Katarzyna Zowada was a 23-year-old theology student at Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland, described by acquaintances as kind but quiet. She had been treated for depression at a psychiatric clinic in the Nowa Huta district. Her disappearance became evident on 12 November 1998, when she failed to meet her mother at the clinic. She was tortured and killed in late 1998 or early 1999; after her death, her body was dismembered and skin was removed from it and shaped into what forensic examiners described as a piece of clothing.
On 6 January 1999, the crew of the tugboat Elk, stationed near the Dąbie barrage on the Vistula river, found human skin caught on the boat's propeller. DNA testing later matched the skin to Zowada. On 14 January 1999, her right leg was recovered from the river. Her corpse had been dismembered and decapitated.
The investigation was closed in 2000 for lack of further leads. It was reactivated in 2012 as forensic science advanced, and Zowada's remains were exhumed for a further autopsy. Researchers at Wrocław Medical University modeled her injuries and concluded that a sharp instrument had been used to cut her neck, armpit, and groin, causing death through exsanguination. Forensic profilers described the person responsible as sadistic, knowledgeable in the dissection and preservation of animal skin, and possibly trained in a particular, undisclosed martial art.
Robert Janczewski, born in 1965 and living in Kraków, had worked in a human dissection laboratory and in Jagiellonian University's Institute of Zoology, where animal skins were prepared; his employment there ended after he killed all of the institute's rabbits. He had martial-arts training and a history of harassing women, and he was known to Zowada, having visited her grave. He was identified as a person of interest in 1999 but was not arrested at that time. In 2017, police received an incriminating letter from a friend of his. Janczewski was arrested on 4 October 2017, after blood was found during a search of his apartment in the Kazimierz district, and was charged with aggravated murder committed with particular cruelty. He was convicted and jailed in 2018. He was held on remand as proceedings continued, and in September 2019 prosecutors requested that the trial be closed to the public.
On 31 October 2024, the Kraków Court of Appeal's second criminal division acquitted Janczewski under the principle of in dubio pro reo, and he was released the same day. In February 2026, HBO Max released Fit for a Killer, a multi-episode docuseries examining the case through archival footage, interviews, and re-enactments.
Credit: Woodlawn High SchoolEditorial useSourceSOLVEDListen
