Amok

Summary

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Criminal – "Amok" (January 23, 2026)

Host: Phoebe Judge
Guest: David Grann (author, journalist)

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Overview

In this gripping episode, Phoebe Judge and author David Grann recount one of Poland’s most unsettling murder cases—a story of a cold case detective, a sadistic crime, and an avant-garde writer whose disturbing novel seemed to hold clues to a real-life killing. The episode explores the 2000 murder of Darius Janiszewski, the investigation that followed, and how Christian Bala’s postmodern novel Amok became an unlikely roadmap for uncovering the truth. Ultimately, it’s a meditation on the blurry line between art and confession, fact and fiction.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Discovery of Darius Janiszewski’s Body

• [01:38] Two fishermen in southwest Poland discovered a decomposed body floating in a river, hands tied behind the back, and a noose around the neck, indicating an elaborate, sadistic murder.

  • Quote: "There was no doubt that the figure had been murdered." – David Grann [01:38]

• [02:09] A pathologist’s report uncovered signs of starvation and torture. The method of restraint was particularly cruel—the rope tied in a 'backward cradle' which would choke the victim upon movement.

  • Quote: "If the figure had moved at struggle to move, they would have been choking themselves...It suggested almost an anger." – David Grann [02:09]

2. Tracing the Victim’s Last Movements

• [03:07] The victim was identified as Darius Janiszewski, a young businessman from Wroclaw. He had disappeared four weeks earlier after getting a call for a 'business meeting.'
• The only initial clue: a mysterious, demanding phone call traced to a nearby payphone, but the caller remained unidentified.

3. A Cold Case, a New Detective

• [05:41] Three years later, detective Jacek Wrobleski (nicknamed "Jack Sparrow") was handed the case. Known for his unassuming presence and dogged approach, he obsessively studied the file.

  • Quote: "Rather than being a sparrow, he says, I'm an eagle." – David Grann [05:51]

• Wrobleski was struck by the brutality and suspected personal animus. The missing cell phone became his key lead.

4. The Break: A Novel Connection

• [07:59] Darius’s cell phone, missing from police records, was found to have been sold online days after the murder by “Chris B.”—real name: Christian Bala.
• Bala, a philosophy dropout turned writer, had published Amok shortly after the murder.

5. Parallels Between Fiction and Reality

• [09:18] Wrobleski read Amok and spotted disturbing similarities: the narrator (also named Chris) murders his girlfriend in a way echoing the real crime, sells the murder weapon online, and details not made public.
  • Quote: "The murderer in the novel...had also not only put a noose around his girlfriend, had also stabbed the girlfriend and then sold the knife used in the killing in the novel on an Internet auction site." – David Grann [09:18]
• Detectives divided the novel up, creating a ‘checkbox’ system to find other correspondences: petty thefts, relationships, career failures, all mirrored real life.

6. Truth, Fiction, and the Nature of Confession

• [11:38] Bala was described as charismatic, manipulative, and prone to blurring truth and fiction in both his writing and real life.

  • Quote: "It was always in Christian, both in the novel but also in his own life. This play between what is real and what is false, what is true and what is a fiction." – David Grann [11:38]

• [13:32] More novel parallels were uncovered: Bala and his narrator both stole a religious statuette, both had failed businesses, both drank heavily, and both lost wives.

• [15:08] In Amok, the narrator hints at an unsolved prior murder of a man, feeding suspicions.

7. Challenges in Building the Case

• [18:49] Despite mounting circumstantial evidence, detectives lacked direct proof. Investigating a murder based on a novel led to skepticism within the department.
  • Quote: "Even Jacek would acknowledge that the case was extraordinarily thin...you're looking at a novel as a roadmap for a crime." – David Grann [18:49]
• Bala was out of the country, so police could not directly confront or surveil him.

8. Digital Breadcrumbs and Arrest

• [20:04] Evidence mounted: shortly before the murder, the “Chris B.” account searched for police manuals on hanging techniques.

