The daughter of a woman murdered, dismembered and buried in a garden for 15 years has told of the ‘soul crushing uncertainty’ of not knowing what had happened to her mother as her killer was jailed for life.
Katarzyna Zablocka said she had spent her ‘entire adult life’ trying to find out what had happened to Izabela after she vanished in 2010.
She said she knew her mother would never have abandoned her which gave her the strength to carry on and her enquires led to the grim discovery of her remains in the garden of a house in Derby June last year – 15 years after she was last seen.
Police in Derbyshire and Poland had, by this time, long closed their investigations into the young missing mother – Derbyshire police after just 10 days.
On Wednesday, her killer Anna Podedworna was jailed for a minimum of 21 years after being found guilty of murder, preventing a lawful burial between and perverting the course of justice between August 27 2010 and June 2 2025.
Mrs Justice Heather Williams KC said her ‘violent, manipulative and cruel actions meant Katarzyna grew up not knowing what had happened to her beloved mother who suddenly vanished from her life without any explanation.’
She 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 to pay for it, Podedworna ‘grew increasingly angry and bitter towards Izabela who you felt was too reliant upon you and was not keeping up her side of the bargain’.
‘The way you set about brutalising her remains without any apparent remorse was consistent with you killing in anger the partner you had come to despise,’ she said adding her ‘repeated lies’ inflicted ‘untold misery and trauma to Izabela’s family who were left with no idea where she was or what had befallen her’ and were unable to hold a funeral until October 2025.
In a victim impact statement read to Derby Crown Court Kasia, now 25 and studying economics, told how her mother’s ‘sudden disappearance and the trauma of sudden separation’ would live with her forever.
‘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.
‘This sudden void left a deep wound in my psyche that has stayed with me to this day.
‘The worst part was the soul-crushing uncertainty – for years I didn’t know what was happening to her or why she had left me.’
She said that in stead of playing with her peers and enjoying her childhood she was ‘constantly wondering where my mum was and why she had stopped calling me’.
‘I felt abandoned which caused me to withdraw and start suffering from panic attacks,’ she said.
But she said she always believed her mother would not have abandoned her.
‘Even though I lived in limbo for years, in my heart I always felt my mother didn’t leave me on purpose,’ she said.
‘I remember 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 out contact to break off so suddenly.’
Izabela and Kasia as baby. Kasia, now 25, said she feared something had happened when she stopped calling her in 2010
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’.
Katarzyna Zablocka said she had spent her ‘entire adult life’ trying to find out what had happened to Izabela after she vanished when she was young in 2010.
The trial at Derby Crown Court heard Podedworna, a skilled butcher, killed Ms Zablocka by hitting her with a horse figurine before trussing her up ‘like a chicken’ with electrical tape and burying her remains in bin bags in a ‘filthy, makeshift grave’.
Mrs Justice Williams said said Podedworna may well have got away with murder if it was not for the determination and bravery of Kasia, who refused to accept her mother had abandoned her when her phone calls stopped abruptly in 2010.
The two women had moved to the UK in 2009, 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.
Ms Zablocka would speak to her daughter three times a week on the phone until August 2010.
Her famliy feared something had happened when she did not call on Kasia’s 10th birthday the following week.
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.
Derbyshire police then closed the missing persons inquiry on December 4 that year.
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.
But Mrs Justice Williams said she did not accept her account of self defence adding: ‘You have shown no remorse’.
She added: ‘I am sure you killed her in anger and frustration rather than when you were attacked by her.’
In a statement to police Kasia said: ‘For the past 15 years, my family and I have been left wondering what had happened to my mum.
‘I always felt that something was wrong – it was not like my mum at all. Not long after she stopped calling, it was my birthday and I knew that she would have called me on my birthday. She would never miss an occasion like that.
‘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.’
Podeworna showed no emotion as she was jailed. The court heard her two children, aged 11 and six, were being cared for by their father.
Clive Stockwell, in mitigation, said ‘there is nothing to be said’ about Podedworna’s conduct after killing Ms Zablocka. She has no previoius convictions.
‘So much of this case is unexplained and so much is quite frankly unexplicable,’ he said.
‘She is a mother of two children …and they will live the best part of their life without the contact of their mother. That is something she keenly feels and so do they.’
Detective Inspector Kane Martin, who led the investigation 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.
‘Anna Podedworna, by her own admission acted like a monster – I don’t think my words can describe her actions and her behaviour towards Izabela any better.’
