In the autumn of 2009, older women living alone in Skopje, the capital of what was then the Republic of Macedonia, were being attacked in their own homes. Most had opened the door to a polite young man who said he was collecting money for his sick mother. Some of the women died of head injuries. Their gold chains, bracelets and rings were gone, and in at least one case the front door had been locked from the inside, which led police at first to suspect someone close to the victim.
On November 9, 2009, Interior Minister Gordana Jankulovska told reporters that police had a suspect and that they were treating the case as a serial killing. He was Viktor Karamarkov, 28, from the Skopje district of Gjorče Petrov, a drug user known to police for theft. Within days the Macedonian press had given him a nickname taken from Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel "Crime and Punishment": the "Macedonian Raskolnikov." In June 2010 a Skopje court sentenced him to life in prison for four murders and two attempted murders.
The case is often summarized in a few lines. The record behind it is less tidy: the number of victims, which women were counted in the final verdict, the spelling of one victim's name and even the date of the arrest differ from one source to another.
Viktor Karamarkov was born in 1981 and grew up in Gjorče Petrov, a district on the northwestern edge of Skopje. According to a 2023 profile in the daily Nova Makedonija, his father died when he was small and he was raised by a mother the paper described as mentally unstable. Neighbors told reporters that he was a loner but highly intelligent, and that he had finished school with top grades. Nova Makedonija reported in November 2009 that he had been the best student of his year at the Zdravko Cvetkovski construction school center (GUC) in Skopje.
Other reporting from the same week offered a different picture of the home. A Nova Makedonija headline on November 11, 2009, read "The quiet boy from the neighborhood," and the paper quoted neighbors and friends who said that Viktor's mother had never mistreated him, and described shock and disbelief among the family's neighbors. Nova Makedonija's 2023 profile said his mother refused to believe that her son was a killer.
By his late twenties Karamarkov had a criminal record. The Associated Press, quoting the interior minister, called him a drug addict. The Kajgana news portal described him on November 9, 2009, as a delinquent and drug addict known to police for his criminal file. Nova Makedonija reported that police knew him for many thefts. At his trial the court found that he had begged door to door, as he said, but that he had spent the money on drugs.
He was also, by several accounts, a reader. The Bulgarian daily 24 Chasa, summarizing Macedonian media on November 10, 2009, headlined its story "Fan of Raskolnikov killed 4 women in Skopje." Nova Makedonija wrote that he loved Russian literature and that, reading "Crime and Punishment," he identified with its main character, Rodion Raskolnikov, the impoverished former student who kills an old pawnbroker with an axe. The nickname followed from that comparison. The Makfax news agency, in a November 10, 2009 report by Mirjana Stojanovska, offered a different influence: it said the Hollywood horror film "Candyman" had been his inspiration. Neither claim was tested in court, and the verdict as reported dealt with the facts of the attacks, not with what he read or watched.
Police and prosecutors described the same method in each case. Karamarkov picked older women who lived alone. He rang the doorbell and asked for money, saying it was for treatment for his sick mother. Nova Makedonija reported in 2023 that surviving women and witnesses described a young man under 30 going door to door with a book in his hands. Once he was let in, he took out a small axe that he carried wrapped in newspaper and tape; the AP, quoting police, said the axe was wrapped in foil. He struck the women on the head, took their gold jewelry and left. 24 Chasa reported that he touched nothing else and locked the house behind him.
Minister Jankulovska told the AP that he chose his victims at random. Nova Makedonija, summarizing what police said at the time, wrote that the killings were not planned and followed no set pattern, and that Karamarkov said he lost control when he saw the gold jewelry the women were wearing. Police described the motive as gain. The court found that he sold the jewelry and used the money to buy drugs.
Several outlets reported that after the killings he went to the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Gjorče Petrov to ask God for forgiveness. Nova Makedonija repeated this in 2023, and Republika's 2026 summary says, citing testimony and media reports, that he went to church to seek forgiveness after the killings. This detail came from his own statements and press accounts. It was not part of the verdict as reported.
The victims named in the press were older women of Skopje, most of them living alone. Published reporting gives little more about their lives than their names, ages and the streets where they lived. No statements from their families appear in that reporting.
