Torture, cannibalism and incestuous sex: the chilling story of Barbora Skrlova

The image frightened the policemen. In the cold, damp basement, inside a cage, the two children were beaten, burned and malnourished. In a corner, barely visible in the dark, a girl was crying inconsolably.

She said her name Anika and having been a victim, like the little ones, of brutality and abuse of his mother and aunt.

But it was all a lie, part of a sinister plan devised by a psychopath who had little as a child and very perverse. His name, actually, was Barbora Skrlova, was 33 years old and a past as dark as it was lurid.

It was 2007 and the events shook the Czech Republic. The horror and chilling presence of this girl-woman that was part of a secta kept in suspense a society that was witness, without wanting it, of how evil can cross all limits.

So macabre was his story that he managed to cross borders, reach Hollywood and inspire a movie. Produced by Leonardo Dicaprio and starring Vera Farminga, “The orphan” It terrified viewers who not even in their worst dreams imagined that it was inspired by a real case. East.

Who is Barbora Skrlova?

His life is a mystery. Nothing is known of his parents or his childhood. It is only known that he was born in what was then Czechoslovakia and that he suffered from hipopituitarism, a condition that presents an abnormal decrease in hormones secreted by the pituitary gland.

In his case, a chronic deficiency of growth hormone somatotropin, which allowed him to look like a 13 year old girl. Or whatever you want.

But this was not his real problem. She was hiding so much more. Barbora had a multiple identity disorder, in addition to psychopathic, schizophrenic, and violent traits. And a great power to manipulate satisfaced.

For all this, she spent her adolescence hospitalized in a psychiatric. Where it was never known when or why it came out.

The truth is that bright and lucid as she was, she decided to use the disease for your benefit. He masked himself for convenience after Different personalities and in this way he progressed in life and deceived whoever crossed his path.

Thus, posing as a defenseless girl, her first years passed from family to family. He claimed it was a poor abused orphan at the same time that she begged to be adopted and convinced the authorities that they never punished her lies.

The new victims

The years passed and two new characters joined its perfect staging. Klara and Katherina Mauerová They came from a middle-class Czech family. Despite trying to lead a normal life, the sisters suffered from schizophrenia.

In his hallucinations they believed to be Joan of Arc and they claimed to have a divine mission ahead of them. They fit perfectly into the sinister plans of our protagonist.

Klara Mauerová was studying pedagogy at the university. During his internship he met “the girl”, they had several talks and immediately they became friends. This time, Barbora – and in her own words – had been abused in a juvenile center from where she claimed to have escaped. She was looking for a new home where she was loved.

It was thus that Klara, who had just been divorced, took her to live with her children and her sister at her house in Kurim, a rural town in the southeast of the country. A decision that would change his life. Worse.

Horror in Kurim

The first times were dreamed. Everything was happiness. Camping weekends and a new assembled life that only brought joy. Things were so good that the sisters they adopted “Unofficially” they believed was a sweet orphan.

Skillful and captivating, Barbora was quick to involve the Mauerová in The Grail Movement, a sect that practiced the teachings of the play In the Light of Truth – Grail Message of Abd-ru-shin and that he sought knowledge of himself, the world and God.

The group was led by “The doctor”. To conserve “pure” energy, this kind of entity – whose identity was never revealed – asked its faithful strange sacrifices Y incestuous sex rituals through text messages. They not only did not refuse but complied without question. And with pleasure.

Fascinated, the sisters followed his orders to the letter. They were convinced that their mission had finally arrived and that “The girl” was a miracle of fate who had come into their lives to enlighten and guide them on the path of salvation.

The real nightmare came when Barbora began to feel jealous of Klara’s children, Jakub and Ondrej, 10 and 8 years old. To turn them against the little ones, she accused them of having committed mischief that she herself carried out. They were always the guilty of everything bad that happened in the house.

In this way, the anger of the women grew at the same level as the cruelty of the punishments to which they were subjected. “The Doctor” and Skrlova herself proposed to build a iron cage in the basement to keep them away. His mother and aunt accepted it.

That was the first link in a chain of hellish abuse to those who exposed the creatures. Naked and practically without eating, they were forced to sleep on their excrement, burned with cigarettes, beaten, forced to bathe in ice water, and even they cut pieces of its skin to eat it.

The chronicles of the time reveal that it was Barbora who designed and guided the torments, always in the name of her guide “The Doctor”. Cruel and obsessed with harming and controlling them, to see their suffering permanently, she installed a camera system in the basement. A big misstep from the wicked plan he had hatched.

The end of the martyrdoms

The torture of the children continued until May 10, 2007. Fate wanted a neighboring family purchase a similar surveillance system to monitor your newborn baby.

When they tried to use it, a error he made them pick up the signal from the Mauerova house and, horrified, see the state of the creatures.

Faced with such an image, they did not hesitate to make the complaint before the authorities. What the police found upon arrival was gruesome. In a cage, one of the little ones was passed out; the other, in a deplorable state, was crying out for help.

In the corner, a girl was crying, saying that she had been adopted and accusing her mother and aunt of torture. But it wasn’t Anika, as she told the shocked officers.

At the hospital, one of the children died; the other survived. It was thanks to her testimony that the truth about Barbora became known. But she had already I escaped from the Czech Republic.

A new personality, a new lie

With the help of some members of The Grail Movement, Skrlova managed to escape to Norway. He got fat, shaved and posed as a 14 year old teenager.

In this new version, Barbora was Adam. He said that he had fled his home to avoid testifying in court. Again he used his ability to manipulate to recount a tragic past. Again moved a family that decided to adopt her, take care of it and send it to a recognized school.

Their strange behaviors at school they caught the attention of teachers. Extremely intelligent, her introverted nature and refusal to play group sports gave her away and prompted teachers to try to research her story.

Always on the alert, in the face of the danger that his dark secret would be discovered, Barbora disappeared again.

But the Czech police had already issued a warrant for international capture. Her photo was everywhere and she was quickly captured in northern Norway in January 2008. Back in her country, got off the plane hugging a teddy bear.

The end of the story?

The sentences of the three women met in 2009. The penalties were absurdly ridiculous. The Olomouc High Court sentenced Klara to 12 years in prison; Katherina at 10. As a mastermind, Barbora Skrlova had to spend five years behind bars.