It was shortly after midnight on the 9th of April, 1971, in Bucharest. Twenty-four-year-old waitress Gheorghița Popa [Ghe-or-GHEE-tsa PO-pa] had just finished her late shift at a downtown restaurant. She said goodnight to her colleagues and stepped out into the damp spring air.
It was quiet in the Vulturul Roșu district. The rain had passed, but mist still clung to the ground. Pale streetlamps buzzed above, their flickering light casting long shadows across the pavement. Gheorghița pulled her coat tighter and began the walk home.
She never made it.
The next morning, her body was discovered in a narrow alley. She had been bludgeoned, stabbed 48 times, and mutilated. Her ribs were broken. Her genitalia had been torn away. Some wounds showed clear signs of human bite marks—chunks of flesh torn off and spat out nearby.
It was savage. Animalistic. And disturbingly familiar.
This was not the first murder. It wouldn’t be the last.
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The case:
In 1971, Bucharest was a city under the grip of Nicolae Ceaușescu's communist regime. The capital of Romania was home to nearly two million people, living in a surveillance state controlled by the Securitate, the secret police. Life was difficult. Food shortages were common, and the economy struggled. People lived in crowded apartment blocks, worked long hours in state-run factories, and learned to keep their heads down.
The streets were poorly lit at night, public transport was unreliable, and after dark, the city could be a dangerous place. Women who worked late shifts, like waitresses and factory workers, often had no choice but to walk home alone through dimly lit neighbourhoods. It was in this atmosphere of fear and scarcity that a killer began to hunt.
The Vulturul Roșu murder increased anxiety in Bucharest. Gheorghița Popa was not the first victim of this vicious killer. Over the previous twelve months, a series of violent attacks had unfolded across the city, each one escalating in savagery.
The first had come nearly a year earlier, on the night of the 8th of April, 1970. The victim, 26-year-old Elena Oprea, was assaulted as she approached the front steps of her apartment building. The killer struck her with a blunt object, fracturing her skull. She died at the scene. There was no clear motive: no robbery, no sign of sexual assault. Just sudden and overwhelming violence.
At the time, police believed it may have been a crime of opportunity, perhaps a burglary gone wrong. They couldn't have known it marked the beginning of a killing spree that would span more than a year.
Two months later, in the early hours of the 2nd of June, another young woman, waitress Florica Marcu, was attacked near her home. She had just finished her shift and was walking alone when she was struck from behind. The attacker dragged her, unconscious, to the nearby Sfânta Vineri cemetery. There, he raped her, stabbed her repeatedly, and in a disturbing twist, bit her in multiple places, puncturing her skin and sucking blood from the wounds.
Miraculously, Florica survived. The unexpected arrival of a passing truck driver had scared the attacker off. Her statement, taken from her hospital bed, was the first time investigators heard of the biting. At the time, it seemed too grotesque to be believable.
But as more bodies appeared, the evidence could no longer be dismissed.
In September, another waitress was attacked, bludgeoned and mutilated in almost the exact same way. By November, two more women had been assaulted. Both lived, but were left severely injured. Each one described a man who came out of nowhere, often in bad weather, and attacked with shocking violence. Several mentioned being followed for blocks before it happened.
The city began to take notice.
It was not just the number of attacks, but their brutality. Victims were often sexually assaulted and subjected to brutal violence. Some were left completely undressed. Others were found with pieces of clothing carefully cut away. A few bore unmistakable bite marks, large enough to leave dental impressions. In some cases, pieces of flesh were missing entirely.
There was no discernible pattern. The women did not know one another. The locations varied, as did the timing. But a few elements remained constant: the attacks almost always took place after midnight, they occurred during storms, heavy snow, or dense fog, and the victims were always alone.
By early 1971, word had spread far beyond Bucharest. With the government refusing to release full details, rumours flourished. Some whispered that a vampire was stalking the city, draining blood from his victims. Others suggested satanic rituals or lycanthropy — the belief that the killer was some kind of werewolf. These rumours were fuelled by the killer’s apparent attraction to violent weather, and the bizarre wounds he inflicted on his victims.
Women refused to leave home after dark. Taxis were impossible to find after 9 p.m. Restaurants and bars saw business plummet as night fell.
In response, Romanian authorities mounted one of the largest manhunts in the country's history. Uniformed officers patrolled the streets. Plainclothes agents were deployed to watch known troublemakers. The Securitate, Romania's secret police, joined the effort, adding layers of surveillance and informants.
