00:00:34 You are listening to: The Evidence Locker. 00:00:38 Our cases have been researched using open source and archive materials. It deals with true crimes and real people. Each episode is produced with the utmost respect to the victims, their families and loved ones. 00:00:55 It was late one night in early January 1999 in Krakow, Poland. The captain of a tugboat was approaching his mooring spot, when the propeller stopped working. There was nothing strange about this, as garbage floating in the Vistula River would occasionally get stuck in the propeller, disabling it. 00:01:15 Captain Mieczyslaw floated the short distance, secured his tug boat and decided to deal with the issue the next morning. 00:01:23 On the icy winter’s morning of January 6th, the captain made his way back to his boat. It was still dark and the sub-zero temperatures meant it would be another chilly day out on the water. 00:01:35 The captain immediately regretted leaving the propeller-issue until the morning and wished he could just get on with his day’s work. 00:01:43 But this day would be a day like no other. As the captain and a deckhand pulled the object out of the propeller, they were puzzled. It looked like a piece of thick fabric or leather perhaps, wrapped in a piece of clothing. Then Captain Mieczyslaw recognised something that made him take a second look. On the leather was a human ear, with a piercing where an earring used to be… 00:02:07 The ear was not attached to leather… The pale, leathery object wrapped in fabric that was stuck in the propeller, was the skin of a female body. There was no body, it was just the skin, sliced off with surgical precision. 00:02:23 Police descended on the Vistula River in Central Krakow, searching for the rest of the body belonging to an unidentified female. A week later, fragments of clothing the flesh of a buttock and a leg that was cut below the knee was discovered by police divers. 00:02:42 Fortunately, there was brand new forensic technology to help investigators. It was the first time in Polish history that DNA was used to establish the identity of their victim. She was 23-year-old student, Katarzyna Zowada, who had disappeared two months before. 00:02:59 The case that appalled the nation was dubbed: ‘Silence of the Lambs, Poland’. An investigation commenced that would span over two decades before an arrest was eventually made. Police gave the case the codename, Skóra, which translates simply to the most chilling piece of evidence they had: Skin. 00:03:53 Katarzyna Zowada was born on the 1st of June 1976 and her family and friends called her Kasia. She was an only child and was very close to her dad. Kasia never had many friends, only one or two close ones, as she was an introverted person who did not open up easily. 00:04:13 In January 1996, her father took her hiking – this is something they loved doing together. But tragedy struck when he slipped and fell. He suffered a spinal cord injury, which caused an illness that took his life. Kasia would never be the same after losing her father. She blamed herself for his death and fell into depression. 00:04:37 Kasia lived with her mother, Marta, in Nowa Huta, an architecturally significant area, that was built in the Soviet era. It is one of the only two entirely pre-planned socialist realism cities ever built. 00:04:51 It was designed to be a utopian society with many green parks and grand buildings. 00:04:57 She enrolled to study psychology at Jagellonian University in Krakow, following the the footsteps of her mother, who was a child psychologist. But it was not the correct choice for Kasia and then changed her course to History and eventually Religious Studies. 00:05:15 23-year-old Kasia was shy and withdrawn and other students did not really know her all that well. She had a friend whom she met in high school called Anna. She had quite an influence on Kasia, and when she gave her Tom Wolfe’s book “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test”, Kasia was mesmerised. 00:05:34 It is a counter-culture book, that chronicles the trip of Ken Kessey and a LSD community who called themselves the Merry Pranksters, who travelled across the United States in a colourful painted school bus. They were constantly tripping on LSD and saw Kessey as their leader, or messiah. 00:05:52 The New York Times called the book the ‘essential book’ about hippies. The book also tells about encounters with the band Grateful Dead. Kasia would go on to become an avid fan of their music. 00:06:05 Kasia also enjoyed reading Science Fiction novels, and watching Sci Fi movies, but most of all, she enjoyed listening to music. She loved everything to do with the hippie lifestyle and philosophy and saw herself as a 1990s hippie too. 00:06:21 She loved browsing for music at record stores or fairs. There was one specific student club, Pod Przewiazka, with a record store and a restaurant where Kasia often hung out. It was one of the hottest spots for people who loved music. People could buy or exchange CDs and cassettes. 