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in: Florida, 1994, Murder,
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Edward Zakrzewski

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Edward zakrewski

Sylvia and Edward Zakrzewski

Real Name: Edward Jon Zakrzewski II
Aliases: "Zak"
Wanted For: Murder
Missing Since: June 13, 1994

Case[]

Details: Twenty-nine-year-old Edward "Zak" Zakrzewski was a Technical Sergeant in the U.S. Air Force and a part-time college student. He and his thirty-four-year-old wife, Sylvia, met in 1982 while he was stationed in South Korea. The couple had two children: seven-year-old Edward Jr. "Kim" and five-year-old Anne. In 1992, he was transferred to Eglin Air Force Base in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. In April 1994, the couple bought their first house on Shrewsbury Road in Mary Esther, Florida, about forty miles east of Pensacola.
However, around that time, the couple began having marital difficulties. Less than three months later, on June 9, 1994, Edward Jr. called Zak at work and told him that Sylvia was going to file divorce papers. She also told people that she was going to take the children back to South Korea.
Four days later, on June 13, Zak failed to report for duty. Later that day, sheriff's deputies went to their house; they found the bodies of Sylvia and their children stacked on top of each other in a bathtub. All three had been stabbed, slashed, and/or beaten to death. The children also had defensive wounds on their arms. The murder weapon was believed to have been a machete. Zak and one of the family cars, a blue 1992 Geo Prizm, were missing.
Blood was found in the living room on a couch underneath a shirt owned by Zak. Blood was also found on his socks that were in the hamper. A neighbor told authorities that Zak had twice said that he would kill his family if Sylvia tried to divorce him and take the children away. On the night before the murders, he reportedly went on a drinking binge and cleaned out the couple's bank accounts of more than $5,400. Authorities also discovered that he had purchased a machete on the day of the murders, shortly after he received the call from Edward Jr. Just hours before the bodies were found (but after they were believed to have been killed), a neighbor saw Zak leaving the house.
On June 16, a warrant was issued for Zak's arrest for the murders. He has family in the Kalamazoo, Michigan, area. He should be considered armed and dangerous.
Extra Notes:

  • This case first aired as a part of a Fugitive Hotline on the October 14, 1994 episode, along with Alan Verl Sneed and Nasario Palacios.
  • It was excluded from the FilmRise release of the Robert Stack episodes.
  • Coincidentally, the victims were discovered the same day Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman's bodies were discovered.
  • Some sources spell Anne's name as "Anna".
Zakrzewski edward

Zak after his arrest and conviction

Results: Captured. Shortly after the murders, Zak fled to Molokai Island, Hawaii. In September 1994, a minister and his family allowed Zak, using the name "Michael Green", to stay in a shack on their property in return for performing maintenance work. At the time, they did not know that he was a fugitive. On the night of the broadcast, the minister noted that Zak looked like the picture shown on it. He laughed in response. The minister and his family planned to confront Zak about his past the next morning, October 15. However, by the time they woke up, he had already turned himself in to local police and admitted his identity.
On October 25, Zak was returned to Florida to face murder charges. In March 1996, shortly before he was supposed to go to trial, he confessed and pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree murder. At his sentencing hearing, he testified that on the day of the murders, he got home before his family and hid the machete in the bathroom. He first attacked Sylvia, who was sitting alone in the living room. He struck her twice in the head with a crowbar, knocking her unconscious. He then dragged her into the bedroom, attacked her with the machete, and strangled her to death with a rope.
Next, Zak called Edward Jr. into the bathroom to brush his teeth. He struck him in the head multiple times with a machete, nearly decapitating him. Then, he called Anne into the bathroom and did the same thing. He claimed she died before seeing Edward Jr.'s body. Finally, he dragged Sylvia into the bathroom and hit her again with the machete to make sure she was dead.
Zak claimed he wanted them to die "quickly and painlessly". He said he believed a machete would kill them instantly without pain. He also said that he drank beer and listened to music before making sure they were all dead. A medical examiner testified that Sylvia's death was far from "quick and painless" as she was still alive when he strangled her. His defense attorneys argued that his life should be spared because he was under a great "emotional and mental distress" when he committed the murders. The distress was allegedly caused by Sylvia's infidelity, gambling, and threats to divorce him and take the children to South Korea. They also claimed that she "psychologically abused" him.
A jury recommended the death penalty for Zak in Sylvia and Edward Jr.'s murders. They recommended life in prison for Anne's. However, in April 1996, a judge overruled the jury's recommendation and sentenced him to death for all three murders. The judge said the premeditated nature of the murders, their cruelty, and the fact that he killed more than once outweighed any mitigating factors. Zak appealed his sentence; however, in June 1998, it was upheld by the Florida Supreme Court. By 2016, he exhausted all federal and state appeals available to him. He remains on death row.
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