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World's Most Evil Killers S01E08
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CreativityTranscript
00:00On November the 17th, 2006, police in the German city of Cologne
00:15searched the vehicle of a 47-year-old truck driver suspected of murder.
00:21What they found inside his cab was a collection of gruesome memorabilia.
00:27When they searched the lorry, they found evidence that this was not a one-off act.
00:32There were Polaroid photographs of other victims.
00:35There were trophies in the lorry.
00:38The driver was a man named Falka Eckert.
00:41His arrest brought an end to a 32-year career of murder.
00:45Eckert was somebody who became much more skilled at committing murder
00:49the longer that his killing went on.
00:52So he had access, he had opportunity,
00:54and he really honed his killing routine.
00:57The police had no idea just how many victims
01:01this long-distance serial killer may have claimed.
01:05There would always be the question,
01:07were there six dead women or were there 13 or even 19 or even more?
01:13Back then, he was just beginning his brutal career.
01:17I was incredibly lucky.
01:19Falka Eckert had terrorized Europe for decades
01:23and become one of the world's most evil killers.
01:27It was a case that spanned five European countries.
01:55When 47-year-old truck driver Falka Eckert
01:59was apprehended on the 17th of November 2006,
02:04the police had no idea of the extent of his history of murder.
02:09Eckert had been on the run for two weeks
02:12after killing a Bulgarian prostitute in the north of Spain.
02:16When detectives searched the cab of his articulated lorry,
02:20they found photographs and hair clippings from five women
02:24whom he'd abducted and murdered across Europe.
02:29Eckert's defence lawyer was Alexander Schmidt-Gall.
02:33He confessed immediately after he got arrested by the police.
02:36You have this quite often when you have serial killers
02:39or when you have people who have a burden carried with them
02:43for a long time.
02:43It was like a relief for him to speak with someone
02:47and to tell what he did, yeah?
02:48So it was like a confession in a church for him.
02:53Schmidt-Gall couldn't believe the person he was talking to
02:56was the same cold-blooded killer he'd read about in the police files.
03:01So you think there's a monster in front of you,
03:03but the actual communication with him, he was a very normal guy.
03:07He was like someone selling you life insurance.
03:09He was nothing special.
03:11Prosecutors wanted to find out what was going on
03:15inside the head of Volker Eckert.
03:17He was sent off to be assessed by forensic psychologist
03:21Professor Norbert Nadopiel.
03:23He came from prison guided by two policemen into my offices
03:29and then he sat with me for several hours alone
03:34without policemen and without any handcuffs.
03:39And we had a long and serious conversation,
03:44sometimes sad, sometimes for him or frightening events,
03:49sometimes also very nice and personal
03:55and even sometimes we laughed together.
04:03Eckert, who lived in the small town of Horf in Germany,
04:07had murdered his final victim on November 2, 2006.
04:12Local journalist Rainer Meyer remembers the story well.
04:16Volker Eckert's last victim was the prostitute Milena Petrova
04:24near Ostelrich in Catalonia, North Spain.
04:29He picked her up there and abused her in his lorry.
04:34He spent another day driving around.
04:36And the morning after, he dumped her at a nearby stone bridge.
04:48On the way back from the stone bridge,
04:50he was caught on CCTV.
04:52Somebody was erecting CCTV cameras which hadn't been there before
04:59and just to test them,
05:02panned one of the images it caught was Eckert's lorry.
05:07And when the body that he dumped nearby was found,
05:12almost the first place the police went
05:14was to look at this entirely accidentally caught CCTV imagery
05:19which led them directly to Eckert.
05:24Eckert's job took him all over the continent.
05:27A Europe-wide search was conducted
05:29and on November 17, 2006,
05:33detectives found him and his truck at a car wash in Cologne.
05:37When they searched the lorry,
05:39they found evidence that this was not a one-off act.
05:43There were Polaroid photographs of other victims,
05:47there were trophies in the lorry.
05:49It was perfectly obvious that this was Eckert's lair.
05:53Almost every serial killer in one form or another
05:57has what's come to be known as a lair.
06:00And in his case, it wasn't so much a flat or a cottage or a house.
06:05It was the cab of his lorry.
06:08After his arrest, Eckert immediately confessed
06:11to a murderous career that had lasted for over 30 years.
06:14It was the beginning of a huge international story.
06:19There were five murders, three in Spain, two in France.
06:25And from then on, it was a really hot story.
06:28As a journalist, you don't have a serial killer very often.
06:32And at that point, I tried to get as much information as I could about this person.
06:36His story begins over 50 years ago.
