Metod Trobec

When journalist Blaž Zgaga received the Deutsche Welle award for freedom of speech for his coverage of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, Branko Grims wrote on Twitter that this was similar to awarding the women's rights award to Metod Trobec.

In 2018, film director Tomaž Gorkič produced a short horror film on the case, titled "Metod". He has stated that he is currently developing a feature film. Filmmaker and screenwriter Igor Šterk [sl] has stated that he is developing his own full-length drama film about Trobec.

If he had served out his sentence in full, Trobec would have eligible for release on March 5 or 15, 2015.

Miha Čelar, director of the documentary Mama je ena sama (2015), knew a car mechanic who was called Trobec and had a workshop near his block when he was a child. As a business gift for the New Year, he printed a calendar with caricatures and anagrams for Trobec's surname. The January paper featured a caricature of Trobec and the inscription "If your grandmother has a long muzzle, call the Trobec service!" (Slovene: Če baba ima dolg gobec, pokliči servis Trobec!)

In 2014, ex-president Janez Janša delivered a speech in which he reflected on how his opponents have not stopped their attempts to discredit him after all these years. In one paragraph, he wrote about how he remembered serving a prison sentence in Dob pri Mirni 25 years earlier and living near Trobec's cell.

In 2012, when a vote was being held on whether to implement changes to the Slovenian Family Code, former athlete and blogger Roman Vodeb [sl] wrote that fatherless children were at a higher risk of becoming serial killers and torturing their own children, citing Trobec and Jozef Fritzl as examples.

In 2011, Špela Sotlar, best known as a participant in the first season of the Slovenian reality show Kmetija, bought Trobec's old homestead while looking for some property in the countryside. The purchase was made with the help of his lawyer, who was reportedly obliged to sell the residence.

Several prominent philosophers have commented on the Trobec case. Blaž Ogorevc described him as the "Patriarch of Slovenian sexual derailments", while Slavoj Žižek said that his actions were a "dark side of Cankarian loyalty" to his mother. Journalist and film critic Marcel Štefančič [sl] wrote in his book Slovenci (2010) that Trobec and Silvo Plut were "sacrificed" for the retouching of Slovenian self-image. He wrote extensively about Trobec's psyche, making frequent allegories to contemporary cultural and phisophical issues. Literary critic and essayist Matevž Kos criticized Štefančič's approach to the subject, saying that he had hypocritical views on the criminal's morality and his views on subjects such as the Barbara Pit massacre.

In 2007, Justin Stanovnik [sl], in the 66th issue of Zaveza, the journal of the Nova slovenska zaveza [sl], accused Tine Hribar of comparing the burials of Trobec and Plut to the post-war massacre committed by the Slovene Home Guard.

The Slovenian edition of Playboy included Metod Trobec in its 2007 issue, placing him at 15th place and awarding him the "Departure of the Year", as a humorous nod to his suicide. Silvo Plut was chosen to be the runner-up for this award as well.

The last convict to be sentenced to death in the country, his sentence was commuted and he spent the rest of his life in prison. On May 30, 2006, Trobec committed suicide at the Dob pri Mirni Correctional Facility [sl].

At 4 o'clock in the morning of May 20, 2006, some inmates were awakened by the sound of clattering coming from Trobec's cell in Dob pri Mirni, but none of them informed the guards. Two hours later, prison guards went to solitary confinement to deliver food to Trobec, only to find that the door had been blocked by something heavy. After eventually forcing it open, they found Trobec's body next to the uprooted toilet bowl. An autopsy determined that he had hanged himself with a sheet tied to the handle of a water valve. He left no suicide note, but it was assumed that his possible cancer diagnosis and recent tragedies caused him to take his life. His body was then buried in an unmarked grave in Šentrupert cemetery.

On February 26, 2005, politician Matjaž Hanžek [sl] told an anecdote involving Trobec on Radiotelevizija Slovenija which was considered inappropriate, as he was a human rights ombudsman at the time. He later apologized for it, and multiple people involved in the political sphere - Eva Irgl, Milenko Ziherl [sl], Branko Grims [sl], Matej Makarovič [sl] and others - condemned him for saying it. Zmago Jelinčič Plemeniti, leader of the Slovenian National Party and a member of the National Assembly at the time, even called for the Supreme Court Prosecutor's Office [sl] to indict him on criminal charges, which never occurred.

