00:00:07
-In October 1989, the body
of a woman was found in a forest
00:00:12
on the outskirts of the village
of Deetz in East Germany.
00:00:17
She'd been hit by a hammer,
00:00:19
strangled,
and sexually assaulted.
00:00:22
Scattered around her body
00:00:24
was her underwear,
stolen from a washing line.
00:00:27
Police had no idea at the time,
00:00:30
but this was the work
of a perverted serial killer.
00:00:34
-He did know what he was doing.
00:00:35
He did know that it was wrong,
and he chose to do it anyway,
00:00:38
regardless of whatever drives
or desires he had.
00:00:42
-The murderer was a 23-year-old
man named Wolfgang Schmidt.
00:00:46
He'd been roaming the local
woods in search of prey
00:00:49
to satisfy his depraved
sexual fantasies.
00:00:53
He became known as
the Beast of Beelitz.
00:00:56
-I was on call day and night,
and when my phone would ring,
00:01:00
I would sit up
straight in my bed
00:01:01
because I thought
he had struck again.
00:01:04
-Over the next two years,
00:01:06
he would kill a further
four women and a baby,
00:01:09
all to fulfill his own
grotesque form of sexual urges.
00:01:15
-You have a man who is
completely possessed
00:01:19
by the desire
00:01:20
that he's now feeding
the frenzy of his own addiction.
00:01:25
-Wolfgang Schmidt,
the Beast of Beelitz,
00:01:28
had become one of
the world's most evil killers.
00:01:32
♪♪
00:01:40
♪♪
00:01:47
♪♪
00:01:55
Wolfgang Schmidt had
brutally killed five women
00:01:58
and an infant during his near
two-year-long killing spree.
00:02:02
He committed his crimes
in and around the forest
00:02:05
near the town of Beelitz
in East Germany,
00:02:08
but when he was finally
captured in 1991,
00:02:11
it was after the fall
of the Berlin Wall,
00:02:14
and so he faced the courts
of the new unified Germany.
00:02:17
The trial began on
the 20th of October, 1992,
00:02:22
just two weeks after
Schmidt's 26th birthday.
00:02:25
-[ Speaking German ]
00:02:27
-The public gallery
was jam-packed.
00:02:29
Not one more person
could fit in.
00:02:32
Everyone wanted to see
Wolfgang Schmidt.
00:02:35
This, of course, has to do
with the sensationalism.
00:02:38
It's also clear
the more difficult,
00:02:40
the more terrible the crime,
00:02:42
the more people are fascinated.
00:02:46
-Schmidt had murdered
five people
00:02:49
and attacked three other women
in an attempt
00:02:51
to get sexual gratification
from his unique perversion --
00:02:56
stealing and soiling
their underwear.
00:02:59
The only way he could do this
was if they were dead.
00:03:03
-There are some elements of
00:03:08
the most extraordinary
humiliation
00:03:11
in Schmidt's acts towards women,
00:03:15
and there can be
no forgiveness for that.
00:03:19
He was literally out of control.
00:03:22
He was quite literally
fulfilling his own fantasies
00:03:27
at the expense of whomever
might get in his way.
00:03:30
-[ Speaking German ]
00:03:31
-It moved the whole country --
all of Germany,
00:03:33
not only the vicinity
of Berlin and Brandenburg.
00:03:36
It was on the national news.
00:03:37
Germany was moved.
00:03:40
-Despite the extreme violence
and sexual elements
00:03:43
to his crimes,
00:03:45
when he was found guilty and
sentenced to 15 years in prison,
00:03:48
Wolfgang Schmidt showed
little remorse for his actions.
00:03:52
-I think he was embarrassed,
00:03:54
but he was not ashamed
about anything,
00:03:56
least of all the murders.
00:04:00
-During the trial,
it became clear
00:04:02
Schmidt's motive for killing
00:04:04
was to indulge his fantasies
for wearing women's underwear
00:04:08
and defecating in them
to reach sexual satisfaction.
00:04:12
He was diagnosed with a fetish
called coprophilia.
00:04:16
-Coprophilia is a very rare
paraphilia,
00:04:19
and it's basically
a sexual arousal
00:04:21
around human waste,
around excrement --
00:04:25
people becoming sexually excited
around this substance.
00:04:29
So it's very, very rare
to see this,
00:04:31
even amongst serial killers.
00:04:33
-Any kind of major fetish
00:04:37
almost always
becomes uncontrollable.
00:04:40
The same is true of someone who
gets an intense satisfaction,
00:04:43
as in this case,
from wearing women's clothes.
00:04:48
That satisfaction
along with coprophilia
00:04:52
is a very dynamic mixture.
00:04:58
-In time, Schmidt's bizarre
and murderous acts
00:05:01
would earn him two monikers.
00:05:03
He was called
the Beast of Beelitz
00:05:05
and was also labeled by some
as the Pink Giant.
00:05:10
-He became known as
the Pink Giant
00:05:12
because he grew to be
a 6-foot-1-, 6-foot-2-tall man,
00:05:16
and he loved pink underwear --
ladies' pink underwear --
00:05:20
which was part of his fetish.
00:05:24
-This killer's story begins
just over 50 years ago.
