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Béla Kiss
Béla Kiss (/kɪʃ/; Hungarian: [ˈbeːlɒ ˈkiʃ]; c. 1877 – after 4 October 1916) was a Hungarian serial killer. He is thought to have murdered at least 23 young women and one man, and conserved their corpses in large metal drums that he kept on his property.
In 1877, Béla Kiss was born in Izsák, Austria-Hungary, to János Kiss and Verona Varga.
Since 1900, Kiss lived in Cinkota (then a town near Budapest, now a neighbourhood of the 16th district within the city itself). According to Magyar Nemzet in 1907: "Béla Kiss, a tinsmith in Cinkota, unmarried, lives in a furnished apartment, has his own business as a tinsmith, is regularly employed by his business partners. He is of good character, he is not in debt, he was not insolvent, he always fulfils his obligations, his lifestyle is solid, can be offered for credit."
In 1912, Kiss hired a housekeeper, Mrs. Jakubec. She noticed that Kiss corresponded with a number of women, typically through advertisements he would place in newspapers offering his services as either a matrimonial agent or a fortune teller, and sometimes brought the women individually to his home. However, his housekeeper had little contact with the women.
Kiss was never on intimate terms with his neighbours, even though he was well-liked. Townsfolk also noticed that Kiss had collected a number of metal drums. When the town police questioned him about the drums, he told them that he filled them with fuel in order to prepare for rationing in the oncoming war.
When World War I began in 1914, he was conscripted and left his house in Jakubec's care.
According to an article published in Népszava on 10 May 1916, referring to a "police inspector's report", Márton Kresinszky, the owner of the house rented by Kiss, wanted to renovate the building, so he went to Cinkota, where Kiss's neighbour, an old acquaintance of Kresinszky, pharmacist Béla Takács, told him that Kiss had gone to war in 1914. In search of material for redecoration, the two men went to the chamber next to Kiss's workshop, where Takács said there had been a large quantity of reeds. In the chamber they found seven tin drums, stacked one metre long and fifty centimetres wide. After they pried the airtight lead-sealed lid of the top barrel open with an axe, a terrible stench emanated from it. The lid was removed and a bag was found, which was pulled out of the cylinder. A woman's body was found inside a bag. After opening another barrel, again a corpse smell emanated and a lock of blonde hair fell out. Kresinszky and Takács then informed the authorities. Gyula Huszka, the chief notary, together with police officers, found a female body in each of the seven barrels. A search of Kiss' property resulted in a total of 24 bodies. Famed Austria-Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy was present and described the following:[citation needed]
I stood there in the cemetery in Czinkota, in front of the tin barrels, and watched one by one as the contents of the opened barrels were poured out onto the autopsy table. Tin barrels of different heights: equally tinned, precisely, with conscientious work. Those who opened the first barrel did not doubt for a moment that the other contents were the same, although this assumption meant an unimaginable horror. And those of us who were there at the opening, all of us took it for granted that a small woman fell to the ground from the smaller barrel, and a larger one from the larger one. And after the second barrel, we also knew how to turn the barrel, how deep to reach, and where to grab the string on the neck of the emerging female head, where the loop would be, how it leads down to the legs, and it is knotted. This is how a proper, precise collector works, one who understands his craft and "likes order."
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Béla Kiss
Béla Kiss (/kɪʃ/; Hungarian: [ˈbeːlɒ ˈkiʃ]; c. 1877 – after 4 October 1916) was a Hungarian serial killer. He is thought to have murdered at least 23 young women and one man, and conserved their corpses in large metal drums that he kept on his property.
In 1877, Béla Kiss was born in Izsák, Austria-Hungary, to János Kiss and Verona Varga.
Since 1900, Kiss lived in Cinkota (then a town near Budapest, now a neighbourhood of the 16th district within the city itself). According to Magyar Nemzet in 1907: "Béla Kiss, a tinsmith in Cinkota, unmarried, lives in a furnished apartment, has his own business as a tinsmith, is regularly employed by his business partners. He is of good character, he is not in debt, he was not insolvent, he always fulfils his obligations, his lifestyle is solid, can be offered for credit."
In 1912, Kiss hired a housekeeper, Mrs. Jakubec. She noticed that Kiss corresponded with a number of women, typically through advertisements he would place in newspapers offering his services as either a matrimonial agent or a fortune teller, and sometimes brought the women individually to his home. However, his housekeeper had little contact with the women.
Kiss was never on intimate terms with his neighbours, even though he was well-liked. Townsfolk also noticed that Kiss had collected a number of metal drums. When the town police questioned him about the drums, he told them that he filled them with fuel in order to prepare for rationing in the oncoming war.
When World War I began in 1914, he was conscripted and left his house in Jakubec's care.
According to an article published in Népszava on 10 May 1916, referring to a "police inspector's report", Márton Kresinszky, the owner of the house rented by Kiss, wanted to renovate the building, so he went to Cinkota, where Kiss's neighbour, an old acquaintance of Kresinszky, pharmacist Béla Takács, told him that Kiss had gone to war in 1914. In search of material for redecoration, the two men went to the chamber next to Kiss's workshop, where Takács said there had been a large quantity of reeds. In the chamber they found seven tin drums, stacked one metre long and fifty centimetres wide. After they pried the airtight lead-sealed lid of the top barrel open with an axe, a terrible stench emanated from it. The lid was removed and a bag was found, which was pulled out of the cylinder. A woman's body was found inside a bag. After opening another barrel, again a corpse smell emanated and a lock of blonde hair fell out. Kresinszky and Takács then informed the authorities. Gyula Huszka, the chief notary, together with police officers, found a female body in each of the seven barrels. A search of Kiss' property resulted in a total of 24 bodies. Famed Austria-Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy was present and described the following:[citation needed]
I stood there in the cemetery in Czinkota, in front of the tin barrels, and watched one by one as the contents of the opened barrels were poured out onto the autopsy table. Tin barrels of different heights: equally tinned, precisely, with conscientious work. Those who opened the first barrel did not doubt for a moment that the other contents were the same, although this assumption meant an unimaginable horror. And those of us who were there at the opening, all of us took it for granted that a small woman fell to the ground from the smaller barrel, and a larger one from the larger one. And after the second barrel, we also knew how to turn the barrel, how deep to reach, and where to grab the string on the neck of the emerging female head, where the loop would be, how it leads down to the legs, and it is knotted. This is how a proper, precise collector works, one who understands his craft and "likes order."