Dec. 30, 2025
Hungary: Béla Kiss and the Lonely Hearts Murders
Episode 14 of 15 | Season 36: Serial Killers in History
In a locked storage chamber in rural Hungary, seven sealed metal drums waited to reveal their terrible secrets—each containing the perfectly preserved body of a woman who had answered a marriage advertisement.
The investigation into Hungary's most prolific lonely hearts killer reaches its chilling conclusion as we trace Béla Kiss's extraordinary escape from justice during the chaos of World War One.
VICTIM PROFILE:
Katherine Varga sold her dressmaking business for the promise of marriage. Margaret Toth trusted her mother's choice of a husband. These women weren't victims of circumstance—they were successful, independent, and looking for partnership in an era when marriage advertisements represented a respectable path to companionship. They responded to notices in Budapest newspapers, exchanged romantic letters with a successful tinsmith named Béla Kiss, and traveled alone to his home in Cinkota with their valuables and their hopes. The skills that had supported Katherine's independence—her precise needlework—would later identify her remains years after Kiss strangled her and sealed her body in an alcohol-filled drum.
THE CRIME:
This case changed how Hungarian law enforcement approached missing persons cases and marriage advertisement fraud. Kiss's crimes exposed the vulnerability of women seeking companionship in early twentieth-century society and demonstrated how a charismatic predator could weaponize social conventions for years without detection. The preserved bodies—so pristine that victims remained recognizable years after death—stand as haunting evidence of how ordinary systems can shield extraordinary evil. Béla Kiss remains one of criminology's greatest unsolved mysteries, his ability to disappear so completely ensuring his story continues to captivate researchers worldwide.
Content Warning: This episode contains descriptions of violence against women and discussions of serial murder. Listener discretion advised.
KEY CASE DETAILS:
The investigation into Béla Kiss began in mid-1916 when landlord Márton Kresinszky and pharmacist Béla Takács discovered seven metal drums in Kiss's locked storage chamber. Each drum, professionally sealed with lead solder, contained a woman's body preserved in wood alcohol and strangled with a rope or garrotte. Investigators found seventeen more bodies throughout the property, bringing the total to twenty-four victims—all killed with the same methodical approach.
Timeline: Kiss operated between 1912-1914, placing matrimonial advertisements in Budapest newspapers under the alias "Hofmann." Conscripted to the 40th Honvéd Infantry Brigade in 1914, he left his home in housekeeper Mrs. Jakubec's care. The discovery came nearly two years later during renovation preparations.
Method: Kiss corresponded with 174 women, actively pursued 74, and lured victims by emphasizing his financial stability and respectable tinsmith business. He requested women travel alone and bring their valuables. After strangling them, he took their assets and preserved bodies in alcohol-filled drums—a technique that astounded medical examiners with its effectiveness.
Escape: In October 1916, Detective Chief Charles Nagy traveled to a Serbian military hospital after reports Kiss was alive. He arrived to find a corpse in Kiss's bed—but the face was wrong. Kiss had switched identity documents with a dying soldier and walked out of the hospital into the chaos of war-torn Serbia.
Aftermath: In 1932, New York City homicide detective Henry Oswald was certain he spotted Kiss emerging from the Times Square subway station. The sighting was never confirmed. Whether Kiss died in the trenches, lived out his days under an assumed identity, or met some other fate remains unknown. The mathematics of his notebook—174 contacts, 74 pursued, 24 found—leaves terrible questions about fifty unaccounted women.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT AND SOURCES:
This episode draws on contemporary Hungarian police records, the detailed account by Austro-Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy who witnessed the body examinations, court documents from earlier proceedings against Kiss by victims Julianne Paschak and Elizabeth Komeromi, and historical research into World War One-era military hospital conditions in occupied Serbia. The investigation reveals how wartime chaos enabled Kiss's escape and how early twentieth-century record-keeping failures allowed a serial killer to vanish completely.
RESOURCES AND FURTHER READING:
For listeners interested in exploring this case further, these historically significant sources provide additional context:
- The Hungarian National Archives maintains police investigation records from the original 1916 Cinkota discovery and subsequent manhunt
- Academic research on early twentieth-century matrimonial fraud and lonely hearts schemes in Austro-Hungarian newspapers
- Military hospital records from WWI-era Serbia documenting the typhoid epidemic and identification challenges that enabled Kiss's escape
- Contemporary newspaper coverage from Budapest publications reporting on the barrel discoveries
RELATED FOUL PLAY EPISODES:
If you enjoyed this early twentieth-century Hungarian case, explore these related Foul Play episodes:
- Season 36, Episode 12: Maria Swanenburg - Another insurance-focused serial killer from the 1880s Netherlands who targeted vulnerable community members
- Season 36, Episode 9: Maria Jeanneret - Swiss poisoner who exploited positions of trust to prey on isolated victims
- Season 36, Episode 15: Karl Denke - German serial killer who evaded detection through community respectability until the 1920s
Foul Play is hosted by Shane Waters and Wendy Cee. Research and writing by Shane Waters with historical consultation. Music and sound design featuring period-appropriate Hungarian and Eastern European folk elements. For more forgotten cases from history's darkest corners, subscribe to Foul Play wherever you listen to podcasts.
Next week on Foul Play: The season finale explores Karl Denke, the forgotten cannibal of Münsterberg, whose decades of murder remained hidden behind the façade of a respected German businessman. Subscribe now to follow Serial Killers in History to its conclusion.
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WEBVTT
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[SPEAKER_00]: May 1916, Hoshu Laiou Street, think Oda Hungria.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Martin Crayson Seeky, the landlord, and Bella TechEdge, the local pharmacist.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Stood and the locked stores chamber.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Next to the 10 Smith Workshop.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They'd come looking for renovation materials.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Instead they found several large metal drums.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Each about a meter long and a half meter wide.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Stacked against the wall.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The drums were sealed with lead soldier, professionally done, the kind of metal work you'd expect from a skilled tense myth.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Cracensky wanted to see what his tenet bellicus had been storing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The tense myth had left for war nearly two years earlier.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The drums didn't look like gasoline containers.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Kiss had claimed he was hoarding fuel for anticipated wartime rationing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They looked like something else entirely.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The two men took an axe to the first drum.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The lads seal resisted and gave way.
