All language subtitles for Britains.Most.Evil.Killers.S01E06.WEBRip.en

-In March 2013,
a man walking his dog

on the outskirts of Peterborough
in Cambridgeshire

made a shocking
and grisly discovery.

Dumped in a rural ditch
was the body of a man

who'd been violently stabbed
to death.

The police didn't know it yet,

but there was a serial killer
on the loose.

-When is the next body
going to turn up?

We've got to find who did this,
and we got to find it quickly.

-The investigation would lead
detectives to a woman,

a violent individual who had
killed without hesitation

or remorse
and for no other reason

than the pleasure and
gratification it offered her.

-She is heartless,
ruthless, and sadistic.

-During a 12-day killing spree,

Joanna Dennehy
butchered three men

and left a trail of destruction

that stretched from east
to west across the U.K.

-She's not somebody
who feels bad,

who feels remorseful,
who regrets things.

She does what she wants to do,

and she doesn't care
about the consequences.

-Joanna Dennehy
had ruthlessly become

one of the world's
most evil killers.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

In April 2013,
police in Hereford

arrested a runaway fugitive
and her besotted accomplice.

In a killing spree that lasted
almost 2 weeks,

31-year-old Joanna Dennehy
had murdered three men

and stabbed two others
in broad daylight,

leaving them for dead.

One of the most dangerous women
in criminal history,

she's now locked away in prison

and will remain there
for the rest of her life.

-The fact that she'll never see
daylight again

in the outside world is of
huge comfort for the family.

For Joanna Dennehy,
it's absolutely the right thing

that she won't
come out of prison.

-Joanna Dennehy's crimes
were incomprehensible

to the British public.

At the time of her imprisonment,
author and journalist

Christopher Berry-Dee took
a special interest in the case.

-I wanted to really try
to get inside

how the police were working

and how rapidly they caught
this very dangerous woman.

-The strong curiosity he had
for Dennehy's crimes

caught the attention
of the murderer herself,

and very soon, Christopher
was in written correspondence

with the killer behind bars.

-Her letter is beautifully
written, very eloquent,

good grammar,

certainly on a par of somebody
of a good education behind them,

and we developed
this relationship

where I was trying
to get inside her head

but, at the same time,
she, being the arch manipulator,

was trying to get
inside my head.

-His attention piqued,

and Christopher eventually
went to visit Dennehy

at Bronzefield Prison in 2015.

-She looked into my eyes,
and she said to me,

"Christopher, killing you
would be good for me."

And it was an ice-cold stare,
I can tell you.

So, yes, she would've killed me
in a heartbeat

if she had had a chance.

-The story of this cold-blooded
killer begins 34 years ago

in the picturesque city
of St. Albans in Hertfordshire.

Joanna Dennehy was born in 1982

and began life in a loving
and secure family home.

Very few could've predicted
this bright

and intelligent young girl

would turn into
a sadistic monster

with a taste for violence.

-By all accounts, she was
starting off in life

with a, what we might say,

as a perfect foundational
upbringing.

-Joanna Dennehy appears to come
from quite a normal family.

She had a relatively
uneventful childhood.

She's one of two siblings.

Her mother worked
in a supermarket.

Her father worked
as a security guard

for a telecommunications
company, and from the outside,

they appeared to be
a normal family.

-She had a sister to which
she was very close.

They had even developed
a secret language.

She played netball
for the school.

She was a very normal,
quite bright schoolgirl.

-But Dennehy's idyllic childhood
was curtailed

as she entered her teens.

-She started to experiment
with drugs.

She started not going to school,

and she linked up
with a man called John Treanor.

-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.

Her teachers tried
to reprimand her,

and the more they tried
to control Jo,

it was Jo saying,
"Stuff you,"

and it was literally like
throwing petrol on a fire.

-Dennehy and Treanor
ran away together,

embarking on
a turbulent relationship.

Despite Dennehy's
violent outbursts,

the couple had
two children together

and eventually settled
in Cambridgeshire.

