A serial killer jailed for the murder of five women has been found dead in his cell after hooking up an electric current to his nipples and penis.

Egidius Schiffer, dubbed the Aechen Strangler, is believed to have killed himself accidentally whilst masturbating with electric shocks at Bochum Prison in Germany.

He was found dead on Sunday with a table lamp chord attached to his body parts while the other end was plugged into an electric socket.

Serial killer Egidius Schiffer killed himself whilst masturbating (Picture: Wikipedia)

Schiffer murdered five hitchhikers between 1983 and 1990 and was sentenced to life imprisonment, according to The Times.


A Bochum Prison spokeswoman Candida Tunkel said: ‘He removed a cable from his bedside table lamp, then wound it around his nipples and his penis and stuck the end in a power socket.’



Schiffer died from heart failure after an electric current flowed through his chest and his death was likely the result of an accident ‘rather than a suicidal incident’, officials said.

Egidius Schiffer died in Bochum Prison, Germany (Picture: Google)

He was being held in solitary confinement and last seen alive at 1pm on Saturday.

Schiffer was jailed 18 years after his last murder after DNA evidence linked him to the killing in 2008. He was caught because he had given a DNA sample to police after being suspected of stealing scrap metal.

His five victims were all women, aged between 15 and 31, and he had raped three of them.

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