18 December 2020

‘Psycho’ who murdered wife and daughter jailed for minimum 34 years

18 December 2020

A “psycho” supermarket worker has been jailed for life, to serve a minimum of 34 years, for the “evil” murders of his wife and teenage daughter in a jealous rage in front of the couple’s other two young children.

Marcin Zdun was convicted at Winchester Crown Court of killing 40-year-old Aneta and 18-year-old Nikoleta by stabbing them multiple times inside and outside the family home in Salisbury Wiltshire, on June 1.

Passing sentence, judge Mr Justice Chamberlain said the defendant had shouted the Polish word for “whore” as he stabbed the two women and slit their throats in the “sustained and brutal attack”.

Describing the incident as a “scene of unimaginable horror”, he said the couple’s other children had been screaming loudly as they saw the attack, “pleading” with him to stop, before Nikoleta managed to get them both to safety with a neighbour.

Your method could not have been calculated to be more cruel

One of the children was heard to shout: “Daddy, I don’t want Mummy to die.”

The judge told Zdun: “Your method could not have been calculated to be more cruel to them.

“It’s hardly surprising they have found it difficult to come to terms with the loss of their mother and sister.

“They have understandably suffered nightmares. Because of what you did, they have also lost their father.”

He added: “The main reason for your anger was your possessiveness and your feeling your control over your family was slipping away from you.

“These feelings intensified after Aneta threw you out of the family home in April this year. You were jealous they were happy and you were not.”

Zdun, a 40-year-old Polish national, believed both his wife and daughter were having an affair with a man at the Tesco supermarket where he worked, his trial heard.

And he had become increasingly angry and violent towards his wife, a care worker, because she was not cleaning the house or making meals for the family as he demanded her to.

The prosecution said the family had become “terrified” of him in the days leading up to the fatal attack and his wife had sent a message to her mother saying: “I don’t want him to kill us, he’s a psycho.”

Giving evidence to the court, Zdun denied “bullying” his wife but admitted that he put a lock on their bedroom door after she moved to sleep into another room so that she would not come in to “nag” him.

Nicholas Haggan QC, prosecuting, said there was evidence that the murders “involved a substantial degree of premeditation and planning”, although the judge ruled that this could not be proven.

June 1 was the day evil won, which caused the cruel death of the person closest to my heart. I will never again get to talk to my wonderful, clever, smiling, warm and good daughter

Mrs Zdun’s mother, Bozena Stanczyk, said in a statement read to the court: “June 1 was the day evil won, which caused the cruel death of the person closest to my heart.

“I will never again get to talk to my wonderful, clever, smiling, warm and good daughter.”

She continued: “Nikoleta was the apple of my eye, I will never again see or hug my granddaughter.”

Mrs Zdun’s father, Andrzej Stanczyk, said of his daughter in a statement: “She was clever, tough and capable, blood of my blood, she was my reflection, I was so proud of her.”

He continued of his granddaughter: “Nikoleta, to me, was an exceptional person, she had her whole life ahead of her.”

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