Author Details His Own Crime in Book Leading to Conviction
If anyone’s ever watched movies like Misery, it can be strange yet understood that many fans will often attempt to attack or even assault their most beloved authors. Even now as celebrities take on all forms beyond simply writing books, fans continue to take place in loony and bizarre actions such as witchcraft, stitching together words the celebrities have said to simulate a call where they are “dating” the listener, and so on. Between lots of crazy instances of fans getting on the nerves of the people who admire them, there are some instances in which the opposite can happen - and one even exposed the criminal responsible for what happened. In 2007, a Polish author got busted because his murder method had detailed his own crime - and this is that story.
Bizarre Circumstances and Murder
The case started rather simply, but for a while, it had police scratching their heads. Dariusz Janiszewski, a Polish business owner, was found dead in a lake in 2000. Three young fishermen were out on the lake on a cold December day, when an object started floating in their direction on the shore. The object in question was a dead body, hung in a noose and covered in torture marks. The victim had been starved, beaten, and drowned, and for the next few days, Despite searching for several years and attempting to find concrete evidence that would link back to his death, nothing was surfacing on how to bust the murderer in question, or even how he died.
In many cases this is quite typical - police often are quite slow when it comes to figuring out exact crimes and being able to set up court for possible criminals, often in a minimum of 30 days. But for years, there was no way of attempting to successfully trace back anything on how she died or even how anything had led up to her death - months of searching, looking for connections and everything in between yielded no results. Janiszewski had no enemies, no debts, and no criminal records.
After six months of tireless searching, nothing was found on how the crime had been committed or even a possible perpetrator - all they knew were the details of how the victim had died. It was impossible to determine anything. With nothing found on how anything had happened, Janiszewski’s family hung a cross in his memory, and the police simply dubbed it the “perfect crime” with nothing further to add about how any of it had taken place.
Cracking the Mystery Case Wide Open
In 2003, the Janiszewski case had made no progress, and it seemed like there was still not a lot of progress that was going to commit to how the case would be cracked. But thanks to some expert sleuthing by Jacek Wroblewski, he started to find little clues that led to a possible explanation for the disappearance of Janiszewski. When he spoke to Janisewzki’s mother, she recalled that the day he went missing, she’d received a call at 9:30 in the morning whilst working for him - she was a bookkeeper in Janiszewski’s advertising firm. The man had made a call from a phone booth, which led to some background noise, and less than a minute after the call was made, another call from the same phone booth went to Janiszewski’s cell phone.
Further sleuthing revealed that the person who obtained Janiszewski’s old cell phone was a man by the name of Krystian Bala. Upon further investigation of his background, Bala had published a book named “Amok”, which Wroblewski ultimately purchased and read. The book, which had been wildly successful, was a thriller novel detailing a man murdering his female lover for seemingly no reason- but perhaps the most startling thing about the novel was the sheer level of detail that went into actually detailing the murder in full. Further, the killer’s name in the novel was Chris - the English version of Bala’s first name.
The details in the novel and the background of the author were shockingly similar - as if Bala had projected himself into the novel. An intellectual and philosopher, Bala had been deeply invested in philosophy, but never became successful as a businessman, and his novel “Amok '' had been his only true success. The novel was quite popular as well - however, its criticism was less than ideal, and many considered it “rubbish”. However, one thing was clear - the book was the result of a disturbed and unhinged mind, and one of the details in the book selling the weapon on auction - had been eerily similar to how Bala had received Janisewzki’s phone - through an Internet auction. Wroblewski knew it had to be related, and so he made copies of the novel to hand out to his squad, wanting them to read every chapter carefully.
But as they did, and more evidence was developed about what happened, Bala was ultimately arrested and jailed - too much of the book had revealed things only the murdered had known. Despite the blurring of fiction with fact and the complicated nuances of postmodernism that had come with his novel, Bala was ultimately found guilty and was forced to serve a sentence of 25 years starting in December of 2007 - seven years after what was thought to be the “perfect crime” had been orchestrated. Though it is no stranger than any other story, Bala’s murder orchestration - and even a second book planned titled “De Liryk” which included another victim, it was impossible to evade anything once details about the book got examined with a more careful lens. The book not only served as a terrifying peek into the exact twists and insanities of a corrupted and ruined mind - but also a reminder not to boast when the moment itself is inopportune.