A failed businessman who stalked his former girlfriend as she walked home from work then stabbed her to death as her new boyfriend hid behind a bin, has been jailed for life.
Dennis Akpomedaye, 30, waited for 21-year-old Ania Jedrkowiak to finish her shift at a Latin American restaurant in Ealing, west London, on May 16 last year before following her and partner Jack Maskell.
The trial at Kingston Crown Court heard Akpomedaye, who was wearing a mask, suddenly attacked Jedrkowiak as the couple took a shortcut behind a church just after midnight.
Prosecutor Deanna Heer, KC, said Jedrkowiak was stabbed 40 times and one wound was so deep it gave the impression he may have been trying to “decapitate” her.
The judge said, “His final refusal to attend today and face those affected by his actions bookmarks his cowardice.”
The jury—who took just 45 minutes to find Akpomedaye guilty—heard Akpomedaye had left a voice note a week before the killing on an app called Stereo in which, apparently talking to himself, he said, “Thing is if you’re going to find her, kill her, stab her, monster.”
In her closing speech to the jury Heer said: “It wasn’t a crime of passion. It wasn’t a loss of self-control. This was a premeditated assault which the defendant had been contemplating since at least May 9 when he recorded that message—‘find her, kill her, stab her.’”
Condemned by his own Barrister
Akpomedaye’s barrister, Kerim Fuad, KC, told the judge on Wednesday his client should have pleaded guilty and spared the family the ordeal of the trial and he said, “His awful conduct has been extraordinary.”Jedrkowiak, a sound engineering student at the University of West London, broke up with Akpomedaye in the spring of last year but he refused to accept the end of their relationship and “emotionally blackmailed” her, threatening to kill himself.
Jedrkowiak—whose family travelled from Poland to attend the trial—had asked the police in Newport, Wales, to carry out a welfare check on Akpomedaye because she was concerned about him.
But he was already plotting to kill her and struck just after midnight on May 17 as she walked home with Maskell, a work colleague whose friendship was starting to turn into a relationship.
Heer said: “On that night, Ania and Jack Maskell were walking home. It seems that they have very little on their minds, apart from each other, when they were approached from behind and were immediately attacked.”
“Plainly neither she nor Mr Maskell did anything which could justify the infliction of the injuries that she sustained. All Mr. Maskell could do was run. And all Ania could do was raise her hands in a futile attempt to protect herself from the repeated blows of a knife,” the prosecutor added.
When he gave evidence, Maskell said: “I took a step forward to try and help get her off, but I could see that I would not be able to even try and help. I could not do a single thing to this man. He was a lot taller than me, a lot bigger than me, and like stocky. So at that point I decided to run and try and look for help. And I was scared for my own life so I ran into a residential street.”
‘That Night is a Memory That Will Stay With me Forever’
On Wednesday, Maskell read out a victim impact statement in which he said: “I have no recollection of feeling anything being wrong that night. We just laughed and joked as we walked along, so happy in each other’s company ... We had no idea what lay ahead of us. That night is a memory that will stay with me forever.”He said: “Seeing her life being taken from her is indescribable. The memories that will stay with me forever can never be erased and can never be described ... I can never unsee what he did.”
“Everyone has told me there was nothing I could have done to save Ania. I have to live every day knowing that she died and I wouldn’t ever know if I could have done anything to change that. Could I have saved her? Should I have stayed with her? In that moment I believed that getting help is what I needed to do. But I will never know if I could have stopped what happened,” Maskell added.
‘Poignant’ Photograph Found in Same Pond as Murder Weapon
Heer said, “Also found at the same location were Ania’s phone and the defendant’s phone both again thrown into the pond, and that rather poignant photograph showing the deceased and the defendant together, which had been thrown away.”The trial heard Akpomedaye phoned his mother in Ghana shortly after the murder and told her, “They’re coming for me.”
After he was arrested and charged with the murder, Akpomedaye denied he had been the masked man who killed Jedrkowiak but he refused to give evidence or instruct his defence counsel at the trial.
The jury was told that at the time of the murder, Akpomedaye’s business was failing and he was £15,000 in debt.
He was furious and upset at being dumped by Jedrkowiak and had travelled by coach to London from Newport on the afternoon of May 15, 2022.
Then, just after midnight, he had a homosexual encounter with a man he had met on the Grindr app.
The following day Akpomedaye returned to Ealing in the early evening, bought a knife from a shop around 8 p.m. and then waited around until 11.30 p.m. when Jedrkowiak and Maskell left the restaurant and walked towards her home in south Ealing.
CCTV cameras did not capture the attack itself but they did catch Akpomedaye following the couple and starting to run as they turned off the main road and down the alley behind St Mary’s Church.
Killer Told Lies About Injury to his Hand
Heer said he gave three different explanations for this hand injury.She said in the early hours of the morning he flagged down an ambulance driver, Robert Thompson, and told him the injury had been caused when a pit bull terrier had bitten him.
He then told a nurse at West Middlesex Hospital he had injured himself with a Japanese katana sword.
Finally he told a doctor at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital it had been caused when a sword trick had gone wrong.
Jedrkowiak’s sister Katarina, in a victim impact statement read out in court, said she found out she was pregnant four days after learning of Ania’s murder and she said her son would grow up without knowing his aunt.
She said: “When she was little I used to call her a ‘little angel’ and now she is an angel and I feel she is looking out for my son ... I’m sorry that our little baby boy will have a life without his auntie.”