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[SPEAKER_00]: A terrible stench filled the chamber, chemical and sweet and wrong.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They reached into the drum and pulled out a large cloth bag, inside, carefully packaged, was the body of a woman, strangled, perfectly preserved in alcohol.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They breached a second drum, making just a hole in the side this time.
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[SPEAKER_00]: the same pungent smell, a lock of blonde hair fell from the opening.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Crasinski and Tekech retreated, they called the authorities.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Hello friend, welcome to foul play.
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[SPEAKER_00]: By evening, police had opened all seven drums, seven bodies, all women, all strangled
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[SPEAKER_00]: The alcohol preservation had kept them so pristine that some victims were still recognizable, despite being dead for years.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Then investigators found 17 more bodies on the property, some hidden throughout the house, others and drums buried around the grounds.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The question wasn't just to had killed them,
02:30.455 --> 02:43.302
[SPEAKER_00]: The question was how Belokish had found 24 women willing to travel to a village six miles from Budapest, alone and trusting, to meet a man none of them had reason to fear.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The answer was remarkably simple.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He advertised.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Bella Keish entered the world in 1877, in the small town of Isyak Hungary, as a young man he established himself in Sankata, where his intelligence and charisma quickly earned him a reputation as a respected member of the community.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Standing at six feet tall with striking blue eyes and blonde hair, Kishcutton impressive figure, and his success as a tinsmith afforded him a comfortable lifestyle that many in the village envied.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He lived in a furnished apartment, was of good character, had no debt, always fulfilled his obligations, and had a solid lifestyle.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It was an amateur astrologer and was allegedly fond of occult practices.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Kishmaryd Marie, a woman several years as junior.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Kishmary seemed happy at first, but their relationship was plagued by Marie's flirtatious nature.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Local gossip suggested she was carrying on a first with several young men in the village.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Kish appeared to take his wife's indiscretions in his stride, maintaining a calm and collected demeanor, even as rumours swelled around their marriage.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Then suddenly Marie disappeared.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Kish explained his neighbours that she had run away with a soldier, abandoning him for a new life in America.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He played the role of the dejected husband perfectly, garnering sympathy from the community.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Few questioned his story, especially when letters occasionally arrived, supposedly from Marie, telling of her new life across the ocean.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In the years following Marie's disappearance, Kishis behaviour shifted subtly.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He became more private, yet simultaneously more engaged in correspondence with women from Budapest and surrounding areas.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In 1912, Kishan employed a housekeeper, Mrs. John Jakobek, to help keep the house and run errands that a wife would normally do.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Despite his apparent heart rate, he maintained his position as a well-liked figure in Sincotta.
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[SPEAKER_01]: known for his polite manners and professional reliability.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He began receiving frequent female visitors explaining to neighbours that they were friends, helping him cope with his loneliness.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He was very secretive and not even his housekeeper Mrs. Jackabet because introduced to many of the house guests.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The lonely heart advertisement was a standard feature of early 20th century newspapers
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[SPEAKER_00]: men and women seeking companionship, or marriage, would place notices describing themselves, their circumstances, their hopes.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The advertisements promised a connection in an era when social circles were small and introductions formal.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Beliquish understood the mathematics of loneliness,
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[SPEAKER_00]: A woman seeking a respectable husband wouldn't question why a successful tense myth might need to advertise.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She would see opportunity.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She would see a man confident enough to be direct about his intentions.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Between 1912 and 1914, Keesh placed advertisements in
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[SPEAKER_00]: He sought a mature and respectable woman for matrimony.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He emphasized financial security.
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[SPEAKER_00]: His successful business, his property, his desire for a stable partnership.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The responses came from across Hungary, widows, spinsters, women whose age or circumstances made traditional courtship difficult.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Tish corresponded with each woman carefully.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He wrote romantic letters.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He shared details about his workshop, his home, his quiet life, and Shinkata.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He asked about their lives, their dreams, their assets, whether they owned businesses, whether they had savings,
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[SPEAKER_00]: When a woman expressed serious interest, he is invited her to visit.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He was specific about the arrangements.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She should come alone, tell no one exactly where she was going.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Bring her valuables for safekeeping, since she'd be traveling.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Standard precautions for a woman visiting a man she knew only through letters.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The women came to Kosa's lodges street.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They met a charming, successful tense myth, who seemed exactly as he described himself.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They had dinner.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They discussed their future together, and then at some point during the visit, Belakish strangled them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He used a garot, a thin cord or wire looped around the neck, entitoned from behind.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Quick, quiet, requiring strength but no particular mass.
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[SPEAKER_00]: A method that left no blood to explain, no gunshot to alert neighbors.
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[SPEAKER_00]: After killing each woman, kissed to a crudgery, her money, whatever assets she brought.
