From what investigators have been able to piece together, the Brabant Killers consisted of three permanent members and a bunch of assorted henchmen. In a pretty transparent effort to lure Batman into taking the case, the authorities dubbed the main members the Giant, the Killer, and the Old Man.

Via Reddit

For two years, the gang roamed the area like every psychopath Michael Madsen ever played. The police were powerless. The public was terrified. Finally, the attacks stopped in 1984 ... only to emerge again when we least expected them. In true horror-movie-sequel style, the Brabant Killers returned and upped the ante in late 1985. After another "normal" supermarket murder-attack, they culminated their reign of terror in a massive raid and shootout that killed eight people. Then, they disappeared.

Pauli's Favorite Theory:

Wait, a mysterious group that consisted of easily distinguishable yet strange and monstrous figures? One that managed to fiercely protect their privacy while roaming a very particular rural territory, killing at the slightest whim but caring little about material goods? Shit, I've seen that movie.

Cannon Films Inc.

Of course, Belgium was going through a turbulent political period in which communist terrorists were lobbing bombs at people and Cold War-fueled stay-behind networks of NATO-trained operatives and like-minded civilians were bracing themselves to thwart a potential Red uprising. I guess the Brabant Killers might have been special operatives of whichever side wanted to bake the turds of chaos into the discord cake and were able to get away with their antics because the Belgian police force was laughably disorganized at the time. But I think we all know which one is the more plausible theory here.

And then the killings stopped again. In both cities, the killer -- same guy or not -- murdered a similar number of victims, and then ... poof. To this day, the case remains one of the most enduring crime mysteries of modern India, and people of the affected areas are still known to flip their absolute shit whenever someone's killed in a similar manner. Which is both understandable and completely fucking crazy, seeing as how similar murders are a thing at all.

Pauli's Favorite Theory:

According to the obligatory movie about the case, the killings in Mumbai were the work of a beat cop/tribal cultist type, tasked by his mysterious master (heavily hinted to be a top police executive) to kill a number of people in a magical ritual to cure his impotency. Yes, really. The Calcutta killer is later revealed to be another guy on a similar mission.

Kaleidoscope Entertainment

It's an interesting idea, but I'm not really buying that one because, you know, a movie. Also, I refuse to believe that every single strange story from India can immediately be filed in the "Mola Ram did it" folder. Then again, regular serial killerin' doesn't really cut it, either. The idea of one guy who routinely brained folks with huge stones in sprawling mega-cities with nary a witness doesn't really seem to hold water, no matter how you Occam's Razor it.

But what's the alternative? Many killers? A sort of horrifying trend that swept over a nation and went away, like zoot suits, parachute pants, and Scott Stapp? Surely that's not possible. It's not like there's any precedent of unrelated-yet-awful people going around killing poor, homeless folks in an extremely specific and ruthless manner just for the hell of it ...

Manfredi Caracausi/Moment/Getty

Pauli's Favorite Theory:

Here's what I've been thinking: The Monster was more than one guy.

Via Reddit

There are many strange details to the crimes. Several of the suspects could have been responsible for a few of the killings but had solid alibis for the others. When one guy was in custody, the murderer committed an off-season double kill (on a Tuesday in autumn, instead of his usual summer Saturdays) as if to make extremely sure that they knew they had the wrong guy. When another was imprisoned, the Monster helpfully provided the police with a newspaper clipping of the crime he had been convicted of, complete with a taunting "Why don't you take a closer look at this case" note that essentially claimed the responsibility for the killing. When the Vincis were caught, same thing.

See what I'm getting at? Every time someone is caught, another pair of bodies turns up, conveniently both letting the suspect away scot-free, and keeping a brutal killer that could attack any time out there. There were strange variations to Il Mostro's methods and their degree of brutality, and the fact that he was in the habit of hauling his female victims out of the car and into the open would have required him to be extremely strong. So, barring an actual Hannibal-level superhuman running about town, the only logical reason was that the Monster was never a he, but they -- a group of criminals who for whatever reason conspired to create a terrifying serial killer, with an easily identifiable modus operandi and an extremely distinct murder weapon that would "prove" without a doubt that the killer was always the same.

Ingram Publishing/Ingram Publishing/Getty Images

As for the motive, shit, your guess is as good as mine. Maybe a jointly made-up serial killer was a handy way to off people they didn't like. Perhaps they were smugglers or whatever and found the fact that people avoided going out late at night in summers handy. Or maybe the gun is cursed, traveling from hand to hand and making whoever wields it perform unspeakable things to honor the demon gods of the Tar Dimension.

Actually, you know what? Let's go with that last one. It's probably the least-terrifying scenario, anyway.

Saari was in the kind of state corpses wind up in when they hang around swamps for months, so the police weren't able learn much from her body, apart from the fact that there were no verifiable traces of sexual abuse and the cause of death was from massive blunt-force trauma to the face. The bicycle was nearby, but it was in fairly good shape -- almost as if someone had brought it to the site much later. Other objects nearby: a mysterious sock with bite marks that had been used to gag Saari or someone else, a recently added dry pine stick that someone had used to mark the grave and impale the corpse, and Saari's coat, draped around her head and shoulders. A number of Saari's personal effects remained missing.

