Marie FikáčkováAt the maternity ward of the Sušice District Hospital in Czechoslovakia, a number of newborn babies suffered appalling injuries, from which two were known have died. Nurse Marie Fikáčková was arrested on suspicion of causing their deaths and in custody she confessed to killing as many as ten victims between 1957 and 1960, and was hanged for her crimes.
On February 19, 1960, one-month old Hana Hamelbauerová was taken to the neonatal ward of the Sušice Hospital while her mother was still hospitalized. The nurse on duty, 24-year-old Marie Fikáčková, reported that Hana was behaving strangely several days after her admittance. Fikáčková called a doctor to examine the child, who exhibited odd injuries.
In the early hours of February 23, 1960, another child in the ward stopped breathing. A doctor called to the ward stated the apparent cause was respiratory failure, something which was not unusual for such young children. Two days later, Hana Hamelbauerová died. An autopsy was ordered, and it was found that neither death had been caused by postpartum complications.
The autopsy confirmed Hana Hamelbauerová and the other child who had died suffered from serious skull injuries. The next day, Fikáčková was arrested at her workplace and interrogated about the children’s deaths and confessed her involvement and also in other attacks against an additional three young children.
Fikáčková gave conflicting statements concerning her motive, however she eventually admitted that she felt, “a complete hatred of children,” when she heard then crying and this caused her to become violent. The shocking story of Marie Fikáčková is one of a murderous Angel of Death who took the lives of innocent children who were left to the mercy of her care.
Born Marie Schmiedlová on September 9, 1936 in Sušice, Marie Fikáčková’s father was of Sudeten German origin and who worked as a labourer. During World War II, like many other Sudeten German, he sided with the Nazis and often spoke disparagingly of native Czechs. Marie’s relationship with her mother was strained, and the two often fought violently.
At the war’s end, the family lost their home after it became known of their involvement in collaborating with the Germans. After they relocated, Marie attended Secondary Health School in Klatovy, from which she completed her studies in 1955. She found work at as a nurse on the pediatric ward of the District Institute of National Health in Sušice.
Later, she worked in the neonatal ward. Her work was seen as exemplary, and she was considered for the position of head nurse due to her good work ethic and professionalism. However, Fikáčková was not satisfied with her assigned at the neonatal ward, but she kept this from her colleagues.
During this time she married Lumír Fikáček, but their relationship remained childless, despite the couple having planned a family after the 1960 Spartakiad, or mass gymnastic performances in Czechsolovakia, for which she wished to train. The couple had also wished to take a vacation, which was planned for the following year. The couple lived the household of Marie’s parents, which often led to the same arguments the had then she was younger.
On September 20, 1959, a newborn named Jana M had been crying on the ward. Fikáčková grabbed her ear and pulled it so hard that it tore off halfway. The would then bled profusely, and she knew that such an injury could not be concealed and reported the wound to the head of the neonatal department.
Fikáčková claimed that when lifting the child, she had accidentally grabbed her war along with her swaddling clothes and tore it off in a rushed movement. The head nurse assured Fikáčková that such accidents can happen regularly, and asked her to take the baby to be prepared for surgery.
Four days later on November 24, 1959, Fikáčková was working with the newborn Václav P,
when the child grabbed a nearby scale while she was changing his clothes. Angered by this, Fikáčková jerked the child so hard that she broke his humerus. Although she heard a clear crack, she did not report the child’s injury and the fracture was only discovered later.
The medical staff explained the injury to the child’s mother by suggesting that it must have occurred during childbirth and had simply been overlooked. However, the obstetrician who examined the injury ruled this out, citing medical documentation that the birth was completely natural and the child was healthy immediately thereafter.
On February 19, 1960, Hana Hamelbauerová, who was already a month old, was placed in the neonatal ward after her mother was returned to the hospital due to breast inflammation and the child was placed in a box in isolation. Fikáčková reportedly recognized that surname of the child, and harbored a clear motive in causing harm.
Hana was the granddaughter of an MNV worker, who the family had frequent disputes and who had been in charge of confiscating the Fikáčkovás’ house after 1945. Fikáčková punched the crying Hana in the back of the head, but this attack left no obvious signs of violence on the child, which she believed was because she older and therefore more resilient than the other, younger children in the ward.
In late February 1960, the neonatal ward of the Sušice Hospital began to encounter capacity problems. By February 22, there were twelve children in eight beds. Of these, there were 11 newborns and the one-month-old Hana Hamelbauerová, whose mother was still hospitalized. This meant some of the children were settled in pairs to a single bed.
When she began her shift on February 23, Fikáčková learned that two more children had been born that morning, which only contributed in making the situation even more complicated. Finding this extremely frustrating, her anger grew when she was with one of the newborn girls, Proserová, who tried to vomit. She grabbed her head and squeezed it so hard that her fingers dug in.
Although there were no external injuries, because the child’s skull was still very flexible, Fikáčková later admitted that she knew at the time that this action would have serious consequences. Almost immediately, the child stopped moving. Fikáčková left her and went to iron the laundry before going to take care of Hana.
Fikáčková had first attacked Hana on February 19, and carried out a second attack, during which she punched her head several times and then placed her back in the isolation box. Although survived the attack, Hana suffered very serious injuries. Fikáčková went to make coffee, and took care of the other children.
She then called the service to report that the newborn girl, whom she had attacked first, was behaving strangely. The doctor who was called in pronounced the child dead, stating the death was the apparent cause was respiratory failure. Two days later, Hana succumbed to the consequences of her injuries in the early hours of February 25, 1960.
