Woman gets herself out of shallow grave

[faceless]

Girlfriend dug herself out 'against all odds'
boyfriend buried her alive in cardboard box shallow grave, court told
Chris Brooke
5th December 2011

A woman freed herself ‘against all the odds’ after being buried alive in a wood inside a cardboard box, a court heard yesterday. Michelina Lewandowska, 27, was initially shot with a 300,000 volt Taser stun gun by her boyfriend Marcin Kasprzak, 25, who allegedly wanted to ‘get rid of her’ by killing her. She was bound and gagged with parcel tape and put in a box with only two small air holes, Leeds Crown Court was told. The terrified woman was put in the boot of her boyfriend’s car, driven to a wooded area and buried in a ‘shallow grave.’

Kasprzak and an accomplice Patryk Borys, 18, used shovels to pile soil on top of the box and then put a heavy tree branch weighing more than six stone on top of it, the court heard. Fearing the consequences of crying out, Miss Lewandowska kept quiet throughout the ordeal and as far as the men were concerned she could have been unconscious, the jury was told. They ‘simply left her there’ and drove to a cash point machine where they used their victim’s bank cards to take out £500 of her money. Meanwhile, their victim ‘with great difficulty’ managed to get herself out of the box and escape from the makeshift grave. She managed to get to a nearby road and raised the alarm by flagging down a passing motorist.

The court heard Miss Lewandowska and Kasprzak – who met six years ago in their native Poland before moving to work in England – had a three-year-old boy together. However, Kasprzak was ‘bored’ with her and allegedly wanted his partner removed from the scene so he could look after Jakub without her and start a new relationship with another girlfriend. Both Kasprzak and Borys have denied attempted murder in May this year.

Prosecutor Jonathan Sharp told the court Kasprzak had changed his Facebook status to ‘single’ about two weeks before the attack and developed a plan of killing his partner. He recruited his Polish friend Borys to help and spent the night before with his replacement girlfriend. The following day Kasprzak arranged for his mother to take his son out and he put his plan into action, the jury heard. The attack took place at the family home. Using the stun gun he tried to ‘immobilise’ his girlfriend by twice discharging 300,000 volts into her neck. Mr Sharp said the two men bound her at the wrists and ankles and gagged her.

‘Michelina was not paralysed,’ said Mr Sharp. ‘But nevertheless, as you can well imagine, she was terrified and she agreed to do whatever he wanted.’ The men dumped her clothes outside with the rubbish and put their victim into a cardboard box, just 1ft 10in deep, that had previously contained a computer. She would probably have been curled up inside with her knees tucked up towards her chin, the jury was told.

They carried the box up steps and into the boot of Kasprzak’s Vauxhall Astra car. Once at the wooded burial site the men put the box in a ‘natural dip in the ground’ before piling earth ‘both around and on top of the box.’ The tree branch was laid on top and by the time they finished the airholes on the box ‘were obscured by earth,’ the jury heard.

Mr Sharp said: ‘To bury somebody alive has very well-known consequences. After a very short time that person will die from lack of oxygen. The Crown says it is plain not just that Kasprzak and Borys well knew that but they intended her to die from lack of oxygen.’ Miss Lewandowska was spotted by a passing motorist at 11.55pm and police arrested both suspects later that night at Borys’s house in Huddersfield. Mr Sharp told the court both men would now admit being involved, but will claim they did not intend to kill their victim. The case continues.

-------------------

Bloody hell