Two family tragedies: Husbands kill wives

In two family tragedies in Croatia, husbands killed their wives and then attempted suicide, reports the Patria News Agency.

Damir Matan from the Karlovac settlement of Drežnik, after an argument and physical altercation, killed his wife Snežana and then attempted suicide. He survived and is in the hospital in Karlovac, Croatian media reported.

Special forces and police were at the scene, attempting to negotiate with Matan, but without success.

The tragedy was preceded by an argument between the spouses, while Snežana's mother and 29-year-old daughter managed to escape the house.

A neighbor recounted that Matan argued with his mother-in-law, and his wife came to break up the argument, but he then physically attacked his wife.

According to everything that could be learned from neighbors and relatives, who say they gave the same information to the police, Damir Matan did not let the household members leave the house in the afternoon and threatened them with a rifle. When Ivica Mateša, the husband of the murdered Snežana Matan's aunt, tried to confront him, Matan also shot at him. The first shot allegedly jammed, and with the second shot, the bullet ended up in a tree.

Then, the intervention police arrived at the house where Damir Matan's household members were locked in, but the outcome was fatal for the couple, as the fifty-year-old Matan, according to officially confirmed information, shot and killed his wife around 5:20 PM on Monday, and then, by all accounts, shot himself in the head.

The violence began the day before, due to which Matan spent the night from Sunday to Monday at the police station, and on Monday afternoon, he was even more violent.

"Damir first hit his mother-in-law, he allegedly also shot at his daughter Ivana when she was fleeing the hallway with her grandmother, and it was in that hallway that he later killed Snežana," said neighbor Vesna.

A similar tragedy occurred in Kruševo near Zadar, where a 52-year-old man killed his 49-year-old wife and then shot himself in the chest, sustaining serious injuries.

The police received a report from residents, and after arriving at the scene, they found a dead woman and a seriously injured man by the roadside. He was transported to the Zadar hospital where he underwent surgery.