The Kuřim Case - Part 1 - Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
In two thousand and seven, a man in the checked
town of Curim turned his baby monitor on, expecting to
see his own sleeping child, and instead what he saw
was a grainy feet of an unknown boy locked in
a dark room, bruised and terrified. That accidental glimpse of
horror pulled police into a secret world hidden behind an

(00:28):
ordinary front door, and by the time investigators uncovered the truth,
the case had spiraled into one of Europe's strangest stories
of abuse, deception, and calculated manipulation that no one could
have ever seen coming. This is the story simply known
as the Curum Case.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked
and Grim, a.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
True crime podcasting following you more mature audience listener. It

(01:27):
is frosty and foggy out this morning, and oh man,
it looks creepy. Did you notice that tree over there?

Speaker 2 (01:33):
No, it's weird. We have the creepiest tree in the field,
like tree line that we've never noticed. But I think
it's just being hit right right now with the light
and it's like very eerie.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yeah, there's no leaves on it. It's like back lit
by white is white fog and then everything is like frosted,
so it's really standing out in like contrast, we didn't
really notice how creepy it looked before. It's almost as
creepy as the tree in our logo. It's the same
kind of tree, cottonwood tree.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yeah, it's just a little bit smaller, I would I
would say it is.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
It's not as it's not as creepy as our our
logo tree, but it is. It is very akin to.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yes, and it's showing off today.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
It is. Has anyone else started their Christmas shopping? Because
I know Nicole has. She's been in like full Christmas
shopping mode. And maybe it's all the frost that's hitting
those trees that's getting you in that mood. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Well really only since like Sunday, I feel.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
Like, yeah, and it's been full force.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Well, I think the reason behind this is because I
don't love how busy the shops get, Like the closer
you get to Christmas, Yeah, and they're starting to get
really busy, and I'm just like already a little bit panicking,
not panicking, but my.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
People anxiety levels.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
You're already spiked your people's skills, your so I'm like,
I gotta get this shit done because I can't handle
this if it gets even more busy.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
There needs to be a word for that. You're you're
peopling ability. I don't know. Yeah, I know you're saying,
but I.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Know what would be the word for that, Your.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
Social level, your social media I don't know.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, something like that capacity. There you go.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
I don't know. Anyways, Nicole may or may not be
getting sick, so she might sound a little interesting today
where we're still figuring out if it's just because she's
groggy because she just woke up, or if she's actually
getting sick. Hopefully it's not the latter.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
I know I didn't feel great last night either, so
I think it's something. But we'll just see if it
amounts to much. Hopefully it doesn't.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Well, fingers crossed for you. Maybe we'll make you some
tea and some hot chocolate and soup and stuff like
that and make you feel better.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Yeah, I'm about to go clean a chicken coop after this.
You think that will that will help?

Speaker 1 (03:37):
Probably not. Well, I don't know if this case will
help at all. But it is a dang interesting one,
that is for sure. It is known as the Curum case,
and it was requested on Patreon.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
So it sounds pretty interesting.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
So we did a whole like request feed we do frequently,
like at least once a month, once a month or
so like something like that. We do requests and stuff
like that, and Julie actually requested this one. And Julie's
been a part of our Patreon family and all that
for a long time. And as soon as she drops
a case, I know it's going to be a good one.
So right out of the gate it piqued my interests.
I started digging into it and I was like, damn son, So.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yeah, okay, and this is a two parters.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
It not it is going to be two part well
it's in the title on part ten. It is a
two parter, so if you miss it in the title, yes,
this is the first part of the Kurum case. And
I don't know if my English translations of many of
these names and locations are going to be all that great,
but bear with me. I will be doing my best.
I have done like Google pronunciations and stuff on them,

(04:40):
so just an FYI own that, but even still, I'm
just gonna do my best. Let's pove it that way.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Well, I know, we get we do get flat for
that sometimes and we literally do Google pronunciation just so
everybody is aware.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yes, but it steers us wrong many a times. Other
other times it's it's like, oh, well that's obvious, see
how you pronounce it, and it's still just wrong, like yeah,
you don't Google Google pronounce it because we're like, oh,
that's you know this, And then no, it's there's actually
an accent or that's a silent l or who.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
Knows right, So oh yeah, absolutely. When you don't live
in the area, sometimes it's very hard to know how
some thing's pronounced.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
Right or sure, there's a lot of places in British
Columbia where we live that we know how to pronounce that.
I know people have pronounced horrifically wrong. Yeah, in podcasts.
So it's just part of the nature of storytelling, it is. Yeah,
but I digress. I'm going to do my best, and
I think it's time to get into this.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
O hey, let's do it.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
So on May seventh, two thousand and seven, Kurum resident
Edward Trida was standing in his living room doing something
patentfully ordinary. Honestly, he was trying to set up a
baby monitor that refused to cooperate. He flipped through the channels,
going through the manual, and he's expecting, you know, the
usual static sort of thing, maybe a faint signal from
his son's bedroom down the hall to finally show up

(05:55):
as he's working on this, But instead of a picture
in from the familiar bedroom in his house, soon an
image sharpened that he didn't recognize. It was a small,
cramped space lit only by a harsh infrared light cutting
through the darkness. The picture was grainy, you know the
way old security cameras look, but clear enough to make

