'My brother's killer impersonated him for weeks'

Stuart Everett (pictured) was murdered by his housemate Marcin Majerkiewicz in March 2024

A murder victim's brother has spoken of the haunting moment he realised a birthday card he had received had actually been sent by the man who had just killed his sibling.

Stuart Everett, 67, was murdered by his housemate of seven years Marcin Majerkiewicz in March 2024, who then dumped his remains across Greater Manchester.

Mr Everett's older brother Richard Ziemacki said Majerkiewicz had been sending him text messages from his brother's phone for weeks in a bid to cover up the murder, and had even forged a birthday card.

He told BBC Two's Cracking the Case programme that when he finally found out about his brother's death, he "took a closer look" at the card and spotted something was amiss.

Richard Ziemacki said he eventually realised the birthday card, supposedly written by his brother, had been forged

Mr Ziemacki said: "He called me 'old man' [in the card]; he never called me 'old man'.

"It was certainly not written by him, and that was really like a dagger through the heart."

Majerkiewicz had taken control of his victim's finances and mobile phone.

Pretending to be Mr Everett, he even sent lottery scratch cards to another family member for her birthday.

Mr Ziemacki said Majerkiewicz's deception had been "cold" and "calculating".

"The length this individual went to - to actually deceive everybody as long as possible for his own means - was quite abhorrent," he told the BBC.

He described his youngest brother as "particularly bright" and "unique".

"I think everyone loved him for being who he was," Mr Ziemacki said.

Marcin Majerkiewicz was jailed for life earlier this year

Majerkiewicz was jailed for life in March after a lengthy police investigation, prompted by the discovery of Mr Everett's torso in a concrete bunker in Salford woodland.

Ch Supt Lewis Hughes, of Greater Manchester Police, said the investigation had been "of an unprecedented scale and a rare complexity", involving 19 crime scenes, almost 2,000 hours of CCTV footage and more than 450 witness statements.

He told the BBC: "At the start of this investigation, we had absolutely nothing to go off - no obvious lines of inquiry, no obvious evidence.

"By the time we reached court, when the trial took place, we had an overwhelming and formidable case."

Cracking the Case: The Torso Wrapped in Plastic is available to view now on the BBC iPlayer