00:00:06
-In March 2013,
a man walking his dog on the outskirts of Peterborough
in Cambridgeshire
00:00:12
made a shocking
and grisly discovery. Dumped in a rural ditch
was the body of a man
00:00:18
who'd been violently stabbed
to death. The police didn't know it yet, but there was a serial killer
on the loose.
00:00:26
-When is the next body
going to turn up? We've got to find who did this,
and we got to find it quickly.
00:00:33
-The investigation would lead
detectives to a woman, a violent individual who had
killed without hesitation
00:00:39
or remorse
and for no other reason than the pleasure and
gratification it offered her.
00:00:46
-She is heartless,
ruthless, and sadistic. -During a 12-day killing spree, Joanna Dennehy
butchered three men
00:00:56
and left a trail of destruction that stretched from east
to west across the U.K.
00:01:02
-She's not somebody
who feels bad, who feels remorseful,
who regrets things. She does what she wants to do,
00:01:08
and she doesn't care
about the consequences. -Joanna Dennehy
had ruthlessly become
00:01:13
one of the world's
most evil killers. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ In April 2013,
police in Hereford
00:01:41
arrested a runaway fugitive
and her besotted accomplice. In a killing spree that lasted
almost 2 weeks,
00:01:49
31-year-old Joanna Dennehy
had murdered three men and stabbed two others
in broad daylight,
00:01:55
leaving them for dead. One of the most dangerous women
in criminal history, she's now locked away in prison
00:02:02
and will remain there
for the rest of her life. -The fact that she'll never see
daylight again
00:02:07
in the outside world is of
huge comfort for the family. For Joanna Dennehy,
it's absolutely the right thing
00:02:14
that she won't
come out of prison. -Joanna Dennehy's crimes
were incomprehensible
00:02:18
to the British public. At the time of her imprisonment,
author and journalist Christopher Berry-Dee took
a special interest in the case.
00:02:27
-I wanted to really try
to get inside how the police were working and how rapidly they caught
this very dangerous woman.
00:02:34
-The strong curiosity he had
for Dennehy's crimes caught the attention
of the murderer herself,
00:02:40
and very soon, Christopher
was in written correspondence with the killer behind bars.
00:02:46
-Her letter is beautifully
written, very eloquent, good grammar, certainly on a par of somebody
of a good education behind them,
00:02:55
and we developed
this relationship where I was trying
to get inside her head but, at the same time,
she, being the arch manipulator,
00:03:04
was trying to get
inside my head. -His attention piqued, and Christopher eventually
went to visit Dennehy
00:03:10
at Bronzefield Prison in 2015. -She looked into my eyes,
and she said to me, "Christopher, killing you
would be good for me."
00:03:19
And it was an ice-cold stare,
I can tell you. So, yes, she would've killed me
in a heartbeat
00:03:23
if she had had a chance. -The story of this cold-blooded
killer begins 34 years ago
00:03:30
in the picturesque city
of St. Albans in Hertfordshire. Joanna Dennehy was born in 1982
00:03:36
and began life in a loving
and secure family home. Very few could've predicted
this bright
00:03:42
and intelligent young girl would turn into
a sadistic monster with a taste for violence.
00:03:49
-By all accounts, she was
starting off in life with a, what we might say, as a perfect foundational
upbringing.
00:03:57
-Joanna Dennehy appears to come
from quite a normal family. She had a relatively
uneventful childhood.
00:04:03
She's one of two siblings. Her mother worked
in a supermarket. Her father worked
as a security guard
00:04:10
for a telecommunications
company, and from the outside, they appeared to be
a normal family.
00:04:15
-She had a sister to which
she was very close. They had even developed
a secret language.
00:04:22
She played netball
for the school. She was a very normal,
quite bright schoolgirl.
00:04:30
-But Dennehy's idyllic childhood
was curtailed as she entered her teens. -She started to experiment
with drugs.
00:04:38
She started not going to school, and she linked up
with a man called John Treanor.
00:04:42
-Her parents, they were
at their wit's end. They didn't know what to do. They tried to keep her locked up
or bring her home from school.
00:04:48
Her teachers tried
to reprimand her, and the more they tried
to control Jo, it was Jo saying,
"Stuff you,"
00:04:56
and it was literally like
throwing petrol on a fire. -Dennehy and Treanor
ran away together,
00:05:02
embarking on
a turbulent relationship. Despite Dennehy's
violent outbursts, the couple had
two children together
00:05:09
and eventually settled
in Cambridgeshire. -I think quite a lot
is made of the fact
00:05:15
that Joanna Dennehy misused
alcohol and drugs, but I think she's well aware
of the fact
00:05:21
that this is going
to be discussed, and she knows that these offer
quite a convenient excuse
00:05:26
for her behavior,
and alcohol and drugs and other substances
can disinhibit, but that's assuming
that people have got
00:05:33
those moral standards
to begin with, and Joanna Dennehy didn't have
them in the first place.
