00:00:05
-February the 13th, 1966, Kraków, Poland -- Children were out sledging, but 19-year-old Karol Kot
was looking
00:00:14
for a very different
kind of thrill. -This is somebody
who chose to do evil. He knew the difference
between right and wrong,
00:00:21
and yet he chose
to harm others anyway. -Kot spotted an 11-year-old boy
walking alone
00:00:28
and approached him. -Press called him
a vampire and a beast. People were really,
really afraid.
00:00:36
-Spurred by an insatiable
lust for blood, Kot grabbed the boy
and drove his bayonet
00:00:42
into the child's chest
repeatedly. ♪♪ He stabbed the boy 11 times, puncturing every vital organ.
00:00:54
-Kot killed as a schoolboy. At the age of 21, he had already stood trial for two counts of murder,
00:01:04
10 counts of attempted murder. -The perverse pleasure he derived from harming
the most vulnerable of victims
00:01:13
make Karol Kot one of
the world's most evil killers. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Kraków, Southern Poland --
00:01:43
Beginning in 1964, a young man called Karol Kot
developed a lust for blood that earned him the moniker
the Vampire of Kraków.
00:01:55
♪♪ He would terrify the city
for the next two years. -Kot was, without question,
00:02:06
one of the world's
most evil killers, not least because
he killed all his victims
00:02:11
while, effectively, a schoolboy. -He was completely lacking
in remorse, and he was so young.
00:02:17
To completely lack a conscious, to be a kind
of fully formed killer before he's even age 20
00:02:23
is really shocking. -Still at school, Karol Kot had killed
two people -- an 11-year-old boy
at a sledging competition
00:02:34
and an 86-year-old woman
as she prayed. ♪♪ Kot had attempted to kill
at least a dozen more.
00:02:45
Fascinated
by the sinister story, Marta wrote a book on Kot. -Women were afraid to go
out to church anymore.
00:02:54
If they were going to church,
some of them were putting, like, some metal balls
or other objects like pillows
00:03:02
and attaching them
to their backs, so they can protect themselves. -Coroner Tomasz Konopka
00:03:09
closely studied
the Karol Kot case. -[ Speaking Polish ] -Only two people died
as a result
00:03:16
of Karol Kot's activity,
but the way he killed, his approach towards murder,
was unique.
00:03:23
♪♪ Killing gave him pleasure. -One of the characteristics
of Karol Kot was that after he would kill,
00:03:32
he took great pleasure
in licking the knife and tasting the blood. This aspect of the vampirism
00:03:41
is something that has
made his crimes sufficiently unique. ♪♪ -This killer's story begins
00:03:52
a little over 70 years ago. Karol Kot was born in Kraków
in Southern Poland on December the 18th, 1946,
00:04:02
to a middle-class family. On the surface, their home life
seemed happy and healthy.
00:04:10
-His father worked
as an engineer. His mother was
a stay-at-home mum, and they were quite that,
a respectable family.
00:04:17
-It was like a good,
loving family. His mother didn't work,
especially for him, so he didn't have
to go to preschool,
00:04:25
and he was raised in a Jewish quarter of Kraków. ♪♪ -But when Karol Kot
was 8 years old,
00:04:38
his sister was born. -I think that really did
unsettle him quite a lot because he's been used to being
the center of attention
00:04:46
for eight years. He feels that
she's the favored one, and whether or not that's true,
00:04:51
and often when we look
at dynamics in families, it's not what parents
are doing or not doing.
00:04:56
It's how children
are perceiving that, so I think he felt pushed out. I think he felt slighted
right from the beginning.
00:05:05
-[ Speaking Polish ]
-Later, Karol Kot said that his parents loved her
more than him.
00:05:10
He said that's why
he abused her. He tried to introduce
a military order at home.
00:05:19
-I think Kot's relationship
with his sister is a warning sign, and this was the beginning,
I think,
00:05:25
of a process for Kot, a process of expressing himself
in a dysfunctional way when things weren't going
as he wanted them to go,
00:05:34
and it's one that
escalates slowly over time. -Another sign that all was
not well with the boy
00:05:40
was his cruelty to animals. -They had two cats
in the house, and he was, like,
treating the cats badly.
