Thirty years ago, Lubos Bednar went missing at age five

Exactly 32 years ago, on 27 August 1988, five-year-old Lubos Bednar was playing in front of the apartment building in the city of Puchov, Slovakia. He has disappeared under the circumstances which have not yet been established. In spite of efforts of the then officers of the Public Security Corps and later of the Police Force, no information has yet been obtained that would lead to his tracing.

In the history of the Czechoslovak criminology, it is one of the oldest and rare cold cases of a missing person that has remained unresolved. In compliance with the rules laid down by law, the search for the missing minor was discontinued after the period of 20 years has elapsed, namely in 2008.

"On the occasion of this sad anniversary, we decided to reiterate the case of the missing minor Lubos Bednar and to take advantage of the prevalence of social networking, through which we want to inform as many people as possible about this case, not only in Slovakia but also abroad. There have been instances in the past having shown that media and social networks, thanks to published materials, also help in searching for long-term missing people," said Jana Maskarova, 1^st Vice-President of the Police Force.

The press release and accompanying graphics will also be available in English, progressively distributed through the Police Force’s Facebook page, including paid sponsorship, and also sent to partner agencies and media abroad.

„Upon the searches carried out up to now in the place of residence and the entire district of uúchov, it was found that the missing minor Lubos Bednar was playing with an older brother in the morning near the apartment building in Puchov. At 12:00 hrs, the mother of the missing minor called her two sons from the window of the apartment to go up for lunch. The older son came home, but the younger Lubos stayed outside, having said to his brother that he was going somewhere behind the apartment building, in front of which they had been previously playing.

When he did not come along with his brother to his parents' apartment, his father immediately went out where he found that his son was not in front of the apartment building.  First he was seeking his missing son in an immediate neighbourhood on his own, then with several neighbours, and finally when he had not found him, he reported the case at the local department of the Public Security Corps. At the local department of the Public Security Corps, there were performed initial searches for the missing boy without any positive outcome. The search action was carried out with the participation of citizens of the city, members of the Public Security Corps and auxiliary forces," as stated in the first record made with respect to the missing Lubos Bednar.

Distinctive marks: ascar at the edge of his chin (less visible length, approx. 0.5 cm); an ellipsoidal-shaped birthmark on the left side of his back near the shoulder blade (length approx. 3 cm)

Foreign media regularly report on the cases of long-term missing persons that eventually have come to a happy ending. A similar case has been cleared up through media coverage also in Slovakia. In 1960, a five-year-old boy, a brother of the famous artist Igor K., disappeared from the garden of the family house. In 2016, the case got media coverage in Slovak national daily newspaper. Based on the published article, Igor K. was contacted by the family with whom his missing brother, in the meantime deceased, had lived. The DNA kinship testing also proved the family relationship. As they indicated, the missing minor had been kidnapped by the neighbours in all probability and later placed in a children's home with a fake birth certificate. The clearing up of this case had lasted 56 years.