EVIL PSYCHOPATHS (True Crime) (5 page)

Peter Stubbe

Towards the end of the 16th century, there appears to have been an outbreak of strange hysteria in parts of Germany, at that time a collection of small states and principalities, unlike the homogenous country we know today. Shape shifters – people who could transform themselves into creatures – were believed to stalk the countryside, tearing people and cattle limb from limb, sucking the very blood out of them. Even as late as 1794, a creature, known as the Beast of Gevaudon – a vicious wolf-like creature that could walk on two legs – was said to be attacking women and children and created a widespread panic in France that lasted for three years.

Peter Stubbe was born around 1549 – the date is uncertain as the local church registers were destroyed during the Thirty Years’ War – and lived his life in the town of Bedburg, in the Electorate of Cologne. He became a wealthy farmer and an upright member of the community. By the 1850s, he was a widower who lived with his two children, a girl of fifteen, named Beele, and a son whose age is unknown. He is said to have enjoyed a relationship with a distant relative, Katharina Trump.

He is also believed to have been a serial killer, cannibal and practitioner of incest who had practiced black magic since the age of twelve.

However, some commentators think that he may have been no more than the victim of the religious upheaval that Germany and much of Europe was experiencing at the time. Since Martin Luther had nailed his ninety-five Theses to the doors of the Castle Church at Wittenberg in 1517, announcing the birth of Protestantism, Germany had been a hotbed of debate about the new approach to religion. Sometimes that debate erupted into violence. The period during which the majority of Peter Stubbe’s heinous acts were carried out was a period of internal religious warfare in the Cologne Electorate. Archbishop Gebhard Truchess had attempted to introduce Protestantism and failed. He had been supported in this by Adolf Count of Heuenahr von Waldburg, the Lord of Bedburg. There were invasions by armies from each side and these were followed by an outbreak of plague. Some say that in this time of violence and madness an example was possibly made of Peter Stubbe because he was a Protestant.

In 1857, the castle at Bedburg had been taken by the Catholic mercenaries who were commanded by Bedburg’s new lord, Werner, Count of Salm-Reifferscheidt-Dyck and he was determined to re-establish the Catholic faith in the area. Thus, the capture of Peter Stubbe and the ensuing trial may have been no more than a political trial, with trumped-up charges that were designed to persuade the Protestants in the town to return to the Catholic faith.

Of course, through the centuries others have believed what reports from the time suggest – that Stubbe actually did a deal with the devil and was a werewolf.

In a twenty-five year period, from 1564 to 1589, he is said to have murdered thirteen or fourteen children and two pregnant women. For years children disappeared and limbs and body parts would be found scattered all over the fields surrounding the town because not only did he kill his victims, he is also said to have raped them and to have eaten their hearts afterwards. He killed two pregnant women, they said, and ripped the unborn foetuses out of them.

He was accused of having incest with his daughter Beele and that they had a son as a result. This boy was also killed, and Stubbe is said to have scooped out his brains and eaten them, a meal that he is said to have described as ‘a most savoury and dainty delicious repast’.

During those twenty-five years, human beings were not his only targets. He also attacked and ate the flesh of goats, lambs, cows, sheep and any other creatures he could find.

Peter Stubbe is reported to have carried out all these evil deeds while in the shape of a wolf. Stubbe later said under torture that one day he had met the Devil who had given him a magic belt – a ‘wolf-girdle’ – that enabled him to change into a wolf, or, as it was put at the time, into ‘the likeness of a greedy, devouring wolf, strong and mighty, with eyes great and large, which in the night sparkled like fire, a mouth great and wide, with most sharp and cruel teeth, a huge body, and mighty paws.’

The people of the area tried to find the beast, using hunting dogs. One day as they searched the woods around Bedburg, they caught sight of him and set off in pursuit. At one point, they saw him change from a wolf into a man, nonchalantly carrying a staff and walking towards Bedburg. They recognised him as Peter Stubbe and arrested him.

He was tried in the company of Katharina Trump and his daughter Beele, all three being found guilty of murder and incest, a crime almost as bad, to their minds, as killing another human being. They also submitted Stubbe to excruciating torture designed to make him confess to the killings of the women and children he had dispatched over the past twenty-five years. Indeed, it was so vicious that it is likely that he would have confessed to anything they put to him. As he was stretched on the rack, they tortured him with red-hot pincers and stripped the flesh from his body in ten places. Meanwhile, his limbs were broken with the blunt side of an axe-head in order to prevent him from returning from the grave. He was then decapitated and burned on a pyre. His daughter and mistress were forced to watch this before being strangled and also thrown onto the pyre.

The authorities were determined to demonstrate to others what would happen to them if they did what Peter Stubbe had done. They erected a pole with the torture wheel on it, the likeness of a wolf carved into it. On top was spiked the head of Peter Stubbe, the Beast of Bedburg.

