Hannibal Lecter-obsessed student hacked off his teacher’s head with a knife and stuffed her body in a bag in evil attack
A HANNIBAL Lecter-obsessed student has hacked off his teacher’s head with a knife and stuffed her body in a bag in an evil attack.
The gruesome details surfaced after Polish man, Kajetan Poznanski, appealed his life sentence for the grizzly murder in 2016.
The 27-year-old became notoriously known as “Hannibal of Zoliborz” for his overt sick fascination with the fictional serial killer.
In 2016, he was to take his twisted interests and manifest them by committing one of the most horrific crimes Poland has seen.
During his sentencing trial, Poznanski faced court and told judges he murdered the woman as part of a “self-improvement plan”.
The court heard the man had gone to his language teacher’s home to learn Italian.
However, once inside her house, he pulled out a knife and hacked Katarzyna Jaroszynska to death.
Prosecutors alleged he then dismembered the 30-year-old woman’s body with a saw and put the remains inside a suitcase.
Poznanski then ordered a taxi back to his apartment but the driver noticed his suitcase was dripping with blood.
He reportedly assured the cabbie he was transporting the carcass of a wild boar.
The cowardice killer had planned to eat the body parts but in a last-second decision he instead set his house on fire to hide the evidence.
Firefighters who attended the scene found Katarzyna’s body parts scattered about the home.
The most gruesome discovery was her head found inside a backpack.
In court, Poznanski justified the murder by claiming he “had to kill someone to get rid of the belief that a human life was worth more than a pig or a fly”.
According to local media, the depraved man was from a respected family and was an excellent student who was interning at one of Poland’s biggest current affairs magazines.
It was there that his interest is cannibalism was exposed.
He reportedly pitched an array of stories including “Famous Gourmets – between Rome and Hannibal Lecter” and another yarn based on the “moral difference between eating a chicken and eating a human”.
Following his arrest, the magazine said in a statement: “We did not accept any of the proposals and the trainee moved to another department, where he wrote two unaccepted texts.”
His friends described him as “social and intelligent” but one pal claimed Poznanski’s attitude had changed during his studies.
The unnamed friend said: “He was always carrying books and was always deep in thought… but he also came to parties.
“Then he went weird and started talking about being possessed.”
Following the grizzly slaying, Poznanski fled the wealthy district of Warsaw and flew to Italy.
According to a guide who showed him around the Bologna, Poznanski insisted on visiting the Anatomical Theatre of the Archiginnasio.
The heritage site was once where the dissection of humans and animals took place.
Following a lengthy police probe, an international arrest warrant was put out and cops arrested him 11 days later in Malta.
At the trial in 2021, his lawyers claimed he had been of “limited sanity”.
The judge rejected the claim and ruled the murder had been “planned and calculated”.
Criminologists argued Poznanski planned the crime and that he had “probably been watching his victim, getting to know her habits and interests”.
Teresa Gens, a forensic psychologist, told local media: “In these types of crimes, there is never a single motive.
“Perhaps the leading motive was self-improvement, consisting in overcoming a certain taboo about the deprivation of human life.
“His friends said that at some point they noticed his transformation, both physical and mental.
“They mentioned that there were elements of isolation and a very strong identification with the figure of Hannibal Lecter can be seen in his literary works.
“There are two options, the first is that some fantasy world or idea has begun to develop that has arisen as a result of a personality disorder.
“The second possibility is that a psychotic process began to develop, culminating in this crime.”
Psychologists eventually decided Poznanski did not have “a mental illness limiting the ability to control his behaviour”.
It bolstered the prosecutor’s case who argued the man was looking for a victim and was obsessed with murder.
The court found Poznanski to be of sane mind when carrying out the killing and he was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment.
But in a shocking turn of events this year, his lawyers now claim his sentence should be overturned.
Defence lawyer Piotr Dałkowski said: “The defence did not agree with this verdict.
“We questioned it both in terms of determining the sanity and the amount of the penalty.
“He was in a state that precluded conscious decision-making at the time of the act.”
Judges reviewing the case are expected to reach a verdict next month.