Belgrade, Serbia - Police believes Danijel Jakupek, suspected of committing a double murder in Novi Banovci, had planned the crime.
Interior Ministry (MUP) Chief Inspector Zoran Luković, who is in charge of the investigation, says that the crime might have been a part of a ritual.
On Saturday police recovered beheaded bodies of Vasilije Trbović, 26, and his five-year-old nephew, L.O., from the Danube River near Novi Banovci in Vojvodina.
The victims had been reported missing on Monday before police found the bodies.
“The murders were not committed for the sake of the murder, rather they are typical of a cult-inspired ritual. Everything we found in the suspect’s house points to that conclusion,” Luković said.
“What we could see from the literature we found there and judging by the manner he organized his living space, we could say that satanism and witchcraft were at work there, the philosophy leading to auto-aggression or acts of aggression towards someone else,” he explained.
According to Luković, an improvised altar was also found in Jakupek’s house.
“We found some sort of an improvised satanist altar in the basement, while certain pieces of furniture were painted over in satanist colors, red and black, ” he explained.
Asked how it was possible that no one noticed the suspect’s strange behavior, Luković said that people in Serbia “are usually poorly informed of cults and sects.”
He called for the ministries of health and religion to join in the campaign to fight dangerous cults operating in Serbia.