Part Two: 19Th Century Psychopathic Killers

John Lynch The Berrima Axe Murderer

The Berrima Axe Murderer originated in Ireland but was transported to Australia in 1832 on board the convict ship, the
Dunregon Castle
, after being convicted of theft in County Cavan. In Australia he became the country’s most prolific serial killer, dispatching nine unfortunate people with his trusty tomahawk and all, he believed with the approval of God.

He was nineteen years of age when he stepped off the
Dunregon Castle
, a short man at five feet three, but solidly built. Convicts were allocated on arrival to farms to work out their sentence before being released to make their own way in this new land. Lynch worked at a number of farms before returning to his old criminal ways and joining a gang of bushrangers, the Australian outlaws who used the bush to hide from the authorities. Alongside the other gang members, he wrought havoc across the territory, robbing and stealing.

Murder inevitably entered the equation. A man called Tom Smith gave evidence against the gang in 1835 and shortly after was found murdered. Lynch and two other gang members were arrested and tried for the murder and it seemed an inevitability that all three would hang for the crime. Astonishingly, however, even though he had admitted taking part in Smith’s killing, the jury acquitted Lynch and sentenced the other two men to death. Next day, they were swinging by the neck from the town’s gallows.

He returned to a farm where he had once worked and stole a team of eight bullocks. It was his intention to drive them to Sydney, sell them and make a fresh start. Before long, however, his fresh start was forgotten. On the road, he bumped into a man named Ireland who was travelling with a young aboriginal boy. They were also driving a bullock team that was pulling a wagon loaded with goods – wheat, bacon and other produce – that was being taken to Sydney to be sold.

Lynch immediately began to think about killing Ireland and the boy and stealing their wagon. It would be worth a lot more than the bullocks he was driving. Nonetheless, he enjoyed a pleasant evening with them. Ireland made dinner for Lynch and gave him a cigar.

In his later confession, Lynch claims then to have lain awake asking God what he should do. It was not recorded whether God gave him the go-ahead, but Lynch decided to kill the two men.

Next morning he took the aboriginal boy out with him to round up the bullocks that had wandered in the night while Ireland remained back at their camp cooking breakfast. As soon as they were out of sight of the camp, Lynch sneaked up behind the boy and killed him with a blow to the head with what he called his ‘tomahawk’, which was actually a small axe. Returning to the camp, he told Ireland that the boy was out looking for the bullocks and as Ireland busied himself making breakfast, Lynch brought his axe down on the man’s head, killing him. He ate the meal that had been prepared and then dragged both bodies out of sight amongst some rocks, concealing them under a pile of bushes and boulders.

He remained at the campsite for two days and on the second two men driving a team of horses came along the trail. In his confession, he said he had a good time with these men, giving that as the reason he decided not to kill them during the night. Next day, they invited him to travel with them, an offer that he was happy to accept.

Just outside the town of Liverpool, to the south of Sydney, a man galloped up alongside them and asked Lynch what he was doing driving his wagon and bullocks. Thinking fast, Lynch told him that Ireland had been taken ill on the road and had asked him to take the goods to Sydney and sell them. The boy had remained behind at the camp to look after him. The wagon’s owner, Thomas Cowper, was taken in by Lynch’s glib charm and thanked him profusely, telling him he would ride back along the road to find Ireland. The two men agreed to meet in Sydney in a few days.

Lynch, of course, had no intention of meeting Cowper and pushed his team hard to get to Sydney well in advance of him, driving through the night. He knew that when the farmer failed to find his missing employees, he would come looking for him, possibly in the company of the law. Arriving in Sydney, he found a drunk to carry out the sale of the goods on his behalf, reasoning that the man would have forgotten in the morning. If he was questioned by the police he would simply tell them that the goods had been stolen off the back of the wagon.

As soon as he had completed the sale, he headed out of Sydney, making his way south towards the Berrima Road. Before long another opportunity arose.

Approaching Razorback Mountain, the area in which he had hidden the bodies of Ireland and the aboriginal boy, he met a father and son called Frazer who were driving a team towards Berrima. Lynch immediately decided to kill the men and replace Cowper’s team with theirs. They travelled together to a campsite near the town of Bargo. They had supper with some others who were camped out there and Lynch crawled under his wagon to sleep. He was just drifting off to sleep when a policeman rode into camp. He looked around and asked everyone if they had seen Cowper’s wagon. Frazer said he had not and, amazingly, the police officer failed to spot that very wagon he was asking about in a corner of the campsite with its thief – also a murderer – lying under it. He rode off into the night. Lynch must have truly believed that he had God on his side and that he was invincible. God, of course, now told him to kill the Frazers and steal their team.

In the middle of the night, unseen by the others fast asleep around him, he undid the ropes that held his bullock team and sent them out into the undergrowth. The following morning he told his fellow campers that his team had somehow got free and said he would have to go back and bring another team. In the meantime, he said, he had to hide his wagon. They helped him push it out of sight in the bush and offered him a lift to where he said he lived.