• [21:06] When Bala returned to Poland, he was arrested, claiming police brutality—a story quickly refuted by authorities.

  • Quote: "It strains credulity...there's no evidence ever in Yasik's career of doing anything like this. But it is the one time where suddenly you have Jacek saying...this time is definitely a fiction." – David Grann [22:53]

• Bala denied knowing Darius and gave inconsistent accounts about the phone; a polygraph was inconclusive. He was released but charged with selling stolen property and forced to stay in Poland.

9. 'Persecuted Author' and New Evidence

• [25:11] Bala alleged censorship and persecution, earning some public sympathy and attention from human rights groups.

  • Quote: "He compares himself to Salman Rushdie, that he is being crucified for his literature." – David Grann [32:55]

• Detectives discovered the payphone used to lure Darius was linked by calling card records to Bala’s network—strong direct evidence tying him to the crime scene.

10. The Motive Uncovered

• Interviews revealed Bala’s jealousy over his ex-wife, who had briefly dated Darius. Witnesses recalled Bala threateningly boasting in a bar, “I've already taken out a guy like you with a rope.” [28:11]

• Bala’s ex-wife confirmed the connection between her and Darius and reported Bala’s violent reaction and knowledge of her affair’s details. [32:07]

11. Trial, Conviction, and Legacy

• [32:55] Charged and tried for murder, Bala maintained he was prosecuted for writing, not killing. He briefly confessed, then recanted.

• The prosecution argued a crime of jealous rage, with the novel acting as an inadvertent confession.

• Bala was convicted (though not of personally committing the act) and sentenced to 25 years. He later lost an appeal.

• [34:35] David Grann visited Bala in prison, describing him as intelligent, evasive, and eager to direct the narrative. Bala remained adamant that the book is pure fiction, yet sometimes conflated himself with his narrator.

  • Quote: "I'm the author. I'm the author. I know what I meant. I know what I meant." – Christian Bala, as recalled by David Grann [36:16]
  • Quote: "It’s going to be even more shocking." – Christian Bala (regarding a second book) [37:17]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-----------|----------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:38 | David Grann | "There was no doubt that the figure had been murdered." | | 02:09 | David Grann | "If the figure had moved at struggle to move, they would have been choking themselves." | | 05:51 | David Grann | "Rather than being a sparrow, he says, I'm an eagle." | | 09:18 | David Grann | "The murderer in the novel...had also not only put a noose around his girlfriend..." | | 11:38 | David Grann | "It was always in Christian...this play between what is real and what is false..." | | 18:49 | David Grann | "Even Jacek would acknowledge that the case was extraordinarily thin..." | | 22:53 | David Grann | "It strains credulity...this time is definitely a fiction." (on Bala's police brutality claim) | | 28:11 | Phoebe Judge | "I've already taken out a guy like you with a rope." | | 32:55 | David Grann | "He compares himself to Salman Rushdie, that he is being crucified for his literature." | | 36:16 | David Grann | "I'm the author. I'm the author. I know what I meant." | | 37:17 | David Grann | "It's going to be even more shocking." (Bala about his next, unfinished book) |

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Structurally Important Segments (Timestamps)

• [01:38–03:47] – Body discovery and identification
• [05:41–07:59] – Detective Jacek Wrobleski takes the case, cell phone clue
• [09:18–15:32] – Parallels between Amok and the real crime
• [18:49–19:56] – Crime's circumstantial evidence and case difficulties
• [20:04–21:06] – Digital investigation, Bala's impending return, and arrest
• [27:17–28:29] – Discovery of motive: jealousy over ex-wife's relationship
• [32:55–34:35] – Trial outcomes, Bala's continued assertions of innocence
• [34:35–36:34] – David Grann’s prison visit and interviews with Bala

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Tone and Takeaways

• Chilling, Literary, Investigative: The episode maintains a blend of true crime procedural with literary intrigue. Both Judge and Grann treat the subject matter with gravity, never sensationalizing Bala while also probing the stranger-than-fiction details.
• It raises questions about the boundaries between fiction and confession, and the risks of reading autobiography into art.
• Even with Bala imprisoned, the episode leaves a residue of uncertainty—about his motivations, about the truth-art boundary, and the lengths to which a guilty conscience may seek expression.

