The Sad Case of Anđela Bešlić
Script for Humble Mysteries, episode 4
When we think about murders, we usually imagine the unknown evil lurking in some dark, unknown space. We teach our children not to be trusting towards people they don’t know. Who among us hasn’t heard of stranger danger?
But, if we turn to results on the first page of a google search on this topic, we can find statistics from all kinds of different sources which all agree on one thing - that when it comes to murders, you are statistically less likely to be murdered by a stranger, and more likely to be murdered by someone you already know.
Today’s case will make you forget about stranger danger for a bit, and realize that the true monsters and evil doers actually, more often than not, live among us. Walk the same streets as us, shop at the same stores. Know the same people. They lurk behind the facades of happy family men, well known personalities and ambitious politicians. They are here, and we don’t know them. All we can do is hope that when their insatiable hunger for blood awakens, our paths don’t cross. Especially in the middle of the night.
Please join me as we explore the disappearance and murder of Anđela Bešlić.
In Dalmatian Hinterland, not far from the beautiful and bustling Dalmatian coast, life is a lot different. There is no sea, no tourism. The Homeland War made scarce resources even harder to come by. People who leave rarely come back to live there, and Sinj was no different. A town about 36 km away from Split. Not far from the coast, but not close enough to benefit from it. At around 10,000 residents, it was a smaller community.
Their claim to fame is the traditional annual Tilters Tournament of Sinj, or Sinjska Alka. It happens on the first Sunday in August to commemorate the victory over the Turkish army in 1715. Men, dressed in traditional garb, ride on horseback trying to poke a lance through a small ring, or alka as the locals call it, hanging in the air. This event is so well known that politicians take a break from their summer vacations to attend it, and it is broadcasted on national television.
But the other 364 days of the year, Sinj is just another town.
In 2002, the entire country was just beginning to heal from the war, and Sinj, being directly affected by it, was similarly trying to go back to normal life.
The one thing that was seemingly strong even despite the war, was the community.
Just outside of Sinj, there is a much smaller village called Suhač. Although much smaller than Sinj, it is so close in proximity that it’s almost like its suburbs, and all the people living there, a walking distance away from Sinj, most likely worked in Sinj and went there for all of their needs.
In Suhač is where the Bešlić family lived as well. Ivan, the father and Anđa, the mother had two daughters. Ivana was older, and Anđela was younger. Although some of the articles I read mentioned more children, I was not able to find any information on how many children altogether the family had. But we know for sure that Anđela and Ivana were sisters, and on Saturday, March 2nd, 2002, both of them were getting ready to go see a band they liked performing live in the town of Sinj.
Anđela was born in 1985 which means she was 17 years old in 2002. This concert was one of her first times going out for real. She was a sophomore in the local high school in Sinj, had long dark hair and was friendly and quite beloved among her friends.
So Anđela and her sister went to the concert together. We don’t know if someone dropped them off or they walked, because it is about a 30 minute walk from their home to where the concert was.
In any case, at some point at the concert, they each found their group of friends and separated.
The next morning, on Sunday, March 3rd 2002, Ivana’s and Anđela’s mother woke up earlier than usual and realized she never heard Anđela come home last night. So she walked to her room, and chills went down her spine when she saw Anđela’s bed was empty. The bed was still made, and it was clear to her that Anđela had not slept in it that night.
Anđa woke up her husband and together they interrogated their older daughter. Unfortunately, Ivana told them that she and Anđela got separated, as they each had their own group of friends. And after Anđela left with her group of friends, her sister Ivana never saw her again. She said that the concert was late and she decided not to wait for it and instead went back home, eventually coming back about 30 minutes after midnight.
Her father immediately took the phone and called the emergency medical service, and the police. But he was told they had no record of Anđela from the previous night.
Her father was worried sick. At that time, stories about human trafficking and illegal organ harvesting were dominating the news, and his mind immediately went there, no matter how hard he tried not to think about it.
After calling Anđela’s friends and their family members, Ivan went to the police station where a group of policemen were pruning the bushes around the building. He told one of the officers that he would like to report his daughter missing, to which the officer replied that he can’t do that before 24, or in some cases, 48 hours have passed.
