Henryk Siwiak

Status:

Open

Offense Location:

Brooklyn, New York

Summary:

Henryk Siwiak was shot once in the chest on a Bedford-Stuyvesant sidewalk just before midnight on September 11, 2001, and died minutes later without anyone ever coming to his aid. The 46-year-old Polish immigrant's death remains the only homicide New York City officially recorded that day that wasn't connected to the terror attacks. No one has been arrested, no motive has been confirmed, and the case remains unsolved.

Vital Statistics

Circumstances of Offense:

Siwiak had emigrated from Kraków, Poland, in October 2000 after losing his job as a railway inspector. He joined his sister Lucyna in Queens and found work at a construction site in Lower Manhattan, sending roughly half of his $1,000 monthly earnings back home to support his wife, Ewa, their 17-year-old daughter Gabriela's college tuition, and their 10-year-old son, Adam. When the towers fell that morning, his job site shut down, and he went looking for overnight cleaning work instead. September 11 marked Henryk Siwiak's first night heading to a new job at a Pathmark supermarket in Brooklyn where he would be waxing and polishing floors. But he spoke very little English and was given bad directions to the grocery store. When he got off the subway that night, he wasn't near the supermarket. Instead, he ended up at the 1 block of Albany Avenue between Decatur Street and Fulton Street in Brooklyn. Dripping blood, he staggered across the street, climbed up the stoop of 119 Decatur and rang the building's buzzer. He was able to make it to the door of a nearby house before he collapsed.

Additional Details:

Because news outlets were consumed entirely by coverage of the World Trade Center attacks, the first stories reporting Siwiak's murder didn't run until nearly a month later, in October 2001. That delay meant investigators lost weeks of potential public tips at precisely the moment memories were freshest. With NYPD homicide detectives and crime scene units almost entirely deployed to Lower Manhattan, Siwiak's crime scene was instead processed by a burglary evidence-collection unit. The only leads they had were shell casings from a .40 calibre handgun and the testimonies from frightened residents. However, the NYPD could only spare three officers. The only forensic evidence in this case came from the .40-caliber shell casings left at the scene, which remain an unworkable lead, since the firearm used has not been linked to any other known crimes. He had three $20 bills, two $5 bills, a single and $4.16 in change in his pockets. That seems to rule out robbery. Since Siwiak was not robbed, wore camouflage clothing and spoke poor English with a heavy accent, detectives have speculated that his killer may have thought he had something to do with the attacks. Ewa and Lucyna, Henryk's wife and sister, respectively, believe that the shooter(s) had mistaken Henryk for an Arab man, due to his olive skin, his accent, and his scattered understanding of English. Prate revisited the case again and again until his retirement in 2012, but never got any leads.

Case Last Updated:

Sep 15, 2026