A 41 year-old mother-of-four, accused of murdering her elderly employer for money, became tearful and emotional today, after five hours of vigorous cross examination on the eighth day of her trial.
Jolanta Kalinowsica is accused of murdering 94 year-old Thea Zaudy and helping to dispose of the corpse by dumping it and setting fire to it in a field near Thame, in July last year (2007).
In response to questioning by the Prosecution, she consistantly ‘bad-mouthed’ fellow defendant Monilca Sienkiewicz, the girlfriend of her son, Adrian Lis – both accused of helping Kalinowsica dispose of Mrs Zaudy’s body. She accused Siekievicz of being lazy, of trying to lure her son away from the family home in Ealing and of having an affair with the fourth defendant, Lukasz Gajda. She denied that she wanted the girl to go back to Poland because she was jealous of her son’s relationship.
INCONSISTANCIES
Kalinowsica was asked about several points she made in giving evidence in court, things she had failed to mention at the time of her statement to the police. These included:
a)That she had denied to the police buying a suitcase, yet in giving evidence said she DID buy it -for a family trip to Legoland. She said she did not admit to its purchase because she thought Gajda might have stolen some tools and used it.
b)That she told the police about every visit she had made to Mrs Zaudy’s flat throughout the period Mrs Zaudy was missing and the days following her death (on July 11) – except the visit she made on the evening of July 11, and another on July 12, when the body must have been collected.
c)That she did not tell the police about her use of Mrs Zaudy’s debit card.
d)That she did not mention in her statement the arrangement with Gajda to hide the laptops and other items she bought (“for family presents”) which in her evidence today she said was the reason for asking for Gajda’s help.
POLICE ‘MESSED WITH MY HEAD’
Kalinowsica said in court that she stopped answering police questions when the focus turned to bank cards because she was felt intimidated by the police questioning, accusing them of “messing with my head.” She broke into tears as she told how her young son was “ripped” from her when she was arrested and how her children were screaming in the background from another room when she was being interviewed.
In her statement Kalinowsica had said that Lukasz Gajda had dropped her off somewhere whilst he “dealt with the corpse in the suitcase” but under cross examination, she said that she had put wet washing into the suitcase and that she was under the impression that Gajda had picked up some tools from somewhere and put them in the suitcase, in the boot of the car.
DIARY ENTRIES
Kalinowsica was questioned closely by both the Prosecution and Judge Hall about what were described as ‘higgledy piggledy’ entries in a diary that, it was suggested, were put in at a later date to support her story. She denied that was the case, saying that she used a complicated system of recording money transactions to confuse her husband, who she said was always snooping into her affairs.
MYSTERY OF ‘FALSE’ ALARM CALLS
The witness was asked about the two alarm calls made within five minutes of each other, on the day of Mrs Zaudy’s death from a personal alarm that the dead woman used to wear around her neck – one a silent call and the other with the voice of Kalinowsica herself saying that she had accidentally activated it whilst cleaning.
Kalinowsica explained that she found it on the floor whilst cleaning and picked it up and put it in her pocket. She said that she must have accidentally set it off. She said that she did not reply to the first call from the alarm call centre because she thought it was a fire alarm going off because she was smoking while vacuuming. The second call, she said, she heard from Mrs Zaudy’s office.
PROSECUTION’S SCENARIO
The Crown Prosecutor suggested that Kalinowsica had a confrontation with Mrs Zaudy about money (he had earlier refuted that she was ‘flush’ with money and in a position to lend money to her wealthy employer) and that perhaps her employer had accused her of stealing.
“..and you got angry and assaulted her, hit her around the head and put your hands around her throat. She might, briefly have had a chance to activate the alarm? She couldn’t say anything and while dropping to the floor dead, you would have to recover the alarm maybe from under her body so that when you picked it up, it went off? You then told the alarm people, you did it while cleaning?
“The next day you needed help because you knew you could not get the body away from the flat alone?
The Prosecution barrister concluded, “You are responsible for the death of Mrs Zaudy and for the disposal of her corpse. You carried the petrol.”
The case continues tomorrow.
Photo: a suitcase resembling that claimed to be similar to the one used to transport the body of murdered Thea Zaudy to a field near Thame, and set fire to in an attempt to destroy the body.
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