Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
Hey, small businesses. Sentara Health Plans has a team dedicated to answering your questions, leaving time for other business thoughts like... How did an action figure get stuck in the air vents? Or... What is the ideal human-to-goat ratio for my yoga class?
Knowing your health plan questions are answered, you can now focus on your other business needs. Sentara Health Plans, a dedicated team for your small business. Sentara Health Plans is a trade name of Sentara Health Plans, Sentara Health Insurance Company, Sentara Behavioral Health Services Incorporated, and Sentara Health Administration Incorporated. Exclusion terms and conditions apply. Have a question or need how-to advice? Just ask Meta AI.
Whether you want to design a marathon training program or you're curious what planets are visible in tonight's sky, Meta AI has the answers. It can also summarize your class notes, visualize your ideas, and so much more. It's the most advanced AI at your fingertips. Expand your world with Meta AI. Now on Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, and Messenger.
For more details on this episode on your app or on our website.
This episode was originally released on Casefile's Patreon, Apple Premium and Spotify Premium feeds as an early bonus for our paid subscribers. These episodes are designed to be slightly shorter, allowing us to cover a broader range of cases. To receive these episodes early and ad-free, you can support Casefile on your preferred platform.
In the 1990s, Trichet Coneva, his wife Jacqueline, and their two young children fled their homeland of Macedonia to escape the war-torn Balkans. The Conevas were granted political asylum in England and by 1997 they were happily settled in their new home. They lived in a cosy Victorian-era terrace in the West London district of Hammersmith. The home was small but it allowed the Conevas to reside in the city.
A living area towards the front of the house doubled as a shared bedroom for the children. Thursday May 22 was set to be a busy day for the family. Trichet worked as a web designer and was also studying English at Hammersmith College as a mature age student. Jacqueline, who typically spent her days at home, had made special plans to visit a friend. The couple's two children, 12-year-old Katerina and 6-year-old Christian, were off to school.
Trichet exchanged smiles with his daughter as she boarded the school bus. Katerina wore her blue and grey school uniform with her long, dark hair down. She carried her books in a red and white tote bag stamped with the Virgin Airlines logo. The bag had been a gift upon her arrival in England. Back then, it held the few prized possessions she could carry from Macedonia: some photographs, a coloring book, and a teddy bear.
After bidding his daughter farewell, Trichet mounted his bicycle and headed to college. He had an English exam that afternoon and a teacher wished to speak to him afterwards. This meant Katerina would arrive home from school to an empty house, which made Trichet anxious. He had never left his daughter home alone before, but he reassured himself that everything would be alright. The exam took longer to complete than expected.
As soon as it was over, Trichet called home to check in with Katerina. There was no answer. Worried, Trichet raced home. It was approaching 4:30pm when he reached his front door. Trichet set his bicycle aside and headed in. He approached the living space turned children's bedroom, only to find its door wedged shut. Thinking his daughter must have secured it for privacy, Trichet knocked and said, "It's daddy. Open up."
He was met with silence. Trichet banged louder and shouted, "Katerina! Katerina! Open the door!" He could hear strange noises coming from inside the room. He thrust his shoulder into the door to force it open, but it didn't budge. Someone had barricaded it from the other side. Peering through the keyhole, Trichet saw Katerina's school bag and uniform. He knelt down to peer under the door. A sense of dread washed over Trichet.
Inside the room was a pair of men's black boots. Trichet Koneva was frantic. He believed he had just interrupted a burglar and assumed the man would make a break for the window.
Trichet ran back outside and came face to face with the intruder just as he rose from his knees at the base of the living room window. He was clutching a small bag. There was a small bloody cup just below his left eye and numerous other scratches across his face. The two men stared at each other before Trichet finally broke the silence. What are you doing in my house? The stranger didn't reply. He appeared unnervingly calm.
Trichet moved in and grabbed the man by the shoulder. In turn, the man produced a small pocket knife. As he scrambled to open it, Trichet loosened his grip and turned away to protect himself. The intruder quickly took off running down the street. Trichet sprinted after him. The pair ran through several streets before Trichet caught up to the intruder at a building site. Trichet grabbed him in a bear hug.
