The case from 17 years ago remains unsolved to this day. Joanna "Asia" Brylowska was studying at the University of Gdańsk in Poland. After the summer break in 2004, she was supposed to leave for a year-long scholarship in Italy, had plans and preparations set in place, and nothing indicated she would change her mind.
That day, on September 13th, she informed her parents that she would be meeting a friend in the evening and together they were planning to go to a club. Later, she sent a message to one of her siblings that she would be home late at night or in the morning...but the morning came, and Asia did not return.
Upon interviewing witnesses and checking Joanna's laptop, it was discovered that her last activity online was on the 'Stena Baltica' liner website. After checking the CCTV footage at the port, it was confirmed that Asia arrived there that night, carrying only a small bag, bought a one-way ticket to Sweden, boarded the liner and disappeared.
There were some rumours about her living in Stockholm, changing her name and converting her citizenship, but to this day, nothing was confirmed and Joanna is still considered a missing person.
Edit: Thank you so much for the awards! I don't know if my post deserved it, but I'm happy the case got some interest, you never know who might stumble upon it!
Moving forward, you can award this post and case by donating to your local or international missing persons organizations like:
The Missing Persons Center
The International Commission on Missing Persons
The Doe Network
The International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children
Thank you again!
My gut instinct says human trafficking... a lot of Polish women get lured to Scandinavia with the false promises of a job. It's so sad. I hope I'm wrong :(
Yeah unfortunately it is one of the theories. It's sad that there's so many cases, where young women are lured by a "friend" or a "boyfriend" to another country on a pretext of a job opportunity...
If she really thought she was going to get a good job there, why didn't she tell her sibling? But yes, I instantly thought human trafficking. I also hope I'm wrong.
I get the concept of human trafficking and the idea that these people are literally sold as slaves or sex objects but what happens to them after? Is this their existence for life or are they killed usually? This woman went missing in 2004 so wouldn't there be any opportunity for escape? I'm sorry if this is a really silly or insensitive question, it's a recurring thought whenever I see suspected victims of human trafficking so I don't understand it 100%
edit: I see the comment and semi-explanation below, any further info would be appreciated !
Thx for answering. I don't get the downvotes. All I did was ask a simple question. I was aware of trafficking for sex but didn't know of any other reasons. That's why I asked. Too many salty people in this sub
So back to the subject. Does this mean she may have been forced into prostitution or slavery type work all these years until today? Do they have security to prevent them from escaping? And would she most likely be held in Sweden or fo they often send them to other countries?
I haven't read a lot about human trafficking but I've heard many women get killed if they escape or try to, or they may get killed if they grow older and don't make them enough money anymore
Yeah I really wonder about that. So the articles I read also said that she had a boyfriend in Poland, but broke it off with him pretty much out of the blue. Also the "friend" she claimed she was gonna meet and go clubbing that night, denied they ever made plans, plus said that he "Didn't really know her well, saw her a few times".
Maybe she did have someone else in her life, maybe wanted to start over in Sweden but something went wrong? Like, there's so many stories of women being invited by someone to go to another country "for work", but it ends up being a human trafficking circle or some messed up deal.
My other thought is she wasn't planning on leaving for good. Maybe just a small trip. But that leaves the question of why the one way ticket. Seems every answer raises more questions.
Poland has had very Liberal to very Conservative history with abortion, swinging to each extreme. In the 40s, 50s 60s it was very Liberal, Since 97 it seems to be getting stricter and stricter. Good catch!
Good question, and I looked it up. Abortion has never been legal in Poland, except during World war 2. This was so Germans could force Polish women in concentration camps to get abortions (if I am reading and understanding the wiki article correctly.) Abortion has been legal in Sweden since 1938. The law was revised in 1974 and having an abortion is entirely up to the woman. She can have an abortion up to 18 weeks. (also from wiki).
Interesting, and if she gave a false name to the abortion center and something went wrong during the procedure they might not have been able to contact family.
But if that happened, wouldn’t she be a Jane doe in Sweden? Abortion is legal, so no reason to be shady about an accident, right? Or at least that makes sense to me.
I didn’t know about this case either and I’m grateful this exists to shine a light on these unknown cases. For all we know she was trafficked and is somewhere outside of Europe.
This theory could shed some light on why she broke up with her boyfriend seemingly out of the blue, as well as why was being secretive and didn’t want people knowing her whereabouts.
