Between August 1951 and November 1956, seven people were killed in the countryside around Chomutov, in northern Bohemia, and in the village of Svinařov, near Kladno. Several of them were shot with the same pistol, and the man responsible was also convicted of four attempted murders. For more than five years the police could not find the man responsible, and by one count about 25,000 people were checked in the course of the inquiry.
He was Václav Mrázek, a short, slight foreman at the Chomutov tube rolling mills who liked football, hockey and cycling and who struck the people around him as shy and well mannered. He was caught on March 17, 1957, by chance: a miner found him going through the lockers in a changing room at a coal mine near Kladno. A search of his home turned up the pistol. He confessed, and in November 1957 the People's Court in Chomutov sentenced him to death for seven murders and four attempted murders, with other charges. He was hanged at Pankrác prison in Prague on December 29, 1957. He was 32.
Mrázek was born on October 22, 1925, in Svinařov, a village about ten kilometers from Kladno, according to a 2020 report in Deník. His family was very poor. Deník's 2020 account says he was one of twelve children and that the family lived for a time in a disused railway wagon; a 2025 Deník profile by Jiří Nováček also mentions the wagon, says he had eleven siblings, four of whom died in early childhood, and records that he was called "Vašík" at home. In a statement he gave in 1954, quoted in a second Nováček piece, he described himself as coming from a working-class family: his father was a miner and his mother a housewife who later took an auxiliary job at the Chomutov ironworks. That account puts the number of children at eight.
Stealing began at home. Nováček writes that his father sent the children out to take chickens, rabbits, laundry, bicycles and food. Mrázek attended five grades of primary school in the 1930s and left. From about the age of 15 he worked as a laborer for a building firm in Kladno and then in the coal mines. As a 16-year-old, during the German occupation, he received a suspended sentence for theft.
After the war, in 1946, at the age of 21, he signed on as an armed guard with a convoy of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) carrying aid to Romania and Bulgaria. He had wanted to become a policeman or a soldier, Nováček writes, but was turned down because he was too small: 165 centimeters tall and 65 kilograms. According to the same account, the guards on the convoy stole from the aid they were protecting, and Mrázek later admitted that they often fired from the moving train at living things they passed.
Nováček's 2025 profile says Mrázek left military service in May 1949 and moved to Chomutov. In September 1949 he was sentenced to 18 months in prison for theft. He served the term in the prison in Chomutov and was released on February 18, 1951.
Back at liberty, he went to work at the tube rolling mills of the Chomutov ironworks and rose to foreman. He earned 1,400 crowns a month, Nováček writes, about 400 more than the average wage of the time. Colleagues and the women he lived with saw nothing unusual in him. He had partners in the ordinary way, and children were born to them. Those who knew him described him as odd and somewhat shy but polite, tactful and hard working, and in public he was reserved with women. Nováček sums up the impression he left as that of a quiet, decent, shy working man next door.
He spent his free time riding a bicycle through the countryside around Chomutov. He often stole the bicycles he rode.
The first killing took place in August 1951, six months after his release from prison. Hana Chloubová was 15 and was looking after cattle near the village of Drahonice, a village that no longer exists, when he killed her. Nováček's account dates her death to August 22, 1951. She had been chosen at random. The police investigated her death on its own, and the inquiry went nowhere.
On September 16, 1951, Bronislava Pajůrková, 32, was shot dead between Jirkov and Kyjice, near Chomutov. By then Mrázek had a pistol. Detectives screened more than 300 possible suspects. He was not among them.
That autumn two more women were attacked near Chomutov, in October and November 1951. Both survived. Deník reported in 2020 that during the inquiry into the second attack the police for a time suspected that the attacker was a woman.
On the night of June 1, 1952, a young woman was shot at near Hořenec, close to Chomutov. She was not hurt, and she was later able to describe the man to the police.
The same night Marie Dvořáková, 16, was shot dead on the road to the village of Přečáply, near Údlice. Nováček reports that her boyfriend had been on his way on a motorbike to take her home. Police checked about 1,800 suspects in her case without result. They also, for a time, suspected the young woman who had survived, and the inquiry stalled.
After a gap of two years, on July 14, 1954, Jiřina Helmichová, 16, was shot dead near Horní Jiřetín, in the Most district. Deník's 2020 report places the killing near Černice.
