ABOMINATIONS OF PETER KÜRTEN: Germany’s Vampire of Düsseldorf – 10 Murders, 68 Crimes, Zero Remorse - Weird Darkness: Paranormal & True Crime Stories

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Before I begin this episode, I want to give a
warning for this particular episode. The intro and first story
are especially gruesome and describe acts you do not want
Younger minds with an earshot of Even some adults might
want to click the fast forward button to avoid the details. Seduction, theft, threats, burglary,

(00:38):
breaking and entering, arson, sexual assault, rape, attempted robbery, attempted
murder and murder. These are all crimes. Peter Curtin, also
known as the Vampire of Duseldorf and the Duseldorf Monster,
would eventually be convicted of Hidden beneath his mild manner

(01:00):
exterior and gentle demeanor was a diabolical maniac filled with
lust and sexual rage. His homicidal murdersprey would last nearly
two decades as Curtain spread terror in Germany from nineteen
thirteen all the way until his capture in nineteen thirty.
Curtain was the monster of all monsters, with zero remorse

(01:22):
or empathy. He would kill at will, even in broad daylight,
brazenly and with complete disregard. His compulsion for murder was unmatched.
While most haven't heard of him, Curtain was every bit
as brutal as any modern serial killer. A psychiatrist who
saw an assessed Curtain would go on record saying Curtain

(01:43):
is the king of sexual delinquents because he unites nearly
all perversions in one person. He went on to say,
that is the dreadful thing the man Curtain is a
riddle to me. I cannot solve it. The criminal Harmon
only killed men, Landrew only women, Grossman only women, But
Curtain killed men, women, children, and animals, killed anything. He found.

(02:10):
The depravity and brutality of Curtain's bloodshed still baffle psychologists. Today.
I'm Darren Marler, and this is Weird Darkness. Welcome weirdos.

(02:31):
This is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre,
unsolved and unexplained coming up in this episode of Weird Darkness.
When you think of methods of execution, what comes to

(02:53):
mind electric chair, hanging, firing, squad, lethal injection, or perhaps
something a bit more historic like guillotine or even stoning.
But I'm guessing the last thing you'd think of for
a method of execution would be death by golden shower.
Had Daniel Lambert been alive. Today, he would have carded

(03:15):
his more than seven hundred pounds around and a motorized scooter,
as too many morbidly obese people choose to do. But
in the early eighteen hundreds such amenities weren't available because
there was no market for them. Lambert was a true
anomaly and people couldn't get enough of him. A woman

(03:35):
describes how frightened she was when working in a school
after hours, so frightened that now over twenty three years later,
she still has trouble sleeping due to the fear she experienced.
And eerie painting spooked many who just saw it. Those
who owned it fared worse. Could this piece, painted in

(03:57):
nineteen seventy two, truly be haunted? But first from murdering
children to drinking blood? Peter Curtain was the king of
the sexual perverts and perhaps the worst serial killer ever,
so it's no surprise he would be tagged with the
word vampire to describe him. We begin there now, bult

(04:19):
your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, and
come with me into the weird darkness. The early morning

(04:47):
sun was rising over the grounds of klingle Puts Prison
in Kelowna, Germany, as A man named Peter Curtain entered
the execution courtyard on July second, nineteen thirty one, just
show of fifty years old. He was of average height,
with neatly combed hair, and one of those faces that
could resemble anyone. In fact, if you looked hard enough,

(05:09):
he almost resembled a far more famous German citizen whose
rise to fame just a few months later would vastly
overshadow this man's crimes, effectively hiding him from the pages
of history. Flanked by the prisons priest and psychiatrist, he
was on his way to the guillotine to answer for
the heinous crimes he committed over the past seventeen years.

(05:32):
His crimes included burglary, arson, attempted murder, rape, cannibalism, and murder.
The list of his victims surpassed thirty and could have
been anywhere from thirty five to seventy. The more one
learns about Peter Curtin, the worse it gets. Known as

(05:53):
the Vampire of Dusseldorf and the Dusseldorf Monster. Peter Curtain
spent almost twenty years fulfilling his deepest, darkest desires. As
a child, he'd been subjected to abuse, beaten by his
alcoholic parents, and forced to watch them have sex. Before
he even entered his teens, he had attempted to drown
one of his playmates and had befriended a local dogcatcher,

(06:16):
who taught him how to torture and kill the animals
he caught. At the age of thirteen, Curtain formed a
relationship with a girl his age, though she resisted having
sex with him. To channel his sexual frustrations, Curtain resorted
to bestiality with local farm animals. Worse, he admitted to
mutilating the animals in an effort to achieve an orgasm.