The man began calling for help, telling onlookers that Trichet was assaulting him. He had a distinct accent which was difficult to identify. Two workmen noticed the scuffle and interceded, shouting at Trichet to leave the man alone. Their interruption allowed the intruder to get away, but Trichet wasn't about to give up. He followed the man as he ran out onto the road into peak hour traffic.
A woman driving a Datsun had to slam on her brakes to avoid hitting the pair. The knife-wielding man attempted to enter the Datsun through an open window. The frightened driver had her four-year-old son in the car and swiftly rolled up her window before driving away. The man then scrambled into the back of a passing lorry before its driver slammed the horn and ordered him to get out.
The man then jumped in front of a Fiat Uno, crying out, "Help me, help me, call the police!" before opening the driver's door and forcing the woman behind the wheel out by knife point. She managed to push him to the ground, but he quickly leapt into her car and sped off. A confused and unsettled crowd of witnesses gathered around. Trichet Koneva didn't know the English words to articulate what had just happened.
Instead of trying to explain the situation, he sprinted back home. By the time he got there it was 4:50pm. Trichet ran straight for the living room door and kicked it open. A chair that had been jammed up against it fell away. Katerina lay face up on the floor, unconscious. The strap of her school bag had been cut and was wrapped around her neck. The ligature was so tight that Trichet couldn't remove it with his hands.
He grabbed a knife from the kitchen. Katarina's face was purple and she was barely clinging to life. Trichet cradled his daughter's body, repeating her name through tears while shouting, "Please come and help me someone." A neighbor overheard Trichet's cries and contacted emergency services. Soon the Koneva's living room was abuzz with police and paramedics. They tried to resuscitate Katarina, but their efforts were in vain.
Trichet was taken to the police station for questioning where he was made to wear a white forensic suit. Despite telling the police about the knife-wielding intruder, Trichet knew they suspected he'd killed his daughter. When his wife, Jacqueline arrived at the station with their six-year-old son, Christian, she launched at him in a rage, shouting, "What have you done to our little girl?" As she kicked and screamed, Christian stared at his father with hatred in his eyes.
As the homicide investigation commenced, Trichet was left in a cell. He couldn't believe what was happening. Everyone thought he'd murdered his child, even his own family. He started banging his head against the cell walls in distress. But when news of Katerina's murder spread, more than 20 eyewitnesses came forward to say they had seen Trichet's altercation with an unidentified man.
The man was described as Eastern European in appearance, between the ages of 40 and 50, and around 5 foot 3 inches tall. He had a stocky physique, pale complexion, and balding dark hair that was graying at the sides. He was wearing black shoes, dark trousers, and a light gray suit or sports jacket with a white collared shirt underneath.
CCTV footage from the building site where the fight took place also confirmed Trichet's version of events. It was blurry and filmed from a distance, but sure enough, a man was captured running past with a second man in pursuit. An examination of the window in the Koneva's living room also revealed foreign fingerprints on the glass and frame. Trichet was promptly ruled out as a suspect.
He fronted a press conference where he described his daughter as a gifted high achiever. Katerina enjoyed school so much she had never taken time off sick. She'd excelled in all her subjects despite only recently learning English and received 50 commendations for her work. She was also the leader of the school's junior choir. Katerina had fully embraced her new life in England and was a big fan of British pop group The Spice Girls.
Trichet Coneva said: "All Katerina's friends loved her. For her, the world was there to love." Speaking of his daughter's killer, Trichet remarked: "This is not a man, it's a monster without feelings. Animals don't kill like that. We don't know how many more children he could kill." Detectives theorised that Katerina's killer followed her as she walked home after school. He soon realised she was home alone.
As there were no signs of a break-in, he either entered an unlocked front door or Katerina opened it to him. She must have been incapacitated quickly as there were no reports of anyone having heard a scuffle, cries, or yelling. Post-mortem results concluded that Katerina had first been throttled by hand, then strangled with the ligature. The car the killer had stolen was found abandoned a quarter of a mile away from the building site.
He'd seemingly dumped it after struggling to navigate London's busy afternoon traffic. Investigators tracked the killer's trail from there. He had headed on foot to Hammersmith Bus Station. At around 4.50pm, he boarded the number 220 bus. The driver had noticed that his face was spattered with blood. At 5pm, the bus arrived at Hammersmith Broadway, a major transport node, and the killer disembarked.
