Latest / History Dark / Leszek Pekalski confessed to murdering over 60 Women _ Murderers and their Mothers

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Leszek Pekalski confessed to murdering over 60 Women _ Murderers and their Mothers · History Dark

0:02
Speaker 1: They are some of the world's most notorious serial killers.
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Speaker 1: He was like a god when he had a corpse
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Speaker 1: at his plaything. But were these psychopaths born evil or
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Speaker 1: did their mothers make them into monsters? I'm Donald McIntyre
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Speaker 1: and I'm on a quest to explore how some of
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Speaker 1: history's most horrific murderers were moulded by their dysfunctional relationships
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Speaker 1: with their mothers. When it comes to people who are pathological, psychopathic,
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Speaker 1: the influence of the mother is absolutely dominant. I'll be
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Speaker 1: piecing together events in their childhoods and talking to criminologists
0:37
Speaker 1: and psychologists to try to understand what motivated their monstrous crimes.
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Speaker 1: We've never come across a serial killer who'd killed that
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Speaker 1: many people. In this program, the Polish killer Leszek Pinkowski,
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Speaker 1: he confessed to a spree of 67 sexual murders, including men, women,
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Speaker 1: and children as victims. Were these confessions the work of
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Speaker 1: Poland's most prolific serial killer or the fantasies of a
1:03
Speaker 1: deranged mind?
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Speaker 2: He's somebody whose behaviour.
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Speaker 3: Is off the Richter scale.
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Speaker 1: Leszek Penkalski is one of Poland's most notorious murderers. In 1996,
1:44
Speaker 1: he was convicted of murder and rape, and he's still
1:47
Speaker 1: behind bars. And it was in these woods near Bitow
1:50
Speaker 1: in rural northern Poland where his murderous career would reach
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Speaker 1: its terrifying climax. 28-year-old Penkalski was living a rough in
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Speaker 1: the woods. He was hungry, desperate, and begged a young
2:05
Speaker 1: 17-year-old shop assistant called Sylwia He asked her for sex.
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Speaker 4: She brushed away his advances. Humiliated and enraged, he caved
2:13
Speaker 4: her skull in with a spade. Sylwia died of blows
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Speaker 4: to the head, and then, after her death, he sexually
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Speaker 4: abused her.
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Speaker 1: The police identified Pankowski as the perpetrator of this horrific
2:45
Speaker 1: crime and arrested him here in his hometown of Olszewski.
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Speaker 1: And when he was questioned, he admitted to dozens of
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Speaker 1: other murders, men, women and children, in cases which have
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Speaker 1: baffled the police in Poland for nearly a decade. Police
3:00
Speaker 1: initially charged Pankowski with 17 crimes, ranging from assault to
3:05
Speaker 1: rape and murder. But when it got to court, only
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Speaker 1: two indictments remained. After claims of mishandling of key evidence
3:12
Speaker 1: by the police, Penkalski was found guilty of just one murder,
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Speaker 1: that of 17-year-old Sylvia. In 1996, he was found guilty
3:21
Speaker 1: of this murder and sentenced to 25 years in jail. Many,
3:25
Speaker 1: though within the criminal justice system, still think he committed
3:29
Speaker 1: scores of the crimes he confessed to. How did Penkalski
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Speaker 1: turn into this monster? And how did his relationship with
3:36
Speaker 1: his mother make him into a murderer?
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Speaker 2: I think it's true to say that he wouldn't have
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Speaker 2: become a killer if it hadn't have been for actions taken.
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Speaker 3: By his mother.
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Speaker 1: In 1966, Leszek Pinkowski was born here in the small
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Speaker 1: farming village of Olszewki, about 70 kilometres from the Baltic Sea.
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Speaker 1: His mother Cecilia was a farmhand and had a reputation
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Speaker 1: for being loud and for having a problem with alcohol.
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Speaker 1: She found it very difficult to hold down any stable relationship.
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Speaker 1: Her existence was basic. Her main interests were men and
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Speaker 1: alcohol and little else.
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Speaker 5: Their only entertainment was alcohol and sex. Cecilia Pękalska was
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Speaker 5: an easy woman and had many sexual partners.
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Speaker 2: In a Catholic country and a small rural community, Penkalski's
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Speaker 2: mother would have been frowned upon and she would have
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Speaker 2: been stigmatized and any child of hers would have shared
4:42
Speaker 2: that stigmatization.
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Speaker 1: So when Cecilia fell pregnant, none of the villages in
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Speaker 1: this tight-knit community were shocked at all. And there's evidence
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Speaker 1: that was damage done to Leszek before he was even born.
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Speaker 5: The pregnancy in Sicily was accidental. Her abuse of him
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Speaker 5: started even before he was born. Children who've been exposed
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Speaker 5: in utero to alcohol.
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Speaker 2: Have cognitive difficulties, they're more likely to have learning difficulties.
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Speaker 2: So it's hard for them to make sense of social
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Speaker 2: cues and to take opportunities to learn and grow in
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Speaker 2: the way that we would.
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Speaker 1: Cecilia gave birth to twins. Her daughter, Joanna, was healthy,
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Speaker 1: but Leszek was born with some obvious mental impairments.
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Speaker 4: When Celina was born, I was working at the hospital.
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Speaker 6: She was moving her head differently and thin.
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Speaker 1: Cecilia showed little affection towards her new son. She saw
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Speaker 1: him as a burden, especially as the man who'd fathered
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Speaker 1: the twins wanted nothing to do with the children. Cecilia's
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Speaker 1: drinking problems ensured that she struggled to bring up the
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Speaker 1: family on her own.