00:05:39
-A very disturbed woman,
she had done a lot of self-harm, of cutting herself and so on,
00:05:44
so there were a number
of danger signs that this was somebody
who was not attuned to society.
00:05:52
-As time went on, Dennehy's
erratic behavior intensified. She'd cheat on Treanor
and leave him
00:05:59
and their two children
for sporadic periods of time. Her drinking worsened,
and she reportedly began
00:06:06
to carry a knife
hidden in her boot. -I think she's somebody
who perhaps has always enjoyed
hurting other people.
00:06:14
It's almost like she's this
crazy scientist, and the world is her experiment. -Finally in 2009,
00:06:22
Treanor took the children
and fled from Dennehy, afraid of what
she might do next.
00:06:27
-The company that she was
keeping, as well, she was surrounded by people
who were similarly disconnected,
00:06:33
so I think when there was
no check or filter or break on her behavior,
she was only going to get worse.
00:06:40
-Dennehy had become no stranger
to the local police. She'd been in and out of prison
for drug offenses
00:06:47
and was also given
a 12-month community order for being in control
of a dangerous dog.
00:06:52
In February 2012,
Dennehy spent 3 days on the psychiatric unit
at Peterborough City Hospital
00:06:59
where she was diagnosed
with a series of disorders. -She has had various diagnoses
attached to her --
00:07:06
anti-social
personality disorder, psychopathic
personality disorder, and these are conditions.
00:07:12
They're not mental illnesses, and there's a real important
difference between the two
00:07:17
because people
with personality disorders know the difference
between right and wrong.
00:07:22
They're fully rational. They're in control
of what they're doing, but they choose
to do it anyway.
00:07:27
So she's not somebody
who feels bad, who feels remorseful,
who regrets things. She does what she wants to do,
00:07:33
and she doesn't care
about the consequences. -By 2013, 31-year-old Dennehy
had settled
00:07:40
in a small bedsit in Bifield, a housing estate
in Peterborough, but the local residents
were unaware
00:07:47
of her troubled past
or her violent nature. One of Dennehy's new neighbors
was Michelle Bowles.
00:07:54
-She was polite to me, not mouthing her mouth,
basically. She's well spoken to me
and never swore.
00:08:04
She was actually quite pleasant. Do you know what I mean?
I showed her respect. She loved babies.
00:08:12
She was excellent with children. I didn't have a problem
with her. When I saw her or spoke to her,
I said, "Hello."
00:08:20
She said, "Hello" back. -But other residents
were not so sure. Michelle's friend, John Chapman,
00:08:27
lived in the same building
as Dennehy. He was a Falklands War veteran
who'd fallen on hard times.
00:08:33
-I don't know what regiment
he used to be in. I should know because the amount
of stories he used to say.
00:08:39
It's just John being smiley
all the time and happy and nice to know. -But John Chapman didn't smile
when Joanna Dennehy was around.
00:08:46
-John was petrified. John came in mine, and he said
on several occasions, "There's this mad woman
moved in.
00:08:54
She said she's going to get
rid of me whatever way she can." -And he was right to be afraid.
00:09:02
In just a few months, Joanna Dennehy's threats
would turn to violence, and John Chapman
would be dead.
00:09:10
In early 2013, Joanna Dennehy
was living in sheltered housing
in Peterborough following the breakup
of her relationship.
00:09:18
Her ex-partner had left her after becoming
increasingly concerned about her erratic
and sadistic behavior.
00:09:26
The bedsit that Dennehy
now called home was managed by Kevin Lee, a father of two who lived
in Peterborough
00:09:33
with his wife, Cristina. She remembers hearing
about this strange new tenant. Cristina has asked for
her identity to be concealed.
00:09:42
-He was stressed with work,
the money element of it. It was turning into kind
of a nightmare really.
00:09:49
It was getting a little
bit unmanageable. Kevin used to house
disadvantaged people,
00:09:55
so he's done it for years, and obviously, he was used
to giving people chances, and so he did with her.
00:10:05
-But Kevin Lee and Dennehy's
relationship quickly grew into more
than just a business one.
00:10:11
Lee began to employ Dennehy
as a rent collector. -Obviously, I wasn't aware
at the time.
00:10:17
To me, it would've been
just another tenant. And he just said
about this woman and that she's really tough,
really hard.