06:48Volker Eckert was born in the small East German town of Plauen on July 1, 1959.
06:55From a very young age, he developed a fascination with women's hair.
07:01When he was nine years old, he started to be fond of the doll of his sister,
07:07a doll which had long hair.
07:09And he put them in front of him on his bed.
07:13He was feeling sexual arousal, plunging his hands into the hair of this doll.
07:21We describe him as a trichophiliac.
07:23This is somebody who gained sexual pleasure from hair, essentially.
07:28And I think he would have been aware of the fact that this was something odd.
07:32This was something out of the ordinary.
07:34And I think that would have created a bit of a sense of shame within him.
07:37So he was aware that this was something that he had to keep hidden.
07:41As Eckert entered adolescence, his parents' marriage began to break down.
07:47Well, he had quite a turbulent time during his teenage years.
07:50His parents divorced, and he reacted really badly to this.
07:54The separation for him was influential, because the father had to leave the house,
07:59and he said, I swore to myself, that will never happen to me,
08:02and I will not marry, because I don't want to work all the time,
08:06and then be thrown out of the house.
08:08And he took sides with his father after that.
08:13But he lived, continued to live with his mother.
08:17He went off the rails, and one incident involved taking his parents' car
08:21and going off on a bit of a joyride.
08:24And then he returned home, and he was in a lot of trouble for that.
08:27And it wasn't too long after that incident that he actually went and physically attacked
08:34and killed one of his classmates.
08:36In 1974, aged just 14, Eckert experienced taking a life for the very first time.
08:44But it wasn't until his arrest in November 2006, over three decades later,
08:51that anyone knew about it.
08:55Volker Eckert confessed to killing her classmate
08:57and to disguising her murder as a suicide.
09:01And that crime was not solved for years, or for almost 32 years.
09:04On May the 7th, 1974, Eckert had knocked on the door
09:15of his 14-year-old school friend and neighbour, Sylvia Unterdörfel.
09:20Realising her parents weren't home,
09:23he took the opportunity of living out the fantasy he'd dreamed of
09:27since playing with his sister's doll as a child.
09:30And then he thought, well, I have to do it with a real girl.
09:35And he, of course, like many fetishists,
09:39they realise they won't do it voluntarily with me.
09:43So I have to force them.
09:45She was somebody who had very long, very beautiful hair,
09:49and he developed a real fixation, a real obsession with her hair.
09:53And he went to where she lived, her home,
09:56and basically wormed his way in.
09:57First, this girl only played a role in his fantasy, as a victim.
10:04But the point came when this fantasy wasn't enough anymore.
10:08He wanted to do it.
10:09He wanted to stroke her and then kill her.
10:14He started right away after she let him in, closed the door,
10:18and he started getting at her throat.
10:22And he started to strangle her.
10:24And when she was unconscious, he plunged his hands into her hair.
10:30Even as a teenager, Eckert had the sophistication to try and disguise the murder.
10:37He strangled her with a clothesline, but he was quite cunning because he thought he needs to cover this up.
10:45So what he did is attach the end of the clothesline to a door handle to make it look as if she'd killed herself.
10:52It is physically possible to hang yourself from a doorknob.
10:56You don't have to have your full body weight on the neck.
11:00And it's something that is occasionally seen, although it's uncommon.
11:08Just as her mother was getting home from work, she walked in to find her dead daughter.
11:13Of course, like with every unnatural death, the East German investigation authorities began their work
11:19and came to the conclusion that it was a suicide.
11:25At the end, Eckert managed to set up the scene so cleverly that the police fell into his trap.
11:33And for 32 years, right up until Volker Eckert's confession,
11:38her parents had lived with the belief that their daughter had taken her own life.
11:42At the time, the Spanish police were extremely proud to have uncovered this series of murders.
11:55They wanted publicity.
11:57They wanted to be congratulated for their success.
12:00They needed a pat on the back.
12:04And also wanted to show the public that it was all over.
12:08Nothing like this would happen again.
12:10We've caught this monster of the highway.
12:15Eckert admitted to the killings of 21-year-old Nigerian Sandra Osivo in 2001
12:22and Polish national Agneska Boss in 2006, both in France.
12:29Journalist François Barre could barely believe the scale of the investigation.
12:34We realized that we were dealing with someone who'd been traveling the roads of Europe for 10, 15 years
12:43and that this person had possibly committed crimes, certainly in many European countries.
12:49A lot of journalists did the same as the police,
12:52namely questioning the existence of case files of unsolved crimes
12:56that might match Volker Eckert's style of killing.
