Fit for a Killer (2026) s01e02 Episode Script

[clinking of chains]
[discordant piano music playing]
[clamor of voices]
[judge]
The court is now in session.
The prosecution has the floor.
Your Honor,
we the prosecution
accuse Robert Janczewski
of having, with exceptional cruelty,
and acting on a combination of motives,
including sexual perversion.
He acted on his sadistic fetishes
by taking the life of Katarzyna Zowada
with elements of necrosadism
or necrophiliac fetishism.
It is our belief
that he strangled Katarzyna Zowada
by means of a chain,
beat her, kicked her,
delivered blunt force trauma
with a hard object
and in doing so,
thus caused Katarzyna Zowada's death.
All I'll say is,
I waited 21 years for this.
That's all I'll say.
[reporter]
What happened during those 21 years?
He severed the outer layer
of skin on the torso,
as well as the head
and both upper and lower limbs.
[reporter] Will this trial give you
a modicum of relief?
I don't think so.
[prosecutor] She was discovered
on January 7th, 1999
near the right embankment
of the Vistula.
[Janczewski, whispering]
Have mercy upon us and on the world
for his sorrowful passion.
Have mercy upon us
and on the whole world
[chains clinking]
[discordant piano music playing]
[typewriter clicking]
[bell rings]
Right after
Robert Janczewski's arrest,
Judge Maczuga
is brought on to investigate.
[Maczuga] In 2017, I was a judge
at the fourth appeals department
in Kraków's district court.
That department's main job
is to handle appeals.
My job was to determine
whether the temporary detention
of Mr. Janczewski was justified.
The case was a tricky one
because right at the outset,
I discovered
that there were over 130 volumes
of case files.
A standard volume is around 200 pages.
So if we do the math, this amounts
to roughly 26,000 pages.
It was immediately obvious
that the evidence was not organized
in a professional manner.
Some of the evidence in the files
did not even pertain
to the accused at all.
I was amazed to learn
that the prosecutor on this case
had presented to me, allegedly,
as proof of guilt, poems written
by Robert Janczewski's father.
The prosecutor explained that this
was because one of the poems
contained the word "skin."
[bubbling of scuba gear]
[Maczuga] This case features
an individual who is familiar to me.
This person is named Leszek L.
He and I used to go
scuba diving together.
We reached a certain level
of friendship
or at least a certain level
of camaraderie.
I decided the court should be aware
of my connection to him
so it could be determined whether
there might be any bias on my part.
All of a sudden,
I find myself being summoned
by Prosecutor Krupiński
to his office as a witness.
Sadly, one cannot be both
a witness and a judge
in the same case.
The judge is removed from the case
in these situations.
[Fuja] This was Kraków.
People knew one another.
The judge knew Leszek L.
from back in the day
while Prosecutor Krupiński
and Robert Janczewski studied
under the same teacher, Szigmund A.
But that wasn't an issue
for some reason.
I struggle to understand
why Krupiński didn't also withdraw.
In my opinion,
it was a move by the prosecutor
to get rid of me.
[tense music playing]
[rumble of traffic]
- Hello.
- Hi.
Let's put together
a timeline of the case.
1998, she goes missing.
Yes, Katarzyna goes missing.
January 1999, her remains
are pulled out of the river.
Robert's first detainment happens
in March of 2000.
June, Janczewski visits the police
where he watches footage
of Katarzyna's mother.
- And kisses the screen.
- After he was first detained.
He began visiting Michalec.
By the time we reach September,
three months later,
it's clear there is no chance
of the case being solved.
The investigation is shelved.
They found nothing at Robert's place.
His deposition gave nothing.
They ran out of suspects.
[Frątczak] When I first saw
Michal's documentary in 2017
I was surprised by not only how well
he'd managed to film the arrest
but also
by how many journalists were there.
I counted four cameras
in the footage of Robert's arrest.
I saw this coordinated media effort.
It was an instant lightbulb moment.
I thought, "Okay, I want in."
When Robert was detained,
it gave the prosecution confidence
so they decided
to keep up the momentum.
Robert's apartment was ransacked,
ripped apart.