(06:38):
He was forced to end his behavior when a farmer
noticed him stabbing a pig. In the next few years,
Curtain stole all the money in his household and ran
away from home to begin a relationship with the prostitute
two years his senior. He would then spend a month
in jail for petty theft and four years in prison
for fraud. Eighteen o four, Curtain was drafted into the

(07:02):
German army, though he soon deserted. He began committing acts
of arson, watching from a distance as emergency teams arrived
on the scene. Eventually, he was arrested for arson, was
discovered to be a deserter and tried by the military system.
During his imprisonment, his third so far, he claimed he

(07:22):
encountered severe forms of punishment and developed deranged, ironic fantasies
which caused him to spontaneously ejaculate while remembering them. Finally,
in nineteen thirteen, he was released from prison and moved
to Mulheim Amrhin. Though his crimes before were awful, the
worst was yet to come. In May of nineteen thirteen,

(07:45):
Peter Curtin's urges could no longer be satisfied by prostitutes
and farm animals. His time in prison hadn't deterred him
from committing crimes, and shortly after his release, he burgled
a home in his neighborhood. While inside the home and
upon the homeowner's nine year old daughter, overcome by the
erotic fantasies he had thought up in prison, he strangled

(08:06):
her and slashed her throat with his pocket knife. Upon
hearing the girl's blood dripped to the floor, he ejaculated.
The next day, he returned to the scene by visiting
a tavern across the street. Hearing the locals talk about
his crimes was something of a high for him, and
he reveled in hearing their reactions. Over the next few months,

(08:27):
again overwhelmed by the need to see the effects of
his crime, he would visit the girl's grave and touch
the soil under which she was buried for sexual satisfaction.
Two months after killing the young girl, Peter Curtain committed
the same crime, this time burglarizing the home of a
seventeen year old girl. As he had before, he strangled

(08:49):
the woman and ejaculated at the sight of her blood.
Though he intended to continue his spree, he was fortunately
arrested for arson and burglary later that year. He spent
eight years in a military prison in Brieg, Germany, before
being released in April of nineteen twenty one. Upon his
release from his fourth period of incarceration, Curtin became engaged

(09:11):
to a woman named Augusta Scharf, a shop owner and
former prostitute. It was also a perfect match, as Augusta
had previously been accused of fatally shooting her former fiancee,
whom Curtin had previously posed as to evade arrest. However,
the union was hardly a happy one due to Curtain's
increasing infidelities. Upon realizing that her husband had been sleeping

(09:35):
with not one, but two of their maids, she encouraged
one of them to press charges, claiming Curtain had forced
her into having sex. The charge held up in court,
and Curtin was sentenced to his fifth prison sentence, this
time for six months. After his release, Curtain, of course
picked up his old habits. Over the course of one month,

(09:56):
he murdered two people and attempted to murder a third,
though she survived her injuries. Peter Curtin's preferred method of
torture and murder was stabbing, usually with a pair of
sharpened scissors. In addition to physical mutilation, he would sexually
abuse his victims and strangle them into unconsciousness. He also
occasionally returned to the crime scenes to discuss his crimes

(10:19):
with police under the guise of a concerned citizen. Over
the next several months, he attempted to strangle four women,
but each of them got away from him. Then, in
August of nineteen twenty nine, his killing spury reached an
all time high. Over the course of the month, he
murdered six people. The first was a woman he had

(10:41):
stalked for almost a week, whose body he wished to
crucify on a decomposing tree in order to cause a
scene for the public. Eventually, he settled for burying her,
though he did follow up the murder with a detailed
letter to police, including a map to her body. After
writing the letter, in an attempt to throw police off

(11:01):
his trail, he switched from his signature pair of scissors
to a knife. Additionally, he randomly stabbed three people, an
eighteen year old girl, a thirty year old man, and
a thirty seven year old woman, who all escaped but
described their attacker differently, effectively confusing police. Three days after
the random stabbings, Peter Curtin murdered a pair of sisters,

(11:24):
one by strangulation, the other by slicing her neck. For
the first time, Curtain engaged in cannibalism, drinking the blood
of the younger girl as it poured from her neck.
The next month, Curtain murdered two servant girls, this time
using a hammer to strike them over the heads. He
also stabbed a child, leaving her for dead in an alleyway.

