Ill. Man Facing Eviction Allegedly Killed 5 in Shooting Rampage, Left Chilling Notes: ‘No Mercy’
The chilling notes found by police portrayed a man on a mission.
“Tomorrow!! No mercy,” Krysztof Marek, who was facing eviction from his Chicago condo, allegedly wrote. “Enough!! They have to pay for it!!”
Police allege that after writing those notes, Marek, 66, entered a neighboring apartment Saturday evening and killed four people as they were gathered for dinner, then went upstairs and into a second apartment where he shot and killed a fifth person.
Criminal Court Judge John Fitzgerald, after hearing a prosecutor describe the alleged contents of the notes written in Marek’s native Polish and found in his condo after the attacks, described him as “evil on steroids,” reports CBS Chicago.
On Monday Marek was ordered held without bail on five counts of first-degree murder, reports the Chicago Sun-Times.
It was not immediately clear if he has entered a plea to the charges.
Prosecutors say the victims in the first apartment — Tsvetanka Kostadinova and her husband, Ivaylo Popov, both 43, along with Popov’s mother, Iskra Pourel-Popova, 65, and her boyfriend, David Hanik, 61 — were at the dinner table when Marek allegedly entered without warning about 5:30 p.m. through the front door and fired “numerous shots” from a .40 caliber firearm, according to a court document obtained by PEOPLE.
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The four “were sitting together for a family dinner at their home, without knowing that this would be their last meal on this world,” according to a GoFundMe post by a relative seeking donations for funeral expenses.
Moving on to the second apartment upstairs and entering through an unlocked front door, Marek allegedly shot Jolanta Topolska, 53, once in the abdomen. As Topolska fled through a back door, Marek allegedly followed her blood trail down a flight of stairs and shot her again, this time in the back of the head, prosecutors said.
Back in his own condo, Marek placed his gun on a coffee table before walking outside to greet responding officers, to whom he said, “I think you’re looking for me. I did it,” the court document alleges.
The prosecutor did not release a motive, but the court document alleges “multiple cryptic letters” found in Marek’s condo addressed his specific grievances with unnamed neighbors.
Previous confrontations between Marek and his fellow tenants included him accusing a woman of walking too loudly on the floor above his apartment, said Chicago Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi, reports the Associated Press.
In a note taped to the inside of Marek’s door, prosecutors allege he had written in Polish:
No Mercy!!!
Remember
Whatever s— they do to you
You control it yourself not them!!
Enough!!
They have to pay for it!!
A second note found by police in Marek’s unit contained similar themes.
Tomorrow!! No Mercy
Without any stupid hesitation!!!
Remember who you are!!
Remember what this piece of s— is doing to you!!
Enough!!
The suspect is retired with three grown children and six grandchildren, said his court-appointed attorney, assistant public defender Courtney Smallwood, according to the Chicago Tribune. The outlet reported that neighbors said Marek was a former president of the condo association and had lived for several years in the building.
Cook County records showed he received a foreclosure notice on his condo two months after filing for bankruptcy in September 2017, with a reported $24,000 owed to the Internal Revenue Service and more than $60,000 owed to creditors, reports the Tribune.
“The defendant lived alone and is not paying his association fees or his mortgage,” the court document alleges. “The association was seeking to evict him.”
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