The Red Spider - Lucian Staniak
A lot of people are afraid of spiders but think how horrific it was when a maniac was nicknamed The Red Spider. Be afraid be very afraid....
In July of 1964 Polish citizens prepared to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Warsaw's liberation from Nazi occupation in WWII. On July 22nd a great parade was scheduled and smaller demonstrations planned throughout the country. Everything seemed fine and people were ready to celebrate. Then on July 4th Marian Starzynski who was the editor of the Prezeglad Polityczny in Warsaw received a letter written in red ink in a spidery scrawl. The note said, "There is no happiness without fears, no life without death. Beware! I am going to make you cry."
Starzynski took this to mean as a personal threat to him and sought police protection. However July 22nd came and went without incident in Warsaw. In Olsztyn 120 miles to the north it was a different story. 17 year old Danka Maciejowitz went to a parade sponsored by the local School of Choreography and Folklore and never returned home. The next morning a gardener who worked at Olsztyn's Park of Polish Heroes found the nude body of the missing blond haired teenager. She had been raped and disemboweled. The Warsaw newspaper Kulisy received a letter on July 24th again written in red ink and reading, "I picked a juicy flower in Olsztyn and I shall do it again somewhere else for there is no holiday without a funeral."
After analyzing the ink the police found out that it was an artist's paint, thinned with turpentine. Both elements were common and untraceable without a sample for comparison. Evidence from the body of Danka Maciejowitz was useless without a suspect so detectives were helpless at this point and could do nothing else but wait and see if there would be more murders. On January 16, 1965 a picture of 16 year-old Aniuta Kaliniak, who was to lead a student parade through Warsaw the next day, was published in the newspaper Zycie Warsawy. Kaliniak lived in Praga, an eastern suburb of Warsaw and walked to the celebration on January 17th across a bridge spanning the Vistula River. Afterwards she was tired and decided to thumb a ride back home with a local truck driver. The driver dropped her off two blocks from home but Kaliniak never made it back to her house.
While family and friends were looking all over Praga for Aniuta another red inked letter arrived. This one informed the searchers about the girl's final resting place. Her body was found in the basement of a leather factory directly opposite her house. The killer had apparently ambushed Aniuta right near her house and strangled her with a wire garrote. Afterwards he had removed a sidewalk grate to gain access to the basement and left the girl with a six-inch metal spike protruding from her genitals.
On November 1, 1965 which was All Saint's Day - the killer made another move. This time in Pozna, 175 miles west of Warsaw. Janka Popielski, a young blond hotel receptionist went to Pozna's freight terminal to see if she could get a free ride to visit her boyfriend in a nearby village. What she found instead was a madman who chloroformed her, then dragged her behind a pile of packing crates. There he stripped her from the waist down, raped her and then stabbed her to death with a screwdriver. He then took Janka's body and stuffed it into one of the crates, where it was found an hour later. The mutilations were so vicious that the police withheld all details.
At this point the police searched through any trains or busses leaving Pozna looking for a man with bloody clothes but found no suspects. Then the next day November 2nd a Pozna newspaper the Courier Zachodni, received a red inked letter which quoted Stefan Zeromsky's 1928 novel Popioli: "Only tears of sorrow can wash out the stain of shame; only pangs of suffering can blot out the fires of lust."
On May 1st 1966 Poland had a double holiday celebrated both as Labor Day and as the Communist Party's primary day of rejoicing. That evening in Zoliborz, a northern suburb of Warsaw, 17 year-old Marysia Galazka went out looking for her cat. She never returned to the house. When her father went looking for her he found his daughter's body in a tool shed behind the house. She was dead and grossly mutilated.
Major Ciznek of the Warsaw Homicide Squad was placed in charge of the Red Spider case. During a nationwide search they discovered that there had been 14 more murders that fit the Red Spider's pattern but none of these were accompanied by the trademark letters. Ciznek did note however that most of the crime scenes lay south and west of Warsaw, in towns connected by direct rail lines to Katowice and Krakow. Since neither of those two cities had any attacks it was supposed that the killer lived in one of them.
On Christmas Eve 1966 three soldiers boarded a train going from Krakow to Warsaw. They opened a reserved compartment and were shocked to find a woman's mutilated body on the floor. Warsaw police took the radio call and ordered the train to proceed to the capital with no further stops. Each passenger was checked upon getting out of the train but again detectives saw no bloody hands or clothes. Inside the train's mail car was another message from the Red Spider: "I have done it again."
This latest victim was 17 year-old Janina Kozielska, of Krakow. She too had been mutilated, Major Ciznek's detectives found out that the compartment had been booked by telephone and that the caller had identified himself as Stanislav Kosielski. Then his "wife" had picked up the tickets and paid for them in cash. A conductor had shown her to the compartment and she had said that her husband would arrive shortly. Then the same conductor checked the "husband's" ticket but could not recall his face. Police now knew that Janina Kozielska had been familiar enough with the killer to pose as his wife and that he had killed her within ten minutes of entering the train and then fled on foot, dropping off his letter in the mail slot.
