A child of post-war Germany, Werner Boost began stealing at age six, spending several years in a home for delinquents near Magdeburg. Released for military service near the end of World War II, he had a fleeting taste of action prior to being captured by the British Cease-fire brought no change in Werner's attitude, and during 1951 he was incarcerated for stealing scrap metal from cemetery vaults.

Behind the larcenous exterior lurked darker passions. Boost acquired a friend, Franz Lohrbach, who would later tell police that Werner "hypnotized" him and compelled him to participate in heinous crimes against his will. In the beginning, they were merely chums who went out target shooting, graduating to the robbery of couples found in isolated trysting spots. Boost managed to concoct a drug, with which he rendered victims senseless, stealing from the men and raping their companions, "forcing" Lohrbach to participate.

One night, in early 1956, Boost and Lohrbach encountered one Dr. Serve, a Dusseldorf businessman, parked on the banks of the Rhine with a young male companion. Werner drew a gun and killed the doctor, ordering his sidekick to eliminate the boy, but Lohrbach panicked, merely knocking out the witness.

Police had a description of their suspects by the time Boost struck again, shooting a young man to death and injecting his date with cyanide. Their bodies were discovered in the ashes of a straw pile, torched in an attempt to wipe out evidence . Boost chose another courting couple for his third attack, clubbing both unconscious in their car before he sank it in a nearby pond and watched them drown.

On June 6, 1956, a forester near Dusseldorf observed an armed man spying on a couple from the trees. He tackled the voyeur and held him for police, who soon identified the prisoner as Werner Boost. In custody, Boost stubbornly denied the lover's lane attacks and said he merely hoped to frighten off the latest couple, since public displays of affection made him "see red." Self-righteously, the killer rapist told his jailers, "These sex horrors are the curse of Germany."

When news of Boost's arrest was published, Lohrbach voluntarily surrendered to authorities and launched into a marathon confession . On the night of Dr. Serve's murder, he explained, Boost was experimenting with a plan to gas his victims, using toy balloons and cyanide. Ballistics tests revealed that Werner's pistol killed Serve, and old investigations were reopened in a series of murders around Helmstedt, in Lower Saxony, during 1945. Boost had been living in the area when several refugees were shot and killed, attempting to cross the border between Russian and British zones of occupation.

The case of Werner Boost dragged on for years, producing one of the longest indictments in German history. Upon conviction, Boost was sentenced to a term of life imprisonment, the maximum allowable in postwar German law.