Latest / Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast / The Polish House of Horrors

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The Polish House of Horrors · Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: In the quiet Polish village of Tchernicki, a routine welfare
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: inquiry unraveled a nightmare hidden behind closed doors. What investigators
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: uncovered was a decade long cycle of incest, abuse and
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: even murder. It was all orchestrated by a father who
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: had turned his home into a prison. And as a
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: truth emerged from beneath the floorboards, so did the question
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: how could a horror this profound remain buried for so long?
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: This is the story of the Polish House of Horrors.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: and Grim, a true crime podcast a.
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: Following mature audience listeners.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: So at the specific request of an individual out there,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: you know who you are, we are doing a father
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: oriented crime today because hey, happy Father's Day. I mean
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: it recently just passed, So happy Father's Day to those
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: fathers out there.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Happy belated Father's Day.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so this one is centered around that genre.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Let's say someone that it sounds like shouldn't be wished
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: a happy father's Day.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Though, well, yeah, I'm not saying happy Father's Day to
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: this guy, trust me on that one. But yeah, you
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: get the idea. So yep, Hopefully you guys had a
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: good Father's Day. We're chilling right now, nice little drink
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: in the morning. I've got my coffee as per usual,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: and you've got your Macholotte as per morning usual.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: It's daying good.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: It is dang good. Well my coffee.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Don't know about that.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: That tastes like grass to me?
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Oh man, I think a lot of people you either
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: love much or you hate it.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: I think I think it's the same for coffee.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Probably, Yeah. Yeah.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, as long as you drink that, you like,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: fly at it, right.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: But I think you can acquire a taste for something
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: like I never used to like wine, and now I'm like.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Hell yeah, and now you really like wine.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So I think I think you can acquire taste
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: for stuff too.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Oh definitely, yeah. But I don't really know if I
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: want to acquire the taste for grass. It's earthy, so
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: is coffee. I think it's very earthy too, so more
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: like dirt. I guess you're drinking grass, I'm drinking dirt.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: There we go.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: A great way to start the day. But another good
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: way to start the day is signing up over on Patreon,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: just like Myra Diaz signed up this week over on Patreon,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: which there are a loan shout out this week, So
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: shout out to you Myra right on. Thank you for
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: signing up over there, getting behind the scenes the good
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: stuff and yeah, all that extra content. Which speaking of
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: which I mean the end of the month is coming
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: up sooner than.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: I've been anticipating. And it's already the seventeen mid month
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: right now, dude.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I feel like it's only the first week.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: But here we are.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Oh, I'm still like living in April, see my point exactly.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: So I got to get on figuring out which case
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: is going to be the exclusive episode at the end
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: of the month over the Patreon. So if you guys
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: have if you have suggestions, if you're on Patreon, let
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: us know. Maybe we'll do a little poll or something
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: like that over there to see what we should do.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: But I don't know about you. I'm ready for the
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: actual case today.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Are you always?
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Always? Are you always ready for it?
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: No, that's what I thought. Fake it until you make
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: it right.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Hey, there you go, just pretend you can get through
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: it and just do your best.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm. I'm a little sick today. We're just passing ill.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: This is throughout our house. So yeah, we're with me,
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: but I think I'll be fine. We'll be fine here.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: We probably can hardly notice.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: It doesn't sound like you're sick. I mean a little
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: bit of naisily, I guess, but like that's about it. Barely.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like weird summer, Like people aren't supposed to
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: get sick in the summer. What the deck's going on?
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of people are getting sick
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: this summer though, bad year apparently. But I do want
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: to give a little bit of a warning on this
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: one because it does deal with the death of infants,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: so heads up on that with this case, So trigger
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: warning for that. But let's get into it. So, tucked
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: away in the northern Polish countryside, surrounded by fields, forests,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: and quiet roads that rarely see more than a few
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: cars a day, lies the village of Triniki. The name
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: comes from a Polish word blackberries, a soft and almost
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: poetic image, honestly, but there's nothing sweet about the story
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: that unfolds here.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Ternicki is home to about one hundred and eighty people.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Not a town, not even a small city, just a
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: scattering of homes, dirt paths and neighbors who all you know,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: they know each other's names. In a place that's small,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: privacy doesn't really exist. And yet for over a decade,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: one man managed to hide a nightmare in plain sight.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: His name Pyotr Girisick. Really hope I'm getting these names right,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: because it is not my language. But giisic, I believe
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: is how you pronounce the last name, and Pyotor is
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: his first name. Now, to many, Pyotr seemed like a
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: man to be respected. He was a widower raising twelve
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: children on his own. Holy shit, eight boys and four girls.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: So after the death of his wife, Hannah in two
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: thousand and eight, when she was just thirty eight years old,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: her death came suddenly and was never fully explained. Some
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: locals would later say that she wasted away her health
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: deteriorated rapidly, but others whispered that she was stuffed with
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: pills in vodka. But at the time, no one asked
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: too many questions. There was no optopsy and no criminal investigation,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: just a funeral in silence.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: That is too bad though, gosh definitely Now.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: In the aftermath, Pyotr presented himself as a dedicated single
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: father He told neighbors he loved his wife deeply that
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: he would devote the rest of his life to raising
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: his children. On social media, he shared posts about sick
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: kids and printal struggles, always casting himself as a caring gentleman.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: He even joined Facebook groups about caring for children with disabilities,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: posting pictures of his own kids with captions that painted
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: himself as a selfless caregiver. From distance, it worked, people
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: believed him. The family home, while small and crumbling in places,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: had recently added new windows, a small sign of upkeep.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Pyotr was seen walking as kids around the village, taking
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: them out on nature walks, even picking mushrooms in the forest.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: It looked wholesome, maybe even idealistic, But the closer he
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: got to the house, the more the cracks began to show. Now,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: from the outside, this home looked like any other rural house, modest, weathered, quiet,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: but inside it was a different world entirely. It was
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: one ruled by fear, control and a father who treated
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: his children not as people but as possessions. After Hannah's
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: death in two thousand and eight, Pyotr became the authority
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: in the house, but he wasn't raising his twelve children,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: he was breaking them. The first signs of his true
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: nature weren't subtle either. Neighbors heard him screaming, often not
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: frustrated outbursts, but like full throated rages that echoed through
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: the cold air, shouting matches, slamming doors, please for help.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Even and these weren't occasional incidents, they became the soundtrack
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: of the home. Those closest to the family began to
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: notice disturbing changes as well. Bruises appeared on Peota's children
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: on places like arms, legs, and face. His daughter Cassia,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: who had Down syndrome, was often seen with unkempt hair,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: broken glasses taped together in a haunted look in her eyes.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: The reason well, Pyotr had reportedly hit her so hard
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: her glasses had shattered, but that wouldn't be discovered until later.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: Oh man, this is Bruce. Is this case is gonna
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: just piss us off, isn't it?
