On this date in 1957, postwar Czechoslovakia’s most prolific serial killer was put to death at Prague’s Pankrac Prison.
Other than the mandatory Wikipedia entry, most information on Mrazek available online is in Czech.
But there’s little enough nuance to grasp. He was convicted of seven murders (and suspected in several others) to satiate his necrophiliac desires. In all over 100 crimes of sexual abuse and theft were laid at his door.
It was more pedestrian criminality that did him in; the serial killer was at work from 1951 to 1956, but somehow never caught. (This Czech site attributes it to the police force’s postwar prioritization of ideological reliability over investigative professionalism.)
Mrazek was nabbed by accident, rifling jacket pockets (more Czech) at a spa where he worked at an attendant: the subsequent search of his place turned up the evidence of far more villainous behavior, and led Mrazek to confess.
On this day..
- 1949: Leander Jacobs and Hector Chavis - 2019
- A Day in the Death Penalty Around the Martyrology - 2018
- 1066: Joseph ibn Naghrela - 2017
- 1873: Elizabeth Woolcock, the only woman hanged in South Australia - 2016
- 1948: Arthur George Osborne, as per Harry Allen's journal - 2015
- 1757: Father Andreas Faulhaber, seal of the confessional martyr - 2014
- 1663: Tempel Anneke, witch - 2013
- 2010: Zeng Jinchun, corrupt anti-corruption official - 2012
- 2006: Lu Dongming and Lu Kuan, Internet bombers - 2011
- 1818: Robert Johnston, under horrific circumstances - 2010
- 1896: Dr. Jose Rizal, father of the independent Philippines - 2008
- 2006: Saddam Hussein - 2007
- Six Current Heads of State At Risk of Execution - 2007