00:00Hello and welcome to the Dark Mystery Lounge. Happy Halloween everybody. Let's
00:06kick off the second annual Halloween special with a mystery. The mysterious
00:11case of Hungarian serial killer, Bella Kiss. Let's get started.
00:20Very little is known about the early life of Bella Kiss. In February 1912, Bella
00:27moved into a house at 9 Cosset Street that he rented in the village of Cinkota, which
00:33is on the outskirts of Budapest, Hungary. Bella was considered a handsome man with
00:39blonde hair and blue eyes. He earned a living as a tinsmith, but also dabbled in
00:44astrology and was said to have a keen interest in occult practices. Bella was
00:50not only handsome, but smart. He taught himself his trade as a tinsmith and
00:55always tried to better himself. He was a voracious reader as a highly
01:00confident about art, literature, and history. With no formal schooling at all, he
01:05was able to mingle with people from higher social circles and hold his own with
01:10those of an academic background. Bella moves into the house with his wife,
01:15Marie, 15 years his junior. Within a matter of weeks, Marie had found herself a
01:21lover, Paul Beccari, and in December 1912, Bella sadly told his neighbors that the
01:27couple had run off together, leaving him alone. In place of his wife, Bella hired an
01:33elderly housekeeper named Mrs. Jakubek. After his wife disappeared, Bella seemed to
01:39embrace his new bachelor life. Scores of attractive, well-dressed women were seen
01:45visiting his home, but none of the villagers can remember them leaving. Around
01:50the same time, Bella began to collect large metal drums, informing the curious
01:56village constable that they were filled with gasoline, expected to be scarce with
02:01the approach of war in Europe. Meanwhile, Budapest authorities were seeking
02:06information on the disappearance of two widows, named Shmedek and Varga, who had not
02:12made contact with their friends or relatives for several weeks. Both women
02:16had been last seen in the company of a man named Hoffman, dwelling near the
02:20Margaret Bridge in Budapest, but he had also disappeared without a trace. Having no
02:26further leads, and no clue to the whereabouts of this mysterious Hoffman, they
02:31called an end to their investigation. War was coming, and they directed their
02:36energies to more pressing concerns. In November 1914, Bella was drafted in
02:42to military service, leaving for the front as soon as he was sworn into the ranks
02:46and issued gear. His house remained in the care of his trusted housekeeper.
02:51In June of 1916, soldiers came to Chincota in search of stockpiled fuel. The village
02:59constable remembered Bella and his collection of metal drums, and led the squad of soldiers
03:04to Bella's house. Mrs. Jakubek answered the door with a scowl. She saw no reason they let the
03:11soldiers in, but they convinced her that they had every right. She reluctantly led them to the cellar
03:16door. Lighting the way with kerosene lamps, they found seven large metal drums welded shut.
03:24Very happy that he had not wasted the soldiers' time, the constable produced a long, thin,
03:30spiked rod with which to pierce one of the drums, to determine if the contents were petrol or diesel.
03:37As soon as the rod had pierced the top of the drum, the most horrific stench of decomposition
03:42wafted through the already nasty, dank cellar. Authorities were contacted. Detective Chief
03:48Caroline Nagy and two fellow detectives rushed to the scene. When they arrived, they were led to the drums.
03:56They quickly got to work, prying the lid off the first drum. Once it opened, they peered inside,
04:02only to be greeted with the partially rotted body of a young woman with a full head of long,
04:08dark brown hair. The drum was filled with alcohol, which acted as a preservative,
04:13but the head was above the alcohol level, and this was the cause of the putrid smell.
04:19Also inside the metal drum was the rope in which she had been strangled with.
04:23The other six drums were open. Each contained the body of a naked young woman preserved in alcohol.
04:30All of them were strangled. The housekeeper was questioned about what she knew.
04:36She remembered the drums being delivered to the house, but felt like it wasn't her place to ask
04:41what their purpose might be. Since Bella was always entertaining guests, she thought that they
04:47contained illicit liquor to provide that little extra hospitality to his female guests. After the
04:53detectives had arranged for a coroner and morgue assistants to collect the victims found in the
04:59metal drums, they began to search the house and the wooded grounds around it. They found more bodies.
05:06Some were in drums, others had been buried. Each victim, even those that were buried, were preserved in
05:13alcohol beforehand. Because of this, the bodies were still recognizable and the facial features were
05:19mostly free of decay. Once the search was over, 17 more bodies were found. Along with the bodies from
05:26the cellar, there was a total of 24 bodies. Two of them were his wife and her lover, Paul Bakari, the only
05:35male victim. Detective Nagy informed the military that they should arrest Bella immediately, if he was
05:41still alive. There was also a possibility that he was a prisoner of war. His name, unfortunately, was very common.
05:49Detective Nagy also arrested Mrs. Jakubek and asked the postal service to hold any possible letters to
05:57Bella in case he had an accomplice who could warn him. Nagy initially suspected that Mrs. Jakubek might
06:04have had something to do with the murders, especially since Bella had left her money in his will. Mrs.
