In the summer of 2000, a young Polish woman named Iwona Kaminska arrived in London, England, full of excitement for her first trip abroad. She planned to visit friends, improve her English, and explore the city. Just four days later, on July 13th, 2000, she vanished without a trace after leaving her temporary job in Hammersmith, west London. More than twenty-five years on, her case remains unsolved, with the Metropolitan Police treating it as a probable kidnap and murder.
Iwona, a twenty-year-old student from the small town of Modliborzyce in southeast Poland, landed in London on July 9th, 2000. She stayed with a friend near the Arndale Centre (now Wandsworth Shopping Centre) in south-west London. Eager to make the most of her visit—planned to last several months—she quickly secured a job at a Polish-owned business on King Street in Hammersmith, where she packed drinking glasses.
Her routine was simple: commute to work in the morning and return home in the evening, usually catching the 220 bus from Hammersmith bus station.
On the morning of July 13th, 2000, Iwona was captured on CCTV heading to work as usual. She spent the day at the shop and finished between five and six p.m. She was expected to meet her friend back in Wandsworth around seven p.m. for shopping, but she never arrived.
Her route home would have taken her the short distance from King Street to Hammersmith bus station. Despite extensive review of over 200 hours of CCTV footage, no images showed her leaving work or at the bus station that evening. She simply disappeared in broad daylight in a busy area.
Iwona was described as white, five feet two inches tall, slim build, with light brown, curly, shoulder-length hair. On the day she vanished, she wore dark trousers, black shoes, a dark green knee-length jacket, and carried a small black leather handbag containing only about £20.
Her friend reported her missing the next day. Iwona’s father, Jan Kaminski, a farmer from Poland, flew to London shortly after to assist police. Initial searches and appeals yielded no leads.
By 2016, on what would have been Iwona’s thirty-sixth birthday (January 22nd), the Metropolitan Police relaunched the case with a £10,000 reward for information leading to a conviction. Detectives announced they believed she had been kidnapped and murdered, stating they had “no choice but to fear the worst” after fifteen years of silence. The disappearance was entirely out of character—Iwona was excited about her trip and in regular contact with family.
No suspects have ever been publicly named, and no motive identified. Her body has never been found.
Crime Immemorial 