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00:02When a murder's committed, it's always a race against time to find the truth, to separate fact from fiction, to
00:10catch the killer, and to make sure that justice is served.
00:15But what happens when the truth vanishes with the victim?
00:20I'm Dr Richard Sheppard, and I've spent my entire career as a forensic pathologist, performing nearly 23,000 autopsies.
00:30I've learned that the dead don't hide the truth, and they never lie.
00:36Through me, you'll be hearing directly from the victim.
00:40With the aid of a state-of-the-art laboratory using groundbreaking technology, I'll be investigating a series of intriguing
00:48crimes,
00:49where, from the victim's bodies, I'll reveal to you the truth behind these murders.
01:00Little Venice in London is famous for the houseboats that make their way along the Grand Union Canal.
01:07But in May 2015, this picture postcard location became a crime scene, when a member of the public made a
01:15shocking discovery.
01:23In the Little Venice area of West London near to Paddington Railway Station, it's an area where quite a lot
01:30of people live on barges as their place of residence.
01:32And two people were in a canal boat and heard a noise against the side of their boat, which caused
01:40them to look outside, and they saw a suitcase in the canal.
01:46The two friends on that houseboat looked down into the water and saw distinctive red hair flowing out of it.
01:57They became very concerned and decided to call the police.
02:02Well, police obviously need to essentially find out what's happened.
02:05So, being able to recover the suitcase from the canal, which is in itself a potentially quite challenging task because
02:13it's in the water.
02:14So police have got to make a decision as to whether they enter the water or not.
02:18If they're able to actually reach and remove the item without entering the water, that is obviously safer.
02:23So they've got to consider that. Then also the actual weight of the suitcase, because at that point they don't
02:28know what's in the suitcase,
02:29and it's in a body of water, so it may well be full of water, which will add to the
02:33weight.
02:34Having retrieved the suitcase, police and forensic teams were shocked at what it contained.
02:42What was found in the suitcase was a body that had been placed essentially in the fetal position.
02:49The body was wrapped in bin bags and also a curtain was placed in the suitcase.
02:56When a body is found in a suitcase in a canal, that's a homicide. That's a suspicious death.
03:02The police immediately launched a murder investigation.
03:06The first thing that they will need to do is identify who that person is in the suitcase,
03:14because it would be very difficult for the police to find out who killed them without knowing who they are.
03:22So the police looked to the body for answers.
03:27The body that was found in the canal was folded inside a suitcase.
03:31It was in the fetal position and wrapped in curtains and bin bags.
03:36There was no ID, no purse, no other obvious identification.
03:41But it's still possible for this body to reveal a lot of information.
03:46Even if the body is reduced to simply a skeleton, if you know how to read bones,
03:50you can get a lot of information from that, the age at death, the height,
03:54and from the shape of the pelvis, the sex of the individual.
03:59Some decomposition had set in, but the organs, tissues and skin were still largely intact,
04:05thanks to the cooler water temperature of the canal, which slowed down the rate of decomposition.
04:12So a body like this, where there is still soft tissue, has many more secrets it can reveal to a
04:18forensic pathologist.
04:19In the mortuary, the body can be measured and weighed,
04:23and the teeth can help determine the age too, since they erupt throughout life.
04:28For instance, the wisdom teeth appear in your twenties.
04:32In this case, the body had its wisdom teeth, and the shape of the pelvic bone indicated it was female.
04:39From all this, it could be determined with some certainty that she was a white woman,
04:45approximately five foot two, weighing eight stone,
04:48and it was clear that she was young, in her early twenties.
04:53But there was no missing persons report for anyone like that.
04:57So who was she?
05:01With little to go on, even forensic evidence proved limited.
05:07Ultimately, when somebody's body is in water, it's likely to remove things like DNA, opportunities to recover evidence.
05:17For me, the most important thing is to make an appeal via the media, via all forms of media,
05:22asking for witnesses to come forward, asking for people to report in anybody that they're concerned about,
05:29to try and work through opportunities to identify who the person is.