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This episode masterfully weaves together detective work, psychology, and literary analysis, creating a haunting tableau of a murder case in which the line between art and life blurs dangerously.

Transcript

[Phoebe Judge]

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[David Grann]

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[Phoebe Judge]

This episode includes graphic descriptions of violence. Please use discretion.

[David Grann]

One day in southwest Poland there were a couple fishermen and one of them noticed something floating and then the other came over and they realized it was a body and there was a noose around the neck and the hands had obviously been tied behind their back. There was no doubt that the figure had been murdered.

[Phoebe Judge]

This is author David Grann. The men who found the body called the police who came to remove was.

[David Grann]

Decayed and it was evidence once the pathologists looked at the person that they also had lacked food. So somebody had clearly deprived the person of nourishment. Some indications that they had been beaten and tortured. And there was something very peculiar the way the noose was around the neck and the hands were tied behind the back. At one point the rope had been cut in the middle, but it was clear that the person had been held with the hands connected to the noose in the back, almost like a backward cradle. So very, very painful position. So that if the figure had moved at struggle to move, they would have been choking themselves. It was clear that the body had been through A lot. It suggested almost an anger. It was almost. It did not seem like some detached murder.

[Phoebe Judge]

The man seemed to be in his 30s, was tall and had long dark hair and blue eyes. He matched the description of someone who'd been reported missing, a man named Darius Janicevsky. Darius was from the city of Wroclaw, 60 miles away and had last been seen about four weeks earlier, on November 13, 2000.

[David Grann]

He was a young businessman in his 30s. He worked in advertising. He was married. He was known as kind of happy, cheerful, he played guitar, got along with people, no history of violence, very personable.

[Phoebe Judge]

Darius wife didn't want to see the body, so the police brought in his mother and she confirmed it was him. Where had he last been seen?

[David Grann]

He had last been seen leaving his business. He had left in the afternoon, around 4pm if my memory is correct, and then was seen leaving the building. He didn't take his car at Peugeot, which was unusual for him because he normally when he was going to run an errand or do something, he always took his car. He did not take his car with him and that was the last time he was seen.

[Phoebe Judge]

What did his family think? I mean, when they reported him missing, what did they think had happened?

[David Grann]

They really didn't know. His mother had worked at the business and the only clues was the mother had reported that somebody had called the office in kind of a demanding state asking to speak with Darius for business. And she had then given him her son's cell ph. And then later when Darius came back into the office, the mother asked him, you know, did you speak with this client, this customer who called? And he said yes, and I'm going to see him this afternoon. And that was really the only kind of clue that possibly he had gone to meet this person and then disappear. But nobody knew who that person was. There was no sense of motive.

[Phoebe Judge]

The police were able to trace the phone call to a payphone not far from Darius office. But they were unable to find out who the caller was.

[David Grann]

You know, the authorities kind of considered almost the perfect crime because there were so few clues and eventually out of frustration and being stymied, the case was closed. And it gradually became the coldest of cold cases.

[Phoebe Judge]

About three years went by. The case was eventually passed along to a 38 year old detective named Jacek Wrobleski.

[David Grann]

He was a really interesting figure. He had had many professions. He had been a mechanic, he had been a municipal clerk. But then after the fall of communism, he joins the police department and he kind of finally found his calling. He was A large man, but he was very unthreatening. And people said they trusted him because they didn't think there was anything to fear him. And he was able to solve many cases. Interestingly enough, his first name, Yasik, translates to Jack, and his last name, Rick Robleski. The first part is Sparrow. So people called him Jack Sparrow, after the Hollywood movie Pirates of the Caribbean. And he used to like to say, rather than being a sparrow, he says, I'm an eagle.

