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Welcome to the Serial Killer Podcast. The podcast dedicated to serial killers. Who they were, what they did and how. Episode 184.
I am your Norwegian host, Tomas Roseland Weyborg Thun. Tonight I wish to thank a very special listener, Ms. Marlita Vex. She was kind enough to tell me about none other than a true Eastern European serial killer superstar.
Here in the West, the name probably means nothing to nobody. Our Western media is, unfortunately, almost exclusively interested in covering events happening in the West, especially when it comes to crime. So I am always very happy to accept tips from my dear listeners from all over the world regarding serial killers not featured on the Serial Killer podcast previously.
Tonight, we thus travel east to the ancient country of Romania. I have actually covered a killer from Romania before, namely the blood countess herself, Archibet Bathory. Back then, it wasn't strictly Romania, but the massive empire of Austria-Hungary. In this episode, however, we find ourselves in a more modern time period.
The killer is perhaps not as bloodthirsty as old Erzsibet, but he was extremely wicked, shockingly evil, and vile nonetheless. I am of course talking about none other than Ion Rimaru, the butcher of Bucharest, murderer of at least four human beings. Enjoy.
As always, I want to publicly thank my elite TSK Producers Club. Their names are: Amy, Boo, Brenda, Cassandra, Kristy, Cody, Colleen, Connor, Corbin, Craig, Sid, Derek, Emily, Fawn, James, Jennifer, John, Johnny, Jonathan, Caitlin, Kathy, Christina, Kylie, Lance, Lisa,
You are the backbone of the Serial Killer podcast, and without you, there would be no show.
You have my deepest gratitude. Thank you. I am forever grateful for my elite TSK Producers Club, and I want to show you that your patronage is not given in vain. All TSK episodes will be available 100% ad-free to my TSK Producers Club on patreon.com slash the serial killer podcast.
No generic ads, no ad reads, no jingles. I promise. And of course, if you wish to donate $15 a month, that's only $7.50 per episode, you are more than welcome to join the ranks of the TSK Producers Club too. So don't miss out and join now. ♪♪♪
Imagine, if you will, Deleuze. A land beyond the Iron Curtain. It is the late 1960s, and everything seemed to be sort of grey and matte. Rain, concrete, secret police and totalitarianism. Hell on earth. The country is the Socialist Republic of Romania.
In March of 1965, the former People's Republic of Romania got itself a new supreme leader. His name lives on in infamy: Nicolae Ceausescu. Upon his rise to power, he eased press censorship and openly condemned the Kremlin-controlled Warsaw Pact in his famous speech held on the 28th of August 1968.
The speech resulted in a surge in popularity among a populace starved and hungry for freedom. However, the resulting period of stability was brief, as his government soon became totalitarian and was considered the most repressive in the entire Eastern Bloc at the time.
His secret police, the Securitate, was responsible for mass surveillance as well as severe oppression and human rights abuses within the country. It almost goes without saying that he had complete control over the media. But the people of Romania would soon face even worse tragedy than a totalitarian murderous dictator.
in the spring and early summer of nineteen seventy particularly april and may that saw a combination of unusual and extreme weather conditions torrential rains were accompanied by high winds and a heat wave which melted the frozen ice-fields of the carpathian mountain tops yes dear listener the very same carpathian mountains the mythical count dracula resides in
In the first weeks of May, the rivers rising in the Carpathians or flowing down from the high ground into the Danube began to overflow, signaling the start of a terrible disaster. The Danube is Europe's second longest river, after the Volga in Russia. The river crosses 10 European countries before draining into the Black Sea. The river causes floods every year,
but not every year can compare with what happened in romania in nineteen seventy during one month the floods killed more than two hundred people drowned over a thousand cattle and farm animals and destroyed thousands of homes
Approximately 250,000 Romanians were left homeless as a result of the extreme flooding. Low-lying villages were evacuated. The majority of farmland was inundated, and the country's already meager industry went into a deeper recession. After two weeks, the waters finally receded. But just as people started to have hope of a better future,
The rain returned, and the floods came back once again. It was three weeks before the floodwater finally began to retreat properly, and the destitute populace could begin the arduous work of rebuilding their country. Ceausescu used the catastrophe for all it was worth in his propaganda to solidify his grip on the country.
But in the shadow of all these great tumultuous events, a killer emerged. A killer more dangerous than the country had seen for perhaps hundreds of years. The Rimaru family had its origins in Valachia. Yes, dear listener, these places ring familiar to me as well. Valachia, or Valachia, was the very same area where Bathory operated.