05:34Because once that's established, it opens up a vast array of other opportunities
05:39to identify if there are any other scenes that need to be cordoned and searched and examined.
05:46Because, for example, where she was actually placed into the water,
05:49if it was different to where the suitcase was found.
06:03Then detectives got a breakthrough.
06:06A man called Thomas Kochik contacted police to report his girlfriend missing.
06:11Kochik later identified the body as that of Marta Ligman.
06:20Journalist Henry Vaughan remembers the case well.
06:24I first heard about the case of Marta Ligman when her body was discovered in a suitcase in the Grand
06:31Union Canal.
06:32I was working as a court reporter at the time.
06:35It's a very unusual set of circumstances, so that is something that sticks in the mind.
06:42Marta Ligman came to the UK in 2012 and she worked in a delicatessen in Harlsdon in north-west London.
06:49Very highly thought of by her boss, described as a very pleasant girl
06:54with aspirations to get married, to have a family, to settle in the UK.
06:58The very, very pleasant demeanour, very helpful and outgoing.
07:03She'd come over from Poland to the United Kingdom to live and work and make a life for herself.
07:11A very brave thing for her to have done, actually.
07:15She was very popular, had lots of friends and well-liked by everyone who knew her.
07:23In London, Marta moved in with her Polish boyfriend, Thomas Kuczyk, who she'd first met back in Poland.
07:32Marta met Kuczyk on an internet chat room.
07:38Both Polish nationals, so they formed a friendship, formed a relationship.
07:44Thomas Kuczyk was quite a bit older than Marta, around 38 at the time.
07:49He was also from Poland and lived in London, working as a Forklift truck driver.
07:55He'd also spent some time in Ireland before moving to the UK.
07:59That relationship then developed into what seemingly was a very, very affectionate, loving relationship,
08:07to the extent that Marta took the decision to move from her home in Poland to London, a big step
08:14for her,
08:15to set up home, really, with Thomas Kuczyk.
08:23She probably went into that relationship feeling so happy, so excited, and she may even have fallen for him before
08:32they physically met.
08:33She may have fallen for him whilst they're still, you know, maybe talking online.
08:38At the start, they seemed to have a very good relationship, and she was very happy.
08:43The neighbours said they seemed like a perfect couple, and also that Kuczyk seemed quite protective of Marta.
08:50Kuczyk was around 15 years older than Marta.
08:54He was a builder, by trade, and came into this country purely for work purposes.
09:01He was a very caring person towards Marta.
09:03He was always concerned about her wellbeing, and he wanted to look after her.
09:08So they had a very happy and settled relationship.
09:11Marta wanted to get married. She wanted to have children.
09:14And she thought, when she met Kuczyk, that that was his dream as well.
09:19This is what I want too. I want a wife. I want a family. I want children. I'm very traditional.
09:26So that would have played into everything that she wanted.
09:32Lots of people from the outside seemingly very happy.
09:36So how did this young woman's life end so tragically?
09:39Things can change literally overnight.
09:46In 2015, police launched a murder investigation after the body of 23-year-old Polish delicatessen worker, Marta Ligman was
09:56found folded into a suitcase and dumped in a London Canal.
10:02When her body was found in a suitcase in the Grand Union Canal, it's a very unusual set of circumstances.
10:09So it was an immediately high-profile case.
10:13It's important to recognise that the location where Marta's body was found in the Canal is not necessarily the same
10:20as the deposition site, i.e. where the suitcase entered the Canal.
10:24And also, there may be other locations where events have taken place that would inform the investigation about the events
10:30that led to Marta's death.
10:31There were witnesses who had seen the suitcase in the Canal and dismissed it without causing any suspicion in their
10:40minds about the suitcase.
10:42But it had travelled a significant distance to the point of Little Venice where Marta's body was discovered.
10:49However, what may well be preserved because of the fact that Marta is enclosed within the suitcase is evidence of
10:56injuries or evidence that would be later informed the investigation as to how she died.