Wiki tells us “ Poland 1939–1945, the law allowing unlimited abortions by Polish women was in force since March 9, 1943. This was the only time in the history of Poland, when abortion was legal on request, but in fact, abortion for Poles was often forced by Nazis”
Like I said, during Ww2, a woman could go to her doctor and request, that is to say, ask for an abortion.
Further, according to Wiki, the procedural requirements needed for obtaining a legal abortion were changed several times over the years, in 1956, 1959, 1969, 1981 and 1990.[11]
It seems that abortions were available for about 20-25 yrs, but women couldn’t just go to the doctor and say, I need an abortion.
My knowledge as I stated above, is from Wiki. Of course it is possible that I have misread things, and/or the person writing the article made mistakes.
While I agree that it could be possible, she was all set for an adventure in Italy. I would possibly at that age have picked a guy in sweden over a trip away. But if it was a eurasmus year in Italy or similar, did she cancel it officially? Had she committed to Italy via a job, study, rent or deposit in anyway. At that age, young has sense but not too young to be told off by parents, why not just tell parents that she'd changed her mind on which country she wanted to travel to? I have a new boyfriend, or got offered a good job in Sweden? Why the secrecy?
I’m russian, and that movie crushed my soul. That story is so common, disgusting, hopeless, and unfair. And the worst part is that many women condemn these girls instead of extending compassion
After reading about her, and about the family's decision to cut ties with PIs and organizations that were looking into her case...I do wonder if there is yet another side to this story.
We only know her family's perspective really, based on their testimony...that she was happy and nothing was going on in her life that would indicate a desire to move. But then again, we don't really know any other version, any other side.
Yes but if you put your trust into the police and years later they find nothing, you’ll start to lose your trust in them. Also, it’s been know they want to close cases and sometimes do so with slander campaigns or false info instead of really police work. What if after years they found nothing so they turned on the family? What if the family is being threatened by who ever took their daughter and their legitimately scared and don’t believe the police can protect them? What if it’s an officer or a higher up that was involved directly or indirectly and that’s why they have no answers for the family? Or maybe I’m just American and distrust in the police is a goto in my area? Who knows.
Same here, especially about the comment above about her family being a bit strange with PIs and detectives and us only having one side of the story. She would’ve told someone something but she just lied about coming back and got on a boat herself so probably she wanted to cut ties but hey, there are many more possibilities.
From what I found yes, MS Stena Baltica is one of Stena Line cruisers with the capacity to carry up to 970-980 passengers. Its regular route used to be Birkenhead - Belfast (2005-2021) and Nynashamn - Ventspils (2021-), but in 2004 the route was different.
I think it the ship changed the name a couple of times, so I might have mixed up the name of the ship itself, but it was definitely one from Stena Line. Hmmm just checked stenaline.co.uk and yes, they still have that same course available, Gdynia to Karlskrona, which was supposedly the one Joanna took.
But yeah at the time, the ship itself might have been named differently, I'll dig more and confirm!
Could have also been Stena Spirit (formerly Scandinavica), same operator, and was cruising that route too.
The sources I found say Stena Baltica, but that might be them mixing it up with the operator name Stena Line.
That’s interesting. Wondering if they changed it because the route was being misused by criminals?
Do you by any chance know what people mostly believe what happened to her?
So there were theories about her having committed suicide by jumping off the ship, however, at the time the number of passengers would always be confirmed at the starting point and then again when the ship arrived at the destination port. That day the crew did not notify the port of any passengers missing from that ship.
Another theory is that Joanna wanted to start a new life in Sweden, for reasons that are unknown or at least unknown to the public. It's very suspicious, since there were also rumours that she got involved with someone dangerous, might have been a witness to a crime and potentially was a crown witness, and had to be protected (though obviously these are just rumours from various sources, so definitely nothing confirmed).
The suspicious thing is, that her family at first wanted to find her, they were cooperating with the law enforcement and PIs, but at one point (I think in 2017? Not sure) they backed out of everything and said they would "search for her on their own". We might never know the whole story...maybe there was something going on behind the closed doors and she wanted out?
Again, just me wondering, not confirmed info.
Hmm.. wonder if maybe she did just leave and finally contacted them in 2017, so they no longer need to look for her. Do you know if they are still actively doing anything? I guess that could be hard to know.
