Life in prison for the Staro Nagoričane killer: how were some of the victims buried without an autopsy?

The Basic Court in Kumanovo sentenced 25-year-old Trajče Bojkovski from Staro Nagoričane to life in prison. He is guilty of four murders and two attempted murders of women, committed between January 2025 and February 2026. The presiding judge called it one of the most serious and most horrific cases in the recent history of the Macedonian judiciary.

The victims were mostly elderly, frail women living alone. According to the verdict, Bojkovski stalked them for months, attacked them and killed them. The villages on the map are Klečovce, Dragomance, Čelopek and Staro Nagoričane. At the 28 September hearing he confessed to three murders and denied the fourth. Prosecutor Ljubomir Lape cited DNA traces as the key evidence, and a psychiatric assessment pointed to a high risk of reoffending. Bojkovski has 15 days to appeal.

The verdict does not answer for the death certifiers

The verdict closes the chapter on the man who killed. It does not close the chapter on the system that for months failed to notice that people were being killed. The prosecutor's office is now gathering information on two doctors in Kumanovo who certify deaths. In some of the victims' cases, they initially did not establish a violent death. The bodies were buried without an autopsy and without the duty public prosecutor being informed.

That means victims were buried without an autopsy while the killer was free and kept stalking the neighbouring villages. One of the attempts in Čelopek failed only because the woman managed to call for help. How many on-site examinations are done "as routine", with a signature and without a look?

There is no decision yet on whether criminal proceedings will be brought against the doctors. The prosecutor's office has to establish whether this was a professional failure or something more. The life sentence is the answer for Bojkovski. The answer for the gap he kept slipping through is still missing.