From there, the trail went cold. Casefile will be back shortly. Thank you for supporting us by listening to this episode's sponsors. Thank you for listening to this episode's ads. By supporting our sponsors, you support Casefile to continue to deliver quality content. Soon, police discovered links between Katerina Konyava's murder and other attacks that had taken place in Hammersmith.
Months earlier in February, a girl was followed home from school by a man matching the description of Katerina's killer. After the girl ran inside her home, the man tried to open the front door. He scratched at the lock and rang the doorbell, but the girl stayed away. Eventually, the man fled. Another incident had occurred just 30 minutes before Katerina was attacked.
A few streets from where the Konevas lived, a man matching the killer's description tailed another 12-year-old girl to her home. He watched the property for several minutes before leaving. All the girls targeted had dark hair and were wearing school uniforms. Criminal profilers were convinced that it was only a matter of time before the Hammersmith predator struck again.
Yet, his crimes suddenly dropped from the headlines two months later when Diana, Princess of Wales, was killed in a car crash in Paris. Her death led to extensive public mourning and received global media attention. Despite the reduced public interest, investigators were certain they could solve Katerina Konieva's murder quickly. A televised appeal and reconstruction of the crime led to more than 200 tip-offs.
Detectives had witnesses, CCTV footage, a suspect description, and the killer's fingerprints. They'd also recovered his DNA from the ligature used on Katerina. He had also left a strand of his hair on her cardigan. Yet, it soon became clear that the case wasn't as open and shut as investigators first thought. Despite having a detailed composite sketch of the killer, he wasn't identified.
nor did his fingerprints or DNA profile match anyone in the police database. Both were sent through to Interpol, the international criminal police organisation that facilitates worldwide police cooperation and crime control. Through Interpol, the unidentified killer's details were shared with over 120 countries, but nothing was uncovered.
British authorities reached out to law enforcement agencies in 26 countries to see if they had any similar attacks or suspects. This inquiry led nowhere. A list of 600 suspects was whittled down to 100. Many possibilities were explored, including that the killer had known the Koneva family in Macedonia. But months turned into years with no breakthroughs. A 20,000 pound reward was offered.
Trichet Konyava made an emotional plea for help, saying: "It's too late to save our daughter, but it's not too late to save other lives. It's so difficult to say how we are coping because time doesn't exist. There's just one feeling: pain. All the time. And hoping that the man will be caught one day." In mid to late 2002, a 21-year-old Korean student, Ari, not her real name, moved to London.
By Sunday September 22, she had only been in the city for three weeks. That day, Ari was waiting for a friend at the Ealing Broadway Transit Station. As she was in search of cheap accommodation, she passed the time by looking at adverts for local bedsits that were posted in the window of a news agency. All of a sudden, a man approached her. He was in his mid-forties, short and stocky.
A wig covered his balding head and he spoke broken English in an Eastern European accent. Ari couldn't fully grasp what the man was saying as her English was also limited, but he managed to get his point across. He had noticed her looking for housing and wanted to offer her a vacant room at his communal flat in the nearby suburb of Acton. Ari agreed to follow the man to his ground floor home. It was grubby and sparsely furnished.
Unimpressed, Ari told the man she was leaving to meet her friend. He told her to relax, while moving towards the front door to lock it. Then, without warning, he pushed Ari onto his bed and began strangling her. Ari managed to grab a ballpoint pen and tried to use it to fight back, but she was overpowered. Soon she was on the cusp of losing consciousness. When Ari came to, her hands were tied together with rope and her mouth was gagged.
The man raped Ari for three hours. When she promised to contact him the next day, he finally let Ari go. She promptly reported her ordeal to the police, who quickly identified Ari's attacker. His passport and other documentation listed him as a 45-year-old Portuguese national named José Marco de Dias. He was charged with three rapes, two counts of indecent assault, false imprisonment, and attempting to choke.
At trial in May the following year, Ari's attacker asserted that she had consented to sex as a thank you for helping her find somewhere to stay. The jury wasn't convinced and the judge sentenced him to nine years. With the rapist convicted, police uploaded his DNA and fingerprints into their database to see if he was tied to any other crimes. There was a match.