They pulled out the flooring,
the bathroom tiles, the tub.
They just completely smashed
his apartment into pieces.
They scoured that apartment
for two and a half months.
The holes were almost big enough
to see into the neighbors'.
[prosecutor] We have learned
with near utter certainty
that two hairs have been discovered
in the defendant's apartment.
It is highly possible that these
two hairs could have come
from Katarzyna Zowada's thigh.
[Fuja] This was the nail in the coffin
for Robert Janczewski.
[Frątczak] Hairs from the victim
in the bathroom?
She had to have been there.
There was a media frenzy
about this discovery.
HE RIPPED KASIA'S SKIN OFF
IT MIGHT EVEN BE BLOOD
OF THE MURDERED STUDENT!
THE PROSECUTOR WILL CHARGE HIM TODAY
All these unsubstantiated rumors
started being printed.
That Robert had known Katarzyna,
that it was actually for Robert
that she had dyed her hair.
There was witness testimony that Robert
had been seen with Katarzyna.
The investigators had
anonymous witnesses who testified
that Robert had been seen walking her
to his apartment in Kazimierz.
[Frątczak] If witnesses say
they saw Robert with Katarzyna
despite Robert saying for years
that he's never met her,
well, then,
that surely means he's lying.
Since the first trial was taking place
behind closed doors, and classified,
there was no public information
on these witnesses.
We were in the dark.
[Fuja] All of a sudden,
after five years of incarceration
and a hunt for new evidence,
a sentence is finally given.
Silence, please.
Having acted on
a combination of motives
including sexual perversion,
and including elements of sadism
and necrosadism,
also known as necrophiliac fetishism,
a crime deserving
of the utmost condemnation,
it is this court's belief
that Robert Janczewski
did knowingly take
the life of Katarzyna Zowada,
for which the court now sentences him
to lifelong imprisonment.
[tense droning music playing]
None of it was true.
[Józef Janczewski]
This violates my honor,
my son's honor
and my parents' honor.
This is not simply a mere humiliation
for my son or for us.
This is a debasement of the family name.
I may not have been
emotionally attached to him that much
but he uses our family name.
He knew my mom and dad.
Now, he too joins the family grave.
The sentence handed down
by the Kraków district court
has made sure
that the perpetrator of this crime
will not remain unpunished.
For us, this simply means that
a not-guilty ruling has been postponed.
I'm Robert's defense attorney.
I sensed that the court decided
he was guilty first
and then looked for evidence
to substantiate that belief.
It was about the impression.
Their case was smoke and mirrors.
They created this impression
of there being
an enormous body of evidence,
hence the decision
to hold a public trial
that anyone interested could watch.
This case did garner
substantial public attention.
"I am not guilty because"
This is nothing unusual.
It's how our system works.
[door creaking]
[tense droning music playing]
[chains clinking]
[metallic slam]
[music intensifies]
[Frątczak] I thought about
other cases involving people
who had been wrongly accused
and sentenced.
I looked one by one
at any evidence against him
that seemed suspect.
We latched onto this hair thing
and wondered
how the heck this could be.
It's 2018,
and somehow they find
intact hairs in the drain
which must mean they had been there
in his drain, unmoving,
since 1998?
And what does
the prosecutor's statement mean
about "near utter certainty"?
Near is not absolute.
We asked experts if it's even possible
to identify hair like that
after so long.
[Sitarski] I was a forensic technician
for several years.
Based on the morphology of a hair,
you can establish a probability
but never complete certainty.
These hairs each have similar structure
but could have come
from two different women.
In order to identify the hairs,
they would have needed a DNA test.
We were able to determine
that no DNA test had been done
because the hairs were unfit
for such testing.
The prosecution decided not to test
that hair for fear of ruining it,
which is just preposterous.
If they hadn't done a DNA test,
what did they do?
BEGINNING OF THE TRIAL
IN THE APPELLATE COUR
[Fuja] In 2024, we get a breakthrough.
The appellate trial in Kraków
is declassified.
All of a sudden, journalists are allowed
to enter the courtroom and listen
to both arguments,
the defense and the prosecution.
