Jersey stab victims ‘the perfect family’

FRIENDS of a man suspected of stabbing his wife and two young children to death described them last night as “almost the perfect family”.

The man — named as Damian Rzeszowski — has been arrested over six deaths in St Helier, Jersey. The other victims are thought to include his father-in-law, his wife’s friend and her daughter.

At a Mass in a Catholic church in St Martin near Jersey’s capital, family friend Jakub Bartus, 35, named Rzeszowski’s wife as Izabela Rzeszowski.

Bartus’s wife Marlena, 27, said she had not seen the family since last September but had always been touched by how happy they were.

She said: “They were a lovely family, lovely kids. They were almost the perfect family.

“The children loved playing with their Mega Bloks and he used to push them in a trailer. The way we had seen him, he was a really good father.

“We spent two hours with them, it was a lovely atmosphere.”

Jakub Bartus said: “It is so sad, this is something that should not happen. There are lots of questions that need to be answered. It’s such a tragedy. I can’t understand why the kids were involved. This is not about them, they are innocent.”

His wife said she believed the boy was aged about two and the daughter was about five or six.

Detectives are waiting to question Rzeszowski in hospital over the deaths.

Neighbours said yesterday they fended off the “mumbling” attacker with a traffic cone before he turned his knife on himself.

The attack spilled from a flat and into the street on Sunday afternoon.

One local, who did not want to be named, said the suspect had been rowing with his wife recently and tried to take an overdose last month.

Another resident in the same block of flats in St Helier said he saw a man chasing a woman with a knife before then stabbing himself in the chest.

Bryan Ogesa, 24, said he and his two friends used a traffic cone to try to defend themselves as the man then came towards them. As he ran away, he saw the body of another man lying in the doorway of the flat with a knife sticking out of his back.

Ogesa, who ran outside after hearing screaming, said: “A man was chasing a woman with a knife, it was quite long.”

He said he first saw another woman lying on the ground and had gone to help her as he thought she had simply fallen over.

“She was responsive, but just mumbling,” he said. “That’s when the guy started coming towards us. He was mumbling as well.”

Another man, who would give only his first name of John, said he had been in his garden nearby and ran to the scene after hearing a woman scream. “She shouted ‘please help me, please God help me’,” he said.

Mike Bowron, chief officer for Jersey Police, called for local communities to remain “dignified and calm” as he said all the victims were from Poland and four were from the same family.

“Jersey is an incredibly safe place, one of the safest in the western world, and incidents of this nature are exceptionally rare,” he said.

“It makes such a tragedy even more difficult for people to come to terms with, and no one could fail to be affected by the events that unfolded here yesterday.

“Inevitably, perhaps, such an incident will raise tensions locally and I would appeal to everyone to remain calm and dignified and allow my officers to continue with what is a complex, demanding and difficult investigation.”

Father Stanislaw Adamiak, who conducted a service at the Catholic Church of Our Lady in St Martin in Polish, said he did not know the family but was aware that some members of the congregation were their friends.

He said: “I told them we are sure of the dignity of every human life.

“We pray, as there is nothing else we can do.”

Monseigneur Nicholas France, head of the Catholic Church in Jersey, said there was “great distress and anxiety” at the horrifying attack, and that prayers had been offered at a Polish Mass last night for those involved.

Jersey’s chief minister Senator Terry Le Sueur, said: “Jersey is a very safe place and events of this terrible nature are rare. This has greatly shocked the island’s community.

“Many will need support and counselling in the days ahead and we will ensure this is provided.”

Rzeszowskiremains under police guard at Jersey General Hospital as inquiries continued to establish a motive.

The alarm was raised just after 3pm by a member of the public reporting a multiple stabbing at a flat at Victoria Crescent, Upper Midvale Road, St Helier. Five people were initially confirmed dead but a sixth victim, a woman, was later also pronounced dead at Jersey General Hospital.

At the scene, witness Andre Thorpe said: “I saw police come running out with a child, it was a small child. I just saw the legs. They went off in an ambulance. When the paramedic came back her shirt was covered in blood.”

Thorpe also said he saw police taking a dog round various driveways. He added that the area where the incident happened was quite secluded.

Several floral tributes were left at either end of the cordon on the private road.

A card in one read: “So shocked, so saddened, so stunned.

“WHY? RIP.

“St Helier resident.”