Trajko Bojkovski sentenced to life for four murders and two attempted murders

Trajko Bojkovski was sentenced to life imprisonment after a court found him guilty of murdering four women and attempting to kill two others.

The judgement, which can be appealed, names Stanche Karovska, Janka Antevska, Marija Marinkovska and Mira Stankovska as the victims, and identifies Rosanka Trajkovska and Slobotka Arsovska as the two women he tried to kill.

Details from the trial and confessions

During testimony, Bojkovski admitted to killing three of the women and said he had tried to kill two others. Prosecutors argued that he operated for more than a year and that his crimes were driven by necrophilic motives; the investigation intensified after the death of his last known victim prompted an autopsy.

In court observers noted a change in his demeanour compared with an earlier hearing: where he had previously stared at the ceiling, in this session he listened with his head bowed. Relatives of the murdered women told reporters that the defendant "is pretending to be mad."

Locally he had been known as a quiet shepherd from the Staro Nagorichane area, but investigators say he targeted women who lived alone, were elderly and frail, strangled them to death and then sexually assaulted them.

The sentence ends this stage of the criminal trial but does not bar Bojkovski from filing an appeal against the conviction.

Photo: press material from the event