During a background check the police discovered that Kozielska's 14 year-old sister Aniela had been slaughtered in Warsaw two years earlier. Further the parents advised Major Ciznek that both girls had worked as artist's models at the Krakow School of Plastic Arts and the Art Lovers Club. Ciznek then inspected the club and discovered that there were 118 members most of them respected professional men, including doctors and dentists, journalists and public officials. Ciznek was still convinced that the killer would not kill in his own town so he scanned the membership list for someone who lives in Katowice. He found one named Lucian Staniak, a 26 year-old translator employed with Poland's government printing house. It was said that he traveled frequently as part of his job using an ulgowy billet - a special ticket good for unlimited railroad travel anywhere in Poland.
At this point Ciznek asked the art club's manager to open Staniak's locker. Inside the locker he found a variety of knives used for daubing paint on canvas, plus several of Staniak's recent works. For the most part the artist favored red paint and seeing a painting that he had titled as "The Circle of Life" convinced Ciznek that he had found the Red Spider. He alerted detectives in Katowice on January 31, 1967 and sent them to Staniak's address at 117 Aleje Wyzwolenia but the suspect wasn't home. Meanwhile Staniak had ridden the train that morning seeking out victims. He had selected an 18 year-old student named Bozhena Raczkiewicz who studied at the Institute of Cinematographic Arts. He walked her to the city's railroad station at about 6 PM. Inside a traveler's shelter built to protect one from bad weather he stunned Raczkiewicz with a vodka bottle, cut off her skirt and panties and the hacked her to death. However this time in his haste he left a clear fingerprint on the broken bottle's neck. After spending a night drinking he caught a late train back to Katowice. Detectives got a hold of him at the depot and brought him in for questioning. Staniak readily confessed to about 20 homicides although the final charges against him listed only six. Staniak told the police that his first murder in 1964 had been triggered by a family tragedy. His parents and sister were crossing an icy street when they were struck and killed by a speeding car. The driver, a Polish Air Force pilot's young blond wife was acquitted on a charge of reckless driving. So knowing that he would be the major suspect if he killed the pilot's wife he chose a look-alike victim on which to seek revenge. He soon found out that he enjoyed it so much he kept it up for sport.
In 1967 he was convicted of six murders and sentenced to die, that sentence later commuted after he was ruled insane. Today Staniak is reportedly alive and well in an asylum for the criminally insane. A 60 year-old predator, who is still fond of painting. The other 14 victims of his murder spree have not been publicly identified. The Red Spider does not comment about his crimes.
Starzynski took this to mean as a personal threat to him and sought police protection. However July 22nd came and went without incident in Warsaw. In Olsztyn 120 miles to the north it was a different story. 17 year old Danka Maciejowitz went to a parade sponsored by the local School of Choreography and Folklore and never returned home. The next morning a gardener who worked at Olsztyn's Park of Polish Heroes found the nude body of the missing blond haired teenager. She had been raped and disemboweled. The Warsaw newspaper Kulisy received a letter on July 24th again written in red ink and reading, "I picked a juicy flower in Olsztyn and I shall do it again somewhere else for there is no holiday without a funeral."
After analyzing the ink the police found out that it was an artist's paint, thinned with turpentine. Both elements were common and untraceable without a sample for comparison. Evidence from the body of Danka Maciejowitz was useless without a suspect so detectives were helpless at this point and could do nothing else but wait and see if there would be more murders. On January 16, 1965 a picture of 16 year-old Aniuta Kaliniak, who was to lead a student parade through Warsaw the next day, was published in the newspaper Zycie Warsawy. Kaliniak lived in Praga, an eastern suburb of Warsaw and walked to the celebration on January 17th across a bridge spanning the Vistula River. Afterwards she was tired and decided to thumb a ride back home with a local truck driver. The driver dropped her off two blocks from home but Kaliniak never made it back to her house.
While family and friends were looking all over Praga for Aniuta another red inked letter arrived. This one informed the searchers about the girl's final resting place. Her body was found in the basement of a leather factory directly opposite her house. The killer had apparently ambushed Aniuta right near her house and strangled her with a wire garrote. Afterwards he had removed a sidewalk grate to gain access to the basement and left the girl with a six-inch metal spike protruding from her genitals.
On November 1, 1965 which was All Saint's Day - the killer made another move. This time in Pozna, 175 miles west of Warsaw. Janka Popielski, a young blond hotel receptionist went to Pozna's freight terminal to see if she could get a free ride to visit her boyfriend in a nearby village. What she found instead was a madman who chloroformed her, then dragged her behind a pile of packing crates. There he stripped her from the waist down, raped her and then stabbed her to death with a screwdriver. He then took Janka's body and stuffed it into one of the crates, where it was found an hour later. The mutilations were so vicious that the police withheld all details.
