Sokrat Kirshveng

Biography Early life Sokrat Albert Kirshveng was born circa 1882 in the village of Alino, to a Romani Bulgarian mother and father of Greek descent. He was born with a slight defect in one of his shoulders. His parents died when he was very young, and the young orphan was sent to Samokov, where he began work as an apprentice and later a journeyman for a local lumberjack, before becoming a master in the trade himself. In 1917, he was hired as a security guard at the 10th Military Hospital, and thus given a service weapon. The killer was soon arrested.

Trial, sentence and death The trial against the "Killer with the Adze" began on February 22, 1937. The case brought in a huge crowd of people, eager to see the face of the horrible monster. Kirshveng's attorney was the jurist Milyo "The Balm" Balsamov, who was famous for going to extreme lengths to pardon every recidivistic criminal he represented. The murderer's confession to the magistrates lasted three hours, in which he admitted to being a sadist and requested the harshest penalty for murdering his aunt and his uncle-in-law, saying:

Kirshveng was sentenced to death by hanging the following day. His attorney, however, hated losing, and appealed the sentence to the Supreme Court of Cassation of Bulgaria. Both the appeal and the request for pardon were subsequently denied. Kirshveng was executed on the night between April 13 to 14, 1937, with his only requests prior being that he was buried a Christian and that his children never learn that he had murdered their mother.

After his execution, the guards found a note in his cell, which read: