This study describes the investigation of a brutal murder of a 4 year old girl named Aniko O. who disappeared in September 1989. The child was playing around the house in the afternoon but she never returned home. The authorities were searching her for three days. On the fourth day, her stabbed body was found in the basement storage of a nearby apartment. After one week the authorities identified the perpetrator, who lived in the flat-house. She confessed to the crime after a series of contradictions in her statements. Besides, many hard evidence and expert opinion supported her guilt. The court did not have any doubt, and imposed severe punishment.
On September 1989 (Friday), at 8.05. p.m., Sándor O. reported to the Komló Police Station on duty that his 4-year-old daughter, Anikó O., had disappeared during the afternoon. She said that they started looking for her at around 17.45 after she had not come home from playing around the house. Together with the residents, they searched the four-story house, from the basement to the attic. They also searched their relatives, but to no avail.
The notifier gave a detailed description of the girl's identity and clothing. She was wearing dark blue sweatpants and top, under the latter a long-sleeved light blue blouse, and underneath dark blue tights. She wore gold earrings the size of lentils in her ears and white canvas shoes with Velcro fastenings on her feet. Her thick, long, glossy black hair was covered with a white plastic bow with polka dots and a hair clip with a pink flower and a teddy bear.
The child had never been involved in a similar incident before. She never left the immediate vicinity of the house for more than 100-150 meters. She is a friendly type, but always reserved towards strangers. She could give her name and address.
The police station on call notified the Criminal Investigation and Emergency Service, which started the search with the help of some patrols. The first search - with the help of about 30-35 civilians -lasted until 1 a.m. the next night. The ineffectiveness of the extensive search and the evaluation of the information obtained led to a decreasing probability of a possible stray or an accident in the surrounding area, so the Law Enforcement Department of the Baranya County Police Headquarters was notified,
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which immediately took over the professional management of the search and the entire procedure the next day.
From 16 September onwards, a detailed data collection was carried out over three days, focusing mainly on the apartment building and its surroundings. We gathered a lot of useful information on the little girl's movements on Friday. Several people had seen her in the afternoon hours that day, in areas away from their house, but after a thorough and detailed description of her clothing, we were able to confirm that there was a girl living in the area who looked remarkably like the missing girl. She was playing in the street on the afternoon in question, just like Anikó, and even their clothes were almost identical. The only difference was the pink sweatshirt she was wearing, which made it very difficult to spot the misidentification.
We established that the little girl was playing around the house on the afternoon of the disappearance. She was last seen by an elderly woman in the sandpit outside the house shortly after 5 p.m. (It turned out that she was mistaken about the time.) At the same time as the data was collected, we searched the surrounding woodland with 50 workmen, looking at the construction sites, schools, garages, stairwells, basements, and attics in the area.
On the 16[th], based on a scent pattern, we launched a dog search in front of the missing person's house from the sandpit and two remote locations identified by witnesses, but neither yielded any meaningful results. In each case the dogs lost the scent after a longer or shorter roam.
Information and appeals were continuously issued through the press. We also asked for the public's help in the local newspaper, on the radio and on district television.
On 19 September at 7.20 a.m., local resident Zoltán B. reported to the Komló Police Station on duty that the body of - presumably - Anikó was lying in the basement of their house, in one of the storage rooms.
The inspection team immediately started the on-site inspection according to the administrative rules. A dog was set on the trail from the storage room in the basement, which went to the house at 26 Fürst S. Street but lost the trail there.
The body - which did belong to Anikó O. - was found in the pantry of one of the occupants of the house, a man named Zoltán Á. The room was not locked, a heavy 55x55 cm boiler plate was propped against its wooden wall. The narrow window of the storage room was closed and intact. There were no signs of slipping or other marks on the sill or the wall. The heavily bloodied body lay on top of a log pile, covered with a fiberboard, naked. The hands had been tied behind her back with shoelaces.
As there was no doubt that a crime had been committed, the committee proceeded to a criminal investigation.
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Examination of the body revealed lobular lacerations on the face and upper lip, scarring on the tip of the chin, a long-incised cut opening the trachea on the neck, and a disfigurement on the nose.
Several puncture wounds were observed around the left breast nipple and on the abdominal wall, with protrusions of both the small and large intestines. The bones of the limbs and torso were intact. All the listed clothing and utensils were found placed on top or near the body. Also recovered from the vicinity of the body were pieces of the Transdanubian Journal of 18 and 21 August, used as a gripping material, two crumpled paper bags of 16.80 and 16.50 hand-rolled paper used in grocery stores, and a 100-piece nylon bag with a handkerchief. A stinking fragment of body residue was discovered in the bottom of the latter.
At 12.05 the search was interrupted, a blackout was carried out and at 13.45 a luminol procedure was applied in the basement corridor, at the bottom of the staircase and in Zoltán Á.'s apartment. The blood search was inconclusive.
According to one version, the perpetrator is a person of unsound mind and/or an aberration who, on occasion or occasion created, undressed the girl with sexual motives and then, fearing being caught, brutally killed her - she must have known him at least by sight. The specific location (given his supposed state of mind) fell within his line of movement, but more likely, he chose it for misdirection.
Given the circumstances of the discovery, no special packaging was required for the transport, and the body could have been transported naked, which makes the primary location very likely to be inside the house, but the surrounding area of about 150-200 meters cannot be excluded.
The other version is that the perpetrator, motivated by revenge, hatred, anger, etc., lured or took the little girl with him. He had learned about nose cutting in a Roma environment as a form of revenge. As it is not known to have been used against a child, the perpetrator may not be of Roma origin, but most probably a young person who, under the influence of aggressive video films, has tried all the brutalities he has seen on the girl.
After the murder, he hid the girl either at his place of residence or in the external environment of the secondary location. To divert suspicion from himself, or to complete his revenge, he placed the body in the basement of her parents' house, in the storage room of Zoltán Á., who he considered a fool, between Sunday evening and Tuesday morning.
To confirm or exclude these versions, the following tasks were defined:
a) the Forensic Medical Institute should immediately carry out an autopsy and, involving the Forensic Technical Institute of the Federal Ministry of Defense, all tests whose results could be used in the investigation;
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b) a complex data collection in the form of an environmental study of all residents of the staircase (from possible witnesses to the possible perpetrator in order to uncover all reasonable suspicions);
c) any data of interest relating to the movements of the little girl, the family's anger issues, mentally handicapped or aberrant persons in the environment, incidents involving young children, "sugar daddies", homosexuals, alcoholics. Nor can Polish, Romanian and Yugoslav guest workers be ignored in the worker hostel;
d) police continue to collect and monitor data on the girl's movements on Friday. This task will be carried out by an experienced county investigator who will take the case forward once the perpetrator has been identified;
e) the detection of cases within the family and relatives and the persons involved, checking their alibis, which could have motivated this revenge.
To carry out the above tasks effectively, it was necessary to collect and check the records of persons suspected of homicide, rape, crimes against children or other aberrations in Pécs and Komló.
In addition, investigators also had to check the records of people who had received treatment for neurological, alcohol or drug abuse in Szigetvár, Pécs, with particular attention to the immediate surroundings of the site. Police also had to check on those discharged from IMEI, parolees, dangerous criminals, people under police supervision, people who show their private parts, stalkers, etc.
Authority organized a thorough search of four days' waste in the municipal landfill in order to find objects and clues linked to the crime.
Luminol, benzidine procedures were used to search for blood contamination to find the primary site. Starting with the body, officers systematically searched all the rooms of the staircase and the apartments (with the help of the residents, of course). Police had to find out where the two paper bags with the price label, the patterned nylon bags with the price label, the two August issues of the Transdanubian Journal, and the shoelaces tied on the little girl's hands could have come from.
Criminalists started to account for, and check persons arrested based on a report from the public or the police, and then sorted out the primary information.
In order to streamline the investigation management, organization and record-keeping tasks and to ensure that the evaluation was up-to-date, we assigned a special evaluating investigator to the head of the investigation, who prioritized the new information that kept coming in, forwarded it to the chief or assigned immediate new tasks to the investigator or team of investigators who provided the information.
The level of control of the versions had to be known by all investigators involved in the investigation in order to carry out their tasks effectively. Therefore, every evening or every
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morning, depending on the time of completion of the day's work, the head of the investigation carried out a situation assessment, consulted the investigators and defined new tasks.
An autopsy on 20 September concluded that death was caused by haemorrhage due to transection of the carotid arteries and multiple stab wounds to the left lung and heart. These were so severe that even professional medical intervention would not have saved her life. A total of 24-26 stab wounds to the body were caused by a sharp object, probably a kitchen knife. The puncture wound was 11-12 cm and the input was 8-20 mm.
The injuries to the vaginal entrance and vaginal wall were caused by the perpetrator inserting and twisting two fingers into the genital area. There was no biological intercourse with full penetration of the penis, no ejaculatory intercourse and no semen was found. The body fragment found was the missing part of the nose, which had been cut off from a dagger.
The injuries were inflicted before death occurred, in rapid succession over a short period of time. They caused great pain and physical and mental anguish. The ligation of the wrists, according to the results of the histopathological examinations, occurred after death. The time of death was estimated to be between 17 and 20 hours on the 15[th] September.
The first to be accounted for was the owner of the storage room, Zoltán Á., who was already acting nervous during the search. His basement apartment was close to the cellar entrance. Investigators observed a huge mess at his home and noticed that despite the warm weather, he had been lighting the stove for the past few days.
His alibi for Friday was that he was at work, although he had taken the day off. He was living alone, and we also learned that he had tried to lure a little girl 10 years ago.
His immediate colleagues and flat mates said he was not normal. Police were not aware of any specific affairs with women. He read the Transdanubian Journal regularly, usually borrowing it from his neighbors. On the day of the crime, he bought cigarettes in paper bags from the grocery shop and eggs and peppers from the greengrocer.
During the accounting he admitted that he was not working that day, but he admitted that this was a mere mistake and that he had no role in the crime. A polygraph examination was carried out with the assistance of the BM Psychology Institute, to which he agreed without hesitation. This examination did not exclude him as a possible perpetrator, but it did not confirm his suspicions.
When the discovering witness, Zoltán B., was being held to account, he contradicted one of the witnesses on a crucial point. According to his statement, the witness picked him up at 5 p.m. on Friday in his car, with whom
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he had gone hunting. The hunting companion, however, insisted that he had arrived at the house at 6 p.m., and his wife confirmed this. Why does Zoltán B. stubbornly insist on this one critical hour?
No explanation for the discrepancy was found, so he could not be definitively excluded as a suspect, although no other data or facts supported our suspicions.
On the night of 20 September, a considerable amount of blood was found in the hallway, kitchen, and bathroom of the ground floor apartment of the man József K. with a luminol. During the accounting, it was revealed that a 3.5 kg carp had been purchased the previous day and that the housewife had tried several ways and places to "calm down" the wriggling, hardy animal. On checking, he was also ruled out as a possible culprit.
In the course of the data collection, authority received more and more information about a 15-year-old gypsy young man named Béla L., whom Anikó knew and was even a distant friend of Anikó. Béla L. was a strong boy with a very aggressive temper, who on 15 September, two days before the crime, twisted the hands of his aunt, who was visiting them, tied them together and threatened to kill her. After this act he fled into the woods, where he has been hiding ever since. He was wearing Adidas sports shoes and has been seen frequently in the area of Fürst Sándor. Street, where he was seen shopping at the grocery store.
He was carrying a 12 cm blade kitchen knife from home. His mother presented a similar knife, which was found by a medical expert to be suitable for the crime. The boy was particularly fond of Rambo and kung-fu movies, which were constantly shown on their videos. He was angry with the gypsies and repeatedly said that he would like to kill one of them.
After a three-day search, he was apprehended and brought before the police on the 22[nd]. He had heard about the incident but did not know who had committed it. His shoelaces were in place, his knife was a simple pocketknife, and none of his clothing was stained with blood. The polygraph and alibi check ruled him out as a possible perpetrator.
The names of several people, who had previously been convicted, were aberrant, had been treated for neurological complaints and were registered, were found to warrant checking.