00:10:24
He needed to evict some people,
and whether she was threatening, and it suited him
00:10:31
because he wasn't getting
any joy from the counts at all. So I think she had a bit
of wellies
00:10:36
and, you know, a really
big mouth and threatening, and I don't know whether that,
at the time,
00:10:41
he thought that was
his only way out and to deal with these people. -48-year-old Kevin Lee
became infatuated
00:10:48
with the younger Dennehy,
and they soon became lovers. In exchange, Dennehy was living
rent-free
00:10:54
in at least two of Lee's
properties across Peterborough. -In a household, that becomes
quite apparent
00:10:59
if someone's behavior
has sort of changed, and he didn't seem
quite himself. -Dennehy would make up
unnerving stories
00:11:06
to impress her
new landlord and lover. -At one point,
she told Kevin Lee her father had abused her
00:11:13
and that she'd killed him,
absolute nonsense, of course,
never did anything of the kind.
00:11:17
She was neither abused
nor was he dead, but she was also
a pathological liar. -Kevin just said about her
that she spent 8 years in prison
00:11:28
because he raped her as a child,
abused her as a child. It's not unbelievable story,
00:11:37
but then when Kevin said that
she'd also killed other people and that she hadn't
got caught for those,
00:11:44
it sounded a bit far-fetched. I didn't know what to think. I didn't know whether
it was a truth
00:11:51
or whether it was
just a load of old rubbish. -But it wasn't long
before Joanna Dennehy
00:11:56
turned her murderous
fantasies into reality. 31-year-old
Lukasz Slaboszewski had moved to the U.K.
from Poland in 2005.
00:12:07
After meeting Dennehy
a few days previously, he began exchanging
text messages with her.
00:12:12
On the 19th of March, 2013, Slaboszewski went
to visit Dennehy at one of the houses she was
staying in on Rolleston Garth
00:12:21
and was never seen alive again. -She almost certainly lured
this man with the promise
of some kind of sexual favor,
00:12:30
but without
a moment's hesitation, she stabbed him
through the chest once very, very hard,
killing him almost instantly.
00:12:41
-Slaboszewski had been coaxed
into Dennehy's deadly embrace. She led him to believe
the pair were in a relationship.
00:12:48
He willingly and naively entered
the trap she'd laid for him. -Everybody that comes into
contact with Joanna Dennehy,
00:12:56
it's like falling
into a spider's web, and you can't get out. Men can't get out.
00:13:03
They become entranced by her
for all sorts of reasons. -Dennehy had complete disregard
for the life she had just taken.
00:13:12
-Dennehy puts this poor Polish
man's body in a wheelie bin and then shows it
to a 14-year-old,
00:13:18
and said,
"Look how clever I am. I've killed this man
in the wheelie bin." -But it was only
a temporary solution.
00:13:25
Dennehy knew she couldn't keep
Slaboszewski's body in a bin. She had to dispose of it
quickly, but she needed help.
00:13:32
She called upon one
of her friends, 47-year-old Gary Stretch, who was more
than willing to assist.
00:13:39
-Joanna Dennehy is quite bright. She's quite clever, so she's
able to exert quite a lot of control in her
interactions with other people,
00:13:48
and that's what makes her
exceptionally dangerous. Now looking at the relationship
that Joanna Dennehy
00:13:53
had with her accomplices, I think she was able
to charm these men. She was able to kind of lure
them in really,
00:14:01
and they would
have been flattered by her attentions,
you know. Here she is, this younger woman,
wanting to spend time with them.
00:14:08
These were men who had
quite dull, quite boring lives, and I think they were
quite excited to get involved
00:14:14
in what Joanna wanted to do. -At 7 foot, 2 inches tall, Gary Stretch towered
above Dennehy's slight frame.
00:14:22
An unsuccessful burglar, Stretch was
absolutely infatuated by her twisted
and lethal charms.
00:14:29
-Gary Stretch and Joanna Dennehy met when both of them
were on parole from prison
for various offenses.
00:14:35
She realized that she
could use him to do whatever she wanted. He was her bodyguard,
her minder,
00:14:43
and that's how
they formed this team, which became so overpowering
for Stretch that he would
do anything for her.
00:14:50
-I don't think Joanna Dennehy
had any emotional feelings towards her accomplices
whatsoever.
00:14:55
They were useful to her
at the time, and she'd just cast them aside
when she was finished with them.
00:15:00
-With the help of Stretch, Dennehy dumped
Lukasz Slaboszewski's body in a ditch
in rural Thorney Dyke,
00:15:07
just 10 miles east
of Peterborough City Center. Unable to control herself,
her confidence rising
00:15:15
and her desire
for violence building, in just over a week,
Dennehy would strike once more.
00:15:21
She'd turned her attention
towards her fellow Bifield resident, 56-year-old Falklands War
veteran John Chapman,
00:15:28
who reportedly had
walked in on Dennehy while she was in the shared
bathroom of their bedsit.
00:15:34
-Every time he spoke about her, he was with fear, like,
in his tone of voice, and we thought
it's just John...
00:15:42
"John, just leave it.
If she starts, here is our phone numbers.