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Yes?
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: It is, Yeah, I'm already there.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Then there was Damien, a boy with developmental issues who
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: didn't speak until he was around seven years old. My guess,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: I mean this is an uneducated guests just a stab
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: in the dark, as he may have been on the
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: spectrum somewhere, but Pyotr didn't send him to school. He
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: didn't receive therapy or help. He was isolated, treated more
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: like an animal than a son. Damien was often forced
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: to sleep in the yard, wander the streets, and beg
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: for food when no one was looking. Eventually, he started escaping,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: slipping out of the house and walking into town, where
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: he'd sit alone in the curb crying. He told strangers
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: that his father beat him, yelled at him, and visited
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: his sister's room at night.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: Oh.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Once, he even asked a passer by, is it normal
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: for fathers to do that? Can I do it too?
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: Oh? No, oh no, oh no, this is really bad.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Those who heard him were horrified, but they were also unsure.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Damien seemed unstable. He was often disoriented, sometimes in Kohi,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: and Pyotr, always watching from a distance, countered the claims
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: with hugs and gentle smiles, telling everyone Damien was just
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: confused and a little slow and well as emotionally disturbed.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: These excuses they worked.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Oh well, yeah, I mean, you're probably gonna, I don't know,
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: generally believe an adult over a child, right, I mean typically,
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: And he doesn't have like a terrible reputation quite yet, So.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: He doesn't, I guess. Yeah, And there is a big
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: reason why people are I mean, I'll tell you now.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: It's mostly like, you know, he's a parent trying to
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: do his best with twelve kid. Of course stuff isn't
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: going to go perfectly.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: Right, Oh man, I couldn't even imagine that.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: And he just recently lost his wife. And so there's
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: this picture of a man doing his best going through
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: so much grief. So that is a sympathetic situation, which,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: like I said, we'll talk about it here too. So
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: there is this perception of people feeling sorry for him
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: and wanting to trust him and believe him, and he
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: uses that to his advantage.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he sure di.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: So while Damien wandered outside inside the house, food was
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: a privilege, not a right. The refrigerator was locked and
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: only Paulina, one of his daughters, had the key. Everyone else,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: including Cassia and Damien, was forced to eat cold rice,
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: groats and whatever scraps peot are left behind. It wasn't
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: just starvation, it was deliberate deprivation. One of the family
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Saint Bernard's, named Beethoven, was found weighing just sixty one pounds.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: Oh no, yeah, yeah, even the dog is included in
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: this abuse.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that dog should be doubled that way, Yet it should.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: He was apparently chained up for like his entire life too,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: which yeah, But now, there was one rule in the
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: house that never changed. Peotter was in control of everything,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: the food, the TV. He controlled each child where they
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: could go, and what they could wear, and who they
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: could talk to. But while most children were left to
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: suffer in silence, there was one exception to the rule, Paulina.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: If you asked anyone in the nearby town, they'd tell
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: you that Paulina was quiet, polite, kept to herself. She
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: worked behind the counter at a local confectionery shop, helping
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: serve cakes and sweets with a reserved smile and barely
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: any small talk. She didn't have friends in town, no boyfriend.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: She never talked about her home life. The only things
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: anyone really knew for sure was that her father dropped
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: her off and picked her up from work every single
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: day without exception. She wasn't just treated differently in that home,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: she was treated special in that home. She got better clothes,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: she got makeup, she got access to the TV and
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: real food. She was the only one allowed in certain
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: parts of the house as well. But no matter how
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: he treated which children in the walls of that home,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: no one saw it because they weren't looking quite close enough,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: And those who did look while they backed off because
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: Pyotour was still that grieving husband, the tired father, the
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: god fearing man who showed up to church and smiling
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: at each neighbor every time was you know, doe, I'm
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: assuming Sundays. His presence was intimidating enough to make people
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: second guests themselves. And when I say intimidating, I don't
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: mean like forcibly, but like you know, it almost gets
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: you to second guess yourself, you know what I mean?
