Karol Kot, known to most people as the Vampire from Krakow, is the most famous Polish murderer. Or at least, that's what many people who witnessed the horrific events of the 1960s say. Why did Karol Kot murder women and children? Who were the killers' victims and when did the Cat commit the first crime? What other crimes on his "account" does the killer have? Learn the story of Karol Kot - the monster that all of Krakow trembled against!
Karol Kot was born on December 18, 1946, in Krakow. He grew up in an intellectual family in Kraków's Kazimierz - in a tenement house no. 2 at ul. Meisel. Karol did not attend kindergarten because his parents could afford to teach him on their own. The boy was brought up by his mother between work and household chores. When Karol turned eight, his younger sister was born. The siblings had not very good relations with each other - Charles sometimes mistreated his sister for being favored by her parents. The boy, however, went to elementary school and finished it without major problems, and later began his education at the energy technical school at ul. Loretańska in Krakow. There, he could not only cope with the Polish language. Charles was probably already having mental problems then.
Looking at the photos of the young Kota on the Internet, one could say that he was a nice and polite man. The teachers liked him, and the boy did not cause any problems with education and he had good grades at school. With time, Karol liked the subject of war, shooting and firearms to such an extent that immediately after graduating from high school he wanted to enter an officer school. Interestingly, from 1965 he was even a member of ORMO! But where did Karol's fascination with weapons and shooting come from? When he was only thirteen, he suddenly became interested in… knives. So let's go back to this point to fully depict the portrait of the Kot.
In his teens, Karol managed to buy his first blade. He was so fascinated by the new "toy" that he began to torment the surrounding frogs and smaller animals and insects with a knife. The parents sometimes took the boy to the countryside on vacation, where Karol secretly went to the local slaughterhouse. It was there that he volunteered to kill calves and drink their blood - or at least this version was insisted on by Charles, who was famous for his dark and terrifying fantasies about killing. The teenager was very skilled with the knife, and his new skill did not particularly take over his parents. They believed that the son would surely grow out of it. What was Charles like with his parents? He respected them, but never tried to be close. For he was furious with them for preferring their little sister to him. The teenager sometimes took advantage of either his sister or the surrounding animals.
At the age of 22, Karol enrolled in a shooting school to use his energy and train himself. He had a great deal of resentment towards his parents for favoring his sister, but he never told them so. The only person the boy trusted immensely was his coach - he praised him for his sports and military skills that no one else on the team had. A very important part of Karol Kot's life is connected with shooting training - also the one marked with human blood.
During one of the training sessions, Karol met a girl older than him, who was already a skilled player. The teenager developed a close bond with her - he talked about his tendency to mutilate himself and animals, as well as dreams of killing people. The girl, however, never took his story seriously. During one of the joint trips from the shooting club, Karol suddenly knocked his friend to the ground and began to threaten her with a knife - but in the end he did not do anything. The girl took Kot to a psychiatrist the very next day. The teenager was given drugs, but never returned for another prescription. From year to year, Karol Kot became more and more vulgar, especially towards young women. He also began to speak out loud about "he wants to be important to society." He even fantasized about becoming ... the commander of a concentration camp. He dreamed of mutilating innocent women there. He did not know that soon his name and surname would become infamous - just like Bogdan Arnold, Charlie Manson or Tadeusz Grzesik.
In September 1964, Karol Kot attacked a human for the first time. He then entered one of Krakow's churches and, using a sharp tool, wounded the woman praying there. The cat quickly ran away, so no one had time to figure out what actually happened in the church. Charles discovered that inflicting pain on another person fascinated him more than hurting animals - so he decided to keep attacking. During the fall, there were many attacks by older women, but no one was able to find the perpetrator. Karol Kot most often approached the women from behind, then wounded them with a blade and ran away. However, he never took anything from his victims - he cared only about harming them.
On September 29 of the same year, Karol Kot attacked an old lady who was cleaning the church. He stabbed her with a knife, but this time the blow turned out to be fatal - the woman died on the spot. In Krakow, the news spread very quickly that someone was hunting elderly women. The city trembled at an unknown perpetrator, and the situation was getting worse day by day. There was a real fear in the city - especially since numerous arson also began to take place in Krakow. More women were injured by an unknown person, but there was nothing the police could do about it. Nobody had sufficient evidence to indicate the perpetrator. Although some of the victims described the criminal's profile in a similar way, it was not possible to find him.
Attacks on older women no longer fascinated Karol. So he decided that this time his target would be… children. On February 13, 1966, Kot murdered an elementary school student who was supposed to take part in a tobogganing competition. Karol attacked the child when no one saw him, then inflicted several wounds with a knife and threw him in the nearest bushes. Krakow felt fear again, but this time the inhabitants decided: "You have to look for a murderer so that there will be no more victim!" Especially since children became the new target of the killers. In the meantime, Karol Kot tried to murder another minor victim, but this time he failed. Yes, he hurt the little girl, but she was saved in the hospital. Charles was caught.
At this point, we will return to the shooting school, in which Karol fell in love with one of the players. The one who took him to a psychiatrist. The girl began to associate the brutal visions of a friend from the club that he had shared with her with the crimes committed in Krakow. She also knew that Karol was fascinated by knives - and it was the knife's edge that killed the murderer's victims. She decided to share her assumptions at the police station. It turned out that she had accurately selected the perpetrator of the Krakow murders. It was none other than Karol Kot himself.
The man was charged with two murders, ten attempted murders, and four arson charges. Charles confessed to all the charges he was charged with, accurately describing both crimes. He also boasted of his murderous plans and his love of killing. On July 14, 1966, Kot was arrested. For the fact that he murdered in cold blood and tried to commit even more murders, he was sentenced to death. As Karol Kot decided to appeal against the sentence, there was a completely different sentence - life imprisonment. However, the Public Prosecutor General decided to step into action and take advantage of the possibility of an extraordinary review. Therefore, Karol Kot was sentenced to death anyway. The murderer was hanged on May 16, 1968, and the long-awaited peace finally reigned in Krakow.
Bibliography:
- Janusz Maciej Jastrzębski: Beasts. Zbrodnie i kara, Wydawnictwo Akliwia, Warsaw 2017
- Stephen J. Giannangelo, Jarosław Groth (trans.): Psychopathology of Serial Murder, If P to Q Publishing House, Poznań 2007
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