On May 14th, 1930 Maria Budlick traveled to Dusseldorf in search of work. A man offered to show her around and so she followed him to a park, she then remembered hearing about all the murders and decided to follow Kurten instead. He lead her to the woods and grabbed her by the neck and tried to rape her. For some reason he stopped and asked her if she could find her way back. When she said no, he let her go. Maria wrote a terrified letter to her friend, who upon receiving it went straight to the police.

    When he realized his capture was inevitable he decided to confess to his wife by telling her he was "The infamous Vampire of Dusseldorf." He wanted her to receive the reward offered by the police for his capture, but she refused. However, he persisted and she gave in. Mrs. Kurten went to the police who quickly aprehended Peter.

    Thousands of people came to watch the trial of this horrendous murderer. He confessed to 68 murders and was charged with nine of them. His sentence was death by guillotine. As he approached the death mechanism, his last words were, "Tell me, after my head has been 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."