Turkey butcher guilty of killing and cutting up girlfriend 15 years ago

A turkey butcher who killed her girlfriend and cut her in half before burying her in a garden has been found guilty of murder.

Anna Podedworna, from Poland, killed Izabela Zablocka with a horse figurine before trussing her up "like a chicken" with electrical tape and burying her remains wrapped in bin bags in a "filthy, makeshift grave" in the garden of a terraced house in Normanton, Derby.

Ms Zablocka, 30, lost contact with her mother and nine-year-old daughter in Poland in August 2010 and was reported missing, Derby Crown Court heard.

About 15 years later, Podedworna, 40, "cracked" due to "mounting pressure" and emailed police last year after a Polish television journalist flew to the UK to interview her, prosecutor Gordon Aspden told the jury.

In June, officers located Ms Zablocka's remains under concrete hardstanding in the garden of the house she shared with Podedworna after they moved to the UK from Poland together.

During her trial, jurors heard how "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.

Podedworna was a skilled butcher at a poultry factory in Scropton, Derbyshire, at the time, and her work "had involved skinning, deboning, and portioning out turkey carcasses using a large knife", Mr Aspden told the court.

The butcher took two weeks off work after Ms Zablocka's final contact with her mother, according to the factory's employment records.

Podedworna, giving evidence with the help of a Polish interpreter, claimed Ms Zablocka was "angry" on the day of her death, before grabbing and strangling her.

She said she was acting in self-defence when she hit Ms Zablocka with the horse figurine, as she believed her partner was going to kill her.

But instead of calling an ambulance when she could not find her girlfriend's pulse, Podedworna decided to cut her in half with a knife and bury her in the garden. She later covered the burial site with a concrete hardstanding.

"I was just terrified, I felt fear. I thought I will bury her. I took the decision I would bury her in the garden," Podedworna told jurors.

"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."

Detective Inspector Kane Martin said Podedworna "acted like a monster".

"After killing Izabela she cut her into two, treating her no differently to another piece of meat at work," he said.

Derbyshire Police Detective Constable Emma Birch added that Ms Zablocka's daughter Katysenia pushed for answers about her mother's disappearance, contacting missing persons' charities in Poland and reporters after "hoping that the phone would ring and her mum would finally come back into her life" every year on her birthday.

Samantha Shallow of the Crown Prosecution Service said Ms Zablocka came to Derby "in search of a new life with her partner, but instead met her death".

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She added about Podedworna's "callous" actions: "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 was convicted of murder, preventing a lawful burial and perverting the course of justice. She will be sentenced at Derby Crown Court on Wednesday.

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