Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome back to The Unseen Podcast, a podcast
Speaker 1: dedicated to missing people, unresolved cases, and UK true crime.
Speaker 1: Today we're going to be exploring the disappearance of fifty
Speaker 1: six year old Zigmunda Damski, a miner who lived in
Speaker 1: the market town of Toddmenden in West Yorkshire. His disappearance
Speaker 1: has remained a mystery since nineteen eighty and there has
Speaker 1: been a lot of speculation surrounding it. Despite the large
Speaker 1: amount of publicity that Zigmund's case has got over the years,
Speaker 1: there are few actual known facts about it, and I
Speaker 1: would like to present Zigmund's disappearance through just the facts.
Speaker 1: This episode contains descriptions that some listeners may find distressing,
Speaker 1: so listener discretion is advised. Of Toddmden is located in
Speaker 1: the Colder Valley in West Yorkshire. It's around seventeen miles
Speaker 1: from Manchester and around nine miles from the town of Halifax.
Speaker 1: It is known for its rolling hills and countryside, as
Speaker 1: well as being known today as one of the places
Speaker 1: that infamous serial killer Harold Shipman lived and worked, as
Speaker 1: well as the filming location for the BBC crime drama
Speaker 1: Happy Valley on June the eleventh, nineteen eighty, Trevor Parker,
Speaker 1: a coal yard worker, was working in his father's coal
Speaker 1: yard when he came upon a ten foot pile of coal.
Speaker 1: This in itself would have been a normal discovery for him. However,
Speaker 1: it was what he found on top of the pile
Speaker 1: of coal which caught his attention. There was a man
Speaker 1: lying on top. He was wearing a three piece suit,
Speaker 1: which in any other situation would not seem odd, but
Speaker 1: the man's placement on top of the coal pile seemed unusual.
Speaker 1: It looked as though he had been placed there rather
Speaker 1: than climbed up. There were other reasons to believe this
Speaker 1: as well. The man's suit had no coal dust on it,
Speaker 1: implying that he didn't climb up there himself. There were
Speaker 1: other odd things about this discovery. While he was wearing
Speaker 1: a suit, he didn't look like he'd dressed himself properly.
Speaker 1: For one, he wasn't wearing a shirt, just his suit
Speaker 1: jacket buttoned up. The buttons hadn't been fastened properly and
Speaker 1: had ended up being fastened wonky. It looked to those
Speaker 1: that saw him as though someone else had dressed him.
Speaker 1: The thing that struck Parker and then later PC Godfrey,
Speaker 1: who attended the scene, was the look on the man's face.
Speaker 1: It has been described as a look of terror, as
Speaker 1: though something had scared him to death. PC Godfrey later stated,
Speaker 1: those eyes were staring up at me. I was looking
Speaker 1: down on him from a foot. Those eyes sent a
Speaker 1: shudder down my spine. They were wide open. He had
Speaker 1: a look of someone who had seen something or someone
Speaker 1: that had scared him to death. This was an alarming discovery. However,
Speaker 1: upon closer inspection of the body, there were even more
Speaker 1: strange discoveries. When police arrived at the scene, they were
Speaker 1: able to see that the man had burns to his head,
Speaker 1: neck and shoulders which appeared to have had some sort
Speaker 1: of ointment applied to them. He was missing his shirt, wallet,
Speaker 1: and his watch. The scene was all around very strange
Speaker 1: and at first glance could not be explained. One of
Speaker 1: the first jobs was to try and identify who this
Speaker 1: man was, given that his wallet was missing and there
Speaker 1: seemed to be no explanation for why he was there.
Speaker 1: While the identification was ongoing, the man's body was sent
Speaker 1: for a post mortem with the coroner to try and
Speaker 1: establish what had happened. The story of the man that
Speaker 1: had been found on top of the coal pile began
Speaker 1: to spread around Todmden and the surrounding areas, and as
Speaker 1: a result, it didn't take long to find out this
Speaker 1: man's identity. He was fifty six year old Zigmund A Damski.
Speaker 1: Zigmund or Ziggy as many people called him, lived on
Speaker 1: Thornfield Crescent in the village of Tingley in Wakefield. Ziggi
Speaker 1: lived there with his wife Lottie and worked the loft
Speaker 1: House Collery as a miner. Ziggy was originally from Poland,
Speaker 1: but had moved over to the UK, met his wife
Speaker 1: and settled in Tingley. The collery where Ziggy worked had
Speaker 1: made headlines in nineteen seventy three when the Lofthouse Collery
Speaker 1: disaster occurred. This was due to excavations being made too
Speaker 1: close to an abandoned flooded mine shaft. Three million imperial
Speaker 1: gallons of water flooded into the shaft, trapping seven workers
Speaker 1: below the surface. All of the workers died in the incident.
