Kacperek’s body was in a very difficult-to-reach place in the river, less than 2 kilometers from where the boy was last seen. The child’s body was found by independent diver Marcel Korkuś, who used sonars and robots and also entered the water himself. Using specialized equipment, he took photographs, and they revealed information that proved crucial to finding the drowned child. The information Korkuś provided to the police was confirmed, and the body was recovered from the Kwisa.
The child disappeared within a few minutes of inattention
We learned about the mysterious disappearance of little Kacperek on April 27, 2020. The 3.5-year-old boy disappeared in the afternoon near Lubańska Street in Nowogrodziec, by the allotment gardens. The police already suspected that the child had fallen into the Kwisa. Police officers and firefighters from across the county arrived at the scene.
According to accounts from witnesses we reached, the boy was riding a bicycle along a path by the allotments one moment, and the next he was gone. His father raised the alarm, and the shocked mother arrived at the allotment. The child disappeared within ten minutes of inattention.
“What is there to say? The child died, and that is all. We were at the allotment the whole time, just like the child’s father and Kacperek,” a witness to the incident recounted. “The father suddenly started running after the child, and he disappeared behind that hedge,” the woman said, pointing to the bushes growing on the steep riverbank. “As far as I’m concerned, the father did not neglect his responsibilities. He was doing his work, but he kept checking on the child,” she added.
Speculation, theories, scenarios. The Rutkowski office joins the search
On the fifth day of the search, more than 700 hectares were searched, including fields, railway areas and allotment gardens. Police counterterrorists took part in the operation, while the best police divers searched approximately 7 kilometers of the riverbed from Nowogrodziec to Parzyce. During the search, the services used, among other things, a special underwater robot. As it moved underwater, it filmed and transmitted a live image to the operator on the bank.
On the sixth day of the search for 3.5-year-old Kacperek, detective Rutkowski’s office joined the operation. The boy’s mother identified his father’s acquaintances as suspects in his abduction. However, according to information obtained from the police, the work of dogs trained for searches indicated that the child had fallen into the water.
Journalists learned that the boy’s father was wanted—he was supposed to serve a prison sentence for an offense against property. Moreover, at the time of the incident, the man was under the influence of alcohol. He had 0.7 parts per thousand of alcohol in his exhaled air.
The father of the missing boy, Rafał B., was detained and questioned at the District Prosecutor’s Office in Bolesławiec. Investigators charged the man under Article 160 of the Criminal Code.
On the tenth day of the search, dogs from Saxony specialized in this type of search were brought to the scene. By indicating the water, they confirmed the work of the Polish police dogs. It was already clear that this was where the child needed to be sought.
The painful discovery of the child’s body
Social media were the first to learn that Kacperek’s body had been found, followed by newspaper, television and radio journalists. Maja Rutkowski, who was with the child’s mother, informed her of the tragic outcome of the search. News of the boy’s body being found “leaked” without the police’s knowledge.
The family of Kacperek, who died tragically, felt resentment toward the police and prosecutor’s office because the officers had not done more to ensure that the most important information was first passed on to the child’s mother. The prosecutor’s office spokesperson assured them that everything within their power had been done to ensure the proper flow of information.
The child’s body was in a very difficult-to-reach place in the river. In an interview with istotne.pl, Marcel Korkuś, a WOPR lifeguard, court-appointed expert in underwater searches and navigation officer, described what the search operation looked like from the perspective of those conducting the search.
“I volunteered for the search out of a heartfelt need to help find the child,” the diver said. “I’m glad I was able to help, even though the outcome of the search proved tragic. During the first 24 hours, I searched the river from the allotment gardens to the road bridge. In the following days, I used my own equipment: an underwater robot and a side-scan sonar. When those efforts produced no results, I decided that in the following days I would try diving on my own, searching the river again from the very beginning. When I set myself a goal, I try stubbornly to pursue it until I achieve it. The most difficult and exhausting days for me were those when I spent five or six hours a day underwater. I would return home, sleep, and go back to the operation. During each dive, I made a video recording with a camera. One day, before going to sleep, something prompted me to review the video. The recording showed the child’s body. Based on the recording, I managed to determine the location on the bank. Everyone would have preferred a different outcome to this search. The place was very unusual and difficult to search. Without the underwater search efforts, we really might have waited much longer for this case to be solved,” he said in the interview Marcel Korkuś.
