Killers: Behind the Myth (2013–2015): Season 1, Episode 5 - Tuchlin: The Scorpion - full transcript

Between 1975 and 1983, brutal sex killer Pawel Tuchlin terrorised the region around Gdansk, Poland. Known as 'The Scorpion' for the swift deadliness of his attacks, he targeted women walking alone. Tuchlin struck without warning, felling his victims with hammer blows to the head before molesting their bodies. He killed 9 women and left 11 more gravely injured. But Tuchlin is also a thief: it was his greed and the theft of 4 piglets which eventually led police to his farm, and sent the Scorpion to the gallows.

The most notoriouskillers hide in plain sight,

free to kill and kill again.

But most are not the criminalmasterminds of fiction.

In their heads, theycommit the perfect murder.

In reality, it's their foolishmistakes which get them caught.

Gdansk, northern Poland, 1983.

For the last eight
years, a serial sex

killer, known as
the Scorpion, has

preyed on women in the area.

Yolanta, a 19-year-oldseamstress, is on her way home.

She is about to become the
Scorpion's 20th victim.



Scorpion caught

up with her and
propositioned her,

asking to have sex with her.

Yolanta refusesand tries to run away.

He ran after her.

After about 200, 300
meters, he attacked her.

With
Yolanta on the ground,

the attacker runs back
to collect her bag.

He returns and proceeds,
brutally, to attack

and kill the 19-year-old.

He smashed her skull,

hitting her 14 or 15 times witha 1 and 1/2 kilogram hammer,

completely massacring
that young girl.

It was a terribly brutal murder.



He
took off her underwear.

He put his fingers
into her vagina

and brought himself to orgasm.

Yolanta's bodyis found the next morning

by the owner of the land.

The police have a serial
killer on the loose.

The pressure is on to catchhim before he strikes again.

A dedicated policeteam has been established.

It's called Special
Group Scorpion.

Andre Gavroche is the
lead investigator.

The team soon discoverhow the Scorpion attacks.

He attacks

with the element of surprise.

He usually struckeffectively and would leave

a victim behind while he quietlyand unobserved would disappear.

This activity
reflects a Scorpion.

So that's where
the name came from.

We are dealing

with a very dangerous criminal,assaulting women sexually.

Stefan Chrzanowskiis head of the special group.

He didnot rape those women or have

sexual intercourse with them.

He just played with
their sex organs.

He would undress their lowerparts and play in such a way.

With a killer
roaming the area,

locals in the city of Gdanskand the surrounding villages

are on the edge.

Men began to collect

their wives from work, andtheir daughters from school.

Zbigniew Zukowskiis a crime reporter

for the local newspaper.

There was absolute panic.

People were
terrified about where

the Scorpion would strike next.

One thing has to be
said, the Scorpion

did not leave many traces.

He was a very difficultopponent for the special group.

But in March
1983, the Scorpion

makes a rookie mistake
which will lead

the police right to his door.

We aretalking about a very important

event, which led to
the identification

and arrest of the perpetrator.

The Scorpion
has stolen a van

and is driving from
Gura to Dombrowka

when he spots 25-year-oldViaswava in her home.

He waits until she leavesher house to go to work.

Then he runs her over.

Herammed her hard enough to have

her fall into a nearby ditch.

The killer grabs
the unconscious Viaswava

and throws her into the
back of the stolen van.

He drives to a secludedforest road and assaults her.

He hit her a few times

in the head with a hammer.

She fell, and so heproceeded to satisfy himself.

He played with her.

When he was satisfied,
he got in the van

and wanted to drive away.

But got stuck in the mud.

So he left the van.

Amazingly, Viaswavasurvives the vicious assault.

When police visit the
scene of the crime,

they discover the
van stuck in the mud.

Through a bizarre
series of connections

and the unlikeliest of evidence,pig feces left in the van

lead them to Pavel Tuklin,a 37-year-old smallholder

and electrician.

The Scorpion.

Andre Gavroche arrests
him at his farm

and takes him in
for questioning.

During this questioning,

he admitted to one murder, andthen another attempted murder,

to the recent incidents.

After eight years,the so-called Scorpion

is finally behind bars.

Faced with overwhelmingevidence collected at his home,

Pavel Tuklin eventually
confesses to nine

murders and 11 assaults.

But he claims that
he did not know

that he had killed anyonebecause the women's bodies were

warm when he left them.

Tuklin did not particularlygo out to kill someone.