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Speaker 2: As with any child that doesn't have a father figure,
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Speaker 2: he would like somebody to look up to, and somebody
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Speaker 2: to show him the way, if you like, and how
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Speaker 2: to treat people, and how to treat women in particular.
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Speaker 6: All he had was a really bad model from his mum,
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Speaker 6: and nobody to correct him or to set him straight
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Speaker 6: when his behaviours were errant or went astray.
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Speaker 1: The little money Cecilia did bring home was spent on
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Speaker 1: fuelling her addiction.
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Speaker 3: Leszek and his sister were very often hungry.
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Speaker 5: Penkalski would be left in the care of his grandmother,
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Speaker 5: but like her daughter, she also had problems with alcohol.
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Speaker 1: By the age of five, Pankowski had already been starved
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Speaker 1: of all the love and attention and even the basic
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Speaker 1: needs that one would expect from a good mother. But
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Speaker 1: did these poverty-stricken and emotionally barren years sow the seeds
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Speaker 1: for the murderer he'd become? It seems to me that
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Speaker 1: Pankowski's mother really is somebody who was at the lowest end,
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Speaker 1: the lowest rung of society. And she understands that and
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Speaker 1: she drinks herself into an oblivion with the obvious effects
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Speaker 1: on Leszek.
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Speaker 7: Well, I think we can argue that alcohol starts to
8:03
Speaker 7: have an impact before he's even born because his mother
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Speaker 7: is reportedly quite a heavy drinker. And we know from
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Speaker 7: quite a few studies that there's something called fetal alcohol
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Speaker 7: spectrum disorder. And some of those children are born looking
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Speaker 7: quite different from other newborn babies. So So the damage
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Speaker 7: is starting to be done before he even comes into
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Speaker 7: the world.
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Speaker 1: And is there a suggestion that there was a little
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Speaker 1: hint of that alcohol fetal syndrome in Leszek when he
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Speaker 1: was born?
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Speaker 8: He had some changes in his brain, and we know
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Speaker 8: that for a fact. He behaved in quite a strange
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Speaker 8: way for the child, and he was also then mentally ill.
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Speaker 1: So for some reason she didn't cradle him when he
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Speaker 1: was born, but she did cradle his sister. And of course,
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Speaker 1: you know, that rejection at an early age must have
8:56
Speaker 1: been significant.
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Speaker 8: His mother, she didn't want him. I think she didn't
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Speaker 8: care about him. Like, he was dirty, he was smelly.
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Speaker 8: So she just created this really cruel world for her son.
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Speaker 8: And we do not know the reason why she did that.
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Speaker 8: Maybe she was a little bit ashamed of his condition.
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Speaker 7: The mother just does not care about him. He's just
9:21
Speaker 7: an inconvenience. Basically, the child is incredibly needy. Nobody cares
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Speaker 7: about him. He's learning that he can't depend on anybody
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Speaker 7: right now.
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Speaker 1: In that rural Catholic community in Poland 30, 40, 50
9:35
Speaker 1: years ago, it's quite clear that is that the concept
9:39
Speaker 1: of illegitimacy was still quite a label.
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Speaker 7: I mean, the family was the cornerstone institution of society,
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Speaker 7: wasn't it? It was a real kind of moral organisation
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Speaker 7: of a mother, a father and children. So to come
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Speaker 7: into the world already labelled, already stigmatised, he was just
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Speaker 7: devalued from the moment he came into the world.
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Speaker 1: Coming up at the hands of his mother, Pinkowski learns
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Speaker 1: that violence can be the answer to his problems.
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Speaker 2: He's somebody whose behaviour is off the Richter scale and
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Speaker 2: he doesn't seem able to stop himself.
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Speaker 1: Leszek Pinkowski is believed to have committed a 12-year spree
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Speaker 1: of rape and murder across Poland. between 1984 and 1992.
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Speaker 1: The seeds of this murderous campaign may rest in his
10:25
Speaker 1: dysfunctional childhood. His mother drank heavily while pregnant with him,
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Speaker 1: possibly causing him brain damage. She ignored, neglected, and abused
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Speaker 1: him in his early years. But was this alone sufficient
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Speaker 1: to turn him into the murderous, lustful killer he became?
10:43
Speaker 1: Pankalski spent his early years in this rural village of
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Speaker 1: Osieki in northern Poland. His drink-sodden mother and grandmother were
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Speaker 1: terrible carers, but it was more than just neglect. There
10:54
Speaker 1: was also violence.
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Speaker 5: When he and his sister saw that their mother and
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Speaker 5: grandmother were drunk, they wanted to run away from the house.
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Speaker 5: They wanted to hide in the barn. They said that
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Speaker 5: something bad was going to happen.
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Speaker 9: Kalski was born in a village, where violence was used
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Speaker 9: against children. The mother and grandmother were very primitive in
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Speaker 9: their way of functioning. And that's how they behaved towards him.
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Speaker 3: The mother.
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Speaker 5: And grandmother beat him with everything they had. Leszek liked
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Speaker 5: to look at the fire. He was burying it with
11:41
Speaker 5: a burglary. He put it in, pulled it out. That
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Speaker 5: level of physical abuse would have a profound effect on
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Speaker 5: a child. Children will deal with that either by becoming very,
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Speaker 5: very angry themselves and trying to find people.
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Speaker 2: Or things that are less powerful than they are, that
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Speaker 2: they can enact abuse upon themselves, or they will turn
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Speaker 2: inwards and become emotionally unresponsive. It seems that in Penkalski's case,
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Speaker 2: he very much dealt with the situation by becoming an
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Speaker 2: abuser himself.
