Ryszard Stanslaw Wasilewski

Unsolved Murders

Age: 32

Sex: male

Date: 9 Dec 1984

Place: 18a Haldane Road, Fulham

Ryszard Stanslaw Wasilewski was found hanged at his lodgings in Haldane Road, Fulham on 6 January 1984.

He had been a chemical worker and was said to have feared for his children's safety in Poland and felt that he had been being followed.

He had arrived in London from Poland in November 1983 and had planned to study English.

His friends told him that he had changes, having gone from being cheerful and happy to being depressed and upset, but that he had told them that he could not tell them what was worrying him because he feared for his children's safety.

A pathologist gave his cause of death as being due to hanging.

It was heard that he had hung himself in his bedsit by a belt attached to a nail in the wall which had then slipped off. When his body was found he was slumped on a fridge in his bedsit.

His room-mate said that Ryszard Wasilewski had been very quiet. He said:

During the last few days he kept sitting up in bed sayin, 'They won't do anything to me. It ill be okay'.

His body was found by a man along with the landlord and landlady. He said that he had first met Ryszard Wasilewski when he had been to see the landlord. The man said:

He was eager to move to new lodgings and kept saying somebody was following him.

A relative of his said that Ryszard Wasilewski would not tell him why he was distressed. He said:

He said his children in Poland would be in danger if he told me. I understood this to be some sort of blackmail. He was very happy with things before he suddenly became depressed. And he had hoped to return to his wife and children in Poland very soon.

following his death his wife came to London to find out what had happened to him. She said that he had arrived in London in November 1983 to study English to help him work. She said:

We spoke on the phone and he seemed well and normal. He was working on a building site and a restaurant and was due to take an exam at a London college.

She said that she was shocked to recieve a telegram from her husbands landlord on 7 January 1984 saying:

Your husband died on January 6.

She said that she knew that he had been robbed, but had no knowledge of any danger he had been in. She also said that some of his personal belongings had been stolen.

His landlord said that when Ryszard Wasilewski told him he had been robbed, that he advised him to go to the police. He said:

He carried his money in his breast pocket and did not use a bank or building society. He would not go to the police. He was afraid of something but he would not tell me what was worrying him.

The landlords wife said that Ryszard Wasilewski had been very troubled. She said:

On the day he died, he asked me to go upstairs to his room. The curtains were drawn and he would not let me open them. He was very nervous and frightened. But he would not say what was wrong.

She said that later in the day she heard a crash in his room about 2.45pm, and then went out shopping. She said that when she returned she asked her husband's friend to investigate, and that when her husband returned they tried to get in to Ryszard Wasilewski's rrom but couldn't open the door.

She said that the police were then called, and a police constable found Ryszard Wasilewski's body slumped on the floor near the fridge with a belt round his neck. He then noticed a nail in the wall to whchi he presumed the belt had originall been attached.

Several of his friends said that Ryszard Wasilewski had no political interest or involvement, and that he had been a devout Catholic. They aded that they were all shocked by his death, stating that they didn't think he was the sort of person who would have committed suicide.

A friend of his, a worker for International Medical Aid for Poland, said that she met Ryszard Wasilewski on a cargo ship to London. She said:

He had hoped to earn a bit of money and iprove his English. He was devoted to his wife and children. He became a very good friend of my family and visited us on December 20. He was very nervous. The reason he gave me was because he lost some money, but I thought there was something else. He didn't trust the gentleman with whom he shared a room and he was apprehensive of the environment of his house.

Two more friends also gave evidence as to his personality change and his refusal to discuss his problem.

Ryszard Wasilewski's family to the Coroner that a number of people were inhibited from coming to the inquest to give evidence because they were acting unlawfully by working.

Following the evidence at the Hammersmith Coroners Court, the jury at the inquest returned an open verdict

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

see www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

see Hammersmith & Shepherds Bush Gazette - Thursday 16 February 1984

see Fulham Chronicle - Friday 17 February 1984