On March 3, 2000, Trobec's retrial began. When offered a chance to speak, Trobec claimed that a guard had allegedly given him a letter from Miloš Nemec, in which Nemec supposedly threatened to kill him while Tronbec was under the influence of alcohol and sedatives. These claims were rejected by the prison staff and psychiatrists, who pointed out that Trobec was never given alcohol and was fully sober when he attacked the other inmate. Dr. Slavko Ziherl, an expert in the field of psychiatry, stated that Trobec is a paranoid, dissocial and narcissistic individual who showed signs of mild brain damage, possibly due to his upbringing. Nevertheless, he reiterated that he was fully aware of what he was doing. As a result, all of Trobec's subsequent appeals were rejected and his 15-year sentence was upheld. In March 2001, he was moved to a prison in Koper.

On March 29, 2000, animal rights activist Lea Eva Müller gave an interview on 24UR, giving vivid descriptions of Trobec's supposed torture of animals at a young age. When he learned of this, Trobec sued her for 18.5 million tolars for defamation and slander. Müller said that her source for these claims was Barbara Juvan (or Jovan), the president of the Domžale Society Against Animal Cruelty, who had read an article from Jana Magazine from April 1988 which supposedly claimed that Trobec's mother and sister had seen him torture animals. Juvan later said that she did not remember, but that it was possible she might have said this. In subsequent interviews, Müller alleged that people who had supposedly testified at Trobec's murder trial also claimed this was true, and that Trobec himself continuously harassed her by calling her on the phone and sending letters until he was eventually prevented from doing so. At the trial, her defense counsel presented articles from two newspapers - Slovenske novice and Nedeljski dnevnik [sl] - which claimed that Trobec's ex-wife supposedly corroborated these claims. In the end, Trobec himself withdrew the lawsuit and all charges against Müller were dropped.

During the mid-2000s, Trobec suffered a lot of personal grief, as his sister stopped visiting due to a supposed illness and his elderly mother passed away in a care home in Preddvor in March 2006. In addition to this, he refused to undergo any medical examinations, which the prison medical service deemed necessary, as they suspected he could possibly be suffering from prostate cancer. He also attempted suicide on at least one occasion, but was unsuccessful.

In 1999, when a bipartisan committee of the SKD and SLS wrote of their approval to rename a primary school in Škofja Loka after teacher and politician Ivan Dolenec [sl], historian Jože Dežman wrote in a column in Gorenjské glas that to him, this was as if they had chosen to rename it to the 'Metod Trobec School'. One of the readers replied that this was very dishonorable for a historian and foreign to historical science. Aside from this, Dežman suggested that Trobec possibly could have been inspired by the actions of the Narodnoosvobodilni boj [sl] partisans in concentration camps, where women were also abused.

At the end of March 1998, Trobec was tried at the Novo Mesto District Court for the attack on Miloš Nemec in 1992. While he did not attend the first hearing, Nemec appeared on April 23 and described what had happened - according to his testimony, Trobec wanted to force him into buying some overpriced canned food, and became resentful when he was ignored. This claim was backed up by another prisoners and prison guards working at Dob pri Mirni. Dr. Dušan Žagar, a neuropsychologist, then presented his medical report on Trobec, describing him as a labile, aggressive, tense, suspicious and aggressive inmate who suffered from a personality disorder. Staff at the prison also showed documentation that indicated that while he was predominantly calm during his first years in prison, Trobec started to cause trouble after 1986 and had to be disciplined on at least 15 occasions for insulting, slandering and attacking prison officials and fellow inmates. This, combined with his botched escape attempt and previous conviction for attempted murder, resulted in a total of 15 years imprisonment being added to his already existing 20-year sentence.