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Speaker 1: Even from an early age at this school here in
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Speaker 1: the village, Penkalski was already being isolated from his fellow classmates.
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Speaker 1: The abuse and neglect he suffered at home, combined with
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Speaker 1: his learning difficulties, meant he was always treated as an outsider.
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Speaker 1: Was this the start of his path to murder?
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Speaker 5: You could see that Leszek was mentally ill.
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Speaker 10: He was walking, he was so drunk.
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Speaker 3: You could see that. He was marked out as different.
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Speaker 2: He was less able, and that must have added to
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Speaker 2: a sense of rage, really, and a sense of injustice.
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Speaker 2: And he must have formed a world view that, in
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Speaker 2: actual fact, nobody cares about me.
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Speaker 3: I'm alienated from everyone.
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Speaker 1: Penkalski couldn't even turn to his own mother when he
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Speaker 1: was bullied at school. If he had done, he'd only
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Speaker 1: suffer more abuse at her cruel hands.
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Speaker 6: So Penkalski is learning very quickly and very horribly that
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Speaker 6: his life is clearly worthless and meaningless and not even
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Speaker 6: worth protecting or looking out for.
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Speaker 1: Penkalski's isolation would soon drive his mindset into a darker terrain.
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Speaker 1: Unable to relate to his peers and beaten by his mother,
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Speaker 1: he would soon take out his frustrations on things that
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Speaker 1: couldn't fight back. He started to torment the animals in
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Speaker 1: the village.
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Speaker 3: He didn't like animals.
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Speaker 5: It allowed him to find something that was actually less
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Speaker 5: powerful than him.
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Speaker 2: And I think that he would have found pleasure in
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Speaker 2: inflicting pain on animals.
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Speaker 6: And it clearly suggests that he's learned to be abusive
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Speaker 6: because of the abuse he himself has suffered.
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Speaker 1: Penkalski's fascination with animal cruelty was fueled further by watching
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Speaker 1: the adults in the village behead chickens and slaughter pigs.
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Speaker 2: It's extremely unusual and very, very worrying that Penkalski would
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Speaker 2: seem to take pleasure in watching animals being killed, seeming
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Speaker 2: to find enjoyment in that. That is very, very concerning
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Speaker 2: and it's very psychopathic. So I think that this was
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Speaker 2: a very clear cue that there was something wrong with
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Speaker 2: this boy.
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Speaker 6: If he's able to torture animals and have the power
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Speaker 6: of life and death over them, then that suggests he's
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Speaker 6: learning how good it is to actually have control over something.
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Speaker 1: But his cruel behaviour towards animals wasn't learned from his mother.
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Speaker 1: So to what extent can we blame her for the
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Speaker 1: flourishing killer within the young Pinkalski? It seems that the
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Speaker 1: cruelty towards Leszek knew no bounds.
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Speaker 7: Because at this point in time, when most children are thriving,
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Speaker 7: he's just surviving, isn't he? So in terms of what
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Speaker 7: he's coming to accept as normal, he's seeing violence day in,
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Speaker 7: day out. He's experiencing it.
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Speaker 1: So.
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Speaker 7: So what he's learning in this situation are a set
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Speaker 7: of violent scripts, so particular ways to behave in certain situations.
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Speaker 7: He's taking violence to be a normal thing.
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Speaker 8: I think the most important was that his mother and grandmother,
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Speaker 8: they were attacking him, so he really wanted to take revenge.
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Speaker 1: So very quickly, at school, it became apparent to everybody
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Speaker 1: that this kid was different.
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Speaker 8: He was called a bastard, he was called stupid lesher.
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Speaker 8: And he saw that people are just laughing at him.
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Speaker 8: So he was also rejected at school.
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Speaker 1: And so his first place where he starts to exercise
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Speaker 1: violence upon.
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Speaker 8: It's probably his way of getting power. He wanted to
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Speaker 8: be in control. He didn't have empathy. He had no ethics.
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Speaker 8: And he didn't fear that those animals suffer.
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Speaker 7: Well, traditionally, animal abuse has been one of those key
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Speaker 7: behaviours that are a red flag of somebody developing into
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Speaker 7: a violent criminal.
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Speaker 1: At age 11, Pinkalski's mother is no longer able to
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Speaker 1: look after him. Social workers send him off to a
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Speaker 1: care home in Bitov. If life was bad at home,
17:33
Speaker 1: it was about to get an awful lot worse.
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Speaker 5: Later, Penkalski would recount the abuse he suffered to a psychiatrist.
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Speaker 5: I was forced into a sexual encounter while at the
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Speaker 5: special needs school in Bytow.
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Speaker 3: Two boys assaulted me.
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Speaker 1: One held me down, while the other touched me down there.
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Speaker 2: Penkielski was a natural victim in many ways. He was
18:12
Speaker 2: incredibly vulnerable, so he would have been singled out by
18:15
Speaker 2: those who wanted to abuse him.
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Speaker 9: Everyone beat him up, they didn't pay attention to him.
18:22
Speaker 9: If they paid attention to him, it was only to
18:24
Speaker 9: use him, to cheat on him, he learned. that social
18:28
Speaker 9: relations are filled with aggression, interest, and the best way
18:34
Speaker 9: to satisfy their needs is to force it with force.
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Speaker 6: And to him again, this will normalize his sexual behavior
18:43
Speaker 6: and make it appear to him that sexual interactions with
18:46
Speaker 6: your peers are quite a normal currency.
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Speaker 1: Penkalski's traumatic early sexual experiences undoubtedly warped his view of relationships.