(11:46):
In what would be his final murder. On May fourteen,
Curtain attempted to seduce and murder a twenty year old
woman named Maria Butudlick. She made it as far as
his apartment before realizing his intentions and fleeing the scene. However,
she didn't report her ordeal to the police, instead detailing
the event in a letter to a friend. As luck

(12:08):
would have it, she incorrectly addressed the letter and it
ended up in the hands of a postal worker, who
thankfully passed it on to police. At the same time
the police were reading Butlick's letter, Peter Curtin was confessing
his crimes to his wife. Incredibly, she had managed to
stay married to him and apparently remained completely unaware of

(12:29):
his crimes. As Curtain knew there was a reward out
for him, he suggested that his wife be the one
to turn him in. That way, there would be money
left for her after his imminent incarceration. As soon as
he was arrested, Peter Curtin folded and immediately confessed to
the crimes, while expressing no remorse In all. He ended

(12:51):
up admitting to sixty eight crimes, including ten murders and
thirty one attempted murders. He justified the crimes, claiming that
they were for the horrors that life had inflicted upon
him during childhood, and that he was simply claiming what
was due to him. Horrified by his confession, police ordered
a psychological evaluation, the first ever performed on a sexual

(13:13):
serial killer. However, the findings would horrify them even more.
Despite his colorful and detailed confession his admittance of multiple
ironic psychosexual fantasies involving blood, mass, murder, and fire, five
separate psychologists concluded that he was in fact, perfectly sane

(13:34):
and fit to stand trial. Peter Curtin's lack of remorse
only presented itself further when a judge asked him about
his conscience, questioning if the man felt he had one
at all, I have none, he responded. Never have I
felt any misgiving in my soul. Never did I think
to myself that what I did was bad, even though

(13:54):
human society condemns it. My blood and the blood of
my victims must be on the heads of my torturers.
The punishments I have suffered have destroyed all my feelings
as a human being. That was why I had no
pity for my victims For ten days. The prosecution and
The defense argued about Curtain's motives, his crimes, his conscience,

(14:17):
and his punishment before the jury ultimately reached a guilty verdict.
He was found guilty of murder and awarded nine death
sentences to be carried out by guillotine. Upon laying his
head down on the machine, he turned to the psychiatrist
and asked a question. Tell me, He asked, after my
head is chopped off, will I still be able to hear,

(14:37):
at least for a moment, the sound of my own
blood gushing from the stump of my neck. That would
be the pleasure to end all pleasures. The executioner then
dropped the blade. Following his death, Peter Curtin's head was
removed for forensic analysis and eventually found its way to
Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum in Wisconsin. I'll place

(15:01):
a link to a photo of it in the show
notes if you're curious what it looks like. Doctors were
sure that something must have been wrong with him for
him to have been so passive regarding his crimes. Shockingly,
the exam revealed nothing abnormal about him. Peter Curtin was
simply a deranged serial killer. Plagued with erotic visions of death,

(15:22):
seeking retribution for a childhood lost up next. When you
think of methods of execution, even ancient ones, you probably
never think of death by urine. In the eighteen hundreds,

(15:44):
people just could not get enough of Daniel Lambert and
his display. But then Daniel had plenty to go around,
as he weighed more than seven hundred pounds. And a
woman describes an incident decades old that still haunts her.
These stories and more when weird darkness returns. Humans have

(16:33):
invented a variety of amazingly cruel and unusual ways to
kill or maim one another, often for shockingly arbitrary reasons,
and of course, wars tend to bring out the worst
in people, so it's not surprising that wartime executions can
occasionally be among the most bizarre and cruel. On that note,

(16:54):
I was recently reading the first volume of John Master's autobiography,
Bugles and a Tiger, and across one of the more
bizarre execution methods, death by drowning a person in urine.
This method of execution was used by the Pathons, also
known as ethnic Afghans and Pastons. The women of this
group particularly in the Afridi tribe of the Pastons, who

(17:17):
today primarily reside in present day Pakistan and Afghanistan, would
occasionally execute people this way, as mentioned by the British
john Masters, who were stationed in British India when he
was eighteen in nineteen thirty three. Quote. If they Pathons
captured any soldiers other than Muslims, and especially if the
soldiers were Sikhs or British, they would usually castraate and

