They fell like a stone into water

When the Bogdańskis did not give any signs of life after Easter, the relatives became worried. Neither the master of the house, Krzysztof Bogdański, nor the lady of the house, Bożena, called or answered anybody. The children's telephones were also silent - Małgosia and Kuba. They were turned off. Grandma (a retired woman after a stroke, with a partially paralyzed face) did not call anyone either. The two-story house of the Bogdański family in Starowa Góra was closed. It was April 2003.

Bożena's sister came here first. She stayed at the gate for a long time, calling and calling the household members. All for nothing. After the third visit to the closed gate, my sister called all the Bogdański friends. Also to no avail. A few days later she stopped searching on her own; she went to the police station in Rzgów. She was shaky, she talked chaotically about strange events at the Bogdański family. At first, the police officer on duty did not want to believe that the entire family of five had suddenly disappeared. Because what, it collapsed underground?

Nevertheless, the policemen went to Parterowa Street. The gate and wicket were closed. Before they entered the yard, they asked their neighbors when they last saw the Bogdański family. "Couple weeks ago. Before Christmas "- was the unanimous answer. After that, nothing special happened here. The policemen walked around the house and looked inside through the ground floor windows. They did not notice anything suspicious. The garage and the rooms behind the house were also closed. Glass in the windows - whole.

What happened here?

The next day, the investigation team of the Lodz police broke the locks in the gate and door of the Bogdański house. The new house at the narrow Parterowa Street looked as if the household had just left it and were about to come back. There were slippers by the door. The rooms were in exemplary order. Clothes of adults and children were washed, ironed, arranged on shelves in wardrobes. So is underwear. The beds were made of dirt. There were very clean curtains and curtains in the windows - washed before Christmas. There was an Easter headdress on the chest of drawers.

In the kitchen, washed dishes and cutlery were drying up - five sets. The table was clear. On the shelves of the refrigerator there were cheese, ham, a large piece of sausage, eggs, cream, cartons of milk and juice.

School bags of 16-year-old Gosia (the best student in the class) and 12-year-old Kuba (also a good student) were hung in the hall. There were notebooks, textbooks and utensils in them. Police found school ID cards in the side pockets of the bags. There were cell phone chargers under the electric socket. Cuba's charger was plugged into the socket.

A medicine vial was found in the boy's room. Cuba, who suffered from asthma, took one tablet every day. He was very careful about it. He didn't have the second vial. In Małgosia's room, the investigators found a notebook with the phone numbers of friends. They called. After an hour it was known that Małgosia had not called anyone for a long time.

In Bożena Bogdańska's bedroom, the new sweater of the lady of the house was stinging in the eyes, hung over the back of the chair. As if the owner of this sweater was getting ready to go out ... "The only thing missing was his grandson's pajamas. Besides, everything is in its place, ”testified Maria Kuśmider, mother of missing Bożena Bogdańska.

Nobody took toothpaste or toothbrushes from the bathroom. There were five brushes stuck in the cups - each in its own. The host of the house did not take shaving utensils, and the hostess - cosmetics and a hair dryer. Bogdański's suitcases and travel bags were placed where they usually were - ready to be packed for the next trip.

The police team did not find any traces of burglary or traces of violence. All the panes in the windows were intact, no one even broke down the shed door. She noticed, however, that the house lacked identity cards, driving licenses and passports of two adults (her grandmother did not have a passport).

From two home and four company computers, someone took hard drives out and took them away. The police could not establish which websites the Bogdański family viewed, and the investigators spread their hands helplessly like a stone in water.

Where are they?

The investigation began with collecting information about the missing persons and their possible whereabouts. First, the investigators looked closely: in Łódź, Rzgow, Tuszyn and Pabianice, where the Bogdański family had friends and where Krzysztof - the owner of an electronic company, was doing business or doing shopping. They checked in which shops and ATMs the Bogdański family used payment and credit cards. But it didn't help.

Investigators only found out that before Easter, Bożena Bogdańska was going to Wrocław for a several-day training in running a tourist office. Two of her friends knew that Bożena, who had already raised her children, was going to return to work in foreign tourism. At least that's what one of the missing girl's friends said. Bogdańska was also to tell her that she would take her children to Wrocław - Małgosia and Kuba, to show them beautiful Lower Silesia. But no suitcases with clothes were taken from the house.

Krzysztof also mentioned the trip to Lower Silesia. Before Easter, Bogdański apologized to his in-laws that they would not come to them for Christmas breakfast - as they used to do. This is because on Holy Saturday he will drive to Wrocław - to his wife and children. From there, the family will go to the mountains, where they have rooms reserved in the guesthouse for the holidays. But Krzysztof didn't pack his travel bag either ...

Before disappearing, he called his daughter's best friend. He excused Gosia. He said that today his daughter will not come to the swimming pool and English lesson, because he is going to Germany with her parents. Krzysztof whispered to his mother-in-law that he wanted to travel from Lower Silesia to Germany - to his relatives living there. The Bogdańskis liked to travel, especially to the mountains. They organized family outings several times a year. Police officers checked all hotels, guesthouses, hostels and lodgings in Lower Silesia. The Bogdańskis did not stop at any of these places.

