27. The Bloodthirsty Bandit
Being a medieval bandit was not the kind of career that attracted the squeamish, but Peter Niers set himself apart from other bandits by his extraordinary bloodthirstiness and gratuitous cruelty. He was not content to simply rob or kill his victims, but positively relished torturing and murdering them in a variety of fiendishly inventive ways. He was captured in 1577, and confessed to having murdered 75 people during the previous 11 years. However, he managed to escape before he could be executed.
Upon regaining his freedom, Niers resumed his criminal activities with even greater cruelty and viciousness. Indeed the majority of his murders and depravities occurred in the four years after his escape. In the 11 years before his arrest in 1577, he had murdered 75 people. In the four years after that arrest, from 1577 to 1581, Niers murdered an additional 569 people.