Murder With My Husband - 38. Katarzyna Zowada - The Skin Killing

Episode Date: November 23, 2020

In this episode of MWMH, Garrett and Payton discuss the murder of Katarzyna Zowada. LIVE ONLINE SHOW TICKETS HERE! https://www.moment.co/murderwithmyhusband Case Sources: https://mysteriesrunsolved.com/2020/07/katarzyna-zowada-murder.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T4jq5rhx0M https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/317t0s/who_killed_and_skinned_katarzyna_zawada_in_1998/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Katarzyna_Zowada Socials: https://linktr.ee/murderwithmyhusband  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello everybody, welcome back to our podcast. This is Murder with My Husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. And I'm Garrett Moreland. And is murder with my husband. I'm Peyton Moreland and I'm Garrett Moreland and he's the husband and I'm the husband. Well you guys we tried to buy a Christmas tree this week and okay we're trying to find a 12 foot Christmas tree because we have a really tall ceiling in this room. We want to put our Christmas tree in and they're all sold out And they're also really expensive. Yeah. What the heck is that about guys?

It's not even December yet. So we're kind of bummed about that. Okay, Garrett, what's your 10 seconds this week? For my 10 seconds this week, I was just going to talk about how much Peyton and I really like food. Ooh, okay, okay. It's a little longer than 10 seconds, but Peyton and I really like food. It's true. When we first dated, we really connected over food

and still now to this day, I would say we spend all of our money on food. It's probably true. We love food, you guys. Okay, so a trigger warning for this episode that it kind of explains a little bit in more gruesome detail than the other episodes, just because it is the cause of death.

It's not like strangulation, so I have to explain what it is. Just so I'm just giving you guys a trigger warning on that, it's not horrible, obviously, but just a little bit more than usual. And our case sources this week are mysteriesrnsolved.com, youtube.com, reddit.com, and Wikipedia. This case doesn't have a lot of coverage, so our sources were limited. All of the exact sources will be linked in our episode notes if you want to check them out. So it's January 7, 1999 in Crack Cow Poland. It's cold outside on this particular morning. It's still winter weather, although it's January. A tugboat is chugging down the

vestula river when one of the operators has to open the hatch to the propeller. It seems as if something had been stuck in it since the night before but hadn't worked itself out yet. Opening the hatch, expecting to have to pull out some debris or some branches, the operator is stopped in his tracks. Unsure about what he's looking at, he makes out what appears to be a pill-looking sack. It wasn't until he noticed the human ear at the top corner of the sack that he also noticed the foul smell coming with it. This was definitely no tree branch stuck in the propeller of this boat. Upon further investigation, after the object was pulled out,

it was concluded that the pale sack was actually the remains of a 23-year-old religion study student named Caterina Zawada. Her legs were missing as well as her arms and face. What was found was the part of her body that would be in like a one-piece swimming suit. Both shoulders are also showing what and then a little half of one side of her neck up to her ear. So I'm going to post a picture of a drawing of the exact shape because it's kind of confusing.

So you guys can go ahead and get on our social media. That's murder with my husband, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and look at the exact picture if you're confused. So is it missing that much because of the boat though in the propellers or we're going to get into it? No, we're going to get into it. So basically what is left is like a swimming suit with shoulders and a neck and then up to an ear. Okay.

Now it wasn't as if her whole torso was there though. All of this that I just said was just skin. As if it was a body suit made out of the specific parts of her skin. So it's not like her insides were there. That's why it looked like a sack to the operator. So it's hollow? Yes. Okay. It's like a skin suit, But it's a real human. I don't do good with all this gory stuff. Well, we're not even that gory, but you know what I mean? Yeah, totally. The medical examiner concludes that this portion of her skin had been in the water for roughly two to three weeks before becoming emerged in the boat's propeller. Investigators also discovered pieces of her sweater at the scene, and one of her legs was found in hole nearly a week later near a dam.

