Joachim Kroll a.k.a. The Ruhr Hunter is a prolific West German necrophiliac, cannibalistic serial killer and serial rapist of women and girls for decades across the country.
History[]
Little is revealed about Kroll's early life. Kroll was born to a miner, the sixth of nine children, in Zabrze. hen his father was a prisoner of war, they lived in North Rhine-Westphalia. He struggled academically and was bullied from his IQ of 76, shorter than average height, and chronic bedwetting, which resulted in Kroll dropping out of school after a few years. He's reported to have gained a fetish for blood when he saw the slaughtering of pigs as a boy, Kroll reportedly struggling with impotence otherwise and failing to maintain relationships with women. Even before he was a killer, Kroll mutilated dolls in fashions that would later be applied to his M.O.s. Kroll moved to Duisburg in 1960, where he worked as a custodian for offices of both Mannesmann and Thyssen, Germany-based manufacturing and engineering conglomerates. He was known in his local neighborhood as "Uncle Kroll", where he regularly supervised the children, giving them candy and collecting dolls for them to play with.
After Kroll's mother died in 1955, Kroll snapped for unknown reasons and began his murder spree. He moved between cities and towns to cover his tracks, operating where they were other murders so Kroll could bury his own history in other carnage at the time. Kroll cannibalized the remains of many of the women and girls he murdered, arguing he couldn't afford the price of already scarce meat products. Kroll also framed numerous other men innocent of his murders for the very crimes, some of them dying by suicide and/or in prison custody. Although Kroll was found guilty of eight murders and one attempted murder, Kroll confessed to fourteen murders and one attempted murder in total once he was caught.
His first documented murder was of Irmgard Strehl in Lüdinghausen. She was found raped and mutilated in a barn in February. The next year, Kroll went to Bottrop, raping and strangling Erika Schuletter. He took a three-year break, then killed Klara Tesmer in 1959, after which she was found in the Rhine River. A mechanic, Henrich Ott, was arrested on false suspicion and consequentially hanged himself in jail. Kroll didn't stop, raping and strangling Manuela Knodt in the Essen City Park. Kroll skinned her buttocks and thighs and took her skin with him.
Kroll struck again in 1962, raping and strangling Petra Gieset in Dinslaken-Bruckhausen in April and leaving Vinzenz Kuehn to be wrongfully convicted for the crime. Traveling to Walsum in June, Kroll killed Monika Tafel and skinned her buttocks as well. Walter Quicker was briefly arrested for the murder, but even after his release, his neighbors drove him to suicide in October. Kroll confessed to abducting and murder Barbara Bruder in Bruscheid in September, but her remains have never been located. Kroll's first failed attempted at murder happened in 1965, in a Duisburg-Großenbaum lover's lane in August. Kroll primarily targeted Marion Veen, but she was with her boyfriend Hermann Schmitz. Kroll only killed Hermann, Marion escaping successfully.
In 1966, Kroll killed Ursula Rohling in Foersterbusch Park near Marl in September. Her boyfriend, Adolf Schickel, killed himself when he was suspected of the crime by plummeting off a bridge. In December, Kroll raped and drowned Ilona Harke in Wuppertal, leaving her in a ditch. In 1969, Kroll raped and strangled Maria Hettgen in Hückeswagen. In 1970, Kroll strangled Jutta Rahn after she left a train station. The mass hysteria from the public led to Peter Schay's neighbors forcing his false confession. In May 1976 Voerde, Kroll raped and strangled Karin Toepfer.
Kroll finally killed a girl named Marion Ketter in July 1976, taking her entire body back to his apartment to dismember and cannibalize. The day Marion was murdered, police went door to door to search for her. When they went to Kroll's apartment building, one of his neighbors told them Kroll clogged the waste pipes with viscerae. When entering Kroll's apartment, they found Marion's mutilated remains, some pieces of her stored in the fridge and Kroll caught still cooking her hand on a stovetop. They arrested Kroll, who believed he'd be released soon enough for his liking after he were sterilized. His trial lasted a 151 days, resulting in guilty verdicts on all counts and a life sentence in 1982. He died of a heart attack in 1990 in the Rhinebach prison, at the age of 58.
In Popular Culture[]
Kroll inspired multiple fictional serial killers in historic film franchises, mostly horror. One of the earliest villains Kroll inspired is Hans Beckert, the protagonist of the German film M by Fritz Lang. Beckert was a serial killer of children, who were often lured with balloons, which sent the city of Berlin into an panicked outrage. Kroll also inspired the character Hannibal Lecter from the titular franchise of the same name. Similar to Kroll, Lecter was born and raised in war-stricken Europe, traveled far and wide to kill and evade police, and performed postmortem rituals on his victims, including cutting out parts of their bodies to eat them.