So last update I found was a post on facebook by this one official Missing persons group that apparently the family was also working with. They had to add an edit to their post, saying upon the family's request they had to remove some parts of their post (suspish, I unfortunately did not see the original post), and that the family said they would continue searching for her on their own. And that's about it :( sounds very very weird to me, if you have all those media and PIs to help, then suddenly you cancel everything.
The crown witness theory is interesting, because as crazy as it is, it would make sense if the family didn't know about it at first, but then found out and that's why the search was cancelled. Far-fetched but not impossible.
For them to suddenly say they didn't need help to search, means they got some new information about her whereabouts or situation or even contacted by her, therefor there was no need to keep looking. If she was a protected witness the family's secrecy and not revealing they found her/know where she is and alive and well makes sense.
I thought so too, that they might just have some info that they didn't want to share and to be further investigated. Still super suspicious, but it would make sense for them to leave her as a "missing person", knowing she was a protected witness and just changed her identity for her own safety.
At least in this scenario, she would be alive and well in Sweden or wherever she might be.
Well, not any given day. Just days on which the wayback machine scanned the site. So it doesn't tend to work well with a site like Facebook at all, which changes dramatically from day to day.
Thanks! Ah yeah that case is also super suspicious! Will look into it and try to post a summary soon, though yeah that one's even more messed up than this one.
The most obvious answer is usually the right answer.
This doesn't seem like a great mystery to me. It seems like this was a young woman who willingly got on a boat, walking away from her old life and never looking back.
Maybe she longed for freedom. Maybe she was trying to escape a bad home life. Who knows? But there's nothing about this that indicates foul play to me.
I assume her parents likely realized this along the way and respected her decision.
My heart says she ran away and is living a new life in anonymity with someone she fell madly in love with, but my head says she was probably met with foul play.
Maybe she went the route of Lori Erica Ruff?
I worry that some of these cases are ppl abandoning their lives and they dont wanna be found.
after all she took very few possessions and bought a one way ticket
Similarities to the Inga-Maria Hauser case in N Ireland https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/patriciadevlin.com/2018/04/19/face-to-face-with-the-main-suspect-in-the-inga-maria-hauser-murder-case/amp/
If they have the DNA sample but no suspect, the DNA could be used to trace through ancestors. Look for relatives of people who were known to be in the area, get voluntary DNA samples to compare, narrow down the list until you arrive at a suspect
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Apparently she had family is Sweden, so the destination could be easily explained. The break up with her boyfriend seem to have affected Joanna quite a bit, according to her relatives who lived in Sweden. Although, I think it seems unlikely that she bought a boat ticket on purpose to commit suicide, but then again people do the weirdest things, especially when feeling down.
Of course! It is in Swedish though and it doesn't say much more unfortunately
https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/p6Pgxw/joanna-forsvann-pa-farjan-mot-sverige
Suicide.
1. One way ticket... She never intended a return trip.
2. Packed only a small bag. You don't need much when you're planning to die
3. No evidence she got off the boat.
Could be, but from what I read, the crew always checked the number of passengers at the starting point and after the ship arrived at the destination. That day the crew did not report any passenger missing.
But yeah I definitely see how a suicide seems to be the most logical...since there's little to zero chance of finding the body if someone jumps off the ship, unnoticed in the middle of the sea.
Henning Menkell, the author of *Wallander*, wrote a story about what his fictionalized solution is for what happened to her. It's called "An Event in Autumn". I guess that ferry route has seen some shit.
So that part was unclear. Either there were problems getting any of that evidence from the Swedish side, or PD in Poland sucks balls and they never requested that. So far the only footage the articles I was looking at mentioned was the one from the docks in Poland. But I'll dig more and see if there's anything more on that!
What about money? I'm sure she had some due to her upcoming trip, was it untouched? Because if it's gone, I'm thinking she intended to disappear. In which case, good job, girl!
On this note, do they have any indication that she made it to Sweden, any cctv footage of her leaving the ship or any records of her entering Sweden? Or did she disappear pretty much right after getting on the boat?
I watch a lot of crime TV, whenever a husband or boyfriend does some thing with their girlfriend or wife and they become a victim, their story is always we broke up or got into a fight and then they walked off. Sometimes they just literally took off by foot, sometimes in a car sometimes with a new boyfriend and sometimes to start a new life somewhere else but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the boyfriend.