11:07The post-mortem showed she'd been in the Canal for between seven and ten days.
11:13We can estimate this because the water in the Canal, where Marta's body was found, would have been colder than
11:20the air temperature and therefore slowed down the decomposition of her body, making it easier to determine the exact time
11:28of death.
11:28We know that she was folded up very tightly in a small space with her knees up to her chest.
11:35This position would have limited movement of the rib cage and stopped air being drawn into her lungs.
11:43It would have been almost impossible to get her folded into that tight space unless she was immobile.
11:49But what we don't know is whether she was dead when she was put into the suitcase or just unconscious.
11:56And the terrible truth is that Marta might still have been alive when she was thrown into the canal.
12:10The most distressing detail that the pathologist could not rule out that Marta was not alive or dead when she
12:17was placed into the suitcase.
12:20In their hunt for the killer, police needed to eliminate the most obvious suspect from their inquiries.
12:27The man who'd first reported her missing, her boyfriend, Thomas Kocik.
12:33We know that the most likely person to kill any woman is their partner or ex-partner.
12:40So intimate partner homicide, that's where a man kills his partner or ex-partner, is actually the biggest category of
12:48homicide for women.
12:49So as soon as Marta is identified, Kocik is at the top of the list straight away.
12:58Kocik was 15 years older than Marta Ligman.
13:02And I think it's quite important just to consider that when they met online, Marta was a teenager.
13:07That is a bit of a red flag because statistically somebody much older than a woman especially is going to
13:17be targeting them because they are more malleable.
13:23They are more vulnerable. They're less experienced in life.
13:27So I think in terms of power imbalance and the dynamic within the relationship, he was likely to be more
13:32sort of influential in the way that things were within the relationship, which again could have affected the way that
13:38they live their lives together and subsequent events.
13:45There are extra risks, I think, to meeting somebody online.
13:52It's very easy to present yourself as something other than you actually are online.
13:57And it's very, very difficult to question any of that.
14:01And if you do those first few meetings online, by the time you are face-to-face with that person,
14:08you think you already know a lot about them.
14:11And so your instincts in that first face-to-face meeting will be very much dampened.
14:29Marta had lived in the UK for about three years.
14:33And friends had noticed that Marta's behaviour had started to change, so she'd become quieter, more reserved.
14:39And some concerns generally were being noted by people that knew her or they felt that something was not quite
14:47right within the relationship.
14:49The changes in her started to happen quite quickly.
14:52She started to withdraw, she started to lose weight, she started being less happy, seeing less of her friends.
15:01And that concerned them.
15:05Kujic became very controlling and her friends said she wasn't the sort of happy-go-lucky person she used to
15:11be.
15:12Within three years, Kujic had also become obsessively jealous about Marta.
15:17As time developed during their relationship, things began to take a turn for the worse.
15:22His behaviour became more controlling, more coercive and even obsessive about Marta's movements and her whereabouts.
15:30And he was very intense about it. Every single thing she did, he was there, he was following her, he
15:35was tracking her, he was isolating her.
15:37And asking a lot of very searching questions.
15:41And generally exhibiting an air of suspicion about the way that Marta was behaving.
15:47Without any grounds that are known of.
15:49But just a very controlling kind of approach taken by coaches at that time.
15:54He would turn up at her work, every day he'd pick her up from her work because he didn't trust
16:01her.
16:02There's even one occasion where he demanded that the boss of the deli she worked in show him the CCTV
16:07to prove that she'd been working there.
16:10And that was quite concerning to her boss.
16:16The first control that always comes in is what we call jealousy code.
16:20So he would have been saying things like,
16:23don't like it when you talk to other men, makes me feel really, really jealous, don't do it.
16:27And she probably thought, oh fair enough, I won't do that, I'm not going to wind him up.
16:31But there would have come a point where she did something to break that rule.
16:36Not on purpose.
16:39And he would have punished her for it.
16:41And that punishment will set the tone for everything that happens going forward.
16:53One of her friends recalled an occasion where Marta wore some very thick rimmed spectacles.