Some parts of her jeans and flannel shirt were also found, so they find pieces of her clothing within the week and also one of her legs. It's concluded later that Katarazina Zawada was believed to have been skinned alive and literally her skin prepared to be worn as a suit. That's, I mean, that's horrible. I cannot imagine, I can't imagine, I can't even picture it. Yeah, and it's absolutely horrible because she was skinned alive. It's not like, I mean, it's horrible either way, but it's not like she didn't have to go through it because she was already gone. Like she

had to do this while she was alive. Police discovered that Caterazina Zawada had also been reported missing on November 12, 1998. But police discovered that Caterazina Zawada had been reported missing on November 12, 1998, but police had told her mother to hold off. Oh, she just ran away. She's a college-aged student. It's fine. Her mother had become worried because according to her, Katarazina had few friends and suffered from depression.

In fact, Katarazina had missed her psychiatric appointment where her mom was supposed to meet her the day she went missing. Katarazina had blonde hair and attended J.G. Eleonin University, except most recently should be gone to skip her classes. So she had been attending this university but had for the past two weeks not shown up to class. But was still going home, so she wasn't missing. She just wasn't going to class. Do you know much about Poland in general? I'm just trying to picture, I guess, our case and everything. I just, I don't know a whole lot about Poland.

No, I don't really know that much about Poland. So if we have any listeners from there, go ahead and tell us, I do know that they go to university and not college. Well, yeah, that's how, I mean, that's how most of Europe is. They call it university. Yeah. I mean, I do know the area therein is near this river and it kind of sounds like the city runs around this river, but I don't really know what it all looks like or anything like that. We also don't know why she was skipping classes.

So it seems like there's not a whole lot of information on this case. This case isn't very covered very well. Okay. Like I said, it's really hard to cover cases that are outside of the US just because justice systems don't work the same way. A lot of the sources were not in English. And so unless they're translated over, I can't read them. Does that make sense?

Yeah, that makes sense. Police like kind of begin to speculate was she skipping classes because of a boy or like just was it because of her depression or what is it but they can't figure it out. Her father's death in 1996 had been the trigger for her recent depression with not much to go on but an identity to the leg and skin police wait for more clues. According to mysteries our unsolved.com, investigators and experts from other countries were eventually called to assist in solving this crime because there were no leads.

Even the FBI showed up for a while to help out, but nothing. Wow. It wasn't until May of 1999, when an older man called police to tell them that there was a body in his basement and he's pretty sure his grandson had done it. The body was a man with a severed head and a scalped head and police felt like there might actually be a connection to Catarazena's murder because of this.

It's in the same little town and they're like, well, how often do you see like skinnings, really? A man named Vladimir W turned out to be the killer of the most recent corpse and actually ended up being just who the elder man had said the son of the victim. So Vladimir severed and scalped the head of his own father and then his grandfather called the cops on him. Why? So you've got three generations.

The son kills the father whose father calls the cops. I wonder if he was going to kill the grandpa next. Yeah, I don't think so. Okay. Because upon interrogation police discover the Vladimir had actually sewn a mask out of his father's face and scalp and wore it around the house for a day, tricking his grandfather who believed that it was his father. Does that make sense? Yeah.

So he wore it around pretending to be his dad to his dad's dad. Was his grandfather older? Yes. Because I mean, and right. Yeah, we, we we just talked without talking, because you didn't have to be, yeah, I know your saying. Totally, but I mean, because you would know it's a mask. It's not obviously gonna look like a face,

but yeah, the granddad was older and he kind of caught on, because he's the one who called the cops and said something weird's going on. I think my son did it, but my son is dead in the basement. Okay. He told police, of Latamair, the son, told police that he did it

because he hated his father for cheating on his mother. Police are sure, at this point, that there is a connection. Catarazina's skin had been made to wear as some sort of suit, and Latamair had worn his father's scalp like a mask. So they're like, what are the chances? That is appalling. It's so gross. But it actually happens more than you would think. Like a lot of well-known serial killers

even in the United States have done some sort of version of this with dead bodies. Why? Like what's the whole point of doing that? I mean, gratification. Well, that that? I mean gratification what that's no I mean that's usually the reason people kill is for some sort of gratification and I think this is just like a Kink I mean it's that's not the right word for it, but that's what I'm comparing it to okay Although filling is though they might have the guy the police find absolutely no evidence that can link Vladimir to the heinous murder of Katarazina. And he never confesses to it either.

