With this story pale in the most terrible Hollywood horrors. In the 1960s, in communist Poland, the psychopath Bogdan Arnold arranged for himself and his female victims a trip to the hell of his darkest fascinations - brutal sex, humiliation, beatings, torture and, finally, crimes. He "hoarded" the corpses of successive murdered women in his own apartment - in the same place, among decaying corpses, he slept, ate and fell into alcoholic rush.
On June 8, 1967, people from the apartment of the tenement house at ul. Sienkiewicza 10 in Katowice, they noticed a swarm of flies on the window of the building opposite. These were not ordinary flies, but spitting puffs - the ones that feed on rotten meat. The disgusting picture disturbed the onlookers.
The locals had known the problem with worms for some time. From an apartment in the attic, owned by a frequently drunk electrician - Bogdan Arnold - flies escaped in flocks:through windows, doors, through sewer pipes, chute . For some time now, an increasingly intense stench spread over the cage. The stench was excruciating.
On June 8, 1967, the police received the following report:
"An unbearable stench is emanating from behind the door of apartment 9. The panes are covered with paper, and the windows on the outside are swarmed with flies. "
The kingdom of worms
Officers quickly realized that the residents were not lying or exaggerating. The stairwell smelled like decaying flesh. The smell grew stronger with each successive floor. But the electrician Bogdan Arnold was not in the attic apartment.
The fire brigade was called for help. The fireman, who came down on the rope from the roof, smashed the glass with an ax. The smell was so awful that the man refused to go inside without a gas mask . When it was delivered to him, he broke through to climb over the windowsill. He stepped on something soft. A decaying, wormed body lay under the window. Not wanting to look too long, he ran across the room and opened the door for the officers waiting in the cage.
Tenement house No. 14 in Katowice at ul. Dąbrowskiego, where Bogdan Arnold lived and murdered in apartment no.9 in the attic
Those who saw the interior could not stay there for more than a few minutes. Masses of insects crawled across the floor of the place. The corpse under the windowsill was only the beginning of macabre discoveries. In the bathroom, there was a metal-covered brickwork chest that served as a bathtub. In this case, however, it was used for a different purpose. It was full of human remains, cut up flesh and guts . Thousands of larvae moved between them. From under this makeshift tub, a human shank protruded, wrapped in a newspaper. In the kitchen, the policemen found another corpse, hidden in a wooden box. Nearby - on a stove - was a large pot with a human head floating inside. There were two skulls among the decaying debris in the wash tub.
Nobody could stay there long. The policemen changed. Those who went out would go downstairs to the neighbors to wash and vomit. They could not understand that among the rotting human flesh there was a ticking alarm clock and a still wet shaving brush on the kitchen counter. So - in such an environment - a human lived all the time….
He was good, although he drank a lot
The neighbors from the tenement house where the electrician Bogdan Arnold lived alone did not have a bad opinion of him. He was polite, he did not cause problems, but often he came home completely drunk . But is he the only one? The abuse of vodka in the People's Republic of Poland did not really distinguish people.
Arnold bowed to the neighbors and, as a "handyman", he could repair the socket, install a lamp. He did not refuse such favors, as long as he was sober and at home - in fact, in the attic, which had been turned into a makeshift flat.
Bogdan Arnold during the site visit
For a year and a half, good-neighborly relations remained uninterrupted. With time, however, the idyll ended. Arnold started acting weird. He covered his door with sheet metal - as if he was afraid of something. In addition, on the top floor, where only his apartment was located, it began to smell terribly, and swarms of worms appeared in the tenement house. Insects crawled out of potholes and sewer connections. In the kitchen of the neighbors, on the lower floor, it happened that bugs fell straight from the walls onto the countertops, table and plates .
Life in front of Arnold's apartment became an ordeal. The neighbors tried to talk to him, but he was out of sight for some time, He appeared sporadically, and if anything, completely drunk.
Marriage BDSM
Bogdan Arnold, although short and stocky, was liked by women. He had a pleasant, trustworthy, somewhat childlike face. He never complained about the failure of the opposite sex. And because he was confident and firm, he had no problem getting his partner to bed.
When his dark secret was revealed, it turned out that even before he started killing, he had a pathological, psychopathic personality with inexhaustible sexual desire. All of Arnold's partners who tried to make a life with him talked about it in court.
Behind the mask of a nice, polite and inconspicuous man, there was a demon of aggressive sex and violence. He was a man of irrepressible sexual temperament, at the same time extremely brutal and aggressive. He enjoyed the fact that he could treat women as things, that he was their complete lord and ruler .
He came from Kalisz, from a respected family of piano producers. Although his parents belonged to the "intelligentsia", he himself, perhaps out of spite, did not follow in their footsteps. He left home at the age of 17. He got married quickly, but didn't last long as a wife.