(17:40):
behead them both. These operations were frequently done by the women.
Sometimes they would torture prisoners with the death of a
thousand cuts, pushing grass and thorns into each wound as
it was made. Sometimes they would peg the prisoner out
and with a stick force his jaws so wide open
that he could not swallow, and then the women would

(18:00):
urinate in his open mouth, taking turns till he drowned.
This kind of cruelty was not confined to war, but
was as much a part of the pathans normal lives
as were their sturdy independence. If a man suspected his
wife at the most minor infidelity, he would cut her
nose off. The Pathans punished an adulterer by forcing a
thick and nobbily thorn twig down his penis. They rewarded

(18:24):
infringements of lesser laws by tearing a man's tongue out
by the roots. If that's all weren't cringe worthy enough quote,
It is still customary among some tribes in Assam Northeast
region in India to punish an unfaithful woman by tying
her to a post with her legs apart over a
quick growing kind of bamboo and leaving her there until

(18:46):
the bamboo grows up into her womb and stomach and
she dies. Bizarrely, particularly given their stance on women and adultery.
There are also a few reports of these death by
golden showers or executions being preceded by the women first
gang raping the condemned man before drowning him in their urine.

(19:08):
Lest you go away thinking that it was just the
passions who instituted various cruel punishments. During these various skirmishes
that Masters was involved, he gives an account of a
lot of cruelty on both sides. For instance, in one case,
a wounded tribesman both his legs broken, was captured contrary
to an order given by the commanding officer of his
battalion no prisoners, His soldiers brought him in as a prisoner.

(19:33):
The officer was furious and then ordered the prisoner to
be pegged out, face up in front of the quarter guard.
There was no shade and the sun temperature was probably
about one hundred and thirty degrees. The further order was
that every man who passed should kick the prisoner in
the testicles. The prisoner died later that evening and his
body was placed in the location where a British soldier

(19:53):
had previously been flayed alive by the passions. Had Daniel
Lambert been alive today, he would have carded his more

(20:15):
than seven hundred pounds around and a motorized scooter, as
too many morbidly obese people choose to do. But in
the early eighteen hundreds such amenities weren't available because there
was no market for them. Lambert was a true anomaly
and people couldn't get enough of him. Lambert, once known
as the fattest man in England, is the first heavyset

(20:37):
man believed to make a living by exhibiting his weight.
Born on March thirteenth, seventeen seventy, in the parish of
Saint Martin at Leicester, Lambert grew up bigger and more
powerful than other kids. He enjoyed swimming, and while in
the water, he could reportedly carry two men of ordinary
size on his back. He enjoyed other sports as well,

(20:58):
including cockfighting, dog race, and fishing. Lambert's weight increased steadily
as he reached adulthood. By the age twenty three, he
weighed four hundred fifty pounds, But before he decided to
become a professional fat man, he held a job as
the keeper of the town's prison. This position lasted until
eighteen oh five, at which time the facility closed. Lambert

(21:19):
was left with a fifty pound annuity. By this time,
Lambert's size had grown considerably, and so did his reputation.
Curiosity seekers wished to see this unusual man for themselves,
but Lambert had no desire to put himself on display
for anyone. The Book of Wonderful Characters from eighteen sixty
nine by Henry Wilson and James Caulfield shares this amusing anecdote.

(21:43):
A gentleman traveling through Leicester conceived a strong desire to
see this extraordinary phenomenon, but being at a loss for
a pretext to introduce himself, He first took care to
inquire what were his particular propensities. Being informed that he
was a great cocker, the traveler thought himself sure success.
He accordingly went to his house, knocked at the door,

(22:03):
and inquired for mister Lambert. The servant answered that he
was at home, but that he never saw strangers. Let
him know, replied the curious traveler, that I called about
some cocks. Lambert, who chanced to be in a situation
over here what passed, immediately rejoined tell the gentleman that
I am a shy cock. Such cases began happening all

(22:24):
too often, and Lambert realized that he, a former keeper
of the prison, was becoming a prisoner in his own home.
In April of eighteen oh six, with his funds running
dangerously low, he finally chose to embrace the curiosity and
allow people to give him money to visit with him.
To maximize his potential, he moved to where the most
people could find him, London. Lambert had a special vehicle

(22:48):
built to carry him to the big city and took
up residence in Piccadilly. Spectators were not only impressed with
his size, but they appreciated his intelligence and enjoyed his personality.
Visiting him became aim quite fashionable. Of course, not everyone
treated Lambert well. When they were obnoxious. The large man
returned the favor. Wilson offered this example a person asking

