The Serial Killer Files by Harold Schechter

Author:Harold Schechter [Schechter, Harold]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-01-12T07:00:00+00:00

CASE STUDY

Verzeni the Lust-Killer

One of the cases to which Krafft-Ebing devotes particular attention was that of an Italian man, Vincenz Verzeni. Though infinitely more obscure than his contemporary Jack the Ripper, Verzeni committed a series of crimes so appalling that Krafft-Ebing regarded him as the “prototypical” lust-murderer for whom “sadistic crime was a substitute for coitus.”

Verzeni was born in a small Italian village in 1849. As is often the case with serial killers, his perverted predilections began to manifest themselves in childhood, when he discovered that strangling chickens gave him “a peculiar feeling of pleasure.” From the age of twelve, he killed large numbers of hens, then covered up the act by claiming that a weasel had gotten into the coop.

By the time he reached adulthood, he had begun to crave human victims. He assaulted several women, including a twenty-seven-year-old named Gala, attempting to strangle her while kneeling on her abdomen. For unexplained reasons, he was not arrested for these attacks. In the meantime, his blood mania was growing more intense by the day.

In December 1871, a fourteen-year-old servant girl named Johanna Motta set out for a neighboring village at around seven in the morning. When she failed to return by evening, her master set out to look for her. He found her naked corpse lying by a path near some fields not far from the village. The girl had been horribly mutilated. Her intestines had been torn from her body and were lying nearby. Her mouth had been stuffed with dirt. A chunk of her right calf had been ripped from her leg and was hidden under a pile of straw, along with scraps of her clothing. There were strange abrasions on her thighs.

Nine months later, early on the morning of August 28, 1871, a twenty-eight-year-old woman named Frigeni set out into the same fields. Several hours later, her naked body was found by her husband. She had been strangled with a leather thong. As with the previous victim, her abdomen had been ripped open and her intestines yanked out.

The following day, as nineteen-year-old Maria Previtali was walking through a field, she became aware that someone was following her. It was her cousin, Vincenz Verzeni. All at once, the twenty-two-year-old Verzeni sprang at the girl and began to strangle her. As he loosened his grip for an instant to see if anyone was near, the girl scrambled to her knees and begged for mercy. Verzeni relented and let her go.

He was quickly arrested.

In custody, Verzeni readily confessed to his crimes. Strangling women gave “indescribable feelings” of pleasure. As soon as he wrapped his fingers around their throats, he got an erection. It didn’t matter if the victims were “old, young, ugly, or beautiful.” Choking them, he said, was better than masturbation.

He was also a vampire. The abrasions on young Johanna Motta’s thighs were from his teeth. After strangling her, he had sucked her blood in a frenzy of “lustful pleasure.” He had then torn out a piece of her

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