The Somber Case of Violeta Jošić
Script for Humble Mysteries, episode 5
It is said that one of the most terrible things a parent can experience is the death of their child. None of us become parents expecting it, all of us think, hope and pray that our children outlive us. And for the majority of parents, life works out that way. But for that small percentage who lose their children, life sometimes doesn’t seem worth living afterwards. Raising a child requires so much of you. Emotionally, mentally, physically, and yes - financially too.
Now, imagine 19 years of being a single parent, and then all of that being taken away in just one minute. The years of work raising your child into a person you’re proud of. The years of pinching pennies so that your child could have everything they need. The years of going through all the health scares, emotional changes, seeing your child experience first love, heartbreak and taking their first steps to adulthood… And suddenly it’s all gone. The life you created. The life you so dutifully cared for. The life that to you meant more than your own - taken by someone to whom it meant nothing.
Please join me as we explore the murder of Violeta Jošić.
Today, we are leaving Croatia, and we’re going to Serbia to explore our first Serbian murder case on this podcast.
Just an hour away from the bustling city life of the Serbian capital, Belgrade, there is a small village of about 300 people called Batalage.
The hardworking residents earn their living by farming, or working in the nearby town named Koceljeva, about 15 minutes away.
One of those people is the Jošić family. Dragiša was 30 years old in 1999 when he met Maja, a girl who came to Batalage with her family to escape the NATO bombing in Serbia. At just 16, she started her relationship with Dragiša, and instead of moving back home once it was safe to do so, Maja found herself moving in with Dragiša and his parents, and planning a whole new life. On June 13, 2000, Maja gave birth to a baby girl who they named Violeta. At first she seemed to quite enjoy the role of a mother, but when Violeta was just 6 months old, Maja went to see a doctor and never came back.
She eventually called Dragiša and told him she was not coming back. She felt that she was just too young, and wanted to experience life. Thankfully, Dragiša is an honorable man and he took the role of a single parent incredibly seriously.
While living off of land was not easy, he made sure Violeta always had everything she needed, and took incredible pride in how well she was raised. She was polite, kind and exceptionally courteous towards her neighbors, most of whom were elderly and older than her.
Her father taught her to drive a tractor when she was only 11, and she would regularly help with farm work, never shying away from helping her father with everything that needed to be done around the house and on the farm.
Girls in the Balkans are raised to be very self-sufficient. I am not sure why that is so, but ask almost any girl, and she will tell you she most likely got her driver’s license at 18, which is the legal driving age in Europe, she is handy, knows her way around housework, home improvement and has all the skills to lead a very self-sufficient life. And Violeta was no different, especially being raised by only her father in a family that directly lived off of their hard work.
Her mother initially did visit her regularly, during her early childhood, but she eventually stopped. Her father never opposed Violeta having a relationship with her biological mother, but he also realized that Violeta growing up meant that he now had a little more time for socializing, and that’s when he met his wife, Ljiljana. They got married and moved in together when Violeta was 15 years old. Ljiljana also brought two children from her previous relationship into their marriage.
This new addition to the Jošić household was welcomed by Violeta. Having another woman in the house meant another pair of helping hands, her dad was happy, and Violeta developed a very close relationship with her stepmother. Their relationship resembled friendship more than anything, and Violeta felt that she could talk openly with her stepmother.
The timing of her stepmother moving in could not have been better for a teenage girl, because for Violeta it meant that she didn’t have to share all those typical teenage girl stuff with just her dad - she now had a stepmother who loved her, understood her and was a great ally and a confidant.
But this newfound friendship with her stepmother made Violeta become acutely aware of the big gaping hole her own mother left in her life when she left.
Violeta reached out to her mother who now had a family of her own and young children, and after years of no contact, they renewed their relationship and started regularly seeing each other. Violeta would often spend weekends with her mother and her new family, and her father was supportive of her, never once questioning Violeta’s desire to do so. He would even give her rides to her mother’s place before she was old enough to drive by herself.