16:58And what the friend thought was to try to hide the fact that she had some facial bruising.
17:02This made everyone very concerned about Marta's wellbeing.
17:06The behaviour progressed to essentially monitoring Marta's behaviour,
17:11moving more towards what can generally be described as a controlling or coercive type relationship.
17:18People who are controlling and who use coercive control are actually trying to trap you into a relationship with them.
17:27So that means that you can't get out of this relationship you've committed to me, you can never leave.
17:34To build the case against Kocik being the killer, police needed to know if Marta's body revealed signs of a
17:41controlling and abusive relationship.
17:43So what could Marta's body tell us about the final tragic hours of her life?
17:49When Marta's body was removed from the suitcase, it was evident she'd suffered a severe beating.
17:55She had numerous injuries to her face and her body that must have been inflicted in the hours before she
18:02was thrown into the canal.
18:03But she also had other injuries that were older.
18:07Bruises can be aged because they change colour over time, going from purple and blue to yellow and green and
18:14finally to brown.
18:16Marta's body was covered in old and fresh bruises.
18:20But it's the fractures that are most revealing.
18:23A recent fracture looks like this and here you can see the clear separation in the bones.
18:28But these broken ends will knit back together over a period of weeks and months.
18:34A Marta also had several healed fractures.
18:37So what her body revealed was that she had been subjected to a prolonged and savage attack immediately before her
18:45death.
18:46But it also showed that this was part of a long history of physical abuse.
18:53Older injuries would be consistent with what the friends had described in terms of there being a deterioration in the
18:59relationship and more violence being used towards Marta.
19:05Q-Jig used to play loud music in the flats, which is believed to have covered up him beating her.
19:15So I think she did something trivial or something that he made up and he probably really, really hurt her.
19:23But that's a warning for the future. That's your punishment.
19:28It's what we call the three C's. So it's control, challenge, consequence.
19:34So the control is in place. Rules of the relationship. You will not make me jealous.
19:39There's some kind of challenge to that. Maybe she's caught speaking to somebody.
19:44What are the consequences? The third C, violence.
19:48Now, the consequences reinstate the control. She thinks, I'm never going to do that again.
19:53I am never going to speak to another man or I'm just never going to do anything ever to upset
20:01this man because I'm not scared of him.
20:03She was literally trapped like a hostage in this relationship with him.
20:11There was still no hard evidence linking Ko-Jig to the assaults or the murder.
20:16But Marta's phone messages were raising further suspicions among friends and colleagues.
20:31The boss, the delicatessen, received a message basically to say that Marta was not going to attend work because her
20:37mum was sick in Poland and needed to leave.
20:40Which was described as being out of character for Marta, that Marta would not have sent a message that way.
20:45She would have gone into the shop and explained.
20:48Also, messages were sent to Marta's friends to explain that she'd left Ko-Jig.
20:55So, there was quite an amount of communication from Marta's Facebook account and from her device.
21:05On Facebook Messenger, sending one of her friends over about 50 messages they exchanged between them.
21:15The friends initially believed she was talking to Marta but she became suspicious when the messages began to start suggesting
21:22a threesome.
21:23The level of conduct and the content of the communication caused some alarm to Marta's friend as it also included
21:33activity about engaging in sexual conduct together.
21:39Marta's friend clearly thought this was uncharacteristic of Marta and it raised alarm bells in her head.
21:46She went straight to her home address to see if she was okay, but nobody was at home.
22:01In London in May 2015, the body of 23-year-old Marta Ligman was found folded up in a suitcase
22:09floating in London's Grand Canal.
22:11The post-mortem revealed bruises and fractures, proving that she'd been subjected to a long history of physical abuse.
22:20The prime suspect was her boyfriend, Tomasz Kujic.
22:25Messages sent from Marta's phone and computer before her body was found suggested she had left her boyfriend and returned
22:32to Poland.
22:32But these didn't seem in character. Friends and family feared she was missing.
