Episode 19 - The Kuczynski family

On Friday 19th January 2024 police forced entry into a house in Costessey which is just outside the centre of Norwich in Norfolk. They were responding to a call from a concerned member of the public.

Inside the house they found two children and two adults dead and presumably murdered. They were two sisters, their father and their aunt and they had all died by stab wounds. 

 We look into the police communications and media portrayals, and how they shape our understanding of such tragedies. With no criminal trial or full inquest to guide us, we rely on the puzzle pieces provided by various reports, all while being mindful of the sensitive nature of the incident. 

This episode is in memory of Jasmin, Natasha, Kanticha and Bartlomiej. 

Information and support 

·        Samaritans UK Contact Us | Samaritans 

·        National Domestic Violence Helpline UK 0808 2000 247  

·        Advocacy After Fatal Domestic Abuse (AAFDA) Home - AAFDA 

·        Women’s Aid www.womensaid.org.uk 

·        Mental health support USA I'm looking for mental health help for myself | Mental Health America (mhanational.org) 

·        Domestic abuse helpline USA 1.800.799.SAFE Domestic Violence Support | National Domestic Violence Hotline (thehotline.org) 

References 

 Vote for Killer in the family podcast in the True Crime awards for Listener's Choice! True Crime Awards 2024 - Listeners' Choice

Everything we know about the deaths at a home near Norwich | Norwich Evening News (eveningnews24.co.uk) 

Father taken to hospital by police weeks before Costessey deaths | Evening Standard

Man found dead with three others in Norfolk had called 999 over mental state | Norfolk | The Guardian

Norwich: Family of four found dead in house - BBC News

Two girls found dead in Norwich home died of stab wounds, post-mortem finds (msn.com)

What do we know about the discovery of four bodies near Norwich? - BBC News

Coroner fights back tears as she opens inquests into deaths of two girls, eight and 12, their father, 45, and their aunt, 36, who were all found with fatal knife wounds at Norwich family home | Daily Mail Online

Credits 

Hosted and created by Clare Laxton @ladylaxton  

Produced by: Clare Laxton  

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi there and welcome to Killer in the Family podcast. I'm your host, claire Laxton, so we're going to have a bit of a different episode today, as I'm going to cover a story that is happening right now in the UK. Before that, though, I just want to ask a favour of all you brilliant listeners. So nominations are currently open for the True Crime Awards. I've actually applied for the Rookie podcast of the year category, but they also have a listeners choice category, and I would absolutely love it if you could nominate Killer in the Family podcast to be the listeners choice. Now, I know it's a massive long shot because it's such a new podcast, but I'll include the link in the episode notes to nominate and on my social media too, and thank you so much in advance.

Speaker 1: 1:03

So back to today's episode. When I saw the headline on BBC News a couple of weeks ago that a whole family had been found dead in Norwich, my stomach dropped. Something inside me knew that this was a familiar side, and my heart just broke for that family and their friends and community. I really wanted to do this episode to talk about in real time the immediate reaction that you see to a familiar side, to remember the victims and to also analyse the media portrayal of what happened as well. Now, obviously, because it's happening right now, there isn't the same level of confirmed information out there as there are with some of the other podcast episodes I do. So there hasn't been a criminal trial, there hasn't been a full inquest. So I'm really trying to gather information from all the media reports as they come out. As we know, in the UK there's lots of different media outlets and they all have their own limitations and viewpoints and opinions. So there's lots of limitations to what I can gather and the information that I have gathered. But I just wanted to do this episode to really show that sort of immediate reaction to what is, I think, a familiar side. So also, I just want to flag that I've done my best with the pronunciation of family's names. I'm not a native Polish speaker. I can speak Russian, but I really hope that my pronunciation is okay and apologies in advance. You know I've really tried hard to make sure I'm getting people's names right, because that's really important.

Speaker 1: 2:49

So on Friday, the 19th of January, just two weeks ago, police forced entry into a house in Kossy, which is just outside the centre of Norwich. In Norfolk, they were responding to a call from a concerned member of the public. Inside the house they found two children and two adults who were dead and presumably murdered. There were two sisters, their father and their aunt, and they'd all died by stab wounds. This episode is a memory of Jasmine, natasha, kanchecha and Bartolome.