Reaching Cordeaux Flat that evening, they made their camp for the night and ate and slept. The following morning Lynch accompanied the younger Frazer to round up the horses. Under his coat, his axe was stuck in his belt. As soon as they were hidden in the bush, he crept up behind the young man and killed him with his customary blow. The body hidden, he returned to the camp where the boy’s father asked where his son was. When he told him he was still looking for one of the horses, the man became agitated, suspecting that something was amiss; his horses had never strayed before. Lynch suddenly pointed into the bush, saying that he could see the boy. When Frazer turned his head to look, Lynch swung his axe, killing him stone dead. As his confession put it, he struck him ‘a nice one on the back of the head and he dropped like a log of wood’.

The two men were buried in a shallow grave in the bush after Lynch had delivered a short prayer of thanks to God for his assistance in the murders.

Lynch had been involved in a long-running dispute with a farmer called Mulligan over some stolen goods for which Mulligan owed him money. Mulligan disputed the amount owed, offering to pay only a quarter of what John Lynch believed them to be worth. They had argued bitterly, but Mulligan had held out, refusing to pay a penny more. Lynch had stormed off, cursing and promising revenge.

He now headed for the Mulligan farm, determined to either get the money he thought he was owed or to take the revenge he had sworn. He pulled up at the farm and enquired of Mulligan’s wife where her husband was. She told him that he was in the fields working with their son and daughter and asked if she could be of help. Lynch told her he wanted the £30 that Mulligan owed him. She was taken aback and asked him what he was talking about. Becoming increasingly angry, he explained that her husband owed him for the goods that he had stolen when he was a bushranger. She told him that there was only £9 in the house, but Lynch told her he did not believe her. He decided to wait for her husband to return from his fields and confront him then.

He walked to the nearby settlement of Berrima and bought a bottle of rum, reasoning that if he could get Mulligan drunk, he might stand a better chance of getting his money. Returning to the farm, he found the farmer and his wife sitting on the farmhouse verandah waiting for him.

They sat drinking and talking until eventually Lynch introduced the subject of the money. Mulligan asked him to re-consider and possibly be a bit more reasonable about the amount in question, but Lynch was undeterred. In his confession he says that after Mulligan went back to work he sat on a log, consulting with God about what he should do. When Mulligan’s son, Johnny, arrived back at the house, Lynch suggested they go and cut logs together. Of course, as soon as they were out of sight in the woods, Lynch pulled out his trusty tomahawk and with his customary single blow to the head, dispatched the boy.

When he walked back to the farmhouse, Mrs Mulligan became hysterical when she saw that he was alone. She was fully aware that Lynch was a highly unstable character and suspected that he had harmed the boy. Her husband, hearing the commotion, came running back to the house, but Lynch swung his axe as the man approached and sent him crashing to the ground, lifeless. He dragged the body into the trees and then when he saw Mrs Mulligan approaching, he attacked her, also smashing her skull with the axe.

There remained only the couple’s fourteen-year-old daughter who was inside the house. He ran in to find her standing with a butcher’s knife in her hand, terrified. He snatched the knife out of her hand, pushed her into a bedroom and raped her repeatedly before killing her. He burned the four bodies on a bonfire in the bush.

Astonishingly, Lynch now set about getting his hands on the Mulligan farm and becoming respectable. He burned all their personal items and made it look as if the family had moved away. He then placed an advert in the Sydney Gazette that purported to be a message from John Mulligan that his wife had left him and he would not be responsible for any debts that she had incurred. Using Mulligan’s name, he wrote to all his creditors to inform them that he had sold his farm to John Dunleavy and that Dunleavy was now responsible for any debts owed by the farm. Lastly, he forged a deed of assignment that handed the farm over to John Dunleavy, aka John Lynch. Incredibly, he now owned the farm.

For six months, Lynch lived the good life. He hired a couple to look after the place while he drove his produce to market and he built a good name with both his employees as well as with those with whom he did business.

Then he made a mistake.

Returning from selling produce in Sydney one day, he met Kearns Landregan on the road and offered him a fencing job on his farm. Discovering that Landregan had a criminal past, he suddenly decided to kill him in a fit of moral pique, astonishing in a man with the criminal history that Lynch had. That night, they set up camp at Ironside Bridge. As Landregan sat on a log, laughing at a joke, Lynch crept up behind him and the axe claimed its ninth victim.

John Dunleavy was identified by numerous people as the last person seen in the company of Kearns Landregan and police officers turned up at the farm to take him into custody. The evidence against him was overwhelming, but he persisted in his denials of any wrongdoing. Soon his real identity was discovered to be John Lynch and he was charged with the murder of Landregan. He appeared before the Chief Justice of New South Wales on 21 March 1842 and gradually, his involvement in the mysterious disappearances of a number of other people began to emerge. After an hour of deliberation, the jury found him guilty and the judge sentenced him to die by hanging.

A short while later, the killing spree of the Berrima axe murderer ended when John Lynch was finally hanged. God had, for once, deserted him.