The perpetrator turned out to be 33-year-old Maciej M. During the proceedings, M. admitted that two years earlier he had killed another companion. An exhumation of the body confirmed this. Although the accused now denies committing that crime, the prosecutor has gathered conclusive evidence that Maciej M. was the perpetrator.
The second crime took place between 22 and 25 March 2014. The men were drinking denatured alcohol together. When the victim spilled a small amount of the drink on the floor, M., enraged by this, stood up and kicked him in the area of the sternum. The man fell. When he began to get up, the accused reached for a hammer lying on a piece of furniture and struck the victim in the head at least 20 times. He then wiped the hammer with a cloth and went home.
At home, he burned the trousers and sweatshirt he had been wearing during the crime in a tiled stove.
The victim died at the scene. A neighbour did not find the man’s body until 26 March.
During the inspection, numerous blood traces were discovered on the floor, furniture, walls, doors and ceiling. A bloodstained hammer was also secured. It was quickly established who the victim had been drinking with and who had last had contact with him. This led investigators to Maciej M., who confessed to the murder.
Blood traces and remnants of clothing burned in the stove were found at M.’s home. The man was charged with murder with particular cruelty. Questioned as a suspect, he confessed to committing the crime and gave extensive explanations. What is more, he then also spoke about a crime he was alleged to have committed two years earlier. He explained that he had killed a fellow villager from Trzebnice, located between Chocianów and Lubin.
This happened in July 2012. He went there to visit. On the way, he bought half a litre of vodka. However, he did not find his acquaintance at home. He then broke a windowpane and entered the house, where he drank the alcohol he had bought earlier by himself. About an hour later, the victim came home. He complained that Maciej M. had entered without asking. The accused then punched him in the sternum, and when the man fell onto the bed, he leaned over him and squeezed his neck with his hand. This led to the man’s suffocation.
After the crime, the accused rode the victim’s bicycle to a shop to buy beer, drank it at the deceased man’s home, then locked the door from the outside with a padlock and returned to Chocianów.
M. claimed that he wanted to see what it was like to kill someone and that this was why he committed both crimes. He added that while committing them he had felt euphoria and felt like the “master of life and death”. During crime-scene reconstructions carried out with his participation at the sites of both murders, he described in detail the course of the events outlined above and the way the blows were delivered. He also confirmed his statements during a hearing concerning his pre-trial detention, held on 29 March 2014.
However, at the end of June last year, he withdrew his confession to murdering his companion from Chocianów. He explained that another man had struck the victim with the hammer. He also denied murdering his acquaintance from Trzebnice. He explained that it was true that he had consumed alcohol with him, but that when the latter fell asleep, he had left the house, and after a few days learned that his companion was dead.
The prosecutor concluded that the numerous pieces of evidence gathered in the case showed that withdrawing his earlier statements was merely an adopted line of defence. Maciej M. was found to be mentally healthy and legally sane, meaning that he can stand trial.
Experts found that the accused had shallow emotionality and a high susceptibility to social approval. A psychological analysis also identified dissocial, antisocial personality traits characterised by a weak superego and an ease of violating moral and legal norms and the rules of social functioning.
M. faces a possible life sentence. The case will be heard by the Regional Court in Legnica.
Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Legnica/ii