German Serial Killer Dies After Electrocuting Himself While Masturbating

One of Germany's most notorious serial killers is reported to have died in prison after electrocuting himself while trying to masturbate.

Egedius Schiffer, who murdered five women between 1983 and 1990, died in prison in the city of Bochum on Sunday, reports the Mirror.

The murderer had connected a cable taken from a table lamp to his nipples and penis and then attempted to put it into a socket, causing him to receive a fatal electric shock.

"He removed a cable from his bedside table lamp, then wound it around his nipples and his penis and stuck the end in a power socket," said Candida Tunkel, a spokeswoman for the prison told the Mirror.

Forensic examinations uncovered that he had died of a heart attack brought upon by an electrical current through his chest and ruled out the potential for the incident to be considered suicide.

PA

He was last seen on Saturday around 1pm and prison authorities are now investigating the exact circumstances of his death.

Schiffer has been in Bochum Prison in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia since 2010 and was convicted of the murders of five woman in the 1980s in 2008.

He was serving a life sentence for the murders of five hitchhikers, all female, the first of which took place in 1983.

He was known as the 'Strangler of Aachen' after the west German city, close to the borders with the Netherlands and Belgium, around which he committed the majority of his murders.

Schiffer's MO was to pick up young, female hitchhikers - all of his victims were between 15 and 31 years of age - and then strangle them.

He committed his last confirmed murder in 1990 but remained at large until 2007, when he was arrested and charged with the murders after DNA evidence linked him to the crimes.

PA

He had initially been arrested for stealing scrap metal, but a sample of DNA taken in the investigations of those crimes tied him to the murders.

The trial made headlines all over Germany, with the rape of three of the women later killed and the clearly sadomasochistic inclinations of Schiffer causing widespread tabloid interest in the case.

He was convicted in 2008 and spent the majority of his sentence in Bochum, where he died on Sunday.

Topics: World News, crime

Mike Wood

Mike Meehall Wood is a freelance journalist and translator. He writes for LADbible, VICE and countless sports publications, focusing on rugby league, football and boxing. He is a graduate of Leeds University and maintains a fizzy pop obsession. Contact Mike at [email protected]