Jan Holub

Born on May 10th, 1958 - executed on April 10th, 1986
The murderer criminated by his aurickleprint

Zdena Minaříková (29) is found dead in her flat in the afternoon of July 19th, 1983. There are no doubts that she was murdered. Her hands a legs are corded up. There are her pants in her mouth which are strapped up with a part of her stockings. The second part of her stockings is found wound and jugulated round her neck. A deep stab wound is found in her chest. A bloodied knife is found lying at her body.

The experts, being at the scene of crime, claim that she had been murdered only a few hours before her body was found. The motive seems to be obvious – she is lying naked in her bed and nothing was stolen from her flat. The case of a sex-motivated murder raises a scandal in Brno.

The thorough search of the scene of crime results in finding some semen and a cigarette-end, hidden in a vase standing on the coffee table. What is more, an aurickleprint is found on the main door. The aurickleprint is taken using a dactyloscopic powder (commonly used for taking fingerprints). The woman is sure to have known and let the murderer(s) in as neither the door nor the lock is damaged.

The position the dead body was found in

Zdena Minaříková is a divorced mother of a little girl. She is attractive to men. She works as a shop-assistant in a local shoe-shop. When her mother looking after the little girl, Zdena and her friend go to bars sometimes. She has no boyfriend at that time. She hardly meets her former husband. No matter how hard the criminalists try, they are not able to designate somebody the murderer. None of her friends comes on force or they have an alibi.

The information as follows becomes an important clue: a younger man intrudes upon her in a bar a few days before the murder. Zdena leaves the bar accompanied by her friend only. But they say goodbye to each other in front of the bar and each of them goes home on their own.

An aurickleprint at the door frame

A few days later, Jan Holub (25), the only man corresponding to the description given by the bar staff and the murdered woman's friend, is arrested. In June – just a month before murdering Zdena Minaříková - Holub is released from prison. He was sentenced to five years for a criminal assault and a blackmail. He is not fond of finding a job and thus he just wanders about Brno. He even gets off twice, but they break up soon. He cannot deny his being at the bar at the same time Zdena Minaříková was there because the bar staff and some guests recognize him.

An aurickleprint of Jan Holub

The criminalists step up to the evidence taken at the scene of crime. Holub is asked to lay his ear on a glass sheet. The glass sheet (having an aurickleprint on) is sent to a special criminalistics laboratory. The expert proves the correspondence between the aurickleprint taken from the door frame and the aurickleprint on the glass sheet… His "A" blood group is recognized from his slaver. The cigarette-end found at the scene of crime, in the vase on the coffee table, contains the slaver of the same blood group. The semen found at the crime scene contains the same blood group too. Being made acquainted with the results of the experts, Holub pleads guilty spontaneously and describes his crime in details.

Talking to Zdena Minaříkova in the bar, Holub learns where she lives. At the bus stop, not far from her flat, he asks the people there whether they know an attractive woman called Zdena. He learns what he wants to know soon. He buys a bottle of wine and goes to visit her. But he is not lucky, she is not at home. Trying it for the second time, he is not successful either.

The aurickleprint on the glass sheet overlayed with the aurickleprint taken at the crime scene

Holub has drinken ten glasses of beer during the afternoon and evening hours on July 19th, 1983. At night, he decides to visit Zdena Minaříková. He has a plastic bag and a knife on him. Standing at the door of her flat, he lays his ear on the door frame. He can hear some noise coming out from the flat and that is why he rings the bell. His victim opens the door. She refuses to let Holub in, but he insists on. When she trying to close the door, he, standing at the door, draws out the knife and gets in the flat. Zdena cries for help and thus he gags her mouth and keeping the knife on her neck, he rapes her.

That is not all. She has to submit to his various sexual perversities to be raped again finally. He cords up her hands, gags her mouth with her pants and straps it up with a pair of her stockings. He cords up her legs in the end and goes to kitchen to have a smoke and a glass of water there. Coming back, he can see her trying to detach herself. He throws the cigarette-end into the vase standing on the coffee table and starts choking her to death. He takes the second pair of her stockings and fastens it round her neck. Stabbing his knife under her left breast, he finishes his visit to her…

Jan Holub's victim

The experts in the field of psychology, mental defects and sexuology find Holub to be a sexual deviant tending to sadism. Holub himself admits his being excited when seeing the dead body and even kissing her bleeding wounds. But the experts do not find any mental disorder which could have influenced Holub's behaviour. It results in the conclusion that Jan Holub has murdered Zdena Minaříková just to get rid of her as a witness of his strange behaviour. Before being arrested, he tries to commit a suicide. The rope he wants to hang on parts...

Being at the Brno Regional Court, he says: "Having been in prison, I lacked the proper maners and I found my own way to meet her..." He asks the judge to be sentenced to death otherwise he is about to murder his co-prisoners... Regardless of his promise, Holub is sentenced to death. Jan Holub is executed on April 10th, 1986...

That case was closed quite soon. But what is the most interesting thing is just the aurickleprint. It was the first time in the Czech criminology history when the regional court has taken the aurickleprint into consideration. The same evidence is used to sentence a burglar from Vyškov. That man used to stand at the door listening to make sure that nobody is in the corridor...

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