(23:10):
him in a very rude way the cost of one
of his coats. He returned him no answer. The man
repeated the question with the observation that he thought he
had a right to demand any information. Having contributed his
shilling which would help to pay for mister Lambert's coat
as well as the rest, Sir rejoined Lambert. If I
knew what part of my next coat your shilling would

(23:30):
pay for, I can assure you I would cut out
the piece. For the record, a suit of clothes cost
Lambert roughly twenty pounds. By September, Lambert had earned enough
money to end his London exhibitions and returned to a
life of sporting events, which included a passion for breeding
sporting dogs and fighting cocks. However, he didn't entirely give

(23:52):
up on capitalizing from his girth. Lambert continued to travel
to various towns, where many thousands beheld with admiration. His
honishing bulk. His tour ended in Stamford in Lincolnshire, where
he suddenly passed away June twenty first, eighteen oh nine.
No specific cause of death was reported. His specially made

(24:12):
casket was six feet four inches long and four feet
four inches wide. It included wheels to help it roll
down the slope into the grave. His tombstone has this
epitaph in remembrance of that prodigy in nature, Daniel Lambert,
a native of Leicester who was possessed of an excellent
and convivial mind, and in personal greatness had no competitor.

(24:36):
He measures three feet one inch round the leg, nine
feet four inches around the body, and weighed fifty two
stone eleven pounds. He departed this life on the twenty
first of June eighteen oh nine, aged thirty nine years.
As a testimony of respect, this stone was erected by
his friends in Leicester. Despite his death, exhibits of Lambert continued.

(24:58):
A wax figure of his likeness sent to America by
eighteen thirteen. It was eventually acquired by P. T. Barnum
and placed on display in his American museum. Fire in
eighteen sixty five melted it more recently, the town of
Leicester celebrated Daniel Lambert Day in two thousand and nine,
marking the two hundredth anniversary of his death. The local

(25:19):
newspaper called him one of the city's most cherished icons.

(25:41):
Even though I may be tough, I'm often scared of
what I can feel, so I take my cues for
response from people around me. I also have such a
wild imagination that I'm fully capable of freaking myself out,
which I have owned up to on occasion. What happened
here scared the holy crap out of me, but I
did not allow myself to acknowledge out loud whatever it

(26:05):
was at the moment. I very strongly believe in intention
and try not to give in to negative energy, sort
of the awake version of putting one's head under the
covers hoping it goes away when a monster crawls out
from under the bed. This story is not one that
has anything I can prove to myself by what other
people saw or experienced with me, but it terrifies me

(26:27):
to this day. I could not sleep last night thinking
of it, still scared. The location and names I will
keep for privacy. I hope I make sense explaining it
to you. I was already grown up when my parents
moved to a tiny desert base town in Utah. This
story's embarrassing because I was too scared to act or respond.

(26:50):
My mom was the school librarian for twenty three years
at the little public school built in the fifties sixties.
The main building was kind of an H layout with
some outside modular classrooms. The admin office, staff, wc in lounge, JIM,
and cafeteria were all by the front south entrance hall
on the center bar of the H. My mom's library

(27:12):
was a couple doors down on the outer side of
the lower leg or southeast wing of the H. There
were self locking, exit only fire doors at the end
of each hall, which can be used but not held
open without setting off the alarms. The entire campus was
demolished the year after my mom retired. I do not

(27:33):
know if the new school got built there. As a visitor,
I always went in through the front doors to the office.
I may have been in the cafeteria once, but I
never really went past the hall where you go from
the office around the corner to my mom's library. I
had entered a few of the classrooms on that wing
and the teacher's lounge during daylight hours. I had only

(27:53):
visited my mom a few times during school in her
little library. It had a reading dragon and a life
sized statue of a beloved fictional character. I was not
personally fond of this odd, adorable statue, but my mom
talked to it and dressed it for holidays. The little
kids loved it too. Of course, I always fell to

(28:14):
overgrown and out of my place, even in her library.
One time I was there to see my sister in
law dressed up as Clifford the Big Red Dog for
the book fair Happy Thoughts, Happy Thoughts. I chalked up
my general dislike for the building to the fact that
it always stunk like dirty children and rotted wood. I

(28:35):
disliked how the school felt, but shrugged it away. Many
public schools out west are flat, plain painted cinder block
buildings with upper inside windows along the halls. The open
layout makes it so you can see into most hallways
and classrooms from outside or the opposite wings. All my
elementary schools had looked dismally, more or less the same.