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[SPEAKER_00]: then came the careful work.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He placed each body in a cloth bag, secured it in one of his metal drums, and filled the drum with alcohol for preservation.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The drums were stored in his locked chamber, professionally sealed with lead solder, the mark of a skilled tense myth, protecting his inventory,
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[SPEAKER_00]: He should return to his advertisements, to his correspondence, to the next woman who responded to his promise of companionship and security.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In 1914, World War I broke out and Kish was conscripted to the war, leaving his house in Mrs. Jakobak's care, and all was quiet for a couple of years.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Frig is currently a famous Austria-Hungarian author, was present at the scene and described it in detail.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I stood there in the cemetery in Sincotta, in front of the tin barrels, and watched one-by-one as the contents of the open barrels were poured out onto the autopsy table.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Tim barrels of different heights equally tinned precisely with conscientious work, those who opened the first barrel did not doubt for a moment that the other contents were the same, although this assumption meant an unimaginable horror, and those of us who were there at the opening, all of us took it for granted that a small woman fell to the ground from the smaller barrel, and a larger one from a larger one.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And after the second barrel, we also knew how to turn the barrel, how deep to reach, and where to grab the string on the neck of the emerging female head, where the loop is.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Red leads down to the legs and how they are knotted.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This is how a proper precise collector works, one who understands his craft and he likes order.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Among the bodies, investigators found Catherine Varga, a dressmaker who'd sold her business to find a new life with a man she knew through letters.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Margaret Tooth, whose widowed mother had arranged the introduction, hoping to secure her daughter's future.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Anna Faketa, who traveled from Seigad with her life savings,
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[SPEAKER_00]: The women ranged from domestic servants to business owners, what they shared was vulnerability, age, circumstances, or social position that made traditional marriage difficult.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They'd responded to advertisements, promising respectability, and security.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They'd brought their valuables because a woman visiting a potential husband would naturally bring what she owned.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He'd understood their situations perfectly.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He'd known they'd come alone.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He'd known they'd tell no one exactly where they were going.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He'd known that women like these disappeared regularly into marriage or migration.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Their absence unremarkable until someone specific went looking.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Please trace to the water's back to Budapest newspapers.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The advertisements had run under multiple names, different aliases, for different campaigns.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Heish had been systematic in his predation, spacing his kills to avoid attention, varying his approach to prevent patterns.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The metal urges his report on the drums showed professional grade soldering.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The alcohol used for preservation was industrial quality, purchased in quantities that wouldn't draw attention, from a tense myth who might legitimately need chemical supplies.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Even the burial locations in the garden showed planning, placed deep enough to avoid casual discovery, positioned where normal maintenance wouldn't disturb them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Every element of Keisha's method demonstrated the same cold calculation.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He'd chosen victims carefully.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He'd isolated them perfectly.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He'd preserved their bodies with the precision of a craftsman.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And he'd maintained his respectable facade throughout.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The successful 10th Smith, who occasionally entertained female visitors, but otherwise kept to himself.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The question investigators faced was simple, where was Belokish?
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[SPEAKER_01]: As detectives delve deeper into the investigation, the true horror of Bellakish's crimes came into sharp focus.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They meticulously catalogue 24 bodies in total, all women who had been strangled with a carefully crafted garot.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Each victim wore the same distinct ligature marks around their necks, indicating Kish's signature method of killing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And each woman had puncture wounds on their neck, and their bodies were drained of blood.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Leading to remorse that Kish may have been perhaps in vampirism.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Preservation technique used by Kish was particularly sophisticated.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He had developed a unique method using alcohol and other chemicals that prevented decomposition, essentially turning those victims into
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[SPEAKER_01]: Medical examiners were astonished by the effectiveness of his preservation method, noting that even victims killed years earlier retained their facial features and identifying marks.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The investigation also uncovered evidence that Kish had developed an extensive network of alibis and false identities.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He had managed to avoid suspicion for years, by carefully timing his killings and maintaining a respected position in the community.
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[SPEAKER_01]: His role as a successful tinsmith have provided the perfect cover for the suspicious drums on his property, while his military service had ultimately given him the opportunity to escape justice.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The police continued their investigation.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They found old court records that indicated that two of Kish's victims, Julian Pashak, and Elizabeth Komerone, had instigated court proceedings for taking money from them.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But both women had disappeared and the cases were closed.
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[SPEAKER_01]: While searching Kish's house, clothing was found with Julian's name sewn in them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Chief Inspector Joseph Nagy began his manhunt in May, 1916.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He immediately recognized the challenge.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Keesh had disappeared into the largest mobilization in European history.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The Austro-Hungarian military had millions of men spread across multiple fronts.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Recordkeeping was overwhelmed.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Communication was chaotic.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Finding one soldier in that system would be difficult under the best circumstances.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Nagy had won advantage.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He's his name and service record.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The military confirmed Keesh was assigned to a medical unit, operating near the Siberian front.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Nagi requested that military police locate and detained Keesh for immediate return to Budapest to face murder charges.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The request moved through military bureaucracy, while Nagi investigated the Sinkita murders.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He interviewed neighbors who described Tish as respectable and quiet.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He tracked down women who'd corresponded with Tish, but never visited Sinkita.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They'd lost interest, or Keesh had deemed them unsuitable, or circumstances had proven a travel.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Each interview revealed the same pattern, lonely women seeking companionship, a charming correspondent who seemed genuine, careful grooming, toward an isolated visit.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In September 1916, word came from the military.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They'd locate a Keisha's unit, he'd been wounded in action, not killed, wounded.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He'd been transferred to a military hospital for treatment, Nagi traveled to Siberia personally.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He arrived at the military hospital and requested to see Belokish.
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[SPEAKER_00]: the doctor checked the records.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, a soldier by that name had been admitted weeks earlier, sharp no wounds, serious, but not immediately fatal.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He'd been recovering in the ward.
16:59.866 --> 17:08.717
[SPEAKER_00]: But when the doctor led Nagy to the bed, they found it empty, clean lemons, no patient, no explanation,
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[SPEAKER_00]: The reconstruction came from military records and witness interviews.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Keesh had been admitted to the hospital with shrapnel wounds, painful, but survivable.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He'd been conscious, coherent, and cooperative during initial treatment.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The wounds have been dressed, and he'd been assigned to a recovery ward.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But Bella Keesh hadn't come to the hospital to recover.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The hospital staff couldn't say exactly when Keesh had left his bed.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It had been after dark.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That much they remembered.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The ward had been crowded with wounded soldiers.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Staff overwhelmed, security focused on preventing dissertion through official exits, rather than watching individual patients.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In the chaos of a military hospital, treating hundreds of wounded men, one patient rising from his bed wouldn't draw a particular attention.
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[SPEAKER_00]: One investigator's piece together later showed Keisha's careful planning.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When Nagi arrived, perhaps days, a soldier in the adjacent bed had died of typhoid.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Keesh had switched identity documents.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He had taken the dead man's papers, left his own with the corpse, and simply walked out of the hospital in the darkness.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The soldier in the morgue was not by the Keesh.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The soldier was someone else.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Some nameless young man, whose identity Keesh had stolen as his final disguise.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The soldier was by the Keesh's last victim.
