The Last Woman Hanged
Every now and again I have to wait at a tram stop called Strossmayerovo namesti (Holešovice district) to take the short one stop journey to the Vltavska metro station. It’s a popular stop at the bottom of a hill named after a lady called Milada Horakova. I was researching a completely different topic and had used the Czech search term “úmrtí v Praze” which means “deaths in Prague”. I was actually searching for info about accidental deaths in the city but what came back was the story of the last woman executed by hanging in Czechoslovakia and the story focus was that tram stop.
Olga Hepnarová
By all accounts, Olga Hepnarová had a regular upbringing. Sure, it’s an upbringing that followed the 1948 Communist coup and would have included the tough 1950s, the freedoms of the 1960s and the harsh realities of the post-1968 repressions or what was known here as a period of “Normalisation”. Early in her childhood Olga Hepnarová became detached from her family and friends and became a victim of what we now call a “mental health issue”. She described herself as asexual but unable to form proper intimate relationships. After struggling to complete school she trained as a bookbinder but what she really wanted to do was to be a professional driver. Her last visit to a doctor at a Psychiatric Hospital ended with her being referred to her GP with the advice to “take a holiday”. In April 1973 she bought her own car, a Trabant which she ended up pushing over a cliff on July 9th.
July 10th 1973
On July 10th 1973, aged 22, Olga Hepnarová had a driving licence and was already preparing her statement act. Intending to hire a Praga RN lorry (pictured above) she paid CZK20 to be able to test drive it to prove that she could handle it ok. She paid CZK260 to hire the lorry for the rest of the day. She then drove to central Prague and posted two letters to national newspapers. She considered several locations but in the end settled on the Strossmayerovo namesti tram stop. Actually when she first drove down the hill she thought that there were not enough people so she drove past and made a loop. On the second attempt she could see that the stop now had around 30 people waiting and so, accelerating down the hill she struck these people.
The Aftermath
The picture above shows the aftermath of the crash. Eight people died either at the scene or as a result of their injuries. Twelve others were injured, six seriously. At a stroke, Olga Hepnarová had become Czechoslovakia’s greatest mass murderer. Police at the scene thought she had lost control of the vehicle or fallen asleep but she calmly told them that it was a deliberate action. Sentenced to death (which she requested), she was executed by short-drop hanging at the Pankrac Prison on March 12th 1975. The picture below is the present-day tram stop. Today’s “Tabak” is where the “Mleko” shop was in 1973.
Almost 50 years later, in the summer of 2023 Criminalist Jan Štoček from the Prague Murder Squad was asked to review the case and it’s outcome. His prescient statement was that this could happen again at any time. Six months later on December 21st 2023, Philosophy student David Kozák claimed the title of Czechia’s worst mass murderer.
Something Related or a Few Minutes Away
Attractions – Holešovice Market
Famous Czechs – Milada Horakova
