The Strange Murders of Tillie Klimek
The story of Chicago’s most prolific female serial killer
Ottilie “Tillie” Klimek was born Teofila Gburek on October 22, 1877, in Poland. Her parents were Michalina and Michal Gburek. The Gburek family had seven children, and Tillie was the first-born. When Tillie was four years old, the family immigrated to the United States. They settled in the “Little Poland” section of Chicago, Illinois.
Love and Marriage
Not a lot is known about Tillie’s childhood. By 1895, she married Joe Mitkiewicz. The marriage appeared to be a happy one. The couple was well-liked in their community. Tillie earned a reputation as a good cook, who had the uncanny ability to predict impending deaths.
These predictions came to her in dreams, she claimed, and Tillie had many of them. Usually, the dreams were of stray dogs that annoyed her or an argumentative neighbor. However, the world would come to know Tillie wasn’t really having premonitions. She was merely stating times of deaths and penciling a murder into her schedule.
