The Inn of the Man Slayer

The date is June 1, 1583. It was a warm summer evening when a well-dressed nobleman, who had just arrived from Prague in his four-horse carriage, took a room at the innkeeper Greger Rühel’s, as it was still three and a half miles to the Danube metropolis of Vienna. This inn was located below the Enns River and had been run by the innkeeper for many years, who was famous for his pork dishes. The meat came from young pigs, which made it particularly delicious. The nobleman asked Rühel for food and drink before he wanted to go to sleep. The innkeeper was only too happy to fulfill this request. Meanwhile, the nobleman’s servants took care of the horses. After the nobleman had refreshed himself, he asked the innkeeper to show him to his room. On the way there, they had to pass through three rooms. The innkeeper unlocked the fourth room, went inside, and asked the squire to enter. When the squire complied with the innkeeper’s request, the innkeeper pushed him into a deep pit, where he died. The innkeeper returned to his tavern, where the squire’s servants were already waiting and asking about their master. The innkeeper replied that their master was already asleep, whereupon the servants asked the innkeeper for a jug of wine. The servants received this, and when it was drunk, they were brought another jug. However, the house servant had poisoned this one, so that the servants died. With that, all witnesses were eliminated. But that night, three other mercenaries had also taken lodgings at the innkeeper’s, and the next morning they were surprised to find that although the horses and the carriage were standing outside the door, there was no trace of the squire and his servants. The inn belonged to the Greitzenstein district, so the servants consulted the squire of Rühl in Greitzenstein and told him about the mysterious disappearance of the nobleman and his servants. The squire believed the mercenaries and assembled a hundred-strong troop with whom he visited Greger Rühel’s inn on the evening of June 16, 1583. They arrested the innkeeper and locked him in the dungeon in Greitzenstein, where after eight days he confessed to having murdered and robbed 185 people. Each time, he led his victims through three chambers; when he had lured them into the fourth chamber, he pushed them into a deep pit. If they were not dead on the spot, he threw powder and fire on them so that they suffocated. After they were dead, he took them out of the pit, took their valuables, and slaughtered them like pigs. He cooked the best pieces of meat and served them to his guests, claiming that it was meat from young pigs, which was particularly tender. This was the secret behind Rühel’s highly praised pork dishes, which were in fact prepared with human flesh that he had chopped up himself. Gregrer Rühel was a brutal murderer whose last wish before his execution was to know how much money he had amassed through his robberies and murders. His gold and money were worth an impressive 35,000 guilders, plus goods worth 33,000 guilders. But all his wealth was now of no use to him. He was given a gruesome punishment for his horrific crimes. Over a period of eight days, one limb was cut from his body each day. He was then placed on a cart, where pieces of flesh were torn from his body with red-hot tongs. Finally, he was impaled alive and then killed by the executioner. Incidentally, the most famous proponent of this method of torture by impalement and staking was Vlad the Impaler, the historical Prince Dracul. After the execution of Greger Rühel, which had attracted many onlookers, a violent storm arose and tore Greger Rühel away from the stake. No one knew where he had been blown to. But when the executioner came to the execution site on the third day after his execution, Rühel was back on the stake, his face turned to his back. Thus ended the life of the brutal murderer Greger Rühel in agony.