Teacher describes child victims of Jersey killer as ‘little angels’

Dominika Nalichowska said six-year-old Kinga Rzeszowski and her brother Kasper, two, were “beautiful” children with blue eyes and blonde hair.

Their father, named locally as Damian Rzeszowski, 30, is also believed to have stabbed his wife Izabela Rzeszowski, 30, to death in Jersey along with her father, Marek Garstki, her friend Marta de la Haye, 34, and her own five-year-old daughter Julia. He is then thought to have turned the knife on himself.

He has been arrested and remains under police guard at Jersey General Hospital as police wait to question him over Sunday’s attacks in the capital of St Helier.

Miss Nalichowska, 29, who taught Kinga at her Saturday Polish school, yesterday said her friend Mrs Rzeszowski had confided in her about problems in her marriage and about her husband having taken an overdose of pills less than a month ago after suffering from depression.

She said: “He was a very calm and quiet person so I don’t know if it was because everything was bottled up inside him.”

Speaking from her home in St Helier, Miss Nalichowska said: “Both of them loved each other, they’d been together for about 10 years, but they had been having problems lately, as every couple does.”

Describing Rzeszowski, she said: “He was a very peaceful man, we’ve never seen him lose his temper so it’s hard to believe what made him turn in that way.

“He was a very calm and quiet person so I don’t know if it was because everything was bottled up inside him.”

She said the family had only returned from a trip to visit family in Poland on Saturday or Sunday.

She said his wife was a “beautiful young woman, slender, tall, she was very attractive.

“She was very nice to talk to as well, very easy going.”

The children “were like little angels with their blue eyes and blonde hair”.

Miss Nalichowska, who believed the family had lived on the island for about six years, said she did not know Mrs Rzeszowski’s father but had met him once and knew he was “very proud” of his grandchildren. “We don’t know what happened and I don’t think we will ever find out because we don’t have any witnesses,” she said.

Police are still working to establish a motive for the murders, which have rocked the island community.

The attack spilled from a flat in Victoria Crescent in St Helier and into the street on Sunday afternoon.

Neighbours have described how they fended off the “mumbling” knifeman with a traffic cone as he chased one of the women before turning the weapon on himself.

Another witness saw the two little girls’ lifeless bodies carried out of the flats by paramedics covered in blood.

House-to-house inquiries have been taking place in the capital while forensic examination of the scene was continuing with the States of Jersey Police Forensic team, supported by experts from the Devon & Cornwall force.

The final two bodies were removed from the scene yesterday.

Flowers have been left beside cuddly toys. One card read “May the angels look after you now. God bless. Staff and children at Centrepoint Trust.”

Family liaison officers are working with the two families involved in the incident, supported by Polish-speaking officers and staff.

Earlier the results of the first post-mortem examination were disclosed. One of the two women had died of multiple stab wounds.

Post-mortem tests on the other victims will be carried out by a Home Office pathologist over the next few days.