Journalist Wrote About a String of Gruesome Murders — But He Was Hiding a Secret and 'Knew Too Much'

Veteran Macedonian reporter Vlado Taneski spent years covering a series of gruesome murders in the small town of Kičevo. His articles stood out for their vivid detail — so vivid, in fact, that investigators realized he was including crime-scene information the police had never made public.

It was these details, according to authorities, that ultimately gave him away.

Between 2005 and 2008, at least three women — all cleaners in their 50s and 60s — were found murdered in nearly identical fashion: raped, strangled with telephone cables, and dumped naked in plastic bags, per reporting by The Guardian, The New York Times and Croatian publication Index.hr.

Before the killings, Taneski was a general assignment reporter for more than 20 years, covering small-town topics like education, municipal affairs and community news. But after the first killing in what became a string of them, Taneski covered each case for local papers Nova Makedonija and Utrinski Vesnik. 

In early 2008, police noticed that his reporting included specifics only the killer or police would know — such as the type of cord used and the state in which the bodies were found, per the outlets.

“We read his stories and it made us suspicious,” police spokesman Ivo Kotevski told the Times. “He knew too much.”

“We have very strong evidence that Taneski was responsible for all three,” Kotevski told The Guardian. “All these women were raped, molested and murdered in the most terrible way.” 

Kotevski confirmed that the victims had been strangled and wrapped in plastic — facts Taneski had described in print before any official confirmation.

Colleagues at Nova Makedonija recalled how Taneski would often call just hours after a murder to pitch the story. 

“On May 18, just after the gruesome murder of Zivana Temelkoska, he called and pitched the story to us,” one journalist told The Guardian. 

His articles were published as exclusives — and in hindsight, police say, they read like confessions.

In June 2008, DNA from semen at one of the crime scenes matched Taneski’s. 

Police searched his home and summer cottage, recovering telephone cords, pornographic material and personal items believed to belong to the victims, Croatian outlet Index.hr reported. 

Taneski was arrested on June 22, 2008, and charged with the murders of Zivana Temelkoska, Ljubica Licoska, and Mitra Simjanoska. Police were also investigating his possible connection to a fourth case — the 2003 disappearance of a 78-year-old cleaner.

The next morning, June 23, Taneski was found dead in a cell he shared with two other men at Tetovo prison, his head submerged in a bucket of water. Authorities ruled it a suicide; he reportedly left a note denying responsibility for the killings.

The case shocked the country — and even Taneski’s estranged wife of 31 years. She told Macedonian broadcaster Kanal 5 that theirs had been an “ideal marriage.” 

She described Taneski as quiet and gentle, saying she had never seen signs of aggression. Their only arguments, she said, were about his parents when they lived with them early in their marriage, per The Guardian.

Likewise, Utrinski Vesnik editor Ljupco Popovski described Taneski as an exceptionally quiet man.

“I would never believe that he is capable of doing something like that,” he told The Associated Press.

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“He was a nice and educated guy who seemed completely normal,” Ognen Cancarevik, another reporter at Nova Makedonija who collaborated with Taneski on the articles about the killings, told the Times. “When the police rang me to say, ‘Your reporter is the murderer,’ I could barely believe my ears.”

Police and psychiatrists later suggested Taneski may have been acting out unresolved anger toward his late mother, who had also worked as a cleaner. Cancarevik told the Times that she and Taneski had a strained relationship, particularly after his father died by suicide in 1990.

According to the Times, each of the slain women knew Taneski’s mother.

Dr. Antoni Novotni, head of a psychiatric clinic in Skopje, said Taneski may have subconsciously wanted to be caught. 

“He might have wanted to be caught by letting slip what he did in his articles,” Novotni told The Guardian.