Cracking the Case Season 1 Episode 1

Name: Cracking the Case Season 1 Episode 1
Uploaded: 2025-09-20T00:57:13+00:00
Duration: 29 min 3 s
Channel: Reality TV Deep
Description: Cracking the Case Season 1 Episode 1

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00:00Every crime leaves a trail. Fingerprints, DNA, a move caught on camera. In this series we examine

00:13the evidence that led to the perpetrator being caught. I'm joined by two experts. One who

00:26investigated how crimes are committed and one who digs into why. In this episode we

00:33explore one of Greater Manchester's most disturbing murders. We don't even know

00:40who our victim is, let alone where he died, how he died, who killed him. And look at

00:46what can lead someone to do this. It's barbaric isn't it? I don't know how else to

00:50describe it. You can really see how cold-hearted and callous this individual

00:54live. How can anybody do what they did? So cruel, so unfair.

01:05This is Cracking the Case.

01:13It's a sunny spring day in April 2024 and deep in a leafy nature reserve in Salford,

01:20a passerby notices a suspicious package. It's bulky, it's wrapped in cling film and

01:26it's been left in an abandoned concrete bunker. And the cling film looks like it

01:31might be bloodstained. Little does this person know that inside that package is a

01:36human torso. Now when police eventually are able to look at it they can't find any

01:41identifying marks or tattoos or scars. And the age of the victim is unknown as well.

01:48Rebecca, where do you even begin in a case like this?

01:50That's a great question. As you said, the initial DNA test results of that torso

01:54pull back nothing. And that's because the victim had no dealings with the police.

01:58The DNA wasn't on the database. But you're absolutely right, at this stage all they could

02:04tell was that the victim was a male adult, but they had nothing else to go on. Who is

02:09this man? Where is the rest of the body? And crucially, who had done this to him?

02:15Yeah, which means somebody capable of a dark and despicable act like that is on the loose.

02:20Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the perpetrator has committed a horrific crime. They have dismembered

02:26the human body and been carrying around and disposing remains. This is clearly somebody

02:31that's very dangerous and needs to be caught immediately.

02:34Yeah, let's hear from the people that were on the scene.

02:41The torso was deposited in a concrete bunker in Coesledale Wetlands, which is a country park.

02:47The torso was left on a concrete slab quite exposed and in the middle of the bunker.

02:54Well, Coesledale Nature Reserve, it's a kind of beautiful sort of valley, really.

03:01This is the underground concrete bunker. It's only 50, maybe 100 yards from the main Bury New Road,

03:10one of Manchester's busiest commuter routes. There was police tape between the trees right

03:16across huge areas of Coesledale here, and it was really, really unusual. In those early days, we didn't have a suspect

03:23and we didn't even have the name of the victim.

03:26Our priority now is establishing who this person is and ensuring that we carry out a diligent and respectful investigation

03:34on behalf of that person and their family, whoever they may be.

03:38Straight away, you can see that this is going to be a challenging investigation. We don't even know who our victim is,

03:43let alone where he died, how he died, who killed him. It is a race against time because the longer we take to solve an investigation

03:50or to get lines of inquiry for us to pursue, evidence perishes.

03:56I made the decision that every CCTV camera around the perimeter of this huge woodland would be recovered.

04:02We would go back five days, some 2,000 hours worth of CCTV from memory, working along the hypothesis that people are somewhat lazy.

04:10Carrying a body part that weighed in the region of 18 kilograms would be quite difficult to do.

04:16You can't drive into the woodland. This journey could only have been completed on foot.

04:21After many, many days of trawling hours of CCTV, we found just what we were looking for.

04:27Somebody carrying a heavy, very heavy-looking bag for life.

04:31He was seen to change hands several times on this journey to put the bag down to rest before entering the woodland

04:38and disappearing deep off the CCTV, right near to where the concrete bunker was.

04:44After a few minutes, we see this same male emerging from the woodland with the bag now seemingly empty

04:50and folded into a square in his hand.

04:53That was a key juncture in the case where I determined that unidentified heavy bag man, as he became known,

04:59I believe that was our killer.

05:01And knowing what was in that bag makes those CCTV images just spine-chilling.

