June 17, 2012
Priest Tudor Marin (69), the father-in-law of trade union leader Vasile Marica, was mortally stabbed Saturday morning, after the Divine Liturgy, inside the ‘Sfantul Ioan Botezatorul’ Church of the Piata Unirii Square of Focsani. The only witness was a woman that was selling candles.
Shortly after the murder, police apprehended the main suspect, a man aged 30, who was initially detained for 24 hours under the accusation of murder. Later, a judge put him in preventive arrest for 29 days.
The suspect was caught by police in his apartment of Focsani, based on the description provided by the witness. While searching the apartment, officers found a Bible and several sheets of paper covered with biblical fragments.
The man confessed the murder and said he has no regret, because he only fulfilled God’s will, because the priest had to die.
According to prosecutor Gheorghe Mihaila of the Focsani Tribunal, the assassin entered the church carrying several pages with biblical fragments, talked with the priest and then suddenly stabbed him and ran away.
“He came with the intention to kill. The woman who was there – the only person that witnessed the murder – did not have time to react. She thought that he had slapped the priest with his hand. The attacker left in a hurry and disappeared behind a block of flats. Some witnesses said he ran towards the train station,” the prosecutor said, quoted by Mediafax. He described the suspect as “a psychopath with exacerbated ideas.”
According to the source, the attacker entered the church with the knife in a bag and hit the priest first time near the temple, then in the heart, with the second blow also being fatal. The Romanian Patriarchate deplores the murder, especially as it was committed in a church, “where priests preach peace and love of neighbor, and now a peaceful and venerable prelate was brutally murdered in a horrible crime that shows the alarming state of degradation, violence and insecurity which characterizes society today.”
The murderer told the police: "Today I definitely wanted to kill a priest! I went to three churches, but there were too many people there."