His victims were children and a young woman, taken from ordinary routines — ballet class, a school hallway — between 1979 and 1980 in the Netherlands. The physical evidence connecting him to multiple murders was found only by chance, through an anonymous tip about a bite wound. Hertogs denied his crimes for nearly a decade before confessing for purely practical reasons, and allegations that his relationship with a senior judicial figure had shielded him from scrutiny were never resolved, leaving the full extent of his actions uncertain.

A Catholic priest who murdered a rival over a seduction and then systematically killed thirteen members of that man's family, Annunchiarico spent over a decade as a fugitive before assembling a bandit confederation of remarkable scale — tens of thousands strong — and declaring himself the earthly avatar of Jupiter over a self-styled Salentinian Republic. What makes him unusual is not just the body count attributed to his own hand, estimated between sixty and seventy, but the degree of personal authority he commanded over hardened criminals who accepted his theological pretensions without apparent resistance. His capture required a multinational military force, and his execution took 162 others with him.