The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Convicted rapist jailed for life for murdering Dundee couple
Krzysztof Gadecki stabbed pair to death in their own home before returning to steal valuables
A convicted Polish rapist who was under threat of deportation was jailed for life yesterday after savagely stabbing a man and woman to death in a double murder.
Krzysztof Gadecki was ordered to serve at least 26 years in prison after repeatedly wounding Ronald Kidd and his partner Holly Alexander in the flat they shared in Dundee before returning to ransack the property for valuables.
A judge told Gadecki: “These were brutal murders of two people committed in their own home.
“Whatever difficulties they had experienced in their lives they did not deserve this death.”
Lord Boyd of Duncansby pointed out at the High Court in Edinburgh that both the victims left children.
Gadecki, 38, had arrived in this country in 2009 after accumulating jail sentences totalling 10 years in his native Poland for offences including rape, robbery and fraud when he was released on parole.
He initially stayed in England before moving to Scotland.
A year before he committed the murders in December last year the Home Office served him with a deportation notice on the basis of the rape and robbery convictions but Gadecki remained at liberty in Scotland after appealing against the move.
The High Court heard a decision had not been made in the appeal when Gadecki knifed his victims to death.
Father-of-four Mr Kidd, two of whose children predeceased him, and American mother-of-three Ms Alexander died following a hail of knife blows inflicted on them by Gadecki.
Mr Kidd, 40, sustained a total of 23 stab wounds to his head, neck and torso in the attack at his flat in Rosefield Street, in Dundee, one of which went through his neck and another penetrated the sac around his heart.
He had also suffered defensive injuries as he tried to fend off the killer.
Ms Alexander, 37, suffered a total of nine knife wounds, including a 17cm wound that went through a lung and damaged an artery.
Following the bloody attack heroin addict Gadecki, who had previously tattooed his victims, went back to the flat and took wallets, cash, watches and drugs.
The victims’ bodies were discovered after a security firm failed to make contact with Mr Kidd, who was electronically tagged under a court restriction of liberty order, and police were alerted.
The lock was forced on the top floor flat the and the victims were found in a blood-stained bedroom.
Gadecki, of Benvie Road, Dundee, had denied murdering his victims between December 8 and 11 last year, but a jury took 40 minutes to unanimously find him guilty of both crimes.
He had claimed in a special defence that he had acted in self-defence after the deceased attacked him, but his claim was comprehensively rejected.
During his own evidence Gadecki said he had gone to the flat to ask about a missing jacket that had belonged to his late brother.
He claimed Mr Kidd had called him names and had a knife but he managed to get the weapon and started hitting him.
He told the court: “With all respect to him and his family, I won.”
He also claimed Ms Alexander had ran towards him holding a knife and said: “She was coming like a Samurai.”
He said: “Life is a gift and everyone has a right to defend it, no matter whether he is a drug addict or not.”
He claimed that during the incident he was “feeling like a soldier in the first line”.
Advocate depute Bill MacVicar said that on the day before the murders Gadecki had no money and no drugs and was desperate to get some, but he replied: “No, that’s not true.
“I always arranged something for myself.”
The prosecutor said after the verdicts that New York-born Ms Alexander had emigrated to Scotland in 2014 with her husband and children to open a takeaway business in Dundee.
He said: “She was at that time recovering from heroin addiction but unfortunately relapsed and started to abuse heroin again.”
Her relationship with her husband broke down.
Gadecki was subjected to abuse from the public benches of the court as he was led off to prison with one man calling “F ****** die in jail”.
The murderer, who slashed himself in prison with a razor blade during the trial, had turned to members of the public, including family and friends, and said he was sorry.
Whatever difficulties they had experienced in their lives they did not deserve this death. LORD BOYD OF DUNCANSBY