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that makes sense now.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: When accusations did arise, he went door to door with
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: his daughter and forced neighbors to apologize to them and
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: to him. It was all part of the Yeah.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: Whoa, that's kind of ballsy. Hey.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's like, well you have something to say about us,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: like this is wrong. We're a loving family. You always
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: an apology, dang. Yeah, things like that. So when I
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: say intimidating, it's not necessarily like you know like anger,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: it's it's tactics.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like you say something, he's going to show up
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: and like, I don't know the word, but confront it. Basically, yeah,
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: he'll confront it.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: He won't be aggressive, he won't threaten you, but he'll
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: he'll let you know, Oh this is you're totally wrong.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: We're loving you. Oh my an apology because you said
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: what to her? You tell her what you said that's wrong.
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: Like.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: That's something. Yeah, that's not something many people do.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: No. Now, By the time Paulina was a teenager and
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: after Hannah had died, Paulina no longer seemed just like
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: one of Pyotr's twelve children. She was different. She had
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: privileges no one else had. Like I mentioned the clothes,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: the makeup. She had privacy. She got attention, gifts and
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: protection from him for him, from him, like he protected
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: her from things I should say.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: So, while her siblings shared overcrowded cold rooms and scraps
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: of food, Pauline even had her own room, a working television,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: and all this sort of necessity she would need to outsiders.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Pyotr called her his princess. To those inside the home.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: It became clear she wasn't just a daughter anymore, though
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: locals they did start noticing too. In the small shops
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: of Stara kissiwa, I believe is how you say? That's
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: the town where Pauline actually worked. So it's a small
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: town nearby, Okay. Store clerks and customers reported something strange
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: about Pyotr and Paulina and their interactions. They didn't behave
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: like father and daughter. They walked hand in hand through town.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: He called her names like my love, sweetheart and my darling.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: She laughed with him, smiled and leaned against his shoulder.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: I would sit close in public, whispering and giggling like
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: a couple in the early stages of romance. It was unsettling,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: but the people who noticed didn't know what to do.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: No one wanted to accuse a father of such actions
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: of incest based on simple body language and you know, nicknames.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: In a village where Pyota was already seen as you know,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: eccentric but polite, many chalked it up to strange but
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: harmless you know situations.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I'm just sitting here knowing what the
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: hell's about, what's happening, and I still hoping it's not
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: so it kind of makes sense that people. But then
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: they're just like nope, no, like, nothing's going on here.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: Well i'll tell you right now, you only know the
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: tip of what's happening.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Okay, cool, love that for us.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Then there was some Facebook posts, in fact, one in particular,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: one day, Pyotr uploaded a photo of Paulina. Nothing scandalous,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: just an image of her smiling, But the caption was
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: obscene and sexual, even objectifying who was completely inappropriate. Those
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: who saw it immediately began commenting and outrage, and within
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: minutes Pyota deleted the posts, but the damage was done.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Now I couldn't, unfortunately, find what was said in this post.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: All I know is that it was inappropriate.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: It was inappropriate. Whispers turned into open rumors. Coworkers at
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Paulina's bakery referred to Pyotr as her boyfriend now, not
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: as her father. She never denied it. In fact, she
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: also never confirmed it either, but instead she just gave
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: confused and evasive answers to any questions and laughed off
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: the comments.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: Okay, well she's a teenager, right, just like she's young. Yes, yeah,
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: oh my gosh, this is disturbing.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Then her belly began to grow.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, okay, okay.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: It began subtly. Paulina's clothing changed. She started wearing baggy,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: oversized tops and kept a tight belt clinched across her
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: waist at all times, as if she was trying to
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: keep something contained. Co Workers noticed she looked uncomfortable and
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: constantly adjusted her shirt. There were whispers about whether she
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: might be pregnant, though she denied these outright. Paulina, though,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: was clearly pregnant, and her coworkers knew it. Her boss
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: knew it. Everyone knew it, but no one could name
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: a single man who they've ever seen her with outside
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: of work, except her father. She tried to deny it,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: claiming it was just weight gain or digestion issues, and
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: she even stuffed her brow with tissues to absorb breast
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: milk that had been starting to leak. Paulina was, in
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: fact pregnant mm hmm. Behind her back. People began referring
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: to Pyotr and Pauline's home as the incest House.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, like people have to start reporting this
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: at this point right like it's like I'm just sitting here,
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: like what the hell is happening.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: We'll get into it. Don't worry. Okay, people were talking,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: but they just didn't know how deep things went or
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: how long it had been happening. For Pauline's mysterious pregnancy
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three wasn't the first time a daughter
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: of Pyoder had shown up caring an infant. Three years earlier,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: around twenty twenty, one of Pyotr's oldest daughters was taken
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: to a hospital nearly two hundred kilometers away to give birth.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: The baby, or rather babies, were twins. The girl who
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: had just given birth was still a miner herself, barely
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: a teenager in fact, and showed up without medical history,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: prenatal care, or support system. Her age and condition triggered
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: concern among hospital staff immediately. She seemed confused, nervous, and
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: in the circumstances, this all made very little sense. When questioned,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: Pyotor stepped in to do the explaining for her. He
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: said his daughter had disobeyed him and snuck off to
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: go partying one night. She drank too much and she
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: came home pregnant.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: Of course, he has an excuse for this shit.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he claimed. They didn't know who the father was,
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: He cried. He played the part of a devastated, betrayed
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: parent trying to do the right man. He told social
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: services he would raise the twins himself, just like he'd
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: raise all twelve of his other kids. He just needed
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: a little government support.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: Oh man, oh okay. And for some reason, I'm just
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: like sitting here shook because I just was like envisioning
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: this to be like, you know, nineteen sixties. No, this
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: is this shit can't happen nowadays.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: This is recent.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I'm very wrong.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: So that night, when those two girls were born in
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: the hospital, that was the last time anyone outside the
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: family ever saw them. No one ever saw those babies again.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: Oh that was a bad time to take a drink.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: I almost like spin it out. Are you kidding? Are
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: they dead? Or are they just being hidden? Like? What
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: the well?
