KRS: 0000870180
Bogdan Eugeniusz Arnold (born February 17, 1933 in Kalisz, died in Katowice on December 16, 1968) - a Polish serial killer.
Who was Bogdan Arnold?
He was a Polish serial killer. He murdered 4 women in Katowice between 1966 and 1967 and stored their bodies in his apartment. Before killing them, he tortured his victims first. The man settled in Katowice in 1960. He was married three times and had two sons. Bogdan abused his spouses, excessively consumed alcohol which led to breakups. He quite often frequented nightclubs where he would meet women.
First victim
Bogdan Arnold's first victim was Maria B., whom he met in 1966 at the “Kujawiak” bar. Maria was a prostitute originally from Volhynia. The woman went with Bogdan to his apartment, and she was to spend the night with him for 500 zlotys. However, the man expected free sex and refused to pay her for her services. When testifying, he said “I thought she went with me for love, not for money.” When he was told to pay, Bogdan became enraged and hit Maria in the head a couple of times with a hammer. Then he dismembered the corpse and left it in the bathtub. He doused it with chlorine to speed up decomposition, and burned some body parts at home. The entrails, on the other hand, he cut and flushed down the toilet.
Second victim
On March 12, 1967, Bogdan Arnold killed again. The identity of the victim is unknown, probably, like Maria, she was a prostitute. The man motivated his crime by the fact that the woman had discovered Maria's corpse. He also dismembered the woman's body.
Other victims
The third and fourth victim were Stefania N. and Helga S., - prostitutes with limited intellectual abilities. The man spent hours raping and beating the women. Eventually he strangled them and acted with the corpses in the same way as with the first and second victim. After committing the crime, he left his premises and lived in various hovels. After some time, however, he decided to return there to refresh the apartment.
Bogdan Arnold derived great pleasure from raping and torturing his victims.
In 1967, Arnold's crimes were exposed when neighbors noticed a swarm of flies in the window of Arnold's apartment. A terrible odor emanated from the premises, while huge quantities of vermin were coming out from under the door. This is how the nickname “Władca Much” (“The Lord of the Flies”) originated.
On June 8, 1967, the police received the following report:
“There is an unbearable fetor coming out from behind the door of apartment No. 9. The windows are covered with paper, and swarms of flies are sitting on the outside of the windows.”
Neighbors were unaware of what was going on in the man's apartment, they called the police, because they suspected that Bogdan Arnold had died.
The officers got into the apartment, from which came a strong odor of rotten meat. When they entered, they were shocked, the odor was so strong that they were unable to carry out their actions, but they had no choice. Vermin were crawling on the floor. The policemen entered the bathroom, and saw the macabre sight of a masonry box, which served as a bathtub, full of human remains, shredded body fragments and internal organs. Meanwhile, a huge saucepan stood on the stove, with a human head floating inside. In the washing machine full of decomposing remains were two skulls.
Neighbors were questioned about Bogdan Arnold, but they didn't have much to say, “he was polite, didn't cause problems, only that he often came home totally drunk,” but nobody would pay attention to that at the time.
The man's ex-wives were also interviewed, and it turned out that he was a monster craving aggressive sex and violence in disguise of a polite, courteous and innocent man. He was an individual with an uncontrollable sex drive, at the same time extremely violent and aggressive. He was happy to treat women like objects, being their absolute lord and master.
“He would call me names. He tied my arms and legs with wire, and put vodka bottles in my vagina. Only when he humiliated me did he achieve sexual satisfaction. He would beat me, torture me, and then hug me and apologize. He would tie me up and beat me, he told me to bite his body, only then he would reach orgasm." - testified one of his partners.
When his crimes were exposed, Bogdan Arnold disappeared without a trace.
The police conducted a massive, extensive search for the man suspected of serial murders. He eventually turned himself in to the police, pleading guilty to all the crimes. To the police officers' surprise, Bogdan also stated that he regretted that he didn't manage to kill his ex-wife.
“At first I wanted to burn parts of the corpses, but I didn't have coal, and it was hard to do it with wood. So I would open the abdominal cavities with a kitchen knife, from where I took out all the entrails, which I sliced into pieces and drained through a sewer hole located in my apartment, meanwhile the corpses I placed in a wooden box covered on the inside with metal sheets.” - he later testified.
“I wanted to buy caustic soda, to speed up the decomposition of the corpses, but I couldn't get it anywhere, so I bought about ten bags of chlorine. I dissolved it and poured hot water over it. (...) I put the decapitated head in a kettle with hot water. I couldn't stand the sight of it, so I went to the bar to drink. When I returned, I put the kettle on the electric heater. I fell asleep. Upon waking up, I found that the contents of the kettle had boiled.”
A six-month psychiatric examination did not reveal either intellectual deficits or mental disorders in the man. He was conscious of his actions.
According to specialists, Bogdan Arnold displayed clear traits of psychopathy, and alcoholism exacerbated his negative tendencies.
He invariably lacked feelings of remorse or guilt. He felt pleasure in the cruel, sexual acts of torture, humiliation and murder. The scale of his crimes remains unclear to this day. When asked by the judge how many women he had murdered, he replied:
- Does it matter how many? Eight or sixteen I will hang anyway.
On March 9, 1968, the court sentenced Bogdan Arnold to death. The sentence was carried out on December 16, 1968 at 6:40 pm.
Sources:
1. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdan_Arnold
2. https://ciekawostkihistoryczne.pl/2021/09/09/chuc-smierc-i-robactwo-czyli-obled-seryjnego-mordercy-bogdana-arnolda/
Photo: https://wiadomosci.onet.pl/kraj/seryjny-morderca-z-katowic-bogdan-arnold-zabijal-przypadkowo-poznane-kobiety/1l7fv1s
Author: Magdalena Wychowska, volunteer at Fundacji Zaginieni (Missing People Foundation)