Ondrej Rigo was sentenced to life imprisonment on December 7, 1994, for a series of killings that ran from June 1990 to March 1992 across three countries. The Slovak press agency SITA reported that he was serving life for nine murders: two women in Germany, one in the Netherlands and the rest in Bratislava, where the victims were women and the teenage son of one of them. TV Markíza and noviny.sk described him as the first person in Slovakia convicted on DNA evidence.
He denied every killing. "I wasn't there, I didn't do it," he said in a prison interview with the Slovak daily Plus JEDEN DEŇ, as the Czech paper Blesk reported in 2022. He died in a prison hospital in Trenčín on June 14, 2022, aged 66.
Rigo was born in 1955 in Modra, a town near Bratislava, according to the Hungarian news site 444 and the Czech press agency ČTK. His childhood was spent largely in institutions. ČTK reported that at 14 he was placed in a corrective institution and later ended up in an orphanage with his siblings. Blesk, the Czech daily, wrote in 2021 that his father, who had a criminal record, was arrested, and that his mother was unable to look after him and his brothers and sisters, so he went first to a children's home and then to a reform institution. The same paper reported that his father was later shot dead during a burglary and that his mother died in a car accident.
As an adult he was in and out of court. He had been convicted 11 times before the first killing, according to TV JOJ and noviny.sk, which described the earlier cases as minor property offenses. 444 reported that most of those convictions were for burglary. noviny.sk wrote in 2022 that he had been freed early under the amnesties of the Husák era.
Blesk reported that he married twice and had a daughter.
TV JOJ and noviny.sk reported in 2011 that Rigo left the country illegally in 1989. From that point the killings followed in Germany, the Netherlands and finally Slovakia.
The first killing took place in Munich in June 1990. 444 reported that Rigo was in the middle of a failed burglary when a 40-year-old woman, identified in that report as Helena S., found him, and that he beat her to death. A month later, according to the same report, he killed again. SITA wrote in 2018 that he began the series in 1990 with the murders of two women in Germany and then committed another murder in the Netherlands. Blesk named the third city as Amsterdam.
The women abroad are identified in the reports by little more than their city. Apart from the first, their names have not been published, and almost nothing is publicly known about their lives.
Rigo returned to Slovakia, and the Bratislava killings began in October 1990, noviny.sk reported. The first victim in the city was an 88-year-old woman. Seven more women and a boy followed, by that outlet's count of the whole series, although other reports put the total for all three countries at eight women and the boy.
The pattern described in the press was consistent. He looked for women who lived alone on the ground floor or in flats he could reach from outside, waited until they were asleep, and came in at night or in the early morning through a window or balcony door that had been left open. He beat them to death with blows to the head. He wore socks on his hands so as not to leave fingerprints, which gave him his Slovak nickname, Ponožkový vrah, the Sock Killer. 444 reported that he sometimes took small items from the flats.
The youngest victim was a boy, the son of one of the women, who was killed with his mother. His age is given differently in the press: 14 by TV Markíza and noviny.sk and by Blesk in 2021, 15 by SITA in 2018, and 16 by ČTK and by Blesk in 2022. ČTK put the ages of the women from 22 to 88; SITA in 2018 gave 21 to 80. The Bratislava victims have not been publicly named, and little is known about who they were.
One woman survived an attack. She woke and fought him off until he fled, 444 reported. ČTK wrote in 2026 that her testimony and description of the attacker played a key part in the search for him, and Blesk reported in 2021 that she identified him.
The killings left Bratislava afraid. Women in the city slept with a night lamp on and closed their windows at night because of him, tvnoviny.sk reported, as quoted by ČTK.
The killings went unsolved for almost two years. Blesk reported that German, Dutch and Slovak investigators were searching for the killer during that time. In Bratislava, ČTK wrote in 2026, the police had only one clue they could use: DNA the killer had left on the victims. They turned to a group of Slovak geneticists who were developing new ways to identify offenders. With the help of German and Dutch police, Rigo was linked to all of the killings by DNA, according to ČTK's report of his death in 2022.
The last killing was on March 4, 1992, in Bratislava. Police arrested Rigo the same evening at a hotel where he worked as a cloakroom attendant, noviny.sk reported in 2022. SITA wrote in 2018 that the last murder was in March 1992 and that he was arrested shortly afterward.
At his arrest, Blesk reported in 2021, Rigo claimed that the blood on his hands was syrup. He kept up his denials through the trial and for the rest of his life.
Rigo was sentenced to life imprisonment on December 7, 1994, noviny.sk reported. SITA reported in 2018 that he was serving life for nine murders committed between 1990 and 1992.
