Northern cannibals II - eating your own flesh

May contain triggers concerning physical and sexual abuse; based on true events.

“If you get hurt by someone who took the benefit from you with high hopes, learn to respect him and take him as the biggest teacher of yours, because if your life is going smoothly you become a delicate person, if on the other hand you experience tragic circumstances, you develop inner power and courage to face them.''

                                                                                                  Ondrej Mauer

Beginning

       Klara Mauerova was a single mother and was described as very caring and giving. Growing up Ondrej and Jakub were happy children and used to love attending summer camps.

         In 2005 her sister Katerina turned to her when she found a thirteen years old Norwegian Orphan Anicka. She was allegedly on the run from a sex trafficking ring and was suffering from leukaemia, kidney failure and was going blind and deaf. Klara took her in. To be able to properly care for Anicka, Klara received text messages from Anicka’s doctor. Some of the ordered treatments consisted in rubbing Anicka’s body all over, focusing on the crotch area, etc. After a year she decided to adopt Anicka but was not allowed by the doctor who insisted the that it was because of Ondrej and Jakub. The only option for Klara was to cure her sons from the evil spirits using physical punishment – including beatings and confinement at night.

       By August 2006 it was decided that the treatment is not working. “Shock therapy” was needed. Klara took the boys to a cottage in the woods in Veverska Bytyska. There they met Jan Turek and Hana Basova – old acquaintances from the summer camps, Jan Skrlova and Katerina. The boys were put kneeling into dog cages and were not let out for meals or toilet breaks. Communication was strictly forbidden, including between each other and to their mother. The boys had buckets of water pored over them and were also forced under until they were on the verge of drowning. Some reports indicate that they were forced to beat one another and tissue from Ondrej’s buttock, legs and arms was cut out and he and his brother were forced to eat it. Allegedly the grownups ate from it as well.

       Over the next six months Ondrej Mauer and his brother Jakub had to endure further whippings with belts, burning with cigarettes, sexual abuse and being made to cut themselves with knives and other sharp objects. They were forced to stand and sit in their own urine and feces for days in the dark while being kept in cages or handcuffed to tables. Ondrej was also of being partially skinned. His flesh was either fed to him or had been eaten by the adults in the household. He was then gagged, tied and thrown into the basement.

       The adults convinced the boys that Anicka was being tortured as well. They came to believe they deserved the punishment.

       A month later in September 2006 Ondrej and Jakub were freed from this cottage, however moved in with Katerina so that Klara could begin the adoption process. The adoption process required a DNA sample from Anicka that was refused with the claims it would be too risky. Katerina convinced local actor Viktor Skala’s daughter and fellow cult member to present herself at court acting as Anicka and the adoption was approved.

      In January 2007 Ondrej and Jakub were back home with Klara in Kurim, Czech Republic. Anicka had a nice room with toys and the boys were frequently locked and tied in the basement.

       The crime was discovered by accident on 7th May 2007 when a man was installing a baby monitor for checking in on his newborn baby. Upon turning it on he experienced an interference – the TV monitor accidentally picked up the signal from a neighboring house. He saw a young boy laying naked with his hands tied, eating from the concrete floor, bleeding in a dark space. The man immediately alerted the police.

     Police searched the Mauerova house on the 10th of May, 2007. When Katerina Mauerova and Klara Mauerova refused to open a locked door they found, it was broken down. Ondrej was the young boy being held naked in a small, dirty dog cage. He was dehydrated and in generally very poor health. Klara and Katerina were arrested. All three children were taken into custody. Soon after Anicka fled and disappeared.

       A manhunt was organized and the missing teen was found a year later in Norway where she was posing as a teenage boy. Upon further investigation it was confirmed that the thirteen years old Anicka was actually thirty-something years old Barbora Skrlova – the sister of Jan Skrlova. Her diary containing detailed accounts of her various identities and her preparation to pursue such roles was seized.

End

        In Prague in 2008 a Czech court sentenced to prison the mother and aunt of the two boys. Mother Klara Mauerova and aunt Katerina received nine- and ten-year sentences respectively in a high-security prison. For her part Barbora Skrlova, 33 will serve five years. Her brother was sentenced to seven years, along with the boys' nurse Hana Basova.

Reasons

        It is believed that the family and several other people involved in the case are members of a sect that broke away from the the Grail Movement cult. The sect calls for members to prove their devotion through physical abuse - the torture was meant to break the boys and enslave them for religious purposes.

       Barbara Skrlova was meant to be groomed for a leading role. Authorities believe that the cult wanted to turn her into a kind of "deity" for them to worship. While hiding in Norway she sent a 9-page letter to President Vaclav Klaus defending Klara Mauerova. According to experts she has sadomasochistic predispositions with paedophilic orientation.