Vlado Taneski, 56, a Macedonian journalist, was found dead in his prison cell yesterday, after being arrested earlier that day for the murder of three women. The death appears to be a suicide: Taneski killed himself by dunking his head in a bucket of water.
Taneski, a crime reporter for Macedonian national newspaper, Utrinski Vesnik, is suspected to have murdered the victims he reported on, mainly the vicious murders of two women, and a third woman who's body is yet to be found.
Taneski reported on all of those cases in his newspaper, police started suspecting him after his articles revealed facts about the nature of the crimes, that were not known to the public.
The women, murdered between 2005 and 2008, were all elderly, and brutally murdered, and were found naked, wrapped in nylon bags and tied with electric wire. Police said they were all women with poor education who had worked as cleaners and came from the same neighbourhood of Kicevo, where Taneski also lived. They suspect Taneski's poor relationship with his mother sparked the violence.
The murder victims' family is now shocked: after the bodies were discovered, they had met Taneski, and he interviewed them regarding the murders. In a million years, they wouldn't have guessed that the man interviewing them, is the actual killer.
Read the Guardian's article on the story, and on CNN.
I feel for those families. A friend of mine was killed some years ago by her roommate. While she was "missing" (laying dead in a sleeping bag at the foot of his bed) he called me to tell me all about how she moved out and owed him money. The sense of betrayal is incredible.
Sounds like a cheesy buddy-cop TV show plot.