Speaker 1: The murder of Darius Jannezeuski was a chilling mystery, a
Speaker 1: cold case that seemed destined to remain unsolved until one
Speaker 1: detective absolutely refused to let it go. His name was
Speaker 1: Yannik Rabluvski, and he was relentless in his pursuit of
Speaker 1: truth until he finally uncovered a shocking connection between the
Speaker 1: crime and a dark, twisted novel written by an arrogant author.
Speaker 1: As he combed through the pages of the book, he
Speaker 1: realized that this author didn't just write a story. He
Speaker 1: had left behind a twisted, glorified confession inspired by his
Speaker 1: true murderous events.
Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked
Speaker 2: and Grim, a true crime.
Speaker 1: Podcast material in more mature audience listener discretion.
Speaker 2: Is it.
Speaker 1: Happy Valentine's Day to everyone out there? Hopefully you're having
Speaker 1: a good day, no matter your situation.
Speaker 2: Mm hmmm, yeah, every day it can be a good day.
Speaker 1: Every Wow, that's just like super inspiring and motivational rate
Speaker 1: there is it? Yeah, just every day can be a
Speaker 1: good day.
Speaker 2: You know. Honestly, I was actually struggling for most of
Speaker 2: this year so far, but just this last week I
Speaker 2: feel like I've come out of my bubble a little bit,
Speaker 2: which is nice.
Speaker 1: That's really good, And I honestly, I think it's been
Speaker 1: a sentiment. A lot of people have shared that twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five has been a long year. Yeah, I've heard
Speaker 1: that from a few people. So if it's if that's
Speaker 1: the case for you, you're not alone, just keep swimming.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, yeah, really, that's all you can do, exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was a little hermit basically for most of the
Speaker 2: year so far.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, I know, because I live with you.
Speaker 2: Really, you don't say all I do say.
Speaker 1: But to be fair, I had some hermit tendencies too.
Speaker 1: I was not leaving the house for like the entirety
Speaker 1: of January.
Speaker 2: So yeah, but sometimes that's what winter's for too. But
Speaker 2: I also don't feel like I was really like recharging either,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: So touche touche. You got to recharge one way or another. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And currently we're recharging with some nice hot beverages. I
Speaker 1: got my coffee, you've got your tea kind.
Speaker 2: Of tea tea I don't even know it's well, it's
Speaker 2: Mighty Leaf, which is like my favorite tea of all time.
Speaker 2: And I think it's like a hibiscus or something, okay,
Speaker 2: and it's so good I haven't been able to find it.
Speaker 2: And then London Drugs had one pack left, so I'm like,
Speaker 2: is that gonna be restocked or did I just like
Speaker 2: get my one chance?
Speaker 1: Oh wow?
Speaker 2: And now I'm just like powering through the box. So
Speaker 2: that's not great.
Speaker 1: There is steam billowing off that.
Speaker 2: Now does it make me look lovely?
Speaker 1: It's very cottage core that way. Sitting in your tiny
Speaker 1: home podcasting with your tea billowing steam. Yeah looks good.
Speaker 1: But so do you?
Speaker 2: Thank you?
Speaker 1: You're welcome. Anyways, enough of getting brownie points from my wife.
Speaker 1: I think I've stocked up enough for the day.
Speaker 2: Oh really, then you're good now.
Speaker 1: I think so I made you waffles this morning. I
Speaker 1: think we should get onto the case.
Speaker 2: Okay. Well I'm excited because I love ones that, like
Speaker 2: you just think they're not going to get solved, but
Speaker 2: they do. That is just the absolute best. And this
Speaker 2: case sounds wild.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what this was. Was a case that was, yeah,
Speaker 1: not going to get solved by looks of it, but
Speaker 1: it got solved and it is a very wild ride.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you ready, yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, we may be in February right now, but
Speaker 1: we're taking it back to December. Okay, in two thousands,
Speaker 1: so we're like twenty five years ago, plus or minus
Speaker 1: two months whatever.
Speaker 2: I was just like, that's not that long ago. But God,
Speaker 2: when you said it was twenty five years ago, it's like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was We're aging. So on a cold December
Speaker 1: day in the year two thousand three, friends were out
Speaker 1: on a quiet stretch of the Odin River doing some
Speaker 1: fishing in the southwestern area of Poland when something in
Speaker 1: the water caught their attention. At first, it looked like
Speaker 1: a large log drifting along the current, but as one
Speaker 1: of them got closer, he noticed some strands of hair
Speaker 1: floating on the surface.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, it's either fucking fishermen or people taking their
Speaker 2: dogs for a damn walk.
Speaker 1: That's pretty much it. Yeah, if it's water, it's a fisherman.
Speaker 1: If it's landed, someone walking their dog. As he was
Speaker 1: looking at this, really processing what he was seeing, another
Speaker 1: fisherman gave it a poke with his rod and that's
Speaker 1: when together they realized that this wasn't a piece of wood.
Speaker 1: It was a man's body floating in the water. Police
Speaker 1: arrived quickly and pulled the remains from the icy waters.
Speaker 1: Right away. It was obvious that this wasn't some tragic accident.
