As a child, Peter Kurten and his 12 siblings lived in a one-room home with an alcoholic and abusive father. His father repeatedly raped his wife and daughters in front of the other children.

     The Kurten family lived next to a dog catcher who taught Peter how to torture animals and perform beastiality. He enjoyed killing unclaimed dogs.

    Peter once slit the throat of a sleeping swan and reached orgasm while drinking its blood.

    At age 9, Peter killed his first victim by drowning his playmate in the Rhine River and then another friend who attempted to save the first.

    As a teenager, he was arrested for theft and was sentenced to 2 years in prison. During these 2 years, he began to resent German society and purposely got sent to solitary confinement so he would have time alone to think. He would think about different ways of killing thousands of people, such as destroying bridges and putting bacilli into public drinking water.

    After being released from prison, he moved in with a prostitute more than twice his age who later became his wife. He proposed to her by threatening to kill her if she did not marry him.