If even Santa is naughty, who can be nice?

IF YOU'VE EVER WONDERED where horror writers get their twisted ideas from, wonder no more: it's from news items like this one. Over the weekend I wrote about the serial poisoner who has been preying on merrymakers at Berlin's Christmas markets. On Saturday night he struck again. And - yes - he was wearing a Santa costume this time.

Last week an approximately forty-five year-old man with short blond hair walked around at least three Christmas markets, telling passersby that his wife had just given birth to a daughter and offering tiny bottles of liquor laced with a substance that was probably liquid ecstasy. The seven beneficiaries of his largesse immediately experienced convulsions and had to be hospitalized. In an unsettling twist, the newspapers are reporting today that, in one of the cases last week, the perpetrator tried to separate one of his youthful female victims from her friends. When she began feeling nauseated, he allegedly told her: "Come with me. I'm a doctor and I've got an office nearby."

This time the victim was a fifteen-year-old girl. The perpetrator approached the girl and a friend outside the Alexa shopping mall at Alexanderplatz and offered them a swig of schnapps from paper cups. The friend refused, but the victim took the bait and likewise ended in the hospital, suffering from extreme nausea and memory loss. Her boyfriend, who had heard of the other cases, immediately called the police. She, like the other victims, was able to leave the hospital after only a few hours.

So far it is not certain whether this attack came from the same psychopath or whether it is in fact a copycat crime. If it's the latter, the entire affair casts a definite pall over the capital's holiday preparations. I mean, if you can't trust Santa anymore, who can you trust? So when it comes to partaking in holiday cheer this Christmas, you'd be smart to accept drinks only from licenses vendors. Go for the hot spiced wine, with an added shot of rum if you're feeling adventurous, and the hot cider with Calvados isn't too shabby either. But whatever you do, beware of old men in red suits bearing free schnapps.

UPDATE (December 14, 2011): The Berlin police are reporting three additional victims who were approached at the Christmas market on Alexanderplatz over the weekend. They were treated at local hospitals and later released. The police has put a price on the perpetrator's head.