No verdict in the case of Ewa Tylman's death. Court adjourns trial until January

The third trial began two weeks ago, on Wednesday, October 30, before the District Court in Poznań. Initially, it was indicated that the verdict would most likely be delivered after the closing arguments on November 12. However, this did not happen. During Tuesday's hearing, the court decided that due to the complexity of the case, the verdict would be announced on Friday, November 15, at 8:30 a.m.

However, the court decided on Friday to reopen the proceedings.

"The court surprised us a bit. We believe the evidence is complete and sufficient to issue a verdict, and that’s what we were expecting today. However, the court surprised us somewhat, although we are always prepared for such a possibility," said Łukasz Wawrzyniak, spokesperson for the District Prosecutor's Office in Poznań.

Wawrzyniak suspects that the court decided not to issue the verdict today due to "certain doubts regarding the defense's closing arguments."

"I think it’s related to the correctness of how the experiment was conducted. During their closing arguments, Adam Z.’s defense emphasized this issue heavily. The court likely wants to determine whether the experiment was carried out correctly and whether the defense was properly informed about it," the spokesperson explained.

A TVN24 reporter asked the prosecutor how such a verification might be conducted.

"That is a question for the court, but I suspect the simplest way would be to review the case files. In our view, the experiment was conducted properly, and the attorney was properly notified," Wawrzyniak added.

One of Adam Z.’s defense attorneys also commented on the court's decision.

"The court has doubts, and we hope those doubts - an important element of this process - will ultimately be resolved in favor of the defendant.

In our closing arguments, we emphasized that there is no exception to the presumption of innocence. Either this principle applies and will be upheld in this case, or it does not exist at all,” said Piotr Jóźwiak.

Ewa Tylman’s father also attended the court session.

"The verdict hasn’t been announced yet. We have to wait - what more is there to say?" Andrzej Tylman told journalists, expressing hope that the court would thoroughly examine the case.

"We’re waiting. Verdicts can be unpredictable," he added.

The family, like the prosecution, is demanding that Adam Z. be convicted for failing to provide assistance.

"I think this adjournment might suggest that it’s heading in that direction. The hardest part is the waiting. It’s already been nine years of uncertainty. We can still endure two more months," he said.

On October 30, the defendant Adam Z. appeared in the courtroom. He refused to testify, so his statements from the investigation were read aloud. It is worth recalling that during the investigation, he mentioned seeing Ewa Tylman fall into the water, and that he himself was in shock and did not help her, instead fleeing the scene. In court, as well as in the first instance, he did not uphold the content of these statements.

During the first hearing, a recording of the events reconstruction conducted on December 2, 2015, was also presented. In that experiment, the defendant Adam Z. followed the same path he had taken on the night of November 23, 2015, along with Tylman.

The experiment was carried out when Adam Z. was still suspected of kidnapping the woman. Following this experiment, the charge of murder with probable intent was brought against him.

Adam Z. did not uphold what he had said during the experiment.

After the defendant's testimony, the parties did not request any further evidence to be presented, as all the relevant evidence was already in the case files and had been examined during the two previous hearings. The court thus closed the proceedings and was preparing to move to the closing arguments.

At that point, one of the defense attorneys requested additional time to prepare for the closing argument, citing his health condition as the reason for the request.

The court granted this request and set the next hearing for Tuesday, November 12. It was on this day that the closing arguments were delivered.

The issue of failing to provide assistance was already addressed by the court during the first trial, but ultimately, Adam Z. was acquitted at that time.

During Tuesday's hearing, the parties delivered their closing arguments. Prosecutor Magdalena Jarecka thoroughly reviewed all the evidence gathered in the case and outlined the sequence of events from the tragic night when Ewa Tylman died.

"Ewa Tylman tripped and fell into the water. Adam Z. was standing 2-3 meters away from that spot. He did not attempt to help her in any way. He did not extend a hand, nor did he call for help. He had a phone, but he didn’t call the police or the fire department. He just stood there and watched as Ewa was carried away by the current. After a moment, he walked away, or rather, fled," the prosecutor said.

Jarecka also recalled the defendant’s statements made to the prosecutor, in which he described the events. She emphasized that these explanations were spontaneous, very detailed, and that the defendant had been crying and visibly shaken when giving them. She pointed out that if the defendant was not telling the truth at that time, "he would have to be a very good actor, and the defendant is not an actor," she noted.

