Good evening 🙂 and welcome to my first forgotten killer blog, tonight I will be telling the story of       BELA KISS.

Bela Kiss

He was a handsome guy right 

So firstly I have to say as serial killer names go Bela Kiss has to be up there with the best!

Kiss was born in 1877 to Janos Kiss and Verona Vorga (another fabulous name) in Izsak, in Austria/Hungary as it was known then and sadly that is all that is known about his family and childhood.

So we move on to 1900 when kiss moved to Cinkota which was then on the outskirts of Budapest, he worked as a tinsmith and it was believed that this is when Kiss took up his hobby of astrology and later on occult practises. By 1912 Kiss had been married twice and again little is known about either woman except that his second wife who he had two children with left him for her lover, taking the children with her. It was shortly after this that Kiss hired a housekeeper Mrs Jakubec who later told how her employer corresponded with many women during her time working for him, Kiss would correspond with women through adverts in the newspaper offering his service as a matrimonial agent meaning he would find these women husbands for a small fee of course, he also offered fortune telling and responded to adverts from women looking for a husband, these women he brought home but his housekeeper claimed to have never seen any of the women Kiss brought to the house.

Kiss was liked in his neighbourhood but never looked to become friendly with his neighbours or anyone else for that matter, when one of his neighbours noticed Kiss collecting large barrels in his garden he asked him about them, Kiss responded that he was stockpiling gasoline for the approaching war and no more was said about them, we move on to 1914 when Kiss was conscripted to fight in WW1, he left his house in the care of the loyal Mrs Jakubec and Bela Kiss was never seen again in his hometown of Cinkota.

                                                    Bela Kiss's house in the city of Cinkota

In 1916 police in Budapest received a call from a landlord who was complaining about a large number of barrels being left on one of his properties, his tenant of course was Bela Kiss and although Mrs Jakubec was still caretaking the house and paying the bills with money left by Kiss the landlord wanted them removed from the house. when police arrived in Cinkota the local constable informed them that Kiss's neighbour had told him about the gasoline and asked if he could bring some soldiers to help remove the drums as they needed the gas for their vehicles. when the soldiers began to open one of the barrels to check it was in fact gas they were met with a foul odour, the barrel was opened fully and inside they found the body of a woman pickled in alcohol and in the foetal position, the police from Budapest immediately called for backup and DC Nagy was sent to lead the investigation. 

Nagy ordered the rest of the barrels to be opened ignoring the protests of Mrs Jakubec the housekeeper,

a woman's body was found in each barrel and a thorough search of the house revealed 24 more bodies 23 females and 1 male.

                                                             The barrels in Kiss's garden

All of the victims had been strangled and on each body 2 puncture holes in the neck had been found, the blood had also been drained from each of them giving cause to Kiss's nickname the phantom vampire, it is not known if Kiss drank the blood but because of his connections with the occult police including DC Nagy believed he was a practising vampire.

DC Nagy immediately ordered an arrest warrant for Kiss which was sent to the army and police forces throughout Europe, the faithful Mrs Jakubec was of course arrested but claimed no knowledge of what was in those barrels or the bodies hidden in the house, Kiss had also left her a large amount of money in his will which further incriminated her but she led police to a secret room at the bottom of the house that Kiss had forbidden her to enter. Mrs Jakubec was released without charge as there was no evidence connecting her to these murders (I personally believe she knew or suspected what her employer was up to) Police broke down the secret door and found a room filled with rows and rows of bookcases with a small desk in the corner, the books were all about poison and strangulation, on the desk DC Nagy found hundreds of papers of correspondence between Kiss and women advertising in the newspaper, the oldest letter was from 1903 leading police to believe there may have been many more victims. Kiss had offered to marry many of these women most of whom were middle aged and had money, it was clear Kiss had been defrauding them and 2 of his victims had started court proceedings against him which were of course dropped when these women along with others Kiss had corresponded with disappeared. Kiss had wooed these women (I love that word wooed) promised them marriage then took money from them fraudulently either before or after he killed them.

At the end of 1916  DC Nagy had received word that Kiss was recovering in a hospital in Serbia, police were sent to the hospital but by the time they arrived Kiss had long gone leaving a dead soldier in his bed! Numerous sightings of Kiss were reported over the coming years, in prison for burglary in Romania, died of yellow fever in Turkey, joined the French foreign legion then absconded but none of these tips led to Nagy finding Kiss. 

The last reported sighting of Kiss was in 1932 in New York but this was never confirmed. Bela Kiss's fate and the number of his victims will never be known but for the people of Cinkota they will always remember the phantom vampire.

                                                                    DC Charles Nagy

                                                                     lead investigator

References,

The novel hill house written by Gopi Kottoor was inspired by Kiss's life.

The bloodsucking zombies wrote a song 'Bela Kiss'

The German horror movie 'the kiss of a killer' was a biography of Kiss's crimes.

So that is the tale of Bela Kiss, I hope you've enjoyed this article,if not hey I tried ;) you can follow me on Instagram ForgottenKillersonig where I dish out gruesome, crazy and downright weird daily facts on some of the more famous serial killers out there. If you did enjoy this post please follow my blog and look out for my next instalment of Forgotten Killers, goodnight and stay safe!