It’s no joke that Marcin Majerkiewicz has just been found guilty of killing his friend, Stuart Everett in a brutally violent assault. Stuart’s dismembered body was eventually discovered on parks and nature reserves across Greater Manchester by authorities. A grisly crime was soon uncovered when detectives found several decomposed human body parts tucked away in a remote forest. This disturbing discovery led to an extensive police investigation. Her investigation helped name Majerkiewicz as the perpetrator after detectives spent hundreds of hours combing through CCTV footage.
On April 3, Majerkiewicz traced the home address of Everett’s brother, Richard Ziemacki. He then wrote Richard a birthday card, impersonating Everett in the process. The card, which bore Majerkiewicz's fingerprints, read in a chilling note:
"To Rich, happy birthday and all the best my old man 🙂 Benny xxxx."
Despite his attempts to mask his crime, Richard Ziemacki testified that he did not recognize the handwriting as belonging to his brother.
What Majerkiewicz did was much worse than just mailing misleading birthday cards. After killing Everett, the man used Everett’s phone to text Everett’s family members. His goal was to preserve the charade Everett was actually alive. These efforts were willed and proactive only in the service of uncovering the crime.
His body parts were discovered along the nearby roads, emphasizing the viciousness and brutality of the hate crime. A Home Office pathologist testified that they could virtually reconstruct pieces of Everett’s skull. Evidence showed that he was originally killed with a hammer-type implement and then dismembered with hand tools.
Detectives had an uphill investigation in part because of the complexity and breadth of the case. First, they reacted to the only partial remains found by accident in the remote forest. According to Detective Chief Superintendent Lewis Hughes:
“This is a case of rarely seen complexity and scale, with detectives initially responding to partial human remains found deep within a secluded wood.”
No matter how insurmountable the odds were stacked against them, the police knew that they needed to crack the case.
“But we said from the start that we wouldn’t give up and the victim and their family remained at the forefront of our minds and actions throughout.” – Det Ch Supt Lewis Hughes
A critical breakthrough in the investigation occurred when an officer spotted Majerkiewicz on a bus, leading to his identification as "heavy bag man," a key suspect in the CCTV footage.