Serbian police are trying to discover what prompted a veteran of the 1990s Balkan wars to shoot dead 13 relatives and neighbours on a nocturnal killing spree around his village.
Investigators said Ljubisa Bogdanovic (60) went from house to house in the village of Velika Ivanca in the early hours of yesterday morning, and killed six men, six women and a child before turning the gun on his wife and himself. They are both in a serious condition in hospital.
“Most of the victims were shot in the head as they slept,” police chief Milorad Veljovic said in Velika Ivanca, which is about 40km southwest of Serbia’s capital, Belgrade.
"We've never had such a tragedy in Serbia and we have to find out what drove this man to kill so many people as they slept," he added.
Police said Bogdanovic attacked people in five houses in the village, with a semi-automatic 9mm pistol for which he is believed to have held a licence.
Local media said Bogdanovic first killed his mother and 42-year-old son before shooting his wife. Some reports said she managed, despite grave injuries, to make a telephone call to the police.
“The most harrowing scene discovered by police was the dead bodies of a young mother and her two-year-old son,” said Veljovic.
Arrival of police
Officials said that the arrival of a police car in the village stopped Bogdanovic in his tracks.
“When he saw the patrol he shot himself in the head in a yard,” the interior ministry said in a statement. “Twelve people were killed on the spot while the 13th died in hospital,” said Veljovic.
“Doctors are trying to save the lives of three injured, including the perpetrator of this monstrous crime,” he added.
According to police, Bogdanovic fought with Serb forces during their 1991-1995 war in Croatia, and he and his son lost their jobs last year.
Neighbours said that some members of Bogdanovic’s family had mental health problems and had committed suicide, but that he had never shown signs of being disturbed or violent.
“I talked to him yesterday. I asked him how he was, and he said ‘Fine’. He asked me about my health,” said villager Stanica Kostadinovic.
“He was the best neighbour. Nothing indicated that such a thing could happen . . . He was a good host, he and his son, nice, hard-working, always ready to help,” she added.
Kostadinovic’s husband, Milovan, said no one in the village would have suspected anything untoward, even when Bogdanovic knocked on their door in the dead of night.
“He’s a good man, everyone would open their doors to him, he helped everyone in the neighbourhood . . . Something must have snapped in his head,” he said.
“If they didn’t stop him he would have wiped us all out,” Kostadinovic added. “He shot himself when police stopped him.”
Mass shootings are relatively rare in former Yugoslavia, despite the number of available weapons and men with the often traumatic experience of using them in war.
The last such incident in Serbia occurred in 2007, when a man in the village of Jabukovac shot and killed nine people.