05:10And whilst police may have their prime suspect, it is still very unclear who this heavy bag man is.

05:17Now, mapping his movements through CCTV and bus journeys, police are led to a possible home area of Winton.

05:25OK, and it's here three weeks after the torso's been discovered that there's a major breakthrough.

05:31Two officers who are driving around the area on the inquiry spot someone by complete chance that they think is the suspect

05:40and they follow him as he boards the number 100 bus.

05:44So, it's a white male, he's wearing a dark or black coloured genie hat with what looks like an orange logo on it.

05:51Carrying kind of grey back to life.

05:54There's no one matching that description here.

05:57Uniformed officers are called and they pull their police car in front of the bus and board it where this happens.

06:05Can I have any fun of you?

06:07What's up here?

06:08Hello, there's a group, give a call please.

06:09Can I have a double check please?

06:11Yeah, yeah.

06:12OK.

06:13Last of the box not for a last point.

06:15He's getting a mistake.

06:17100%.

06:18It's 12 minutes past the war.

06:20It's minute time.

06:21You're under arrest.

06:22Suspicion of murder.

06:23Do you understand the offence?

06:24You're under arrest for the meeting time.

06:25OK.

06:26Suspicion of murder for an instant which occurred in Salford.

06:28All right?

06:29So you were taken to police station for question regarding that.

06:32OK, I'll go with you and I'll get some.

06:34Any questions there?

06:35Yeah.

06:36All right.

06:37I mean, look at his body language.

06:39He's bemused, he's incredulous but he knows he's guilty.

06:42Martin Majerkovich is arrested three weeks after the torso was discovered.

06:47Yeah, and actually despite the denials you just heard there, he's actually in possession of a mobile phone that doesn't belong to him and numerous bank cards that aren't actually in his name.

06:57Police then promptly search the suspect's address 195 Worsley Road where they discover blood staining and a botched clean-up job.

07:07Tests soon confirm that the traces of DNA located at Worsley Road match the torso.

07:13It was the DNA of Mr Stuart Everett, the suspect's housemate of seven years who hadn't been seen for several weeks.

07:20Retired civil servant Stuart Everett or Benny to his family was 67 when he died.

07:30He wasn't married and he didn't have kids but he was very close to his two brothers and sister.

07:35He was the youngest member of the family so he got a bit of a ribbon from his older brothers like we all do.

07:44But he took it in good heart.

07:46He was particularly bright and very on the button all the way through school.

07:51He was a character.

07:53He was his own man and he was a bit unique in the way he was.

07:58And I think everybody loved him for being who he was.

08:02He made many many good friends.

08:04He was an exceptionally sociable chap and he was always very friendly to absolutely everybody.

08:09Like myself he loved having a bet on the horses.

08:12He loved having a good drink like old Polish people do.

08:16He had an extensive record collection.

08:18Benny has made an appearance and here he is.

08:21After three years of drinking, binge drinking, eating, Covid and everything like that.

08:30He's managed to struggle through and he is here and it's a pleasure to see my brother as well.

08:35He used to confide in me more than anybody because we were very close.

08:42Having lived with Stuart for seven years, he must have known how close the family was.

08:46And this is where one of the most haunting aspects of this case comes in, the birthday card.

08:52So we've got a copy here of what appears to be a handwritten birthday card from Stuart to his brother Rich.

09:01Right. And Richard didn't think anything of it when he got this card and he sent a message to say thank you.

09:06And then he actually got a reply which said, enjoy your day.

09:11But here's the thing.

09:12Richard's birthday was the day after the torso had been discovered.

09:16So obviously this message isn't from Stuart.

09:19And in fact, this card is actually covered in the fingerprints of Majorkovich.

09:23So in the days after the murder, not only had he sent this card,

09:26but he actually assumed Stuart's identity and took control of his phone.

09:30He was sending messages to family members, basically pretending that the victim was still alive.

09:35Yeah. Pretending to be his victim.

09:37Myrkovich tells Stuart's brother Richard that he's moving out of the shared house urgently.

09:43Richard responds to this message saying, stay calm and carry on, young Benny.

09:48It seems like an elaborate exercise to disguise and hide his death from his family,

09:53a really cruel one as well.

09:55Let's hear what it's like for his brother Richard.

