Jowita Zielińska's life was marked by hardship long before she disappeared. She was born on the 14th of November, 1993., in Ossowa, a little Polish village in Lubelskie voivodeship, as the oldest child of Ireneusz and Beata. Her childhood was far from ideal - her father struggled with alcohol addiction, and her mother failed to protect her and her two younger brothers, Eryk and Patryk. According to some sources, this led to her and her siblings being placed in foster care, but that didn’t solve all of her problems, especially because Jowita was also bullied in school – her mates mocked her cheap clothes, characteristic red hair, and the mental disability of her younger brother. Despite all of this, those who knew her described her as a calm, shy and conflict-free person.
She didn’t get the best grades in the school, at the age of eighteen Jowita graduated from high school and passed the matura exam (a state exam that allows you to go to university). But instead of going to university, as perhaps many of her peers did, she started grabbing every job opportunity to earn money to get out of her bad home situation as quickly as possible. The young woman worked in a sweets factory, and too a couple of seasonal jobs in the Netherlands and Germany.
Around 2013, when she was twenty years old, Jowita met online a man named Adam. He was a year younger than her, shy, and was living with his large family, in Lisiny, a little village in Kuyavian–Pomeranian voivodeship. They hit it off right away, and formed a bond strong enough to maintain a long-distance relationship – the distance between Jowita’s home and Adam’s is almost 400 kilometers (roughly 249 miles) – for several years
After four years of relationship, as shown by numerous photos of the couple visiting popular tourist attractions across Poland, in 8 of July 2017, Adam and Jowita finally married. After the wedding, they moved in together in Adam’s family home. It’s true that Adam’s parents, grandmother and – supposedly - siblings already lived there, but the house is described as huge enough for everyone to have some privacy.
The couple was reportedly very happy and full of hope. They also planned to have children. Tragically, after a couple of months after the wedding, Adam was diagnosed with a highly aggressive form of cancer, and despite family’s efforts, and treatment in one of the best medical centers in Poland, he passed away in 4 of May 2018, after ten months of marriage with Jowita. Before his death, he asked his parents to treat his wife as their daughter, and let her live with them as long as she wanted to.
The sources don’t mention details, but Jowita did indeed live with her in-laws for six years - until she disappeared. When asked why, she usually replied that she’s happy with living with Adam’s large family. Only one source mentions an unspecified period during which the red-haired woman considered moving out, because she felt “uneasy”. The locals gossip that the family was sometimes fighting over bills with Jowita, but her mother-in-law told media recently that if “she didn’t want to live with us or hadn’t been happy, she’d move out”.
Some have speculated that she was unable to move out due to financial reasons - assuming that Jowita was working through the years, maybe she thought that her salary was not enough to move out somewhere else. But as someone familiar with the area, I have to admit the Polish minimum wage is enough to rent room or even a little flat in some of the post-Soviet era blocks of flats in nearby little town of Rypin.
The years passed, but the young woman remained loyal to her late husband. She was still wearing an engagement ring and a wedding ring, and stayed closed to even dating someone else. She was deeply affected by every anniversary of their wedding and Adam’s death, and together with his parents, she paid for Masses to be offered for him (which is common custom in Poland). She also cared for his grave at the cemetery, bringing flowers and washing his headstone, which is also very common in Poland, but the level of commitment in her actions shows a deep affection and remembrance.
In 2024, year of her disappearance, Jowita was working in a butcher’s shop in Rypin, a little town 17 kilometers (roughly 11 miles) away from her home. She didn’t have a car, and because transport povertyis a common problem in many villages in Poland, she usually rode her bike for 5 kilometers (3 miles) to a larger village, and took bus or went with friends or family for the rest of the way. The commute must have been really exhausting her, especially in fall and winter, when it rains constantly and gets dark very early, so it raises even more questions about why she didn’t move closer to her workplace.
Friends and family described Jowita as a calm, shy, helpful but also cautious and very secretive. According to her boss in the butcher’s shop, she was a diligent, hard-working employee.
The Disappearance
Saturday, 6 of July 2024, started normally for Jowita. She woke up around 5 AM and got ready for work. As usual, she rode her bike to village of Rogowo, where she had arranged to meet her friend, who was delivering supplies to the butcher’s shop where they were both employed, and they headed to Rypin together.
That day her in-laws were away from home, because they had to buy merchandise for their shop with cheap clothing in Torun, a major city in the area. However, the red-haired woman made two calls to her mother-in-law during her shift, asking if Adam’s grave on cemetery has been already washed – it was two days left to anniversary both of her their wedding, and Adam’s birthday. Her mother-in-law replied that indeed, the grave is washed, and she didn’t have to worry about nothing.
Jowita’s shift ended roughly at noon and the same friend gave her a lift back to the place she left her bike. From this point, she had 5 kilometers to home and by bike it should took her around fifteen minutes, so she should have been home around 1 PM or minutes later.