(28:58):
Many of them also had given me the same, used,
unpleasantly familiar, crowded but empty old feeling when I was young,
so no biggie. Some schools I'd visited were much larger, older,
and creepier in the poor rural regions of my childhood.
I'm looking at you, Middleton Junior High School. However, I
had never been to any of them alone after dark.

(29:23):
When my mom retired, I came from the West Coast
to help her clean her library and trim the collection.
She struggled with tossing anything. I flew to help close
her deadline to clear out. I love my mom, and
I also horde books, but I pushed her pretty hard
to save what she could and damn the rest. I've
worked in used books, so I'm accustomed to the heartache

(29:44):
of discards. We filled many boxes of donations. Piles of
books lined the halls outside. We also had to pile
up the trash there, as we'd been locked out trying
to get to the dumpsters. The custodian was on vacation.
My mom was worried about how he would react to
all the piles of trash bags and recycling in the
hall when he got back. Anyway, on my previous visits,

(30:08):
I'd found the teeny tiny stalls and tinier toilets in
the student bathrooms were way too little for my large
person to use, so I'd avoided going in there since,
and I'd never been on the boy's side until I
needed garbage bags to help my mom clean that summer day.
The custodian supply room was just inside passed the doorway
to the boy's side bathroom. Because I've worked as a janitor,

(30:31):
I have a habit of announcing my female self when
entering a men's room, these restrooms had no doors and
were side by side where the entrance hall met my
mom's wing, opposite the staff lounge. When I first went
in on the boy's side, I felt what could be
the normal elementary school transaggressiveness of being in the wrong bathroom,

(30:53):
even though we were for sure the only ones there. Alas,
I've spent way too much time cleaning bathrooms for there
to be much novelty in that. With each trip to
the closet for supplies, my feelings grew to a more
specific and very very unwelcome menacing absolute of something bad
watching me and lurking close by. Eventually, I just grabbed

(31:17):
up a bunch of stuff and decided not to be
in there again. This was on my first day at
the trip. I felt like a ninny for being scared,
even though it was a strong, involuntary physical response. That night,
we stayed until seven or so before it was dark.
Mom said she wanted to be out by nine, and
I assumed it was district policy. The next day was Friday,

(31:40):
we barely had time to meet the deadline. Once again,
after three or four pm, we were the only people
in the whole school. I was a little out of
patience with my loving mother when I discovered that, in
addition to the treasures of her library, we also needed
to clear out two large storage spaces. These unused areas
were located across the hall from the bathrooms, between the

(32:02):
teacher's lounge and office area, leaving my mom to tearfully
catalog a stack of stragglers. I set out to basically
toss or recycle twenty years worth of holiday and book
fare decorations. That whole time, I was very much aware
that I was not alone, and I worked as fast
and as quietly as possible. I did not want to

(32:23):
be there in the hall or those strange cubbies after dark, No, sir,
The lurking feeling got stronger and more ominous. It seemed
to seethe down the hall up to the doorway of
the library. Coming from the bathrooms. I felt cornered in
followed and watched in the small storage areas. It was

(32:44):
all I could do to not run away back to
my mom. After a stern lecture to my coward heart,
I gave up on sorting the mess and just shoveled
it all into trash bags. Thus I quickly finished the
storage areas. My mom was tired and sad to leave
her school. We still had a very steep amount of
cleaning and at least three sections of shelves to trim.

(33:06):
We were up to our eyeballs in dusts and books,
working until it was dark and only the emergency lights
lit the halls. She had turned on the real lights
right in our part of the hall. Though the evil
feeling was still there, but worse. My mom also locked
us in once it was dark without saying anything. I

(33:27):
felt safe enough with her in the library, even if
I felt like something was lurking near us in the
empty hall, I felt very much like we were cornered
by some angry, vengeful watcher. Eventually, Mom said she wanted
to go home. I looked at my watch. It was
only eight pm. We still had an hour, so I
said we should grind on. The end of our task

(33:49):
was in sight. We powered through and managed to catalog
or trim all the relevant materials. All that was left
was to load some personal things and donations to take
them away. We decided to do it the next day
because the car was full, at least, the district's to
do list was complete, and time for her to turn
in her keys. I do remember forcing myself not to

(34:10):
look back as I walked to the end of the
hall and the lights of the fire exit. I waited
arms full while Mom locked her classroom door. Mom went
around the corner to drop her keys off to the office,
then hit the hall lights off. I've never in my
adult life been more afraid of the dark than in
those few moments that it took from my mom to