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: There was no pediatric checkups, no evidence that the twins
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: ever returned home at all. Back in the village, neighbors
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: heard nothing that was it.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: Maybe they got adopted.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's possible. So the incident was quietly logged but
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: never followed up on. Pyota's explanation, like so many before,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: was accepted at face value, and after all, he spoke
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: clearly never raised his voice, and he had that same
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: old excuse. He was just doing his best with the
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: cards he was dealt.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: By the time Paulina had become visibly pregnant years later,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: people had started to notice the pattern. Pauline's coworkers tried
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: to talk to her about it. They asked her about
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: the baby. She brushed them off, saying she was even
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: sure she was pregnant, maybe a food issue, something hormonal.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: She promised she'd go to the doctor. I'm just bloated,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: but then she stopped coming to work. For nine days,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Paulina didn't show up to work, no explanation, no call,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: and when she finally returned, something was different, and not
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: just physically. She was thinner, pale, and seemed weak. She
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: moved slower, and her coworkers noticed at the belt that
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: she tied around her waist was gone, so were the
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: tissues and her bra, and there was no sign of
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: a baby anywhere. When someone cautiously asked her about the pregnancy,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: she laughed it off again, claiming she was bloated or
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: weird digestion. But no one was convinced something had happened
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: during those nine days that Pauline wasn't going to talk about.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Then came the moment that everything changed. Her manager at
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: the store, a woman named Katterzina Zach happened to glance
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: at Pauline's unlocked phone during a work shift. What she
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: saw there would set off the most significant child abuse
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: investigation in the region in decades, a string of disturbing
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: intimate messages between Paulina and her father, Pyotr. Though the
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: exact texts have never been publicly released, multiple sources later
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: confirmed they were very erotic in nature, oh conversations that
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: no father and daughter should ever be having. The tone
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: was unmistakable, the dynamic was deeply troubling, and it confirmed
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: what many had feared but dared not to say. Paulina
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: and Pyota weren't just father and daughter. There was something
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: else going on, something sickening.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: They were in a relationship.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Katterzina didn't hesitate when she saw those messages. She contacted
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: social services immediately.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: Okay, good, finally someone has like the smoke and gun
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: here to get some shit going.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah. From there, a joint investigation between local welfare officials
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: and regional police began quietly. At first, they didn't want
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: to scare the family off but they wanted to know
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: what exactly was happening during Paulina's absence, and what happened
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: to the baby that she so clearly had carried during
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: that time. And this is when the wheels finally began
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: to turn. It was the early afternoon of September fifteenth,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, when regional police and child welfare investigators
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: pulled up to the property in Tchernicki. The lead up
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: had been weeks in the making, the anonymous report from
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Paulina's coworker, the text messages vanishing pregnancy. There was enough
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: of concern now that the local authorities weren't willing to
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: let another warning go ignored. But even they weren't prepared
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: for what they were about to find. The knock in
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: the door came and Pyotr answered, calmly, no sign of panic,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: no resistance. He, in fact, even let the authorities in.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Paulina was home too, quiet and cooperative. In many ways,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: it looked like the same house they'd checked on before.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: A bit run down, a little unkempt, but nothing shocking,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: nothing criminal. The smell, though, was the first thing they noticed.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: It crept up from beneath the floorboards, faint and foul,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: a sickeningly rotting odour that didn't belong in this little
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: stone built home nestled in the edge of Chernicki, Poland.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: The police officers there on a quiet Tuesday afternoon, followed
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: the scent down a pair of crumbling steps into the basement.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: The basement was cold and damp, with crumbled brick, exposed pipes,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: and an unmistakable smell of decay, a low, thick stench
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: that seemed to seep from the ground itself. Officers followed
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: the scent down a narrow, dim hallway where parts of
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: the wall had begun to rot. The floor was uneven
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: patches of freshly disturbed dirt tuck between old cement pieces,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: and in that dirt they saw the first shape, a
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: plastic bag, black tied tight and buried shallow. Then they
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: saw another, and finally, in a far corner of the room,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: there sat the body of a newborn baby, left unwrapped,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: partially decomposed, barely even hidden shit. There were three bodies
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: in total left.
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: Started you're kidding me, Nope, three infants, each one dead,
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: with evidence suggesting they were killed after birth, possibly smothered
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: or neglected to death.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Oh though no official autopsy findings have been released publicly.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: What the absolute shit. I don't know why, but I
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: was not expecting this.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: I told you it was only the tip of the
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: iceberg that you knew so far.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: No shit.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: One of the babies wrapped in plastic was estimated to
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: be about three weeks old when it had died.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: Oh Man.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Investigators believe two of the infants belonged to Paulina, including
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: the one that had prompted the initial.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: Tip off, So not even the twins.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: The third infant is suspected to be the child of
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: an another daughter, likely the same one who gave birth
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: to the twins in twenty twenty, but there are no
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: traces found of the twins themselves. Their fate remains unknown.
