52 Lock Up Damian Rzeszowski

Welcome back to 52 lock up, with 52 crimes in 52 weeks

Today we’re going to learn about the Jersey Slayings of Damian Rzeszowski of 2011.

Damian Rzeszowski was born Poland in 1980. He was briefly in the army but when He met Izabela Garstka they were in head over heels in love and in 2004 they moved to Jersey’s capital because opportunities to work were limited for him So they set out like many immigrants to America to focus on building their lives.

There he found work as a foreman’s assistant. The couple married in 2005 and By the time he had a family with his wife and two children, Kinga, and Kacper. he was living in a terraced house on a quiet leafy Victoria Crescent on the outskirts of the capital St Helier. Colleagues and neighbors described him as a hard working man and a loving father. Marek Garstka Is Damian’s father in law lived with them but there are different time lines explaining when he moved in.

Friends stated that they were unsure when the cracks in the Rzeszowski’s marriage first appeared. A message posted by Izabela made it seem like their marriage was fine where she posted on her husband‘s Polish school reunion website on August 27, 2010 “darling I wish that all your dreams come true and for the happiness of our little ‘uns you have always been such a wonderful man, husband and father sincerely your loving wife.”

However earlier in 2011 she posted of different online messages that hinted that perhaps her happiness was not as much as she was trying to make it seem. She had posted online “I want to feel my life while I am in it“ she would also make posts about “who am I? I don’t know definitely a tough woman the more you suffer, the more you smile“. Whatever was happening in their marriage they were both keeping it themselves but it does make you question if Damian was beginning to be abusive and if that is what led her to choosing infidelity. I am not saying her choice was right or deserved but it’s all about putting the pieces together for me and seeing how the dominoes fall.

In June 2011, Izabela confessed to Damian that she had been having a two month affair with another man. She told her husband that the affair was over. But her online posts continue to paint a picture On July 8 she wrote: ‘Friends are angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly.’ One minute later she added: ‘A man can be destroyed, but not defeated.’ On July 12 she wrote: ‘Few men get what they desire and few deserve what they get.’ The affair ate Damian up more On 19 July 2011, Damian took an overdose of over 80 anti-depressant pills but was allowed to go back home after just one night in hospital for observations; which surprises me because normally a person is reviewed longer than that. I have known quite a few people who tried to swallow pills and the hospital had them evaluated much longer than a day before and after 2011. so I am confused to why he was not evaluated longer. after Damian’s overdose wifey changed her Facebook profile to ‘married’ as part of an attempt to save their marriage.

After watching her husband suffer, she told a friend of her’s “I understand now that I love Damian I will never do it again. I want my family back”. There are a lot of signs that they were not having a healthy relationship for much longer and I suspect her post about loving her husband had more to do with a public demonstration opposed to what’s really going on in the relationship. Usually people who post up their relationship for the world are seeking external validation of their relationship, like if their partner cares for them or to seek external validation of how sorry they are. The posts rarely ever have anything to do with the person is in the relationship with. A 47 year old friend named Kordian Berkolec is an established natural healer and had offered to give the couple therapy for free as they were friends but they had not got round to doing it. Instead Damian had a one-night stand of his own and made Izabela aware of this intentionally. Their relationship continues to spiral out but it seems they were trying to make it work.

They were going to try to start fresh. Damian was falling to the pressures in his mind and had threatened to kill himself and showed signs that he had been suffering moderate to severe depression, which caused an onset of psychotic symptoms.

Damian decides to put tens of thousands of pounds into a property deal in Poland, $50,000 polish dollars to be exact. He wanted to move back home to Poland and prove to his family and wife that he could get through their tribulations., But when he travelled to his home town of Nowy Sacz with his wife Izabela, they discovered the apartments that would be promised to be built; were not built and the developer would not return their money as promised. The developer that did not keep his promise devastated the dream of getting Izabela back to Poland and being successful and happy. He put all of his eggs in one basket; when they should have been seeking out couple’s therapy. The couple was facing financial ruin after investing his life savings in a doomed property deal. This is referred to as the breaking point for Damian, between losing his life’s savings, infidelity, drinking more and taking more medication, becoming more violent with his family.

In response to the turmoil Damian was spinning in he decided to take his family on a holiday. The young family spent their final two or three weeks on holiday in Poland. During that time Damian had paid for a prostitute.

The Rzeszowki’s were returning home and a friend Izabela was having martial problems as well. Her friend Marta de la Haye caught her husband kissing another woman in the beginning of August and there was a violent altercation with her husband Craig. She was a care worker from Poland, and had called the police but instead was arrested herself on suspicion of assault as her husband, who is from Jersey, had scratches on his face. Police charged her with domestic violence and released her on conditional bail which banned her from the couple's exclusive beach-front apartment block overlooking St Helier Bay, forcing her to seek sanctuary with her friend. There are no mentions of if she had bruising.