Locked in the four walls with him, the woman realized that she was living with an unpredictable man. Arnold drank, beat and had sex and raped if there was an attempt to refuse it. He had a child with a woman, but after the divorce he did not maintain any contact with her or the child. Soon the scenario repeated itself with three other women, one of whom bore him another son. In court, she testified that their sex was always preceded by humiliation. Under such conditions, he got excited. He insulted, humiliated, then tied hands and feet and raped. He tied and beat - ordered to bite all over the body .
"He called me the worst. He tied his arms and legs with wire and put vodka bottles in his scabbards. It wasn't until he humiliated me that he got sexual satisfaction. He beat me, tortured me, and then hugged me and apologized. It was then that he had an orgasm ” One of his partners testified.
He came to Silesia in 1960, at the age of 27, with the luggage of three unsuccessful marriages, of which he had two children. He was a shipwrecked man, but he didn't care much about it. He worked in local industrial plants. He did not stay anywhere longer, mainly due to absenteeism and drunkenness. He spent his free time in local bars and huts, where he continued to drink. In the course of several days, he also enjoyed sexual pleasures - in the arms of local prostitutes.
Killing date
On October 12, 1966, he killed for the first time. It was a dark, rainy evening. Arnold got drunk in the local murder shop - the "Kujawiak" bar. After the first fifty years of vodka, he could not forgive himself. There had to be more. As he testified, the woman, whom he later smashed with a hammer, sat down at his table herself. It was about 30 years old Maria B., although she didn't introduce herself.
They started a conversation. Arnold noted the stranger's soft, singing eloquence. It turned out that she came from Volhynia in Ukraine. The conversation was "sticky". The woman liked a handsome stranger. Arnold ordered a beer for her, a few hundred vodka and some snacks. He later testified that it was she who had offered him to leave the premises. She didn't refuse when he said they could go to him.
The woman seemed eager to have sex, but when he approached her and kissed her, she demanded money. 500 zlotys per night
They did so, "hooking" on a liquor store along the way. In the apartment, the atmosphere was still pleasant. Arnold made sandwiches. The woman seemed eager to have sex, but when he approached her and kissed her, she demanded money. PLN 500 per night.
Arnold was already very drunk when these words came out. He went berserk. As the investigators testified, the stranger was to tear his clothes and blackmail him that he would go to the police and accuse him of rape if he did not get the money . Enraged, Arnold grabbed her neck and began to strangle her as much as he could. The woman struggled, scratched. Then he grabbed the oversized hammer next to the stove and hit her head hard several times.
The inert body slumped to the floor. After checking the pulse and making sure the stranger was dead, Arnold felt anxious. Not knowing what to do with the corpse, he put it on the couch. He decided to control his strong fear in the only way he knew. Swaying heavily on his feet, he left the apartment to get drunk again.
The Dead Man Way
When, after several days, the murderer finally sobered up and returned to the attic, he smelled the stench of rotting meat. He remembered what had happened and realized he needed to get rid of the body. The next day he brought rubber gloves and a dustproof mask from work. When he pulled the body out of the couch, he found it was already stiff. To better operate it, he tried to "soften" them by applying a high-voltage cable to the skin. However, the attempt was unsuccessful.
"Originally I wanted to burn the body parts, but I had no coal, and with the tree that didn't work. So I opened the abdominal cavity with a kitchen knife, from where I took out all the insides that I had cut into pieces and drained through the sewage hole in my apartment, and the body itself was placed in a wooden box covered with a sheet from the inside "- later testified.
Successive alcohol strings allowed him to forget about the case. It was only after the flies and larvae had become established in the chest with human flesh that he tried to get rid of the body again.
"To speed up the decomposition of a corpse, I wanted to buy caustic soda but couldn't get it anywhere, so I bought about ten packets of chlorine. I dissolved it and poured hot water over it. (…) I put the cut off head in a pot with warm water. I couldn't stand the sight so I went to the bar for a drink . When I got back I put the cauldron on the electric heater. I fell asleep. After waking up, I found the contents of the cauldron to boil. "
Despite the problems with the corpse, he realized that the murder he had committed, while frightening, had planted other emotions in him as well. He felt a pleasure, a real pleasure…
Sequence
On March 12, 1967, Bogdan Arnold met a woman in the Mazur bar. The police and the prosecutor's office have never established her identity. Arnold bought the stranger a beer, and when she was drunk enough, they went to him. In the apartment, he began to behave abruptly and aggressively. He took her by force. During intercourse, he hit, jerked and bit. Then he made him kneel and beg for mercy. He pulled off the belt he began to hit her with. He also hit with fists. He killed when she accidentally discovered the body of an earlier victim (he claimed in other testimonies that he had invited her to his apartment with the intention of murdering her). As she called for help, he grabbed his neck and tightened with all his might. It only slowed down after body contractions were underway.