His major motivation was,in fact, to gratify himself,

to enact out his fantasies.

That is his primary motive.

The fact that he had
to subdue his victims

was just part and
parcel of that.

And it was, to some
degree, incidental,

particularly initially, as towhether they lived or died.

To understand exactlyhow the murders were committed,

police take Tuklin back tothe scenes of his crimes.

At each location he re-enactshis vicious attacks.

Youhave to be an animal to behave

like that, to hammer
somebody in the head

without any hesitation.

That is just something
truly hideous.

And he acted like that
to please himself,

or as he said, to
have sexual fun.

That is monstrous.

He didn't seem to care.

There were no feelings
of guilt. He was

a calm, cold blooded rascal.

The attacks
are so depraved,

questions are raised
over Tuklin's sanity.

A team of forensic
experts question

him to make a judgment.

They discover that Pavel Tuklin,the killer known as Scorpion,

is driven by perverse
sexual urges,

stemming from his childhood.

Between 1975
and 1983, Pavel Tuklin,

the serial sex killer
known as the Scorpion,

assaults 20 women.

He murders nine of them.

On May 31st, 1983,
police arrest him.

Now, eight years after
his attacks began,

Tuklin is in custody.

A team of forensic expertsquestion the killer.

Wefully realized the seriousness

of the situation
and whether he would

be sentenced to death or notdepended on our assessment.

Jerzy Pobocha leadsthe psychological examination.

To discover what
drove pavo to clean

to commit such horrific
crimes the team

must go back to his childhood.

Tuklin's biography is extremely

important because it
explains the genesis

of his criminal activity.

The murders and that kindof sexual abuse of women.

Pavel
Tuklin is born in 1946

in the small village ofGura, outside Gdansk, Poland.

His father is an
abusive alcoholic.

He beats his son without mercy.

Hisfather beat him relentlessly,

to such an extent that he cuthis mind off from reality.

The greater the
beating, the more

he became reluctant
to make human contact.

Growingup in such an environment could

have led the Scorpion'spsychological understanding

and personality to
change and cause extreme

aggression in his adult life.

The abuse
and cruelty Tuklin

experiences as a child
would play a key role

in his murderous future.

It may also be
responsible for him

wetting the bed,
something he continued

to do well into his teens.

The reasons

for bedwetting are mainlyrelated to stress and anxiety.

This was the case
of Pavel Tuklin, who

wet his bed till
the age of 15 or 16,

which completely
defied the norm.

It was well known

information in the
village so the girls

made fun of him and mocked him.

I remember he once said

girls didn't want to date himbecause he smelt horrible,

of urine.

As Tuklin
becomes a teenager,

he begins to stalk women andvoyeristically spy on them.

It's an early stage in aperverse sexual life that

will lead, in time, to murder.

He was a peeping Tom.

He did it according
to the saying,

necessity is the
mother of invention.

He desired to engage with women.

In practice, it was impossible.

So he found another way, notdirectly, but indirectly,

at a distance.

But at least he had
eye contact with them.

Tuklin now
begins to demonstrate

a personality disorder, whichcriminologists call paraphilia.

Paraphilias stands
for love of the beyond.

It basically means that youget sexual gratification

from something that
is not considered

normal or acceptable.

Tuklin shows elements
of paraphilia

and he seems to get
off on voyeurism,

watching others,
on exhibitionism,

exposing himself, and
also progressively

seems to have become
attached to the idea

of a completely passive,almost unconscious female.

When Tuklin
is 18 years old,

he leaves the village ofGura and moves into the city

of Gdansk, 60 kilometers away.

He learns his trade as a
builder and electrician.

In 1973, Tuklin gets
married and has a child.

Tuklin clearly,
at this point, could

have had a normal existence.

Unfortunately, his
sexual predilections

were such that he wanted a lotmore that was not on offer.

Tuklin's
marriage fails.

And two years later,
he gets divorced.

By 1975, he is consumed byhis perverse sexual fantasies.

He begins to look for
a way to fulfill them.

The killer, nicknamed
the Scorpion,

is about to strike
for the first time.

At some point, something

changed in his personality.

Tuklin's predilectionsbegan to get a grip on him.

His sexual needs were quite
powerful and overriding.

But unfortunately for
the rest of society,

he had to clear psychopathickalis traits which

meant that when he felt
that he wanted more,

he actually went out and got it.

He hada general plan in his head.

This needed to be
a single woman.

The place must be safe,
in the sense that there

shouldn't be any people around.