12:58Over the years, Eckert had developed a very familiar M.O.
13:07They always started with strangling and that the woman got unconscious, that he felt the power.
13:16He always spoke about to see the consciousness go away from the eyes.
13:22And this was his attraction, yeah, to have control and to have power over another person
13:29and to have the fetish with the female hair, with long female hair.
13:35He was a man who had come to have a taste for strangling the life
13:40out of women who were not able to protect themselves.
13:44He wasn't a particularly big man, he wasn't a huge, strong man,
13:47but he was wiry, he was capable,
13:51and many of these young women would not have expected to have been treated in this way.
13:56Strangling someone, the main thing that happens is that the blood supply to the brain is cut off,
14:03and once that's cut off, then you will lose consciousness in the order of ten seconds.
14:08It takes a lot longer to actually die,
14:11but you can render someone unconscious very quickly by strangling them.
14:16Eckert was somebody who became much more skilled at committing murder
14:20the longer that his killing went on,
14:22so his first murder was quite opportunistic,
14:24and it was somebody that he knew, it was incredibly risky,
14:28and I think he was very lucky to get away with that,
14:31and I think he realised that his luck was on his side at that time,
14:36and in later years he targeted sex workers,
14:40because I think there was an awareness there
14:41that these people often go off the radar for long periods of time,
14:45they're a vulnerable group of people who will get into your lorry willingly,
14:48so he had access, he had opportunity,
14:51and he really honed his killing routine.
14:56Eckert knew that prostitutes were far less likely to be reported missing immediately,
15:01if at all.
15:03Lorry driving was the perfect subterfuge for a man who wished to kill women
15:07on the edge of society.
15:09He wasn't picking famous people, he wasn't picking rich people,
15:12he was picking people who no one would miss.
15:15I think he had a real understanding,
15:19a real knowledge of the sex worker community,
15:22of how transitory it is, of how temporary it sometimes can be,
15:27and he realised that this was easy pickings for him,
15:30it wouldn't require much effort to indulge his fantasies and get away with it.
15:35After his arrest in November 2006,
15:39Eckert had confessed to six murders in total.
15:42He appeared to have a complete lack of empathy for his victims.
15:47He's speaking about tremendous, horrible things and details of killing
15:51or actually sexually abusing other women,
15:53and there was no, like, there was no fear,
15:56there was no shivering, there was no turning away of the eyes,
16:00there was nothing like a reaction you would expect
16:03if a normal person is telling this.
16:06I was always asking how you felt when you killed the woman,
16:11what did you do the day after, did you look in the newspaper,
16:14did you think to the parents, did you think to the family of the girls,
16:18his emotions were missing.
16:20He spoke about himself like a monster who was not able to control himself
16:25and that he has some defects, he knew this.
16:29Although he admitted taking the lives of six women,
16:32Eckert still tried to separate himself from the murders.
16:36He spoke about himself in a third person,
16:40like he's building a distance between the Mr. Eckert
16:44who was committing the crimes and who was really doing horrible things
16:47and the person who was sitting here next to you and speaking with you.
16:52So I think this was the way for him to handle this, yeah,
16:57because to think that the person who was committing the crime is someone else
17:02because otherwise you cannot live, yeah,
17:05you cannot live with this, knowing that you are this monster.
17:10Detectives believe that Eckert had likely committed many more murders
17:14over the previous 32 years.
17:18So the investigators are relatively sure
17:20that it was probably 13 cases in total,
17:24even though it's not possible to prove this 100%.
17:27And in a further six cases,
17:30there was at least the possibility that it was him,
17:33because he was driving in the area.
17:37Eckert's movements as a long-distance lorry driver
17:40were easy to track,
17:42using fuel receipts, GPS records
17:45and details of where he'd spent the night.
17:47Investigators from the whole of Europe dug out their old cases
17:54and compared them with the movements of Eckert
17:56that the police in Bayreuth had mapped out.
18:01And they tried to find crimes that had taken place
18:04when Volker Eckert was driving through this country.
18:10Scotland Yard came over to Germany to question,
18:13then there was the French police as well,
18:15because every police knew there was a serial killer.
18:19So look at the cases where was a woman sexually abused
18:22and maybe there, this Mr. Eckert was nearby
18:25at the time she was killed.
18:28Investigating officers could link Eckert
18:30to the murder of three more prostitutes
18:33between 2002 and 2004,
18:37based on his movements.
18:38One in France, one in Italy
18:40and one in the Czech Republic.
18:43Francois remembers visiting a crime scene
18:45that bore all the hallmarks of an Eckert murder.