22:39It's quite common for Marta to speak to her mum on a very regular basis, if not daily. So obviously
22:45Marta wasn't doing that.
22:46Her lack of contact with friends and family, again against her demeanour, uncharacteristic of Marta not to speak to her
22:55mother every day.
22:57The Marta's mum made contact with Tomasz Kujic to establish what had happened and he explained that Marta had left
23:04him,
23:04which also fitted with messages that were being sent purporting to be from Marta.
23:12But once Marta's body was found, it became clear to police that she could not have sent those messages.
23:19She was already dead in the canal.
23:22The only person with access to Marta's devices to send messages was Kujic.
23:29Kujic made contact using Marta's Facebook account. He messaged one of her friends.
23:35The messaging was uncharacteristic of Marta. It alerted her friend immediately that potentially there could be a problem.
23:43So there was a clear attempt by Kujic to mislead a number of people that knew Marta and were clearly
23:50going to ask questions about where she was.
23:52He was just trying to make it all go away, stop anyone reporting her missing and maybe give himself some
24:00time to think.
24:04In creating this kind of web of lies, trying to convince everybody maybe that Marta's still alive so that he
24:13stops people coming to look for her because he knows his name is going to be at the top of
24:17the list if she is found and identified.
24:22Kujic didn't report Marta missing and despite her mother phoning him and asking him to look for her and ask
24:31what he was doing to try and trace her.
24:34He didn't report her missing until her body was found, which was around ten days later.
24:46This case attracted heavy media attention and as a result of that, Kujic was alerted to the fact that Marta's
24:53body has been found and that was the point that he contacted the police to report her as missing.
24:58In fact, members of her family had tried to ask him to report her missing previous to the date of
25:07her body being discovered.
25:08Kujic simply refused to do so.
25:12The fact that he hadn't reported her missing until Marta's body was found in the canal clearly caused suspicion and
25:19ultimately led to the arrest of Kujic as a suspect for Marta's murder.
25:25But under police questioning, Kujic denied murdering Marta.
25:31He did not accept that he killed Marta and denied his involvement in the murder of Marta.
25:37The explanation that Kujic gave was that he had come home from work and found Marta dead.
25:42He thought that Marta had had a heart attack because he and Marta had been taking amphetamines in the preceding
25:49days.
25:50Kujic was fearful that he would be in trouble with the police for providing her with those drugs.
25:56His version of events was that he panicked.
25:59They'd been involved in rough sex activity as he described it and he felt that those things combined would cause
26:05him to be blamed effectively for her death.
26:11But did Marta's body support Kujic's version of events?
26:14Kujic claimed that Marta had died from an amphetamine overdose following days of drug-fuelled bondage sessions.
26:22And although internal swabs were taken, there was no evidence of recent sexual activity.
26:28Amphetamines can be detected in the bloodstream for, on average, 48 hours after being consumed and on human hair as
26:37long as 90 days afterwards.
26:40Some amphetamine users take the drug through what is called skin popping.
26:45These are subcutaneous injections that go into the tissue rather than the blood vessels.
26:50And what we would see then is lots of ulcerated areas on the legs and forearms.
26:56But there was no evidence of this on Marta's body.
27:00If she was injecting, there would be track marks and there was no evidence of that either.
27:07He said that he came home and found Marta dead on the sofa and she had problems and she was
27:14taking drugs and she'd obviously overdosed.
27:17And the most classic way to defend yourself against killing somebody you're supposed to love is to denigrate them in
27:24some way and make them responsible and make you the innocent victim of their awful behaviour.
27:30And that's what, that's what he did.
27:38Gochik did, however, admit disposing of Marta's body.
27:43Eventually, as the evidence unfolded and was presented to him and his legal team, he changed his version of events.
27:50He admitted that he did conceal her body in the suitcase.
27:56He confessed to the police that what he then did was place Marta into the suitcase.
28:02He walked down a distance of about half a mile and placed the suitcase in the Grand Union Canal near
28:08to Scrubs Lane.