[tense pulsing music playing]
[door slams]
[bell rings]
Good morning.
Those who are able to sit, please do so.
Has the defendant been uncuffed?
- No.
- Uncuff the defendant.
- Can we proceed?
- Yes.
Go ahead, counsel for the defense.
Thank you, Your Honor.
I accuse the court that sentenced Robert
of ignoring due process.
The defense,
or should I say the defendant,
as he is the most important person here,
never stood any chance
with that line-up.
These are not theatrics.
I am genuinely disturbed.
It is truly horrendous.
There are numerous
scientific publications that state,
unequivocally,
that one cannot draw
definitive conclusions
based on morphology alone,
that morphology
cannot identify with certainty.
Studies prove that making predictions
based on morphology
leads to false conclusions.
Morphology isn't magic!
And yet,
the court still takes it
as proof of Robert's guilt.
I have no idea how the court
allowed the prosecutor
to move forward.
It's unbelievable.
As is the degree to which
the prosecution manipulated evidence.
What do you make of the fact
that these morphology tests
are likened to reading a crystal ball?
In the U.S.
they no longer use this method.
I consider that statement to be
a subjective and erroneous opinion.
In your opinion,
are these morphology tests credible
as proof of someone's guilt?
They obviously do qualify as proof.
I consider them to be so.
[Frątczak] At this point we were certain
Robert had been falsely convicted.
[percussive, bass music playing]
[Fuja] There were simply
no holds barred.
They consulted
a variety of expert opinions,
from dendrologists who study trees,
to metallurgists who study metals.
A clairvoyant was even brought in
who blew smoke
over the victim's belongings
and told the prosecution
what might have happened to her.
- Just tell me her name, please.
- [prosecutor] Katarzyna.
I need you
to say the name aloud again.
It's not that I can't remember.
It's just a stimulus for me.
When connecting to the deceased
I'll ask for the name to be repeated,
so when I say
"Please state the name,"
will the prosecutor be so kind
as to say it?
When they did actually arrest the man,
however many years later,
I was
CLAIRVOYAN
I was a bit surprised and unhappy.
Because
he wasn't who I expected.
[Fuja] We know that a clairvoyant helped
draw the sketch of the perpetrator.
It depicted someone who had
already been a person of interest
more than ten years ago.
The picture that I assisted in putting
together was completely different
from the picture which I saw
in the media and in the press
later on, after his arrest.
I was quite surprised
that this person was arrested.
This information was already
in the media before my visit.
It did not come from me,
but instead from the prosecutor's office
or Kraków's cold case unit.
A person with special abilities,
clairvoyant abilities
has been called upon
to help the investigation.
I've been doing this for over 30 years
and have never seen this happen before,
for the police or any authority
to announce my involvement,
that I'd been doing a séance,
to the press, to the media,
before I had actually done so.
I'd think it would be
rather embarrassing for the police
to resort to a psychic.
The fact that my involvement
was publicized suggested
they were engaging in a conspiracy
where I was being used
to further their cause.
[Frątczak] That the prosecution used
the media to manipulate the trial
signals that they were using Jackowski
for their own benefit.
In the case files, there's a memo
by Bogdan Michalec,
saying that Janczewski needed
to be provoked
and that leaking this to the media
could do it.
It was all heavily, heavily publicized.
I found it odd.
I found it very odd.
[Frątczak] I see the case
of Robert Janczewski
as a glaring indictment
of the media.
For many journalists,
this case, in addition to causing
a crisis of conscience,
should also at least be
a crash course in journalistic ethics.
[Fuja] Do I feel guilty?
As a journalist,
I feel used.
We were told over and over
that the evidence against him
was simply unequivocal,
that there was no doubt.
We made our initial report
with the information
available to us at the time.
We tried to talk to Robert
but he reacted negatively
to our visits.
His behavior was very strange.
A DOCUMENTARY BY M. FUJA AND P. LITKA,
"SUPERWIZJER," TVN, 2017
[Janczewski] What's the occasion?
[Fuja] It's about Miss Katarzyna.
[Janczewski] I don't know her.
