(Translation of
this article made via google translate)
Maja was 11 years old when she disappeared
"Maja had the most beautiful laugh, with a gentle voice, she raised her chin and looked at you with warm eyes. The day she disappeared, the morning when the Ljubljana criminals rang the doorbell of our home at around one o'clock, it was written in black letters in the book of memories," says a classmate from the 5th grade of Dr. Vita Kraigher in Ljubljana. The current principal of the school, Ljubo Brezočnik, was a gym teacher during Maja's attendance at the Bežigra elementary school.
On Friday, May 16, 1986, eleven-year-old Maja was playing with two boys on the first floor of the high-rise building at Kuzmičeva 5, where she lived with her mother Marinka, father Darko and younger brother Aleš. When the three children stopped playing, it was around six o'clock in the evening, she went to the front of the high-rise building to see where her five-year-old brother was, who at that time was attending the kindergarten next to the old non-playable library. Since she didn't notice her brother, now a freelance producer of TV shows, she turned around the block and...
... disappeared ...
Maja's father, Darko Vojvoda, until his death a few years ago, lived in the belief that his daughter was alive, that one day he would hold her in his arms. He was in the apartment at the time she disappeared, as was Maja's brother. Darko had returned from weapons training less than an hour before Maya's disappearance. Around seven, when the mother returned home, less than an hour after they last saw Maja, they started looking for her. They inspected the high-rise building, the surroundings, talked to neighbors, friends, acquaintances and strangers, and at eight in the evening they informed the police. All traces of Maja were lost.
"Maya here"
Every parent's worst nightmare happened to the Vojvod couple. Their Maya was gone. The police combed every foot of land, spoke to more than 1000 people. There were various theories that she was abducted by a stranger, a tenant of an apartment in a high-rise building who left the apartment immediately after Maja's disappearance, that she was a victim of human trafficking, but in fact, even 31 years after the event, it is not known whether was kidnapped or is she alive or dead. In a few weeks, on Wednesday, November 8, 2017, Maja would have celebrated her 43rd birthday.
People from all the republics of the former Yugoslavia reported that they had seen their daughter, including from other parts of the world, but the first hope for the locals was the call of the frightened girl, which was received by Maja's grandmother 17 days after her disappearance, on June 2, 1986: "Maja here" said a voice on the other side, which the grandmother believed to be her granddaughter's voice. Five days later, Maja called her grandmother again, but the call lasted too short for the criminal investigators to track her down.
(...)
The search for a missing person does not expire
"The matter under consideration does not become statute-barred, because it is considered as a search for a missing person, and not as a criminal act," explains the Ljubljana Public Prosecutor's Office.
The last trace was investigated by the police in February this year
"23. On February 2, 2017, through SMPS in the Czech Republic, we checked the data that we obtained by collecting notifications, but based on the answers and collected notifications of the Czech Public Prosecutor's Office, we did not receive any new information that would be useful in the investigation of a missing person," said Maja Ciperle Adlešič, representative of the Police of the Ljubljana Administration for Public Relations.
Ljubljana Police Department on the search for Maja Vojvoda
"(..) Immediately after the notification about the missing child was received, all available police patrols were activated, and a search notice was immediately issued for the Republic of Slovenia as well as for all border crossings. She was missing when she left home wearing a light blue blouse with short sleeves, light blue velvet pants and Adidas sneakers. A personal description was given, namely that the girl was about 130 cm tall at the time of her disappearance, with a slim build, light chestnut hair, and green eyes. Considering the circumstances of her disappearance, which was sudden and unexpected, the police immediately began to intensively collect information, especially information about her detention in the last days and the time immediately before her disappearance.
Maja was, on the day of her disappearance, at school in the morning. After the lesson, she returned home, where she played with one of her classmates in the apartment, after which Maja went to kindergarten to pick up her five-year-old brother. After 3 p.m., Maja went to pick up her brother, with whom they returned home, where they watched TV for a while. In the afternoon, Maja and her brother went in front of the apartment block, Maja stayed in the block, where she played with friends, while the brother went to the playground, where he was in the company of his peer and his peer's mother.
Maja's father was drafted into the JLA reserve force for military training that day. On the day of the disappearance, he returned home around 5:30 p.m. when he noticed his son in the yard, with whom he had gone to the apartment. According to the father's statement, he heard Maja while playing with her peers in the apartment block itself, but did not inform her that he had come home and that he and her brother were in the apartment.
Around 6 p.m., Maja noticed that her brother was no longer on the playground, so she immediately left the block and went to look for her brother. After leaving the apartment block, VOJVODA Maja was still seen walking briskly towards the Astra shopping center, after which all traces of her were lost.
After the disappearance, the police carried out a series of search operations. The areas of several local communities in the Bežigrad area, several high-rise buildings, basements, shafts, shelters, elevators, sewers and similar places were inspected.
After the first days of the disappearance, there were a large number of anonymous calls about various areas where the missing person was supposed to be seen, as well as a large number of radio operators who offered information about their sighting of the disappearance case. Also on the basis of this information, several search operations were carried out in various areas of the Republic of Slovenia, but they were unsuccessful.
The police also investigated the disappearance of VOJVODA Maja in the direction that the missing person became the victim of a crime. At that time, a large number of persons who had previously been suspected of various crimes in the area of sexual inviolability in cases where the victims were younger girls or children were checked. A large number of polygraph tests were also carried out, but all of them "did not give positive results that would contribute to clarifying the circumstances of the disappearance of Maja," explained Maja Ciperle Adlešič, representative of the Ljubljana Police Administration for public relations."