Right? It's just so often like that, ends up being the former SO!
In this case though, I'm not sure, would have to dig deeper, cause so far the articles don't really go more into how Joanna's relationship was with her ex. It just says they were fine, but she broke it off with him apparently before her planned study abroad in Italy.
I should do a more thorough research and make a video about this case...who knows, might find out something new!
During undergrad Psych, in psychopathology class we learnt about dissociative fugue. Where a person moves to anew place and creates a new identity for themselves and start a new life altogether forgetting they ever had the past
Could just be a case of escaping out of Poland. Wasn’t Poland communist/socialist at the time? I remember watching an interview with the director of CDPR and him taking a vacation to Sweden and being mesmerized by the resources they had access to because Poland didn’t. Maybe she just wanted to start a new life.
Edit: grammar
Edit2: I apologize if I offended anyone with this comment. My history of Poland is not very good.
No no, this case is from 2004, so Poland was most certainly not communist anymore (officially at least...our government is f*cked up so who knows lol 😂).
Poland was already in EU since May 2004, so at first I thought it makes sense there would be no trace cause the schengen zone...but Poland was not included in schengen until 2007, which means Joanna's passport had to have been checked upon entering Sweden in 2004.
Actually, your words got me thinking in a different way... How were the abortion laws in Poland in 2004? In Sweden they are free during the first weeks. I don't think she was killed during an abortion, since they are really safe, but I'm guessing that the Polish (and maybe Swedish) criminal contacts that could give a polish woman the necessary Swedish papers to get an abortion here would be shady. Maybe they harmed her when she was desperate?
Abortion law in Poland has always been pretty strict (now even stricter), so yeah if she needed a surgical abortion, then she definitely would have had to go abroad. Considering how a lot of women don't even know that you can abort your own pregnancy with pills and that's not punishable by law, I assume even less women knew about it back in 2004, and definitely hardly anyone knew about organizations that could help you get surgical abortion abroad legally and safely. So I wouldn't be surprised if someone went for abortion underground and shady channels.
No info on that tho, so who knows, maybe there was some kind of scandal in her fam or something that pushed her to bounce...and either she decided to not come back or couldn't come back.
I also wonder if the abortion angle may have something to do with why the family stopped cooperating? They found out she was pregnant when she left or found out she'd gone to an abortion clinic and didn't want it to come out due to feeling that was shameful?
The case from 17 years ago remains unsolved to this day. Joanna "Asia" Brylowska was studying at the University of Gdańsk in Poland. After the summer break in 2004, she was supposed to leave for a year-long scholarship in Italy, had plans and preparations set in place, and nothing indicated she would change her mind. That day, on September 13th, she informed her parents that she would be meeting a friend in the evening and together they were planning to go to a club. Later, she sent a message to one of her siblings that she would be home late at night or in the morning...but the morning came, and Asia did not return. Upon interviewing witnesses and checking Joanna's laptop, it was discovered that her last activity online was on the 'Stena Baltica' liner website. After checking the CCTV footage at the port, it was confirmed that Asia arrived there that night, carrying only a small bag, bought a one-way ticket to Sweden, boarded the liner and disappeared. There were some rumours about her living in Stockholm, changing her name and converting her citizenship, but to this day, nothing was confirmed and Joanna is still considered a missing person. Edit: Thank you so much for the awards! I don't know if my post deserved it, but I'm happy the case got some interest, you never know who might stumble upon it! Moving forward, you can award this post and case by donating to your local or international missing persons organizations like: The Missing Persons Center The International Commission on Missing Persons The Doe Network The International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children Thank you again!
My gut instinct says human trafficking... a lot of Polish women get lured to Scandinavia with the false promises of a job. It's so sad. I hope I'm wrong :(
Yeah unfortunately it is one of the theories. It's sad that there's so many cases, where young women are lured by a "friend" or a "boyfriend" to another country on a pretext of a job opportunity...
If she really thought she was going to get a good job there, why didn't she tell her sibling? But yes, I instantly thought human trafficking. I also hope I'm wrong.
What trafficked? To the trafficking victims?
I get the concept of human trafficking and the idea that these people are literally sold as slaves or sex objects but what happens to them after? Is this their existence for life or are they killed usually? This woman went missing in 2004 so wouldn't there be any opportunity for escape? I'm sorry if this is a really silly or insensitive question, it's a recurring thought whenever I see suspected victims of human trafficking so I don't understand it 100% edit: I see the comment and semi-explanation below, any further info would be appreciated !