At this point the police searched through any trains or busses leaving Pozna looking for a man with bloody clothes but found no suspects. Then the next day November 2nd a Pozna newspaper the Courier Zachodni, received a red inked letter which quoted Stefan Zeromsky's 1928 novel Popioli: "Only tears of sorrow can wash out the stain of shame; only pangs of suffering can blot out the fires of lust."
On May 1st 1966 Poland had a double holiday celebrated both as Labor Day and as the Communist Party's primary day of rejoicing. That evening in Zoliborz, a northern suburb of Warsaw, 17 year-old Marysia Galazka went out looking for her cat. She never returned to the house. When her father went looking for her he found his daughter's body in a tool shed behind the house. She was dead and grossly mutilated.
Major Ciznek of the Warsaw Homicide Squad was placed in charge of the Red Spider case. During a nationwide search they discovered that there had been 14 more murders that fit the Red Spider's pattern but none of these were accompanied by the trademark letters. Ciznek did note however that most of the crime scenes lay south and west of Warsaw, in towns connected by direct rail lines to Katowice and Krakow. Since neither of those two cities had any attacks it was supposed that the killer lived in one of them.
On Christmas Eve 1966 three soldiers boarded a train going from Krakow to Warsaw. They opened a reserved compartment and were shocked to find a woman's mutilated body on the floor. Warsaw police took the radio call and ordered the train to proceed to the capital with no further stops. Each passenger was checked upon getting out of the train but again detectives saw no bloody hands or clothes. Inside the train's mail car was another message from the Red Spider: "I have done it again."
This latest victim was 17 year-old Janina Kozielska, of Krakow. She too had been mutilated, Major Ciznek's detectives found out that the compartment had been booked by telephone and that the caller had identified himself as Stanislav Kosielski. Then his "wife" had picked up the tickets and paid for them in cash. A conductor had shown her to the compartment and she had said that her husband would arrive shortly. Then the same conductor checked the "husband's" ticket but could not recall his face. Police now knew that Janina Kozielska had been familiar enough with the killer to pose as his wife and that he had killed her within ten minutes of entering the train and then fled on foot, dropping off his letter in the mail slot.
During a background check the police discovered that Kozielska's 14 year-old sister Aniela had been slaughtered in Warsaw two years earlier. Further the parents advised Major Ciznek that both girls had worked as artist's models at the Krakow School of Plastic Arts and the Art Lovers Club. Ciznek then inspected the club and discovered that there were 118 members most of them respected professional men, including doctors and dentists, journalists and public officials. Ciznek was still convinced that the killer would not kill in his own town so he scanned the membership list for someone who lives in Katowice. He found one named Lucian Staniak, a 26 year-old translator employed with Poland's government printing house. It was said that he traveled frequently as part of his job using an ulgowy billet - a special ticket good for unlimited railroad travel anywhere in Poland.
At this point Ciznek asked the art club's manager to open Staniak's locker. Inside the locker he found a variety of knives used for daubing paint on canvas, plus several of Staniak's recent works. For the most part the artist favored red paint and seeing a painting that he had titled as "The Circle of Life" convinced Ciznek that he had found the Red Spider. He alerted detectives in Katowice on January 31, 1967 and sent them to Staniak's address at 117 Aleje Wyzwolenia but the suspect wasn't home. Meanwhile Staniak had ridden the train that morning seeking out victims. He had selected an 18 year-old student named Bozhena Raczkiewicz who studied at the Institute of Cinematographic Arts. He walked her to the city's railroad station at about 6 PM. Inside a traveler's shelter built to protect one from bad weather he stunned Raczkiewicz with a vodka bottle, cut off her skirt and panties and the hacked her to death. However this time in his haste he left a clear fingerprint on the broken bottle's neck. After spending a night drinking he caught a late train back to Katowice. Detectives got a hold of him at the depot and brought him in for questioning. Staniak readily confessed to about 20 homicides although the final charges against him listed only six. Staniak told the police that his first murder in 1964 had been triggered by a family tragedy. His parents and sister were crossing an icy street when they were struck and killed by a speeding car. The driver, a Polish Air Force pilot's young blond wife was acquitted on a charge of reckless driving. So knowing that he would be the major suspect if he killed the pilot's wife he chose a look-alike victim on which to seek revenge. He soon found out that he enjoyed it so much he kept it up for sport.
In 1967 he was convicted of six murders and sentenced to die, that sentence later commuted after he was ruled insane. Today Staniak is reportedly alive and well in an asylum for the criminally insane. A 60 year-old predator, who is still fond of painting. The other 14 victims of his murder spree have not been publicly identified. The Red Spider does not comment about his crimes.
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