[Phoebe Judge]

Did he have any suspicions about the case?

[David Grann]

When he first began looking at the case, he had very little. But he kept reviewing the file over and over. He put it away, he picked it back up. One thing that occurred to him, he had one suspicion, which was when he was looking at the way the body had been abused, the way this kind of cat's cradle, the way the body had been positioned, made him think that there was some kind of personal animus that drove the perpetrator or perpetrators. He did notice one clue, or it was the absence of a clue, which was Yasek had a cell phone, but there was no report of a cell phone in the file. So he began to say, can we trace? Can we figure out what had happened to that cell phone? At that time in Poland, telecommunications and that kind of technical investigation was still pretty primitive. But he was able to get a serial number of the cell phone from the widow. And lo and behold, that cell phone turned out to have been sold on an Internet auction just days after the murder. And not only that, he was able to tell from the that the person who had sold this was somebody who had identified themselves as Chris B.

[Phoebe Judge]

Chris B. Turned out to be a man named Christian Bala.

[David Grann]

And Jacek is aware that it's a very tenuous lead. I mean, in the sense that he doesn't know how this Krishna Balla obtained the phone. He may have found it on the street, he may have bought it at a pawn shop, but it is the only lead he has. And he has to figure out who is this person. He realizes that Christian Bala is out of the country. So he has to be a little bit careful about the way he investigates. He doesn't want to tip anyone off, and he begins to read about him and try to learn about him. One of the things he does is he learns that he was this kind of very young, bright philosopher student, had been the equivalent of his valedictorian in high school, had gotten a scholarship to get a PhD in philosophy, which he eventually dropped out of in order to work. He had been married, although was now divorced, he had a child, and he had also written a novel called Amok.

[Phoebe Judge]

Jacek Wrobleski learned that Christian Bala had published amok in 2003, several years after Darius had been murdered, and not long before Yasik began investigating the case. Jacek decided to get a copy.

[David Grann]

And he begins to read through the novel, at first almost kind of casually, almost out of curiosity, as, who is this person? How can I learn about him? And the novel's a bit of a shock to him. I mean, Yasik is a very kind of straightforward person, you know, very Catholic, very strong kind of view of good and evil. And the book is very blasphemous. It's very creepy, it's very sadistic, it's pornographic, it's very, very postmodern. And this character, who happens to be also identified as Chris, the same Chris, like the way the phone had been auctioned off, the narrator's name is Chris, who goes on this grisly kind of rampage in the novel, indulging in sex, and eventually ends up murdering the girl, his girlfriend in the novel. And so as Chris Yasik is reading the novel, he suddenly notices certain details that catch his attention. One of those details is that the victim of this murder, the girlfriend, had a noose around her neck. So he pauses on that. And then he finds one other detail that really strikes him, and that is that the murderer, Chris, in the novel had also not only put a noose around his girlfriend, had also stabbed the girlfriend and then sold the knife used in the killing in the novel on an Internet auction site.

[Phoebe Judge]

The fact that Darius cell phone had been sold on an Internet auction site had never been made public. Detective Jacek Wrobleski decided to make copies of Christian Bala's novel and hand them out to his detective squad. He assigned everyone chapters and asked them to look for more similarities between the plot and Darius Januszewski's murder. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is criminal. David Grann says Christian Bahla's novel didn't get very much attention when it was first published. And out of the people who did read it, some who knew Christian were.

