Pawel Tuchlin, whose eight-year serial murder spree earned him the nickname “the Scorpion”, was hanged on this date in 1987 — the second-last execution in Poland’s history.
The classic quiet-neighbor-we-never-saw-it-coming type, farmer Tuchlin authored 20 sex attacks on young women in the vicinity of Gdansk from 1975 to 1983. Eleven of the victims survived their ordeals, but a bloodied hammer recovered from Tuchlin’s farm testified to the horror of the nine deaths to his name.
After confessing the crimes, Tuchlin attempted to retract the admission — and upon sentencing in 1985 he anticipated O.J. Simpson by a decade with his vow, “If I am released, I will search for the murderer to the end of my life.”
On this day..
- 1537: John and Margaret Bulmer, Bigod's rebels
- 1798: The Carnew executions
- 1425: Murdoch Stewart, Duke of Albany
- 1940: Julien Vervaecke, Tour de France cyclist
- 1726: James Stephens and Patrick Barnel, broadsided
- 1849: Washington Goode
- 1721: Joseph Hanno, "miserable African"
- 1872: Communards Serizier, Boin and Boudin
- 1911: Laura and Lawrence Nelson lynched
- 1946: Marcel Petiot, Vichy serial killer
- 1948: Witold Pilecki, Auschwitz infiltrator
- 1979: John Spenkelink, the harbinger