Nearly two decades on, we return to the quiet street where Malgorzata Wnuczek spent her final days – now home to a new generation who never knew her story
Malgorzata Wnuczek was 26 when she disappeared on May 31, 2006. (Image: Leicestershire Police )
Human remains discovered in Leicester scrubland have brought the long-running mystery of a missing Polish mother back into sharp focus. But on the street where Malgorzata Wnuczek last lived, few residents remember her disappearance.
The 27-year-old, known to her family as Gosia, was last seen catching a bus from her workplace at Peter Jackson Logistics in Braunstone Frith on May 31, 2006. She had been living in a shared house at 24 Mill Hill Lane, Highfields, working long shifts at the warehouse and saving money to visit her little girl Ola back in Poland. She never returned.
On Wednesday, October 8, police revealed they had found human remains in scrublands off the Great Central Way following information received from colleagues in Poland. While it remains “unknown” whether the remains are those of Ms Wnuczek, the discovery has brought the 18-year investigation back to the quiet residential street where she spent her final known days.
The house that forgot
Malgorzata Wnuczek’s last known address was in Mill Hill Lane, Highfields, Leicester.
When LeicestershireLive visited Mill Hill Lane this week, the house at number 24 tells a story of constant change. The current occupant, Angad Pal Singh, 26, moved in just one month ago and knew nothing of the woman who once lived there. “I just came to this country,” he said. “I have no idea.”
His reaction – a mix of shock and unfamiliarity – mirrors that of many on the street. A neighbour, who has lived in the area for three years and asked not to be named, said he only heard about the case recently. “It’s a really big shock,” he said, adding that the area has become “a bit of a transient community” with people moving in and out regularly.
A close-knit street that never knew
Perhaps most striking is the account of Yvonne, 68, who has lived on the street for 28 years – long before Malgorzata disappeared. She has no memory of the case at all. “I don’t remember this,” she said repeatedly when shown details of the disappearance. “That would have stuck in my mind.”
Malgorzata Wnuczek has not been seen since 2006(Image: Family handout/PA)
Yvonne described the area as it was in 2006 – a close-knit community where children played in the street and neighbours knew each other. “We were all quite close,” she said. “There was a big Polish community in this area.” Yet somehow, when Malgorzata vanished, it barely registered. She doesn’t recall police knocking on doors or missing person posters appearing in windows.
“I would have been in my late 40s,” Yvonne said. “You’re aware of people going missing. It wouldn’t have made me think I need to get a move.” The local shops where everyone once knew everyone have long since closed. The families have changed. The community Malgorzata knew has scattered to the winds.
During the investigation, police searched the house at number 24, digging up the garden and turning it inside out. The then-occupant, a Greek musician named I-Mitri, was put up in the Grand Hotel while officers conducted what he described as “a really major operation”. They found nothing – just punch holes in the plaster, kicked-out door panels, and Polish hooligan stickers on the walls, remnants of whoever lived there before.
Malgorzata’s disappearance has been covered by the Mercury for nearly 20 years(Image: Mercury)
A life lived out of carrier bags
Leicestershire Police have been investigating the disappearance of Malgorzata Wnuczek for nearly two decades. She grew up in Inowroclaw, a small industrial town in the middle of Poland, in what her family described as a nice, ordinary, loving home. She met her husband Dariusz while they were studying at Poznan University and married him in March 2003 when she was pregnant with Ola.
She arrived in Leicester in July 2005 with Dariusz and their two-year-old daughter Aleksandra, known as Ola. They settled in Knighton Fields and, by September, she had found a job at Peter Jackson Logistics. By January 2006, the marriage had collapsed and Ola was sent back to Poland to live with her grandparents while Malgorzata stayed in Leicester, moving between temporary addresses.
Police would later trace 20 properties she had links to – a string of temporary addresses, a room here, half a room there, often just for a few nights. “The information we have is that she pretty much lived out of a couple of carrier bags,” Detective Superintendent Andy Lee said during a 2011 appeal. By the time police searched her last known address in Mill Hill Lane, there was little left of hers but a couple of plates.
Bozena Smolka, Malgorzata Wnuczek’s mum, made an impassioned plea to help find her daughter in 2011, in a YouTube appeal.
