Karl Denke: Saint or cannibal?

 

The hidden imposters among us.

Karl Denke was born in 1870 in Silesia (now southern Poland) in a wealthy farming community. No one knows much about Karl's childhood but perhaps it wasn't the best because, at the age of 12 Karl ran away from his parental home for some mysterious reason. 

When Karl was 25, his father passed away, leaving behind a good amount of inheritance money for him. Karl bought a beautiful two story house and established a business with that money, which sold various kinds of pork and leather goods. Karl made a name for himself through his business and he was also considered as the "pillar" of the community. Some even called him "vater denke" which meant "papa".

Karl was also the designated cross bearer for all processions and funerals. He even did charity work, specially helping travelers. 

So imagine everyone's surprise when they found out that this very saint is actually a murderer and also a cannibal. 

On December 24, 1924 Karls neighbor heard screaming coming from his house. When the neighbor rushed there, he found a random man bleeding from his head. There was a giant head injury, and the mans head was almost split open, it appeared that he had been struck by a hatchet of sorts. But before he passed away he told the neighbor who did this to him. Karl Denke. 

The police rushed him to the station, took his statement, but no one believed him. Instead they labeled him as drunk. 

But they still brought in Karl to question him. To their surprise, Karl actually admits to hitting the man but he says that it was out of self defense and that the man was trying to rob and assault him first. So the police said that they would keep him in a cell overnight, just as a "formality" while they sort things out.

To everyone's surprise and disbelief, Karl committed  suicide that very night.

After his death, the police very obviously got suspicious. That night they went to his house to investigate. Right away they noticed a very strong smell coming from his house. Kind of like vinegar, but again Karl was known for his famous pickled pork so they didn't think much of it. 

They didn't find much in his apartment. Just normal things to make the stuff he sold. So, leather tanner, fresh pork, soap making ingredients etc. They also found a pile of bones which they figured were just from the pigs. 

But then, one of the officers found an odd looking dish in the kitchen. They found out that the dish was made out of 240 human teeth. That is when they looked back and realized that all the other things they found may not be from pigs.

They went back and found that the pile of bones were in fact human bones. The police found:

• 2 shoulder blades
• 16 femurs 
• 8 lower parts of elbow
• 120 toes
• 8 heels
• 150 ribs

and the list goes on.

They sent the meat they found to the lab for a test, and indeed it was human meat. Also in Karls closet they found blood stained clothing. 

Police even found documented evidence against Karl. In his journal Karl wrote all the names of his victims, date of death and even the weight of their meat. He also had a collection of documents from his victims. He wrote about 31 of his victims.

Later on they were able to identify 20 victims from Karls records. Although the evidence suggested that he may have killed over 40 people.  

The evidence suggested that Karl mostly targeted people who had just been released from a prison or hospital, so they were vulnerable and needed a place to stay, and Karl certainly had that place. The police found Karls large collection of newspaper clippings of people who had recently been released from these places. Most of his victims were middle aged men. But the ages ranged from 16-75. 

So allegedly, he would lure these vulnerable people into his home and promise them food and shelter, but later on murder them and sell their meat and leather their skin.

According to Karls journal he had been killing from 1903-1924. So most of his life he spent killing people and later on eating and selling their flesh. But why? Which events in his life lead him to cannibalism? Guess we will never know. Because There weren't any confessions from him. However, Karl did confess to one cop on the night he died. He told the cop that, he had been only eating human meat for 3 years. The officer didn't really believe him and thought he was just fooling around. 

When everyone in town found out about Karls secret life, they were shaken but mostly disgusted. After all, they were the ones buying his products.

AFTERMATH:

The press had a great time with this case. When the news broke rumors and conspiracies started flooding.

This case took place at the time of world war11, when people were starving to death. So some made it into a political issue and blamed the government and stated that it drove "a moral citizen to commit such crime". Even if it sounds bizarre, but they may or may not be right to a certain extent. Because Karl Denke was just one of the many cannibals around Germany at this time.