Rung was born on January 3, 1961 in Berlin. Between 1983 and 1995 he attacked people in their flats, mostly elderly women living alone. He raped them, robbed the flats, and killed them by strangling or by drowning them in the bath.
Those named in the record are Melanie Scharnow, seventy-seven; Susanne Matthes, twenty-two; Frieda Kramer, eighty-five; Josefine Grosser, sixty-two; Helga Klinner, fifty-eight; Eckhard Trutti; and Gabriele Propper, thirty-four. He was known as Pinocchio.
Because several of the deaths looked like accidents, an old woman found in her own bathwater, the series was not recognised for years, and the twelve-year span is largely explained by that.
He was arrested on February 28, 1995 and sentenced to life imprisonment on March 5, 1996, the court finding particular gravity of guilt. German reporting of the period described him as the most dangerous serial killer in Berlin since the war, which is the phrasing this roster carries.
The accessible sourcing is German press coverage and encyclopaedia summaries; no judgment is published. Seven victims are given and six are named.