Probably one of the most difficult years of the communist era, 1971 was a year of terror for Bucharest residents. We are not referring to Nicolae Ceaușescu’s visit to North Korea, although that took place simultaneously, but rather to the infamous “Vampire of Bucharest”: Ion Rîmaru.
For a year, the 24-year-old veterinary medicine student terrorized the entire population of the capital with his crimes, targeting women in particular. Midnight became the peak time for his attacks, and any woman who ventured out on the streets during a night of bad weather risked becoming a victim of his bouts of sadism and cannibalism. Four women were killed, in such atrocious ways that it is difficult to describe without provoking a visceral reaction. According to the autopsies of the time, the crimes involved acts of rape and necrophilia. Over time, Rîmaru was labeled as a “vampire,” and a year after his arrest, psychiatrist Tudorel Butoi even used the term “clinical lycanthropy” to describe his disorder. The assailant stalked his victims for entire nights, to the point where he could recognize them just by the sound of their footsteps on the pavement.
We often imagine the communist era, especially from the perspective of the 1980s, as being characterized by severe restrictions, including the prohibition of groups of more than three or four people on the street. However, the early 1970s were marked by a different kind of terror: the fear of being alone on the street after a certain hour, especially in Bucharest. Women started dyeing their hair so they wouldn’t appear blonde under the dim light of the night, trying to avoid becoming targets. The trauma of those days was deep and long-lasting.
Rîmaru was caught and taken to Jilava due to a lost medical exemption note, which he had left with part of his identification details on the very night he planned to kill his last victim. Despite admitting all of the assault, his final words before execution were: “Call my father. He is to blame. I want to live!”, leaving room for many questions. These eventually led to the discovery of another serial killer: his father, Florea Rîmaru, responsible for murders during the summer of 1944. The same father who washed his son’s bloodstained clothes.
Unfortunately, transparency disappears completely here. In 1972, Florea Rîmaru was found dead, allegedly after falling from a train. To this day, it has not been officially confirmed whether he was killed by the Securitate, but reasonable suspicions still persist in the memory of the capital and are even circulated today.
