Nobel laureate Katalin Karikó’s relatives were brutally murdered

Katalin Karikó wrote about the horrific events in her memoir published this year. Her relatives were cold-bloodedly shot to death and robbed.

“A powerful memoir from Katalin Karikó, winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, whose decades-long research led to the COVID-19 vaccines”. That is how Amazon advertises the Hungarian Nobel laureate’s memoir published this year.

Katalin Karikó’s life is unique in many ways. She lost her job at the University of Szeged and had to leave Hungary because she was not able to find another here. However, under the rule of the Communists, such a move was life-threatening. For example, they had to sell everything and put their money in the teddy bear of their daughter, smuggle it out and start a new and exceptionally successful life in the USA.

The memoir is powerful without a shadow of a doubt. Karikó reveals many secrets about her life and ancestors, including a brutal murder. Her great-great-grandparents were killed cold-bloodedly because of money. She could not share any details because she did not know more about the horrific incident. She only wrote in the memoir that Károly Szász and his wife were murdered in 1934 in Kunhegyes.

Authorities could not find the perpetrator

Péter Dulai, a well-known Hungarian criminal researcher, analysed the events and could find further details in an article that appeared in 1943 in the Magyar Országos Tudósító (The Hungarian Reporter), a subsidiary of the Hungarian News Agency (MTI).

Based on the article, Károly Szász was killed by three headshots at point-blank range. Afterwards, the robber killed his wife with his gun. The perpetrator robbed 3500 pengő, a fortune in 1934.

First, the authorities suspected the servant of the family, István Gonda. During the investigation, he confessed everything, but later he withdrew that, and the court could not condemn him because there was no evidence. In 1935, the prosecutors caught Miklós Geszti. Later, they suspected Lajos Szunyogh. The latter also confessed everything to the gendarmes but withdrew his testament in front of the court and received nothing.

Miklós Geszti was arrested again in 1941 when he confessed to the double murder. Then he withdrew that, and the court cleared him from all charges because of the lack of evidence, Blikk, a Hungarian tabloid, wrote.