A turkey butcher who cut his girlfriend in half with a kitchen knife and buried her in a garden has been found guilty of murder.
Anna Podedworna, aged 40, killed Izabela Zablocka before making her “like a chicken” with electrical tape. She then buried her remains in bin bags in a “dirty, makeshift grave”.
Derby Crown Court heard that Zablocka, a 30-year-old mother of one, lost contact with her family in August 2010 and was reported to police as missing.
Prosecutor Gordon Aspden KC said “increasing pressure” caused Podedworna to “crack” and email police in 2025 when a Polish TV journalist flew to the UK to interview her.
In June, officers found Zablocka’s remains under hard concrete 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.
The defendant will be sentenced in the same court on Wednesday. The jurors unanimously convicted Podedworna of murder, preventing a lawful burial and perverting the course of justice.
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.
The jury was told that it would have taken “considerable force” to cut Zablocka’s body in half, and that her legs had been tied together before she was buried.
The prosecutor said Podedworna was a skilled butcher at a poultry factory called Cranberry Foods in Scropton, Derbyshire, at the time she killed Zablocka.
Jurors unanimously convicted Podedworna of murder, providing a lawful burial and perverting the course of justice (PA)
Mr Aspden had told the court: “Her work involved skinning, deboning, and splitting turkey carcasses using a large knife.”
Employment records at the Cranberry Foods factory show that Podedworna took two weeks off work after Zablocka made last contact with her mother.
While testifying with the help of a Polish interpreter, the defendant said that Zablocka was “angry” on the day of her death, before she grabbed Podedworna and started choking her.
Podedworna told jurors that she was acting in self-defense when she hit Zablocka with a horse figurine, believing her partner was going to kill her.
Instead of calling the ambulance when she could not find a pulse, the Court heard that Podedworna decided to cut Zablocka in half with a knife and bury her in the garden.
She had told the jurors: “I was just terrified, I felt fear. I thought I was going to bury her. I made the decision to bury her in the garden. I wanted to pick her up whole. I didn’t have the strength to pick her up. I had an idea to cut her. It seemed the only way… to cut her in two.”
Samantha Shallow from the Crown Prosecution Service said: “Izabela Zablocka came to Derby in search of a new life with her partner, but met her death instead.
“Anna Podedworna not only brutally killed her partner, but subjected Izabela’s loved ones to 15 years of uncertainty and anguish, not knowing if she was alive or dead.
“Podedworna hid the truth for years, but justice caught up with her. Her callous actions took a mother and daughter away from her family and denied them the opportunity to grieve her death and console her. I would like to offer them my sincere sympathies.”