Henryk Siwiak
On the morning of September 11th, 2001, 46-year-old Henryk Siwiak fled from a construction site in lower Manhattan. Siwiak, a desperate father of two looking to send cash back home to his family in Poland, made plans to take the A Train that evening to an area of New York he'd never been to. There, sadly, Siwiak would become the city's only unsolved murder from this fateful day...
For many, September 11th, 2001 is a day that will never be forgotten.
Almost all of us Americans that were alive at the time have a 9/11 story, even those of us that lived hundreds, if not thousands of miles away. On the morning of 9/11, I remember waking up early and beginning to get ready to start the day. At the time - believe it or not - I was in the earliest days of sixth grade, and really didn't have a care in the world for worldly events.
However, I do remember my parents receiving a phone call and then turning on the news early that morning. Smoke was billowing from the North Tower of the World Trade Center, which had been hit by a plane minutes beforehand. At the time, it was believed that this might have been a tragic accident. But any hope of that being the truth disappeared when, minutes later, a second plane hit the South Tower of the World Trade Center.
At the time, because we only had one vehicle, my family all carpooled together to work and school. It was decided then and there, when the second tower was hit, that my family was going to stay home for the day. Over the next several hours, my siblings and I - along with our parents - watched as chaos and confusion engulfed the nation.
Two more planes would crash that day: one alone the western wall of the Pentagon, in Washington D.C.; and another, in a field outside of Stonycrook Township, Pennsylvania. Both were later proven to be a part of the same terrorist plot, which was the deadliest and most tightly coordinated in American history. Minutes after turning on the TV, I remember watching the first of the Twin Towers fall as-it-happened... followed shortly by the other.
At the time, I was just eleven years old and didn't understand the context of the day's events... nor the precedent that it would set for the next two decades. But I remember looking to my adult family members and teachers and picking up a lot of emotions in the days to come... fear, frustration, and confusion predominant among them. I reckon that many of you listening felt the same way.
The combination of strong, conflicting emotions would dominate conversations in America for the next several weeks, months, and years, culminating in two wars, untold deaths, and countless other unforeseen circumstances. Almost anything else happening in the world was drowned out by the insane amount of noise surrounding the terror attacks.
This includes the bizarre unsolved death of a Polish immigrant, who is listed as the only homicide victim in NYC that same day... the last person to die in New York City on September 11th.
This is the story of Henryk Siwiak.
Born in Krakow, Poland in 1955, Henryk Siwiak was interested in science as a youngster, but only ever managed to earn a technical school degree, as opposed to a complete college education. As an adult, Henryk would end up working for Poland's railroad service as an inspector, which helped support his burgeoning family.
Henryk's wife, Ewa, was an academic scientist that married him in the early 1980s. Together, the two would have two children: Gabriela, born a couple of years after their marriage, and then Adam, born nearly a decade later. The family would remain closely knit for the foreseeable future, despite their future in Poland remaining uncertain.
You see, throughout the 1990s, Poland's economy - which had been faltering for some time - continued to slide as the nation moved away from the communistic tendencies of the fallen USSR to a more capitalistic country. In 1995, Henryk's sister, Lucyna, decided to move to the U.S. after her health food store closed due to lack of business.
Throughout the late 1990s, Poland's failing economy would end up causing issues for Henryk and his family, with unemployment numbers reaching as high as approximately 15%. Soon, Henryk would find himself out of a job, after being laid off from his job as a railroad inspector.
After struggling to track down any work in Poland, a desperate Henryk decided to follow in his sister's footsteps and temporarily moved to the U.S. to seek opportunity there.
Henryk Siwiak moved to the United States in October of 2000, moving in with his sister, Lucyna, who lived in New York City, as he searched for work, hoping to send money back to his family in Poland.
According to his loved ones, Henryk was hoping to save up enough to build a new house for his family in Poland and send Gabriela - his oldest child, quickly approaching adulthood - to a good university. If possible, he hoped to save enough to move his entire family out to the U.S. with him, but he knew that was a pipe dream in his current situation.
