Okay, I want you to just for a second close your
eyes and picture the Cambridgeshire Fence. If
you've never been there, it's a really specific
kind of place. It is flat. Just relentlessly
flat. And you get these huge, open, gray skies
that feel like they just stretch on forever.
It's all farmland. It's quiet. And it's crisscrossed
by these drainage ditches. Yeah, dikes. Exactly.
And they're just sitting there all stagnant and
dark. It feels, well, it feels incredibly ordinary.
You know, the kind of place where nothing ever
really happens. Until something does. Until something
does. It's a landscape that hides things very,
very well. Oh, absolutely. So it's March 20.
And we're not just talking about a crime here.
This is a... A sudden, just explosive descent
into total chaos that just shattered that quiet
completely. It's interesting that you use the
word chaos because that's how it felt to everyone
watching it unfold. Yeah. But for the person
at the very center of it all. It was actually
about the exact opposite. It was about absolute
rigid control. And that's the central tension,
isn't it? That's what we're going to be wrestling
with today. We are doing a deep dive into the
Peterborough ditch murders. And specifically,
we are unpacking the mind, the motives and the
actions of Joanna Christine Dennehy. Now, I know
we cover a lot of dark subjects, but this one.
This one feels different. It feels rare. It is.
Statistically, it is incredibly rare. When we
talk about Joanna Dennehy, we're talking about
a member of maybe the most infamous and exclusive
club in British criminal history. You're talking
about the sentence she received. Exactly. She
is one of only three women in the entire history
of the United Kingdom to receive a whole life
order. Okay, let's just break that down for anyone
who might not be familiar with the British legal
system. A life sentence in the UK doesn't always
mean your whole life, right? Not at all. Usually
you get a minimum term, say 15, 20 years, something
like that. And after that, you can apply for
parole. So there's a light at the end of the
tunnel, however faint. Correct. Most lifers have
that flicker of hope, a whole life order. It
extinguishes that completely. It means exactly
what it says on the tin. You will never be released.
You will die in prison. There was no parole board,
no review, no second chance. It is reserved for,
quite literally, the worst of the worst. And
who are the other two women? Myra Henley. The
Moores murders. And Rosemary West. Cromwell Street.
So she is in the company of monsters who are,
I mean, their household names for pure evil.
Decades of infamy. But Dennehy. Yeah. This was
2013. This is the modern era. The age of the
iPhone. Of CCTV on every street corner of digital
footprints. Yeah, you're not supposed to be able
to go on a spree like this anymore. And yet she
orchestrated this campaign of violence that was
so brutal, so brazen, it felt like something
from a completely different time. Or like you
said, a different reality. One she created herself.
And there's one detail right from the very start
that just hooks me every single time I read about
this case. It's the thing that makes you stop
and just say, wait, what? I think I know what
you're going to say. One of the victims, a man,
was found dumped in a ditch, dressed in a black
sequined dress. And that detail right there.
Yeah. That is the key that unlocks her entire
psychological profile. Yeah. It's not just about
a murder weapon or a body dump site. That dress
is a message. It's a statement. It takes the
crime from just being a homicide to being a performative
act of profound humiliation. OK, so here's our
mission for this deep dive. We're going to unpack
what that frantic, terrifying timeline of 10
days in March that left three men dead and two
more fighting for their lives. Right. Then we
have to get into the why. And this is where it
gets really dark. We're talking psychology, that
concept of control you mentioned, and this. This
baffling diagnosis of paraphiliacetam masochism.
A very specific and rare diagnosis. And we have
to talk about the accomplices because she didn't
do this alone. And I have so many questions about
the men who decided to help her. The accomplices
are a fascinating study in their own right, in
manipulation, in group psychology. And finally,
we have to look at the now because unlike Myra
Hindley. Joanna Dennehy is still very much alive.
She's in the prison system. And from what I've
read in the sources, she is not going quietly.
Not in the slightest. Her incarceration hasn't
stopped her need for control. It's just changed
the arena where she plays the game. Okay, let's
rewind the clock. Let's go back to March 2013,
the Peterborough Ditch murders. Set the scene
for us with the victims, because these weren't...
random strangers, at least not at first. No,
and that's a classic feature of many female killers,
actually. They tend to kill within their orbit.
