Deranged German serial killer Peter Kurten lost his head in 1931. He was beheaded for his particularly disturbing crimes that earned him the nickname the “Vampire of Dusseldorf” in which he brutally bludgeon men, women, and children to death and then drink the blood burbling from their wounds.
Today, Kurten’s head now resides in one of the most unlikely places: Wisconsin Dells, one of the Midwest’s top family vacation destinations.
How did the head get here? And why?
Here’s the story of the how the Vampire of Dusseldorf came to reside (and haunt) the Waterpark Capital of the World.
Peter Kurten’s Head
“Tell me,” Kurten said to prison psychiatrist Karl Berg, who accompanied him to the guillotine, “after my head is chopped off, will I still be able to hear, at least for a moment, the sound of my own blood gushing from the stump of my neck? That would be the pleasure to end all pleasures.”
Peter Kurten was beheaded in Cologne, Germany on July 2, 1931 for his crimes, which included nine counts of murder and much more. He was aroused by strangling his victims and bludgeoning them with a hammer, and became known as the Vampire of Dusseldorf because he liked to drink the blood from their wounds.
After his execution, Berg decided to open Peter Kurten’s head to see what was wrong with him. His behavior was so disturbing, they believed his brain had to be physically different from the average person. His head was mummified, then bisected to get to the brain.
An anatomical study of Kurten’s gray matter found nothing out of the ordinary.
Kurten’s head came to the United States soon after the end of World War II. It became part of the personal collection of Arne Coward, an antiques dealer in Waikiki with a morbid sense of humor. Coward, who had been imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp in his homeland of Norway, bought his first instruments of torture in 1946: a pair of thumbscrews.
“It was mainly the desire to get something no one else could get,” he said in a 1975 interview. “Sears will never have a torture ware department, and that leaves me with something exclusive.”
Coward’s collection included beheading swords, tongue tearers, shrunken heads, chain mail gloves used to burn hands, a bone-crushing wheel, and much more. He kept many of the artifacts in his home in Hawaii, while others were displayed in his Waikiki antique shop. Later, he opened his own Museum Macabre to show off what was considered the world’s most extensive collection of historical torture devices.
Long before Coward owned them, many of the artifacts were last seen on public display at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair (where serial killer H.H. Holmes was poaching his victims for his murder castle and Museum of Wisconsin Art’s key piece “The Flagellants” by Carl von Marr hung on display) and in New York later that year as the Nuremberg torture collection.
After his death in 1979, Coward’s collection was auctioned off. Ripley’s Believe It or Not! acquired Kurten’s head from Coward’s estate in 1989, and decided to show it off in their newest Odditorium opening in Wisconsin Dells in May of 1990.
It can still be seen at Ripley’s in Wisconsin Dells today, slowly spinning on a hook.
Does Kurten Haunt Ripley’s?
Over the years, some Ripley’s employees have believed that Kurten haunts the building, always watching everyone in the museum and sometimes turning on the hand dryers in the bathroom, which will stop upon request.
Ripley’s moved down the street to a new location a few years ago (the original Wizard Quest building), and though his head did make the move to the new building, there’s no word yet on if his spirit followed along as well.
