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The story of the cross-dressing Hungarian hitwoman
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Her actions shed light on the tragic reality of life in the poorest parts of Hungary and caused a true media frenzy.
The year was 1919. The villagers of Átokháza (now called Ásotthalom, near Szeged) were sleeping peacefully in their homes. Suddenly, farmer István Börcsök awoke to the sound of his horses’ neighing. Suspecting that something was amiss, he grabbed a lamp, ran outside, and came face to face with a man he thought to be a thief. They got into a fight and then, suddenly, another man threw a rope around Börcsök’s neck, strangling him to death in front of his wife and son.
The truly shocking part came afterwards. They dragged the corpse into the house and hung it from one of the rafters. Then, at the wife’s request, it was moved to the pantry. A chair was placed nearby, positioned exactly as expected in a suicide case.
The freshly widowed Mrs Börcsök and her son drank to his death, along with the murderers.
The man who had strangled Börcsök was even invited to live with them, according to confessions heard at his later trial.
The man in question, who went by the name of “Pipás Pista”, was, in fact, a woman. Born Viktória Fődi in 1886, she was married off at the age of 17 to a much older man named Pál Rieger. Not much is known about her life with complete certainty. Some sources claim that her husband was abusive towards her, just like her father, some others discredit both statements and say that she simply yearned for freedom and better living conditions. Whatever happened, she eventually left her husband and started looking for work. Being of strong build and having smoked since childhood (her moniker, Pipás Pista, could be translated as “Steven with a pipe”), she could easily disguise herself as a man.
Whether this was a matter of gender identity or simply a ploy to gain riches is still unclear. She took on various jobs, such as ploughing or pig slaughtering, and spent much of her free time drinking at pubs. In 1916, she met István Börcsök, who offered her a job on his farm and ended up becoming her first victim. Börcsök’s wife, who had suffered a lot at the hand of her alcoholic and aggressive husband, set her up to the murder.