10:00The deception was cold, calculating.

10:07When it dawned on me that he'd actually been murdered,

10:13I took a closer look and he called me old man.

10:16He never called me old man.

10:18It was certainly not written by him.

10:20And that really looked like a dagger through the heart.

10:26I'll never get rid of these.

10:27All the messages that were allegedly from Benny weeks after he had actually been murdered.

10:34Basically pretending that he was still alive, he was still going to move house.

10:39He was fine.

10:40That was sent by the murderer.

10:42Then I've put, it's Marie's birthday today.

10:45He put, to be honest, I completely forgot.

10:48Thanks again, I've sent wishes and £20 for scratch cards.

10:52So basically the murderer sent her £20 for scratch cards out of my brother's bank card,

10:58nearly three weeks after he had murdered him.

11:01The lengths this individual went to, to actually deceive everybody as long as possible for his own means was quite, quite abhorrent.

11:15It's beyond imagination really to think of the pain the family are going through there.

11:23Yeah, it is. It's like a triple tragedy, right?

11:25Because any murder is emotional, it's traumatic, but especially in the callous and brutal way that this was carried out.

11:32And then on top of that, you've got the deception of him pretending to be the victim for several weeks.

11:37This is a dark and calculated killer.

11:39Let's get into more about how the police managed to put this together and a warning.

11:43Some of the details of this might be upsetting.

11:46The CCTV is disappearing day by day at this point.

11:49So we did have the pressure of, you know, this is a race against time.

11:52We were able to see the journeys where he would leave with heavy bags, come back without.

11:56Most of these journeys would result in bus journeys, which led us to other places.

12:00And what we would do then is work with Danielle, who was coordinating the searches.

12:04There were 19 search sites in total.

12:08So from beginning to end, it took over a good few months for us to do it.

12:12Sometimes you were working at height because of the trees that were there and the ravines.

12:18We had to get underwater searching because there was lots of water in these sites.

12:22There was absolute extreme heat.

12:25But then a couple of months down the line, it's cold, raining, wet.

12:29What I would then try and do is help Danielle as much as I could with narrowing down timeframes

12:34to say, we know he gets this bus, he can only be there for 15 minutes.

12:38That means he can only go in seven minutes in, seven minutes out maximum.

12:42A couple of these journeys were what we termed as local depositions.

12:46So what staff in my team did is they calculated how long Marcin was off camera

12:51and calculate the average walking speed of a grown man and they would try and reenact that.

12:58I lived, breathed, dreamt about it.

13:00I'd after work in the day, go home, sort my children out, put them to bed.

13:04After that, then get back on the computer because we really wanted to find as much of Stuart as possible

13:09so that he could be laid to rest.

13:11There was pictures of Stuart in the investigation room.

13:14A happy picture of Stuart when he's smiling so that everyone could see the reason why we're here.

13:20Our investigators managed to establish by digital data from the suspect's mobile phone

13:25that he'd travelled to Black Leach Reservoir.

13:28We actually managed to geolocate or pinpoint the suspect to all four corners of the reservoir.

13:35Each point tended to be at a fishing peg and on the day that that suspect has gone into that park

13:42was a Wednesday afternoon, daylight, there was children there, there were people feeding the ducks.

13:48He's gone to each of those fishing peg sites as if he's feeding the ducks.

13:54We managed to discover three pieces of Stuart Everett's skull.

13:59We were therefore able to recover Stuart's head and establish to a forensic standard

14:03that he'd been murdered by blunt force trauma.

14:06So Stuart was murdered about a week before the torso was found.

14:12And that was here at the shared house they had at 195 Worsley Road.

14:18Now the day after that, Mirkovic left home and went and spent £21.09 on cleaning products.

14:26So microfibre cloths, spray and wipes.

14:29He then went back home and spent around two and a half hours there before making another two trips

14:35and one of them was in the direction of nearby Worsley Woods.

14:40Yeah, and as you can see from this CCTV here, here he is heading away from home with a wheeled suitcase.

14:46He returns without it.

14:48Now, while no body parts were actually recovered from the woods,

14:52what police did later discover were there were bags there with Mr Everett's blood.

14:57Yeah, and he's up again the next morning.

