Murder of Katarzyna Zowada

Katarzyna Zowada
Born	(1975-06-01)1 June 1975
Died	c. December 1998 (aged 23)
Body discovered	6 January 1999 (partially) 14 January 1999 (right leg) Vistula River, near Kraków, Poland
Known for	Kidnapping and murder victim

Katarzyna Zowada ((1975-06-01)1 June 1975 – c. December 1998) was a Polish student woman who was abducted and killed in 1998 by 52-year-old man, Robert Janczewski. At the time of her abduction, Zowada was a university student who attended Jagiellonian University in the Polish city of Kraków, studying religion. She was reported missing on November 12th 1998, however her body was not found until, the 6th of January 1999. The skin of a torso was discovered in the Vistula River by a ship, and on 14 January a mutilated and dismembered right leg was discovered in the same river. The skin of the torso and mutilated and dismembered right leg were positively identified through DNA as belonging to Katarzyna Zowada.

Biography

Katarzyna Zowada was born on (1975-06-01)1 June 1975 to Polish parents in Poland. She was raised and lived in Poland, not far from the Polish city of Kraków. Zowada's father had died in 1996, when she was in her early twenties. Two years later in 1998, Zowada began attending Jagiellonian University, in the nearby city of Kraków, and became a university student there. She took a semester of historyand passed it, but after taking that Zowada took another semester in religion in the university. She was described by her family and friends as a "kind, gentle, and smart young woman, but withdrawn, grieved, and depressed after the death of her father." For a long time after her father died in 1996, Zowada was struggling to cope with the grief of the loss of her father, and became withdrawn and depressed as a result. Finally, her mother decided to take her to have a appointment with a psychotherapist to help her with her withdrawal, grief, and depression, to which Zowada agreed. Her mother did arrange and fix an appointment for her and Zowada, but one day the 23-year-old disappeared and went missing. When her mother no longer saw or heard from her, she tried to report her as a missing person. Instead she was told to be patient and wait by the police and authorities before they could arrange and fix something.

Abduction and Death

In 1998, Zowada was approached and abducted by a 52-year-old Robert Janczewski. After her abduction, she was held captive in Janczewski's house in the city of Kraków, where she was physically abused and tortured, and most likely drugged, for likely a few weeks prior to her torture murder. One day, around December 1998, Janczewski approached and used a sharp tool or instrument to stab Zowada. He did it twice on her torso, probably as an attempt in order to mutilate and dismember skin because after that, he tortured her to an extremely harsh extent. He mutilated and dismembered all the skin from her torso, from top to bottom, while she was still alive. He then let Zowada be exposed without the skin on her torso, get infected from the flaying, and die from the torture. Once she died, he ended up mutilating and dismembering all of her body parts, which included her head, the tortured torso, and limbs (arms and legs). He dumped the skin of her torso, and her right leg, in the Vistula River. It is unknown what happened to the rest of the body parts, as they were never recovered.

Murder of Katarzyna Zowada
Location	Kraków, Poland
Date	c. December 1998 (date of murder) 6 January 1999 (date of discovery of skin of torso) 14 January 1999 (date of discovery of right leg)
Attack type	Abduction, physical abuse, stabbing, mutilation, dismemberment, and torture murder.
Weapons	Unknown, probably various, tools or instruments used for torture, mutilation, and dismemberment reasons.
Victim	Katarzyna Zowada, aged 23
Perpetrators	Robert Janczewski, aged 52
Motive	Believed to be for sexual reasons

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