A call from neighbors to the police in the southern town of Świętochłowice Polandresulted in a shocking discovery that shocks the community. In the house they found an elderly couple already a 42 year old woman in critical state of health. While they were taking her in the ambulance, she asked them for help and told them that He hadn’t left his house for almost three decades..
Officers were alerted by concerned residents who heard commotion behind the wall of one of the houses in an apartment complex.
When they knocked on the door, they were answered by an 82-year-old woman who denied that anything unusual was happening. She told them that she lived with her husband and that they did not need help. But the officers insisted on entering, and finally the owner gave in to the request.
When checking one of the rooms, they discovered Mirella, as she was later identified, lying on an armchair, with barely enough strength to stand up. In addition to his weakness, and his alarming appearance, they noticed serious injuries on her legs and they decided to take her to the hospital.
The story of Mirella (42) from Świętochłowice seems unlikely, but it really happened. For many years, the woman was not supposed to leave her apartment. She recently emerged from the hospital, led away by paramedics. The neighbors thought… https://t.co/DSujPIIRzX
— Fakt (@Fakt_pl) October 15, 2025
According to the report of the Polish newspaper Factthe last time the neighbors had seen the girl in public was in 1998, when I was 15 years old. When they found out that he had always been in the bedroom of his parents’ house, they were shocked.
«The marriage said that his teenage daughter had disappearedwho had fled the house, and it didn’t occur to us to question them,» one of the neighbors told the local press.
The house of horror in Poland: boarded up windows and thick curtains. (TV Fakt Capture)«He was in a sorry state, with difficulty moving. He couldn’t even go down the stairs, it was obvious that he was suffering from a terrible trauma,» other witnesses testified.
«It’s incredible, I remember Mirella and we used to play in front of the building when I visited my grandmother on vacation, until she suddenly disappeared under mysterious circumstances,» said another resident.
Mirella’s heartbreaking story: 27 years of captivity in her parents’ house
Łukasz Pach, director of the Emergency Medical Service of the Katowice Voivodeship, revealed: «When we took her to the hospital, the patient told us that she had not left home for more than 20 years, all that time in one room is inconceivable.»
Pach reported that they detected an infection with a risk of imminent necrosis in both of the woman’s legs. «I was a few days away from dying if it continued in those critical conditions,» he said.
Mirella, the 42-year-old Polish woman they rescued, in the hospital. (TV Fakt Capture)«He never went to the dentist or the hairdresser, nor do we know what type of diet he had, but his hair and teeth are in very poor condition and threaten his complex health condition,» he added.
Mirella was hospitalized to receive treatment, and in the meantime an investigation was opened to clarify the circumstances. Prosecutor Agnieszka Kwatera confirmed that the case is being formally investigated.
Deputy Director Anna Hryniak of the Świętochłowice Municipal Police Headquarters also spoke with the newspaper Fakt, and confirmed that they are in contact with the Social Welfare Center to obtain more information about the woman, in order to take further measures.
«This person was not listed in our database as missing or wanted. And after our intervention he was issued an identification document because he did not have such a document,» Hryniak revealed.
Local news outlets covered Mirella’s case, shocked by the 27 years of captivity. (TV Fakt Capture)They also consulted the records of the Kochanowski Institute No. 1, which confirmed that Mirella attended the school for less than half a semester.
«We found a notation in the student register that indicated that said person did attend our school, began his studies on September 1, 1997, and was removed from the student register on January 6, 1998 with an explanatory note that said: ‘Deleted at the request of his parents‘» said Jolanta Daniluk, current principal of the high school.
The director clarified that at that time there were not the same restrictions as today, since in 1997, compulsory schooling in Poland consisted of completing eight years of primary school.
They also discovered that the marriage, which was stopped, He had changed his version several times about what happened to his daughter. Some neighbors had been told that she was adopted and had had to return her to her biological family, others that she had been kidnapped, and others that she had disappeared.
«He had no contact with his classmates or with the outside world, he had no clothes of his own, no identification, It was like it didn’t exist.«commented a source of the ongoing investigation.
For now, the authorities are focusing on Mirella making a full recovery and must prove that she was held against her will.
«This is a particularly delicate matter, and its complete resolution requires time and the cooperation of numerous institutions, so at this stage it is not possible to issue definitive assessments or publicly determine the course of events,» said Monika Szpoczek, director of the Center for Social Welfare in Świętochłowice.
