She Had Plans. She Had Two Sons. Then They Found Her De@ad at Home — And a 60-Year-Old Man Next Door Was Charged With Mu@rder
Anna Zukowska was 52 and, according to the people who loved her most, still in the middle of her life. She was a mother of two. She had friends who felt her presence. She had plans. On Sunday evening, 6 September 2026, those plans stopped inside a house on James Close in Ollerton, Nottinghamshire.
Officers were called to the address shortly before 8pm after family members could not reach her. Inside the home they found her dead. Formal identification had not yet been completed when the first official updates were issued, but her family had already been told. Specialist officers were assigned to support them.
Police later described what happened as a horrific and violent crime committed against a woman in her own home. Detectives were granted extra time to hold a suspect while they examined phones, CCTV, forensic material and witness accounts. A cordon remained around the property as the inquiry continued.
On Wednesday, 9 September, Nottinghamshire Police charged Jozef Zbigniew Oleszek, 60, with murder. He also lived on James Close and was known to the victim. He was arrested the same day Anna was found. He was remanded in custody and listed to appear at Nottingham Magistrates’ Court on Thursday, 10 September.
The charge is an accusation. The courts will decide whether it is proved. What is already public is the shape of the loss.
Anna’s sons released a statement that cut through the official language. They called her a wonderful, vibrant person, full of life, with so many plans for the future. They said she left behind countless friends whose lives she had touched. They said her mother, her sister and her sons were deeply heartbroken and struggling to process what they called an unimaginable tragedy. They asked for privacy and said they trusted the justice system to hold the person responsible fully accountable.
That last line matters. It is not commentary. It is a family placing a private catastrophe into a public process they did not choose.
Detective Inspector Stu Barson, who is leading the investigation, said the family and friends of Anna Zukowska were at the forefront of the inquiry. He said officers could not begin to imagine the pain they were living through and would keep supporting them.
Ollerton is a former mining town in north Nottinghamshire. James Close is an ordinary residential street. That is part of why the case lands so hard. There is no public claim yet of a random stranger walking in off a main road. The man now charged lived on the same close and was known to the woman found dead. Neighbours, relatives and anyone who passed the house that weekend may hold fragments that still need to be collected.
Police have asked people who saw or heard anything unusual to come forward. In cases like this, the smallest detail — a raised voice, a car leaving, a light that stayed on, a knock that went unanswered — can become part of the timeline.
Anna’s sons said she had her whole life ahead of her. That sentence is the centre of the story. A 52-year-old mother is not an abstract victim. She is two children without her. She is a mother and a sister trying to understand a Sunday night that should have been ordinary. She is a set of plans that will not be kept.
The legal process now moves from the street to the magistrates’ court and, if the case proceeds, toward a higher court. Until then the facts that can be stated without speculation are few and heavy: a woman was found dead in her home; the death is being treated as murder; a 60-year-old man from the same street has been charged; a family is asking for space while they wait for answers.