Speaker 1: 3:44

Just before 6am on Friday, the 19th of January this year, police received a 999 call from a man who was concerned about his mental health. He said he was confused and apparently expressed concerns for his mental state. The man was told to seek medical attention and the police did not respond to the call. About an hour later, at 7.15am, the police attended to a house in Allen Bedford Crescent in Queens Hill, cossie, following a call from a dog walker who was concerned about the family who were inside the house. When the police entered the house, they found four dead bodies. In the house was Jasmine Kojinski. She was just 12 years old. There was her sister, natasha, who was just 8 years old. There was a 36 year old woman with them, kanchecha Supengpanow, who was believed to be the aunt of Jasmine and Natasha. And finally there was 45 year old Bartolome Kojinski, believed to be the father of Natasha and Jasmine. They were all dead and post mortems carried out the week later showed that they all died of stab wounds, with Bartolome's being self inflicted.

Speaker 1: 5:01

The immediate police communication about what happened in this house two weeks ago said to me that it was a possible familiar side. They went in all the media releases and press. The police said that it was an isolated incident and secondly, they said that they weren't looking for anyone else in connection with this incident. Now, whenever someone is killed by their partner or family member, that is what you will hear from the police. I've spoken before about the term isolated incident, as I believe that the killing of women and children by men is a femicide and an epidemic, not isolated incidents at all. At this point, the police are obviously trying to reassure the public that there isn't someone out there who's a danger to them, and when they say that they weren't looking for anyone else in connection with this incident, that means usually that the perpetrator is inside or within the home that they are investigating, and I think it's really good learning that. If you hear those phrases from police after an incident, then it is pretty likely that it was a domestic homicide or a familiar side.

Speaker 1: 6:11

So going back to the family, so post mortems that were carried out last week found that Kinticha had died by a stab wound to the neck. Bartoume also died by a stab wound to the neck, but his was found to be self inflicted. Post mortems for Natasha and Jasmine were carried out a few days later and they were both found to have died from stab wound to the neck as well, and, following the post mortems, police confirmed that the deaths of Kanchita, jasmine and Natasha are being treated as murder. Now, I don't know this. This is unconfirmed, but to me that implies that the death of Vatume is being treated as suicide. Again, I don't know this, but that's what it says to me.

Speaker 1: 7:00

Now, a friend of Kanchita actually speculated in a media article that I read that she might have died protecting her nieces, possibly, but we don't yet know what happened in that house that morning and, as we talked about earlier, the police had already received a call from Vatume on that Friday morning, about an hour before they attended to the house. He was asking for support with his mental health and, according to newspaper reports, he'd been having trouble with his mental health for a few months. Indeed, it has been reported that on the 14th of December last year so 2023, police actually attended a missing persons report, which was Vatume himself. He was found later by a drone and a police search later on that evening and, according to the evening standard, he was taken to the local hospital after he was found but left on his own before he had had a mental health assessment. Now the hospital responded to this and said quote following a comprehensive clinical assessment, the patient was assessed as having mental capacity and he left the unit before being reviewed again by the team. End quote the former structural engineer had also apparently given up his job, possibly because of his mental health issues. So it seems that Vatume had been struggling with his mental health for a while Now. I couldn't find and it's not known if there was any specific cause or event in his life that had triggered this, but that's what's known at the moment, and neighbours weren't sure whether he had engaged with mental health services at all.

Speaker 1: 8:39

Now some of you might be asking where Natasha and Jasmine's mum was. Well, according to media reports again, the girl's mother, nantaka and she was born in Thailand, like Kancheeta was at work at the time of the incident. She'd apparently left for an early shift to work at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital before the killings took place, and so Kancheeta was her sister and had arrived in the UK on December, the 27th last year, to stay with her sister and the family at the house in Norwich. Now a friend of Kancheeta said told the mirror that she was actually due to fly home at some point in February, and I can't think of. I can't think how awful this all must be for mother of Jasmine and Natasha, and I just really hope that she is getting the support that she needs at this moment in time. It's an indescribable tragedy that's happened to her, her sister and her daughters, potentially at the hand of her husband, her protector. So needless to say that the murder of Jasmine, natasha and Conchita and the presumed suicide of Batume has been a huge shock to the local community.