[David Grann]

Surprised because Christian was very charming, very bright, and so, like his philosophy teachers and philosophy friends, were quite shocked by it. But it is important to understand that many people found Christian mesmerizing. I mean, he. There was something very alluring about him. He was brooding, smoking cigarettes. He kind of created this character. And so even in his own life, he would kind of tell these stories that you never were quite sure, what was true or what was false. He would tell people he'd gone on some adventure, had some romance, or he was at a brothel where he debased himself. And if people would repeat it several times, he would say, ah, it's become true. It was always in Christian, both in the novel but also in his own life. This play between what is real and what is false is what is true and what is a fiction. And in the character in the novel, was that Christian, or was that just a character he created in a novel?

[Phoebe Judge]

David says once, after the book came out, an interviewer asked Christian, some authors write only to release their Mr. Hyde, the Dark side of their psyche. Do you agree? Christian responded, I know what you were driving at, but I won't comment. It might turn out that Christian Bala is the creation of Chris, not the other way around. Christian had also posted excerpts of the book on his blog and would respond to reader comments under the name Chris. But David says Christian would dismiss suggestions that parts of the book had been drawn from his own life.

[David Grann]

He said at one point, somebody asked him after the novel came out, you know, a friend said, you know, this novel makes you look really bad. And he said, well, it's, you know, it's fiction. And she said, yeah, but for you to have those thoughts, you know, you must have had those thoughts. And so, well, anybody would think that is a fool.

[Phoebe Judge]

Still, as the detectives combed through the novel, they found more similarities.

[David Grann]

And they create, like, almost like a checkboard. I mean, you know, where they're like, okay, this is true. This happened in Christian Bala's real life. This didn't happen. We could confirm this. I mean, there's a scene of a theft in the novel. It turned out that theft had really happened in real life.

[Phoebe Judge]

In the novel, the narrator, Chris, gets drunk one night with a friend, and they decide to steal a figurine of St. Anthony from a church. Jacek Wrobleski discovered that Christian Bala had once been caught by the police doing the exact same thing. The friend he'd been with had told a judge they stole the statue because, quote, we wanted a third person to drink with. And there were other things. Christian had been left by his wife. So had the narrator, Chris. Both men loved philosophy, both drank a lot, and both owned businesses that had gone bankrupt.

[David Grann]

One thing that is also present, that is of suspicion, at least to Jacek, was that Chris, the narrator, not only confesses to murdering his girlfriend in the novel, the narrator in this novel gets away with it. There's no repercussions. No stain from the murder, no penance, no punishment, no redemption, just free. But he hints in several places that there was another murder of a man who had done something to him. He never speaks about what it is, but it's kind of moved throughout.

[Phoebe Judge]

Chris alludes to the other murder in a conversation with a girlfriend. After she questions the truth of his stories. He asked her if she didn't believe that he, quote, killed a man who behaved inappropriately toward me 10 years ago. He adds, quote, everyone considers it a fable. Maybe it's better that way. Sometimes I don't believe it myself.

[David Grann]

So was there an actual other murder of a man that is being hinted at in the novel? And could that have been Darius?

[Phoebe Judge]

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[David Grann]

Even Jacek would acknowledge that the case was extraordinarily thin. I mean all they had at that point, well, they had this cell phone. They knew that Christian Bala had somehow obtained Darius cell phone within a few days and sold it on an Internet site. And that's kind of all they have at that point. So they have a very thin case. And on top of that, even people around the department are looking at Yasik like I think you've your mind, like you're looking at a novel as a roadmap for a crime. So Yasek knows he needs more evidence, but he's also a bit hamstrung because at that point Christian Bala is out of the country and with extradition treaties he couldn't just call him back to question him.

[Phoebe Judge]

Jacek also didn't want word of the investigation to reach Kristian. Then he might never come home.

[David Grann]

And so he couldn't interview his closest family members or his ex wife. So he's somewhat limited learning about him through the these different sources. He still has no sense of a motive for the crime.

[Phoebe Judge]

Jacek decided to look through the profile for Chris B. On the Internet auction site that Christian had used to sell Darius cell phone.

