Juraj Lupták

born on January 2nd, 1942, Banská Bystrica (Slovakia) - executed on July 16th, 1987, Bratislava

The man having a bothersome sight and folding his arms used to be a nightmare to the citizens of Banská Bystrica more than twenty years ago. That simple-minded shepherd and drinker, who had big difficulties to finish the basic school, became known as "the Garrotter from Banská Bystrica". He had spent his childhood in various educational facilities for children since he was twelve. Having finished the basic school, he became a mining apprentice at the training centre. He was said to suffer a bad leg injury which might make him leave the training centre. He worked as a co-driver, a shepherd or a builder's labourer, but he prefered vagrancy to working. He was arrested two times - the tax fraud and the obstruction of the authority. That felonious murderer starts the series of murders near Banská Bystrica on May 6th, 1978. He chooses his very first victim, a twenty-year old woman, on a forest road that day, in the afternoon. He attacks her from behind, starts choking her until she falls unconscious and rapes her after that. Lupták not being just a deviate, he steals 500 Kč from her handbag.

It happens nothing extraordinary for the following four years. Lupták is at large and sure not to be ever found, but there comes June 2nd, 1982. He murders again in Suchý vrch near Banská Bystrica that day. A fifteen-year-old young girl having a bag on her becomes his victim. Drunken Lupták murders for the second time. Besides murdering her, he steals her watch, ear-rings and her bag.

Lupták assaults nobody for more that a month. On July 18th, 1982, Lupták becomes self-confident enough to be able to commit his last act of murder almost in the centre of the town near the then-office of Regional People's Committee. He has a big stone on him that time not to loose time with chooking. He also wants to be sure to manage "to hook on his victim". It is dark and he waits for any young woman passing by. He does not wait long. A young woman passes him having no idea of a murderer hiding in the dark. Lupták attacks her from behind hitting her head with the stone. He keeps hitting her till she falls unconscious but he does not rape her as the woman was in her monthlies. The woman comes round and thus he strikes her to deat. Then he steals her ear-rings and leaves the place.

Lupták being a deviate is not the only reason for murdering those women. He also wants to get rid of the witnesses, to prevent them from telling anybody. The more he drinks, the more aggressive he is. Despite the fact that Juraj Lupták is a rather simple-minded person, he knows pretty well what he is doing. He himself admits he has been drinking since he was seventeen. He even drinks window-cleaners containing alcohol. He chooses only young women. They are sexually more attractive to him and weaker than the older ones. During the crime reconstructions, he shows heart and hand places where he used to wait for his future victims, the way he was attacking and murdering them and the way he used to leave the scenes of crime. He seems to be showing off. When he learns about the death sentence, he becomes affraid and denies everything. He did not take the death sentence into account. He thought he might be imprisoned for some years only. He thought he would work as a miner in prison, earning money to refund his victims' families.

The authorized experts find there is no way of any possible "re-education" of Juraj Lupták. Neither imprisonment nor testectomy can exclude the possibile recurrence. Lupták is a psychopathical, deviant, socially immature person. He plans every attack in advance, including the possible escape ways. Juraj Lupták is found to be a dangerous criminal and that is why the Regional Court in Banská Bystrica sentence him to death for threefold act of murder, threefold theft and twofold criminal assault. He is executed in Bratislava on July 16th, 1987.

The text written in Slovak and the photograph sent to the Museum of Crime by
Natalia Novotná, M. A.
Košice
Slovakia

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