(34:32):
come back down that very short hallway. I have huge
goosebumps now trying to write this. The dark shadows from
the rest of the school seemed rushing to eat us
both alive. I mean to say that I could feel
with every inch of my being that something or many
things was angry and present like the predators actually right

(34:52):
beside you, about to gobble your ass. Now run type
of physical animal certainty. My mom moved slow and tire
toward me. I tried to be cool and not scream.
There was nothing to be seen or heard. I felt
like if I showed an inch of fear or acknowledgement,
my mom and I would both be done for. My
mom is a tough cookie, but her retirement and gutting

(35:14):
her collection had her in an emotional state. I had
also further upset her by throwing stuff away which she
had just found around the corner. No, I am not
much of an actor and a worse liar, so I
did not say anything or run screaming outside. We left,
checked the door behind us, and crammed into the car.
Since I was also tired and I watched way too

(35:37):
many movies, I just shook off the horror show feeling honestly,
everywhere I go in Utah has some level of scary,
crappy energy. I did not want to complain or to
scare my mother. I was just very glad to be done. Also,
I did not want to admit what a chicken I am.
My mom said something about how she hoped any restaurants

(35:59):
might still be open, and I realized my watch was
on Pacific time, so we had left the school around
eleven thirty, not nine thirty like I thought. The next morning,
we went back to fetch the remaining items. School started
that next week. Many of the staff were prepping their classrooms.
One of them waved and sent his teenage kid to
open the fire door for us, the one we'd exited

(36:21):
the night before. Everything was too sunny and loudly fine.
My mom went into his classroom, and after introductions, the
kid politely offered to help me carry things to the car.
My mom stayed to chat with her colleague. The boy
says casually, as we walked up the hall, so you
were here late last night? Did you hear the ghosts?

(36:42):
Trying to be cool, I was all, no, does that
happened to you? Then this young kid tells me, all nonchalant,
how he has heard ghostly children voices, that people had
seen ghost figures or heard footsteps across empty halls and
the empty roof of that wing for many years. How
no one ever stays at the school alone or after dark,

(37:05):
even the janitors. I tried not to barf or cry.
He sort of smiled kindly at the look on my
face and said it scares my dad too, and that
his dad won't be here anymore alone or at night
since the one night he and another teacher chased some
voices that also slammed doors, but no one was here.

(37:26):
I felt like someone was pouring ice into my guts.
Even the dusty sunlight seemed scary. I could tell he
was trying to be nice by changing the subject to conversation.
I did not tell him what happened or how scared
I was, but he seemed to feel bad for bringing
it up. Needless to say, I packed up fast and
with his help, made just that one last trip. Once

(37:50):
we were both safe in the car again, I brought
up what the kid had said. I told my mom
how scared I was in the bathroom and the night
before and just then in broad daylight with other peop people.
In response, she just casually threw out the staff had
all heard and seen creepy stuff for years, especially in
the tunnels, huh, which go from that boy's bathroom under

(38:12):
the school to the other side of the gym. She
calmly said that that's why she tries to be out
by nine because she knows she cannot fight whatever it
is alone or after dark. Since she wouldn't let it
into her library. At this point, nothing on this earth
could have got me back in that school. She is
very religious, so her matter of fact reaction surprised me.

(38:34):
Three cheers to my mom, the brave little librarian who
apparently educated several generations of kids while terrible, lurking nastiness
crept around their school. Her beloved fictional character's statue got
moved to the office for that last year. I like
to think he helped guard my mom and then that
very last class of students after she left. I had

(38:57):
no idea if Mom coped with that same level of hateful, lurking,
carnivorous evil energy for twenty something years, day after day.
But damn I did not know what to say. Sitting
there in the bright summer sun. I just cried. It
was a terrible, no good, very bad weekend. I really

(39:19):
hate to visit Utah when we'd darkness returns. An eerie
painting spooked many who just saw it. Those who owned
it fared worse. We'll learn about the possibly haunted painting

(39:41):
titled The Hands Resist Him There's no doubt the painting

(40:08):
is disturbing. It shows a young boy standing next to
a girl doll with hollow eyes and a sad, downturned mouth.
The dolls holding a strange device with wires coming out
of it. The eeriest part of the painting are the
many disembodied children's hands reaching toward the boy through the
glass panels of a door just behind him. But even

(40:30):
more disturbing than the painting itself are the stories of
what has happened to people who come into contact with it.
It has an ordinary enough beginning. It was painted in
nineteen seventy two by the artist William Stonem, who was
on a contract to produce two paintings a month for
two hundred dollars each. In nineteen seventy four, it was
put on display at the Fine Garden Gallery in Beverly Hills, California.