The court found him guilty although he never confessed. TV JOJ and noviny.sk reported in 2018 that he had not admitted the murders despite strong evidence and DNA tests. 444 wrote that he appealed the first verdict, saying he was innocent, but offered nothing to support the claim. A psychological assessment made during the trial described him as a schizoid antisocial psychopath, according to the same report.
TV Markíza and noviny.sk described the conviction as the first in Slovakia to rest on DNA evidence. TV JOJ, in a 2011 report on DNA testing, said the tests helped with both his arrest and his life sentence.
Rigo served his sentence first at Ilava and later at Leopoldov, noviny.sk reported. noviny.sk dated his time behind bars from 1993, when, it said, he was taken into custody; the same report dated his arrest to March 1992.
He still claimed to be innocent. In the interview reported by Blesk, he said he knew that people hated him and that he still hoped to be free one day. He said his daughter had last visited him in 2005 and had stopped writing.
Under the Slovak Criminal Code, a person sentenced to life may apply for conditional release after 25 years, provided set conditions are met. Rigo applied in May 2018. Jana Kondákorová, spokeswoman for the Regional Court in Trnava, told TV JOJ that the application reached the Trnava District Court on May 11. The prison at Leopoldov had to supply an assessment of his conduct; Katarína Nováková of the office of the director general of the Prison and Judicial Guard Corps said it would cover his behavior in custody and while serving his sentence.
Experts gave him little chance. Dušan Kešický, a clinical psychologist and forensic expert, said he expected Rigo to be examined by a psychologist and a psychiatrist, and said that without outside help, guidance and support a return to ordinary life would be almost impossible. "Given all the circumstances, I would say there is probably little chance," said Lucia Kurilovská, a criminal law expert.
The court never ruled. On June 5, 2018, Kondákorová told SITA that the district court had not set a date for a public hearing and that Rigo had withdrawn his application. He was 62.
444 reported that in his last years Rigo had heart problems and needed hospital treatment. Blesk reported that he spent most of his last year in the prison hospital.
He died in the early morning of June 14, 2022, in the Hospital for Accused and Convicted Persons in Trenčín. He was 66. Monika Kacvinská, spokeswoman for the Prison and Judicial Guard Corps, confirmed the death to SITA and said an autopsy would establish the exact cause. Police in Trenčín were informed, and the prison service declined further comment while the investigation of the death was under way. 444 reported two days later that the authorities had not disclosed the cause.
His family distanced itself from him, Blesk reported. The daily SME reported that his daughter, contacted by the prison service, said she did not know anyone like him. Kacvinská explained that when no close relative takes the remains, the municipality where the death occurred arranges the burial. Blesk reported that the funeral would be a social one, with cremation and no ceremony.
In July 2026 the streaming platform Oneplay released a four-part documentary series, Případ Rigo: Ponožkový vrah (The Rigo Case: The Sock Killer), directed by Peter Bebjak and written by Jakub Režný. ČTK reported that it tells the story from the point of view of detectives, a prosecutor, a judge and geneticists, and that Režný worked through a police file of more than 5,000 pages. "The Rigo case ended for me when he died in prison a few years ago," Bebjak said.
ČTK called him the second-worst serial killer in postwar Czechoslovakia. Slovak and Czech outlets regularly describe him as the best-known serial killer in Slovakia.
The total. The press agrees on nine killings, eight women and a boy, but counts them in different ways. SITA reported that he was serving life for nine murders. One noviny.sk report counted eight women and the boy in Bratislava alone, after three earlier killings abroad; other outlets do not support that reading.
The boy's age. Reports give 14, 15 and 16.
The release request. SITA reported in June 2018 that Rigo withdrew his application before any hearing. Its report of his death in 2022 said the court had rejected it. The 2018 court statement supports the withdrawal.
Custody. noviny.sk dated his arrest to the evening of March 4, 1992, but wrote in 2018 and 2022 that he had been behind bars since 1993.
1955: born in Modra, Czechoslovakia.
Childhood: placed in a corrective institution at 14, later in an orphanage.
Before 1989: convicted 11 times, mostly for property offenses and burglary; released under amnesties.
1989: leaves Czechoslovakia illegally.
June 1990: first killing, in Munich.
1990: a second woman killed in Munich, a month later, and a third in Amsterdam.
October 1990: the Bratislava killings begin.
March 4, 1992: last killing, in Bratislava; Rigo is arrested that evening.
December 7, 1994: sentenced to life imprisonment.
May 11, 2018: his application for conditional release reaches the Trnava District Court.
June 5, 2018: he withdraws the application.
June 14, 2022: dies in the Hospital for Accused and Convicted Persons in Trenčín, aged 66.
July 2026: the documentary series Případ Rigo: Ponožkový vrah is released.