When he was sure there was a body in front of him, he proceeded to "dressing" the body. He cut off the limbs, body and head. He ripped his belly open and drained his insides, breasts and buttocks down the drain . He grinded the soft tissues in a meat grinder. The properly "prepared" torso was put in a chest in the bathroom, and the chopped off head was boiled. Since then, he has been showing less and less work and drinking more. He was also thinking more and more about repeating the actions that gave him so much pleasure.
A month later he killed a third time. This time his victim was mentally handicapped, 35-year-old Stefania M. Arnold, sat next to her in the restaurant "Hungaria" in Katowice. He took advantage of the fact that she was completely drunk. Then everything turned out to be a proven scenario. He gave her another drink and suggested she go to the apartment.
He came from Kalisz, from a respected family of piano producers.
They spent the night there. The day after the drunken sex party, Arnold wanted to go to work. He decided to ask the woman to leave the apartment, but she wanted to continue to sleep. Then he offered her to stay, but he had to tie her up for fear that she might rob him.
As soon as she agreed and allowed herself to be embarrassed, Arnold felt excitement overwhelming him. He didn't go to work. He harassed the victim for several hours, occasionally falling into a drunken sleep . Later, he told the militia without embarrassment. He beat her with a metal rod, made her kneel and beg for sex, kicked her all over her body. He also electrocuted, touching her legs with the cables to - as he explained - stimulate her when she had no more strength and refused to have sex.
After several dozen hours of ordeal, he decided to finally solve the problem. He concluded that he had to report to work after all. Despite pleas for sparing his life, he threw a noose of cable around his victim's neck and tightened it. He dismembered another body, hiding its parts in "hiding places" throughout the apartment. Afterwards he went to work.
In the pauses between drunken bouts, when a sober mind could form clear thoughts for a moment, Arnold realized that he would no longer be able to hide his secret. Fetor and vermin in the apartment have increased so much that even for him, despite being anesthetized with vodka, it became unbearable . However, having no idea how to get rid of the corpse, he just showed up less and less in the apartment. Instead, he was hanging around the halls and drinking. He came to the attic suits from time to time to ventilate.
The desire for absolute control over the fearful victim, however, did not let him forget about himself. On May 21, 1967, near the train station in Katowice, he met a lonely woman circling aimlessly. She was about 30 years old. Arnold walked over to her. He was nice. He initiated a conversation and then offered to visit him to "warm up". The stranger agreed.
The same ordeal awaited her as the previous victims. He tied her, raped her, tortured her - including electrocuting her. The next day, after waking up from a drunken dream, he choked her. He realized there was nowhere to hide the body, so he dumped it under the window, only covering it with his cloak.
Because the bad women were
After the last murder, he hardly ever showed up in the tenement house. He slept at railway stations. On June 8, 1967, the day his dark secret was revealed, he wanted to enter the apartment for a moment to ventilate it and change his clothes. He came home from work and was sober. However, he did not come home. He turned back at the sight of onlookers watching the firefighters enter his apartment through the window .
The same day, after the bodies were discovered, the Citizens' Militia (Milicja Obywatelska) placed blockades on departures from Katowice, and a frantic search and questioning of witnesses began in the city. Arnold hid in the coal dumps for a week. He tried to hang himself, but the rope broke under him .
The Citizens' Militia put blockades on departures from Katowice, and a frantic search and interrogation of witnesses began in the city
Ultimately, he himself reported to the militia. He spoke in detail and bluntly about how he killed. His eyelid did not blink as he showed murderous hugs on the mannequins. Even though he confessed, he tried to make a victim of himself. He claimed that his partners alone allowed him a lot . Only when he was embarrassed did he come up with the strangest and cruelest ideas. He explained that he killed out of hatred for women. The pain after parting ways with other spouses was to lead him to the first murder and, as a result, to the next ones.
A six-month psychiatric observation showed that he was neither handicapped nor mentally ill. He knew what he was doing. According to experts, Bogdan Arnold had a strong psychopathy, and alcoholism increased his negative tendencies. He felt no regret and remorse. He took sadistic-sexual pleasure from torture, humiliation and murder. To this day, the scale of his criminal achievements is uncertain. When asked by the judge how many women he murdered, he replied:
- Does it matter how much? Eight or sixteen, I'll be hanging anyway.
Bogdan Arnold was executed by hanging on December 16, 1968 in Katowice.
Bibliography:
- Jarosław Stukan, "Polish Serial Killers", Wydawnictwo Aktyw 2017.
Filmography:
- Serial Killers:"Lord of the Flies", Bogdan Arnold - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5dyirEbo-Y, accessed:26/08/21