I will jump in here to give a useful piece of information. If you’re ever in a situation where you’re reporting someone missing, please know that you absolutely do not need to wait 24 or 48 hours to do so. The first 48 hours are considered crucial in a missing person’s case, and this nonsense about waiting 48 hours is an old guideline not used by the police anymore. If I’m talking specifically about Croatian police, I have noticed just this year a few missing persons reports being shared on social media, and they were all made less than 24 hours after the person was last seen.
That tells me that even the slow moving Croatian police have updated their policies, and it is absolutely crucial that you report someone missing as soon as you notice it. Especially if the person missing is someone whose habits you are very familiar with.
Now back to the case.
Anđela’s father was doing everything he could think of to try and get some piece of information about his daughter. Eventually, he met up with a boy who was seen talking to Anđela after the concert. The young man told him that, after the concert, Anđela and him came to the street at the same time. They spent a few minutes commenting on the concert, and then she started walking through the park towards the hotel, and he went home.
Now, even though he was told to wait 24 hours to report his daughter missing, Ivan decided that was absolutely insane. She was still a minor, and he decided to call the Chief Police Officer himself and asked him to take Anđela’s disappearance seriously. The same day, theChief Police Officer sent his deputy to the Bešlić home to gather more information about Anđela and the circumstances of her disappearance.
But Monday came and Ivan didn’t hear from the police. He called them, and then went to the police station himself. No information.
On Tuesday when he visited the police station he noticed that each time he came, multiple police officers were working on pruning the bushes around the building. The officers were trying to convince him that the search and rescue efforts were already well underway. But somehow, the majority of the officers were still working on a more important project - landscaping.
On Wednesday, 4 days after Anđela was last seen, Ivan’s sister Katica, who was a police official in a nearby city of Split, decided that something more has to be done. She collected her niece Ivana, Anđela’s older sister, and they went to the office of the local radio station called Radio Sinj. At the office they were met by 3 reporters, and the director, a man named Ivan Bulj. After they introduced themselves and explained the purpose of their visit, Ivan Bulj lowered his head and left the room. So they told the remaining reporters that they would like them to spread the news of Anđela’s disappearance, and the reporters accepted.
As the news started circulating through the radio, Anđela’s relatives also printed out posters and fliers with her photo and they were posted all around the town of Sinj and most of the neighboring places. Thankfully, this meant that some tips have finally started to come in.
One of the most important tips came from a young man named Vedran. He contacted Anđela’s father on Thursday after her disappearance and told him that he saw Anđela on Sunday night after 2:30 am walking home.
He said that he spent the evening with his fiancee and then left just after 2:00 am. He said he wasn’t in a rush so he drove slowly. At the place where the road curves towards a smaller village, he saw a woman walking on the sidewalk on the left side of the road. At first he thought that was his neighbor who was a waitress so he slowed down to ask her if she needed a ride home. After taking a closer look he realized it was actually Anđela, and because he knew her he also knew she had about 200-300 meters before she would make it home. That made him speed up the car again and keep driving.
However, just as he was starting to pick up speed, an old Renault 4 car without license plates overtook him. He said the car was driving fast and had a yellow sticker on the back door. The car then made a sharp turn at that curve towards a smaller village.
Vedran said he could not make out what happened once the Renault 4 drove around the curve because there was another vehicle approaching him from the opposite direction, and he was blinded by its lights.
Ivan, Anđela’s father, still keeping his faith in the police and fully expecting their help, went to the police station and told them what he heard from Vedran, hoping that this will help them direct their investigation towards finding the vehicle Vedran mentioned. However, instead of support and urgency, once the police realized he was basically conducting a parallel investigation, they mocked and ridiculed him, told him that the car in question belongs to one of their colleagues without even checking, and then sent him on his merry way.
Ivan arrived home and immediately told Vedran’s story to his family members, relatives and friends. Thus he gathered three men who eventually became his co-investigators in the case of his missing daughter.
When the information reached the Chief of the Crime Department at the station, he called Ivan and asked him to bring Vedran, the eyewitness, to the police station.
Vedran repeated his story in detail, and the police, having heard that, finally decided to intensify their efforts in finding Anđela.
But now that the tips were coming in, it was inevitable that there would be some flukes, too. One of those false reports was the one made by an elderly woman who claimed she saw Anđela in a small place called Gljev, close to the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina. The woman claimed she saw her there on Sunday afternoon.
