This guy played reality as if it were Skyrim.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christman_Genipperteinga
Christman Genipperteinga managed to obtain a high score of 964 over a 13 year period, from 1568 until his capture in 1581. Starting in his youth, when his mother drove him from the family home for being too ugly, he soon fell in with various bands of highwaymen and for the next six years practiced in this science from one town to the next.
After being turned away by prostitutes and murdering his fellow compatriots in a drunken rage back at camp, who had mocked him for his involuntary celibacy, Christman retreated to a cave/mine complex some distance away from Bernkastel-Kues, in a wooded upland/mountain area called Frassberg. From there, he had a good view over the roads going between Trier, Metz, Dietenhoffen and Lutzelburger Landt. The cave complex is described as being very cleverly built, just like an ordinary house inside, with cellars, rooms and chambers, with all the household goods that ought to belong in a house.
Historian Joy Wiltenburg identifies two important, occasionally overlapping, patterns of crime reports relative to serial killers in Early Modern Germany:
1. Reports on robber-killers
2. Reports on witches (for example: mid-wives) or cannibals targeting infants or even fetuses cut out of their mothers' wombs for use of their body parts in feasting and/or in rituals of black magic.
Genipperteinga fits the first pattern, hoarding his ill-gotten gains in his cave. As Wiltenburg further remarks, however: "Christman Genipperteinga was unusual in apparently maintaining the same stationary den throughout his years of serial killing. More often, accounts tell of robbers' traveling, meeting, and congregating with other robbers or with the Devil on their journeys."
Furthermore, in contrast with the reports of other robber killers from that time, like those of Peter Nyersch and (((Jacob Sumer))), depictions of supernatural abilities and/or contracts with the devil are absent from the 1581 account of Christman. He is also definitely reported as guilty of multiple infanticides, but the account from 1581 does not connect this with practice of black magic or cannibalism. Christman preyed upon both German and French travelers. It was said that a party of 3, 4, or even 5 travelers might not be safe from him. Nor was he averse to double-crossing his own partners in crime in order to get his hands on the whole booty, rather than his "just share". Once they had helped bring the loot to his cave, he served them poisoned food or drink, with rarely anyone surviving beyond 5 hours. He is said to have thrown their bodies into a mine shaft connected with his cave complex.
Shortly after he took up residence at Frassberg, Christman met an intended victim, the young daughter of a cooper in Popert. She was traveling to Trier to meet her brother. He was going to murder her like any other foid, but changed his mind and spared her life under the condition she would come and live with him. He made her swear she would never betray him, and for the next 7 years, she served his sexual wants. Whenever he went out to find new victims, he bound her with a chain so that she could not escape. He fathered 6 children with her but at birth he killed them, pressing in their necks.
Christman used to hang up their bodies, and stretched them out. As the wind made the little corpses move, he said: "Tanzt liebe Kindlein tanzt, Gnipperteinga euer Vater macht euch den Tanz" ("Dance dear, little children, dance, Gnipperteinga your father is making the dance for you").
Christman finally relented to the woman's repeated pleadings that she might be allowed to meet other people, and granted her expressed wish to visit Bernkastel under condition of a renewed oath not to betray him. But once there, seeing the little children running about in the streets, she had a breakdown, and went down on her knees in lamentation: "Almighty God! You know of all matters, including the oath I am bound to concerning what I should not reveal to any human. So now I will wail over my condition and despair that I for the seventh year have suffered at the hands of a monstrous beast, and what I have had daily to witness upon my own flesh and blood."
And she began to wail and weep bitterly. Many commiserated with her, but when anyone asked her about what her troubles were, she refused to reveal them. Brought before the mayor, she was urged to tell her story, and assured by many learned men, by reference to Scripture, that if it was a matter of life and the soul, then she ought to confess. She then confessed everything she knew. In order to catch Christman off guard, the following scheme was hatched: She was given a sack of peas, and with these, she marked the way to the cave complex.
On 27 May 1581, 30 armed men set out to capture him. He was asleep when they came, because she had made him relax with gentle words while she deloused his hair. As the armed men barged in, Christman cried out: "Oh, you faithless betrayer and whore, had I known this, I would have strangled you long ago".
Within Christman's cave complex, an immense amount of booty was found, in the form of wine, dried and/or salted meat, suits of armour, firearms and other weaponry, trade goods, coin and other valuables. The value was estimated as exceeding 70,000 Gulden. The author of the 1581 Herber account notes that one might well have made a full year's market out of the booty found in Christman's cave.
Christman kept a diary in which he detailed the murders of 964 individuals, as well as a tally of the loot gained from them. The diary was found among his possessions. In addition to this evidence Christman readily admitted to the murders, adding that if he had reached his goal of a thousand victims, he "would have been satifisfied with that number."
On 17 June 1581 Christman Genipperteinga was found guilty, and was condemned to death by the breaking wheel. He endured nine days of torture. On the first day, strips of flesh were torn from his body and heated oil was poured into his wounds. On the second day, his feet were smeared with heated oil and then held above glowing coal, thereby roasting him. He was then subjected to daily beatings and near drownings. On the final day, 26 June 1581, he was dragged to the place of execution and broken on the wheel; the wheel was slammed down upon him 42 times. Still alive, he was finally dismembered by quartering.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christman_Genipperteinga
Christman Genipperteinga managed to obtain a high score of 964 over a 13 year period, from 1568 until his capture in 1581. Starting in his youth, when his mother drove him from the family home for being too ugly, he soon fell in with various bands of highwaymen and for the next six years practiced in this science from one town to the next.
