Follow your favourite podcasts, listen offline and in the car with CarPlay and Android Auto, and always pick up where you left off. Free to try.
What if the most notorious murder trial of interwar Poland was built entirely on circumstantial evidence—and a public that had already chosen its verdict? The Dark and Chilling Case of Rita Gorgonowa takes us to the night of December 30, 1931, in a villa near Lwów, where seventeen-year-old Elżbieta "Lusia" Zaremba was bludgeoned to death in her bed with an ice-crushing tool. The only person with motive, opportunity, and blood on her fur coat was her governess—and her father's mistress. Rita Gorgonowa, a Croatian outsider with no family, no friends, and no standing in Polish society, was arrested within days. The press branded her a "refined criminal" and "a woman of easy virtue" before a single witness testified [citation:1]. The trial became a national spectacle, with crowds demanding blood outside the courthouse. She was sentenced to death, spared only because she was pregnant, then retried and given eight years after a court accepted she acted "under immense emotion" [citation:1][citation:8]. She never confessed. She never stopped claiming innocence. And to this day, no one can say with certainty whether justice was served or a woman was sacrificed to public fury. Press play, and don't listen alone. New episode every week—subscribe and leave your review. 🎧