So he's like, yeah, I killed my dad, but I didn't kill this girl. He is eventually charged with the murder of his own father and sentenced to 25 years in prison, but he's never charged for Katarazina's murder. In 2000, DNA was collected from Katarazina's body, but no match was found. in the heart of the body. The body would be examined and DNA would be collected within the first examination, right? But we're in 2000 now, almost a whole year later, where they're just barely collecting the DNA off the skin. That's kind of weird. Okay, you guys, we are getting into an ad. We're going to get a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little Right, but we're in 2000 now, almost a whole year later where they're just barely collecting the DNA off the skin. Oh, that's kind of weird.

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Catarazena Zawada was dropped and considered cold. It's not until 15 years later, in 2014, when the FBI for Europe, who had decided to take another look at this case, come up with a profile for the suspect. So 15 years later, this case has been cold, but it's like horrible. And so they're trying to figure out the FBI for Europe decides to reopen it

and take a look at it. Did something happen? No. For them to do that? No, it's just such a heinous murder. Okay. The fact that there's someone out there who's still going about that did something like this, they're like, we need to solve this case. So they were pretty sure at this point then that it wasn't Vladimir? Yes. Okay. My guess is because of that DNA they found, I don't know if they like tried to compare it to his and it didn't I don't know why. But so the FBI comes up with a profile. After learning that the killer had used a sharp tool to cut the skin off the body, essentially leading catarazena to a slow and painful bleed out, which literally means that her cause of death was by the

skinning. And this confirmed that the suspect had sadistic tendencies, obviously, this would be considered torture. Yes. It was confirmed in 2016 that the suspect was most likely, this is from the profile, most likely trained in martial arts, which they also say it's a specific type of martial arts, but they won't disclose how they've come to this conclusion. So we don't know what they found that led them to this type of conclusion, but they say whoever did this was trained in this

specific type of martial arts, but won't list also what specific type it is. It's also that's so random. I'm kind of confused. And so precise. But we don't know why. This summer, PXU Energy is back with ultimate summer pass, starting 50% off energy charges all summer. Everybody's on it for automatic energy savings. Plus free energy on the hottest day. Don't you see it?

Three days are now the coolest day. And this summer's hottest blockbuster, guaranteed to keep you cool. In 2017, 19 years after the murder of Katarazina, police finally make an arrest after finding new evidence. That's pretty recent. Yes. The 52-year-old man whose name was Robert J, investigators had actually found blood in his bathroom which was collected for further testing. So they've rested this guy because they found blood in his bathroom. So the rules are a little different over there is what I'm assuming. And granted this could have been lost in translation so please correct me if I'm wrong. But what it seems to me is that they you it's not like the the US where you have to have concrete evidence

before you can even make an arrest usually. This guy lived off of the riverbank where Catarazina's skin was found. Robert actually fit the profile. He was trained in martial arts in this specific category. And they confirmed that he actually knew who Catarazina was before the murder. So the blood that they found in the bathroom was it somebody else or was it? They have never released who it's matched to.

That's weird, why? I don't know. We don't have a lot of information. Everything is kept secretive, which this is not the first foreign case where they have kept things very secretive. This kind of reminds me of the one with the two girls that disappeared in Panama.

