[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Well, its a rare case. A female spree killer. Olga Hepnarová was a Czech woman, who in 1974 rented a huge Praga RN lorry and then purposely, at high speed, drove into a group of 25 people waiting at a tram stop in Prague. 8 people died, 12 others badly injured. Olga was 22 years old at the time.
If we look at her case closely, we will actually see some similar themes we know so well from more modern spree killers. Hepnarova sometimes sounds eerily like Eric Harris, sometimes a bit like Cho.
"I am physically average, am healthy, have white skin and do not seemingly differ from other people. But I am unique" she said.
She was not absued as a kid and she herself stated that she was raised in a "good family'. Generally she stated that she has issues with how society treated her as a teenager and a young adult, though she did claim that her parents always prefered her older sister over her. (Kevin Harris syndrome?)
She did have behavioral problems as a teen, had to be moved from one school to the next. Her classmates disliked and feared her. She was given nicknames like "She-dragon", "Tarzan", "Stone Flower", "Broken angel". She would run away from school many times. She became distant from her parents, who were generally described as cold stand-offfish people already. She was socially isolated, partly ebcause people didn't like her, partially a loner by her own choice.
When she was 13 yeas old, she tried to commit suicide by pill overdose. She was sent to a psychiatric ward for childeren for some time. She would later state: "In a few centuries people will coem and see this place, just like people today tour medieval torture chambers". Other inmates would attack and beat her badly. She tried to escape, but was caught and bought back by orderlies.
This is when she "realized the futility of psychiatry" in her own words and firmly aimed her anger at society and the world she lived in. This was a clearly external-oriented killer, like Eric Harris and not (suprisingly) like Cho or Dylan.
in 1970, four years before the spree killing, she set fire to a summer cottage of her parents.
Then she spent 4 years studying to be an artist making and designing book covers. She did not have any issues with her superiors. One of her colleagues later stated that "She had a way of making people apologize for the fact that the world is not as it should be". People also recalled she could "float away" and get lost in her own thoughts at times.
People later recalled that he favorite passtimes were reading and driving her Trabant car. She would read pscyhological and psychiatric books, but also Sartre, Nezval, Rilke or Graham Greene. Greene's "The Quiet American" was said to be her favorite book.
She loved her car and atsoem point she purchased an old human skull from a medical student, she then installed a ligth bulb into it and ised it as a lamp inside her car. There were rumors that she is homosexual, but this was never substantiated.
Then in 1973, she sold the small house she lived in, moved to Prague. On the 9yh of July 1973, she took herTrabant car to an edge of a cliff and pushed it over. She then sent letters to several news agencies. Then she paid to rent a truck and drove into that group of people.
Let me offer a loose translation of one fo the statements from the leters to teh news agencies:
"Please accept this letter as a testimony. This is my statement. I - Olga Hepnarová, a victim of your cruel brutality, sentence you to death by being ran over. I declare that X of your lives is still not enough for my single life..."
Sounds like Cho's manifesto here, no?
To the police that arrived she declared clearly that she did it on purpose. She was ready for jail, she had extra clothes with her and a supply of cigarettes. She did not try to flee from the scene, as she knew she'd get a death sentence.
No traces of Alcochol or drugs were found in her system. She was not foudn to be delusional or obviously mentally ill in any way.
"I was certain I killed many people. I felt satisfied at completing this task sucessfully" (...) "I felt pushed around in my life. I wanted to make society realize that there's a lot of us push-overs just here nearby, I felt I must make this known (...) I wanted to make you pay, to make society realize that we need to be treated seriously. I am the speaker for all push-overs."
Psychologist who examined her after the event noticed her emotional coldness, something which we today would describe as "flat affect". Psychologists and policement realized that the atatcked was being planned for a very long time, this was not a person who just snapped.
Olga testified that she planned for a long time. Her first plan was to derail a train, then she planned to go to a high roof and shoot at people with a sniper rifle. She joined a sports-shooting group at some point, but gave that up as she realized getting a good sniper rifle would not be possible.
At the end of teh trial she again epeated that she made this on purpose. That she wanted people to notice, the world to know what went on. ("I want to leave a lasting impression on the world" - Eric Harris). After being asked if she regrets anythign, she replied: "Oh yes. Not killing more victims". She also stated that she'd do it again if she could.
On April 6th 1974, she was sentenced to death. She thanked the court and stated she would not make an appeal. Her mother tried to make an appeal in vain however. On march 12 1975, she was hanged, before the event she tried to fight with the oficials leadign ehr to the gallows, she even broke a finger of one of them. She was the last woman in czechoslovakia to be executed by the law.
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Subject: Olga Hepnarová - female spree killer 
Thu Jun 11, 2015 2:25 pm