(06:17):
out a boy sitting there. He was thin, naked and
lying on the floor with his wrists wrapped tightly in tape.
He moved slowly, like every motion hurt, dragging himself inch
at a time. Edward froze. This wasn't his house, this
wasn't his son. It definitely wasn't a scene anyone ever
would expect to pick up on a baby monitor. He

(06:39):
waited for the image to glitch away, thinking it was
maybe a figment of his imagination, but it didn't. The
boy stayed there, shifting, weak and clearly in distress, for
a few moments, Edward tried to convince himself it was
some kind of I don't know, test feed, accidental crossover
from another device, like maybe a TV from you know,
a neighborhood, a neighbor in the neighborhood. But nothing about

(07:02):
this footage looked stage, fake or harmless. The longer he stared,
the more obvious it became that this child clearly needed help.
So he did the only thing that made sense. He
called the police. Officers arrived quickly and watched the same
disturbing image on the monitor, and based on short transmission

(07:23):
ranges of this device, they realized soon that the feed
would have to be coming from somewhere extremely close.

Speaker 2 (07:30):
A neighbor basically, which is terrifying.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
Exactly most likely a neighbor on the street. So when
officers approached that home and knocked, a woman answered calmly,
insisting that nothing was wrong. But at that same moment,
back in Edward's living room, the feed, you know, it flickered.
They could hear things that were happening in the house,
and yeah, it was clear this was the place. It

(07:56):
was enough for police to push past the front door,
and they didn't know it yet, but they were about
to uncover one of the strangest and most disturbing cases
in modern Czech history, one that began with a baby
monitor as we all know, and a boy no one
was supposed to see now before the investigation ever reached
that front door. Though the Minerva family seems unremarkable from

(08:19):
the outside, they were the kind of family people would
describe with phrases like quiet, you know, kept to themselves,
that sort of thing. Clara Marnova was born on January thirtieth,
nineteen seventy seven, the middle of three sisters. She grew
up in Burnout, in the household defined by routine, strict
morals and a heavy dose of religion. Church wasn't an

(08:41):
option for them. It was an expectation. So were the commandments,
you know, obedience and the idea that God had a
plan for everyone.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
Now.

Speaker 1 (08:50):
Clara took that last part the most serious of all,
more serious than most do. In fact, her older sister,
Katerina was born in nineteen seventy three, and she did too.
As teenagers, the girls started talking about visions, dreams where
God actually showed up and singled them out, saying that
they were chosen for something far greater than most people. Now,

(09:11):
teachers kind of started noticing these shifts in behavior, these dreams,
if you will, and before long social workers would get involved.
Now the girls weren't violent, but their grand ideas and
intense religion fixations while it raised enough red flags that
officials suggested psychiatric evaluation, but nothing ever came of it.

(09:32):
Their mother refused any treatment, saying instead that her daughters
were fine, effectively just turning a blind eye to the situation,
and so whatever was happening inside their heads was allowed
to keep unfolding, unchecked. The sisters eventually grew up, They
moved on, and, at least on the surface, settled into
adult life. Clara married a man whose name was Radic,

(09:54):
and for a while life was normal. She gave birth
to her first son, Jacob, at twenty and two years
later came Andre. She studied economics, worked in an office,
kept up with the bills in school schedules, just like
any other young mother would. But the intensity she carried
as a teenager, while it never really faded, and by

(10:15):
her mid twenties, the stress of marriage, motherhood, well, they
were enough to crack whatever stability that she built. She
started to become a bit withdrawn convinced once again that
she was meant for something far bigger, some bigger mission,
and that her husband and children were distracting her from
this mission. Arguments followed radic while he eventually found for

(10:36):
divorce with their marriage crumbling, and Clara took the boys
and left. This should have been a turning point where
she could potentially find balance or maybe you know, lead
on her wider family for support. Now she did lean
on family, but instead she drifted back to the one
person whose worldview mirrored her own, her sister, Katerina. They

(10:58):
moved in together and shared an apartment, two sisters, two
young boys, all under one roof, and for a short
stretch of time it worked. For this stretch, the Minerva
household looked like any ordinary one. After the divorce and move,
Clara settled into routine, one that actually made sense from
an outside. She worked, she parented, and she leaned on

(11:19):
her sister in any practical way that she needed to.
The two women lived in Burnho, sharing a modest apartment
and carving out that life. By all accounts, it didn't
raise any alarms. Clara handled her office job and continued
her studies, while Katerina worked as a manager at a
local youth center, the kind of place filled with you know,
craft tables, noise, and the after school chaos of kids

(11:42):
who don't really want to sit still very well, and
of course, the boys, Jacob and Andre, were thriving. Jacob
was the older brother of the two, and he had
a gentle, thoughtful streak. He loved dinosaurs, books, and baseball.
He played the flute and was a kind of kid
that teachers described as being very polite. Andre, the younger

(12:02):
of the two boys, was two years younger, and he
had more energy than while their apartment could reasonably contain.
He liked hockey, running, and really anything that let him
burn through. All that restless enthusiasm.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
That's probably most common really.

Speaker 1 (12:18):
Honestly, I think it, honestly is yes, that energy that
oh my god, he never stops and just go, go, go.
I think that is something very common.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
I look at that often. I'm like, oh, I wish
I had that kind of energy.

