23-year-old Katarzyna Zowada lived with her mother in Krakow, Poland. She studied religion at the Jagiellonian University and spent much of her time alone. After the death of her father in 1996, she fell into a deep depression and started to see a psychologist. On the 12th of November, 1998, her mother became concerned when she didn’t show up for one of these sessions. She was reported missing.

It was a cold winter morning on the 7th of January, 1999, when the propellor of a barge became stuck. As the operator opened the hatch to remove what had become intertwined, assuming it was a tree branch, he was horrified to find something much more gruesome: human skin, in fact, a human skin suit. It was determined that the skin suit had been in the water for two or three weeks. It was also determined that the skin suit was that of Katarzyna Zowada. She had been decapitated and dismembered before her killer cruelly fashioned a suit out of her flayed skin. Other than her leg, no other body parts were ever uncovered. The pathologist determined that Katarzyna had also been tortured before her death.

Despite an extensive manhunt and a re-examination years later, the killer was never identified.