Andrzej Klembert was born in March 1956 in Warsaw, Poland. At age two, he was placed in an orphanage as his father, mother, and maternal grandmother were all in prison for theft, burglary, and fraud, respectively. His grandfather was in a state psychiatric hospital for unspecified sexual offences. When Andrzej Klembert's mother was released, she regained custody of her son.
She divorced her husband and married a cement mason. Andrzej took his stepfather's surname, Kunowski. He was raised in the town of Mława in the Polish lowlands, 80 miles north of Warsaw. As a child, Kunowski was described as nervous and introverted. He was teased at school for being a "momma's boy" and lashed out at the smallest provocation. During fights, he tried to choke his opponents.
Over time, he developed a fixation with girls and would stare at them as though in a trance. As he entered his teens, Kunofsky became a heavy drinker. He was prone to violent blackouts and often skipped school. When he did attend, he'd grope other students, both male and female. After Kunofsky was caught robbing a woman at age 13, he was sent to a facility for delinquent juveniles.
His six-month stay there did little to curb his issues. In 1973, just after he turned 17, Kunofsky dragged a 16-year-old neighbor into the bushes and raped her. Two other victims also came forward at this time accusing Kunofsky of similar assaults, though he was only charged with the initial one. Believing he had a good chance at being rehabilitated, the court only sentenced him to three years in prison.
One month after his parole, Kunofsky struck again. He grabbed a teenager from behind as she walked alone. He bound her hands and feet, raped her, and choked her until she lost consciousness. The girl was saved when passers-by intervened. This time, Kunofsky was sentenced to two years, but was free again within nine months.
Upon his release, he began travelling between his hometown and the city of Warsaw on the lookout for lone girls and young women. When he spotted one, he would exit his vehicle, grab his victim, then drag her someplace hidden to rape her. His attacks were described as compulsive clusters. He would go extended periods without offending, then strike on multiple occasions in a small window of time. Kunofsky's crimes always involved a stalking element.
He relied on his strength as he was incapable of luring in victims with charm. Most of his attacks involved choking and strangulation, and he often wielded a knife. On one occasion, Kunofsky pulled over to ask a woman for directions. When she leant into his car to provide the information, Kunofsky closed the window on the woman's neck. He then proceeded to rape her while she was trapped. In 1978 alone, Kunofsky committed 21 rapes.
His youngest victim was 11 years old. On January 26 the following year, he raped three women in a single day. The law eventually caught up with him after his fingerprints tied him to several crimes. When Kunofsky had his day in court, the prosecution sought the maximum penalty of 25 years imprisonment, fearful that Kunofsky's crimes would escalate if he was free. They noted that Kunofsky was intelligent, stating:
Intelligence is a common attribute of the psychopathic social offender. Despite the prosecution's concerns, Andrei Kunovsky was sentenced to just 15 years. Behind bars, Kunovsky continued to offend by raping his cellmate. At one point, he managed to escape custody and raped a 13-year-old girl while on the run.
He was re-arrested the next day and returned to prison, only to escape again and commit a further six attacks. In 1983 he was caught and sentenced to 30 years, this time in a maximum security prison that managed to hold him. But then, in 1989, Poland's first democratically elected president enacted an offender amnesty wherein hundreds of prisoners were released for good behaviour.
Among them was Andrei Kunovsky, who had only served six years of his three-decade sentence. Casefile will be back shortly. Thank you for supporting us by listening to this episode's sponsors. Thank you for listening to this episode's ads. By supporting our sponsors, you support Casefile to continue to deliver quality content. Kunovsky began working as a salesman and commenced a relationship with a woman who gave birth to his child.
All the while, he continued attacking and raping girls and women. Eventually, his partner learned of his extensive criminal history and promptly broke up with him. Kunofsky's crimes prompted the Polish press to dub him "The Beast of Muława". In 1992, a 14-year-old girl named Agnieszka Grudbińska vanished from Muława while walking home from school. She was never found, and police suspected she had been abducted and killed.
