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Prague School Shooter Left Letter Confessing to Baby’s Murder

‘INCOMPREHENSIBLE’

The gunman who killed 14 people at a Prague university wrote a letter confessing to the murder of a 2-month-old and her father a week before the attack, a police spokesman said.

A man placing a candle in a Prague university square.
Reuters/Eva Korinkova

The student shooter who gunned down more than a dozen people at a Prague university on Dec. 21 wrote a letter in which he confessed to killing a 2-month-old baby and her father just days before the rampage, Czech police have revealed.

David Kozak, who died by suicide in the aftermath of the mass shooting, left the letter at his home in the village of Hostouň, police spokesman Jan Daněk told the Czech daily newspaper Deník N.)" href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://denikn.cz/1317234/policie-nasla-v-hostouni-i-dopis-od-pachatele-priznal-se-v-nem-k-vrazde-v-klanovicich/?ref=tit1__;!!LsXw!Ww7KqDhupAbyGD6Wb3lmn87vjViXGTr0QLODKzMAMjdYzUtYt5teDds8xdgFO4ocU8gUcTsZ8MMLufU4J3zXGA$">Deník N.

“I can confirm that we secured a letter in Hostoun where the perpetrator wrote that he committed the attack” on the 32-year-old father and his infant daughter, Daněk said. “The contents of the document cannot be made public at this time due to the ongoing investigation into the entire incident.”

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Authorities had earlier identified Kozak, 24, as a suspect in the double murders, with police chief Martin Vondrasek saying they are investigating his involvement in the killings “very seriously” after the mass shooting.

The remains of the two victims, who appeared to have been targeted at random, were discovered in the Klánovický les National Forest on Dec. 15, less than a week before Kazak killed 14 people and injured 25 at Charles University in central Prague.

Cops had received a tip that Kazak was headed to Prague from his hometown with the intention of killing himself earlier in the day, and arrived at the campus two minutes after initial reports of an active shooter. A large arsenal of weapons and ammunition—presumably carried in by the shooter—were later discovered in the school’s faculty of arts building where the massacre took place.

Kozak reportedly yelled about how he had killed his father that morning after barging into the building armed with an AR-15. His father’s body was later discovered in the shooter’s hometown, with police saying they believe he was killed the night before.

The Czech government declared Dec. 23 a national day of mourning in the aftermath of the tragedy, which is the worst mass shooting in the country’s history.

“There is absolutely no explanation, no justification for this. Like many of you, I am feeling a deep sorrow and disgust over this incomprehensible and brutal violence,” Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said of the “senseless” attack. “At this dark hour, we should come together and respect each other, to show our respect for the victims.”