A Polish turkey butcher who cut her girlfriend in half with a kitchen knife and buried her in a garden more than 15 years ago has been found guilty of murder.
Anna Podedworna, 40, killed Izabela Zablocka before trussing her up “like a chicken” with electrical tape and burying her remains in bin bags in a “filthy, makeshift grave”.
Derby Crown Court heard that Ms Zablocka, a 30-year-old mother of one, lost contact with her family in August 2010 and was reported to the police as missing.
Izabela Zablocka (Derbyshire Police/PA)
(Derbyshire Police)
Prosecutor Gordon Aspden KC said that “mounting pressure” caused Podedworna to “crack”, and email the police last year, when a Polish television journalist flew to the UK to interview her.
In June, officers found Ms Zablocka’s remains under concrete hardstanding in the garden of a terraced house in Princes Street, Normanton, Derby, which she shared with Podedworna after they moved to the UK from Poland together.
The defendant will be sentenced at the same court on Wednesday.
Jurors unanimously convicted Podedworna, of Boyer Street, Derby, of murder, preventing a lawful burial and perverting the course of justice.
Mr Aspden previously told the jury that Podedworna tried to cover up the murder with a series of “deliberate, calculated, gruesome and time-consuming acts” over several days.
The jury was told “considerable force” would have been needed to cut Ms Zablocka’s body in half, and that her legs had been bound together before she was buried.
The prosecutor said Podedworna was a skilled butcher at a poultry factory called Cranberry Foods in Scropton, Derbyshire, at the time she killed Ms Zablocka.
Mr Aspden had told the court: “Her work had involved skinning, deboning, and portioning out turkey carcasses using a large knife.”
Anna Podedworna (Derbyshire Police/PA)
(Derbyshire Police)
Employment records at the Cranberry Foods factory show that Podedworna took two weeks off work after Ms Zablocka made her final contact with her mother.
Giving evidence with the help of a Polish interpreter, the defendant said Ms Zablocka was “angry” on the day of her death, before she grabbed Podedworna and began strangling her.
Podedworna told jurors she was acting in self-defence when she hit Ms Zablocka with a horse figurine, and had believed her partner was going to kill her.
Instead of calling for an ambulance when she could not find a pulse, the court heard that Podedworna decided to cut Ms Zablocka in half with a knife and bury her in the garden.
She had told jurors: “I was just terrified, I felt fear. I thought I will bury her. I took the decision I would bury her in the garden.
“I wanted to pick her up whole. I just did not have the strength to pick her up. I had an idea to cut her down. It seemed the only way… to cut her into two.”
Samantha Shallow from the Crown Prosecution Service said: “Izabela Zablocka came to Derby in search of a new life with her partner, but instead met her death.
“Anna Podedworna not only brutally murdered her partner, but she subjected Izabela’s loved ones to 15 years of uncertainty and anguish, not knowing if she was alive or dead.
“Podedworna hid the truth for years, but justice has caught up with her. Her callous actions took a mother and daughter away from her family and denied them the opportunity to grieve her passing and lay her to rest. I would like to offer them my sincere sympathies.”
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