Zdzisław Marchwicki was hanged in Katowice on April 26, 1977. A Polish court had convicted him in July 1975 of the murders of 14 women and the attempted murders of six more. The attacks had run from 1964 to 1970 in the mining and industrial towns of Zagłębie Dąbrowskie and neighboring Upper Silesia, and the press had given the unknown attacker a nickname, the "Wampir z Zagłębia," or Vampire of Zagłębie. Marchwicki, a laborer from Dąbrowa Górnicza, was arrested in January 1972. His trial opened in Katowice in September 1974; Infor.pl later called it a show trial. Two of his brothers were convicted with him, and one of them was also executed.
The case has never settled. Marchwicki and his brothers did not admit guilt, according to the legal news site Infor.pl. The film director Maciej Pieprzyca, who made a documentary about the case in 1998 and a feature film inspired by it in 2016, has said the investigation and the trial involved manipulation and that it is not certain the man sentenced to death was guilty. Another suspect had confessed before Marchwicki was ever arrested, and a later killer in the same region modeled his attacks on the series. The conviction itself remains on the record.
Marchwicki was born on October 18, 1927, in Dąbrowa Górnicza, according to the forensic scientist Ewa Gruza of the University of Warsaw, who wrote about the case in a 2019 article in the journal Problemy Współczesnej Kryminalistyki. He had an older sister and a younger brother, Jan. Their mother died when Zdzisław was two, a few days after Jan was born. Their father married again several times, Gruza wrote, and the family moved often. A half-brother, Henryk, was born of one of the later marriages.
His schooling was short. By 1939 he had finished four grades, and he did not complete the next grades during the German occupation. During the war he was sent to Germany as a forced laborer. After the war he began vocational training but did not finish it, according to Gruza.
As an adult he worked as an escort guard at a coal mine in Siemianowice and painted apartments with his brother Henryk, Super Express reported in 2022. He married and had children; the same paper, citing the local press of the time, described him at his arrest as a 44-year-old father of eight.
The first attack in the series came on November 7, 1964, in Dąbrówka Mała, in Katowice. Anna Mycek was killed there. The investigation that followed later took its code name, "Anna," from her, according to Super Express.
From then until 1970 the Citizens' Militia (Milicja Obywatelska), Poland's police force under communist rule, attributed 21 attacks on women to one offender, 14 of them fatal, Gruza wrote. The attacker targeted women walking alone and beat them with a heavy blunt object. Infor.pl, in a 2009 account by Łukasz Matys, put the victims' ages at 16 to 57 and the span of the attacks at about five and a half years. Super Express named Czeladź, Będzin, Sławków, Wojkowice and Sosnowiec among the towns where the attacker struck. Most of the women have not been named publicly, and little is known of who they were.
In 1965 the Militia set up a special operational group, code-named "Anna," to find the attacker, according to Infor.pl. The area it covered was about 590 square kilometers, with some 725,000 inhabitants.
One of the women attacked was 18 and related to Edward Gierek, the communist politician. Super Express described her in 2022 as Gierek's niece; Infor.pl called her a distant relative. Infor.pl and the July 2022 Super Express report count her among the women killed, but a separate Super Express report from March 2022 described her as a survivor. The question has never been settled.
Both papers agree on the effect. After the attack on Edward Gierek's relative the hunt became a top priority for the Militia, which was under strong pressure from the public and from the party, Super Express wrote. The authorities offered a reward of one million złoty for information leading to the attacker, Infor.pl reported.
The last attack in the series came on March 4, 1970, in Katowice. Jadwiga Kucianka was killed. She was a scholar of Silesia and its culture, the first lecturer in Silesian literature at the University of Silesia, and a writer for the Catholic weekly Gość Niedzielny, according to Super Express.
Her death became a central count at the trial. The court convicted two of Marchwicki's brothers, Jan and Henryk, of her murder alongside him, Infor.pl reported.
Before Marchwicki became a suspect, investigators had looked at other men. One of them was a house painter, P. O., who had a mental illness. According to Super Express, he was arrested and told police that he was the attacker, but he was released for lack of evidence. A 2022 Super Express report placed him at a name-day party about three kilometers from where Jadwiga Kucianka was killed, and said he left the party for a time that evening. On March 11, 1970, the Militia received an anonymous letter saying the last murder had been committed and that its author would never be caught, the paper reported.
On the night of March 14 to 15, 1970, P. O. killed his wife and two children and then himself, Super Express reported. The two Super Express reports differ on where he lived: one gives Sosnowiec, the other Tarnowskie Góry. The July 2022 report noted that the killings in the series ended after his death.
On January 6, 1972, Marchwicki was detained in Dąbrowa Górnicza after his wife reported to the authorities that he had abused her and their children, Gruza wrote. He was 44.
Later that year the investigation widened to his family. His brother Jan and his half-brother Henryk were arrested in May 1972, Gruza wrote, and his sister and her son were arrested in July and November 1972. The investigation lasted more than two years in all.
The trial opened on September 18, 1974, in the factory club of the Silesia zinc works in Katowice, according to Gruza. It was a trial built on circumstantial evidence, National Geographic Polska wrote in 2025, and Infor.pl described it as a show trial that lasted more than a year.