00:06:40 The youth scene in Krakow in the 1990s was quite an interesting one. There was an interest in death, evil and Satan. Studies into the occult became a favourite pastime and horror films were very popular. It was also a golden period for sects and many students gave up their lives to join a cult. 00:07:03 Although Kasia did not seem to be into the occult or Satanism, her depression after her father’s death concerned her mother. She insisted that Kasia went for therapy and would meet her at the psychologists rooms, to make sure she attended her sessions. 00:07:20 Kasia was reliable and also wanted help for her depression, so she was always punctual and never missed a session. So, on November 12 1998, when she did not show up for a 6PM appointment, her mother worried. 00:07:34 She went home, but there was no sign of Kasia there either. In the panic of the situation, Marta’s first instinct was to think that Kasia had joined a cult. Her first port of call in looking for her daughter was a Dominican Monastery, known to extract young people from cults. 00:07:53 At the monastery, she was advised to report the case to police, which she did. But as Kasia was 23 years old and an adult, police weren’t too concerned. They felt certain that she would resurface at some point. 00:08:08 At the time, police were consumed by a big, international case in Krakow. Everyone was looking for Miśka – a Wisla Krakow soccer fan who threw a knife at Italian midfielder, Dino Baggia, during a match in Krakow. 00:08:26 **AD-Break** 00:08:56 Kasia Zowada was a missing person and her mother was on a mission to find her. When Marta saw her the last time, on the morning of November 12th, she wore a hooded corduroy jacket with black jeans and red shoes. 00:09:11 With lack of interest from police, she hired a private detective to assist in the search for her daughter. Sadly, nobody knew what had happened to Kasia. 00:09:21 Because of her depression, the assumption was that she had ended her life and they were essentially looking for her body. As part of the youth culture of Satanism and other cults, suicide amongst young people were also on the rise. In fact, it was respected if someone had the “courage” to take themselves to the unknown. 00:09:43 The fact that Kasia went missing during ‘depressing autumn’, was also relevant, supporting the theory that she had planned her own demise. 00:09:51 An anonymous man called Marta on two separate occasions and wanted to meet her at Krakow Market Square. Marta wanted to go, she was desperate to talk to anyone who had anything to say. 00:10:03 However, her private investigator felt that it was a prank call and strongly advised her not to go, as she may have put herself in danger. 00:10:12 Her mother did not buy it. Kasia did suffer from depression, but she was functioning. Her hippie spirit meant that she had an appreciation for life and love. When her mother went to the University and central Krakow to put up missing persons posters, someone said they saw Kasia on a bus to Wolbrom – an area on the outskirts of Krakow. 00:10:34 But the witness was not 100% sure when this was. Kasia’s mother and the private investigator still had nothing to go on. 00:10:43 That is until Captain Mieczyslaw’s awful discovery in early January, two months after Kasia was last seen. Police had never seen human skin detached from the entire body in Poland before and realised they would need all the help they could get. 00:11:01 Forensic experts were brought in from the FBI and forensic psychiatrists from all over Europe. 00:11:08 The skin had been in the water for two to three weeks at the time of discovery. At first glance, the pathologist believed that the corpse was destroyed by the tugboat’s propeller. But once he’d had a closer look, he quickly retracted that point of view. 00:11:24 A police officer knocked on the door of the apartment Kasia shared with her mother. Marta was given a summons issued by the prosecutor. The document stated that she was needed for an interview about a murder with particular cruelty. 