Daniel Ruda, a 26-year-old, self-described “black vampire” immersed himself in Germany’s goth and death metal scene as an outlet for his dark proclivities.  In the year 2000, he was ready to find his soulmate or, as he put it, his “princess of darkness” and placed a singles ad in a German black-metal magazine. 23-year-old Manuela Bartel answered his ad and the two soon became inseparable.  Separately, they participated in strange hobbies like sleeping in graves to “see what it felt like” and filing their teeth into fangs.  But together they were deadly.  In 2001, they jointly committed a gruesome murder.  Was their violent behavior a result of mental illness or were they purely evil? Resources:  The Best New True Crime Stories: Partners in Crime, Edited by Mitzi Szereto, Mango Publishing, 2022.  Murder Dictionary Podcast: “Occult Murders: Daniel and Manuela Ruda”  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/occult-murders-daniel-manuela-ruda/id1169967004?i=1000389846158 https://serialkillercalendar.com/A-MATCH-MADE-IN-HELL-DANIEL-AND-MANUELA-RUDA.php https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/nov/16/thefarright.uk https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2016/06/17/tom-leppard-tattooed-man--obituary/ https://scholarworks.utrgv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1071&context=cj_fac https://www.cesnur.org/testi/gothic.htm