Good evening everyone and welcome to Forgotten killers.

Tonight I will be telling the tale of Karl Denke, the cannibal of Ziebice.

This is the only picture of Karl Denke taken after his death.

Karle Denke was born in February 1860 in Munsterberg in the kingdom of Prussia, now in Poland.

 He was raised on a farm and little is known about his childhood except that he was a shy, quiet and soft spoken child who was difficult to raise, at the age of 12 Denke ran away from home. He graduated high school though and got an apprenticeship as a gardener, he made a life for himself from this. At 25 Denke's father passed away and although the farm and property was left to his older brother (who's name I could not find anywhere!) he left Denke a sum of money which he invested in land and began farming like his family before him, this however didn't last long Denke failed and had to sell the land. With the money he had left Denke brought himself a house but again this didn't end well when inflation forced him to sell up once again but Denke refused to move off the property and lived in a small apartment adjoining his old house.

The small apartment that Denke moved into after selling his house.

Denke made a living from the shop he had purchased with the money left over from the sale of his farm, he sold meat and was a popular man in the town of Ziebice as it is now know, he was well liked and volunteered at his local church as a cross bearer and organist, he was affectionately referred to as 'Papa' but in 1906 he quit his duties at the church and concentrated on his shop.

 In 1909 a woman who worked at a local slaughter house was found dead, consequently a man named Eduard Trautman was found guilty of her murder and sent to prison.15 years later in 1924 a homeless man was found in the street with a large gash to his head he was taken to the local authorities where he named his attacker as Karl Denke he claimed Denke offered him a warm meal and a bed for the night only to be attacked by Denke with an axe, the man was lucky to escape. Karl Denke was arrested and after police searched his home the gruesome truth of his seemingly ordinary life was uncovered. Denke's home was full of human remains, bones  meat and skin, he also kept a ledger of people, presumably of those he had killed, the local girl from the slaughter house name was on the list and after all those years in prison Eduard Trautman was finally cleared and released.

Police pieced together what they had found at Denke's home and concluded his first victim was in 1903, since then it was unknown how many victims there were except those written in the ledger which totalled 30 but the amount of bones and body parts in Denke's home would make the total much higher, it was also concluded that Denke had sold human flesh in his meat shop as well as consuming it himself hence the name the cannibal of Ziebice. Denke had picked his victims from the most unfortunate and vulnerable group of people the homeless and the poor, very few were missed and even if they were reported to the police it wasn't high on their priorities looking for  missing homeless men! he would offer them warmth and food then bludgeon them with his axe, cut up the body and store it in his pantry.

The tools Denke used to kill and butcher his victims

A report of some of what police found in Denke's home consisted of

16 femurs

15 medium sized long bones

4 pairs of elbows

1 pair of upper shin bones

1 pair of lower arms with hands attached

1 pair of upper arms

2 shoulder blades

8 pairs of heel and ankle bones

120 toes

65 feet

and 150 pieces of ribs

Just some of the human remains found in Denke's house

Karl Denke hung himself 2 days after he was arrested so the people of Ziebice will never know what drove a seemingly ordinary well liked man to carry out such horrific crimes, little is known about his private life, he never married and the saying 'you never know what goes on behind close doors' is quite apt in this case whatever his reasons the little town in Poland will always bear the scars of the cannibal of Ziebice,

KARL DENKE.

I hope you all enjoyed my second instalment of Forgotten killers, please follow my blog and check out my Instagram page    Forgottenkillersonig     where I dish out daily facts on some of the more well known serial killers out there. I will be posting weekly so see you next time on Forgotten Killers, stay safe :)