00:11:38 When DNA tests confirmed the skin belonged to Kasia, Marta had to face the brutal truth: her daughter was no longer alive. Many years later, she said: “This paralysed me. When I found out what he did to my daughter, I thought I would go crazy with pain.” 00:11:58 Whoever did this, expertly skinned the body, and sewed it back together. Kasia’s arms and most of her face were missing. The cut went diagonal from the neck up over the face and included only one ear. 00:12:15 Her nipples were also removed. The way the skin was put back together, with a hole on the one side, made it evident that the person who made it, intended to wear it as a suit. 00:12:30 The official description of the skin, as released by the pathologist, read: 00:12:35 “Human skin from the front of the body without bone tissue, with visible navel and parts of pubic hair.” 00:12:41 Kasia was severely beaten and tortured. Her body had four separate puncture wounds: one under each armpit and one on each inner-thigh. The dark picture of Kasia’s last moments became even darker… 00:12:56 The wounds were made to let her bleed out. Then, although it could not be verified conclusively, pathologists believed she was skinned while she was still alive. This process would have been a long, laborious task that would have inflicted unimaginable pain. 00:13:16 Psychological experts speculated about the fact that the killer removed her nipples. It indicated that the perpetrator was a man with impaired sexual preferences. He wanted to be a woman and by literally climbing into a female skin, he fulfilled his fantasy. 00:13:33 The precision of the skinning indicated that the killer took his time. The process of removing the skin from the body, was where the pleasure was, this was his defining moment. 00:13:45 The examination also found evidence on the clothing fragments found in the Vistula peculiar. They were trimmed in an odd way… For instance, her check shirt had one square neatly cut out. Experts were baffled, they could not understand the significance of this. 00:14:05 There had never been a similar case in Poland before. Even experts from the FBI had not seen anything like it. There had been partial skinning or dismemberment in previous cases, but nothing like this. Police feared that they were dealing with a new kind of monster. But where did he get his inspiration from. 00:14:26 The murder was reminiscent of the work of the fictional serial killer called Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs. The film was released seven years before Kasia disappeared. In the film, police try to track down the killer who skinned his victims and sewed the skin to make a corset. The film was inspired by the horrendous crimes of real life American killer Ed Gein. 00:14:48 So, although the crime could have been inspired by Silence of the Lambs, why was the unassuming and shy Kasia the chosen victim? She kept to herself for the most part and had no known enemies. It was significant that the victim in the film had the same name as Kasia. 00:15:05 She was called Kate – the English version of Katarzyna. Also, the skin suit in the film, was almost identical to the one found in the Vistula. 00:15:16 As investigators looked deeper into the case, another macabre possible motive came to light. A few days before Kasia disappeared, an article about St Bartholomew appeared in a Polish magazine. 00:15:29 St Bartholomew was an apostle who was skinned alive and beheaded in religious persecution. He is always depicted holding his flayed skin or the flayed knife with which he was skinned. In Michelangelo’s painting, Last Judgement, on the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel in the Vatican, St Bartholomew is in the centre, holding his own skin. 00:15:51 Could Kasia’s death somehow be related to the fact that she was a student of Religion? Was something going on at the university that needed deeper investigation? 00:16:03 Investigators looked into Kasia’s last months alive, trying to find anything that would lead them to her killer. That is when they discovered, that Kasia had skipped classes for three weeks prior to her disappearance. 00:16:14 Her mother was unaware of this, as Kasia pretended to be in her normal routine: having breakfast, getting dressed and leaving home, returning at the same time as usual. Her mother had no reason to suspect that she was being deceived. But Kasia never did show up to classes. 00:16:33 Police needed to find out what Katarzyna was doing when she was supposed to be at class. She didn’t have many friends. From most sources we could determine that she only really had two friends: Anna and Ula, and they didn’t know too much about her either. 00:16:49 When she attended lectures, she would sit at the back of the hall, without interacting with any of the other students. She was secretive and quiet. 00:16:58 There was a rumour that Kasia was working at the university as a cleaner in the Biochemistry lab, using the name Agnieszka. Although other cleaners recognised her picture, the fact of her employment could never be confirmed. Also, why would she not tell anyone about it. And why use an assumed name? The story seemed to be only a rumour, nothing else. 00:17:21 Before her death Kasia made some changes to her appearance. She started on a weight-loss plan and dyed her hair from black to blonde. Investigators suspected that she had met someone and fallen in love, so she wanted to look her best. 00:17:38 A concerning idea emerged about her weight-loss: did the killer groom her before he killed her? Was Kasia encouraged to lose weight, so she would have excess skin once she had lost the weight? 