All of Finland had already been sort of fanatic about the case for the months after the disappearance, and proceeded to go full apeshit upon the finding of the body. Saari's funeral drew 25,000 mourners and was precisely one suspicious dude short of turning into the largest lynch mob in history. Luckily for them, the case was hardly lacking extremely shady suspects, essentially turning the proceedings into a nationwide game of Clue. There was the vicar who had a history of harassing younger women and had received a strange letter from Saari just days before her death. There was a shady ex-cop whose car had allegedly been seen in the area. There was a meek yet disturbed local worker with a history of alcohol and voyeurism; a black-bearded, chemically castrated necrophile; and well over 300 more. Which just goes to show that this girl had the most fucked-up existence ever, even before her death. It's like everyone in the fucking country was stalking her at the same time.

Image Source Pink/Image Source/Getty Images

Unfortunately, investigations could pin blame on precisely none of the suspects. All walked away with their liberty, provided you want to count "being more or less openly hated by millions of angry Finns" as freedom. Even the shady German dude called (tee hee!) Hans Assmann, who in 1997 allegedly made a deathbed confession about an old hit-and-run incident and his subsequent covering of his trail that sounded an awful lot like a certain famous blunt trauma death, managed to die before anything could be made of it.

Hey, hold on just a goddamn second. Hans Assmann?

Pauli's Favorite Theory:

Goddammit, Assmann. You again?

Were you not the most likely suspect when I last wrote about a creepy Finnish murder mystery, Assmann? Remember the Lake Bodom murders, Assmann? Yes, you do. Did I not find out that you were somehow accused of being a creepy ex-KGB agent and a psycho Nazi at the same time, Assmann? Yes, I did. You're ... really not doing yourself any favors here, butt-name guy.

Imgur

Are you really going to go for an alibi, Assmann? No, you're not. I'm going to exercise my right as the writer of this column to stop pretending that this is a dialogue, because you've been dead for decades and I'm really only doing it because I like to type "Assmann." You're not getting another spin on the benefit-of-the-doubt carousel. When your first two strikes are being a suspect in two of the most famous murder cases in the same, small country, you're not going to get a third one in my book. Especially because, as it turns out, you were also a suspect in the third-most famous one, a 1959 double murder that was basically 50 percent Lake Bodom, 50 percent Kyllikki Saari. Not a primary suspect, though. Never a primary suspect. Not Assmann.

Shit, guys, now I'm kind of pissed that the man is long dead. I have a feeling he'd have made a mighty fine supervillain nemesis.

Hehehe. Assmann.

On the off chance that someone reading this is still on the queasy side, I won't go into details re: precisely how the victims were killed. I'm specifically avoiding phrases like "drugging and brutal abduction," "up to five weeks of torture," and "death by massive butt trauma." That last one is not meant in a "Sir Mix-a-Lot finally found his match" way, incidentally. Someone stuffed large blunt instruments up the victims until they died of blood loss. That's, like, the fifth-least-dignified non-Nickelback-related death in existence, and it wasn't a one-off, either; this was the actual method these people used to kill.

AndreyPopov/iStock/Getty Images

It's estimated that the "Family" behind the murders was/is about a dozen-strong clique of influential area men, and the killings were just one small part of their operations: They're suspected of having kidnapped, mauled, and abused young men on a regular basis throughout the 1970s and well into the 1980s.

Well, that's what they say, anyway. Despite a $5 million reward, all the authorities have managed to get so far is a whole bunch of hunches and a local creep called Bevan Spencer von Einem (which, strangely, would make an excellent rap name), who was nabbed for the 1983 murder of the son of a local news anchor but couldn't be conclusively connected to the several other nearly identical butticides.

In other words, today's Adelaide may very well have a whole bunch of elderly horror movie monsters running around, presumably busying themselves by training a new generation of ass murderers to protect their place in Australia's very competitive terror pantheon.

hdmddphoto/iStock/Getty Images

Pauli's Favorite Theory:

This is where I'd normally weave some grand, jokey theory about this whole thing being a front for the Illuminati or lizard people or some shit, but you know what? I really, really want this all to be the work of one guy, and I want that guy to be the one they already caught.

Let's talk about Bevan Spencer von Einem. There's very little doubt that he drugged and at least played a large part in killing the news anchor's son, likely dumping the body as well. However, that's just one little hillock in the eternal horrorscape that is this guy's mind. Von Einem has been linked to several other brutal murders, including a few non-Family ones. Oh, and he was also a prime suspect in yet another of Australia's most famous unsolved crimes: the abduction of the three Beaumont children, who disappeared in Adelaide in 1966 and were never found. There are theories that link von Einem and his skills of sedating victims to the case, and a witness has allegedly stated that he admitted abducting the kids in order to perform experiments on them. Not the kind of "experiments" you assume, either -- he supposedly performed surgery on them to "join them up."

Sushaaa/iStock/Getty Images

Just fucking let that sink in for a moment, will you? What we have here is a notorious and pretty unrepentant sexual sadist who may or may not have pulled a real-life Human Centipede on a bunch of kids. Here are our options: Either he was a one-of-a-kind case, safely tucked away -- or there are a dozen more of these fuckers still running free. Which one would you prefer?

(And no, Tom Six, your opinion does not fucking count.)

Pauli forgot to mail you the complimentary brain bleach, so this would probably be a good time to watch a cat video or something. Here he is on Facebook and Twitter.

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