That same year officers of the state security police stopped Mrázek as he was stealing a bicycle with a briefcase on it. He talked to them about his family and his job, and they let him go, taking him for a petty thief. By then, Nováček writes, three of the killings had already taken place.
On August 9, 1955, a young couple, Karel Trlifaj, 26, and Libuše Dufková, 19, were shot dead near Březenec, on the edge of Chomutov. Both were robbed. Expert examination linked these deaths to the earlier killings, but Mrázek was still not a suspect.
On January 20, 1956, Mrázek moved from Chomutov to Kladno, near the village where he was born. Before he left, an officer in Chomutov, Second Lieutenant Slavík, struck him off the list of repeat offenders whom the police kept under review. Nováček writes that the move to the Kladno area took him off the register of checked criminals altogether.
In Kladno he went back to the mines, but health problems kept him from working underground. The man who told him so was his supervisor, a shift boss. Mrázek became a changing-room attendant at the Nejedlý mine at Libušín. Deník's 2020 report says he wanted revenge for being sent to cold work.
On the night of November 9, 1956, he killed Alžběta Beranová, 57, the shift boss's wife, in Svinařov; she had recognized him. He took about 1,600 in cash and other property, including a hair clipper. The couple's granddaughter, a girl of ten or eleven, was also attacked, and she survived. Investigators made no progress for about four months.
The break came on Sunday, March 17, 1957, at the Nejedlý I mine in Libušín. A miner who had injured his hand came back to the changing room early and found the attendant going through his locker. Nováček's 2025 account says Mrázek was taking 22 crowns and an identity card from a pocket. The miner held him and called the managers, who called the police.
His home was searched in two stages. Senior Sergeant Ekert found a pistol. Ballistic tests showed that it was the weapon used in the shootings around Chomutov. The search also turned up property linked to the killings, among it the hair clipper from Svinařov, Deník reported in 2020.
Mrázek was questioned over about two months, in Chomutov, Kladno and Prague, in the spring and summer of 1957, and he confessed to seven murders and to a long list of other crimes. Deník's accounts draw on the investigation file and the interrogation records now held by the Security Services Archive at Kanice. The file was closed on July 19, 1957, at Prague's Prison No. 3, after about four months of work, and ran to 16 volumes.
It listed 127 offences. Besides the seven murders and four attempted murders, Nováček counts 33 burglaries, 12 thefts of laundry, 16 thefts of poultry and rabbits, six bicycle thefts and dozens of small thefts from workplaces. A second Nováček piece breaks the burglaries down differently: three committed with his brother, two of a kindergarten and a nursery, four of flats, 24 of cellars and twelve of gardens and yards. That article adds that even 127 is probably not the full number.
How he came by the pistol is told in two ways. One Nováček article says he bought it from a former classmate. The other links the gun to a neighboring family, the Černýs, who sold it to Mrázek's partner.
That partner, his last, was a mother of three and a former thief who worked as a police informant. She had been assigned to watch the Černý family. Nováček writes that she told her handlers nothing about Mrázek, though she may have suspected something.
A close relative of Mrázek's joined the Public Security police (Veřejná bezpečnost) during the years of the killings, Nováček reports, and through him Mrázek had detailed knowledge of the investigation.
Afterward the police admitted their failures. Nováček cites an extensive internal report to the Minister of the Interior in which the force acknowledged its mistakes, and he argues that officers who had put the facts together could have exposed Mrázek after the first killing. The sexual and the robbery cases were investigated separately, he writes, and for years the inquiry made little progress.
Miloslav Jedlička, a former teacher of criminology, gave the explanation most often repeated. In 1948 to 1950, he said, a sweeping purge removed most of the experienced detectives who had served before the war. Their places went to young recruits from working-class backgrounds whose new task was hunting spies, "reactionaries", priests and other enemies of the state. Deník's 2020 report also attributes the stalled inquiry partly to the purges of experienced detectives.
The two chances to stop him that stand out were the 1954 stop by state security officers, who let him go, and his removal from the list of repeat offenders before he moved to Kladno.
