Five members of a family, including a 5-year-old girl, killed in Argeș. The suspect is a relative of the victims and is suffering from mental disorder. Prosecutor mentions harrowing violence, claims suspect had a well-established plan

Five members of a family, including a 5-year-old girl, were murdered in Argeș county, the suspect being a relative of the victims. The man, who is mentally ill, was caught by police. 

The police were alerted by a man who called 112 emergency number telling authorities that upon returning home he found five deceased family members – his wife, the 5-year-old daughter, two in-laws and a brother-in-law. 

The victims had been stabbed, and initial enquiries established that a mentally ill man, brother of the caller’s wife, was also living in the same house. 

This is the statment issued by the Arges County Police: 

On 9 August this year, police officers from the Arges County Police Inspectorate were informed that a 48-year-old man from Bascov commune had found five members of his family (wife, child, two in-laws and a brother-in-law) stabbed to death when he returned home. 

Police officers from the Bascov Rural Police Station, criminal investigation officers and fighters from the Special Action Service went to the scene and found that the reports were confirmed. 

The police took the first steps and shortly afterwards identified the person suspected of committing the crime, a 53-year-old man known to have mental problems. 

The man is in police custody and the investigation has been taken over by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Arges Court. 

First prosecutor of Argeș investigating the case, Laurențiu Palaghia, first prosecutor of the Argeș Court Prosecutor’s Office, made statements Tuesday night after being at the scene of the carnage in which five people, including a child, were killed by one of the family members. A five-year-old girl, her mother, uncle and grandparents were killed by one of the family members, known to be mentally ill and registered with the family doctor, and were found dead by the child’s father. The butchery took place in Bascov, in the province of Arges. He said that carnage at the rime scene is hard to describe, and that the victims had marks of multiple hits with blunt objects, possibly a hammer, and that the suspect had a well-prepared plan. 

The prosecutor also said that from initial investigations it appears that there was a well-established plan by the attacker, an and that the suspect spoke freely and coherently with law enforcement. The main suspect was found in a wood behind the house and did not attempt to flee at the sight of law enforcement. 

• There are five victims, from the same family. At this stage, the case does not present any particular difficulties from an evidentiary point of view. 
• It is difficult to say if there was a motive for the crime, about the person, the alleged and suspected perpetrator is known with mental illness, but we do not know to what extent he was affected by mental illness, we will see in the investigation. 
• Discussions have been held, he freely related the facts, he is to be taken for deposition. 
• I don’t have the information (why he was not in a specialised facility, editor’s note). He was not involved in any way in any conflict situations that would have brought him to the attention of the police or the authorities. He was coherent and related quite freely about a certain way of committing the facts. 
• It may well have happened in the morning. 
• The victims were found inside the two buildings at the address. 
• Things are kind of hard to describe, things at the scene, the victims show signs of pretty intense assaults. 
• There’s a hard object, possibly a hammer. An inventory is made of several objects found at the scene, it’s hard to tell which one it is, it appears to be more than one object. 
• From the signs at the scene it appears to have been a well laid out plan. It looks like he tried to hurt himself, but the injuries are superficial. He was found in a wood behind the house, no struggle, no attempt to flee. 

Dan Manu, the head of the Forensic Medicine Service of Argeș stated that it’s very hard for him to talk about the case, and that the scene was dramatic. She also mentioned that the suspect was undergoing mental treatment, and that he was under the care of a famous psychiatrist from Pitesti.  

The victims were presmably surprised by the attack, and have been killed with stones of different sizes and other objects.  

„With stones of various sizes and objects (the victims were allegedly killed, ed.). They were all found in the rooms. It’s dramatic, and it’s very hard for me to talk. Each victim is in a different place except for the mother and child. The autopsy will be done tomorrow, but it’s unlikely they survived the blows. I believe all five were surprised and the events I believe took place in the evening to early morning. The perpetrator is on medication, so he said. He is being examined to find out for sure what happened. We didn’t do an anamnesis, but he was willing to talk. He was at a famous psychiatrist in Pitesti, he was on a medical check-up, he was prescribed a treatment”, said Dan Manu, head of the Argeș Forensic Medicine Service. 

A five-year-old girl, her mother, her uncle and her grandparents were killed. The suspect is in police custody and will be detained under an arrest warrant for 30 days.