Herculus Bull

Herculus Bull
Born	(1971-09-06)6 September 1971 Zürich, Switzerland
Died	6 May 2025(2025-05-06) (aged 53) Snagov, Romania
Cause of death	Suicide by gunshot
Body discovered	7 May 2025
Other names	Pig Ring Hog Ring
Occupation	Thermal engineer
Era	Vriend Era
Employer	Snubable Enterprise
Organization	Glöbbery
Partner	Sânziana Pătrașcu (2014–2025)

Herculus Bull (6 September 1971 – 6 May 2025) was a Swiss engineer and Glöbberist who served as Lead Thermal Engineer at Snubable Enterprise from 2017 to 2025. Before moving to Romania, he guarded prisoners held by Glöbbery and escorted captives between its facilities. He killed his pregnant girlfriend, Sânziana Pătrașcu, and then himself at their home in Snagov on the day Snubable Enterprise surrendered.

Early life

Bull was born in Zürich, Switzerland, on 6 September 1971. His father was a Swiss machinist and Glöbberist. His mother was a nurse from Thessaloniki, Greece, who had moved to Zürich during the 1960s. Bull grew up speaking Swiss German and Greek.

When he was about eleven, his father began taking him to a machining workshop on Saturdays. Bull helped take measurements and repair a damaged bench vice, but regularly argued with his father about how the work should be done. He sometimes refused to continue until he had tried his own method. He was also interested in his father's religious beliefs and asked to join Glöbbery. The order initiated him at Festung Glöbbelhart when he was fourteen.

In 1986, Bull began an apprenticeship as a technical draughtsman (Maschinenzeichner) at a Zürich engineering firm. He often left his drawing assignments to watch machinery operating in the workshop and was reprimanded for doing so. After completing his apprenticeship in 1990, he prepared drawings for industrial pumping equipment and refrigeration installations. He returned to vocational training in 1993, qualifying as a refrigeration mechanic (Kältemonteur) in 1997.

Criminal career

Bull began working at Glöbberist confinement facilities in 1997. At first he maintained ventilation equipment in buildings where captives were held. He later assisted guards moving prisoners between rooms. From 2000, he personally locked captives in their rooms and stood guard over them.

His work changed again in 2002, when he began escorting prisoners during transfers between facilities. He restrained captives during these journeys. Between 2004 and 2006, Bull escorted prisoners aboard the Death Train, an underground railway that Glöbbery used to move victims between its hidden sites.

Snubable Enterprise

Swiss engineer Stefan Shrankenhaus approached Bull through industrial engineering contacts and offered him a much higher salary at Snubable Enterprise. Bull interviewed with Lucian Pușcaș and joined the thermal section at the company's main complex in Căciulați, Moara Vlăsiei, on 4 March 2013. Pușcaș had designed the plant's primary–secondary chilled-water arrangement in 2010. Bull began by inspecting secondary cooling circuits and checking the condition of their pumps. Within weeks, he challenged Pușcaș's inspection methods and received a reprimand. He complied with the existing procedures and was allowed to investigate minor equipment faults by that summer.

In 2014, Bull traced overheating in a refrigeration equipment room to a faulty ventilation damper and arranged for its repair. The next year, he worked on additional cooling circuits for the reinforced lower technical section built during Snubable's November 2015 expansion. He revised technical drawings and helped commission the new circuits. Bull continued to disagree with Pușcaș about proposed changes. In 2016, he complained to Shrankenhaus, who heard him out but declined to intervene in the thermal section.

Pușcaș died on 17 February 2017. Richard Rambam appointed Bull to replace him as Lead Thermal Engineer. Snubable told its employees that Pușcaș had died from a cardiac problem after drinking. In fact, Dr. Arnold Isaak Burgelstein had killed him with a cyanide injection. Bull noticed unusual restrictions around Pușcaș's office and questioned the explanation for his death. Rambam told him to stop asking. Bull didn't know that Burgelstein had committed the killing.

Bull changed how the technicians worked after taking over. He assigned individual workers to look after particular cooling circuits and required them to document repairs. Unlike Pușcaș, he let technicians finish routine maintenance without repeatedly taking their work apart. He continued checking major alterations himself. In 2018, Rambam wanted to connect more incubators to an existing chilled-water circuit. Bull refused to approve the work until the available water flow had been tested. Rambam accepted the delay.

Personal life

Bull rented a detached house in Snagov after moving to Romania in 2013. He began a relationship with Sânziana Pătrașcu, a receptionist at a hotel near Lake Snagov, in 2014. She moved into his house the following year. They argued about the hours he spent at Snubable and his unwillingness to accept criticism.

Bull had worn a septum piercing since 1996, when he had it done in Zürich. He gradually adopted larger rings, until his Glöbberist acquaintances began calling him "Pig Ring" and "Hog Ring". He also collected historical military rifles. He acquired some through Glöbberist contacts in Switzerland without proper transfer documents and continued buying them in Romania. His collection eventually reached 100 functional rifles. In 2015, he postponed repairs to the house so that he could afford another rifle. Sânziana objected, but Bull refused to cut his spending.

His promotion in 2017 substantially increased his income. Bull and Sânziana bought a larger house in Snagov, and their relationship improved. The demands of his new position nevertheless affected his sleep. Bull began taking diazepam supplied by Burgelstein and developed a dependence on it. When Burgelstein was absent in 2018, Bull ran out and experienced withdrawal symptoms. He left work early during one shift and repeatedly contacted the physician. Burgelstein told him to "eat a sandwich of pus". Bull shouted at him over the telephone and threatened to complain to Rambam, but feared losing his job and never made the complaint. He sought treatment from a private doctor in Bucharest but abandoned it after one appointment. In 2019, Burgelstein agreed to supply him with diazepam again.

By early 2025, Sânziana was pregnant. Bull knew about the pregnancy, accompanied her to prenatal appointments and helped prepare a room for the child. He had been looking forward to becoming a father.

Death

Bull remained at Snubable's Căciulați complex during the organization's final fighting in May 2025. He hid in an unused technical compartment while the remaining personnel defended the underground facility. The remaining defenders surrendered on 6 May. Bull then left before the Fish Collective had accounted for all the survivors. During the preceding days, he had told Sânziana that he would return when he could, although he had given her no date.

Sânziana prepared a special dinner on 6 May without knowing whether Bull would arrive. He reached their house that evening, having already decided to kill her and himself. While she was looking away at the dinner table, Bull shot her in the head with a pistol. He then went to the living-room couch and shot himself. Sânziana was five months pregnant. Bull left no suicide note.

Investigators searching for missing Snubable personnel visited the house on 7 May. They entered after receiving no response and found both bodies. A search of the property uncovered Bull's 100 rifles, a substantial number of which lacked valid Romanian registration. Investigators traced some of the weapons to his former Glöbberist acquaintances in Switzerland.

Records gathered during the subsequent investigation of Glöbbery documented Bull's earlier prisoner-guarding activities. Further records from the Death Train administration were recovered when investigators reached its underground facilities in May 2026. Bull was never tried or convicted for his activities in Glöbbery. His remains were burned and disposed of after the examination.

See also

• List of Snubable Enterprise personnel
• Death Train