I don't use the internet.
I don't even have a cellphone.
My landline, as you can see,
is turned off.
I'm completely socially isolated,
cut off from the world.
I don't care.
People might think
no one can live like this
and I'm proof that you can.
You won't get anything from me.
Not a single word.
[Fuja] To reconcile the picture
I'd created internally,
or rather, which was created for me
by pseudo-evidence,
I feel like I was duped.
Am I kicking myself because of that?
Of course I am.
No one likes being in the wrong.
No one likes being used.
No one likes being used by someone else
for their own purposes, and I was.
Not just me
but other journalists as well.
It isn't easy
to make a public case for something
and then come out in public and say,
actually that's not how it happened.
When you look at what the prosecution
and police were doing all those years,
none of it makes any sense whatsoever.
It made no sense to try to float
a pig skin down the Vistula.
It made no sense
to raise up the barge on the Vistula,
ten-plus years after the fact,
and check if maybe something got stuck.
It made no sense to send police officers
to collect pine needles
from over a dozen spots in Kraków,
not to mention
that it was later revealed
that you can't identify a tree
by its needles.
This was the hardest part for Robert.
He might not have known,
but he was constantly being watched.
It was the crudest kind of wiretap
you could possibly imagine.
The one they used
had this terrible echo.
I said, "Robert, when we call
to wish each other happy holidays"
Because he would call me
to say Merry Christmas, best wishes,
have a happy holiday, etcetera,
I told him, "If you come over,
watch out for the police
because your phone is being tapped."
The case files
contain tons of transcripts
of Robert's phone conversations
over the years.
In one of those,
you can hear Robert shouting into
the receiver when the police called him,
"Michalec, you dick!
You made me go get her mother flowers."
It was a very emotional reaction,
he was defenseless,
so he let out what had really happened.
[rattling]
[Fuja] Since his arrest in 2017,
Robert is to this day
still awaiting a fair trial.
Even after years in prison
the appeal is still ongoing.
[Maczuga]
All the evidence in this trial
had been circumstantial at best.
There was nothing that proved his guilt
beyond a shadow of a doubt.
The defendant has pleaded not guilty.
We don't have a witness
who saw him commit the crime.
But we do have clues.
Clues should lead from one piece
of evidence to the next,
creating a chain
that results in a logical conclusion.
A fiber here, a hair there,
none of it added anything
but created the impression
as far as the prosecution was concerned
of there being overwhelming proof.
So it had to be Robert.
This is my client being escorted
out of the prosecutor's office
where he was denied hygiene products.
This is the state of
the Republic of Poland in 2018 or 2019.
Robert was barred from using
any personal hygiene products
so they could collect his hair
for DNA testing.
The prosecutor was so kind as to reply
regarding the shaving ban
that it was no big deal,
only for a month!
[Janczewski] I was so humiliated.
My hair grew right down to here,
below the ears.
I had a mustache
and a beard that went
all the way down to my waist.
My mother said I was being
shuffled around like a circus monkey
from jail to jail.
This isn't irrelevant.
This cannot remain unanswered.
This is a human being.
A human being!
Not a toy, not an object!
A human being, fully entitled
to his rights as a person!
The defense is relying upon accusations
that I take umbrage with.
Elements are a part
of my work as a prosecutor.
This was a multi-year investigation.
It began in 2012
and went on for a very long time.
It was thorough, meticulous.
This investigation had only one goal
which was to determine the truth
by means of collecting evidence
that would prove or disprove his guilt.
[Fuja] Once you're caught up
in the criminal justice machine
it's hard to get out.
Once you're a suspect,
you're in the system.
The end justifies the means.
They can do whatever they want,
drag your name through the mud,
check a million times
what you were doing on that day,
they can interrogate you
and berate you and it's okay
because they have such
an important goal: to find the killer.
One of the clues was supposedly
the fact that he redid his apartment
immediately after Katarzyna's body
had been found.
The problem with that is, Robert had
actually done it one year before.
[director]
And, stop! Thank you.
We're done shooting for today.
Please unclip the lavaliers.
