Kuno Hofmann
Murderer
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- Gender
- male
- Country
- Germany
- Location
- Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany
- Date of birth
- 1931
- Age at first offence
- 41
- Characteristics
- history of mental illness, necrophilia, rape
- Victim profile
- Markus Adler, 24, and his fiancee Ruth Lissy, 18
- Method of murder
- Shooting
- Date(s) of murder
- May 6, 1972
- Years active
- 1972
- Date of arrest
- 4 days after
- Status
-
Life imprisonment
Sentenced to life in prison, 1972
Case overview
Kuno Hofmann was a German labourer who was deaf mute. He was born in 1931.
He had a traumatic childhood in which he was beaten so severely by his alcoholic father that he lost the powers of speech and hearing. He spent nine years in mental institutions.
After being imprisoned for nine years on theft charges, he emerged with an obsession for self-improvement via the occult “sciences.” Hofmann read widely on Satanism and black magic, focusing compulsively on rituals involving necrophilia and vampirism.
The offence
The police and morgue attendants compared notes on a series of grave robberies in April 1971 across Germany.
At least five bodies were exhumed and gnawed upon, and evidence of sex attempted in the case of female corpses was described.
Seeking fresher victims, Hofmann later shot and killed three victims, drinking blood from each and pausing to molest the lifeless bodies.
In May 1972, a morgue attendant surprised Hofmann in the act of kissing a cadaver. Kuno drew a pistol, but his shot went wild. A surviving witness offered a description to police.
Hofmann then decided on a new approach by finding two young lovers in a car, shooting them dead, and drinking the blood from their wounds.
Investigation and evidence
Police records described at least 35 occasions between 1971 and 1972 when Hofmann forced entry into graveyards and mortuaries near his home in Nuremberg.
Hofmann made copies of the keys to the local cemetery where he stole among the tombstones, heading for fresh graves.
He chose victims from death notices in the newspapers and methodically made his way to a new corpse. He stabbed into corpses with razor blades or a knife. Sometimes he cut the head off, and sometimes he drank the blood.
He explained from his prison cell that he did it to make himself “good looking and strong”.
In the May 1972 incident involving the morgue attendant, the witness provided a description to police after Hofmann’s shot went wild.
Arrest and confession
After arrest in the dragnet, Hofmann readily confessed.
He drew a term of life imprisonment for murder.
While waiting for his transfer to a federal penitentiary, he pestered jailers with requests for one last sip of virgin’s blood.
Sentencing
In 1972, Hofmann was sentenced to life in prison for murder.
People
- Kuno Hofmann — defendant
- Markus Adler (24) — victim
- Ruth Lissy (18) — victim
Quotes
“good looking and strong”
“to make himself ‘good looking and strong’”
“It made him happy, he told police”
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