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: Holy holy what did you title this the Polish House
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: of Horror?
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, yeah, that's a good name.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So three bodies found, two are missing, So assuming
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: those two would have met the same fate, that's a
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: total of five infants.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: So he's just literally getting his fricking children pregnant, making
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: them like carry their this pregnancy, and then they deliver
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: the baby and then they just kill it.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or neglected or whatever.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: Oh okay. I'm also very curious to know if twelve
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: children are still in that house too, or if some
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: of them maybe had the same fate.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: I don't believe all twelve. Well, I know all twelve
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: were not in the home at this time. Some did
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: manage to get out of that place. I'll talk a
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: couple of them. There's a lot of unknowns with this case, unfortunately,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: and you'll know why at the end. So I do
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: know not all twelve were in the home. How many
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: were still left in the home, I do not know.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: Okay, but he's not killing his own children, I guess
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: just his grandchildren.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: Correct. Elsewhere in the home, police discovered the mault nourished
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Saint Bernard Beethoven, who could barely.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: Stand holy shit, just a sec. He is killing his
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: own children because those are his own children as well.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: Well, I get a good Actually, you're right, that is yeah.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: I was just about to have a sip of my machilatin.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: I was like, wait, a sec.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: This guy we can't even like logically think about.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Wow, okay, that puts it into perspective right there. Okay.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: They also found two manciated cap cats kept in filthy conditions,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: a fridge with a padlock on it, private quarters for Paulina,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: which were furnished and clean, a very stark contrast from
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: the rest of the home. The contrast and treatment between
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Paulina and her siblings stood out immediately. She had comfort, privacy,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: access to food. The others lived in squalor, often denied
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: basic hygiene or meals. The house wasn't just a home,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: It was in fact a prison, a system Peotre had
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: designed to divide, control and manipulate. Now, following the discovery,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: Pyotr was arrested on the spot without incident. Paulina too,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: in fact, was taken into custody. She reportedly told investigators
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: that she had loved her father and had been in
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: a willing relationship with him, a claim that would spark
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: a national debate over psychology of long term abuse, coercion,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: and what consent even means in such context. Now, the
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: gearsick gear sick, I think is how I pronounced the
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: beginning gearsic house was sealed up and the village was stunned.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: The day after the basement discovery, the headlines hit Poland
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: like a lightning strike. Father and daughter arrested after infants
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: found dead in incest case. Within hours, fifty four year
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: old Peoda Gearsik and twenty year old Paulina Gearsick were
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: officially charged, but what those charges revealed and what they
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: didn't quickly stirred as much controversy as the case itself.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Pyota's charges were severe, three counts of murder for the
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: dead infants found in the basement, incest with his daughter Paulina,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: and sexual abuse of his children based on testimonies and
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: earlier complaints. But the most shocking twist came with Paulina's charges.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: Prosecutors announced that she would be charged with two counts
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: of murder linked to the infants believed to be her
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: biological children, and incense for the relationship she remained with
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: her father. The public reaction was, of course, very divided
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: on this.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: Well, that is tough because yeah, she's most certainly a
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: victim of sorts, yes, right, but she does, I guess
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: know what's going on. But she is also I think
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: probably just surviving too, right, like trying to survive.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Well, definitely, And there's there's a name for this. When
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: she believes that she's in this relationship with her father,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: she's she's you know, it's very willing and it's not
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: a core situation. It very much so is it's called
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Stockholm syndrome.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: Well, because I also just like, look at the rewards.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you should call them rewards or whatever,
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: but that she's getting too Yeah, Like she gets food,
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: she has her own room, that's like not a disgusting mess.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, of course she's gonna think, oh, I really like
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: him because he treats me nicely. Now he's just treating
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: your siblings horrifically, and you think you're being treated nicely
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: by contrast, when really you're actually being treated horribly too.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So I understand she may have had a dealing
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: in killing her own children, She may have had a
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: dealing in an ancestual relationship with her father. But how
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: much of that is at her own fault That is
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: a big contention for debate. I do not believe it's
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: not her own fault. I belie it is at the fault.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: Of you know, well he would have been grooming her, right, Yes,
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: so there you go.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: Now, I do think there is a line in the sand.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: If she was the one to say smother her child,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: she is responsible for that she should be held accountable. However,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: she was manipulated Along that whole line, I do think
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: she should serve time, but what time I don't know.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: But it could have been him that was asking her
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: to smother the child too, So it's like exactly where debate.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: I'm a very firm believer of if you do the crime,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: I don't care the manipulation. If you do the crime,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: you should serve the time unless that was your life
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: on the line to do it, if someone has a
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: gun to your head and you have no other choice,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: I think is like the only exception to that rule.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: That's my personal belief. You might have a different one.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: You may be able to even change my mind. That's cool.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: I'm open to hearing about it. But that's how I feel.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: Well. I mean too, I guess like she did have
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: act access to maybe you know, reach out to someone
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: for help as well. Oh right, potentially. Yeah, it's very
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: a tough tale.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: No, she's one hundred percent the victim, but she should
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: be held accountable for an action she may have taken
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: on another's life. That is my belief. There you go,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: potentially held accountable, depending on how it actually happened. Well, Yeah,
