‘JEALOUS’ FATHER KILLED HIS 11-MONTH OLD BABY
FATHER AND SON INQUESTS IN KILLARNEY HEAR HOW MOTHER OF 11-MONTH-OLD BOY FELT FATHER WAS JEALOUS OF THEIR BABY SON
THE heartbroken mother of a baby boy who is believed to have been smothered by his father in a Killarney apartment almost two years said her former partner had been jealous of their son who meant the world to her.
Baby Karol’s mother, Anna Rozycka, told an inquest at Killarney Circuit Court on Monday that she believed her partner was jealous of their child who died in a tragedy that shocked Killarney in March 2016. The inquest heard that Anna suspected something was wrong before she discovered her dead baby in her locked bedroom. Her partner, Andrzej Piolunowicz, was lying unconcious with multiple self-inflicted wounds and he died in hospital four days later.
A VERDICT of unlawful death has been returned in the inquest into the death of an 11-month-old baby in his parents’ bedroom in an apartment in Killarney almost two years ago.
Baby Karol Rozycki was found alongside his critically injured father, 32-year-old Andrzej Piolunowicz, in a locked bedroom at Park Place Apartments, Killarney shortly before 6pm on March 6, Mother’s Day, 2016. Both were lying on the bed and Andrzej was still breathing.
Written with blue marker on the white pillow slip in Polish was the sentence ‘You are free Annie, Enjoy your life. We love you’, the inquests heard.
No medical cause of death could be identified in the case of baby Karol, State Pathologist Dr Margot Bolster said. There was no abnormality, no evidence of ingestion of drugs or alcohol and no trauma, apart from two tiny bruises. X-rays were normal.
However, the death scene was important, Dr Bolster said and, given the circumstances, smothering was most likely. The jury of six men returned a verdict of unlawful death.
Andrzej Piolunowicz died four days later at Cork University Hospital, due to self inflicted wounds. He had taken a mixture of over-the-counter medicines in the toxic range. The jury returned a verdict of suicide in his case.
The child’s mother, Anna Rozycka, originally from Cieszwn in eastern Poland, began a relationship with Mr Piolunowicz in June 2014 when she came to work as a chef in the Aghadoe Heights Hotel where he worked as a porter.
Two months later she was pregnant. They decided to set up home together but after two weeks together the relationship ended. She returned to Poland where Karol was born in April 2015, she said in her deposition which was read by Supt Flor Murphy.
Back in Ireland in July 2015, working in same hotel – at a higher level – she resumed contact with her child’s father and in February 2016 they once more set up home together. However, matters did not work out.
On the night of March 5 she told Andrzej that, for her, “Karol was always going to come first” and she did not see a future for them together.
She said she felt he was jealous of Karol and of the fact she could provide for him.
“I told him that Karol was my world, that he was the most important person in my life and always would be,” she said.
The inquest then heard that the following day, March 6, the three of them had breakfast together. She told Andrzej that she was not putting pressure on him to move out .
Things were normal when she was leaving for work and she expected him to drop Karol to be minded by his sister’s partner, Robert.
At 5.30 pm when she returned home there were no lights in the apartment. It was silent. She thought Andrzej must be asleep. Karol’s things were in the hall. He wasn’t in his bedroom. She went upstairs .
“Our bedroom door was always open but it was closed, ” she said. “I kept banging on the bedroom door but got no answer. I got a bad feeling – Karol should be awake with all the noise.”
She rang Iwona, Andrzej’s sister and her partner Robert who eventually broke down the door.
“I saw Karol lying on my side of the bed, lying on his back, very pale. Andrzej was lying alongside him,” Ms Rozycka said, adding that she became hysterical and was shouting.
“The only reason I can see for killing Karol was that he was jealous and for the conversation of the night of 5th of March because I said Karol would always come first,” she said.
Replying to coroner Aisling O’Sullivan, Ms Rozycka said Andrzej did not have a history of depression.
Iwona Piolunowicz said her brother did not suffer from depression. He was happy to have met his child and when they became a couple again he told her he had never stopped loving Anna.
Her partner Robert Herbaczewski told how Andrzej had rung him at 9.20am saying he was not going to work because he was feeling down after his conversation with Anna the night before. He called around to his home at Bruach na hAbhann at lunch time but left because the child was sleepy. He rang at 2.15pm but said the baby needed feeding and a sleep. Mr Herbaczewski expected to hear from him after the child’s nap but did not.
Questioned by the coroner, Mr Herbaczewski said he could feel that Andrzej was very sad during the phone conversation.
“He said ‘I feel very sad and down and don’t feel like going to work’,” Mr Herbaczewski added.
He felt there was nothing unusual in the later telephone conversation.
Aisling O’Sullivan, coroner, offered her deepest condolences to the family of Mr Piolunowicz, noting that they had donated his organs. Referring to the death of baby Karol, Ms O’Sullivan said Ms Rozycka had suffered a devastating loss.