Joseph Kallinger, originally named Joseph Lee Brenner, was an American serial killer.
He was responsible for murdering three individuals and torturing four families.
Infact, he committed his final crimes with the assistance of his 12-year-old son, Michael.
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Joseph Kallinger was born on December 11, 1935, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
He was the son of Joseph Lee Brenner Jr. and his wife, Judith.
After his father abandoned his mother, he was placed in foster care in 1937.
On October 15, 1939, he was adopted by Austrian immigrants Stephen and Anna Kallinger.
He was severly abused by both of his adoptive parents.
Joseph suffered a hernia inflicted by his adoptive father when he was just six years old.
The punishments Joseph Kallinger endured included kneeling on jagged rocks, being locked inside closets, and consuming feces.
He also suffered from self-injury, burns from irons, whippings with belts, and starvation.
When he was nine, he was sexually assaulted by a group of neighborhood boys.
As a child, Kallinger often clashed with his teachers and adoptive parents.
When Kallinger was 15, he started dating a girl named Hilda Bergman.
His parents advised him not to see her.
However, he married her and even had two children with her.
She eventually left him due to domestic violence.
Joseph Kallinger remarried on April 20, 1958, and had five children with his second wife.
He was extremely abusive toward his family.
He often inflicted the same punishments on them that he had endured from his adoptive parents.
Throughout the next decade, Joseph Kallinger spent time in and out of mental institutions due to amnesia.
Aditionally, he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
State psychiatrists recommended that he be monitored while living with his family.
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| Joseph Kallinger house today ( source - New York Post) |
Beginning in November 1974, Joseph Kallinger and his 12-year-old son Michael embarked on a crime spree.
This spree spanned across Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New Jersey.
Over the next six weeks, they robbed, assaulted, and sexually abused four families.
They gained entrance to each house by pretending to be salesmen.
They used a pistol and a knife to overpower their victims
This crime spree culminated in the murder of 21-year-old nurse Maria Fasching.
When she refused to follow Kallinger's orders he responded by stabbing her in the neck and back.
Joseph Kallinger was arrested and imprisoned in 1972 after his children reported him to the police.
The children later recanted their allegations.
Two years later, one of his children, Joseph Jr., was found dead in an abandoned construction building.
This discovery occurred just two weeks after Kallinger had taken out a large life insurance policy on his sons.
Joseph Kallinger claimed that Joseph Jr. had run away from home.
However, the insurance company suspected foul play and refused to pay out the claim.
Joseph Kallinger and his son Micheal were arrested on kidnapping and rape charges.
Kallinger was eventually charged with three counts of murder for his son Joseph Jr, Maria Fasching, and a neighborhood boy.
Kallinger pleaded insanity, claiming God had told him to kill.
He was found sane and sentenced to life in prison on October 14, 1976.
Michael, meanwhile, was judged to be under his father's control.
He was sentenced to a reformatory.
Upon his release at 21, he moved out of state and changed his name.
While in prison, Joseph Kallinger made several suicide attempts, including attempting to set himself on fire.
Because of his suicidal and violent behavior, he was transferred to a mental hospital in Trenton, New Jersey.
He was then transferred to a mental hospital in Philadelphia on May 18, 1979.
He spent the last 11 years of his life on suicide watch.
On March 26, 1996, Joseph Kallinger passed away from heart failure.
His death contributed to a safer world by eliminating one serial killer and threat to the community.
[Source]
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