Speaker 1 (12:31):
Yeah. Instead, I have the energy of, well, how our
dog is laying right now, She's just belly up, just
live in her best life.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
She is a good vibe.

Speaker 1 (12:39):
She does now. Friends and co workers who knew Clara
during this period. Remember her as a good mother. She
was a tentative, soft spoken, and reliable. She was someone
who asked questions at parent meetings, packed lunches, and genuinely
cared about providing stability for her two sons. If you
looked at them then nothing would have stood out, no
strange behavior warning, any sort of hints on what would

(13:01):
eventually take place in the home. In fact, she might
even admire her for how she would be parenting.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
Now.

Speaker 1 (13:07):
Even the dynamic between the sisters it seemed balanced. Clara
was well. She was a bit of the emotional one
in Katerina, she was the organized one. But under that
thin layer of normalcy, the old patterns were still there.
The grand beliefs, the unaddressed mental health issues, the religious intensity,
all the things at once made their teachers uneasy. It

(13:29):
had simply gone dormant underground for a while, and it
wouldn't stay buried for long, because in two thousand and five,
the sisters, while their quiet, predictable life changed moments a
new child entered the picture. It started with a conversation
that didn't sound unusual. Katerina mentioned a new girl at

(13:49):
the youth center, a quiet, thirteen year old named Anika,
who had just arrived from Norway. Her story, however, was
not exactly what one would call or. According to Katerina,
the girl had endured more in her short life than
most adults could ever imagine. Both of her parents were dead,
and she spent years drifting through harsh orphanage jiz and

(14:12):
the abuse was so severe it left her withdrawn and
extremely skittish. As if that weren't enough, she was now
supposedly battling leukemia on top of it all.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
Are you kidding?

Speaker 1 (14:23):
And she's thirteen thirteen and doctors were unsure if she'd
even survived past sixteen years old.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
Holy shit, what a life? No kidding, that's really not fair. Now.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
When Clara finally met the girl, every detail reinforced this impression.
Annika appeared tiny for her age. She was unnervingly thin.
Her shaved head even explained the chemotherapy all of it.
She spoke softly, hiding her face. She clung to Clara
more than anyone else in the room. Actually, her behavior
was actually a little odd, childlike at moments and strangely

(14:55):
self aware the next. But trauma can warp a young
person in all kinds of ways, and Clara saw this
frightened child who needed stability, needed help, needed someone who
could give affection in overwhelming doses. And when Anika leaned
towards her, seeking attention, comfort and everything that you know,
she needed, Clara responded instinctively. I mean she was a

(15:18):
mother after all. Right. Within weeks, the girl had become
a near constant presence in her home and in her
thoughts too. What Clara didn't see, however, was how expertly
that girl adapted herself, how she shifted her behavior depending
on what could draw Clara closer, how quick she was
to request help or praise or even physical closeness, and

(15:42):
how she began acting as though Clara was the only
adult she fully trusted. It all worked exactly as this
girl intended, and it set the stage for a decision
Clara believed was both compassionate and divinely meaningful. She agreed
to begin the lead process to adopt this fragile, unlucky

(16:03):
child named Anka.

Speaker 2 (16:05):
So I just have to say, like Honica has been
living her life in foster care and has learned how
to just like adapt to what other people want and
need from her, is sort of what you're saying.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
Not quite. Let me explain. Okay, So what no one realized,
not even Clara, not the YOU Center, or the officials
that worked with her, or even officials that signed the
later adoption papers, was that this girl in front of
them was not a thirteen year old girl. She was
not a sick girl named Anica at all. Her name

(16:38):
was actually Barbara Scarlova, a fully grown woman deep into
her thirties, perfectly aware of the manipulation she was doing.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
Seriously, Yes, and she was under care though correct. Oh wow,
okay I was. If I had a thousand guesses, I
don't think I would have guessed that.

Speaker 1 (17:00):
I didn't think you would.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
Now.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
Whenever something in Anica's story felt off, which that's what
I'll be referring to her for for now, Anica, Clara
reassured herself that there was one thought in her head.
A doctor was involved. And this doctor was a specialist
in childhood trauma and also the same man treating her
for leukemia, someone who supposedly understood the girl's pain better

(17:23):
than Clara ever could. But this doctor, well, he never
appeared in person per se. Every instruction came through emails
and text messages, always late at night too. And always
written with a strangely commanding tone. He framed himself as
both a therapist and medical guardian, offering guidance that sounded

(17:43):
scientific enough to be believable, at least at first. Then
eventually the advice deepened into some more uncomfortable territory. He
encouraged Clara to give the girl long, full body massages
under the guise of desensitization therapy. He insisted she keep
close physical contact, monitor the girl's reactions constantly, and maintained

(18:08):
relentless emotional reassurance. If Clara felt unsure, he shut down
any doubt immediately, saying, quote, trauma survivors deteriorate when challenged. Meanwhile, Anika,
while she behaved exactly in ways that reinforce his claims,
she stopped walking, saying her legs hurt too much. She

(18:30):
refused to eat unless Clara fed her directly. She was
startled whenever Jacob or Andrea came into the room and
whispered accusations that they teased her, they pushed her, and
scared her. Of course, no one ever witnessed these moments,
though it was only her who had seen it happen,
of course, and yet the fear she projected was so