[hubbub of voices]
[director] Tomorrow,
we start at eight as usual.
Thank you.
[Frątczak] In Robert's
first interrogation back in March 2000,
it's Robert Janczewski who tells
Michalec about the renovations
and tells him precisely when he did it,
an entire year and a half
before Katarzyna went missing.
His testimony is confirmed by his mother
who had returned from Canada.
She said the renovation had been done
so they were wrong,
the prosecutor had the wrong year.
Knowing what I do about this case,
I think it was
a deliberate distortion of the truth
banking on the hope that no one
would ever actually read all those files
and notice that discrepancy.
His internship
at the morgue
wasn't that unusual either.
Nothing can be concluded from this fact.
It's used by the prosecution
to create an appearance,
a certain idea of him,
a certain tension.
Robert wasn't going there as a hobby.
He had to be there because
it was his job, it's different.
[director]
And cut! Thank you. We got it.
[Chojniak]
When we're watching a movie
and we see a character who does
any sort of work at the morgue,
then viewers are likely to think,
"Well, this is probably the bad guy."
But the courtroom isn't a film set.
It's meant to uncover the truth,
not create a story.
[discordant piano music playing]
[slow, deliberate slicing]
[Fuja] Something else that came up
was the animals,
in this case the killing of animals.
But the truth wasn't at all
like how it was presented.
[Dąbrowski] I don't know
where it came from.
It wasn't required for the animals
to be skinned
or for muscle to be sampled.
[metallic creak]
I don't live in a pigsty like this.
No offense, just saying how it is.
I used to put better furniture together
using rubbish than the furniture here.
Simple as that!
It's just not the way it should be.
This is all wrong.
[Chojniak] Robert had been
in psychiatric treatment for years.
Schizophrenia is an illness
like any other
but one particular symptom is that
one's behaviors or internal motivation
could be completely different
than someone
not facing this sort of affliction.
I measured the distance
between the blocks.
It's ten and a half meters.
- [male voice] And here?
- Maybe half of that.
None of this is right.
His outlook and views on the world,
his lived experience,
they were all quite complex,
and also quite simplistically dark
at the same time.
The basic level of trust
that someone like Robert has
was, and is, somewhat limited.
This is the result
of childhood experiences, naturally.
[Janczewski] The cause of my illness
can be traced back to my childhood.
It was sad, bitter, lonely.
I was verbally and physically abused.
Then I was in love, but unhappily.
For three years,
I was fighting for survival.
I did everything I could
not to just kill myself
because this was an unrequited love
and broke my heart.
"THE DELUGE," DIR. JERZY HOFFMAN, 1974
[Frątczak] In the 1980s,
Robert fell in love with a friend
but it wasn't reciprocated.
I even wrote letters in my own blood.
This was nothing new.
In the film The Deluge,
Daniel Olbrychski does the same thing.
A forensic sexologist told me,
"If someone sent me
something like that I'd think, wow,
this person
really cares about me."
A love like that
happens once in a lifetime.
And so for me,
being a highly emotional person,
I still cannot get over it
to this day.
[soft piano music playing]
And I approached the mother
of this person in a similar way.
This person who was harmed, murdered,
I saw those hands and I kissed them.
Then they took it the wrong way
and that's how everyone saw it.
[Matkowski] It could certainly
be interpreted as weird, insane,
or even an admission of guilt.
All the visits to the victim's grave
But it might also be seen
that through this bizarre turn of events
this condemnation of his character
that he, during all those years,
spent so much effort insisting
was false and unjust,
that this turn of events is what
prompted him to go there one day,
to her grave.
[Fuja] In the case files,
there's an invoice for putting up CCTV.
Cameras were installed,
all sorts of tech,
to prove that Robert would
continue to return.
Maybe not to the crime scene
but to the victim's grave.
They were determined
to frame me, no matter what.
They were going to drag me in
by any means necessary.
There was also the issue
of how we were going to handle
assessing the defendant's responses
to questions
regarding a particular film.
This film happened to be Star Wars.
On the day of the event, the victim
supposedly was carrying a dissertation
of the film Star Wars.
Star Trek occasionally came up
as a parallel
to Star Wars.