Trobec was unpopular with other inmates and a loner, and after his attack on Nemec, other inmates protested to the Minister of Justice Miha Kozinc [sl], demanding separate housing for problematic prisoners and smaller accommodation facilities. Kozinc promised that he would propose to the assembly to allocate more money for this. Soon after, Trobec was temporarily moved to a prison in Maribor, considered one of the safest in the country, due to the increasingly violent threats against him from fellow inmates. During his stay there, he was ordered to live and walk separately from others and was prohibited from participating in work that involved other inmates. As he was a flight risk, he was put under strict surveillance. Trobec was eventually returned to Dob pri Mirni in September 1993.

At the beginning of 1993, the Novo Mesto District Court sentenced Trobec to 10 years and 6 months imprisonment for attempted murder and causing minor bodily harm for the 1988 and 1990 stabbings. He did not defend himself, and remained silent throughout the proceedings. The court decided that this should be considered a separate sentence, and on February 25 of that year, the High Court of Ljubljana rejected an appeal from Trobec's lawyer. The Supreme Court refused to review the judgment, allowing Trobec's already-existing sentence to be extended.

On August 28, 1992, during a prisoners' walk, Trobec stabbed inmate Miloš Nemec with a sharpened cutlery knife seven times in the chest and three times in the limbs. The supposed motivation was an old grudge between the two men. Trobec was put in solitary confinement and was defended by two guards with a dog from the enraged prisoners. He was then moved to another prison in Novo Mesto, where guards soon found a note detailing an escape plan involving the attack on a certain guard and using his keys to free fellow prisoners who were aware of the plan. Tear gas was also found in the cell.

Following his conviction, Trobec was transferred to the Dob pri Mirni Correctional Facility in Slovenska Vas. During his stay there, he got into a confrontation with inmate Vinko N., who was temporarily transferred to another prison in Ljubljana. Vinko N. wrote several requests not to be returned to Dob pri Mirni, but was moved there against his will in early May 1988. On May 23, whilst talking with a group of inmates, Trobec - who had just been released from solitary confinement - came up behind him and stabbed him twice in the chest and the right side of the abdomen with a 7.5 cm long shank. After stabbing Vinko N., Trobec handed the knife over to the approaching guard and said it had snapped. On January 30, 1990, while he was on leave in a special ward where convicts could move to other rooms, Trobec stabbed Zlatko K. in the right leg with a 7.6 long pocket knife, inflicting a 1 cm deep and 2 cm long cut.

At the first hearing, on September 2, 1982, Trobec's lawyers requested new defense attorneys and protested against the new composition of the senate. When Trobec was interrogated, he claimed that he did not remember if he had really killed the women, that he occasionally drank alone in excess and supposedly suffered from frequent headaches due to the electroshocks he was given during his medical treatment. When presented with photos of the victims, he only recognized Ana Plevnik.

On September 24, 1982, Trobec was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to death. In its explanation, the senate explained in detail how it was convinced that he had killed Brečko and Markovčič, and that they agreed with the conclusions of the psychiatrists that Trobec was egoistic, deviant, prone to alcoholism, aggressive and with an anomalous sexual drive. As such, they concluded that he was likely to continue offending if he was ever released and would likely pose a danger to those around him. While the verdict was read out, Trobec remained silent.

From February 20 to April 8, 1980, Trobec was put under special supervision at a hospital in Zagreb, SR Croatia, which confirmed that he was aware of his actions. He also underwent electroconvulsive therapy there, as he refused to cooperate with hospital staff.

On September 8, 1980, the five-member panel of the Kranj Regional Court sentenced Metod Trobec to eight years imprisonment for the attack on Lampenau. Trobec told the president of the panel that he could not remember anything and that he had changed after undergoing the electroshock therapy in 1974. This claim was rejected by forensic expert Dr. Zlatko Vinek, who pointed out that Trobec had previously been diagnosed as a psychopath after multiple tests were conducted by Vinek and two colleagues. They were able to confirm that he was sane and aware of his actions, and that he showed skill and forethought when he attacked Lampenau.

On October 30, 1980, Trobec appeared before the Kranj Regional Court to stand trial for the five murders. At trial, he walked back on his previous confessions and claimed that he had been unable to think straight up until two or three years ago. Trobec then complained of a duodenal ulcer and issues with his kidneys, due to which his attorney requested that his medical records be reviewed. In addition to this, the attorney also mentioned that Trobec's half-brother on his father's side - a diagnosed schizophrenic - died of a heart attack in 1949.