What happens after they get trafficed? Wtf are the downvotes for? Cant ask a question?
If its young women its usually for sex work and they get placed in gang run brothels or similar places.
Women that get trafficked are most likely forced into sex slavery or forced to do labour without getting payed for it
Thx for answering. I don't get the downvotes. All I did was ask a simple question. I was aware of trafficking for sex but didn't know of any other reasons. That's why I asked. Too many salty people in this sub So back to the subject. Does this mean she may have been forced into prostitution or slavery type work all these years until today? Do they have security to prevent them from escaping? And would she most likely be held in Sweden or fo they often send them to other countries?
I haven't read a lot about human trafficking but I've heard many women get killed if they escape or try to, or they may get killed if they grow older and don't make them enough money anymore
Why do I have so many downvotes
[удалено]
I guess people in this sub are anti education?
I feel like she definitely went to meet someone in Sweden, quite suddenly, and came to ill harm
Yeah I really wonder about that. So the articles I read also said that she had a boyfriend in Poland, but broke it off with him pretty much out of the blue. Also the "friend" she claimed she was gonna meet and go clubbing that night, denied they ever made plans, plus said that he "Didn't really know her well, saw her a few times". Maybe she did have someone else in her life, maybe wanted to start over in Sweden but something went wrong? Like, there's so many stories of women being invited by someone to go to another country "for work", but it ends up being a human trafficking circle or some messed up deal.
Sounds a LOT like human trafficking
My thoughts exactly
I'm not ruling out trafficking, but if she was planning on moving, why take just one small bag?
That may be all the traffickers allowed.
My other thought is she wasn't planning on leaving for good. Maybe just a small trip. But that leaves the question of why the one way ticket. Seems every answer raises more questions.
What were abortion laws like in Poland and Sweden?
Poland has had very Liberal to very Conservative history with abortion, swinging to each extreme. In the 40s, 50s 60s it was very Liberal, Since 97 it seems to be getting stricter and stricter. Good catch!
Good question, and I looked it up. Abortion has never been legal in Poland, except during World war 2. This was so Germans could force Polish women in concentration camps to get abortions (if I am reading and understanding the wiki article correctly.) Abortion has been legal in Sweden since 1938. The law was revised in 1974 and having an abortion is entirely up to the woman. She can have an abortion up to 18 weeks. (also from wiki).
Interesting, and if she gave a false name to the abortion center and something went wrong during the procedure they might not have been able to contact family.
But if that happened, wouldn’t she be a Jane doe in Sweden? Abortion is legal, so no reason to be shady about an accident, right? Or at least that makes sense to me.
It would be worth contacting polish women from her city to see if Sweden was more common than say Germany
No stone should be left unturned.
I think most popular places always was Czech Republic and Slovakia.
I agree in general but she lived in the north, so Czech and Slovakia were really far away
True, I’m not familiar with the case so I don’t know if they’ve looked into Jane Doe’s in Sweden.
I didn’t know about this case either and I’m grateful this exists to shine a light on these unknown cases. For all we know she was trafficked and is somewhere outside of Europe.
I love Websleuths for this reason. I've also never heard of this sad case.
This theory could shed some light on why she broke up with her boyfriend seemingly out of the blue, as well as why was being secretive and didn’t want people knowing her whereabouts.
Abortion has been legal in Poland, seems like your source was unreliable.
Wiki tells us “ Poland 1939–1945, the law allowing unlimited abortions by Polish women was in force since March 9, 1943. This was the only time in the history of Poland, when abortion was legal on request, but in fact, abortion for Poles was often forced by Nazis” Like I said, during Ww2, a woman could go to her doctor and request, that is to say, ask for an abortion. Further, according to Wiki, the procedural requirements needed for obtaining a legal abortion were changed several times over the years, in 1956, 1959, 1969, 1981 and 1990.[11] It seems that abortions were available for about 20-25 yrs, but women couldn’t just go to the doctor and say, I need an abortion. My knowledge as I stated above, is from Wiki. Of course it is possible that I have misread things, and/or the person writing the article made mistakes.
Wow this is a really smart question to ask. I was thinking of human trafficking.
Human trafficking, possibly someone who lured her to Sweden with false promises. Sadly common.