The idea was to act
effectively and safely.

Tuklin used the
phrase hunting.

This is essentially
what he was doing.

He liked the thrill
of the chase.

He wanted to find victims,randomly, chase them, push them

down onto the ground, asyou would an animal that you

are bringing down in a hunt.

On the 31st
of October, 1975,

Tuklin goes on the hunt
for his first victim.

He assaults 21-year-old Danuta,striking her on the back

of the head with a hammer.

He then fulfills his
perverse desires.

The attack sets a routine,which he will follow

for the next eight years.

Somehow,some inner power pushed

him out onto the streets.

And he got a taste for it.

After the first attack,
he knew that there would

be more because he enjoyed it.

What wasonce out of his reach, he could

now obtain in a simple way.

Whilst
growing up, Tuklin

witnessed farmers
using hammers to knock

out animals in the village.

It's a brutally effectivemethod, particularly

when used on human beings.

It was, as we called it,

hammer anesthesia.

So he just put them in astate of coma, immediately.

Between October
1975 and February 1976,

Tuklin attacks three women.

The attacks stop when, in1976, Tuklin is convicted

of theft from his workplace.

He spends three years in jail.

But the authorities areunaware of his previous crimes.

So in 1979, Tuklin is
freed to hunt again.

On the 9th of November,he sets off with a hammer

wrapped in a cloth.

Later,Tuklin explained that he

bandaged the hammer
so it would not chill

his stomach when he
put it in his trousers,

simply for comfort.

By the river Radunia,he kills 20-year-old Irena

with a hammer blow to the head.

She is his fourth victim.

True to form, he
does not rape her.

The needto watch was dominant in him.

So there was no need
for sexual intercourse.

Tuklin did not get
off on normal sex.

He had a paraphilia
for masturbating

over naked, stationary female.

This was his primary target.

For him, to see a woman,

to smell a woman was
extremely important.

He said that during one ofhis contacts with a woman,

he put his fingers
to her vagina.

And later he did not washhis hand for two weeks

so that he could smell
it and delight in it.

Tuklin flees
the murder scene,

wading into the
river before deciding

it's too wide to cross.

But accidentally,
he drops the hammer.

Police investigating
the crime scene

find the murder weapon
lying in shallow water.

Thehammer was engraved with

the initials Z and
TK, which stands

for the firm that
deals with train

carriage maintenance in Gdansk.

This proved that the hammerhad been taken from this firm.

Police obtain
lists from the company,

detailing everyone who hadaccess to such hammers.

Tuklin did work at Z and TK.

But unfortunately, his namedoes not appear in the records.

If hisname had been on the list,

then it is possible
he would have been

arrested after this murder.

But that didn't happen.

Police discoverthat locals hunt water

rats in the area using
hammers wrapped in cloth

to avoid damaging the fur.

They conclude that thehammer may not be the murder

weapon they were looking for.

Pavel Tuklin, the
Scorpion, escapes

the authorities once again.

With Poland in the grip ofprofound social and political

change, the four
separate hammer attacks

are not linked by police.

You have to frame

these events in the historicalcontext that existed then.

It was martial law.

The police were more
focused on finding

and capturing dissidents.

Tuklin, the
Scorpion, continues

to hunt with impunity.

He leaves little
evidence for the police.

But the aftermath of hismurders reveal the true darkness

of his character.

In September 1980, afterkilling 21-year-old Cecilia,

the so-called Scorpionsatisfies his sexual desires.

Then he searches her bag,taking trophies as is his habit.

He would gratify
himself, primarily.

And his behavior following thiswas actually kind of post-sex,

not post-killing.

He just simply rifled
through the gear

as if it was an
opportunist jumble sale

and took what he fancied, andkept things that he liked.

It is characteristic

for the perpetrator to take somesmall items from their victims.

They treat them as
souvenirs of the crimes,

which remind them of
the event and help

them to fantasize about it.

They often refer to
these items as trophies,

just like hunting trophies.

Tuklin also
finds some food, which

he eats by Cecilia's body.

Tuklin was able tocalmly eat during, after,

and while someone
was actually dying.

He didn'thave any guilt or remorse.

He had gotten tired during theassault, so he had a snack.

He seemed totally indifferent.

He was not in the
emotional world.

He actually did not
react to the death,

the carnage, and the sufferingthat he inflicted on others.

In 1980, Tuklingets married for a second time

to a woman named Regina.