(18:53):
convincing that Clara reacted automatically, disciplining her boys and pushing
them away. At the same time, Little by little, Clara
began shaping her daily routine and life around the girl's moods.
Outings were canceled, family routines shifted, and the boys found
themselves blamed for well a lot of things more often

(19:15):
than not, and they were watched a lot more closely too,
and punished even more severely for things. The doctor never
backed off either. Each message nudged Clara a little further
towards the edge, and by then Clara was She was exhausted,
emotionally raw, and dependent on the two influences she believed
were guiding her, her sister and this unseen professional who

(19:37):
claimed to know exactly what this child needed. The possibility
that she was being manipulated will it never even registered
to her, But the pattern forming around her was. While
it was not therapeutic, it was strategic. The household was
slowly being reorganized around Anica, turning Clara into a servant
of someone she didn't actually understand, someone who had no

(20:02):
official identity. Actually, there were no documents that proved anything
about her past, no school file, no medical history, nothing
that tied Onnica to any sort of situation or institution.
And instead of seeing this as a warning sign, Clara
interpreted it as evidence of her life of hardship. Now
this doctor reinforces the idea too, explaining that years of

(20:23):
mistreatment and displacement had erased much of the girl's recorded history.
He insisted the only way to move forward was give
her an entirely new beginning. Now, for the adoption process,
authorities needed confirmation of the girl's age, So Clara brought
Anica to a hospital for evaluation. What Clara didn't witness

(20:43):
or didn't understand, was that someone else accompanied her Onnica
into the examination room. A genuine teenage girl stood in
for Onnica.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
What, Okay, this is the most messed up thing I've
ever heard.

Speaker 1 (20:58):
Yeah, So doctor's examine in this teenage girl as the substitute,
and they reasonably concluded that she was around the age
of thirteen or fourteen years.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
Old, which I could see happening quite easily. Definitely that
you would just assume, oh, that's like her mom or
the one wanting to adopt her. This as the teenager
and Yeah, that could work. I mean, I'm probably did well.

Speaker 1 (21:20):
Yeah, that assessment. It became the foundation of a completely
legal new identity. Is so now they had a forged
medical summary, a testimony from Clara and Katerina, and digital
correspondence from this so called doctor, and the court saw
no reason to doubt the case whatsoever. So judges and
social workers viewed Clara as a compassionate woman trying to

(21:41):
rescue a child who had survived unthinkable circumstances, and so
they approved the adoption and issued a birth certificate listing
the girl as Anica Mernova born December two, nineteen ninety three.
The reality, of course, was she was nowhere near thirteen
years old, was not exactly the person they thought she was.

(22:04):
You see, Barbara Scerlova, who was pretending to be this
thirteen year old Onika, was a person with a long
pattern of mimicking children in her history. She was actually
in her early thirties, mid thirties around there, and her
small stature, her youthful face, and hormonal growth disorder made
her disguise unusually effective. But it was her ability to

(22:26):
manipulate others that made the whole scheme possible. Once the
adoption was complete. Barbara didn't just have a place to stay,
she had a legitimate identity she could use anywhere. It
gave her freedom, protection, and a level of control over
Clara that went far beyond any sort of emotional dependence.

(22:46):
So now with it all official, the atmosphere inside the
Menova home changed in ways. The boys were too young
to understand. What had begun as minor tension grew into
a steady reorganization of the household, which quote unquote Anika
placed at the center and Jacob and Andrea pushed towards
the edges.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
See, I still don't I'm having trouble getting this because, like,
I just don't understand why. I mean, I'm sure it
will come very clear, but I don't understand why a
full grown ass woman, yeah, would want to do this
like you could. Why would you want to like just
become a child.

Speaker 1 (23:23):
I mean, I don't know. People do a lot of
fucked up things, and this is definitely one of them.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
Because I don't know, I'm just my brain is just
spinning because it just doesn't make sense.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
Well, she's not wanting to become a child, per se.
I think I think it's more about the manipulation on
other people, so she gets free living, free food, people
who are caring for her, doting on her, and all
this sort of stuff.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
Yeah, but I guess I just feel like it would
be so much easier to get a job and then
you can to get your own apartment and like.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
Live your life, and would definitely be the more legal
way of going yeah, the more ethical way of outgoing
about it. But instead she chose this for whatever reason.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
I just feel like that would just be all around
a better choice. But okay, here we are.

Speaker 1 (24:05):
Here we are now. The first major step was pulling
the boys out of school. Clara told teachers it was temporary,
you know, it's part of a home base program recommended
by this doctor. She repeated the same explanation to their
father and other relatives too when asked about it. But
the reality was she was eliminating outside influence. With the

(24:26):
boys at home full time, the household became a closed
loop where every interaction took place under the watchful eye
of the girl Clara believed she was saving. Their world
had narrowed down to the layout of the house, and
the emotional landscape was dictated by Anika. Whenever she appeared
frightened or upset, Clara redirected her frustration towards the boys.