00:05:28
Wolfgang Schmidt was born
on the 5th of October, 1966,
00:05:33
in the small town of Lehnin,
near Potsdam,
00:05:36
in the former
German Democratic Republic.
00:05:39
He, along with
his younger brother,
00:05:41
grew up in a rural area
just outside the town.
00:05:45
-Well, the family is
the first institution
00:05:47
in which we start to learn about
men and women's roles in society
00:05:51
and about their relationships
with one another,
00:05:53
so what we see in our family
in our early years
00:05:57
we take to be
our benchmark for normal.
00:06:00
-According to
a psychologist's report,
00:06:03
Schmidt's unusual desires
began early.
00:06:06
-[ Speaking German ]
00:06:09
-Wolfgang Schmidt discovered
his fetish by coincidence
00:06:12
when he went through
his mother's closet
00:06:14
as a 6- or 7-year-old boy
and discovered lingerie.
00:06:20
And then he put
that lingerie on.
00:06:25
He had the need for a loving,
symbiotic relationship
00:06:27
with his mother...
00:06:29
-[ Speaking German ]
00:06:33
-...which he was able
to establish
00:06:34
by wearing her lingerie.
00:06:40
-At first, Schmidt says
he felt a childlike pleasure
00:06:43
from wearing
his mother's underwear,
00:06:45
and it became a substitute for
a close maternal relationship.
00:06:50
-Well, many children
are going to experiment.
00:06:52
They're gonna play
when they're youngsters.
00:06:55
They're gonna try on the clothes
00:06:56
of their parents,
their siblings.
00:06:59
This isn't something that is
completely out of the ordinary,
00:07:02
but the real key for me here is,
00:07:04
it's the reaction
of other people
00:07:07
when a child engages
in this behavior.
00:07:09
Is this something
that the parent is gonna
00:07:11
make them feel bad about?
00:07:13
Is it something that
the parent's going to
00:07:14
make them feel ashamed of?
00:07:16
Or is it something that's
just going to be brushed off
00:07:19
and, "Okay, it's fine.
00:07:20
They're just playing.
They're just experimenting"?
00:07:23
-According to Schmidt,
his mother reacted with horror,
00:07:28
and she started to
lock her underwear away,
00:07:33
but Schmidt had already
developed a fondness
00:07:35
for wearing
his mother's undergarments.
00:07:38
When he discovered that
defecating and urinating in them
00:07:42
increased the overall
pleasurable sensation,
00:07:46
he could not stop.
00:07:48
-The thing about him starting
to soil the underwear --
00:07:52
it could have been maybe
he was wearing the underwear
00:07:54
when everybody
was outside the house,
00:07:55
and then he heard a noise.
00:07:57
He's a kid.
He gets scared.
00:07:58
You can't really control it,
and it just happened.
00:08:01
Right there,
he didn't intend to,
00:08:04
and as he did,
something else came over him
00:08:08
that he don't know what it is.
00:08:10
But it was something
that made him go,
00:08:12
"Wow. I like this."
00:08:13
Not a sexual thing.
00:08:15
He just simply felt
a different excitement,
00:08:19
and when a kid likes something,
they will go back to it.
00:08:24
-By the time
Schmidt reached puberty,
00:08:26
defecating in
his mother's underwear
00:08:29
added a whole different level
of enjoyment.
00:08:31
-To get pleasure out of
destroying something
00:08:34
that belongs to her,
00:08:35
something that is intimate
for her --
00:08:38
that's really meaningful for me
00:08:40
looking at this
from the outside.
00:08:42
And to see him getting pleasure
in doing this,
00:08:44
in soiling this underwear --
00:08:47
that's something
that signifies to me
00:08:49
he's enjoying getting
a little bit of power back.
00:08:52
-[ Speaking German ]
00:08:54
-He ritualized that behavior
over the years
00:08:56
so that it didn't only become
the central element
00:08:59
of his sexuality,
but of his entire life.
00:09:04
That means that he really
only lives to experience
00:09:07
that kind of sexuality.
00:09:12
-With all the underwear
locked away,
00:09:14
Schmidt started to look
elsewhere to satisfy his urges.
00:09:19
This was the beginning
of his double life.
00:09:23
Ulrich Bauschulte was
Schmidt's defense lawyer.
00:09:26
-[ Speaking German ]
00:09:30
-Often, with his father,
00:09:32
he cleared things from the house
to be put in trash heaps,
00:09:35
or as they were called then in
the German Democratic Republic,
00:09:38
<i> mullhaufen.</i>
00:09:42
Then he noticed that women's
underwear was also thrown away,
00:09:45
and so he began to collect
these undergarments.
00:09:48
-[ Speaking German ]
00:09:52
-Schmidt regularly went
into the forest
00:09:55
near the village of Deetz
that was near to his home
00:09:58
in search of underwear
on makeshift landfills.
00:10:02
He would then defecate
with the underwear on,
00:10:04
satisfy his sexual urges,
and clean up after
00:10:08
as if nothing had happened.
00:10:10
As he grew to be an adult,
however,
00:10:13
this routine
would not be enough for him.
00:10:16
He needed an actual woman
to fulfill his fantasy.
00:10:20
-[ Speaking German ]
00:10:23
-That means the woman has to be
draped with lingerie.
00:10:27
There has to be
mutual defecation,
00:10:29
and then there
will be intercourse.
