Magda McMorrow told RTE’s Katie Hannon of the devastating murder of her sister Natalia Karaczyn who was killed by her husband in April 2019.
Ms McMorrow spoke about the horrific ordeal on the radio show, which was dedicated to raising awareness of domestic abuse.
The heartbroken sister told of how Natalia's husband Rafal Karaczyn had manipulated her family into believing that he was the victim and played the part of the nice guy.
She said she knew there were problems in the couple’s relationship, but physical abuse was never involved.
Ms McMorrow said: “I knew that there were difficulties. I knew that she wanted to get out of the relationship, and it was going on for about a year when she she just she told him she doesn’t want to be with him anymore.
“According to her, they weren't together for the last year, and they were sleeping separately, and he just refused to move out from the house and she on numerous occasions she was asking him to move out.”
Ms McMorrow said she had a conversation with her sister about the possibility of her moving out of the house if her husband continued to refuse to leave.
She added: “She said why would she leave the house when she has three children to support, and she has three children to look after, so he should leave the house.”
"There was no physical violence no physical violence in the relationship as far as I know, and I’m pretty sure because myself and my sister were very close and she would have been a person who would always speak her mind, and she wouldn't be afraid, and she didn't seem to be afraid, and she didn't seem to be worried or anxious about anything it was just a very stressful situation to be in.”
Instead, Natalia was subjected to mental abuse as her husband obsessively called her and questioned her whereabouts regularly.
Ms McMorrow said: “There was a situation when I was on a night out with her and he would constantly ring and ring and ring and ring, and she wouldn't answer the phone, and he’d ring again and again and again and again it could be 20 times it could be 30 times in the end.
“I’d answer the phone and say what are you doing, and so he said he won’t do it again, but then the minute I hung up the phone, he was at it again.
“And then sending texts and then he would always wait for her to come back from a night out, and then he’d start an argument, and obviously the last argument ended the way it did.”
She added: “I know that he would go through her closet checking for, say if she got new underwear… he’d call her names and demanded for her to answer why she got this underwear or this clothes.
“One occasion as well he went into her phone and read her messages and then he told her that it was her best friend that told him all this information. So, then my sister stopped talking to her friend as well.”
Ms McMorrow said that her sister’s husband constantly manipulated those around her sister.
She said: "My sister was so outspoken, and she was so strong and so independent, you know, you would have thought that he was the victim in it all, and that's what he does, and that's what he played.
"It took me even a couple of months to realise that I’m getting manipulated after she died. I’m the victim now, I’m getting manipulated, but still, because you’re a good person because you’re not that kind of person that he was you feel like, oh Jesus, he has no one else. So, I found that I had to help him.”
When Natalia went missing, Ms McMorrow approached Mr Karaczyn, where she was told he had no idea where she was.
She said: “He was there when I went looking for her when she went missing.
“He was there looking into my eyes saying no she never came home and pretended to be worried and I can’t understand how can you look at somebody, and he saw how anxious I was and how stressed I was looking for her, and he just stood there and watched me.”
After continually denying being involved in the murder of his wife, Mr Karaczyn confessed to Ms McMorrow.
She said: “I told him that I would prefer he had done it because I knew he had done it, but he wouldn't say that he did, so I said that I would have preferred that he had done it rather than strangers doing god knows what to her, and then he asked to speak to me the next day, and he confessed then.”
Mr Karaczyn was found guilty of Natalia's murder on May 19, 2021.
