When we watch horror movies, no matter how scary or grotesque they might be, we can at
least tell ourselves that they aren’t real, and for many of them they’re almost too
extreme to ever happen in real life. However, that was unfortunately not the case for Katarzyna
Zowada, who came face to face with a copycat killer straight out of the 1992 Academy Awards
Best Picture winner The Silence of the Lambs.
Katarzyna Zowada was a college student at Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Poland
in November of 1998. She was a bit of a loner type with few friends, and this tendency to
stay by herself had only increased after experiencing a recent tragedy. Earlier, Kataryna had convinced
her father to go on a trip with her to the mountains. While out for a walk her father
had slipped and injured his spine. After returning from the trip he suffered from an unknown
ailment and soon passed away. While it’s unknown if the spinal injury led to the illness
that eventually killed Katarzyna’s father, she still blamed herself for his death and
plunged into a deep depression. Not only was she having to deal with the mental aftermath
of her father’s death, but her fluctuating mental state was also leading her to change
her college major. While she had already changed it to Religious Studies, she was planning
on changing it once again. However, she never got the chance to change it, as on November
12th, 1998, she was late for a doctor’s appointment and disappeared without a trace.
Katarzyna would tragically remain missing with no signs of where she went for two entire
months. In January of the following year a man was driving his boat along a river near
where Katarzyna lived when suddenly his boat started experiencing issues and slow downs.
The man walked to the back of the boat and realized the issue was with the propeller.
After examining it he noticed there was something pale and amorphous clogging up the propellor.
As if straight out of a horror film, after the man attempted to remove the blob from
his propeller, when he suddenly realized there was a human ear on the blob. He immediately
contacted the authorities, who were stunned at the man’s discoveries. The boat driver
had accidentally stumbled upon the remains of Katarzyna Zowada, however he hadn’t actually
found her body. Kataryna’s body had been precisely and intricately skinned, with holes
cut around the limbs and nipples. After further investigation for the police, they discovered
a series of sutures and seams along the skin, indicating that it was cut apart and sewn
back together in the same way someone might make an article of clothing. It was this realization
that led the police to believe they were dealing with a copy-cat killer based off of Buffalo
Bill from The Silence of the Lambs.
For those unfamiliar with the film, Buffalo Bill is a man who kidnaps women and keeps
them in a pit in his house. After a while he will eventually kill his prisoner, skin
them, sew their skin into a suit, and wear it around while pretending to be a woman.
Shockingly, this was not the case’s only connection to The Silence of The Lambs. The
victim’s name was Katarzyna, which if translated to english would be Catherine, and this was
the name of one of Buffalo Bill’s victims in the film. Whether or not this was intentional
is not known for sure, but based off of the rest of the information in the case my personal
opinion is that it was merely a crazy coincidence.
Based off of the autopsy, the police were able to tell that the skin suit had been floating
around in the river for two weeks, along with one of Katarzyna’s legs. However, these
were the only parts of her body they were able to find, and to this day the rest of
her remains have eluded authorities. With no clues from what little remains the police
had, as well as a cold trail in the river and around the area, the police began to lose
hope. That was until another murder in the area caught their attention in regards to
it’s resemblance to Katarzyna’s murder. A man in the general area named Vladamir had
murdered his father and skinned his head. Not only this, but according to Polish reports,
the man then wore his father’s head over his in order to trick his grandfather into
believing he was his dad. The fact that someone near to the river where Katarzyna’s skin
suit was found had been caught skinning and wearing someone else had immediately caught
investigator’s attention, and Vlad instantly became the case’s prime suspect. Not only
were the similarities between the cases striking, but Vladimir also went to the same university
as Katarzyna. While it seems like Vlad was the most likely suspect, he denied having
ever know or murdered Katarzyna, and there was actually no court grade evidence linking
Vlad to the murder. While Vladimir was rightly arrested and convicted for the murder of his
father, Katarzyna’s murderer was still somewhere out on the loose.
With Katarzyna’s small number of friends and family, and the lead with Vladimir falling
flat, the police didn’t seem to have anywhere else to turn. That was until several Polish
sources reported on a man that Katarzyna had suddenly become very close with, known simply
as Robert J. Not only was she simply close friends with him, but she had even reportedly
dyed her hair for him and lost weight to his request. At a glance this could just seem
like the buddings of a toxic friendship or romantic relationship, but any deeper glances
into Robert’s life should send off major red flags. Robert was known to dress in women’s
clothing, and apparently had the desire to be a woman. While that alone is certainly
not alarming, when paired with the rest of Robert’s life it begins to become suspect.
Robert had a volatile temperament, especially when it came to women, and even stalked and
harassed several women. He also worked in a zoology center where he specialized in skinning
animals, where he later got fired for butchering the institute’s entire cache of experimental
rabbits. After being fired from there he began to work as a disector in a religious hospital’s
morgue. Certainly both of these jobs would give him exceptional skills when it comes
to skinning creatures and dealing with flesh. To finish it all off, Robert was known to
frequent the river where Katarzyna’s body was found, and didn’t live far from the
area. With all of this information in mind, it seems incredibly likely that Robert was
hiding his misogyny and merely pretending to be Katarzyna’s friend in order to manipulate
and murder her. He likely convinced her to dye her hair and lose weight as it fit the
ideals of the skin suit he wanted to create from her.
With all of this information in mind it seems obvious that Robert must have been the one
to kill Katarzyna. However the police could find no solid evidence in order to arrest
Robert, and sadly the case once again began to go cold. Months turned to years, but still
no new evidence was presenting itself. In 2005 a torso showed up in a local park, and
was believed to be related to Katarzyna’s case until forensics proved otherwise. The
case would then again go stagnant for over a decade, until 2017. A letter was given to
the police from one of Roert’s friends, however the contents of the letter has been
a very closely guarded secret of the case for reasons still unknown. Whatever was in
the letter alarmed the police enough to search Robert’s home, which was the same one he
was living in when he knew Katarzyna nearly 20 years prior. In the bathroom they found
blood which they were able to test and prove to be from Katarzyna. This was the kind of
evidence the police had been searching for for all these years, and Robert was promptly
arrested. While in custody Robert has reportedly been claiming to not have ever known Katarzyna,
and has had several other charges added alongside his murder charges, including lying to police.
At this point it seems almost certain that Robert killed Katarzyna but sadly it’ll
be a tough job for the authorities to prove Robert’s guilt over a nearly 20 year old
case with a limited amount of evidence. As of 2019, Robert is still in police custody
with the pirates involved requesting for the trial to be closed. As it currently stands
we don’t know for sure what will happen or when it will happen, but all we can hope
for is that Katarzyna can get the justice she deserves.
While this case is technically an unsolved case as no one has been officially convicted,
it is generally agreed that Robert must have been the one that killed Katarzyna, but shockingly
many people don’t actually know about this story. This case is incredibly morbid and
grotesque, making it surprising that it was somehow never picked up by international media
sources, and even within the true crime community this case is relatively unknown. Hopefully
this video can help bring more attention to it, and potentially larger knowledge about
the case and outcry can help expedite Robert’s trial and bring him closer to justice.
Comment below your thoughts on the case, as well as any other stories you would like us
to make videos about. Thank you for watching and we’ll see you in the next video.