Rimaru was born on October 12, 1946 in the Vlasca region and was a veterinary student in Bucharest. Between 1970 and 1971 he attacked women at night in the city, striking them with a hammer or an axe and stabbing them, biting the bodies, and in several cases mutilating them. Four were killed: Elena Oprea, Fanica Ilie, Gheorghita Popa and Mihaela Ursu. Many more survived attacks.
The killings caused something close to panic in Bucharest, which under Ceausescu's Romania was officially a place where such crimes did not occur; the press was not permitted to report a series, and the fear spread by rumour instead. Women were escorted home from factories at night. Romanian reporting called him the Wolf-Man and the Vampire of Bucharest.
He was arrested on May 27, 1971 after an attack in which he left behind a document, and he was identified from it. He was tried, convicted, and executed by firing squad on October 23, 1971. Four months from arrest to execution.
His father, Florea Rimaru, was subsequently investigated for a series of killings of women in Bucharest in the 1940s, of a closely similar character, and died before any trial. The Romanian material on this is not securely documented and should be treated as an allegation.
The accessible sourcing is Romanian-language material written after 1989, since nothing could be published at the time. The case is the best known in modern Romania.