When the family returned to New Jersey’s island where they had been living roughly around 6 years, and Marta brings her 5 year old daughter Julia with her to their residence. Unfortunately, on August 14th 2011 the family is together with his father in law and an invited neighbor Marta who is also Izabel’s friend for a family barbecue. Around 3 p.m. in 15 minutes Damian finally completely snaps and grabs two kitchen knives. His father in law Marek Garstka, 56 was watching the television and Damian sneaks up from behind him and begins stabbing him.

He travels down to the living room and stabbed his 18 month year old son Kacper 16 times and five year old's Kinga and Marta’s 5 year old daughter Julia another 13 times each.

34 year old Marta witnessed the murders before being killed herself. His wife Izabela realizes everyone is being murdered in the house and there is nothing she can do and flees the home. She manages to narrowly escape the flat but was pursued down the street, and was murdered in full view of their neighbors. Apparently the husband had held down his wife with his left arm and was stabbing her with his right arm according to witnesses and when a neighbor screamed at him “what are you doing?!”

The scream at him startled him and the wife tried to run for help to the neighbors and collapsed in front of them and then Damian Began to stab himself and his chest and arms as well while screaming in Polish. He had a full psychotic breakdown. After stabbing himself several times he decided to run back indoors.

In the street where traffic cones and Some of the neighbors attempted to tackle Damian with traffic cones. Marta's body was later found outside a neighbor's house where she was reportedly crying for help. There were rumors that Izabela was pregnant but it was quickly proven that she was not.

The children were described as little angels by their teachers. Prior to these murders Damian was described as “He was a very peaceful man, we've never seen him lose his temper so it's hard to believe what made him turn in that way”.

After being arrested On 31st August, Damian was visited in the prison by his parents. During the visit Damian was being psychologically evaluated and they had noted that It would seem that, when the defendant was brought into the visitors' room to see his parents, the defendant said that there were "signs" he should not go back to Jersey but did not, according to the officer listening to their conversation, Damian did not say anything about hearing voices. This matched what Damian discussed with Dr Eastman, who was the expert appearing for the Defense, that he heard voices during the journey back to Jersey.  The Prosecution disagreed and felt this was a crutch.

There was another meeting the next day at the Prison between Damian and his parents.  And again same two police officers who were in the room with them before sat there and witnessed the visit, Damian spoke to his parents in Polish to say good morning and then parents proceeded to ask Damian for permission for the bodies of his wife and two children to be embalmed and about his wishes for their funeral, in particular whether their bodies should be buried or cremated; which he answered. Damian also told his parents he doesn’t remember what happened that day but did remember that Marta and her daughter came by. His conversations with his parents provided voluntary information and not provoked by the officers which supplied everyone with the information that he did recall the day even by Sir Michael Birt’s observations. The whole case was riding on his depression but forensic psychologist Dr.Philip Joseph stated in court that “it was crystal clear that Damian Rzeszowski was not suffering from severe depression when he killed six people.” Dr.Joseph said that this included the day before the killings, during Rzeszowski's return from a holiday in Poland.

His psychological evaluation included the focus on how Damian’s family history could have had an effect but there was no family history of mental illness, but a possible violent history, with his father's domestic violence and alcoholism; and an uncle who had a criminal history. His evaluation was trying to determine if this was murder in the first degree meaning it was premeditated or if this was manslaughter; voluntary manslaughter which by the way is when there’s an intent to kill but because it is a rile up of emotions in the moment when involuntary manslaughter is the result of an unplanned death.

Damian originally was convicted of six counts of manslaughter in 2012 but later was cleared of murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility following trial as he suffered from severe depression and psychotic symptoms. Although during his trial Damian kept to Wearing a white T-shirt and jeans, Rzeszowski showed no emotion in the dock as the presiding judge, it’s possible that Damian was In a state of shock, perhaps Damian Rzeszowski would be too numbed, and perhaps too medicated, to feel much emotion. Sir Michael Birt, read out the verdicts that two jurats - similar to magistrates in the UK - they had reached their verdicts. And Throughout the trial, the defendant had constantly stared down at the floor, not looking up at any time. he was completely disconnected with reality and not showing remorse either.

Damian was serving his 30 year sentence when abruptly he was found dead at HMP Full Sutton in Yorkshire on march 31st 2018. There were expectations of this because he had tried to commit suicide 5 times previously already.