15:00He travels across town and two buses this time, police think, in the direction of Boggart Hole Clough.

15:06We see him again just before nine o'clock, walking along there with a red bag.

15:12And there's body parts and that could be shopping for all the...

15:14Chilling, isn't it? But then here we go, we see him returning minus the bags.

15:19Weeks later, police would actually find a section of Mr Everett's spinal column at the site.

15:24Yeah, I mean, that really is horrifying, that detail, isn't it?

15:26That really is horrific.

15:27Later that day, here we have him again.

15:29He's making another journey, this time with two bags.

15:32This is the same camera angle.

15:33But again, not long after, he's returning home without those bags.

15:37Now, police actually lost sight of his movement, so we can't actually say for certain where he went.

15:43But they believe it was possibly to Chesterfield Close.

15:46And that's because later, officers actually discovered nine packages of body parts at that location.

15:52And many of those packages included internal organs.

15:55Yeah. Now, there's a break over Easter at this point, right?

15:58Yeah, there is. The trial judge would later suggest that that's because Miukovic believed it may be too busy.

16:03So, the 2nd of April, the trips start again. And this is important because one of those is to Cursaldale.

16:09And that's two days before the torso was found there.

16:12Yeah, and we've seen this CCTV before. Look, he's carrying that blue bag for life.

16:17And we can just about see him leaving Cursaldale here with a folded up bag.

16:22That bag is now empty.

16:23And then, the same pattern yet again, a trip to Blackleach Reservoir.

16:28That's what we heard about where, you know, kids are there feeding the ducks.

16:31I know, isn't that really chilling?

16:32Police eventually recovered six body parts from that site, including the parts of Mr Everett's head.

16:39And from deep in the water, a hacksaw.

16:42And in amongst all of that, he's also seen on CCTV here, going into KFC for some food, right?

16:48That's unbelievable.

16:49Just after removing those body parts.

16:52Yeah, so he's going back and forward between the house with bags full of body parts and returning without them.

16:57Yeah, so he makes at least 11 trips across Greater Manchester to deposit these remains.

17:03And each bag is actually wrapped in cling film or black bags.

17:08And he actually stored these items in a freezer before he disposed of them.

17:12Okay, and what's really striking when you see that CCTV show is his body language.

17:16He doesn't look like somebody that is in the middle of the horrific act that we now know he committed.

17:22Yeah, not at all.

17:23He looks very casual from the outside, doesn't he?

17:25But there must have been some kind of inner turmoil.

17:28At the very least, a fear of getting caught.

17:31So, where all of Stuart remains, then returned to his family?

17:35Sadly not, no.

17:36No, so the police carried out a search for four months and they found 27 body parts in six key sites.

17:43And if you look over here on this map, you can see the scale of it all and how widespread it was.

17:48Despite that search, Mjerkiewicz refused to give up the location of the rest of Stuart's body.

17:54That must be really difficult for a family.

17:56Correct, he did.

17:57And you've got to ask the question, why, right?

17:59Was it simply sadistic gratification?

18:01So, was he trying to deny the family closure?

18:05Or was it maybe a psychological denial?

18:07So, until he reveals where the body parts are, it's still an abstract concept of a murder rather than something that he's taking responsibility for.

18:16Yeah.

18:17And Rebecca, what else did the police discover?

18:18In court, the pathologist said it was a sustained and severe physical assault with repeated blows to the head with a heavy object such as a hammer.

18:29Police believe the murder was carried out in Mjerkiewicz's bedroom where they found blood staining and actually a suspicious piece of missing carpet.

18:37Yeah.

18:38And we've got some photos here which kind of lays a bit of that out, right?

18:40So, there's the carpet with that part of it missing.

18:42Yeah.

18:43So, by the look of this, Mjerkiewicz struggled to get the blood out of that carpet and instead of repeatedly trying, he decided to cut out the carpet completely.

18:51And actually, police didn't have to look very far to find that last bit of carpet because it was actually in a skip outside the front of the house.

18:57And another item in the flat, this sofa.

19:00Yeah.

19:01So, blood was also actually found on this sofa bed where they believed Stuart had been killed.

19:06Now, using this Blue Star forensic kit, it actually shows up here in the blue, the traces of blood there.