[David Grann]

And they looked realized that very shortly, like a week before, 10 days before Darius was murdered, that Crispy Christian Bala have been looking for a police manual on criminal hangings. And now again, it's suggestive. But once again they're also stymied because there's no evidence that the book itself was actually purchased. They don't know if that book was ever found, but at least in Jacek's mind, again it's suggestive to him. Why is Crispi looking at a police manual, detective manual about criminal hangings 10 days before a noose is found around Darius neck? And then they learn that Christian is going to return to Poland that he's coming back to visit. And so they decide they're going to bring him in for questioning.

[Phoebe Judge]

Christian Bala returned to Poland about two years after Jacek had begun investigating the case. While he was out of the country, he'd been traveling, writing for magazines and teaching English and scuba lessons. Officers arrested Christian on September 5, 2005, as he was coming out of a drugstore in a town near Wroclaw. Christian later wrote an account of what he says happened. He said that three men attacked him, forced him into the back of a car and put a black plastic bag over his head. He wrote that the men beat him and then called someone on the phone. He said he overheard one of the men say, he's still alive, and what about the money? Will we get it today? He said that the men drove for a while and then stopped, and one of them said, we can dig a hole here and bury him. Christian wrote, I thought that this was going to be the last moment of my life. But then he said, the men started driving again and took him to a building where he was stripped and beaten some more. When they started to interrogate him, he realized he was in police custody. Yasek said that none of this happened. He said they did arrest Christian outside of a drugstore, but without violence. Quote, we use standard procedures and followed the letter of the law. What do you think about that? You know, do you have any suspicion that Christian was in some ways threatened, tortured by Jasek and his detectives? Or do you think that that was another one of Christian's tales?

[David Grann]

When you read the tale, I'll just say this. It strains credulity. I wasn't there. I wasn't a witness. I. I do know. And then that it was investigated for a long period of time by authorities, and they found no evidence of it. And there's no evidence ever in Yasik's career of doing anything like this. But it is the one time where suddenly you have Jacek saying, this story, this story, this thing that Krishnambala is saying this time is definitely a fiction. He is making this story up.

[Phoebe Judge]

According to Yasik, he questioned Christian in his office, starting with simple questions about his work and relationships. When Jasek brought up Darius Januszewski's murder, Christian said he didn't know him.

[David Grann]

Yasik doesn't yet reveal the one kind of trump card he has, which isn't that much, but he knows about the phone that Christian Bala had somehow sold the murder victim's phone on this Internet auction site. And so he Starts to ask him some questions and Christian about amok, about his life. And Christian just kind of denies things. And then he asks him about the phone. And that's the one time where Christian was a bit evasive. He said, I don't remember where I got that phone now. It was a while back. This is many years before. And he said, well, then later he said, well, maybe I got it at a pawn shop. And so by the end, there really isn't any evidence to hold him or to continue hold him. Under Polish law, he does agree to submit to a polygraph test. The polygrapher thought that at certain points during the polygraph that a Christian who was a scuba diver might have been using certain breathing exercises. It's hard to say. I mean, these polygraphs are notoriously unreliable, and the results were inconclusive in any case. And in the end, the case seems to be unraveling and Christian is let. Let go.

[Phoebe Judge]

The police were able to charge Christian with selling stolen property, the cell phone he had to hand over his passport and stay in the country.

[David Grann]

And he begins to tell people that he is being investigated and persecuted because of a novel he wrote. And it creates a sensation. I mean, human rights organizations start writing letters to the Polish Ministry of Justice, you know, deluging them with let, saying, how can you be doing this? You're violating his rights.

[Phoebe Judge]

One of Christian's girlfriends organized a committee to bring attention to his case. In an online post, she wrote, during his brutal interrogation, they referenced his book numerous times, citing it as proof of his guilt.

