Aneta (2024) Movie Script
1
In this case, just about
everything went wrong.
Okay. Let's do it.
DIRECTOR
In the Aneta Rodov case, there are many
questions that can only be answered by me.
Many things happened outside of filming,
off camera.
Everyone on the film crew
has their own opinion about this case,
but our goal for the film
was to stick to the facts available.
What your conclusion will be
at the end of the film is yours alone.
But consider if you have the stomach
for it, because it's not a pleasant sight.
It all started on September 20, 2014.
20 SEPTEMBER 2014
YOU ARE LISTENING TO
THE ORIGINAL PHONE RECORDING.
-Prague Police Helpline, how can we help?
-Hi, this is Kateina
Can you come right away to
Nepomuckch Street in Prague?
-Nepomuckch Street?
-Yea, Nepomuckch. Our friend cut herself.
-What's the house number?
-749 I don't know right now.
-Is she inside or outside?
-Inside.
-On what floor?
-Second.
-What's the lady's name and age?
-Aneta Rodov. She's 23.
-Is she communicating? Is she conscious?
-She's not conscious, but just staring.
No! Aneta! Hurry!
I still need to ask you
Did she cut her hands? Where's she cut?
She wanted to stab herself in the heart.
And she stabbed my boyfriend
when he tried to take the knife from her.
My colleagues are coming.
They'll also call an ambulance, okay?
-Thank you.
-They'll tell you exactly what to do.
Okay.
My name's Marc Deveaux.
I'm a toxicology expert from Paris.
She cut my boyfriend because he wanted to
take the knife. She tried to stab herself.
WITNESS
SUICIDE?
She wanted to stab herself in the heart.
And she stabbed my boyfriend.
ANETA - SUICIDE
19TH SEPTEMBER 2014
Aneta and her boyfriend had returned
from vacation in Dominican Republic.
Around midnight,
Aneta met up with her friends
at the COCO Bar where they drank.
And it appears they also took cocaine.
ANETA SEEMED A LITTLE STRANGE.
SHE WAS CHAINSMOKING.
Kateina and Ahmad decided
to do another line of cocaine.
Aneta didn't join in with them.
After that they got up
and went to lie down.
What are you doing?
Have you gone mad! What are you doing?
NO!
What the fuck is going on!
Call an ambulance!
Hi, this is Kateina
Can you come right away to
Nepomuckch Street in Prague?
Our friend cut herself.
Help!
-Someone's here.
-Someone's already there?
-Is it the police? Put them on the phone.
-Hello.
Emergency services. We're on our way.
How does it look? Is the girl conscious?
-She's not. Not entirely, but is close.
-What does that mean?
Her eyes are rolled up.
And when you slap her cheek,
she doesn't react?
-No, she doesn't.
-Is she looking? Can she turn her head?
Hey, hey! Yes, but not too well.
Your hand, please.
According to the police,
Aneta suffered a fatal injury.
Self-inflicted with a knife.
But her mother thinks it was murder.
MOTHER OF THE DECEASED
September 20, 2014.
Are you ready?
Try to look back on that day.
What were you doing?
That day I'll remember for the rest of
my life as the worst day of my life.
I was in the forest that day
with my mother.
And my phone started ringing.
My neighbor was calling to see where I was
because the police were looking for me.
I thought, "Oh no, Aneta probably parked
illegally and they want to tow the car."
So I said thanks and that I'd call them
and my neighbor said "no."
"They're waiting here for you,
Please come straight home."
So two policemen from Kladno came
and told me they don't know what happened
but it's something with my daughter, but
everything is okay so I should calm down.
I said, "Calm down?
What about my daughter?"
They gave me the phone number
to the Vinohrady hospital
and they'll tell me everything there.
Dr. Paout told me
that my daughter had died
and was in pathology.
I asked what had happened.
He told me she died from
a drug overdose and alcohol.
I said my daughter barely drinks.
I then passed out.
They called an ambulance.
I came to in the elevator.
I said I'm not going anywhere.
First, I just need to find out what
happened and where my daughter is.
At that time two other police from
Prague called and said,
"Your daughter died from multiple
stab wounds. She committed suicide."
There is nothing normal with this case.
CRIMINALIST, FORMER MEMBER
OF PRAGUE HOMICIDE TEAM
From the start of the investigation,
a whole list of items was neglected,
which are never easy to find afterwards.
If someone was or wasn't to blame for it,
if it really was suicide,
or if someone took part in the suicide
and if that constitutes murder.
Official Record of Explanation
provided September 20, 2014.
At 11:38 Kateina
is called in for questioning.
Kateina was a so-called friend of Aneta.
"Yesterday, September 19, 2014,
Aneta and I planned
to go to a club in the center."
"I called my boyfriend, Ahmad,
who suggested we go to
Club COCO on Kaprov Street in Prague."
Mr Ahmad.
That's the person who hasn't
let me sleep for nine years.
"I'm married with two kids. I live with
my wife at my permanent residence."
"Four months ago, I was looking for
a psychologist for marriage problems."
"Thanks to that I found a girlfriend
named Kateina. Around 25 years old."
"I bought a flat for us in Letany,
on Nepomuckch St."
Jakub. Status? Single.
Boyfriend of victim.
Jakub was my daughter's boyfriend with
whom she went to the Dominican Republic.
"I'm dating another girl long-term that
Aneta knew about. But we still dated."
"Aneta and I also had
an intimate relationship."
"We landed back from vacation
on Friday in Munich at 7:30AM."
"Then we flew to Vienna,
landing around 10AM."
"From Vienna we took a bus to Brno.
I got off in Brno
and Aneta went on alone to Prague
where she arrived after midnight."
"I was with Ahmad in the club from 11PM."
"Aneta and I had agreed
she'd get a cab
and put her luggage
in my car parked at the club."
"Aneta arrived sometime after midnight
and started enjoying herself."
"She was smiling, but she didn't dance."
"She appeared to be okay."
LAST PHOTO OF ANETA
No, she actually couldn't stand blood
and didn't like real violence.
She'd only get in a bad mood
when she had a headache or was sick.
But even then, she'd try to fake it.
She had a lot of friends not just
from school but also outside school.
She'd go with her friends to the mountains
and skiing in France a lot.
She was really popular. She was
always having friends at our house.
She lived a normal life. She did sports.
She went to work every day.
She didn't drink much,
but she'd definitely have a glass.
I never saw her drink alcohol at home
and from the time she was 18,
she'd learnt to drive
and she would drive to most parties,
so she didn't drink.
The police described my daughter as being
psychologically disturbed.
She committed suicide due to heartbreak
and had lots of problems her whole life.
We were surprised since none of that
was true, so it also really shocked us.
If even half was true, maybe we'd say,
okay, there was a mistake somewhere.
But there really wasn't.
INTOXICATION
CERTAIN DRUGS
EXPERT REPORTS
I've been trying to understand it
for eight years and I can't.
Toxic psychosis can occur
if the user consumes a large amount of
cocaine over a long period of time.
If we analyze ten separate
centimeters of hair,
we'll analyze ten months of consumption.
They did that here.
Mostly it was the same concentration of
material in all the analyzed segments.
That means that
Aneta regularly used cocaine.
But since the concentration was very low,
it wasn't an above average consumption.
But the diagnosis was already stated
in the hospital. So it's really strange.
At the beginning of the questioning,
I admitted all possible outcomes
and didn't rule out the possibility
that my daughter killed herself.
When I got the toxicology report
and found my daughter
didn't have any alcohol in her
and a small amount of cocaine,
I concluded that this is bullshit.
They were working with just one version.
That was intoxication and psychosis
and didn't know at all how horribly
my daughter was stabbed.
That was found out after the autopsy.
I can't understand how
a doctor couldn't see
three fatal wounds
to the right chamber of the heart.
She was stabbed so badly.
I can't understand it.
On my desktop I see loads of files.
The High Prosecutor's Office,
The High Court Prague.
There's just loads of files.
A letter addressed to the Czech Police.
District Police headquarters of CSI,
212/17 Zenklova Street.
"I requested information from you,
but you didn't respond at all."
"After four months, you submitted reports
from experts you yourselves hired
on the basis of your statement
that came from your investigation."
"I still don't know
where my daughter's things are,
as the police never handed them over,
including her passport."
Answers from the police after five months:
"We sent her debit card to her bank
and I'm not sure about her passport.
Our office is being renovated
so we are in a bit of a war zone
and I can't find whether we have it here."
So he doesn't even know where
the things are and what they have there.
To this day I don't know who
took the knife out of my daughter or why.
First, the knife is in the bedroom,
second, on the counter,
later, on the floor.
Another time Kateina confirmed the police
said to bring it from the bedroom.
Kateina even lied to her mother
who called me to say my daughter
had been unstable since childhood
and was taking pills
from her psychiatrist.
And it wasn't true.
If I could ask Kateina one question,
I'd ask why she is lying.
BECAUSE SHE WANTED TO CAUSE DEATH - YES
DEATH CAUSED BY ANOTHER WAY - YES
I don't know what happened.
Medics see only surface bloodless wounds
and don't pay attention to the fact
my daughter could've been stabbed.
Bloodless wounds?
This is a bloodless wound?
The police didn't look at why the records
from the medic say it was bloodless.
Who cleaned after her?
When someone commits suicide,
they don't wipe the floor.
This is really something different.
The next official record says that
hotline 155 was received by 158.
Message: deeply unconscious.
Stab wound to the heart.
-Emergency services.
-Operations center.
We need you in Prague.
A lady's stabbed and unconscious.
Said to be stabbed in the heart.
-Her eyes are rolled up.
-And when you slap her, she doesn't react?
Not very well. Press on her, would you?
The doctor himself told me
he doesn't know what happened.
He heard they were cleaning up the drugs
and it was strange to him that it took
the ambulance a long time to leave
and he urged them to several times.
"If they were cleaning up the drugs,
it fits with what one doctor said
that someone else left the flat.
Nobody has verified this information."
And I could continue on like this after
reading three out of the fifteen pages.
If I could ask Ahmad one question,
I'd ask why my daughter had to die.
Have you gone mad! What are you doing?
Nobody's responded to these letters.
Nobody's talked to me about this.
Since the beginning,
I've felt completely alone in this.
But this is my journey, my battle.
Okay, next
"My first look at the records
wasn't possible until the end of July,
despite it being closed on April 17, 2015,
and that's just because it
started attracting media attention."
According to police, she committed suicide
by stabbing herself 9 times in the chest.
It's definitely not a typical case.
Mr Doucha says the case should've been
treated as a murder investigation.
-But that wasn't the case.
-If the death seems suspicious,
it's investigated as a murder and
once all factors suggest that it's not,
you can then assess it as suicide.
This whole case gives me the impression
that the police set it up
the complete other way.
The whole case could actually one day
be doomed to remain unsolved.
"Police pathologist, Bulovka hospital."
They take her for a private autopsy.
The whole time
they didn't allow me access.
I waited three weeks before
I could even see my dead daughter.
The record of cuts on her hands differed.
In one document there's two,
another has three.
"In connection with the wounds
to her chest, it was later discovered:
internal bleeding
in the chest cavity on the left side,
total collapse of her left lung,
meaning she could no longer breathe."
Shocking changes to the kidneys."
"Breathing vomit into the lungs.
Subcutaneous hemorrhages."
"This injury arose from
blunt force trauma."
And this is a suicide. Amazing.
The Municipal Prosecutor's Office
who identified the protests as unfounded,
re-assessed the actions of
the police due to the complaints.
