"The Witch’s Curse: The Night a Policeman Slaughtered All He Loved"

Somewhere in a remote village on the Balkan Peninsula, at the foot of a hill the locals called The Cursed Rock, an event occurred that, even more than seventy years later, is still whispered about by firelight. The old folks, when retelling it, would say, “Don’t call evil by its name—it might still be wandering…” It was a story that left the village cloaked in silence, fear, and an indelible mark of horror.

The central figure in this dreadful tale was Rade Janković, the local policeman of the village Dubočice in 1950. A man of justice, discipline, and tenderness toward his wife Milka and their three children. He always carried his old military pistol, a relic from the war—well-maintained and kept safely locked in a leather holster by the bed.

All seemed peaceful—until a woman named Stana moved into the village. She was a mysterious beauty with a venomous gaze and a past that trailed behind her like smoke. Whispers followed her: she'd fled from one village, then another, always leaving behind a shadow of misfortune. Some swore she wasn’t a normal woman, that “there was something in her eyes” that froze the blood. Though a widow, no one knew where her husband was buried or how he had died.

Despite being married, Rade fell under Stana’s spell as if bewitched. Within two weeks, he was seen sneaking out of her house late at night. People in the village began to whisper, certain this wouldn’t end well. But no one could have imagined the evil that was brewing.

According to the elders’ tale, Stana often visited a forest-dwelling witch known as Baba Kaja, who lived above the village. Half-blind, with fingers blackened by smoke and herbs, Baba Kaja brewed potions from chicken blood, mixed hair, ashes, and nails, and murmured in a language no one recognized. Stana allegedly brought her something of Rade’s—a shirt, a button from his uniform, and a lock of hair.

It is said Baba Kaja told her: “If you want him to love you completely, you must take from him all he loves before you. He must belong to you—and no one else.”

That very night, the village was jolted awake by gunshots. Screams, crashing, and then—silence.

Rade, in a trance-like state, had walked into his home and started shooting. First his wife, then the children. When neighbors rushed in, they found a scene of pure horror—Milka’s head shattered, the children curled beneath the table, and Rade sitting on the floor, pistol in hand, murmuring: “They’re not mine anymore. They’re not mine. Now you are everything…”

He was arrested and locked in the local jail. But soon after, word spread that he had started clawing the walls and singing a song no one had ever heard before. On the third day, he died. Blood poured from his ears, and his body stiffened in an unnatural posture—as if in prayer, but reversed.

Stana vanished. Simply disappeared. Some claimed to have seen her walking toward the woods, followed by black cats and a wind that blew only around her. Baba Kaja, they say, was burned later that winter when three villages rose up in a witch-hunt. They found skulls, candles, dolls pierced with nails, and an ancient script written in blood.

Dubočice was never the same. The Janković house was torn down, but grass never grew on that spot again. Dogs avoid it, and even today, a foul, rotten smell lingers in the air around it.

Some claimed Rade had been possessed. A former priest from the region once said, with a trembling voice:

“That was no longer him. Something had entered him—and spoke through him.”

The elders say that on certain winter nights, when snow falls quietly and the moon turns red, a sharp crack can be heard from the direction of the Cursed Rock—like a pistol being fired again. And when that happens, people lock their doors, extinguish their candles, and whisper: “Don’t call evil by its name… don’t mention the witch.”

It was true Sodom and Gomorrah—a monstrous chaos. Black magic, obsessive love, and evil fed with blood. And it all began with a single look... and one visit to the witch.