00:10:33
And it became clear to him
at some point
00:10:36
that in order to
live out this fantasy,
00:10:39
he needed a woman
to be entirely at his disposal.
00:10:44
-And the only way Schmidt
was going to satisfy his needs
00:10:48
was to murder.
00:10:50
But living in such a remote
and sparsely populated area,
00:10:54
the opportunities for Schmidt
00:10:56
to fulfill his unusual fantasies
were limited.
00:11:03
-He lived in
a very rural community --
00:11:06
lots of forests,
lots of lakes, woods,
00:11:09
so there weren't
countless washing lines
00:11:11
with ladies' underwear
hanging on them out to dry.
00:11:15
It was quite
a complicated search,
00:11:19
but search he did,
and he searched rubbish dumps.
00:11:22
He searched as much as he could.
00:11:24
He got pleasure from
putting the underwear on,
00:11:27
taking it off, urinating in it,
defecating in it.
00:11:30
It was all mixed into this
00:11:32
bodily-function,
sexual-arousal dynamic.
00:11:40
-In 1985,
Schmidt's life changed.
00:11:44
He signed up to
10 years of service
00:11:46
with the riotant,
anti-insurgency police force.
00:11:50
Around that time,
00:11:52
he also met a young woman
from a nearby village.
00:11:56
-He develops a double life.
00:11:58
He has this young woman
who he's devoted to
00:12:01
and eventually
becomes his fiancée.
00:12:04
-At this time, Schmidt appeared
to be leading a regular life.
00:12:08
-And he has this
very ordered life in the police.
00:12:12
Perhaps he thinks
something about the uniform
00:12:15
or the discipline will --
well, how can I put it? --
00:12:18
"Help me control my urges.
00:12:21
Perhaps there's something about
that disciplined environment
00:12:23
which will calm me down."
00:12:25
It's a very male,
macho environment.
00:12:29
-But when, in April 1989,
he got drunk
00:12:33
and publicly celebrated
Adolf Hitler's 100th birthday,
00:12:37
he was dismissed from the force.
00:12:40
It led to
catastrophic consequences.
00:12:44
-Well, when we look at
the offending behavior
00:12:46
of serial killers,
00:12:47
often we identify
particular stressors,
00:12:50
particular things that would
have made the difference
00:12:53
between offending
and not offending
00:12:55
at that particular
point in time,
00:12:57
and I think for Schmidt,
00:12:58
losing his job
as a police officer
00:13:01
was very, very significant
for him
00:13:04
'cause this was quite central
to his sense of identity.
00:13:08
-Schmidt, now 23, got a new job
at a local steelworks,
00:13:13
but without the discipline
of the police force,
00:13:15
his strange urges grew stronger.
00:13:18
-I'm not in any doubt
00:13:20
that Schmidt was
increasingly unraveling
00:13:24
from the moment
he lost his job with the police
00:13:27
until the first killing,
00:13:28
which was not
all that much later.
00:13:31
It was that ticking time bomb
within him
00:13:35
that led inevitably,
unfortunately,
00:13:37
to the first killing.
00:13:39
By the autumn that year,
he is about to explode.
00:13:44
-Schmidt was on his way to work
when he was sidetracked
00:13:47
by his desire to indulge
in his deviant fantasies.
00:13:51
He ended up on the outskirts
of the small village of Deetz,
00:13:55
where he hid
at the edge of the forest
00:13:57
to watch a row of houses.
00:13:59
He was hoping to find
women's underwear.
00:14:03
-He goes to the house
on the end of the little road
00:14:06
and discovers
that there's a tool shed,
00:14:08
and he presumably started by
looking for the washing line,
00:14:11
but he goes into the tool shed,
and he discovers a hammer.
00:14:14
He then spies the owner
of the property,
00:14:18
and I think at that point,
00:14:20
the detonation went off
in his head.
00:14:26
-When Schmidt saw
Edeltraut Nixdorf
00:14:29
tending to her garden,
00:14:30
he was overcome
by an intense urge
00:14:33
to violently assault
the 51-year-old woman.
00:14:37
-And probably
in the first instance,
00:14:40
without very much premeditation,
he simply hit her on the head
00:14:44
with the hammer
he'd found in the tool shed.
00:14:48
-The woman screamed and tried to
defend herself with a rake,
00:14:52
but Schmidt dragged her
into the house,
00:14:55
hit her again with the hammer,
and strangled her.
00:14:59
He then proceeded
to have intercourse with her.
00:15:02
However, not getting
the satisfaction he craved,
00:15:06
Schmidt wrapped her body
in a blanket
00:15:08
and started to carry her
towards the forest.
00:15:11
Wolfgang Schmidt had killed
his first victim,
00:15:14
but it had not gone to plan.
00:15:18
-In terms of his first killing,
00:15:20
that reality didn't quite
live up to the fantasy
00:15:23
that he had in his head,
00:15:24
so of course he was
going to continue
00:15:27
to try and create that fantasy
and make it a reality.
00:15:32
-Schmidt had been spotted
00:15:34
when he carried his victim
into the forest,
00:15:37
and the police
were called to the scene.
00:15:39
The witness gave a description
00:15:41
of a very tall, strong,
and athletic man.
