This is the MOST DISTURBING true-crime case you’ve NEVER heard of before.
Heart Throb
Tenerife, a beautiful island of the Canary Archipelago, is best known for its bright yellow Canary birds, it’s unique Spanish cuisine, and its 300 sunny days per year. However, what Tenerife is not known for, is by far more fascinating… at least to me.
On December 16, 1970, two Canarian police officers entered the second-floor apartment on Calle de Jesús Nazareno. Once inside, they sensed something appalling had taken place. Being new to the police force and on an island with very little crime, neither have smelled the stench of death before, which in the small apartment was powerful.
At once, the officers noted the sizable amount of Christian themed photographs and relics affixed to every wall. No space was left uncovered. Clearly, this family devoted their entire lives to the Christian faith. Most of the photos were of Jesus Christ, specifically of his crucifixion.
Someone had smeared, dried blood, or what appeared to be blood, from Christ’s eyes in one picture, while another had something far more disturbing.
It was an unframed illustration of Jesus Christ after being nailed to the cross. His arms spread out with his body limp. A crown of thorns propped on his head. In the picture, Christ was not dead, but close to it. There was something else though, truly shocking and inhumane. Something sticking out of the picture and added by the apartment owner. The reasoning of the foreign object was so sacrilege and barbarous that it must have been done by the most deranged individual. The Devil, perhaps.
Roughly where Christ’s heart would be, someone had taken a hammer and driven a long and rusted nail through a human heart, which penetrated the drywall behind it. The human organ, although no longer pumping, still dripped dark blood from its aorta cavities.
The rookie officer rushed outside, barely making it into the apartment hall, where he expunged his lunch in pure disgust.
What kind of monster would be capable of such a macabre scene?
The two men exited the apartment and radioed the station. Both knew that it was going to be a long night.
Beliefs
Noone is sure if Dagmar met her husband, Harald Alexander, during his fifteen year stay inside a psychiatric facility or if they met after his release. All we really know about the two is that they wed, were reclusive, and raised four children.
Harald had a special ability. He could hear the word of God, specifically Jesus Christ, when others around him could not. Experts would later classify his ‘gift’ as schizoid personality disorder coupled with auditory hallucinations.
Living in Hamburg with his wife Dagmar, Harald found an association in the Lörber Society (in German, the Lörber Gesellschaft), a Gnostic-Christian sect whose doctrine basically defined itself as, do exactly as the Bible says, or burn in the fiery pits of Hell.
Although still Christian per se, the Lörber Society doctrine was unusual in that multiple prophets existed. Jakob Lorber, who founded the society in 1864, also had the special ‘gift’ of hearing the voice of Jesus Christ, and so did his disciple, Georg Riehle, who carried on the torch. Riehle became the leader of the Society for many of years until he, on his deathbed, passed down the prophecy to his disciple, a schizophrenic named Harald Alexander.
Harald Alexander donned the long coat once wore by Jakob Lorber, purchased a harmonium (an organ, accordion-type instrument), and opened himself, and his family, to the power of Christ.
My Son, The Messiah
Harald Alexander did not believe himself a prophet. He could receive the voice of The Almighty in his head, but could not interpret it. His inability was undesirable, since the Lörber Society required a true prophet capable of decoding the holy messages.
Luckily for Harald, God, or perhaps biology, blessed the Alexander family with a way to carry on the Message.
There are many reasons the entire Alexander family considered Frank, the second child born, the Messiah. Foremost, Frank had a direct channel to the voice of Jesus Christ; his constant stuttering only proved that he was receiving the message, although still in his early years he could not yet interpret what he heard.
Second, Frank Alexander was the only male among three female siblings. The verses of the book of Genesis tell that Eve was born from Adam’s rib, therefore she was the imitation of Man, and not the other way around.
Raised as The Messiah his entire life, Frank lived with “great power over the rest of the family members”, making every decision according to the directions he received in his head.
Family Sects
Frank Alexander turned sixteen in the year that he would slay his sisters and mother, and at that age, Frank had ‘urges’ that needed to be satiated. Girls his own age, one’s attending his school, or any female contact besides the ones ‘chosen’ by the Lörber Society, were just plain unclean. Frankly, the pool of potential suitors for Frank was confined to his own family members.
Harald would argue that such a risk of “contaminating the Prophet of God” was so serious that the only option was to entertain an incestuous relationship with his mother and three sisters.
sex slaves
Transgressions
The inside of the studio apartment after the sacrifice resembled more of a slaughterhouse than a crime scene. Harald would lead a jury through all the gory details of what happened.
It was on December 16th, 1970, and around 1pm when Frank finished having intercourse with his mother. As he was pulling his body away from hers, he quickly glanced into his mother’s eyes. Frank would claim that he felt an unease spread over him. It was as if Dagmar was looking at her son defiantly.
Frank Alexander would later tell one of the psychiatrists that he saw that his mother “had a demonic look, cold as ice and a sarcastic smile on her lips.“
Frank began slapping his mother, sixteen times in total he would later claim. Hell bent on serving a strict punishment, Frank tells his father to go inside the closet and bring him a wooden coat hanger. His father complies.
Frank then used the coat hanger to beat his mother unconscience.
Again Frank commanded his father back to the closet, this time to retrieve a hammer, a shoemaker’s blade, and pruning sheers. His father complied, also picking up his harmonium. During the three-hour torture and sacrifice, Harald remained in the background playing hymns of worship.
first eliminating
Using the hammer, Frank beat his mother to death. Using the pruning sheers, he sliced his mother’s genitalia (found hanging from a string in the apartment). He also removed both of her nipples (found nailed to the apartment wall), and using the shoemaker’s blade, dismembered his mother from top to bottom.
He did this as his sisters waited for their turn.
Faint Moans
Perhaps the most disgusting aspect of this case is the “faint moans” one neighbor heard coming from the Alexander’s apartment that day. And although we can’t know for sure which of the three victims were moaning, we can speculate that it was coming from the fifteen-year-old Petra. The reasoning is that we know all three women accepted their fate, as both sisters, “asked to be sacrificed” according to Frank and Harald.
Petra, no doubt terrified and in pure shock was assured by her older brother. “A sacrifice will make you purer,” he told her.
The entire nightmare lasted well over three hours.
Sabine Alexander
Sabine missed the ritual slaying of the Alexander women because of her babysitting job. A local German physician, Dr Trenkler, whom she ran errands for and occasionally watched over his children, had employed her.
Dr Trenkler was dumbfounded when Harald and Frank Alexander, breathless and covered in blood, showed up at his practice asking for Sabine. The doctor immediately informed the Canary Police and protected Sabine from her deranged father and brother until they arrived.
Dr Trenkler, a German physician whose practice Sabine worked in, was dumbfounded at the conversation. “Ah, you heard it,” Harald told him. We have killed my wife and other daughters. It was time to kill. Sabine takes her father’s hand and takes it to her cheek, saying: “I’m sure you’ve done what you think is necessary.”
Conclusion
A jury acquitted Harald and Frank Alexander of all murder charges on the premise of the two being “not responsible authors.” Although found innocent of the horrific slayings, they admitted both killers to the Madrid Penitentiary Psychiatric Assistance Center for the rest of their natural lives.
And that would be an agreeable end of the story, but unfortunately, the case does not end there.
In 1990, both Harald and Frank escaped the facility and were never seen again. Interpol issued an International Warrant for their arrest.
Noone knows the whereabouts of Sabine Alexander either, or if she is even alive.
Today, Harald would be in his late nineties and his son would be nearly sixty-eight years old.
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