Her husband was Prince of Transylvania, Wallachia and Moldovia, several hundred years before the advent of the Rimaru bloodline. More precisely, the Rimarus hailed from Lesser Wallachia, today known as Oltenia, a patch of land lying between the Danube, the southern Carpathian Mountains and the Olt River.
The area was under Ottoman control from the 15th century all the way up until 1859, when the Kingdom of Romania came into existence. Due to Ottoman occupation, a very famous, or should I say infamous, figure also came to fame in this very region. Vlad Tepes was his name. More commonly, he is known as Vlad the Impaler.
or simply Dracula from his Order of the Dragon. Unlike in the movies, the Order of the Dragon was not dedicated to Satan. The opposite was the case. The Order of the Dragon was a monarchical order for selected nobility, created in Austria-Hungary in the late Middle Ages. The order required its initiates to defend the Christian cross and fight the enemies of Christianity.
Vlad Tepes' father, Vlad II Dracul, was a founding member of the Order of the Dragon. Hence his son was called Dracula, which can be translated as "Son of the Dragon". Dracula is considered a national hero in Romania for his robust defense of the nation against Ottoman invaders.
There are several books written about him, and I, dear listener, could probably go on and on for hours about him. I shall not bore you with too much history, however, but grant me one story regarding old Vlad. The Ottomans tried to conquer westward into continental Europe after their conquest of Constantinople in 1453.
The Ottomans were Muslim, so their war against Europe was in many ways a religious war, as well as a war of conquest. Wallachia was one of the main battlefields in this war, and territory was won and lost back and forth between the Christian nations to the west and the Muslim invaders from the east. Vlad Tepes was a warlord in this war, and he was known for his extreme brutality.
his favorite method of executing enemies foreign and domestic was impalement this entailed the doomed prisoner being stripped naked and bound on the ground
A long, sharpened stake was then forced into the anus of the prisoner and up into his or her stomach. The stake would then be straightened up so that the prisoner slowly would slide down on it, slowly dying as the stake pierced their body until it would exit their torso or mouth.
Vlad, aka Dracula, would, after a successful battle with Ottomans, impale hundreds of Ottoman prisoners of war. Their howling bodies, hanging on spikes as they slowly died, formed a literal forest. The Ottoman warlord, who came to avenge the loss, stopped dead in his tracks when him and his army was faced with this forest.
hundreds of their countrymen on spikes, rotting in the warm weather, crows feasting on their eyes. Dracula's message was quite clear. Ottomans were not welcome. The army retreated, deciding to fight another day, preferably against someone other than Vlad Tepes. It seems almost as if there is something about the area that breeds a particularly ruthless type of leader.
Centuries after the reign of Dracula, during the first decades of the 20th century, Oltenia could display a distinct pattern of leaders who were radical, ruthless, and unfailingly violent. The only authority they respected was the type backed up by extreme violence. A good example of such a leader, from the same town, Caracal,
Where the Rimaru family originated was George Argejanu, who was appointed Prime Minister by King Carol II in 1938. Among his first actions were the public display of convicted assassins' bodies, as well as the arrest and trial as execution of three fascist party members.
Caracal was a hard town in a hard region, fostering hard people. Nicoray Ceausescu was one such person. Florea Rimaru was another. Little is known about Florea Rimaru's early life before he was recruited into the army. While most people born in Caracal tried to move away to more civilized areas such as Bucharest, Florea Rimaru stayed.
He fought in World War II and survived, which for an Eastern European soldier was impressive in itself. After the war, Florea married Ekaterina, who took his surname. Their marriage was not a happy one. Florea drank heavily and regularly beat his wife. He had no professional skills aside from being a soldier, and the couple was dirt poor.
After a few years, they moved away from Karakal into Korabia, a small Danube port facing Bulgaria on the other side of the river. After the traumas of World War II, Florea was bored, depressed, and angry. He did have sex with his wife, though, and the union produced a son on the 12th of October 1946. His name was Ion.
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This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. As a family man with three kids, I know firsthand how extremely difficult it is to make time for self-care. But it's good to have some things that are non-negotiable. For some, that could be a night out with the boys, chugging beers and having a laugh. For others, it might be an eating night.
For me, one non-negotiable activity is researching psychopathic serial killers and making this podcast. Even when we know what makes us happy, it's often near impossible to make time for it. But when you feel like you have no time for yourself, non-negotiables like therapy are more important than ever.
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Visit BetterHelp.com slash SerialKiller today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash SerialKiller. The Rimarus lived in 109 Timmish Street, a house belonging to Ekaterina's parents. Timmish Street was a side street of small and largely dilapidated properties.