28:08The suitcase then travelled in the direction of Little Venice down the canal for a significant period of time.
28:20Scrubs Lane is about two and a half, maybe three miles from the Little Venice site where Marta's body was
28:27ultimately found.
28:33As a result of Kochik's account, one of the things that the police will do is check and try and
28:38corroborate an account that's given.
28:40That could include CCTV.
28:42The CCTV revealed that Kochik had walked from the home address to the Grand Union Canal, a distance of about
28:50half a mile.
28:59He was seen wheeling the suitcase on his way to the canal, along a number of streets, past commuters, towards
29:07the canal, carrying this heavy suitcase, which was so heavy on CCTV, you can see that the wheels were buckling.
29:19He'd also taken a stick with him in an attempt to submerge the suitcase.
29:25And then shortly after that, he was seen again walking back towards his home address, this time without the suitcase.
29:31From the waist down, it was noticed on the CCTV he appeared to be wet,
29:37which would be consistent with the fact that he had been in the canal seeking to dispose of the suitcase
29:42in the way that he described.
29:45This man didn't have many resources. He didn't appear to have a vehicle.
29:51I think if he had a vehicle, he might not have chosen the canal.
29:55Throwing a body into a canal is a high risk strategy because bodies tend to be found when they're in
30:04bodies of water that are quite small.
30:07While CCTV footage confirmed Kocik's story that he'd disposed of the body, there was more to come.
30:19With that extra understanding of what the events were confirmed now by the CCTV, that enabled the police to search
30:27areas where they knew that Kocik had travelled and that led to the recovery of identity documents belonging to Marta.
30:36Of great significance was that on route to and from the canal, Marta's identification card was found damaged and burnt.
30:46Again, evidence of Kocik trying to conceal her identification from the police.
30:52And that confirmed and corroborated and supported the understanding of what had taken place in Marta's death.
31:01With evidence that Kocik had tried to conceal Marta's identity, police charged him with murder.
31:12I've prosecuted a number of homicide cases over the years, but this case particularly stands out in my time on
31:20the homicide unit.
31:22The court case was a particularly horrifying one.
31:26The prosecutor warned the jury that they were going to hear some horrendous details,
31:32and particularly the detail that she still may be alive when she went into the water.
31:41In May 2015, Tomasz Kocik was charged with the murder of his girlfriend Marta Ligman.
31:47Her body had been found in the Grand Union Canal earlier in the year,
31:52after a boat owner spotted human hair coming out of a suitcase floating in the water.
31:58The post-mortem revealed a history of domestic violence.
32:02But whilst her boyfriend admitted disposing of her body, he denied murder.
32:08He claimed she had died of a drug overdose.
32:12Pathology proved that was a lie.
32:19Five months after his arrest, Kocik was brought before the Old Bailey in London.
32:26The case for the Crown Prosecution Service was Senior Prosecutor Devi Karan.
32:34I had been working on this case for a long time to prepare the case, to present it at trial.
32:41A homicide prosecution requires a lot of preparation.
32:44We have to find as much evidence as possible to prove every element of the offence of murder beyond reasonable
32:53doubt,
32:54to prove that Kocik was the killer of Marta.
33:00It was a very intense atmosphere in the courtroom.
33:03There was a lot of press and media attention surrounding this case.
33:08I attended court when he faced trial.
33:11It was one I covered from start to finish.
33:15The case of Marta was a very harrowing case.
33:19It was just the details of the injury she suffered.
33:25The prosecutor warned the jury that they were going to hear some horrendous details.
33:33It was very distressing for friends and family to have to come to court and listen to the distressing details
33:40that were presented about Marta's life.
33:47The prosecution outlined the case against Kocik.
33:52We relied on the strength of the evidence to present a clear and coherent case to the jury.
33:59The evidence consisted of various strands including CCTV evidence to prove his movements at the time of her killing.
34:07evidence of her identity card that was found burnt and damaged and the pathological evidence that gave the police the
34:18indication as to how Marta's injuries were sustained.