This moved the search efforts to this area as well, even though Gljev is about a 20 minute car ride away from Sinj, where Anđela was last seen by Vedran
Because of these search efforts, two detectives from the city of Split arrived and offered their services to the small police force of Sinj. The area around Gljev towards the border with BiH is hilly and inaccessible, so the search efforts were amplified by the military officers, multiple members of the extended Bešlić family and their friends.
Their search was focused on the area around Suhač, close to Sinj, and the second area around Gljev, all the way across the border to the area around the town of Vaganj in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The most meticulous search was done around the place where Anđela was last seen, where searchers were searching in a grid pattern, but nothing was found.
The police, even after talking to Vedran on multiple occasions and intensifying their efforts following his tip, seemingly did not trust him at all. They considered him a suspect, and made him take a polygraph, which he passed. And I personally don’t have a problem with the police not ruling him out as a suspect - he literally put himself in the place where Anđela was last seen alive.
I will always be in favor of the police checking everyone even remotely connected to the missing person, but the reality is that they weren’t investigating this case properly. And while they could have been focusing on finding that car from Vedran’s testimony, they instead focused on interrogating him into oblivion, trying to get him to slip up so they could then make him into the bad guy and somehow prove that their investigative work had some results.
This is not relevant to this case at all, but I want to mention it anyway because I think it portrays the mindset of the police that was working the case. So, after Anđela’s dad first connected the police with Vedran, they had him come to the police station on a few occasions. This is not unusual, and I’m not faulting them for that. However, at some point you kind of have to move forward. Interrogating the same person instead of looking for other leads is not a healthy way of investigating.
But what I wanted to mention is that Vedran fully cooperated with the police. So much so, that one time when they called him to come in, he told them he couldn't because his car registration had expired and he had no license plates. The police officer told him to come anyway and if got stopped by the patrol officers, to just tell them where he was going and why he was needed, and to tell them to call in if needed to confirm.
So he came in, no problem. Then as he was leaving to go home, again, without license plates on his car, he started driving, then immediately noticed a police car following him from the police station. The officers stopped him, and as he was explaining what happened and how he just left the station after being given explicit permission to come in, the officers ignored him and wrote him up. He ended up having to go to court to dispute these tickets, and in the end he lost which cost him a lot of money.
I read this and just couldn’t believe it. Believe it or not, the police CAN conduct interviews outside of police stations. And one of the reasons they have cars is to be able to accommodate those who maybe don’t have cars or cannot drive. So instead of driving to Vedran’s that day, they made him come out in an unregistered vehicle, then fined him for doing so. Just absolute class.
So while the police have decided to chase their own tail and do absolutely nothing, Anđela’s dad followed Vedran’s lead and he got in contact with a woman named Slavica who lived in a house just where the Renault 4, the car that Vedran saw that night, stopped.
She said she was watching TV in her living room when she heard a scream just outside of her house, where that car would have been stopped. She then went to the bathroom without turning on the lights and there, she heard some ruffling, the gate opening or closing and two people talking, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying.
Anđela’s dad, again, having faith in the police, told them what Slavica told him. I’m sure he was thinking that this will now steer them in the right direction. But at this point, it seemed that they were doing everything they could NOT to find Anđela. The chief police officer told Anđela’s dad that the sounds Slavica heard were most likely just a cat scratching some stuff under the window.
This exchange with the police strained Ivan’s relationship with the officials who were running the investigation, and soon enough, they were looking at him as the main suspect.
Around that time there were two rumors going around the town regarding Ivan’s involvement in Anđela’s disappearance.
One version of the story was that Anđela didn’t respect her curfew that night, and when she came home, her father, Ivan, slammed the door in her face and told her she was not welcome home since she was late. According to the rumor, Anđela, scared and beside herself, walked away in an unknown direction never to be seen again.
The other rumor was a lot more heavy. According to this rumor, Ivan was an alcoholic who terrorized his family and abused his wife and children. When Anđela came home very late that night, he got upset and angry and hit Anđela so hard she fell, hit her head and died. Her father then took her body and hid it, and to get ahead of the police, he reported her missing. According to this version of events, Anđela’s mother and her sister both knew what happened, but they were scared of Ivan’s retaliation so they never said anything.
I will come back to this particular rumor as we discuss the case further, but I can tell you right now - none of these two rumors were true.
