15. This Horrific Killer Met a Suitably Horrific End
After his escape, Peter Niers resumed his criminal activities with even greater cruelty and bloodthirstiness. Indeed the majority of his horrific murders and depravities occurred in the four years after his escape. Whereas he had murdered 75 people in the eleven years before his arrest in 1577, he would murder an estimated 569 more people in the four years from 1577 to 1581, when he was arrested for a second and final time. He was taken to the Bavarian city of Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz for a public execution, in which the authorities went Medieval on Niers, literally and figuratively.
Even for an era in which horrific torture and gruesome executions were routine, Peter Niers’ execution, which commenced on September 16th, 1581, stood out as a particularly horrific affair. It was a three-day ordeal, and on the first of them, the authorities flayed Niers’ skin, then poured hot oil on his exposed muscles to slough off layers of his flesh. On the second day, his feet were coated in grease, and his lower body was slowly grilled over a low fire. On the third day, his body was broken on the wheel, with dozens of blows that smashed his major bones to pieces. Finally, the executioners quartered him while still alive, then sawed his body into pieces.
