Romulus Vereș (

Cluj ; hu, kincses város) , official_name=Cluj-Napoca , native_name= , image_skyline= , subdivision_type1 = County , subdivision_name1 = Cluj County , subdivision_type2 = Status , subdivision_name2 = County seat , settlement_type = City , le ...

, January 23, 1929 –

Ștei Ștei ( hu, Vaskohsziklás) is a town in Bihor County, Crișana, Romania. Between 1958 and 1996, it was named ''Dr. Petru Groza'', after the Romanian socialist leader who died in 1958. History The town was founded in 1952, near a village of ...

, December 13, 1993) was a notorious

serial killer A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A * * * * with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...

from Romania, better known as "The Man with the Hammer". During the 1970s, he was charged with five murders and several attempted murders, but never imprisoned on grounds of insanity; he had

schizophrenia Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by continuous or relapsing episodes of psychosis. Major symptoms include hallucinations (typically hearing voices), delusions, and disorganized thinking. Other symptoms include social wit ...

, blaming the

Devil A devil is the personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that the different conceptions of ...

for his actions. Instead, he was institutionalised in the

psychiatric facility in 1976, following a three-year-long

forensic Forensic science, also known as criminalistics, is the application of science to criminal and civil laws, mainly—on the criminal side—during criminal investigation, as governed by the legal standards of admissible evidence and criminal p ...

investigation during which four thousand people were questioned.

Urban myth An urban legend (sometimes contemporary legend, modern legend, urban myth, or urban tale) is a genre of folklore comprising stories or fallacious claims circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or a family m ...

s brought the number of victims up to 200 women, but the actual number was much smaller. This confusion probably is explained by the lack of attention this case received, despite its magnitude, in the Communist press of the time.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Veres, Romulus 1929 births 1993 deaths 20th-century criminals Male serial killers People from Cluj-Napoca People with schizophrenia Romanian rapists Romanian serial killers Violence against women in Romania

See also

Notes