Leszec Pekalski

Case record: Leszek Pękalski

Timeline

• 1984–1992 — Leszek Pękalski was believed to have killed at least 17 people.
• 1992 — Leszek Pękalski was incarcerated and asked the warden for permission to keep a rubber sex-shop doll in his detention cell.
• December 9, 1996 — After an eight-month trial, Leszek Pękalski was sentenced to 25 years in a psychiatric institute by the Provincial Court in the northern city of Slupsk, Poland.
• 2017 — Leszek Pękalski was to be released in 2017 (as of 2007).

Background

Leszek Pękalski, also known as "Vampire of Bytów," was born 12 February 1966 in Osieki near Bytów, Poland. He was a Polish serial killer believed to have killed at least 17 people between 1984 and 1992. At some stage in criminal procedures, he admitted to having killed as many as 80 people, but he later retracted his confessions.

The offence

Leszek Pękalski was accused of killing 17 women from 1984 to 1992. He was believed to have killed at least 17 people in that period. The court said there was insufficient evidence to convict him of the other killings beyond the one murder count.

Police described that he would hit with a wooden cane or would strangle his victim with a belt. The court and reporting also referenced that he had an abnormal sex drive, and he was characterised as a lust killer.

Investigation

DNA tests of hair strands were described as crucial pieces of evidence implicating the defendant. Doctor Ryszard Pawelski from the Gdansk Medical Academy’s forensic medicine institute examined the evidence and declared that the police had clumsily handled the hair strands and damaged their evidential value.

Police also reported that Leszek Pękalski confessed to details of the crimes no one else could have known about. Police said he could not be found for a long time, and that he never followed a regular pattern, with no typical victim and no repeated killing method.

Arrest

At the time he was first arrested, Leszek Pękalski admitted to killing more than 80 people. He later said the police had forced the confession out of him.

Trial

Leszek Pękalski was tried for the accusation of killing 17 women from 1984 to 1992. The Provincial Court in the northern city of Slupsk, Poland, convicted him of one murder but cleared him of more than a dozen other slayings. The court described that there was insufficient evidence to convict him of the other killings. The trial lasted eight months.

During the trial, Leszek Pękalski told the judge:

"I'm a gullible man, and I was easily persuaded by what the officers had told me," Pekalski told the judge. "I'm mentally weak, and if somebody pushes me, I break down. Then I admit to things I have never done. I have never killed anyone. I'm so scared. The prosecutor threatened that the victims' families or the public would kill me if I'm acquitted or get a mild sentence. He yelled at me and told me to confess everything."

Sentencing

After the eight-month trial, the Provincial Court in the northern city of Slupsk, Poland, sentenced Leszek Pękalski to 25 years in a psychiatric institute on December 9, 1996. The court said there was insufficient evidence to convict him of the other killings.

Appeals

Leszek Pękalski appealed to the government’s Citizen Rights representative, and he was awaiting the decision.

Aftermath

When Leszek Pękalski was first incarcerated in 1992, he asked the warden’s permission to keep a rubber sex-shop doll in his detention cell. He was not allowed to get the sex-doll.

As of 2007, he was serving a 25-year term and was to be released in 2017. It was said that he had put on a lot of weight in jail and was hopeful to soon "find a girl," in the flesh or made out of rubber.