The mother of a young woman murdered, dismembered and buried in a garden yesterday told of her anger that ‘police did nothing’ when she was reported missing in 2010.
Bozena Kopcynska, 65, said she did not understand why the case was closed by police after just ten days and without a search of the house where her daughter Izabela Zablocka had been living and where her remains were eventually found last year.
Police in Derbyshire and Poland had long closed their investigations into the young missing mother and a court heard Ms Zablocka may never have been found were it not for the perseverance of her mother and daughter.
As her daughter’s killer, Anna Podedworna, 40, was jailed for life yesterday, Mrs Kopcynska said: ‘I am upset and angry with the police. Nobody searched, nobody did anything.’
She also told of her heartbreak at finally learning what had happened to Ms Zablocka, who was 30 when she was killed.
She had moved to Britain from Poland with her lesbian partner Podedworna, a skilled butcher, in 2009. She left her daughter Katarzyna Zablocka, known as Kasia, then nine, with relatives.
Mrs Kopcynska said: ‘She buried her like a cat at home. How could someone do that to a person?
‘It is shocking to me that she could commit such a huge crime, carry out a huge murder, and move on, simply ignoring it and even having children – who I now feel very sorry for.’
Bozena Kopcynska, 65, said she did not understand why the case was closed by police just ten days after daughter was reported missing
Pictured: Izabela Zablocka and her daughter Kasia as a baby
Anna Podedworna (pictured) was finally brought to justice yesterday, 15 years on from killing Izabela Zablocka, 30, after she refused to undergo gender reassignment surgery
In a moving victim impact statement, Kasia, now 25, told how she had to live with the ‘soul crushing uncertainty’ of not knowing what had happened to her mother, who vanished in 2010.
She said she knew her mother would never have abandoned her, which gave her the strength to carry on.
Her inquiries led to the discovery of her remains in the garden of a house in Derby in June last year.
She said her mother’s ‘sudden disappearance and the trauma of sudden separation’ would live with her for ever.
‘As a young child I was incredibly close to my mother, she was my whole world, so the fact that she suddenly vanished from my life without a single word of explanation was a horrific experience for me,’ she said.
Instead of enjoying her childhood she was ‘constantly wondering where my mum was and why she had stopped calling me’.
But she said she always believed her mother would not have abandoned her. ‘It was this certainty – that I mattered to her – that gave me the strength to spend my adult life looking for answers.’
Derby Crown Court heard Podedworna killed Ms Zablocka by hitting her with a horse figurine before cutting her in two and burying her remains in bin bags in a ‘filthy, makeshift grave’.
In a moving victim impact statement, Kasia, now 25, told how she had to live with the ‘soul crushing uncertainty’ of not knowing what had happened to her mother, who vanished in 2010 Pictured: Ms Zablocka as a child
The garden in Derby where Izabela Zablocka’s remains were found during a search in 2025
Pictured: Ms Zablocka, 30, and her daughter Kasia, then five
Podedworna, 40, was found guilty of murder following a three-week trial at Derby Crown Court. Pictured: Podedworna being arrested by police
Jailing her for minimum of 21 years, Mrs Justice Heather Williams KC said her ‘violent, manipulative and cruel’ actions meant Kasia grew up not knowing what had happened to her beloved mother who vanished from her life without any explanation.
The judge told how Ms Zablocka ‘presented as a man’ and Podedworna ‘preferred to be in relationships with men’.
But as the ‘prospect of gender reassignment surgery faded into the background’ because of a lack of funds, the judge told Podedworna that she ‘grew increasingly angry and bitter towards Izabela, who you felt… was not keeping up her side of the bargain.’
Mrs Justice Williams said Podedworna ‘brutalised’ the remains of a ‘partner you had come to despise’ without any apparent remorse, adding that her ‘repeated lies’ inflicted ‘untold misery and trauma’ on Izabela’s family who were unable to hold a funeral until October last year.
Mrs Justice Williams said Podedworna may well have got away with murder but for Kasia’s determination.
The court heard that after moving to the UK the two women found work at a poultry factory.
Ms Zablocka would speak to her daughter three times a week. But when she did not call on Kasia’s tenth birthday her grandmother reported her missing in Poland, while a cousin reported her missing to police in the UK on November 24, 2010.
Officers visited and spoke on the phone to Podedworna who said she did not know where Ms Zablocka was.
Derbyshire police closed the missing persons inquiry on December 4.
In 2024 Kasia started contacting Polish missing person’s charities and took part in TV and press interviews to publicise her mother’s disappearance.
A Polish journalist then doorstepped Podedworna at her home in Derby.
Prosecutors said this was the ‘tipping point’ – the following day she ‘cracked’ and told police where Ms Zablocka’s remains were.
The court heard her children, aged 11 and six, were being cared for by their father.