Bio 

Andrzej Kunowski was born on March 29, 1956, in Poland. He later became known in the media as “The Beast” because of his long history of sexual violence against girls and women. Kunowski began committing sexual offenses as a teenager. Reports state that he committed his first rape at the age of 17. Over the following years, he was convicted or linked to numerous serious sexual attacks in Poland.

Before entering the United Kingdom, Kunowski had already served time in prison in Poland. He was connected to many serious attacks against girls and women, including children. His criminal history made him a dangerous repeat sexual offender before the murder of Katerina Koneva.

In 1996, Kunowski was facing proceedings in Poland after being accused of raping a young girl. He was allowed temporary release for medical reasons, reportedly connected to a hip operation. Instead of returning to custody, he fled Poland and entered the United Kingdom under a false or assumed identity.

After arriving in London, Kunowski lived in the Acton and west London area. He was an illegal immigrant and avoided detection for years. At the time, British authorities did not connect him to his serious criminal history in Poland.

Murder Story

On May 22, 1997, 12-year-old Katerina Koneva returned home from school to her family’s flat in Hammersmith, west London. Her family had moved to Britain from Macedonia, seeking safety from conflict in the Balkans. Katerina was alone in the flat for the first time after school.

Kunowski entered the flat and attacked her. He strangled her with a cord in a sexually motivated attack. Her father, Trajce Konev, returned home and found the door barricaded with a chair. When he looked under the door, he saw a man’s shoes and realized something was wrong.

Konev tried to force his way into the flat. Kunowski escaped through a first-floor window, leaving fingerprints on the window and window ledge. Konev chased him into the street, but Kunowski got away. When Konev returned to the flat, he found Katerina with the cord tied tightly around her neck. He cut the cord and tried to save her, but she died.

The investigation lasted for years. Police had eyewitness descriptions, fingerprints, and forensic evidence, including a hair found on Katerina’s cardigan. However, the evidence did not immediately match anyone in British records. Kunowski continued living in the United Kingdom after the murder. In 2002, he raped a 21-year-old Korean student in London after luring her to a bedsit. He was convicted of that rape and sentenced to nine years in prison.

After his arrest, his DNA and fingerprints were taken. Those samples finally linked him to Katerina Koneva’s murder. His DNA matched a hair found on Katerina’s clothing, and his fingerprints matched prints found at the flat.

Kunowski was charged with Katerina’s murder on July 29, 2003. He denied killing her and claimed it was a case of mistaken identity. The evidence against him included DNA, fingerprints, and eyewitness testimony from Katerina’s father and others who saw him fleeing. On March 31, 2004, he was convicted of murder at the Old Bailey.

The judge sentenced him to life imprisonment and recommended that he should never be released. After his conviction, police reviewed other unsolved cases to see whether Kunowski may have been involved. He was considered a suspect in the disappearances of Elizabeth Chau and Lola Shenkoya, but he was not convicted in those cases.

On September 23, 2009, Andrzej Kunowski died of heart failure at Frankland Prison in Durham, England. He was serving his life sentence at the time.