28. Germany’s Medieval Monster
German outlaw Peter Niers (died 1581) was a bandit, black arts practitioner, and one of history’s most prolific serial killers. During a fifteen-year stretch, as investigations revealed after his arrest, Niers murdered over 600 people, and cut the fetuses out of the wombs of two dozen pregnant women. The fetuses were used as ingredients in black magic rituals and consumed in cannibalistic acts.
Niers began his criminal career as a highwayman in Alsace, present day France. He eventually headed a gang that numbered about two dozen bandits. He also became a leading figure in a loose network of bandit and highwayman gangs, that joined forces on occasion to conduct major operations requiring large numbers of men. Niers’ criminal activities spanned a large territory that included western France, the Rhineland, and Bavaria in southern Germany.