The policemen also reached the relatives of the Bogdański family in Germany. But there was no good news from there either. The relatives did not invite the Bogdański family. They did not even know that Krzysztof and his family were going to visit them. German policemen and a liaison officer at the Polish embassy in Berlin participated in the search for a family across the western border of Poland. It was all for nothing. After months of painstaking searches, no trace of the five missing people was found.

They ran away with debts?

It is possible that the Bogdańskis left Poland, hid somewhere in the world and cut themselves off from the past - this was the hypothesis put forward by the investigators. Debts could have been the reason for the family's flight. The Bogdańskis took out loans in several banks - over PLN 400,000. Recently, they have had trouble paying their installments. Krzysztof, who has been playing on the stock exchange for years, has recently had bad luck and has lost a lot. “A dozen or so days before her disappearance, Bożena was looking for money,” testified the missing woman's sister. "She called friends and asked me for a loan."

If a family of five left Poland to start a new life far away, it was necessary to check where they had fled. The police soon established that the Bogdańskis did not leave the country by plane, did not go by ship or ferry, and did not cross the border by car. With the help of Interpol, it was checked that the Bogdańskis did not apply for entry visas in any country in the world. In the USA they certainly did not get a "green card".

Could they leave with false passports? Probably not. Neither Krzysztof nor Bożena knew how to contact the forgers of documents and how much you have to pay for the three forged passports.

The diary found in the desk of sixteen-year-old Gosia indicated the preparations for the escape from Poland. The daughter of the Bogdański family wrote in it that one day my father had "already crossed the border". Is it to prepare the family a hiding place?

Murdered?

Investigators could not rule out that the Bogdańskis were murdered - the whole family. Such crimes have already happened in Poland, mainly in the context of revenge, scores or ruthless struggle for millions of profits. The families of entrepreneurs who did not pay their loans to mobsters or did not want to withdraw from lucrative business have already fallen victim to group murders. Krzysztof Bogdański ran a company, he had several hundred thousand zlotys of unpaid loans, so ... If it was a crime, where did the criminals hide the bodies of five Bogdański?

The investigative team brought thermal imaging cameras and probes to Starowa Góra. She ordered a plot to be dug around the house of the missing. With the help of ultraviolet lamps, traces of blood were searched for in the apartment, basement, attic, garage and outbuildings. Police tracking dogs were brought from Łódź and Pabianice - they were trained to search for bodies. The dogs sniffed the vast area around the lost family's plot, including the forest, roadside ditches, thickets, and swamps. They did not find the body.

However, the investigation found that just before his disappearance, Krzysztof Bogdański had sold his Volvo car for cash (PLN 60,000). As if he was getting ready to disappear ...

Key in resumes?

At the prosecutor's request, the policemen looked deeper into the biographies of the Bogdański adults. Maybe there is the key to the mystery of the family's disappearance? Soon they found out that Bożena (née Kuśmider) and Krzysztof Bogdański met at the communication technical school, which they attended after elementary school. They got married in 1985. Initially, they lived with Bożena's parents, a few years later they moved to a small apartment in a block of flats. Two years after the wedding, Gosia was born, and four years after her - Kuba. At the end of the last century, the parents donated a plot of land in Starowa Góra to the young Bogdański family. There was a house with a garage and a garden on it. A lot of work on the construction site of the house was carried out by Krzysztof.

Krzysztof Bogdański ran a one-man implementation company - Bestseller. He dealt with electronics and IT, traded computer components, knew how to remove locks from cell phones. He often appeared on computer exchanges in Łódź, Katowice and Warsaw, where he was known as the "Inventor". He had regular customers - mainly in Łódź and its vicinity. His computer business was doing better and better. Soon the Bogdański family could afford home furnishings, private schools for children, designer clothes and a new Volvo car.

At home, the overbearing Krzysztof decided everything. Quiet, humble Bożena took care of the garden, cooking, washing, cleaning and raising children. Her mother-in-law helped her. The Bogdańskis lived well with their neighbors and relatives. "They led a normal life," the file of the investigation wrote.

In 2000, burglars robbed the Bestseller warehouse. They stole the most expensive computer parts. The owner of the company received PLN 470,000 in compensation.

Investigators also found out that the day before his mysterious disappearance, Krzysztof Bogdański ... was painting the walls in the attic of the house. His neighbors saw him with a paintbrush.

Stone into water

Due to unpaid loans, at the request of the banks, international arrest warrants were sent out after Krzysztof, Bożena and Danuta Bogdański. For 16 years, these three have been wanted by all the police forces in the world. Małgorzata and Jakub Bogdański are on the list of missing persons.

When the Polish police turned out to be helpless, the Bogdański relatives asked the clairvoyant for help. "They are alive, but they don't want to contact anyone," said the seer. He even pointed out that the Bogdańskis live in Vilnius, Lithuania. This lead was also checked, but it was also false.