On May 28, 2006, she phoned her parents. The next day, she sent them a text message – the last time they would hear from her. On May 31, she clocked off work at 2pm. She sent a text to a work colleague that afternoon, though the recipient would later claim he couldn’t remember what it said. At 4pm, her debit card was used to buy beer and wine from a Spar shop in Evington Road. After that, nothing. Her phone and cashcard were never used again.
Weeks before anyone raised the alarm
Malgorzata was last seen on Tuesday, May 31 – catching a bus from her workplace, Peter Jackson Logistics, in Braunstone Frith, into the city centre. No missing person report was filed in Leicester. In a transient community of Polish workers moving from city to city, job to job, her absence didn’t immediately raise alarms. People lived at the same addresses but didn’t necessarily share one another’s lives. Factory supervisors were used to workers leaving without notice when they found better opportunities elsewhere.
Malgorzata Wnuczek’s clocking in card(Image: Mercury Archive)
It wasn’t until June 26 that her frantic parents contacted Polish authorities, and it was another five months before Leicestershire Police were alerted. By then, CCTV footage had been wiped and potential witnesses had scattered across the country and beyond. Officers were half a year behind, with no crime scene to examine, no forensics to gather, and hundreds of possible witnesses spread across multiple countries.
The hunt that never stopped
The investigation, treated as a murder inquiry since 2009, has been extraordinary in its scope. Detectives have identified more than 2,000 witnesses and pursued nearly 2,500 lines of inquiry. Officers have taken 108 statements, here and abroad. Detective Constable Jan Volski, who has Polish parents, conducted many of the interviews with Poles who had limited English. Police have searched houses across Leicester, dug up gardens, and followed leads from Scotland to Devon, from Bristol to Edinburgh, even to Germany.
One lead seemed promising – a bar owner in Germany was certain he had served Malgorzata and saved her glass and cutlery for DNA testing. After endless legal procedures, the tests came back negative. A woman in Exeter matched her description – blonde, Polish, living quietly. It was a different Malgorzata. In August 2009, DNA testing was conducted on more than 20 unidentified corpses in mortuaries across the UK. All proved negative.
In 2011, Leicestershire Police offered a £10,000 reward – believed to be the largest ever offered by the force – for information. In June 2023, a 39-year-old man was arrested in the Greater Manchester area on suspicion of assisting an offender and perverting the course of justice, but was later released with no further action. Specialist police also searched the River Soar after receiving new information from Polish authorities.
Specialist officers search the River Soar in Leicester in the search for missing mum Malgorzata Wnuczek (Image: Leicester Mercury)
A daughter who can’t remember
Ola is now in her twenties. In 2009, aged just six, she made a heart-breaking video appeal from Poland. “I am Ola, I am six years old and I don’t remember my mummy,” she said. “Not long ago I had my birthday and I was so sad that mum was not there.”
In 2011, her grandmother Bozena Smolka appeared in another appeal. “Gosia – five years has passed since the last time we saw you,” she said, using Malgorzata’s nickname. “Your daughter, Ola, is now eight years old and misses you very much.”
Back in Mill Hill Lane this week, Yvonne reflected on what it means that answers might finally come after 18 years. “I hope there’s enough evidence to show what happened to her and perhaps to catch any culprits,” she said. “But also for her family. There’s got to be a family somewhere – whether it’s here in Poland or wherever – who’ve got a missing child.”
Malgorzata Wnuczek with her daugher, Ola, who was three years old when her mum went missing in 2006. (Image: Leicestershire Police )
Waiting for answers
Officers have been stationed in the Watkin Road area, carrying out further work following the discovery of human remains. A search of the area is continuing, police said, and further forensic tests will be undertaken to establish the identity of the person in question.
Detective Superintendent Jenni Greenway, the senior investigating officer, said officers were providing support to Ms Wnuczek’s family “at what is undoubtedly a difficult time”.
“While I appreciate this news may come as a shock to the community, I hope this discovery will provide us with information that helps us understand what may or may not have happened to Malgorzata,” she said. “Officers will remain in the Watkin Road area to carry out further work and also provide reassurance to those living nearby.”
For now, the street where Malgorzata spent her last known days continues its quiet existence, its residents coming and going, most unaware of the tragedy that unfolded here nearly two decades ago. But, somewhere, a family waits for answers about what happened to a young mother who left work one May afternoon and never came home.
Anyone with information should call Leicestershire Police on 101. Alternatively, report information on the force’s website.
You can also called Crimestoppers and report to them what you know and remain 100% anonymous – guaranteed. Call the charity for free on 0800 555 111.
