Height 1.85 m Position Centerman Role Ice hockey player Career end 2009 | Name Ladislav Scurko Career start 2007 Weight 93 kg Shoots Left-handed | |
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1HL teamFormer teams HC 46 BardejovHC Kosice NHL Draft 170th overall, 2004Philadelphia Flyers | ||
Playing career | ||
Ladislav Ščurko (born April 4, 1986 in Gelnica) is a Slovak professional ice hockey center who currently plays for HC 46 Bardejov of the Slovak 1.Liga. He previously played for HC Košice of the Slovak Extraliga until he confessed to the murder of a referee in 2009.
Contents
- Playing career
- Murder
- First imprisonment
- Life after the first release
- Second imprisonment
- Playing career after the second release
- Records
- References
Playing career
Ščurko started his junior career by playing in 37 games with his junior team, HK VTJ Spisská Nová Ves, in Slovakia. He scored 44 points on 20 goals and 24 assists. Following that season he was drafted by the Philadelphia Flyers in the sixth round, 170th overall, in the 2004 NHL Entry Draft. Shortly after, he was drafted seventh overall in the CHL Import Draft by the Seattle Thunderbirds. In his first year in the Western Hockey League (WHL), he scored 42 points, which put him in fifth in the league for points scored by a rookie. Ladislav also set a Thunderbird record with a nine-game point streak from December 11, 2004 through January 12, 2005, during which he scored 12 points. He enjoyed similar success in fewer games the following season.
Murder
On April 23, 2009, Ščurko confessed to the murder of referee Marek Liptaj in January 2008 at a motorway service area near Kosice. He admitted that he killed Liptaj by stabbing him fourteen times with a knife. Liptaj's body was hastily buried in a forest. No motive has been revealed yet, but police say the crime was not premeditated.
On July 16, 2012, Ščurko was convicted of the murder; however, because psychiatric examinations found that Ščurko committed the act in a state of diminished sanity, the court sentenced him to the minimum penalty of eight years in prison.
First imprisonment
He served his first sentence from April 2009 to November 2011.
Life after the first release
Ščurko was released from jail on November 8, 2011. He is going to play his first hockey game after the release from prison on December 3, 2011, playing for his boyhood club HK Slovan Gelnica.
Second imprisonment
Ščurko served the rest of his sentence from September 2014 to December 2015 and was finally conditionally released before Christmas in 2015.
Playing career after the second release
He signed a contract with HC 46 Bardejov, which plays in the second-level ice hockey league in Slovakia, only one week after the release. He played his first game for HC 46 Bardejov on December 22, 2015.