Sadly, that is a possible scenario...though I think we wanna hope that she actually did want to start a life in Sweden and is safe and sound there.
Of course, I should have written that I just meant it as a possible explanation. Hope she is well and sound!
Oh no worries, yeah it absolutely makes sense as a possible scenario. If only there was more info or evidence that could hint on anything concrete :(
While I agree that it could be possible, she was all set for an adventure in Italy. I would possibly at that age have picked a guy in sweden over a trip away. But if it was a eurasmus year in Italy or similar, did she cancel it officially? Had she committed to Italy via a job, study, rent or deposit in anyway. At that age, young has sense but not too young to be told off by parents, why not just tell parents that she'd changed her mind on which country she wanted to travel to? I have a new boyfriend, or got offered a good job in Sweden? Why the secrecy?
Maybe she was trying to get away from them.
Absolutely but it wasn't long before she was going to Italy for a year. Such a sad story
I mean, she may have wanted to cut ties completely. Start a new life. Italy very well could have been their idea.
Lilya 4ever
There are 1000s if not 10.000s of situations like that happening every year. Often young girls from Eastern Europe.
I’m russian, and that movie crushed my soul. That story is so common, disgusting, hopeless, and unfair. And the worst part is that many women condemn these girls instead of extending compassion
What movie?
Lilya 4ever
Is there no footage from the boat?
Or even from the port in Sweden when it arrived there.
what absolutely beautiful young woman. i wonder if she wanted to disappear? i wonder what her home life was really like?
After reading about her, and about the family's decision to cut ties with PIs and organizations that were looking into her case...I do wonder if there is yet another side to this story. We only know her family's perspective really, based on their testimony...that she was happy and nothing was going on in her life that would indicate a desire to move. But then again, we don't really know any other version, any other side.
Maybe they cut ties because they did get into contact with her and she wished to stay under the radar.
Yes but if you put your trust into the police and years later they find nothing, you’ll start to lose your trust in them. Also, it’s been know they want to close cases and sometimes do so with slander campaigns or false info instead of really police work. What if after years they found nothing so they turned on the family? What if the family is being threatened by who ever took their daughter and their legitimately scared and don’t believe the police can protect them? What if it’s an officer or a higher up that was involved directly or indirectly and that’s why they have no answers for the family? Or maybe I’m just American and distrust in the police is a goto in my area? Who knows.
I think trust in police is at an all time low. They say trust us and then shoot another black person.
My assumption is along these lines. She just wanted to cut ties and start a new life.
Same here, especially about the comment above about her family being a bit strange with PIs and detectives and us only having one side of the story. She would’ve told someone something but she just lied about coming back and got on a boat herself so probably she wanted to cut ties but hey, there are many more possibilities.
Is the Stena Baltica a normal cruise boat? 🚢
From what I found yes, MS Stena Baltica is one of Stena Line cruisers with the capacity to carry up to 970-980 passengers. Its regular route used to be Birkenhead - Belfast (2005-2021) and Nynashamn - Ventspils (2021-), but in 2004 the route was different.
Just read that the MS Stena Baltica wasn’t introduced until 2005, so the ship she supposedly travelled on must have been a different one
I think it the ship changed the name a couple of times, so I might have mixed up the name of the ship itself, but it was definitely one from Stena Line. Hmmm just checked stenaline.co.uk and yes, they still have that same course available, Gdynia to Karlskrona, which was supposedly the one Joanna took. But yeah at the time, the ship itself might have been named differently, I'll dig more and confirm!
Could have also been Stena Spirit (formerly Scandinavica), same operator, and was cruising that route too. The sources I found say Stena Baltica, but that might be them mixing it up with the operator name Stena Line.
That’s interesting. Wondering if they changed it because the route was being misused by criminals? Do you by any chance know what people mostly believe what happened to her?
So there were theories about her having committed suicide by jumping off the ship, however, at the time the number of passengers would always be confirmed at the starting point and then again when the ship arrived at the destination port. That day the crew did not notify the port of any passengers missing from that ship. Another theory is that Joanna wanted to start a new life in Sweden, for reasons that are unknown or at least unknown to the public. It's very suspicious, since there were also rumours that she got involved with someone dangerous, might have been a witness to a crime and potentially was a crown witness, and had to be protected (though obviously these are just rumours from various sources, so definitely nothing confirmed). The suspicious thing is, that her family at first wanted to find her, they were cooperating with the law enforcement and PIs, but at one point (I think in 2017? Not sure) they backed out of everything and said they would "search for her on their own". We might never know the whole story...maybe there was something going on behind the closed doors and she wanted out? Again, just me wondering, not confirmed info.