Violeta was an average student. She never excelled in school, but she was also never a bad student. She was somewhere in the middle, and diligently accepted schoolwork. Her father even said in one of the interviews that she came from a family of workers and farmers, and there was never anyone who would sit down and study with her. I personally think grades are not a reflection of a person’s capacity in any way. Violeta was obviously, even at a young age, a very well rounded person who had incredible empathy for others and the capacity to put herself in the place where she was able to understand the needs of others. She was competent and hardworking, and willing to learn. Good grades or not, Violeta was definitely a young woman who could be a role model to many.
After finishing elementary school in her home village Batalage, she continued high school in the nearby town Koceljeva. She enrolled in a 4 year vocational school, and chose the program for agricultural technologies and work. Her father said her ultimate dream and goal was to work for the military or the law enforcement. She even planned to start the academy the same year she finished high school, but they were not recruiting at the time.
As I mentioned before, Violeta had a wide circle of friends in school, and loved going out. The majority of social life in the Balkans is played out at cafés and there’s a big culture of going for coffee in this part of the world. Sitting down with a cup of coffee and talking to friends is almost like therapy, and I’m sure Violeta’s life was no different. She loved meeting up with her friends for coffee, and loved going out on the weekends as well.
Her father and stepmother recalled that she had her first boyfriend in high school, and it was a nice, young relationship. Her father never stopped her from dating, but asked her to bring home the person she was seeing so that the family could meet them. Violeta respected that request and introduced her first boyfriend to her family. The relationship wasn’t long, and she had another more serious relationship during her high school years.
However, her most prominent relationship started when she was a senior in high school. During a local soccer match, she met a man named Dušan Petronijević.
He was almost 15 years older than Violeta and lived in a nearby town of Koceljeva. I couldn’t find a lot of information on what Dušan did, but from what we know, he was a bit of a weird character.
It is known that he lived with his parents, and at the time of his relationship with Violeta, he worked in a juice factory in Koceljeva as a lab technician. It was reported that he only started working after he turned 30. We know that his father owned a café and his mother was working as a nurse. Being 34, and a bit farther in life than Violeta, you would expect a level of maturity or ambition from him, but he apparently didn’t really have a lot of either. He was perfectly content living with his parents, and didn’t really have any plans for his future.
At the same time he felt that he was too good, or too smart to live in a place like Koceljeva, a small town. He thought of himself as someone who deserved more because of his self proclaimed intellectual abilities. And I am not trying to shame him for living with his parents or anything like that. I can’t blame anyone for living with their parents in this economy. But, as this case goes on, you will see that he actually had plans for his future with Violeta.
He even reportedly had her contact saved in his phone as “Future Mrs P”. So it is my opinion that when you are making plans for that kind of future with someone, you need to take some steps towards making it happen, and show the other person that you are serious. Maybe I’m just old fashioned, but I’d like to think that women do appreciate a man who works hard for the future of the relationship in the most material sense of that word.
And if you feel like you’re in some way better than the place you grew up in, wouldn’t you try and change that? Millions of people have done the same when they realized that to follow their dreams and aspirations, they will have to move to a different, bigger city. It’s honestly not that difficult, but you need to have the drive for it.
The easiest thing in life is cementing yourself in one place and deciding that the world is unjust towards you for putting you in that place. The sooner you realize that you, and only you, are responsible for your lot in life, the better. And it is quite sad that Dušan at 34 still felt that the best way to go about life is to complain about his circumstances, instead of working hard to change them.
I wasn’t able to find any information on Dušan’s mental state, but it is known that he was using prescription benzodiazepines regularly.
I’ll make a small digression here to talk about some sources I used for creating this script. One of the first things that pop up when you search the name Violeta Jošić on YouTube is a video by a former Serbian detective named Braca. His video was invaluable to me because he conducted a very in-depth interview with Violeta’s father and stepmother. In the video, he is joined by a psychiatrist, professor Jung. And it is the professor who, in the video, brings forward a theory that Dušan was actually a satanist, or a worshiper of Satan.
