Hours after terrorists hijacked four planes and struck the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and an empty field in Pennsylvania, killing thousands on 9/11, another murder took place on a Brooklyn street.
It was New York City‘s only reported homicide outside the attacks that day in 2001 – and it remains unsolved 24 years later.
The victim was 46-year-old Henryk Siwiak, who had emigrated to America from Poland in search of a better life. A married father of two, he had phoned relatives in Eastern Europe earlier to tell them he was safe after the terror strikes.
But hours later, while on his way to a new job at Pathmark supermarket in Bedford-Stuyvesant, the hard-working immigrant was shot and left for dead.
Siwiak, who was juggling several jobs at the time to support his family back in Poland, accidentally got off at the wrong subway stop.
Instead of reaching the 1500 block of Albany Avenue, where the grocery store was located, he ended up four miles away on the first block of Albany Avenue.
The mistake cost him his life.
Two hijacked planes hit the south and north towers of the World Trade Center during the 9/11 terrorist attack
Siwiak was killed hours after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He was the only homicide reported in New York outside of the World Trade Center attacks on that day
Retired NYPD Lieutenant Tom Joyce, then with the 79th Precinct, was one of the first officers on the scene after a call came that shots had been fired at Decatur Street.
‘There was only myself and one other detective available to even pay any attention to it, and we probably spent less than an hour on it,’ Joyce told the Daily Mail.
‘There was no crime scene to respond to. We had one evidence collection technician show up with a Polaroid camera. We processed the crime scene. They gathered whatever evidence they could. They took whatever photos they could,’ he recalled.
‘It was the weakest response to a homicide in probably 100 years because there were just no resources. Every crime scene unit technician available was working the World Trade Center.’
‘Mr Siwiak was not only the victim of an unfortunate circumstance. He was also the victim of getting killed at the worst possible time in the history of New York, maybe the United States.’
Investigators spent years trying to investigate Siwiak’s murder. A $12,000 reward was offered by the NYPD and Crime Stoppers, but no information leading to an arrest was ever received.
A lack of forensic evidence and the critical lost time eventually turned the case cold.
NYPD Detective Michael Prate, who was also with the 79th Precinct, later described the area where Siwiak was killed as being notorious for gangs, guns and drugs.
‘It was dangerous for the police to be on that block,’ Prate said, as per ABC7 News, adding he believed Siwiak was killed during an attempted robbery.
‘I’m assuming he was lost and, when he got down there, he just stepped into the lion’s den.’
Seven cartridge cases were recovered the night of the shooting, raising the hopes of officials that they might be forensically matched to a firearm used in another crime.
But the weapon has never resurfaced, Joyce said.
At the time, pioneering new techniques were used in an attempt to extract DNA and fingerprints from the cartridges but forensics were not yet advanced enough.
‘I think the likelihood of solving this case is exponentially greater if 9/11 had not hit, because what would have happened was we would have processed the crime scene.
‘You would have had detectives out there every single day for a couple of weeks, knocking on doors, talking to people. You would have had narcotic enforcement arresting people in the narcotics trade and doing debriefings, looking for people to either negotiate for leverage and deals.
‘You would have had a lot more of a focus by the detectives doing the background work.’
The Bedford-Stuyvesant block in Brooklyn where the crime took place
A view of the Bed-Stuy area where Siwiak ended up after getting off the wrong train stop
A $12,000 reward was offered by the NYPD and Crime Stoppers
NYPD Lieutenant Tom Joyce of the 79th Precinct went to the scene after Henryk Siwiak was killed
Thursday marks 24 years since Siwiak’s murder, and there are still no suspects.
An NYPD spokesperson told the Daily Mail that there were no updates and the investigation remained ongoing.
According to some reports, Siwiak did not speak English well and may have had an altercation with the suspect or suspects during the attack.
After he was shot, he tried to knock on a nearby door for help but collapsed.
Joyce described the area of Decatur and Albany where Siwiak was gunned down as a section that was ‘pretty rough’, rife with robberies and street-level drug trade.
He said the murder is a ‘whodunnit’ for the cold case team but solving it now would rely on witnesses or someone with information coming forward – or the weapon being recovered.
Though he thinks that is ‘highly unlikely’.
Siwiak’s sister, Lucyna, 72, was ‘unavailable and out of the country’ when contacted by the Daily Mail but discussed the case on the Anatomy of Murder true-crime podcast in October 2024.
Through a translator, she told hosts Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi and Scott Weinberger of her shock when detectives came to her door. Her brother had been in the US for just 11 months.
Siwiak carried only $5 the night he died because he sent the rest of his earnings to his family in Poland.
On the day of the terrorist attacks, Lucyna said he had found a second job as a cleaner at a supermarket. Though he knew his way around Manhattan and Queens, Brooklyn was unfamiliar.
‘He didn’t know about what places are danger,’ she said.
She also shared a chilling conversation in which her brother predicted that he would die soon.
Lucyna had moved to America from Poland to start over after her business was destroyed by fire but her outlook changed with the murder of Siwiak.
‘My dream was completely different after my brother died. I lost motivation. What are we doing? For what?,’ she asked.
Lucyna Siwiak in January 2002, holding her brother’s picture six months after his murder
Dr Sneha Ann Philip, 31, was a resident at St. Vincent’s Hospital and went missing on September 10
Dr Sneha Ann Philip and her husband Dr Ron Lieberman
Another mystery that still haunts New Yorkers from the time of the 9/11 attacks is the disappearance of Dr Sneha Anne Philip, 31, a married medical doctor.
The last known sighting was around 7.18pm on September 10 at the Century 21 department store located on Cortland Street across from the World Trade Center.
She and her husband also lived near the towers in Battery Park City, and in her final texts she suggested to her mother she wanted to try Windows on the World – the restaurant at the top of Tower One.
A newlywed at the time she vanished, she met her partner, Dr Ron Lieberman, when they were both in medical school.
Philips was never found, and her case is unsolved. She is listed among the official victims of 9/11.
The NYPD said there were no updates, telling the Daily Mail that her case, as with Siwiak’s, was ongoing.