00:05:50
He was throwing them
at the walls, things like that. -Often, when we look back
at the childhoods
00:05:54
of serial killers,
we see some form of harm, some form of abuse
towards animals,
00:06:02
and this is something
that individuals do to maintain some control because they have feelings
of trauma, of anxiety,
00:06:11
of basically feeling slighted,
of feeling left out. -On family holidays,
to the village of Pcim,
00:06:18
30 miles south of Kraków, Kot developed
an unnatural passion. -He developed a fascination
with slaughterhouses.
00:06:29
On holiday,
he would go with his parents and ask to go
to the slaughterhouse. Now, this is quite unusual
00:06:38
in a young man of 10, 11, 12. ♪♪ -And that's when he understood
that he loves blood.
00:06:47
He's fascinated with blood. He was talking about it like... He noticed that blood
is still warm.
00:06:53
It was alive just a moment ago,
and it's... that it was something
very special for him.
00:07:00
-One of the most
extraordinary incidents when he was
in the slaughterhouse was the slaughtermen
drained blood into a cup
00:07:10
and passed it to him for him to drink. They thought this boy
would simply freak out.
00:07:17
He did exactly the opposite. He drank the blood, which, in turn,
freaked them out.
00:07:23
-Here's a child who goes
on family holidays to the countryside, and what do normal children do?
00:07:31
What are they interested in? They're interested in playing, running through the woods,
00:07:34
maybe picking flowers, right, swimming if it's possible. But what does Karol Kot
want to do?
00:07:42
He wants to slice up an animal, and he wants to drink
the animal's blood, and he wants to do it
in front of people,
00:07:49
and he wants them
to be entertained by it or amazed by it. This is extraordinarily
rare behavior.
00:07:56
-At the same time, young Karol Kot develops
a disturbing fetish. -He said that knife was,
like, his biggest love
00:08:07
he can think of. He was admiring the knife. He actually can speak
in surprisingly
00:08:13
sophisticated language
about knives. -Kot's rare obsession
would soon prove deadly.
00:08:21
-This is a weapon. This is something
that he can use to threaten other people, and carrying a knife
makes him feel important.
00:08:28
It makes him feel powerful. -Later, he was sort of thinking, "How does it feel to put knife
into a human body?"
00:08:35
but he didn't have the courage, so he started hurting
small animals, at first, and he noticed
that the blood affects him.
00:08:43
It makes him excited. -While at school, Kot joined
a target-shooting club, where he met a girl, Danuta,
00:08:52
that he became obsessed with. She was 6 years older
than Karol. -They became, like, friends,
00:08:59
but from his side, I think this relationship
looked a bit different. I think she treated him
as a friend,
00:09:07
and he was in love. -It wouldn't surprise me if this relationship
wasn't one of equals
00:09:13
because I think here,
we've got a young lad who has difficulty
relating to other people.
00:09:18
He doesn't have
those social skills. -In a twisted bid
to impress Danuta, Kot revealed to her some
of his sadistic fantasies
00:09:27
and cruel acts he had committed. -I suspect she finds him cute. She's sure the stories
are untrue or made up,
00:09:37
but she's just not
excited by them. And in some ways,
that's exactly what Kot needs.
00:09:44
He needs somebody
who can hear his craziness, who he can brag to,
who he can story-tell to,
00:09:50
who he can relive with and not have them screaming
bloody murder. -On a shooting club outing,
00:09:58
the young Kot could not contain
his violent urges. -After having told her
that he's this person,
00:10:06
he attempts to prove it to her
by attacking her and even starting
to strangle her.
00:10:11
-[ Speaking Polish ]
-He attacked her. He pulled out a piece
of broken glass from his pocket.
00:10:17
He told her he wanted
to cut her wrists and throw her into the river, so it would look like a suicide.
00:10:26
-This is, basically,
his frustrations because he can't get what he wants, and the only way that he knows
to get what he wants,
00:10:33
based on his past experience,
is to be violent, is to be abusive,
is to be manipulative,
00:10:39
but it doesn't quite work
with Danuta. ♪♪ -She responds
in a very interesting way.
