Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Großmann, who commonly called himself just Carl Großmann (13 December 1863 – 5 July 1922), was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 serial killer

Serial killer

A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...

. He committed suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

 while awaiting execution without giving a full confession leaving the extent of his crimes and motives largely unknown.

Not a great deal is known about his early life, except that he had sadistic sexual tastes and soon picked up a number of convictions for child molestation. On 21 August in 1921, Großmann was arrested at his apartment

Apartment

An apartment or flat is a self-contained housing unit that occupies only part of a building...

 in Berlin after neighbours heard screams and banging noises, followed by silence. The police burst in and searched the place, finding a young woman's freshly murdered body on the bed. Großmann was taken into custody by the police and charged with 1st degree murder. Neighbours reported that he seemed to have had a steady supply of female companions, mostly destitute-looking young women, over the last few years. Many went into the apartment but few emerged from it. During World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, Großmann sold a lot of meat on the black market, and even had a hot dog stand at the nearby train station. It is believed the meat was the remains of his victims, their bones and other inedible parts being thrown into the river. How many victims Großmann claimed is not known. Only the body of his final victim was found, along with bloodstains in the apartment that indicated at least three other persons had been butchered in the recent weeks. Some have suggested as many as 50 young women entered Großmann's apartment and ended up being murdered, dismembered and eaten by unwitting customers of Großmann's meat business. Convicted of murder, Großmann was sentenced to death

Death Sentence

Death Sentence is a short story by the American science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the November 1943 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and reprinted in the 1972 collection The Early Asimov.-Plot summary:...

. Before his sentence could be carried out, he hung himself in his cell.