Zbigniew Soj 'curious' to kill, court told

A man murdered a woman in her bed and tried to kill another because he was "curious" to know how it would feel to kill someone, a court has heard.

Zbigniew Soj, 24, admitted murdering youth worker Borbala Benko, known as Bori, and trying to murder Klaudia Rogozinka in Bradford in November 2021.

Bradford Crown Court heard he stabbed the women at the Christian charity-run accommodation they all shared.

He was jailed for life with a minimum sentence of 31 years for murder.

Judge Jonathan Rose also ordered him to serve 14 years, to run concurrently, for attempted murder.

He told Soj he had committed a "premeditated and brutal attack on two young and innocent women, with whom you had no argument, disagreement or dispute".

He said: "You clearly deliberated your actions while you were awake, and your victims were asleep.

"You went to the kitchen and selected two knives, with the intention to kill one or more people."

The court heard how they had all lived at The Discovery Centre accommodation in Sherborne Road, which supports international students in Bradford.

Soj had gone to Ms Benko's room on the night of 21 November and woken her, before stabbing her and removing her clothes.

Soj denied any sexual contact, but Judge Rose said: "I am satisfied that the acts were accompanied by sexual activity which increased the depravity of the murder."

Ms Benko had moved to Bradford from Hungary in 2016, and worked at Global Cafe Bradford, the charity which supported the house.

The charity said at the time it was "devastated beyond words" by her death.

Ms Rogozinka had come to West Yorkshire from Poland and was described as a young woman who lived her life with Christian values, and felt "settled and secure" in her new home.

In a statement read to court, Ms Rogozinka, 21, described her "horror, panic, shock and above all of fear" on the night she was attacked.

'Demons got to me'

After killing Ms Benko, Soj had gone to her room and attacked her, stabbing her in her arms and chest.

Bleeding heavily and thinking she was dying, the court heard how she managed to call an ambulance and tell her attacker to leave before emergency services arrived.

Soj then turned the knife on himself, before police arrived and he was arrested.

He later told a doctor assessing him "it was curiosity or jealousy that I needed to find out what it felt like to kill someone".

The court heard how he told Ms Rogozinka: "I didn't mean to kill you... I got smashed, and I guess some demons got to me."

The judge praised her "remarkable courage" and told Soj he had taken into account his guilty plea, and the fact he was relatively young and suffering from depression at the time.

Det Ch Insp Vanessa Rolfe, of West Yorkshire Police, said: "This was an horrific and spontaneous attack on two young women as they slept in their own home.

'Soj was someone they trusted and no-one could ever have predicted that he would do this.

"Bori had her whole life ahead of her and this was cruelly taken away by Soj."

She said she welcomed Soj's guilty plea and hoped the women's families would find comfort in his sentence.

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