Andrzej Kunowski was highlighted as a suspect in the case. He was questioned about Agnieszka Grudbicka, but never charged in relation to her disappearance. In 1996, Kunowski followed a 10-year-old girl home from school and barged into her bedroom while she was home alone. He passed himself off as a friend of her father's and engaged the girl in small talk to ease her concerns. He then asked, "'Can you keep a secret?'
When the girl said yes, Kunofsky demanded she kiss him. She refused, so Kunofsky choked her until she was barely conscious and raped her. He then tied her up with a telephone cord before fleeing the house via a window. The girl yelled for help, alerting two men outside who managed to catch Kunofsky. It turned out that the day before, he had also ambushed a 12-year-old girl in a similar incident.
Now, he faced a litany of new charges and was remanded in custody. Three weeks before he was due to stand trial, Kunofsky complained of a persistent pain in his left hip. X-rays showed no problem, but Kunofsky was adamant he was unwell. Doctors decided he needed hip replacement surgery. Despite the danger he presented, the courts ruled that Kunofsky be released on medical leave to receive his operation.
The judge imposed no conditions. Kunofsky didn't have to surrender his passport, report to a police station, or undergo any other monitoring or checks. He was simply told that he was expected to attend hospital and return to jail three months later. Left unsupervised, Kunofsky sold his apartment and used the proceeds to obtain a fake passport and other official documents under the name Jose Marco de Diaz.
He caught a bus to Warsaw, entered Northern Europe, and passed through Germany, Belgium, and France. After 30 hours of straight travel, he boarded a ferry to England. He entered the country as a tourist but remained there as an illegal immigrant. In October 1996, Kunowski arrived in London by coach with just 500 pounds. He assumed a Portuguese identity and found work as a dry cleaner.
Kunofsky continued his reign of terror in London, stalking girls as they headed home in their school uniforms. He wasn't able to carry out his full intentions until Thursday May 22 1997, seven months after he fled Poland. That day, he encountered 12-year-old Kateryna Konieva.
For five years after her murder, Kunofsky avoided police detection until he raped Ahri, the Korean student, and his fingerprints and DNA revealed the truth. Kunofsky was charged with Katerina's murder and his trial began in March 2004. The jury was not allowed to know about Kunofsky's history of violent rapes that dated back to the 1970s.
One of his Polish victims was even willing to travel to England to testify against him, but was refused the opportunity. Despite forensic evidence linking Kunowski to Katerina's murder and Trichet-Koniewa positively identifying Kunowski, he professed his innocence and claimed it was a case of mistaken identity, stating, "'I don't know this girl.'" He also insisted that he didn't know the street where Katerina had lived.
The jury deliberated for two and a half hours before finding Kunovsky guilty for the murder of Katerina Koneva. The presiding judge told Kunovsky: "You took the life of a child who was just beginning to enjoy what this country had to offer her and her family as refugees from hardship abroad. It was a life of great promise. You ended it in circumstances of great violence and terror.
"I would be failing in my duty in light of the evidence about your behavior both in Poland and this country if I did not ensure you spent the rest of your life in prison." Kunofsky sat passively as he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. When Trichet and Zhekalina Koneva heard the jury's verdict, they shouted "Yes!" Trichet later told the press: "I had finally beaten the devil.
I knew this man could never again do to anyone else what he had done to my angel." In a statement read by police, Jaqulina said: "Today I do not feel happy. I wish that I was not giving this statement and that Katerina was still here by my side. Knowing her killer is in prison is not enough for me. I hope he suffers every minute of the rest of his life. I hope that this evil murderer burns in hell."
When Andrzej Kunowski fled Poland, he was known to have committed at least 30 sex crimes, including 17 rapes and 8 attempted rapes, as well as attempted murder. Authorities believe he was likely responsible for upwards of 70 offences in both Poland and England. He was described by the British police and prosecution as one of the most dangerous and prolific sex offenders they had ever encountered. One detective remarked,
When Kunowski wasn't incarcerated, he had been committing offences. Andrzej Kunowski was a man described as completely without remorse. Kateryna Koniewa's family was shocked that someone like Kunowski wound up free to kill in England. According to the Daily Telegraph, sex crimes received little publicity in communist era Poland, as anti-social crimes in general were kept out of the press.
