Rzeszowski family homicides

Last updated

Rzeszowski family homicides
Location St Helier, Jersey
Date14 August 2011
WeaponsTwo kitchen knives
Deaths6
Injured1 (the perpetrator)
VictimsMarek Garstka
Izabela Rzeszowska
Kinga Rzeszowska
Kacper Rzeszowski
Marta de la Haye
Julia de la Haye
PerpetratorDamian Rzeszowski

The Rzeszowski family homicides occurred on 14 August 2011 in Saint Helier, Jersey in the Channel Islands. Damian Rzeszowski stabbed to death six people including four members of his family. He was found guilty of manslaughter with diminished responsibility and sentenced to 30 years in prison for each victim. [1] He died in a suspected suicide in HMP Full Sutton on 31 March 2018. [2]

Contents

Background

Damian Rzeszowski was born in Nowy Sącz, Poland in 1980. He met Izabela Garstka and in 2004 they moved to Jersey to live with her father, Marek Garstka. They married in 2005 and had two children, Kinga, and Kacper. [3]

In June 2011, Izabela confessed to Damian that she had been having a two month affair with another man. In turn, Damian had a one-night stand of his own and made Izabela aware of this.

On 19 July 2011, Damian took an overdose of anti-depressant pills and was allowed to go back home after just one night in hospital. [4] According to Damian's family a friend's failed property deal in his home country also contributed to his mental state at the time. He was deceived by a property developer, to whom he already paid 50,000 PLN (around 10,000 GBP). He was supposed to pay it back in instalments of 1,000 PLN a month. Damian's father, who lives in Nowy Sącz, had power of attorney in this matter. [3] The young family spent their final two or three weeks on a reconciliation holiday in Poland. During that time Damian had sex with a prostitute. [5]

Damian Rzeszowski had a history of violence and alcohol abuse and had been involved in several fights since moving to Jersey. [6]

Murders

The Rzeszowski family had returned from Poland on the day of the killings. They invited their neighbour Marta, Izabela's best friend, for a barbeque. She came along with her five year old daughter, Julia. Around 3pm, Damian armed himself with two kitchen knives before he started the killings.

His 56-year-old father-in-law Marek Garstka was lying on a couch when he was attacked; Damian, using both knives, brutally stabbed him nine times. Damian then moved to the living room where he stabbed his son Kacper 16 times and both girls 13 times each. [6] Izabela escaped after being attacked in the flat and was pursued down the street in full view of neighbours. She carried a mobile phone with her and tried to contact emergency services, but dialled 997 (emergency number in Poland) instead of 999. [5] She was stabbed to death on the street as neighbours tried to tackle the killer using traffic cones. Marta's body was later found on a neighbour's doorstep where she cried for help before dying.

After murdering his wife, Damian returned home while stabbing himself repeatedly in the chest. He fell to the ground with a collapsed lung.

The attack lasted 15 minutes. [7] Police officers arrived around five minutes after the attack. [4]

Aftermath

Rzeszowski was arrested in hospital after doctors carried out life-saving emergency surgery and held at Broadmoor Hospital in Berkshire. Consultant psychiatrist Dale Harrison interviewed Rzeszowski five days after the attacks and heard he could not remember what had happened. [8] After returning from treatment in Broadmoor, he claimed he could hear voices. [9] He denied six murders, however pleaded guilty to manslaughter due to diminished responsibility.

On 29 October 2012, Damian Rzeszowski was sentenced to life in prison, 30 years for each victim to run concurrently. [1]

On 31 March 2018, six years into his sentence, the killer died in a suspected suicide in Full Sutton prison, a high-security jail in Yorkshire. A post-mortem examination determined that his cause of death was hanging. [2] The inquest in April 2023 heard that two weeks prior to his death, medical staff decided to refer him to Broadmoor Hospital. [10]

In 2019, two Polish journalists, Ewa Winnicka and Dionisios Sturis wrote a book about the murders, Voices. What Happened on the Island of Jersey. The book was written with co-operation from the Garstka family, neighbours, friends and investigators, and was based partly on court evidence and police documents. [11]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Sutcliffe</span> English serial killer (1946–2020)