06:11Jakubek assured the police that she knew absolutely nothing about the murders. After interrogating her,
06:18he came to the conclusion that she was unaware of her employer's crimes. She showed them a secret
06:24locked room Bella had told her to never enter. Even though detectives swept the house top to bottom,
06:32they missed the door that was locked and concealed by drapes. Mrs. Jakubek reached into her apron pocket
06:38and pulled out an old-fashioned key and proceeded to open the locked door. The light from the bedroom
06:45revealed a musty, windowless room covered in cobwebs. The only furniture was a large dusty desk,
06:52an old leather chair, and several bookcases filled with moldering books. Inside the desk drawer there was
06:58a huge volume of letters between Bella and various women. There is also a photo album of more than 100
07:05young ladies. Detective Nagy began to suspect that there might be more victims than what they had so far
07:12uncovered. He started to examine the hundreds of letters, most of which were carefully filed and
07:18dated. Using a different name, Bella had placed personal ads in various newspapers looking for a
07:24suitable woman with a view to marriage. Later, it was revealed that Bella had received 174 marriage
07:32proposals. To 74 of these women, he offered marriage and kept up his correspondence with them.
07:38Something else became clear. As Nagy continued to read these letters, Bella was defrauding these women
07:46of their savings and property. Some of these letters date back as far as 1903. Detective Nagy examined the
07:53books on the bookshelf. There were books on poison and different methods of strangulation. The
07:59detective was soon to discover Bella's MO. When he received a reply to his ad, he would visit the potential
08:05victim and lavish money and attention on her, pretending he was a wealthy widower. Then he
08:11would subtly inquire whether she had any close relatives. If he discovered that she had family
08:17nearby, he would quickly lose interest and leave. He would only target women who had no close relatives
08:24so that when they disappeared, no one would notice. Police also found old court records that indicate
08:30that two of his victims had initiated court proceedings because he had taken money from them.
08:36Both women had disappeared and the cases had been dismissed. Each woman who came to the house
08:42was strangled. Bella pickled their corpses in alcohol and sealed them in the airtight metal drums.
08:50Police found that the bodies had puncture marks on their necks and that their bodies were drained of blood,
08:56which led them to believe that Bella may have been practicing vampirism.
09:01On October 4th, 1916, Detective Nagy received a telegram from the Serbian hospital claiming that a
09:09soldier named Bella Kiss had died of typhoid in 1915. But it was also followed by another telegram stating
09:17that a mistake was made and Bella was alive and a patient at the hospital. Detective Nagy traveled
09:24immediately to the hospital to apprehend the murderer. But once he reached the bed, not only was
09:30the man laying there not recuperating, but he was clearly dead and it was not Bella Kiss. Somehow,
09:38Bella had got an inkling of his imminent arrest and had propped the corpse of a recently deceased soldier
09:44in his bed. In the spring of 1919, Bella was sighted on the Margett Bridge in Budapest. It was thought
09:52likely that he had returned to the front and either killed by a soldier for his identity or retrieved
09:59the papers from the legions of corpses that littered the war zone. He was reportedly sighted numerous
10:06times in the following years. Various rumors circulated as to his actual fate, including that he had been
10:14imprisoned for burglary in Romania or had died of yellow fever in Turkey. In 1920, a soldier in the
10:22French Foreign Legion reported on another legionnaire named Hoffman. The name Kiss had been used in some
10:28letters and boasted how good he was at using a garotte and who fit Bella's description. Hoffman deserted
10:35before police could reach him. The last known supposed sighting occurred in New York City in 1932.
10:43That year, homicide detective Henry Oswald was certain that he had observed Kiss emerging from
10:50the New York City subway at Times Square, Manhattan. There were also rumors that Kiss was living in the
10:56city and working as a janitor. All of these could not be verified. When the police went to interview the
11:02janitor, he had already left. Whatever finally became of Bella Kiss remains a mystery. In Hungary, he is
11:10remembered as the one who got away. If you found this video interesting, please like and subscribe and
11:16all that jazz. I hope you enjoyed this Halloween special. Thanks for hanging out with me in the
11:22Dark Mystery Lounge. This is Phoenix signing out. Have a happy Halloween and stay safe.
11:34Thanks for having me.
11:36If you have any questions, please leave me at all.
11:37If you will, make a laugh.
11:38If you have stars, have your day.
11:39I will need to tag a quick line of the story which is yours.
11:41Yes, please leave me alone.
11:44Tell us about this card Zachary, the fact that you need to talk a good afternoon.
11:46The next card is my favorite part of the card.
11:47I am going to talk to you with the card.
11:49I am going to talk to you with the card.
11:51And as you will read, check the card will give me a lot of cards.
11:55I will give you a lot of cards.
11:57I am going to talk to you with my card.
11:59I am going to talk to you with my card.
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