Speaker 1: 10:16

Many neighbours have spoken to news outlets about their children playing with Jasmine Natasha and just generally being really shocked about the news. In the schools that Jasmine Natasha attended, they have offered support to all pupils. In a joint statement, matthew Cross, the headteacher at Queen's Hill Primary School, and Dr Roger Harris, the headteacher at Tavaham High School, said, quote Both our schools have worked closely alongside colleagues from Norfolk County Council's critical incident support team over the weekend to ensure we have extra support and provision in place so we can meet the needs of both our pupils and staff at this difficult time, and the community have also laid tribute and memorials for the family near the house. They include flowers, cards and two unicorn toys. One said about Jasmine quote you were such a sweet-caught girl yourself and your sister didn't deserve to have your lives taken away. And this story is obviously still progressing as a police investigation.

Speaker 1: 11:21

But this week a coroner's inquest was actually opened on the 31st of January, so very recently Now. According to the Daily Mail and other media outlets, the Norfolk area coroner Samantha Gaward actually fought to hold back tears as she read out the causes of death of Natasha and Jasmine. She found, and she read, that Natasha's provisional medical cause of death was recorded as sharp force injuries of the neck and that Jasmine died of an incised wound of the neck. Butoumé died of a stab wound to the neck and Kancheeta died of stab wounds to the neck. Now, apparently, all of the family were actually identified in hospital by one of their neighbours, a woman called Louise Smith, who'd lived by them for about two and a half years Now. As part of this opening of the inquest, the coroner also apparently requested a court report from a local mental health trust. So she's obviously trying to find as much information as she can as part of this inquest and the coroner then adjourned proceedings on the 31st of January until a pre-inquest review hearing, which is going to be held on the 29th of April this year, so a few months away.

Speaker 1: 12:37

Something else that will be happening in the next few months is an IOPC, so independent Office of Police Conduct investigation into the North at Police. They actually referred themselves to the IOPC after it emerged that they didn't respond to the 6am call. On that Friday morning Norfolk's Chief Constable Paul Sanford said in a statement it's only right that when there are questions about our response they are properly investigated and I fully support and welcome this scrutiny. I will not wait for the outcome of this investigation to review our working practices, and that process has started Today. I've asked the Inspectorate to consider undertaking a deeper review than the robust inspection already planned to provide the reassurance that the public and I need in our response to emergency calls. End quote. And we have dealt with an IOPC investigation in a previous episode where they conducted a review about Carl Bluestone, who was a police officer at the time when he killed his wife and children.

Speaker 1: 13:43

So now, looking at the media response to the murders, initially and perhaps unsurprisingly, it was one of shock and confusion, asking questions about who was in the house and what happened. It's now moved on to scrutinising the police and other services response to the family, particularly on why they didn't attend that first call and what happened when Bartoumé was reported missing in December last year. Now a few media outlets are also calling what happened of murder suicide. Now, you know how I feel about that term. It implies that somehow the victims were in on what happened, and I don't think that's what this was, and I think it will be really interesting to see how the media continues to respond to this, as maybe the inquest happens and more information comes out about what happened that night. Now there is still lots more to come out about what really happened in that house on that morning and I will be sure to keep you updated, but for now let's remember the victims and think about the support that their family and friends need.

Speaker 1: 14:48

This has been Killer in the Family podcast, written and produced by me, claire Laxton, with music from the brilliant Tom Box and Pixabay. I'll be back next week with another episode. So please subscribe, whatever you get, your podcast and don't forget to look at nominating Killer in the Family podcast for the Listeners' Choice Award at the True Crime Awards. Check the episode notes on my social media at Killer in the Family pod for how to do that. Do let me know any stories you'd like me to cover as well. Until then, I've been Claire Laxton. This is Killer in the Family podcast. Until next time, take care.