Speaker 1: The man was barely clothed only sweatshirt and underwear, and
Speaker 1: his body showed clear signs of violence. A noose in particular,
Speaker 1: was wrapped around his neck, and his hands were tied
Speaker 1: behind his back. Even more chilling, investigators saw that the
Speaker 1: same rope had been connected from the rope to the
Speaker 1: wrists the rope to the neck. So he has his
Speaker 1: hands tied behind his back and it's linked to a
Speaker 1: noose around his neck.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: So this meant that any attempt to struggle and pull
Speaker 1: and free his hands would tighten the noose around his neck.
Speaker 2: Holy shit.
Speaker 1: As horrifying as that was, the autopsy made things even worse.
Speaker 1: The victim's stomach was nearly empty, suggesting that he had
Speaker 1: been starved for days before his death, and most disturbingly,
Speaker 1: water was found in his lungs, which meant that he
Speaker 1: had still been alive when he was thrown into the river.
Speaker 2: Okay, that sounds like just a terrible, terrible deaths.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The brutality of this crime sent shockwaves through the
Speaker 1: community and police launched a large scale investigation, and it
Speaker 1: didn't take long for them to make an important connection.
Speaker 1: Just a few weeks earlier, a man who looked strikingly
Speaker 1: similar had been reporting missing. When the compared records, the
Speaker 1: victim was confirmed to be Darius Janezuski, a thirty five
Speaker 1: year old businessman from Warklaw. Now, I do want to say,
Speaker 1: this is a Polish story. We're in Poland here, so
Speaker 1: my pronunciations are going to be way off, but I'm
Speaker 1: going to do my best in my Canadian accent.
Speaker 2: So you always do your best.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I appreciate it. I do so. Darius had
Speaker 1: vanished on November thirteenth, in the year two thousand, after
Speaker 1: leaving his advertising firm to meet a client. When he
Speaker 1: didn't come home that night and wasn't answering his phone,
Speaker 1: his wife grew worried and reported him missing the next day.
Speaker 1: Investigators immediately began digging into Darius's life, hoping to find
Speaker 1: a lead, but frustratingly, nothing about him suggested a motive
Speaker 1: for murder. He wasn't in debt, he had no criminal connections,
Speaker 1: and was well liked by everyone who knew him. He
Speaker 1: played in a rock band and was devoted to his
Speaker 1: work and had been working on his marriage. He and
Speaker 1: his wife were even in the process of adopting a
Speaker 1: child when he disappeared.
Speaker 2: Wow, yeah, as you were describing like, it doesn't sound
Speaker 2: like your typical victim at all.
Speaker 1: No. Now, with no obvious enemies, police turned their attention
Speaker 1: to the crime scene. Divers searched the freezing river, and
Speaker 1: forensic teams combed the nearby forest, but nothing useful turned up.
Speaker 1: Months passed with no real progression, and by the summer
Speaker 1: of two thousand and one, authorities announced that they were
Speaker 1: closing the case, having run out of leeds. Whoever had
Speaker 1: done this had pulled off the perfect crime.
Speaker 2: When were they? When did they decide to close it?
Speaker 1: Sorry in the summer of two thousand and one, a
Speaker 1: year and a half later, basically okay, yeah. For nearly
Speaker 1: three years, the case sat in cold storage, collecting dust
Speaker 1: until it landed on the desk of a man who
Speaker 1: refused to let this case go. That man was Yannick Warblowski.
Speaker 1: By the fall of two thousand and three, Yanik was
Speaker 1: a thirty eight year old detective with nearly a decade
Speaker 1: on the police force. He hadn't always planned to be
Speaker 1: a comp He dabbled in other careers when he was younger,
Speaker 1: but once he joined the law enforcement he realized the
Speaker 1: work suited him. He had a natural drive to track
Speaker 1: down criminals, but for him, solving crimes wasn't just about
Speaker 1: putting bad guys behind bars. He was fascinated with the
Speaker 1: criminal mind, always trying to understand what made people tick.
Speaker 1: In fact, when he wasn't working or spending time with
Speaker 1: his family, he was studying psychology at a local university.
Speaker 1: Like many others in the area, he had heard about
Speaker 1: Darius's murder, but he had never looked at the full
Speaker 1: case file until now. As he started digging through the
Speaker 1: old reports, one piece of evidence caught his attention. A
Speaker 1: strange phone call made to Darius's office on the morning
Speaker 1: that he disappeared. The call had been answered by Darius's mother,
Speaker 1: who worked as a bookkeeper at his small ads advertising firm.
Speaker 1: The man on the other end had a professional sounding
Speaker 1: voice and asked Darius for Darius by name. He claimed
Speaker 1: that he needed a rush job done of three signs,
Speaker 1: including a large billboard, but when she pressed for more details,
Speaker 1: the caller was vague, saying that he would only really
Speaker 1: discuss a project directly with Darius Now. At the time,
Speaker 1: Darius's mother hadn't thought much of it. She simply told
Speaker 1: a man that her son wasn't in the office, but
Speaker 1: he could be reached by his cell phone, and as
Speaker 1: soon as she gave him the number, the man hung
Speaker 1: up without introducing himself for saying anything else. Later that day,
Speaker 1: she mentioned the call to her son. He confirmed that
Speaker 1: he spoke to this man or this client and was
Speaker 1: planning to meet with him that afternoon. But that was
Speaker 1: the last time anyone heard from Darius.