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[SPEAKER_00]: 1932, New York City.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Henry Oswald, a homicide detective, reported seeing a man emerging from a subway station who matched Bella Keysh's description.
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[SPEAKER_00]: By then, heesh would have been in his fifties.
19:15.149 --> 19:21.416
[SPEAKER_00]: The description matched his age appearance, still tall, still blonde, though grain.
19:22.597 --> 19:27.742
[SPEAKER_00]: Still carrying himself with that calm confidence that had fooled so many people.
19:28.643 --> 19:33.528
[SPEAKER_00]: In Singular 16 years earlier, Oswald filed a report.
19:34.610 --> 19:38.854
[SPEAKER_00]: By the time authorities investigated, the trail had gone cold.
19:39.577 --> 19:45.148
[SPEAKER_00]: If it was Keesh, he'd vanished again into the anonymity of a city of millions.
19:46.445 --> 19:54.980
[SPEAKER_00]: The case fundamentally changed how Hungarian law enforcement approached missing persons, a matrimonial fraud investigations.
19:56.463 --> 20:09.786
[SPEAKER_00]: Those sealed metal drums became powerful symbols, not just of kisha's crimes, but how easily, ever-spectable facade, could hide systematic predation against vulnerable women.
20:11.116 --> 20:24.617
[SPEAKER_00]: Weather Bella Keys died and the trenches of World War I started a new life under an assumed identity in New York or South America, or met some other fate remains unknown.
20:25.779 --> 20:38.338
[SPEAKER_00]: His ability to disappear so completely into the war's chaos ensures historic captivates new generations, not as a mystery but as a cautionary tale.
20:40.141 --> 20:46.230
[SPEAKER_00]: The 24 known victims represent only those discovered in Syncada.
20:46.250 --> 20:49.756
[SPEAKER_00]: Keesh had corresponded with 174 women.
20:50.777 --> 20:53.622
[SPEAKER_00]: He actively pursued 74 of them.
20:54.764 --> 20:58.790
[SPEAKER_00]: The bodies found in May 1916 were 24.
20:58.830 --> 21:07.363
[SPEAKER_00]: The mathematics leave space for terrible possibilities about what happened during his years
21:09.368 --> 21:12.157
[SPEAKER_00]: Katherine Varga sold her dress-making business.
21:13.502 --> 21:16.813
[SPEAKER_00]: Margaret Tooth trusted her mother's choice of husband.
21:18.076 --> 21:25.569
[SPEAKER_00]: 22 other women whose names we know, and perhaps dozens more, whose identities vanished with their killer.
21:26.491 --> 21:30.799
[SPEAKER_00]: They all made rational decisions based on the information available to them.
21:32.121 --> 21:36.489
[SPEAKER_00]: They responded to advertisements that promised partnership and security.
21:37.511 --> 21:42.700
[SPEAKER_00]: They traveled to meet a man who seemed respectable, successful, kind,
21:42.680 --> 21:59.743
[SPEAKER_00]: Katherine Vargas' needlework, the skill that had supported her independence, found alongside her remains, years after Bella keeps strangled her, and packaged her body with the precision of a tense myth, who understood his craft.
22:01.630 --> 22:13.797
[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps the most chilling aspect of the Beliki's case is not just the murder he committed, but the possibility that he might have lived out his days and peaceful anonymity.
22:15.039 --> 22:17.665
[SPEAKER_00]: Taking the full truth of his crimes to his grave.
22:18.758 --> 22:28.065
[SPEAKER_00]: that somewhere in the 1930s or 40s or 50s, Beliki died of old age, a hospital bed, under a false name.
22:29.249 --> 22:33.561
[SPEAKER_00]: His secrets intact, his victims, and avenged.
22:36.629 --> 22:43.679
[SPEAKER_00]: Until next time, remember, a respectable facade and a kind word can hide the darkest intentions.
22:44.881 --> 22:50.830
[SPEAKER_00]: When someone seems too good to be true, trust the warning signs your instincts give you.
22:52.372 --> 22:59.042
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for listening, friend.
00:00.031 --> 00:05.940
[SPEAKER_00]: May 1916, Hoshu Laiou Street, think Oda Hungria.
00:07.304 --> 00:13.211
[SPEAKER_00]: Martin Crayson Seeky, the landlord, and Bella TechEdge, the local pharmacist.
00:14.012 --> 00:15.835
[SPEAKER_00]: Stood and the locked stores chamber.
00:16.576 --> 00:18.258
[SPEAKER_00]: Next to the 10 Smith Workshop.
00:19.479 --> 00:21.642
[SPEAKER_00]: They'd come looking for renovation materials.
00:22.863 --> 00:25.306
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead they found several large metal drums.
00:26.248 --> 00:29.251
[SPEAKER_00]: Each about a meter long and a half meter wide.
00:30.072 --> 00:32.215
[SPEAKER_00]: Stacked against the wall.
00:32.195 --> 00:40.108
[SPEAKER_00]: The drums were sealed with lead soldier, professionally done, the kind of metal work you'd expect from a skilled tense myth.
00:41.570 --> 00:46.077
[SPEAKER_00]: Cracensky wanted to see what his tenet bellicus had been storing.
00:47.279 --> 00:50.845
[SPEAKER_00]: The tense myth had left for war nearly two years earlier.
00:52.158 --> 00:54.622
[SPEAKER_00]: The drums didn't look like gasoline containers.
00:55.704 --> 00:59.791
[SPEAKER_00]: Kiss had claimed he was hoarding fuel for anticipated wartime rationing.
01:00.653 --> 01:02.676
[SPEAKER_00]: They looked like something else entirely.
01:03.838 --> 01:06.162
[SPEAKER_00]: The two men took an axe to the first drum.
01:07.565 --> 01:10.209
[SPEAKER_00]: The lads seal resisted and gave way.
01:10.269 --> 01:17.001
[SPEAKER_00]: A terrible stench filled the chamber, chemical and sweet and wrong.
01:18.247 --> 01:32.411
[SPEAKER_00]: They reached into the drum and pulled out a large cloth bag, inside, carefully packaged, was the body of a woman, strangled, perfectly preserved in alcohol.