Ring us, and we'll come around,
00:15:45
just, you know, help you
and get you in here with us." He went, "Thanks," and that was
the last time we saw John.
00:15:55
-On March the 29th, 2013, Dennehy attacked
the helpless John Chapman. -John Chapman was
an inoffensive,
00:16:07
kindly man
who may have been asleep or in an alcoholic stupor
when Dennehy killed him,
00:16:19
but she did so by stabbing him
once in the neck, severing his carotid artery, and then five times
in the chest with such force
00:16:29
that one wound
broke the breast bone. It also punctured his heart. It's a frenzy that is quite
difficult to comprehend
00:16:44
but evidence of what
the behavioral scientists now call escalation -- first victim, one stab wound,
second victim, six stab wounds.
00:16:53
-It's heartbreaking. It's a poor,
defenseless man killed. And to know what she had done
to him, how she killed him,
00:17:02
it's just heartbreaking
for us all. -Dennehy was developing
her confidence, and her crimes
were becoming more
00:17:09
and more brutal
with each move. -Now, where Joanna Dennehy
is so bad is that this woman
actually used a knife
00:17:17
to attack a grown, strong man,
is very up close and personal. It's not at a point of a gun,
00:17:24
which is not quite
such a personal thing. It's not by bludgeoning. It's not by strangulation.
00:17:31
By nature, a woman is not
often strong enough to strangle a strong man,
but this is a young woman
00:17:38
using a knife
to repeatedly stab somebody, and for that reason alone, makes her a hands-on,
blood-lusting killer.
00:17:51
I can't describe how evil
this woman is. I really can't. She is the worst I've ever met.
00:17:56
-It's always been said
the woman's method of killing is usually poisoning. It can sometimes be
other things,
00:18:03
but knives, no. It's a very male killing method, and it's led some people
to speculate that Dennehy was,
00:18:12
to some extent, trying to be
more male, more masculine, than the men around her because she felt they were
rather weak and feeble,
00:18:20
and she had to be the boss, and being a boss
meant you were male. -But Dennehy was offsetting
one role with another,
00:18:27
that of a femme fatale charming
and enticing men into her life before switching character in
an instant with deadly results.
00:18:36
-We're quite quick to point to Joanna Dennehy's
masculine traits because they're the ones
that are most visible to us --
00:18:43
her aggression and her violence and the very brutal way in which
she perpetrated these murders --
00:18:48
but I don't think
she's somebody who would be like
that all the time because that wouldn't serve her
needs all of the time.
00:18:55
I think sometimes she was
feminine, and she was demure. In a way, she's somebody who
will just adapt her behavior,
00:19:04
so it's very difficult to know
who the real Joanna Dennehy is. -After killing John Chapman,
00:19:10
Dennehy didn't hesitate
in continuing her rampage. On the very same day,
she'd strike again
00:19:16
with fatal consequences. -Later that day, she lures
her boss and her lover and the bedsitting houses'
owner, Kevin Lee, to the house.
00:19:28
-But this time, Dennehy wasn't
in the mood for love. She was searching
for another victim
00:19:33
to try and quench
her murderous desires. March the 29th would be
the last time that Kevin Lee
was seen alive.
00:19:42
Joanna Dennehy was in the middle
of a murderous rampage, having taken the life
of 31-year-old Polish man
00:19:49
Lukasz Slaboszewski
10 days earlier. Dennehy had just killed
56-year-old John Chapman
00:19:55
and had her third victim
in her sights, her landlord, Kevin Lee. The pair had been having
a secret affair.
00:20:04
Kevin's wife, Cristina, was the first to notice
something was awry when he didn't arrive home
on that March evening.
00:20:11
-He was very much
like a come home from work, tea on the table,
pajamas on. He was quite sort of traditional
and old-fashioned in that sense.
00:20:21
I tried to ring him,
and his phone wasn't on, which was odd in itself. He'd never have his phone
switched off
00:20:29
because that was
his livelihood. That was his business,
and I knew it had a charge.
00:20:35
-Kevin had felt threatened
by Dennehy days before, but he'd wrongly assumed
it was just bravado.
00:20:41
-Kevin did tell me
that she told him that she wanted to kill again, and I think that was
the crucial thing
00:20:48
because it wasn't just a case
of bragging or mentioning that she had committed
murders in the past.
00:20:57
It was the fact that she
specifically told him she wanted to kill again. So that's got to unnerve
anybody, false or not.
00:21:05
It's just not a thing
that normal people say. -Hours passed. Growing desperately concerned,
Cristina,
00:21:13
with the help
of Kevin's business partner, Paul Creed,
tried to trace Kevin. -I asked Paul to look
at Kevin's phone records,
00:21:21
so he gave them to me, and there was a number that kept
appearing on the telephone,
00:21:29
and I said to Paul... I said, "Which houses
are empty at the moment because of need work
done to them?"
