A man who stalked his ex 130 miles before trying to behead her has been jailed for life after murdering her.
Dennis Akpomedaye, 30, was given a minimum term of 29 years for the murder of 21-year-old Polish student Anna Jedrkowiak, known as Ania, in Ealing, west London in May last year.
Judge Rajeev Shetty, sentencing at Kingston Crown Court, said the attack was ‘ferocious and savage.’
He added: ‘There is no mitigation here, there is no evidence of a mental disorder or disability.’
Akpomedaye tried to behead Anna Jedrkowiak just after midnight on May 17 last year, a court heard.
Ania, who had moved from Newport, in south Wales, to the capital to continue her studies, was walking home from the restaurant she worked at with her new boyfriend.
When they got to Roberts Alley, in south Ealing, west London, Akpomedaye used a large kitchen knife to saw at Ania’s neck and ‘stabbed her several times in the stomach’, her partner said.
This was ‘an apparent attempt to decapitate her’, prosecutor Deanna Heer KC previously told Kingston Crown Court. Paramedics were called but ‘it was not possible to save her life’.
Akpomedaye ran away and was arrested 22 hours after he approached an ambulance worker to complain about an open wound to his fingers – which he claimed had been caused by a pitbull.
The murder weapon was found in a pond in nearby Gunnerbury Park. Also found were his and Ania’s mobile phones and a photo frame with a picture of them together.
During the trial, it came out that he had travelled to London Victoria on May 15 and then made his way to the restaurant where Ania worked.
But she was not there and CCTV footage shows him pacing back and forth outside the venue with his face covered by a scarf. He then went to her home and ended up spending hours riding buses around Ealing.
The next day, at 8pm, he bought a £4.99 knife from a local shop and paced outside Ania’s workplace again.
When she and her new boyfriend left to head home, Akpomedaye followed them while wearing a balaclava and launched his terrifying attack.