Oh yeah, episode 18. Yeah, totally. So things are kept secret. And in the US, they do keep things secret, but it's kind of hard because usually they wouldn't release this big chunk like, oh man, we know he's in, you know, nose martial arts and those specific thing, but not a detail about it.

Normally, they would just keep that whole information to themselves. I wonder if he was like, I don't know, some sort of agent that went rogue or something. Me. I don't know. I know. I know. I was like, this was my, I want to know so bad in this case, how they came to that conclusion. Uh huh.

Like, so bad. So anyways, he had been known Robert J. The Guy had been known to visit her grave, and he had a history of harassing women according to mysteries are in Solve.com. In previous years, he had worked in a dissecting lab, which means that he worked with dead human bodies. And he had also worked at the crack cow Institute of Zoology, which means he had observed the preparing of animal skins and keep in mind. He prepared her skin, took care of it and everything to where it is the suit. And trigger warning here, animal cruelty, so skip ahead if you can't deal with that.

But he was fired from that job, that Zoology job after he killed all of the test rabbits in the institution During one of his shifts for no reason. He couldn't explain why like they showed up the next day and they're like All the rabbits are dead. You killed them. Why? In the world. Yeah, holy crap. It did psycho. Yeah, so apparently one of Robert J's friends wrote police a letter about him and Apparently, one of Robert J's friends wrote police a letter about him and the investigation. And this is when police decide to arrest him. Now they haven't released the contents of that letter. So we have no idea what it said. I mean, maybe the letter was like, here's the evidence, go find it.

And so they're not going to show it until trial or whatever. His friend writes a letter and then they go arrest him. It's so thing. It's hard. None of the dots match up at all. There's just dots all over the place. I do think it's just because we have missing information either. I have missing information from translation over to English stories on this or police just haven't released information.

If anyone listening is from Poland, please let us know. Like I said, I basically researched every source I could find on this and all of them were essentially the same that were in English. So I'm assuming that it's not lost in translation. Okay. So Robert J was charged with aggravated murder with particular cruelty and he maintains his innocence. And as of September 2019, after being held while more evidence is gathered,

Robert J. accuses prison guards of harassment multiple times, but he still remains in custody while police build their case. So now, obviously, once again, this is different because in America, you can be held in custody while a prosecutor builds this case, but you can't be held in custody while police build their case to formally give you the evidence. because in America, you can be held in custody while a prosecutor builds this case,

but you can't be held in custody while police build their case to formally give to the prosecutor. Does that make sense? Yeah. So basically, police would have to have a solid case. All the evidence go to the prosecutor's say, here's the evidence we have.

Do you want to charge him? Because then we'll go arrest him. Here, they arrested him and said, now go sit in the cell while we try to build the case against you. Yeah, that makes sense. And that is all the information we have on this case. That's all. That's all. We are currently waiting to hear back. If they're ever going to charge him, I don't know how long he can sit there while they build their case. I don't know the rules on that. It seems

like forever. But I was like reading updates and everything and they were supposed to release an update this year about when they were going to go to trial, but it didn't happen due to COVID. And so we're just kind of patiently waiting to hear, is he going to get taken to trial number one and number two, when he does, what's the evidence? Because we really, we don't even know if the blood in his bathroom was hers. I'm going to assume it was him because I I feel like he seems like such a random person. It's just a rest. And I mean, he also lived on the side of the river, right? Yeah, mm-hmm.

So the reason I'm calling him Robert J is because he actually hasn't been convicted of it yet and so I wanna maintain, you know, innocence and self-proving guilty. Yeah, also, something I just thought of of is there's two crazy people that were skinning people in the story. In the same exact city basically. What the heck? And wearing the skin. It's not like just they were skinning like this.

Her suit, her skin was made to wear. Oh, I can't even, I hate picturing that. Yeah, I mean, I can't either, but yeah, it's insane. That's so crazy. So because today's episode was obviously a shorter story because we didn't have all the information we could, I wanted to take this time to spread awareness about a case that was sent into us by LaKita Hawker on Instagram.