Furthermore, in her closing argument, the prosecutor requested a change in the legal qualification of the offense charged against the defendant to Article 162, Paragraph 1 of the Penal Code, which pertains to failing to provide assistance. She asked for Adam Z. to be found guilty of this offense and sentenced to three years in prison. Additionally, the prosecutor requested that Adam Z. be ordered to pay 50,000 zlotys in compensation to the Victim Assistance and Post-penitentiary Assistance Fund (also known as the Justice Fund) and be burdened with the costs of the trial, including the court fee.

The representative of the auxiliary prosecutor, attorney Michał Konieczyński, in his closing argument, supported the prosecutor's requests, particularly regarding the change in the legal qualification of the offense and the imposition of a severe penalty on the defendant. The auxiliary prosecutor, Ewa Tylman’s father, Andrzej, fully agreed with the position of his legal representative.

The defense attorney, Ireneusz Adamczak, emphasized that the Poznań prosecutor's office had suffered a "devastating defeat" in this case. He reminded the court that Adam Z. had already been acquitted twice by the district court of the charge of murder with probable intent, noting that, as he pointed out, the prosecutor's office "had doubts from the beginning and was not 100% sure, nor did it have any evidence."

He added that the investigators had only circumstantial evidence in this case. The second defense attorney, Piotr Jóźwiak, also pointed out numerous errors made by the prosecutor's office and emphasized that there was no evidence indicating that the defendant had contributed to Ewa Tylman’s death in any way. The defense requested the acquittal of Adam Z. from both the charge of murder with probable intent as well as, in the event of a change in the legal qualification of the offense, the charge of failing to provide assistance.

Tylman went missing in November 2015, and her body was recovered from the Warta River several months later. Due to the significant decomposition of the remains, experts were unable to definitively determine the cause of death.

According to the prosecution, on November 23, 2015, Adam Z. allegedly pushed Tylman off a slope and then threw her unconscious body into the water. The charge of murder with probable intent, as alleged by the prosecutor, carries a penalty of up to 25 years in prison or life imprisonment.

The trial of Adam Z. began in January 2017, and the case was handled by the District Court in Poznań. In April 2019, the court found that Adam Z. had not killed Ewa Tylman and acquitted him of the charge of murder with probable intent. However, in January 2020, the Court of Appeals in Poznań overturned the first-instance verdict and ordered the case to be reconsidered.

The retrial of Adam Z. began in March 2021. In the closing argument, the prosecution requested that Adam Z. be found guilty of the alleged crime and sentenced to 15 years in prison. The defense, on the other hand, requested an acquittal, while the representatives of the auxiliary prosecution called for the defendant to be found guilty.

However, the judge emphasized that "in the court's assessment, the evidence did not allow for assigning guilt in the matter of failing to provide assistance either."

"In conclusion, it should be pointed out that we are dealing with a certain kind, a scope of circumstantial evidence, which in the court's view - this chain of circumstantial evidence - was too weak to attribute the defendant as the perpetrator of the act. Especially since, in fact, there is no direct evidence indicating that, on that critical night, the defendant, Adam Z., was directly in the riverbed, near the water," said the judge.

"As for the potential assignment of the offense under Article 162, Paragraph 1 of the Penal Code, it should be noted that we can only talk about committing such an act when the perpetrator fails to assist a person who is in immediate danger of losing their life or suffering serious harm to their health. This means that in order to attribute the act of failure to assist to Adam Z. … it must be proven that he was aware that she was in such a situation, that he saw it," he added.

The judge also emphasized in the justification that "of course, the court is aware of the entire situation, that it was a very tragic event." He continued: "The court realizes that the consequences are irreversible, and one might question whether the defendant's behavior in that moment, on a human level, was appropriate. From a moral point of view, one might wonder if there could be any complaints about the fact that, as a friend, the defendant left the victim alone at night in the park."

However, he pointed out: "At this point, the fact is that the evidence presented in the case only allows us to confirm that both individuals were indeed in the park, and we only have evidence that the victim stayed in the park while the defendant left the park."

In December 2023, the Court of Appeal in Poznań once again overturned the acquittal of Adam Z., who was accused of the murder of Ewa Tylman, and referred the case for re-examination by the court of first instance. According to local media reports, the court of appeals stated that many errors had been made in the first-instance ruling. The court also noted that Adam Z.'s initial statements were sufficient to convict him of failure to provide assistance.

Adam Z. spent 15 months in custody but was released while the first trial was still ongoing.

The trial has been adjourned to January 29.