The police have this theory
that Katarzyna liked to go to the cinema
in Kraków's Kazimierz.
Since Robert Janczewski lives
in Kazimierz
he must have
crossed paths with her somewhere,
chatted her up,
and convinced her
to go back to his place
so they could watch
Star Trek together on VHS.
[Maczuga] So it was assumed
the defendant had seen
the lady's dissertation.
We don't actually know
if he'd seen Star Wars
or watched Star Trek.
We have no proof that Robert Janczewski
even had a VHS of Star Trek
but the police were convinced
that he must have.
[soft footsteps]
[Chojniak] The lead detective
had testified about this on the record,
so I assume that he was telling
the truth when he said to Robert,
years before he was charged,
that Robert would never be able
to convince him of his innocence.
He'd always see him as guilty.
Would you trust this policeman
to be fair
if he makes it his mission, his creed
to put this one particular person
behind bars?
To prove his guilt
regardless
if he actually was guilty or not?
In the case files there are theories
by Bogdan Michalec
regarding what he describes as a theory
of imprints on the soul.
[Chojniak] I will quote
a piece of testimony by Michalec
which I think speaks volumes.
"Imprints on the soul
should be understood
as traces of an individual's behavior
after committing a crime.
These imprints on the soul
should be verified
through investigative proceedings.
We find this imprint then follow it up
with evidentiary proceedings."
My understanding is that
Poland's judicial practice involves
an academic approach
mainly based on forensic evidence.
But here, Michalec says
that when such forensic evidence
is absent
law enforcement, and I quote,
"can become a bit stupid"
and that therefore, with no evidence,
one has to look at the soul.
The detective registers imprints
on the suspect's soul.
You'd have to define imprints
to define soul.
There's no point talking about it.
I was wrongly perceived
to be an enemy of forensic evidence.
That is not the case.
I merely think that its uses
can be limited.
Generally, the heart is king
whereas the mind
can only suggest a solution.
The brain might suggest
a neutral solution
but if the heart is evil,
it will instruct the brain
to take it in a bad direction.
[Chojniak] This was also,
as Michalec put it,
"an argument that is part
of the broader theory of relativity
by Einstein,
which I also introduced
into the forensic analysis
conducted by the cold case officers,
while the theory of relativity itself
was presented
as early as the gospel,
in the lesson of the Widow's Mite,
and this best explains
Robert Janczewski's actions."
Do you know, Your Honor,
what is shocking?
That the deposition was done
by Prosecutor Krupiński
and that the prosecutor never asked him,
"What are you talking about?"
No, the gentleman just went on,
happily talking about Einstein,
about soul imprints, the gospel,
all in the context
of Robert Janczewski's guilt.
You were putting this on record!
You could have stopped this,
Mr. Prosecutor.
You could have removed him
from the case.
But no,
because then an officer might have
to look, not for imprints on the soul,
but actual evidence,
and everything would unravel.
[Frątczak] It's easy to laugh,
reduce it to people being ridiculous,
to say this was the blind
leading the blind,
but this put a man in jail
for seven years
in horrendous conditions.
Not so funny after all.
[soft piano music playing]
[Józef Janczewski]
Robert wrote us 125 letters
but the first dozen or so never arrived.
The latter ones, if they did arrive,
were often heavily redacted.
We were allowed to visit Robert
or contact him by phone.
"The cell is bright yellow,
5.5 by 5.5 steps.
Sturdy bars, a tiny table, a stool,
a narrow bed, a hard mattress,
a sink and a toilet.
Such is life here.
Whenever you leave your cell,
there's a protocol."
[Guard] Socks inside-out.
Underwear down.
Sack, up.
Turn around.
Crouch.
Deeper. Cough.
[coughs]
No mother could hold back her tears.
[male voice] Could you?
Am I holding them now?
"I love you very much, Mom.
I miss you a lot.
I miss you so much.
I miss going to church every day.
Ask the priests to pray for me
and please send my greetings
to everyone."
[mournful organ music playing]
[Janczewski] I lived in cells
that were crawling with cockroaches.
