Ten years since the murder of Irena Neff. The killer pretended to be abandoned by his wife<

CRIME

Posters printed by Robert Neff Novák

At the end of February ten years ago, Robert Neff Novák pasted leaflets in Smíchov, Prague, with a photo of his wife Irena and a desperate text. "Please help me find my wife, Irena Neff. She left home on the morning of Sunday, February 24, 2008, and since then we have been missing her together with her 18-month-old daughter Dominika. She hasn't returned, nor do we have any news from her. I ask everyone who has seen her anywhere and at any time since that unfortunate morning to report to me, "Novák asked the public.

He was the only one who knew that all posters and pleas were useless. It was he who murdered Irena, took her body to the forest and hid it under a layer of soil. However, he played the role of a crushed husband convincingly. Everyone trusted him except Irena's father Ondřej Neff and her brother David.

"On Monday, February 25, I brought my son David from the airport. We were sitting here at the table when Robert and Dominica came to hand. He asked if we didn't know what was wrong with Irena. That she went to practice on Sunday morning and did not return. That was a shock. Irena was an exemplary mother, she would not leave the child for an hour without providing babysitting, "said Irena's father Ondřej Neff later in an interview with MF Dnes (more details here).

The police announced the search for the missing woman. The newcomer told the police that he and his wife got up on Sunday morning before nine o'clock. Irena wrote him a list of things to buy and went to the fitness center in the morning. He also figured out what she was wearing and that she had taken her wallet, documents and cell phone. He said he couldn't call her and was told at the gym on Sunday afternoon that she wasn't there at all. He allegedly called her acquaintances in vain.

Police officers went through camera footage from the route to the fitness center. They also examined the possibility that someone had injured the woman, for example in a car crash, and she was hospitalized in a hospital in Motol or Na Homolce, which is not far from Smíchov. All with a negative result. The gym staff found out that Irena was last training there on Friday, February 22, after seven o'clock in the morning.

It became increasingly clear that the woman could not just disappear. And more likely that her husband is involved. Irena's phone was last operational at the place of residence, on Saturday, February 23 at 8:29 p.m. Then it was deactivated. Forensic scientists have also gathered several testimonies that Irena and Robert's marriage was going through a serious crisis.

A hysterical fit due to separation

Please help me find my wife, Neff Novák wrote

At the beginning of March, the police heard a psychologist, whom Irena had been visiting for several months. She confided in the doctor that her husband was aggressive, breaking things, trying to humiliate her, making her malicious malicious. He pushed her several times so that she fell, even during pregnancy. During one of the last quarrels, Irena indicated to Robert that she wanted to leave him. He began to cry and run around the garden, looking like he was crazy. He must have had a hysterical fit. He didn't calm down until she told him she would call an ambulance. "Irena also told me that she does not live sexually with her husband, she does not like it, she loathes her after those quarrels," the doctor added.

Even Novák's first wife did not talk about him very well. They married in June 1994, and divorced a year later. Her husband recklessly spent his savings together - for example, on a motorcycle, which he did not ride. He had repeated adventures with other women. There were more and more quarrels, she had an abortion due to stress. Her husband confessed to her infidelity and said that "she needs it to live." She didn't see him again after the divorce.

Robert Novák met Irena Neffová in 2005. She was twenty-five, ten years older. At the time, the sympathetic brunette was applying for a job as a graphic designer for the promotion department at the company in which Novák worked as a creative director. They quickly fell in love, their relationship was intense and they understood each other. He asked for her hand in Egypt, very romantically - he put the ring in a shell at the time. "It was my most beautiful experience in my life," Novák later said. They were married in March 2006, and their daughter Dominika was born in four months.

Novák did an unusual thing at the marriage - he took his wife's famous surname. Robert Novák was suddenly Robert Neff Novák. "We were not invited to the wedding, nor do we know where they were. They just came to know that they were his own and that his name was Robert Neff Novák. If Irena didn't agree, it wouldn't have happened. She probably wanted her daughter to be called Neff, "said her father Ondřej Neff ten years ago. The psychologist who examined Novák before the main trial had a different explanation: he is an artist who has artistic ambition and the name "Neff Novák" does him good, he helps him professionally, he benefits from it.

Shortly after the wedding, it began to creak in the marriage. The number of disputes increased, and the couple tried to resolve it with so-called couple therapy at a psychologist. Robert claimed that his wife was too spirited, dominant and jealous. Irena confided in her best friend that she was afraid of her husband. She repeated that he was explosive, kicking doors out and breaking things. She insisted she wanted to break up with him.