00:17:50 Police felt that there was definitely someone with some influence on Kasia who spent time with her in the time leading up to her disappearance. But as Kasia was always so secretive, it was near impossible to find any evidence of a boyfriend. 00:18:05 Tracing her movements in those crucial three weeks would be key to the investigation. Kasia was seen walking around Market Square in Krakow’s Old Town. 00:18:15 Investigators were able to establish that she had visited the cinemas, browsed through records at a music store and wandered around a bookstore. Perhaps it was around this part of town that she met her killer. 00:18:27 Because of the routine nature of her truancy, police concluded that she felt comfortable, she was not acting out or breaking down, she was killing time doing things she loved. 00:18:40 Police went to the student club, Pod Przewiazka, knowing that Kasia had frequented the place on Sundays for music exchange. She was always looking for Grateful Dead albums, but did not always find what she was looking for. 00:18:52 Another regular at the club, put her in touch with a music and book collector called Jakub. Some witnesses told police that Kasia had fallen in love with Jakub, but that he was not interested in her, as he had a girlfriend. Jakub was kind and polite to Kasia, but he never led her on. 00:19:09 Police looked into Jakub’s past, but could not find anything that would indicate that he was the person they were looking for. 00:19:17 Another person of interest was someone who worked at the club, called Tadeusz. Some people thought he was the manager, but in actual fact he was more of a bouncer. 00:19:28 Female customers did not like him, as he -quote ‘liked to accost girls’ unquote. But Tadeusz said he only ever saw Kasia three or four times – every time at the club. After looking at Tadeusz from every angle possible, police had to concede that it was another dead end. 00:19:47 They did establish, however, that it was Tadeusz who had made the anonymous calls to Kasia’s mother after her disappearance. He denied it, so whatever it is he wanted to say at that time, no one knows. 00:20:02 Because of the sexual nature of the crime, investigators were concerned that the killer would strike again. 00:20:08 Some of the world’s top criminal profilers were asked to draw up a profile of the perpetrator. 00:20:14 They agreed that the killer was a male in his twenties or thirties who was severely mentally disturbed. He was a sadistic psychopath with a narcissistic personality and an above average intelligence. His motive was sado sadistical, sexual. 00:20:31 He most likely worked as a surgeon, a butcher, a veterinarian or a tailor who liked to go hunting or fishing. 00:20:39 Psychologists felt that the person responsible probably stalked his victim before he chose her – to see if her skin would fit him. He was of possible physical likeness to the victim, with a similar build. 00:20:52 In this case, around 5 ft 6 (that is 1.70m) like Kasia, who was quite tall. After approaching her, he gained her trust by building a relationship based on her interests: like music, going to the movies, going to bookshops. 00:21:10 He was a type of recluse with fetishes, with the desire to be female. The fact that it was a brutal murder made it seem personal, but not out of anger towards the actual victim, more like anger emerging from the killer himself. He hated her for being female, when he could not be one. 00:21:30 It is doubtful that he had intercourse with his victim. The crime was what experts call an ‘Equivalent murder’. He replaces sexual intercourse with torture and murder. 00:21:41 The pain and killing of a victim gives the killer a satisfaction similar to that experienced by a person with normal sexual drive during and after intercourse. Equivalent murder is a form of sadism. 00:21:53 This kind of criminal is usually a repeat offender. According to Dr Wieslaw Czernikiewicz, an expert in sexual deviancy, it was only a matter of time before the killer found his next victim. 00:22:07 “Perversion is characterised by periodic pressure of perverse impulses. They can be returned once a month, once a year, once every several years. If this man lives, then there is a huge likelihood that something like this will happen again.” 00:22:24 Police felt the pressure: they had to find the killer, before he struck again. They looked at all other cases throughout Poland where victims were skinned or dismembered. The only other murder where the killer skinned his victims happened in June 1985, about 10 years before Kasia’s death. 