Ladislav Hojer killed five women in Czechoslovakia between November 1978 and October 1981. The killings took place in Děčín, near Košice, in Brno and in Prague, over a period of almost three years, and nothing connected them in the eyes of investigators until the last one was solved. He was a young man from Prague with a trade, no criminal record that reached the press, and a reputation among employers and acquaintances for keeping to himself. He was convicted of five murders, sentenced to death and executed at Pankrác prison in Prague on August 7, 1986.
The case is remembered in the Czech Republic partly because of the detective who led it, Jiří Markovič, the head of the Prague homicide squad, and partly because it fell in the final years of capital punishment in Czechoslovakia. A six-part television drama about Markovič and Hojer was released on a streaming service in January 2024, which brought the case back into Czech public discussion more than four decades after the crimes.
Hojer was born on March 15, 1958, according to Slovak and Czech reports. He grew up in a family marked by early loss: reports say his father died of cancer, and that his mother died of the same illness some years later. After her death his stepfather, who had remarried her, showed little interest in him. He had a brother from whom he was reported to be distant.
He attended a special school and trained as a glazier. Employers rated his work and his attitude as well below average, and colleagues described him as reserved. Reports of his psychological testing give an intelligence quotient of 88 and describe a shy, anxious young man with no lasting relationship with a woman. The later psychiatric examination, summarized by the Slovak outlet Noviny.sk, described a primitive psychopathic personality without basic moral restraints.
He completed basic military service shortly before the killing in Brno in 1981. Czech Prima reported that the Brno killing took place about three months after he finished it.
The five killings spanned three years and three regions of the country, from northern Bohemia to eastern Slovakia.
The first victim was Eva R., who lived in Děčín. She was killed in November 1978, when Hojer was 20. Most accounts give her age as 30; one gives 29. Hojer, who lived in Prague, was reported to have traveled to the town. Her husband was first suspected by police, according to the Slovak site Startitup.
The second victim was a woman of 25, killed in February 1980 on the route between Prague and Děčín. Hojer was home on leave from military service at the time. One report gives her first name as Ivona or Yvona; the reports differ on the spelling and on the surname.
The third victim, killed in 1980, was a woman of about 25 to 30 in the Košice area of Slovakia. Her identity was never established. One report places the killing in August 1980; another says autumn. She remains the one victim of the series who has never been named.
The fourth victim was Ivana M., an 18-year-old who was killed in Brno on January 31, 1981. Her killing drew the widest press attention of the five.
The fifth victim was Anna Š., 51, killed in Prague on October 3, 1981. She was the last. Her killing is the one that led to his arrest.
After the killing of Anna Š., the Prague investigators did not link her death to the earlier ones. The murder inquiry that opened in October 1981, led by Jiří Markovič, concentrated on identifying a man who knew the area. The podcast series from Novinky.cz describes the first weeks as a hunt for someone matching a suspect sketch from a different case, and a nervous man with a triangular face who was noticed in a police station corridor and later identified as Hojer.
Other reports agree on how the case turned. A man who had been in psychiatric care, identified in the press as Jaroslav D., came to the attention of police and gave a detailed description of the Prague killing, including details that had not been made public. He had been in a hospital ward at the time and could not have been present. He told police that Hojer, an acquaintance, had described the killing to him. Blesk reported that this man was himself mentally ill; Czech Prima describes him as someone who had left a psychiatric institution. Police questioned Hojer.
Accounts differ on how Hojer came to be arrested. E15 says he was caught after talking about a killing in a pub, and does not mention the psychiatric patient. The majority of the reports, including Blesk, Czech Prima and Čtidoma, tie the arrest to the psychiatric patient's statements. The date also differs. Čtidoma gives both October 11, 1981 and February 1982, and Czech Prima gives February 11, 1982 for the arrest. The discrepancy has never been settled in public.
Hojer first admitted only the last killing, Anna Š. Investigators had to prove the others, Czech Prima and Čtidoma report. Over the following months he confessed to the other four. Čtidoma reports that the inquiry took about nine months and closed after five proven murders, although investigators believed he had killed at least two more women. Those further killings were never charged.
He also admitted other offenses against women, reported in the press as 18 in all. The charges on which he was convicted, as listed by Novinky.cz, were five murders, three rapes, three attempted rapes and theft.
Hojer was convicted of five murders and sentenced to death. G.cz reports that the court found him fully responsible for his acts and held that rehabilitation was not possible, in line with the psychiatric findings summarized by Noviny.sk: the experts judged him sane when he committed the crimes and said that rehabilitation was excluded.
According to a Seznam Medium piece, two appeals and a petition for clemency addressed to the president were rejected. The execution was postponed twice because of an illness of Hojer's, Čtidoma reports.
Hojer was executed on August 7, 1986, at Pankrác prison in Prague, at the age of 28. One Novinky.cz article gives December 7, 1986; every other account, including a second Novinky.cz piece, gives August.
He is often called the last person executed in Czechoslovakia, and as often described only as one of the last.
Jiří Markovič, who led the Prague homicide squad and is credited in Czech press with solving the case, was born on November 16, 1942, in Boleradice in South Moravia. He joined the police in 1964, moved into criminal investigation in 1966 and joined the Prague city investigation department in January 1977, when it had four investigators, according to Seznam Zprávy. He died in October 2022 at the age of 79, as reported by the Czech News Agency. Seznam Zprávy remembered him as the detective who led the inquiries into Hojer and into the Prague killer Jiří Straka.
Hojer's case remained in Czech media long after 1986, in articles on the last executions at Pankrác and on the history of multiple murder in Czech criminology. The streaming series Metoda Markovič: Hojer, a six-part drama, was released on Voyo on January 26, 2024, and is based on the relationship between Markovič and the killer. Echo24 described it as a story set in Prague and Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and 1980s. It is a dramatization, and it is not a record of the case.
Convicted and final: five murders, with the death sentence carried out in 1986.
Suspected only: investigators were reported to believe he had killed at least two more women. No charge, finding or confession is reported.
Conflicts between reports: the date and circumstances of the arrest (October 11, 1981 or February 1982, and whether the psychiatric patient's statements or talk in a pub led to it); the month of the Košice killing (August or autumn 1980); the age of the first victim (29 or 30); the execution date in one article (December 7, 1986, against August 7 in all others); whether he was the last person executed in Czechoslovakia.
March 15, 1958: Ladislav Hojer is born.
November 1978: Eva R. is killed in Děčín.
February 1980: a woman of 25 is killed on the route between Prague and Děčín.
1980: an unidentified woman is killed in the Košice area.
January 31, 1981: Ivana M., 18, is killed in Brno.
October 3, 1981: Anna Š., 51, is killed in Prague.
October 1981: the Prague murder inquiry opens under Jiří Markovič.
October 11, 1981 or February 1982: Hojer is arrested, depending on the report.
After arrest: he confesses to the last killing and later to the other four.
Date not reported: trial; he is convicted of five murders and sentenced to death.
August 7, 1986: Hojer is executed at Pankrác prison, Prague.
October 2022: Jiří Markovič dies.
January 26, 2024: the series Metoda Markovič: Hojer is released.