00:15:46
When detectives searched
the crime scene in Deetz,
00:15:49
they found underwear scattered
around the victim's body.
00:15:53
One of the investigating
officers was Volker Kelm.
00:15:58
-[ Speaking German ]
00:16:01
-These clothes were lying
in the area
00:16:03
very close by to the victim.
00:16:08
From this, we concluded
that it was a break-in
00:16:11
and that the perpetrator had
been disturbed by the victim,
00:16:13
and so he killed her.
00:16:18
-Police also found a vital clue
in the house --
00:16:21
a large footprint.
00:16:23
The boot was military-issue
and similar to ones worn
00:16:27
by some police units,
but in 1989,
00:16:31
the German Democratic Republic
was on the brink of collapse.
00:16:35
Attempts to identify
the owner of the boot
00:16:38
from an official list of
police recruits proved futile.
00:16:42
For Schmidt, however,
this was just the beginning.
00:16:47
-This is a man who is now
literally searching for prey.
00:16:52
He wants nothing more
than victims,
00:16:55
and he doesn't really mind which
shape and form they come in.
00:16:58
They could be older.
00:16:59
They could be younger.
00:17:01
What's important
is they are submissive.
00:17:04
-On the 24th of May,
00:17:06
Schmidt was riding his bicycle
to meet friends in Ferch,
00:17:10
about eight miles from
the town of Beelitz,
00:17:13
when he saw a sign
pointing to a landfill.
00:17:16
-Although there weren't copious
washing lines for him to search,
00:17:20
there were increasing numbers
of illegal landfills
00:17:24
in which were deposited
00:17:26
underwear of all sorts of
shapes and sizes,
00:17:29
be it slips, bras, knickers,
all kinds,
00:17:33
and that became
Schmidt's happy hunting ground.
00:17:38
-While Schmidt searched the
landfill for women's underwear,
00:17:42
he was disturbed by a noise.
00:17:45
He spotted a 55-year-old woman,
Christa Naujoks,
00:17:49
who lived in a caravan
next to the landfill.
00:17:53
-[ Speaking German ]
00:17:55
-He did not care about the age
of his victims at all.
00:17:58
In the fantasies of
a perpetrator like that,
00:18:01
the victims appear faceless
and ageless a lot of the time.
00:18:05
So it's not about
who I do it with,
00:18:07
but rather about what I do,
00:18:09
and with him, the central
element of experience
00:18:12
was his fetish.
00:18:15
-As Schmidt approached
his victim, she screamed.
00:18:19
He put his arm around her neck
and started to tighten his grip,
00:18:25
but Christa managed to get away.
00:18:27
Schmidt then picked up
an electric cable
00:18:30
and caught up with her.
00:18:32
He strangled Christa to death,
00:18:35
dragged her into the forest,
and sexually abused her.
00:18:41
-The first two murders
were really spontaneous.
00:18:44
Wolfgang Schmidt didn't intend
to kill anyone.
00:18:47
That's not why he was out there.
00:18:51
But he learned by committing
the first two murders
00:18:54
firstly that he was capable
of doing it...
00:18:58
...and, secondly, that when
he had sex with corpses,
00:19:03
it was especially arousing
to him.
00:19:07
-By the time police arrived
at the crime scene,
00:19:10
Schmidt had already left.
00:19:13
Having now found a way to get
his deadly needs met,
00:19:16
it wasn't long until Schmidt
tried to overcome another woman.
00:19:21
-By now, you have the classic
behavioral trait
00:19:25
of escalation.
00:19:27
First murder --
the autumn in October 1989.
00:19:31
Second murder in May 1990.
00:19:35
Not much longer,
again in the summer of 1990.
00:19:40
-In July,
Schmidt was at a landfill
00:19:42
just outside the city
of Brandenburg.
00:19:45
He had already found underwear
and pornography
00:19:48
when he realized
he was not alone.
00:19:51
He spotted his next victim,
a 58-year-old woman.
00:19:56
This time,
Schmidt was carrying a knife.
00:20:00
He approached and stabbed her
but did not kill her.
00:20:04
He then dragged the woman
to a more secluded place.
00:20:09
-He renders her unconscious,
00:20:11
and he's about to rape her,
but he gets interrupted,
00:20:15
so he's nearly got to the point
00:20:17
where he's fulfilled
his fantasy,
00:20:19
where he's made
his fantasy reality,
00:20:22
but he's been stopped
in doing so.
00:20:24
-Schmidt fled the scene.
00:20:26
The woman was found in time
to call an ambulance.
00:20:30
She survived but was unable
to give a description
00:20:33
of her attacker
to the local police.
00:20:36
With no formal identification
made,
00:20:39
the police could take the case
no further.
00:20:42
At this point, they did not
make a connection
00:20:44
with the previous killings.
00:20:46
Schmidt laid low
for eight months,
00:20:49
but he could not control
his urges,
00:20:51
and it would not be long
before he struck again.
00:20:55
-When he gets to
the fourth victim,
00:20:57
he goes prepared, essentially.
00:20:59
He's got a knife.
00:21:00
He's absolutely determined
'cause he's nearly reached
00:21:03
the point
that he wanted to reach.