The couple move back toTuklin's home village, Gura.

They have a child together.

Tuklinis a typical sex offender.

Criminologists
say that these are

people with dual personalities.

As a husband and a father,he was seen as a quiet man.

He was caring and warm hearted.

His wife had no idea he wasable to commit such crimes.

However, when he
was hunting, he was

ruthless, fast, and effective.

Despite
being newlywed,

Tuklin's attacks continue.

Six more women are said to bemurdered before he is caught.

December, 1982.

Pavel Tuklin, the serial sexattacker known as the Scorpion,

continues to prey on womenaround the Polish city

of Gdansk.

He has viciously assaulted15 women in total

and brutally murdered
seven of them.

The police are treating theattacks as separate incidents.

But that is about to change.

Thecrucial event was the murder

of a woman in Skarszewy.

Pavel Tuklin went
to a restaurant

where he drank a shot of vodka.

He was walking aroundSkarszewy looking for a woman

to attack and to satisfy
his sexual desire.

Later that nighton a Skarszewy street,

Tuklin kills 23-year-oldfactory worker...

It's the eighth
murder by hammer blow

to the head in just three years.

Then the people in charge

acknowledged that there
was a serial killer

who was preying on women.

We had warned them earlier,but somehow this information

got lost down the line.

At the
beginning of 1983,

the police set up
a new task force.

Special Group Scorpion is born.

If thegroup had been formed earlier,

then several women could havebeen spared a lot of suffering.

The special
group get to work.

They think that time
is on their side.

Therehad been long gaps between

Pavel's attacks since 1975.

After the murder in Skarszewy,we were betting that maybe

he would lay low for a while.

However, this was not the case.

Just 11 days afterthe Scorpion group is formed,

Pavel Tuklin goes huntingfor his next victim.

His target is 19-year-oldEva in the town

of... near Gdansk.

He took out his hammer

and hit her a couple of times.

He pleasured himself
until he ejaculated.

Again, Tuklinsteals a trophy from Eva.

But the timing of this attackshows that the Scorpion is

changing the way he operates.

He's cooling down period,the time between attacks,

is becoming shorter and the
assaults, more frequent.

The attacks were

happening one after the other.

The pressure was
on to crack down

and to work double hard
because we didn't know

when he would strike again.

The escalation of
Tuklin's killings

once he returned
to his home ground

is probably a consequenceof him feeling

safe and knowing the territory.

Miraculously, Evasurvives the brutal assault

and staggers to get help.

She is able to tell
the Scorpion group all

she remembers of her attacker.

Using her testimony and
other witness reports,

the team develop
sketches showing what

the killer might look like.

We had three,

or maybe even four of them,prepared by a graphic artist.

On

Theywere sometimes very different

from one another
because no victim

saw the perpetrator clearly.

A long face,

he was thin, had
high cheekbones,

and he was rather sad.

It's truehe got the shape of the face

and the creases right.

But the rest was way off.

Other than
the sketches, the police

have very few clues
to guide them.

But boot prints and the
nature of his attacks

give them some information.

Fromobservations and reports,

we knew he must be
quite a young man,

very active, quite
strong, and about

1 meter 80 centimeters tall.

Tuklin was not

a primitive murder who
left behind a mountain

of evidence to catch him.

The members of the special groupwere under a lot of stress.

So we sat and waited
for the next victim.

With a new victim, there
could be new evidence

and that could
identify the suspect.

They don't
have to wait long.

On the 28th of February, 1983,Tuklin commits a bizarre crime.

Using a stolen van, he stealsfour piglets from a local farm.

The next day, March
1st, Tuklin is driving

the stolen van when
he sees an opportunity

to attack another woman.

This iswhere Tuklin changed tactics.

For the
first time, Tuklin

uses a vehicle in an attack.

He puts the unconsciousViaswava into the stolen van

and drives her to
a secluded spot.

When he's finished
assaulting his victim,

he tries to drive away.

But the van gets
stuck in the mud.

Tuklin is forced to leave itthere and escapes on foot.

When police search
the abandoned van,

they find something unusualin the back, pig feces.

They link the van to thetheft of the four piglets.

Thetire tracks at the place where

the piglets were stolen andthe place where the victim

was found were identical.

The Scorpion hasleft two significant clues

for the investigators.

We knew that

the perpetrator owned
pigs, and therefore

couldn't be from the city.

Also, police
now know he's a thief

and that he knows how
to hotwire a vehicle.

