Serial killer Joanna Dennehy received a whole life sentence in 2013 for murdering three men during a 10-day killing spree in Cambridgeshire – becoming only the fourth woman in UK history given this tariff
Only four women have received whole life sentences in UK history. First was Myra Hindley, the deranged Moors murderer who slaughtered five children between 1963 and 1966.
Then came Rosemary West and her notorious house of horrors, where she butchered 10 children alongside her husband in Gloucester.
More recently, there was Lucy Letby, the Chester baby killer controversially found guilty of seven medical murders. But the least known on that list is Joanna Christine Dennehy, the Cambridgeshire “ditch killer” who slaughtered three men during a 10-day rampage in March 2013 because she fancied herself as the next Bonnie and Clyde.
As she told an accomplice in 11 bone-chilling words: “I want my fun. I need you to get my fun.”
Dennehy was born in St Albans, Hertfordshire, in August 1982. By all accounts, she enjoyed a privileged, secure and nurturing childhood and excelled academically, reports the Mirror.
Her parents harboured hopes that she would one day become a solicitor. But by her mid-teens Dennehy had become entangled in booze, drugs and minor criminality.
She began bunking off school and mixing with men years older than herself.
By 15 she had fled home to live with John Treanor, a man several years her senior with whom she would bear two children. The pair would row and brawl, frequently turning violent.
Dennehy allegedly began carrying a blade and openly discussing her urge to kill. Fearing for his life, Treanor fled from Dennehy and took the children, leaving his former partner without a roof over her head.
In 2012, Dennehy was nicked for theft and, whilst in the clink, was diagnosed with anti-social behaviour disorder. Upon her release, she crossed paths with 48-year-old Kevin Lee, a Peterborough dad who rented out budget rooms to those in need.
The pair embarked on a sexual relationship and Dennehy started working for Lee as an “enforcer”, assisting him in collecting rent from wayward tenants.
Fast forward to March 2013, Dennehy brutally murdered Lukasz Slaboszewski, a Polish national who fancied Dennehy as his girlfriend and shared a mutual fondness for booze and drugs. After meeting Dennehy, he texted a friend saying: “Life is beautiful”.
Dennehy later confessed to a psychiatrist that she killed Slaboszewski “to see if I was as cold as I thought I was”. She sent him provocative texts to entice him to her home, where she stabbed him in the heart and dumped his body in a wheelie bin.
She then showed the corpse to a 14-year-old girl she had befriended, confessing that she found the murder “moreish” and subsequently developed “a taste for it”. Just over a week later, Dennehy stabbed her flatmate, 56-year-old John Chapman, to death with a pocket knife, texting an accomplice: “Oops, I’ve done it again.”
She murdered Kevin Lee later that same day, luring him with promises of sexual favours before stabbing him upon his arrival at the property she leased from him. She clothed his lifeless body in a black sequined dress and positioned the corpse in a ditch, deliberately exposing his backside.
Throughout her trial, the judge declared she had sought to purposefully degrade Lee in death.
Several weeks later, Dennehy was craving more bloodshed. Gary Stretch, her accomplice, chauffeured her to nearby Hereford where she randomly assaulted two dog walkers within the span of just nine minutes, abandoning both for dead.
Following the attacks, she made off with the second victim’s dog. Dennehy admitted guilt to three murder charges and two attempted murder counts in November 2013.
The presiding judge, Mr Justice Spencer, branded her “a cruel, calculating, selfish and manipulative murderer”.
Stretch also received a life sentence, whilst two additional accomplices were given terms of 14 and three years respectively. There is no clear motive behind Dennehy’s killing rampage beyond sheer bloodlust.
Trial witnesses testified that Dennehy fantasised to them about emulating Bonnie and Clyde. Gary Stretch revealed she had confided in him that it was “entertainment” for her.
She also allegedly stated she only wished to kill and harm men and that she would never assault a woman, particularly one who had children like herself. During the trial, Mr Justice Spencer declared that Dennehy suffered from paraphilia sadomasochism, a psychological disorder which triggers the infliction of pain and humiliation to generate sexual pleasure.
Since being incarcerated, Dennehy has formed romantic relationships with several fellow prisoners, whom she has claimed she plans to wed. She has also attempted to take legal action against the justice secretary, arguing her solitary confinement “violates her human rights”.
A spokesperson for the prison where she is held described Dennehy as “arguably the most dangerous female prisoner” in the UK.