00:21:04
He's nearly managed to have
sexual relations
00:21:07
with a woman who is submissive,
who is unconscious,
00:21:10
and he's absolutely determined
00:21:12
that he's gonna
make this happen,
00:21:14
so there's a real sense
of urgency in him now,
00:21:17
and he's a very,
very dangerous man.
00:21:20
-On the 13th of March, 1991,
00:21:23
Schmidt attacked Inge Fischer.
00:21:26
The 34-year-old woman
00:21:28
was walking home
through the forest near Beelitz.
00:21:32
-[ Speaking German ]
00:21:36
-She was stabbed by the killer
with a knife from behind.
00:21:40
And here, too,
based on the way it was done
00:21:42
and in the circumstances,
00:21:46
we couldn't establish
connections
00:21:47
with any previous incidents.
00:21:53
The modus operandi, the way
it was done, was different.
00:21:58
One was struck with a hammer.
00:22:00
One was strangled.
00:22:02
One was stabbed.
00:22:05
Two were older women,
this time a younger woman,
00:22:08
on a forest path,
a cottage, a rubbish dump.
00:22:13
Because we didn't have
any matching clues until then,
00:22:16
it was hard for us
to see any connections.
00:22:19
-[ Speaking German ]
00:22:24
-After four attacks,
three resulting in murders,
00:22:28
it was still impossible
for police
00:22:30
to make a conclusive connection
between the crimes.
00:22:35
That meant Schmidt's
killing spree
00:22:37
continued unabated.
00:22:43
In the spring of 1991,
00:22:46
Wolfgang Schmidt
was leading a double life.
00:22:49
He was engaged to be married and
worked at a local steelworks.
00:22:54
At the same time, he was
a dangerous sexual predator
00:22:57
who was still on the loose.
00:22:59
One thing had become clear --
it was dangerous for women
00:23:02
to venture into the forest
on their own.
00:23:05
Police handed out leaflets
and warned local communities,
00:23:08
but the message had not
reached a community
00:23:11
of former Russian military
families living in the area.
00:23:18
-[ Speaking German ]
00:23:19
-They had very little contact
with the people in the area
00:23:23
and so probably didn't notice
what was happening.
00:23:28
One should add that, tragically,
00:23:30
that they were just about
to go back home.
00:23:37
-Just nine days after
killing his last victim,
00:23:40
Schmidt was prowling
the forest behind a hospital.
00:23:44
He spotted a Russian mother,
Tamara Petrowskaja,
00:23:47
and her infant son
walking home through the woods.
00:23:52
-He's been fantasizing
about this --
00:23:54
this sexual encounter --
for so many years.
00:23:57
It's something that
he really wants.
00:23:59
Now the possibility
is in front of him,
00:24:01
and there's this one barrier
in the way,
00:24:03
and that barrier is the baby.
00:24:05
So he's very instrumental
in removing this obstacle
00:24:10
to getting what he wants.
00:24:11
-Schmidt attacked his victim,
beat her,
00:24:14
and started to
pull her into the forest.
00:24:17
To silence the baby,
Schmidt picked up the infant
00:24:21
and threw him to the ground
00:24:23
and then callously kicked him
in the chest.
00:24:27
-The most horrific, the most
terrifying of Schmidt's crimes,
00:24:31
was the killing
of a Russian doctor's wife.
00:24:37
The woman was 44.
00:24:39
Imagine how much she must have
prized the child,
00:24:44
particularly at that age.
00:24:47
Unfortunately for her
and for her child,
00:24:50
Schmidt comes across them
00:24:52
and is absolutely determined
to attack the woman.
00:25:00
-[ Speaking German ]
00:25:04
-At the crime scene where
the baby and the woman died,
00:25:08
there was women's lingerie lying
right there at the scene,
00:25:13
and it was clear that it had
something to do with the crime.
00:25:20
That's when it occurred to us,
"What about the others?
00:25:26
Could this case be linked
with the others?"
00:25:32
-Police found women's underwear
at the crime scene.
00:25:35
They had now established
it was crucial evidence
00:25:37
in all these murders,
00:25:39
and that was
a major breakthrough.
00:25:42
The investigators believe
the perpetrator
00:25:44
must be someone
with a dangerous fetish.
00:25:47
They were coming under
increasing pressure
00:25:50
to capture the killer who was
now hitting the headlines
00:25:53
as the Beast of Beelitz
and the Pink Giant.
00:25:57
Could this be the missing clue
that would finally lead them
00:26:01
to this extremely dangerous
sexual predator?
00:26:04
-[ Speaking German ]
00:26:07
-After we were able
to establish the relationship
00:26:10
between the underwear
and the perpetrator,
00:26:14
naturally, we went to search
this angle in particular.
00:26:19
And at the surrounding area
of the crime scenes,
00:26:21
we found lairs
00:26:23
where he basically
collected the underwear
00:26:27
and where he satisfied himself
with it.
00:26:31
And there were bags of underwear
that we found.
00:26:36
-Marianne Bohm, then a young
prosecutor from West Berlin,
00:26:40
was sent to Potsdam
to head up the investigation.
00:26:44
-[ Speaking German ]
00:26:46
-The case of Wolfgang Schmidt
was especially distinguished
00:26:49
by the variety of cases
to deal with.