00:22:43 A 48-year-old man killed and skinned his wife and teenage son. He sliced them open and cut our their eyes. He disposed of their bodies by throwing the parts in the Vistula River, the same river where Kasia’s remains were found. 00:22:59 This lead looked promising when police learnt that the man was released from prison and free at the time of Kasia’s murder. They located the man and realised that he could not have committed the crime. He was bound to a wheelchair and physically weak. 00:23:13 His prison psychiatrists also said that he would have been mentally incapable of committing the crime. 00:23:21 Then, on a spring night in May, five months after Kasia’s body was discovered, Krakow police received a call from an elderly man, saying that there was a body in his basement and that he believed his grandson was responsible for it. 00:23:34 Police responded in full force and the old man showed them where the body was. The body belonged to the old man’s 50-year-old son. He had been beheaded and his scalp had been skinned. 00:23:47 The old man then took them to the kitchen where his grandson, Vladimir, was dancing and singing. 00:23:54 Vladimir had killed his father, then decapitated the body. He took off the skin of the head and his father’s face, pulling it over his head like a balaclava. He also wore his father’s clothes and, wearing the mask, tricked his grandfather into believing that Vladimir was in fact his son. 00:24:12 The grandfather had had failing eyesight and could not see exactly what was going on. But when he discovered the body in the basement, he realised Vladimir had done the unthinkable. 00:24:23 Investigators set out to establish a link between Vladimir and Kasia Zowada, and found out that they studied at the same university. They were of a similar age and Vladimir enrolled only one year before Kasia did. 00:24:36 Yet there was absolutely no evidence that the two of them ever crossed paths or even knew of each other. Also, after an extensive search of the home, no traces of Kasia were found. 00:24:48 Psychologists were also sceptical that Vladimir was Kasia’s killer. Although he had also skinned his victim, his motive was deeply personal. He confessed to police that he killed his father because he had walked out on his mother. Vladimir hated his father and wanted to take revenge on him. 00:25:01 Vladimir’s family migrated to Poland from The Russian Federation’s Caucasus region. 00:25:13 He was found guilty for his father’s murder and given a life sentence in Poland. But after serving five years, he was deported back to Russia where he was to live out the rest of his sentence – at his own request. That meant that, once he was in Russia, he could not be prosecuted by Poland again. 00:25:32 Investigators were divided about Vladimir: did he perhaps murder Kasia in preparation of killing his father? For the most part, their instincts told them that he was not Kasia’s killer. But in a case such as this, with no precedent, anything could be possible. 00:25:49 Police received some information about a man in the Kazmirierz district on the banks of the Vistula River in Krakow. He was known to stalk women in the neighbourhood and was occasionally seen wearing women’s clothing. He was investigated, but there was not enough evidence linking him to Kasia, so that trail also went cold. 00:26:10 In the year 2000, as DNA technology was rapidly developing, pathologists re-examined Kasia’s remains. On her skin, they found DNA that belonged to another person, however, they could not find a match in their pool of suspects. 00:26:27 Despite profiles saying that the type of criminal they were dealing with would be a repeat-offender, no similar crimes were uncovered in Poland in the years following Kasia’s death. The killer could have moved away, or have been incarcerated for another crime, or perhaps even died. 00:26:45 Sadly, the case went cold and was entered into Krakow’s ‘Archive X’ or ‘X-files’ department. The team of investigators at ‘Archive X’ never forgot about the case and would follow up leads as they came in, but still no arrests could be made. 00:27:02 An alternative theory came to light. Dr Tomasz Konopka from the Department of Forensic Medicine in Poland noted that Kasia’s skin contained post-traumatic stretch marks. 00:27:12 Such marks appear on a victim’s skin after being exposed to a rapid drop in altitude (like falling out of an airplane) or high speed (like falling out of a speeding car). 00:27:23 He wondered if it was possible that Kasia was pushed from a vehicle and that her body was found by the person who then dismembered and skinned it. But as Kasia usually travelled by public transport or walked, police did not find it plausible that she was pushed from a moving car. 00:27:41 Many clairvoyants came forward, supporting the idea that Katarzyna was not killed randomly. But that the killer was a person of social standing. It was even implied that a priest was behind the murder. 