BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — When a former Miss Universe contestant and topless model was given a plum government job as an assistant to Slovakia’s prime minister despite having no discernible qualifications, journalists asked the obvious question. Why?

Among them was Jan Kuciak, an investigative reporter. After months of digging, Mr. Kuciak sent questions to the authorities, looking for a response to what seemed like troubling connections between government officials and people suspected of being part of organized crime.

Days later, he was killed.

Mr. Kuciak’s body was found on Feb. 25 on a stairway in his home. His fiancée, Martina Kusnirova, was killed in the kitchen. The bullet hole in the top of her head indicated that she had been on her knees when she was executed.

But if the goal of the killings was to cover up corruption and silence a critical voice, it failed spectacularly. The deaths have instead forced a reckoning in this small central European country.