Lodger murder trial told Edinburgh OAP had 14 broken ribs, collapsed lungs and a ruptured heart

An elderly woman who was allegedly murdered by her lodger in her home was found to have sustained extensive chest injuries, a court heard today.

Injuries: Jadwiga Szczygielska.

Jadwiga Szczygielska, who was 77 when she died, sustained 14 fractured ribs and a broken breastbone as well as collapsed lungs and a rupture to the heart.

A consultant forensic pathologist who carried out a post mortem on the pensioner told the High Court in Edinburgh that the autopsy examination determined that she died as a result of blunt force trauma of the chest.

Dr Ian Wilkinson, 39, agreed that a road traffic collision – being hit by a vehicle – would be one situation where he would expect to see such distribution of injuries.

The court heard that the injuries Ms Szczygielska sustained could be in keeping with blunt force blows to the chest or the application of sustained blunt force pressure.

The expert witness was giving evidence at the trial of Roman Frackiewicz who has denied murdering Ms Szczygielska at the flat where they lived in Pirniefield Bank, Seafield, in Edinburgh on April 17 last year.

It is alleged that he assaulted her at her home and repeatedly inflicted or caused to be inflicted blunt force injuries to her head and body by means to the prosecutor unknown and murdered her.

The court heard in agreed evidence that Frackiewicz, a refuse collector with Edinburgh City Council, is a Polish national who came to the UK in 2012 and for two years lived at her flat as her lodger.

The deceased was also Polish and came to Scotland about 2013 to live with her son. He had a workplace accident and returned to Poland but his mother stayed on in Scotland as she had

made friends in the church community where she was well known. Her death sparked an outpouring of anger and grief and prompted a massive Police Scotland investigation.

Frackiewicz shared the small flat with the pensioner, paying her £200 a month, while he slept in the bedroom and she bedded down on a sofa.

He remained overnight at the flat where she was found dead. Ms Szczygielska had arrived there uninjured in the afternoon before her death, the court was told.

The following morning an employee with a community alarm service took a call from him and he said he needed an ambulance as he thought she was dead.

Frackiewicz also made a call to an acquaintance and said "Jadwiga has passed away", a jury heard.

The phone was passed to a man and Frackiewicz told him something like that he had found her in the kitchen and it was "probably a heart attack".

Paramedics arrived to find her lying on her back on the kitchen floor. She was cold to the touch and rigor mortis had set in.

One of the police officers who attended the scene, PC Idrees Duffy, 27, said Frackiewicz told him they had been drinking the previous evening before going to bed separately and he had found Ms Szczygielska dead on the floor in the morning.

The trial before judge Lord Braid continues.

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