On July 28, 1975, the Voivodeship Court in Katowice (Sąd Wojewódzki w Katowicach) found Zdzisław Marchwicki guilty of 14 murders and of the attempted murders of six more women and sentenced him to death. Jan Marchwicki and Henryk Marchwicki were convicted of the murder of Jadwiga Kucianka. Jan was sentenced to death and Henryk to 25 years in prison, Infor.pl reported. Super Express gave the same sentences for the brothers.
The brothers did not admit guilt, according to Infor.pl. Little has been published about the evidence the court relied on for each count, the defense case or any appeal.
The Council of State declined to grant clemency, Gruza wrote. Zdzisław Marchwicki was hanged on April 26, 1977, at the remand prison in Katowice, and buried without a name, recorded as "NN," at the Panewniki cemetery in Katowice. Jan Marchwicki's death sentence was also carried out, Infor.pl reported. PAP, the Polish Press Agency, summed up the outcome in 2016: sentenced to death in 1975 for the murders of 14 women and executed in 1977.
Henryk Marchwicki served his sentence and was released in 1993. He then worked to clear his family's name, Infor.pl reported. He died in 1997, in circumstances the same report described as unexplained.
The attacks on women in the region did not end with Marchwicki's arrest. Joachim Knychała, born in Bytom in 1952, carried out his first attack in November 1974, while Marchwicki's trial was under way, National Geographic Polska reported in 2025. The woman survived, and police did not connect that attack with the Zagłębie series, because, although the method was similar, the victim had lived.
In May 1976, after a woman who had been a witness in the case of Marchwicki's last victim was killed, police began to consider that someone was imitating the Zagłębie attacker, National Geographic Polska wrote. Knychała later confessed that he had drawn inspiration from the Zagłębie murders. Super Express reported that he had followed Marchwicki's trial, and Gruza wrote that Marchwicki's crimes had fascinated him. The press later called Knychała the "Wampir z Bytomia."
The conviction of Zdzisław Marchwicki was final, and he was executed under it. Whether he committed all of the attacks, some of them or none of them has been argued since.
Maciej Pieprzyca, a film director, made a documentary about the case in 1998 under the title "Jestem mordercą" ("I Am a Killer"). In 2016 he told PAP that in that film he had argued that the investigation and trial involved manipulation and that it was uncertain whether the man sentenced to death was really guilty. He said he was perhaps the first to say so publicly, RMF24 reported.
In 2016 Pieprzyca returned to the case with a feature film of the same title, shot partly in the Nikiszowiec district of Katowice. He described it as a psychological thriller inspired by the case, not a documentary. "Nasz film jest filmem fabularnym, to nie jest film dokumentalny," he told PAP ("Ours is a feature film; it is not a documentary"). Its central character is a militia lieutenant who takes on the case hoping to advance his career. Pieprzyca said the story was about pressure, hypocrisy and admitting mistakes, and that the film did not set out to show how events really happened.
Super Express wrote in 2022 that doubts persist about whether Marchwicki was the attacker, citing the earlier suspect's confession and the end of the attacks after his death in March 1970. A second Super Express report that year said newer evidence, collected material and testimony pointed to significant uncertainties in the case, without naming them. National Geographic Polska described the 1974 to 1975 proceedings as a trial based on circumstantial evidence.
Other parts of the record are uncertain. Accounts disagree on whether Edward Gierek's relative survived and on how closely she was related to Edward Gierek. Marchwicki's brothers were convicted only of the last killing, and what evidence tied them to it has not been made public.
October 18, 1927: Zdzisław Marchwicki is born in Dąbrowa Górnicza.
1939: He has finished four grades of school.
World War II: He is sent to Germany as a forced laborer.
November 7, 1964: Anna Mycek is killed in Dąbrówka Mała, the first attack in the series.
1965: The Citizens' Militia sets up a special group, code-named "Anna," to find the attacker.
1964 to 1970: The Militia attributes 21 attacks on women, 14 of them fatal, to a single offender.
March 4, 1970: Jadwiga Kucianka is killed in Katowice, the last attack in the series.
March 14 to 15, 1970: An earlier suspect kills his wife and two children and himself.
January 6, 1972: Marchwicki is arrested in Dąbrowa Górnicza after his wife reports abuse at home.
May 1972: His brother Jan and half-brother Henryk are arrested.
July and November 1972: His sister and her son are arrested.
September 18, 1974: The trial opens in Katowice.
November 1974: Joachim Knychała carries out his first attack, in Bytom.
July 28, 1975: The Voivodeship Court in Katowice convicts Marchwicki of 14 murders and 6 attempted murders and sentences him to death; Jan is sentenced to death and Henryk to 25 years.
May 1976: After the killing of a witness, police begin to consider an imitator.
April 26, 1977: Zdzisław Marchwicki is hanged in Katowice; his brother Jan's death sentence is also carried out.
1993: Henryk Marchwicki is released from prison.
1997: Henryk Marchwicki dies.
1998: Maciej Pieprzyca's documentary "Jestem mordercą" questions the case.
2016: Pieprzyca's feature film of the same title is made, inspired by the case.