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: we don't know is the hard part. So these things,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: like people were horrified. These are not just crimes, but
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: the idea that a victim of year long grooming, isolation,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: psychological control could be labeled as a murderer or a
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: sexual offender. Others saw her as an accomplice, arguing that
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: she was an adult, hid pregnancies, concealed dead infants, and
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: chose to stay in that relationship with her father. So
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: there's the kind of two lines that people are walking.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: But in truth, experts argue, they argued, and it wasn't
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: so black and white, just as we were talking about, like,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: there's so much in between it all.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: It is not black and white.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: Psychologists weighed in, noting that Paulina had been abused since childhood,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: likely manipulated into believing that her relationship with Pyoder was
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: both normal and consensual. One priest who had taken Pauline's sister, Cassia, said, plainly,
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: Paulina was the favorite. She had makeup, TV, good food,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: But that doesn't make her free. It makes her groomed,
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: which is exactly what we're alluding to.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, when her mom passed away too, she would
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: have been fairly young. Yeah, so, yeah, no, very much
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: so victim, I believe.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: In a statement that added fuel to the fire, one
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: of the prosecutors claimed the relationship between Paulina and Pyotr
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: was consensual, pointing out that Pauline had told them she
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: loved her father and that was that she was with
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: him by choice. That one word consensual ignited backlash across
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: the country. Though so, I mean, so many people are
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: arguing it and still are arguing it and will continue
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: to argue it. Which she'll find out why now. At
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: a press conference, prosecutors confirmed that DNA tests were underway
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: to confirm the infant parents, but Paulina's defense refused to
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: allow her to submit a sample, citing her legal right
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: to not produce evidence against herself. Legally, that was sound ethically,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: it left a bit of an open wound. But right now,
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: behind the scenes, the public was reeling. Questions spread across
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: the media outlets like why did it take years of
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: red flags before anyone acted on this? How many times
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: had social services failed to intervene on this home? Where
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: were the other babies that vanished in that house? Was
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: Paulina a murderer or a victim of pyoder now? While
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: Pyota remained in pre trialed attention awaiting the maximum sentence
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: under Polish law. Paulina was placed in separate custody pending
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: further investigation. Her siblings, mostly adults by this point scattered
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: it had spoke to authorities, but most stayed silent. But
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: no matter where anyone went, the question hung in the air.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: It wasn't just how this could happen, it was how
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: long it had gone on without anyone listening to the
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: voices or noticing. Twelve kids had grown up in that household.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Most of them were adults by now, but very few,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: as I mentioned, spoke publicly until one did. Her name
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: was Cassia, and she'd been gone from the family home
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: for two years by the time the bodies were found
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: in the basement. Cassia was the one with Down syndrome.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: She had lived in that same home, subject to the
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: same hunger, filth, and violence as her siblings, but unlike some,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: she managed to get out. She escaped the silence, and
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: without warning she took off, seeking refuge in a nearby
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: Catholic shelter. When she first arrived, the priest said she
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: was scared, thin and visibly traumatized. Quote. Her hair was
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: full of knots, her clothes dirty, her glasses broken and
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: taped together. She didn't want to go back, and we
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: didn't ask why. For a long time, Cassia stayed quiet,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: not because she didn't have something to say, but because
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: no one. No one had ever believed her before. Authorities
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: later revealed that over a dozen complaint it's been made
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: about the Garciac home in previous thirteen years, many of
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: them mentioning possible abuse, but not one resulted in charges.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: Not one protected the children inside. When the story broke
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: Nashley in twenty twenty three, Cassia finally spoke in an
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: interview with a local journalist. She called her father a
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: monster quote unquote. She confirmed what had been feared. He
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: had abused all of them physically and emotionally, and something worse.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: She spoke about the different way that he treated Paulina,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: giving her makeup, food, clothes, and attention. She talked about Damien,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: her brother with cognitive impairments, who was treated worse than
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: the family pet left outside like a dog. She didn't
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: cry during the interview, but she did say this quote,
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: people always thought he was nice. That's how he tricked everyone,
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: but inside our house we were just tools for him.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: We didn't live, we survived.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: That is like heart wrenching.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: Damien, meanwhile, was still in the home when police arrived.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: At twenty four years old. He endured life of extreme
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: isolation and abuse. When questioned, he confirmed what others had suspected,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: that Pyotur often entered his daughter's room at night, that
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: he was beaten, often sometimes denied food entirely, that he
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: had no understanding of what a normal family even looked like.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: As I mentioned earlier, in one chilling moment, Damien had
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: asked a passer by in the town of what normal
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: fathers do and do they sleep with their daughters, and
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: if he could do it too. No one took him
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: seriously when things like that had happened. Now that moment
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: honestly feels like a screaming alarm bell that no one heard,
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: or maybe even no one wanted to hear. By the
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: time the world did listen, though it was too late,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: at least three infants were dead, possibly more. The twins
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: from twenty to twenty have still never been found, and
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: several of their siblings remained silent, either out of trauma
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: or fear or who knows both. But in the voices
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: of and Damien, we start to see not just victims,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: but we see survivors, children who had every reason to
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: give up but didn't, And when they finally spoke, they
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: helped pull down the mask Pyotre had worn for years,
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: the mask of a pretend father, provider and grieving husband,
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: when underneath it all instead stood a predator. There were
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: many more incidents that took place where the truth could
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: have come out. Over more than a decade, neighbour's raised suspicions,
