Thomas Rung
Serial killer
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5 victims
- Gender
- male
- Country
- Germany
- Location
- Berlin, Germany
- Date of birth
- January 3, 1961
- Age at first offence
- 22
- Characteristics
- rape
- Victim profile
- Melanie Scharnow, 77 / Susanne Matthes, 22 / Frieda Kramer, 85 / Josefine Grosser, 62 / Helga Klinner, 58 / Eckhard Trutti / Gabriele Propper, 34
- Method of murder
- Drowning - S trangulation
- Date(s) of murder
- 1983 - 1995
- Years active
- 1983–1995
- Date of arrest
- February 28, 1995
- Status
-
Life imprisonment
Sentenced to life in prison on March 5,1996
Case Overview
Thomas Rung (born 3 January 1961) was considered one of the most dangerous series murderers in Berlin since the end of the war.
Rung was one of seven children. His mother left the family when he was two years old.
Background
Rung visited a special school. During school time he was noticeable by breakdowns and bodily injury.
Before his arrest in 1995, Rung already had many marks due to different crimes in detention.
The offence
Between 1983 and 1995, Rung killed altogether six women and a man. His victims were raped, drowned, or suffocated by him.
Two of the victims—his landlady and a student—were murdered in 1983 in the “silver stone route” in Berlin.
For Rung’s first murder of his landlady, a suspect was falsely condemned and received a sentence of six years.
Investigation and Arrest
Rung was arrested in 1995.
Afterwards, Rung was arrested in Berlin Moabit, since the penal institution Tegel refused to accept him.
Trial and Sentencing
Rung was condemned one year after his 1995 arrest with lifelong sentences together with following preventive detention.
Rung was in the penal institution Berlin Tegel.
In 2001, while in Berlin Tegel, Rung abused a fellow prisoner and was therefore condemned to additional two years and eight months detention.
In 2003, after Rung hurt another fellow prisoner, who was fatally injured, the citizens of Berlin imposed regional court sentencing in 2004: ten further years detention and a second preventive detention because of tried homicide.
Other details
Rung was considered a series murderer, and his killings were linked over time only with difficulty because of “different proceedings,” so a long time connection between the individual acts could not be manufactured.
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