All of this is bullshit.
If I could ask my daughter one question,
it'd be why were you around these people.
To say "everything was explained," really?
Everything is explained?
That's the approach I'm talking about
that I don't like.
That it's being downplayed
and underestimated.
And when a dispute arises,
if it was like this or like that,
nobody will ever explain it
because they don't have
enough concrete material.
That's really bad.
The police failed. The medic failed.
The Public Prosecutor failed.
All involved.
But I ask why? Was it on purpose?
ATTORNEY
For a circle of people who were
sharing their solution to the case,
we must note that there were many,
meaning there's a team of police
working on the case
who are using a whole set of specialists.
There's doctors and lab experts.
If we want to doubt the conclusions
of the police and their work,
it would have to be
the failure of the whole system.
One small error could not influence the
investigation results in such a big way.
-What the fuck is going on!
-Have you gone mad!
These pictures behind me.
This is from vacation in Egypt
and this is from the last trip
to Dominican Republic.
She always had such a nice
positive approach to everything.
So I like remembering this.
I always see her smiling, her good mood.
That's what I miss.
Telling someone what happened is awful.
And speaking about it is very hard.
It's impacted my personal life.
Not only mine, but the whole family.
It's impacted my sister, my mother.
I'd say this destroyed all our lives.
When my ex-husband
and I talked about it, he told me
that concerning the circumstances
that surround the case
He's got his own family and other kids
so logically he's afraid.
He's afraid for his family's safety,
his children's.
So he doesn't want to
get involved in this at all.
In a chapel where they brought her
Her face That wasn't Aneta.
I aged 30 years in that moment.
I took her hand.
She was so cold. The hand was pale.
Her nails broken.
And I remember her neck.
Her whole neck
was sewn up from the autopsy
and then I just had to leave,
and I vomited outside.
Who really pissed me off?
Definitely the Public Prosecutor
and investigator Uelk.
Mr Uelk said to me:
"Ah, you're the mother. Here, sit."
That's how he greeted me. It was clear
he wasn't too happy to have me there.
"Look at yourself. Something will suddenly
happen and you'll commit suicide too."
I looked at him and said:
"Excuse me? You've got to be kidding me?
How dare you."
So I looked at him and didn't get
how he could talk to me that way.
Then I said, nicely, "See you."
He said, "Goodbye."
That was my meeting with Mr Uelk.
FORENSIC PATHOLOGISFLORIDA AUTOPSY SERVICES
My name is Petr Konen. I'm a journalist.
And I've been looking into the death
of Aneta Rodov for ten years.
THE STRANGEST SUICIDE ON EARTH
Call it a journalist's addiction. I think
we never had such a suicide case before
and of course I remember the headlines.
How it appeared in
the spectrum of media outlets.
Of course it was a big topic
we all wanted for ourselves.
Everyone wanted to write about it, to get
something extra the rest didn't have.
A lot of journalists when they started to
collect this information into a mosaic,
they'd say, "This is a big topic, hiding
some dark story. We have to uncover it."
We have a conflict of mother and police,
family and the system.
Mrs Rodov was 100% convinced her daughter
would never do anything like that.
ATTORNEY
I have no reason not to believe her
and to this day I am convinced Miss Rodov
had no reason to leave like this.
We aren't talking about
if it was technically possible.
That's a whole separate chapter.
We're talking about
the psychology of Miss Rodov.
So when she came to my office,
it was about giving hope that
we'd try to find the person responsible
and to find out what happened.
We set out on our own
to find out how it was possible.
We even met with a famous
professor Strauss about biomechanics.
Then we met with other
experts, pathologists, toxicologists.
Mrs Rodov, the mother of Aneta came to me
and together with other experts
EX-INVESTIGATOR/DETECTIVE AGENCY OWNER
we filed a complaint to the ruling
and justified it from our own professions.
My record alone is several hundred pages
and now I think more than 500.
Expert reports, specialists' critiques,
decisions of law enforcement. It's a lot.
The police neglected a lot of things.
The drugs and their quantity
were not addressed.
Samples weren't taken from the wall
or the floor. Whose blood was it?
Were there four or three people?
Does the blood belong to someone else?
It definitely raises some doubts
about what happened at the scene.
She lost in one court after another.
She made Ahmad explain the drugs in court.
She even arranged for the medic
treating her lifeless body at the scene
to explain why
they didn't give a lot of information
needed to clearly identify
the cause of death.
And if that weren't enough,
it took them more than two hours
to go from the apartment to the hospital.
That means, where did the body go
and who was involved?
We wanted to reconstruct the crime to
show what actually happened at the scene.
We were told that the flat
had been sold so it couldn't be done.
We put forward the expert report from
forensic biomechanics, Mr. Strauss.
The Senior State Prosecutor rejected
my complaint that it wasn't needed.
We wanted the shirt she was stabbed in.
They said they'd give it to us once they
finished, but then they couldn't find it.
We wanted the material
for our own examination.
They aren't used to someone coming and
asking why they didn't do this or that.
"You didn't find the taxi. Don't you know
there are cameras in the building?"
"There are cameras? Oh!"
The police didn't question the neighbors
who said they claimed to hear an argument.
They heard a foreign language.
Absolutely in conflict with
Ahmad and Kateina's description
of them sitting calmly and chatting.
They definitely didn't mention yelling.
They came from a party around 3 or 4AM.
Wild mornings. You could hear a threesome.
NEIGHBOR
A threesome like two girls,
one man, like sex?
No.
The police do nothing.
They have something we could use
and they don't want to give it to us
and we can't use it either.
It's as if they are trying
to complicate things.
It doesn't suit them that
Mrs Rodov and I are still bothering them.
If there'd been a recreation or evidence,
it'd be clear for some reason
because the evidence wouldn't be needed.
That's why it "wasn't necessary" to secure
blood trails, because for what, right?
I'd be interested in the blood trails.
I'd be interested where his were.
Well, okay
We sent the Czech Police a letter:
"Why weren't all blood samples taken
and examined from the scene?"
"We don't know to whom
several of the blood trails belong."
Response: "There was no objective reason
to collect every blood trail
when there were objectively
only two people injured at the scene."
"How the blood trails were collected
at the scene fits the events
and the movement of
people around the apartment."
CRIMINAL LAW
If you say you're investigating something
like suicide, that's how you'll proceed.
When you say you're investigating murder,
that's how you'll proceed.
But it's the same as if
you're investigating a car accident.
If we see that the police
were following the one version of suicide,
the experts de facto
responded to one question.
Could it have happened? It could've.
The expert reports worked
to discard any objective doubts.
They should've decidedly glued Mrs.
Rodov's mouth shut. "Don't ask anything."
"It was suicide.
"We have the reports. It's clear. Period."
I can't come to terms
with making clear conclusions
about her mental suffering
without her being able to react.
I've got a friend
who's a traffic accident expert,
and he says he's able
to tape off an accident
anywhere two meters to the left
or right, without a problem.
Meaning cars going in whatever direction.
This is precisely how expert reports work.
Why do you think it was
investigated as a suicide?
You have to ask the police.
In my opinion,
it started to be treated as a suicide
because the only two witnesses at
the scene described the act as a suicide.
When and on what basis
was it decided in this case
that Kateina and Ahmad
are labelled as witnesses?
Police response: "Those named
had reported what Aneta had done,
and testified to what they saw and heard."
"As there were no suspicious conditions
discovered at the scene,
which would indicate another person
was involved in harming the victim,
they were taken as witnesses."
"A witness is a person who presents
a fact relevant for criminal proceedings
experienced by their own senses."
"The witness can remember it
and is able to recreate it,
which is the case for both named persons."
SUICIDE
They didn't interviewed Ahmad
because he had an injured hand.
At his request he is sent to
a psychiatric clinic for four days
with no limitations because
he hasn't been charged with anything.
He's got his phone with him
and can talk to whomever he wants.
They take photos of the flat, document it,
but don't seal it so anyone can come.
That means with his phone, from the clinic
he can get anyone not just to wipe it
down, take away cocaine, but anything.
How could they let him keep his keys?
If you're working with the version of
suicide, why seal off the flat
where there was no crime according to
the first investigating version?
Meaning that what we said at the start
if you set the version as a suicide,
of course it would look strange for
a murder, but for a suicide, it wouldn't.
This specific case I would personally
say qualifies as a suspicious death.
If this man who was there
is questioned several days later,
it can't be ruled out that those two
had time to get their stories straight.
You can't rule this out. Certainly not.
In my opinion, there's lots of conflicts
and conflicts in criminal proceedings
should be set aside.
Either in pre-trial
or criminal proceedings or in court.
CANCELLED
Aneta left the COCO bar, called a taxi,
got into the taxi and drove off.
First, she calls her friend, Andrej.
It's almost morning. He doesn't answer.
After that she calls the police.
20.SEPTEMBER 2014
CANCELLED
But she doesn't get through
and we don't really know why to this day.
It seems strange to me when
someone calls the police,
they're in danger and two hours later
dead and allegedly committed suicide.
I think a person who commits suicide
definitely doesn't call the police.
The doubts she created with her legal team
were made public everywhere.
It was even said the Minister of Justice
had the case file on his desk.
"Shit, we have to do something with this."
This has influenced politics.
Because the case isn't normal
it causes a big sensation
and puts pressure on the State Security
Council, where the case has reached.
They also shook their heads. How can
this happen in a place like Czechia?
This pressure led the High Prosecutor
to open the case again after two years.
Due to doubts.
Today, June 2, 2016.
It's 9:53AM
and I commence this re-enactment.
The persons undergoing this re-enactment
Ahmad is a huge mystery
for all of us journalists.
When did he come to Czechia? When did
he move here if he has Czech citizenship?
If his family came here? The sources
of his income? He never talked about that.
There's one notable point that's left out
because it's a long shot.
It's the theory that Ahmad was
an informant for the police. A rat.
COCO Bar was known
as the place to deal drugs.
The bosses of the drug cartels
would meet there.
This is why the police are hiding it.
Why did they treat this case so hastily?
For the reason of protecting their source.
The people undergoing this re-enactment
Kateina is a friend.
She isn't a childhood friend.
She was a friend she met two years before
at a language school.
She had a boyfriend, a rich boyfriend.
A foreigner who was married,
but he supported her, got her a flat,
a car, etc He took her on vacation.
During this time, she was in Lebanon.
There she became the second Muslim wife
of the entrepreneur Ahmad.
She converted to Islam so he could
take her to Lebanon and show his family.
So she had to appear as a second wife.
But they argued. She probably wanted
him to leave his wife and be with her,
to confess, to end the infidelity.
Aneta, as I understand from statements
from friends, was a shoulder to cry on.
The re-enactment is taking place here.
It's a meeting room on the first floor.
We tried to make the re-enactment
as similar as possible to the flat.
A fake knife. Then there's cups, a paper
towel, a tape measure and more.
Where there's a gap is
the entrance to the bedroom.
This is the living room and if needed,
there's the door leading to the balcony.
I got into the apartment two years after
and it hadn't been sold.
When we asked the police
to do the re-enactment in the apartment,
it wasn't allowed
and the apartment still hadn't been sold.
I don't get why they did it in a meeting
room which looked completely different.
-You all came back. Then what happened?
-We came in and sat down.
I sat here. Aneta here and Ahmad here.
Katka here, Aneta here.
She said something. There was someone
at the club who wanted to kill her.
She was always afraid there
and she couldn't explain why.
And then she said I want to kill her.
I know the recent period wasn't the best
because she was dealing with a boyfriend
who had a girlfriend of six years.