Ljubica Hristovska, 83, was the first. She died at her home in Butel, a district in the north of the city, of a head injury. Police and press later dated her death to late February or early March 2009. Nova Makedonija reported in 2023 that investigators at first suspected someone close to her, probably a family member, because there were no signs of violence or theft and her front door was locked from the inside. Her death was not linked to the others until months later.
Bosilka Krasojević, 71, was killed in her home on Oktomvriska Revolucija (October Revolution) Street, according to Nova Makedonija, which places the killing in October. Her injuries resembled those of Ljubica Hristovska, and that likeness was the first sign that the deaths might be connected. Her name appears in all later lists of Karamarkov's victims. It does not appear in his conviction: as reported below, the prosecutor withdrew the count over her death at the close of the trial.
Vera Bogoevska, 76, was attacked in her home on Franjo Kluz Street and died of her injuries. Nova Makedonija reported that she was killed on the same day as Bosilka Krasojević.
Elena Mileva, 69, was attacked in her home on Ho Chi Minh Street in Butel a few days later and died. Nova Makedonija and Republika spell her surname Mileva. Utrinski Vesnik's report of the verdict calls her Elena Miovska in one place and Miova in another. Hers was the last killing, and Karamarkov was detained shortly after it. Her case carried the strongest physical evidence: the court found that blood on the axe recovered by police was hers.
Three other women were attacked in October 2009, according to police accounts at the time and later summaries.
Marija Atanasovska, 79, was attacked in an elevator in Kapištec, a central Skopje neighborhood, and suffered head injuries. According to Nova Makedonija, the attacker meant to leave her to bleed, but her son-in-law was waiting for her at the building's exit and came upon him. She survived.
Smilja Petrovska, 73, was attacked in October and drove the man out of her home.
Sanije Sulejmani, 42, was attacked the same day as Smilja Petrovska, according to Nova Makedonija. She was younger than the other women by decades, and 24 Chasa's November 2009 summary of the women he was accused of killing, aged 69 to 83, does not include her. Republika's 2026 summary lists her among the attempted murders. Utrinski Vesnik's report of the verdict, however, lists her among the women he was first charged with killing. That conflict is discussed below.
For months the police did not treat the deaths as linked. According to Nova Makedonija, the pieces came together when investigators saw what the cases had in common: older women, attacked in their homes, with head injuries, and gold jewelry missing in every case. The women who had survived gave a common description of a young man who went from door to door asking for help for his mother. They could not describe him in detail.
Republika and the 48 Chasa portal, in 2026 retrospectives, wrote that police linked the killings through the victims' similar profiles, the method used and the traces at the scenes, and that several women who survived attacks described the same pattern of behavior. Vecer reported on November 9, 2009, that police attributed seven attacks over eight months to one man, three of which the victims survived.
The break came through a theft. Nova Makedonija reported in 2023 that at the end of October police picked Karamarkov up as the main suspect in a theft, and that victims and people who had seen the attacker then identified him. In a search of his home, police found the axe. After police released his photograph to the media, Nova Makedonija wrote, a number of women came forward to say that he had come to their doors. Nova Makedonija also reported that before his arrest he had tried to kill himself with a large quantity of pills.
Sources give different dates for the arrest. Republika and the 48 Chasa analysis, both in 2026, say he was arrested on October 27, 2009. The AP story of November 9, 2009, quoting the interior minister, said he was arrested on Saturday, which was November 7. The two dates may describe different steps, a theft arrest in late October and an arrest over the killings in early November, but none of the reports says so directly. Utrinski Vesnik reported in June 2010 that he had been held in the Skopje investigative prison since November 11, 2009, when a criminal investigation into the series of killings was opened.
On November 9, 2009, Minister Jankulovska announced that police were treating the case as the work of a serial killer. 24 Chasa, citing Macedonian media, reported the next day that Karamarkov had confessed and had been given a polygraph test. On November 10, Vecer reported that an investigating judge and a prosecutor had been due the previous day to begin questioning him at Idrizovo, the country's main prison, where he was held on suspicion of four killings and three attempted killings.