00:10:47
She laughs. She doesn't take it seriously and tells him, in essence, "Well, you know everyone knows
that we're together today,
00:10:54
so if you kill me, you'll definitely be caught," and he stops. What you have to be
impressed with
00:11:04
is the woman herself because her momentary
psychological sophistication probably saved her life.
00:11:13
-But on September
the 21st, 1964, the 17-year-old schoolboy felt compelled
to attack a stranger
00:11:22
for the first time. ♪♪ -Karol Kot was describing
that day. The urge of killing
was so incredible
00:11:30
that he just couldn't calm down, and he started to walk
across the town with a knife,
00:11:36
and then he felt
that he will settle for some lonely woman
in a church, and he went to one
of the churches,
00:11:44
and he was waiting. -Kot later said
he was about to leave when 76-year-old Helene
entered a church
00:11:52
in the center of the city
to pray. -[ Speaking Polish ]
-He took out a German military bayonet
from the sheath,
00:11:59
and he stabbed her in the back. -He stabbed her just, like,
once in her back, trying to reach the heart
00:12:09
from the back. -When someone is stabbed, they will describe the feeling
as if they've been punched.
00:12:15
You don't necessarily get
that sharp feeling you might imagine, and that would be a surprise.
00:12:22
It would be a shock.
It would be unpleasant. -It's only when
there's blood coming out
00:12:26
that they realize
what's going on, so in the moments,
in this blitz attack, I think perhaps this victim
00:12:33
didn't really understand
what was going on. -Remarkably,
the 76-year-old woman survived.
00:12:39
-To stab someone to the back, you are primarily looking
at damage to the heart, damage to the lungs,
00:12:47
and that certainly
can be lethal, but it's not usually
instantly fatal. -[ Speaking Polish ]
00:12:56
-The woman didn't realize
that this had happened. She probably didn't
feel any pain.
00:13:02
It was only after she left that she realized
when she went to a shop, and someone told her
00:13:07
that her clothes
were bloodstained. ♪♪ -The interesting thing
about the first attack is,
00:13:18
it shows you how naive he is. His stabbing behavior doesn't have a chance
at killing anyone.
00:13:25
He doesn't understand, really,
how you kill somebody, right? So he's like he's exploring it.
00:13:29
It's like he rushes in. He stabs. He waits for something
to happen. He thinks magic
is going to happen.
00:13:35
Blood is going to be everywhere, and he's going to have
a dead body. -But the schoolboy's
bloody intent
00:13:41
was far from blunted. -The second attack happens
only two days later, and I think this illustrates
00:13:48
how much he enjoyed
the first attack and how much he wanted
to continue the high
00:13:52
that had come along with that. ♪♪ -Kraków, Poland, September the 23rd, 1964 -- Just two days after
his first attack,
00:14:04
17-year-old Karol Kot
was on the prowl again. His next target was
an elderly woman
00:14:11
chosen at random. ♪♪ -The second attack happens
only two days later, and I think this illustrates
00:14:22
how much he enjoyed
the first attack and how much he wanted
to continue the high
00:14:27
that had come along with that. -In my mind, I think he was
painting his own picture,
00:14:35
the life of Karol Kot. He was fulfilling, blossoming if you like, into a fully-fledged killer.
00:14:45
I think he set himself
that dream. The butterfly was emerging
from the chrysalis.
00:14:52
♪♪ -Kot wanted to kill again, but still a schoolboy, the young man needed a victim
who wouldn't fight back.
00:15:02
-[ Speaking Polish ]
-One characteristic that connects all the incidents was that he attacked
single people,
00:15:07
single meaning,
there were no witnesses. -I think the choice
of victims here is no accident whatsoever.