And that’s not to say that I would categorically not believe that her father could harm her. Believe me, I’ve heard of all kinds of cases. Crazier things have happened, and if I were running this investigation, I would absolutely be keeping a very close watch on Anđela’s father as well. But his faith in the police even after their absolute belittlement of him and his efforts, his willingness to share every single piece of information he uncovered with the police department which was clearly not as invested in finding Anđela as he was, made me immediately think that he didn’t actually have anything to do with her disappearance. Again, crazier things have happened, and I completely support the decision by the police to keep an eye on him, but judging from his actions, he didn’t seem guilty to me.
Even with all the rumors flying around, and knowing that the police have narrowed their focus on him, Anđela’s father decided to intensify his efforts in investigating Anđela’s disappearance. And not only that, he decided that he would still be providing the police with every piece of information he discovers. The effect of these rumors was that the entire Bešlić family was eventually called in for a polygraph examination. My assumption is that they must have passed because the police actually never followed up on that, but I couldn’t find the actual information on the results of their polygraph.
But this move by the police was seen as them grasping at straws and the media and the public were becoming acutely aware of just how badly they had botched this investigation thus far. The fact that there was even a need for Anđela’s father to be conducting his own, parallel investigation, made the public feel that the police were either not doing everything they could and should have been doing, or that they were keeping the information from the family.
Either way, the media and the public started putting more pressure on the Police Department of Sinj to give them an insight into the investigation, to make certain things public and to let everyone know what the real state of the investigation was. The police then said that they were doing everything in their power to bring Anđela home and to find out what had happened to her. But they couldn’t just leave it there, even though that statement on its own was a lie, because I absolutely do not think they were doing everything that was in their power.
So they added the extra pizzazz by saying that their investigation was the most complex, biggest and most expensive one yet in Croatia. Which by some metrics might have even been true - Croatia was 11 years old at that point so it’s not like they were competing against a big history. But the measure of any investigation, in my opinion, is not its size - it’s the results, and whether or not it achieved two things: finding the missing person, and finding the perpetrator. And their investigation achieved none of that, at least not at that point. In fact, if it wasn’t for Anđela’s father bringing them tips on a silver platter, they would have probably still be pruning the bushes in their yard.
In any case, the police now had the immense pressure on them to bring forward some kind of results from this amazing investigation. They said they did even more than they were trained to do, so they called in a psychic from the neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina. Her method was quite interesting - she made everyone leave the police station, and asked for a bucket of water. After a quick session, her findings were as follows: Anđela was pregnant and she ran away to Makarska, a town about an hour away from Sinj.
The police then decided to focus their search efforts exclusively on Makarska, and for three days straight, that’s where they were searching. Thankfully, three days were all it took for them to realize what most of us realized just by hearing this story - that the psychic was a fraud and that she just made up the whole thing.
Another bizarre move by the police department was their decision to bring in “search dogs”. People who were assisting the police in their search noticed that these dogs just stood there, completely uninterested in what was going on and that their handlers were not at all directing them to do what they were supposed to be doing. One of the searchers recognized one of these dog handlers from a soccer match he recently attended, and asked him if he was at that match with the dog. The handler told him that he was there, and disclosed that the dogs that were brought to assist in the search were not actually search dogs, but more like attack dogs which were used to keep the unruly masses at soccer matches at bay.
On April 5th 2002 it was a Friday. Josip Bašić came home from work, ate and then took his dog out for a walk. They were walking through the forest, just outside of the village and Josip recalls that his dog was happy, running away and coming back when he’d call. Once the dog reached a ravine called Vidovo, he stopped, planted himself in place and started barking loudly. Josip said he kept calling him, but the dog wouldn’t come. He was sure the dog found a groundhog. He started walking towards his dog, and as he was coming closer, he became overwhelmed by a rancid odor like he never experienced before. When he looked down, he froze in shock. He saw a naked woman’s body lying face down, covered with branches. The body was already partially skeletonized.
Josip knew about Anđela’s disappearance. He even participated in a search party once. So he put his dog back on the leash and hurried back home. He said he had a glass of water, then called the police.
Once the police arrived and secured a perimeter around the place where the body was found, the news spread around town like wildfire.
