On the morning of 18 August 1995, a visibly distressed man walked into the police station in Jászberény and told officers to arrest him.

He said he had strangled his wife during an argument at their home in the Hungarian town. However, investigators soon established that the killing had been preceded by months of escalating tension within the family.

At the centre of the conflict was the woman’s involvement with a mysterious religious group, which her husband believed had taken her away from her family. The case would eventually result in a 10-year prison sentence for József Sz. for killing his former wife.

How a religious group tore the family apart

According to Blikk’s account, the couple’s relationship had begun to deteriorate around a year before the murder.

Neighbours recalled that the woman had become increasingly involved with a secretive religious community. She reportedly spent more and more of her time with its members, while her family life was pushed into the background.

Blikk identified the group as the Children of God, an American religious movement whose first Hungarian-speaking group reportedly appeared around Novi Sad (Újvidék), in Serbia, in 1994. The movement allegedly reached the Jászság region several months later, where it was known locally as the Jesus Movement.

The community reportedly imposed strict rules on its members. According to the account, relatives were excluded from membership, only one person from a family could join and married couples were not admitted together. Members were also reportedly expected to abstain from sexual relations with partners or spouses outside the group.

These rules had a profound impact on the family. Neighbours claimed that the woman eventually stopped working and that family savings were being spent on the religious community. Her daughters reportedly complained that their mother was rarely at home.

Husband left the family home

By December 1994, József had had enough. He reportedly left the family home with his daughters and decided to seek a divorce. The divorce was finalised in May 1995, but another dispute soon emerged: who would live in the family home on Kárpát Street?

According to evidence obtained by police, the property had originally belonged to József, who had received it from his parents before his marriage. It therefore was not considered part of the couple’s jointly acquired property. His former wife nevertheless refused to leave.

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The final confrontation

On the evening of 17 August 1995, József went to the house to discuss the matter. According to the investigation, he gave his former wife an ultimatum: she should move out before the start of the school year because he and their daughters intended to live there.

He reportedly told her to move in with one of the members of the religious group instead. The woman disagreed. She planned to remain in the property and, according to the account, intended to have a man she had met through the group live there with her.

An argument followed. József turned up the music, reportedly so that neighbours would not be able to hear the dispute. During the ensuing struggle, he grabbed his former wife’s neck and did not let go.

She died from strangulation.

The following morning, József went to the police station and confessed. He was subsequently sentenced to 10 years in prison for the killing.

The Jászberény police station:

What happened to the mysterious group?

The Jesus Movement originated in the United States in the 1970s and grew out of the hippie counterculture. Although it was not a single centrally organised sect, some of its more radical branches later became controversial religious groups.

The movement never became established in Hungary in the same form, according to the account. Some of its followers later became involved with other religious communities, while the group that had caused so much controversy in Jászberény eventually disappeared from the area.

More than three decades later, however, residents around Kárpát Street still remember the extraordinary case, not only because of the murder, but also because of the mysterious religious community that neighbours said had played a role in the breakdown of the family.

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