00:15:14
We know that elderly people and elderly women,
in particular, are one of the target groups
for serial killers
00:15:21
because they are
physically weaker, and they're often on their own, and that vulnerable
makes it easy
00:15:27
to target them
and to take their lives. -Kot's next victim was
a 78-year-old woman
00:15:34
called Franciszka. He spotted her
getting off a tram. When she entered
the apartment building,
00:15:42
Kot attacked. ♪♪ -Kot stabbed her,
again, in the back. This time, she felt the pain
more quickly,
00:15:55
but equally, Kot disappeared. ♪♪ -Franciszka did, indeed,
survive the attack, but she never recovered
from her wounds.
00:16:07
♪♪ -The stabbings
pierced her backbone, and she had problems walking
for the rest of her life.
00:16:14
-I think that Kot,
with all of his victims, he was trying to kill them, but he wasn't willing
to hang around long enough
00:16:22
to make sure of it. He was trying to escape. -The news
of the shocking attacks rattle the citizens of Kraków,
00:16:32
but that only served to embolden
17-year-old Karol Kot. -There would have been
a bit of a buzz,
00:16:38
a bit of a fear in the community
around them, and to know
that he's created this
00:16:44
is something that he's going
to be really enjoying, so he will be escalating
his offending.
00:16:49
It is going to be more violent,
more serious, more prolonged. -Just 6 days later,
on September the 29th, 1964,
00:17:00
Kot, once again
armed with a bayonet, slipped into a church in Kraków. There,
he found his next target --
00:17:09
another elderly woman. ♪♪ -She's also stabbed
from behind, but this one seems
to have been more ferocious,
00:17:22
given that he's driven
the knife into her with much more ferocity,
much more force.
00:17:27
♪♪ ♪♪ -Never in a million years
would you think that somebody has just randomly
come and stabbed you,
00:17:43
so it would have
been incredibly shocking. -This time, his victim, 86-year-old Maria, died,
00:17:51
but before she managed to say
a few last words to the nun who found her. ♪♪ -The nun said that
when she got close to her,
00:18:02
she was laying on the floor,
breathing heavily, and she said just two words, "Young boy."
00:18:09
-Today, one of Poland's
leading coroners, Tomasz Konopka, works at the same hospital that
Maria's body was brought to.
00:18:17
-[ Speaking Polish ] -A postmortem examination
was conducted here, in this autopsy room.
00:18:25
The examination showed
that the wound was not deep. The wound went through the back,
through the muscles,
00:18:34
and ended in the backbone. ♪♪ The conclusion was that,
because of the pain and shock
00:18:42
related to the stabbing
in the back, her heart gave out,
and she died. -The senseless murder
committed by a schoolboy
00:18:54
was headline news across Poland. -[ Speaking Polish ] -Panic broke out in Kraków.
00:19:01
People were afraid of going out
in the evenings, especially women. People were warned
not to go out alone,
00:19:08
not to go alone to the church. ♪♪ -I think it was very difficult for the inhabitants of Kraków
00:19:19
to comprehend that a boy could be responsible. The first reaction
was disbelief.
00:19:27
The second reaction was fear. -And then in the autumn of 1964, Kot's knife attacks
suddenly stopped.
00:19:37
♪♪ -I think he just calmed down
after he actually, for the first time,
succeeded to kill someone.
00:19:46
He was would just continue
going to school, going to his shooting section, just normal everyday life.
00:19:54
-Kot had got away with murder, but his deadly desires
had not stopped. In fact, his murderous urges
were growing.
00:20:03
-He appeared to have
stopped killing for a two-year period, but during that period of time,
00:20:09
he still would've been having violent thoughts
and violent fantasies, and we can see that this
is exactly the case with him.
00:20:19
-He was still bent on killing, but this time, he wanted
to murder en masse, so at the end of 1964,
00:20:27
Karol Kot changed his MO. -He turns his offending
towards other outlets, setting fires, poisoning,
so he's always creating harm.
00:20:37
He's always externalizing
his trauma to hurt other people. -[ Speaking Polish ] -He confessed that
he had planned
00:20:45
to kill a large number of people by changing his method
to poisoning or arson. -He was putting poison,
for example,
00:20:54
into a bottle of beer and leaving that bottle of beer
somewhere and hoping that someone will
be tempted to drink it.