00:27:54 Reputable clairvoyant, Kryzsztof Jackowski, was brought in to the Archive X office in Krakow. It is not common practice in Poland to consult clairvoyants, but police were prepared to use any resource available. If clues came out of it, no harm could be done by following up and looking into it with traditional investigation methods. 00:28:15 Jackowski could not reveal to the public what he saw. He told a local newspaper that he picked up on something that police found in the initial investigation, but that it was discarded due to a lack of evidence. After his interview, they revisited the clue. 00:28:33 In 2012, 13 years after her remains were discovered, Kasia’s case was reopened. Using the newest technology available – a 3D body scan – they could see the extent of her external and internal injuries. Kasia was badly tortured before her death. 00:28:52 The scan revealed that she had multiple injuries that were similar in nature. Pathologists felt that the strikes on her body (when she was beaten) were made by someone who practiced martial arts. 00:29:05 Vegetation fragments were also found on the skin, which is NOT found in the Vistula River. This was a vital clue in finding the location where the murder was committed. The type of plant traces that were found was only present in limited areas in the Krakow region. 00:29:24 It would be another seemingly endless five years, before police honed in on a local man. In 2017, a woman came forward and told police about a man who was a car mechanic. He told her that he had served in the military and worked in a morgue. 00:29:40 The woman found it odd that he was obsessed with Kasia’s murder, even going so far as to visit her grave. He also lived near the Vistula river where K’s body was found. 00:29:51 The man was 52-year-old Robert Janczewski. He was known as the local weirdo – people who knew him referred to him as a freak. 00:30:01 Robert had a rough childhood. His parents gave him up after he was born and he was raised by his aunt. His aunt died when he was two, so he was taken in by his paternal grandparents. He was severely physically abused by his grandfather. 00:30:17 His father wrote a book, remembering his own abuse at the hand of his parents. He tells of an incident where his mother grabbed his hand and opened the oven door, holding his hand close to the flame for a couple of seconds. 00:30:30 Robert lived in this abusive home until he was 11, when he moved in with his parents in Kazmirierz for the first time in his life. His father was a poet and an artist who seemed to always have his head in the clouds. 00:30:43 His mother was cold, and showed no affection to her only child. She was hard working, god-fearing and strict. She suffered from migraines and the house had to be kept dark and quiet most of the time. 00:31:00 Young Robert did not have a happy home at all. Obsessive faith and rampant violence would define most his family life. 00:31:09 At school he was known to be a trouble maker. Fellow students remembered one of his pranks: everyday he would remove one screw from the wall panelling in the general hallway. 00:31:21 Until one day when the last screw was removed and the whole panel came down with one loud bang. He didn’t have many friends as he was aggressive and unpleasant. 00:31:32 Robert was called up by the army when he was in his twenties. For his military service he spent time working at a morgue, where he assisted with dissections. After his military service, he worked at the Zoology Institute where he skinned animals. He loved tormenting animals. When he killed experimental rabbits, he was fired from his job. 00:31:56 His father had an affair and his parents divorced. His father moved out of the home, remarried and had another child. 00:32:04 His mother moved to Canada where she lived for a couple of years. In this time, Robert lived by himself, and had sporadic contact with his father. He visited his mother in Canada, but preferred his home in Krakow, where he could do as he pleased. Then his mother returned for good in the spring of 1998, six months before Kasia’s murder. 00:32:27 As early as 2000, he was on police’s radar in connection with Kasia’s murder. Neighbours told police to look at Robert. He was the stalker who dressed up in women’s clothing. 00:32:39 Police searched his apartment. When they left, his mom witnessed strange behaviour. He howled and rolled on the floor and shouted that he had not murdered Kasia and that he was set-up by his friends from the gym. He spent a lot of time at the gym where he did body building and trained in martial arts. 00:32:57 After Kasia’s murder, people who knew him said that he changed. He became obsessed with religion and went to church all the time, daily. He also visited Kasia’s grave at Batowicki Cemetery. 