Speaker 2: Wow, I wonder why he was like scoping this guy
Speaker 2: out like this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, maybe we'll know, maybe we'll find out. Maybe
Speaker 1: let's keep diving in. So Yanick decided to revisit this lead,
Speaker 1: and when he pulled the phone records, something unusual stood out.
Speaker 1: Both calls, the one in the office and the one
Speaker 1: on Darius's cell phone, had been placed from some public payphone,
Speaker 1: in fact, the very same one that was just located
Speaker 1: down the street from the advertising firm. The second call
Speaker 1: had come in less than a minute after the first,
Speaker 1: which explained the background noise Darius's mother had noticed. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: that's where the lead went cold. The payphone was in
Speaker 1: a public area, meaning anyone could have used it.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Investigators at the time had hit a dead end, so
Speaker 1: they decided they could do nothing more then move on.
Speaker 1: But as Janik kept reading, two more details from the
Speaker 1: original investigation jumped out at him. The first came from
Speaker 1: a receptionist working in the same building as Darius's firm.
Speaker 1: She had seen him leaving the office around four pm,
Speaker 1: and as he was walking down the street, she noticed
Speaker 1: two men walking behind him. She hadn't thought much of
Speaker 1: it at the time, and unfortunately she couldn't describe either
Speaker 1: of the men either. The second odd detail was Darius's car.
Speaker 1: When police began searching for him after he had disappeared,
Speaker 1: they found it still parked outside his office. That didn't
Speaker 1: make much sense. Friends and coworkers said he always drove
Speaker 1: to client meetings, yet for some reason his car was
Speaker 1: left behind that day. Something just wasn't right. Yannick had
Speaker 1: a strong gut feeling that this murder wasn't random. The
Speaker 1: level of brutality suggested something deeply personal, not just a
Speaker 1: crime of opportunity. There were a few key details that
Speaker 1: reinforced this theory. For one, investigators learned from Darius his
Speaker 1: wife that he always carried credit card and bank cards
Speaker 1: with him, yet none of these had been used after
Speaker 1: his disappearance, which ruled out it was done for a
Speaker 1: robbery mode. Yep. Then there was the fact that Darius
Speaker 1: had been found nearly naked, wearing only a sweatshirt and underwear.
Speaker 1: Janick suspected that this wasn't just by chance. He believed
Speaker 1: the killer had deliberately stripped him to degrade him and
Speaker 1: humiliate him. But perhaps the most unsettling clue was the
Speaker 1: phone call that lured Darius to his final meeting. Everything
Speaker 1: about it just suggested that the crime had been planned
Speaker 1: and advanced. Everything down to the smallest details seemed to
Speaker 1: be planned out. Still, like the investigators before him, Yanick
Speaker 1: found himself stuck. There was no clear suspect and nothing
Speaker 1: pointed in any particular direction, but he wasn't going to
Speaker 1: let it go. He pored over the case file again
Speaker 1: and again and again, convinced that there was something that
Speaker 1: he was missing. Eventually, an idea came to him. While
Speaker 1: reviewing the details of the phone call. He remembered something crucial.
Speaker 1: Darius's phone. His cell phone had never been found. The
Speaker 1: original investigators had tried to trace the mysterious calls from
Speaker 1: the payphone, but hit a dead end, and as far
Speaker 1: as Yanik could tell, no one had ever tried to
Speaker 1: track Darius's missing phone itself. Now there was a reason
Speaker 1: for that. At the time of the murder, Poland's telecommunication
Speaker 1: technology was still lagging behind much of Europe, and police
Speaker 1: departments often lacked the resources to really track mobile phones
Speaker 1: or online activity. Many law enforcement agencies were simply not
Speaker 1: equipped for digital investigations. But by the time that Yanik
Speaker 1: revisited the case in two thousand and three, things had
Speaker 1: started to change. The police department had recently brought in
Speaker 1: a telecommunication specialist, and Yanik himself had developed an interest
Speaker 1: in new forensic techniques, so he reached out to the
Speaker 1: expert and he asked if there was a way to
Speaker 1: trace Darius's phone. At first, the results weren't promising. The
Speaker 1: phone had never been used again after Darius's disappearance, but
Speaker 1: Yanick again wasn't ready to give up. He knew that
Speaker 1: cell phones had unique serial numbers on them, which meant
Speaker 1: that if the phone had been resold or reactivated, there
Speaker 1: might be a record of it somewhere, so he reached
Speaker 1: out to Darius's widow, hoping that she might have the
Speaker 1: original receipt or paperwork. She did.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, I am just so loving listening to this
Speaker 2: because this guy is just like I love when people
Speaker 2: they have a task in mind and they're just gonna
Speaker 2: do it, Like he's gonna solve this fucking case.
Speaker 1: That's exactly the situation. Yannick was like, no, I don't care,
Speaker 1: like I love that. Yeah, it didn't matter what answer
Speaker 1: he got. He was going to dig deeper regardless, like.
Speaker 2: So good, so just so good at his job, like
Speaker 2: oh and taking it to the next level really, like
Speaker 2: I just love that.
Speaker 1: So once he got the serial number, he used it
Speaker 1: and he managed to track down a sales record.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, here we go.
