The 1986 Předměřice Family Murders — Vladimír Lulek

On the night of December 22, 1986, five members of one family were killed in Předměřice nad Labem near Hradec Králové. Vladimír Lulek murdered his wife and four children in the household. Three of the children were his wife's from earlier relationships; the youngest child was his daughter. The victims are treated here as one family-murder case, not as five separate pages.

The night of December 22, 1986

Czech reporting states that Lulek returned home intoxicated and argued with his wife. The violence began against her and continued inside the residence against the four children, who were aged approximately ten, eight, seven and eighteen months in contemporary ČTK reporting.

A neighbor attempted to intervene after hearing the disturbance and was also attacked. She survived. Established Czech sources describe Lulek as having attempted to kill her; this page therefore records the surviving attack separately from the five completed murders.

Immediate aftermath and investigation

After the killings, Lulek injured himself and was taken for medical treatment. The criminal investigation then focused not only on what happened in the home but also on whether he was legally responsible for his actions.

During the proceedings he claimed, at different points, that he did not remember the killings and behaved as though he were mentally ill. Psychiatric experts did not accept that presentation as evidence of a severe mental disorder eliminating criminal responsibility. Later Czech accounts consistently state that the courts regarded him as responsible for the crimes.

Five murders, one surviving victim

The adjudicated homicide count is five: Lulek's wife and four children. The neighbor survived and is not counted as a homicide victim. Her attack remains relevant because it was part of the same sequence and because established reporting describes it as an attempt to stop the violence.

Keeping these categories separate avoids two common errors in retrospective crime writing: inflating a murder count with a surviving victim, and splitting one connected family event into multiple case files.

Death sentence in 1988

On January 14, 1988, Lulek was sentenced to death for the five murders. Later reporting on the case states that the judgment survived appellate review and that clemency did not prevent the sentence from being carried out.

Capital punishment was still lawful in Czechoslovakia at the time. The sentence must therefore be described in its historical legal context rather than measured against the later abolition of the death penalty.

Execution at Pankrác

Lulek was executed by hanging at Prague's Pankrác Prison on February 2, 1989. He was the last person executed on the territory of what is now the Czech Republic.

He was not the last person executed in Czechoslovakia as a whole. Štefan Svitek was executed in Bratislava later in 1989. That distinction is retained because many retrospective accounts compress the two different claims into one inaccurate statement.

A sentence abolished soon afterward

Czechoslovakia abolished the death penalty in 1990, replacing it with life imprisonment as the maximum ordinary custodial punishment. The legal reform occurred after Lulek's execution and did not retroactively alter the adjudicated status of his case.

The historical significance of the execution should not eclipse the victims. The central fact of the case remains the loss of five members of a family and the survival of a neighbor who intervened.

Timeline

1. December 22, 1986
   Five family members murdered

   Lulek kills his wife and four children at the family residence in Předměřice nad Labem; a neighbor who intervenes survives an attack.

2. 1986–1987
   Criminal and psychiatric investigation

   Investigators reconstruct the killings and experts assess Lulek's criminal responsibility.

3. January 14, 1988
   Death sentence imposed

   The court convicts Lulek in the five-murder case and imposes capital punishment.

4. 1988
   Review does not overturn the judgment

   The sentence remains in force after the available review and clemency process.

5. February 2, 1989
   Execution at Pankrác

   Lulek is hanged in Prague, becoming the last person executed on present-day Czech territory.

6. 1990
   Death penalty abolished

   Czechoslovakia removes capital punishment from its criminal law.

Current legal status

Solved / adjudicated. Vladimír Lulek was convicted of five murders, sentenced to death and executed in 1989. The neighbor survived and is not counted among the homicide victims.