Did Aneta ever act like this in the past?
I really didn't know her that well.
This time we took a line of cocaine,
maybe two. Katka and I.
-Like this, a long line but it was weak.
-I offered Aneta but she said no.
-Are you a regular user?
-No.
-How often do you use?
-Twice a month.
These two under the influence of cocaine
and alcohol are trustworthy witnesses.
Nobody filed a report on them.
Only a psychological report was done
on my daughter who was dead.
She was smoking a lot. And always pacing.
When she walked, she always went here.
I think she was checking
that I haven't got a knife there.
I remember going to the bathroom.
-Ahmad stayed here or I don't know.
-So please mark where you went.
-And why did you go to the bathroom?
-I was sick.
Sick how?
In my stomach.
I thought I'd throw up, but I didn't.
-You didn't throw up?
-No.
When she didn't come to check on me,
I knew she was in the kitchen
but I didn't know what she was doing.
-How long were you there for?
-A short while.
When I came back, Aneta was sitting in
my seat. They were talking together.
I listened a bit and I heard her
tell Ahmad, "So do it. I'm ready.
Do it. I'm ready. You can kill me."
I told Aneta to go get some rest
or if she wants to call a taxi.
If you don't have enough money,
I'll give you some and she went like this.
Yeah?
You want me to call a taxi
so I leave so they kill me outside.
You know what? I'll sit here.
So please, kill me here.
I won't go to the street.
-What happened to her?
-I don't know. I really don't.
I'm telling you everything that happened.
I said, "Aneta, calm down.
Go lie down. You're exhausted,"
and I went into the bedroom
and Ahmad came right after me.
We stood opposite one another.
He told me he was going for a drink
and I didn't have time to even lie down.
I was standing here.
In the original questioning in 2014,
when the police started the investigation,
Kateina said she'd laid down and slept.
A noise had awoken her from the kitchen.
Now two years later,
she remembered it slightly differently,
claiming it matches with Ahmad's version.
They said goodbye. They're going to sleep.
And she instantly starts stabbing herself.
You're sitting at a table with someone.
Two go to bed and you get up,
pull a kitchen knife out of the drawer
and start stabbing yourself.
I went for a glass of water.
I look up and see Aneta there.
She's doing something I can't quite see
from a distance. She's doing this.
That was what you peel fruit with.
The small orange knife.
Probably about this size with teeth.
If you wanted to hurt yourself,
and thought about it seriously
you'd choose a knife for cutting meat.
With this knife you'd have bigger
problems than if you used this knife.
This is even bigger. The blade is
much wider. And it had teeth.
You imagine knives with teeth
will hurt more.
She turned around here.
I wanted to catch her like this
and she went here behind the table
and I see her still doing this.
From Kateina's questioning we hear Aneta
was holding the knife with both hands.
Ahmad should've been defending
the stabbing from behind.
When he went in, I didn't hear screaming.
No, no, no, no! And I ran right in.
But in the re-enactment, they don't speak
about it and show a different situation.
Now I saw Aneta is holding
the knife in her right hand
and that she keeps turning away from him
and keeps turning and turning.
Maybe she didn't want me to catch her.
For a moment she said that he caught me.
Together we were kind of like this,
and we moved like this.
-How are you doing?
-Okay, fine.
Are you able to do more today or?
-According to what.
-Want some fresh air? What would help?
I don't know.
Again I see so many things
that nobody is answering for us.
I took the knife like this in this hand
and gave it back like this.
She kept stabbing herself.
I tried taking it again
and I got stabbed right here.
The knife went here and here.
Despite the knife having teeth, all of her
wounds were cut with a straight blade.
The only one that was caused by a toothed
knife is the one Ahmad had on his hand.
This cut matches the toothed knife.
I screamed at her so she'd notice me.
I remember that and she came right at me.
Yes, she said she went
at me with the knife.
They were best friends. Is that right?
That's what they say.
But it's not like that.
Here it interferes with
the fates of others.
If it was a suicide,
the two that were in the room with her
will still now be suffering from
the fact that they are suspects.
At the re-enactment
there were no other options tested.
She could've been sitting
or stabbed from behind.
They could've started stabbing like this.
Two people could've stabbed her.
Several of the wounds could've
been made after she was dead.
They didn't speak about
the cut marks on her hand.
-When did they get there and how?
-She even had hematoma on her head
as if someone hit her
or pushed her on the ground,
but the hematoma had to
come from somewhere.
It could also be a possibility
that Aneta really took the knife first
but in self defense.
If someone was holding
the knife behind Aneta,
there would be a similar movement
to the chest, so it's definitely possible.
There's just the question of armlength.
How far can your arm reach?
According to the autopsy,
the wounds were made like this.
Nobody could stab themselves like that.
She'd have to do it like this.
-Look, there's a situation.
-I'd stab myself like this, not across.
-I'm 6 ft 6. How tall are you?
-5 ft 6.
That means I could do it.
Ahmad was much smaller.
5 ft 6. He was smaller than Aneta.
For me it'd be more probable
if she was sitting.
Plus one of the stabs, the knife
to the heart turned a bit at the end.
For that, one who's never stuck a knife
into meat needs to develop
a lot of physical strength.
He's just not experienced.
I was told that turning the knife
when a person is bleeding,
can be done either by soldiers
or people who really
have a lot of practice with these things.
That a normal person could never turn
the knife like this in the heart.
-So any more questions?
-Not from me.
What we did explains well
the stab wounds on the chest.
So how the witness performed,
how the injuries happened, it's possible?
It is.
It's 11:52 AM. I'm concluding
today's re-enactment.
No blood samples exist
and we don't know
how much cocaine Ahmad took.
We don't know what state
he could've been in.
And that's a big problem
that we'll never be able to answer.
We've asked the Police of Czechia:
"Why weren't Ahmad and Kateina's
blood samples taken
to know to which degree they were
under the influence of drugs?"
Response: "They were neither
suspects nor victims."
"As witnesses they testified that
despite the influence of drugs
they admitted consuming,
they still remember the event."
"So, there was no legal objective reason."
Our friend suddenly took a knife
and wanted to stab herself in the heart.
-And did she stab herself?
-She didn't, but she's lying on the floor,
staring and making a strange noise.
-Is she whirring?
-Yea, she's whirring.
We arranged that we would have
another autopsy done.
She wished I personally take part in it.
The doctors opened up the body again.
The organs were stacked up
and now comes the moment
when one doctor looks at the other.
I didn't understand
and he says, "Hey, does this look normal?
We're missing something."
And I ask, what's missing?
I say, "Hold up, guys, but we need
the heart. That's really important."
"Is it normal that the heart isn't there?"
We talked for half an hour about
where the heart was. We didn't have it,
so the doctors couldn't determine
how the knife pierced the body
and I think that it was
the determining element
of the whole criminal proceeding
that, without the heart,
it would be very difficult to prove
if a third person was involved
or if it was a voluntary
departure from this life.
We asked the police
about the missing heart.
"Is it common practice that certain
organs, in this case the heart,
are removed during an autopsy?"
"What are the usual procedures
for handling organs after an autopsy?"
Response: "The heart was further examined
and remained in
the Institute of Forensic Medicine,
where the initial autopsy was performed."
"If the Institute of Forensic Medicine
did not request it,
it's a question for this institute
why it did not do so."
"At the institute, it was dealt with
like any other human remains.
The former term is bio-waste."
They just threw it away.
MEDICAL EXAMINER PERFORMING SECOND AUTOPSY
If there hadn't been this second autopsy,
we wouldn't have discovered this.
HEART NOT FOUND IN BODY
Not finding the heart in a second autopsy
was really uncommon.
It completely shocked us.
And to some extent it even complicated
the evaluation of the whole case
considering whether it was
a murder or suicide.
I don't recall any of
our autopsy technicians
ever forgetting
to return an organ to the body.
It's something completely unimaginable.
Despite urging our colleagues
who performed the original autopsy,
the heart was not returned
and we were unable to judge
how it was damaged.
How can it happen
Yes, it seems to me really implausible.
Sure it seems the same to us both.
It's the next puzzle piece that doesn't
lead to someone committing suicide,
but leads to it not being as described
and that is a big difference to say
if there's effort to point at somebody
or refute it happened as they describe.
The police have again closed the case
stating Aneta committed suicide
under the influence of toxic psychosis.
-Emergency services.
-Operations center.
We need you in Letany.
We have a woman stabbed and unconscious.
-Supposedly been stabbed in the heart.
-Stabbed in the heart? What's the address?
Nepomuckch 749/15.
They say she's on the second floor.
The one stabbed is Rodov.
-Rodov. How old is she?
-23 and she's unconscious
23 and she's unconscious. Stabbed.
So I'll take you now to Ahmad's flat.
Mr toek is an amazing criminologist.
A retired expert.
He gives interviews and comments on cases.
He's a consultant.
He works on screenplays for
Czech TV for criminal cases
so he's enjoying his retirement as
a crime scene celebrity. We all know it.
I've heard about this case,
concerning the death of Aneta Rodov.
This has been examined for a long time.
The murder can look like a suicide.
But also suicide can look like murder.
But concerning this case,
I think the decision was correct
because there are certain things
that are connected to suicide.
This is the kitchen table where the three
of them sat that night until morning.
They were chatting, drinking water.
Ahmad and Kateina took cocaine here.
There were blood stains here.
A shoe print of blood here.
There was blood even here
probably from his hand
-because the blood was even here.
-Or it could be when she slit her wrists.
Let's say that she cut herself,
so it could be from that and then on the
balcony she saw that nothing is happening.
Blood is flowing
but not as she'd imagined,
so she came back into the room.
In case the death wasn't voluntary
and Ahmad had a part to play in it,
she would've defended herself. When it's
life or death, you make every effort.
There's adrenaline.
You have a lot more strength.
The glasses on the table
would've either fallen
or be turned over.
Yes, turned over chairs.
It would look different.
How would a murder look is another
question, but there would be a circus,
one person wouldn't have
been able to just kill her.
NO INJURIES SHOWED SIGNS OF SELF DEFENSE
I'll ask one more thing.
Here we have photos of Ahmad.
He was wearing a t-shirt and barefoot.
Isn't it strange that both feet are clean.
When we see here there was a battle,
clearly blood was spread around.
In theory there should be blood
on his feet from stepping in it,
but maybe he wiped his feet somewhere.
He must have also wiped his hand.
They can't just stay there in the flat,
standing, sitting and bleeding, you know.
So the amount of blood
on the scene seems normal.
You can assume that
she was bleeding internally,
into her chest cavity.
That also happens
but you see that
there was quite a bit of blood there.
The police didn't have
the power to choose.
Based on how it looked,
it couldn't have been murder.
I always have the rule
when you have a questioning.
From the questioning you always
have to cut out the beginning and end
and take just the conflict
because that's always different.
In such emotional cases
when someone says something
and now quickly describes it,
sometimes they don't remember
and now they're just making it up.
What's important, I don't know
if you have it, but probably,
-is the recording of the emergency call.
-Yea, but he's not on the recording.
And on the other hand she acts like
someone who has just come onto the scene.
It's obvious that she didn't know what
had happened. That's what I think.
Because when they ask if she was stabbed,
she can't see the stab wounds.
In the re-enactment that the police did
due to the mother's pressuring,
she acts as if she'd seen everything.
He was holding her like this.
She even came after him, so she might
have wanted to help him under pressure.
It could be him
so she could be influenced by that.
Of course the case has been in the media,
but you say they have
to agree in the conflict.