(24:48):
If they laughed too loudly, she said it distressed the girl.
If they touched something, she considered hers it while she
took it as an attack. Even small disagreements became evidence
of malice, fed by anxious trembling Anica sitting in the
corner scared now. Punishments initially started small, you know, early

(25:09):
bed times, some scoldings, but they quickly escalated, and soon
they became abuse, things like being forced to kneel for
extended periods, standing perfectly still for long stretches of time,
or being deprived of meals for minor infractions. Clara viewed
these consequences as simple discipline. In fact, they were something

(25:31):
the doctor approved of, even or even encouraged. The boys
began living their lives filled with caution, unsure what might
set off the next round of consequences and discipline. More
physical punishments soon followed two things like discipline with a
wooden spoon or a belt, or even open handed strikes
delivered in moments. When Clara believed the boys had frightened Anica,

(25:54):
she didn't seem to notice that Onnica never really displayed
fear around anyone else, nor did she ever flinch when
adults were near. The reactions appeared only when Clara was
alone with her sons, as if performed for an audience
of one person. The boys, as a result, grew quieter. Andre,
the younger of the two, started flinching at sudden sounds.

(26:15):
Jacob adopted a very careful routine of speaking minimally, completing
chores quickly, and avoiding eye contact whenever Anica entered the room.

Speaker 2 (26:25):
That's so sad for them. She's basically ruining their childhood
and their life.

Speaker 1 (26:29):
She is, she's manipulating the whole thing, and these young
boys that they're starting to understand that their safest moments
are when they go like unnoticed, when attention isn't paid
to them.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
My gosh, I hate that.

Speaker 1 (26:42):
It's heartbreaking.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
Now, during this period, Anica became steadily more demanding. She
even rejected the boys entirely. She refused to share space
with them and positioned herself as someone delicate enough to
require constant supervision. And the doctor's message, of course, reinforced
all of this, describing the girl as emotionally fragile and

(27:04):
easily traumatized by any sort of disturbance, and Clara, well
already overwhelmed and exhausted, believed it all. She saw herself
as the one balancing both the care for a damaged
child and the discipline of two boys she thought were
becoming more increasingly hostile. But the real breaking point came
when the family left the house altogether and moved temporarily

(27:28):
to relocate to Bruno or just outside. It was a
place that the adults would soon call the cottage. It
marked a clear transition from functional parenting to something far
more controlling and deliberate. Clara and Katerina referred to it
as a place for re education, but the reality was
the setting here well, it was where the world around

(27:50):
the boys would completely collapse. The cottage sat away from neighbors,
surrounded by trees and quiet roads. It was the kind
of place where no one would hear shouting or screams,
or noticed children not stepping outside to the group. That
isolation wasn't a drawback actually of this place. It was
the entire point of this place. They wanted privacy for

(28:11):
what they claimed were tests, corrections, and purification exercises. Those were,
of course words, not from the boys, but the adults
in the home. Inside that home or a cottage, everything
and I mean everything was controlled. The adults locked Jacob
and Andre into cramped metal dog cages. Neither cage allowed

(28:34):
them to stand comfortably what The food arrived irregularly, Their
toilet was a bucket, and they were forbidden from speaking
to each other and punished if they did. Sleep came
in very short, broken intervals, to interrupted by shouting, cold
splashes of water, or sudden orders and demands for them
to do something or tasks or chores. These punishments were

(28:56):
not random oltbursts. They were structured. Each adult participated. When
I'm saying adults, I want to make it clear I
am including Anica in this as well. So when I
say adults from here and out, it does include her too.
The sisters may think she's a child, but she is
an adult and she is very much so taking part
in many of these disciplines and abuse situations too.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
This is like so messed up. Yeah, it is, I
am having trump. We've ben listening to this because it's
just it's fucked.

Speaker 1 (29:27):
I can't believe it got to this point. I don't
understand it, But here we are because like.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
The two like the two boys are her flesh and
blood here, but.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
She's being manipulated to think that they're misbehaving, and then
her religious upbringing a mixed with her delusions of grandeur,
are allowing her to think that she needs to do
these outlandish discipline structuring whatever you want to call it,
to fix them while she's trying to take care of
this new fragile.

Speaker 2 (30:01):
I know, yeah, like it makes sense in a way,
but it also just doesn't you know.

Speaker 1 (30:07):
Yeah, I get you the path, how we got here,
I can see it, but it is so fucked up.

Speaker 2 (30:15):
Yeah, like it. I mean it probably it took some
time and stuff to get here. I get that, but
also it's just like unfathomable to me that it did
get here.

Speaker 1 (30:25):
Well, manipulation does a lot, right, I mean, yeah, that
it's manipulation for a reason.

Speaker 2 (30:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
Now, some beatings with these two boys came with belts
or woulden't implements, as I kind of mentioned already, But
other times the boys were forced to kneel until their
legs shook, or remain naked in a corner while the
adults lectured them about obedience. Loud industrial music was played
for long stretches too, not for entertainment, but to disorient them,
specifically drowning out their crying and keep them awake and

(30:52):
prevent any sort of sleeping. One incident occurred where Jacob
was forced to lie in a shallow pit outside a
hole the adults referred to as a grave. He was
not to move, He was to lie there, not breathe
too loudly, and stay as still as he could, as
if he were dead. Then Andre, who believed everything he

(31:14):
was told at that age, was ordered to start burying
his brother, shoveling dirt onto him.