After Eon was born, two more children followed named Cornell, a boy, and Georgetta, a girl. Eon was a sickly boy from early on. At the age of six, he was treated for pneumonia, and when he turned 16, he was committed to hospital with hepatitis. At age 18, while he was serving in the army, he contracted gastritis and was sent to hospital in Progetti.
where he spent two months being treated for stomach ulcers. In addition to being sickly, Ion Rimaru had a difficult and troubled childhood. He was punished repeatedly at school for his inability to complete school assignments. He was given to violent outbursts of anger and was known to torment and kill small animals.
When his mother reprimanded him for his behavior, he responded by being extremely rude to her, mimicking his father's mistreatment of her. He was forced to repeat the ninth grade, which would have been a humiliating experience. As puberty struck, he had sex with a pubescent virgin girl who had a crush on him. She was the daughter of a primary school teacher, and the affair became a local scandal.
Eon was severely punished by his father and grew even more isolated from his peers. In 1964, when Eon was 18, he was arrested for his part in the theft of some melons from the local state warehouse. The charge was aggravated theft, since Eon attacked and beat the watchman who discovered him stealing. The verdict? Five months' imprisonment.
Towards the end of the 60s, the relationship between Ion's parents grew worse and worse. Florea claimed his wife was unfaithful. He also moved to Bucharest, in the Floreasca district. In 1966, Ion followed his father and also moved to Bucharest. By the spring of 1970, Ion Rimaru had been a student at the veterinary school for four years.
He had been forced to retake his second year, and was in the process of repeating his third year. He was a dreadfully poor student. He was described by his professors as shy and semi-literate, with a very poor vocabulary and an extremely narrow set of interests. He neglected his studies and absented himself from most of his classes.
He made no close friends, and his colleagues found his behavior strange, unpredictable, and sometimes frightening. The following is the witness statement of Florica Marcoux, who had a close encounter with Rimaru. I quote, I have worked as a waitress at the student canteen since 1952. I know the majority of the students by sight.
During the autumn of 1969, I don't recall the exact date, I went to visit a friend of mine in Bucharest in order to watch a program on television. Around 9.30 p.m., I left my friend's place because I was feeling tired and I had to go to work the next day. While I was waiting for tram number two to arrive at the Shizhmigyur stop, I noticed I was being watched intensely by a young man.
When I looked closer at him, I realized he was one of the students who took his meals at my canteen. Later on, I found out his name was Ion Rimaru. When I looked back at him, he said, "'I kiss your hand in greeting.' And I asked him if he was from the veterinary school. At that moment, he rushed at me and held me tightly by the right forearm. I freed my arm and didn't talk to him any longer.'
When tram number two arrived, I climbed on board without noticing the young man had also boarded the tram. When I noticed, I asked him if he was going my way. He didn't answer, but looked at me all the time. When I got off the tram, I noticed that the young man had also got off, starting to follow me. He was walking two steps behind me, without saying anything.
During this time I tried to walk on other streets as well, around my home, because I was afraid that if he saw where I lived, he would come the next day and break into the house. This chase continued until around 11 p.m., when I managed to hide in the middle of some cars which were parked, and I could see from there that the young man had lost my trail and was extremely desperate to find me.
While he was following me, I tried to tell him that I was living with my mother, that I was in no mood for what he wanted. But all this time he said nothing, only stared at me. The young man dressed in dark clothes, with a ski-type coat, and had his hands in his pockets. The next day I told my colleagues about what had happened, and my colleague, Chiumencu Elena, told me that the young man, in question, is a villain.
She had caught him on repeated occasions coming with fake meal tickets, and he swore at her once because she refused to give him a meal. End quote. During 1969, Rimaru's behavior grew more and more strange and threatening, especially towards young women. During the holidays, he worked on the docks where he maintained a semblance of normality towards his other working men.
so it was that we come to the ninth of may nineteen seventy it had been raining that night and at thirty past midnight elena oprea had left the padurea banaeza restaurant where she worked she was walking towards the piata jvantul georgia square
From there she would usually take the night bus to the stop next to the Circle de Stade, and from there it was a short walk along the boulevard, before she came to No. 40, Törnöl Eifel, where she lived. She was known as Nutzi to her friends and family, and was a week short of her twenty-sixth birthday.
A week earlier, Elena had a frightening experience when a young man had followed her, riding with her on the bus, and followed her as she went off the bus and walked towards her home. On that occasion, she had been terrified, and had swung her handbag at the man's face before running away. Luckily, the man disappeared then, but the experience had put a fright in her.
This night she reached her home at number 40 at 2.20 a.m. when she heard the rapid footsteps behind her. She turned around and screamed just before the assailant struck her. He hit her several times to the head with a metal rod. At the same time, with his other hand, he stabbed her repeatedly with a knife, causing massive bleeding and extreme pain and shock.