Speaker 1: So four days after Darius had had gone missing, his
Speaker 1: phone had been sold on an internet auction site called Allegro,
Speaker 1: which is essentially Poland's version of eBay. So the seller's
Speaker 1: user name once he looked it up, according to the
Speaker 1: account that had sold the item was Chris B. Seven.
Speaker 1: Further investigation soon uncovered that the owner of that account
Speaker 1: was an individual by the name of Christian.
Speaker 2: Balah Oh my gosh, okay, this is a big, big break. Really,
Speaker 2: I feel like massive. So.
Speaker 1: Christian was thirty years old, originally from Chungjao, Poland. Like
Speaker 1: many others, he had struggled to find his footing after
Speaker 1: the collapse of the Soviet Union. He dabbled in various
Speaker 1: business ventures, mostly as a way to support his wife
Speaker 1: Stasia and their young son. Now, Christian's true passion had
Speaker 1: never been business, though, it was philosophy. While studying at university,
Speaker 1: he was known as one of the brightest students in
Speaker 1: his department, priding himself on his intellectual and deep abstract thinking.
Speaker 1: He saw himself as someone above the ordinary, someone who
Speaker 1: understood the world on a level that others could never
Speaker 1: But despite his academic promise, he never finished his PhD. Instead,
Speaker 1: he left school to start a business, which, as a
Speaker 1: turn out, was short lived. Now by the late nineteen nineties,
Speaker 1: Christian's life was in a free fall. His business went
Speaker 1: bankrupt just a couple of years after it started. His
Speaker 1: marriage had crumbled. He and his wife Stacia had split up.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't just financial troubles that tore them apart.
Speaker 1: His chronic infidelity played a much bigger role.
Speaker 2: That would do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, with nothing tying him down, Christian left Poland altogether,
Speaker 1: traveling first to the United States and then to Asia,
Speaker 1: where he spent time teaching English and working as a
Speaker 1: scuba diver instructor. Now, when Yannick first started looking into him,
Speaker 1: he wasn't convinced that Christian had anything to do with
Speaker 1: Darius's murder. He considered the possibility that Christian had simply
Speaker 1: just found the phone somewhere before selling it online. After all,
Speaker 1: if someone had gone through the trouble of planning such
Speaker 1: a meticulous crime, why on earth would they turn around
Speaker 1: and sell the evidence in such an obvious way? Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: less using a username that clearly was a play on
Speaker 1: their own name, because the username was Chris B seven. Right,
Speaker 1: But it's Chris spelled with a C C h ris
Speaker 1: and Christian is spelt k r y s t I
Speaker 1: A N. So it's similar names but spelt differently in stuff.
Speaker 1: But even still, the parallels Christian Bala Chris b it's
Speaker 1: really similar.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So Christian didn't exactly look the part of a
Speaker 1: sadistic killer either. On the surface, he seemed more like
Speaker 1: an absent minded professor than a murderer. But yeah, it
Speaker 1: had nothing else to go on, so he kept digging.
Speaker 1: That's when he stumbled on something that changed everything. Early
Speaker 1: in two thousand and three, Christian had published a novel,
Speaker 1: something that apparently he had dreamed of doing for years.
Speaker 1: The book was called a Muck like running Amuck.
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, okah.
Speaker 1: It was almost impossible to find stock only stocked only
Speaker 1: in like obscure bookstores, often hidden away on high shelves.
Speaker 1: Not a whole lot of it was printed sort of thing.
Speaker 2: Oh, it wasn't like really a popular book.
Speaker 1: No, definitely not. Owners of bookstores weren't exactly eager to
Speaker 1: advertise it like that sort of thing. Okay, So when
Speaker 1: Yanik got his hands on a copy, he quickly understood
Speaker 1: why owners weren't exactly wanting to advertise it, and why
Speaker 1: it was so obscure. A mock wasn't just dark, It
Speaker 1: was disturbing on a whole other level. The novel followed
Speaker 1: a protagonist whose name was Chris with a C, as
Speaker 1: he descended into a spree of completely or complete depravity,
Speaker 1: let's put it that way, indulging in excessive drinking, drug
Speaker 1: use and violence, and degrading relationships with women. The story's
Speaker 1: climax with Chris involved him murdering his girlfriend. But it
Speaker 1: wasn't just the violence that was unsettling to Yanick. It
Speaker 1: was the way Christian's personal philosophy bled into the story.
Speaker 1: Throughout the books repeatedly argued that truth is an illusion,
Speaker 1: that mortality is meaningless, and that he was somehow above
Speaker 1: the rules that governed ordinary people. At first, the Bookamuk
Speaker 1: could have been a work of just deliberate provocation, designed
Speaker 1: to shock and challenge readers. But the deeper Yannick went,
Speaker 1: the more convinced he became that there was something else
Speaker 1: buried within these pages. So over the next two years,
Speaker 1: Yannik became obsessed with the novel, reading it over and
Speaker 1: over again, page by page, combing through every passage, compiling notes,
Speaker 1: drawing connections. Half detective, half literary critic. At this point,
Speaker 1: the first thing that stood out was how much Christian
Speaker 1: and the main character of the book, Chris, had in common.
Speaker 1: Both were separate from their wives due to womanizing, let's
Speaker 1: put it, both had drinking problems, both had run failed businesses.