Speaker 2 (31:20):
Oh okay, like the trauma that would be coming from
this one.

Speaker 1 (31:24):
Hundred percent these adults, they told him that he had
poisoned Jacob, and the point was not to teach anything.
In fact, it was to break both boys at once,
as one brother is basically believing he's burying his dead
sibling that he is responsible for killing, and now he's
going to be going through all this alone, as the
other brother is forced to stay there and watch what

(31:46):
his other brother is going through, and he's being what
he might think is buried alive. It is so beyond messed.

Speaker 2 (31:54):
And like just sad too.

Speaker 1 (31:57):
Yeah. Now, Jacob did eventually climb out of that pit,
but it wasn't played off as we were joking or
he was alive the whole time. Instead, he was paraded
in front of Andrea as if he had like returned
back to life.

Speaker 2 (32:10):
Oh wow.

Speaker 1 (32:11):
And the adults treated this as a successful lesson in
obedience somehow, But for the boys it obviously became another
moment that they didn't have like the cognitive capacity or
vocabulary really to even explain. Their physical injuries piled up fast. Bruises, cuts, burns,
and in one case, a wound on Andre's lower body
that became a major focus of the following investigation. You see,

(32:34):
at some point during this re education, as they called it,
Andrea suffered a wound to the back of his thigh
in kind of like his lower butt area. Not an
accidental kind of wound either, but something inflicted very deliberately.
An incident occurred where the adults in the home cut
a piece of his flesh from his body, following instructions

(32:57):
they claim came from this mysterious. Later medical examinations with
this whole case, they documented the trauma entirely and it
was consistent with a sharp, controlled cut, not a fall
or random accident. The scar pattern supported Andre's account that
the tissue was removed intentionally by the adults in the home.

(33:22):
Now where the truth becomes clouded is exactly what had happened,
how this went about, and what happened next. Some early
statements suggests the piece of flesh was burned, while others
said it was actually eaten as part of a purification ritual,
though cannibalism has never been definitively proven in this case.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
I just can't with this fucking case. Yeah, is this
just making me so angry? That would have been so painful.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
It would have been and so fucked up now, regardless
of this incident though, or what they went through. Even
the boys had no allies in this home, every single
adult that was present, they enforced the same rules every
adult participated. Clara's role was particularly devastating because her son
still expected her to intervene, you know, stop the torture,

(34:08):
the pain, the suffering, to protect them like a mother should,
but instead she echoed the very same ideas as the others.
She convinced that she was correcting them for their own good.
By the time the group returned to the city months later.
Both boys were weakened, frightened, and conditioned to expect punishment

(34:29):
for even the most minor action. The cottage had served
its purpose in the eyes of the adults. At least,
the boys were compliant, traumatized, and entirely under their control.
But the next stage of this ordeal wasn't about breaking
both the children. It focused almost entirely in Andre instead,
who became the center of this group's escalating cruelty once

(34:51):
they moved into the new house in Kurum. Now the
new house was a two story place with a modest yard.
It had neighbors who minded their own business, and absolute
nothing about it suggested that one of the rooms had
been turned into a miniature prison. The inside of the
home was arranged with a very specific intention to monitor,

(35:11):
to confine, and isolate a child without attracting any sort
of attention. Now, Jacob at this point was kept elsewhere
part of the time, sometimes at a youth facility and
sometimes under the watch of other adults connected to this group. Now,
this group isn't exactly innocent in all of this either.
They certainly had their share and involvement in the story

(35:33):
as well. As influence of care of these boys. Now,
Jacob was the older of the two, and he was
becoming harder to manipulate than Andre. He had become increasingly
protective of his younger brother too, so separating them made
the control much easier. The heart of this new arrangement
was a narrow storage space beneath the stairs that wasn't

(35:54):
large enough for a bed. It had no window, and
the door had been reinforced and secured with a bunch
of different locks that allowed adults to steal it from
the outside. Inside there was only a thin mat, a
small blanket, and a bucket. The space was so cramped
that even a child couldn't stretch out fully, and it
was too dark for him to see anything beyond the

(36:16):
faintest outlines when the door was shut.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
Is that small of an area.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
Yes. A security camera was also mounted inside and pointed
down directly at the floor of the covered space. Its
wireless feed transmitted to a receiver in the house, where
the adults could observe Andrea at any moment of the day.
Life for Andrea inside this curum house followed a predictable
cycle of unimaginable abuse, confinement monitoring brief release, then punishment

(36:45):
for something that he probably hadn't even actually done. The
adults left him bound at times when they were out,
and sometimes they kept him naked to prevent misbehavior. Meals
were inconsistent, water was withheld as a form of discipline,
and he slept on the hard floor in the cramped
darkness with just that thin mattin blanket, sometimes for hours,

(37:06):
sometimes for days, depending on, honestly the mood of the
adults in the home. Outside of that dark, copboared space,
the home remained deceptively normal, as if they were, you know,
just living a normal life, and what they were doing
wasn't something completely horrific. Clara went shopping, Katerina visited work,
Anica or Barbara in her carefully maintained disguise, moved through