-I think quite a lot
is made of the fact

that Joanna Dennehy misused
alcohol and drugs,

but I think she's well aware
of the fact

that this is going
to be discussed,

and she knows that these offer
quite a convenient excuse

for her behavior,
and alcohol and drugs

and other substances
can disinhibit,

but that's assuming
that people have got

those moral standards
to begin with,

and Joanna Dennehy didn't have
them in the first place.

-A very disturbed woman,
she had done a lot of self-harm,

of cutting herself and so on,

so there were a number
of danger signs

that this was somebody
who was not attuned to society.

-As time went on, Dennehy's
erratic behavior intensified.

She'd cheat on Treanor
and leave him

and their two children
for sporadic periods of time.

Her drinking worsened,
and she reportedly began

to carry a knife
hidden in her boot.

-I think she's somebody
who perhaps

has always enjoyed
hurting other people.

It's almost like she's this
crazy scientist,

and the world is her experiment.

-Finally in 2009,

Treanor took the children
and fled from Dennehy,

afraid of what
she might do next.

-The company that she was
keeping, as well,

she was surrounded by people
who were similarly disconnected,

so I think when there was
no check or filter

or break on her behavior,
she was only going to get worse.

-Dennehy had become no stranger
to the local police.

She'd been in and out of prison
for drug offenses

and was also given
a 12-month community order

for being in control
of a dangerous dog.

In February 2012,
Dennehy spent 3 days

on the psychiatric unit
at Peterborough City Hospital

where she was diagnosed
with a series of disorders.

-She has had various diagnoses
attached to her --

anti-social
personality disorder,

psychopathic
personality disorder,

and these are conditions.

They're not mental illnesses,

and there's a real important
difference between the two

because people
with personality disorders

know the difference
between right and wrong.

They're fully rational.

They're in control
of what they're doing,

but they choose
to do it anyway.

So she's not somebody
who feels bad,

who feels remorseful,
who regrets things.

She does what she wants to do,

and she doesn't care
about the consequences.

-By 2013, 31-year-old Dennehy
had settled

in a small bedsit in Bifield,

a housing estate
in Peterborough,

but the local residents
were unaware

of her troubled past
or her violent nature.

One of Dennehy's new neighbors
was Michelle Bowles.

-She was polite to me,

not mouthing her mouth,
basically.

She's well spoken to me
and never swore.

She was actually quite pleasant.

Do you know what I mean?
I showed her respect.

She loved babies.

She was excellent with children.

I didn't have a problem
with her.

When I saw her or spoke to her,
I said, "Hello."

She said, "Hello" back.

-But other residents
were not so sure.

Michelle's friend, John Chapman,

lived in the same building
as Dennehy.

He was a Falklands War veteran
who'd fallen on hard times.

-I don't know what regiment
he used to be in.

I should know because the amount
of stories he used to say.

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.

-John was petrified.

John came in mine, and he said
on several occasions,

"There's this mad woman
moved in.

She said she's going to get
rid of me whatever way she can."

-And he was right to be afraid.

In just a few months,

Joanna Dennehy's threats
would turn to violence,

and John Chapman
would be dead.

In early 2013, Joanna Dennehy
was living

in sheltered housing
in Peterborough

following the breakup
of her relationship.

Her ex-partner had left her

after becoming
increasingly concerned

about her erratic
and sadistic behavior.

The bedsit that Dennehy
now called home

was managed by Kevin Lee,

a father of two who lived
in Peterborough

with his wife, Cristina.

She remembers hearing
about this strange new tenant.

Cristina has asked for
her identity to be concealed.

-He was stressed with work,
the money element of it.

It was turning into kind
of a nightmare really.

It was getting a little
bit unmanageable.

Kevin used to house
disadvantaged people,

so he's done it for years,

and obviously, he was used
to giving people chances,

and so he did with her.

-But Kevin Lee and Dennehy's
relationship

quickly grew into more
than just a business one.

Lee began to employ Dennehy
as a rent collector.

-Obviously, I wasn't aware
at the time.

To me, it would've been
just another tenant.

And he just said
about this woman

and that she's really tough,
really hard.