00:21:03
♪♪ -But thankfully, Kot's plan failed. -When you look
at what he actually does, it really confirms
how completely devoid
00:21:16
of ordinary social
understandings he has. He does things like go
to drinking establishments,
00:21:25
leave out drinks half-drunk
that have lethal doses of arson and sits and waits for somebody
to pick up the drink
00:21:33
and drop dead. He doesn't have a grasp
of social behavior, that people don't go around bars
00:21:40
picking up half-drunk drinks
and drinking them. That's just not what people do. ♪♪
00:21:46
-Kot then turned to arson. -[ Speaking Polish ] -He committed at least
four arsons.
00:21:55
We only know about them
from his testimony. That's because
these were failed arsons.
00:22:01
For example, he poured gasoline
on some rags in a room, and he hoped
it would start a fire.
00:22:07
It did not. He tried to set
an attic on fire. He said there was smoke and fire but no inferno.
00:22:17
-Fortunately, no one was killed in any of the four fires
that he set. -Again, he doesn't even know
how to set a fire.
00:22:25
He can't get a whole structure
to burn down to save his life. He's just trying to find a way
00:22:33
to get death to happen
doing as little as possible, and he can't seem
to figure it out.
00:22:39
-By February of 1966, 18 months after
his first murder, Kot could no longer contain
the urge to kill again.
00:22:49
-I think he definitely
would've been fantasizing during that period about those attacks
he carried out before,
00:22:54
so he carried out
some very violent attacks that had a real impact
on the local community.
00:22:59
He created fear,
and he was reveling in that. He was enjoying that,
and when he came to kill again,
00:23:05
it was going to be
something horrendous. -But this time,
he changes direction. He doesn't target elderly women.
00:23:14
He targets children. He goes to a local mound, which attracts tobogganists, particularly children.
00:23:23
♪♪ -On Sunday,
February the 13th, 1966, Karol Kot was looking
for an easy target
00:23:37
when he spotted
11-year-old Leszek. ♪♪ -He was just walking alone because he arrived late
to a competition,
00:23:51
and Karol was
just walking around looking for a victim. ♪♪ -For Leszek,
the speed of the attack
00:24:05
would likely have been stunning. -And this attack
is really ferocious. So he turns the boy towards him.
00:24:13
he stabs him 11 times,
and this is a real ramping-up of his offending. So he's not just killing
this individual.
00:24:20
He's using much more violence than he needs
to get that job done, so this is about more than that.
00:24:26
This is about completely
obliterating someone. This is about saying,
"Well, I can do to you
00:24:31
whatever I want to do to you." It's about status. It's about power,
and it's about entitlement.
00:24:36
♪♪ -We must be grateful,
to some extent, that stab wounds are not
usually tremendously painful.
00:24:49
They can often feel more
like a punch, but it must have been utterly
confusing and bewildering
00:24:56
that somebody has suddenly
started to assault you and then very quickly, within probably seconds
in this case,
00:25:06
you would lose consciousness
and die. You've gone from being
a normal child doing normal childhood things
00:25:14
to being a body. ♪♪ -The autopsy later revealed
that Kot had punctured every major organ
in the young boy's body.
00:25:28
-[ Speaking Polish ] -The stabs were deep. The strikes damaged
the aorta, the heart,
00:25:35
the lungs, and the liver. The boy had no chance
of surviving the attack. -As Leszek lay bleeding
to death,
00:25:44
Kot walked away. -[ Speaking Polish ] -He just left him like this and walked away.
00:25:51
What also surprised me
was that he said that he went straight
to the patisserie,
00:25:56
bought some cakes
and took them home. ♪♪ -The attack on
the 11-year-old boy was a clear sign that
Kot's ferocity had escalated.
00:26:07
-This is Kot in his new form. This is the fully-fledged
butterfly. He's absolutely at one
00:26:15
and determined
to destroy his victim. It isn't very long
before he chooses another.
00:26:23
♪♪ -Kraków, Southern Poland -- By the end of February 1966, Karol Kot, now age 19,
00:26:33
had viciously attacked
four people with a knife, killing two -- 86-year-old
church attendee Maria
00:26:41
and an 11-year-old boy Leszek. But Karol Kot's lust for blood was far from satiated.
