Agnes Akom, who died after going missing from her home in north west London in May. (Metropolitan Police/PA)
A lorry driver who bludgeoned to death a vulnerable young woman with an electric saw before burying her body in a shallow woodland grave has been jailed for life.
Necolai Paizan, 64, attacked victim Agnes Dora Akom in a converted shipping container, hitting her at least 20 times over the head with an electric power tool in a brutal murder.
He was seen emerging from the container with a blood-covered arm, and CCTV recorded Paizan’s attempts to cover up the killing by bundling Ms Akom’s body into a bag and into the back of his car.
The killer, originally from Romania, drove to Neasden Recreation Ground where he used a wheelie bin to carry the body into woodland, burying her beneath a pile of logs and branches.
Ms Akom, who worked as a coffin maker, was reported missing by her concerned boyfriend who she lived with in Cricklewood, sparking a month-long police hunt.
Paizan was arrested while Ms Akom was still missing, and falsely claimed at trial that she had tried to poison him and he had woken up to find her dead body.
Sentencing him at the Old Bailey on Monday to life in prison with a minimum term of 22 years, Judge Richard Marks QC, the Common Serjeant of London, said: “You remain in state of denial over what you did in that frenzy of violence that took away a young girl’s life at the age of 20.
“This was a shocking act of wickedness on your part.”
He said the events leading up to the murder can “only be surmised”, but suggested Paizan may have tired of requests for money from Ms Akom or flown into a rage after she refused to engage in sexual activity.
“For reasons only known to yourself, you launched into a vicious attack on her, hitting her over the head at least 20 times with a handheld power tool using at least moderate force”, he said.
Prosecutor Jacob Hallam QC said Ms Akom’s mother last saw her daughter alive when she left Hungary, and they had argued on the last occasion that they spoke.
“She says that the defendant’s actions deprived her of a better, kinder final word,” he said. “As a consequence of the defendant’s actions, she was never given the opportunity to tell Agnes how much she still loved her.”
Ms Akom’s boyfriend criticised Paizan for the “hurtful” lies he told during the trial, including falsely claiming she worked as a prostitute.
“She was my love, the mother of my son, partner, and best friend, and he took her away from me in the worst way possible”.
The court heard they had a son together, but he had been taken into foster care as they had struggled for money in the UK.
The murder happened on May 9 last year, when Paizan had agreed through Facebook Messenger to meet Ms Akom at the Brent shipping container he was renting.
Paizan is believed to have preyed on her vulnerability, promising money as they met 54 times over the 12 months before the murder.
He showed the jury semi-naked pictures he had taken of Ms Akom, claiming she would strip, dance, and play games with him.
When her body was discovered on June 14 last year, her head was wrapped in a black plastic bag and police began to collect evidence of how she had been brutally murdered.
Officers found heavy blood stains matched to the victim despite “vigorous attempts” to clean it up in the container, as well as in Paizan’s car.
Her clothes had been bagged and discarded in a skip along with the blood stained jigsaw with Ms Akom’s hairs stuck to it.
Paizan made a bogus claim that Ms Akom had “poisoned” him with a can of ice coffee after making repeated demands for money, and suggested he had disposed of the body while in a “state of panic”.
Judge Marks said Paizan’s defence case – that he had not touched Ms Akom – was “patently ridiculous”.
The judge said he believes Paizan would have got away with murder if it had not been for Met Police work that was “nothing short of exceptional”, swiftly securing CCTV and tracking down the killer when the case was still a missing persons enquiry.
Paizan, from Kensington, who has previous convictions for benefit fraud, having bladed articles and a traffic offence, denied but was convicted of murder.