00:26:53
It was because of this anxiety,
00:26:54
because we couldn't catch
the perpetrator,
00:26:57
I was on call day and night,
00:27:00
and when my phone would ring,
00:27:01
I would sit up straight
in my bed
00:27:03
because I thought
he had struck again.
00:27:07
-Schmidt would have known that
police were closing in on him,
00:27:11
but he was still free
00:27:12
and still indulging in
his now deadly fantasies.
00:27:16
-The main reason why it was
tricky for the police
00:27:18
to put all the clues together
to go after Schmidt is,
00:27:23
there are two types
of serial killers,
00:27:24
or two main types
of serial killers.
00:27:25
One is the victim-based
serial killer,
00:27:28
and the other one
is action-based serial killer
00:27:30
or the violence-based
serial killer.
00:27:31
The victim-based goes after
a specific kind of victim.
00:27:35
The other kind of serial killer
is one that the victim
00:27:37
makes zero difference to them.
00:27:39
What they are after
is something else.
00:27:41
Either the violence --
00:27:43
that is what excites them,
is killing the person --
00:27:47
or some kind of sexual pleasure.
00:27:49
In the case of Schmidt,
he didn't care about the victim.
00:27:52
He wanted the sex.
00:27:55
-But as yet,
the police had no idea
00:27:58
who they were dealing with.
00:28:00
-[ Speaking German ]
00:28:01
-The whole problem was that
Wolfgang Schmidt
00:28:03
was not known to the police
as a sexual perpetrator.
00:28:12
The investigators back then
already had
00:28:14
a pretty clear picture
of what made this predator tick,
00:28:20
that his way of acting
was fetishistic
00:28:22
and that he went into
a situation
00:28:24
with an intent of killing.
00:28:26
-[ Speaking German ]
00:28:30
-It was also clear early on
00:28:31
that they were dealing with
a serial killer.
00:28:37
And since there were no leads
to Wolfgang Schmidt
00:28:40
that came from
the general public either,
00:28:43
it was basically impossible
to catch him
00:28:47
unless he was caught
in the act at some point.
00:28:55
That means they were looking
for a needle in a haystack.
00:29:00
-Two weeks after
his last assault,
00:29:02
Schmidt was on the prowl again.
00:29:05
He came across
two 12-year-old girls
00:29:08
who were looking for
a dead deer in the forest.
00:29:11
-The escalation is
very, very common.
00:29:14
So now he escalated.
00:29:15
Maybe he thought,
"To have my kind of fetish sex
00:29:20
with two women instead of one."
00:29:23
Maybe he had already
been fantasized
00:29:25
about that for awhile.
00:29:29
I'm certain that the reason
why he went after that
00:29:31
is because he had done
everything prior to that,
00:29:34
and he was always escalating
and escalating and escalating
00:29:38
until the day he gets caught.
00:29:40
-Schmidt attacked the girls
dressed up in women's clothes,
00:29:45
wearing an apron.
00:29:47
What the girls must have thought
almost defies belief.
00:29:50
There's this presumably huge man
00:29:52
dressed up in women's clothes
with an apron on.
00:29:55
It is truly bizarre.
00:29:58
This time, they both survive.
00:30:01
This time, they can describe
the man who's attacked them.
00:30:06
-Schmidt's disappointment
at failing
00:30:08
to fulfill his sexual needs
with the two girls
00:30:11
was so intense
that the following day,
00:30:14
on the 5th of April, 1991,
he struck again.
00:30:18
He broke into the house
of a 66-year-old woman,
00:30:22
Talita Bremer, while she slept.
00:30:24
Schmidt found her underwear
and became highly aroused.
00:30:29
He strangled her to death and
then sexually defiled her body.
00:30:34
-What we've got to remember is,
00:30:36
here is a man that did have
some control over his behavior.
00:30:39
Everybody has fantasies.
00:30:40
Everybody has things
that they would like to do,
00:30:43
but they know that these things
are socially unacceptable
00:30:46
or they are deviant
or that they are illegal,
00:30:48
so most people choose
not to act on them,
00:30:52
but he did.
00:30:56
He knows what he's doing
is wrong,
00:30:58
but he's choosing
to do it anyway
00:30:59
because he wants that fantasy
that he's created in his head
00:31:02
to become a reality,
00:31:05
and he's always making
the decision
00:31:07
that he's gonna try again.
00:31:08
He's gonna try again
00:31:09
'cause, "I've not quite
achieved it this time.
00:31:11
I'm gonna do it again."
00:31:13
-The hunt to capture Schmidt
was gathering pace.
00:31:16
Thanks to the description given
00:31:18
by the two surviving
12-year-old victims,
00:31:21
police were able to issue
an Identi-Kit,
00:31:24
and the prosecution offered
a reward
00:31:26
of 20,000 Deutsche Marks
for information.
00:31:31
-We received hundreds of bits
of information
00:31:33
after we went public with it.
00:31:35
-[ Speaking German ]
00:31:37
-There were several things
00:31:39
that pointed towards somebody
that lived in the area,
00:31:41
that was out and about,
that had some sort of occupation
00:31:44
that made him wander
the forests,
00:31:45
but that was all we knew.
00:31:50
All of that really became
more focused
00:31:52
when the girls
were able to tell us
00:31:54
who we were
actually looking for.