Peter William Sutcliffe, also known as Peter Coonan, was an English serial killer who was convicted of murdering thirteen women and attempting to murder seven others between 1975 and 1980. He was dubbed in press reports as the Yorkshire Ripper, an allusion to the Victorian serial killer Jack the Ripper. He was sentenced to twenty concurrent sentences of life imprisonment, which were converted to a whole life order in 2010. Two of Sutcliffe's murders took place in Manchester; all the others were in West Yorkshire. Criminal psychologist David Holmes characterised Sutcliffe as being an "extremely callous, sexually sadistic serial killer."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Broadmoor Hospital</span> High security hospital in Berkshire, England

Broadmoor Hospital is a high-security psychiatric hospital in Crowthorne, Berkshire, England. It is the oldest of England's three high-security psychiatric hospitals, the other two being Ashworth Hospital near Liverpool and Rampton Secure Hospital in Nottinghamshire. The hospital's catchment area consists of four National Health Service regions: London, Eastern, South East and South West. It is managed by the West London NHS Trust.

Joachim Georg Kroll was a German serial killer, child molester, necrophile and cannibal who murdered a minimum of eight women and young girls in the Ruhr metropolitan region from 1955 until his arrest on 3 July 1976. He was convicted of eight murders and one attempted murder, but confessed to a total of 14. He was sentenced to life imprisonment on 8 April 1982.

Robert John Maudsley is an English man convicted of multiple murders. Maudsley killed four people, with one of the killings taking place in a psychiatric hospital and two in prison after receiving a life sentence for a murder. Initial reports falsely stated he ate part of the brain of one of the men he killed in prison, which earned him the nickname "Hannibal the Cannibal" from parts of the British press and "The Brain Eater" amongst other prisoners. National newspapers were advised that the allegations were untrue, according to the post-mortem report. Maudsley is the longest-serving British prisoner in solitary confinement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Moore (serial killer)</span> Welsh serial killer

Peter Howard Moore is a British serial killer who managed cinemas in Bagillt, Holyhead, Kinmel Bay and Denbigh in North Wales at the time of his arrest. He murdered four men in 1995. Due to his trademark attire of a black shirt and tie, he was dubbed the "man in black".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rampton Secure Hospital</span> English psychiatric hospital

Rampton Secure Hospital is a high-security psychiatric hospital near the village of Woodbeck between Retford and Rampton in Nottinghamshire, England. It is one of three high-security psychiatric hospitals in England, alongside Ashworth Hospital in Merseyside and Broadmoor Hospital in Berkshire. It is managed by Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HM Prison Belmarsh</span> Mens prison in Thamesmead, London, England

His Majesty's Prison Belmarsh is a Category A men's prison in Thamesmead, southeast London, England. The prison is used for high-profile cases, particularly those concerning national security. Within the grounds is the High Security Unit (HSU), which consists of 48 single cells. It is run by His Majesty's Prison Service. The prison has been called "Britain's Guantanamo Bay" due to the long-term detention of terrorism suspects without charge. Belmarsh is also notoriously known as "Hellmarsh" due to the fact that Belmarsh is considered the toughest prison in the UK and due to the high number of physical and authority abuses reported by both the prison's inmates and by human rights activists.

This is a timeline of major crimes in Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Dupas</span> Australian serial killer and rapist

Peter Norris Dupas is an Australian convicted serial killer, currently serving three life sentences without parole for murder and primarily for being a serious habitual offender. He has a very significant criminal history involving serious sexual and violent offences, with his violent criminal history spanning more than three decades, and with every release from prison has been known to commit further crimes against women with increasing levels of violence. His criminal signature is to remove the breasts of his female victims.

Daniel Julian Gonzalez, also known as the Freddy Krueger Killer and the Mummy's Boy Killer, was a British spree killer who murdered four people and injured two others during two days across London and Sussex in September 2004.