Prisoners also outnumbered prison beds three to one. There just wasn't room for Kunowski to be incarcerated, repeatedly allowing him to be released or escape to re-offend. By the time Polish authorities realized Kunowski had fled during his medical leave, he was already long gone. An arrest by force order was issued.
Polish authorities claimed they searched diligently for Kunowski, visiting his family, friends and other associates during their hunt. But Kunowski's mother denied she was ever spoken to about her son's whereabouts. She said that she received calls from Kunowski in London upwards of three times a day. She knew he was there and had even visited him. She also had a collection of Mother's Day and birthday cards he'd sent her during those years.
In them, he described picking berries in Birmingham, working with a tailor in Manchester, and wrote about his dry cleaning work and home in Acton, West London. DNA found on a bed at Kunowski's final crime scene in Poland was a confirmed match. Had he never been given the opportunity to flee before facing trial for this attack, he would have absolutely been found guilty and incarcerated.
Upon his arrival in England as a tourist, Kunofsky was not fingerprinted and didn't need to undergo a background check. The day after he killed Katerina Konieva, Kunofsky fled west of London to Ledbury and took up work on a strawberry farm. When he was caught stealing from his employers, Kunofsky was arrested for theft. Neither his fingerprints or his DNA were taken at the time.
When authorities realised that he had overstayed in England, Kunofsky was handed over to immigration officials and sent to a detention centre in Oxford. During his two months there, Kunofsky used his fraudulent identification documents to apply for citizenship on the grounds of economic hardship in his homeland. While his application was being considered, Kunofsky was set free.
Although his application was ultimately refused, Kurnovsky's temporary release allowed him to return to London, where he disappeared and was able to live in obscurity. Years later, in 2002, Kurnovsky was tracked down again. Found to be an illegal overstayer, it was ordered that he be deported. Once again, his prints and DNA weren't taken.
Kunofsky was told to present himself for deportation, but was a no-show. Days after he was supposed to be deported, Kunofsky raped Ari, the Korean student. Polish authorities had issued an international warrant for Andrzej Kunofsky through Interpol. It included his photograph and fingerprints. British authorities claimed they circulated copies of the prints from the Katerina Konieva crime scene through Interpol.
Yet, for undisclosed reasons, they were never connected to the Polish warrant pertaining to Andrzej Kunowski. Kunowski remained at large and even managed to use his forged documents to receive a publicly funded heart bypass at Hammersmith Hospital. A spokesperson for the United Kingdom's Home Office, the lead government department for immigration and passports, said:
"It is a matter of great concern that this individual with such a serious criminal history managed to get into this country and that his background was not uncovered when he came to our attention. Our system has been completely overhauled since then." All suspected asylum seekers are now electronically fingerprinted on entry, and these details are then fed into a European Warning Index which would alert us to criminal activity.
In September 2009, 52-year-old Andrzej Kunowski died in prison from heart failure. Prior to his death, he was questioned in relation to several unsolved disappearances of girls in Poland and England. He took any involvement he might have had in these other crimes to the grave. The loss of Katerina Koniewa caused irreparable damage to her family.
"It is not very easy to put into words how I feel," Katerina's mother, Jacqueline, explained. "It is really hard to get up in the morning and face a new day. It is hard to go to bed in the evening." The grief, anger and hate that manifested following their daughter's murder was so overwhelming it led to Jacqueline and Trichet divorcing. At the time of Andrzej Konowski's trial, Katerina would have been 18 years old.
Those who knew her had no doubt that had she not crossed his path, she would have been accepted into university and on her way to achieve her dream of becoming a pianist. Jacqueline visits her daughter's grave almost every day and still buys her birthday and Christmas presents each year. Quote, "'I talk to Katerina every day. We say goodnight to our children, don't we? So I always say goodnight to my daughter.'"
Trichet-Konyeva regretted chasing after Andrei Kunovsky rather than checking on Katerina first. He relived this moment repeatedly, believing his daughter would have survived if he'd reached her sooner. Trichet admitted this decision drove him close to suicide. He later found out that on the day Katerina had died, she had learnt that she was at the top of her class for English.
Trichet believes Katerina opened the door to Kunovsky because she thought it was her daddy coming home, and she couldn't wait to tell him the good news.