00:26:51
On April the 14th, 1966, 2 months after he'd last killed, Kot struck again. -His next attack is
on a 7-year-old girl,
00:27:03
so he's targeting
vulnerable victims. He's targeting people
who he feels can control,
00:27:08
who he feels
he's got power over. -Kot hid in the stairwell
of a city tenement building
00:27:14
and waited for a suitable victim
to attack. -[ Speaking Polish ] -His decision depended
on who would appear.
00:27:25
A 7-year-old girl
came to the mailbox from the upstairs. He approached her,
grabbed her with one hand,
00:27:32
and stabbed her with the other. He stabbed her eight times and left the girl
wounded and bleeding.
00:27:39
♪♪ -Incredibly, 7-year-old Magosia
survived the brutal attack. However, the psychological scars
00:27:55
would last a lifetime. -These children,
because they are only just kind of forming
their views of the world,
00:28:02
their views of other people, and to be attacked randomly by someone
who is also just a child
00:28:10
is something that
will stay with them forever and is going to shape their
relationships with other people.
00:28:16
Very often, people who are
attacked as children can move on from it. They can go on
and have fulfilling lives
00:28:21
and move on from their trauma, but it's something that really
is going to set them off
00:28:27
the track that they were on
for quite some time. ♪♪ -After the vicious attack, Kot confessed to attacking
the 7-year-old girl
00:28:37
to the woman he
still obsessed with, Danuta. -He tells her what he's done, and I don't think this is
00:28:46
any kind of remorse
or any kind of catharsis. I think this is, "Look at me.
Look what I can achieve.
00:28:52
You should be impressed
by this." -For some reason, Kot decides to boast that he has attacked the child.
00:29:02
She doesn't believe him. She thinks it's a fantasy, another of Kot's constructions
00:29:10
until she reads about the story in the local newspaper
about the stabbing. -The horrific truth
then dawned on Danuta.
00:29:19
-She realizes that the man, the young man she's known, may be more dangerous than she thought he was,
00:29:29
and she talks to her psychiatrist about the confession. He advises her to go immediately
to the police.
00:29:40
[ Siren wails ] -Ultimately,
the one person in the world who he could trust was the avenue
to his being caught.
00:29:50
-For the investigators, Danuta's information
would prove crucial in identifying
the schoolboy killer
00:29:57
who had plagued Kraków
for the last two years. Coupled with the description given by some
of the surviving victims,
00:30:04
Karol Kot was now
the police's prime suspect, but they did not
immediately arrest him.
00:30:12
♪♪ -In the months
between April and July, they placed him
under surveillance, and there was a good reason
for that.
00:30:21
They wanted to be
absolutely sure that he was capable, that he was sane, and, indeed, they wanted him
to sit his school examinations
00:30:29
to prove it. -So the police waited until
after he'd finished his exams before they arrested him,
00:30:36
but this was a really
high-risk strategy, as well, because you're waiting
to arrest somebody
00:30:43
who has committed
violent offense after violent offense, and I think this really did
put the public at risk.
00:30:48
-On July the 14th, 1966, 3 months after his last attack, the Polish police
finally apprehended
00:30:57
Karol Kot. -And it's after
his final exams in school, and I think that
really does bring home
00:31:05
how horrific this is, these horrendous crimes that have been committed by somebody who's so young,
00:31:11
and when he's arrested,
he is arrested in school. -The most striking moment
of the case
00:31:15
was when Karol Kot was arrested, and everybody realized
that the beast, which was everybody afraid
for such a long time,
00:31:24
for two years, was just a young schoolboy. ♪♪ -Finally, the young man
was under arrest.
00:31:34
♪♪ -[ Speaking Polish ]
-You could say that Kraków breathed
a sigh of relief. People stopped being
afraid of a killer.
00:31:46
-But Karol Kot was not ready to admit his guilt. -[ Speaking Polish ] -But when he was presented
00:31:53
to the two elderly ladies that survived the first attacks, he was instantly
identified by them.