I had trouble looking into Damian’s past and perhaps it is because he is not from America and news or records are difficult to obtain or see. However, I wonder if it is possible that perhaps what if Damian was schizophrenic or schizoaffective. The marriage held onto secretive unhappiness if we look at the pieces that could have influenced Izabela’s decision to cheat or why the cheating became such a huge strain to caused him to end up having a severe psychotic break especially after the financial loss devastated him.

Schizophrenia is a thought disorder it is considered to be a psychosis. It is a chronic brain disorder that affects less than one percent of the U.S. population. But When schizophrenia is active, symptoms can include delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, trouble with thinking and lack of motivation. Now schizophrenia shows up in some stages the first stage is referred to the prodromal phase, where friends and family might notice strange behavior. The person might want to be alone most of the time and may start to talk only about certain topics, such as religion, the government, or a particular public figure. They are hooked on it. This phase can last from weeks to years. Some people with schizophrenia never go past this point, but most tend to enter the following stages.

The next is the “recovery” phase. Which In many ways, mirrors the prodromal phase but There are more intense symptoms, like hallucinations, start to fade. They become more withdrawn into themselves, have trouble concentrating, keeping thoughts straight and struggle with depression. The further the active stage the person is in, the more important it becomes to find treatment. He stood there in the court room without any emotion after killing even his own children he loved dearly. The referencing of him stating he was hearing things is plausible and would feed into the possibility.

If he was schizoaffective, then know that Schizoaffective disorder that is a combination of the symptoms of schizophrenia and a mood disorder, such as depression or bipolar disorder. Symptoms may occur at the same time or at different times. The Cycles of severe symptoms are often followed by periods of improvement. Symptoms may include delusions, hallucinations, depressed episodes, and manic periods of high energy. This may explain why the holiday in Poland did wonders because that was his period of “improvement”.

The infidelity would feed and validate any delusion or hallucination he was having. Psychology studies explain that A cheater might suffer from extremely low self-esteem and a narcissistic view of seeing things. Some people have a tendency for attention-seeking and once they are satisfied with one person they might go on to another to fulfill their needs and to validate themselves. Was Izabela a low self esteem narcissist? Or was she falling into the category of reactive unknown abuse? Not all abuse includes physical, this can include emotional and verbal as well. Either way it is a deadly combination for the two, although no one deserved to die that way regardless of anything; but the kids, the neighbors and grandfather were caught in the fire brewing that day.

An exsanguinating hemorrhage would have taken about 1-3 minutes to die from especially with the arteries being hit as a result of penetrating trauma whether it be a bullet or like a kitchen knife like this case. Now depending on where the knife is penetrating a person can actually survive a stabbing but Damian made sure to hit the important areas. The fact that Damian went beyond what was necessary to kill each person demonstrates their psychotic break and the fact that he was stabbing himself at the end of the ordeal.

The last loose end I wanted to tie up was the husband of Marta De La Haye Craig. He held a memorial service for his wife and daughter on August 18th 2011, the last thing that happened between him and his wife was the fight they had gotten into for kissing another woman at a party. That has to be devastating to know that if they hadn’t fought that she would have probably been home. He lost his wife and daughter that afternoon.

I could not find much on him but I did find a letter that he read “I have been trying to find the right words to say, but as much as I try, I can't. It's been a year now since those wonderful people were taken away from us, by the hand of someone they trusted.My life, and the lives of many families, have been devastated since then. Every day is a struggle to continue, and yet it still feels like yesterday that it happened. My beautiful wife Marta and wonderful daughter Julia, friends Kinga, Kacper, Isa and Marek, you will never be forgotten. Not a day goes past when I don't think about my family. I hope that one day I will see you again, until then...I Love you

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my family and close friends for the support they have given me over this past year. Also to the people who attended on scene, who I know did their best to help in an impossible situation. The States Police and the Prosecution team for doing a great job in trying to bring Justice. And finally, to Officer Karen Sykes, for being there all the way through this, helping us to understand the whole process and for her dedication to her job." It’s a heartbreaking letter to read and my heart goes out to those left behind in this tragedy.

In my opinion I do think he may have been schizophrenic or schizoaffective but I also do not have all of the details and could not find them. Feel free to tell me your opinion, if you remember this case in the news. What do you think about the case and if you know someone including yourself that could be suffering from schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, do not be shy about reaching out for help. If you or you know someone that are in an abusive relationship please reach out to 1.800.799.7233 for help.

Well that’s my crime for this week, I’ll see you next week.

References

https://jersey.police.uk/news-appeals/2012/august/rzeszowski-trial-craig-de-la-hayes-statement/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2027292/Jersey-St-Helier-stabbings-Grief-husband-wife-daughter-killed.html

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