He needed to evict some people,
and whether she was threatening,

and it suited him

because he wasn't getting
any joy from the counts at all.

So I think she had a bit
of wellies

and, you know, a really
big mouth and threatening,

and I don't know whether that,
at the time,

he thought that was
his only way out

and to deal with these people.

-48-year-old Kevin Lee
became infatuated

with the younger Dennehy,
and they soon became lovers.

In exchange, Dennehy was living
rent-free

in at least two of Lee's
properties across Peterborough.

-In a household, that becomes
quite apparent

if someone's behavior
has sort of changed,

and he didn't seem
quite himself.

-Dennehy would make up
unnerving stories

to impress her
new landlord and lover.

-At one point,
she told Kevin Lee

her father had abused her

and that she'd killed him,
absolute nonsense,

of course,
never did anything of the kind.

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

because he raped her as a child,
abused her as a child.

It's not unbelievable story,

but then when Kevin said that
she'd also killed other people

and that she hadn't
got caught for those,

it sounded a bit far-fetched.

I didn't know what to think.

I didn't know whether
it was a truth

or whether it was
just a load of old rubbish.

-But it wasn't long
before Joanna Dennehy

turned her murderous
fantasies into reality.

31-year-old
Lukasz Slaboszewski

had moved to the U.K.
from Poland in 2005.

After meeting Dennehy
a few days previously,

he began exchanging
text messages with her.

On the 19th of March, 2013,

Slaboszewski went
to visit Dennehy

at one of the houses she was
staying in on Rolleston Garth

and was never seen alive again.

-She almost certainly lured
this man

with the promise
of some kind of sexual favor,

but without
a moment's hesitation,

she stabbed him
through the chest once

very, very hard,
killing him almost instantly.

-Slaboszewski had been coaxed
into Dennehy's deadly embrace.

She led him to believe
the pair were in a relationship.

He willingly and naively entered
the trap she'd laid for him.

-Everybody that comes into
contact with Joanna Dennehy,

it's like falling
into a spider's web,

and you can't get out.

Men can't get out.

They become entranced by her
for all sorts of reasons.

-Dennehy had complete disregard
for the life she had just taken.

-Dennehy puts this poor Polish
man's body in a wheelie bin

and then shows it
to a 14-year-old,

and said,
"Look how clever I am.

I've killed this man
in the wheelie bin."

-But it was only
a temporary solution.

Dennehy knew she couldn't keep
Slaboszewski's body in a bin.

She had to dispose of it
quickly, but she needed help.

She called upon one
of her friends,

47-year-old Gary Stretch,

who was more
than willing to assist.

-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,

and that's what makes her
exceptionally dangerous.

Now looking at the relationship
that Joanna Dennehy

had with her accomplices,

I think she was able
to charm these men.

She was able to kind of lure
them in really,

and they would
have been flattered

by her attentions,
you know.

Here she is, this younger woman,
wanting to spend time with them.

These were men who had
quite dull, quite boring lives,

and I think they were
quite excited to get involved

in what Joanna wanted to do.

-At 7 foot, 2 inches tall,

Gary Stretch towered
above Dennehy's slight frame.

An unsuccessful burglar,

Stretch was
absolutely infatuated

by her twisted
and lethal charms.

-Gary Stretch and Joanna Dennehy

met when both of them
were on parole

from prison
for various offenses.

She realized that she
could use him

to do whatever she wanted.

He was her bodyguard,
her minder,

and that's how
they formed this team,

which became so overpowering
for Stretch

that he would
do anything for her.

-I don't think Joanna Dennehy
had any emotional feelings

towards her accomplices
whatsoever.

They were useful to her
at the time,

and she'd just cast them aside
when she was finished with them.

-With the help of Stretch,

Dennehy dumped
Lukasz Slaboszewski's body

in a ditch
in rural Thorney Dyke,

just 10 miles east
of Peterborough City Center.

Unable to control herself,
her confidence rising

and her desire
for violence building,

in just over a week,
Dennehy would strike once more.

She'd turned her attention
towards her

fellow Bifield resident,

56-year-old Falklands War
veteran John Chapman,

who reportedly had
walked in on Dennehy

while she was in the shared
bathroom of their bedsit.