00:21:38
And he gave me a list, and I subsequently
just went around to each of those properties.
00:21:45
I knew he was in trouble,
put it that way, at that point. I knew there was something
not right.
00:21:53
I knew Kevin wasn't coming home. -Cristina began an urgent hunt,
unaware her search was in vain.
00:22:00
Dennehy had already struck. She'd stabbed Kevin Lee to death at the same house
in Rolleston Garth
00:22:07
where she'd murdered
Lukasz Slaboszewski 10 days earlier. Lee was Dennehy's
third victim.
00:22:14
-I wouldn't describe
Joanna Dennehy as a serial killer. I would describe her
as a spree killer
00:22:19
because there didn't seem
to be any point during her killing spree in which she returned
to any semblance
00:22:25
of what was
a normal life for her. It tended to be a continuous
chain of events.
00:22:32
-What is not in doubt is that
these first three victims were simply a prelude
to what she hoped
00:22:41
would be a further spree. -Dennehy, again,
with the help of Gary Stretch and this time another
accomplice, Leslie Layton,
00:22:48
deposited the bodies
of John Chapman and Kevin Lee on the outskirts of town. Chapman was placed
at Thorney Dyke,
00:22:55
the same spot where they dumped Lukasz Slaboszewski's
body 10 days previously. Kevin Lee was left 10 miles
further north
00:23:02
at nearby Newborough. Dennehy dressed Lee's body
in women's clothing and left him positioned
in a grotesque
00:23:09
and crude manner
with his buttocks exposed. -I think Joanna Dennehy
was unusual in that
00:23:15
she liked humiliating
her victims. It was clearly a modus
operandi there, and there was clearly a motive,
the pleasure of killing somebody
00:23:26
rather than doing it
for some particular reason. -Oblivious to the fate
of her husband,
00:23:32
Cristina Lee was becoming
increasingly concerned about Kevin's whereabouts. -I rang the police, and then
I went back with Paul Creed
00:23:39
to one specific house because I noticed
that the light wasn't on, and then it was on when we went
back later, so I thought,
00:23:49
"There's obviously
somebody at the house," and I just said to the police,
you know, "I'm really worried,"
00:23:54
expressed my concerns
and gave them permission to break into the house,
which they did.
00:24:00
-Inside the house
on Rolleston Garth, there were no obvious
signs of trouble, but the police immediately
sensed that something was wrong.
00:24:08
-They said that they
could smell -- There was a really
strong smell of bleach, and they could see
some blood on the floor,
00:24:18
and, you know,
I just knew. -And Cristina wouldn't
have to wait long for news of her husband.
00:24:24
The following day,
March the 30th, 2013, police were called to an area
of farmland in Newborough
00:24:31
by a dog walker who'd
made an horrific discovery. -You know, you see on TV
all the time
00:24:37
the dreaded knock at the door,
and then two detectives came, and obviously, he had not been
identified at that point,
00:24:49
but they just said
that they'd found a body... which, you know,
I was expecting to hear that,
00:24:59
so they just kind of told me
what I was expecting to hear. You don't feel anything
because you know,
00:25:09
and it's a feeling
like you've never felt before. So, you know, where some people
00:25:15
might think
you'll be doing this, you'll be doing that,
I don't know. It's just kind of a blur really.
00:25:20
You're just alive. I think that's --
But not alive, you're just existing. -For police,
a very serious picture
00:25:29
was beginning to emerge
of a killer on the run with an unstoppable
determination for destruction.
00:25:36
-When is the next body
going to turn up? We've got to find who did this,
and we got to find them quickly.
00:25:43
-Detectives soon discovered
Kevin Lee's burnt-out car. Cristina had provided them
with Dennehy's phone number,
00:25:49
and by using it, they were
able to form a crucial link. -They must have been
trying to call it too
00:25:55
and, using their systems
or whatever, must have tracked it
down through GPS. The location of Kevin's
burnt-out car
00:26:05
was where this mobile had been, so it was quite obvious
that she'd been there. -They realized that he'd know
somebody called Joanna Dennehy,
00:26:15
and there was an affair
between them, and then they came across a man
called Leslie Layton,
00:26:20
who they interviewed. He tried to cover up. He didn't know anything
about them, where they were,
which, in fact, he did.
00:26:27
He soon cracked because
he was weak-willed, spineless, and he said, "Yes. Dennehy and Stretch
are on the run.
00:26:35
They've gone east,
and they'll probably come west." And with that,
the police went --
00:26:40
Well, they issued
a national wanted alert for every agency
in the country to find this couple
as quickly as possible.
00:26:48
-Dennehy and Stretch
were now wanted fugitives. She reveled in the idea, high on
the thrill of being on the run.
00:26:58
-She loved the notoriety of it. She relished the fact
that the men around her were frightened of her.