Speaker 1: Even specific incidents from Christian's real life made it into
Speaker 1: the book, like the time that he and a friend
Speaker 1: were arrested for stealing a statue of Saint Anthony from
Speaker 1: a church while on a drunken bender. Sounds like a
Speaker 1: fun night, but kids don't go stealing, especially for churches
Speaker 1: like Wow. Anyways, that alone wasn't enough though, Like plenty
Speaker 1: of authors pull from their own experiences when writing books,
Speaker 1: so it's not abnormal to say. But then came the
Speaker 1: real red flags. Certain details in a Muck echoed Darius's
Speaker 1: murder in ways that were almost impossible to ignore. Near
Speaker 1: the end of the book, Chris murders his girlfriend and
Speaker 1: places a noose around her neck. Even the details that
Speaker 1: weren't exact matches in this real life crime scene, though,
Speaker 1: were too close for comfort for Yannick's mind. For example,
Speaker 1: in the book, Chris used a Japanese knife during the
Speaker 1: murder like to stab his victim, while Darius had not
Speaker 1: been stabbed at all. The idea the killer using and
Speaker 1: then disposing a weapon, though, did stick out because later
Speaker 1: in the book, the protagonist Chris is described by getting
Speaker 1: rid of the murder weapon by selling it on an
Speaker 1: internet auction site.
Speaker 2: Oh shit, yeah.
Speaker 1: Extremely similar to what Christian had actually done with Darius's cell. Phone,
Speaker 1: so Yannick was convinced he found his man Wow, but
Speaker 1: he knew that circumstantial evidence wasn't enough. He needed hard
Speaker 1: proof if he was going to be finally getting a
Speaker 1: conviction in court. As he continued digging, he found one
Speaker 1: more chilling piece of information. Just one month before Darius
Speaker 1: went missing, Christian had logged into Allegro, the same auction
Speaker 1: site where he later sold the victim's phone, But this
Speaker 1: time he wasn't selling anything. In fact, he was looking
Speaker 1: at a very specific listing to purchase a police manual
Speaker 1: on how to distinguish between accidental, self inflicted and criminal hangings.
Speaker 2: Huh okay.
Speaker 1: The manual also describe various ways to tie in noose,
Speaker 1: a method very eaerily similar to the one used in
Speaker 1: Darius's murder. Now, ultimately, Christian never purchased that book, at
Speaker 1: least not from that website, and there's no record of
Speaker 1: but to Yanik, the fact that he was even looking
Speaker 1: at it was very telling. It felt like yet another
Speaker 1: clue pointing to a premeditated murder. By the fall of
Speaker 1: two thousand and five, Yanick decided it was time to act.
Speaker 1: He learned that Christian was planning to return to Poland
Speaker 1: to visit his parents for the first time in years,
Speaker 1: so he saw his chance. On that afternoon of September fifth,
Speaker 1: Christian was arrested. When Yanick finally got the chance to
Speaker 1: interrogate him, Christian denied everything, of course, so with no
Speaker 1: confession and only circumstantial evidence, the prosecution struggled to make
Speaker 1: a case. When Christian went to court, the judge determined
Speaker 1: that there wasn't enough proof to charge him with the
Speaker 1: murder shit.
Speaker 2: But also, he's probably shaken in his boots because I
Speaker 2: am certain that at that point he thought that he
Speaker 2: did the perfect murder, got away with it kind of thing, right.
Speaker 1: Probably now. He was though, convicted on two minor charges
Speaker 1: selling stolen property which was Darius's phone, and apparently an
Speaker 1: unrelated bribery charge that I'm not too sure where that
Speaker 1: came from. But regardless, neither of them carried any jail
Speaker 1: time unfortunately. Okay, So after his release, Christian went on
Speaker 1: the offensive. He accused police of police brutality during his
Speaker 1: arrest and claimed that he was being persecuted for his art.
Speaker 1: The book Amok, he insisted, was nothing more than a
Speaker 1: work of fiction and he had nothing to do with
Speaker 1: the murder of Darius. Many members of the public agreed,
Speaker 1: shifting their anger away from Christian and towards the police,
Speaker 1: criticizing them for what looked like a week and cer
Speaker 1: substantial case. So Christian now had the public on his side.
Speaker 2: Okay, what the shit, because if they knew how much
Speaker 2: effort and work that this one detective was putting into this,
Speaker 2: I don't think they would think that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very possible. Now despite the setback, though, Yannick
Speaker 1: saw a silver lining in this whole thing. See, Christian's
Speaker 1: charges were enough to keep him in the country. As
Speaker 1: part of his sentence, he was required to surrender his passport,
Speaker 1: meaning he couldn't leave Poland while the investigation continued.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's good.
Speaker 1: And more importantly, that passport would end up leading to
Speaker 1: another major break in the case.
Speaker 2: I'm kind of thinking that he maybe did another murder.
Speaker 1: Well let me tell you here, Okay. So among the
Speaker 1: evidence Yanick had been reviewing was an old segment from
Speaker 1: a Polish true crime show called nine to nine seven,
Speaker 1: essentially Poland's version of like America's Most Wanted sort of thing. Okay, yeah, Now,
Speaker 1: in early two thousand, the show had aired a feature
Speaker 1: on Darius's case, and shortly after an update was posted
Speaker 1: to the show's website. Now at the time, Yanick had
Speaker 1: noticed that people were visiting the site from all over
Speaker 1: the world, including US, Japan, South Korea. That seemed odd
Speaker 1: to him until he got his hands on Christian's passport.