I don't think he's the culprit.
It's hard to say.
-She didn't stab herself, did she?
-I don't know.
Murder, suicide, suspicious death.
In all cases it's necessary
to treat it as if it were a murder.
And the police officer who arrives
at the scene must make the decision.
He must be experienced enough,
to know that this is
beyond his capabilities
and that he must call up a specialist.
In this case, the Crime Scene Unit.
Of course, throughout the whole time,
everything needs to be secured.
Nobody apart from the specialists
should be allowed to enter the apartment,
not until they say
they're done with the scene of the crime.
Then, the investigator from the
First Homicide Division can look around.
Do you think there's a real chance
it'll open back up?
In my view, there is a chance,
but it's not up to the lawyer.
The lawyer is the instrument but
what's going to open it up, that's key.
It's the expert reports
and it's the biomechanic one.
That is what's disputed against the topic
of the autopsy reports,
against how the autopsy was conducted,
meaning really building the apartment
or kitchen in the dimensions it was.
To try to tell someone it really played
out as they described in those versions.
Let's play it out how they did at
the re-enactment and do it in full force.
Let's not do it that
a fist flies like this
The fact is that you are one
of a few people who were in the apartment
so basically you can say
what you think about it.
Let's move on. Let's do the first step.
Shall we go inside? Let's do it.
The hallway.
-Does anything come back when you
-Yes, a little.
It's giving me goosebumps.
-Hello.
-Hello.
-I'm Aneka Matunsk.
-I'll introduce myself too.
-Okay, don't take it personally.
-I understand.
-Sorry.
-Sure.
-I guess you understand who plays who.
-I do.
The concentration of cocaine was so low
that it couldn't induce
psychosis immediately.
She didn't have signs of being clean
because she'd taken a bit of
cocaine in the COCO Bar.
So I can't explain what happened
from a toxicological perspective.
A toxicologist can't say if someone
committed suicide due to narcotics,
even less with a knife. I can't do this.
I'm saying that
I can't come to a conclusion.
The task of a specialist is to say
yes or no or it's inconclusive.
From WhatsApp chats
the Czech Police presented me,
it seems Ahmad is a real coke addict.
He's receiving psychotherapy
for his hot temper.
How could he play a role
in this story as a legitimate witness
with his mental state?
In all media outlets, it's presented
that he has problems with drugs,
with mental issues.
We don't know what he had
in his blood at the time.
If the investigation hadn't ended,
we wouldn't be able
with certainty to close it.
There will always exist some doubts.
Can we rule out
toxic psychosis with certainty?
I don't mean ruling out suicide but
under the influence of toxic psychosis.
There's a question for both.
It stands out to me that in this case
the police really made mistakes
they could not fix.
It was like catching a cat by its tail.
And the cat got away.
Ahmad was under a lot of pressure because
his wife found out about his affair
and he was under pressure from Kateina.
That night he was at dinner
with a mafia boss friend
and they were fighting
because of the wife.
He then went to the COCO bar and treated
his aggression. That's in the records.
HE'D OFTEN BLOW UP IN RAGE IN SECONDS
So we know about him
and the same about Kateina.
She's an asshole and that's from
questioning friends about her behavior.
In the news report from Josef Klima
was the testimony that Ahmad
could be a police informant.
Do you think this could be possible?
Look, you can't rule it out.
The question is
what is a police informant.
During the period of
deep totalitarianism, yes,
but today you're looking at
a current informant.
That means I'll take a picture of Ahmad
and go to the COCO bar
and if they don't kill you at once,
maybe someone will say,
"Ahmad deals drugs here."
I don't know.
At the time I regarded him
as a very influential and rich person.
Where did he get his money from?
The police never found out these facts.
They didn't look into his past in Lebanon
so we don't know if he killed anyone.
We just don't know anything about it.
The family is convinced
that it was a murder.
And nobody will prove to them otherwise.
The police will claim that
it actually wasn't murder.
And nobody will prove to them otherwise.
But there's still this dead young girl.
And maybe there's even
someone here guilty of murder.
If you were 100% convinced that it
was suicide as the police describe,
would you say it to the mother's face?
We've got our actors Aneta,
Ahmad and Kateina.
We have experts on
biomechanics and pathology.
In the kitchen is only Aneta.
Ahmad and Kateina go to the bedroom.
I'll ask you to take out the knife.
She knew where the knife is
because she's been in the flat before.
She takes it into her hand
and I'll ask Ahmad who is coming back
from the bedroom to the kitchen
for a glass of water
to come into the situation
where Aneta is already stabbing herself
with her right hand to
the left part of her chest.
He screams "No!" and starts
grabbing for the knife.
She is still stabbing herself
and he is trying to take the knife.
At that moment she stabs him in the hand
and she continues stabbing herself.
One version is that Ahmad reaches for
the knife and attacks Aneta
who is sitting and completely unaware.
That means you take the kitchen knife,
go over to her from behind and will try to
stab her in the left part. Into the heart.
Try to catch her so she can't
defend herself. You defend yourself.
Just like that.
How would it look if one person,
let's say Kateina, was holding Aneta.
Holding her hands, so she can't defend
herself. Just catch her hands. Like that.
He was holding her and laid her
on the ground so she didn't fall.
When someone's wrist is cut,
can they hold a knife in their hand
and stab themselves
with such brutal strength
to get the knife through the rib cage?
When did she slit her wrists? When she was
fighting with him or when they went to bed
because he actually says
that he returned after a minute.
He just entered the bedroom
and went right back.
So my daughter
was there alone half a minute.
I don't know which of the wounds
were post-mortem and which weren't.
Nobody can answer that.
I don't know if the first blow
was fatal or the others.
Is it possible that they could
live two more hours?
I could definitely explain how it would be
if a third person attacked so
that Miss Rodov couldn't defend herself.
I could easily believe one of the three
fatal wounds was one of the first wounds
which the attacker clearly
didn't have to know.
Then we can discuss why the other ones are
shallow, the ones after the fatal ones.
If someone wants to hide the traces.
I just don't know.
They write the wounds were surface and not
bleeding and when I look at the blouse,
I don't understand it.
Why weren't blood samples taken?
The conclusion of the experts is
that with respect to
biomechanics and pathology,
there's the chance that
my daughter could've done it herself.
With respect to psychology and toxicology,
toxic psychosis can clearly be ruled out.
My daughter was extremely fit.
That's why we were all so shocked
about what may have played out there.
But all experts agree
it was bad police procedure.
And thanks to that
we actually don't know what happened.
Mistakes are made.
We're only human of course.
We're only human.
But it's about making the smallest
mistakes. Not ones like these.
Not in these fundamental issues.
And in my opinion, here there were
mistakes made in fundamental issues.
Most importantly, the one working on this
didn't know what he was doing.
You all made an error.
You didn't do your job and now
we aren't able to find out the truth.
But I just don't understand
how all of this here could have happened.
Police don't usually apologize.
But in my opinion,
these mistakes were made by the police.
My name is Miroslav Krutina.
I'm a lawyer.
If I could react to the new expert reports
done by the international experts,
the psychological report
introduces a discrepancy
and suggests that Aneta's intoxication
is very unlikely to be
the cause of her death.
What we're making is a tool not to forget.
And if a whole group of people
don't agree with how it ended up,
we need the media to show that
there can be mistakes,
either on purpose or genuine error.
It enables people to think about it
and it can happen that more
new information appears
based on any media coverage
and any sources of information
that lead to Mrs Rodov
one day getting her answer.
I think that he had the psychosis.
Is he influential? Yes?
But nobody knows what he did in Lebanon.
And now he's escaped back.
He's there now
and we have no way to extradite
and he's convicted
for a criminal act for five years.
I don't know a mother who would
come to terms with her child dying.
The fact that my child decided
or got into a situation
that took their life
or caused them to die
It's that we believe our children
and protect them.
But when you look
objectively at the circumstances,
we know the mother could've had
a misrepresented view of her daughter.
That's for sure.
The person you are calling is not
available. Please try again later.
Jakub was my daughter's boyfriend with
whom she was in the Dominican Republic.
Why doesn't anyone want
to talk about Aneta?
Why have none of her friends come
despite us contacting them five times?
We contacted Aneta's father
and he met with us.
We told him about the film
and he didn't say a single word.
Why does nobody
from the police want to talk?
Nobody wants to speak about Aneta.
Only the mother.
We had a meeting arranged
with Aneta's ex-boyfriend, Jakub.
We talked on the phone an hour before,
and then he didn't show up.
Then he changed his phone number and
disappeared from the face of the Earth.
He disappeared from
the Trade and Commercial Registers.
We visited three addresses
he should live at.
Nobody anywhere.
I don't know why. Are they afraid?
Are they afraid of the police?
Are they afraid Aneta did kill herself
and they don't want to torment the mother?
Are they afraid someone killed her
and are therefore afraid of the mafia?
I don't know.
But the one thing I do know is
that nobody wants to come
and talk in front of the camera.
It's December 24, 2023.
Here in this green house
Ahmad just entered to exercise.
I met him here in a shop because he called
out from behind if I'm checking out
and I turned around
and looked him right in the face.
So now we're trying
to figure out what to do.
There he is. Ahmad!
Hello. Are you Ahmad?
-Why are you asking?
-I remember you from one case.
-Excuse me?
-We are filmmakers.
-Who are you?
-We are filmmakers.
-Filmmakers, making films.
-Yes.
Okay, so what?
We are filming this one case.
Do you think you'd have coffee with us?
-No.
-Only coffee. We sit, that's all.
Trust us.
This is the best thing that could happen.
We're filmmakers.
There's a film about Aneta Rodov.
It was probably clear to you when
we said we were filmmakers, right?
I've tried to clear this from my head.
It's haunted me what she did.
One girl took her life.
She died in front of my eyes.
Suicide right in front of me.
It haunts me when
I remember and think about it.
Then I went away.
This has haunted my children.
It's completely destroyed my life.
The police investigated this three times.
-Why do you think she died?
-I don't know.
I don't know.
-And you're not in contact with Kateina?
-No.
I've been away five years. In Lebanon for
My mother was sick and then COVID.
Then I came back.
I have kids here.
Whatever you will do or say, you'll make
it against me. I'm that foreigner!
If I were doing it against you and
I didn't have a single piece of evidence
How would I justify it?
-Okay.
-Just think about it.
I'd be real glad if we could talk.
Okay. I will think this through.
Is it possible to get a contact number?
Not right now, but if I will
contact you, you will have it.
-Thank you.
-I'll let you know.
What is there to say?
We couldn't do more than we did.
For me, I think that someone wanted this.
Let everyone think what they want.
That's probably all I can say.
The statute of limitations
is another ten years,
so I have ten years to do it myself.
The police aren't doing anything
and won't.
They investigated, so I have ten years.
Her life can't be returned.
I'd like to know the truth.
It would be easier for me.
The life can't be returned either way.
Nothing to do about that.
But I could live better.
In peace.
To look at the grave of your own child
is absolutely the worst thing ever.
I do always think about what happened,
nine years thinking up why it happened.
I love my daughter. My only daughter.
And to live with this is really hard.
Like fucking hard.
AHMAD AND KATEINA WERE CONTACTED.
THEY DECIDED NOT TO TAKE PART IN THE FILM.
SUICIDE UNDER THE INFLUENCE
OF TOXIC PSYCHOSIS.
CURRENT INFORMATION ABOUT THE CASE
CAN BE FOUND ON THE WEBSITE
So let's open the case back up
Subtitle translation by: Zach Barnes
In this case, just about
everything went wrong.