00:27:06
-In an attempt to try
and evade the authorities, Dennehy and Stretch
first headed to Norfolk
00:27:11
where they burgled a house. They then made their way
across country to Hereford with the intention of selling
the stolen goods
00:27:18
to help fund their escape. -Dennehy and Stretch became
a sort of, hate to say this,
a Bonnie-and-Clyde-type outfit.
00:27:28
Their faces were in
all the newspapers now. They were wanted, most wanted. -After they burgled another
property in Hertfordshire,
00:27:35
the pair stopped 20 miles
outside of Hereford to liaise with a man
named Mark Lloyd,
00:27:40
who joined Dennehy and Stretch
on the journey. -They get an accomplice
or a friend of theirs
00:27:46
to bring the stolen property
into Hereford town to sell it, and it's at that point
that Dennehy decides
00:27:52
she wants to kill again. -It had been 4 days since the murders
of John Chapman and Kevin Lee.
00:27:59
On April the 2nd, 2013,
with Mark Lloyd in tow, Dennehy was caught on CCTV entering this small shop
in Hereford at 3:30 p.m.
00:28:09
She's seen pointing at the
cashier in a threatening manner. Just 10 minutes after this
footage was captured, Dennehy,
00:28:17
in an unprovoked
random attack, attempted to murder
a fourth man. -She had this terrific anger
and bloodlust.
00:28:24
She's had a quarter bottle
of whiskey. She's been smoking roll-ups,
and she suddenly sees a man
00:28:30
walking his dog
in broad daylight, and she says to Stretch, "Can we stop the car?
I want to kill him."
00:28:36
-Brandishing a knife,
Dennehy jumps out of the car and runs up behind him
and stabs him in the back.
00:28:42
-Dennehy's unfortunate victim
was Robin Bereza, a 63-year-old
retired fireman. -You knew exactly
what she intended to do.
00:28:51
"I'm going to kill you,"
she said to the fireman, "I want to hurt you.
I'm going to kill you."
00:28:55
-As she plunges this 5-inch lock
knife into his back time and time and time again, the man
thought he'd been punched.
00:29:04
He turned around and saw her
covered in his blood. He collapsed. She calmly walked away and got
in the car and said to Stretch,
00:29:13
"Now let's go
and find somebody else." -Back in the car, Dennehy took the time
to pose for this selfie.
00:29:21
It seemed unbelievable
to imagine, but she wasn't finished. Having felt the thrill
of attack once,
00:29:28
she hunted out
her second victim of the day. -Ten minutes after
the first attack,
00:29:34
she spots another man
walking his dog, and it was the same bloodthirsty
scenario all over again.
00:29:40
She got out, and she told
Stretch to stop the car. She got out with this
very small knife,
00:29:47
walked up to him,
and plunged it into him time and time and time
and time again.
00:29:52
Can you imagine the shock? This man wouldn't have known
what was happening. It's broad daylight.
00:29:57
She's licking the blood
off of the knife, his blood. He feels himself getting dizzy
and sick, and then he collapses,
00:30:05
and she takes his dog,
walks casually back to the car. Another car passes, and she
waves at the people in it.
00:30:15
They get in the car,
and off they go. -This second helpless victim
was John Rogers,
00:30:21
a 56-year-old
Hereford local. Dennehy stabbed him
more than 30 times. It was an horrific and entirely
spontaneous act
00:30:29
completely lacking in reason. -It is a reflection
of a brutality, a viciousness,
00:30:36
a lack of any kind of control
that makes Dennehy very unusual. She is a most frightening figure
who behaves
00:30:47
in the most obscenely
violent way imaginable, almost defying belief. -When we look at the two
attempted murders,
00:30:55
you know,
towards the end of her spree, this is something
all together different.
00:30:59
These are strangers. These are men
that she doesn't know. So I think
what was happening here
00:31:05
was that
she was upping the ante. She was getting bored. You find that psychopaths tend
to have a proneness to boredom
00:31:11
and a need for stimulation, so she was even applying
that to her murders. -Remarkably, both men survive
these attacks.
00:31:19
Although their injuries
were life-threatening, they were still able to give the
police descriptions of Dennehy
00:31:25
and the instantly recognizable
star tattoo on her cheek. -By now, the police sirens
are going all round.
00:31:33
Blue lights are going all
around Hertfordshire. They're panicking. It's like somebody has
kicked over a wasp nest.
00:31:37
-The local police had been
alerted to her spree and were about to put
an end to her bloodshed.
00:31:43
They cornered Dennehy
and Stretch on Newton Close in Hereford. -Two officers turn up, and they
spot this car with Dennehy
00:31:52
in it talking to the dog
on the back seat while Gary Stretch is trying
to negotiate stolen property
00:31:59
at the front door
of one of his associate's house. They arrest Dennehy on the spot.