-Every time he spoke about her,

he was with fear, like,
in his tone of voice,

and we thought
it's just John...

"John, just leave it.
If she starts,

here is our phone numbers.
Ring us, and we'll come around,

just, you know, help you
and get you in here with us."

He went, "Thanks," and that was
the last time we saw John.

-On March the 29th, 2013,

Dennehy attacked
the helpless John Chapman.

-John Chapman was
an inoffensive,

kindly man
who may have been asleep

or in an alcoholic stupor
when Dennehy killed him,

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

that one wound
broke the breast bone.

It also punctured his heart.

It's a frenzy that is quite
difficult to comprehend

but evidence of what
the behavioral scientists

now call escalation --

first victim, one stab wound,
second victim, six stab wounds.

-It's heartbreaking.

It's a poor,
defenseless man killed.

And to know what she had done
to him, how she killed him,

it's just heartbreaking
for us all.

-Dennehy was developing
her confidence,

and her crimes
were becoming more

and more brutal
with each move.

-Now, where Joanna Dennehy
is so bad

is that this woman
actually used a knife

to attack a grown, strong man,
is very up close and personal.

It's not at a point of a gun,

which is not quite
such a personal thing.

It's not by bludgeoning.

It's not by strangulation.

By nature, a woman is not
often strong enough

to strangle a strong man,
but this is a young woman

using a knife
to repeatedly stab somebody,

and for that reason alone,

makes her a hands-on,
blood-lusting killer.

I can't describe how evil
this woman is.

I really can't.

She is the worst I've ever met.

-It's always been said
the woman's method of killing

is usually poisoning.

It can sometimes be
other things,

but knives, no.

It's a very male killing method,

and it's led some people
to speculate that Dennehy was,

to some extent, trying to be
more male, more masculine,

than the men around her

because she felt they were
rather weak and feeble,

and she had to be the boss,

and being a boss
meant you were male.

-But Dennehy was offsetting
one role with another,

that of a femme fatale charming
and enticing men into her life

before switching character in
an instant with deadly results.

-We're quite quick to point

to Joanna Dennehy's
masculine traits

because they're the ones
that are most visible to us --

her aggression and her violence

and the very brutal way in which
she perpetrated these murders --

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.

I think sometimes she was
feminine, and she was demure.

In a way, she's somebody who
will just adapt her behavior,

so it's very difficult to know
who the real Joanna Dennehy is.

-After killing John Chapman,

Dennehy didn't hesitate
in continuing her rampage.

On the very same day,
she'd strike again

with fatal consequences.

-Later that day, she lures
her boss and her lover

and the bedsitting houses'
owner, Kevin Lee, to the house.

-But this time, Dennehy wasn't
in the mood for love.

She was searching
for another victim

to try and quench
her murderous desires.

March the 29th would be
the last time

that Kevin Lee
was seen alive.

Joanna Dennehy was in the middle
of a murderous rampage,

having taken the life
of 31-year-old Polish man

Lukasz Slaboszewski
10 days earlier.

Dennehy had just killed
56-year-old John Chapman

and had her third victim
in her sights, her landlord,

Kevin Lee.

The pair had been having
a secret affair.

Kevin's wife, Cristina,

was the first to notice
something was awry

when he didn't arrive home
on that March evening.

-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.

I tried to ring him,
and his phone wasn't on,

which was odd in itself.

He'd never have his phone
switched off

because that was
his livelihood.

That was his business,
and I knew it had a charge.

-Kevin had felt threatened
by Dennehy days before,

but he'd wrongly assumed
it was just bravado.

-Kevin did tell me
that she told him

that she wanted to kill again,

and I think that was
the crucial thing

because it wasn't just a case
of bragging or mentioning

that she had committed
murders in the past.

It was the fact that she
specifically told him

she wanted to kill again.

So that's got to unnerve
anybody, false or not.

It's just not a thing
that normal people say.

-Hours passed.

Growing desperately concerned,
Cristina,

with the help
of Kevin's business partner,

Paul Creed,
tried to trace Kevin.

