“Rîmaru” – A Family of Serial Killers

Abstract

Between 1970 and 1971, Ion Rîmaru, a 25-year-old university student, committed a number of brutal murders, attempted murders, rapes, and attempted rapes in Bucharest. He killed in rainy, windy weather, hit the victims in the head with a hard object, raped them, cut or tore their underwear and robbed them. Because he bit the victims around their sex organs, and in some cases sucked out their blood, he was called the “Vampire of Bucharest”. The serial killer was brought down by a medical certificate forgotten at the scene of one of the murders. Ion Rîmaru admitted that he had committed the crimes he was accused of. He was sentenced to death and executed on 23 October 1971 in the Jilava Penitentiary. In 1944, five murders were committed in Bucharest, but the serial killer could not be identified. The perpetrator was known as “the killer in the storm” because he broke into the victim’s basement apartment in rainy and windy weather by opening the window. He hit the victims in the head with a hard object but did not rape or rob them. On 23 October 1972, the body of Ion Rîmaru’s father, Florea Rîmaru, was transported to the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Bucharest, where the fingerprints of the deceased were taken. Professor Constantin Țurai, director of the institute, who led the investigation in 1944, remembered the fingerprint of the serial killer called “the killer in the storm” and noticed that Florea Rîmaru’s fingerprint closely resembled it. On the basis of dactyloscopic examinations, it was established that the serial killer known as “the killer in the storm” was actually Florea Rîmaru.

Keywords

• serial killer
• the “vampire of bucharest”
• death sentence
• “the killer in the storm”
• fingerprint