‘Coward’ who knifed ex forty times gets life
A JILTED lover who murdered his former partner as she walked home with her new boyfriend refused to face court as he was jailed for life.
Dennis Akpomedaye was branded a “proper coward” by the sister of his victim, Ania Jedrkowiak, 21, for hiding in his cell during both his trial and his sentencing yesterday.
Jurors heard detectives believed Akpomedaye, 30, tried to decapitate Ania as he stabbed her 40 times in a deserted alleyway last May.
Kingston Crown Court was told he travelled to Ealing, West London, from his home in Newport, South Wales, to launch the horrific attack.
The balaclava-clad killer ambushed Ania as she walked home from a shift at a restaurant with her new boyfriend Jack Maskell, 21.
Despair
Akpomedaye was arrested at Victoria coach station the next evening as he tried to flee toWales.
The Nigerian-born killer, below, who denied murder, refused to attend court for the trial, where he was convicted earlier this month.
Jailing him for a minimum of 29 years yesterday, Judge Rajeev Shetty said: “There is no mitigation here.”
The court heard the pair, who met online, dated for about a year before Ania ended the relationship to continue her studies at West London University.
But Akpomedaye warned Polishborn Ania: “We will be together no matter what. I will find you.”
Her sister, Katareyna Glowacka, 39, said: “It is heartbreaking that my baby boy will never meet his auntie.” She said of Akpomedaye: “He is a proper coward. He committed a crime but he is not able to face us, he’s not able to look us in the eyes.” Ania’s mother, Danuta, said her heart “broke with grief and despair”. Mr Maskell said: “I have been left with indescribable memories that can never been erased. “I will never unsee what he did to her.”