Family, husbands, lovers. Dennehy started right
there. The first victim to be discovered was
a man named Kevin Lee. Kevin Lee, yes. 48 years
old. And who was he? He was a local property
developer, a landlord. And to add another layer
of complexity to this, he was also Joanna Dennehy's
lover. So he was providing her with a place to
live. That's right. He was giving her accommodation,
and they were involved sexually. Now, just think
about the power dynamic there for a moment. Well,
normally, the landlord has all the power. Exactly.
The landlord holds power over the tenant. But
in this specific relationship, you can be sure
that power balance was completely inverted. She
was in charge. He was killed on March 29, 2013,
and his body was found pretty quickly the next
day, March 30, near a place called Newboro. Right.
And this brings us straight back to that macabre,
unforgettable detail we teased. The dress. The
black sequined dress. Let's really analyze what
this means. You kill someone. That is the ultimate
act of removing their agency. You've ended their
life. Game over. But she didn't stop there. Not
even close. She took the time, while he was dead,
to wrestle his corpse into a woman's cocktail
dress. Which is not an easy thing to do, by the
way. A deadweight body of a grown man, that takes
incredible physical effort. It takes time. A
lot of time. Every second you spend doing that,
you're at risk of being caught. So this wasn't
an afterthought. This was a priority for her.
This was part of the act. It was essential to
her ritual. Psychologically, what is she doing?
She is feminizing him. She's degrading him. In
her mind and in the context of the sadomasochistic
dynamics she operated in, she's stripping him
of his masculinity. It's a final act of mockery.
A profound act of mockery. It's her saying, you
thought you were the man, the landlord, the one
in charge. No, you are my toy. You are my doll
to dress up. It's just... It's incredibly disturbing.
It's just the pleasure for her wasn't just in
the killing itself, but in the arrangement of
the body afterwards. And that fits perfectly
with that diagnosis of paraphiliocetomasochism.
We'll get into the weeds of that later, but in
simple terms, the pleasure, the arousal, is derived
from the total domination and humiliation of
the object. And to her, Kevin Lee was just an
object. An object to be used and discarded. But
Kevin Lee wasn't the only one. This is what makes
it a spree. While the police are finding him,
they start to realize other men are missing.
Yes. The net widens and two more names come up.
Lukas Lebojewski and John Chapman. OK, let's
talk about Lukas first. He was a Polish national
living in Peterborough. Right. 31 years old.
And the sources say he met Denny Heath through,
and I'm quoting here, shared interests in drink
and drugs. Which is often a polite way of saying
they were moving in very marginalized, vulnerable
circles. He sounds like an easy target. Very
much so. Lucas was vulnerable. He was likely
isolated, you know, being a foreign national,
maybe without a huge support network right there
in Peterborough. He was an easy person to make
disappear. And chronologically, he was killed
first. That's right. Sometime between March 19th
and March 29th. The timeline is a little fuzzy
on it. And then there's John Chapman. John Chapman,
56, a Falklands veteran. And he was her housemate.
He lived with her. So even closer to home. killed
on March 29th. The same day as Kevin Lee. Just
stop and think about that for a second. March
29th, that is a day of absolute carnage. It's
an explosion. She kills her housemate, John Chapman,
in the very place where they both live. And on
the exact same day, she also kills her lover
and landlord, Kevin Lee. It's a crescendo of
violence. She's tying up loose ends, perhaps,
but it's more than that. It's like a frenzy.
And notice the disposal. Kevin Lee was found
quickly the next day. But Slobozevsky and Chapman,
they weren't found until April 3rd. No, their
bodies were dumped later, also in ditches near
a place called Thorny. So you have the fens,
this quiet landscape, suddenly becoming this
graveyard, this dumping ground for the men and
her life. There is a detail about what happened
to Lucas Slobozevsky that I found physically
difficult to read. It honestly made my stomach
turn. I know exactly what you're referring to.
It's about what happened in that interim period.
After she killed him, but before she dumped him
in the ditch. You're talking about the bin. The
wheelie bin. Yeah. This is one of the most chilling
aspects of the entire case because it introduces
a third party. Someone who is neither a victim
nor an accomplice in the traditional sense. A
witness. A child. A 14 -year -old girl. A 14
-year -old girl. Dennehy had stored Lucas's remains
in a bin. A standard residential wheelie bin.