Okay. Let's do it.
DIRECTOR
In the Aneta Rodov case, there are many
questions that can only be answered by me.
Many things happened outside of filming,
off camera.
Everyone on the film crew
has their own opinion about this case,
but our goal for the film
was to stick to the facts available.
What your conclusion will be
at the end of the film is yours alone.
But consider if you have the stomach
for it, because it's not a pleasant sight.
It all started on September 20, 2014.
20 SEPTEMBER 2014
YOU ARE LISTENING TO
THE ORIGINAL PHONE RECORDING.
-Prague Police Helpline, how can we help?
-Hi, this is Kateina
Can you come right away to
Nepomuckch Street in Prague?
-Nepomuckch Street?
-Yea, Nepomuckch. Our friend cut herself.
-What's the house number?
-749 I don't know right now.
-Is she inside or outside?
-Inside.
-On what floor?
-Second.
-What's the lady's name and age?
-Aneta Rodov. She's 23.
-Is she communicating? Is she conscious?
-She's not conscious, but just staring.
No! Aneta! Hurry!
I still need to ask you
Did she cut her hands? Where's she cut?
She wanted to stab herself in the heart.
And she stabbed my boyfriend
when he tried to take the knife from her.
My colleagues are coming.
They'll also call an ambulance, okay?
-Thank you.
-They'll tell you exactly what to do.
Okay.
My name's Marc Deveaux.
I'm a toxicology expert from Paris.
She cut my boyfriend because he wanted to
take the knife. She tried to stab herself.
WITNESS
SUICIDE?
She wanted to stab herself in the heart.
And she stabbed my boyfriend.
ANETA - SUICIDE
19TH SEPTEMBER 2014
Aneta and her boyfriend had returned
from vacation in Dominican Republic.
Around midnight,
Aneta met up with her friends
at the COCO Bar where they drank.
And it appears they also took cocaine.
ANETA SEEMED A LITTLE STRANGE.
SHE WAS CHAINSMOKING.
Kateina and Ahmad decided
to do another line of cocaine.
Aneta didn't join in with them.
After that they got up
and went to lie down.
What are you doing?
Have you gone mad! What are you doing?
NO!
What the fuck is going on!
Call an ambulance!
Hi, this is Kateina
Can you come right away to
Nepomuckch Street in Prague?
Our friend cut herself.
Help!
-Someone's here.
-Someone's already there?
-Is it the police? Put them on the phone.
-Hello.
Emergency services. We're on our way.
How does it look? Is the girl conscious?
-She's not. Not entirely, but is close.
-What does that mean?
Her eyes are rolled up.
And when you slap her cheek,
she doesn't react?
-No, she doesn't.
-Is she looking? Can she turn her head?
Hey, hey! Yes, but not too well.
Your hand, please.
According to the police,
Aneta suffered a fatal injury.
Self-inflicted with a knife.
But her mother thinks it was murder.
MOTHER OF THE DECEASED
September 20, 2014.
Are you ready?
Try to look back on that day.
What were you doing?
That day I'll remember for the rest of
my life as the worst day of my life.
I was in the forest that day
with my mother.
And my phone started ringing.
My neighbor was calling to see where I was
because the police were looking for me.
I thought, "Oh no, Aneta probably parked
illegally and they want to tow the car."
So I said thanks and that I'd call them
and my neighbor said "no."
"They're waiting here for you,
Please come straight home."
So two policemen from Kladno came
and told me they don't know what happened
but it's something with my daughter, but
everything is okay so I should calm down.
I said, "Calm down?
What about my daughter?"
They gave me the phone number
to the Vinohrady hospital
and they'll tell me everything there.
Dr. Paout told me
that my daughter had died
and was in pathology.
I asked what had happened.
He told me she died from
a drug overdose and alcohol.
I said my daughter barely drinks.
I then passed out.
They called an ambulance.
I came to in the elevator.
I said I'm not going anywhere.
First, I just need to find out what
happened and where my daughter is.
At that time two other police from
Prague called and said,
"Your daughter died from multiple
stab wounds. She committed suicide."
There is nothing normal with this case.
CRIMINALIST, FORMER MEMBER
OF PRAGUE HOMICIDE TEAM
From the start of the investigation,
a whole list of items was neglected,
which are never easy to find afterwards.
If someone was or wasn't to blame for it,
if it really was suicide,
or if someone took part in the suicide
and if that constitutes murder.
Official Record of Explanation
provided September 20, 2014.
At 11:38 Kateina
is called in for questioning.
Kateina was a so-called friend of Aneta.
"Yesterday, September 19, 2014,
Aneta and I planned
to go to a club in the center."
"I called my boyfriend, Ahmad,
who suggested we go to
Club COCO on Kaprov Street in Prague."
Mr Ahmad.
That's the person who hasn't
let me sleep for nine years.
"I'm married with two kids. I live with
my wife at my permanent residence."
"Four months ago, I was looking for
a psychologist for marriage problems."
"Thanks to that I found a girlfriend
named Kateina. Around 25 years old."
"I bought a flat for us in Letany,
on Nepomuckch St."
Jakub. Status? Single.
Boyfriend of victim.
Jakub was my daughter's boyfriend with
whom she went to the Dominican Republic.
"I'm dating another girl long-term that
Aneta knew about. But we still dated."
"Aneta and I also had
an intimate relationship."
"We landed back from vacation
on Friday in Munich at 7:30AM."
"Then we flew to Vienna,
landing around 10AM."
"From Vienna we took a bus to Brno.
I got off in Brno
and Aneta went on alone to Prague
where she arrived after midnight."
"I was with Ahmad in the club from 11PM."
"Aneta and I had agreed
she'd get a cab
and put her luggage
in my car parked at the club."
"Aneta arrived sometime after midnight
and started enjoying herself."
"She was smiling, but she didn't dance."
"She appeared to be okay."
LAST PHOTO OF ANETA
No, she actually couldn't stand blood
and didn't like real violence.
She'd only get in a bad mood
when she had a headache or was sick.
But even then, she'd try to fake it.
She had a lot of friends not just
from school but also outside school.
She'd go with her friends to the mountains
and skiing in France a lot.
She was really popular. She was
always having friends at our house.
She lived a normal life. She did sports.
She went to work every day.
She didn't drink much,
but she'd definitely have a glass.
I never saw her drink alcohol at home
and from the time she was 18,
she'd learnt to drive
and she would drive to most parties,
so she didn't drink.
The police described my daughter as being
psychologically disturbed.
She committed suicide due to heartbreak
and had lots of problems her whole life.
We were surprised since none of that
was true, so it also really shocked us.
If even half was true, maybe we'd say,
okay, there was a mistake somewhere.
But there really wasn't.
INTOXICATION
CERTAIN DRUGS
EXPERT REPORTS
I've been trying to understand it
for eight years and I can't.
Toxic psychosis can occur
if the user consumes a large amount of
cocaine over a long period of time.
If we analyze ten separate
centimeters of hair,
we'll analyze ten months of consumption.
They did that here.
Mostly it was the same concentration of
material in all the analyzed segments.
That means that
Aneta regularly used cocaine.
But since the concentration was very low,
it wasn't an above average consumption.
But the diagnosis was already stated
in the hospital. So it's really strange.
At the beginning of the questioning,
I admitted all possible outcomes
and didn't rule out the possibility
that my daughter killed herself.
When I got the toxicology report
and found my daughter
didn't have any alcohol in her
and a small amount of cocaine,
I concluded that this is bullshit.
They were working with just one version.
That was intoxication and psychosis
and didn't know at all how horribly
my daughter was stabbed.
That was found out after the autopsy.
I can't understand how
a doctor couldn't see
three fatal wounds
to the right chamber of the heart.
She was stabbed so badly.
I can't understand it.
On my desktop I see loads of files.
The High Prosecutor's Office,
The High Court Prague.
There's just loads of files.
A letter addressed to the Czech Police.
District Police headquarters of CSI,
212/17 Zenklova Street.
"I requested information from you,
but you didn't respond at all."
"After four months, you submitted reports
from experts you yourselves hired
on the basis of your statement
that came from your investigation."
"I still don't know
where my daughter's things are,
as the police never handed them over,
including her passport."
Answers from the police after five months:
"We sent her debit card to her bank
and I'm not sure about her passport.
Our office is being renovated
so we are in a bit of a war zone
and I can't find whether we have it here."
So he doesn't even know where
the things are and what they have there.
To this day I don't know who
took the knife out of my daughter or why.
First, the knife is in the bedroom,
second, on the counter,
later, on the floor.
Another time Kateina confirmed the police
said to bring it from the bedroom.
Kateina even lied to her mother
who called me to say my daughter
had been unstable since childhood
and was taking pills
from her psychiatrist.
And it wasn't true.
If I could ask Kateina one question,
I'd ask why she is lying.
BECAUSE SHE WANTED TO CAUSE DEATH - YES
DEATH CAUSED BY ANOTHER WAY - YES
I don't know what happened.
Medics see only surface bloodless wounds
and don't pay attention to the fact
my daughter could've been stabbed.
Bloodless wounds?
This is a bloodless wound?
The police didn't look at why the records
from the medic say it was bloodless.
Who cleaned after her?
When someone commits suicide,
they don't wipe the floor.
This is really something different.
The next official record says that
hotline 155 was received by 158.
Message: deeply unconscious.
Stab wound to the heart.
-Emergency services.
-Operations center.
We need you in Prague.
A lady's stabbed and unconscious.
Said to be stabbed in the heart.
-Her eyes are rolled up.
-And when you slap her, she doesn't react?
Not very well. Press on her, would you?
The doctor himself told me
he doesn't know what happened.
He heard they were cleaning up the drugs
and it was strange to him that it took
the ambulance a long time to leave
and he urged them to several times.
"If they were cleaning up the drugs,
it fits with what one doctor said
that someone else left the flat.
Nobody has verified this information."
And I could continue on like this after
reading three out of the fifteen pages.
If I could ask Ahmad one question,
I'd ask why my daughter had to die.
Have you gone mad! What are you doing?
Nobody's responded to these letters.
Nobody's talked to me about this.
Since the beginning,
I've felt completely alone in this.
But this is my journey, my battle.
Okay, next
"My first look at the records
wasn't possible until the end of July,
despite it being closed on April 17, 2015,
and that's just because it
started attracting media attention."
According to police, she committed suicide
by stabbing herself 9 times in the chest.
It's definitely not a typical case.
Mr Doucha says the case should've been
treated as a murder investigation.
-But that wasn't the case.
-If the death seems suspicious,
it's investigated as a murder and
once all factors suggest that it's not,
you can then assess it as suicide.
This whole case gives me the impression
that the police set it up
the complete other way.
The whole case could actually one day
be doomed to remain unsolved.
"Police pathologist, Bulovka hospital."
They take her for a private autopsy.
The whole time
they didn't allow me access.
I waited three weeks before
I could even see my dead daughter.
The record of cuts on her hands differed.
In one document there's two,
another has three.
"In connection with the wounds
to her chest, it was later discovered:
internal bleeding
in the chest cavity on the left side,
total collapse of her left lung,
meaning she could no longer breathe."
Shocking changes to the kidneys."
"Breathing vomit into the lungs.
Subcutaneous hemorrhages."
"This injury arose from
blunt force trauma."
And this is a suicide. Amazing.
The Municipal Prosecutor's Office
who identified the protests as unfounded,
re-assessed the actions of
the police due to the complaints.
All of this is bullshit.