I love detective Braca and his videos, and have learned about many cases that I intend to cover as well. However, the information about Dušan being a satanist is not something I could find anywhere else. I went down that rabbit hole, deep. I simply could not find anything that would even remotely connect him to that. Now, it is absolutely possible that the detective and his team have access to people with first hand knowledge, or certain documents that I could never find on the internet. But if that’s the case, they never stated it, so I will not be bringing it up anymore or providing any additional information on that topic.
In any case, it has been reported that Dušan was immediately very, very invested into his relationship with Violeta. I don’t have any information about his previous relationships, but from what I gathered, there weren’t any serious ones, or any at all. So when he finally got Violeta to commit to him, he really thought he struck gold.
But, like I said earlier, instead of showing his intentions and commitment through hard work and making responsible decisions for their future, Dušan instead just became obsessively jealous and possessive. After finishing high school and realizing there will be no recruitment for the military or law enforcement that year, Violeta was actively looking for a job. She wasn’t picky about it, and was ready to make that one additional step towards independence.
She was applying to some positions, but never heard back from them, and it was Violeta’s father who revealed that he strongly believes that Dušan was doing everything he could to sabotage her attempts at obtaining employment.
Eventually, though, Violeta was hired as a security guard in the same juice factory as Dušan. Their jobs were not similar, and from what I understood, they didn’t really have any contact with each other at work. On top of that, Violeta worked shifts, and that included night shifts as well. Dušan had more steady working hours.
Because she didn’t have her own car at that time, Violeta was trying to be savvy and resourceful about getting to work and back home. Sometimes her dad would lend her his car, but more often than not, she would ride with one of her coworkers. And working as a security guard meant that most of her coworkers were male.
Which, as you can imagine, created a big strain in Violeta and Dušan’s relationship. He could not accept the fact that she would be alone with another guy late at night or early in the morning. And if you’re like me, you’re probably thinking - well why didn’t he offer to give her rides every now and then and make it a little bit easier for her, and also enjoy some time with her? We don’t know. As far as I know, he knew how to drive and had a driver’s license, so… who knows. I guess it’s also always easier to complain than to actually look for solutions.
In any case, as their relationship was progressing, Violeta probably slowly but surely started to realize that, despite Dušan being 15 years older, she was actually the mature one in that relationship. When he didn’t know how to cope with extreme jealousy he was feeling, he started to pull classic high school level tricks on Violeta to test her and to give her a taste of her own medicine.
Violeta’s relative said that towards the end of September 2019, she was attending a local pickling festival with Violeta and Dušan. They sat down to have coffee, and Dušan was acting extremely inappropriately. He started flirting with girls sitting at the table next to them, then even went so far as to offer them his number and asking them to call him. Violeta, clearly upset by his behavior, got up from the table and left.
It would appear that this was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back, and Violeta broke up with Dušan.
We don’t know what happened between the two of them in the following weeks, but from what was reported, Dušan was desperately trying to get back with Violeta and get her attention. During that time, Violeta confided in her stepmother that she and Dušan had broken up, but she asked her not to share the news with her father because he liked Dušan, and she was worried he will be angry at her for breaking up with him, or that he would try to persuade her to reconnect and get back together with him.
Life for Violeta seemed to be moving on without major interruptions or hiccups. If she missed Dušan at all, she wasn’t showing it. She was regular at work, was regularly meeting her friends and nothing seemed too different from any other time.
Violeta’s father was impressed by her dedication to work, and her willingness to financially contribute to the household, and was making plans to buy her a car to make getting to work easier for her.
But even though Violeta was moving on and wasn’t really showing that anything was wrong, a few coworkers and friends she was close with said that she told them that Dušan was relentlessly hounding her, texting her and calling her during that time.
