The 1995 Beniamin Laichici Five-Murder Spree

The killings committed by Beniamin Jian in March 1995 were spread across several locations but formed one continuous criminal episode. Romanian court-based reporting consistently records five homicide victims. Because the murders were prosecuted together and arose from the same sequence, they are presented here as one case file rather than being fragmented into five pages.

Events leading into March 6

According to investigators quoted by Romanian media, Jian believed his wife was having a relationship with another man. His wife had reportedly been hiding from him for several days. During the evening of March 5, Jian obtained a hunting gun from a man in Sântandrei.

The investigation later established that the man who supplied the weapon became one of the five victims. Jian then travelled by taxi toward Abrud, where relatives of his wife lived.

Killings in Abrud and Deva

In the Abrud area, Jian killed one of his brothers-in-law and a neighbour. He then returned toward Deva. The sequence continued there, where the man from whom he had borrowed the gun was killed.

Jian next went to the workplace of his wife, a kiosk near the Deva railway station. She was not there. A young woman who worked with her was killed. A fifth man, whom investigators said Jian suspected of having a relationship with his wife, was also shot and killed in Deva.

The sources reviewed for this file consistently support a total of five murders. This archive does not add separate counts for threats, weapons possession or later sentencing litigation.

Surrender and detention

On March 6, 1995, Jian went to the Deva police and surrendered, handing over the weapon and remaining ammunition. Later court filings record that he was held continuously from March 7, 1995.

His surrender established custody; it did not itself resolve the legal case. Prosecutors still had to document the sequence and bring the five killings before the Hunedoara Tribunal.

The 1996 life sentence

Later litigation quotes Criminal Sentence no. 73/1996 of the Hunedoara Tribunal, pronounced on April 5, 1996. Jian was sentenced to life imprisonment for especially aggravated murder.

He later changed his name to Beniamin Laichici while incarcerated. Romanian coverage sometimes refers to him under both names, so this page records the alias to prevent the same case from being mistaken for two different offenders.

Life sentence converted to 25 years

In 2014, the life sentence was converted to a fixed 25-year prison term. Romanian coverage of the decision explains that the change followed the sentencing rules then applicable to an older prisoner serving life imprisonment. The conversion did not erase the five murder convictions.

This is an important legal distinction. A change in the form or duration of a sentence is not an acquittal, and Laichici remained imprisoned under the murder judgment.

Conditional release after more than 22 years

Laichici made several applications for conditional release. A June 2017 application was refused, with the court noting both the seriousness of the crime and the length of time he had already served.

Later in 2017, the Bistrița-Năsăud Tribunal granted conditional release. Reporting published on October 3 said he had left prison after more than 22 years. The release changed the execution of the 25-year sentence; it did not reverse the conviction.

A separate 66-day dispute

After release, Laichici continued litigating a separate 66-day contraventional detention term that had been added to the calculation of his imprisonment. On November 9, 2017, the Cluj Court of Appeal finally rejected his attempt to remove those days.

That dispute is included only to clarify the post-sentence record. It was separate from the judgment for the five murders and does not create an additional crime-page count.

Timeline

1. March 5–6, 1995
   Five people are killed

   Jian commits a sequence of shootings across Sântandrei, Abrud and Deva.

2. March 6, 1995
   Surrender

   He turns himself in at the Deva police headquarters and hands over the weapon.

3. March 7, 1995
   Custody begins

   Later court filings calculate his continuous detention from this date.

4. April 5, 1996
   Life sentence

   The Hunedoara Tribunal imposes life imprisonment for especially aggravated murder.

5. 2014
   Sentence converted

   The life sentence is converted to a fixed 25-year prison term under applicable sentencing provisions.

6. 2017
   Conditional release

   The Bistrița-Năsăud Tribunal grants release after more than 22 years in custody.

7. November 9, 2017
   Separate execution challenge rejected

   The Cluj Court of Appeal finally rejects an attempt to remove 66 additional days from the sentence calculation.

Current status

Solved / Adjudicated. Beniamin Laichici, formerly Beniamin Jian, was convicted for the five murders and originally received life imprisonment. The sentence was later converted to 25 years, and he was conditionally released in 2017 after serving more than 22 years. Neither the sentence conversion nor conditional release amounted to an acquittal.