A predator who battered a vulnerable young woman to death in a converted shipping container before burying her body in Neasden Recreation Ground has been found guilty of murder.
Romanian Necolai Paizan, 64, of Peel Street, Holland Park, hit his victim Agnes Dora Akom at least 20 times over the head with a jigsaw power tool during a brutal assault on May 9 last year.
Jurors at the Old Bailey heard that the attack took place in the container Paizan had made into a makeshift home in North Acton Road, Brent.
They retired to consider their verdicts today - Tuesday, July 19 - and found Paizan guilty of murder after just one hour of deliberation.
After killing Agnes, Paizan was captured on CCTV calmly washing his hands and face before bundling her body into the boot of his car inside a bag.
The next day, he transported her to the recreation ground where he used a wheelie bin to transport her to woodland where he buried her beneath a pile of logs and branches.
Over the coming days, Paizan visited the park where he had hidden the body five times while telling his son he wanted to go back to Romania.
Agnes, a coffin-maker from Hungary, was reported missing by her concerned boyfriend who she lived with in Cricklewood.
With her head in a black plastic bag, Agnes' badly decomposed body was discovered by police sniffer dogs on June 14 last year, a week before her 21st birthday.
The police investigation led officers to Agnes' last known location, Paizan’s rented container.
An examination of the container revealed heavy blood stains matched to the victim despite “vigorous attempts” to clean it up.
Agnes' blood was also found in the defendant’s car.
Her clothes had been bagged and discarded in a skip along with the blood stained jigsaw with Agnes' hairs stuck to it.
When giving evidence, Paizan admitted moving the body but denied murdering the young woman he knew as Dora.
Instead, the concrete mixer driver falsely claimed she had poisoned him with iced coffee.
He described how he came to love her “like a daughter” after finding her begging for small change in a supermarket car park.
However, the evidence suggested that he had preyed on her vulnerability and targeted her with the promise of money.
They met 54 times over the 12 months before the murder and jurors were shown semi-naked photographs Paizan took of Agnes.
He told jurors she would strip, dance, play games and send him “sexy” pictures and videos but they did not have sex.
Paizan claimed he had little memory of events after she “poisoned” him, having made repeated demands for money.
He claimed that Agnes tried to force a bottle of liquid into his mouth and he pushed her away before leaving to get some air.
Paizan said he did not call the police, fearing they would not believe him.
He told jurors: “I tried to take her to the park, put her in a good place.”
Jurors were told Paizan had convictions for benefit fraud, having bladed articles and a traffic offence.
Under cross-examination, Jake Hallam QC suggested Paizan’s account was a pack of lies.
Judge Richard Marks QC adjourned sentencing until Monday - July 25 - so that an officer could travel to rural Hungary to obtain a victim impact statement from Agnes' family.
DCI Neil John, said: “The work of my team in reviewing hours of CCTV footage, as well as that of our forensic colleagues in examining the crime scene – which Paizan had endeavoured to clean – was vital in establishing what happened to Agnes.
"This evidence was so strong that we were able to charge him with murder prior to us finding Agnes.”
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