Even though the police had decided not to let Anđela’s family know that evening, her father got the news and called the police station. He was told he will be informed of everything in due course. So the family spent the night fully awake, waiting for the call. But the call never came. So Anđela’s father Ivan called again in the morning, and they told him the same thing again. Then, a few hours later, he finally got the call from the deputy sergeant who told him to come to Vidovo, alone. Ivan didn’t listen to him, and took his friend, Luka, who assisted him in his investigation from day one.
The police explained that he needed to identify his daughter’s remains, and Ivan confirmed that the remains were indeed those of his daughter, Anđela. Anđela’s body was then also identified through a fingerprint because that was the only way a physical identification could be done.
He recalled realizing that the next step was going home and having to tell his wife and children that Anđela had been found, but that she would never be coming home again.
Anđela’s remains were buried on Sunday, April 7th 2002, only two days after being found. I wasn’t able to find any information about the official cause of death, or any information about a potential autopsy being performed. But from the information that was presented during the trial, I can surmise that Anđela was brutally beaten with a blunt object and sustained multiple injuries all over her body, but mostly on her head and face. Her cheekbone was broken. Unfortunately, the body was severely decomposed, so the injuries of sexual nature, if they ever existed, could not be observed.
Anđela’s father did not take a break even after he buried his daughter. The next day he continued his investigation by going to the tiny village called Bulji. His objective was to find that Renault 4 that Vedran saw. In that village he was asking around about the car and found an elderly woman who told him: “That’s our Ivan’s car.”
And by Ivan, she meant Ivan Bulj, a person I mentioned earlier, the director of Radio Sinj. He has been having some troublesome times for the past few days, ever since Anđela’s father started coming to his part of town asking about the car connected to Anđela’s disappearance.
But even though he was troubled by this news, he didn’t show it. He was a member of the local democratic Christian party, a father to three young children, a husband and a well respected member of the local community. In the past he was entrusted with the promotion of the annual Tilters Tournament of Sinj. He had a finger in every pie, and everyone knew him in some way or the other. In 2002 he was 39 years old, the perfect age for starting a more prolific political career, and it seemed that that’s exactly what his plans were.
People who spent those days with him, after Anđela’s disappearance, said that he wasn’t a stranger to commenting on the case, often stating that the police won’t find her. In fact, after the entire case had been resolved, it was confirmed that one of the rumors regarding Anđela’s father’s involvement in her disappearance, originated directly from Ivan Bulj.
He told the rumor to a reporter, who told it to a police officer working on the case, who then told the story to his wife. He was, however, overheard by his teenage daughter who then told the same story to a few trusted friends, and from there it spread like wildfire.
In one of the articles, I read that on the day of Anđela’s funeral, Ivan Bulj was having coffee with a few friends and acquaintances in Sinj, when the topic of Anđela’s body being found came up. Bulj yet again confidently stated that the police will have a very difficult time finding her killer, to which one of the jokesters of the group replied: “If the police want to find the killer, they will. They don’t have to go far. You Bulj guys did that.”
I have no idea if this story is true. And if it is true, why would the person who so confidently stated that even say that? I was never able to find any information about any kind of criminal history when it comes to Ivan Bulj. His cousin, Pavle Bulj, however, was a different story as he was well acquainted with the other side of the law, and it is possible that’s who the person had in mind when he said “You Bulj guys”.
Anđela’s father also found out that Bulj’s Renault 4 was found in a ditch just days after Anđela’s disappearance. Bulj eventually tried getting the fire department to tow his car out of the ditch and to the mechanic, but was told that wasn’t possible, so he instead had an acquaintance tow his car to the mechanic. The mechanic noticed that, even though the car was in the ditch, its interior was in pristine condition, as if it was recently meticulously cleaned. He stated that he had been Bulj’s mechanic for years and his car was never as clean as that time.
But as confident as Ivan Bulj seemed on the outside, this comment made by his friend left him fearing for his life. The next day he was driving when he saw Anđela’s father, not far from his own home. When he came home, his mother informed him that Ivan Bešlić was there asking about the car, and that she told him that it was Bulj’s car. She, of course, couldn’t have imagined her son having anything to do with this crime, so from her point of view, she just shared a useful piece of information.
At that point, Bulj knew Anđela’s father was about to blow the lid off this whole thing, and he was scared. He was scared of Anđela’s dad doing something to him, and he was scared of him going to the police with the latest piece of information.