00:32:06
Gary Stretch and one
of his friends do what they call
in police parlance a runner.
00:32:12
They jump in another car
and speed off. Something like a car chase
goes on for about 20 miles,
00:32:20
and then Stretch decides
to get out and run for it. Now, Mr. Stretch is not built
for speed,
00:32:29
and of course, he's very unfit,
and he's soon stopped, and he turns around
to the police officers and said,
00:32:34
"Ah, you've arrested me. Jo and I would've been
the next Bonnie and Clyde." -Footage of Dennehy in custody
at Hereford Police Station
00:32:43
just 40 minutes
after stabbing two men and leaving them
for dead showed her laughing and joking
with the arresting officers.
00:33:00
-Joanna Dennehy is like
a chameleon. She's become a very
accomplished actor, so she will play to whatever
audience is in front of her.
00:33:10
She can be charming and sound
very educated and literate, and at the same time,
to another audience,
00:33:18
she could sound quite rough
and quite downbeat, so she's really honed
these skills of responding
00:33:26
to the people
that are around her. -The following day,
April the 3rd, 2013, the bodies of Dennehy's
other two victims
00:33:34
were discovered
just outside of Peterborough. In a ditch on farmland
at Thorney Dyke,
00:33:40
investigators found
31-year-old Lukasz Slaboszewski and 56-year-old
John Chapman,
00:33:47
a close friend
of Michelle Bowles. -We wasn't concerned until we
actually noticed he was missing.
00:33:55
No one had seen him at all,
and next thing we knew, the forensics were around
the back of the house.
00:34:01
We were praying outside
thinking, "Please, don't let it be John.
Let him live." If we had known what he meant
00:34:07
and what she was going
to do at the time, we would've got John
out of that house
00:34:12
and let him live with us. But how were we supposed to know
she was a serial killer?
00:34:21
To take John's life,
Lukasz's life, and Kevin's life, why? -Joanna Dennehy's
pretrial hearing
00:34:30
was set
for the 18th of November. -It's very difficult
to understand quite how far the road
is from
00:34:43
a nice suburban upbringing
to a ditch in Peterborough where you're dumping the bodies
of men you've stabbed to death.
00:34:51
It's an extraordinarily
long road, a very dangerous one
and a very destructive one,
00:34:55
but she certainly traveled it and took some pleasure
in the traveling. -At the hearing at Old Bailey,
Dennehy was devoid of remorse.
00:35:04
She laughed as proceedings
took place and stunned her legal team
when she chose to plead guilty.
00:35:11
-The fact that Joanna Dennehy
decided to admit murdering these three men
and denying them a lawful burial
00:35:17
took the whole of court too
by surprise, including her defense barrister, who said the proceedings
weren't going as anticipated.
00:35:24
So the judge asked
Joanna Dennehy in the dock what she'd said. She told him, "I have pleaded
guilty, and that's that."
00:35:32
-Karim Khalil,
defending Gary Stretch, remembers the shock that rippled
through the courtroom
00:35:38
when this unexpected plea
was heard. -It surprised all, I think, but the judge seemed entirely
satisfied with that result.
00:35:48
Her counsel asked for time
to speak with her, to see whether she really
had meant what she just said
00:35:53
and returned to tell
the court that, "Yes. She entirely understood
the charges against her.
00:35:58
She meant to plead guilty,"
and that was the end of it. -Many of the serial killers
I've interviewed,
00:36:03
obviously as guilty as sin, try to hide behind
the criminal justice system and use it as a defense,
00:36:10
to retreat back into it,
to use mitigation, "I didn't intend
to kill somebody. I had a drink disorder
or a drug disorder,
00:36:19
or I'm not culpable
of committing these crimes. Basically, I'm innocent." Joanna Dennehy is not like that.
00:36:25
She just loved it. -Kevin Lee's widow, Cristina, couldn't bring herself
to face the woman
00:36:30
who dragged her husband
down into her own sordid world and destroyed her family.
00:36:36
-I went to court, but I stayed
in the family room. I didn't want to be in there because I didn't want that thing
to ever see my face.
00:36:44
I thought, "You haven't got
the luxury to grace my face, so therefore,
you shall not see me."
00:36:50
She was that cocky and pathetic, and it's so predictable, and I just thought it's just
so abhorrent that I thought,
00:37:04
"No, it's just best off
in another room." -During the hearing,
Dennehy's partner in crime,
00:37:09
Gary Stretch, argued he was
manipulated by her throughout the killing spree. -Gary Stretch's position was
that he had not known
00:37:19
that she was going to kill any
of the people that she killed whilst accepting that,
after the event,
00:37:27
he was made aware
that she had killed people, and the difficulty, of course, that he confronted
was the assertion
00:37:35
that he was
a willing participant in covering up those killings
once he became aware of them.