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: teachers voice concerns, and at least a dozen formal complaints
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: were submitted to social services, and yet not a single
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: person could have been moved to do their job and
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: remove these kids from their house. The first missed opportunity
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: came just a few years after Hanna's death in twenty
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: or Sorry two thousand and eight, when locals began hearing
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: screams from the property at night. These weren't normal family arguments.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: They were cries for help, sometimes clearly from children, echoing
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: into the quiet rural town. One neighbor reported here oring pleading,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: Another described sobbing that sounded like a girl being hurt.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: Yet when police were eventually called. Pyotr answered the door, calm, articulated,
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: and was cooperative.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: That is okay. The fact that these children screams and
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: stuff were just like not being heard. I mean, they
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: were being heard, but nothing was being done is so devastating.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and this is where his story comes into play.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: This is where he talked to the police. They're knocking
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: at his door, they're investigating, and he doesn't raise his voice.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: He's being cooperative, he's being polite. He's just saying he's
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: overwhelmed as a single father, doing his best. He mentioned
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: that some of his kids have special needs, and crucially
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: he always denied any wrongdoing and then he just was
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: doing his best.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: M hm.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: So that's it played into his favor because people are
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: gonna think, oh, kids with special needs, Yeah, they might
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: scream or be upset or who knows, they don't understand
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: the situation and they may just make assumptions about it.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: Well yeah, or like they could be missing their mom
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: or something. Right.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: So each time authorities followed up, they followed the same pattern.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: They interviewed Pyota, who stayed common and respectful. They would
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: speak briefly with the children if at all and close
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: the file with lack of evidence.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: And those children though, were already very much so trained
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: not to say anything.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but the thing is, there's no follow ups, no
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: due diligence.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: Do you know if any like probably not, But it
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: was any weird shit happening when the mom was alive,
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: not that we know of.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: I'm not that we know of. Okay, Like I said,
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: there's still a lot of like open questions to this case,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: and we'll you'll know why at the end. Now, there
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: was one instance where the police did bring in Paulina
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: and her sisters for questioning and they denied any abuse.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: On paper, the case looked like a dead end.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: Well what were they supposed to do? I guess right,
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: Like that is it's also tough for the authorities because
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: what are they supposed to do?
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, at that point their hands are tied. But I
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: mean that's where psychologists can come in, you know what,
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: do a little bit of follow up investigations rather than
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: just okay, no abuse done is done. Yeah, there was
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: no psychologists present in that interview. When they said that,
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: they were like, oh no, there's no abuse, there's no
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: trauma experts, just a short interview pressure with pressure from
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: you know, both sides, police and their father, and that's it.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: Authorities never considered that the girls might have been threatened, coursed,
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: or too terrified to speak in that situation. Meanwhile, inside
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: the home, Peter grew more bold and more cruel over
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: the years. When a young boy in the village invited
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: one of Peot's daughters to a birthday party, Peoter responded
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: by butchering her hair, hacking it unevenly and making her
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: look more quote unattractive, and she wasn't allowed to leave
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: the house again without any supervision. He taught his daughters
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: they were his, that boys were dangerous, and that he
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: was their protector and in time their partner as well,
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: and no one intervened even when the hospital raised red flags.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: In twenty twenty, after one of his daughters gave birth
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: to twins, the system failed again. The hospital contacted child
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: welfare services, noting that the girl was very young, there
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: was lack of parental care and a very unclear, iffy
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: story leading up to how she got pregnant and giving birth,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: But pyotr. Gave a tearful, elaborate explanation. It just didn't
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: add up, But the hospital discharged them anyways, and just
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: like that, the babies disappeared, all while Pyoder maintained the
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: public image of a man struggling but loving, a father
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: of disabled children, living in hardship but holding things together,
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: doing his best. The media dubbed all the Polish House
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: of horrors, but those headlines didn't fully capture the complexity
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: of what came next. A legal system trying to unravel
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: years of abuse, trauma, manipulation, and death, all while the
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: world watched. As of this episode being recorded in June
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: of twenty twenty five, both Pyoder and his daughter Paulina
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: remain in custody and no trial date has been publicly announced,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: and there is no record of a conviction being handed yet.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: So this is yet to go to trial. This is
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: an ongoing case, so many of the unknown information that
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: I've been talking about is most likely being held as evidence,
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, and will come out in an eventual trial.
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: Gosh, the fact that this is literally happening today is
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: just I don't know, not that it's like an excuse
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: for a tap in, like you know, earlier in years
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: or whatever, but it just it just seems like we
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: should be more progressed that we would be able to
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: find out if something like this was happening, you know,
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: in a home.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds so barbaric on all levels, not only
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: in how this treatment occurred, but in a societal level,
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: on a systemic level, how it was handled. It just
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: seems so barbaric that YE should have been able to
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: prevent or at least intervene at some point.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: Like back then, they you know, these all the resources
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: we have today weren't there. So it's like it's sort
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: of more understandable, I guess, not that it's okay or anyway,
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: but today we do have all these resources and trained
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: individuals and like know, this shit happens, and it still
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: is just like being swept under the rug.
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: Really yep.
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: So how progressed are we?