01:34.114 --> 01:38.702
[SPEAKER_00]: They breached a second drum, making just a hole in the side this time.
01:39.931 --> 01:45.237
[SPEAKER_00]: the same pungent smell, a lock of blonde hair fell from the opening.
01:46.338 --> 01:50.363
[SPEAKER_00]: Crasinski and Tekech retreated, they called the authorities.
01:52.546 --> 01:55.029
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello friend, welcome to foul play.
01:56.771 --> 02:04.960
[SPEAKER_00]: By evening, police had opened all seven drums, seven bodies, all women, all strangled
02:06.239 --> 02:14.568
[SPEAKER_00]: The alcohol preservation had kept them so pristine that some victims were still recognizable, despite being dead for years.
02:16.190 --> 02:25.640
[SPEAKER_00]: Then investigators found 17 more bodies on the property, some hidden throughout the house, others and drums buried around the grounds.
02:27.122 --> 02:29.344
[SPEAKER_00]: The question wasn't just to had killed them,
02:30.455 --> 02:43.302
[SPEAKER_00]: The question was how Belokish had found 24 women willing to travel to a village six miles from Budapest, alone and trusting, to meet a man none of them had reason to fear.
02:43.342 --> 02:46.589
[SPEAKER_00]: The answer was remarkably simple.
02:48.112 --> 02:49.054
[SPEAKER_00]: He advertised.
02:52.578 --> 03:08.005
[SPEAKER_01]: Bella Keish entered the world in 1877, in the small town of Isyak Hungary, as a young man he established himself in Sankata, where his intelligence and charisma quickly earned him a reputation as a respected member of the community.
03:09.149 --> 03:20.668
[SPEAKER_01]: Standing at six feet tall with striking blue eyes and blonde hair, Kishcutton impressive figure, and his success as a tinsmith afforded him a comfortable lifestyle that many in the village envied.
03:21.910 --> 03:30.685
[SPEAKER_01]: He lived in a furnished apartment, was of good character, had no debt, always fulfilled his obligations, and had a solid lifestyle.
03:30.665 --> 03:34.953
[SPEAKER_01]: It was an amateur astrologer and was allegedly fond of occult practices.
03:35.975 --> 03:38.901
[SPEAKER_01]: Kishmaryd Marie, a woman several years as junior.
03:39.943 --> 03:45.053
[SPEAKER_01]: Kishmary seemed happy at first, but their relationship was plagued by Marie's flirtatious nature.
03:46.156 --> 03:50.985
[SPEAKER_01]: Local gossip suggested she was carrying on a first with several young men in the village.
03:50.965 --> 03:58.798
[SPEAKER_01]: Kish appeared to take his wife's indiscretions in his stride, maintaining a calm and collected demeanor, even as rumours swelled around their marriage.
03:59.519 --> 04:01.362
[SPEAKER_01]: Then suddenly Marie disappeared.
04:02.464 --> 04:08.333
[SPEAKER_01]: Kish explained his neighbours that she had run away with a soldier, abandoning him for a new life in America.
04:09.089 --> 04:13.855
[SPEAKER_01]: He played the role of the dejected husband perfectly, garnering sympathy from the community.
04:14.817 --> 04:22.246
[SPEAKER_01]: Few questioned his story, especially when letters occasionally arrived, supposedly from Marie, telling of her new life across the ocean.
04:23.548 --> 04:27.674
[SPEAKER_01]: In the years following Marie's disappearance, Kishis behaviour shifted subtly.
04:28.254 --> 04:34.843
[SPEAKER_01]: He became more private, yet simultaneously more engaged in correspondence with women from Budapest and surrounding areas.
04:35.870 --> 04:44.104
[SPEAKER_01]: In 1912, Kishan employed a housekeeper, Mrs. John Jakobek, to help keep the house and run errands that a wife would normally do.
04:45.026 --> 04:50.976
[SPEAKER_01]: Despite his apparent heart rate, he maintained his position as a well-liked figure in Sincotta.
04:50.956 --> 04:53.939
[SPEAKER_01]: known for his polite manners and professional reliability.
04:55.000 --> 05:01.626
[SPEAKER_01]: He began receiving frequent female visitors explaining to neighbours that they were friends, helping him cope with his loneliness.
05:02.727 --> 05:07.993
[SPEAKER_01]: He was very secretive and not even his housekeeper Mrs. Jackabet because introduced to many of the house guests.
05:11.336 --> 05:16.761
[SPEAKER_00]: The lonely heart advertisement was a standard feature of early 20th century newspapers
05:17.720 --> 05:26.535
[SPEAKER_00]: men and women seeking companionship, or marriage, would place notices describing themselves, their circumstances, their hopes.
05:27.597 --> 05:34.289
[SPEAKER_00]: The advertisements promised a connection in an era when social circles were small and introductions formal.
05:35.591 --> 05:38.496
[SPEAKER_00]: Beliquish understood the mathematics of loneliness,
05:39.100 --> 05:46.850
[SPEAKER_00]: A woman seeking a respectable husband wouldn't question why a successful tense myth might need to advertise.
05:48.372 --> 05:49.633
[SPEAKER_00]: She would see opportunity.
05:50.494 --> 05:55.000
[SPEAKER_00]: She would see a man confident enough to be direct about his intentions.
05:56.842 --> 06:05.513
[SPEAKER_00]: Between 1912 and 1914, Keesh placed advertisements in
06:06.775 --> 06:10.279
[SPEAKER_00]: He sought a mature and respectable woman for matrimony.
06:11.820 --> 06:13.763
[SPEAKER_00]: He emphasized financial security.
06:14.824 --> 06:20.190
[SPEAKER_00]: His successful business, his property, his desire for a stable partnership.
06:21.431 --> 06:32.563
[SPEAKER_00]: The responses came from across Hungary, widows, spinsters, women whose age or circumstances made traditional courtship difficult.
06:32.543 --> 06:36.127
[SPEAKER_00]: Tish corresponded with each woman carefully.
06:37.088 --> 06:38.430
[SPEAKER_00]: He wrote romantic letters.