Violeta’s dad remembers that on the Wednesday before her murder, he and his wife were about to go to Koceljeva to get some groceries. Violeta asked if she could come with them and be dropped off at Dušan’s house. So she drove with them, visited Dušan for about 30 minutes while Dragiša and his wife were shopping, and then when they were finished, they stopped by Dušan’s place to pick her up. Dragiša said that just from that interaction, he couldn’t tell that they were already broken up at the time. He said Dušan seemed like his normal self, was smiling and got out of the house to wave to Violeta and her parents. Whatever that short meeting was, it definitely wasn’t reconciliation, however.
Because Dušan has decided he can’t move on without Violeta, and has seemingly planned out to take his own life. On Friday, October 11th, 2019, he took a big dose of his prescription benzos, got drunk, got into his father’s car and started wreaking havoc in town. He slammed the car into fences, and completely destroyed a few randomly parked cars in his way. Eventually he drove it into a ditch, left it there and walked home.
A neighbor of the Petronijević family said he saw Dušan’s father at the place where his car was driven into a ditch, and he joked with him thinking he was the one who did it. But he informed him that it was actually his son who did it, and told him he also knocked down some fences and ruined a few cars during his destruction spree.
The neighbor recalled asking Dušan’s father if Dušan was hurt, and he replied: “If only. No, he came home and fell asleep.” During the same conversation, his father told the neighbor that he cannot put up with Dušan any longer.
And you would think that a mess of this size, with damage made to several cars and properties, would warrant a visit from the police and maybe even some charges brought against Dušan. But interestingly, that didn’t happen, and Dušan was left to sleep it off at home. The next day, on Saturday, he woke up and, naturally, his dad wanted to talk to him to try and understand why he did what he did. But Dušan was having none of that.
Remember, parents. If you haven’t called out your child regularly and raised them to know how to be held accountable for their actions, you can’t expect them to just wake up one day and take accountability for something major they did. Even if they’re 34. That’s not how it works.
In any case, Dušan took a knife and threw a major tantrum, threatening that he would kill himself. At some point, it escalated, and Dušan’s dad finally decided to call the police.
But before the police arrived, Dušan once again calmed down and fell asleep. When the police arrived, Dušan’s dad told them that he calmed down and signed a waiver saying that he takes full responsibility if anything happens to Dušan. And again, day two of Dušan’s madness concluded without him being taken in - either to the police station or a mental institution.
Quite an oversight, if you ask me. A mentally unstable person who was going nuts on his neighbors and parents and has a knife at home, as well as access to prescription drugs and alcohol is then left at home with parents he had heated arguments with that day… It seems like an extremely unsafe situation, if you ask me.
I have heard enough true crime cases to know that very often when a person is threatening to take their own life, they end up taking someone else’s instead. I don’t know what the statistics are on that, but my goodness, I can think of 5 cases just off the top of my head. I don’t know why those threats are not taken more seriously, not only for the sake of the person who is making those threats, but also for the people in their vicinity.
That same day, on Saturday, Dušan created a photo album on his facebook profile, named it “My Love”, and then uploaded over 200 photos and videos of Violeta and himself from the time they were in a relationship. He also posted a song called “Without You” by a Croatian singer named Oliver Dragojević
So, Dušan went to sleep, and sometimes during that night he woke up and visited his uncle’s abandoned house in which he left his diary, some money and some of Violeta’s personal belongings.
He then made his way from Koceljeva to Batalage. It is believed he walked the entire distance which is about 10km. Around 7am on Sunday, October 13th 2019, he arrived at the Jošić family home and let himself into the yard. At the pigsty he found Violeta’s father who was tending to the animals.
He asked him what the time was, and Violeta’s father remembers taking his phone and checking - it was 7:12am. They chatted for a few minutes and Dušan told him that he was waiting for Violeta to come home from her night shift. When Violeta was parking in front of the house, Dragiša, her father, let Dušan into the house to wait for her.
Her stepmother remembers seeing them walk through the hallway towards the stairs because Violeta’s bedroom was upstairs. She said that not even a minute later she heard Violeta screaming: “No, Dušan! Stop it, please!” She said she ran up the stairs and as she approached Violeta’s bedroom the scene she saw was Violeta lying on the bed and Dušan sitting or lying on top of her.
