,
"Oh, it's guts,"

which it literally
was intestines,

and the neighbor complained.

Kroll was nothing if not brazen.

Kroll claimed he had
butchered a rabbit

and would make sure the remains
were removed from the pipe.

He did that, too, and he took
it to the waste bins

in the courtyard
where he disposed of it.

He was seen by this neighbor,
who then told our colleagues,

who were walking around,
asking questions,

"Who has seen this girl last?"

This neighbor told them
of his observations,

and so they checked
the waste bin

and found that this was
not from a rabbit,

but that they
were human innards.

Kroll had kidnapped
and murdered

the helpless 4yearold
just days before.

He felt particularly attracted
to this young girl.

He always stood up in the attic

looking down
into the playground,

saw Marion playing,
and got this funny feeling,

"I want to have this girl,

and I will snatch her up
at the next opportunity,"

and the 4yearold girl did then
come into his flat with him,

and then he strangled her,

and after that did
all these awful things

that one can scarcely bear
to talk about.

Well, I was shocked
because I had a son

who was not that much older.

I had not been in
the homicide division long,

only for two years.

That was something where you
had to more than just swallow.

I have seen many things,

but this was something
completely new to me

that a human being was able
to do such a thing.

Kroll had evaded detection
for so long

and had no remorse whatsoever
for the suffering he'd caused.

He was not capable of feeling
any sort of empathy

towards anybody,
especially his victims.

They were simply objects to him

that he wanted
to manipulate and kill,

and then he was content.

Joachim Kroll never cared
about what he did.

He did not even ask
what her name was.

He did not care.
His tingling feeling was gone.

Her body remained there.

He got up, possibly
cleaned himself up,

and then the matter
was done for him.

There was not even
a reaction like,

"When I count them up,
you'd be able to prove so many.

That is so bad."

Such things we did not hear
from him.

In that regard,
he was totally emotionless.

Although he had confessed
to killing at least 14 people,

the police officially charged
Joachim Kroll

with eight murders.

On the 4th of October, 1979,

Kroll's hearing
began in Duisburg.

As the details of Kroll's

gruesome sexual deviance
were revealed,

the case caught
the public's imagination

in a way few others have.

The, in some cases,
excessive media coverage

obviously contributed to Kroll
becoming a case of the century,

but on the other hand,

from a criminologist's
perspective,

one has to say that there hasn't
been a comparable case

in Germany at least
since the second World War

where so many people have been
killed over such a long period.

Over the next
two and a half years,

the court was only
in session 151 times,

but in April, 1982,

Kroll was convicted of all eight
murder charges against him.

He was sentenced
to life imprisonment.

The 49yearold was immediately
sent to Rheinbach Prison.

In my view,
Kroll wasn't mad or bad,

but was a human being
who had failed in social terms,

sexually and in his work life,

and who on this basis committed
the most terrible crimes.

In my opinion, Joachim Kroll

would not have become
a serial killer

if he had been valued
as a human being.

Whilst most of his victims
were young,

there was somebody
who was in their 60s.

So there was an array
of victims.

It wasn't a particular type,

and the fact that he got away
with this for so long,

I think we should really ask
ourselves a lot of questions,

you know, as a society.

How does somebody like this go
under the radar for that long?

On July 1, 1991, nine years
after being convicted,

Joachim Kroll died
of a heart attack

in Rheinbach Prison.

He was 58 years old.

I think Kroll did some
incredibly evil things

which really do kind of breach
not just legal codes,

but social and moral ones,
as well,

and what's interesting for me is
what made him into this person

that did these evil things?

He didn't really have very much
in the way of monitoring

of his behavior
or any breaks on his behavior.

So I think when you have
a situation like that,

you can have somebody

who turns into someone
capable of real evil.

The news of Kroll's demise

was of scant
consolation to Marlies Woywod.

After I heard about it,
I felt hatred for Kroll

and would have liked
to wish on him

that everything he did
to the children

at to the adults
would be done to him,

and I'm sorry that he died
so early,

and this anger I have will
probably never go away.

Had he not kidnapped
Marion Ketter close to home

in one of his very few mistakes
in this killing spree

of 20 years or more,

then I'm absolutely sure
he would have continued to kill.

If there is ever anyone
who could be said

to epitomize
what the word "evil" means,

I would say
it was Joachim Kroll,

a genuinely evil man who defiled
the world he inhabited.

For 21 years,
West Germany was haunted

by an almostinvisible killer.

Joachim Kroll was so ordinary

that he blended
into the background.

While other men were accused
of his most vile crimes,

he continued to murder
for his own gratification,

regardless of the consequences.

His capture came as a shock
to the whole country,

who will remember Kroll

as one of the world's
most evil killers.