On Friday 24 September last year, Beata Ratzman (32) disappeared without a trace in Malmö, Sweden. The last time she was seen was in a white car with her ex-husband in his 50s, according to witnesses.
Nine hours after the woman disappeared, the ex-husband was arrested by the police. At the time, he denied having anything to do with his ex-wife’s disappearance.
The man in his 50s is today charged with the murder of Ratzman. He admits that he killed her, but still denies criminal guilt in the case.
That’s what the Swedish newspaper writes The Express.
Solved 37-year-old murder mystery
Brutally killed
The man is accused of killing his ex-wife by either cutting her throat with a sharp object, or strangling her with a purse strap, according to the newspaper.
The final cause of death has not been determined at this time.
It was not until Ratzman’s body was found in Bökeberg, a month after the murder, that the man admitted that he killed her and dumped the body. However, he continues to deny guilt for the murder of his ex-wife.
The man is also charged with violence, as he allegedly punched the woman in the face the evening before the murder.
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The place where the woman was killed is not specified in the indictment, but after a search operation last year, the police found, among other things, Ratzman’s broken handbag in Ystad, several miles from the place where the body was found.
Was threatened and beaten
A year before she was killed, Ratzman is said to have told her mother, who lives in Poland, about threats and violence from her husband.
At the end of August, two months before she disappeared, Ratzman had been allocated a home through the social service in Malmö. At the same time, she had reported her husband for assault, damage and illegal threats.
She filed for divorce at this time, and petitioned for a restraining order against her husband. The latter was refused, according to Expressen.
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When Ratzman’s mother spoke to her for the last time, she said that her daughter was happy to no longer live with her ex-husband and that she felt that things were starting to fall into place.
– There was nothing that revealed what tragedy was to come, Ratzman’s mother said then.
The day after the telephone conversation with her mother, Beata is said to have been seen for the last time, according to witnesses, together with her ex-husband in Oxie outside Malmö. The same day she was brutally killed.
Ratzman is now buried in Poland, where her mother visits the grave every week, according to the newspaper.
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