Tuklin gives the piglets,along with various trophies

taken from victims,
to his second wife,

who keeps them at their farm.

But it is yet another theftwhich will lead to his capture.

Heneeded a cooker to prepare

food for the pigs in his sty.

Tuklin's neighbor
has a pig swill cooker.

Brazenly, he steals it andbrings it back to his own farm.

Hisneighbors reported him,

accusing him of stealing.

Local police investigateTuklin and file a report.

This theft is set to be afatal mistake for the Scorpion.

In March 1983,
killer Pavel Tuklin

uses a stolen van to attacka 25-year-old, Viaswava.

Police find pig feces in
the back of the vehicle.

It's a vital clue
which links the killer

to the theft of four piglets.

Now a pig swill cooker
is reported missing.

The owner accuses
Tuklin of taking it.

Local authorities file a
report about the theft,

putting Tuklin on
the police radar.

At the headquarters of
Special Group Scorpion,

a support worker
notices the report

and makes a vital connection.

The womanwho checked the information

knew about the stolen piglets.

So when she saw the information,she connected the dots

and told us about it.

She told us to watch
that man because he

could be the perpetrator.

Detectives investigate37-year-old Pavel Tuklin.

They find that he has acriminal record for stealing.

And his face matches
certain aspects

of the witness sketches.

Now, lead investigator AndreGavroche goes to Tuklin's farm.

On the 31st of May, 1983,

we came here in three
cars with the intention

of arresting Pavel Tuklin.

We entered here
through this gate.

There was none of this netting.

No fencing at all.

Themoment he saw the police car

at his premises,
he thought it was

about those stolen steamers.

Pavel changedhis clothes and got his ID.

Hecalmly accepted the handcuffs

and was led to the car.

And they drove off.

It was as banal as can be.

I washere for maybe 15 minutes,

then we drove off,
taking Tuklin with us.

Police
searched the farm.

They find the hammer,stained with human blood.

They also discover
rings and watches stolen

from the Scorpion's victims.

At the police station, AndreGavroche questions Tuklin.

I asked him

how the rings had ended up inhis house and whose they were.

He lowered his head and tooka couple of deep breaths.

Tell us, step by
step, he told us

everything and how it happened.

Even the
police admit it

was Tuklin's careless mistakeswhich led them to him.

If hehadn't stolen those steamers,

we wouldn't have
had the information.

Usually, the perpetrator getscaught by making mistakes.

There isn't such a thing
as the perfect crime.

It was Tuklin's thieving

that helped us to catch him.

Now a team of forensicand psychological experts

question Tuklin.

Over three months, they delveinto his history to determine

if he is mentally incompetent.

Allof his deeds were analyzed.

It's not only what the offendersays about his actions,

but what the actions
says about the offender.

To develop
evidence for the trial,

Tuklin is taken by police tovisit the scenes of his crimes.

There, he reconstructs
his brutal assaults.

He showed it

on a beautiful young
policewoman, who acted

out the role of the victim.

Several times I saw the
victim crumple her face

as he pretended to hit her.

That is how scared she was, eventhough it was a reconstruction

and he was in handcuffs.

Tuklin demonstrateshis sexual perversions

on a mannequin.

He seems to enjoy it, andeven jokes with the officers.

Tuklin was kneeling next

to the mannequin and
said, Mr. Prosecutor,

I could demonstrate betterif instead of this mannequin,

I had this lady.

And he pointed at a blonde.

He believed he could demonstratebetter what he had done.

During one
of the reconstructions,

journalists approached
the Scorpion

and asked what he would doif he were ever released.

Heraised his head, looked at us,

and with a little grin,slowly drawling his words,

said, I would hunt.

If only he had the opportunity,he would kill again.

Even in custody,Tuklin can not restrain

his twisted sexual desires.

While with us,

he made female sex organsour of bread so that

he could get sexual arousal.

He even used hair.

It proved how strong
his need to watch was,

so that even in prison hedecided to make a substitute

of what he did in reality.

Thepsychological investigation

concludes that Tuklin issane and fit to face trial.

He was among the people

who can be considered normal.

There was, in him, a
variant of normality.

At the trial, Pavel Tuklinis found guilty of nine

murders and 11 assaults.

Youhave to remember that the most

dangerous beast is a man.

The biggest predator amonganimals, is just a man.

He is
sentenced to death

by hanging, becoming thepenultimate person in Poland

to receive that penalty.

On the 25th of May,1987, Tuklin is executed.