Anna Podedworna, 40, is accused of murdering her girlfriend Izabela Zablocka in 2010, before dismembering her body and hiding it in the garden of their Derby home. The defendant denies all charges
A Polish mum was brutally murdered, dismembered, and stuffed into bin bags by her girlfriend, a court has heard. Izabela Zablocka’s body was found buried in a garden after being missing for nearly 15 years.
Derby Crown Court heard how Anna Podedworna, 40, allegedly attempted to cover up the “murder” with a series of “deliberate, calculated, gruesome and time-consuming acts” following her 2010 death. Podedworna, who had a “stormy and turbulent” relationship with Zablocka, is charged with murder between 27 August and 1 October 2010, preventing a lawful burial, and perverting the course of justice between 27 August 2010 and 2 June 2025.
The murder trial officially began at Derby Crown Court on Thursday (January 22). Wearing a grey sweatshirt and black glasses, the defendant, who had been living on Boyer Street, Derby, listened in the dock with the help of a Polish interpreter as prosecutor Gordon Aspden KC presented the case against her.
Aspden told the jury of seven women and five men that Zablocka, who was 30 at the time of her “violent death”, had grown up in the north-west Poland. He said: “In her early 20s, Izabela married a local Polish man and she gave birth to a daughter who they named Katarzyna.
“Sadly, the marriage between Izabela and her husband did not last, they separated. Soon afterwards, Izabela began a sexual relationship with this defendant, Anna Podedworna,” he explained, according to the Mirror.
The two women had been former flatmates in Poland before they moved to the UK in 2009 to find work, again living together in a small house in Normanton, Derby. Both the victim Zablocka and Podedworna were employed at a local poultry factory, meaning they spent all day with each other.
The jury was told that after a phone call to her mother on August 28, 2010, Zablocka lost all contact with her family, including her daughter in Poland. Prosecutor Aspden stated: “The Crown’s case is that shortly after Izabela’s final telephone call to her mother, this defendant Anna Podedworna murdered her.
“Having done so, she then dismembered Izabela’s body by cutting it in half with a large knife, trussed it up with electrical tape, placed these now bloody human remains in black plastic bin bags, and buried them in the back garden.” He continued: “A section of concrete hardstanding was then laid over the top to hide Izabela’s filthy, makeshift grave.”
Mr Aspden added: “The defendant’s post-murder cover-up involved a series of deliberate, calculated, gruesome and time-consuming acts which she carried out with resolve and purpose over a period of several days. Precisely how and why the defendant murdered Izabela only she now knows and, for obvious reasons, she will never reveal.”
It is alleged that the defendant dismembered the victim’s body, taping the remains in black bin bags, before burying them in the garden and covering them with concrete. The court heard that Zablocka’s family reported her disappearance to the UK police in November 2010 and later contacted Polish authorities in January 2011.
When initially questioned by police, Podedworna claimed ignorance of Zablocka’s whereabouts, a claim Mr Aspden described as “all lies and a continuation of the post-murder cover-up”. The prosecutor detailed how “mounting pressure” led Podedworna to “crack” last year when a Polish television journalist came to the UK to interview her.
She subsequently emailed Derbyshire Police claiming she had evidence and later visited a police station. She then confessed to officers, as Aspden explained: “The defendant admitted she had killed Izabela; however, now, and for the first time, she claimed that Izabela died by accident during a violent confrontation between them and that during that violent confrontation she had done nothing more than defend herself.
“This new and freshly-created claim of self-defence was yet another lie by this defendant to conceal her guilt, to cover up the murder and to deceive and hoodwink those around her.” Police found Ms Zablocka’s remains in the garden of a property on Princes Street, Normanton, where the two had resided together, the jury was told.
Podedworna denies all charges against her. The trial continues.
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