19:13Yeah.

19:14And some of these actions are extremely disturbing, Johan.

19:16We're not reporting all of them because some of it is just too upsetting.

19:19Sure.

19:20Yeah.

19:21It's barbaric, isn't it?

19:22I don't know how else to describe it.

19:23You can really see how cold-hearted and callous this individual is.

19:27And he's gone to such huge lengths to cover up his crime as well, right?

19:30Yeah.

19:31What he did was frankly audacious.

19:32So, not only did he lie to Stuart's family, he was lying to neighbours, to the landlord, to utility companies.

19:40He indicated that Stuart had had a stroke and was moving away.

19:44He actually impersonated Stuart on a phone call to a phone company.

19:47So, he was slurring his words to give that impression.

19:50And bear in mind, this isn't a stranger.

19:53This is not a random victim.

19:54This is somebody that he's lived with for seven years.

19:56Unimaginable.

19:57But I wonder what it is that leads someone to commit such a horrific crime.

20:02What do we know about Majorkovic?

20:07Marcin Majorkovic was 41 years old when he murdered Stuart.

20:12And he was originally from Poland, but he'd been living in the UK for 20 years.

20:17He was a father of two, and he was previously living with his children until he separated from their mother.

20:24And that's when he moved in with Stuart.

20:26We also know that he worked in fast food restaurants, although he was actually unemployed at the time of the killing.

20:33In his first police interview, he was asked to describe himself.

20:36And he claimed to be a normal, average man.

20:39He liked football and tried to see his children when he could.

20:42He actually had no history of any violent behaviour, no past convictions.

20:47In fact, the judge in court even brought that up and said he was a previous good character.

20:51So police saw nothing in his past that they might be worried about?

20:55Well, there was one thing that rose alarm bells, which is that he had this interest and he could even say obsession with horror and gore.

21:02In fact, he even had a tattoo of Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th, which begs the question,

21:09is there a connection between, you know, gore and horror and violence and murder?

21:14And research has shown that there is, but it's quite tenuous and it's quite weak.

21:19In fact, some people even see watching this type of media as cathartic.

21:24So it's like a dark outlet for disturbing thoughts.

21:28And just to be clear, if someone really likes horror movies, there's absolutely nothing about that that would suggest they're necessarily at a risk of violence.

21:35Yeah, of course. So for the vast majority of people, what you said is correct.

21:38I think there are some individuals that can be influenced by horror and gore, but they usually have some pathology like a personality disorder or a mental illness or they have some trauma themselves.

21:49And in those individuals, this kind of media, it can cause desensitisation towards violence or sometimes it can act like a blueprint.

21:57So they're literally copying that behaviour.

21:59And what else do we know about the relationship between Mijerkowicz and Stewart?

22:02Yeah, so the judge actually described them as close friends. There was certainly no indication before the murder that they had any form of falling out.

22:10In fact, the jury was shown messages that Stewart had sent to his friends where he described Mijerkowicz as his partner.

22:17John, you're a forensic psychiatrist here. Try to get us into the head of someone that is allegedly so close to somebody, but could do this to them.

22:26Well, clearly what we're seeing is a colossal lack of empathy. But on top of that, I wonder whether we're seeing traits of psychopathy.

22:33So as well as being manipulative and deceitful, pretending, imitating to be the victim, we're seeing other aspects of psychopathy, like being criminally versatile or parasitic, which is when you leech off somebody else.

22:46One of the things that I think speaks volumes about Mijerkowicz's character is he didn't show any remorse or guilt during his trial.

22:56Let's have a look at what happened in court.

23:01At the start of this investigation, we had absolutely nothing to go off, no obvious lines of inquiry, no obvious evidence.

23:06By the time we reached court and the trial took place, we presented an overwhelming and formidable case.

23:12The jury was warned that this was a particularly gruesome case.

23:16They say that Mr. Mijerkowicz cut up the body and distributed body parts.

23:21I was trying to keep my eye really on Marcin Mijerkowicz.

23:25I remember thinking, how does he think he's going to get away with this?

23:30The police had pieced together every step that that man had taken.

23:34Marcin Mijerkowicz never gave evidence in his own defence.

23:38He was quite relaxed throughout the court proceedings.