The next morning, on Tuesday, April 9th 2002, Anđela’s father had arranged to meet up for coffee at a hotel named “Alkar'' with a few of his friends. When he arrived, he realized his friends were not there yet, but at a different table, there was Bulj, having coffee and reading the newspapers. When he saw Ivan Bešlić walk in, he folded his newspapers, got up and left. Ivan Bešlić recalled this moment in an interview saying that Bulj looked scared, and that he kept looking over his shoulder, as if he was expecting him to come after him.
Ivan Bešlić admitted in the same interview that he had planned to get Bulj to come meet with him under false pretenses. He was going to interrogate Bulj, face him with the facts that he found, then take him to the police station himself. If Ivan Bešlić had any other plans for Bulj, he never got to implement them.
Because as Bulj walked out of that hotel that morning, he called a friend, and then his wife. He told his wife to meet him at the hotel parking lot, and when she arrived he confessed to her that it was him who kidnapped and murdered Anđela Bešlić on the night of March 3rd, 2002.
His wife was shocked and betrayed. She told him he should take his own life instead of going to the police and embarrassing the family. She then went home, packed up their three children and drove 6 hours to her parents’ place in Požega and she has been there ever since.
From this meeting, Bulj went to the police station where he asked for the Chief Police Officer, who was also his friend. As soon as he saw him, he said: “Help me, I f-ed up!”
From there on, this shady investigation became an even shadier game of what happened. Bulj spoke to the Chief Officer first, then a detective named Sanja walked in, and joined the questioning. She actually overheard their initial conversation and couldn’t help but engage in some investigative eavesdropping.
She called another detective named Ivica, who was there from Zagreb, and the three of them had a lengthy conversation with Bulj, during which he demanded that the two detectives leave the room on three occasions so that he could speak in private to his friend. And it’s not crazy that he demanded that. What’s crazy is that he was granted that.
At some point, one of these three police officials finally decided that it would probably be a good idea to record this interrogation, especially since Bulj had already confessed to the crime a few times, each time slightly changing his story.
So eventually, the camera was brought in and his official confession was recorded. It’s only a bit of a shame that between the three of them, no one remembered that a confession given without an attorney present cannot be used as evidence in court. But that was just a minor detail to them. In their minds, they just solved the case! No time to think about lawyers and stuff.
And Bulj’s confession was anything but straightforward. He claimed first that he was driving drunk, hit Anđela with his car and panicked, hid her body and that was it. In one version he claimed that he was never going to rape her, but that he did want to make it look like she was raped which is why he took off her clothes and, according to him, disposed of her clothes by throwing them in his septic tank. In another version, his cousin Pavle Bulj was there with him, and the two of them got Anđela in the car, then Ivan Bulj held her while Pavle Bulj was beating her with a plank.
In one iteration of the story, he was alone with Anđela, and then tried to rape her but his genitalia was not up for the task and he couldn’t actually do what he intended to do. So he killed Anđela because she knew him, and he was scared that she would let everyone know what he tried to do. Personally, I find this story the most believable.
But one thing that never changed in his ever changing stories was the creepiest, and most heartbreaking part, and that was how he stopped his car when he saw that Anđela was walking alone. He offered her a ride, and she accepted. That’s how he got her in his car, and that’s how Anđela sealed her fate. She was so close to home she could almost see it, it would have taken her just a few more minutes of walking to get there.
She must have not felt safe to accept a ride so close to home. She must have felt relieved when she saw a familiar face. She must have felt thankful that someone was there to shorten her trip even a little bit. But instead of making sure she got home safe that night, Ivan Bulj, a father of three children, made sure someone else’s child never got home again.
I think it will surprise no one when I say that Bulj’s septic tank was emptied and Anđela’s clothes were not found. When he was asked why he said her clothes were there when he knew they weren’t, he just laughed and said: “Well at least you emptied my tank for free!”
Ivan Bulj was arrested, and together with him his cousin Pavle. They were both brought to trial.
During the trial it was revealed that a single strand of long dark hair was found in Bulj’s Renault 4. The DNA confirmed the hair belonged to Anđela Bešlić.
The trial was not open to the public, but even so, we know that the prosecution had minimal physical evidence to present to the court. Bulj’s confession, even though recorded, could not be used as evidence, but the judge still showed it to the jury - the jury in the Croatian justice system is made up of other judges. Bulj claimed he had an alibi for the night in question, but his, at that point ex wife, brutally knocked down his claim stating without stuttering that she and her children were home that night, but her husband was not.
