Croatia is, rightfully so, considered to be a very safe country, with low numbers for violent and similar crimes. That’s why, when something like what happened yesterday happens in Croatia, when there’s a body found, it catches everyone’s attention, as it is not a common occurrence (and in this case, the crime and the aftermath are truly bizarre).
The story starts in 2000 when Jasmina Dominić was last seen in Zagreb. She was 23 at the time, spending her time in Zagreb, studying and working. Last time she spoke to her parents, she told them she was going to work on a cruise ship and/or to Paris, and they haven’t had any word of her since then. First truly odd fact in this case is that her disappearance was reported to the police in 2005, so 5 full years since her parents and her family have last heard of her! She was placed on the list of the people missing in Croatia, nestali.hr. Rumours in the village suggested that she has contacted the family, that her body was dumped in the ponds near the village of Palovec in Međimurje, and even that her body was hidden in the house! But not much has happened in the case of her disappearance since, except that Jasmina’s father passed away a couple of years ago, (probably) not knowing where his daughter was.
Until yesterday. Yesterday a dead body was found in the house in Palovec occupied by Jasmina Dominić’s family, where her sister lived (with her family), their father was before his death and their mother lived part-time (she works in Germany, so spends most of her time there). The details of the grisly discovery are not fully known, of course, but the most frequently told story is that the family has not been paying their electricity bills, that they were disconnected from the electricity because of their debt, and that someone noticed the strange odour coming from one of the freezers in the house. The rumour mill says that it was Jasmina’s sister’s son in law, who supposedly had no idea that there was another freezer in the house before he smelled the odour. The police were, of course, called, and what’s known at this point is that Jasmina’s sister, 45-year-old S. D. (Jasmina would’ve been 42 now) has been arrested yesterday evening.
Now that there’s the body found, the police investigation will, almost certainly, uncover what exactly happened to poor Jasmina and who managed to keep the secret of her death for so many years.