34:23He clearly ruled out natural causes as a result of her death.
34:29The court also heard how the obsessive and violent Kocik behaved towards Marta.
34:36We used the evidence of her friends and family who provided strong evidence of a change of demeanour in Marta.
34:44Her behaviour had changed.
34:46She became withdrawn, sad.
34:48She had visible facial injuries which caused her friends and her manager significant concern about Kocik's controlling and coercive behaviour.
34:58A man like Kocik is going to want somebody like Marta to fall for him.
35:03So he's going to present himself, you know, as the perfect boyfriend.
35:08You've met the one.
35:09And he would use all his manipulative skills in doing that.
35:16The trouble with people like Kocik is they can do that for a while.
35:21They can't keep it up.
35:23So they have to get that commitment from somebody like Marta very, very quickly because they know it's all going
35:30to fall apart.
35:30They know that their true self is going to come out very, very quickly.
35:35Kocik is such an extreme example of a fixated, obsessed and very insecure man.
35:43He was entitled, I own you, you're my property, don't you dare try and leave me because you will pay.
35:52Kocik himself decided not to take the stand, but his legal team presented his version of events.
36:04Kocik claims he returned home from work to find Marta already dead.
36:10He said that he believed Marta had died of a heart attack and thought he would get blamed.
36:20Anybody who's in court is going to try and defend themselves.
36:24They don't, they don't want to go to prison.
36:26And this, this has got a life sentence on the end of it.
36:29He had to have a story for Marta being dead.
36:33So he picks another implausible story that Marta was a drug addict and she had been taking drugs.
36:41He was denigrating the victim and making them the bad person and you the victim, that is incredibly common.
36:49The pathology had conclusively proved drugs played no part in Marta's death.
36:56Kocik's case was falling apart.
37:00So his, his whole defence at court that he just found her dead and for some reason decided to put
37:07her into a suitcase instead of for the paramedics.
37:09I mean, it's all absolutely ridiculous.
37:13And this was not a sophisticated defence.
37:16He's in a position now where he's proven to be a liar.
37:22Kocik, while in court, he didn't show any remorse at all.
37:26He, um, was very cocky.
37:30Um, and the sort of, the lies he told were very distressing for Marta's family.
37:37Claiming that, you know, this had happened during rough sex and, you know, that she'd been taking drugs with him.
37:48And obviously distressing for her friends and family to see Kocik in the dock.
37:53In every homicide case that we prosecute, we have the opportunity of meeting the victim's families.
37:59Marta's mother did provide a victim impact statement, which was very, very sad.
38:06She was very tearful. She told how she was begging this man to help look for her when all along
38:14he was the one who killed her.
38:16The texts Kocik sent to Marta's friends were also read out in court.
38:23Kocik sent messages to Marta's friends to suggest that she was still alive.
38:30Um, he wanted to make it look like she'd left him.
38:34And when her mother was begging him to look for her,
38:40but he pretended that she'd just run away and didn't want to get in touch with him.
38:45Initially, the evidence from the telephones went against the prosecution case
38:51because the evidence showed that Marta's telephone was used after the prosecution say her body was placed in the canal.
39:00However, at trial, that evidence assisted the case for the prosecution
39:06because it proved that, in fact, her phone was being used by Kocik to create a false trail for the
39:14officers.
39:16Kocik had proved to be a calculated, controlling liar,
39:20but it was Marta's body that would deliver the irrefutable evidence of her final moments.
39:27The autopsy revealed that sometime between the evening of the 29th of April and the 1st of May,
39:34Kocik beat Marta unconscious in a sustained attack
39:37that could have lasted minutes or hours or possibly even days.
39:42When he thought she was dead, he wrapped her in curtains and bin bags
39:47and stuffed her into a suitcase with her head between her knees.
39:51He then dragged the case half a mile to the canal before dumping her in the water.
39:57So how did Marta actually die?
40:00The widespread heavy bruising tells us all about her last hours.