After having been thoroughly examined and released home a month prior to her mother’s hospitalization, the death of Hana Hamelbauerová could no longer be explained by postpartum complications. Autopsies conducted on both children confirmed they had suffered serious skull injuries caused by significant force.
In the case of Proserová, the occurrence her injuries during childbirth was ruled out, since the wounds were located on the top of the head, where the obstetrician cannot grasp the child. Marie Fikáčková was the only individual who had been with the children who were entrusted to her care. She was arrested on February 26, 1960, on suspicion of murder.
After repeated questioning, she eventually confessed to the murders of two children on February 23, 1960. Under further interrogation, she admitted to carrying out assaults against three other children, Hana, Václav and Jana. She gave conflicting motive for her crimes, with revenge a common theme in her changing confessions.
She said that her disputes with the grandfather of Hana Hamelbauerová was the cause of her frustration with the child, and also mentioned her desire for retribution against the Czech people, who had treated her family with disdain after the war. In later interviews, she admitted the primary motive had been her displeasure at the children’s constant wailing.
During a psychiatric examination in Dobřany, Marie admitted that if she had a child of her own which was crying, she would be capable of killing it too. “I used to beat my children when I was about to get my period or during my period because I was upset by the children’s crying, which aroused in me a complete hatred of children.”
During the investigation, Fikáčková confessed to other attacks, which had not been reported and for which there was no evidence. She went on admit that since 1957 she had attacked at least 10 children, several of whom subsequently died from their injuries. She helped detectives by adding further details to some of these cases.
She confessed that on April 1, 1960, she mentioned in handwritten notes the attack on Věra N., who was born on June 19, 1958. The child was discharged from the hospital, but after a few days at home she began to experience various health problems. The head of the Sušice hospital described these symptoms the consequences of a heart disease.
However, an X-ray examination in Pilsen revealed a serious brain contusion with intracranial bleeding, from which Věra died on April 7, 1959. “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,” she said of killing children. “After a brief excitement, I calmed down and I worked at folding napkins in the inspection room.”
In an effort to secure her release, her defence counsel attributed the crimes to an act of insanity. The attacks were, according to her defence, attributed to her ‘epileptoid psychopathy,’ which caused her to lose control of her actions when upset. In an effort to disprove this, she was examined by doctors to assess her competency.
Despite the heinous and cruel nature of her crimes, court psychologists and psychiatrists found her to be sane, but they did conclude she had a tendency to suffer from depression, hysteria and uncontrolled outbursts of anger, the later born out by the nature of the crimes. She was, in their estimations, fit to stand trial.
Her trial started at the beginning of October 1960, and owing to the damning evidence of her guilt, she was convicted on both counts. The presiding judge stated, “Although infant mortality in the former Sušice district was always low in the past, it increased from 1957 and in 1959 was the highest in the region.”
“The injuries that occurred in the neonatal ward in the autumn of 1959 were not reported to either the OÚNZ headquarters in Sušice or the regional pediatrician, and no conclusions were drawn from them and no measures were taken against the perpetrator of these injuries, Maria Fikáčková.”
On October 6, 1960, she was sentenced to death for her crimes. An appeal was heard in early 1961, which was rejected, along with her petition for clemency. Some of Fikáčková’s family and acquaintances refused to maintain contact with her in an effort to distanced themselves from her crimes. Maria’s husband Lumír decided to move to Havířov, to escape the publicity of his wife’s monstrous crimes.
She maintained written contact with her mother, who apparently did not understand the nature of what her daughter had done. In one particular letter, she stated that people interested in buying her furniture had begun to appear at their home and that the family had become the target of slander in their home.
On April 13, 1961, Marie Fikáčková was hanged in the basement of the Prague’s Pankrac prison. She was led into the execution room, where she stood on the trap door near the far wall, and then the executioner placed a simple halter noose, attached to a projecting metal bar, around her neck. It is unknown if she was hooded or blindfolded.
The executioner then went into an adjoining room and pushed the lever towards the wall that allowed the trap door to drop. The short drop method of hanging caused Fikáčková to slowly strangle to death by the weight of her own body. She would be the first woman to die on the indoor gallows. Only one other woman would die on these gallows, when Olga Hepnarová was executed on March 12, 1975.
Although scant details of her crimes became known, other women came forward to report their children had been attacked during Fikáčková’s time at the Sušice hospital between 1957 and 1960, which in turn resulted in the diagnosis of numerous mental disorders. There is little evidence that Fikáčková was responsible for the suffering of these children.
These cases were believed to have been the result of certain diseases in Czechoslovakia at that time, mainly polio and cerebral palsy, which attacked the central nervous system of young children leading to various types of disability and death. Such information had been kept secret from the public, so as not to generate panic.
Because of this, rumors soon spread that the young children were victims of a multiple murderer who was exterminating the newborns of the neonatal ward. As a result, Fikáčková was mistakenly described in the past as the worst murderer and female serial killer in the country’s criminal history.
According to journalist Stanislav Motl, who dealt with the case, the court did not have a chance to prove the complicity of Fikáčková in other murders because the victims had not been autopsied. Her role in these other murders is a matter of conjecture, with some believing Fikáčková responsible or many more deaths.
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.”
Motl also claims that the case played a political role because of the misconduct hospital staff. The crimes of Marie Fikáčková were largely suppressed by the state run media on order of the Czech government, owing to the lack of confidence in hospital safety procedures at the time and for fear of panic among pregnant women.
Parents of other children who died were told their kin 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. These reports are a lasting testimony to the savagery and heartless nature of Marie Fikáčková crimes against the helpless and the innocent.
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