23:41There was no indication that he thought the game was up.

23:45Either thought they were going to get away with it or didn't particularly care of the consequences of being convicted of murder.

23:50He didn't give any kind of indication that he felt any remorse.

23:54No real emotion, even on the conviction.

23:56You acted in an almost unbelievably cold-blooded and macabre way and showed complete disrespect and contempt for your friend's remains.

24:06I do believe it's one of GMP's finest investigations from start to finish.

24:11They must have felt a great level of satisfaction to be able to really nail somebody for their actions.

24:18And then for the jury to be out for less than, I think it was two hours.

24:23When you look at that prosecution case, all of the evidence they had, it was very, very clear that he was going to be found guilty of murder.

24:31Take him down.

24:33Take him down.

24:42I did exactly this.

24:45It just went like this.

24:50How can anybody do what they did, not only to my brother, but to any human being?

24:56And what they did to him afterwards, and it's all the way they tried to deceive everybody concerned, including families, so cruel, so horrible, so unfair.

25:11Understandably, incredibly upsetting for Stuart's family, but the evidence that the jury saw which found Mirkovic guilty seemed overwhelming.

25:19Yeah, I mean, they reached their verdict in one hour and 36 minutes.

25:24That's not long, right?

25:25That is not long, especially for a murder investigation.

25:28Exactly a year after Stuart was murdered, Mirkovic was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 34 years.

25:37Did prosecutors ever find a motive?

25:39So the police and the prosecution don't actually have to find a motive, and they didn't in this case.

25:45But the trial judge, Mr Justice Kavanagh, concluded that the evidence pointed to it being for a financial gain.

25:51And it turned out that Mirkovic was in a lot of debt before he killed Stuart.

25:56Yeah, they reckon around £73,000 in total. He'd been out of work for about five months and hadn't paid the rent since.

26:04So just days before the murder, he actually carries out a search on borrowing £50,000.

26:08So things clearly were spiralling out of control for Mirkovic.

26:13I think people might wonder how he would gain financially from Stuart's death.

26:18And even though the court didn't have detailed evidence of Stuart's finances,

26:23the judge says that he was a single man who'd been working all his life,

26:26so he'd probably had substantial savings and maybe access to a credit card,

26:31or at least Mirkovic would have thought so.

26:33Before the murder, Mirkovic actually set up email addresses and phones in Stuart's name.

26:40And immediately after the murder, he actually started spending money from Stuart's bank accounts.

26:45And you can see here Mirkovic using one of Stuart's credit cards.

26:49That's the Trafford Centre in Manchester.

26:51That is actually the day that the torso was discovered.

26:54Yeah, and then the next day, he applies for a bank loan in Stuart's name.

26:59And then looking at his internet history, it had actually been revealed that he'd been looking for properties to rent in Alicante.

27:05So it was alluded to in court that he was actually planning to run off abroad with Stuart's money.

27:12So just to take a step back here, we've got Mirkovic, who it appears thought he could murder his friend, his housemate, possibly his partner.

27:20He could cut the body up into so many pieces, the police maybe never find all of it,

27:26then concoct a web of lies to cover his tracks and then disappear off to a new life in Spain using the money that he'd stolen from his victim.

27:34I mean, Rebecca, what do you make of this crime?

27:36We talk about cracking the case, don't we? But this one wasn't just a puzzle.

27:40It was more like a horror story that was pieced together bit by bit, quite literally.

27:45And to be honest, I've never seen anything quite this disturbing.

27:48And Shoham, in terms of, on a human level, how can one person do this to another that they know so well, especially?

27:54It's so hard to get our heads around, isn't it?

27:56Of course, it's not unusual for somebody to do something extreme for money, violence, even murder, but it is really unusual to do it to a friend.

28:04So to me, this shows compartmentalisation.

28:06So the ability to remove himself emotionally from his horrific crimes.

28:11Yeah, and at the heart of this, we can't forget a family who have lost a much-loved brother and uncle

28:17and who will have to deal with that for the rest of their lives.

28:21Thank you both.

28:51Thank you both.

28:52Thank you both.

28:53Thank you both.

28:54Thank you both.

28:55Thank you both.

28:57Thank you both.

28:58Thank you both.