If I could ask my daughter one question,
it'd be why were you around these people.
To say "everything was explained," really?
Everything is explained?
That's the approach I'm talking about
that I don't like.
That it's being downplayed
and underestimated.
And when a dispute arises,
if it was like this or like that,
nobody will ever explain it
because they don't have
enough concrete material.
That's really bad.
The police failed. The medic failed.
The Public Prosecutor failed.
All involved.
But I ask why? Was it on purpose?
ATTORNEY
For a circle of people who were
sharing their solution to the case,
we must note that there were many,
meaning there's a team of police
working on the case
who are using a whole set of specialists.
There's doctors and lab experts.
If we want to doubt the conclusions
of the police and their work,
it would have to be
the failure of the whole system.
One small error could not influence the
investigation results in such a big way.
-What the fuck is going on!
-Have you gone mad!
These pictures behind me.
This is from vacation in Egypt
and this is from the last trip
to Dominican Republic.
She always had such a nice
positive approach to everything.
So I like remembering this.
I always see her smiling, her good mood.
That's what I miss.
Telling someone what happened is awful.
And speaking about it is very hard.
It's impacted my personal life.
Not only mine, but the whole family.
It's impacted my sister, my mother.
I'd say this destroyed all our lives.
When my ex-husband
and I talked about it, he told me
that concerning the circumstances
that surround the case
He's got his own family and other kids
so logically he's afraid.
He's afraid for his family's safety,
his children's.
So he doesn't want to
get involved in this at all.
In a chapel where they brought her
Her face That wasn't Aneta.
I aged 30 years in that moment.
I took her hand.
She was so cold. The hand was pale.
Her nails broken.
And I remember her neck.
Her whole neck
was sewn up from the autopsy
and then I just had to leave,
and I vomited outside.
Who really pissed me off?
Definitely the Public Prosecutor
and investigator Uelk.
Mr Uelk said to me:
"Ah, you're the mother. Here, sit."
That's how he greeted me. It was clear
he wasn't too happy to have me there.
"Look at yourself. Something will suddenly
happen and you'll commit suicide too."
I looked at him and said:
"Excuse me? You've got to be kidding me?
How dare you."
So I looked at him and didn't get
how he could talk to me that way.
Then I said, nicely, "See you."
He said, "Goodbye."
That was my meeting with Mr Uelk.
FORENSIC PATHOLOGISFLORIDA AUTOPSY SERVICES
My name is Petr Konen. I'm a journalist.
And I've been looking into the death
of Aneta Rodov for ten years.
THE STRANGEST SUICIDE ON EARTH
Call it a journalist's addiction. I think
we never had such a suicide case before
and of course I remember the headlines.
How it appeared in
the spectrum of media outlets.
Of course it was a big topic
we all wanted for ourselves.
Everyone wanted to write about it, to get
something extra the rest didn't have.
A lot of journalists when they started to
collect this information into a mosaic,
they'd say, "This is a big topic, hiding
some dark story. We have to uncover it."
We have a conflict of mother and police,
family and the system.
Mrs Rodov was 100% convinced her daughter
would never do anything like that.
ATTORNEY
I have no reason not to believe her
and to this day I am convinced Miss Rodov
had no reason to leave like this.
We aren't talking about
if it was technically possible.
That's a whole separate chapter.
We're talking about
the psychology of Miss Rodov.
So when she came to my office,
it was about giving hope that
we'd try to find the person responsible
and to find out what happened.
We set out on our own
to find out how it was possible.
We even met with a famous
professor Strauss about biomechanics.
Then we met with other
experts, pathologists, toxicologists.
Mrs Rodov, the mother of Aneta came to me
and together with other experts
EX-INVESTIGATOR/DETECTIVE AGENCY OWNER
we filed a complaint to the ruling
and justified it from our own professions.
My record alone is several hundred pages
and now I think more than 500.
Expert reports, specialists' critiques,
decisions of law enforcement. It's a lot.
The police neglected a lot of things.
The drugs and their quantity
were not addressed.
Samples weren't taken from the wall
or the floor. Whose blood was it?
Were there four or three people?
Does the blood belong to someone else?
It definitely raises some doubts
about what happened at the scene.
She lost in one court after another.
She made Ahmad explain the drugs in court.
She even arranged for the medic
treating her lifeless body at the scene
to explain why
they didn't give a lot of information
needed to clearly identify
the cause of death.
And if that weren't enough,
it took them more than two hours
to go from the apartment to the hospital.
That means, where did the body go
and who was involved?
We wanted to reconstruct the crime to
show what actually happened at the scene.
We were told that the flat
had been sold so it couldn't be done.
We put forward the expert report from
forensic biomechanics, Mr. Strauss.
The Senior State Prosecutor rejected
my complaint that it wasn't needed.
We wanted the shirt she was stabbed in.
They said they'd give it to us once they
finished, but then they couldn't find it.
We wanted the material
for our own examination.
They aren't used to someone coming and
asking why they didn't do this or that.
"You didn't find the taxi. Don't you know
there are cameras in the building?"
"There are cameras? Oh!"
The police didn't question the neighbors
who said they claimed to hear an argument.
They heard a foreign language.
Absolutely in conflict with
Ahmad and Kateina's description
of them sitting calmly and chatting.
They definitely didn't mention yelling.
They came from a party around 3 or 4AM.
Wild mornings. You could hear a threesome.
NEIGHBOR
A threesome like two girls,
one man, like sex?
No.
The police do nothing.
They have something we could use
and they don't want to give it to us
and we can't use it either.
It's as if they are trying
to complicate things.
It doesn't suit them that
Mrs Rodov and I are still bothering them.
If there'd been a recreation or evidence,
it'd be clear for some reason
because the evidence wouldn't be needed.
That's why it "wasn't necessary" to secure
blood trails, because for what, right?
I'd be interested in the blood trails.
I'd be interested where his were.
Well, okay
We sent the Czech Police a letter:
"Why weren't all blood samples taken
and examined from the scene?"
"We don't know to whom
several of the blood trails belong."
Response: "There was no objective reason
to collect every blood trail
when there were objectively
only two people injured at the scene."
"How the blood trails were collected
at the scene fits the events
and the movement of
people around the apartment."
CRIMINAL LAW
If you say you're investigating something
like suicide, that's how you'll proceed.
When you say you're investigating murder,
that's how you'll proceed.
But it's the same as if
you're investigating a car accident.
If we see that the police
were following the one version of suicide,
the experts de facto
responded to one question.
Could it have happened? It could've.
The expert reports worked
to discard any objective doubts.
They should've decidedly glued Mrs.
Rodov's mouth shut. "Don't ask anything."
"It was suicide.
"We have the reports. It's clear. Period."
I can't come to terms
with making clear conclusions
about her mental suffering
without her being able to react.
I've got a friend
who's a traffic accident expert,
and he says he's able
to tape off an accident
anywhere two meters to the left
or right, without a problem.
Meaning cars going in whatever direction.
This is precisely how expert reports work.
Why do you think it was
investigated as a suicide?
You have to ask the police.
In my opinion,
it started to be treated as a suicide
because the only two witnesses at
the scene described the act as a suicide.
When and on what basis
was it decided in this case
that Kateina and Ahmad
are labelled as witnesses?
Police response: "Those named
had reported what Aneta had done,
and testified to what they saw and heard."
"As there were no suspicious conditions
discovered at the scene,
which would indicate another person
was involved in harming the victim,
they were taken as witnesses."
"A witness is a person who presents
a fact relevant for criminal proceedings
experienced by their own senses."
"The witness can remember it
and is able to recreate it,
which is the case for both named persons."
SUICIDE
They didn't interviewed Ahmad
because he had an injured hand.
At his request he is sent to
a psychiatric clinic for four days
with no limitations because
he hasn't been charged with anything.
He's got his phone with him
and can talk to whomever he wants.
They take photos of the flat, document it,
but don't seal it so anyone can come.
That means with his phone, from the clinic
he can get anyone not just to wipe it
down, take away cocaine, but anything.
How could they let him keep his keys?
If you're working with the version of
suicide, why seal off the flat
where there was no crime according to
the first investigating version?
Meaning that what we said at the start
if you set the version as a suicide,
of course it would look strange for
a murder, but for a suicide, it wouldn't.
This specific case I would personally
say qualifies as a suspicious death.
If this man who was there
is questioned several days later,
it can't be ruled out that those two
had time to get their stories straight.
You can't rule this out. Certainly not.
In my opinion, there's lots of conflicts
and conflicts in criminal proceedings
should be set aside.
Either in pre-trial
or criminal proceedings or in court.
CANCELLED
Aneta left the COCO bar, called a taxi,
got into the taxi and drove off.
First, she calls her friend, Andrej.
It's almost morning. He doesn't answer.
After that she calls the police.
20.SEPTEMBER 2014
CANCELLED
But she doesn't get through
and we don't really know why to this day.
It seems strange to me when
someone calls the police,
they're in danger and two hours later
dead and allegedly committed suicide.
I think a person who commits suicide
definitely doesn't call the police.
The doubts she created with her legal team
were made public everywhere.
It was even said the Minister of Justice
had the case file on his desk.
"Shit, we have to do something with this."
This has influenced politics.
Because the case isn't normal
it causes a big sensation
and puts pressure on the State Security
Council, where the case has reached.
They also shook their heads. How can
this happen in a place like Czechia?
This pressure led the High Prosecutor
to open the case again after two years.
Due to doubts.
Today, June 2, 2016.
It's 9:53AM
and I commence this re-enactment.
The persons undergoing this re-enactment
Ahmad is a huge mystery
for all of us journalists.
When did he come to Czechia? When did
he move here if he has Czech citizenship?
If his family came here? The sources
of his income? He never talked about that.
There's one notable point that's left out
because it's a long shot.
It's the theory that Ahmad was
an informant for the police. A rat.
COCO Bar was known
as the place to deal drugs.
The bosses of the drug cartels
would meet there.
This is why the police are hiding it.
Why did they treat this case so hastily?
For the reason of protecting their source.
The people undergoing this re-enactment
Kateina is a friend.
She isn't a childhood friend.
She was a friend she met two years before
at a language school.
She had a boyfriend, a rich boyfriend.
A foreigner who was married,
but he supported her, got her a flat,
a car, etc He took her on vacation.
During this time, she was in Lebanon.
There she became the second Muslim wife
of the entrepreneur Ahmad.
She converted to Islam so he could
take her to Lebanon and show his family.
So she had to appear as a second wife.
But they argued. She probably wanted
him to leave his wife and be with her,
to confess, to end the infidelity.
Aneta, as I understand from statements
from friends, was a shoulder to cry on.
The re-enactment is taking place here.
It's a meeting room on the first floor.
We tried to make the re-enactment
as similar as possible to the flat.
A fake knife. Then there's cups, a paper
towel, a tape measure and more.
Where there's a gap is
the entrance to the bedroom.
This is the living room and if needed,
there's the door leading to the balcony.
I got into the apartment two years after
and it hadn't been sold.
When we asked the police
to do the re-enactment in the apartment,
it wasn't allowed
and the apartment still hadn't been sold.
I don't get why they did it in a meeting
room which looked completely different.
-You all came back. Then what happened?
-We came in and sat down.
I sat here. Aneta here and Ahmad here.
Katka here, Aneta here.
She said something. There was someone
at the club who wanted to kill her.
She was always afraid there
and she couldn't explain why.
And then she said I want to kill her.
I know the recent period wasn't the best
because she was dealing with a boyfriend
who had a girlfriend of six years.
