Disappearance Of Iwona Wieczorek

2021-07-16 19:56:41 Written by Jones Jay

Nearly 15,000 people disappear every year in Poland. But it rarely happens that the missing person so often appears in the media. Her smiling face is known by everyone – on the web, there circulates a lot of pictures, CCTV recordings, maps with the marked routes she walked on the night she vanished, etc. Hundreds of people are still working on the case: police authorities, friends, detectives, clairvoyants, but also polish web sleuths who only know this girl from a photograph.

What happened to Iwona? Does she lead a new life, works in a brothel, someone killed her – a friend maybe, or was she murdered in an accident? What happened to her body?

 

Iwona Wieczorek is missing since 17th July 2010, from Gdansk, Poland.

 

The facts:

Iwona was fresh out of high school, she was waiting for the information about the university admission, she was planning to go on a holiday trip to Spain any day now. She had her life before her.

Friday, July 16th, 2010 she went to a party with friends, the party was held in an allotment of one of her friends. Later that night she went to a club in Sopot, in the company of her friend Adria and three colleagues, Paweł, Marek, and Adrian. She was supposed to stay at the first party, but instead, she chose the club, though she knew the three guys for only about a month.

 

During the time in the club, there was an argument between them, but to this day no one knows what the reason was. According to her friends, Iwona left in a huff and ran out of the club. She went towards the seaside promenade. She had no money, and her phone battery was running low. She stayed until it started to dawn, about 4 AM, and started walking in the direction of her home, through the Seaside Boulevard. She had about 6 km (3,7 miles) to walk and her legs hurt from new heels.

 

She texted a few people on her way, also Adria, saying she’s angry that her friend didn’t follow her out. Iwona called Adria from the way and Adria tells that they settled the argument over the phone and we're OK now. A few minutes after 4 AMM she called Adria for the last time, told her that her phone battery is dying, told her where she is (it was consistent with CCTV footage as stated below and told her she’s heading to Adria’s home, she was a bit drunk and possibly didn’t want to meet her mom like that and Adria’s parents were away. At that time Adria was almost home and said she’ll leave the keys outside for Iwona to come in. She was standing nearby Iwona’s apartment and Iwona’s stepfather heard Adria talking. He claims that he also heard Iwona, but Adria says that’s because she had the speaker on.

 

In the CCTV footage at the beach in Jelitkowo, it is clear that at a certain distance behind the girl there is a man in a plaid shirt, with a towel on his shoulder walking - to this day has not been recognized, but detectives are now sure that he has nothing to do with Iwona disappearance.

In their view, the girl most likely passed safely through the park and the Seaside Boulevard and came into the area where she lived. There someone could have waited for her, someone she knew - maybe asked to speak to her, invited her to the car…. But what is sure is that she did not reach her home that morning. Her mother thought she is at Adria’s, Adria thought she went home because the keys were intact. They knew that something is wrong no sooner than 5 PM on July 17th.

 

 

Of course, the case was originally belittled by the police, they thought that maybe she went partying somewhere else, stayed with some other friends, ran off, etc. The real inquiry started a week after disappearance – too late and some proof was probably lost, some CCTV footage erased.

 

None of her stuff or clothes from that day was ever found. About one hundred people were questioned at the beginning of the inquiry and nothing important came up.

 

The case was worked on by many clairvoyants, PIs, etc. And still no clue.

 

There is a prize founded by private businessmen from Gdansk for information that will lead to finding Iwona. The award is 1 000 000 polish zloty, which is about 270K US Dollars. It’s big. And still, no one came out to speak.

 

There were also lots of red herrings:

* some towel found on a dune nearby it had DNA traces of two anonymous women

* a bone, that proved to be animal’s

* On that night a phone logged to the same BTS towers as Iwona’s on her way and logged to the tower nearby her flat, the phone number also contacted Paweł the number was recognized and the person found – it was a girl, neighbor of both Iwona and Paweł, she was partying at the same club and came home. Her path home was different and not by foot, but within the reach of the same BTS towers.

 

Some leads, theories, and questions:

* Why she chose to walk instead of taking a night bus? It’s quite a trip for a slightly drunk girl in uneasy party clothes and new heels. On the CCTV she is walking barefoot, not only by the beach but also in the city, where sidewalks are not clean, full of broken glass. She must have been determined to walk.

* The area between the beach and her home, a few square kilometers, is partially a park with trimmed bushes, lawns, etc., but partially just a jungle area, with thick bushes, ponds, some swamps, and even some WWII German bunkers. It was searched, as far as I know pretty thoroughly, both by LE and just people trying to help. The police although say that some regions are mysterious because of the rough terrain, but claim that if they can’t get through, someone with a body/unconscious girl wouldn’t be able to either…

* Her friends were no good, they had some shady businesses and that was what the fight was about. Probably she didn’t want to be quiet about it and wanted to go to the police? And that is why they killed her.

* “Guy with the towel” AKA “The Towel “in polish web sleuth threads. Who is he? If he’s innocent, why hasn’t he come to clear? Why after 4 years he still is anonymous? Does the police know who he is and doesn’t tell? There are some tales that someone had seen them sitting on a bench together, but only rumors… The guy looks local and the police claim that there is one more CCTV recording of him, going the other way sometime later that morning.

* Why are the police so confident that she reached her neighborhood? Is there any proof that is hidden from public opinion?

* It is said that one of her friends crashed a car that night. The car was wrecked and may be sold to scraps. Was she in it? But these are only allegations, no one had seen them together that night, no one had seen him driving the car that night.

* Sometime before she dated a cop, Marcin, he was 25 at that time, but it’s not such an age difference that would be strange. She broke up with him. He was seen circling her neighborhood a few times before the disappearance. There is also the theory, that they were not dating, but she was his informer in the drug business. His alibi and testimony are undisclosed.

* Rumors again: she was a call-girl, her three friends from the party were clients. There was an account on update. pl (a polish online sex-dating site, used also by prostitutes) of a girl that was allegedly Iwona. It was deleted. If so, maybe she is a victim of human trafficking?

* There is parking for truckers near the place where the CCTV footage was taken. There’s a theory that it was a random rape/killing and a trucker is a perpetrator.

* Some people think that the conversation that was overheard by the stepfather wasn’t a phone call, but an eye to eye discussion, and that Adria and Iwona met outside the apartment building and that Adria realizes what happened later…