18:51This was a prostitute who worked near the entrance
18:54to a motorway in Montpellier,
18:55who disappeared one day and was found 300 kilometres away
18:59in a motorway rest area near Mont-Télémar.
19:02That's in the area of going back up north,
19:05so in other words, potential routes Volker Eckert
19:07could have taken when, for example,
19:09he returned from Spain to get back to Germany.
19:14And this young woman, who had a...
19:17who was...
19:18I remember, because I used to see her on my way
19:19to get a newspaper,
19:21she had a very thick head of brown hair,
19:23and we knew that Volker Eckert
19:24actually had a hair fetish.
19:27And this young woman was found dead,
19:29stripped naked,
19:30in a motorway rest area
19:31300 kilometres from the place where she worked.
19:34This matched Volker Eckert's modus operandi exactly.
19:38He often moved the victims he had abducted somewhere
19:41and killed somewhere else,
19:43disposing of the bodies tens of kilometres away
19:45to cover his tracks.
19:51Back then, he also committed several more crimes in Plauen.
19:55He waylaid women during the night,
19:57threw them to the ground,
19:59and strangled them,
20:00but didn't kill them.
20:0118-year-old Eckert was jailed for a year
20:06for sexual assault
20:07after he was caught strangling a woman in 1978.
20:11But it did not curtail him.
20:14Between 1979 and 1987,
20:18he assaulted dozens more women.
20:20He had attacked several.
20:23He talked about 30 women in the dark,
20:28so they wouldn't recognise him without killing them.
20:32He strangled them.
20:34He gripped into their hair,
20:37and then he went home and masturbated.
20:39That was for several years,
20:41well, more than two at least,
20:43but he said 30, maybe more,
20:46attacks against women like that in his hometown.
20:50There are no official records
20:52of how many women survived or died
20:55after Eckert's attacks.
20:57He was finally stopped in 1987
20:59after he assaulted two women in Plauen
21:02and left them for dead.
21:04Both were able to identify him to police.
21:08One of those women,
21:09whose name we have changed to protect her identity,
21:12is Claudia,
21:13who was only 16 at the time.
21:15I was on the way home from a party
21:21together with my friend.
21:27I took her home first
21:29and wanted to walk the rest of the way by myself.
21:35As I continued to walk alone,
21:40I noticed after around 100 metres
21:43that somebody was following me.
21:46When I walked faster,
21:47the person behind me also walked faster,
21:50and when I slowed down,
21:52also he was slowing down.
21:55At that point,
21:56I already felt a bit threatened,
21:58so I grabbed my bunch of keys,
22:00hoping to be able to defend myself.
22:03Maybe I could hit him in the face.
22:05He suddenly came up behind me
22:12at a crossroads
22:13and pushed me to the ground.
22:15Then he put his hands around my neck
22:18and choked me.
22:21I then tried to defend myself,
22:24but he was stronger,
22:26heavier,
22:27more powerful.
22:29I had no chance.
22:31I tried to play dead
22:32in the hope that he would let go,
22:34but that didn't work.
22:39He knelt on top of my legs,
22:41so there was no chance
22:42for me to move anywhere.
22:44He was strangling me with his hands.
22:47I really struggled to describe it,
22:49this pain and the pressure.
22:51It was very brutal
22:53and incredibly violent.
22:55At that moment,
22:56I gave up my life.
22:58That was it.
22:59I knew it was over.
23:04I saw a tunnel
23:05with a white light
23:05at the end of it.
23:07It was really like that,
23:08a near-death experience.
23:17Incredibly,
23:18Claudia survived the attack
23:20and was able to give
23:21a detailed description
23:22of her attacker
23:23to the police.
23:24To this day,
23:27I still can't forget his face.
23:30Eckert had applied
23:31to leave communist
23:32East Germany behind
23:33and move to the freedom
23:35of the West.
23:36But when a drawing
23:37of Claudia's description
23:39of his face
23:40was distributed
23:41amongst the police,
23:42an officer recognised him
23:44and he was immediately arrested
23:46before he could flee the country.
23:48The day of his court hearing arrived
23:52when he was about
23:53to be convicted.
23:55He was sitting
23:56only a few metres away from me
23:58and suddenly he apologised to me.
24:02For me, well,
24:04there can be no excuse
24:05for a crime like this.
24:09In 1988,
24:11Eckert was sentenced
24:12to 12 years in prison
24:13for attempted murder.
24:15During his time behind bars,
24:17he underwent therapy
24:18for his sexual deviance,
24:20which the prison authorities
24:22saw as a success.