In the end, the judge found Ivan Bulj guilty and sentenced him to 27 years in prison. He also found his cousin, Pavle, guilty. The Supreme Court of Croatia lowered Ivan Bulj’s sentence to 22 years in prison, and exonerated Pavle Bulj after he presented medical documentation which stated that at the time of Anđela’s disappearance, he was wearing a leg cast that reached all the way to his groin, making him unable to walk or ride in cars.
The judge convicted Bulj based mostly on circumstantial evidence, but I am sure that they knew that they were not convicting an innocent man after watching a video tape of his confession, even if they watched it off the record, and not as evidence.
Ivan Bulj is set to be released from prison next month. He is now 61. His life, even though 22 years of it were spent behind bars, is not over. If he so chooses, he can still work, marry, reunite with friends, and, for all we know, reoffend.
Anđela would be turning 39 years old this year. What I always say about victims who die young, is also true in this case - we don’t know what kind of life was taken from her.
We don’t even know much about her, we don’t know what her hobbies or interests were, we don’t know what kind of music she liked. But there is one thing we can be absolutely certain of - Anđela was loved, fiercely. Her father fought for her with everything he had, and I am certain that if it wasn’t for him and his parallel investigation, Anđela’s murderer would never be found or brought to justice.
It was quite refreshing to see such an amazing role model of a parent, after our previous two cases which included parents who raised a monster, and parents who waited 5 years to report their daughter missing.
Ivan Bešlić puts all of them to shame. His perseverance, even in the face of ridicule, baseless accusations and derogatory comments, is nothing short of heroic. Imagine how different this world would be if every parent stood up for their family in the same way.
And I am sure there was a lot of guilt driving his actions too. I am sure he keeps asking himself all of the “what ifs” we can think of. What if he had made sure he gave her a ride back home that night? What if he never let her go to the concert in the first place? What if he made her older sister stay with her and not let them separate?
That’s probably something he will have a hard time dealing with for the rest of his life. But I hope that everyone can see how much he did for his daughter.
I can’t finish this episode without touching on the absolutely abysmal conduct of the police in this case. I truly cannot believe it is even possible to mess something up so badly. The lack of urgency to search for Anđela, the fact that most of the investigative work was done by a group of citizens.
The fact that Anđela’s body was found by a passerby in a place they had reportedly searched previously. Their absolutely nonsensical stubbornness about not wanting to cooperate with Anđela’s father even after they saw that he had 3 solid leads that were panning out.
I am embarrassed for them, and I think there should have been criminal charges brought against the person responsible for this investigation.
In the end, I can only say that I hope that Anđela’s family was able to find peace and come to terms with her death. Being a parent myself, I cannot even begin to imagine the feeling of finding your child’s bed empty in the morning. And that’s only the beginning of the tragedy that this family had to go through. And then on top of it, the fact that her life was taken by her neighbor, someone she knew, someone she thought would protect her. Someone who had children just a few years younger than her..
I can’t help but imagine Anđela, walking home in the middle of the night, after her first big concert. Probably excited, exhausted and scared at the same time. Looking forward to throwing herself into her bed. Being so close to home she could almost see it, and then never making it home.
I will go to bed tonight holding my son a little bit tighter, thankful for the privilege of knowing that he is here, and safe. So many parents don’t get that anymore, and my heart breaks for them and their children. It is a terrifying thought. To be teaching your children to be wary of strangers, but to be raising them in a world where they are not even safe from the people they know.
SOURCES:
https://slobodnadalmacija.hr/vijesti/crna-kronika/ahttps://slobodnadalmacija.hr/vijesti/crna-kronika/andelino-tijelo-pronasao-je-prolaznik-a-njen-otac-vodio-je-paralelnu-istragu-bulj-je-shvatio-da-su-mu-za-petama-1368795ndela-se-te-noci-nije-vratila-kuci-vedran-ju-je-vidio-oko-2-ujutro-slavica-je-cula-krik-policija-je-zvala-gataru-1368638
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinj
https://www.vecernji.hr/vijesti/andjelin-otac-bio-se-rukovao-s-ivanom-buljem-714346