Marie Fikáčková - a serial baby murderer.

Background.

Marie Fikáčková was born on 9th September 1936 in Sušice, in Czechoslovakia. She grew up in a dysfunctional family but was able to graduate from medical school in Central Klatovy with good grades and in 1955 was working as a nurse in the maternity department of the hospital in Sušice, in the Pilsen region. She was regarded as very competent, and was promoted to head nurse of that ward not long before her arrest. During this time she had been married and divorced. Here is a photo of her.

Arrest, trial and execution.

Marie was suspected of killing two newborn babies in the neonatal unit of the district hospital in Susice on the 23rd of February 1960. She was arrested four days later. Autopsies on the two baby girls revealed that the cause of death as severe brain injuries and fractures. The pathologist who carried out the autopsies concluded that the two children had died in quick succession from similar injuries.

According to court files, one child who was just 20 hours old had head injuries and two broken arms which could only have been caused deliberately. On the same day two other newborns were discovered with similar injuries from which both died. The file also contained her admission that she used violence against a dozen other infants, whom she described as “attack survivors”. The apparent motive for this violence was that she could not tolerate crying babies. In a statement she said "When you press the head I felt my fingers sink into the head, but I did not feel at this moment any cracking cranial bones, I only felt that hitting the head. After a brief excitement, I calmed down and I worked at folding napkins in the inspection room."

Court psychologists and psychiatrists found her to be sane, but with a tendency to depression, hysteria and uncontrolled outbursts of anger, the later born out by the nature of the crimes.

She came to trial at the beginning of October 1960 and was convicted on both counts. She sentenced to death on 6th October. Her appeal was heard in early 1961 and was rejected, as was her petition for clemency to the President. She was hanged in Prague’s Pankrac prison on Thursday the 13th of April 1961. Czechoslovakia used the short drop method of hanging and no details of executions were made public. She would be the first woman to die on the indoor gallows. Marie would have been led into the execution room, stood on the tiny trap door near the far wall and had a simple halter noose attached to a projecting metal bar, placed around her neck. It is not known whether she was hooded or blindfolded. The executioner would now go into the adjoining room and push the lever towards the wall. (photos here and here) Only one other woman would die on these gallows, Olga Hepnarová on the 12th of March 1975.

Epilogue.

Her case was in the media again in 2007 when it was claimed that she had committed as many as ten murders, which would have made her the worst female serial killer in Czech history. However, there is only indirect evidence linking her to the other crimes. According to journalist Stanislav Motl, who dealt with the case, the court did not have a chance to prove more murders among other things because the little bodies were not autopsied. Motl also claims that the case played a political role because of the misconduct hospital staff. Stanislav Motl stated that "After a thorough study of all the materials I have come to the conclusion that she apparently hated children crying. I myself consider it the greatest mass murder. While she was convicted of two murders, there are another 10 dead children. The worst thing is that she was murdering still, while I was searching on - some children were strong and survived the abuse and now they are mentally handicapped."

The details of the case were largely suppressed from the state run media by the Czech government, because of the lack of confidence in hospital safety procedures at the time and for fear of panic among pregnant women. Parents of the dead children were told that their child had died from postpartum shock or heart failure. However, Stanislav Motl eventually got one the medical report that said that the infants had crushed heads and broken hands.

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