Modus Operandi[]
Kroll targeted young adult women and preteen and little girls, with the exception of Maria Hettgen, who was in her 60s. Kroll would murder, typically raping first, the victims in blitz attacks while they were walking home through isolated locations. When Kroll targeted children, he sometimes used his dolls that weren't mutilated to lure them into false senses of security. Kroll made an exception killing Hermann Schmitz and attempting to kill Marion Veen in a lover's lane, even deflating a tire with his knife to trap them. They were usually strangled, most often manually, but Petra Giese was garroted with her scarf; some were killed by other means, such as stabbing and drowning. Kroll would rape and masturbate over the women and girls once they were dead, as well as carve out pieces of their remains and take them home to cook and eat later, most often from their buttocks and thighs. The first murdered woman, Irmgard Strehl, was fully disemboweled by the time she was found. As that wouldn't satisfy Kroll's sexual sadism enough, he retained a sex doll and performed the same physical and sexual acts on it the victims suffered. Kroll took long breaks between his murders and operated in multiple cities, especially where other killers were active; he made sure to not kill too many people in the same region to not draw suspicions. By incidental consequence, Kroll left innocent men to be framed for his various crimes, either to be imprisoned or driven to suicide when facing legal scrutiny.
Known Victims[]
- Germany:
- February 8, 1955, Walstedde, Lüdinghausen: Irmgard Strehl, 19 (raped, stabbed, and disemboweled)
- March 3, 1956, Bottrop: Erika Schuletter, 12 (raped and strangled)
- 1959
- June 16, Rhine River, Rhinehausen: Klara Frieds Tesmer, 24
- Unknown date, Rhinehausen: Heinrich Ott (the patsy for Klara's murder; drove to suicide by hanging)
- July 26, Essen: Manuela Knodt, 16 (raped and strangled; cut off her buttocks and thighs postmortem)
- 1962
- April 23, Dinslaken-Bruckhausen: Petra Giese, 13 (raped and garotted with her scarf; cut off her hand, forearm, and buttocks postmortem)
- June 4, Walsum: Monika Tafel, 12 (cut off her thighs and buttocks postmortem)
- September 3, Bruscheid (disappeared): Barbara Bruder, 12
- October, Walsum: Walter Quicker (the patsy for Monika's murder; his neighbors drove him to suicide due to his false suspicion)
- August 22, 1965, Duisburg-Großenbaum: The lover's lane attack:
- Hermann Schmitz, 25 (stabbed repeatedly in his heart)
- Marion Veen (attempted; she escaped)
- 1966
- September 13, Foersterbusch Park, Marl: Ursula Rohling, 20 (strangled)
- Unknown date, Marl: Adolf Schickel (Ursula's boyfriend, the patsy for her murder; drove to suicide by jumping off a bridge)
- December 22, 1966, Wuppertal: Ilona Harke, 5 (raped and drowned in a river)
- July 12, 1969, Hückeswagen: Maria Hettgen, 61 (raped and strangled)
- May 21, 1970: Jutta Rahn, 13 (strangled)
- 1976
- May 8, Voerde: Karin Toepfer, 10 (raped and strangled)
- July 3: Marion Ketter, 4 (abducted, murdered, mutilated, and cannibalized)
On Beyond Borders[]
- Season Two
- "Type A" - While never directly mentioned or referenced in the franchise, Kroll appears to be an inspiration for the episode's unsub, Michael Huang - Both are rapists and serial killers that snapped and began their sprees after a death in their families (Huang's sister and Kroll's mother, respectively), spacing out the timing and locations of their crimes so they wouldn't be caught, received nicknames for their crimes with a location of some of their murders, performed postmortem rituals on their respective victims, and kept sex dolls at their houses for sex acts they couldn't put their victims through.
Sources[]
- Wikipedia's article on Kroll
- Murderpedia article on Kroll
- SKDB's article about Kroll
- Real Crime documentary on Kroll
- The Sun article on Kroll
- Daily Star article on Kroll
- Unilad article on Kroll
- Daily Express article on Kroll
- Listverse article featuring Kroll
- All That's Interesting article on Kroll
- Grunge article featuring Kroll
- Ranker article on Kroll
- Danny Dutch article on Kroll
- Killer Blog of Killers post on Kroll