24:25The doctor
24:26or the psychologist
24:27who saw him
24:28was very certain
24:28that Volker Eckert
24:29could control
24:30his sexual urges
24:31from then on.
24:33And this was apparently
24:34supposed to have been ensured
24:35as he was supposed
24:36to undergo more therapy
24:38when he made it out of prison.
24:40But he didn't do it.
24:45Unbelievably,
24:46Eckert served
24:46just six years
24:47of his sentence
24:48and in 1994,
24:50he was released
24:51into the world yet again.
24:53And he headed straight
24:54for the woman
24:55who put him behind bars.
25:00One night,
25:01he was standing
25:02in front of my door.
25:04He rang the bell
25:05wearing a boiler suit,
25:06one of these blue ones,
25:08and said,
25:09there is a burst pipe,
25:10you must let me in.
25:11I had a little peephole
25:13in the door,
25:14a tiny little hole
25:15where I could look through,
25:17and there I recognized him.
25:20I did not open the door,
25:22but I know it was him.
25:23He tried to find me.
25:25I don't want to know
25:27what he wanted to do with me.
25:29Now it's over,
25:30thank God,
25:31but he definitely
25:32wanted to attack again.
25:33He wanted to attack again.
25:35He definitely wanted to attack again.
25:35By 1994,
25:39the Berlin Wall
25:40had fallen,
25:41and Eckert was free
25:42to travel
25:43wherever he wanted.
25:45After he got out of prison,
25:46he was able to slip
25:47through the net
25:48of the authorities.
25:49He was able to
25:50give them as much
25:52as they wanted,
25:52but not too much
25:53to see that there's
25:54a dangerous person
25:55who is still
25:56dangerous for the society,
25:57who is still running
25:58through life
25:59with this,
26:01let's call it disease,
26:02with this criminal obsessions.
26:04I felt sorry for the women,
26:09because while he had
26:10been in prison,
26:11psychologists
26:11and other similar professionals
26:13would have actually realized
26:15that he was still
26:16a danger to society.
26:18But because of
26:19the reunification of Germany,
26:21he was released,
26:22and nobody seemed to care.
26:24Even though he was
26:25a tried murderer,
26:27he was let go
26:28without any sort
26:29of assessment,
26:30and the women
26:31could all still be alive,
26:33if only someone
26:34had acted differently.
26:39Eckert settled
26:40in the small town
26:41of Horf,
26:42just 20 miles
26:43from Plauen.
26:47So he had landed
26:47on his feet
26:48in Horf
26:49and settled in well,
26:50and was well liked.
26:51His landlady also said
26:53she'd rarely encountered
26:53such a nice tenant,
26:55and everyone
26:55was completely flabbergasted
26:57when they found out
26:58just what sorts of crimes
26:59Volker Eckert
27:00had committed,
27:01despite everyone
27:02considering him
27:03to be a nice guy.
27:09By 1999,
27:1140-year-old Eckert
27:12had taken a job
27:13as a long-distance
27:14lorry driver,
27:15a profession
27:16that suited
27:17the killer perfectly.
27:19It allows them
27:19to go off the radar
27:20for quite extended
27:22periods of time.
27:23They work unsupervised,
27:25they don't answer
27:25to anybody,
27:26and they have
27:28these long stretches
27:29of time
27:29to ruminate
27:30and to basically
27:31get lost
27:32in their own thoughts.
27:34So that creates
27:35an environment
27:36in which their fantasies
27:37start to become
27:38a reality,
27:40and then when they
27:40do offend,
27:41we often find
27:42that they can dump
27:43the bodies
27:43of their victims
27:44in a completely
27:45different police
27:45jurisdiction
27:46to the one
27:47that they pick
27:47them up in,
27:48and that creates
27:49something called
27:50linkage blindness
27:51within the police
27:52who are investigating
27:53these crimes.
27:54They don't always
27:55connect them immediately.
27:56When police
27:58finally caught up
27:59with him in 2006,
28:01Eckert's truck
28:02was like a shrine
28:03to his victims.
28:05Photos and hair clippings
28:06had been collected
28:07in his cab.
28:09They were his trophies,
28:10if you like,
28:10along with hair
28:11and various other things.
28:13They represented
28:14for him
28:15the reason.
28:16The body itself
28:17was disposable,
28:18but that memory
28:19and that lock of hair
28:21or locks of hair
28:22were his explanation
28:24to himself
28:25about why he was doing it.
28:26That was what he was
28:28there for.
28:33He also made notes
28:34of the details
28:35of each crime
28:36on the back
28:37of these Polaroid pictures
28:38so that he could
28:39later remind himself
28:40of what had happened
28:41in each attack.