-I asked Paul to look
at Kevin's phone records,

so he gave them to me,

and there was a number that kept
appearing on the telephone,

and I said to Paul...

I said, "Which houses
are empty at the moment

because of need work
done to them?"

And he gave me a list,

and I subsequently
just went around

to each of those properties.

I knew he was in trouble,
put it that way, at that point.

I knew there was something
not right.

I knew Kevin wasn't coming home.

-Cristina began an urgent hunt,
unaware her search was in vain.

Dennehy had already struck.

She'd stabbed Kevin Lee to death

at the same house
in Rolleston Garth

where she'd murdered
Lukasz Slaboszewski

10 days earlier.

Lee was Dennehy's
third victim.

-I wouldn't describe
Joanna Dennehy

as a serial killer.

I would describe her
as a spree killer

because there didn't seem
to be any point

during her killing spree

in which she returned
to any semblance

of what was
a normal life for her.

It tended to be a continuous
chain of events.

-What is not in doubt is that
these first three victims

were simply a prelude
to what she hoped

would be a further spree.

-Dennehy, again,
with the help of Gary Stretch

and this time another
accomplice, Leslie Layton,

deposited the bodies
of John Chapman and Kevin Lee

on the outskirts of town.

Chapman was placed
at Thorney Dyke,

the same spot where they dumped

Lukasz Slaboszewski's
body 10 days previously.

Kevin Lee was left 10 miles
further north

at nearby Newborough.

Dennehy dressed Lee's body
in women's clothing

and left him positioned
in a grotesque

and crude manner
with his buttocks exposed.

-I think Joanna Dennehy
was unusual in that

she liked humiliating
her victims.

It was clearly a modus
operandi there,

and there was clearly a motive,
the pleasure of killing somebody

rather than doing it
for some particular reason.

-Oblivious to the fate
of her husband,

Cristina Lee was becoming
increasingly concerned

about Kevin's whereabouts.

-I rang the police, and then
I went back with Paul Creed

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,

"There's obviously
somebody at the house,"

and I just said to the police,
you know, "I'm really worried,"

expressed my concerns
and gave them permission

to break into the house,
which they did.

-Inside the house
on Rolleston Garth,

there were no obvious
signs of trouble,

but the police immediately
sensed that something was wrong.

-They said that they
could smell --

There was a really
strong smell of bleach,

and they could see
some blood on the floor,

and, you know,
I just knew.

-And Cristina wouldn't
have to wait long

for news of her husband.

The following day,
March the 30th, 2013,

police were called to an area
of farmland in Newborough

by a dog walker who'd
made an horrific discovery.

-You know, you see on TV
all the time

the dreaded knock at the door,
and then two detectives came,

and obviously, he had not been
identified at that point,

but they just said
that they'd found a body...

which, you know,
I was expecting to hear that,

so they just kind of told me
what I was expecting to hear.

You don't feel anything
because you know,

and it's a feeling
like you've never felt before.

So, you know, where some people

might think
you'll be doing this,

you'll be doing that,
I don't know.

It's just kind of a blur really.

You're just alive.

I think that's --
But not alive,

you're just existing.

-For police,
a very serious picture

was beginning to emerge
of a killer on the run

with an unstoppable
determination for destruction.

-When is the next body
going to turn up?

We've got to find who did this,
and we got to find them quickly.

-Detectives soon discovered
Kevin Lee's burnt-out car.

Cristina had provided them
with Dennehy's phone number,

and by using it, they were
able to form a crucial link.

-They must have been
trying to call it too

and, using their systems
or whatever,

must have tracked it
down through GPS.

The location of Kevin's
burnt-out car

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,

and there was an affair
between them,

and then they came across a man
called Leslie Layton,

who they interviewed.

He tried to cover up.

He didn't know anything
about them,

where they were,
which, in fact, he did.

He soon cracked because
he was weak-willed, spineless,

and he said, "Yes.

Dennehy and Stretch
are on the run.

They've gone east,
and they'll probably come west."

