Tragedy certainly hit the Sarneckyz family in Scunthorpe in 1971. First, Maria’s son, Stephen, was killed at the steelworks, where he was working on a blast furnace. Then, just a few weeks later, her husband, Iwan was found dead, together with Mrs Margaret Dembizky, at her home in Grosvenor Street.
The various immigrant communities in the town had always maintained their cultural habits and sense of community, but at the time it seemed to many (wrongly of course) that the East Europeans had the habit of some kind of blood-feud. Such was the ridiculous media panic at the time. Certainly, some memories of the event from older residents convey a sense of outrage akin to the cinematic representation of the Mafia. ‘That’s the way they do things there’ was a phrase one respondent told me, as if your Saxon English were somehow not capable of extreme crime.
Detective Inspector Felgate told the coroner at the inquest that both had been found stabbed to death. It had been a truly frenzied attack: the Ukrainian Sarneckyz had suffered multiple wounds to several parts of his body; Mary had been mostly attacked on the chest. The Sarneckyz couple had been divorced a year previously. Poor Maria had to come and identify her husband’s body. Her husband had been found in the street, but Margaret Dembizky was found in a ‘ten-foot’ nearby at Burke Street. She had managed to struggle to her feet and walk a short distance.
Felgate made it clear that the police had the killer: Mr Metro Dembizky, a man known generally as Frank. Frank was also injured and admitted to hospital, but was not seriously injured. There had indeed been a major fracas, and Frank had earlier barricaded himself in the house. Police with tracker dogs surrounded the property. The killer had simply sat at the top of the staircase, a knife in each hand, and taken on the might of the police force. It is a notable feature of the red-brick houses of Crosby that there is a network of alleys running through them from the town centre to the Normanby end of town. Margaret was found in one of these: a dark place, out of public view.
The story had yet more complications, as there were three children in the house, and although these had not been harmed, there was clearly a dramatic sense of risk and vulnerability there. Eventually detectives convinced Frank that his best move was to let the children out, and he did so. The main negotiator was Chief Constable George Terry. His feat on that awful day must be prominent in his memoirs, as he was the hero of the hour. He must have provided onlookers with high drama as he talked to Frank Dembizky for a quarter of an hour, and as he did this, two officers entered the house by using a ladder. The man had clearly cracked and was emotionally unsound. But he was now wounded and taken to hospital to await the inquest.