28:46He kept the prostitute's hair
28:48in little plastic bags,
28:49having cut it off
28:50after the crime.
28:51He kept items of clothing,
28:53but the owners
28:54of some items
28:55of clothing
28:55still haven't been
28:56determined today.
29:01What caught our attention
29:05straight away
29:06was the fact
29:07that the killer
29:07was a fetishist.
29:08In other words,
29:09this was someone
29:10who kept souvenirs
29:11of their crimes,
29:12who took things
29:13from their victims,
29:14including locks of hair,
29:16things like that,
29:17keeping things,
29:18souvenirs,
29:19fetishes,
29:20keeping them in a kind
29:21of, like some kind
29:23of treasure.
29:25He is the kind
29:25of character
29:26you don't find
29:27too often
29:27in European crime stories,
29:29and in this case,
29:30we were almost imagining
29:31a film character.
29:32He created a little repository,
29:39essentially,
29:40and this is something
29:41that's quite common
29:42for the serial killers,
29:43and it serves
29:44several functions for them.
29:45So it enables them
29:46to relive their crimes,
29:48to revisit that moment
29:50when they were all powerful
29:51and fully in control.
29:53But it also acts
29:54as a bit of a stimulus
29:55to do it again.
29:57So it really is a vicious circle
29:59when it comes to trophies.
30:00Most criminals
30:04get rid of any evidence
30:05that could link them
30:06to their victim.
30:07This guy,
30:08he kept it all,
30:09and that alone
30:10is something you hardly
30:11ever see in criminal cases.
30:16Prosecutors had sent Eckert
30:17to be assessed
30:18by forensic psychologist
30:20Professor Norbert Nidopil,
30:22and the killer seemed
30:23to open up
30:24during the sessions.
30:25In the end,
30:26he said,
30:26well,
30:27for several months,
30:29I was very withdrawn
30:31in myself.
30:32Now I could even laugh,
30:34and I was free.
30:35He said,
30:36I'm glad I talked to you.
30:38The three or four days
30:39that we were together,
30:41he said,
30:41I slept better,
30:43I talked better,
30:44I was more relaxed
30:47than usual.
30:49Professor Nidopil
30:50analyzed Eckert's
30:51psychological condition
30:52for the upcoming court case.
30:54The actual conclusion
30:55is that he is
30:57psychiatrically a sadist,
30:59a sadism developed
31:01from fetishism,
31:02and this,
31:04in the legal sense,
31:05is a mental disorder,
31:07and this mental disorder
31:10would lead
31:11to a diminished
31:12responsibility
31:13concerning the
31:15sexual acts,
31:16but not the killings
31:18that have been done
31:19to prevent detection,
31:21and that he would be
31:23a repeat offender,
31:24and if released,
31:27even after prisons
31:28and centers,
31:29would not stop him.
31:33He was really preoccupied
31:35with what other people
31:36thought of him,
31:37and he was being
31:37portrayed in a way
31:38that he didn't think
31:39was fair.
31:40He's been committing
31:41these crimes
31:41for over 30 years,
31:43and I think he's developed
31:44quite a grandiose sense
31:45of self,
31:46and when he's reduced
31:47to the label of a monster,
31:49he's really not happy
31:50about that at all.
31:52For local journalists
31:53in Horf,
31:54the trial of this
31:55perverse killer
31:56due to take place
31:57in the local courthouse
31:58was said to be
31:59a huge story.
32:01Every headline
32:02is good for a magazine,
32:04and every
32:04is good for a newspaper,
32:07and every spectacular story
32:09is good for a newspaper,
32:11and it isn't
32:12the newspaper's fault
32:13that it interests people.
32:17But everything
32:17that isn't normal
32:18stirs people,
32:20and if someone
32:20living in a community
32:21finds out
32:22that the nice uncle
32:23was not actually
32:24the nice uncle
32:25that everyone
32:25thought he was,
32:27but a perverse
32:27serial killer,
32:28then that stirs people too,
32:31and then they want
32:32to know as much
32:32as possible about it,
32:34and we are there
32:35for the purpose
32:35of delivering
32:36that information.
32:45While waiting
32:46for his trial
32:47in custody,
32:48Eckert had lost
32:49the support
32:50of his family.
32:51I remember very well
32:52he was very desperate
32:54that he had
32:54completely lost
32:56the contact
32:56to his family
32:57because his sister
32:59was always a very
32:59important point
33:02of contact
33:03for him
33:04through his whole life,
33:05and she didn't
33:07want to have
33:07contact with him.