Karamarkov's confession was the center of the trial that followed. According to Utrinski Vesnik's report of the verdict, he had twice described the attacks in full during the investigation. At trial he took a different position: he said he could not remember, and argued that he had only gone from house to house asking for money for his mother.
The case was tried before a panel of the Basic Court Skopje 1, presided over by Judge Cvetanka Perić. According to Utrinski Vesnik, the indictment as first filed charged Karamarkov with killing five women with an axe: Ljubica Hristovska, Bosilka Krasojević, Vera Bogoevska, Sanije Sulejmani and Elena Miovska. It also charged him with trying to kill Marija Atanasovska and Smilja Petrovska. The prosecution said he took gold from the women, sold it, and used the money to buy drugs.
That made seven counts. In closing argument, the public prosecutor withdrew the count over the death of Bosilka Krasojević, which left six: four murders and two attempted murders. The available sources do not say why that count was withdrawn.
During the case Karamarkov changed lawyers three times. His last defense attorney, Saško Dukoski of Skopje, used his closing argument to attack the lawyers who had come before him. According to Utrinski Vesnik, Dukoski said they had acted like assistants to the prosecutor, because despite the lack of relevant evidence they had asked Karamarkov to admit to all the crimes. Nova Makedonija reported after the verdict that the defense's position was that there was no evidence and no biological traces, and that the indictment rested on assumptions rather than facts.
On June 16, 2010, the court found Karamarkov guilty of four murders and two attempted murders and sentenced him to life imprisonment, the most severe penalty in Macedonian law. The court ordered him to stay in detention until the judgment became final.
Explaining the decision, Judge Perić said the court had analyzed the evidence presented during the proceedings. From that evidence it could establish how and where the crimes had been committed, and it had testimony from witnesses who saw Karamarkov before and after the killings. Forensic analysis showed that traces of blood on the axe came from Elena Miovska, as Utrinski spelled her name, and that a synthetic fiber came from clothing Karamarkov wore.
The court addressed his defense directly. It reminded those present that he had twice described the attacks in full, and found his claim that he could not remember the killings unconvincing, all the more so because an expert had confirmed that he was calculating at the moments he killed. The court had no doubt that he begged, Judge Perić said, but found that he spent the money he was given on drugs.
Kajgana reported that Karamarkov, then 28 (Makfax and the Global Times gave his age as 29), heard the sentence calmly and without much emotion. The Global Times, reporting from Skopje, said he had denied the charges and that his lawyer would appeal.
The defense said on the day of the verdict that it would appeal. A headline on the Utrinski Vesnik website, listed among related stories on a page dated February 1, 2012, reads "Supreme Court upheld the life sentence for Karamarkov." Beyond the headline, nothing of that report is known: not its date, not the court's reasoning, not the steps between the June 2010 verdict and that ruling, and not the appeal hearing itself.
Nova Makedonija reported in 2023 that Karamarkov was held at Idrizovo under special conditions because he was prone to suicide. An undated report on the local news site Tirekovmirece, from the mid-2010s, said that all prisoners serving life sentences in Macedonia were held at Idrizovoand that 32 people were then serving life. It named Karamarkov among them, for the murder of four women and two attempted murders. According to that report, life prisoners may not work, may not leave the building in which they are held and have no right to weekend leave, and a life prisoner must first serve at least 15 years before there is any chance of a pardon or a reduction of sentence. By that measure, the 15-year mark from his November 2009 detention fell in late 2024. No report of any application for release or reduction was found.
The most recent reports, from 2026, have Karamarkov serving a life sentence. Telma television, in a February 20, 2026 report, described him as convicted to life in prison for four killings. Republika's summary of May 14, 2026, says the court sentenced him to life in prison. Neither report gives his current prison or any new development.
The case returned to the Macedonian press in 2026 after a 25-year-old man from Staro Nagoričane, near Kumanovo, was charged with killing an older woman and investigators began examining whether he was linked to other attacks on women. Reporting on that case, which was still undecided when those reports appeared, repeatedly named Karamarkov. The 48 Chasa portal, in an analysis republished by Libertas and Nezavisen Vesnik on February 24, 2026, wrote that the pattern in the new case, with a vulnerable victim attacked in a private home and the suspicion of repetition, recalled the cases of Viktor Karamarkov in Skopje, Vlado Taneski in Kičevo and Marjančo Velev in the Strumica area. It asked how quickly the system recognizes a pattern before it repeats.