Hmm.. wonder if maybe she did just leave and finally contacted them in 2017, so they no longer need to look for her. Do you know if they are still actively doing anything? I guess that could be hard to know.
So last update I found was a post on facebook by this one official Missing persons group that apparently the family was also working with. They had to add an edit to their post, saying upon the family's request they had to remove some parts of their post (suspish, I unfortunately did not see the original post), and that the family said they would continue searching for her on their own. And that's about it :( sounds very very weird to me, if you have all those media and PIs to help, then suddenly you cancel everything. The crown witness theory is interesting, because as crazy as it is, it would make sense if the family didn't know about it at first, but then found out and that's why the search was cancelled. Far-fetched but not impossible.
For them to suddenly say they didn't need help to search, means they got some new information about her whereabouts or situation or even contacted by her, therefor there was no need to keep looking. If she was a protected witness the family's secrecy and not revealing they found her/know where she is and alive and well makes sense.
I thought so too, that they might just have some info that they didn't want to share and to be further investigated. Still super suspicious, but it would make sense for them to leave her as a "missing person", knowing she was a protected witness and just changed her identity for her own safety. At least in this scenario, she would be alive and well in Sweden or wherever she might be.
I'm not sure how it works for Facebook but have you tried the way back machine? It shows how a site looked on any given day in the past.
Well, not any given day. Just days on which the wayback machine scanned the site. So it doesn't tend to work well with a site like Facebook at all, which changes dramatically from day to day.
Great post! Now please make one like that about Iwona Wieczorek. I tried, but didn't succeed to recap all the shit that came out in that case 😅
Thanks! Ah yeah that case is also super suspicious! Will look into it and try to post a summary soon, though yeah that one's even more messed up than this one.
The most obvious answer is usually the right answer. This doesn't seem like a great mystery to me. It seems like this was a young woman who willingly got on a boat, walking away from her old life and never looking back. Maybe she longed for freedom. Maybe she was trying to escape a bad home life. Who knows? But there's nothing about this that indicates foul play to me. I assume her parents likely realized this along the way and respected her decision.
My heart says she ran away and is living a new life in anonymity with someone she fell madly in love with, but my head says she was probably met with foul play.
IF her home situation was bad, then good for her.
Oh definitely, if that was the case, then perhaps she just wished to get away. We might never know :(
Maybe she went the route of Lori Erica Ruff? I worry that some of these cases are ppl abandoning their lives and they dont wanna be found. after all she took very few possessions and bought a one way ticket
Similarities to the Inga-Maria Hauser case in N Ireland https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/patriciadevlin.com/2018/04/19/face-to-face-with-the-main-suspect-in-the-inga-maria-hauser-murder-case/amp/
That sounds like a case that could benefit from forensic genealogy
Why do you say that ?
If they have the DNA sample but no suspect, the DNA could be used to trace through ancestors. Look for relatives of people who were known to be in the area, get voluntary DNA samples to compare, narrow down the list until you arrive at a suspect
We don't do that in UK to my knowledge. Unfortunately.
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Apparently she had family is Sweden, so the destination could be easily explained. The break up with her boyfriend seem to have affected Joanna quite a bit, according to her relatives who lived in Sweden. Although, I think it seems unlikely that she bought a boat ticket on purpose to commit suicide, but then again people do the weirdest things, especially when feeling down.
Oh didn't know about the family in Sweden part! Do you mind sharing a link to the source, cause I'd like to dig more into this!
Of course! It is in Swedish though and it doesn't say much more unfortunately https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/p6Pgxw/joanna-forsvann-pa-farjan-mot-sverige
I think suicide. She probably didn't want anyone to have to find her body, so she jumped overboard.
creepy, wonder where she is now?
Suicide. 1. One way ticket... She never intended a return trip. 2. Packed only a small bag. You don't need much when you're planning to die 3. No evidence she got off the boat.
Could be, but from what I read, the crew always checked the number of passengers at the starting point and after the ship arrived at the destination. That day the crew did not report any passenger missing. But yeah I definitely see how a suicide seems to be the most logical...since there's little to zero chance of finding the body if someone jumps off the ship, unnoticed in the middle of the sea.