[David Grann]

And let's. You know, I think anyone hearing that someone's being investigated for a novel they wrote would say, this is outrageous. And Jacek always says, I need corroborating evidence. The novel is a roadmap to a crime. It is giving us some clues and insights. He knows it is not evidence. He cannot present the novel as a piece of evidence in court. He's trying to use the novel, though, to try to kind of crack the case. So Yasik then begins to. Now, two things happen that are very important, evidentiary wise. One of the things they try to do is they keep trying to figure out from the payphone, in those Polish payphones at the time you kind of insert this card, and that would allow you to make the calls. And with that card, you could then insert it into other payphones and use it again. They're able to finally crack that and figure out what the card was that was being used. And when they figure out and crack this card that was being used, they Realized the same caller had placed a lot of other calls. Who were those calls to? There were two Christian Balla's family members and friends and colleagues, everybody in Christian Bala's circle. So that was the first really strong piece of evidence, not suggestive, that Christian Bala was the one from the payphone who had placed the call to the advertising firm that lured Darius out. The next question though was what is the. What is the connection?

[Phoebe Judge]

The detective started to question Christian's family and friends. David says many people had nice things to say about Christian. A past employer from a teaching job called him easy to get along with and said with no reservation, I highly recommend Christian Bala for any teaching position with children. But a babysitter who worked for him and his then wife said he drank a lot and he often gave his wife a hard time and accused her of sleeping around. Christian and his wife separated in 2000.

[David Grann]

One person reported that at one point he had been in a bar and he had seen his ex wife flirting with a bartender. This was just a few weeks after Darius was killed and he was screaming drunkenly that nobody can talk to my wife that way way.

[Phoebe Judge]

Witnesses said Christian shouted, quote, I've already taken out a guy like you with a rope. Five people held Christian back from attacking the man. Then the detective spoke to a friend of Christian's ex wife who says that.

[David Grann]

One time at a bar she had seen Christian Bala's ex wife talking to somebody and it was none other than Darius Janicevsky.

[Phoebe Judge]

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[David Grann]

So she had been very resistant to be interviewed for a long time and I don't know the reason why. You know, perhaps it was, I mean, I only knew what Jacek wondered Could it be because she was afraid of Krishna? Was it because she thought he was innocent? Was it because they had a child together and she didn't want to incriminate him? But eventually Yasek goes to speak with her and she had never read the novel Amok, but then he shows her portions of the novel and these very, very sadistic descriptions of a woman in the novel who it very much mirrors her, the ex wife. And at that point she's willing to talk and she says for the first time that she had met Dariusz Janeczewski in a bar.

[Phoebe Judge]

This was in the summer of 2000, the same year she and Christian separated.

[David Grann]

They had later gone on a date. They had gone to a motel. She says they didn't have sex because she learned that he had been married, but they were together and they had gone on this date. He had left. They never went on a date again and that was it. But that Christian had showed up not long after at her apartment or at her home, broke down the door, hit her, screaming, says, I know you had an affair. I know. Who would I know the hotel, I know the room.

[Phoebe Judge]

Christian's ex wife said. He also mentioned that he had visited Darius office and described it to me after this Jasik decided he had enough evidence to charge Christian Bahla with murder.

[David Grann]

And so Christian Bala is indicted. It creates a sensation. He continues to claim that he is being persecuted for a novel he wrote, that he compares himself to Salman Rushdie, that he is being crucified for his literature.

[Phoebe Judge]

It was reported that at one point before the trial, Christian confessed to prosecutors that he had killed Darius. But he immediately retracted the confession and had a, quote, fainting spell. The trial began on February 22, 2007. On the first day, the courtroom was packed. One Polish newspaper wrote, killing doesn't make much of an impression in the 21st century, but allegedly killing and then writing about it in a novel is front page news. What, what did the prosecution argue? That it was kind of cut. It was a cut and dry case.