18:57
Speaker 1: On reaching puberty, he develops a singular adolescent obsession, that
19:01
Speaker 1: of finding a girlfriend. It's a fixation he'll carry on
19:05
Speaker 1: for many years, and with tragic consequences.
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Speaker 5: When a child becomes a teenager, his interest in sex begins,
19:15
Speaker 5: he complains to all teachers that he necessarily wants to
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Speaker 5: have a girl. Specialists said that his impulse was monstrous.
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Speaker 5: It seems that he did pick up that marriage is
19:27
Speaker 5: somehow connected to sex.
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Speaker 3: You get married and then you.
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Speaker 2: But it seems that he did pick up that marriage
19:45
Speaker 2: is somehow connected to sex. You get married and then
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Speaker 2: you are entitled to sex.
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Speaker 1: His desperate need for an intimate sexual relationship was, of course,
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Speaker 1: a turn-off to his female contemporaries. Pankowski's hopes were crushed
20:00
Speaker 1: again and again as he suffered rejection after rejection from
20:04
Speaker 1: the teenage girls in school.
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Speaker 5: Girls at school never lied to him because he was
20:09
Speaker 5: always dirty. He smelled bad because he never liked to
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Speaker 5: wash himself, because no one taught him how to take
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Speaker 5: care of hygiene.
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Speaker 1: Despite these rejections, aged 14, he falls in love with
20:22
Speaker 1: a disabled girl in his school.
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Speaker 9: He fell in love with a girl with a bald head.
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Speaker 9: He really wanted to have a relationship with her.
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Speaker 1: But the parents wouldn't allow the relationship. Devastated by yet
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Speaker 1: another rejection, his abnormal adolescent sex drive is now out
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Speaker 1: of control. Something he admitted to a psychiatrist many years later.
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Speaker 6: At age 15, I no longer was able to control
20:58
Speaker 6: my sexual desires.
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Speaker 3: I became a menace and a danger.
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Speaker 1: I began harassing girls and women.
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Speaker 2: Here's somebody who clearly can't control his sexual impulses. He's
21:13
Speaker 2: somebody whose behaviour is off the Richter scale, if you like,
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Speaker 2: and he doesn't seem able to stop himself.
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Speaker 1: Where did he get his sexual desires? Did his abusive
21:28
Speaker 1: mother create it? or did he learn it in the
21:30
Speaker 1: various care homes and orphanages he spent his teenage years in?
21:38
Speaker 1: At this stage in his development, he's sent to a
21:40
Speaker 1: state care home, and there he begins to exhibit behaviour
21:43
Speaker 1: which is concerning, and he suffers at the hands of
21:47
Speaker 1: others as well.
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Speaker 8: Yes, older teenagers, they take advantage of him. He was
21:52
Speaker 8: sexually abused. They try to humiliate him in front of
21:56
Speaker 8: other kids. So he felt even more outsider. I think
22:03
Speaker 8: this was like the most problematic point of his life.
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Speaker 1: There's some evidence that he becomes over-sexualized in and around
22:12
Speaker 1: this time.
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Speaker 8: Like when he was really young, he talked all the
22:16
Speaker 8: time about sex.
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Speaker 7: He's displaying this kind of sexual inhibition at an age
22:21
Speaker 7: where most children really aren't doing that. So this is
22:23
Speaker 7: an incredibly confused, incredibly disrupted young boy. Whenever we look
22:28
Speaker 7: at people who committed homicide, very often we'll see abuse
22:31
Speaker 7: in their background. So whilst most homicide perpetrators have been abused,
22:35
Speaker 7: not all abused children go on to harm others. So
22:38
Speaker 7: there's something else that needs to be going on to
22:40
Speaker 7: make that come about.
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Speaker 1: Coming up, Penkalski's perverted desires explode into rape and murder.
22:50
Speaker 2: Penkalski's motive for murder was definitely instant sexual gratification.
22:55
Speaker 1: Leszek Penkalski is a convicted rapist and murderer and is
22:59
Speaker 1: considered one of the most lethal men alive in Poland today.
23:03
Speaker 1: He's been detained in prison for over 25 years and
23:06
Speaker 1: is considered a permanent danger to men, women and children.
23:11
Speaker 1: Aged 18, Penkalski finished vocational school, Having trained as a bricklayer,
23:16
Speaker 1: gets a job on a construction site. But very soon,
23:20
Speaker 1: he gets into trouble at work.
23:24
Speaker 5: Because Leszek's employers were often accused of him by the
23:30
Speaker 5: people who worked with him, they said that he was
23:34
Speaker 5: raping a man in the brigade. because he looked down
23:37
Speaker 5: on one man who couldn't get away from him. And
23:41
Speaker 5: this man is so impatient, so evil, that he might
23:46
Speaker 5: get into a fight.
23:47
Speaker 1: Pankalski was dismissed from work because of his unacceptable sexual advances.
23:52
Speaker 9: If there is a need that he wants to satisfy,
23:54
Speaker 9: he must satisfy it immediately. He has no self-censorship, he
23:58
Speaker 9: does not control his behavior. He had problems with doing
24:01
Speaker 9: any work.
24:07
Speaker 1: At age 21, Penkalski, rejected by the adult world of work,
24:12
Speaker 1: moves back home to his mother to live on benefits.
24:16
Speaker 1: But here, there's no loving welcome, just more of the abuse.
24:20
Speaker 5: He tried to maintain contact with his family, but they
24:26
Speaker 5: never wanted contact with him. These women were still drunk,
24:29
Speaker 5: this house was still neglected, and still no one showed
24:32
Speaker 5: him any interest.