Over 2,500 suspects were questioned. Files were opened. Apartments searched. Men followed to work, to school, to bars and cafés. The case dominated police resources, and still, the killer eluded them.
Then the killer struck again, on the night of May 4th, 1971. His victim was 22-year-old Mihaela Ursu, another waitress walking home alone after a late shift. She was ambushed in a side street, beaten with a blunt object, and stabbed repeatedly. Her body was found the next morning, partially undressed, her skin marked with deep, violent bite wounds.
Investigators had seen this before. They knew what they were looking at. But this time, something was different.
As forensic officers examined the scene, they found a crumpled piece of paper, partially soaked in blood and water, lying beneath Mihaela's body. At first glance, it seemed like rubbish. But as one officer peeled it apart, he noticed a faint heading at the top: Bucharest Students' Hospital.
The document was barely legible. It had been exposed to the elements for hours. But the printed letterhead remained intact. It was a standard university medical sheet, issued in March 1971 by Dr. Octavian Ieniște, who worked at the university hospital. Investigators traced it back through his appointment logs and discovered that during that month, he had seen 83 students. All had been diagnosed, treated, and given similar forms.
Of those 83, 15 had not yet submitted their paperwork to university administration, as required. It was a narrow list — just fifteen names. Each of them became a suspect. Over the next two weeks, surveillance teams followed all fifteen. They monitored their classes, habits, and routines.
On the 27th of May, three officers arrived at a dormitory on Strada Pitar Moș to speak with one of the fifteen students, a man named Ion Rîmaru. He wasn't in. So they waited. While inside the room, they began a cursory search. What they found was deeply troubling: bloodstained clothing, a handwritten journal detailing disturbing fantasies, and folded beneath the mattress, a medical sheet almost identical to the one found beneath Mihaela Ursu.
At 1:00 p.m., the door creaked open as Ion Rîmaru stepped inside, carrying a small sack. Inside were two items: a long-handled knife and an axe. Police arrested him on the spot.
At the precinct, Rîmaru said nothing. Not at first. He sat silently in his cell, staring at the wall, refusing food, refusing water. Days passed. Eventually, police placed an undercover officer in the cell with him, someone posing as a petty thief. It worked. The man began to talk.
Over the course of several interviews, Rîmaru admitted to four murders, six attempted murders, five rapes, and multiple thefts. He described how he followed women for blocks, watching them as they walked home. He waited until they were alone, then struck, often in the final steps before their door.
He explained his preference for bad weather — fewer people were out on the streets, and there were diminished chances of being seen. He liked the cover of fog, the muffling effect of snow, the emptiness of storms. He also confirmed something investigators had long suspected: he had bitten his victims. Not in rage. Not in panic. Deliberately. He told officers it gave him power.
At times, he described himself as an animal — a being that transformed after dark. One police psychologist would later suggest he may have suffered from clinical lycanthropy, a rare psychiatric condition in which a person believes they can turn into a beast.
So, who was Ion Rîmaru?
He was born on the 12th of October, 1946, in the small southern town of Caracal. He was the eldest of three boys in a troubled household. His parents' marriage had been volatile from the start, with bitter arguments, long silences, and eventually, separation. His father, Florea, left for Bucharest, where he took a job as a night tram driver.
Ion remained behind with his mother and brothers. He struggled from an early age. His academic performance was poor, and he was held back more than once. Teachers described him as unmotivated and difficult to engage. He rarely spoke and avoided eye contact. What raised the most concern — though little was done about it — was his behaviour toward women.
As a teenager, Ion was discovered to be in a relationship with a minor, the daughter of one of his teachers. The scandal rocked their small town. Rather than being punished, he was quietly sent away.
At the age of 18, he was convicted of theft — his first documented offence. Yet school records continued to show high marks for conduct.
In 1966, he scraped into the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Bucharest. His entrance score was barely passing. University life did not suit him. He failed multiple years and was still repeating his third year at the time of his arrest in 1971.
Professors found him isolated and disconnected. His vocabulary was limited, and his academic work barely coherent. He was known to pace the dormitory halls late at night, especially when female students were nearby. In one incident, he was reported prowling outside a woman's door for hours, never speaking, never knocking — just walking back and forth.