(40:54):
It was reviewed by the art critic for the Los
Angeles Times, Henry Seldas, and purchased by the actor John Marley,
perhaps best known for Waking up next to That Horse's
Head and the Godfather. But then the story gets weird.
A few years after the painting was sold, the art
critic Henry Seldis died, then the gallery owner died. Then

(41:15):
in nineteen eighty four, John Marley died. The painting disappeared,
not surfacing again until two thousand and a bizarre posting
on eBay. The new owners were trying to sell it
because they said it was haunted. They claimed the boy
and the doll in the picture would fight with each
other during the night, terrifying their four year old daughter.

(41:36):
They set up a motion sensing camera in the room
for three nights and claimed they captured the boy in
the picture leaving the frame and coming into the room,
apparently fleeing in terror. In what a skeptic might think
was a marketing ploy, the owners warned buyers not to
bid on the painting if they were faint of heart
or unfamiliar with supernatural events. More than thirty thousand people

(41:59):
visit at the auction page. Many reported just looking at
the painting made them feel ill or upset. The painting
ultimately sold for oney twenty five dollars to a buyer
in Michigan who is reportedly keeping it in storage and
refusing much much bigger offers to buy it. Because of
the Internet sensation, Stoneham came forward with what inspired him

(42:21):
to paint such a haunting scene. The boy, he said,
was himself. It was modeled on a photograph taken when
he was five. The title comes from a poem written
by his then wife. It reads, in part, the hands
resist Him, Like the secret of his birth. Stonem was adopted.
The children's hands, he says, represent other lives. The glass

(42:43):
door the barrier between worlds, and the doll is guide
between those worlds. The theme of the haunted painting led
to commissions for more works, and Stonem has painted a
series of sequels, the most recent called The Hands Invent
Him to Pick It's the scene from the other side
of that glass Door. In twenty sixteen, Darren Kyle O'Neill

(43:05):
published a dramatized account of the notoriously haunted work entitled
The Hands Resist Him Be Careful what you bid for.
O'Neill's narrative uses the painting as the basis for a
fictional tale about a serial killer known as the Life Swapper. Unsurprisingly,
O'Neill has his own eerie experience with the sinister artwork.

(43:26):
He said, I first saw it online when I was
living in Dubai. I printed it out and left it
on a side table next to some other documents printed
on the same printer with the same paper. Anyway, I
went to Italy for a month. When I came back,
the air conditioning had gone awry. Everything was green mold,
the TV bed sheets, my daughter's cot and clothing, all

(43:46):
of my suits in the closet, and the documents I
had printed, all green, but right next to them. The
only thing that was perfectly untouched was the print out
of that painting. If you made it this far, welcome

(44:07):
to the weird O Family. If you like the podcast,
please tell your friends and family about it however you
can and get them to become weird ohs too. All
stories in Weird Darkness are purported to be true unless
stated otherwise, and you can find source links or links
to the authors in the show notes. The Abominations of
Peter Curtin Vampire of Dusseldorf was written by Katie Serena

(44:28):
for All That's Interesting and Joe Duncan for a list
verse Death by Your Nation is by David Hiskey for
Today I found Out. Daniel Lambert Fatman on Display was
written by Mark Hartzman for Weird Historian. Horrible, No Good,
Very Bad Schoolhouse is by Bettina Marie from your ghost Stories.

(44:48):
The Hands Resist Him Haunted Painting is from the Lineup.
And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll
leave you with a little light Psalm one thirty three,
verse one. How good and pla pleasant it is when
brothers live together in unity, And a final thought from
Stephen M. R. Couvey. When you make a commitment, you

(45:09):
build hope. When you keep it, you build trust. I'm
Darren Marler. Thanks for joining me in the weird darkness.

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ABOMINATIONS OF PETER KÜRTEN: Germany’s Vampire of Düsseldorf – 10 Murders, 68 Crimes, Zero Remorse

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}ABOMINATIONS OF PETER KÜRTEN: Germany’s Vampire of Düsseldorf – 10 Murders, 68 Crimes, Zero Remorse