The Kurim case was a negative event that impacted the Czech public. The abuse of an 8-year-old boy by his closest relatives literally shocked the entire world. Yet this disturbing case only came to light due to a “coincidence” or rather a glitch.
This story involves Barbora Skrlova and a chilling case that will send shivers down your spine. As someone from the Czech Republic, I was all over this story when it happened. Even now, it still gives me chills just thinking about it.
Key Points:
- Barbora Skrlova pretended to be two different people. First, she took on the identity of a little girl named Anicka. Then, she transformed into a 13-year-old boy called Adam.
- In 2011, she got out of prison. After that, she changed her name and moved to a new place.
- Barbora Skrlova was one of the people abusing her younger brother Ondrej.
The Kurim Case Story
It was the evening of May 7th, 2007. Eduard Trdy, a man from Kurim, a city located in the eastern Czech Republic, was just turning on the baby monitor camera, but instead of seeing his child, he saw something right out of a horror flick.
On the screen, there was a little boy on the floor of an empty room, completely naked, with his hands and feet bound together with duct tape. The kid was eating straight off the floor! Needless to say, the neighbor was totally shocked by what he saw. He wasted no time and called the Czech police immediately.
The child was eight-year-old Ondrej Mauer, who had been confined to a small, bare room. His hands and feet were taped up with duct tape, and he was left lying on the concrete floor without food, water, or toilet. He was given very little to eat, mostly just raw meat. On top of that, he had to use a bucket as a toilet inside that tiny room, which just adds to how inhumane the whole situation was.
Later that day, the police found Ondrej Mauer with help from the firefighters. This was around 9:30 pm on May 7th, 2007. They had to force open the door to the chamber even though the two suspects were trying to stop them.
Poor Ondrej was found lying face down. There was vomit and poop everywhere. On top of that, he was stripped down to nothing. His hands were cuffed behind his back and bound together with tape. His legs were bent up in a crouched position and cuffed, too.
When the police show up at the house after getting a call, Klara answers the door. She tells them that other than little Anicka, she doesn’t have any other kids there. But the policemen heard screaming coming from somewhere in the house. When they ask Klara about it, she says she doesn’t have the key to this room.
The policemen weren’t buying what Klara was selling, though. Screams don’t lie. They call in the fire department to get the door open. Klara and her sister Katerina were freaking out before the firefighters got there. They were screaming hysterically that there was nothing and no one in the room and that they shouldn’t open it up. After everything went down, Klara claimed that she didn’t even know some kid was locked in the chamber.
All The Children Were Moved Away To A Children’s Home
A few days passed, and it was now May 10th. Ondrej, who was just a kid, and his older brother Jakub and sister Anicka got moved to a home for children. That very same day, word started getting around about what all happened with Ondrej.
For at least the last six months, everyone could see that Ondrej’s mom, Klara, who was 30 years old, had been hurting the poor kid. But it soon became clear there was more to it than just Ondrej. Over the next few weeks, more details would start coming to light about what that child had been through.
On May 11th, Klara Mauerova was taken into police custody. That same evening, a 13-year-old girl named Anicka ran away from the children’s home where she lived. During the interrogations that followed, some really horrible details came out about the abuse that had been inflicted on the young boy.
It was revealed that Ondrej had been crammed into dog cages, only able to crouch or kneel with his elbows on the ground. He was beaten with belts and canes for hours at a time. Their torturers burned him with cigarettes, held him underwater in a basin, cut him with knives, cursed at him, and even forced him to hurt himself.
Anicka Is Not A Child
The police are still questioning the defendant, trying to get more information from them. Meanwhile, they’re also searching for Anicka, one of the three kids who escaped from the children’s home. The head of the Endangered Children’s Fund said on TV that they think Anicka might actually be older than was first reported.
Later on, Jakub Patocka, a family friend, is the first to mention Barbora Skrlova’s name. According to Jakub, “Anicka” wasn’t her real name at all. He says her actual name was Barbora Skrlova. Then, on May 23rd, the police announced they were looking for Barbora Skrlova as a person of interest in the case, too.
On June 15th, a lady named Barbora Skrlova shows up at the Czech embassy in Denmark. She fesses up and admits that she had been pretending to be this 13 year old girl named Anicka. But then, just a few days later, she vanishes again! No one had any idea where she went or if she was even still in Denmark. One minute, she’s coming clean about the fake identity, and the next, it’s like she just dropped off the face of the earth.
On January 9th, the police in Norway arrested Barbora Skrlova. The very next day, she was already in custody back in the Czech Republic.
About a month later, they started accusing her of abusing her brother, Ondrej. But when they questioned her, Skrlova tried to turn it around! She claimed that she was actually the victim, not the bully. She told the police that she was being abused, that she was bleeding every day, and that she went through just as much abuse as Ondrej.
The investigation into that crazy case finally wrapped up in early April after 11 months of digging around. Then, in mid-June, the trial started. The verdict came down in late October. The court in Brno found Klara guilty of a sin and sent her to prison for nine years. Her sister Katerina got an even ten years. As for Barbora Skrlova, who pretended to be that poor little girl Anicka and then that boy Adam, too, she got five years.
Where Is She Now?
Barbora Skrlova was released from prison back in November 2011 with no conditions. After that, she changed her name and moved somewhere but didn’t tell anyone where she was going. She isn’t living in the same place anymore, and no one knows exactly where she is now. But I was looking through some Czech forums (Czech is my first language), and a lot of people seem to think Barbora is still living somewhere in the Czech Republic or neighboring countries.