The funeral of the 3.5-year-old was held on May 4, 2020. More than 200 people attended. Kacperek’s mother and father, siblings, closest family, friends and residents of Nowogrodziec accompanied him on his final journey. Firefighters from Nowogrodziec also paid tribute to the boy’s memory.
The father recounts in court his son’s final hours
On April 27, 2020, the day the child disappeared, Rafał called a friend after 11:00 a.m. They had work to do at an allotment. He took his son with him so the child could play outdoors.
“I called my friend to cut wood at his allotment,” the father recounted. “He told me he wasn’t sure whether he could start his van and asked me to come help him, but when I arrived, the van was already running and we went to the allotment. Then he asked me whether I had ‘something.’ I replied that I had a little. We took it. I went first, and Mariusz second. Then we started cutting wood, while the little one rode his bicycle beside us,” Rafał told the court.
After 3:00 p.m., another acquaintance of Rafał arrived at the allotment. He was the one who found a buyer for the wood. This man gave Kacperek a plastic excavator, which was later recovered from the river. The boy took a liking to his new toy.
“Kacperek was playing with the excavator at a neighbor’s allotment,” Rafał said. “There was a little hole filled with water, and he was filling it in with the excavator. He did not go near the embankment. Once, he went down the stairs to the Kwisa with me because I went there for water. I filled a bucket with water and we returned. When we were walking up the stairs, I was holding Kacperek’s hand. I believe Kacperek would not have gone down those stairs alone because he would have been afraid,” Rafał insisted.
At around 5:00 p.m., the men loaded the wood and left the allotment. Rafał’s two friends took the wood to the person who had ordered it, while Rafał and his son went home for dinner. They arrived at approximately 5:30 p.m. After several dozen minutes, they returned to the allotment.
“I went home for dinner, then returned to the allotment because my friend wanted me to help him repair a saw,” Rafał said. “I got out of the car, opened the door for Kacperek and saw that he was walking beside me. I went over to my friend for about two or three minutes. I realized that the little one was gone. I started running around the allotments looking for him. A man said that Kacperek might have gone to jump on a trampoline, so I ran around calling for him. A woman told me she had heard some kind of splash in the river and thought it was a beaver. Then I started running along the river. I ran about 500 meters, and on my way back I saw the little one’s excavator floating downstream—the same one he had been playing with,” the father recounted.
The court case against Kacperek’s father lasted two years. The judge ruled that the father had failed to provide adequate care for the child, found Rafał B. guilty of the acts of which he was accused and sentenced him to two years in prison.
“There is no expression in the Polish language for the pain of losing a child. The father will live with the knowledge that he will never hold his son again—his beloved, cherished and spoiled favorite. Life has already punished the father sufficiently. This sentence is intended to show the great responsibility involved in caring for a child,” Judge Marcin Rygiel.
Epilogue: how the state system “cared for” Kacperek’s brother and sisters after the tragedy
The mother of Kacperek, who died tragically, described what happened to her family after the tragedy and how the state care system treated her children. After the tragedy, the trauma of losing a child was compounded by another. She had to fight for custody of Kacperek’s grieving siblings and for funds to support the children.
Kacperek had three siblings: twins Karol and Sara (in 2020, the children were five years old) and Stella, who was seven in 2020. Karolek suffered the death of his youngest brother most severely. In his child’s imagination, he decided that on the day of the tragedy he could have gone to the allotment with little Kacperek and their father and watched over his little brother. Karolek only revealed his trauma to his therapist during the sessions he attended. His grief and trauma after losing his brother were compounded by fear that the children might be placed in foster care.