Rîmaru had also begun self-harming. Scars crisscrossed his arms and legs, over twenty in total. Doctors diagnosed him with esophageal spasms and nervous disorders, noting unspecified mental problems. But no psychiatric care was offered. He remained in the system, slipping through the cracks.
In the months that followed his arrest, the case against Ion Rîmaru solidified. Forensic evidence matched him to multiple crime scenes — most notably the bite marks, which were a near-perfect match to dental impressions taken after his arrest. His handwriting appeared in notes and journals recovered from his dormitory room. Victims who had survived his attacks identified him without hesitation. Some physically recoiled at the sight of him, even though he was shackled and surrounded by officers.
Investigators also discovered a disturbing pattern in his writings. His notebooks were filled with fragmented fantasies — disjointed, obsessive entries about control, domination, and the thrill of fear. Some of his words mirrored real crimes in alarming detail.
Despite his confessions, Rîmaru's defence team pursued an insanity plea. Court-appointed psychiatrists were brought in to evaluate him. The findings were clear: Ion Rîmaru did not suffer from psychosis. He was not delusional, and he did not experience hallucinations. He knew what he was doing — and that it was wrong.
When the report was read to him, Rîmaru seemed genuinely surprised. He fell silent. He retracted his statements and refused to speak again. Not even his own lawyer could coax a word from him.
On the 16th of April, 1971, the Bucharest Tribunal handed down the sentence: death by firing squad. The courtroom erupted in applause. He appealed, but the Supreme Tribunal upheld the ruling.
On October 23rd, six months later, Ion Rîmaru was transferred to Jilava Prison, just outside Bucharest. There, in the prison yard, he had to be dragged from the van. He screamed, kicked, and fought. It took three guards to hold him.
He was then bound to a wooden post. According to law, he was asked if he had any final wishes. He shouted:
"Call my father! Make him come! He's the only guilty one!"
Then, sobbing, he screamed:
"I want to live!"
Because he continued thrashing, the first volley of bullets missed his vital organs. It took multiple rounds to end his life. His body was riddled with bullets. He was 24 years old. He was buried in an unmarked grave.
One year later to the day, Ion's father, Florea Rîmaru, died in what was officially ruled an accident — a fall from a train. His body was sent to the Medico-Legal Institute for postmortem examination. There, a curious technician noted that his height and shoe size matched evidence from an unsolved case nearly three decades earlier.
In the summer of 1944, wartime Bucharest had been stalked by a killer who murdered four women. The victims had all lived alone in basement apartments. The killer struck during storms, bludgeoned them with blunt objects, and left few clues — save for a set of military boot prints and fingerprints.
The 1944 case had gone cold. But now, for the first time, Florea Rîmaru’s fingerprints were run against those in the archive.
It was a match.
Ion Rîmaru had inherited more than violence. His father had been the serial killer who terrorised Bucharest during World War II.
Between April 1970 and May 1971, Ion Rîmaru murdered at least four women, sexually assaulted several more, and terrorised a city of two million. He was never officially linked to additional murders, but Romanian authorities quietly reviewed multiple unsolved cases in the years following his execution.
Psychologists studied his case extensively. One theory suggested that his crimes were a form of compensation — a twisted attempt to assert control in a life marked by inadequacy, failure, and rejection. Another pointed to clinical lycanthropy — the belief that one transforms into a beast. Rîmaru’s preference for storms, his nocturnal prowling, and the ritualistic nature of his violence all seemed to support this view.
Perhaps most disturbing was the silence of his father.
During the investigation, police learned that Florea Rîmaru had not only washed Ion’s bloodstained clothing, but had also hidden stolen money taken during one of his son’s robberies. In one incident, when Ion’s mother found a roll of cash under his pillow, Florea took the money and buried it in the backyard, planning to use it to buy a new house.
He had seen the signs. And done nothing.
Forensic psychologist Dr. Tudorel Butoi, who later reviewed hours of Ion's taped interrogations, concluded that Rîmaru was not insane. He described him as “a sadist, driven by primitive urges, but not legally mad.” He was, in Butoi’s words, “a predator — not a monster in folklore, but a real one, hidden in plain sight.”
To this day, the case of Ion Rîmaru — The Vampire of Bucharest — remains one of Romania’s most disturbing and studied crimes. A killer shaped by dysfunction, sheltered by silence, and shadowed by the crimes of a father who passed down more than just his name.
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