In the U.S., Henryk began working a series of construction and cleaning jobs, sending back approximately half of whatever he made... approximately $500 a month. After living with Lucyna for several months, he ended up moving into a small apartment of his own in the Polish community of Far Rockaway Beach, in Queens, not too far away from his sister. Sadly, though, his employment opportunities were rather limited, because of his poor understanding of the English language. Most of the English he had picked up had come from books or TV.
According to Lucyna, Henryk didn't have many friends in New York City but seemed to be enamored with the city itself and its vibrant culture. She urged him to be more cautious, describing New York as a dangerous place - especially for outsiders - but Henryk didn't seem to believe her.
On the morning of September 11th, 2001, Henryk - who had been living in New York City for the better part of a year - headed to work at a construction site in lower Manhattan. There, however, Henryk would witness two hijacked commercial planes slam into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, just seventeen minutes from each other.
What followed were minutes of panicked confusion and chaos, with the construction site shutting down for the day and sending everyone home.
Henryk made it away from the disaster site, crossing a bridge from Manhattan to Brooklyn on foot. He first made it to his sister's home in Far Rockaway Beach, where - oblivious to the gravity of the situation unfolding just miles away - he began to look for a job in the classified ads of a Polish newspaper called the Super Express. Henryk, a workaholic, was unable to go a day without working, and without the money from his construction job, was hoping to fill his time in other ways.
One of these ads read "MEN TO CLEAN STORES IN BROOKLYN AND QUEENS." More importantly, the ad also included a stipulation: "ENGLISH NOT NECESSARY."
Henryk needed to apply for this job in person at a nearby employment agency, so he would head there next. There, he comforted the owner of the employment agency, whose husband worked at the World Trade Center and had been out-of-contact all morning (sadly, she would later learn that her husband had been killed). There, however, Henryk asked about the job and applied, before deciding to return home to his apartment nearby.
Because his TV was broken at the time, Henryk wasn't able to follow along with the day's news, as almost everyone else in America was doing at the time. For this reason, he didn't seem to understand what he had just seen: the largest act of terrorism in this nation's history.
A short time later, he would speak to his wife, Ewa, back home in Poland. Over several minutes, he would speak to her and their son, Adam, telling them that he had been in Manhattan when the two planes hit the World Trade Center, evacuating the area shortly thereafter. His family was glad to hear that he was okay, but recall that Henryk didn't seem to understand the scope of what he had been present for. To him, this was just another day; to millions of Americans, however, this was the darkest day in our nation's history and one that would change things forever. Ewa later recalled to reporters:
"I don't think he understood the gravity. He told me he went to a Polish agency in New York to look for work and maybe there was work for him in some shop. I asked him not to go anywhere that evening. But he did."
Shortly after speaking to his wife and son, Henryk received a call about the sanitation job he had applied to earlier that morning, which offered to pay $10 an hour (nearly double the federal minimum wage at the time). They wanted to know if he could start that night, however, and - despite promising his family he wouldn't leave that evening - Henryk desperately agreed to do so, not wanting to risk losing out on this well-paying opportunity.
The job agency told him where to be later that evening: at the Pathmark supermarket in the 1500 block of Albany Avenue in Flatbush, Queens, where he would meet with a man named Adam, who would be parked in a white car outside of the supermarket.
That evening, as New York rallied around the first responders at the World Trade Center, trying to rescue survivors from the wreckage of the Twin Towers, Henryk carried on in his relative ignorance, unaware of the impact the morning's events would have on not only the city but a large portion of the world for the foreseeable future.
That evening, Henryk dressed in camouflage pants and an Army fatigue jacket, which he had just recently purchased for a few dollars at a Salvation Army thrift store. According to some, this gave off a bit of a militant look - especially when paired with his black boots - but as recalled by his sister Lucyna, he wore this outfit because it was comfortable.