Speaker 1: It would turn out that relevant records were not checked
Speaker 1: which indicated the depth of the abandoned shaft. This led
Speaker 1: to new regulations being brought in and loft House. Collery
Speaker 1: closed in nineteen eighty one at the time, though in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty Ziggy worked there and by all accounts was
Speaker 1: liked by his colleagues. On the sixth of June nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty Ziggi left his home in Tingley to walk and
Speaker 1: get some groceries from the shop. This was just a
Speaker 1: normal errand for him, and there was nothing to suggest
Speaker 1: anything would happen on his way there. He didn't return
Speaker 1: to the house and days began to pass without anyone
Speaker 1: seeing Ziggy or knowing where he went. Lotti continued to
Speaker 1: wonder about where he had gone, and she initially believed
Speaker 1: that he must have been abducted, given that it seemed
Speaker 1: completely out of character for him to just disappear without
Speaker 1: saying anything to her. When Ziggy's body was found five
Speaker 1: days later, it would seem that the mystery had somewhat
Speaker 1: been solved. However, there were many questions that had not
Speaker 1: been answered. How had he got there and where had
Speaker 1: he been since he disappeared. The post Martin was able
Speaker 1: to establish a cause of death for Zigmund. It was
Speaker 1: found that he had died of heart failure due to
Speaker 1: heart disease and emphysema. A coroner would later rule this
Speaker 1: as an open verdict. However, this would not provide police
Speaker 1: with much information about how Ziggy came to be on
Speaker 1: top of the coal pile or why he was found
Speaker 1: around thirty eight miles from Tingley, where he lived. Another
Speaker 1: odd piece of information was that the coroner believed that
Speaker 1: Ziggi had only been dead for around eight to ten
Speaker 1: hours before he was found. This would mean that for
Speaker 1: three to four days he may have been elsewhere. He
Speaker 1: also had what looked to be around one day's worth
Speaker 1: of biard, which again indicated that Ziggi had been somewhere
Speaker 1: else during the time that he had disappeared. He had
Speaker 1: also had his hair cut short, though it looked crudely done.
Speaker 1: These were not the only odd things about Ziggy's body.
Speaker 1: It were the burns that attracted a lot of attention.
Speaker 1: Not only did he have these burns, but there had
Speaker 1: been some sort of ointment rubbed onto them. This ointment
Speaker 1: was extremely unusual and when it was analyzed by forensic
Speaker 1: scientists at the Home Office, it couldn't be identified and
Speaker 1: nor could its origin. The fact that Ziggi had been
Speaker 1: missing for five days, however, had not been dead that
Speaker 1: long was extremely odd and begged many questions. What had
Speaker 1: happened to him and why had he ended up where
Speaker 1: he was. James Turnbull, the coroner, later stated the question
Speaker 1: of where he was before he died and what led
Speaker 1: to his death just could not be answered. Police did
Speaker 1: check any hospitals in the local area to see if
Speaker 1: he had been admitted as a patient. However, this also
Speaker 1: drew a blank. It didn't appear that he had been
Speaker 1: treated by anyone in the days since his disappearance, and
Speaker 1: inquiries into his whereabouts were also unsuccessful. The strangeness of
Speaker 1: the situation struck everyone that heard about it. Zigmunder Damski
Speaker 1: appeared to have died of natural causes on top of
Speaker 1: a coal heap thirty eight miles away from his home
Speaker 1: and was missing his shirt, wallet, and watch. Due to
Speaker 1: the many strange aspects of the case, theories began to
Speaker 1: spread around the surrounding area. Many of these theories were
Speaker 1: complete speculation, However, they started to gain some traction in
Speaker 1: the absence of any other explanation for what had happened.