(37:31):
the house as if she were a fragile teenager needing
constant protection and care.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
She makes me sick.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
Visitors saw nothing out of the ordinary. No one imagined
a child was locked just a few feet away, watching
the edges of a camera lens as his only connection
to the outside world. One of the most disturbing aspects
of this period is how seamlessly the group functioned around
that confinement. They cooked meals, cleaned rooms, and entertained the
girl they believe they were protecting, all while it ignoring

(38:00):
the fact that a boy was Clara's boy was trapped
beneath their staircase. Like think Harry Potter living under the
stairs and the treatment he had versus cousin, except way worse.
Like Harry Potter had a good compared to this, And
that's honestly fictional, but this was very much so real.
Andre adapted in the only ways he could. He learned

(38:23):
to keep quiet. He monitored the adults through their footsteps
walking through the house as he sat in the dark.
This was his life. Now, He's on his only tie
to the outside. He's thinking, Okay, their footsteps are here,
I'm safe. Their footsteps are coming close now, fear would grow.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
Oh my gosh, that is just so sad.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
What he didn't know, though, what no one knew, was
that that camera watching him had an open signal and
it was about to broadcast to more than just the
people in that home. On May seventh, two thousand and seven,
within that seemingly ordinary Cureum neighborhood, the camera signal drifted
past the walls into another home. Edward, the man who

(39:04):
lived nearby, was trying to set up a device, a
baby monitor, so he could check on his infant son
in another room. As he was setting it up, the
monitor flickered, adjusted, and then instead of showing his own child,
it revealed a dim, unfamiliar space. A small boy sat
hunched on the floor, shirtless, thin, and visibly shaken. The

(39:24):
image shown was low quality and grainy, but the distress
on the child's face was unmistakable. At first, Eduard assumed
he'd picked up a stray signal from a nearby home
where a parent was briefly disciplining a child, you know,
just like a timeout situation or dealing with a tantrum maybe,
But the more he watched, the less it resembled anything normal.

(39:46):
The child wasn't moving freely. The room itself looked like
it was an improvised prison cell, with bare walls, no furniture,
with a bucket in the corner. At one point, the
boy even recoiled from an unseen sound and pressed himself
up against the wall, as if expecting the do or
to open and receive a blow.

Speaker 2 (40:02):
It's worse than a prison, really, it is.

Speaker 1 (40:05):
Edward watched this all in horror, and he didn't know
what to make of it. He was hoping that the
camera feed would shift back to his son's crib, but
it didn't. The thought at first was he must be
seeing like just making this up in his head. He's
seeing something, but the image didn't disappear. He fought with
himself and maybe it's a prank, a movie, someone's TV

(40:26):
that's crossing a feed you know, from some maybe it's
a hoax, anything except reality. But as he stared at
the image on the screen, the longer he did, the
more he realized this was real, and soon he called police.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
It's honestly like a miracle that they set it up
that way that it would be open, right, Yeah, that
he came across it and took it seriously, because I
think a lot of people would just you know, like,
this isn't real kind of thing and just try to
shift to like to get their own child exactly. So
a lot of things had to like align and work out, So,

(41:05):
I mean, which is amazing.

Speaker 1 (41:07):
Imagine are imagine that they that he didn't get this
feed on the baby moment? Yeah, how long could this
have gone with being unnoticed?

Speaker 2 (41:14):
Well, yeah, the child might have died.

Speaker 1 (41:16):
Yeah now. Officers responded to the call immediately, they too
were unsure whether they were dealing with a malfunctioning device
or an actual, genuine emergency. They brought with them equipment
to track the source of the transmission, and they knew
immediately that the range of the monitor was very limited,
which helped narrow down the possibilities right away. So as
they moved through the neighborhood trying to locate where the

(41:36):
signal was coming from, they picked up a faint audio
as well. There was some footsteps, muffled voices, and a
repetitive mechanical hum that was coming out of this baby monitor,
a sound they knew would help identify the location once
they were actually inside. Now, the signal also helped guide
them the whole way. If they moved too far, the

(41:57):
image got worse and it was harder to connect to.
But if they they got closer, the signal got stronger
and clearer. It was sort of like a digital hot
cold kind of scenario. So as they did this, the
signal consistently grew stronger outside the Minerva home, and when
officers approached and knocked in the front door, Clara and
Katerina appeared on the other side of that door. They

(42:17):
were very calm and polite when they answered. Officers asked
about a child in distress, and while the two sisters
denied it, and they insisted that the officers were mistaken,
but something about their demeanor raised suspicion, and the police
requested entry now for clarification. Under Zech law, immediate intervention
is allowed when a child is believed to be in danger,

(42:39):
so it wasn't something they could refuse. Okay, they didn't
need a warrant to enter that home. If they believed,
you know what, this child is in this home, they
can enter now. Once inside, officers heard a faint echo
of that very same humming noise captured on the monitor.
That sound led them towards a small door beneath the staircase,
a door secured with there are more locks and hardware

(43:02):
than any ordinary storage space was required. Clara right away
tried to block the hallway, insisting the police had come
to the wrong house, and she repeated that her children
were safe, that nothing unusual was happening, but her nerves
gave her away.

Speaker 2 (43:16):
Now she realizes something's wrong, that she's doing something wrong right.

