The monster among us: Neighbours tell of shock after ‘lovely woman’ is found guilty of chopping up her girlfriend
A church-going ‘lovely’ neighbour who dismembered and buried her lesbian partner may never have been discovered if it wasn’t for the victim’s daughter, police admitted last night.
Anna Podedworna was finally brought to justice yesterday, 15 years on from killing Izabela Zablocka, 30, after she refused to undergo gender reassignment surgery.
Podedworna, a skilled butcher, spent two hours cutting Ms Zablocka’s body in two before putting the remains in black bin bags and burying them in her garden.
She then simply got on with her life, moving her mother and sister into the two-bed terrace in Derby just one month after the murder, before going on to marry a man and have two children by him.
She went to work, she went to church, she took her children on holiday, and she chatted with her neighbours who thought her a ‘lovely woman’.
One shocked former neighbour told the Daily Mail: ‘I would always say good morning to her when she would go out walking her little dog, she seemed really nice.
‘You would never have known she could have done something like that.’
And she may well have got away with murder if it was not for the determination and bravery of Ms Zablocka’s daughter Kasia.
Anna Podedworna (pictured) was finally brought to justice yesterday, 15 years on from killing Izabela Zablocka, 30, after she refused to undergo genderreassignment surgery
Pictured: Ms Zablocka, 30, and her daughter Kasia, then five
Ms Zablocka’s body had been buried under the patio for 15 years before being discovered in June last year
Her perseverance led to the grim discovery of her mother’s remains in June last year – after police in Derbyshire closed their investigations into the missing young mother after just ten days.
Yesterday, Podedworna, 40, was found guilty of murder following a three-week trial at Derby Crown Court. She now faces a life sentence when she appears there again today.
Podedworna claimed she accidentally killed Ms Zablocka during a row, burying her as she did not think her account of self-defence would be believed.
But jurors at Derby Crown Court found her guilty of murder, preventing a lawful burial and perverting the course of justice.
Kasia, now 25, was about seven when her mother started a relationship with Podedworna, who lived in the same block of flats as her grandmother in Trzebiatow, north-west Poland.
The court heard that the two women had argued about Ms Zablocka’s reluctance to undergo gender-reassignment surgery.
Podedworna had made the operation a condition of their relationship continuing. But Ms Zablocka had ‘lost interest’ in the procedure, and the couple did not have the money to pay for it.
In 2009 they moved to the UK, leaving nine-year-old Kasia with relatives, and found work at a poultry factory in Derbyshire, Ms Zablocka as a packer and Podedworna as a butcher.
Kasia, 25, would speak to her mother on the phone at least three times a week until August 2010 – when she was never heard from or seen again. Kasia’s grandmother reported Ms Zablocka missing in Poland, while a cousin reported her missing to police in the UK on November 24, 2010.
Officers visited their address and spoke on the phone to Podedworna who told them she did not know where Ms Zablocka was.
Podedworna, 40, was found guilty of murder following a three-week trial at Derby Crown Court. Pictured: Podedworna being arrested by police
Podedworna moved her mother and sister into the two-bed terrace in Derby (pictured) just one month after the murder
Derbyshire police then closed the missing persons inquiry on December 4 that year.
But in 2024 Kasia started contacting Polish missing person’s charities and took part in television 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 Podedworna ‘cracked’ and emailed Derbyshire police telling them where Ms Zablocka’s remains were.
Ms Zablocka was found hidden underneath a concrete hardstanding. She had been dismembered – cut in two at the waist – and stuffed into black plastic bags. She was found surrounded by animal bones and a carrier bag which contained her blood-stained clothing.
Given the passage of time, a cause of death has never been established. In her account at court, a tearful Podedworna admitted killing Ms Zablocka by hitting her with a horse figurine during a row but said she was acting in self-defence.
Following her conviction, Derbyshire police admitted were it not for Kasia’s persistence, there was ‘no doubt’ that Podedworna ‘would still be living her life and Izabela’s family would have continued to be left in the dark’.