00:37:41
There's no question in my mind that Dennehy did influence
Gary Stretch hugely. -Joanna Dennehy is somebody
00:37:52
who was very much
in the driving seat all the way through the murders
that she committed,
00:37:57
and the men were just there
in a supporting role. You know, she was
the center-stage actor here,
00:38:03
and I think the fact that she
was doing this on her own, she wasn't coerced or compelled
by anybody else,
00:38:09
does make her quite unique. -In a final act of defiance, Dennehy refused to relinquish
control of her fate
00:38:17
over to the legal system. She stood up in court and told
the judge exactly how she felt.
00:38:24
-"I don't want to be controlled
by anybody. I don't want to be in control
by my lawyers,
00:38:30
by the police, by anybody," and that's what she told
the judge, "Get stuffed," basically,
"Get stuffed, Your Honor."
00:38:40
-On February the 28th, 2014,
Mr. Justice Spencer sentenced Joanna Dennehy
to a whole life term.
00:38:48
She became the first woman
in British history to directly receive this highest
of custodial sentences
00:38:54
in a courtroom. Dennehy was immediately sent
to Bronzefield Prison. She will never be released.
00:39:01
Dennehy's accomplices were
also imprisoned for their part
in her crimes. Leslie Layton, who helped
dispose of two of the bodies,
00:39:09
received 14 years, and Gary Stretch received
two life sentences. It was a bittersweet relief
for Michelle Bowles.
00:39:18
-It's the victim's family,
as well, that are carrying
the life sentences, aren't they?
00:39:22
Kevin Lee is not going to
see his kids, not have kids. Lukasz is never, ever
going to have kids.
00:39:30
John, you know, is never
going to be around again. None of them are. He wasn't a horrible person.
00:39:35
He was one of the loveliest,
generous people you could ever meet.
He really was.
00:39:40
He would've done anything
for anybody. -It'll take years for
Cristina Lee and her family
00:39:44
to get back to normal
after Dennehy callously ended
the life of her husband. -Personally, it makes you want
to rethink the death penalty.
00:39:53
To me, that would be too easy
for somebody like that. Let them rot wherever
they are really,
00:40:00
so, yeah, I expected that. I think it was just so hideous
how a female -- You know, it's hard
to even think that's a woman.
00:40:12
Could I say she got
what she deserved? Not at all. She didn't get
what she deserved.
00:40:17
She just is where
she needs to be. It's just --
everything has changed. You know, what was a family unit
00:40:27
and people just going
about their business, everything came crashing down. He was a laugh a second.
00:40:33
He was one of the most
optimistic persons I've ever come across,
never moaned about anything,
00:40:40
not negative
about anything. Any problem would be overcome. We laughed a lot, so, yeah,
we had a lot of fun.
00:40:52
-Joanna Dennehy has refused
to disappear quietly. Even in prison,
she's continued to wreak havoc.
00:41:00
-From the day Joanna Dennehy
was sentenced to prison, she has exhibited more
anti-social behavioral traits
00:41:07
in as much as
she's tried to escape twice. She wanted to chop the fingers
off a prison officer
00:41:13
and use that on the
electronic keypads to get out. Dennehy's absolute lack
of remorse
00:41:17
and the savagery
involved in her crimes are beyond the public's
understanding of what a woman
would usually be capable of.
00:41:25
-Joanna Dennehy was unusual in that the most notorious
women murderers in this country
00:41:33
have tended to be
associated with a man, either Myra Hindley associated
with Ian Brady or Rose West
00:41:41
associated with her husband,
Fred. Dennehy was kind of
acting alone, although she had people
helping her a bit
00:41:49
afterwards covering things up, but she was a kind of
self-motivated murderer. -I think the reason that
we're so fascinated
00:41:58
and so shocked
by female serial killers is because of
our general expectations of the role of women
in society.
00:42:04
We expect them to be the carers
and the nurturers and the givers rather than the takers of life.
00:42:10
-Dennehy touched
the public imagination because she was a young woman
and one who seemed to contradict
00:42:21
everything that most of us
expect of women and to do so in such
a cavalier and violent way
00:42:30
that she set herself apart
from the female population. -She's in prison now, and she's going to be in prison
for the rest of her life,
00:42:38
but Joanna Dennehy
will not stop manipulating. She will manipulate the system. She'll work the system,
and when the time is right,
00:42:46
she'll definitely kill again. -It's difficult to comprehend
the insatiable killing spree
00:42:51
of Joanna Dennehy. With a lust for blood
and a twisted lack of morals, she manipulated others
along her way
00:42:58
as she murdered three men and brutally attempted to kill
two strangers in broad daylight.
00:43:04
The safest place for
a dangerous individual like Joanna Dennehy
is behind bars, which is where she will remain
for the rest of her life.
00:43:12
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