Elena screamed and screamed in utter terror and agony as Eon bludgeoned her to the ground. Some neighbors woke up from the ruckus outside, but no one did anything, thinking it was just some kids messing about. A man named Kovachev reportedly saw and heard a man say, and I quote, "'Are you dead?' before he walked away."
Kovachev then went into the yard, where he saw a woman on the pavement and realized it was his neighbor Elena. She was conscious and begged to be taken inside and put on a bed, since she did not want to die lying on the pavement outside. An ambulance was called at 3 a.m. Elena was picked up at 3.30 a.m. and brought to the hospital. Several hours later, she died.
One month later, June of 1970, Bucharest. Imagine the dreary greyness of totalitarian Cold War era Romania. Yes, of course it was raining, and the wind had a bite to it, even though it was supposedly summer. Konstantin David Tisha Street is one street among many, forming a maze of little streets that you can easily get lost in.
The clock was thirty past one a.m., and almost no one was out, leaving the streets virtually empty. This was a poor area in a poor city, so the streetlights were spaced out far and between one another, leaving the streets at this time looking murky and dark. Beautiful young Florica Marcoux, aged twenty-one, rented a house on this street.
She worked as a waitress, and was recently separated from her husband, and had sole care of a young child. This night she had worked the late shift at a Marzagetti restaurant, and was on her way home. Just as poor Elena had done, Florica took the night bus to the Piatta Gvantul, Georgia, in order to catch the bus going to her area. While waiting at the bus stop,
she chatted with a female friend who at one point noticed and told florica that a young man was ogling her this alarmed florica because even though she was used to young men giving her attention this man seemed very odd and threatening he did not speak to her and the week prior he had followed her on to the night bus before disappearing
This time it did not look like the man would follow her on the bus, so she sighed in relief and continued alone on her commute home. As she got onto Constantine David Tisha Street, she quickly walked towards her building, number 75. But just as she was about to cross the street and enter her home, a man rushed at her.
She managed to let out a blood-curdling scream of terror before the man pummeled her savagely in the head, causing her to pass out. The man, Eon, carried her back along the road to an adjacent street, Georgia Missile Street. There he laid her down next to a large lorry, and then she woke up, staring terrified at him as he loomed over her with a knife in his hand.
He demanded that she take off her underwear, and she complied. Amazingly, there were several witnesses to the event who had woken up from her screams. None of them did anything to help her. After she had removed her underwear, he picked her up again and moved her to a nearby cemetery, Gvanta Vineri. He forced her to kneel on a freshly dug grave as he positioned himself behind her.
"'Then he made her swear to take him as her husband, "'that she would tell no one what had happened that night, "'and told her that she would meet him again soon. "'She mumbled her agreement "'before he made her take off the rest of her clothes. "'She was completely naked. "'He raped her over and over again, "'savagely tearing her vagina and beating her. "'After he had ejaculated inside her, "'he did not bother using any protection,
he bit her bloody on her buttocks and on the inside of her left thigh he dressed himself and ordered the battered and traumatized florica to do the same he led her back towards her home street but just before they reached her home he stopped her
Then he told her to stretch out her arm, which he grabbed and quickly sliced open three places with his knife, causing immense pain and immediate heavy bleeding. Bit down on the wounds and sucked the blood like a vampire. Again he made her promise to meet him the next day at 2 p.m. outside the clothing store. She agreed, desperate to be free of her attacker.
He then bid her good night and left the bleeding half-naked woman to stumble her way back home. A lorry almost ran her over as she jumped out in front of it, waving her arms in order for it to stop and help her. She was not taken to the hospital, but to the local militia station, where she was interviewed by the local communist militiamen.
After showing them where the attack had happened, and told them all she could about the attacker, she was allowed to go to the hospital.
Whoa, easy there. Yeah.
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And so ends part one in the saga of Ion Rimaru. Next episode will continue his tale. So as they say in the land of radio, stay tuned. What follows is a message to my dear Norwegian listeners in Norwegian. Som du kanskje har fått med deg er Seriemodepodden lansert for flere uker siden, og episodene kommer ut ann hver uke.
Episode 3 and 4 in the saga about Jeffrey Dahmer is available at the same time you listen to this. As they say in Radioland, follow along. Finally, I wish to thank you, dear listener, for listening.
If you like this podcast, you can support it by donating on patreon.com slash theserialkillarpodcast, by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, facebook.com slash theskpodcast, or by posting on the subreddit theskpodcast. Thank you, good night, and good luck.