00:31:55
-[ Speaking German ]
00:32:00
-By the summer of 1991,
East German Wolfgang Schmidt's
00:32:04
deviant fantasies had spiraled
completely out of control.
00:32:09
In his extraordinary search
for sexual fulfillment,
00:32:12
Schmidt had attacked nine people
00:32:14
and murdered five women
and a baby.
00:32:17
But his lust for a bizarre form
of gratification
00:32:20
showed no signs of stopping.
00:32:22
On the 1st of August, 1991,
00:32:25
nearly four months
after his previous murder,
00:32:28
Schmidt returned to the woods
surrounding his home
00:32:31
to try and satisfy his desires.
00:32:36
-With Schmidt, it's not simply
about ending his victims' lives
00:32:40
and then sexually abusing them
and raping them
00:32:43
after they've died.
00:32:44
It's also about
continuing in this behavior
00:32:48
of wearing women's underwear,
of soiling this underwear.
00:32:51
He has this routine,
he has this ritual,
00:32:54
and he has to have every stage
of this ritual
00:32:57
in order to gain
sexual satisfaction,
00:32:59
and it's becoming
all the more elaborate
00:33:01
and all the more complex
with several stages in it --
00:33:05
wearing women's underwear,
soiling the underwear,
00:33:08
identifying a victim,
and assaulting that victim.
00:33:12
And all of those elements
need to be there
00:33:14
for him to have
satisfaction from it.
00:33:18
-Alert to his perverse
and murderous activities,
00:33:21
the police were now determined
to catch the serial killer
00:33:25
known as the Beast of Beelitz.
00:33:27
-[ Speaking German ]
00:33:32
-We carried out searches
in the woods
00:33:34
for these types of
clothing sites...
00:33:39
...because we firmly believed
that there must be more to find.
00:33:45
And we were able to find
several of them in the forests
00:33:47
around Beelitz-Heilstatten,
at Neuendorf and so on.
00:33:54
We staked out
two of these sites.
00:33:59
To do this, we used
special observation forces
00:34:02
who were trained for this,
00:34:07
who lay hidden in the woods,
who watched,
00:34:11
and then, if they saw him
either putting the clothes on
00:34:14
or engaging
in any type of sexual act,
00:34:18
they could catch him in the act
and arrest him.
00:34:22
-While the police lay in wait,
00:34:24
Schmidt,
wearing a bra under his jacket,
00:34:27
was spotted gratifying himself
00:34:29
at another site
by two passersby.
00:34:32
When the shocked witnesses
reported his abhorrent behavior,
00:34:36
Schmidt was promptly arrested
and taken into police custody.
00:34:40
There he was charged
with the murders he'd committed.
00:34:45
-[ Speaking German ]
00:34:47
-He was a very shy, reluctant
young man back then who,
00:34:50
as is often the case with sexual
killers or killers in general,
00:34:55
he didn't have it written on his
forehead that he was a murderer.
00:34:59
He was often described
as the nice kid next door.
00:35:05
-His defense lawyer
was Ulrich Bauschulte.
00:35:08
-[ Speaking German ]
00:35:11
-In contrast to
his physical size --
00:35:13
he was well over 1-meter-90 --
00:35:17
I found, when I spoke to him,
00:35:20
he seemed very small, very shy,
00:35:25
which is astounding
when you read and learn
00:35:29
how violently
the deaths occurred.
00:35:33
-When confronted
with the details
00:35:35
of the murders he'd committed,
00:35:37
Schmidt seemed to show
scant remorse for his actions.
00:35:41
-[ Speaking German ]
00:35:42
-I think it was
embarrassing for him,
00:35:44
but he was not ashamed
about anything,
00:35:46
not even about the murders.
00:35:49
He was probably embarrassed that
he was seen in women's lingerie
00:35:51
and with an apron on.
00:35:57
-The trial was set to begin
on the 20th of October, 1992,
00:36:02
just two weeks
after Schmidt's 26th birthday.
00:36:06
The interest in the killer
00:36:07
the German tabloids
have dubbed as
00:36:09
the Beast of Beelitz
and the Pink Giant,
00:36:12
after his fascination
with pink underwear,
00:36:15
was immense.
00:36:17
-[ Speaking German ]
00:36:18
-So there was an unbelievable
press hype back then.
00:36:24
We had far too little room
in the court for all the press.
00:36:27
Everyone was following it
on the news.
00:36:31
-Gisela Friedrichsen was
the court reporter
00:36:34
for a renowned
West German magazine.
00:36:37
-[ Speaking German ]
00:36:39
-At the beginning,
everyone knew
00:36:41
that Wolfgang Schmidt
killed many women.
00:36:45
And then, gradually,
all the details
00:36:48
came out into the open
through reports in the tabloids.
00:36:51
-[ Speaking German ]
00:36:56
-And it became very clear
00:36:57
that he must be
a very disturbed person.
00:37:02
-The East German press,
however,
00:37:04
were less understanding
of Schmidt's problems.
00:37:07
-They would have, ideally,
wanted to execute him.
00:37:09
They would have cut off
everything that could be cut off
00:37:12
from his body and so on.
00:37:16
-Schmidt's mental health
was assessed
00:37:18
by Professor Wilfried Rasch,
who was the leading
00:37:21
German forensic psychiatrist
of his time.