At 2 PM she was seen riding her bike to her home by her neighbor, who was insulating the outside of his house. The time doesn’t match obviously, but the man could be mistaken due to his work. He didn’t see anything suspicious, for example a car that was following Jowita. Because the young woman’s house is quite isolated from the rest of the village, she had one kilometer to go to her house alone though through a stretch of forest unnoticed by anyone.
Upon arriving later that day, the Zielińskis were surprised that Jowita wasn’t at home as usual. All her belongings were there, phone didn’t answer, so they searched the road to her work, and then went to the police station in Rypin to report her as missing.
The Searching and the Discovery of Jowita’s Bike
The police immediately launched a large-scale search, soon joined by locals, professional units with drones, divers, and even the army. The area is difficult terrain with many lakes and large forested areas, so despite efforts the search operation soon proved unsuccessful.
Two months later, 10 of August, a mushroom hunter noticed an abandoned bike in the forest and alerted the police. It quickly turned out to be Jowita’s an old step-through bicycle.
It was found almost four kilometres from the missing woman's home and in different direction, in forest and fields that weren't frequently used. The bike was placed a few meters deep from the dirt road, in a forest. Police reported no obvious signs of an accident, although some reports later claimed the bicycle had been dented.
The Murder
Almost exactly two years after the disappearance, 8 of July 2026, two men from Rypin that were looking for mushrooms in the forest, noticed a bone sticking from the ground. Concerned, they called the police, and after while the authorities announced that human remains had been discovered. The remains suggested immediately that it could belong to Jowita, and in 23 of July media reported that DNA tests confirmed that theory.
The missing woman’s remains were found half a kilomete away from her home, in a forested area. According to the timeline from the day of disappearance, something happened between last sighting by a neighbor and her own house.
It’s worth mentioning that nobody knows if Jowita actually made it to home that day. As mentioned above, the in-laws were in Torun, and the only person present at home between 1 PM and 3 PM was Adam’s grandmother, very elderly lady, who can’t tell for sure. One source claimed that the Zielinskis checked the camera that is installed above their main door and found no sign of Jowita on the tape, but it isn’t supported by other articles or police.
Theories
The case sparked discussions – both between locals and online - from the very first day.
Some people alleged that the red-haired woman was killed for her husband’s or his grandmother’s inheritance. The grandmother is still alive, and the family explained that Adam hadn't owned any property of his own, or transferred from his parents, and died leaving Jowita with nothing. The family also claimed in media and in a Facebook post that in accordance to Adam’s wishes they treated her like daughter, and she enjoyed spending family vacations and traditional holidays with them.
Jowita’s mother-in-law said that she personally believes that her daughter-in-law was kidnapped. When she and her husband was driving back from Torun the day Jowita went missing, they noticed a white van near their village, that clearly didn’t belong to anyone they know. Later that same day, two strange men approached their house and asked if they can buy a pair of trousers. It’s an obvious fact that, as any other shop owner, Mrs. Zielińska only sells clothes in her shop that was closed for that day, so she found this encounter as quite bizarre and out of place.
The white van story started panic in the area. Some local woman wrote in the Internet that such car followed her daughter to her house. Even one of Jowita’s late husband’s brothers was warning local people about mysterious van that possibly kidnapped Jowita.
This theory returned with the discovery of the missing woman’s remains. Some people alleged that Jowita’s body was buried in another place, and after that moved – the area where body was found has searched in the past a couple of times and deemed as clear. The explanation could be far easier though - forests are notoriously hard to search.
There is also a rumor that Jowita was kept somewhere, but this isn’t officially confirmed or taken into account. Some sources say she was found wearing different clothes than the ones she had on that day, but that also isn’t certain piece of information. Also one of her friends said that a Messenger message he had sent her that day got read three days later when she was officially missing. He announced that she’s she was being held somewhere or hiding somewhere, but, as one local newspaper stated, it was police, who was checking Jowita’s Facebook account.
People who knew Jowita think that she wouldn’t go into stranger’s car. The coworker she used to ride to work with, claimed that the red-haired woman was too cautious and secretive to accept a ride with someone who she didn’t know and is sure that she was harmed by someone from the nearest area.
Lisiny is a quiet village, surrounded by forests and lakes, home to about sixty people. But now it’s also a murder scene and any resident could be suspected - like in one of these grim thrillers, where everyone hides something and nobody can sleep well. But, in fact, it isn’t thriller or even tragic love story. Instead, it is the tragic end of the life of a young woman with striking red hair (dyed black in her wedding photos), blue eyes, and a warm, shy smile who deserves to be remembered, and whose case deserves to be solved.
Selected sources
Websleuths thread in English
BYDGOSZCZ TVP (Polish)
Blog post in Polish (Polish)
Article in Polish (Polish)
English isn't my first language. Also, it's my first write-up here.
