Jersey Stabbing Suspect Was 'Really Good Father'

Jersey Stabbing Suspect Was 'Really Good Father'

PRESS ASSOCIATION -- A man suspected of killing six people, including his wife and two young children, has been described by friends as a "really good father".

The 30-year-old man, named locally as Damian Rzeszowski, is believed to have been suicidal over the breakdown of his marriage before going on a knife rampage in Jersey.

His wife, named as Izabela Rzeszowski, is believed to be among his victims, along with her father known only as Marek, her friend Marta de la Haye, and her own five-year-old daughter Julia.

Mr Rzeszowski's own children were named by members of the Polish community visiting the murder scene at Victoria Crescent, Upper Midvale Road, St Helier, as a son named Kasper and a daughter called Kinga.

Mr Rzeszowski, who is believed to have turned the knife on himself, remains under police guard at Jersey General Hospital as police wait to question him. Police believe he may not be well enough to be spoken to for some time.

At a mass held at a Catholic church in the village of St Martin, near Jersey's capital, family friend Marlena Bartus, 27, described them as "almost the perfect family".

Mrs Bartus 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."

Mrs Bartus said she believed the son, who used to play with her own little boy, was aged around two and the daughter was about five or six.

Neighbours described how 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 in an area described by a detective as "one of the safest places in the Western world".

One local, who did not want to be named, said the couple had been rowing lately and Mr Rzeszowski had tried to take an overdose last month. Another said he had launched the attack after finding out his wife had become pregnant with another man's baby.

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