24:35
Speaker 1: Then, in November 1988, even that world was snatched away
24:40
Speaker 1: from him. His mother would die of a heart attack,
24:45
Speaker 1: leaving him homeless and parentless. His circumstances would change, but
24:50
Speaker 1: would his mindset?
24:51
Speaker 5: The death of his mother didn't make a special impression
24:55
Speaker 5: on Pękalski.
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Speaker 3: It's hard to mourn.
24:56
Speaker 5: Someone from whom you never got feelings of love.
25:04
Speaker 2: When Penkalski's mother dies, he's not aware of having any great,
25:10
Speaker 2: deep feelings of sadness. And that's not surprising because, let's
25:14
Speaker 2: face it, he was a victim of terrible abuse from
25:17
Speaker 2: his mother, so why would he mourn her?
25:19
Speaker 1: Following his mother's death, Penkalski would move into his uncle's
25:23
Speaker 1: house here in the village of Osheki. However, the death
25:26
Speaker 1: wouldn't dampen his all-consuming desire for sex and a relationship.
25:31
Speaker 1: This would occupy his every waking hour.
25:34
Speaker 5: Everyone who met with him emphasized that he always asked
25:39
Speaker 5: for help to find a wife, to find a girlfriend.
25:41
Speaker 3: He didn't want to be alone.
25:45
Speaker 2: He would have just seen very, very simply that this
25:48
Speaker 2: was his passport, if you liked, to sex. I think
25:52
Speaker 2: he thought that all he had to do was really
25:54
Speaker 2: put out the feelers and that would come back to him.
25:57
Speaker 9: He was certainly looking for both sexual satisfaction and probably
26:01
Speaker 9: some closeness. Looking for a partner would meet several needs.
26:08
Speaker 1: Is he a lovesick man or just looking for the
26:11
Speaker 1: love and affection he never received from his mother?
26:14
Speaker 5: He started looking for a wife more intensively, at least
26:17
Speaker 5: more often he wrote letters to marriage offices. His uncle
26:21
Speaker 5: was angry that he was spending too much money on stamps.
26:27
Speaker 6: Unfortunately, he's not very successful. The only responses he gets
26:32
Speaker 6: are negative ones and rejections. And for him that must
26:35
Speaker 6: have been an absolutely crushing disappointment.
26:40
Speaker 5: Once Leszek got an answer from the girl, he was
26:43
Speaker 5: extremely outraged. He carried this letter like a treasure to
26:49
Speaker 5: his room. It turned out that he was laughed at
26:51
Speaker 5: in this letter when the girl read that he was.
26:53
Speaker 3: A rapist, that he was persecuted.
26:57
Speaker 5: She wrote him, you're stupid, don't worry about writing. The
27:00
Speaker 5: older he got, the more he realized that he had
27:04
Speaker 5: no chance of finding women.
27:07
Speaker 2: He must have been thinking to himself, well, what is
27:09
Speaker 2: wrong with me? I am doing everything I can. I'm
27:12
Speaker 2: going through all of these formal channels. And all he's
27:16
Speaker 2: doing is setting himself up for rejection after rejection. And
27:21
Speaker 2: this has got to be tiring, frustrating... and it's got
27:25
Speaker 2: to be soul-destroying.
27:27
Speaker 1: Penkalski's life then takes an unusual turn. He decides to
27:33
Speaker 1: become a Jehovah's Witness. Why the sudden urge to join
27:36
Speaker 1: a new religious community?
27:43
Speaker 5: He didn't come to Jehovah's Witnesses because of his faith,
27:47
Speaker 5: his religion.
27:48
Speaker 3: He saw benefits for himself.
27:52
Speaker 5: After two years with the Jehovah's Witnesses, Penkalski fails to
27:55
Speaker 5: find any willing partners prepared to marry him.
28:21
Speaker 1: As the years went on, his behaviour became more disturbing
28:25
Speaker 1: and perverted. But was this the fault of his warped
28:28
Speaker 1: mind or the result of years of abuse at the
28:31
Speaker 1: hands of his grandmother, mother and his peers? So he
28:37
Speaker 1: didn't have the charisma, he didn't have the good looks.
28:40
Speaker 1: He certainly was unsuccessful with girls of his own age.
28:44
Speaker 1: And so his talk was always of sex, of marriage.
28:48
Speaker 1: and yet something he would never achieve.
28:50
Speaker 7: I think it was this slow realisation that he was
28:53
Speaker 7: never going to fit in anywhere, was he? Because his
28:56
Speaker 7: physical development was delayed, his emotional development was disrupted. He
29:00
Speaker 7: didn't quite know what was normal and what wasn't normal,
29:03
Speaker 7: so it was very difficult for him to gain traction
29:06
Speaker 7: in any part of society.
29:07
Speaker 8: And he wasn't handsome, he wasn't smart, but somehow he
29:11
Speaker 8: was choosing the girls or women who were very beautiful,
29:16
Speaker 8: who were really smart, who were from the good houses.
29:20
Speaker 8: He really wanted to.
29:21
Speaker 3: Have a perfect wife.
29:23
Speaker 1: Is it the sense that his frustration that he was
29:24
Speaker 1: never likely to have a normal relationship must have left
29:27
Speaker 1: a terrible gap.
29:28
Speaker 3: In his life?
29:29
Speaker 7: I think he had some incredibly unrealistic expectations. So he's
29:32
Speaker 7: come from this family environment where his mother is the
29:35
Speaker 7: worst possible mother that there could be. And then he
29:38
Speaker 7: gets to know that the nuclear family is the ideal family,
29:42
Speaker 7: mother and father, male breadwinner. So he's striving for that.