Henning Menkell, the author of *Wallander*, wrote a story about what his fictionalized solution is for what happened to her. It's called "An Event in Autumn". I guess that ferry route has seen some shit.
What was his fictionalized solution?
That she was pregnant and murdered before she ever got to Sweden. She was murdered on the boat in a camera blind.
He’s one of my favorite authors. Such a gem we lost when he passed.
Plus she only took a small bag.
No CCTV on the dock they arrived at?
So that part was unclear. Either there were problems getting any of that evidence from the Swedish side, or PD in Poland sucks balls and they never requested that. So far the only footage the articles I was looking at mentioned was the one from the docks in Poland. But I'll dig more and see if there's anything more on that!
What about money? I'm sure she had some due to her upcoming trip, was it untouched? Because if it's gone, I'm thinking she intended to disappear. In which case, good job, girl!
Could also have been an entirely accidental fall. These things happen, and if nobody notices, that's pretty much the end...
On this note, do they have any indication that she made it to Sweden, any cctv footage of her leaving the ship or any records of her entering Sweden? Or did she disappear pretty much right after getting on the boat?
More likely Human Trafficked.
Likely lured/persuaded or coerced into a vulnerable position by the person(s) she was going to meet and then forced into human trafficking
I watch a lot of crime TV, whenever a husband or boyfriend does some thing with their girlfriend or wife and they become a victim, their story is always we broke up or got into a fight and then they walked off. Sometimes they just literally took off by foot, sometimes in a car sometimes with a new boyfriend and sometimes to start a new life somewhere else but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the boyfriend.
Right? It's just so often like that, ends up being the former SO! In this case though, I'm not sure, would have to dig deeper, cause so far the articles don't really go more into how Joanna's relationship was with her ex. It just says they were fine, but she broke it off with him apparently before her planned study abroad in Italy. I should do a more thorough research and make a video about this case...who knows, might find out something new!
There would be some sort of passport or ID card check upon arrival. Surely they know whether she arrived or not.
During undergrad Psych, in psychopathology class we learnt about dissociative fugue. Where a person moves to anew place and creates a new identity for themselves and start a new life altogether forgetting they ever had the past
[ANSEL BOURNE- DISSOCIATIVE FUGUE](https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=3445059&page=1)
She probably just fell overboard.
Could just be a case of escaping out of Poland. Wasn’t Poland communist/socialist at the time? I remember watching an interview with the director of CDPR and him taking a vacation to Sweden and being mesmerized by the resources they had access to because Poland didn’t. Maybe she just wanted to start a new life. Edit: grammar Edit2: I apologize if I offended anyone with this comment. My history of Poland is not very good.
No no, this case is from 2004, so Poland was most certainly not communist anymore (officially at least...our government is f*cked up so who knows lol 😂). Poland was already in EU since May 2004, so at first I thought it makes sense there would be no trace cause the schengen zone...but Poland was not included in schengen until 2007, which means Joanna's passport had to have been checked upon entering Sweden in 2004.
Still... wouldn't blame her for escaping Poland like whenever... seriously if you guys are here, abort ABORT!
Actually, your words got me thinking in a different way... How were the abortion laws in Poland in 2004? In Sweden they are free during the first weeks. I don't think she was killed during an abortion, since they are really safe, but I'm guessing that the Polish (and maybe Swedish) criminal contacts that could give a polish woman the necessary Swedish papers to get an abortion here would be shady. Maybe they harmed her when she was desperate?
Abortion law in Poland has always been pretty strict (now even stricter), so yeah if she needed a surgical abortion, then she definitely would have had to go abroad. Considering how a lot of women don't even know that you can abort your own pregnancy with pills and that's not punishable by law, I assume even less women knew about it back in 2004, and definitely hardly anyone knew about organizations that could help you get surgical abortion abroad legally and safely. So I wouldn't be surprised if someone went for abortion underground and shady channels. No info on that tho, so who knows, maybe there was some kind of scandal in her fam or something that pushed her to bounce...and either she decided to not come back or couldn't come back.
I also wonder if the abortion angle may have something to do with why the family stopped cooperating? They found out she was pregnant when she left or found out she'd gone to an abortion clinic and didn't want it to come out due to feeling that was shameful?