Neighbours of a “skilled butcher” who killed and dismembered her lesbian lover have expressed their horror at the gruesome crime. 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”.

The Polish turkey butcher cut her girlfriend in half with a kitchen knife and buried her in a garden more than 15 years ago. Podedworna will be sentenced later today for the murder which was uncovered thanks to the perseverance of Ms Zablocka’s daughter. 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.”

Derby Crown Court heard that Ms Zablocka, a 30-year-old mother of one, lost contact with her family in August 2010 and was reported to the police as missing.

In June, officers found 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.

Prosecutor Gordon Aspden KC 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 “considerable force” would have been needed to cut Ms Zablocka’s body in half, and that her legs had been bound 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 Ms Zablocka.

Mr Aspden had told the court: “Her work had involved skinning, deboning, and portioning out turkey carcasses using a large knife.”

Employment records at the Cranberry Foods factory show that Podedworna took two weeks off work after Ms Zablocka made her final contact with her mother.

The remains were uncovered after Ms Zablocka’s daughter started contacting Polish missing person’s charities and took part in television and press interviews to publicise her mother’s disappearance.

After being approached on her doorstep by a Polish journalist, Podedworna “cracked under the pressure”, emailing Derbyshire Police to tell them where they would find Ms Zablocka’s body.

Police later found Ms Zablocka’s body buried under a concrete hardstanding.

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".