29:45
Speaker 7: And for him, there really isn't any gray area.
29:48
Speaker 3: It's one or the other.
29:49
Speaker 1: So it seems quite an odd jump that he would
29:52
Speaker 1: join the Jehovah's Witnesses.
29:54
Speaker 8: He really wanted to be close to people in any way,
29:56
Speaker 8: like sexual or religious or or just want to feel
30:00
Speaker 8: warm around people. And he has only one aim. He
30:04
Speaker 8: wants to find a wife.
30:07
Speaker 7: It's that sense of belonging that he wants, isn't it?
30:09
Speaker 7: And I think whenever anybody offers him that branch, that
30:12
Speaker 7: thing to cling on to, he is going to cling
30:14
Speaker 7: on to it with dear life. And I think the
30:16
Speaker 7: first people to come along were people from the faith
30:19
Speaker 7: of the Jehovah's Witnesses.
30:20
Speaker 1: It seems to me he has a curious relationship with
30:23
Speaker 1: his mother. He keeps being drawn back to her. But
30:25
Speaker 1: what impact do you think his mother's death has on him?
30:30
Speaker 8: He didn't get any love from his mother. He didn't
30:32
Speaker 8: get any attention. He definitely hated her. So it was
30:36
Speaker 8: like such a chaotic relationship.
30:39
Speaker 7: I think he'd been set adrift, hadn't he? So he
30:41
Speaker 7: had that very kind of thin thread hanging on to
30:44
Speaker 7: his mother. But when she died, that was gone. So
30:48
Speaker 7: what was there for him to hang on to at
30:50
Speaker 7: this point in time?
30:51
Speaker 8: After his mother left, he felt like he had so
30:55
Speaker 8: much anger in him and that boiled and it was
31:00
Speaker 8: like a bomb that needed to explode.
31:04
Speaker 1: By 1990, Penkalski is motherless and has been soundly rejected
31:09
Speaker 1: by every woman he has approached. Something finally snaps as
31:14
Speaker 1: his primal need for sex becomes overwhelming.
31:21
Speaker 5: Bernadetta was a resident of the same village where Pękalski lived.
31:26
Speaker 5: She was coming back from her sister's, on a very
31:30
Speaker 5: remote road.
31:32
Speaker 4: It was evening and suddenly she found out that someone
31:36
Speaker 4: was following her. Someone was following her, she got worried.
31:40
Speaker 1: Pękalski has been lurking on the outskirts of the village.
31:44
Speaker 1: He's been waiting for a victim.
31:45
Speaker 3: He approached her.
31:46
Speaker 5: Very quickly and attacked her. He had a golf on
31:50
Speaker 5: his face. He threatened to kill her. Then he dragged
31:55
Speaker 5: her into the nearby bushes and raped her.
31:59
Speaker 3: He said he would.
32:04
Speaker 7: Kill her.
32:04
Speaker 4: At some point she pretended to be a dead person.
32:06
Speaker 4: She thought about when she would find her. She recognized him.
32:08
Speaker 4: He lived nearby. She knew him.
32:21
Speaker 10: Penkalski is arrested for rape but gets off with a
32:35
Speaker 10: suspended sentence.
32:37
Speaker 1: This arrest doesn't stop him in the slightest. It's widely
32:41
Speaker 1: believed but never proven as a result of his confessions
32:44
Speaker 1: that Penkalski had been conducting a decade-long spree of murder
32:48
Speaker 1: and rape across Poland.
32:52
Speaker 5: After the rape in Bernadette, Leszek was still a free man.
32:55
Speaker 5: He still moved around Poland, he often spent the night
32:59
Speaker 5: in the forest, he was often hungry.
33:02
Speaker 3: In Poland, there were.
33:03
Speaker 5: Various murders of sexual activity in various parts of Poland.
33:11
Speaker 5: In June 1991, it was the savage murder of 17-year-old
33:14
Speaker 5: Sylwia that would finally bring Penkalski to public notoriety.
33:17
Speaker 3: He'd been living rough for weeks.
33:39
Speaker 1: Hungry and disheveled, he seeks food at a nearby shop.
33:45
Speaker 1: There he comes into contact with Sylwia, the young shop assistant.
33:50
Speaker 4: This poor, dirty man asked her if she could give
33:53
Speaker 4: him something to eat.
33:55
Speaker 9: Pękalski is a person with a very low intellect. However,
33:59
Speaker 9: he learned to manipulate the environment a bit. He is
34:02
Speaker 9: indeed a man.
34:03
Speaker 5: Who arouses kindness, Sylwia agrees to bring him some food
34:09
Speaker 5: after work.
34:35
Speaker 1: They arrange to meet in a secluded forest clearing where
34:38
Speaker 1: Penkalski has been sleeping.
34:41
Speaker 4: True to form, Penkalski pesters her to be his girlfriend
34:44
Speaker 4: and wife.
35:00
Speaker 5: He was a coward, a coward, and he didn't like
35:03
Speaker 5: being laughed at, and that caused aggression in him. Sylwia
35:06
Speaker 5: died of blows to the head, and then, after her death,
35:08
Speaker 5: he sexually abused her. In the night, Penkalski came back
35:28
Speaker 5: to Sylwia's body several times. They were lying near the
35:32
Speaker 5: bed where he was sleeping.
35:34
Speaker 3: And he used those bodies again.
35:37
Speaker 2: Penkalski's motive for murder was definitely instant sexual gratification. But
35:43
Speaker 2: I think that this arose out of many, many factors.
35:46
Speaker 2: Not least that he's got very, very poor impulse control.
