Arthur Gate

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Image of a locksmith's hammer

Arthur Gatter (* 1940 in Ravensburg ; † December 12, 1990 in Gießen ), known as the “Hammer Murderer of Frankfurt”, was a German serial killer who in 1990 killed eight people in the city's parks. Most of the victims were homeless .

Murder cases

The acts took place in the period from February 1 to May 22, 1990 in the ramparts of Frankfurt . This year, Frankfurt had around 2,400 homeless people who had to spend the night in the city center and especially in the green spaces.

  • February 2, 1990, time of the crime at 02:00 am, crime scene in the arcades on Weißfrauenstrasse: A security guard found the homeless Hans-Peter “Peterchen” S. (43 years old) with a broken skull at around 05:00 in the morning.
  • February 7, 1990, Friedberger Anlage crime scene: Another victim, Kurt Helmut H. (22 years old) with fatal head injuries was found. H. was not a homeless person, so no connection with victim no. 1 was made at first.
  • April 2, 1990, Rechneigrabenstrasse bus stop: Around 05:40 am, city tramp Helmut R. was found with severe head injuries that led to his violent death.
  • April 3, 1990: Two victims were killed in the Eschenheim facility. The police reacted to this and founded the “Berber” special commission under Commissioner Karlheinz Wagner. Action is being taken. For example, dolls were draped on park benches as potential victims and plainclothes police officers were supposed to lure the perpetrator out of his reserve as “decoys”.
  • April 9, 1990: Helmut R.'s murder in the Ostzeil.
  • April 11, 1990: A homeless man testified that he had seen a man approach a sleeping person with a blunt object. Based on the description of the perpetrator, a phantom picture was created and a suspect was arrested in the Gallusviertel, but had to be released due to a lack of suspicion.
  • May 4, 1990: murder of Hans-Peter M. (46) The blood-covered body was found around 7:30 am.
  • May 5, 1990: Engelbert G. (60) and Nicola Z. (42) died only 50 meters apart. A crime scene photo with a blood-stained park bench testified to the brutality of the crime. Three homeless people were murdered within 24 hours.
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The police tried using surveillance technology (including camouflaged cameras in bird boxes) to catch the perpetrator red-handed. However, the diffuse parking lighting and the inadequate camera technology were not sufficient to obtain images relevant to the investigation. A survey of dry cleaning companies as to whether blood-stained clothing had recently been given in did not yield any results. In the homeless scene, fear was rampant and the city set up additional emergency shelters and left the underground stations open overnight so that as few people as possible had to sleep on park benches.

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  • May 20, 1990: The Brazilian Anderson S. followed a man into the bushes, supposedly to have sex with him. There he recognized his fatal error and was stabbed by him. He fled seriously injured and collapsed on a park bench. There he was killed with a hammer by the perpetrator.
  • May 22, 1990: Heinrich O. was the last victim of the hammer murderer. A local resident witnessed the crime on Mainkai and alerted the police. A suspect was caught just 12 minutes after the murder.

Modus operandi

Arthur Gatter was arrested on May 22, 1990 in connection with the hammer murders. As a so-called murder weapon was in his peen hammer ensured he was hidden in a plastic bag in the axilla. The typical impression fractures or broken holes in the skull were caused by this instrument, as has been established in forensic medicine. He systematically looked for his victims on park benches in public areas and surprised them in their sleep. He watched her for a while until he was sure that he could carry out his deed safely. He wore silent rubber soles to sneak up on. He hit it with such great force that the blood spurted for meters.

Life

Arthur Gatter was a professional electrician and lived in Australia for a while . After his return to Germany he hired himself to work on assembly and traveled to oriental countries. Since the 1980s he was no longer able to work and lost his apartment on Wilhelm-Leuschner-Straße after rioting and property damage. It is believed that his schizophrenia was already well advanced by this point. He also had behavioral problems in his next residence in Frankfurt-Bornheim . Sometimes he had to be examined in the Haina Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy . A psychiatric report, which was made at the time, attested him to be incapable of guilt . Gatter committed suicide on December 12, 1990 in the forensic psychiatry in Giessen by hanging himself with a gauze bandage.

Offender's psychogram

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Arthur Gatter grew up as a loner and suffered from anxiety and psychological problems at an early stage, which developed into paranoid schizophrenia. In 1990 at the latest, a bizarre, delusional world took over his thoughts and actions. He told the police that a dark force had led the victims to the park to be killed by him there. Since 1987 he is said to have heard voices that dominated his life from now on. Gatter made gurgling noises during the commission of the crime; Mannerisms typical of certain mental illnesses. He felt no remorse for his actions or the fate of his victims.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c hr-fernsehen.de: Maintower Criminal Report Large Criminal Cases . ( hr-online.de [accessed on February 27, 2017]).
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Elisabeth Lücke: Frankfurt's dark side: Spectacular criminal cases , Sutton Verlag, 2014, p. 77, ISBN 978-3-95400-470-6 .
  3. ↑ City Chronicle FFM
  4. ↑ Karlheinz Wagner is retiring, Die Welt, June 28, 2011
  5. ↑ a b c d Michael Reinhard: Homeless: The guy with the iron bar . In: The time . May 25, 1990, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed February 27, 2017]).
  6. ↑ Dr. Hans-Werner Leukel, A unique series of murders: der Hammermörder, MDR, March 23, 2016 ( Memento of the original from July 25, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mdr.de
  7. ↑ Bild der Wissenschaft online - Heftarchiv. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on February 27, 2017 ; accessed on February 27, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bild-der-wissenschaft.de
  8. ^ Elisabeth Lücke: Frankfurts dark side: Spectacular criminal cases , Sutton Verlag, 2014, p. 79, ISBN 978-3-95400-470-6 .
  9. ^ Elisabeth Lücke: Frankfurts dark side: Spectacular criminal cases , Sutton Verlag, 2014, p. 80, ISBN 978-3-95400-470-6 .
personal data
SURNAME Gate, Arthur
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hammer killer
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German serial killer
DATE OF BIRTH 1940
PLACE OF BIRTH Ravensburg
DATE OF DEATH December 12, 1990
Place of death to water