00:37:25
-[ Speaking German ]
00:37:27
-Professor Rasch explained it
brilliantly to the court
00:37:30
how Wolfgang Schmidt developed
throughout the years.
00:37:35
It began during his childhood
in the search
00:37:38
to have a closer relationship
to his mother,
00:37:42
and that naturally evolved into
something else as time went by.
00:37:47
That was fetishism
and also transvestism.
00:37:56
A combination of these,
00:37:58
which together with inclinations
toward coprophilia,
00:38:03
changed and became established.
00:38:08
-Even when we look at cases
of serial killers,
00:38:11
we only come across
a handful of cases
00:38:13
where people have engaged in
this type of behavior,
00:38:16
and, unfortunately,
if something like this
00:38:18
isn't nipped in the bud,
isn't recognized early on,
00:38:21
it's something that's
only going to get worse.
00:38:27
-Schmidt had shared
his most intimate secrets
00:38:30
with the psychiatrist,
00:38:32
including revelations
about his habit
00:38:34
of defecating
in women's underwear
00:38:37
and then wearing it
back-to-front
00:38:39
while pleasuring himself.
00:38:41
Professor Rasch concluded
that Schmidt's sexual fantasies
00:38:45
began to grow,
00:38:46
and at some point,
the balance tipped over,
00:38:49
and he decided to try
to do this with a woman.
00:38:53
But when Schmidt failed
to achieve sexual gratification,
00:38:57
he snapped,
00:38:58
and that's when
his killing spree began.
00:39:02
-When the desire got stronger
and stronger,
00:39:05
it ended in those murders.
00:39:07
That's where he got
his first kick
00:39:09
and where he noticed that there
was a chance for him to move on
00:39:11
to a level that may
give him sexual satisfaction.
00:39:17
-Schmidt was cooperative
from the beginning,
00:39:20
but when he was confronted
with the Identi-Kit
00:39:22
that led to his capture,
00:39:24
his response
was rather startling.
00:39:27
-[ Speaking German ]
00:39:29
-When he saw the picture,
he said to me,
00:39:32
"That looks a lot like me,
00:39:33
but it can't be me
because I didn't kill anybody."
00:39:38
I didn't really know how to
interpret that statement
00:39:40
back then until Professor Rasch
conducted the examination
00:39:44
in order to see what it was
00:39:46
that was really wrong
with Mr. Schmidt.
00:39:50
The results stated repeatedly
00:39:52
that when he lived out
his fantasies,
00:39:54
in his mind,
the women had lived.
00:39:59
-All throughout the trial,
00:40:01
Schmidt continued to claim that
in his head,
00:40:04
all his victims
were still alive.
00:40:07
-So Schmidt's fantasy was all
about dominating alive women.
00:40:11
He says, "In my head,
they were alive."
00:40:13
Well, in his head,
they had to be alive
00:40:15
'cause that was
the only way in which
00:40:17
he could get pleasure
out of the situation.
00:40:20
-The prosecution had
vast amounts of evidence,
00:40:23
such as clothes, undergarments,
and the murder weapons,
00:40:27
but they did not play
a significant role
00:40:29
during the trial
00:40:31
because Schmidt
had confessed to everything.
00:40:34
-Everybody agreed
that Mr. Schmidt
00:40:36
belonged in
a psychiatric facility.
00:40:39
-Schmidt was sentenced
to 15 years in prison
00:40:43
and was admitted
to a psychiatric clinic
00:40:45
in Brandenburg,
where he remains to this day.
00:40:49
Adding to the price he's paid,
Schmidt's fiancée has,
00:40:53
since his incarceration,
left him.
00:40:57
-[ Speaking German ]
00:40:59
-Wolfgang Schmidt
is very sexually deviant,
00:41:03
and he most certainly has
a personality disorder, as well.
00:41:07
As long as he does not
confront what he has done
00:41:11
and gets the appropriate means
to help him,
00:41:15
he will always pose a threat
to others.
00:41:18
And since, to this day,
that has not changed,
00:41:22
there is no chance for him
to ever be set free again.
00:41:28
-Many people have issues
seeing him
00:41:30
as a typical serial killer
because of his modus operandi
00:41:34
varying from one victim
to the other,
00:41:38
but essentially,
his drive, his motivation
00:41:41
is the same
as many other serial killers.
00:41:43
He wants to have power
over other people
00:41:45
and to dominate other people.
00:41:47
He shared with
other serial killers
00:41:49
a callous disregard
for the rights of other people,
00:41:52
for the lives of other people,
and for their suffering.
00:42:00
-In a final twist
to this story,
00:42:02
in 2009,
courts allowed Wolfgang Schmidt
00:42:06
to change his name
to Beate Schmidt
00:42:09
when he revealed his desire
to transition into a woman.
00:42:13
Schmidt has been undergoing
hormone treatment since 2010
00:42:17
but has so far been refused
gender-reassignment surgery.
00:42:21
Regardless of his current
or future gender,
00:42:25
the bizarre and callous killings
00:42:27
committed by
the Beast of Beelitz,
00:42:29
Wolfgang Schmidt,
00:42:31
makes him one of
the world's most evil killers.
00:42:34
♪♪
00:42:42
♪♪
00:42:51
♪♪