That analysis described Karamarkov's case as the first in recent years to shake the country, and noted that the victims' age and helplessness gave it a strong public echo. Republika's May 2026 retrospective placed him alongside Laze Radeski of Ohrid, sentenced to life in 2009 for killing three currency dealers, and Vlado Taneski, the Kičevo crime reporter arrested in 2008 over the killings of older women, who was found dead in prison before his trial. Republika noted that in North Macedonia the victims of serial killers have most often been older women living alone, which criminologists describe as the choice of an easy target.
No change in law or police practice is reported to have followed directly from the Karamarkov case.
Which four killings? The best contemporary record of the verdict, Utrinski Vesnik's report of June 17, 2010, says the indictment named five women as killed, including Sanije Sulejmani, and that the prosecutor dropped the count over Bosilka Krasojević, leaving four murders. Read literally, that means the four murders in the conviction were those of Ljubica Hristovska, Vera Bogoevska, Sanije Sulejmani and Elena Mileva (Miovska). Police and press in November 2009 and the 2023 and 2026 retrospectives instead name Krasojević as a murder victim and Sulejmani as a survivor. Utrinski's figures add up (five killings and two attempts, less one count, gives four and two), but no report explains how Sulejmani came to be counted as a killing, and the question remains open.
How many attempts? Police in November 2009 counted three attempted killings, and so do later summaries. The conviction covered two.
Victim's name. Elena Mileva (Nova Makedonija, Republika) is spelled Miovska and Miova in Utrinski's verdict report.
Arrest date. October 27, 2009, in the 2026 retrospectives; Saturday, November 7, 2009, in the AP report; detention from November 11, 2009, in Utrinski.
The confession. Police and press in November 2009 reported that he confessed and took a polygraph test. At trial he said he could not remember. His last lawyer said earlier defense lawyers had pressed him to admit everything despite a lack of evidence. The court relied on his two detailed descriptions of the attacks, the forensic evidence and witness testimony.
Influences and nicknames. The "Raskolnikov" label came from the press, based on reports that he admired Dostoevsky. Makfax's report about "Candyman" is a separate claim. Neither appears in the verdict as reported.
Other victims. In November 2009 some reports suggested there might be more victims than the seven attacks police listed; a Vecer headline asked whether there was a notebook with victims' names. No further victims were charged, and no report has confirmed any.
1981: Viktor Karamarkov born; grows up in Gjorče Petrov, Skopje.
Late February or early March 2009: Ljubica Hristovska, 83, dies of a head injury at her home in Butel.
October 2009: Bosilka Krasojević, 71, and Vera Bogoevska, 76, killed in their homes, reported as on the same day. Marija Atanasovska, 79, Smilja Petrovska, 73, and Sanije Sulejmani, 42, attacked.
Late October 2009: Elena Mileva, 69, killed in her home in Butel. Karamarkov picked up by police over a theft (reported as October 27).
November 7, 2009: arrest reported by AP (Saturday).
November 9, 2009: Interior Minister Gordana Jankulovska names him as the suspect in four killings and three attempted killings.
November 10, 2009: Bulgarian daily 24 Chasa, citing Macedonian media, reports that he confessed and took a polygraph test.
November 11, 2009: criminal investigation opened; held in the Skopje investigative prison from this date.
June 2010: prosecutor withdraws the count over Bosilka Krasojević in closing argument.
June 16, 2010: Basic Court Skopje 1 convicts him of four murders and two attempted murders and sentences him to life imprisonment. Defense says it will appeal.
Early 2012: Utrinski Vesnik headline reports the Supreme Court upheld the life sentence.
April 7, 2023: Nova Makedonija reports he is held at Idrizovo under special conditions because of suicide risk.
Late 2024: 15 years since his detention, the minimum before a life prisoner can be considered for pardon or reduction (per the Tirekovmirece report); no application reported.
February 20, 2026: Telma describes him as serving life for four killings.
May 14, 2026: Republika lists him as sentenced to life.