00:33:12 Kasia’s mother noticed a candle on her grave that would always be there, and once it was burnt out, it would be replaced. Police installed surveillance cameras and recorded Robert visiting the grave, every night after sunset for years. 00:33:27 Sometimes he would bring flowers. Workers at the cemetery said that he also brought letters in the early years, which he buried, but police could never find them. 00:33:36 Kazmirierz where he lived, was on the riverbank near where her body was found. From there, the Vistula flows towards Dabie where Kasia’s remains were found. He was known to fish down by the river and gut the fish himself. 00:33:52 Throughout his adult life, had a couple of dysfunctional relationships with women: he was demanding and pedantic. He would – for instance – insist they wear French underwear. They should be educated, but subservient. Although he didn’t amount to much career-wise, some reports say that he was hyper-intelligent. 00:34:13 He enjoyed walking around town for hours on end. As he was unemployed, he did not have a lot of money. But he would occasionally go to the cinema, something he really loved to do. 00:34:24 And that was how he met Kasia: walking around the Market Square and faking interest in music and books. Police were able to establish that the two knew each other, although there was no evidence of an actual relationship. Robert denied knowing her at all. 00:34:40 Then police discovered a detailed diary in which Robert wrote about women whom he stalked. But most damning of all, he described Kasia’s murder. The details of this diary entry has not been made public, it was ruled classified by the prosecutor. 00:34:58 Police were able to piece together Kasia’s last days. Robert met Kasia and flattered her, feigning a deeper connection than there actually was. They talked about her favourite band and went to the movies together. 00:35:12 Kasia was vulnerable and lost and found a companion in Robert. She lost weight and dyed her hair blonde, as Robert had a clear preference for blondes. 00:35:23 On the mid-November morning in 1998, she agreed to go with him to a cottage on the outskirts of the city. The coupe left on a bus heading in the direction of Wolbrum, north of Krakow. 00:35:35 The cottage was located on a small plot of land, meant for gardening. Many residents from Krakow have gardens outside of the city and small cottages are permitted on the land. 00:35:46 Most people visit their gardens on the weekend, so in the middle of the week, like on Wednesday the 12th of November, it is very isolated and quiet. Nobody would have seen Robert and Kasia arrive and enter the cottage. 00:36:02 Kasia was lured under false pretences and instead of a romantic day out in the country, it was to be a day of horror. Robert commenced his torturous ritual and her screams went unheard. 00:36:16 Evidence shows that Kasia was held captive and tortured before her murder. However, it was not possible to determine for how long. Police searched the cottage and found Kasia’s DNA in the bathroom. Remember, Robert denied knowing her at all, so finding her DNA at his property did not look good for Robert. 00:36:36 Once Robert had killed her and removed her skin, he tried it on, but it wouldn’t fit. He was a short, stocky man, hunched like a bodybuilder. He kept the bodysuit for a while, before disposing of it in the Vistula River. 00:36:53 One could wonder why he decided to dump the skin suit in the river after all the effort of making it. Was he scared of being found out? Did the smell cause suspicion in the home he shared with his mother? 00:37:06 By disposing of it in the Vistula River in central Krakow, it was sure to surface at some point. Did he throw it in there to taunt police and the public? To show what he had done. Without the skin evidence, Kasia would probably remained a missing person for all of these years. 00:37:27 Robert Janczewski was arrested in October 2017. He will stay in prison until the end of March 2019 if prosecution doesn’t bring the case forward before then. One would hope that Polish authorities can finalise this case soon. We will keep you in the know if there are any updates in this intriguing case. 00:37:52 If you’d like to read more about this case, have a look at the resources used for this episode in the show notes. Also visit and like our Facebook Page at facebook.com/evidencelockerpodcast/” to see more about today’s case. 00:38:11 If you like our podcast, please subscribe in Apple Podcast or Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. We would also appreciate if you could review the episodes, as it gives us some street cred in the world of podcasting. 00:39:12 This was The Evidence Locker. Thank you for listening!