Volume 4 · Chapter 12
The Kičevo Monster
Vlado Taneski
Victims: Mitra Simjanoska · Ljubica Licoska · Zivana Temelkoska
Case at a glance
- When
- 2005–2008
- Where
- Kičevo, North Macedonia
- Perpetrator
- Vlado Taneski
- Victims
- Mitra Simjanoska, Ljubica Licoska, Zivana Temelkoska
- Outcome
- Arrested in June 2008; DNA then linked him to two victims; found dead in his cell three days later
The case
Kičevo is a small mountain town in what is now North Macedonia. Between 2005 and 2008, three older women from the same neighborhood, Mitra Simjanoska, Ljubica Licoska and Zivana Temelkoska, were abducted, held and strangled. Their bodies were found wrapped in bags and dumped around the town. All three had worked as cleaning women.
Vlado Taneski was a local journalist who covered the killings for his newspaper. His articles were detailed, and some of those details were facts police had kept to themselves. That caught the attention of investigators, and Taneski became a suspect.
Taneski was arrested on June 20, 2008, and labs then matched his DNA to evidence from two of the victims. Three days after the arrest he was found dead in his cell, in what authorities described as suicide, leaving a note that said he was innocent. The case drew attention around the world because of its central twist: the reporter writing about the murders appeared to be the man committing them. With his death, there was never a trial to test the evidence in court.
Read the full story
This case is told in full in True Crime Case Histories, Volume 4 by Jason Neal.
Get Volume 4 on AmazonCase photographs
3 photos
Where it happened
Why this case
“Every true crime writer thinks about the line between telling a story and being part of it. Vlado Taneski is the most extreme version of that question I have come across. I find it hard to read his articles now, knowing what investigators later believed.”
— Jason Neal, author of True Crime Case Histories