Speaker 1: By cross referencing the travel stamps on Christian's passport with
Speaker 1: the website visitor logs, Yanick realized something shocking. Each of
Speaker 1: the international page visits matched the exact location Christian had
Speaker 1: traveled to at the time. So to Yanik, this was
Speaker 1: damning evidence. Christian had been closely following the investigation from abroad,
Speaker 1: even years after the murder had taken place. O, so
Speaker 1: he's keeping up on seeing if there's any developments in everything.
Speaker 2: Yes, so it's very much so on his mind. He
Speaker 2: is maybe not quite settled in thinking that he got
Speaker 2: away with this.
Speaker 1: Then, right, you're sitting here thinking, okay, so we have
Speaker 1: this video in the Polish language. You know for those
Speaker 1: in Poland, right, not much of the world really speaks Polish.
Speaker 1: You're not going to find someone in Japan specifically knowing
Speaker 1: this case and checking the website, and you know, US
Speaker 1: and South Korea, like all these places. It's odd to
Speaker 1: specifically be checking up on this one language on this
Speaker 1: one website. Yeah, it's not really a universal language, you know, right, No,
Speaker 1: that makes sense. It's not to say it's not possible,
Speaker 1: because I mean, there are definitely Polish speaking individuals all
Speaker 1: across the world. But it's unlikely.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's like numerous places and stuff. So I
Speaker 2: don't know, it makes sense, Like it doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's one of those circumstantial evidences.
Speaker 2: Yeah, again it's not enough. Again, I feel like exactly.
Speaker 1: So while he was making this discovery, while Yannick was
Speaker 1: drawing this conclusion, drawing the lines between these two, his
Speaker 1: team actually found something even bigger. They decided to examined
Speaker 1: the phone records from Darius's cell phone from when he disappeared.
Speaker 1: Now at this time, they caught something that had been
Speaker 1: missed before. The mysterious payphone calls, the ones that you know,
Speaker 1: we're going to his office and then a cell phone
Speaker 1: have been placed using a phone card. And those cards,
Speaker 1: each one was encoded with a unique number that registered
Speaker 1: with a phone company every time it was used. Investigators
Speaker 1: trace the remaining call history linked to that phone card.
Speaker 1: They couldn't exactly link it to a specific phone number
Speaker 1: or phone or anything like that. However, they were able
Speaker 1: to identify the outgoing phone calls from that phone card,
Speaker 1: and nearly all of them have been made to Christian's
Speaker 1: family and friends.
Speaker 2: Jang Okay, Yeah.
Speaker 1: So when you look at your phone history on your
Speaker 1: personal phone, that's what they were able to see because
Speaker 1: it's basically saying, oh, it's made from this phone card
Speaker 1: and we can see who you've been calling.
Speaker 2: I feel like that's such a big miss for like
Speaker 2: the original investigation, but also this frickin piece of shit
Speaker 2: that has done this to not like think that you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this was arguably the most damning evidence yet,
Speaker 1: but Yanik refused to repeat his past mistakes. The first
Speaker 1: time he arrested Christian, the case had crumbled under scrutiny.
Speaker 1: This time, he was determined to build an airtight case
Speaker 1: before making.
Speaker 2: His move when he has some more time too, being
Speaker 2: that he's like stuck.
Speaker 1: Exactly, He's stuck and stuck in Poland. He can't leave
Speaker 1: the country. So the biggest missing piece was still the motive.
Speaker 1: There was plenty of circumstantial evidence, but nothing that explained
Speaker 1: why Christian would have gone to such extreme lengths to
Speaker 1: kill Darius. To find answers, Yanick went back at the beginning,
Speaker 1: interviewing more people from Christian's past. This time, a much
Speaker 1: darker side of Christian emerged. While Christian liked to portray
Speaker 1: himself as a free spirited intellectual, you know, like a
Speaker 1: brilliant yet tormented ladies man, like that sort of thing, right,
Speaker 1: That's what he saw himself as, those who knew him
Speaker 1: described him somewhat differently. They panted a picture of a jealous,
Speaker 1: controlling husband who lashed on to anyone he suspected of
Speaker 1: getting too close to his wife Stasia. At one point,
Speaker 1: Christian had even tried to fight a bartender simply because
Speaker 1: he thought the man was flirting with her. One of
Speaker 1: Christian's friends later told police that he had been running
Speaker 1: a muck, a phrase that Yannik now believed had inspired
Speaker 1: the title of.
Speaker 2: His liah Okay, yeah, yeah, huh running a muck.
Speaker 1: Even more disturbing was a statement from a witness at
Speaker 1: the bar that night. This person claimed that they had
Speaker 1: heard Christian say something chilling quote, I've already dealt with
Speaker 1: one guy who tried to hit on my wife.
Speaker 2: Okay, so here's the correlation.
Speaker 1: Maybe then, Yeah, now this statement had been made just
Speaker 1: weeks after Darius's body was found.