33:08He was sitting
33:13inside his cell
33:14in the prison
33:15of Bayreuth
33:15and had a lot
33:16of time
33:17to think.
33:20On his 48th birthday,
33:22the 1st of July 2007,
33:25he knew
33:25that he would be
33:26officially charged
33:27with murder
33:27within the next few days.
33:32Nobody came
33:33to see him
33:33that day.
33:34His sister
33:35didn't visit
33:35and neither
33:36did his brother.
33:37It all became
33:43too much for him.
33:45On the night
33:45of his 48th birthday,
33:47July 1st 2007,
33:50Volker Eckert
33:51was left alone
33:52in his cell.
33:53The following morning,
33:54his body was found
33:55hanging from the bars.
34:00He was all alone
34:01and during the night
34:02he brought justice
34:03to himself
34:03and hanged himself
34:05in the cell.
34:07It would seem
34:08rather strange
34:09that here we have
34:10somebody who was
34:11obsessed with harming
34:12other people
34:13by strangulation
34:14and he makes
34:15a decision
34:16to take his own
34:16life by the same
34:17means and it is
34:19a way to end
34:20your life
34:21when you're in prison
34:22and it's not difficult
34:23to get hold of
34:24items to achieve
34:26that outcome.
34:27Eckert's death
34:28meant he would
34:29escape justice.
34:30It came as a surprise
34:32to the people
34:32who'd got to know
34:33him better
34:34than most.
34:35I talked to him
34:36about suicide
34:37at several occasions
34:38and he said
34:39several times
34:40I'm a coward
34:41I won't do it
34:42but I know
34:45that I have
34:47no chances.
34:49If you ask me
34:49how I feel
34:50about him
34:50I cannot say
34:52I like him
34:53but you're a human
34:54being and you
34:55are in contact
34:55with this man
34:56I never see him
34:57killing someone
34:57I only read this
34:58but you have contact
34:59you see him
35:00twice,
35:00three times a week
35:01and you see
35:02how he's reacting
35:03and you feel
35:04how all the court
35:07all the authority
35:07of the state
35:08is against him
35:10how the press
35:10is calling him
35:11a monster
35:13a murderer
35:13in this way
35:14he doesn't deserve
35:15this treatment
35:16also in the public
35:17and he deserves
35:18for sure
35:19a fair trial
35:20and to defend him
35:23as best as you can
35:25and I felt sad
35:27when I heard
35:27that he killed himself
35:28because you develop
35:30a relationship
35:31also with your clients
35:33in prison
35:34especially when you
35:35take over the case
35:36for such a long time
35:37you develop a relationship
35:39and he ended this
35:40in a way that
35:40yeah
35:42like he ended
35:43other lives
35:44he ended his own
35:45life himself
35:45Claudia
35:50who survived
35:51a brutal attack
35:52by Eckert
35:53in 1987
35:54had been planning
35:55to attend his trial
35:56when I got a call
36:02from a journalist
36:03telling me
36:04that Volker Eckert
36:05had killed himself
36:06my first thought
36:07was coward
36:08a coward
36:10who is dodging
36:11responsibility
36:11for the gruesome
36:12acts he committed
36:13after a considerable
36:17amount of time
36:18I was then running
36:19out of accusations
36:20I had come
36:23to terms
36:24with the situation
36:25and was even glad
36:27that he had killed
36:27himself
36:28because this gruesome
36:30human
36:30could no longer
36:31hurt anyone
36:32on the one hand
36:37I believe it was
36:38simply the best
36:39solution
36:39and the fairest
36:40solution
36:40as if he wanted
36:42to say
36:42I'm taking my own
36:44life
36:44just like the lives
36:45I have already
36:46taken
36:46but on the other
36:48hand
36:48a lot of things
36:49that haven't yet
36:49been explained
36:50will never be
36:51clarified
36:52there were many
36:57questions still
36:58to be asked
36:59about Volker Eckert's
37:00crimes
37:01his death
37:02means
37:02they will remain
37:04unanswered
37:05I had a feeling
37:08of frustration
37:08above all
37:09I knew that
37:12Volker Eckert's
37:12death
37:13meant the end
37:14of any
37:14investigations
37:15that could have
37:15been reopened
37:16on the old
37:16case files
37:17that no one
37:18was interested
37:19in anymore
