Kraków. New turn in Katarzyna Z.’s murder case
Over a year after arresting Robert J., police finds victim’s blood in his home.
Robert J., the main suspect in the case of brutal murder of a student Katarzyna Z., was arrested in early October last year. He supposedly killed her in late 1998. The 23-year-old woman was skinned, her limbs, head, amputated, and she eventually thrown into the river. A part of her skin was fished out in January 1999, and eventually some parts of the body.
Soon after his arrest, the police found blood in his Kazimierz apartment’s bathroom. Having secured the bathtub, they saved the biological evidence. “Expert specialising in such biological material did, with high certainty, confirm it belonged to Katarzyna”, Janusz Molis, an attorney working for the victim’s mother, told Onet on Tuesday.
This condradicts Robert J.’s words, who claims he never met the woman. But, this finding is not enough, Mr. Molis says. “The case is multilayered, and to associate it to a particular person requires all the elements to appear simultanously. We’d also have to confirm the killer was sane at the time of the crime”, he adds.
Multiple potential suspects had been considered since the body’s finding two decades ago. One was a man who infamously walked along the Vistula River harrasing women, and molested at least one. Police ruled him out.
In a nearby city of Brzyczyna, Mogilany County, a Russian student killed his father, and wore his head skin to fool his grandfather. Police searched his home in May 1999, but found no trace linking him to Katarzyna’s killing. He was deported to Russia, where he serves his sentence (as of 2008).
A headless body was found in 2005 in Jerzmowskich Park, Kraków. Police initially believed this and the 1999 case were connected. Six years later, a man was jailed, but without any link to the earlier murder.
Police found new evidence six years ago, after reopening the case. Katarzyna was exhumated, and botanical traces were found in her body, as well as some organic fiber. Upon inspection, experts from the Institute of Forensic Studies of the Forensic Medicine Department, as well as Forensic Laboratory of the Provincial Police Headquarters in Kraków, concluded they were a proof she wasn’t murdered within vicinity of the river.
On October 4, 2017, police arrested Robert J., whom they suspected for a few months. The suspect was known for his cruelty towards animals, trained bodybuilding, and worked in a religious hospital’s dissecting-room as a part of his military service. His aggresiveness towards animals resulted in his firing from Zoological Institute, after he murdered all the experimental rabbits.
He knew the victim, and — according to police experts — showed signs of sadism, and an inclination to harrass women. He’d reportedly dressed in women’s clothing, and spied on his female neighbours. One neighbour confirmed he stalked her.
According to a “Superwizjer” October 2017 report, Robert J. wrote a notebook with women’s contact details. One such woman told the police he’d kept coming to her, bringing her religious materials (he supposedly became very religious after the ’99 events). After she told Robert J. he may become a saint, owning so many of them, he reportedly replied “with the things I did, I wouldn’t if I kept those with me all my life.”
The same woman told the journalist he also brought her letters he received from women. One that shocked her read about “about such skinning, about peppering, salting”, she said.
Robert J. will stay in detention at least until March 26, 2019. The prosecutor is yet to bring charges forward.