Speaker 1: Some of these rumors related to the fact that Zigmund
Speaker 1: was from Poland and that the KGB had possibly been
Speaker 1: involved with his disappearance and death. Another theory was that
Speaker 1: perhaps Ziggy knew about poor practices and mistakes happening at
Speaker 1: the colliery, and perhaps this had been a reason for
Speaker 1: someone to try and get rid of him. None of
Speaker 1: these rumors were substantiated. The biggest rumor to take hold
Speaker 1: about Ziggy's death came from a very unusual place, the
Speaker 1: paranormal community. This theory primarily took hold five months after
Speaker 1: Ziggy's death in November nineteen eighty, when PC Alan Godfrey,
Speaker 1: who had been the first officer on the scene in June,
Speaker 1: was driving up Burnley Road, around a mile from where
Speaker 1: Ziggy was found. It is described as a remote road,
Speaker 1: and as he was driving up it, he got a
Speaker 1: cause to investigate cows loose in people's gardens. He went
Speaker 1: to the location and said that he thought he saw
Speaker 1: a bus parked up. When he got closer, he saw
Speaker 1: what looked like a diamond shaped object hovering above him.
Speaker 1: He said that to him, this looked like a UFO.
Speaker 1: He said he managed to make a sketch of it,
Speaker 1: and then went to use his car radio, which had
Speaker 1: stopped working. He said he saw a brilliant white blinding
Speaker 1: flash a bit like having your photograph taken with the
Speaker 1: flash gun in your face before blacking out. He said
Speaker 1: he woke up twenty five minutes later and his car
Speaker 1: had moved thirty yards away from where it was located before.
Speaker 1: He said his car was dry despite the wet weather,
Speaker 1: and that his boot was split open and he had
Speaker 1: what looked to be an itchy mark on the bottom
Speaker 1: of his foot. He couldn't really explain what he had seen,
Speaker 1: and he later underwent hypnosis to try and establish what
Speaker 1: had happened. During this hypnosis, he said he was in
Speaker 1: a strange room being examined by a tall humanoid figure
Speaker 1: with a beard. The fact that Alan Godfrey claimed to
Speaker 1: have been abducted by aliens was difficult to understand for
Speaker 1: many people and added all the more oddness to a
Speaker 1: case that was already full of questions. For some, however,
Speaker 1: this possible UFO sighting added credence to what they already
Speaker 1: thought Ziggy's death could have been the result of an
Speaker 1: alien abduction. This is what many newspapers at the time
Speaker 1: began to run, with headlines like Todminen is out of
Speaker 1: this world and terrifying tales given Alan Godfrey's experience and
Speaker 1: the number of other UFO sightings which had taken place
Speaker 1: in the Todburnhen area, people could in some way believe
Speaker 1: that this may have been what happened to zigmun Adamski
Speaker 1: Is reported at the time, however, that West Yorkshire Police
Speaker 1: were less than impressed with this rumors, given that they
Speaker 1: were embroiled in the Yorkshire Ripper investigation at the time
Speaker 1: and they couldn't give any time or credence to rumors
Speaker 1: that their officers were claiming to see UFOs on their shifts.
Speaker 1: There has been much made over the years of the
Speaker 1: connection between Ziggy's death and the paranormal. However, I believe
Speaker 1: this in some way detracts away from his story. Ziggy
Speaker 1: was a man who died in mysterious circumstances, but which
Speaker 1: were very real. There are many real questions as to
Speaker 1: what happened to him, Where had he gone during those
Speaker 1: five days, why had he taken his shirt off and
Speaker 1: cut his hair, how had he got the burns on
Speaker 1: his body? And why could the ointment not be identified?
Speaker 1: This case genuinely is a mystery. However, we cannot lose
Speaker 1: sight of the fact that Ziggy was a real person.
Speaker 1: And not just a case of possible alien abduction, which
Speaker 1: is what he's been made out to be in the press.
Speaker 1: What did happen to Zigmund Damski in nineteen eighty There
Speaker 1: are so many confusing aspects to this case, and it's
Speaker 1: sad that after all these years, we're still none the
Speaker 1: wiser as to what happened. If you know anything about
Speaker 1: the death and disappearance of Zigmund Damski, then please contact
Speaker 1: the police on one oh one and let them know.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you'd like
Speaker 1: to support the podcast further than you can on Patreon
Speaker 1: and contribute to exclusive polls to get extra bonus episodes
Speaker 1: every month. You can also get access to new episodes
Speaker 1: early in ad free. You can use the link in
Speaker 1: the show notes to visit Patreon and see what we offer.
Speaker 1: You can also support us by reviewing the podcast wherever
Speaker 1: you listen, including Spotify, and also just share the episodes
Speaker 1: as our ways. I'm Caprice and this has been unseen
Speaker 1: st