Killer who dismembered housemate's body jailed

Warning: This news story contains distressing details about Majerkiewicz's crimes

A murderer who dismembered his housemate's body and dumped his remains across a wide area after taking control of his finances has been jailed for a minimum of 34 years.

Marcin Majerkiewicz killed Stuart Everett before plundering his bank accounts and using a hacksaw to cut the 67-year-old's body into at least 27 pieces, his trial heard.

A huge investigation began after some of Mr Everett's remains were found by a member of the public at a nature reserve in Salford, Greater Manchester, in April 2024.

Majerkiewicz, 42, was eventually caught after a chance sighting by police, who recognised him from CCTV of a suspect carrying a bag for life, containing Mr Everett's remains.

Passing sentence at Manchester Crown Court, Mr Justice Cavanagh said Majerkiewicz had taken over Mr Everett's bank details and concluded "your only motive for killing your friend was to gain financially from doing so".

"With great callousness and cruelty you impersonated Stuart Everett to his own family members, so as to give the impression that he was still alive," he said.

"Almost as soon as Stuart Everett died, you took over his bank account with HSBC, changing the password and treating it as your own. You later changed the password on his American Express account.

"You opened a bank account in your housemate's name, without his knowledge. You transferred funds from your own bank account to Stuart Everett's account.

"You used Stuart Everett's account to withdraw cash and to pay for various expenditures, ranging from buying a meal at KFC to paying for the skip and for the man who helped you clear the house.

"You were treating Stuart Everett's bank account as if it were your own."

He said Majerkiewicz had also not helped authorities locate the remaining parts of Mr Everett's body. Only a third has been found so far.

The judge continued: "You acted in an almost unbelievably cold-blooded and macabre way, and showed complete disrespect and contempt for your friend's remains.

"This denied dignity to Stuart Everett even in his death and greatly increased the pain suffered by his family when the murder came to light."

The judge said there was no history of any hostility between Majerkiewicz and Mr Everett.

"Indeed, it is clear that Stuart Everett had, with your knowledge, referred to you as his partner, to friends and family members," he said.

In a victim impact statement, Mr Everett's brother Richard Ziemacki said the family had been "devastated by the inhumane and cruel way his life was ended".

He said: "We cannot express how we all feel about losing such an endearing and loving human being.

"Not only were we all horrified by the way he left us, but for any person to be treated in the way he was systematically and comprehensively disposed of has left us traumatised beyond belief."

Mr Ziemacki said his brother, known by the family as Benny, "did not deserve to have his life ended in such a callous and premeditated manner".

Mr Everett, originally from Derby and born Roman Ziemacki to Polish parents, had worked for both the NHS and the Department for Work and Pensions.

The court heard he first met Majerkiewicz while teaching English to Polish immigrants.

In 2013, Mr Everett moved to a three-bed terraced house on Worsley Road in the Winton area of Salford.

He later started sub-letting two of the bedrooms, with Majerkiewicz taking one of them in 2017.

Majerkiewicz, who had worked as a manager at fast food shops in the nearby Trafford Centre, was unemployed at the time of the murder.

The father-of-two was also about £73,000 in debt, the court heard.

Police said he had a "fixation with horror and gore" and had a tattoo of the Friday the 13th slasher film character Jason Voorhees.

The court heard Majerkiewicz killed Mr Everett with a hammer-type weapon before dismembering his body.

Mr Justice Cavanagh said Majerkiewicz spent about a week disposing of his victim's remains, some of which he had kept in a freezer.

The killer put the body parts into bags before taking bus journeys across Salford and Manchester and disposing of them.

CCTV footage showed Majerkiewicz carrying a heavy bag and visibly struggling as he passed it between his hands.

In an attempt to avoid detection, the court heard he tried to trick Mr Everett's family that he was still alive and planning to move abroad.

Majerkiewicz even sent text messages and a birthday card to Mr Everett's family, pretending to be him.

Before his arrest, the murderer had been searching online for properties to rent in the Alicante area of Spain.

Detectives were initially alerted when a member of the public found a human torso in Salford woodland on 4 April 2024.

CCTV revealed that a man had entered the area two days before, carrying a heavy blue bag and emerging shortly afterwards without it.

Three weeks later, two police officers were driving along Eccles Old Road trying to find further CCTV when they spotted someone, who they believed to be the suspect, carrying a bag seen in earlier footage.

They followed Majerkiewicz as he boarded a bus and then arrested him on suspicion of murder, before he was convicted at the end of a three-week trial.

In total, police found human remains in six different areas across Salford and Manchester.

In a tribute, Mr Everett's family said he had been the "closest to our parents", who had fled wartime Germany, and "the keeper of our family photos, documents and memories".

They continued: "Our parents were our heroes who suffered unimaginable pain at a concentration camp during World War Two.

"They then moved to the UK and these records and images of our family history are now lost and so thoughtlessly disposed of."

The family said: "We will always miss him, I tap his urn each morning without fail to say good morning to him and I cherish that we have at least some parts of him that was brought to us to remember him. He is with us and will always be with us in spirit.

"The past 12 months have been some of the most challenging our family has ever had to endure but this has been made just that little bit easier for us due to the outpouring of love and affection people across Greater Manchester and beyond."

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