And with that,
the police went --

Well, they issued
a national wanted alert

for every agency
in the country

to find this couple
as quickly as possible.

-Dennehy and Stretch
were now wanted fugitives.

She reveled in the idea, high on
the thrill of being on the run.

-She loved the notoriety of it.

She relished the fact
that the men around her

were frightened of her.

-In an attempt to try
and evade the authorities,

Dennehy and Stretch
first headed to Norfolk

where they burgled a house.

They then made their way
across country to Hereford

with the intention of selling
the stolen goods

to help fund their escape.

-Dennehy and Stretch became
a sort of,

hate to say this,
a Bonnie-and-Clyde-type outfit.

Their faces were in
all the newspapers now.

They were wanted, most wanted.

-After they burgled another
property in Hertfordshire,

the pair stopped 20 miles
outside of Hereford

to liaise with a man
named Mark Lloyd,

who joined Dennehy and Stretch
on the journey.

-They get an accomplice
or a friend of theirs

to bring the stolen property
into Hereford town to sell it,

and it's at that point
that Dennehy decides

she wants to kill again.

-It had been 4 days

since the murders
of John Chapman and Kevin Lee.

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.

She's seen pointing at the
cashier in a threatening manner.

Just 10 minutes after this
footage was captured, Dennehy,

in an unprovoked
random attack,

attempted to murder
a fourth man.

-She had this terrific anger
and bloodlust.

She's had a quarter bottle
of whiskey.

She's been smoking roll-ups,
and she suddenly sees a man

walking his dog
in broad daylight,

and she says to Stretch,

"Can we stop the car?
I want to kill him."

-Brandishing a knife,
Dennehy jumps out of the car

and runs up behind him
and stabs him in the back.

-Dennehy's unfortunate victim
was Robin Bereza,

a 63-year-old
retired fireman.

-You knew exactly
what she intended to do.

"I'm going to kill you,"
she said to the fireman,

"I want to hurt you.
I'm going to kill you."

-As she plunges this 5-inch lock
knife into his back time

and time and time again, the man
thought he'd been punched.

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,

"Now let's go
and find somebody else."

-Back in the car,

Dennehy took the time
to pose for this selfie.

It seemed unbelievable
to imagine,

but she wasn't finished.

Having felt the thrill
of attack once,

she hunted out
her second victim of the day.

-Ten minutes after
the first attack,

she spots another man
walking his dog,

and it was the same bloodthirsty
scenario all over again.

She got out, and she told
Stretch to stop the car.

She got out with this
very small knife,

walked up to him,
and plunged it into him time

and time and time
and time again.

Can you imagine the shock?

This man wouldn't have known
what was happening.

It's broad daylight.

She's licking the blood
off of the knife, his blood.

He feels himself getting dizzy
and sick, and then he collapses,

and she takes his dog,
walks casually back to the car.

Another car passes, and she
waves at the people in it.

They get in the car,
and off they go.

-This second helpless victim
was John Rogers,

a 56-year-old
Hereford local.

Dennehy stabbed him
more than 30 times.

It was an horrific and entirely
spontaneous act

completely lacking in reason.

-It is a reflection
of a brutality, a viciousness,

a lack of any kind of control
that makes Dennehy very unusual.

She is a most frightening figure
who behaves

in the most obscenely
violent way imaginable,

almost defying belief.

-When we look at the two
attempted murders,

you know,
towards the end of her spree,

this is something
all together different.

These are strangers.

These are men
that she doesn't know.

So I think
what was happening here

was that
she was upping the ante.

She was getting bored.

You find that psychopaths tend
to have a proneness to boredom

and a need for stimulation,

so she was even applying
that to her murders.

-Remarkably, both men survive
these attacks.

Although their injuries
were life-threatening,

they were still able to give the
police descriptions of Dennehy

and the instantly recognizable
star tattoo on her cheek.

-By now, the police sirens
are going all round.

Blue lights are going all
around Hertfordshire.

They're panicking.

It's like somebody has
kicked over a wasp nest.

-The local police had been
alerted to her spree

and were about to put
an end to her bloodshed.

