Crime Scene Investigator

Legend of the Prague Murder Squad on the Trail of Deviants

The book opens with the most famous and most media-covered case – the story of the so-called Spartakiad killer, Straka. What goes through the mind of a victim, tormented and murdered by a juvenile deviant? What makes a person kill? How do they behave before, during, and after? And what does an investigator think when they arrive at the crime scene and look death in the face?

In an interview with the author, detective Jiří Markovič recalls not only this case but also many others, the details of which are published here for the very first time. A special place is given to a tragic event that took place thirty-seven years ago. A young girl was murdered on her way home. She was only seventeen. At the time, the killer and his investigator stood opposite each other. Today, they have been able to shake hands, sit down at the same table, and revisit their memories of that terrible night. The former murderer, now a successful painter, gifted “his” investigator a painting, the motif of which is used on the cover of this book. The soul has painted its own portrait.

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Petr Šámal (*1949)

Photographer, painter, graphic designer, film producer, screenwriter, and writer. In the new millennium, he has held several photography exhibitions. In 2002, the geographical magazine KOKTEJL published his photo-reportage from the middle of Nevada, USA. From 2000–2005, he produced four feature films, which were broadcast by TV NOVA, PRIMA and MARKÍZA. As an executive producer, he shot the feature film TACHO in 2010, for which he also designed the posters and billboards. In the past, he worked for eight years as a chalet keeper in the Krkonoše Mountains and spent five years as a cook on ships sailing to Hamburg. From 1989–1994, he lived permanently in the USA, where he first worked in a print shop, a café and a bank, before driving across the entire United States in an American truck. Czech Television accepted his idea for a crime series, and the RWE Foundation supported the screenplay for the film KDE DOMOV MŮJ. Today, he divides his time between Prague and the small town of Grotte in Sicily, where he bought a house.

Col. Jiří Markovič (*1942)

One of the best investigators of the Prague police force. From 1986, he was the head of the homicide investigation department, the so-called “mordparta” (murder squad). Today, he divides his time between Prague and the Šumava mountains.