Trobec was convicted on all counts on November 25, 1980, and sentenced to death by the five-member panel for the murders and to a total of eleven years imprisonment on the other charges. He remained calm when the death sentence was read out, but was visibly displeased when the court ordered that he must multiple hefty fines for court services and the various crimes he had committed.

At the end of July 1979, Trobec met a German tourist named Hermann Lampenau in Medno, while the latter was searching for a place to stay. Under the pretense of going to visit his sister, Trobec drove off with the man's car. Lampenau reported the theft to the authorities, but went to search for him on his own and eventually found him again on August 5 in at the bus station in Kranj. Trobec promised that he would give him the car back and a place to stay, then drove Lampenau towards a forest near Preddvor. There he beat him up and stole his wallet, which contained 200 Deutsche Mark, 1,900 dinars and his ID. Lampenau had his clavicle broken and suffered wounds to his forehead.

After returning to Slovenia, Trobec met and married 21-year-old Štefka Kvas. At his later trials, she would claim that her husband was always rude to her in their intimate life, appeared to be overtly attached to his mother and that Metod also had brought stolen items back to their home. The pair would separate and Trobec remarried to another woman in 1978, but they divorced after only nine months. His second ex-wife did not attend his later trial in 1982, despite a summons from the court.

His mother eventually sold the homestead in 1978 or the summer of 1979 to a lodger who only cared about the upper floor and did not use the rooms on the first floor. Once the new owner learned what had been going on in there, he wanted to return the house and get his money back, prompting an angry response from Trobec, who wrote to his lawyer and demanded that the letter be read in court.

On March 20, 1978, 21-year-old Urška Brečko, a bartender at an inn in Črnivec, went missing near the Ljubljana Train Station while out an errand for her mother. After failing to appear at work the following day, her mother reported her missing to the police station in Sevnica. Both authorities and concerned citizens began a large scale search for her near the Sava river, in Okroglice and even abroad, but were unable to find anything. It would later emerge that she had been picked up by Trobec at the train station and driven back to the homestead in Dolenja Vas, where he killed her. Her keys to the back door, to the inn's hallway and to the closet in her room would later be found at the crime scene.

The fourth victim, 43-year-old alcoholic laborer Ana Plevnik, went missing sometime in the spring of 1978 after meeting Trobec at the Daj-Dam restaurant in Ljubljana. Little is known about her case, but it is said that she was killed shortly after Brečko. Some of her personal items were found after the Trobecs sold the homestead in Dolenja Vas, while her clothes were later found hidden away in Spodnja Bela.

The final victim, 33-year-old housekeeper Zorica Nikolić, went missing on November 17, 1978, while on her way to see the doctor. Unlike previous victims, she was an acquaintance of Trobec, as the two of them had worked together at the Metalka manufacturing company in Ljubljana. Investigators would find the key to her apartment in Štepanjsko naselje [sl] where she lived with her sister, and her fur-trimmed coat was found in the possession of Trobec's sister, who lived in Kranj. Her mandible, found among the ashes of the masonry oven, was identified by a forensic dental expert as belonging to Nikolić after comparing the teeth to her dental records.

On March 25, 1977, Trobec met 53-year-old pensioner and part-time cleaner Marjana Cankar at a Nama department store in Ljubljana. It is unclear what exactly transpired between the two, but it is presumed that she was raped and killed at the homestead in Dolenja Vas sometime that same day or the day after. Her coat and a burnt gold chain with a heart were later found there, while other personal items were found at the homestead in Spodnja Bela. Trobec would later use her a key she had to rob a crafting cooperative she used to work at.

The attack was witnessed by a mushroom hunter, Pavle Arsenovski, who dragged Lampenau to a nearby phone booth and called the police. A few hours later, Trobec was stopped in Kranj by armed militiamen and transferred to a prison in Radovljica. After he was arrested, the militiamen went to investigate his home in Spodnja Bela, where they found a plethora of various items Trobec had stolen from the Metalka warehouse in Ljubljana, where he had been working since June 1977. It was determined that he spent had faked staying in the hospital and managed to sneak in the stolen items without the doorman noticing, which he later sold or gave to fellow colleagues as a sort of bribe to keep them silent. A total of 130 different objects were found, amounting to 128,000 dinars. Most concerning out of the discoveries were bloodstained women's clothing, photos of which were taken and published in the newspapers.