Luminol searches in garages, stairwells and all the flats in building were not successful, nor were searches for rubbish or identification of writings.
The extremely extensive data collection among the relatives did not reveal any significant personal conflicts or specific conflicts that would have confirmed the motive of family or ethnic revenge. In each of these lines, conscientious work was carried out, yielding valuable information. All of these may have played a role in the successful detection.
During a systematic check of the occupants of the house, a 25-year-old man, József G., a young man aged 25 who
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lived with his partner, was already acting disturbed during the first interview. Our suspicions were confirmed by the fact that he jumped out of the window one day after the police arrived, for which he could not give an explanation. When the search started, he came out of his flat, stood around for a while, looked around and then hurriedly left for the city. On Friday, he went to his relatives in the Alföld, where he left them at around midnight without saying goodbye. He spent the night at the bus station in Baja, then arrived back in Komló to their flat on Saturday morning. His statement was verified, which corresponded to reality, so that he could be excluded from the circle of suspects.
This was not the case with his partner, Éva V., who was a pensioner and was born with severe brain damage, the consequences of which were visible in her whole body and appearance (oligophrenic), was alone in their home on Friday afternoon. Police suspicions were heightened by the fact that her previous testimony had included a false statement about her whereabouts on Friday afternoon. Due to information dumping, this was clarified and filtered out on the 22[nd] and 23[rd]. Authority found the person to whom she referred, proving her alibi. The witness stated emphatically that Éva V. had not been at her place on the afternoon of the 15[th].
Meanwhile, detectives also interviewed an elderly teacher couple who had previously taught Eva V. They told us in detail about her aggressiveness, her spite, her occasional tantrums, when she lost control and went berserk.
According to the medical expert's opinion, the victim's genitals were probably not penetrated with a penis. Éva V. appeared to be a woman of remarkably strong build and considerable physical fitness. She lived almost within arm's reach of the cellar door. She regularly bought the Transdanubian Journal and used a tissue. She and the victim were mutually acquainted, the little girl had confidence in her and could turn to her for help.
Detectives have also learned that when the girl disappeared, she made a comment to the effect that "what's all the fuss about, she must have gone astray". On Saturday, she did a big clean and a big wash. Investigators' interviews throughout the week, which focused on the movements and activities of the deceased on Friday afternoon, also confirmed that Anikó O. returned to their house between 4.15 and 4.30 pm, where she was most likely missing. Her parents were not at home at the time and the apartment was locked. It is assumed that she went to someone's house and that it was mainly the same or below their floor (ground floor).
Police growing suspicions about Éva V. were weakened by the fact that the luminol test showed no blood in her apartment, and what it did show could have been detergent. Nevertheless, after careful consideration of all the information we had, we decided to hold her thoroughly to account.
During her interrogation, she was contradictory about her alibi and her initial confidence was waning. As a tactical ploy, police suggested that they knew that she had met the girl that afternoon
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and that she had gone to her flat. After admitting this, Éva V. gradually got to the point of making a confession before the prosecutor and official witnesses.
She sobbed and said that sometime after 4 p.m. Anikó knocked on her door and asked her for a glass of water. While complying with the request, she began to feel an excited tremor in her body. She started to play sexually, but it hurt her, and she tried to escape. Then, fearing that she would tell her parents what had happened, she hit her repeatedly on the head, causing her face to bleed. After standing the victim in the bathroom bathtub, she cruelly stabbed and cut her with a kitchen knife.
She hid the body in the bed linen holder of her bed and by 18.00 hours she was "helping" to search for the little girl.
Three days later, at night, she took the body, wrapped in paper, to an open storage room in the basement. She believed it was safer there because it had been searched several times.
The primary (incomplete and inaccurate) confession was corroborated by investigative acts and expert opinions.
Éva V., who had been detained continuously since her first interrogation, was sentenced to 18 years' imprisonment by the courts for manslaughter with malice aforethought and for forcible sodomy against nature. ■
Lábjegyzetek:
[1] The Author is professor, Department of Criminal and Civil Procedure, Faculty of Law, University of Pécs.
[2] The Author is doctoral student, Doctoral School of the Law, University of Pécs.
Visszaugrás
