She remained proud of her language and culture and at the age of 20 was still figuring out her place in the world.
Friends say she was a shy girl who didn’t like large groups and so meeting boyfriends was never easy. They also say she never revealed why she had moved to Northern Ireland and, like many young women her age, was just trying to “figure out” what her future held.
When she met Dawid Lukasz Mietus after moving to Newry, she was at first smitten with him. The couple went from dating to living with each other very quickly.
Mietus had only moved to Northern Ireland in February 2019. He met Patrycja in December of that year. She moved into his home within a month of meeting him.
Mietus was instantly possessive and jealous and Patrycja was cut off from the support of her stepmother and sister, who were still residing in Belfast.
Slight in build and quietly spoken with few friends, she became even more isolated during the relationship.
Mietus was a classic abuser, devoted to Patrycja one minute and violent and coercive the next. For someone as inexperienced with relationships as she was, it would have been a difficult relationship from which to escape.
He would later claim he had been exposed to domestic abuse during his own childhood in Poland as mitigation for his actions, but the evidence would show him as a jealous and possessive man.
On the night of the murder, Mietus savagely beat and then strangled his young partner sometime after midnight.
He stayed in the home with her body all night trying to clean away evidence.
The following morning, he cycled to an aunt’s house and said: “I’ve killed her.”
Noticing her nephew’s shoes were blood-stained, she sent her partner to Mietus’s home to check what had happened, where he found Ms Wyrebek’s body lying in an empty bath.
Police were called and when they arrived at 8.20am they were immediately met with the signs of a violent attack.
The bedroom was heavily blood-stained and there was a strong smell of bleach from where the killer tried to clean up the evidence.
Mietus first fled the scene and was witnessed crossing through gardens armed with a knife. Residents were asked to stay in their homes.
He also threatened to harm himself. He was located hiding in a neighbour’s garden behind an oil tank and arrested on suspicion of murder at around midday on August 2, 2020.
He would go on to give multiple conflicting accounts of what had happened, all aimed at diminishing his own actions, all of which caused further distress to Patrycja’s family.
Dawid Lucek Mietus after being arrested by police at the murder scene in Drumalane Park, Newry.
Despite evidence to the contrary, he tried to use a fake “rough sex” defence, claiming he and his victim had a shared interest in erotic asphyxiation and that she had accidentally died during consensual sex.
At an earlier hearing it was claimed her murder was “entirely accidental, a tragic accident”.
He claimed that the quiet young woman, who friends say rarely spoke, introduced him to this practice, a false claim that caused great distress to her loved ones.
The murder was far from a “tragic accident”: blood was splattered up the walls of the home they shared together.
Ms Wyrebek died of “compression of the neck in association with blunt-force injuries of the head”.
She was beaten and then strangled to death.
Earlier this month, Mietus finally admitted he had lied.
His defence claimed that before he killed her, he and his girlfriend rowed over past partners. He told probation that he punched her then grabbed her by the throat and squeezed until she stopped moving.
His change of plea may have been motivated by the overwhelming evidence against him — or more likely a change in the law in March of this year. The Justice (Sexual Offences and Trafficking Victims) Bill passed its final stages prior to the Assembly being dissolved. It abolished what is known as the ‘rough sex’ defence.
The high-profile case of British backpacker Grace Millane brought global attention to the so-called ‘rough sex’ defence.
In November 2019, Jesse Kempson, who had strangled the British backpacker and hidden her body inside a suitcase, was found guilty of murder following a trial in New Zealand. His defence was that she had died accidentally during ‘rough sex’.
It has resulted in changes to the law in numerous jurisdictions. Labour MP Harriet Harman said at the time that it created a situation where men were able to blame the woman they killed for her own death by implying ‘she wanted the violence’.
During a pre-sentence hearing earlier this month, defence barrister Patrick Lyttle apologised on behalf of Mietus for the use of the defence, saying: “That is a complete and utter lie and, on behalf of my client, I apologise for the hurt and upset it would have caused to the family of the deceased.”
Patrycja’s life was taken from her and from her stepmother and sister. She never lived to achieve her full potential.
With almost two years served in remand, her killer will be just 43 years old when he is eligible for release — still a young man who has shown he is capable of great violence against a vulnerable victim and also of elaborate lies and deceit to cover for his actions.