40:05A bruise is just blood leaking from damaged blood vessels,
40:09but it requires pressure in the bloodstream for that leakage to occur.
40:15Marta's body was just covered in bruises.
40:17And it was quite clear that this could only have happened
40:21if her heart was still beating.
40:25Although she was alive when she received these injuries,
40:29it was the repetitive blunt force trauma to her torso and legs that killed her.
40:38It's not clear exactly at what point that took place,
40:41but that could have taken place while she was in the suitcase,
40:46either when Kocik was walking down towards the canal,
40:50or indeed after the suitcase had been placed in the canal,
40:53which clearly raises the possibility that Marta was still alive at either of those points.
41:00Some of the expert evidence showed that some of the bruising on her body
41:05could have been caused by her being hit by a boat
41:08while she was still alive in that suitcase.
41:12He warned the jury not to think of the possibilities around that.
41:17Obviously, it's hard not to.
41:20Something happened for him to think that she was dead.
41:25I don't think that he thought by putting her in a suitcase that would kill her.
41:30I think he put her in the suitcase because he thought she was dead.
41:32He probably, at that point, wasn't thinking straight.
41:36He just knew he needed to get rid of Marta's body.
41:42The thing is, with people like Kocik, they use violence routinely.
41:47They know how far to go.
41:49They absolutely do know how far to go.
41:51The idea that they take it too far one day and kill someone,
41:55really, there's not a lot to support that.
41:58They know when to stop.
41:59I think whatever the challenge was that came from Marta,
42:04it was enough that he took it far enough to kill her,
42:07given himself permission to kill her, in fact,
42:10and thought that he had done exactly that.
42:13The jury saw through Kocik's lies.
42:16The pathology was damning.
42:19After deliberating for just over a day,
42:22they rejected his defence.
42:25Thomas Kocik was found guilty of Marta's murder.
42:29He was convicted of murder
42:32and he was sentenced to 18 and a half years
42:35as a minimum sentence recommendation of his life sentence.
42:42Kocik was a very violent and dangerous man.
42:47At trial, Kocik, from my recollection, showed no remorse.
42:51He maintained a very cold demeanour
42:53as he sat in the dock at the Old Bailey.
42:55After the jury had delivered their verdict,
42:59we were very satisfied that we had secured justice
43:03for Marta, her family and her friends.
43:07And that is of paramount importance in any homicide case.
43:13I think this case was a classic, intimate partner, homicide.
43:19very quick, very intense.
43:23In some ways it was different
43:26because Kocik was so extreme in his control of Marta.
43:32And I think everybody noticed the changes in her.
43:36So you could almost watch this playing out from a distance.
43:43She's obviously been in a very abusive relationship.
43:47He was very controlling of her.
43:50And instead of breaking up with her,
43:53allowing her to go her own way,
43:54he'd brutally beaten her and stuffed her into a suitcase
43:58and dumped her into a canal.
43:59Absolutely horrific.
44:02I've prosecuted a number of homicide cases over the years.
44:06But this case particularly stands out in my time
44:10on the homicide unit.
44:12Marta Ligman was a young, happy,
44:15very kind and caring young lady who wanted to come to London
44:20to start a new life.
44:22The truth of what happened that night
44:25was that Marta was subjected to a violent and brutal attack
44:30by the man who she loved and cared for.
44:37That particular point where Marta's body was discovered
44:41is a part of the canal in Little Venice that I visit frequently.
44:45And every time I visit that point at the canal,
44:49I always stop and think about Marta.
44:56Tomasz Kuzik had mentally and physically controlled Marta
45:00throughout their relationship.
45:02It ended with her murder.
45:04He tried to claim that Marta had died of a drug overdose
45:08and that he was innocent of her killing.
45:11But the pathologist's report made sure the jury saw through his lies.
45:17Although she never spoke out in life,
45:20in death her body was able to reveal the truth
45:22about what had happened
45:25and put Kuzik behind bars.
45:55We'll see you next time.
45:56We'll see you next time.
45:57We'll see you next time.
45:58Bye.
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