Call to reopen probe into the ‘perfect murder’
IT was a real-life Agatha Christie murder mystery. Near the butchered and burned body of the popular doctor were two champagne glasses, the remnants of pink fizz still at the base of the flutes.
She had evidently been raising a glass with her killer before her barbaric death.
The bottle was never found, but its foil and wire cork holder lay nearby. Burglary was not a motive. Nothing had been taken from the Polish doctor’s three-storey Hall Green home in Birmingham.
The mystery deepened as detectives unpicked Dr Danuta Kaczmarska’s double life. By day she was a doting, caring family doctor, loved and trusted by her 4,000 patients. Away from her Kings Heath surgery, the 53-year-old, described by detectives as an emotional and vulnerable woman who craved love, trawled contact magazines for partners and frequented gay bars.
Alarm bells rang when it was discovered that four years earlier a close friend of the victim had suffered a copycat death in the same Coniston Close property where the doctor died.
The remains of solicitor Thomas Gleeson, who had been staying with Danuta, were discovered following a fire. An inquest recorded a verdict of death by misadventure.
The twists and turns surrounding Danuta’s murder are the stuff of Columbo or Midsomer Murders scripts.
But unlike the novels and TV shows, this 1986 whodunnit was never solved, despite 150 officers conducting more than 6,000 interviews. And that doesn’t sit well with a West Midlands Police former top detective.
Former CID chief John Plimmer has called for the hunt for the doctor’s killer to be reopened.
Mr Plimmer, one of the first detectives at the scene, said he was surprised the case was never cracked.
To this day the murderer’s profile remains so incredibly strong. Mr Plimmer has concluded the person responsible was an associate of Danuta, is female and is Polish.
The victim’s double life is a red herring, he believes. It played no part in the attack.
Mr Plimmer
believes
the
sheer number of officers initially thrown at the case muddied waters, a case of too many cooks.
“You’ve got to keep manageable,” he says.
Mr Plimmer, now an author, describes the person he believed responsible – and the likely build-up to the crime. “I’m floored this was not cleared because there was a lot to look at,” he says.
“It was a pre-planned attack because of the accelerant used for the fire. You don’t take petrol with you unless you’re going to burn a body.
“She told her sister she’d ring her
it tight and back because she had a visitor coming. So let’s take it forward – she’d purchased a bottle of champagne. Not wine, but champagne.
“Therefore, it must’ve been a celebration, perhaps the celebration of an association. Perhaps the anniversary of when they met.
“So we probably have someone with a prolonged and close association with the doctor.
“There may have been jealousy because frenzy equals jealousy and revenge. Something has happened to cause this frenzied attack.
“And remember, women are responsible for more frenzied attacks than men.
“As for the other person dying in a fire at the house, that is just too weird. I would’ve thought that should have been an open verdict at the inquest at the very least.
“The dark side of the doctor, if you like, is a red herring. If you pick someone up and they attack you, robbery is usually the motive. But nothing was taken, her handbag was not opened.
“I would be looking for a female associate of the victim, someone of her own nationality.
“I would’ve expected to close this because of the association.”
He added: “I think they should reopen this because there are still so many things you can look at. We had DNA then, but now testing is much more advanced.”
At the time, the media gave the case near-blanket coverage. A reconstruction of Danuta’s last sighting was aired on TV, a lookalike female officer walking from the Waitrose supermarket in Hall Green.
The murder was featured on BBC’s Crimewatch.
Our sister newspaper, the Birmingham Mail, printed appeal posters that were plastered around the city. Police approached Birmingham’s gay community in a bid to further understand the doctor’s double-life yet the trail quickly turned cold. Danuta evidently knew her killer. For some reason, the laughter and sips of champagne of January 22 were replaced by a scene of frenzied violence.
She was gagged with a towel, struck seven times with an axe, then burned. She was torched while unconscious, but still alive.
When police, called to the scene by neighbours who had spotted smoke billowing from the property, found Danuta in the kitchen, she was charred beyond recognition.
The doctor had to be identified by dental records.
“It’s a case which has all the ingredients of an Agatha Christie thriller,” said Detective Superintendent David
As for the other person dying in a fire at the house, that is just too weird John Plimmer, right
Speake when the murder hunt was launched.
“Dr Kaczmarska worked medically for 15 years in the city and was a popular and kind woman with an impeccable medical record.
“She would have been knocked unconscious. Then her killer poured something over the body and set fire to it to kill her.
“It’s a horrific murder and we are concerned because we are not getting the help from the public which we need.”
Detectives were met with a wall of silence, despite a £5,000 reward being posted by friends.
They found no motive. Danuta left an estate worth more than £200,000 – equivalent to more than £400,000 today – but that was not a trigger. They found no weapon.
Just six months after a killing that shocked the nation, the incident room at Sparkhill Police Station was closed down.
Detective Inspector Paul Simpson, speaking at the time, said: “We are extremely frustrated. The killer is a cool, calculated person who covered up all traces and probably believes it is the perfect murder.
“It has been rather like looking for a ghost who went to the house and then disappeared afterwards. “Apparently, nobody saw him or her enter or leave. But we shall never close the file on this case.”
In 1997, Danuta’s sister Irena Price spoke publicly for the first and only time, urging police to reopen the cold case.
Irena, from London, said: “I was knocked for six when it happened. On the night before she died, she phoned me.
“There was a cooking programme on the television which I wanted to watch and she phoned me in the middle of it.
“I said I’d call her back and she said don’t call in the afternoon because she had someone coming. I was to call her the day after.
“Because I was in a hurry to watch the programme, I cut the conversation short. Later, I had a very strong premonition it would be the last time I would speak to her.
“She was clearing her desk for something important that afternoon. I’d always had a premonition that my sister would die tragically.”
Twenty years ago, the West Midlands force did launch a fresh appeal.
Detective Chief Inspector Angie James said: “With new techniques in DNA testing we keep an open mind on all unsolved murders and hope for developments.”
There were to be no new developments.
Thirty-four years ago, police referred to Danuta Kaczmarska’s death as the “perfect murder”.
Tragically, detectives have still not uncovered a flaw.
West Midlands Police said it was ready to review the case should there be any new evidence.
Detective Chief Inspector Alastair Orencas, head of the cold case review team, says: ”The murder of Dr Danuta Kaczmarska does remain unsolved.
“However, we do undertake periodic reviews of evidence we hold in such cases to see if advances in technology reveal any new lines of enquiry.
“And, of course, we will always investigate any new information from members of the public that we receive.”