My first lucky break happened when I was about 4 years old. I was visiting my aunt Lydia in D¼sseldorf and, after a downtown shopping trip, I wanted to stay behind to watch the traffic, directed by a policeman, at a busy intersection of the Grafenberger Allee. My aunt agreed if I promised not to follow the “Düsseldorf murderer,” also known as the “Düsseldorf Vampire,” who was then killing, mostly young boys and girls, in droves in the neighborhood. A few minutes after she had left me, a middle-aged man with a mustache, wearing a boater, approached me and invited me to go with him. (I forget where and what the enticement was-sweets, or an interesting sight?) I would have followed him because he seemed very nice, but remembering my aunt’s warning I declined, telling him I was very intent on watching the traffic. Then, significantly, he turned around and walked back in the same direction from which he had approached me. He had hardly disappeared when I ran to my aunt’s flat proclaiming: “I saw the Düsseldorf murderer!” But, of course, nobody believed me. Not much later, when he was caught and his picture appeared in the newspapers, I recognized him. His name was Peter Kürten. He confessed and was guillotined on 2 July 1931. In an interesting twist, he first confessed to his unsuspecting wife so that, on her reporting him to the police, she could collect the substantial reward.
CITATION STYLE
Schroeder, M. R. (2015). Lucky breaks. In Acoustics, Information, and Communication: Memorial Volume in Honor of Manfred R. Schroeder (pp. 337–341). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05660-9_18
Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.