Butcher who cut up and buried girlfriend jailed for at least 21 years

A turkey butcher who cut her girlfriend in half and buried her in a garden more than 15 years ago has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 21 years for her 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”.

In June last year, police officers found 30-year-old mother-of-one 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.

Ms Zablocka stopped contacting her family in August 2010 and Podedworna had denied knowing where she was at the time.

Ms Zablocka’s daughter, Katarzyna Zablocka, who stayed in Poland as a child when her mother moved to the UK, said in a statement that she has spent her entire adult life “looking for answers” about the disappearance.

Podedworna was convicted of murder, preventing a lawful burial and perverting the course of justice on Tuesday after a three-week trial.

The defendant, of Boyer Street, Derby, sat in the dock at Derby Crown Court wearing a grey sweatshirt, black glasses and her hair tied in a bun when Mrs Justice Williams KC sentenced her on Wednesday.

In her sentencing remarks, the judge said: “Your crimes and Izabela’s gruesome fate only came to light in 2025.

“As a result of your violent, manipulative and cruel actions, Katarzyna grew up not knowing what happened to her beloved mother.

“Your actions caused untold misery and trauma to Izabela’s family who were left with no idea where she was or what had befallen her.”

She added: “I am sure you killed her in anger and frustration rather than when you were attacked by her.”

Podedworna, who has two young children of her own, told the jury that she was acting in self-defence when she hit Ms Zablocka with a horse figurine and killed her, before trying to cover up the fatal act by cutting and hiding the body.

The court heard that Ms Zablocka had presented as a man but could not afford gender reassignment surgery, which caused tension between the couple.

Prosecutor Gordon Aspden KC had 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 an impact statement read to the court, Katarzyna Zablocka, also known as Kasia, said: “As a young child I was incredibly close to my mother.

“She was my whole world so the fact she suddenly vanished from my life without a single word of explanation was a horrific experience for me.

“This sudden void left a deep wound in my psyche that has stayed with me to this day.

“In my heart I always felt that my mother did not leave me on purpose.

“I remembered how much she loved me when I was little.

“It was this certainty – that I mattered to her – that gave me the strength to spend my entire adult life looking for answers – what really happened that caused our contact to break off so suddenly?”

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.

She took two weeks off work from a poultry factory called Cranberry Foods in Scropton, Derbyshire, after Ms Zablocka last made contact with her family in Poland.

Her work in the factory as a skilled butcher involved “skinning, deboning, and portioning out turkey carcasses using a large knife”, the prosecutor had said.

In a statement released by police, Ms Zablocka’s daughter added: “I felt subconsciously that she must have had some sort of accident, or something bad must have happened.

“Even if she had ended up homeless, she would have still managed to make contact with me and my grandma.

“But I never expected that the search for my mum would have ended in these circumstances.

“It is heartbreaking, but I do also feel a great sense of satisfaction because I never gave up, and if it wasn’t for that determination to find out the truth, we wouldn’t be in the place we are now. I never gave up.”

Detective Inspector Kane Martin, from Derbyshire Police, said: “This investigation has been particularly challenging and distressing from the outset.

“Izabela’s family have had to learn about the unimaginable horrors Anna Podedworna inflicted upon her in a very public manner, so many years after she was taken away.

“After being killed in her own home in August of 2010 Izabela was brutally and horrifically dismembered by the woman she loved – Anna Podedworna, a highly skilled butcher.

“Izabela was a much-loved mother, daughter and granddaughter – nothing can bring her back but it is my hope that today’s sentencing allows her family to lay her memory to rest.”