Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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This episode includes graphic descriptions of violence.
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One day in southwest Poland, there were a couple fishermen, and one of them noticed something floating, and then the other came over, and they realized it was a body. And there was a noose around the neck, and the hands had obviously been tied behind their back. There was no doubt that the figure had been murdered.
This is author David Graham. The men who found the body called the police, who came to remove it.
It was decayed, and it was evidence once the pathologist looked at the person that they also had lacked food in them. So somebody had clearly deprived the person of nourishment, some indications that they had been beaten and tortured. And there was something very peculiar the way the noose was around the neck. and the hands were tied behind the back.
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Chapter 2: What unusual clue did the Polish detective discover during the murder investigation?
When he first began looking at the case, he had very little, but he kept reviewing the file over and over. He put it away. He'd pick it back up.
One thing that occurred to him, he had one suspicion, which was when he was looking at the way the body had been abused, the way this kind of cat's cradle, the way the body had been positioned, made him think that there was some kind of personal animus that drove the perpetrator or perpetrators involved.
He did notice one clue or it was the absence of a clue, which was Jacek had a cell phone, but there was no report of a cell phone in the file. So he began to say, can we trace, can we figure out what had happened to that cell phone? At that time in Poland, telecommunications and that kind of technical investigation was still pretty primitive.
But he was able to get a serial number of the cell phone from the widow and And lo and behold, that cell phone turned out to have been sold on an internet auction just days after the murder. And not only that, he was able to tell that the person who had sold this was somebody who had identified themselves as Chris B. Chris B. turned out to be a man named Christian Bala.
And Jacek is aware that it's a very tenuous lead. I mean, in the sense that he doesn't know how this Christian Bala obtained the phone. He may have found it on the street. He may have bought it at a pawn shop. But it is the only lead he has. And he has to figure out who is this person. He realizes that Christian Bala is out of the country.
So he has to be a little bit careful about the way he investigates. He doesn't want to tip anyone off. And he begins to read about him and try to learn about him. One of the things he does is he learns that he was this kind of very young, bright philosopher student. Had been the equivalent of his valedictorian in high school.
Had gotten a scholarship to get a PhD in philosophy, which he eventually dropped out of in order to work. He had been married, although was now divorced. He had a child. And he had also written a novel called Amok.
Jacek Robleski learned that Christian Bala had published a mock in 2003, several years after Darius had been murdered, and not long before Jacek began investigating the case. Jacek decided to get a copy.
And he begins to read through the novel. At first, almost kind of casually, almost out of curiosity, is who is this person? How can I learn about him? And the novel is a bit of a shock to him. I mean, Jacek is a very kind of straightforward person, very Catholic, very strong kind of view of good and evil. And the book is very blasphemous. It's very creepy. It's very sadistic. It's pornographic.
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Chapter 3: Who was the victim and what were the circumstances of his disappearance?
Jacek also didn't want word of the investigation to reach Christian. Then he might never come home.
And so he couldn't interview his closest family members or his ex-wife. So he's somewhat limited learning about him through these different sources. He still has no sense of a motive for the crime.
Jacek decided to look through the profile for Chris B. on the Internet auction site that Christian had used to sell Darius' cell phone.
And they realized that very shortly, like a week before, 10 days before, Darius was murdered. Crispy, Christian Bala, have been looking for a police manual on criminal hangings. And now, again, it's suggestive. But once again, they're also stymied because there's no evidence that the book itself was actually purchased. They don't know if that book was ever found.
But at least in Jacek's mind, again, it's suggestive to him. Why is Crispy looking at a police manual, detective manual, about... criminal hangings 10 days before a noose is found around Darius's neck. And then they learn that Christian is going to return to Poland, that he's coming back to visit. And so they decide they're going to bring him in for questioning.
Christian Bala returned to Poland about two years after Jacek had begun investigating the case. While he was out of the country, he'd been traveling, writing for magazines and teaching English and scuba lessons. Officers arrested Christian on September 5th, 2005, as he was coming out of a drugstore in a town near Wrocław. Christian later wrote an account of what he says happened.
He said that three men attacked him, forced him into the back of a car and put a black plastic bag over his head. He wrote that the men beat him and then called someone on the phone. He said he overheard one of the men say, he's still alive, and what about the money? Will we get it today?
He said that the men drove for a while and then stopped, and one of them said, we can dig a hole here and bury him. Christian wrote, I thought that this was going to be the last moment of my life. But then he said the men started driving again and took him to a building where he was stripped and beaten some more. When they started to interrogate him, he realized he was in police custody.
Jacek said that none of this happened. He said they did arrest Christian outside of a drugstore, but without violence. Quote, we used standard procedures and followed the letter of the law. What do you think about that, you know, do you have any suspicion that Christian was in some ways threatened, tortured by Jacek and his detectives?
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Chapter 4: What led to the cold case status of Darius's murder?
And he was screaming drunkenly that nobody can talk to my wife that way.
Witnesses said Christian shouted, quote, I've already taken out a guy like you with a rope. Five people held Christian back from attacking the man. Then, the detective spoke to a friend of Christian's ex-wife.
Who says that one time at a bar, she had seen Christian Bala's ex-wife talking to somebody. And it was none other than Darius Januszewski.
We'll be right back.
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Chapter 5: Who is Detective Jacek Robleski and what was his approach to the case?
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So she had been very resistant to be interviewed for a long time. And I don't know the reason why. Perhaps it was—I mean, I only know what Jacek wondered. Could it be because she was afraid of Christian? Was it because she thought he was innocent? Was it because they had a child together and she didn't want to incriminate him? But eventually, Jacek goes to speak with her.
And she had never read the novel Amok, but then he shows her portions of the novel and these very, very sadistic descriptions of a woman in the novel who very much mirrors her, the ex-wife. And at that point, she's willing to talk. And she says for the first time that she had met Darius Januszewski in a bar.
This was in the summer of 2000, the same year she and Christian separated.
They had later gone on a date. They had gone to a motel. She says they didn't have sex because she learned that he had been married. But they were together and they had gone on this date. He had left. They never went on a date again and that was it.
but that Christian had showed up not long after at her apartment or at her home, broke down the door, hit her, was screaming, says, I know you had an affair, I know who was, I know the hotel, I know the room.
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