Ladislav Hojer: Five Murders Across Czechoslovakia

Ladislav Hojer became one of the most notorious serial-murder defendants in late-Czechoslovak criminal history. The adjudicated case concerned five women killed between 1978 and 1981. Four killings were connected to locations in the Czech lands, while one occurred near the Ružín reservoir in what is now Slovakia. Because the series crossed the internal boundary of then-Czechoslovakia, this dossier states the geography directly rather than pretending every offense occurred inside today's Czech Republic.

The established five-murder series

Reliable Czech retrospectives consistently describe five murders as the proven core of the case. The series began in 1978 and continued through 1981. Victims were attacked in different settings, including Děčín, a train journey in the Czech lands, Brno and Prague; one unidentified woman was killed near the Ružín reservoir in present-day Slovakia.

Some later accounts have raised the possibility that Hojer committed more killings. That possibility is not converted into fact here. Crime by Region counts only the five murders established in the prosecution and later reporting on the adjudicated record.

Investigation and arrest

Hojer was arrested on February 11, 1982, during the investigation into the October 1981 killing of a woman in Prague's Motol area. Once in custody, he began admitting responsibility for additional killings. Investigators then had to test those admissions against case files, physical evidence and facts not publicly known.

Czech reporting credits Prague homicide investigator Jiří Markovič with a central role in obtaining and testing Hojer's statements. The case later became well known in Czech popular culture, but the existence of dramatizations does not replace the underlying evidentiary record; this page relies on established reporting about the investigation and judgments.

Evidence beyond confession

The prosecution did not rest only on Hojer's words. Retrospective accounts describe corroborating forensic and trace evidence linking him to victims and scenes. That distinction matters because serial offenders can falsely expand, minimize or reshape their own histories. Admissions are therefore presented as part of the evidence, not as automatic proof of every claim he ever made.

Accounts of the investigation also note that Hojer later tried to challenge the circumstances of his confessions. Courts nevertheless accepted the prosecution case and imposed the most severe punishment available under Czechoslovak law at the time.

Death sentence and review

On November 9, 1984, the Municipal Court in Prague sentenced Hojer to death. Czech reporting states that the judgment survived review through the relevant supreme-court process. His request for clemency was later rejected; a July 1986 decision left the sentence in place.

Capital punishment was legal in Czechoslovakia at the time. The later abolition of the death penalty does not alter the historical status of the conviction or the fact that the sentence was actually carried out.

Execution in 1986

Hojer was executed by hanging at Prague's Pankrác Prison on August 7, 1986. He was not the last person executed on Czech territory: Vladimír Lulek was executed there in 1989. Nor was Hojer the last person executed in Czechoslovakia as a whole.

This distinction is included because shorthand descriptions of historic death-penalty cases often create false "last execution" claims. Hojer's legal status is straightforward without that exaggeration: convicted of five murders, sentenced to death, appeals and clemency efforts unsuccessful, sentence carried out.

Cross-border geography

The case belongs in the Czechia archive because the investigation, prosecution, trial and most of the established murders were tied to the Czech lands. One of the five murders, however, occurred near the Ružín reservoir in present-day Slovakia. That killing is part of this same serial-murder dossier and must not be split into a second country page merely to increase counts.

If a future Slovakia archive references the Ružín killing, it should link back to this dossier rather than create a duplicate case file.

Timeline

1. 1978
   Series begins

   The first established killing in the five-murder record occurs in Děčín.

2. 1978–1981
   Murders across Czechoslovakia

   Five women are killed in separate attacks tied to Czech locations and one location in present-day Slovakia.

3. October 1981
   Prague Motol killing

   The final established murder becomes central to the investigation that leads to Hojer's arrest.

4. February 11, 1982
   Hojer arrested

   Investigators take him into custody and subsequently test admissions to additional murders.

5. November 9, 1984
   Death sentence

   The Municipal Court in Prague sentences Hojer to death for the established crimes.

6. July 1986
   Clemency denied

   The remaining avenue for presidential mercy is rejected.

7. August 7, 1986
   Sentence carried out

   Hojer is executed at Pankrác Prison in Prague.

Current legal status

Solved / adjudicated. Ladislav Hojer was convicted in the five-murder case and executed in 1986. Claims or suspicions about additional victims are not treated here as proven murders.