06:39.451 --> 06:45.238
[SPEAKER_00]: He shared details about his workshop, his home, his quiet life, and Shinkata.
06:46.520 --> 06:54.990
[SPEAKER_00]: He asked about their lives, their dreams, their assets, whether they owned businesses, whether they had savings,
06:56.152 --> 07:00.839
[SPEAKER_00]: When a woman expressed serious interest, he is invited her to visit.
07:01.920 --> 07:03.783
[SPEAKER_00]: He was specific about the arrangements.
07:05.065 --> 07:08.891
[SPEAKER_00]: She should come alone, tell no one exactly where she was going.
07:09.772 --> 07:13.177
[SPEAKER_00]: Bring her valuables for safekeeping, since she'd be traveling.
07:14.178 --> 07:24.353
[SPEAKER_00]: Standard precautions for a woman visiting a man she knew only through letters.
07:25.683 --> 07:28.007
[SPEAKER_00]: The women came to Kosa's lodges street.
07:29.450 --> 07:34.880
[SPEAKER_00]: They met a charming, successful tense myth, who seemed exactly as he described himself.
07:35.922 --> 07:36.523
[SPEAKER_00]: They had dinner.
07:37.285 --> 07:43.877
[SPEAKER_00]: They discussed their future together, and then at some point during the visit, Belakish strangled them.
07:45.140 --> 07:51.706
[SPEAKER_00]: He used a garot, a thin cord or wire looped around the neck, entitoned from behind.
07:52.627 --> 07:57.732
[SPEAKER_00]: Quick, quiet, requiring strength but no particular mass.
07:58.733 --> 08:03.737
[SPEAKER_00]: A method that left no blood to explain, no gunshot to alert neighbors.
08:04.899 --> 08:11.805
[SPEAKER_00]: After killing each woman, kissed to a crudgery, her money, whatever assets she brought.
08:11.785 --> 08:13.368
[SPEAKER_00]: then came the careful work.
08:14.230 --> 08:21.925
[SPEAKER_00]: He placed each body in a cloth bag, secured it in one of his metal drums, and filled the drum with alcohol for preservation.
08:21.945 --> 08:32.967
[SPEAKER_00]: The drums were stored in his locked chamber, professionally sealed with lead solder, the mark of a skilled tense myth, protecting his inventory,
08:34.195 --> 08:43.648
[SPEAKER_00]: He should return to his advertisements, to his correspondence, to the next woman who responded to his promise of companionship and security.
08:47.155 --> 08:56.587
[SPEAKER_01]: In 1914, World War I broke out and Kish was conscripted to the war, leaving his house in Mrs. Jakobak's care, and all was quiet for a couple of years.
08:57.728 --> 09:04.456
[SPEAKER_01]: Frig is currently a famous Austria-Hungarian author, was present at the scene and described it in detail.
09:05.338 --> 09:16.251
[SPEAKER_01]: I stood there in the cemetery in Sincotta, in front of the tin barrels, and watched one-by-one as the contents of the open barrels were poured out onto the autopsy table.
09:16.231 --> 09:40.669
[SPEAKER_01]: Tim barrels of different heights equally tinned precisely with conscientious work, those who opened the first barrel did not doubt for a moment that the other contents were the same, although this assumption meant an unimaginable horror, and those of us who were there at the opening, all of us took it for granted that a small woman fell to the ground from the smaller barrel, and a larger one from a larger one.
09:41.932 --> 09:52.188
[SPEAKER_01]: And after the second barrel, we also knew how to turn the barrel, how deep to reach, and where to grab the string on the neck of the emerging female head, where the loop is.
09:53.030 --> 09:55.474
[SPEAKER_01]: Red leads down to the legs and how they are knotted.
09:56.675 --> 10:02.725
[SPEAKER_01]: This is how a proper precise collector works, one who understands his craft and he likes order.
10:06.248 --> 10:15.385
[SPEAKER_00]: Among the bodies, investigators found Catherine Varga, a dressmaker who'd sold her business to find a new life with a man she knew through letters.
10:16.968 --> 10:23.240
[SPEAKER_00]: Margaret Tooth, whose widowed mother had arranged the introduction, hoping to secure her daughter's future.
10:24.422 --> 10:28.830
[SPEAKER_00]: Anna Faketa, who traveled from Seigad with her life savings,
10:30.278 --> 10:42.651
[SPEAKER_00]: The women ranged from domestic servants to business owners, what they shared was vulnerability, age, circumstances, or social position that made traditional marriage difficult.
10:43.947 --> 10:48.774
[SPEAKER_00]: They'd responded to advertisements, promising respectability, and security.
10:49.976 --> 10:56.786
[SPEAKER_00]: They'd brought their valuables because a woman visiting a potential husband would naturally bring what she owned.
10:58.288 --> 11:00.792
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd understood their situations perfectly.
11:02.206 --> 11:03.528
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd known they'd come alone.
11:04.450 --> 11:07.556
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd known they'd tell no one exactly where they were going.
11:08.918 --> 11:15.170
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd known that women like these disappeared regularly into marriage or migration.
11:16.031 --> 11:20.299
[SPEAKER_00]: Their absence unremarkable until someone specific went looking.
11:21.916 --> 11:25.121
[SPEAKER_00]: Please trace to the water's back to Budapest newspapers.
11:26.163 --> 11:32.453
[SPEAKER_00]: The advertisements had run under multiple names, different aliases, for different campaigns.
11:33.975 --> 11:42.589
[SPEAKER_00]: Heish had been systematic in his predation, spacing his kills to avoid attention, varying his approach to prevent patterns.
11:44.192 --> 11:48.278
[SPEAKER_00]: The metal urges his report on the drums showed professional grade soldering.
11:49.625 --> 12:00.898
[SPEAKER_00]: The alcohol used for preservation was industrial quality, purchased in quantities that wouldn't draw attention, from a tense myth who might legitimately need chemical supplies.
12:02.320 --> 12:13.253
[SPEAKER_00]: Even the burial locations in the garden showed planning, placed deep enough to avoid casual discovery, positioned where normal maintenance wouldn't disturb them.
