Modern Macbeth, Murder in Monaco

On May 6th, 2014 Monaco’s most wealthy woman, Hélène Pastor, was gunned down in Nice, France. The months leading up to her murder brought her many hardships. Her only son had a horrible stroke leaving him hospitalized. Shortly after, Pastor’s brother passed away. She was then left the only child of a successful real-estate tycoon, the late Gildo Pastor. On the day of her death, Pastor, worth around $25 billion dollars, was exiting the hospital her son occupied in Nice and was picked up by her trusted chauffeur. Once she was in the passenger seat, a hidden gunman appeared and open fired on Pastor from close range. Both perforated by bullets, the chauffeur immediately perished and although Pastor lacked a pulse, she miraculously survived for another two weeks, although incoherent.  After rumors upon rumors circulated Monaco, the crime was declared motivated by money. The crime would have been nearly impossible to have been carried out in Pastor’s home of Monaco because of the tight security. In Monte Carlo there is about one policer officer for every seventy residents, making crime rare. The man convicted as the mastermind behind the murder was Wojciech Janowski, the boyfriend of Pastor’s daughter, Sylvia Ratkowski-Pastor. It was known to many that Pastor did not approve of her daughter’s partner. In fact, Pastor’s daughter had a child of her own and did not marry Janowski so that all of Ratkowski-Pastor’s wealth would go to her daughter instead of him. Janowski was poor and subsided mostly on an allowance given to him by his girlfriend.

Similar to Macbeth, Janowski was motivated to kill because of greed, his desire for money and status. Although Duncan trusted Macbeth and Pastor abhorred Janowski, both the real Macbeth and the modern one wanted their superior dead for personal gain. Like greedy Macbeth who yearned for more power, the wealth and status Janowski possessed because of his girlfriend was not enough for him. Ratkowski-Pastor was ill with breast cancer and when she died Janowski would be left penniless. With Pastor out of the picture and Ratkowski-Pastor inheriting the rest of Pastor’s money, Janowski hoped he would finally receive his long sought after share of affluence. Janowski believed that Pastor was standing in the way of his wealth and happiness with his girlfriend and set his mind to handling his problem with murder. In a hasty and costly endeavor to pay off his hit men, Janowski took out large sums of money from his girlfriend’s bank account. His own account already over a million dollars overdrawn, Janowski was desperate and realized there was no turning back. Drunk with the idea of a higher social status and wealth to call his own, Janowski saw murder as the only answer. Both he and Macbeth were not content with the standing and money they already had to their names and killed to rise in the ranks. Janowski’s guilt was revealed and his long term plan backfired, as did Macbeth’s. Right from the start, both avarice-driven schemed were destined to fail.