unsolved-murders.co.uk
Unsolved Murders
Tags

Maria Kosenko

Age: 28

Sex: female

Date: 27 Sep 1949

Place: William Street, Hunslet, Leeds, West Yorkshire

Maria Kosenko was found hanged at her home.

She had been married to a textile worker for 17 days and was from the Ukraine.

A few hours before she was found dead, she had gone to the Leeds police headquarters to say that she could no longer live with her husband, during which time she had fainted.

The detectives that spoke to her said that she looked ill-fed and tired and said that when her husband, who had been sent for, arrived, she cringed away from him.

She had married on 10 September 1949 at a registry office in Dewsbury, but her husband said that after two days of marriage he had asked Maria Kosenko to leave him.

He denied striking Maria Kosenko.

He said that when he left the Town Hall with Maria Kosenko on the Tuesday 27 September 1949 that he gave her the key to their home so that she could collect some of her things, noting that he expected her to then hide the key in a place known to both of them.

However, he said that when he returned from work he found that the door was locked and that he was unable to get in and that he could not get in until a Polish couple that lived in the same house arrived.

He said that after finding her hanging in the house he attempted to revive her.

A woman that lived in the same house said that two days after Maria Kosenko married her husband that she left following a quarrel the previous night. However, she said that she later came back about a week later and said that there was another quarrel and that she heard Maria Kosenko shouting and crying as if she were being beaten. She said, 'After the row, she asked me for advice, saying, 'What shall I do? He kicked me and beat me''.

Maria Kosenko was a Ukrainian-Pole and had been employed at a Dewsbury mill, having come to England about 12 months earlier.

An open verdict was returned.

William Street has been demolished, but was where the the Union Works industrial estate off Leathley Road is today, at the eastern end.


*map pointers are rough estimates based on known location details as per Place field above.

see www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

see Yorkshire Evening Post - Thursday 29 September 1949

see Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer - Wednesday 28 September 1949

see Yorkshire Evening Post - Wednesday 28 September 1949