The Atlas Vampire was an unknown assailant who committed murder in Stockholm, Sweden in 1932.
On May 4, 1932, a 32 year old Lilly Lindeström, was found murdered in her apartment in the Atlas area of Stockholm near Sankt Eriksplan. It is estimated that she had been dead for a few days before police broke into her apartment. She was found naked and face-down on her bed, she suffered blunt force trauma to her head with blood pooled on the floor from the wound.
She was last seen on the evening of April 30th, 1932 when she payed her rent and went to meet a client at her apartment as was her normal routine for work. 4 days later her friend went to police concerned as she had not heard from her which led to police to do a welfare check on Lilly when her body was found.
The detectives at the scene noted that a gravy ladle was found at the scene and on further inspection, they discovered that her body had been drained of all of her blood, it was suspected that the ladle was used to drink the blood. The fatal wound was on the right side of her head and extended from her temple to her neck, it was believed that the killer struck her from behind with a heavy, round object like a pipe.
Lilly's apartment was neat and showed no signs of a struggle with her clothes she wore that night folded neatly on a chair. Investigators wrote later that there was no evidence found at the scene "no fingerprints, emptied glass, no hairs or cigarettes" It is also believed that the killer brought the weapon with him and took it when he left.
The killer eventually became known as the Atlas vampire probably from newspapers linking the area Lilly lived and the fact her body was found drained of blood. In the days after the discovery investigators questioned her friends and neighbours in order to piece together her movements and try to identify a suspect. But eventually the police ran out of people to question and they never charged anyone for the murder and the case eventually went cold.
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