00:32:00
He even said to one of them, the one that shouted at him,
"It's him!" that if she wanted,
he would finish killing her.
00:32:07
♪♪ -Karol Kot had no choice but to confess to his crimes. -Kot... doesn't plead innocence.
00:32:21
He glories in his guilt. That is exactly
what he's always wanted. This is the tableau
00:32:28
that he wanted
to paint for himself. He tells them
in elaborate detail about the way he killed.
00:32:34
-He bragged about these crimes. He talked about these acts like it gave him pleasure.
00:32:40
♪♪ -The press give him
the nickname that he must've lusted after -- the Vampire of Kraków.
00:32:53
I think he wanted
to forever be remembered as one of the city's most dramatic residents.
00:33:03
I wouldn't call him dramatic. I would call him depraved. ♪♪ -[ Speaking Polish ]
00:33:17
-The term "vampire" was used, not only because he killed, but also because
he drank the blood
00:33:23
of his victims. He said openly that when
he killed or maimed his victims, he took pleasure
in licking their blood
00:33:31
off the blade of the knife. ♪♪ -I think he really
would have relished being called
the Vampire of Kraków.
00:33:43
This is somebody who has got
quite a narcissistic element to their personality. They want to be noticed.
00:33:50
They think that
they deserve to be noticed, that they're entitled to be
lorded by other people,
00:33:56
and I think having that name that the Vampire of Kraków, this brings with it
some kind of status,
00:34:02
and I think this is
very important for him. ♪♪ -Soon after he was arrested
in July of 1966,
00:34:13
19-year-old Karol Kot gleefully participated in the reconstructions
of his crimes.
00:34:20
-You know,
police do re-reenactments as a common technique, and there are many reasons
to do that.
00:34:26
One of the most important
reasons to do that is, a re-enactment
is one of the ways
00:34:31
that you determine
whether or not a person claiming to be a killer
is the real killer,
00:34:38
or whether or not
they are somebody who are just seeking the fame. ♪♪ The re-enactment will
show whether or not
00:34:47
you did the crime in a way
that is consistent with the physical evidence, and it allows you to be
00:34:53
more sure. ♪♪ -A reconstruction
can be a useful thing to. It enables witnesses' memories
to be jogged.
00:35:01
It sometimes leads
to new evidence, but in this case, I think he got more out of it
than anybody else did.
00:35:08
♪♪ -He was actually kind of
directing on the show, and he was just saying
to cameraman
00:35:17
or where to put lights. "I'm going to stab
from that direction, so the lights shouldn't be here.
00:35:24
You will not see anything,"
and stuff like that. -[ Speaking Polish ] -He was up on a pedestal.
00:35:31
He was important
for that moment. There was a crowd of policemen
around him, a crowd of people,
00:35:36
and, finally,
he could start showing off. ♪♪ -When the policemen asked him, "Does it feel the same
to do it all over again?"
00:35:50
he says, "Well, almost,
but I'm missing just one thing," and policemen ask, "What is it?"
00:35:58
and he said, "Blood." ♪♪ -If there were any doubts
among the police officers as to Kot's guilt,
00:36:06
the young man's reaction during the reconstructions
put them to rest. -It was obvious that he did it
00:36:13
because he made
the reconstruction of all five attacks, and he was saying... He was showing every details,
00:36:21
what exactly he was doing. -[ Speaking Polish ] -He did not show any remorse. He was proud of what he did.
00:36:31
He described
the series of murders. He even showed how he licked
the blood of the blade
00:36:35
after he committed the homicide. -Karol Kot was put on trial in Kraków
on the 3rd of May, 1967.
00:36:49
-Kot killed as a schoolboy, stood trial
for two counts of murder, 10 counts of attempted murder,
00:36:57
four counts of arson all before the age of 20. -In addition to
his knife attacks
00:37:04
on the two children
and three elderly women, Kot was also prosecuted for the many other lives
00:37:10
he was deemed
to have put at risk in his poison and arson attacks. -[ Speaking Polish ]
00:37:17
-Obviously, everybody
was in shock. His whole family and friends
were in shock that such
an innocent-looking person
00:37:24
from such a good family could do such terrible things. -In all, 64 witnesses
testified at the trial.
