Serial killer tortured young Jasmina, cuts crosses and killed her; Milena survived and exposed him

Aleksinac woman Jasmina Djosic, 25, was murdered fifteen years ago today, and the solving of this crime uncovered one of the worst serial sadists in the Balkans, Slovenian Silvo Plut.

He was sentenced to prison for killing three women that he dismembered, but it cannot be ruled out that there weren't more of his victims - because some of the people who were in contact with him mysteriously disappeared.

Plut took his secrets to his grave in 2007 when he committed suicide in a Slovenian prison by overdosing on tranquilizers, just a day after a court in Nis, Serbia sentenced him in absentia to 40 years in prison for the murder of the young Aleksinac woman.

Plut was born in 1968 in the vicinity of Novo Mesto and as a child showed sadistic tendencies by killing and mutilating animals. He committed his first murder in 1990, when he massacred his school friend Marjanca Matjasic. The girl was driving to the shoe factory where she worked when Plut stopped her. After she let him in the car, he attacked her and tried to rape her, and as she frantically defended herself, he stabbed her with a knife, dismembering her body.

After committing the crime, he went to a pond and continued to cut up the body, throwing piece by piece of the victim's flesh to the fish. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison for this, but released after 13, allegedly for good behavior. However, his prison companions testified that he sexually abused many inmates while in prison.

After he was released, Plut robbed a post office, and when that was discovered he and a friend he made in prison, Srdjan Zivkovic, fled to Aleksinac, Serbia, where he killed 25-year-old Jasmina Djosic in a monstrous manner in 2004. He jumped the girl and stabbed her. Bite marks were found on her chest and stomach, as well as numerous cuts made with a knife, including in the shape of the cross, proving that he tortured the girl before killing her.

His hat remained at the scene of the murder, which would soon prove to be crucial in revealing his identity. Shortly after, he shot at a local man in Aleksinac, Milovan Mladenovic, and robbed Milena Radulovic, a brave girl who helped the police identify him.

Nebojsa Petkovic, now a retired police inspector who handled the case, says that was one of the biggest mysteries of his career is how Milena survived her encounter with Plut.

"She spent four hours with the serial killer and she managed to stay alive, that's incredible. I think she only saved herself thanks to her exceptional intelligence and mental strength. She didn't show fear, she defied him, she even got him to smoke cigarettes with her. Those cigarette butts provided a DNA profile that was compared to the clues from the scene of Jasmina's murder, which allowed us to identify Plut. She described him so perfectly that I had his picture in my head, which almost completely coincided with the photo we later received from our Slovenian colleagues," says Petkovic.

Realizing what kind of monster they were dealing with, the police in Nis launched an around-the-clock search for Plut, but he still managed to escape back to Slovenia.

"Hours separated us from capturing him, we learned that he fled to Bujanovac and from there to Slovenia via Kosovo. I am very sorry that we didn't catch him and prevent him from continuing his bloody rampage," Petkovic says.

Due to conflicting legal solutions, Plut was released in Slovenia. The Slovenians refused to extradite their citizen to Serbia while our law did not provide for the possibility of the trial for Jasmina's murder to be conducted there, so the serial killer escaped justice. He was even so bold as to he claim via Slovenian media that he had been framed for Jasmina's murder.

"At dawn on February 24, 2006 in Ljubljana, he attacked a sleeping married couple, the Ulcars. Mirko - who was supposed to testify against him in the case of the post office robbery - and his wife Ljubica, whom Plut tied up, raped, cut with a knife, eventually cutting her throat. Mirko managed to break free and escape. Plut was soon arrested and sentenced to 30 years for Ljubica's murder," our source tells us.

He left a message that he wanted to be buried with a Bible. His relatives did not want to claim body, so he was cremated at the expense of the state.

In his testimonies printed by the media, Plut said that while he was Serbia, he had the opportunity to see folk star Svetlana "Ceca" Raznatovic. As he said, he saw her in Sokobanja, and liked her a lot.

It sounds incredible, but women really liked Plut. He received letters from female fans, and Ljubljana native Natasa T., who was visiting him in prison, intended to marry him.

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(D.K.)