And she sent it in in hopes that we could find more information on this unsolved case. She was like, I know this story. Can you try to see if you can find any other information on it? So I was like, totally, I tried to dig further and find more information. I got online. I searched. I'm going like dark web here. Literally any way I can try to figure out and there is just not enough information on this case to make a full episode. So I'm going to figure out and there is just not enough information on this case to make a full episode. So I'm going to highlight what I know so far in hopes to spread awareness for this unsolved case.

According to True Crime Daily, on her 28th birthday, the family of a missing Chicago postal worker is hoping that Kierri Kohl's the missing woman and her unborn baby at that time are alive. Kiera Coles was last seen near 81st Street and Vernon Avenue on October 2, 2018. And this is in Chicago, by the way. A neighbor surveillance video shows her heading to work in her US Postal Service uniform, except supposedly she had called into work or called in sick that morning to work so she wasn't actually going to work except she was wearing her outfit on the video surveillance. Okay. She was three months pregnant.

She was expecting her first child. A missing person's alert was filed after family checked on her at her apartment. They said she wasn't active on Snapchat after her disappearance which she was't active on Snapchat after her disappearance, which she was super active on Snapchat normally. So they thought that was weird. There is a $49,000 cash reward for anyone with information that will lead to an arrest and you can submit an anonymous tip to police in Chicago. Kira Coles is five feet, four inches tall. She weighs about 125 pounds.

She is black with brown eyes, black hair, and a medium brown complexion. She also has a tattoo of a heart on her right hand and a tattoo that says lucky Libra on her back. Every victim matters. I was sad to discover that there was not that was literally all the information. Did they already rule out her family and everything? Yes. Okay. And there was literally just not enough information for me to even make. Did they, was there anything on like, were her phone last pinged? No.

So maybe that's information that just kept secret right now? Maybe or kind of what her family is putting out there is that she deserves more attention and effort that her case has been overlooked. So if you or anyone you know, know anything about this case that could be helpful, please contact the Chicago police like Kiera deserves more from us. And I just think it was important to highlight her case just in case. And she was pregnant too.

Pregnant. And just went missing literally just out of the blue. There's no other security cameras. I'm like, where what happened to her? And that's the thing. Or they just haven't looked. It's recent. And so there's cameras everywhere. Yeah.

So I don't understand where the disconnect is going on that this is the only information available. Yeah, that's so random. And so her family holds this thing every year to try to get her case circulating and people looking. And I just think no one's looking at it and I mean I can't Because there's something we don't know or like I have no idea and her family also has claimed that they're Not talked to a lot about the investigation or what's going on? So this is all they know to tell you know media as well, okay?

So yeah, I mean if you know anything or any tips or anything, just contact the Chicago police. But yeah, and that's Kierikols is her name if you want to look it up. It's pretty crazy to me how many people go missing? Oh, insane. It's just mind blowing. I mean, people, kids, I mean, of's all ages. Literally. People of all ages. Yeah.

It's a huge problem. I mean, and also a lot of missing people are in human trafficking, which is another huge problem that we don't see. I mean, it's talked about a little bit more now, but I think we have just more recently tied missing persons to human trafficking. Yeah.

So, yeah, that's our cases this week. I just want to give you guys a reminder that we will not have an episode next week because it is Thanksgiving. And it's my birthday on Thanksgiving too. It is November 25th. Yeah, the day before. The day before. But yeah, so we will see you guys in two weeks two weeks and

Yeah, I hope you guys all have an amazing Thanksgiving working holidays. Hope everyone enjoys themselves Yeah, we haven't missed a one week since we started this. This is the first week We're and we're not missing we're skipping yes guys We're we're gonna take the the holiday off case. So, Garrett and I both work jobs where we don't get holidays off. So, this is our way to take a holiday off. Yeah. So yeah, we'll see you guys in two weeks. I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye. you