00:37:35
Many took to the stand to vouch
for the young man's character. -[ Speaking Polish ]
00:37:42
-Initially,
everybody defended him, not only his family,
but even his schoolteachers.
00:37:48
There is a letter in the files written by his
shooting-section trainer that shows his support
for Kot and his innocence.
00:37:59
-But Kot's behavior
in the courtroom shocked both friend and foe. The young man who'd killed
two innocent people
00:38:07
and had attempted
to murder many more relished the limelight. -[ Speaking Polish ]
00:38:14
-He was cheerful. He was laughing. While his friends
were testifying, he was waving to them.
00:38:21
You could see that on the films
shot in the courtroom. He was proud then
that he could perform
00:38:26
almost like an actor, that he was
the center of attention. He was even proud
of what he did.
00:38:34
It horrifies me. -During the trial, Kot displayed disdain for the pain and suffering
he'd inflicted on the innocent.
00:38:47
-At the trial, he just showed
a complete disregard for his victims
and their families.
00:38:52
There was an absolute
lack of remorse, and that doesn't surprise me
whatsoever, because here we have somebody
who only cares about themselves.
00:39:00
If he felt sorry, he would only feel sorry
for himself. He'd only be sorry
that he got caught,
00:39:06
and unfortunately, you're never going
to get sympathy from somebody like this. They don't care about the mayhem
that they create.
00:39:14
They just care about
what it's done for them. -He showed no remorse. There was no apologies
to the victims.
00:39:23
He simply went blank, because he was fulfilling
his own fantasy of himself. He was fulfilling the painting
00:39:31
that he'd always wanted to paint
of his life. This was Kot's creation, and the killings were that.
00:39:38
♪♪ -He didn't ever admit
that he's feeling sorry. He was saying that,
to him, it was moral
00:39:47
because what brings pleasure,
that is moral, and that it was
his private thing, that he was taking
someone else's life,
00:39:57
but he doesn't think
that he is criminal. -Kot soon alienated
his family and friends.
00:40:05
♪♪ -Had he not been caught, I think he would have
just gone on to kill even more people
in even more violent ways.
00:40:15
This is somebody
who enjoyed killing, who enjoyed feeling power
over others. -[ Speaking Polish ]
00:40:23
-When he started to say
that it brought him pleasure, and he would continue to kill,
00:40:28
the voices of support fell away. -Kot confessed in detail
to all of his crimes. -Usually, the perpetrators of
such killings defend themselves,
00:40:43
try to come up
with any line of defense. He did not do that. -After a series of appeals
on the March the 17th, 1968,
00:40:54
Poland's Supreme Court
convicted Karol Kot of two counts of murder, 10 counts of attempted murder,
00:41:01
and four counts of arson. -When he was sentenced, the judge said of him that he was more dangerous
than a savage beast
00:41:14
because he was endowed
with reason. Kot was certainly not insane. He never, for one moment,
expressed an item of regret
00:41:26
or remorse
for any of his victims. -At the age of 21, Kot was sentenced to death.
00:41:35
-On May the 16th, 1968, the 21-year-old Karol Kot was hanged by the neck and executed...
00:41:45
♪♪ ...thereby ending
the story of a boy, and it's fair to call him a boy, who could truly be called one of
the world's most evil killers.
00:41:57
♪♪ -[ Speaking Polish ] -Until the end, even after
he was sentenced to death, he said in an interview that
if he were to be released,
00:42:09
he would kill again. -And Karol Kot
was a psychopath. He knew what he was doing.
00:42:16
He knew that it was wrong. This is somebody
who chose to do evil. He knew the difference
between right and wrong,
00:42:21
and yet he chose
to harm others anyway. -The senseless
and sadistic murder of the most vulnerable
of victims,
00:42:29
an 11-year-old boy and an 86-year-old woman, as well as the attempted
murder of children
00:42:36
and the elderly
whilst still at school makes Karol Kot one of
the world's most evil killers.
00:42:43
♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