Family's 'unbearable pain' over knife frenzy killings

Marta De la Haye and her daughter Julia (PA)

Izabela’s mother Jolanta Gartska, brother Krzysztof Gartska and sister-in-law Agnieszka Gartska, said: “Knowing that we will never be able to play with Kinga and Julia again or cuddle little Kacper and we can never talk to Izabela, Marta or Marek again makes the pain unbearable.”

Rzeszowski, whose marriage had been under strain after his wife admitted to a two-month affair with another man, had armed himself with kitchen knives before embarking on the bloodshed in August last year.

His attack was so brutal that he severed his father-in-law’s spinal cord before running after his wife and knifing her in front of horrified neighbours. Afterwards he turned the knife on himself, causing a collapsed lung.

Father-in-law Marek Gartska (PA)

But his lawyers argued that he was suffering from severe depression and psychotic hallucinations which had substantially impaired his responsibility.

He claimed that on the day of the killings he heard voices saying “kill, kill” and that he could not remember the attacks.

Prosecutors said the killer had originally told psychiatrists that he had not heard voices and that he could remember attacking his father-in-law, picking up knives, and chasing his wife.

But two jurats – similar to magistrates in the UK – accepted the defence following a trial at the Royal Court in St Helier.

The verdict was described as an “insult to the victims” by Craig de la Haye, Mrs De La Haye’s husband and the father of her daughter Julia. He said he was “deeply shocked” at the decision and felt that justice had not been done.

Rzeszowski will be sentenced on October 29.