Jiří Straka

In May 1994, President Václav Havel provided Straka with amnesty, greatly reducing his sentence. As a result, he was moved from prison to a psychiatric hospital in Opava, where he would remain until his release in 2004. Following said release, he changed his last name to Novák, married his girlfriend (whom he had met in the hospital) on 7 December 2006, and moved to a village near the Polish border, where he now lives a law-abiding lifestyle. Both Straka and his parents have given several interviews on Czech television, with the former talking about his personal experiences in both prison and the hospital, while the latter two expressed their view that it would have been better for the family if their son had been executed.

Following his release from prison in 2004, he legally changed his name and now lives in another part of the country.

In 1985, at a time when the country was celebrating the Spartakiad, Straka began to act out on his sexual urges, stalking women around Prague at nighttime, whom he eventually started to attack.

Straka's first known attack took place on 17 February 1985, when was 15 years old and he approached 20-year-old Ludmila Ch. in a grove near the Novodvorská housing estate in Prague 4. At first, the pair had a casual conversation, but when Straka asked her for sex and was promptly refused, he knocked her to the ground and began fighting with her. Ludmila then lied to him, claiming that she would agree to have sex with him, but when they went out into the streets, she started shouting for help. Frightened, her assailant only asked for some money and then fled. Unwilling to get him into trouble, the woman decided not to report the incident to the authorities.

Following testimony provided by one of Straka's surviving victims, from whom he had stolen a gold necklace and given it to a girl he was dating, he was arrested by authorities on 22 May 1985. While investigators were initially hesitant to believe that a teenager was able to commit such horrible crimes, Straka confessed to all known crimes and others they didn't know about, adding details that only the perpetrator would have known. During the investigations, Straka cooperated with the proceedings, expressing that he felt no remorse for the crimes, and that the only thing he was sorry for was being caught.

Jiří Straka (born 14 April 1969), also known as The Spartakiad Killer, is a Czech serial killer responsible for 11 attacks on women in Prague between February and August 1985, when he was aged 15 and 16, three of which were fatal. As he was a minor when he committed these crimes, he was convicted and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment.

Jiří Straka was born on 14 April 1969, in Prague, second of three children born to a local couple. He had one older sister and one younger brother. According to his parents, Straka never displayed any aggressive behavior when he was young and was generally considered a good child, albeit slightly more emotional than others. At the age of 8, he was sent for psychiatric treatment, where he was diagnosed with a neurotic disorder. As a teenager, he alternated between going to a boarding school and a mining apprenticeship in nearby Stochov.