12:14.735 --> 12:18.944
[SPEAKER_00]: Every element of Keisha's method demonstrated the same cold calculation.
12:19.986 --> 12:21.610
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd chosen victims carefully.
12:21.630 --> 12:24.075
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd isolated them perfectly.
12:24.115 --> 12:27.903
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd preserved their bodies with the precision of a craftsman.
12:29.006 --> 12:32.052
[SPEAKER_00]: And he'd maintained his respectable facade throughout.
12:32.032 --> 12:39.967
[SPEAKER_00]: The successful 10th Smith, who occasionally entertained female visitors, but otherwise kept to himself.
12:41.430 --> 12:46.480
[SPEAKER_00]: The question investigators faced was simple, where was Belokish?
12:49.430 --> 12:56.202
[SPEAKER_01]: As detectives delve deeper into the investigation, the true horror of Bellakish's crimes came into sharp focus.
12:56.823 --> 13:03.655
[SPEAKER_01]: They meticulously catalogue 24 bodies in total, all women who had been strangled with a carefully crafted garot.
13:04.596 --> 13:11.809
[SPEAKER_01]: Each victim wore the same distinct ligature marks around their necks, indicating Kish's signature method of killing.
13:11.789 --> 13:16.096
[SPEAKER_01]: And each woman had puncture wounds on their neck, and their bodies were drained of blood.
13:16.858 --> 13:20.083
[SPEAKER_01]: Leading to remorse that Kish may have been perhaps in vampirism.
13:21.586 --> 13:25.473
[SPEAKER_01]: Preservation technique used by Kish was particularly sophisticated.
13:26.234 --> 13:35.991
[SPEAKER_01]: He had developed a unique method using alcohol and other chemicals that prevented decomposition, essentially turning those victims into
13:35.971 --> 13:46.974
[SPEAKER_01]: Medical examiners were astonished by the effectiveness of his preservation method, noting that even victims killed years earlier retained their facial features and identifying marks.
13:48.137 --> 13:54.891
[SPEAKER_01]: The investigation also uncovered evidence that Kish had developed an extensive network of alibis and false identities.
13:55.883 --> 14:02.777
[SPEAKER_01]: He had managed to avoid suspicion for years, by carefully timing his killings and maintaining a respected position in the community.
14:04.100 --> 14:15.242
[SPEAKER_01]: His role as a successful tinsmith have provided the perfect cover for the suspicious drums on his property, while his military service had ultimately given him the opportunity to escape justice.
14:16.437 --> 14:18.400
[SPEAKER_01]: The police continued their investigation.
14:19.061 --> 14:29.715
[SPEAKER_01]: They found old court records that indicated that two of Kish's victims, Julian Pashak, and Elizabeth Komerone, had instigated court proceedings for taking money from them.
14:30.817 --> 14:33.841
[SPEAKER_01]: But both women had disappeared and the cases were closed.
14:34.782 --> 14:39.188
[SPEAKER_01]: While searching Kish's house, clothing was found with Julian's name sewn in them.
14:42.492 --> 14:46.662
[SPEAKER_00]: Chief Inspector Joseph Nagy began his manhunt in May, 1916.
14:48.607 --> 14:50.532
[SPEAKER_00]: He immediately recognized the challenge.
14:51.715 --> 14:56.046
[SPEAKER_00]: Keesh had disappeared into the largest mobilization in European history.
14:57.376 --> 15:02.802
[SPEAKER_00]: The Austro-Hungarian military had millions of men spread across multiple fronts.
15:04.204 --> 15:06.066
[SPEAKER_00]: Recordkeeping was overwhelmed.
15:07.047 --> 15:08.789
[SPEAKER_00]: Communication was chaotic.
15:09.770 --> 15:14.295
[SPEAKER_00]: Finding one soldier in that system would be difficult under the best circumstances.
15:16.097 --> 15:17.359
[SPEAKER_00]: Nagy had won advantage.
15:18.360 --> 15:20.262
[SPEAKER_00]: He's his name and service record.
15:21.676 --> 15:27.729
[SPEAKER_00]: The military confirmed Keesh was assigned to a medical unit, operating near the Siberian front.
15:29.192 --> 15:36.968
[SPEAKER_00]: Nagi requested that military police locate and detained Keesh for immediate return to Budapest to face murder charges.
15:38.348 --> 15:44.362
[SPEAKER_00]: The request moved through military bureaucracy, while Nagi investigated the Sinkita murders.
15:45.604 --> 15:49.594
[SPEAKER_00]: He interviewed neighbors who described Tish as respectable and quiet.
15:50.676 --> 15:55.547
[SPEAKER_00]: He tracked down women who'd corresponded with Tish, but never visited Sinkita.
15:56.894 --> 16:03.285
[SPEAKER_00]: They'd lost interest, or Keesh had deemed them unsuitable, or circumstances had proven a travel.
16:04.346 --> 16:16.627
[SPEAKER_00]: Each interview revealed the same pattern, lonely women seeking companionship, a charming correspondent who seemed genuine, careful grooming, toward an isolated visit.
16:18.189 --> 16:22.176
[SPEAKER_00]: In September 1916, word came from the military.
16:23.185 --> 16:29.395
[SPEAKER_00]: They'd locate a Keisha's unit, he'd been wounded in action, not killed, wounded.
16:30.496 --> 16:36.966
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd been transferred to a military hospital for treatment, Nagi traveled to Siberia personally.
16:37.006 --> 16:42.595
[SPEAKER_00]: He arrived at the military hospital and requested to see Belokish.
16:44.127 --> 16:45.589
[SPEAKER_00]: the doctor checked the records.
16:46.750 --> 16:55.921
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, a soldier by that name had been admitted weeks earlier, sharp no wounds, serious, but not immediately fatal.
16:56.843 --> 16:58.224
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd been recovering in the ward.
16:59.866 --> 17:08.717
[SPEAKER_00]: But when the doctor led Nagy to the bed, they found it empty, clean lemons, no patient, no explanation,
17:09.963 --> 17:14.069
[SPEAKER_00]: The reconstruction came from military records and witness interviews.
