Saveljić drank brandy after the bloody feast in Gornji Martinići

There were difficult nights in Bjelopavlići after September 28, 1956.

Mothers forced their children to come home before dark and tried to keep an eye on them all the time.

The fear that the ferocious murderer Novak Saveljić would repeat the bloody feast he committed against his cousin David and his family was so strong that it was not believed that the murderer had been executed, even though he was sentenced to death in Titograd and confirmed by the Federal Court from Belgrade.

On September 28, 1956, in Gornji Martinići, Saveljić killed his cousin David, his wife Julija, eight-year-old son Veselin, three-year-old daughter Nada, fifteen-month-old son Vidak, and seventy-year-old mother Stana.

Novak turned into a beast that night around 20 pm when he heard David's voice in the part of the house where he lived, which belonged to his uncle.

He went out and waited for David to come out, then fired two fatal shots from a distance of about two meters. He continued the bloody feast in the nearby house of David, killing the children with a knife with dozens of stab wounds.

Then came David's mother Stana, whom the killer stabbed to death with six stab wounds, and then mother Julija, who was in shock looking at her dead children and who was in advanced pregnancy, was killed with eight stab wounds.

Before killing Julia, the monster fired two more shots into David's head, then used a knife to tear off his nose and cut his throat.

Publicist Budo Simonović in the text about this crime stated that the long-standing intolerance between the killer and David culminated due to Novak's jealousy.

He was convinced that his wife was in a secret relationship with David and allegedly held a gun to her throat and asked her to admit it.

The wife could not bear the torture, so she left Novak. Divorce proceedings were also initiated...

Simonović also recalls the texts of the journalist Kosta Čakić, who reported for "Pobjeda" from the trial of Novak Saveljić, who states that the accused was completely calm during the trial and that the hall was too small to accommodate all the citizens who wanted to follow the trial and who were demanding the death penalty for Saveljić.

Simonović also states that after his bloody feast, Saveljić went to his house and told his mother what he had done, and then stopped by a neighbor to whom he also told what he had done. There he drank brandy, took some tobacco and continued towards the Zeta river.

I reported myself to the police the next day in the afternoon.

In the verdict of the District Court in Titograd, it was stated that Novak Saveljić was sentenced to death by hanging, because "by the way the crime was committed, the accused proved himself unworthy of military death by firing squad." The Federal Supreme Court of Yugoslavia confirmed the death sentence, but changed the method of execution, so Saveljić was shot.

It was said that Tito spared Saveljić

As we stated at the beginning of this text, this monstrous crime caused so much fear in Bjelopavlići that it was rumored for years that Saveljić was alive, and that Josip Broz Tito himself prevented his execution due to his war merits as a member of the partisan movement.

It was rumored that he was seen in Danilovgrad and the surrounding villages, but according to everything, it is indisputable that the sentence was carried out shortly after the verdict was pronounced in November of 1956.