The killer lies to the police for missing his wife (February 25, 2008):

CRIME

Strangled by a video cable

Robert Neff Novák played the role of an unhappy husband, whom the woman left for over two weeks. It was not until the night of March 12-13 that he confessed to the police during his interrogation. He allegedly strangled Irena in a short, an affect caused by anger and rage, during the last of many quarrels, which he said had been exacerbated by his wife. She couldn't tell if it was no different.

"She cursed at me, humiliated me with my name was Neff or Novak, and knew how best to attack my sensitive areas. I went to the bedroom, where I was working on a laptop. She continued to insult, tried to take my computer, and we started pushing. At the same time, she told me: maybe kill me here. I grabbed her tie around the neck with my right hand and squeezed her tightly. I don't know how long I've held her like this. She stopped moving. Then I saw blood on her face, I panicked. I dragged her into the living room. She was still moving, so I tied the power cord from the video around her neck, I tightened it a lot, "said my husband.

It was almost midnight. He wondered what he would do to her body. He took a garbage bag and slipped it over her head. He couldn't look at her. Then he removed the cable from her throat and plugged it back into the video. He loaded the motionless body into the trunk of a car parked in the garden. He took a spade and a pickaxe and drove towards Pilsen. He stopped behind Rudná, between the villages of Vysoký Újezd ​​and Kuchař.

"I found a place in the woods where there were no trees. There I started digging a pit to a depth of about half a meter. I brought the body. I took off her pants and wedding ring. I put her on her side in the pit, her legs crouched. I covered it with soil, put leaves on top. That night was nice, the moon was shining, I didn't have a flashlight, "Novák described. He brought the bag that Irena originally had over her head home, put in her pants, a ring, the bloody sheets, and her clothes, which were also blood. Then he threw it all in the trash.

On Sunday, he invented the legend that his wife got lost when she left to practice. Behind Zbraslav, he threw her watch and cell phone into the Vltava. Elsewhere, he tossed her wallet and sports bag with strength items into the river, into which he put a brick. On Monday afternoon, he called 158 and told police he was missing his wife.

He took her for eight minutes, but it's not a torturous murder

Ondrej Neff

When it turned out, as it really was, it hurt everyone. At the same time, Novák convinced Ondřej Neff that he had done nothing to his daughter. "The version that her husband could hurt her was obvious. It must attack everyone. I had an interview with Irena when she disappeared. I told him that I was considering the possibility that he had killed her: If you did, you would save yourself the terrible hassle of going to the police and explaining everything to them. It will be smoother and less rough for you. He didn't raise an eyebrow. He said he understood that she suspected she was the last to see her. But that he didn't. And that the advice is therefore irrelevant, "said Neff.

"The immediate cause of Irena Neff's death was a prolonged suffocation caused by an intense squeezing of her neck. The death occurred in a relatively long time, "said pathologist Miloš Sokol in the report and subsequently in court. Defendant Novák did not want to hear the expert's conclusions. Before the doctor began to speak, he asked the escort to take him out of the courtroom.

According to the pathologist, Irena was not murdered in a torturous or particularly cruel way, for which the murderer would face a harsher punishment. Irena's father, Ondřej Neff, disagreed with the expert's conclusion. He reminded him that Novák had crushed his daughter for about eight minutes before she died.

"Sit in a dentist's chair, open your mouth, and ask a dentist's friend to dig into your nerve for experimental reasons and do it for eight minutes without interruption. But there would probably be a shock of pain, and it would cut you off from suffering. Choking is an extremely drastic way of dying. Anxiety and stress from lack of air are among the strongest and mental pain is worse than physical. My daughter was leaving life with her, "Ondřej Neff was angry on his website.

The trial took place in September and October 2008. When Novák was to comment on the indictment, he said only a few sentences. "I told the police everything, I have nothing more to say. I am not able to testify, "he said in the Chamber. He apologized several times during the main trial. "I just want to say I'm so sorry, I never wanted to do it," he said at the end of the trial. Then the senate went to the meeting and after it its chairman Petr Braun pronounced a verdict. He sent Novák to a guarded prison for 13 years.

After a long and complicated negotiation, the convicted man agreed to be deleted from his daughter Dominika's birth certificate. David Neff, the brother of the murdered Irena, became her father by a court decision. He raises the girl with his girlfriend. According to Ondřej Neff, Dominika remembers the murder of his mother, even though she was only a year and a half back then. Novák apparently murdered Irena in front of their little daughter. The Neff family doesn't like the idea that he wants to meet Dominika after his release from prison. "Neither I nor my son David want such contacts. Mainly because it would hurt my granddaughter. We will see what happens next, I can't predict it, "said iDNES.cz Ondřej Neff.

Robert Novák, who, in addition to his daughter Dominika, also gave up the married surname Neff, will be released in March 2021 at the latest.

Ondřej Neff ten years after my daughter's murder: I can't forgive that loss:

CRIME