They cornered Dennehy
and Stretch

on Newton Close in Hereford.

-Two officers turn up, and they
spot this car with Dennehy

in it talking to the dog
on the back seat

while Gary Stretch is trying
to negotiate stolen property

at the front door
of one of his associate's house.

They arrest Dennehy on the spot.

Gary Stretch and one
of his friends

do what they call
in police parlance a runner.

They jump in another car
and speed off.

Something like a car chase
goes on for about 20 miles,

and then Stretch decides
to get out and run for it.

Now, Mr. Stretch is not built
for speed,

and of course, he's very unfit,
and he's soon stopped,

and he turns around
to the police officers and said,

"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

just 40 minutes
after stabbing two men

and leaving them
for dead showed her

laughing and joking
with the arresting officers.

-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.

She can be charming and sound
very educated and literate,

and at the same time,
to another audience,

she could sound quite rough
and quite downbeat,

so she's really honed
these skills of responding

to the people
that are around her.

-The following day,
April the 3rd, 2013,

the bodies of Dennehy's
other two victims

were discovered
just outside of Peterborough.

In a ditch on farmland
at Thorney Dyke,

investigators found
31-year-old Lukasz Slaboszewski

and 56-year-old
John Chapman,

a close friend
of Michelle Bowles.

-We wasn't concerned until we
actually noticed he was missing.

No one had seen him at all,
and next thing we knew,

the forensics were around
the back of the house.

We were praying outside
thinking,

"Please, don't let it be John.
Let him live."

If we had known what he meant

and what she was going
to do at the time,

we would've got John
out of that house

and let him live with us.

But how were we supposed to know
she was a serial killer?

To take John's life,
Lukasz's life, and Kevin's life,

why?

-Joanna Dennehy's
pretrial hearing

was set
for the 18th of November.

-It's very difficult
to understand

quite how far the road
is from

a nice suburban upbringing
to a ditch in Peterborough

where you're dumping the bodies
of men you've stabbed to death.

It's an extraordinarily
long road,

a very dangerous one
and a very destructive one,

but she certainly traveled it

and took some pleasure
in the traveling.

-At the hearing at Old Bailey,
Dennehy was devoid of remorse.

She laughed as proceedings
took place

and stunned her legal team
when she chose to plead guilty.

-The fact that Joanna Dennehy
decided to admit

murdering these three men
and denying them a lawful burial

took the whole of court too
by surprise,

including her defense barrister,

who said the proceedings
weren't going as anticipated.

So the judge asked
Joanna Dennehy

in the dock what she'd said.

She told him, "I have pleaded
guilty, and that's that."

-Karim Khalil,
defending Gary Stretch,

remembers the shock that rippled
through the courtroom

when this unexpected plea
was heard.

-It surprised all, I think,

but the judge seemed entirely
satisfied with that result.

Her counsel asked for time
to speak with her,

to see whether she really
had meant what she just said

and returned to tell
the court that,

"Yes. She entirely understood
the charges against her.

She meant to plead guilty,"
and that was the end of it.

-Many of the serial killers
I've interviewed,

obviously as guilty as sin,

try to hide behind
the criminal justice system

and use it as a defense,

to retreat back into it,
to use mitigation,

"I didn't intend
to kill somebody.

I had a drink disorder
or a drug disorder,

or I'm not culpable
of committing these crimes.

Basically, I'm innocent."

Joanna Dennehy is not like that.

She just loved it.

-Kevin Lee's widow, Cristina,

couldn't bring herself
to face the woman

who dragged her husband
down into her own sordid world

and destroyed her family.

-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.

I thought, "You haven't got
the luxury to grace my face,

so therefore,
you shall not see me."

She was that cocky and pathetic,

and it's so predictable,

and I just thought it's just
so abhorrent that I thought,

"No, it's just best off
in another room."

-During the hearing,
Dennehy's partner in crime,

Gary Stretch, argued he was
manipulated by her

throughout the killing spree.

-Gary Stretch's position was
that he had not known

that she was going to kill any
of the people that she killed

whilst accepting that,
after the event,

he was made aware
that she had killed people,

and the difficulty, of course,

that he confronted
was the assertion

that he was
a willing participant

in covering up those killings
once he became aware of them.