Before leaving, Henryk spoke to his landlady, Anna Sadowska, asking her for directions to Albany Avenue in a part of the city he'd never been to before. He planned to head there via New York's A-train and had with him a map to help figure out where he was headed. Unbeknownst to both him and Anna, however, she would point to the wrong end of Albany Avenue, far away from his intended destination, resulting in him taking a different route than needed to make it to the job... an unfortunate mistake with deadly consequences.
Henryk took the 90-minute train ride towards Albany Avenue, but instead of getting off at a stop near the Pathmark supermarket, ended up getting off at the subway stop near Utica Avenue and Fulton Street. This was an area that was usually busy, even at night, but was relatively desolate on the evening in question, with the skyline illuminated by rescue worker's spotlights in Manhattan and smoke from the still-settling wreckage of the Twin Towers.
The neighborhood that Henryk now found himself in - a part of town he was wholly unfamiliar with - was more than four miles north of where he needed to be. And because of his poor understanding of the English language, he quickly found himself lost, trying to figure out how to get to the job in an unfamiliar area, late at night.
After arriving at the stop after 11:00 PM, Henryk wandered for a bit, before making the mistake of turning right onto Decatur Street... a street known for drug and gang activity. It was here, in a troubled neighborhood in a new country on the darkest day of its long history, with a poor grasp of the English language, that poor Henryk's life would come to an end.
At about 11:42 PM, an unknown assailant shot at Henryk approximately seven times, just outside of 119 Decatur Street. While six of the shots missed entirely, one hit Henryk in the chest, with the round piercing vital organs as it embedded itself inside his torso.
After being shot, Henryk would run up the steps of a nearby brownstone, banging on the door and pleading for help. However, the residents inside - having followed along with the day's tragic events - refused to open the door, fearful that the gunshots could be aimed at them next.
Bleeding profusely from the gunshot wound to his chest, Henryk would stumble back down the steps of the brownstone to the street below. Moments later, he collapsed face-down on the sidewalk, and his lifeless body was found minutes later, with the 46-year-old Polish man having already bled to death.
Officers from the NYPD arrived at the scene within minutes. However, because of events demanding their attention throughout the rest of the city, the responding officers were unable to rouse the attention of the Crime Scene Unit to analyze the scene. Instead, the examination of the crime scene was conducted by the evidence-collection unit, who typically responded to nonviolent crime scenes (such as burglaries). Because of similar limitations, only three detectives would arrive to examine the scene, as opposed to the usual nine.
This collection of police officers discovered Henryk's body laying along the sidewalk of Decatur Street, with specks of blood marking his path up the steps of a nearby home, and back down to where he had collapsed onto the ground.
The first detectives to arrive at the scene recall thinking that Henryk had been a National Guardsman, because of the camo outfit he was wearing at the time of his death.
At the scene, investigators were unable to find any sign of a physical struggle having preceded the shooting. For that reason, they believed that the shooting had been unprompted by any other kind of violence. This paired with other information led early detectives to believe that robbery had not played a motive in the crime.
Henryk's wallet, which contained approximately $75 in cash, had been untouched. The bag he had been carrying with him, which contained sneakers and another pair of pants, appeared to have been untouched by the shooter(s), but investigators were unable to determine if anything had been stolen. As far as they knew, the only thing of value Henryk had on him was the cash in his wallet, which hadn't even been touched, so robbery was unlikely to have been a motivation for his killer(s).
The only physical evidence recovered at the crime scene were the seven shell casings from what appeared to be a .40-caliber pistol, as well as the round found inside of Henryk's chest. This, however, would appear to lead nowhere. Investigators were unable to link these shell casings to any other crimes committed in the area.
Over the next three days, investigators would canvas the neighborhood where Henryk had died but were unable to find any eyewitnesses to the crime itself... nor meet anyone that knew what had happened, specifically, to the Polish man.
Due to the events of 9/11 causing many residents to remain inside, as well as the infamous reputation of Decatur Street, there was not anyone outside to witness what happened. This seemed to create a perfect storm-like situation, where almost no one had been present to witness the shooting or its immediate aftermath.