Not just a couple,
but hundreds and hundreds of bedbugs.
I would get horribly bitten.
It was impossible for me to sleep.
Solitary is not normal prison,
so you don't get the same privileges.
It's out of the question
to see your family when you want,
or even to see your lawyer
when you want.
Everything must be approved
by the court or prosecutor.
If you don't get approval, you could
be deprived of contact for years.
Robert was for a long time
considered a dangerous inmate.
Because of this he was assigned
to a cell simply called "N."
What is an N?
It's a one-person cell
with constant surveillance, handcuffs,
separate outdoor space, so on.
[Moczydlowski] Humans are social.
They need contact with others.
Social isolation
is known for causing
very destructive personality disorders.
[tense music playing]
Suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts
and even successful suicides.
It is known that if you want
to crush a prisoner's spirit
you put him in solitary confinement.
It's quite an effective tool.
Sometimes, after a long stay
in solitary confinement,
people will admit
to things they didn't do.
That cannot be
what detention is used for.
Seven years in those conditions?
[whispering] Have mercy upon us
and on the whole world
for his sorrowful passion
[Janczewski] I would think
of my death every day.
I was getting twice the normal dose
of psychotropic medication
and yet I would still
constantly get depressed.
Depression was with me non-stop.
I already had a plan to break a bottle
and use a piece of thick glass,
proper solid glass,
to slit open my artery lengthwise.
My goal was to cut my artery
only once, in a way
that was effective.
It was seven years and four weeks
into Robert's custody,
ten days after he'd been
officially sentenced.
He had just learned that he was going
to spend the rest of his life
in a two-person cell, because by then,
he had finally earned
the right to be in one.
Another prisoner tried
to cut his carotid artery
with a shard of glass.
I heard the sound
of my glass bottle shattering,
and this man
starts to cut himself here
with long, deep wounds,
trying to slit his own throat.
He managed to open up a vein.
Robert leaped immediately into action.
He grabbed the prisoner very tightly
by the arms,
then screamed for help.
[buzzing]
[guard]
Janczewski, out of the cell now!
Get up against the wall immediately!
31 reporting to 41.
We have a self-mutilation in 320.
In fact, he did save his life.
This was done by a man who,
for seven whole years,
however great or small the extent of it,
was having constant suicidal thoughts.
He saw
what he had thought about for so long
manifest before him.
He never did it,
and at the same time,
he saved someone else.
[Fuja] It was very confusing exactly
how Robert got caught up in this case.
How did he end up
on the list of suspects?
We initially assumed
that Robert's status as a suspect
was the result of the police hunting
through cases around Kraków
for anyone who fit the profile.
However, the information
about Robert possibly being the killer
actually came
from his own acquaintance,
Leszek L.
Today, that is May 13th, 1999,
around 7 p.m.,
Leszek L. stated
that when he heard of the body
of the female student
pulled out of the Vistula,
Robert Janczewski
had come to mind for him
because Robert was a fervent misogynist,
and that,
while working at the Zoology Institute,
would torture animals
by skinning them alive.
But no one included the fact
that Robert was supposed
to bring these animals to Leszek L.
so he could feed them to his snakes.
Need I remind you,
this is the same Leszek L.
who was the reason Judge Maczuga
was removed from the case.
I had the impression that Leszek L
was, shall we say,
a person of interest
for the investigation team.
It's shocking to say the least,
the extent to which Leszek L.
was determined to point the finger
at Robert Janczewski.
[hissing]
[tense percussive music playing]
[Góra] He was quite skilled
at using knives.
He could surgically
remove the skin from an animal.
[Frątczak] He would invite young girls
to parties at his place
and then make it impossible for them
to leave the party.
Would Leszek be able to skin a person?
I think he would be.
My name is
Robert Janczewski.
I am not a beast.
Believe me,
I did not do it.
[male voice] A mother and daughter
see two people walking up the stairs.
One of them is the defendant.
[male voice] Have you ever walked
down your staircase with a girl?
Yes.
[judge] The sentence on behalf
of the Republic of Poland
[tense percussive music fades out]
[sinister strumming music playing]