37:19and which had
37:23only reappeared
37:24in police
37:25and media news
37:26in the end
37:31these mysteries
37:32would never
37:33be solved
37:33and that is
37:34what's truly
37:35shocking
37:35about the death
37:36of Volker Eckert
37:37that those
37:38victims
37:38will never
37:39be granted
37:39justice
37:40in December
37:462007
37:48five months
37:49after his
37:49death
37:50police
37:50closed the
37:51file
37:51on Volker Eckert
37:53the Europe
37:54wide
37:54investigation
37:55was over
37:56he could
38:00remember
38:01many of his
38:01crimes
38:01very well
38:02and indeed
38:03very precisely
38:04surely
38:05that would
38:10have been
38:10a massively
38:10exciting
38:11trial
38:11for the
38:12press
38:12and of
38:13course
38:13also
38:14for the
38:14readers
38:14who would
38:15have wanted
38:16to keep
38:16up with
38:16the news
38:17the trial
38:19would have
38:19taken months
38:20with enormous
38:21coverage from
38:21international
38:22media
38:23because the
38:24crimes had
38:24been committed
38:25across half
38:26of Europe
38:26just how
38:30many helpless
38:31women were
38:32killed at the
38:32hands of
38:33Eckert
38:33may never
38:34be known
38:35I'm quite
38:36sure
38:36there was no
38:37gap
38:37of time
38:38where he
38:39didn't do
38:39anything
38:39because he
38:41always spoke
38:41about himself
38:42as someone
38:42who is not
38:43able to
38:43control the
38:44desire
38:44and his
38:45obsession
38:45so if you
38:46ask my
38:46personal opinion
38:47I think
38:48there's a high
38:48percentage
38:49that he did
38:50more than
38:50he admitted
38:51to
38:52there would
38:55always be the
38:56question
38:56were there
38:57six dead
38:57women
38:58or whether
38:5813
38:59or even
39:0019
39:01or even
39:02more
39:02he has
39:03taken this
39:04mystery
39:04with him
39:05forever
39:05there have
39:08been estimates
39:08of 22
39:09across
39:10Europe
39:11France
39:12Czechoslovakia
39:13Germany
39:14Spain
39:15he was
39:16relentless
39:17and he
39:18was
39:19successful
39:21in evading
39:22the attentions
39:23of the police
39:24for a very
39:26considerable
39:26period of
39:27time
39:27the shadow
39:29of Falka
39:30Eckert
39:30remains
39:31not just
39:32over the
39:32women he
39:33murdered
39:33but also
39:34the ones
39:35that got
39:35away
39:36there will
39:37always be
39:38a part
39:38of me
39:38that will
39:39probably
39:39never
39:40forget
39:40I can't
39:41imagine
39:41it
39:42I
39:43experienced
39:43it
39:44I know
39:45what I
39:45had to
39:46go
39:46through
39:46Volker
39:50Eckert
39:50was a
39:51relentless
39:52predatory
39:53serial killer
39:55preying
39:56on
39:56vulnerable
39:57women
39:57he took
39:59pleasure
39:59in it
39:59he took
40:01a great deal
40:02of sexual
40:02satisfaction
40:03from it
40:03he was
40:05a man
40:06who
40:06deserves
40:07the epithet
40:08evil
40:08Eckert
40:10was a
40:10callous
40:11murderer
40:11who showed
40:12no remorse
40:13for his
40:13actions
40:14he took
40:15the life
40:15of a
40:1514-year-old
40:16girl
40:17for his
40:17own
40:17gratification
40:18before
40:19embarking
40:20on a
40:2032-year-long
40:21killing
40:22spree
40:22it will
40:23never be
40:24revealed
40:24exactly
40:25how many
40:25young
40:26women
40:26he
40:26murdered
40:27by
40:27cowardly
40:28taking
40:28his
40:29own
40:29life
40:29Volker
40:30Eckert
40:31robbed
40:31many
40:31families
40:32of
40:32justice
40:32and
40:33proved
40:33himself
40:34to be
40:34one
40:35of
40:35the
40:35world's
40:36most
40:36evil
40:36killers
40:37they
40:38are
40:39the
40:39people
40:39have
40:40a
40:40hard
40:40to be
40:42proud of
40:42them
40:43they
40:44don't
40:44they
40:46have
40:46them
40:46to be
40:47here
40:47they
40:49will
40:49have
40:50them
40:51they
40:51can't
40:51say
40:52a
40:52they
40:52they
40:53will
40:53they
40:54will
40:54have
40:55a
40:55an
40:55they
40:56have
40:57a
40:58they
40:58will
40:59do
40:59you
41:00have
41:00a
41:01they
41:01will
41:03have
41:03their
41:03they
41:03will
41:04have
41:04a
41:04You
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43:02
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