35:50
Speaker 2: Possibly as a result of just a feral upbringing. or
35:55
Speaker 2: possibly as a result of early brain damage. And I
35:58
Speaker 2: think that both of those are directly attributable to his mother.
36:06
Speaker 1: So what set him on this path of rape and murder?
36:10
Speaker 1: And how did his dysfunctional relationship with his mother shape
36:13
Speaker 1: him into the ruthless killer he became? Looking at Leszek Pinkalski,
36:23
Speaker 1: what kind of killer is he? Do you think he is?
36:25
Speaker 7: I think he's chaotic, he's disorganised and he's a piece
36:30
Speaker 7: of the jigsaw puzzle that is never quite going to
36:32
Speaker 7: fit anywhere.
36:33
Speaker 1: I think he's one of the most curious serial killers
36:36
Speaker 1: that we've ever come across. I think you have to
36:38
Speaker 1: have a great deal of sympathy. The most appalling childhood,
36:41
Speaker 1: the lost affection of his mother and his grandmother gave
36:44
Speaker 1: us the murderer he became.
36:46
Speaker 8: I think that the mother was the most influential person
36:49
Speaker 8: in his life and he really seeked the contact with her.
36:54
Speaker 8: So that's why he always come back to his house.
36:58
Speaker 8: He wanted her love. He wanted her attention.
37:01
Speaker 7: So he's just got this constant rejection, rejection, rejection going
37:05
Speaker 7: on all of the time.
37:06
Speaker 8: Plus violence, plus sexual abuse. And I think he just
37:10
Speaker 8: didn't manage to create any empathy inside him.
37:15
Speaker 1: How significant is his childhood in the murderer and rapist
37:18
Speaker 1: that we know he became?
37:19
Speaker 8: I think it has such a big impact. like the
37:23
Speaker 8: role of his mother, of his grandmother, the absence of
37:28
Speaker 8: his father. And really, he didn't build any relationships at all.
37:35
Speaker 8: He felt alone, he felt insecure, he felt like a stranger.
37:39
Speaker 8: So he wanted to take revenge.
37:42
Speaker 1: It seemed to me his childhood was a roadmap to murder.
37:45
Speaker 7: You've got that violence and that neglect and that abuse
37:48
Speaker 7: within the immediate family. And then you've got nobody that's
37:52
Speaker 7: challenging that from the community. You've got social institutions which
37:56
Speaker 7: aren't recognizing and responding to his needs in any kind
37:58
Speaker 7: of long-term way. So you've got all of these factors
38:02
Speaker 7: are coming together to make him what he becomes.
38:05
Speaker 8: And actually nobody showed him how to be a very
38:07
Speaker 8: able human being.
38:09
Speaker 7: Right from the beginning, I think this lad had very
38:13
Speaker 7: little chance of actually, you know, having a normal life.
38:17
Speaker 1: Coming up, Penkalski confesses to a spree of murders and...
38:22
Speaker 1: across Poland.
38:23
Speaker 6: He clearly knew that what he had done was wrong
38:25
Speaker 6: and that what he had done would outrage public decency.
38:30
Speaker 1: Leszek Penkalski is a convicted rapist and murderer who was
38:33
Speaker 1: dubbed by the press the vampire and the beast when
38:36
Speaker 1: his case came to trial. He was accused of sadistic
38:39
Speaker 1: sexual crimes against a range of victims and no-one was
38:42
Speaker 1: apparently safe. from his twisted impulses. But mystery still remains
38:48
Speaker 1: over where and when his grotesque desires exploded into murderous rage.
38:55
Speaker 1: Following the murder of 17-year-old Sylwia, Penkalski is arrested and
38:59
Speaker 1: admits to the crime without much interrogation. But Penkalski shocked
39:04
Speaker 1: the police by confessing to more than 80 similar crimes,
39:08
Speaker 1: many of those matching cases which had remained unsolved across
39:12
Speaker 1: Poland for nearly a decade.
39:19
Speaker 4: At some point, he came to the conclusion that if
39:22
Speaker 4: he will multiply the deaths of these events, the court,
39:27
Speaker 4: the opinion will recognize him as... He could get more
39:21
Speaker 4: attention and more notoriety and more involvement from other human
39:29
Speaker 4: beings by coming clean and saying there were 80 offences
39:33
Speaker 4: he committed.
39:48
Speaker 1: But were all the crimes Penkalski confessed to actually all his?
39:52
Speaker 1: Or were they the fantasies of an attention seeker, desperate
39:55
Speaker 1: for his 15 minutes of fame?
39:59
Speaker 9: During the investigation, it turned out that some of the
40:01
Speaker 9: crimes he was talking about were probably invented by him
40:05
Speaker 9: or suggested by the police. It's hard for us to
40:08
Speaker 9: say if Penkalski really killed.
40:11
Speaker 3: More than one victim.
40:21
Speaker 2: When Penkalski starts to confess, we don't know whether this
40:26
Speaker 2: is actual fact or it's the ramblings of somebody who
40:30
Speaker 2: is intellectually disabled, possibly brain damaged, and whose world is
40:38
Speaker 2: so disordered that he might have completely lost touch with reality.
40:45
Speaker 1: Over the next four years, police investigate Pankalski's claims. Numerous
40:50
Speaker 1: eyewitnesses and his intimate knowledge of many of the crime
40:53
Speaker 1: scenes lead police to believe that he could be responsible
40:56
Speaker 1: for these self-confessed brutal murders over the previous decade.
41:00
Speaker 5: The police took him to the local police station. He
41:03
Speaker 5: found the place where the crime took place. He entered
41:06
Speaker 5: the apartment and said, but today there are different walls.