She first thought that he was beating her because she could see him striking her with his hand, and as Violeta kept screaming for help, her stepmother ran outside and called her husband. He jumped over the fence and ran upstairs.
He walked straight into a horror scene and saw Dušan sitting on top of Violeta, stabbing her. When he realized Dragiša was there he jumped off her and charged at him, holding his knife up high. He then stood at the door as if to make sure not to let anyone in. Dragiša said he could not see Violeta because Dušan was blocking his view. He said that he took a few steps back when Dušan charged at him, but that he immediately started pleading with him to let him through to his daughter so that he could help her.
Eventually, Dušan lowered the knife and moved out of the way. Dragiša found Violeta on the bed, but didn’t immediately realize that there was blood, and how much of it there was. He tried lifting her up by himself, but couldn’t, so he asked his wife to help him. As they were trying to figure out what to do in this chaos, Dragiša asked Dušan who was still just standing there with his knife, to call an ambulance to which he replied: “No need. She’s gone. I know where to stab.”
Dragiša said he was desperately trying to remember the number for the emergency services, but couldn’t, so he called his cousin who lived just across from them, and asked him to come help him transport Violeta to the hospital. While all of this is happening, Dragiša’s two stepchildren, who were spending the weekend with their mother, Dragiša’s wife, came out of their room to see what all the commotion was about. When they peeked inside Violeta’s room, Dušan flashed his bloody knife and told them not to come closer or they might have the same thing happen to them. The children then ran back into their bedroom and thinking that Dušan was coming after them, they jumped out of the first story window.
Eventually, Dragiša, his cousin and his wife managed to get Violeta into Dragiša’s car. When they put her on the passenger seat and closed the door, Dušan leaned against the window and kept looking at her as if he was admiring her. Ljiljana, Violeta’s stepmother sat down behind her and held her head. Her dad got into the car and was looking for the keys before remembering that Violeta had driven it that morning, and he found the keys in the pocket of the jacket she was still wearing.
As he was looking for the keys, Dušan opened the door and sat down behind him, still holding the bloody knife.
The four of them then drove to the tiny local medical center in Koceljeva. Ljiljana said she didn’t know what to do so she made sure to hold Violeta’s head as steady as possible, while Dušan kept elbowing her and hitting her arms hoping that she would let go of Violeta so that he could presumably hug her. Dragiša remembers driving over the speed limits, just to get there as soon as possible, and as he was driving, he felt that Violeta’s knees had fallen on one side and touched his hand on the gear stick. He believes to this day that Violeta was alive up until that moment.
When they finally made it to the medical center, Dragiša parked the car, and ran into the building to call for help. When he got back he saw Dušan exit the car, close the door and walk to his house which was just next to the medical center, still holding the knife. As he was walking away he said: “I did what I wanted to do.”
Violeta was beyond help. She was dead by the time they reached the medical center. She had 29 stab wounds and 10 puncture wounds that were characterized as defense wounds. She had six stab wounds in the back, and the rest of them were focused on the left side of her neck and chest. I think it is clear that Dušan attacked her from behind, then continued to stab her in the neck once she fell on the bed.
Dušan was arrested in his home the same day. It was reported that the police found him sitting at the dining table with a clean knife in front of him. It was his father who called the police once he found him like that, but they were already on the way because Dragiša’s cousin had called minutes earlier.
Dragiša and his wife were called to the police station to give their statements, and in the station they saw Dušan. Both of them noticed a smirk on his face as he looked at them.
The coffin with Violeta’s body was returned to her family home on Sunday evening. It is a local tradition that the body be returned home, and family and friends keep a wake around the coffin until it is time to bury it. Violeta’s friends stayed with her coffin for almost two days, all through the night, which is a true testament to the kind of person she was.
Violeta was buried on Tuesday, October 15th 2019. Her body was laid to rest, and Dragiša had to return to an empty house which felt like it was going to swallow him alive.