A familicide is a type of murder or murder-suicide in which an individual kills multiple close family members in quick succession, most often children, spouses, siblings, or parents. In half the cases, the killer lastly kills themselves in a murder-suicide. If only the parents are killed, the case may also be referred to as a parricide. Where all members of a family are killed, the crime may be referred to as family annihilation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donald Harvey</span> American serial killer (1952–2017)

Donald Harvey was an American serial killer who claimed to have murdered 87 people, though official estimates are between 37 and 47 victims. He was able to do this during his time as a hospital orderly. His spree took place between 1970 and 1987.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Broken Arrow murders</span> Mass stabbing and familicide in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, US

The Broken Arrow murders took place on July 22, 2015, when five members of the Bever family were murdered in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, United States.

The 2017 Jerusalem Light Rail stabbing was a stabbing attack and suspected act of terrorism that occurred on Good Friday, 14 April 2017, on Jerusalem Light Rail's car. In the attack, a 20 year old British student was stabbed to death by Jamil Tamimi, a Palestinian man. Two others, including a pregnant woman, were injured in the incident. The attacker was arrested and was deemed competent to stand trial.

Mariusz Sowiński is a Polish serial killer, rapist, and zoophile known as The Stefankowice Vampire. In the years 1994 to 1997, he raped and killed four women.

Salvatore "Silvio" Mangion is the only known Maltese serial killer. He was convicted of killing three elderly pensioners during robberies between 1984 and 1996, receiving life imprisonment for his crimes. He is currently incarcerated at Corradino prison.

Sharon Louise Carr, also known as "The Devil's Daughter", is a Belizean British woman who, in June 1992, aged 12, murdered 18-year-old Katie Rackliff after picking her out at random as she walked home from a nightclub in Camberley. The murder initially went unsolved until June 1994, when Carr attacked and stabbed another pupil at Collingwood College Comprehensive School for no apparent reason, and then repeatedly boasted about the murder of Rackliff to friends and family and in her diary entries made in prison. She was convicted of the murder in 1997, attracting much media interest due to her young age and the brutality of the killing. She was ordered to serve at least 14 years imprisonment but remains imprisoned long after this minimum tariff expired due to her disruptive behaviour in prison. A Restricted Status prisoner, she has continued to regularly attack and attempt to kill staff members and fellow inmates and has regularly expressed her desire to kill others. In September 2022, it was reported that her case would again go before a parole board.

References

  1. 1 2 "Rzeszowski sentenced to 30 years". 29 October 2012. Retrieved 26 August 2019.
  2. 1 2 "Killer 'was found hanged in suspected prison suicide' inques hears inquest". www.jerseyeveningpost.com. Retrieved 26 August 2019.
  3. 1 2 Redakcja (16 August 2011). "Morderstwo na Jersey: nowe fakty". Gazeta Krakowska (in Polish). Retrieved 26 August 2019.
  4. 1 2 Ward, Victoria (15 August 2011). "Father alleged to have stabbed his family to death had been discharged from hospital after suicide attempt". ISSN   0307-1235 . Retrieved 26 August 2019.
  5. 1 2 "Zazdrosny Polak wymordował całą swoją rodzinę". Onet Wiadomości (in Polish). 17 August 2012. Retrieved 26 August 2019.
  6. 1 2 Morris, Steven; agencies (13 August 2012). "Jersey murder trial begins: Damian Rzeszowski accused of killing six". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 26 August 2019.
  7. ↑ Morrison, Ryan (24 August 2012). "The stabbings that shocked Jersey" . Retrieved 26 August 2019.
  8. ↑ Morris, Steven; agencies (14 August 2012). "Jersey murder trial: Damian Rzeszowski 'heard voices in his head'". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 26 August 2019.
  9. ↑ "Dad 'has no memory of killings'". 14 August 2012. Retrieved 26 August 2019.
  10. ↑ "Killer found dead in prison near York 'should have been in psychiatric hospital'". York Press. Retrieved 24 April 2023.
  11. ↑ "Trudy emigracji mogą prowadzić do dramatów? Zbrodnia, której dokonał Polak na wyspie Jersey, zaszokowała świat". kultura.dziennik.pl. 27 February 2019. Retrieved 26 August 2019.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.