17:15.310 --> 17:20.518
[SPEAKER_00]: Keesh had been admitted to the hospital with shrapnel wounds, painful, but survivable.
17:22.000 --> 17:26.145
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd been conscious, coherent, and cooperative during initial treatment.
17:27.227 --> 17:30.752
[SPEAKER_00]: The wounds have been dressed, and he'd been assigned to a recovery ward.
17:32.554 --> 17:37.641
[SPEAKER_00]: But Bella Keesh hadn't come to the hospital to recover.
17:38.920 --> 17:42.625
[SPEAKER_00]: The hospital staff couldn't say exactly when Keesh had left his bed.
17:43.827 --> 17:44.888
[SPEAKER_00]: It had been after dark.
17:45.929 --> 17:47.191
[SPEAKER_00]: That much they remembered.
17:48.413 --> 17:50.796
[SPEAKER_00]: The ward had been crowded with wounded soldiers.
17:51.757 --> 18:00.709
[SPEAKER_00]: Staff overwhelmed, security focused on preventing dissertion through official exits, rather than watching individual patients.
18:02.039 --> 18:10.834
[SPEAKER_00]: In the chaos of a military hospital, treating hundreds of wounded men, one patient rising from his bed wouldn't draw a particular attention.
18:12.397 --> 18:16.504
[SPEAKER_00]: One investigator's piece together later showed Keisha's careful planning.
18:17.935 --> 18:24.385
[SPEAKER_00]: When Nagi arrived, perhaps days, a soldier in the adjacent bed had died of typhoid.
18:25.527 --> 18:27.610
[SPEAKER_00]: Keesh had switched identity documents.
18:28.591 --> 18:37.345
[SPEAKER_00]: He had taken the dead man's papers, left his own with the corpse, and simply walked out of the hospital in the darkness.
18:38.877 --> 18:41.483
[SPEAKER_00]: The soldier in the morgue was not by the Keesh.
18:42.645 --> 18:44.008
[SPEAKER_00]: The soldier was someone else.
18:44.870 --> 18:50.362
[SPEAKER_00]: Some nameless young man, whose identity Keesh had stolen as his final disguise.
18:51.845 --> 18:54.270
[SPEAKER_00]: The soldier was by the Keesh's last victim.
18:56.461 --> 18:58.949
[SPEAKER_00]: 1932, New York City.
19:00.153 --> 19:09.542
[SPEAKER_00]: Henry Oswald, a homicide detective, reported seeing a man emerging from a subway station who matched Bella Keysh's description.
19:11.125 --> 19:13.828
[SPEAKER_00]: By then, heesh would have been in his fifties.
19:15.149 --> 19:21.416
[SPEAKER_00]: The description matched his age appearance, still tall, still blonde, though grain.
19:22.597 --> 19:27.742
[SPEAKER_00]: Still carrying himself with that calm confidence that had fooled so many people.
19:28.643 --> 19:33.528
[SPEAKER_00]: In Singular 16 years earlier, Oswald filed a report.
19:34.610 --> 19:38.854
[SPEAKER_00]: By the time authorities investigated, the trail had gone cold.
19:39.577 --> 19:45.148
[SPEAKER_00]: If it was Keesh, he'd vanished again into the anonymity of a city of millions.
19:46.445 --> 19:54.980
[SPEAKER_00]: The case fundamentally changed how Hungarian law enforcement approached missing persons, a matrimonial fraud investigations.
19:56.463 --> 20:09.786
[SPEAKER_00]: Those sealed metal drums became powerful symbols, not just of kisha's crimes, but how easily, ever-spectable facade, could hide systematic predation against vulnerable women.
20:11.116 --> 20:24.617
[SPEAKER_00]: Weather Bella Keys died and the trenches of World War I started a new life under an assumed identity in New York or South America, or met some other fate remains unknown.
20:25.779 --> 20:38.338
[SPEAKER_00]: His ability to disappear so completely into the war's chaos ensures historic captivates new generations, not as a mystery but as a cautionary tale.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The 24 known victims represent only those discovered in Syncada.
20:46.250 --> 20:49.756
[SPEAKER_00]: Keesh had corresponded with 174 women.
20:50.777 --> 20:53.622
[SPEAKER_00]: He actively pursued 74 of them.
20:54.764 --> 20:58.790
[SPEAKER_00]: The bodies found in May 1916 were 24.
20:58.830 --> 21:07.363
[SPEAKER_00]: The mathematics leave space for terrible possibilities about what happened during his years
21:09.368 --> 21:12.157
[SPEAKER_00]: Katherine Varga sold her dress-making business.
21:13.502 --> 21:16.813
[SPEAKER_00]: Margaret Tooth trusted her mother's choice of husband.
21:18.076 --> 21:25.569
[SPEAKER_00]: 22 other women whose names we know, and perhaps dozens more, whose identities vanished with their killer.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They all made rational decisions based on the information available to them.
21:32.121 --> 21:36.489
[SPEAKER_00]: They responded to advertisements that promised partnership and security.
21:37.511 --> 21:42.700
[SPEAKER_00]: They traveled to meet a man who seemed respectable, successful, kind,
21:42.680 --> 21:59.743
[SPEAKER_00]: Katherine Vargas' needlework, the skill that had supported her independence, found alongside her remains, years after Bella keeps strangled her, and packaged her body with the precision of a tense myth, who understood his craft.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps the most chilling aspect of the Beliki's case is not just the murder he committed, but the possibility that he might have lived out his days and peaceful anonymity.
22:15.039 --> 22:17.665
[SPEAKER_00]: Taking the full truth of his crimes to his grave.
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[SPEAKER_00]: that somewhere in the 1930s or 40s or 50s, Beliki died of old age, a hospital bed, under a false name.
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[SPEAKER_00]: His secrets intact, his victims, and avenged.
22:36.629 --> 22:43.679
[SPEAKER_00]: Until next time, remember, a respectable facade and a kind word can hide the darkest intentions.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When someone seems too good to be true, trust the warning signs your instincts give you.
22:52.372 --> 22:59.042
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for listening, friend.