[David Grann]

Yeah, I mean, they, they presented it as, you know, if you take away the novel and you, you know, this was a man allegedly who, out of a fit of rage, kidnapped or abducted somebody who had gone on a date with his ex wife and then murdered him in this very barbaric way.

[Phoebe Judge]

Christian was found guilty of planning and directing the murder. There wasn't enough evidence to prove that he'd committed the murder himself. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He later appealed.

[David Grann]

He did get a new trial, but he was found guilty in a second trial as well. And he's still in jail to this day.

[Phoebe Judge]

In 2007, David Graham traveled to Poland.

[David Grann]

To meet Christian at a, you know, really tough prison, kind of post communist prison. There'd been a riot. It was, you know, very harsh conditions. And I remember going into the visitors room, I was surprised I was able to get in and able to see him. And as I walked in, you know, it's this very dismal place. And I see someone kind of standing in the visitor's room wearing a sweatshirt that said, I think it said University of Wisconsin on it, and had dark hair, and the hair was kind of standing up as if the person had kind of been rubbing their hand through it. Very handsome, but they looked like a grad student. And I realized I was looking at Christian Bahla.

[Phoebe Judge]

David remembers. Christian shook his hand. And as they walked to a table to sit down, Christian said, this whole thing is farce, like something out of Kafka. While they were talking, Christian would occasionally point to David's notebook and say things like, put this down, or this is important.

[David Grann]

When we spoke about the novel, he was very excited when we talked about different theories and truth. And even when he, when I asked him about Some of the very specific evidence about the cell phone where that, you know, how did he get hold of that? Some of the other, like, why on the public telephone, did. Had, you know, did it look like he had made the call to the. To the. To the advertising firm? And he. On those points, he was a bit evasive and kind of conspiratorial, and I didn't feel like I ever got clear answers. But he maintained his innocence. And he kept saying, I'm the author. I'm the author. I know what I meant. I know what I meant.

[Phoebe Judge]

David says at one point during their conversation, Christian accidentally said me instead of him when talking about the narrator, Chris. Do you think that there's any part of him that wrote the book because he wanted someone to figure out the puzzle?

[David Grann]

Well, one of the questions that always kind of haunted this case was, you know, and for me, as someone who spent, you know, many months researching it, was, you know, why did he write. Why did you write the novel? And, you know, had the novel not been written, I don't think Jacek ever would have had his suspicions raised to the extent that he did. And it did give him, to some extent, a roadmap. You know, the character in the novel is somebody who is dealing with guilt and a guilty conscience. I mean, that is kind of one of the themes of the novel. So was the author dealing with a guilty conscience? Was this his confession?

[Phoebe Judge]

After Christian was arrested, his book started selling out in bookstores all over Poland.

[David Grann]

He thought, and he still thinks, at least when I met him, you know, that his novel, while it was obscured at the time, would one day be recognized for the masterpiece it was. And then, I'll never forget this. At one point he said to me, he said, I'm working on a second book. And he said, but the investigators had confiscated it, and so he hadn't been able to finish it yet. And at one point, he leaned towards me as if to make sure that the guards couldn't hear him. And he said, it's going to be even more shocking.

[Phoebe Judge]

David Graham is the author of the Wager and Killers of the Flower movies, and his article about Christian Bala is contained in his collection the Devil and Sherlock Holmes. Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Roberson, Jackie Sajiko, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison and Megan Kinane. Our engineer is Veronica Simonetti. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see [e-mail] and you can sign up for our [e-mail] Newsletter we hope you'll join our membership program Criminal plus now on Patreon. It's the very best way to support our work. You can listen to Criminal this is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery without any ads. Plus you'll get bonus episodes, behind the scenes photos and videos, and you'll be able to talk directly with us and other Criminal listeners. Learn more and sign [e-mail] criminal we're on Facebook at thisiscriminal and Instagram and TikTok at CriminalPodcast. We're also on [e-mail] CriminalPodcast Criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast network. Discover more great [e-mail] I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.