Adrian Stroe

In June 2018, the Găești District Court ordered that Stroe be paroled, as a review of his activities during his imprisonment, which included participating in 16 prisoner programs for recreational and work activities, made him eligible for release. He was subsequently released, with this controversial decision causing a debate on whether lifers with violent criminal records be released back into public life.

Over the following years of his imprisonment, Stroe became an active member of Rahova Penitentiary's religious community, and in 2007, he became the leader of the Community of Christian Prisoners in Romania. During his time in prison, he wrote three books focusing on religious scripture and the influence of Latin in the Romanian language, and by the end of 2007, he also married an English teacher from Târgoviște. In 2012, however, he was found guilty of trafficking heroin and given an additional 15-year sentence, which was merged with his life sentence.

Shortly after his conviction, Stroe became a media sensation, and was often sought after for interviews. Within the first three years of his detention, he openly professed that he felt no remorse, and the only things he missed were his wife, daughter and their German shepherd. In 1999, he was transferred to Rahova Penitentiary, where he began reading the Bible and turned towards Adventism, claiming to have repented for his crimes.

In the evening on January 29, 1992, Stroe picked up 26-year-old Lavinia Stoian, and drove her to Lake Cernica. When they got to the destination, he asked her if she would like to have sex with him, which she refused. Annoyed by her refusal, Stroe strangled her to death. After picking off all her jewellery and undressing her body, he threw it into the lake and promptly left.

In 1991, the couple divorced. Stroe started to feel embittered by the separation, as he still loved his wife, and eventually turned his anger towards his female passengers.

Adrian Stroe (born October 24, 1959), known as The Taxi Driver of Death, is a Romanian serial killer responsible for the murders of three women in the vicinity of Bucharest, committed between January and September 1992. Sentenced to life imprisonment for these murders in 1996, he was paroled in 2018.

Adrian Stroe was born on October 24, 1959, in Bucharest. Little is known about his early life, but he would later claim that he grew up without feeling any love towards his mother. He studied as an engineer at the Faculty of Civil Engineering, from where he successfully graduated, but instead opted to work as a taxi driver, because he claimed that he'd "earn in one evening as [he] would earn after a month in the construction site". At the age of 22, he married a local woman and had a daughter.