Garda appeal for taxi that passed slain father’s home
GARDAÍ are trying to track down a taxi driver who drove three women past the home of a murdered Polish father of two on the night he was hacked to death with a machete last week.
Mikolaj Wilk, 35, died of his wounds in his family’s Cork bungalow which was raided by a gang of armed thugs as his two children slept upstairs.
His wife Elzbieta, 33, also sustained stab injuries.
Around two and a half hours before he was savagely murdered by a gang of raiders at The Bridge House, Maglin, near Ballincollig, a taxi carrying three women passed the Wilk family home, gardaí understand.
Investigators now want to speak to the driver of the cab, as he may have dash-cam footage that could potentially show the car or the gang that carried out the horrific killing.
Mr Wilk was murdered in the early hours of last Sunday morning. Just hours before this, three women got a taxi from a pub in the Wilton area and drove to the Waterfall area.
The three women have come forward to gardaí, sources say, but did not see anything untoward or are in any way linked to the crime.
‘This taxi driver might have nothing of evidential value to tell gardaí, but officers wish to speak to him in case he saw something or has dash-com footage,’ said a source. ‘Gardaí are still trying to get to the bottom of who would have wanted to kill the victim.’
In a Garda press release yesterday, the force said: ‘In particular, they wish to speak to a driver who picked up three women at a pub in the Wilton area through a booking on a taxi app and drove to Waterfall, dropping two of the women along the way.’
A source added of the ongoing murder investigation: ‘Gardaí are examining whether the victim was targeted due to a deepseated personal grudge.
‘This is one line of inquiry, and it is not definitive.’
A close family friend, Aga Deryng, said her friend Elzbieta, Mr Wilk’s wife was ‘utterly heartbroken’ at the loss of her husband who she described as a ‘man with a wonderful heart’.
Mr Wilk was attacked in a brutal fashion by a gang of men and sustained over 20 stab wounds in the machete attack.
A special remembrance Mass was held for Mr Wilk in Ballincollig on Saturday night.