Bucharest. 1970. A serial killer terrorized not only the city but the whole country. Ion Rîmaru killed 4 women from 1970 to 1971. The streets of the capital city were empty. No woman or man wanted to walk at night. The city was full of police patrols at every hour of the day or night.
He was choosing and following his victims for weeks, knowing their every move. He was always attacking at night when it was raining or snowing, always on dark and remote alleys. His crimes were horrific. He would rape his victims and then kill them or he would kill them and rape them afterward. His choice of weapons were knives and an axe, used for the fatal blow.
At first, Ion Rîmaru wasn’t even on the police’s suspect list. He was a student at the Veterinarian Medical School of Bucharest. He was arrested for theft and was considered to be semi-illiterate.
His last victim survived. She was walking home with a friend when he attacked her. Her friend managed to escape and find the nearest police patrol. The umbrella’s barre managed to block the axe blow. The police came close to the criminal fled. He managed to lose his trace by jumping in the Dâmbovița river.
At this point, the police were very far from making an arrest and Ion Rîmaru’s running wasn’t helping. Nonetheless, the key to the case was found at the last crime scene: a medical certificate he was supposed to get to the university. It was covered in blood and soaking wet which made the writing impossible to read. The last two numbers of the assigned number of the certificate were able to be read, indicating that it was issued by the University Hospital. The police preceded to go through all the student’s files and managed to narrow the search from 30.000 possible suspects to 15. Now the murderer wasn’t going to be free for long.
The night of his arrest, Ion Rîmaru was walking home. He was arrested in the street. In a bag, he was carrying a knife and an axe. He tried to reach in to defend himself but he wasn't fast enough. In his room, they had found a paper with the dates of the murders and another piece of paper with a list of all the items he lost at the crime scenes: buttons from his coat, hair, and the medical certificate.
With the communist regime in Romania, there were very few details made public. The only press release with details of the case was made public after Ion Rîmaru was executed on October 23, 1971. In that issue, it was stated that a dangerous criminal was arrested and executed. The details of this case were made public after the fall of the regime when a book was published on this subject.
His last words were “I want to live.”, but just before that, he said, “I want you to bring my father to see what is happening to me because it’s all his fault.”. At that time, nobody knew what he meant. A year later, his father, Florea Rîmaru, fell on the train tracks and died. His body was sent to the morgue, where his prints were taken. It was then and there that they found out he was a serial killer as well. He violently killed 5 women in 1944 and the cases were still unsolved. The investigator that was working on the case in 1944, also worked on the cases in 1970. He remembered the unique form of the prints found on the bodies in 1944 and was able to match it to Ion Rîmaru’s father. The operating mode was similar. Florea Rîmaru attacked his victims in basements, only at night time and when it rained and he always killed them with a blow to the head, just like his son. He was also working as a bus driver which made it easier for Ion Rîmaru to disappear into the night.
This case, “The Eagle Operation” (Operațiunea Vulturul) as it was called, because of the crimes that happened on the Eagles Street (Strada Vulturilor), has introduced the study of the dental prints left on bodies as well as DNA analysis in the Romanian criminalistics department. It has also introduced the concept of co-authors and accomplices in the criminal law department. Ion and Florea Rîmaru were both co-authors because they had done the same crimes with the same operational model and accomplices because Florea helped his son evade the authorities.
As shocking and as terrifying as this story is, the criminal justice department was able to evolve and learn from cases just like this one.
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