Karol Kot

The killings were recreated for Episode 2, Season 1 of the show Killers: Behind the Myth called "Kot: The Vampire of Crakow", which aired in March 2014. It was also featured in episode 95 of Casefile True Crime Podcast in September 2018.

The trial began on 3 May 1967, and Kot pleaded guilty to all charges. Surviving victims screamed at him in court, calling him a beast. The verdict was handed down on 14 July 1967, and Kot was sentenced to death as well as losing citizen rights. An appeal, based on diminished responsibility, began on 22 November 1967, and his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. However, a higher court appeal reinstated the original sentence on 11 March 1968, and this sentence was carried out on 16 May 1968. After the hanging, an autopsy was allegedly carried out, which revealed a brain tumour. However, Przemysław Semczuk disputes this in his book. According to him, autopsies were not carried out on convicts sentenced to death. Moreover, no official document confirming the autopsy on Karol Kot exists.

After a lull of seventeen months, the attacks began to occur again. On 13 February 1966, in an overkill, Kot fatally stabbed an 11-year-old boy, Leszek Całek, near Kościuszko Mound, where a toboggan contest for children was being held. On 14 April 1966, he attacked an 8-year-old girl named 'Małgosia'. Kot went to a tenement on Jana III Sobieskiego Street and assaulted her when she came downstairs to collect letters from the mailbox. He grabbed her and dealt eight stab wounds to the stomach, chest and back. The girl managed to return home, and was taken to the hospital where the doctors managed to save her life. Four days later, Kot returned to the scene, enquiring about the victim's name from her mother.

Kot boasted of his crimes to a fellow student, Danuta, who informed authorities. He was arrested on 1 June 1966, the day after his matura exam, which he was allowed to sit in order to prove that he was sane so that he could not later plead insanity during a trial. A search of his house revealed sixteen knives and an assortment of other weapons that belonged to him. On 3 June, Kot had his first formal interview, and on 6 July, in a police lineup, he was identified by Velgen, the woman he stabbed inside the church. He then openly admitted and detailed his attacks and other murder attempts, and was then charged with two murders, ten attempted murders (four by knife, and six by sodium arsenate), and four acts of arson.

Kot's public crimes occurred in two separate sprees. On 21 September 1964, Kot attacked Helene Velgen (48), who he stabbed in church. He drove the knife into her back, from behind, when she knelt down to pray; however, Velgen survived this attack. The second attempted murder occurred shortly after, on 23 September, when Kot spotted Franciszka Lewendowska (78) leaving a tram. He followed her and stabbed her in the back while on the stairs to her apartment. This attack was also unsuccessful, and both victims reported seeing a young male attacker. Six days later, on 29 September, he stabbed Maria Plichta (86) from behind, after he spotted her near a church and followed her to Jana Street. She died the next day, but not before Kot visited the hospital and inquired about the victim.

Karol Kot (18 December 1946 – 16 May 1968) was a Polish murderer who terrorized the city of Kraków between 1964 and 1966. Due to trial evidence and to the seemingly random choices of victims, which included children and elderly people, Kot was nicknamed the Vampire of Kraków. After the trial, in which Kot pleaded guilty to all the crimes he was charged, he was sentenced to death on 14 July 1967. After an appeal initially reduced his sentence to life in prison, his sentence was reinstated. Kot was hanged on 16 May 1968.