Speaker 2: Okay, holy shit, this guy is just like such a
Speaker 2: piece of work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he really is, especially when you break it down.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, now that jealousy was established as the likely motive,
Speaker 1: the last thing Yanick needed was proof that Christian and
Speaker 1: Darius had crossed paths, right to say for sure that, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, he's jealous, but he's specifically jealous because his
Speaker 1: wife was involved with Darius or something in some way
Speaker 1: or that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that him and his wife had crossed paths. Yea
Speaker 2: more so. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the final link came from one of Stasia's friends.
Speaker 1: She recalled that during the summer of the year two thousand,
Speaker 1: she and Stasia had gone to a night club called
Speaker 1: Crazy Horse for a night out. Stasia had been struggling
Speaker 1: after her separation from Christian and was trying to move on.
Speaker 1: That night, she met a man, a man with long,
Speaker 1: dark hair and blue eyes. He too was dealing with
Speaker 1: marital problems. His name was Darius Annezeus.
Speaker 2: Hmm, there we go.
Speaker 1: The two talked for a while, exchanged numbers, and eventually
Speaker 1: arranged to go on a date. With this new evidence,
Speaker 1: Yannik went straight to Stassia to talk to her. Now. Earlier,
Speaker 1: she had refused to cooperate with investigators, you know, before
Speaker 1: and wanting, not wanting to answer any questions. But this
Speaker 1: time she was willing. It's not clear exactly why she
Speaker 1: was now willing to work with police, but she was,
Speaker 1: and she confirmed everything.
Speaker 2: Maybe she even felt like she was in a safer spot,
Speaker 2: like away from her ax or something.
Speaker 1: Right potentially, so, not only had she met Darius at
Speaker 1: this nightclub, but the two had actually got on a date,
Speaker 1: nothing serious that they ever developed, and Darius soon reconciled
Speaker 1: with his wife. And you know, these two, Stassy and
Speaker 1: Darius kind of went their separate ways as he was
Speaker 1: now rebuilding.
Speaker 2: His marriage, right right, Yeah, But.
Speaker 1: Just weeks later, Christian showed up at Stasia's apartment in
Speaker 1: a drunken rage. He accused her of having an affair,
Speaker 1: claiming he had hired a private investigator who had told
Speaker 1: him everything about her meeting with Darius.
Speaker 2: Oh no, so I feel like she would have known,
Speaker 2: She would have known prior to.
Speaker 1: Well, she may have, but she never came forward with
Speaker 1: this information apparently because she asked Christian about it and
Speaker 1: he denied any involvement, and she never thought he would
Speaker 1: ever have been able to be capable of murder. Okay,
Speaker 1: so she thought there's just no way.
Speaker 2: And that his story was believable to her. Basically, yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: So this final conversation, though, connected all the dots for Yanick.
Speaker 1: Not only did it provide a motive, but also gave
Speaker 1: a new insight into a passage from the book A
Speaker 1: monk that always troubled Yanick. That line read quote, this
Speaker 1: was the one killed by blind jealousy. To Yanick, this
Speaker 1: wasn't just some dark passage in his disturbing book. This
Speaker 1: was a confession.
Speaker 2: And he you know, the thing is, he knew this book,
Speaker 2: probably inside and out. He studied it for like two years.
Speaker 2: He probably knew it more than the writer exactly.
Speaker 1: With the case finally complete, Christian's home was raided and
Speaker 1: he was arrested once again. By the time he went
Speaker 1: to trial in February of two thousand and seven, the
Speaker 1: case was front page news all across Poland. The idea
Speaker 1: of a philosopher turned writer who confessed the murder in
Speaker 1: a novel was so sensational that it even boosted sales
Speaker 1: of the book A mouck.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, I hate that part.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The biggest shock came when police examined Christian's laptop,
Speaker 1: which they had seized during the raid. On the device,
Speaker 1: investigators found a password protected file titled amuck Amuck Okay.
Speaker 1: Inside were graphic descriptions of Christian's sexual encounters with more
Speaker 1: than seventy women and written in the same language and
Speaker 1: style used by Chris, the protagonist in the novel, further
Speaker 1: proving that, you know, Chris in the book was Christian
Speaker 1: in real life. But that wasn't even the most disturbing discovery.
Speaker 1: In another cryptic document, police found something even more unsettling,
Speaker 1: evidence that Christian had been planning another murder.
Speaker 2: Okay, wow, thank god for this guy's effort.
Speaker 1: Yeah, his new intended target was a man by the
Speaker 1: name of Harry Stasia's new boyfriend.
Speaker 2: Seriously, he still had this like jealous rage yepof now.
Speaker 1: In the end, Christian was convicted of murder of Darius
Speaker 1: and sentenced to twenty five years in prison.
Speaker 2: Wow. Well, and I have to just say good thing
Speaker 2: that like she came forward, she just saved her new
Speaker 2: boyfriend or was right.
Speaker 1: Now, After a few weeks, Christian was granted a retrial
Speaker 1: on the grounds that there were still apparently and allegedly
Speaker 1: some gaps in the evidence. But when he was retried
Speaker 1: a year later, the outcome was the same. He was
Speaker 1: found guilty.
Speaker 2: Good. I mean, there may be some gaps, but like
Speaker 2: I've we've reported on or talked about other cases where
Speaker 2: the gaps are like far more I feel like, and
Speaker 2: they're still convicted exactly.
