Woman who knifed banker to death faces retrial

A Polish woman who knifed her banker boyfriend to death when she thought she was going to leave him for a work colleague faces a retrial after an Old Bailey jury failed to reach a verdict.

Danish Henrik Slotsaa, 52, was stabbed at least 14 times by his long-term partner Joanna Cierpka, 51, after he told her he had ‘found someone else at work’.

Cierpka left his body rotting for nine days before she emailed a relative and said she was going to take her own life.

Police stormed the couple’s flat in Elephant and Castle in south London and found she had taken pills and tried to cut her own throat with an eight-inch kitchen knife.

Mr Slotsaa had propositioned Citibank colleague Aimee O’Shaughnessy – but jurors heard they were only ever friends.

Cierpka admitted manslaughter, but a jury of seven women and five men failed to reach a verdict on the murder charge.

The Pole told the court she was mentally ill at the time of the killing.

Jurors had heard Mr Slotsaa had been ‘flirting’ with Ms O’Shaughnessy but she rejected his advances and ‘friend zoned’ the banker.

In December last year Mr Slotsaa told Cierpka he had fallen out of love with her.

She had lost her marketing job with British American Tobacco which had taken her around the world and had stopped showering for days due to her depression.

Cierpka managed to find work in a coffee shop but would come home sobbing because she could not get on with her colleagues.

Mr Slotsaa told her he had ‘found someone else at work’ and described Ms O’Shaugnessy as one of his ‘more level-headed friends’ and that he ‘liked her a lot’.

He was found dead when police broke into the flat less than a month later on March 15 this year.

Mr Slotsaa was discovered kneeling on the floor in his underpants with his thighs parallel to the end of the bed.

A towel had been laid over his lower legs and the bed and floor were heavily bloodstained.

He had suffered 14 separate ‘sharp force injuries’ to his face, neck, arms and legsm the court heard.

Cierpka, of Elephant and Castle, south London, admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Prosecutors are expected to announce whether or not she will have a retrial next Monday (19).
ENDS