The main hearing began before the People's Court in Chomutov on November 5, 1957, and was set to last five days. The panel was chaired by Judge Karel Shejbal. On November 9, 1957, the court sentenced Mrázek to death for seven murders and four attempted murders, with other charges.
He had expected a sentence of ten years at most, by the accounts in Deník. When the sentence was read he collapsed, went down on his knees and begged for mercy.
The higher courts and the Minister of Justice turned down his pleas for clemency. On December 28, 1957, the minister, Václav Škoda, refused the request. Mrázek was hanged at Pankrác prison in Prague on December 29, 1957. He was 32.
Major Bohuslav Němec, who later founded the Criminalistics Institute in Prague, took a death mask of Mrázek's face. It is displayed at the Police Museum in Prague's Pankrác district, according to Deník and Novinky.
The murders inspired the 1966 film Vrah skrývá tvář (The Murderer Hides His Face), directed by Petr Schulhoff, in which Rudolf Hrušínský and Radek Brzobohatý play the detectives, according to Nováček's 2025 profile.
Little is known of the seven people who died beyond their names, their ages and where they were.
Hana Chloubová was 15. She was killed near Drahonice in August 1951.
Bronislava Pajůrková was 32. She was killed on September 16, 1951, between Jirkov and Kyjice.
Marie Dvořáková was 16. She died on the night of June 1, 1952, on the road to Přečáply, while her boyfriend was on his way to take her home.
Jiřina Helmichová was 16. She was killed near Horní Jiřetín on July 14, 1954.
Karel Trlifaj, 26, and Libuše Dufková, 19, were a couple. They were killed together near Březenec on August 9, 1955.
Alžběta Beranová, 57, was the wife of a mine shift boss in Svinařov, the village where Mrázek was born. She was killed on November 9, 1956.
His family: Deník's 2020 report says he was one of twelve children; one Nováček piece gives eleven siblings, four of whom died young; another, quoting Mrázek's own 1954 statement, gives eight children in all.
The number of victims: a 2006 ČTK summary printed by Novinky lists him with six victims, all women, and gives his age at execution as 28. The 2020 and 2025 Deník reports and the 2022 Novinky survey give seven murders, one of the victims a man, and an age of 32 at death.
The date of execution: Deník gives December 29, 1957, and dates the minister's refusal of clemency to the day before. Novinky's 2022 survey gives December 30, 1957.
The date of the first killing: one Nováček article gives August 22, 1951; the other Deník accounts give only August 1951.
The place of the Helmichová killing: Nováček gives Horní Jiřetín; Deník's 2020 report says near Černice.
The pistol: bought from a former classmate, in one account; sold by a neighboring family to his partner, in another.
The move to Kladno: one Nováček article dates it January 20, 1956, and also speaks of a move to Kladno in late 1956.
October 22, 1925: born in Svinařov, near Kladno.
1946: armed guard on an UNRRA aid convoy to Romania and Bulgaria.
May 1949: leaves military service and moves to Chomutov.
September 1949: sentenced to 18 months for theft.
February 18, 1951: released from prison in Chomutov.
August 1951: Hana Chloubová, 15, killed near Drahonice.
September 16, 1951: Bronislava Pajůrková, 32, killed between Jirkov and Kyjice.
October and November 1951: two women survive attacks near Chomutov.
June 1, 1952: a young woman survives a shooting near Hořenec; Marie Dvořáková, 16, killed near Přečáply.
1954: stopped by state security officers while stealing a bicycle; released.
July 14, 1954: Jiřina Helmichová, 16, killed near Horní Jiřetín.
August 9, 1955: Karel Trlifaj, 26, and Libuše Dufková, 19, killed near Březenec.
January 20, 1956: moves from Chomutov to Kladno.
November 9, 1956: Alžběta Beranová, 57, killed in Svinařov; her granddaughter survives an attack.
March 17, 1957: caught at the Nejedlý I mine, Libušín; the pistol is found at his home.
July 19, 1957: investigation file closed in Prague.
November 5, 1957: trial opens before the People's Court in Chomutov.
November 9, 1957: sentenced to death.
December 28, 1957: clemency refused by the Minister of Justice.
December 29, 1957: hanged at Pankrác prison, Prague.
1966: release of the film Vrah skrývá tvář, inspired by the case.