And then she brought this teenager, a girl she
had befriended. to see the body. I just, I cannot
get my head around that. Any normal criminal,
their number one instinct is self -preservation.
You hide the body, you bury it, you get rid of
it. You certainly don't show it to a 14 -year
-old girl who could run straight to the police.
Why? Why would she do that? Because for Joanna
Dennehy, the crime is a performance. If you perform
a masterpiece in an empty theater, does it even
matter? She needed an audience. She needed an
audience. She needed someone to validate the
horror she had created. But there's a much darker
element to it as well. It's about corruption.
Corruption. What do you mean? Grooming, in a
sense. If you are a psychopath, you don't view
a child as an innocent being to be protected.
You view them as raw material. Clay to be molded.
Oh, that's horrible. By showing that girl the
body. She is dragging that child into her world.
She is tainting her. She is making her complicit
in the secret. It's a way of saying, look how
powerful I am. Look what I can do. And now, you
know too. It creates this bond of trauma and
fear. It's monstrous. That's the only word for
it. It paints this picture of her not just as
a killer, but as a corruptor. Someone who spreads
this darkness like a virus. Precisely. And that
complete lack of fear, that willingness to show
the body tells us everything we need to know.
She wasn't operating out of panic. She was operating
out of pure arrogance. So by the beginning of
April, we have three bodies. The police are swarming
all over Cambridgeshire. It's a major, major
investigation. Kevin Lee's body found in that
dress has obviously triggered a massive media
and police response. It's headline news. Logically,
this is the part of the story where the killer
goes to ground. You dye your hair. You get a
fake ID. You hide in a basement. You flee the
country. Any rational criminal would do that.
Any criminal motivated by money or revenge would
absolutely do that. But Joanna Dennehy. She does
the exact opposite. She goes on a road trip.
She goes on a road trip. And this marks the transition
to the next section of our deep dive. The shift
from Peterborough to Hereford. And this is a
really crucial pivot point in the story, isn't
it? It's a huge escalation. Because up until
now, however horrific, she has killed men she
knew. Men she had some kind of relationship with.
Right. They were in her orbit. But now she changes
the game completely. She leaves the domestic
sphere of killing and enters the predatory sphere.
She gets in a car with her accomplice, Gary Stretch.
And we will definitely get to him in a bit. And
they drive 140 miles across the country to Hereford.
Why Hereford? I mean, of all the places in the
country, why there? Does she have enemies there?
An ex -boyfriend? Some connection? None. Absolutely
no connection whatsoever. It's random. And that
is what makes this next phase so utterly terrifying.
When she arrives in Hereford, she isn't looking
for anyone in particular. She is hunting for
anyone. And who does she find? Dog walkers. It's
so painfully mundane. It's so innocent. The most
normal activity imaginable. You're out walking
your dog. You're probably thinking about what
to have for dinner. You are in your own world.
And suddenly you are face to face with a serial
killer on a mission. She attacks two men completely
separately. Robin Barisa and John Rogers. Total
strangers. Complete strangers to her and to each
other. And she stabs them. And miraculously,
they both survived. Yes, through sheer luck and
rapid medical intervention. But make no mistake,
the intent was to kill. She stabbed them in broad
daylight. This wasn't some shadowy assassination.
This was a frenzy. And then just to cap off the
surreal, bizarre nature of this violence, she
steals one of their dogs. She steals John Rogers'
dog, a whippet. It's this indelicate, almost
petty act of theft on top of a brutal attempted
murder. It feels chaotic, like a toddler knocking
over a tower of blocks just to watch it fall,
but with lethal weapons. I'm going to stab you
and I'm taking your dog. It's absurd. It is absurd,
but it speaks to that total lack of boundaries.
I want it, so I take it, whether that's your
life or your pet. There's no distinction. Okay,
we have to drill down on the motive here. Because
usually when we see an escalation like this,
from killing known associates to random spree
killing, something has snapped. But Dennehy seems
lucid. She's in control. What was driving her?
What was the fuel in the engine? We actually
have a quote from Dennehy herself, spoken to
her accomplice Gary Stretch during this drive.
And it answers that question with chilling simplicity.