Everything he worked for in his life, everything he ever loved was gone.
In the days following the murder, Dušan’s diary was discovered in his uncle’s house. In the diary he stated that he will take his own life. He left some money and Violeta’s personal belongings with a note saying that all of it is to be given to her when he dies.
But in his final act of cowardice, sometime during that Sunday night, he changed his mind, and instead of taking his life, decided to take Violeta’s.
His defense was a typical sissy defense. He claimed he blacked out and doesn’t remember what he did. He claimed that, yes, he remembers seeing Violeta’s bloodied body when they arrived at the medical center in Koceljeva, and holding a knife, but not the act of stabbing itself.
And maybe he doesn’t remember it, who am I to say otherwise, I never stabbed anyone so I don’t know the mental toll it takes. But if he walked those 10km to Violeta’s home that night, he sure as heck had plenty of time to decide not to do it. He could have called the police and turned himself in for having these compulsive thoughts. He could have called his father. He could have done so many things if he truly loved her. But Dušan was just not raised that way.
He was probably not told “no” a lot during his life. He most likely never experienced rejection. He never empathized, never learned how to recognize his own shortcomings.
I can’t diagnose anyone even if I wanted to, but Dušan to me sounds like a typical covert narcissist. Not the grandiose kind we all think of when we think of narcissism. No, the vulnerable one, who loves to indulge in self pity, who loves to wallow in how unfair his circumstances are. The type that loves it when everyone tells him “Oh poor you. You’re so strong for enduring this injustice.” I wish I didn’t, but I have some experience with a covert narcissist. The problem with those people is that their true face is only ever revealed to those closest to him. To the rest of the world he is just a misunderstood soul, a gentle guy who wouldn’t hurt a fly, someone who feels deeply and was dealt a difficult hand in life.
However, the closer you are to him, the more you get to experience the true nature of a narcissist. He is better than everyone, everyone is trash. He is the smartest, most talented, and HE deserves you. And if you don’t notice it and praise him for it often, he is going to remind you, in any way he can. He is going to gaslight you. He is going to verbally abuse you. You will see the darkness within him mere seconds after he is flashing his big flashy grin to everyone else.
Isn’t that just like Dušan? A guy with hardly any redeemable qualities who thought he was too good for this world, and who thought that if he, the most amazing guy in the world can’t have Violeta - no one else should either.
He was sentenced to 40 years in prison, the highest possible sentence at the time of his trial.
The gap left by Violeta in the life of her father and those close to her cannot ever be filled. If you speak Serbian or Croatian, I really recommend you watch some of the interviews with her father. He is a humble, simple man. You can tell that he is a hard working, honorable son, father and husband. He raised his daughter into a wonderful, respectable young woman. He was left on his own with a small child, and yet he never fought with the woman who left him like that. He never poisoned Violeta’s mind against her mother. He could have. Some would say he had every right to do so. But he didn’t.
When he saw Dušan killing his daughter, he didn’t jump on him and got into a fight. He pleaded with him, knowing that he is worth more to his daughter alive than chasing some street justice.
A lot of people have asked him how he kept himself from hurting Dušan, and he said that all he was thinking of was saving his daughter.
And then in 2021, Dragiša got another chance at happiness. His wife Ljiljana gave birth to a baby girl, and they named her Lena.
Lena put a smile back on Dragiša’s face and gave his life a new purpose.
Violeta’s room was left exactly as she left it the day she died, and no one was ever allowed to touch it. It was like a sacred space, a memory frozen in time, left like that as if Violeta was going to walk through the door any moment now, and go to her room to take a nap.
Dragiša never allowed anyone to put a foot in that room. Until little Lena was born. New life is the best antidote for death. Little by little, Violeta’s room was overtaken by toys, tricycles, dolls and houses. Little by little, the light returned. Little by little, hope was restored.
SOURCES:
https://24sedam.rs/hronika/vesti/179432/otac-ubijene-violete-josic-dobio-cerku/vest