Werewolf Facts

Famous Werewolves: Werewolf of Bedburg

In one instance of a triple murder, Stubbe saw two men and a woman taking a walk just outside the city walls of Bedburg and he crouched hidden out of sight behind some brush. He called out to one of the men by name with the pretense that he needed help with some lumber. When the young man joined him out of sight of the others, Stubbe bashed his head in. When the man didn't return, the second young man went looking for him and was likewise killed. Fearing danger, the woman began to flee, but Stubbe managed to catch her. The men's battered bodies were later found, but the woman never was, and it was thought that Stubbe, after raping and killing her, might have eaten her completely.

At least one child was lucky enough to have escaped an attack. Several children were playing in a meadow among some cows. Stubbe ran after them, grabbing one small girl by the neck. As the other children ran away, Stubbe tried to rip her throat out, but his fingers were prevented from doing so by her stiff, high collar. This gave her time to cry out. This cry altered the cattle, which fearing the safety of their calves, charged after Stubbe. He released the girl and fled. The girl survived. (It is not known if she or any of the other children were able to identify Stubbe.)

Perhaps his most fiendish murder he reserved for his own family. Stubbe had incestuous relationships with his sister and his own daughter, whom he impregnated. He also murdered his son, his firstborn. Stubbe led the boy into the forest, killed him, then ate his brains.

The Unseen Monster:

By any definition, Peter Stubbe was a monster. Yet all the while he remained unsuspected by the townspeople. In "The Damnable Life and Death of Stubbe Peeter," written just two years after Stubbe's trial, George Bores wrote:

"And sundry times he would go through the streets of Collin, Bedbur, and Cperadt, in comely habit, and very civilly, as one well known to all the inhabitants thereabout, and oftentimes was he saluted of those whose friends and children he had butchered, though nothing suspected for the same."

Stubbe must have thought himself invincible through the power of his magic belt. Yet it was this belief that ended his reign of terror.

When the limbs of several missing people were found in a field, the villagers were further convinced that a ravenous wolf was responsible, and so several hunters set out with their dogs to pursue the predator.

Now here is where the story gets quite strange. The men hunted the creature for days until at last, they saw him. But according to the account, they saw and chased down a wolf, not a man. The dogs chased the animal until they had it cornered. The hunters were sure that they were chasing a wolf, but when they came to the spot where the dogs had it cornered, there cowered Peter Stubbe! According to George Bore's account, being trapped with no room for escape, Stubbe removed his magic belt and transformed from the wolf to his human form.

The hunters saw no magic belt, as Stubbe later claimed he had, but only an ordinary walking stick in his hand. At first they disbelieved their own eyes; after all, Stubbe was a respected, long-time resident. How could he be a werewolf? Perhaps this wasn't really Peter Stubbe at all, they reasoned, but a devilish trick. So they escorted Stubbe to his house and determined that he was indeed the Peter Stubbe they knew.

Peter Stubbe was arrested and tried for the crimes.

Trial and Execution:

Thought now to be a werewolf, Stubbe was brought to trial, and it was only under pain of torture on the rack that his confession to all of the heinous crimes came out, including sorcery, his consort with the Devil and the story of the magic belt.

This fact has led some researchers to surmise that Stubbe was, in fact, innocent; that his wild confession was elicited by the torture. Perhaps Stubbe himself was a victim of the superstition and religious rivalry taking place at the time: the fear and conviction of a -inspired werewolf might lead people back to the "true Church."

Whether he was truly a serial killer or a political victim, Stubbe was found guilty on October 28, 1589, and his execution was as gruesome as any of the crimes of which he was accused: his body was strapped spread-eagle on large wheel; with red-hot pincers, his executioners pulled his flesh from his bones in ten spots; his arms and legs were broken with a large axe; his head was cut off.​

On October 31—today's —Peter Stubbe's body along with his daughter and his mistress (both of whom were convicted of abetting his crimes) were burned at the stake.

By directive of the magistrate, a warning to other potential was put in place for all to see: the wheel on which Stubbe was tortured was set high upon a pole from which hung 16 yard-long strips of wood, representing his 16 known victims. Atop that was the framed likeness of a wolf, and above on the sharpened point of the pole was placed Peter Stubbe's severed head.