41:14
Speaker 1: But then Penkalski changed his mind and retracted his confessions
41:28
Speaker 1: to many of the murders he'd previously claimed, throwing the
41:32
Speaker 1: prosecution into disarray.
41:35
Speaker 6: He clearly knew that what he had done was wrong
41:38
Speaker 6: and that what he had done would outrage public decency.
41:41
Speaker 6: So he very quickly learned to take that back. That
41:44
Speaker 6: clearly was an act of self-preservation on his part.
41:48
Speaker 1: With his confession withdrawn and the mishandling of key evidence
41:52
Speaker 1: by the police, Penkalski is only convicted for the murder
41:55
Speaker 1: of 17-year-old Sylvia. He receives a maximum jail term of
42:00
Speaker 1: 25 years. Police and prosecutors still believe there's a strong
42:06
Speaker 1: indication that he was responsible for for many of the
42:09
Speaker 1: crimes he originally confessed.
42:15
Speaker 3: To.
42:21
Speaker 1: Whether it was multiple murders or just one, it seems
42:24
Speaker 1: the roots of his depraved desires were seeded in his
42:27
Speaker 1: childhood from neglect and the lack of maternal care.
42:31
Speaker 2: I think it's true to say that he wouldn't have
42:34
Speaker 2: become a killer if it hadn't have been for actions
42:38
Speaker 2: taken by his mother.
42:41
Speaker 6: Also, of course, what she'd started with Penkalski, the care
42:44
Speaker 6: system finished. So almost as if she'd set him up
42:48
Speaker 6: for a really bad childhood, unfortunately the schooling system and
42:52
Speaker 6: the care system wasn't able to reverse the problems that
42:55
Speaker 6: she'd already put into place in his very early developmental years.
43:03
Speaker 1: Penkalski is a brutal murdering rapist of that there is
43:07
Speaker 1: no doubt but is he Poland's most prolific serial sexual
43:11
Speaker 1: killer or a mentally ill fantasist who thrives on attention
43:16
Speaker 1: maybe he's both why did he confess to so many
43:23
Speaker 1: murders murders he couldn't possibly have committed in some instances.
43:27
Speaker 7: He's trying to be the centre of attention. He was
43:29
Speaker 7: certainly never the centre of his mother's attention. So by,
43:34
Speaker 7: you know, spurting out these big numbers of people that
43:37
Speaker 7: he's killed, he's very much the focus of attention and
43:40
Speaker 7: he's never had that before.
43:42
Speaker 8: He wanted to be famous. He really enjoyed that the
43:46
Speaker 8: press and the media were interested.
43:48
Speaker 1: Why does he suddenly then retract his evidence? Surely if
43:51
Speaker 1: he had the audience in the palm of his hand
43:53
Speaker 1: with 80... Why suddenly kind of retreat and say, okay,
43:57
Speaker 1: I only did one?
43:58
Speaker 7: I think this guy is incredibly chaotic. He's all over
44:01
Speaker 7: the place at this point in time. He's got all
44:03
Speaker 7: of this attention. He's fessing up to all of these
44:06
Speaker 7: crimes that perhaps he didn't commit. And he's probably receiving
44:10
Speaker 7: some quite conflicted advice from the people around him. So
44:13
Speaker 7: he's being pulled from pillar to post again, I think.
44:15
Speaker 8: He was afraid of the death penalty. That was the
44:18
Speaker 8: reason why he made this decision to withdraw all the confessions.
44:22
Speaker 1: And of course... It must have caused huge chaos when
44:25
Speaker 1: he withdrew that confession.
44:27
Speaker 3: Exactly.
44:27
Speaker 8: It was like chaos, completely chaos in the court. And
44:32
Speaker 8: I think this was like one of the main reasons
44:35
Speaker 8: why he was convicted only for one murder.
44:39
Speaker 1: He's shortly due for potential release.
44:43
Speaker 7: It's frightening, isn't it, to think that, you know, potentially
44:46
Speaker 7: all of the killings that he may have carried out,
44:48
Speaker 7: you know, if they were for real, is going to
44:51
Speaker 7: be walking the streets one day.
44:52
Speaker 1: So do you think this is a killer in waiting?
44:55
Speaker 7: I think this is somebody who really struggles to have
44:57
Speaker 7: normal social interaction with other people. Perhaps in prison he's
45:01
Speaker 7: found some sort of stability, some sort of security, and
45:04
Speaker 7: I think he'd be quite keen not to lose that.
45:07
Speaker 7: So even if he was released, I think he'd re-offend
45:09
Speaker 7: simply just to go back inside.
45:11
Speaker 1: To what extent can we agree that he is in
45:15
Speaker 1: fact a serial killer and most likely committed more than
45:18
Speaker 1: one murder?
45:19
Speaker 7: I think we've got the pieces in the puzzle of
45:21
Speaker 7: a serial killer here, but we haven't got them all
45:24
Speaker 7: put together. So we've got somebody who has got the
45:27
Speaker 7: capacity to have done this more than once. But the
45:29
Speaker 7: evidence is few and far between.
45:32
Speaker 8: He definitely fantasized about more murders and he wanted to
45:36
Speaker 8: kill more people. But we will never have an answer
45:41
Speaker 8: if he did it.
45:47
Speaker 1: No one can truly be certain if Pinkowski has committed
45:49
Speaker 1: as many murders as he claimed, but with his release imminent,
45:54
Speaker 1: it's certain that law enforcement will be monitoring his behaviour
45:57
Speaker 1: and movements for many years to come.