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Kürt Erich TETZNER
A.K.A.: "Stranelli"
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics: Arson - To
collect insurance money
Number of victims: 1
Date of murder:
November 25,
1929
Date
of arrest:
December 4, 1929
Date of birth: ???
Victim profile: An unidentified man
Method of murder: Ligature
strangulation
Location: Regensburg, Bavaria, Germany
Status: Executed by guillotine on May 2, 1931
Tetzner, Kurt Erich (AKA:
Stranelli), 1903-31, Ger., fraud,
asslt.mur. Kurt Erich Tetzner, a young German businessman, was convicted
of killing an unidentified man as part of an insurance fraud.
In an earlier insurance fraud, Tetzner
convinced his motherinlaw to postpone an operation for cancer so that he
could insure her life. She subsequently underwent an operation and died.
Successful in his first effort, he and his wife
decided to find another victim. After failing once to entrap a victim,
on Nov. 25, 1929, he picked up a hitchhiker, murdered him, crashed his
car into a tree, and then set it on fire with the victim at the wheel.
Tetzner's wife claimed that the victim was her
husband and attempted to claim the death benefit on Tetzner's accident
policies. However, physical discrepancies between the victim and Tetzner
caused suspicion. Using recently developed forensic medicine techniques,
officials determined by the condition of the victim's lungs that he had
been dead before the fire.
Tetzner, meanwhile, had hidden in Strasbourg, Fr.,
using the assumed name of Stranelli. Apprehended there by police, he
readily confessed. He was tried in March 1931, found Guilty, and put to
death at Regensburg on May 2, 1931.