After being turned away by prostitutes and murdering his fellow compatriots in a drunken rage back at camp, who had mocked him for his involuntary celibacy, Christman retreated to a cave/mine complex some distance away from Bernkastel-Kues, in a wooded upland/mountain area called Frassberg. From there, he had a good view over the roads going between Trier, Metz, Dietenhoffen and Lutzelburger Landt. The cave complex is described as being very cleverly built, just like an ordinary house inside, with cellars, rooms and chambers, with all the household goods that ought to belong in a house.
Historian Joy Wiltenburg identifies two important, occasionally overlapping, patterns of crime reports relative to serial killers in Early Modern Germany:
1. Reports on robber-killers
2. Reports on witches (for example: mid-wives) or cannibals targeting infants or even fetuses cut out of their mothers' wombs for use of their body parts in feasting and/or in rituals of black magic.
Genipperteinga fits the first pattern, hoarding his ill-gotten gains in his cave. As Wiltenburg further remarks, however: "Christman Genipperteinga was unusual in apparently maintaining the same stationary den throughout his years of serial killing. More often, accounts tell of robbers' traveling, meeting, and congregating with other robbers or with the Devil on their journeys."
Furthermore, in contrast with the reports of other robber killers from that time, like those of Peter Nyersch and (((Jacob Sumer))), depictions of supernatural abilities and/or contracts with the devil are absent from the 1581 account of Christman. He is also definitely reported as guilty of multiple infanticides, but the account from 1581 does not connect this with practice of black magic or cannibalism. Christman preyed upon both German and French travelers. It was said that a party of 3, 4, or even 5 travelers might not be safe from him. Nor was he averse to double-crossing his own partners in crime in order to get his hands on the whole booty, rather than his "just share". Once they had helped bring the loot to his cave, he served them poisoned food or drink, with rarely anyone surviving beyond 5 hours. He is said to have thrown their bodies into a mine shaft connected with his cave complex.
Shortly after he took up residence at Frassberg, Christman met an intended victim, the young daughter of a cooper in Popert. She was traveling to Trier to meet her brother. He was going to murder her like any other foid, but changed his mind and spared her life under the condition she would come and live with him. He made her swear she would never betray him, and for the next 7 years, she served his sexual wants. Whenever he went out to find new victims, he bound her with a chain so that she could not escape. He fathered 6 children with her but at birth he killed them, pressing in their necks.
Christman used to hang up their bodies, and stretched them out. As the wind made the little corpses move, he said: "Tanzt liebe Kindlein tanzt, Gnipperteinga euer Vater macht euch den Tanz" ("Dance dear, little children, dance, Gnipperteinga your father is making the dance for you").
Christman finally relented to the woman's repeated pleadings that she might be allowed to meet other people, and granted her expressed wish to visit Bernkastel under condition of a renewed oath not to betray him. But once there, seeing the little children running about in the streets, she had a breakdown, and went down on her knees in lamentation: "Almighty God! You know of all matters, including the oath I am bound to concerning what I should not reveal to any human. So now I will wail over my condition and despair that I for the seventh year have suffered at the hands of a monstrous beast, and what I have had daily to witness upon my own flesh and blood."
And she began to wail and weep bitterly. Many commiserated with her, but when anyone asked her about what her troubles were, she refused to reveal them. Brought before the mayor, she was urged to tell her story, and assured by many learned men, by reference to Scripture, that if it was a matter of life and the soul, then she ought to confess. She then confessed everything she knew. In order to catch Christman off guard, the following scheme was hatched: She was given a sack of peas, and with these, she marked the way to the cave complex.
On 27 May 1581, 30 armed men set out to capture him. He was asleep when they came, because she had made him relax with gentle words while she deloused his hair. As the armed men barged in, Christman cried out: "Oh, you faithless betrayer and whore, had I known this, I would have strangled you long ago".
Within Christman's cave complex, an immense amount of booty was found, in the form of wine, dried and/or salted meat, suits of armour, firearms and other weaponry, trade goods, coin and other valuables. The value was estimated as exceeding 70,000 Gulden. The author of the 1581 Herber account notes that one might well have made a full year's market out of the booty found in Christman's cave.
Christman kept a diary in which he detailed the murders of 964 individuals, as well as a tally of the loot gained from them. The diary was found among his possessions. In addition to this evidence Christman readily admitted to the murders, adding that if he had reached his goal of a thousand victims, he "would have been satifisfied with that number."
On 17 June 1581 Christman Genipperteinga was found guilty, and was condemned to death by the breaking wheel. He endured nine days of torture. On the first day, strips of flesh were torn from his body and heated oil was poured into his wounds. On the second day, his feet were smeared with heated oil and then held above glowing coal, thereby roasting him. He was then subjected to daily beatings and near drownings. On the final day, 26 June 1581, he was dragged to the place of execution and broken on the wheel; the wheel was slammed down upon him 42 times. Still alive, he was finally dismembered by quartering.
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