There's no question in my mind

that Dennehy did influence
Gary Stretch hugely.

-Joanna Dennehy is somebody

who was very much
in the driving seat

all the way through the murders
that she committed,

and the men were just there
in a supporting role.

You know, she was
the center-stage actor here,

and I think the fact that she
was doing this on her own,

she wasn't coerced or compelled
by anybody else,

does make her quite unique.

-In a final act of defiance,

Dennehy refused to relinquish
control of her fate

over to the legal system.

She stood up in court and told
the judge exactly how she felt.

-"I don't want to be controlled
by anybody.

I don't want to be in control
by my lawyers,

by the police, by anybody,"

and that's what she told
the judge, "Get stuffed,"

basically,
"Get stuffed, Your Honor."

-On February the 28th, 2014,
Mr. Justice Spencer

sentenced Joanna Dennehy
to a whole life term.

She became the first woman
in British history

to directly receive this highest
of custodial sentences

in a courtroom.

Dennehy was immediately sent
to Bronzefield Prison.

She will never be released.

Dennehy's accomplices were
also imprisoned

for their part
in her crimes.

Leslie Layton, who helped
dispose of two of the bodies,

received 14 years,

and Gary Stretch received
two life sentences.

It was a bittersweet relief
for Michelle Bowles.

-It's the victim's family,
as well,

that are carrying
the life sentences, aren't they?

Kevin Lee is not going to
see his kids, not have kids.

Lukasz is never, ever
going to have kids.

John, you know, is never
going to be around again.

None of them are.

He wasn't a horrible person.

He was one of the loveliest,
generous people

you could ever meet.
He really was.

He would've done anything
for anybody.

-It'll take years for
Cristina Lee and her family

to get back to normal
after Dennehy

callously ended
the life of her husband.

-Personally, it makes you want
to rethink the death penalty.

To me, that would be too easy
for somebody like that.

Let them rot wherever
they are really,

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.

Could I say she got
what she deserved?

Not at all.

She didn't get
what she deserved.

She just is where
she needs to be.

It's just --
everything has changed.

You know, what was a family unit

and people just going
about their business,

everything came crashing down.

He was a laugh a second.

He was one of the most
optimistic persons

I've ever come across,
never moaned about anything,

not negative
about anything.

Any problem would be overcome.

We laughed a lot, so, yeah,
we had a lot of fun.

-Joanna Dennehy has refused
to disappear quietly.

Even in prison,
she's continued to wreak havoc.

-From the day Joanna Dennehy
was sentenced to prison,

she has exhibited more
anti-social behavioral traits

in as much as
she's tried to escape twice.

She wanted to chop the fingers
off a prison officer

and use that on the
electronic keypads to get out.

Dennehy's absolute lack
of remorse

and the savagery
involved in her crimes

are beyond the public's
understanding

of what a woman
would usually be capable of.

-Joanna Dennehy was unusual

in that the most notorious
women murderers in this country

have tended to be
associated with a man,

either Myra Hindley associated
with Ian Brady or Rose West

associated with her husband,
Fred.

Dennehy was kind of
acting alone,

although she had people
helping her a bit

afterwards covering things up,

but she was a kind of
self-motivated murderer.

-I think the reason that
we're so fascinated

and so shocked
by female serial killers

is because of
our general expectations

of the role of women
in society.

We expect them to be the carers
and the nurturers and the givers

rather than the takers of life.

-Dennehy touched
the public imagination

because she was a young woman
and one who seemed to contradict

everything that most of us
expect of women

and to do so in such
a cavalier and violent way

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,

but Joanna Dennehy
will not stop manipulating.

She will manipulate the system.

She'll work the system,
and when the time is right,

she'll definitely kill again.

-It's difficult to comprehend
the insatiable killing spree

of Joanna Dennehy.

With a lust for blood
and a twisted lack of morals,

she manipulated others
along her way

as she murdered three men

and brutally attempted to kill
two strangers in broad daylight.

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.

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