Speaker 1: So, to this day, Christian Bala denies any involvement in
Speaker 1: Darius's murder, but he will remain locked up and serve
Speaker 1: his time.
Speaker 2: Okay, of course he does. Of course he does.
Speaker 1: I know, right, Like, huh, what a dick?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I can't believe that that that he goes
Speaker 2: to that extent when like they weren't even together, you know,
Speaker 2: I know, he could be putting his effort into maybe
Speaker 2: trying to get back together with her in like a
Speaker 2: more what would be the word healthy way there you go,
Speaker 2: healthy way? Yes, uh, but.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is the story of Darius Yanezuski and the
Speaker 1: terrible author by the name of Christian Bala. Now, allegedly,
Speaker 1: as I was reading I did discover that that he
Speaker 1: was apparently planning on a second book. Much of that
Speaker 1: transcript was seized by police when they raided his place.
Speaker 1: I stopped reading because I'm like, you know what, I
Speaker 1: don't need to know more about his book. If he
Speaker 1: is trying to come up with a second one, if
Speaker 1: he's going to come out with the second one, don't
Speaker 1: read it. Don't read his book. Amuck either. Fuck this guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a complete douche.
Speaker 2: I also feel like this is such a story too
Speaker 2: of Okay, what was his name? Sorry? The investigator here?
Speaker 1: Yannick?
Speaker 2: Yannick, Like just like being a badass really and like
Speaker 2: doing your job to just new levels.
Speaker 1: Honestly, I think you're right. Do you want to do
Speaker 1: the honors and name him the sure?
Speaker 2: I think yeah, he should be the badass of the
Speaker 2: day for sure. I agree, because he honestly saved like
Speaker 2: Harry's life, He really did, so he saved a man
Speaker 2: and like, yeah, I don't know, he just never gave up,
Speaker 2: and I just I love that. And he probably had
Speaker 2: faced so much diversity too. I'm assuming where people are
Speaker 2: like we've already like go on through this, like it's done.
Speaker 2: It's not going to be solved. And he was like, no,
Speaker 2: like adversity, Oh you said diversity, Okay, adversity. Sorry, He's like,
Speaker 2: but he's like, no, well, we're solving this case like
Speaker 2: it's happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's awesome. He dedicated years, years to figuring
Speaker 1: it out. Honestly, it was not the perfect fucking crime,
Speaker 1: like you sold the fucking cell phone? Like, no, don't
Speaker 1: get dumb ass.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, that part is pretty stupid. Really it was.
Speaker 1: If it wasn't for that, I honestly I believe that
Speaker 1: the connection would never have been made.
Speaker 2: But I mean they did miss that the first time.
Speaker 2: So it just took this individual that was very determined,
Speaker 2: you know, to solve this. Oh yeah, for sure, because
Speaker 2: the first time they did miss that.
Speaker 1: So well, I agree. No, Yannick went above and beyond
Speaker 1: and because of him to think of tracing the serial
Speaker 1: number on the phone to see if it had been sold.
Speaker 1: Genius fucking move.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but if he.
Speaker 1: Didn't find anything, if the cell phone was never sold
Speaker 1: and it was destroyed, that probably would have been the
Speaker 1: end of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if it was like thrown in the water. But
Speaker 2: I do feel like, well, no, because he might have
Speaker 2: found it in the water touche. But I do feel
Speaker 2: like he probably if especially if he was planning to
Speaker 2: do this other murder, you know, he probably would have
Speaker 2: gotten caught for that one.
Speaker 1: He probably would have, I have a feeling.
Speaker 2: But still one more life would have been taken, right,
Speaker 2: So yeah, Wow, what a story. That One's pretty It
Speaker 2: keeps you on the edge of your seat for sure.
Speaker 1: Doesn't it. So yeah, Yannick, you're the badass of the day,
Speaker 1: and Christian you're ther the douche canoe of the day.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, and then poor Darius too, right, Yeah, I
Speaker 2: had to lose his life because he didn't deserve that whatsoever.
Speaker 2: He literally went on a date with someone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and didn't pursue them after that, he just worked
Speaker 1: on his marriage with yeah instead.
Speaker 2: So that is that's pretty fucked up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So thank you guys for being here. Hopefully you
Speaker 1: enjoyed this story today. If you want to check out
Speaker 1: any of our links, they are in the description of
Speaker 1: this podcast, including social media's website you name it. If
Speaker 1: you want to give the show a rating. We are
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Speaker 1: own here in our little tiny home. And a review
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Speaker 1: You though?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, you do you. If you want to give us
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Speaker 1: but you do you. If you want to give us
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Speaker 1: I appreciate honesty.
Speaker 2: So well, yeah, as long as it's it's like, what
Speaker 2: is the word constructive? Constructive? I was like criticism, but
Speaker 2: constructive criticism, then you know, it's like then you can
Speaker 2: like improve on that.
Speaker 1: We've had reviews before people are just like you, guys, suck.
Speaker 1: That's very constructive. Thank you, Like you know what, all right,
Speaker 1: our show isn't for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's just like find a new show. Really.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, if you honestly do have constructive criticism,
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Speaker 2: So okay, Well, Happy Valentine, stay and until next week,
Speaker 2: stay wicked.