In the spring of 1976, Trobec met 18-year-old Vida Markovčič, a retailer's apprentice, at a bar in Ljubljana. He offered to take her on a ride with his motorcycle and drove to the homestead, where he severely beat, raped and strangled her. Her white flip-flops, a piece of her dress, identification documents and a photograph were later found in Trobec's homestead.

In July 1984, excavators examining Trobec's homestead in Dolenja Vas found additional documents belonging to Markovčič, but when they examined a hollowed-out brick wall, they found the ID and health card of an unfamiliar woman. Upon examination, it was discovered that they belonged to 45-year-old Olga Pajić, who had disappeared on August 9, 1975, while on sick leave and supposedly had gone to Ljubljana to buy shoes for her husband. She never returned, and was reported missing two months later. When he was shown the documents, Trobec claimed that he knew Pajić and that he had stolen her documents after he killed during a fight. Like the other victims, he then burned her remains in the oven. According to him, she was his first victim, not Markovčič, and he used this opportunity to deny killing Brečko. A murder indictment was issued to the Prosecutor's Office in Ljubljana, but for reasons unknown, Trobec was never put on trial for this alleged murder.

In 1974, Trobec was taken from the remand prison (where he was held on the fraud and false accusation charges) for treatment at a psychiatric clinic in Ljubljana. Psychiatric evaluations determined that he suffered from psychosis, Ganser syndrome and had a psychopathic personality by pretending to be a mental patient. During the two occasions he was detained there, Trobec underwent electroconvulsive therapy - in the first instance, he was given only three shocks, and during the second - two. He reportedly threatened to kill his mother during a visit, but she would later downplay the incident and claim that they had argued about work on the farm.

According to his mother, Trobec began to walk at age four and could speak at age five, but flopped the seventh grade and was unable to finish primary school due to learning difficulties. Neighbors stated that when he was 14 or 15, Metod had burned down several haystacks, a statement his mother claimed was false. After completing his compulsory service in the military, Trobec went to work in West Germany, ostensibly because of the higher salaries. He worked there from 1971 to 1974, where trained to be an automechanic.

Between 1971 and 1972, Marija Trobec purchased a homestead in Dolenja Vas pri Polhovem Gradcu for 11 million dinars - she allegedly sold some of the family's cattle to make it, with some claiming that she had received additional financial support from her brother and Metod himself. Metod later moved into this homestead with his first wife, where he remained until 1978. For a brief period of time, Trobec moved to another homestead in Spodnja Bela, but eventually returned to Dolenja Vas.

On November 3, witnesses came forward in connection to the murders. Franc Plankl, the administrator at the prison in Radovljica, claimed that Trobec had started threatening guards and fellow inmates when the investigation expanded to the murders. He also noted of the poaching conviction from the mid-1970s, noting that hunting trophies and newsprints with dried drops of animal blood were found with him. When asked if they wanted to testify, Trobec's siblings opted to remain silent.

From 1967 to 1979, Trobec was linked to six different crimes and successfully prosecuted for four of them. Additional charges for other crimes were also brought forward at his first murder trial:

Metod Trobec (6 June 1948 – 30 May 2006) was a Slovene serial killer. A career criminal with a record dating back to 1967, he gained notoriety for murdering five women in a homestead in Dolenja Vas pri Polhovem Gradcu from 1976 to 1978, whose remains he burned inside a stove. The brutality of the crimes led him to become one of the most infamous Slovenes in the country's history, with one website stating that he was more well-known than most politicians.

Metod Trobec was born on 6 June 1948 in the village of Planina nad Horjulom. He and his twin sister, Cirila, were born to an unnamed father and a farmer named Marija Trobec, who had two other children from previous marriages. They lived on a farm without any running water, which was given to Trobec's mother during the land reform.