Beautiful female reporter was raped causing shock

The body of Viktoria Marinova, 30, was found in a park near the Danube River in the city of Ruse, Bulgaria, on October 6, according toMirror. Viktoria is a popular reporter for TVN. She is married and has a 7-year-old daughter.

Prosecutors say the prominent journalist was raped and suffocated to death. Bulgarian state radio said on October 9 that police had arrested a man, believed to be a Romanian citizen, in connection with the murder.

"We were shocked. We never received any threats against her or the station," said a journalist at TVN. He and his colleagues were very concerned for their safety. He described Viktoria as "very disciplined, ambitious, always putting her heart into what she does and upholding justice."

In her final TV show on September 30, Marinova interviewed two journalists investigating alleged corruption of EU funds. She said that her talk show on contemporary issues "Detector" would conduct similar investigations.

The European Commission has asked Bulgaria to quickly investigate Viktoria's death, while hundreds of people paid tribute to her across the country.

"There can be no democracy without press freedom. We hope for a prompt and thorough investigation to bring those responsible for this death to justice," the head of the European Union (EU) wrote on Twitter.

This year, Bulgaria ranked 111th out of 180 countries in the world in terms of press freedom, lower than any other EU member.

There is no indication that Viktoria's death was related to her work. The death of the famous journalist has caused anger and frustration in Bulgaria, where corruption is rampant and the judiciary is ineffective.

Marinova is the third journalist to be murdered in the European Union country in the past year. Daphne Caruana Galizia, a prominent Maltese investigative reporter, died after a bomb exploded in her car last October. The second victim was Jan Kuciak, a Slovakian journalist, who was shot dead along with his girlfriend in February.