A man approximately ten doors down from the shooting, who had been in bed sleeping when the gunshots started, was the person who called 911 and recalled hearing:
"Six, seven, eight shots, one after another [though] not a machine gun, more like a 9mm"
Mona Miller, another witness that lived just a door down from the shooting, at 121 Decatur Street, later recalled to WNYC that she had been caring for an elderly relative at the time. She stated in 2011:
"I heard a couple of men talking, arguing and I heard a shot. I don't know if I heard a shot or a couple of shots but I didn't come to the window because I don't dare come to the window."
Sharoni Perry, who had been on nearby Albany Avenue, would end up becoming one of the most important witnesses for investigators. She claimed to have seen Henryk walking along Albany towards Decatur, carrying a bag and a piece of paper (presumably his map). She recalled seeing three men walking behind him, approximately fifty feet behind, who might have been following him. While she didn't see the shooting take place, she recalled hearing the gunshots and seeing at least a few faceless figures down Decatur Street quickly scatter afterward.
Detectives with the NYPD would briefly consider the possibility that this might have been a hit carried out as part of a gang initiation, but had no evidence to back that up, a trend that would continue in the months and years to come.
Speaking to WNYC years later, Detective Michael Prate from the NYPD's 79th Precinct stated:
"There are no leads. The block at that time was an active block for both narcotics and street robberies... He spoke very little English so if it was an attempted robbery maybe he didn't understand what was going on."
Sadly, in the days and weeks after September 11th, police departments in New York City were in a state of complete disarray. While trying to get a handle on the immense tragedy facing the city, officers with the NYPD were also trying to reinstate some semblance of order in a city that was, at least temporarily, governed by fear and chaos.
Robert Boyce, the former NYPD chief of detectives, later recalled to ABC News:
"Each borough was pretty much acting as its own police department.
"Normally, when we have a homicide we will incorporate everybody in the NYPD, all different units, to help solve it... if we don't have a witness or don't have any kind of direction on it, or any kind of motive early on, which we didn't in [the Siwiak] homicide.
"We would take the narcotics division, we would take the gang division, we would take the vice division, whatever we could, to go into that area and see if they can find some kind of witness. That would tell us exactly what happened or what they were hearing. Because of 9/11, we couldn't do that... we were sending resources down to lower Manhattan."
Over the next several months, most members of the NYPD would end up working nonstop without a day off, attempting to help with the rescue efforts at the World Trade Center, as well as trying to get a handle on the emerging possibility of potential terror threats. If you were alive at the time, you'll likely recall the very real fear that existed throughout America, that a follow-up attack by al-Qaeda (or another similar group) was imminent.
For this variety of reasons, cases like Henryk's seemed to slip through the cracks. Beyond the scattershot response to the case early on, not many resources were allocated to his murder in the weeks or months to come.
Detective Michael Prate would recall to ABC News years later:
"None of the resources were there that night. The guys did a decent job with what they had, but minimal amount of work was put in that night just because there was nobody there to do it - not because of lack of trying.
"It's an absolute shame. I think that having it not been 9/11, we would have had a better chance with a more engaging presence."
In the years to come, a popular theory would emerge among those that had known and loved Henryk Siwiak: that he had become the unfortunate victim of mistaken identity, but not the kind you'd expect.
Ewa and Lucyna, Henryk's wife and sister, respectively, believe that the shooter(s) had mistaken Henryk for an Arab man, due to his olive skin, his accent, and his scattered understanding of English. Because he had chosen to wear camo clothing that evening, they believed that the shooter(s) had believed Henryk to be a militant of some kind... perhaps even a Muslim terrorist, whom the media had already postulated might be behind the terror attacks from that morning.
With emotions running high, it was theorized that Henryk's killer might have mistakenly believed him to be connected to the terror attacks, and decided to take matters into their own hands. Perhaps they simply believed him to be a Muslim, and in their fury, wanted to lash out and hurt someone.
Over the past two decades, however, the NYPD has dismissed this theory, despite having virtually nothing else to go on. For that reason, the NYPD's Hate Crime Task Force has similarly refused to investigate the murder for themselves, stating that there is a lack of evidence to indicate the crime was racially motivated.