Did Aneta ever act like this in the past?
I really didn't know her that well.
This time we took a line of cocaine,
maybe two. Katka and I.
-Like this, a long line but it was weak.
-I offered Aneta but she said no.
-Are you a regular user?
-No.
-How often do you use?
-Twice a month.
These two under the influence of cocaine
and alcohol are trustworthy witnesses.
Nobody filed a report on them.
Only a psychological report was done
on my daughter who was dead.
She was smoking a lot. And always pacing.
When she walked, she always went here.
I think she was checking
that I haven't got a knife there.
I remember going to the bathroom.
-Ahmad stayed here or I don't know.
-So please mark where you went.
-And why did you go to the bathroom?
-I was sick.
Sick how?
In my stomach.
I thought I'd throw up, but I didn't.
-You didn't throw up?
-No.
When she didn't come to check on me,
I knew she was in the kitchen
but I didn't know what she was doing.
-How long were you there for?
-A short while.
When I came back, Aneta was sitting in
my seat. They were talking together.
I listened a bit and I heard her
tell Ahmad, "So do it. I'm ready.
Do it. I'm ready. You can kill me."
I told Aneta to go get some rest
or if she wants to call a taxi.
If you don't have enough money,
I'll give you some and she went like this.
Yeah?
You want me to call a taxi
so I leave so they kill me outside.
You know what? I'll sit here.
So please, kill me here.
I won't go to the street.
-What happened to her?
-I don't know. I really don't.
I'm telling you everything that happened.
I said, "Aneta, calm down.
Go lie down. You're exhausted,"
and I went into the bedroom
and Ahmad came right after me.
We stood opposite one another.
He told me he was going for a drink
and I didn't have time to even lie down.
I was standing here.
In the original questioning in 2014,
when the police started the investigation,
Kateina said she'd laid down and slept.
A noise had awoken her from the kitchen.
Now two years later,
she remembered it slightly differently,
claiming it matches with Ahmad's version.
They said goodbye. They're going to sleep.
And she instantly starts stabbing herself.
You're sitting at a table with someone.
Two go to bed and you get up,
pull a kitchen knife out of the drawer
and start stabbing yourself.
I went for a glass of water.
I look up and see Aneta there.
She's doing something I can't quite see
from a distance. She's doing this.
That was what you peel fruit with.
The small orange knife.
Probably about this size with teeth.
If you wanted to hurt yourself,
and thought about it seriously
you'd choose a knife for cutting meat.
With this knife you'd have bigger
problems than if you used this knife.
This is even bigger. The blade is
much wider. And it had teeth.
You imagine knives with teeth
will hurt more.
She turned around here.
I wanted to catch her like this
and she went here behind the table
and I see her still doing this.
From Kateina's questioning we hear Aneta
was holding the knife with both hands.
Ahmad should've been defending
the stabbing from behind.
When he went in, I didn't hear screaming.
No, no, no, no! And I ran right in.
But in the re-enactment, they don't speak
about it and show a different situation.
Now I saw Aneta is holding
the knife in her right hand
and that she keeps turning away from him
and keeps turning and turning.
Maybe she didn't want me to catch her.
For a moment she said that he caught me.
Together we were kind of like this,
and we moved like this.
-How are you doing?
-Okay, fine.
Are you able to do more today or?
-According to what.
-Want some fresh air? What would help?
I don't know.
Again I see so many things
that nobody is answering for us.
I took the knife like this in this hand
and gave it back like this.
She kept stabbing herself.
I tried taking it again
and I got stabbed right here.
The knife went here and here.
Despite the knife having teeth, all of her
wounds were cut with a straight blade.
The only one that was caused by a toothed
knife is the one Ahmad had on his hand.
This cut matches the toothed knife.
I screamed at her so she'd notice me.
I remember that and she came right at me.
Yes, she said she went
at me with the knife.
They were best friends. Is that right?
That's what they say.
But it's not like that.
Here it interferes with
the fates of others.
If it was a suicide,
the two that were in the room with her
will still now be suffering from
the fact that they are suspects.
At the re-enactment
there were no other options tested.
She could've been sitting
or stabbed from behind.
They could've started stabbing like this.
Two people could've stabbed her.
Several of the wounds could've
been made after she was dead.
They didn't speak about
the cut marks on her hand.
-When did they get there and how?
-She even had hematoma on her head
as if someone hit her
or pushed her on the ground,
but the hematoma had to
come from somewhere.
It could also be a possibility
that Aneta really took the knife first
but in self defense.
If someone was holding
the knife behind Aneta,
there would be a similar movement
to the chest, so it's definitely possible.
There's just the question of armlength.
How far can your arm reach?
According to the autopsy,
the wounds were made like this.
Nobody could stab themselves like that.
She'd have to do it like this.
-Look, there's a situation.
-I'd stab myself like this, not across.
-I'm 6 ft 6. How tall are you?
-5 ft 6.
That means I could do it.
Ahmad was much smaller.
5 ft 6. He was smaller than Aneta.
For me it'd be more probable
if she was sitting.
Plus one of the stabs, the knife
to the heart turned a bit at the end.
For that, one who's never stuck a knife
into meat needs to develop
a lot of physical strength.
He's just not experienced.
I was told that turning the knife
when a person is bleeding,
can be done either by soldiers
or people who really
have a lot of practice with these things.
That a normal person could never turn
the knife like this in the heart.
-So any more questions?
-Not from me.
What we did explains well
the stab wounds on the chest.
So how the witness performed,
how the injuries happened, it's possible?
It is.
It's 11:52 AM. I'm concluding
today's re-enactment.
No blood samples exist
and we don't know
how much cocaine Ahmad took.
We don't know what state
he could've been in.
And that's a big problem
that we'll never be able to answer.
We've asked the Police of Czechia:
"Why weren't Ahmad and Kateina's
blood samples taken
to know to which degree they were
under the influence of drugs?"
Response: "They were neither
suspects nor victims."
"As witnesses they testified that
despite the influence of drugs
they admitted consuming,
they still remember the event."
"So, there was no legal objective reason."
Our friend suddenly took a knife
and wanted to stab herself in the heart.
-And did she stab herself?
-She didn't, but she's lying on the floor,
staring and making a strange noise.
-Is she whirring?
-Yea, she's whirring.
We arranged that we would have
another autopsy done.
She wished I personally take part in it.
The doctors opened up the body again.
The organs were stacked up
and now comes the moment
when one doctor looks at the other.
I didn't understand
and he says, "Hey, does this look normal?
We're missing something."
And I ask, what's missing?
I say, "Hold up, guys, but we need
the heart. That's really important."
"Is it normal that the heart isn't there?"
We talked for half an hour about
where the heart was. We didn't have it,
so the doctors couldn't determine
how the knife pierced the body
and I think that it was
the determining element
of the whole criminal proceeding
that, without the heart,
it would be very difficult to prove
if a third person was involved
or if it was a voluntary
departure from this life.
We asked the police
about the missing heart.
"Is it common practice that certain
organs, in this case the heart,
are removed during an autopsy?"
"What are the usual procedures
for handling organs after an autopsy?"
Response: "The heart was further examined
and remained in
the Institute of Forensic Medicine,
where the initial autopsy was performed."
"If the Institute of Forensic Medicine
did not request it,
it's a question for this institute
why it did not do so."
"At the institute, it was dealt with
like any other human remains.
The former term is bio-waste."
They just threw it away.
MEDICAL EXAMINER PERFORMING SECOND AUTOPSY
If there hadn't been this second autopsy,
we wouldn't have discovered this.
HEART NOT FOUND IN BODY
Not finding the heart in a second autopsy
was really uncommon.
It completely shocked us.
And to some extent it even complicated
the evaluation of the whole case
considering whether it was
a murder or suicide.
I don't recall any of
our autopsy technicians
ever forgetting
to return an organ to the body.
It's something completely unimaginable.
Despite urging our colleagues
who performed the original autopsy,
the heart was not returned
and we were unable to judge
how it was damaged.
How can it happen
Yes, it seems to me really implausible.
Sure it seems the same to us both.
It's the next puzzle piece that doesn't
lead to someone committing suicide,
but leads to it not being as described
and that is a big difference to say
if there's effort to point at somebody
or refute it happened as they describe.
The police have again closed the case
stating Aneta committed suicide
under the influence of toxic psychosis.
-Emergency services.
-Operations center.
We need you in Letany.
We have a woman stabbed and unconscious.
-Supposedly been stabbed in the heart.
-Stabbed in the heart? What's the address?
Nepomuckch 749/15.
They say she's on the second floor.
The one stabbed is Rodov.
-Rodov. How old is she?
-23 and she's unconscious
23 and she's unconscious. Stabbed.
So I'll take you now to Ahmad's flat.
Mr toek is an amazing criminologist.
A retired expert.
He gives interviews and comments on cases.
He's a consultant.
He works on screenplays for
Czech TV for criminal cases
so he's enjoying his retirement as
a crime scene celebrity. We all know it.
I've heard about this case,
concerning the death of Aneta Rodov.
This has been examined for a long time.
The murder can look like a suicide.
But also suicide can look like murder.
But concerning this case,
I think the decision was correct
because there are certain things
that are connected to suicide.
This is the kitchen table where the three
of them sat that night until morning.
They were chatting, drinking water.
Ahmad and Kateina took cocaine here.
There were blood stains here.
A shoe print of blood here.
There was blood even here
probably from his hand
-because the blood was even here.
-Or it could be when she slit her wrists.
Let's say that she cut herself,
so it could be from that and then on the
balcony she saw that nothing is happening.
Blood is flowing
but not as she'd imagined,
so she came back into the room.
In case the death wasn't voluntary
and Ahmad had a part to play in it,
she would've defended herself. When it's
life or death, you make every effort.
There's adrenaline.
You have a lot more strength.
The glasses on the table
would've either fallen
or be turned over.
Yes, turned over chairs.
It would look different.
How would a murder look is another
question, but there would be a circus,
one person wouldn't have
been able to just kill her.
NO INJURIES SHOWED SIGNS OF SELF DEFENSE
I'll ask one more thing.
Here we have photos of Ahmad.
He was wearing a t-shirt and barefoot.
Isn't it strange that both feet are clean.
When we see here there was a battle,
clearly blood was spread around.
In theory there should be blood
on his feet from stepping in it,
but maybe he wiped his feet somewhere.
He must have also wiped his hand.
They can't just stay there in the flat,
standing, sitting and bleeding, you know.
So the amount of blood
on the scene seems normal.
You can assume that
she was bleeding internally,
into her chest cavity.
That also happens
but you see that
there was quite a bit of blood there.
The police didn't have
the power to choose.
Based on how it looked,
it couldn't have been murder.
I always have the rule
when you have a questioning.
From the questioning you always
have to cut out the beginning and end
and take just the conflict
because that's always different.
In such emotional cases
when someone says something
and now quickly describes it,
sometimes they don't remember
and now they're just making it up.
What's important, I don't know
if you have it, but probably,
-is the recording of the emergency call.
-Yea, but he's not on the recording.
And on the other hand she acts like
someone who has just come onto the scene.
It's obvious that she didn't know what
had happened. That's what I think.
Because when they ask if she was stabbed,
she can't see the stab wounds.
In the re-enactment that the police did
due to the mother's pressuring,
she acts as if she'd seen everything.
He was holding her like this.
She even came after him, so she might
have wanted to help him under pressure.
It could be him
so she could be influenced by that.
Of course the case has been in the media,
but you say they have
to agree in the conflict.
