The Butter Sandwich Killer
One of the most ruthless serial killers in German criminal history is Klaus O., better known as the Butter Sandwich Killer. Between 2015 and 2018, this 57-year-old father of two poisoned the lunch sandwiches of his colleagues at the Ari fittings company in the town of Schloß Holte-Strukenbrock in North Rhine-Westphalia with highly toxic substances, not only to revel in their suffering, but also to find out how the various poisons worked. Klaus O. had set up a laboratory in the basement of his house where he mixed the various poisons. The poison mixtures he concocted there were worse than the chemical weapons used in World War I. He packed them into paper envelopes and took them with him to work. Then he hid the poisonous paper bags in his file folder. When no one was in the break room, he tampered with his colleagues’ lunch boxes and sprinkled the powder on their sandwiches until he was caught on video in 2018. The company’s works council and management had arranged for this after 28-year-old Simon R. noticed that there were always crumbs on his lunch and that he had been vomiting constantly for some time. His 57-year-old colleague Udo B. had also been suffering from severe cramps and stomach bleeding for some time. In addition, in 2016, 26-year-old student Nick N., who had been working at the factory during his semester break, was hospitalized with severe mercury methyl poisoning, even though the fittings company did not use mercury. He has been in a persistent vegetative state ever since and will remain in need of long-term care. Udo B. also took early retirement due to his severe poisoning and now has to undergo dialysis three times a week for six hours. Simon R. still suffers from severe kidney damage. No one had the slightest suspicion about Klaus O., who was considered a loner but had been doing his job conscientiously for almost four decades and was always polite. He was indeed a wolf in sheep’s clothing, abusing his colleagues as guinea pigs for his experiments with toxic heavy metals. In March 2019, the Bielefeld Regional Court sentenced Klaus O. to life imprisonment and subsequent preventive detention. In July 2020, the Bielefeld Labor Court ordered Klaus O. to pay €1 million in compensation to the victims.
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