Speaker 1 (43:20):
Now, Katerina stepped in beside her as well, attempting to
divert the officer's focus by bringing Anna Cut into the room,
who was trembling and clung close to the sisters as
she she cried like she was terrified of the unfolding
scene with officers in the house. Now, these officers had
already made their assessment, though they knew something was up
and they weren't going to be distracted from it, so

(43:42):
they moved past the women to the lock door, and
immediately when they were there up against it, a foul
smell steeped through the frame, sour sweat, stagnant air, and
something heavier they couldn't immediately identify. When they broke the
locks and pulled the door open, the reality became undeniable.

(44:02):
Andrea lay inside that cupboard, filthy, skeletal, shaking in fear.
His wrists and ankles were bound, his skin marked with
layers of injuries that didn't come from a single day,
not even from weeks, but probably months and even beyond.
When that door was opened, the sudden brightness even made
him recoil. His first instinct wasn't relief, It was fear.

(44:26):
Children in prolonged cat captivity often react this way. The
door opening and the light usually meant attention, and attention
usually meant punishment, abuse and pain.

Speaker 2 (44:37):
Oh my gosh, it's just just like breaking my heart.

Speaker 1 (44:41):
The officers slowed their movements the moment they saw him
curled up in the dark. They didn't rush in and
grab him right away. They spoke softly, using calm tones,
doing what they were trained to do when a child
is an acute distress like this off. One officer crouched
low to come closer to his eye level, careful not
to crowd him, and another assessed the bi in the
state of the room. They gave him time to understand

(45:03):
that the adults now standing in front of him were
not the ones who had been hurting him, and they
were there to help him and not harm him.

Speaker 2 (45:11):
That would be so hard because you'd literally want to
just like scoop this little boy up, I know, right,
and just like tell him everything will be okay, But
you can't.

Speaker 1 (45:20):
Yeah. When they finally did lift him out, they handled
him with the kind of care usually reserved for medical emergencies,
because that's exactly what this was. He weighed far less
than an eight year old should and this honestly is
a medical emergency. The police formed a protective circle around
him as they moved through the house, instinctively shielding him
from the chaos of the arrests and from the sight

(45:40):
of the adults responsible for his condition. Outside, paramedics took over,
Andrea was placed on a stretcher, wrapped in blankets, and
rushed straight to the hospital. Doctors later described him as
severely malnourished and dehydrated, with clear evidence of long term trauma. Jacob,
his older brother, was found shortly after as well, and

(46:01):
he too showed signs of fear, withdrawal, and physical neglect.
He was removed to safety with the same urgency and care. Meanwhile,
inside the house, the adults were detained immediately. Anica, still
presenting herself as a frail, frightened thirteen year old well,
she too was treated as a victim. Shelter staff and
social workers believe she was another vulnerable child caught in

(46:24):
a violent household of abuse, so they provided her a bed, food,
and a quiet place to rest. No one suspected that
this young girl was actually an adult woman with a
history of manipulation, or that she had helped orchestrate this
entire system of abuse that fell upon these two boys.
And that's where we're going.

Speaker 2 (46:44):
To leave off for today. Okay, I knew it. Oh, Okay,
I knew it was coming, But this case just has
me on the edge of my seat because well, we
obviously know that it's figured out who she is, but
I just can't with her like she is, just I
don't know, she's going to keep me awake at night.

Speaker 1 (47:04):
Really, she's a monster in every ounce of the world.

Speaker 2 (47:07):
Yeah, and it just makes no sense either. So I'm yeah,
the fact that we have to stop is kind of
a piss off, But I get it.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
There's a lot to this case and it's going to be. Yeah,
it's gonna be a full two parter, so be prepared.
What a case.

Speaker 2 (47:21):
This is? Unreal, right, huh.

Speaker 1 (47:24):
So shout out to Julie fort As this case, no kidding. Yeah,
hopefully enjoyed this at least will not necessarily enjoyed it,
but hopefully enjoyed the story. We're all true crime people.
We get it. Many people we talk to who don't
get it, we can't say enjoyed when it comes to cases.

Speaker 2 (47:41):
Of this, well, I mean, like it's it's a fascinating
story to listen to and to try to comprehend. But
it's not necessarily that we like enjoy what's happened. It's
just this shit has happened, though, Yeah, and it's like interesting,
I guess, to learn about it and to give like
voice to the victims and stuff.

Speaker 1 (47:58):
So well, honestly, imagine the world where we just pretended this.

Speaker 2 (48:02):
Didn't happen, no shit, and just walked around being vulnerable
all the time.

Speaker 1 (48:06):
Well, not only being vulnerable the respect that would give,
yeah to two victims that it's as if your your issues,
your your trauma, none of it matters.

Speaker 2 (48:16):
It's not even real under the carpet, and move on
with your life.

Speaker 1 (48:19):
Yeah. I think that's far worse in my opinion, but anyways,
I digress. Thank you for being here. You guys are amazing.
Don't forget to check out the description for all our
links and all that good stuff. Don't forget to give
us a review if you like the show. We're a
indie podcast, produced, researched, written, hosted all of it by ourselves,
with our dogs and our chickens outside too, and we

(48:41):
just live in our tiny home doing our best and
we get to do it because of you. We sure
do so, thank you so much

Speaker 2 (48:47):
Thank you for being here, and until part two, stay wicked.

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The Kuřim Case - Part 1

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Kuřim Case - Part 1