I don't think he's the culprit.
It's hard to say.
-She didn't stab herself, did she?
-I don't know.
Murder, suicide, suspicious death.
In all cases it's necessary
to treat it as if it were a murder.
And the police officer who arrives
at the scene must make the decision.
He must be experienced enough,
to know that this is
beyond his capabilities
and that he must call up a specialist.
In this case, the Crime Scene Unit.
Of course, throughout the whole time,
everything needs to be secured.
Nobody apart from the specialists
should be allowed to enter the apartment,
not until they say
they're done with the scene of the crime.
Then, the investigator from the
First Homicide Division can look around.
Do you think there's a real chance
it'll open back up?
In my view, there is a chance,
but it's not up to the lawyer.
The lawyer is the instrument but
what's going to open it up, that's key.
It's the expert reports
and it's the biomechanic one.
That is what's disputed against the topic
of the autopsy reports,
against how the autopsy was conducted,
meaning really building the apartment
or kitchen in the dimensions it was.
To try to tell someone it really played
out as they described in those versions.
Let's play it out how they did at
the re-enactment and do it in full force.
Let's not do it that
a fist flies like this
The fact is that you are one
of a few people who were in the apartment
so basically you can say
what you think about it.
Let's move on. Let's do the first step.
Shall we go inside? Let's do it.
The hallway.
-Does anything come back when you
-Yes, a little.
It's giving me goosebumps.
-Hello.
-Hello.
-I'm Aneka Matunsk.
-I'll introduce myself too.
-Okay, don't take it personally.
-I understand.
-Sorry.
-Sure.
-I guess you understand who plays who.
-I do.
The concentration of cocaine was so low
that it couldn't induce
psychosis immediately.
She didn't have signs of being clean
because she'd taken a bit of
cocaine in the COCO Bar.
So I can't explain what happened
from a toxicological perspective.
A toxicologist can't say if someone
committed suicide due to narcotics,
even less with a knife. I can't do this.
I'm saying that
I can't come to a conclusion.
The task of a specialist is to say
yes or no or it's inconclusive.
From WhatsApp chats
the Czech Police presented me,
it seems Ahmad is a real coke addict.
He's receiving psychotherapy
for his hot temper.
How could he play a role
in this story as a legitimate witness
with his mental state?
In all media outlets, it's presented
that he has problems with drugs,
with mental issues.
We don't know what he had
in his blood at the time.
If the investigation hadn't ended,
we wouldn't be able
with certainty to close it.
There will always exist some doubts.
Can we rule out
toxic psychosis with certainty?
I don't mean ruling out suicide but
under the influence of toxic psychosis.
There's a question for both.
It stands out to me that in this case
the police really made mistakes
they could not fix.
It was like catching a cat by its tail.
And the cat got away.
Ahmad was under a lot of pressure because
his wife found out about his affair
and he was under pressure from Kateina.
That night he was at dinner
with a mafia boss friend
and they were fighting
because of the wife.
He then went to the COCO bar and treated
his aggression. That's in the records.
HE'D OFTEN BLOW UP IN RAGE IN SECONDS
So we know about him
and the same about Kateina.
She's an asshole and that's from
questioning friends about her behavior.
In the news report from Josef Klima
was the testimony that Ahmad
could be a police informant.
Do you think this could be possible?
Look, you can't rule it out.
The question is
what is a police informant.
During the period of
deep totalitarianism, yes,
but today you're looking at
a current informant.
That means I'll take a picture of Ahmad
and go to the COCO bar
and if they don't kill you at once,
maybe someone will say,
"Ahmad deals drugs here."
I don't know.
At the time I regarded him
as a very influential and rich person.
Where did he get his money from?
The police never found out these facts.
They didn't look into his past in Lebanon
so we don't know if he killed anyone.
We just don't know anything about it.
The family is convinced
that it was a murder.
And nobody will prove to them otherwise.
The police will claim that
it actually wasn't murder.
And nobody will prove to them otherwise.
But there's still this dead young girl.
And maybe there's even
someone here guilty of murder.
If you were 100% convinced that it
was suicide as the police describe,
would you say it to the mother's face?
We've got our actors Aneta,
Ahmad and Kateina.
We have experts on
biomechanics and pathology.
In the kitchen is only Aneta.
Ahmad and Kateina go to the bedroom.
I'll ask you to take out the knife.
She knew where the knife is
because she's been in the flat before.
She takes it into her hand
and I'll ask Ahmad who is coming back
from the bedroom to the kitchen
for a glass of water
to come into the situation
where Aneta is already stabbing herself
with her right hand to
the left part of her chest.
He screams "No!" and starts
grabbing for the knife.
She is still stabbing herself
and he is trying to take the knife.
At that moment she stabs him in the hand
and she continues stabbing herself.
One version is that Ahmad reaches for
the knife and attacks Aneta
who is sitting and completely unaware.
That means you take the kitchen knife,
go over to her from behind and will try to
stab her in the left part. Into the heart.
Try to catch her so she can't
defend herself. You defend yourself.
Just like that.
How would it look if one person,
let's say Kateina, was holding Aneta.
Holding her hands, so she can't defend
herself. Just catch her hands. Like that.
He was holding her and laid her
on the ground so she didn't fall.
When someone's wrist is cut,
can they hold a knife in their hand
and stab themselves
with such brutal strength
to get the knife through the rib cage?
When did she slit her wrists? When she was
fighting with him or when they went to bed
because he actually says
that he returned after a minute.
He just entered the bedroom
and went right back.
So my daughter
was there alone half a minute.
I don't know which of the wounds
were post-mortem and which weren't.
Nobody can answer that.
I don't know if the first blow
was fatal or the others.
Is it possible that they could
live two more hours?
I could definitely explain how it would be
if a third person attacked so
that Miss Rodov couldn't defend herself.
I could easily believe one of the three
fatal wounds was one of the first wounds
which the attacker clearly
didn't have to know.
Then we can discuss why the other ones are
shallow, the ones after the fatal ones.
If someone wants to hide the traces.
I just don't know.
They write the wounds were surface and not
bleeding and when I look at the blouse,
I don't understand it.
Why weren't blood samples taken?
The conclusion of the experts is
that with respect to
biomechanics and pathology,
there's the chance that
my daughter could've done it herself.
With respect to psychology and toxicology,
toxic psychosis can clearly be ruled out.
My daughter was extremely fit.
That's why we were all so shocked
about what may have played out there.
But all experts agree
it was bad police procedure.
And thanks to that
we actually don't know what happened.
Mistakes are made.
We're only human of course.
We're only human.
But it's about making the smallest
mistakes. Not ones like these.
Not in these fundamental issues.
And in my opinion, here there were
mistakes made in fundamental issues.
Most importantly, the one working on this
didn't know what he was doing.
You all made an error.
You didn't do your job and now
we aren't able to find out the truth.
But I just don't understand
how all of this here could have happened.
Police don't usually apologize.
But in my opinion,
these mistakes were made by the police.
My name is Miroslav Krutina.
I'm a lawyer.
If I could react to the new expert reports
done by the international experts,
the psychological report
introduces a discrepancy
and suggests that Aneta's intoxication
is very unlikely to be
the cause of her death.
What we're making is a tool not to forget.
And if a whole group of people
don't agree with how it ended up,
we need the media to show that
there can be mistakes,
either on purpose or genuine error.
It enables people to think about it
and it can happen that more
new information appears
based on any media coverage
and any sources of information
that lead to Mrs Rodov
one day getting her answer.
I think that he had the psychosis.
Is he influential? Yes?
But nobody knows what he did in Lebanon.
And now he's escaped back.
He's there now
and we have no way to extradite
and he's convicted
for a criminal act for five years.
I don't know a mother who would
come to terms with her child dying.
The fact that my child decided
or got into a situation
that took their life
or caused them to die
It's that we believe our children
and protect them.
But when you look
objectively at the circumstances,
we know the mother could've had
a misrepresented view of her daughter.
That's for sure.
The person you are calling is not
available. Please try again later.
Jakub was my daughter's boyfriend with
whom she was in the Dominican Republic.
Why doesn't anyone want
to talk about Aneta?
Why have none of her friends come
despite us contacting them five times?
We contacted Aneta's father
and he met with us.
We told him about the film
and he didn't say a single word.
Why does nobody
from the police want to talk?
Nobody wants to speak about Aneta.
Only the mother.
We had a meeting arranged
with Aneta's ex-boyfriend, Jakub.
We talked on the phone an hour before,
and then he didn't show up.
Then he changed his phone number and
disappeared from the face of the Earth.
He disappeared from
the Trade and Commercial Registers.
We visited three addresses
he should live at.
Nobody anywhere.
I don't know why. Are they afraid?
Are they afraid of the police?
Are they afraid Aneta did kill herself
and they don't want to torment the mother?
Are they afraid someone killed her
and are therefore afraid of the mafia?
I don't know.
But the one thing I do know is
that nobody wants to come
and talk in front of the camera.
It's December 24, 2023.
Here in this green house
Ahmad just entered to exercise.
I met him here in a shop because he called
out from behind if I'm checking out
and I turned around
and looked him right in the face.
So now we're trying
to figure out what to do.
There he is. Ahmad!
Hello. Are you Ahmad?
-Why are you asking?
-I remember you from one case.
-Excuse me?
-We are filmmakers.
-Who are you?
-We are filmmakers.
-Filmmakers, making films.
-Yes.
Okay, so what?
We are filming this one case.
Do you think you'd have coffee with us?
-No.
-Only coffee. We sit, that's all.
Trust us.
This is the best thing that could happen.
We're filmmakers.
There's a film about Aneta Rodov.
It was probably clear to you when
we said we were filmmakers, right?
I've tried to clear this from my head.
It's haunted me what she did.
One girl took her life.
She died in front of my eyes.
Suicide right in front of me.
It haunts me when
I remember and think about it.
Then I went away.
This has haunted my children.
It's completely destroyed my life.
The police investigated this three times.
-Why do you think she died?
-I don't know.
I don't know.
-And you're not in contact with Kateina?
-No.
I've been away five years. In Lebanon for
My mother was sick and then COVID.
Then I came back.
I have kids here.
Whatever you will do or say, you'll make
it against me. I'm that foreigner!
If I were doing it against you and
I didn't have a single piece of evidence
How would I justify it?
-Okay.
-Just think about it.
I'd be real glad if we could talk.
Okay. I will think this through.
Is it possible to get a contact number?
Not right now, but if I will
contact you, you will have it.
-Thank you.
-I'll let you know.
What is there to say?
We couldn't do more than we did.
For me, I think that someone wanted this.
Let everyone think what they want.
That's probably all I can say.
The statute of limitations
is another ten years,
so I have ten years to do it myself.
The police aren't doing anything
and won't.
They investigated, so I have ten years.
Her life can't be returned.
I'd like to know the truth.
It would be easier for me.
The life can't be returned either way.
Nothing to do about that.
But I could live better.
In peace.
To look at the grave of your own child
is absolutely the worst thing ever.
I do always think about what happened,
nine years thinking up why it happened.
I love my daughter. My only daughter.
And to live with this is really hard.
Like fucking hard.
AHMAD AND KATEINA WERE CONTACTED.
THEY DECIDED NOT TO TAKE PART IN THE FILM.
SUICIDE UNDER THE INFLUENCE
OF TOXIC PSYCHOSIS.
CURRENT INFORMATION ABOUT THE CASE
CAN BE FOUND ON THE WEBSITE
So let's open the case back up
Subtitle translation by: Zach Barnes