Some have even theorized that a police officer might have been the one to pull the trigger, believing Henryk to be a Muslim terrorist in the final minutes of September 11th, 2001. However, Lt. Tom Joyce, the commanding officer of the 79th Detective Squad, believed this to be incredibly unlikely. Speaking to the New Island Ear in 2002, Lt. Joyce stated:
"It was a unique caliber gun. If it was a cop, it definitely wasn't a cop's firearm."
Because of the events preceding Henryk's death on September 11th, 2001, the investigating agency in charge of his case (NYPD) had few resources to spare for his investigation. Because of these limitations, they were unable to pursue certain avenues in his case and were never able to establish any suspects or eyewitnesses.
Following Henryk's death, his sister Lucyna would bring his cremated ashes back to his native Poland, stating:
"He really liked New York, but I think he would have wanted to be buried in Poland."
Back in Poland, Henryk's wife of two decades, Ewa, would have trouble explaining to their two children how their father had died. Despite him having been killed on 9/11, he had not been killed by the people that brought down the Twin Towers... rather, by other evil individuals, who she believed had been acting out after the tragic events of that morning. As she explained to her and Henryk's ten-year-old son:
"Bad people attacked and killed many people in New York on this day. Other bad people killed your father this same day. He wasn't alone."
Because Henryk was no longer alive to work and send money back home to support his family, Ewa would have to quit her academic job and become a middle school biology teacher to support her two children, who were now left fatherless.
Henryk's sister Lucyna would continue to contact the New York Police Department and ask for answers, and at one point, was told by an exasperated detective that "it was probably some black criminal who shot him", but she - along with Henryk's surviving family - found this incredibly unlikely. The crime rate in New York City had virtually disappeared in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, and there was presumably no motive for someone to have shot and killed Henryk that evening. Barring some kind of hate crime or extreme case of mistaken identity, the shooter's motivation just didn't make any sense.
To this day, detectives that have worked on the case differ on potential motives. However, one thing hasn't changed over the years... there is virtually no evidence to prosecute anyone in this case. There still exist no eyewitnesses to the shooting, no surveillance footage of the neighborhood in question, no sign of robbery or a prior altercation, and no apparent motive. The only forensic evidence, in this case, came from the .40-caliber shell casings left at the scene, which remain an unworkable lead, since the firearm used has not been linked to any other known crimes. For this reason, no suspects have been developed, and this case remains as unsolved now as it was twenty years ago.
Henryk Siwiak remains the last person to be killed in New York City on September 11th, 2001 and is the only person to be listed as a victim of homicide that fateful day in American history. Sadly, his story remains unresolved.
Episode Information
Episode Information
Research & writing by Jesse Pollack
Research, writing, hosting & production by Micheal Whelan
Published on on September 11th, 2021
Producers: Roberta Janson, Travis Scsepko, Ben Krokum, Gabriella Bromley, Bryan Hall, Quil Carter, Steven Wilson, Laura Hannan, Jo Wong, Damion Moore, Scott Meesey, Astrid Kneier, Aimee McGregor, Sara Moscaritolo, Sydney Scotton, Thomas Ahearn, Marion Welsh, Patrick Laakso, Meadow Landry, Tatum Bautista, Denise Grogan, Teunia Elzinga, Sally Ranford, Rebecca O'Sullivan, Ryan Green, Jacinda Class, Stephanie Joyner, James Weis, Kevin McCracken, Brooke Bullek, Lauren Nicole, Shane Robinson, Matthew Traywick, Sara Rosario, and Stacey Houser
Music Credits
Original music created by Micheal Whelan through Amper Music
Theme music created and composed by Ailsa Traves
Sources and other reading
Wikipedia - Killing of Henryk Siwiak
New York Daily News - “Lone Slaying From Sept. 11 Is A Mystery”
AP - “Man’s Murder Overshadowed By 9-11”
WNYC -”Revisiting the City’s Lone And Unsolved Homicide on 9/11”