Marcin Majerkiewicz (aged 42) of Worsley Road, Eccles has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 34 years after he was found guilty of Stuart Everett’s murder a week ago following a two-week trial at Manchester Crown Court, where members of the jury were shown extensive evidence including CCTV of the defendant depositing human remains across Greater Manchester.
This follows one of the most unprecedented investigations led by Greater Manchester Police, with justice secured for Stuart Everett and his family in the most complex and challenging of circumstances.
Hundreds of officers from across the Force, Specialist Operations, CSI, Detectives, and Police Staff were all motivated to ensure the abhorrent actions of Marcin Majerkiewicz did not go unpunished.
The investigation commenced on 4 April 2024, when a significant body part was discovered wrapped in plastic in Kersal Dale, Salford. From that moment, it was a race against time to uncover what had happened, identify the victim, and to ultimately find the killer.
Police turned to our Video Evidence Retrieval and Analysis (VERA) Unit to unlock investigative opportunities. This team, consisting of ten Investigative Support Officers and a Detective Sergeant, was pivotal in connecting the dots in the force-wide manhunt.
Through speaking with residents and local businesses, policr obtained extensive footage covering the access and egress points to Kersal Dale and made the first breakthrough in the case.
Detective Sergeant Heidi Cullum, of GMP’s VERA Unit within the Major Incident Team, explains:
“An individual was captured on CCTV struggling to carry a heavy bag with a large item protruding out of the top.
“He entered the Dale and after spending ten minutes, he returned with what appeared to be an empty bag. We secured footage from a camera angle that covered the woods, which corroborated this individual was in the exact location where human remains had been discovered.”
With the key suspect was identified, the team acted quickly, using CCTV to track his movements as far back as possible, then going out to obtain more footage. This led police to identifying a bus journey and through our strong partnership with Transport for Greater Manchester, and identified the suspect had purchased an AnyBus daysaver, which meant police were able to see all journeys made that day on that ticket.
Detective Sergeant Cullum said:
“Through the bus information, we were able to trace the suspect back to the Winton area of Eccles in Salford. We knew this was a significant location, where the individual would come and go from frequently, likely where he and/or the victim lived.
“Coincidentally, whilst our team were out conducting CCTV enquiries around this area, aiming to narrow the net, and a staff member recognised the man that we were tracking boarding a bus on Eccles New Road in Salford. We managed to halt the bus and called for uniformed officers to arrest him.”
During Majerkiewicz’s arrest, he confirmed his residence as 195 Worsley Road in Winton. The investigation team determined another man lived at the address hadn’t been seen in three weeks. It was later confirmed this man was the murder victim: Stuart Everett.
Detective Sergeant Cullum said: “It had been three weeks since Stuart’s remains were discovered in Kersal Dale and arresting the suspect was a key moment. We felt the urgency to build a case and were battling a race against time; not only to secure CCTV footage before it was erased or overwritten but also to recover as much of Stuart as we could before nature takes its course.”
“This was a driving force for us to do all we could to progress the investigation; we of course wanted to identify the man we were tracing and help bring justice, but it was equally important we return Stuart to his family so they could lay him to rest respectfully.”
“My team has a real investigative mindset and noticed a pattern of the suspect often leaving with heavy laden bags and coming back with empty bags. Sometimes journeys were long, and we were able to trace deposition sites across Greater Manchester, but occasionally he would only be gone for a short period of time. This suggested he was doing a local deposition.
“On 29 April 2024, VERA officers went out in Winton and through CCTV they reenacted a journey on foot, which was around 8 minutes return, traveling four minutes in one direction to Chesterfield Close, where they were able to locate significant parts of Stuart.”
Locating as much of Stuart as podsiblr motivated teams from across the force. Through phone data analysis and further CCTV work Police identified Majerkiewicz had made several journeys to parks and woodland areas in the days prior to his arrest.
Detective Sergeant Danielle Bullivant was brought onto the investigation to coordinate the searches by utilising specialist search teams such as the Police Search Advisors (PolSAs) and Licensed Search Officers.
Detective Sergeant Bullivant said:
“We all had one common goal in this investigation, and that was to bring Stuart home. At every briefing, we would display a picture of Stuart to remind the teams that there is a person at the centre of all this, and that would motivate everyone to work tirelessly as they combed through difficult terrain in all sorts of weather. It was windy, raining and sometimes blazing sunshine, but the searching officers just got on with it because what we were doing was so important.
“We made a remarkable find at Blackleach Reservoir on 27 April 2024. Using mobile phone analysis, detectives placed Majerkiewicz at all four corners of the reservoir. I built our search strategy around this intel.
“With support from the Northwest Underwater Search Team, we recovered a hacksaw from deep within the water which had the victims blood present on the blade. The victim’s skull was also located in four separate pieces. This was crucial evidence in ascertaining that Stuart had been murdered by multiple blunt force trauma injuries to the head.
“We searched over a four-month period with determination. Every time we made a discovery, we knew we were making a difference.”
“Stuart’s remains and evidence were successfully recovered from 15 of the 19 search areas and crime scenes. Approximately a third of Stuart Everett’s body was recovered, but tragically, most of his remains will never be recovered.”
Detective Chief Superintendent Lewis Hughes, the Senior Investigating Officer for this case, said: “This is a case of rarely seen complexity and scale, with detectives initially responding to partial human remains found deep within a secluded wood. But we said from the start that we wouldn’t give up, a victim and their family remained at the forefront of our minds and actions throughout.
“We have been focused on both ensuring justice in this case, but also ensuring the victim could be returned to his family and laid to rest.
“We knew from the beginning that we had a family somewhere that would one day learn the most distressing news that a family could ever hear, and ultimately from that moment onwards our duty was to recover and identify the victim in a respectful and dignified manner and this was just as important as solving the case and catching the killer.
“It is our hope that Stuart’s family have received a sense of closure knowing we did all we could to bring him home and secure justice. I would like to commend them for the strength they have demonstrated throughout our investigation and subsequent legal proceedings.
“Majerkiewicz cowardly denied murdering Stuart and has subjected his family to reliving the gruesome details of this case over the past few weeks during the trial. Despite Majerkiewicz’s denial and cover-up plot, a jury saw the truth and found him guilty within a couple hours of deliberation.
“He will now rightly serve a life sentence behind bars.”
