Booked Abroad: Prague

Prague draws you in with its spires, its fog, its slow trams rattling over centuries-old streets. It’s the kind of city where stories hide in the stone — and some are darker than others.

I’m Bree Elaine, and while Booked Abroad is about following wanderlust across borders, sometimes that journey leads to the unthinkable. I’ve walked Prague’s streets myself, unaware I was tracing the steps of Jaroslava Fabiánová, a woman who moved from victim to murderer.

This isn’t just a crime story — it’s a confrontation with what happens when trauma festers, when help never comes, and when a city’s silence becomes part of the narrative. Beautiful places hide the scariest faces.

A Life Defined by Trauma

Born in 1965 in Děčín, northern Czechoslovakia, Jaroslava Fabiánová’s early life was marked by instability, neglect, and severe abuse. From a young age, she was exposed to violence in the home, and by her teenage years, she had run away and was living on the streets.

She turned to prostitution for survival, bouncing between temporary housing and the margins of society. Her adolescence was shaped not by schoolbooks or safety, but by desperation.

The First Murder

In 1981, at just 17 years old, she murdered her first client: a 78-year-old man identified as Vladimír Z. He had refused to pay her. Jaroslava reacted by attacking him with a masonry hammer and stabbing him in the face.

She was arrested, tried, and sentenced to just five years in prison—a strikingly short punishment for such a violent crime. When released, she reentered society without support, without guidance, and with a sharpened survival instinct.

A Deadly Pattern Emerges

Jaroslava developed a new routine: drugging her clients with sedatives to rob them without violence. It worked—until 1996, when a Hungarian tourist died after drinking beer laced with sleeping pills.

Despite this, no homicide charges were brought against her. She remained under the radar, a woman society barely noticed, drifting between cities, schemes, and victims.

The Prague Murders

In 2003, her crimes escalated.

In June, she stabbed Augustin K. in his apartment. The motive? Robbery. She stole his paintings and fled the scene.

Then in August, she met Richard S. on a Prague tram. They struck up a conversation, and she went home with him. Hours later, she stabbed him 38 times in his bathroom, leaving a bloodbath behind.

This time, the evidence stacked up fast. Witnesses placed her on the tram. Her fingerprints were found. She confessed.

Trial and Sentence

In 2005, Jaroslava Fabiánová was sentenced to life in prison, becoming only the third woman in Czech Republic history to receive such a sentence.

Psychologists described her as a woman whose life had been shaped by trauma and mental instability. She had a long history of manipulation, violence, and untreated psychological wounds. The public saw her as a monster—though the full story is more complicated.

On the Ground in Prague

When I visited Prague, I didn’t know her name. But I rode the trams she used. I walked the streets she prowled. And I felt the city’s layered past pressing in. Amongst the peace stood quiet chaos.

That’s what Booked Abroad is about—finding the hidden stories behind the postcards.Jaroslava Fabiánová was buried by history, but the echoes of her crimes are still there.