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: That's a good question one that unfortunately I don't know
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: if we could answer, Yeah, because I don't know if
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: we've progressed as much as I would like to think.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: I know, I don't think so.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: Now, pyotur faces three counts of murder, sexual abuse and incest,
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: with prosecutors seeking the maximum sentence allowed under Polish law,
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: which is currently undetermined. It all depends on how each
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: charge is processed. Paulina is charged with two counts of
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: murder and incest, charges that continue to stir national and
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: worldwide debate. Whether Paulina will face a full criminal trial
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: as an equal perpetrator, or whether her legal team will
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: succeed in presenting her as a coerced and psychological enslaved victim.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: It remains to be seen. Experts have consistently been weighing
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: in arguing that decades of ice and grooming leave her
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: with little understanding of consent, agency, or selfhood aside from
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: her manipulation. Though there are still chilling unanswered questions hanging
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: in the air. Where are the twins born in twenty twenty?
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: Are there more infants undiscovered, unaccounted for? What else had
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: those siblings endured that we are not aware of? At
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: least some answers may come through in the court testimonies,
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: forensic analysis, and the voices of the survivors like Cassian
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: and Damien if they choose to speak again. But in
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: the meantime, Poland is left with a reckoning, a reckoning
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: not just with one man's crimes, but a systemic blindness
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: that allowed them to continue for years. Since the case broke,
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: Polish child protection agencies have come under fire, with investigations
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: launched into why multiple red flags were ignored. Several workers
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: have also reportedly been disciplined or removed from their positions.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: New recommendations have been proposed to require psychological support during
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: child interviews and mandatory follow ups when abuse is suspected.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: Yet reforms move slow, with that home sitting empty now,
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: windows boarded up, walls, crumbling weeds overtaking the garden. From
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: the outside, it looks like a scene of a family
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: that just moved on, But inside it still holds the
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: echoes of what was buried, hidden and ignored within. In time,
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: the trial will bring verdicts, hopefully justice, but there will
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: never be closure, not for the babies that lost their
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: lives before they had names, not for the children who
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: grew up leaving their father's abuse was love, And not
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: for a country or world forced to ask itself how
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: many other homes like this might still exist, sitting quietly,
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: just out of view. And that's the story of the
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: Polish House of Horrors that is still being told because
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: there is a trial that will eventually happen.
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: Geez hey, this is like huge, I haven't heard of this,
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: which is mind blowing, and I feel like the amount
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: of documentaries and shit that's going to come out. Hey
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: this story, Yeah.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: It's quite the quite the case, and I'm eager to
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: follow this one and see what comes out with the trial.
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: Well yeah, I almost like I'm like sitting here wanting
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: to know more, like even more, you.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: Know, yeah, like what sort of shit was he doing?
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: You know, like where were the other kids? Like when
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: when did they escape? These sort of things. There's a
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: lot being kelled held back in what's being reported because
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: it is being saved for trial.
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: Well yeah, and if more of the children aren't actually
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: speaking out or you know, if they're not like wow.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: I imagine it is possible that they would at least give,
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: you know, interviews or something like that to really give
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: you know, prosecutors a perspective of what was going on.
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: If they want to maybe save their siblings or you know,
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: help put Yoda behind bars and forever have them locked up,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: they might do it. But then again, there is the
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: side of fear right, you know, not wanting to speak
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: up against them. It's in their blood at this point
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: because of how he raised them. They don't want to
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: talk about it.
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, you only can hope too, that like even
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: Pauline too, that they're getting you know, some help of sorts, right, Yeah,
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: to like process this and and digest what the fuck
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: just happened to them for the last how many years?
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's a tough one to digest.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: No shit. I also hope that there was some animal
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: cruelty charges in there. They're probably not even putting that
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: on the Giant list because it won't matter in the end.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: I imagine that they're not putting those in the list.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: By the sounds of it, they're not.
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: So there's enough. I mean, yeah, like there he's already
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: going to be for sure going away for the rest
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: of his life. I would, I would there would be
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: an uproar if he wasn't.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: So that man should rop behind bars for eternity, not
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: just his life in my opinion.
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: Well yeah, and I kind of like really also want
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: to know what happened to the mom, Like was he
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: terrible to her?
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: Well, that's some of the stuff that may come out
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: as well on the trial. There might be some some
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: information on you know, maybe even not just how she
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: was treated, but what actually resulted in her death. Yeah,
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: because it may have come to the point where, you
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: know what, he was looking at his daughters and the
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: wife and her Hannah was her name. I believe didn't
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: like that, and maybe he just took things into his
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: own hand.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, well, I mean, clearly he's an absolute monster.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: He's capable of that, clearly.
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that wouldn't be far fetched after hearing this.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: Case, I do hope that Hannah passed away relatively peacefully
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: and had no idea of the horrors that were going on. Yeah,
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: that's what I hope, but who knows. Yeah, So, anyways,
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: thanks for being here. If you want to check out
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: more episodes like this, we got plenty of a library
• 48:52
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• 48:55
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• 48:57
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• 49:05
  Speaker 1: of this podcast. There we go. I stumbled that horrify
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: horrify horrifically, I need to stop talking.
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, words, you need some water or break or something, eh,
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: I think so, but yeah, no, it's it's always like
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: the transition of talking about this ship and then being
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: like anyways, like oh man, but how else do you
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: do it, I know, but we do appreciate you being here.
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: And until next time, stay wicked.