What did she say? She turned to him and said,
I want my fun. I need you to get my fun. Fun.
Fun. She called stabbing random men in the street
fun. Not just fun. Entertainment. Yeah. Stimulation.
A hobby. I am genuinely struggling to process
that. I can understand anger. I can understand
greed. I can even, on some level, understand
revenge, however twisted, but fun. It implies
she was bored. Boredom is actually a huge factor
in the psychopathic mindset. A very high boredom
susceptibility. But it's more than that. Later,
after her arrest, she spoke to a psychiatrist,
and she described the act of killing as more
-ish. More -ish, like a bag of crisps, like chocolate.
Exactly. Once you pop, you can't stop. She told
him she got a taste for it. This is a crucial
insight. For Dennehy, violence wasn't a means
to an end. It wasn't about silencing a witness
or getting some money. The violence was the end.
So the act of killing provided a physiological
or psychological high. A rush. A thrill. And
like any addiction, you start to build a tolerance.
Killing Kevin Lee and the others. Maybe that
initial high wore off. She needed a bigger hit.
A stronger dose. So she needed the thrill of
the hunt. The randomness. She needed the randomness
of Hereford to get that same rush again. That
is the stuff of nightmares. Because if the motive
is fun and the trigger is just opportunity, then
nobody is safe. You don't have to have wronged
her to become her victim. You just have to be
there. That is the very definition of a spree
killer. The unpredictability is the weapon. OK,
let's pivot. Let's get into the psychology of
this. We've thrown around some heavy terms, psychopath,
serial killer. But let's look at the specific
profile. Who was Joanna Dennehy? She was born
in August 1982 in St. Albans. And she was a mother.
She has two children. An absent mother at the
time of the crimes, but a mother nonetheless.
Yes. And that actually plays into her victim
selection in a very, very interesting way. Because
we need to look at who she didn't kill. Women.
Correct. She had a strict personal code. She
told an acquaintance, a man named Mark Lloyd,
who was also in the car during that Hereford
trip, that she did not wish to kill a woman.
Okay. And she was even more specific. She said
she would never kill a woman with children. That
is fascinating. So she has this absolute disregard
for human life. She's stabbing dog walkers for
fun. But she draws this hard moral line at killing
mothers. It suggests a really complex and warped
internal landscape. Maybe it's a form of narcissism.
She sees herself in other mothers, so she spares
them. Or she sees men as the enemy. Or she views
men as the enemy or the oppressor that needs
to be taken down. It could be that in her twisted
worldview, killing a mother is bad, but killing
a man is just sport. It's almost like she was
trying to maintain some shred of... of moral
superiority i'm a monster but i'm not that kind
of monster exactly so many criminals have these
bizarre personal codes to help them rationalize
their behavior it's a way of looking in the mirror
but she did have an ambition mark lloyd also
mentioned she had a target number in mind she
wanted to kill nine men nine why nine is there
any significance to that number we don't really
know if the number nine itself had a specific
numerological meaning to her but the goal behind
it was very clear she wanted to be like bonnie
and clyde of course bonnie and clyde that keeps
coming up in these kinds of cases the romantic
outlaw myth it's the cinematic influence she
didn't see herself as a grubby murderer in a
ditch she saw herself as a star A legend, an
outlaw hero fighting against the system. The
reference to Bonnie and Clyde tells us everything
about her craving for notoriety. She wanted the
fame. She wanted to be remembered. She absolutely
did. But here's the thing about Bonnie and Clyde.
They were a duo, a genuine partnership. Clyde
wasn't just Bonnie's driver. He was her equal
partner in crime. Which brings us to the next
section, the accomplices. Because Joanna Dennehy
had these men around her. But they weren't exactly
Clydes, were they? No, not at all. The dynamic
was very, very different. Let's start with the
main one, Gary Stretch. Gary Stretch, formerly
Gary Richards. This guy is physically enormous.
He's seven feet, three inches tall. He is physically
imposing. A giant of a man. And yet, look at
how the media and the courts described him. They
called him Dennehy's nodding dog. That is, I
mean, that's just humiliating. It is. But it
captures the power dynamic. Perfectly. Here you
have this relatively petite woman and this giant
man, and yet she was holding the leash. So what
was his role specifically? He was the driver.
He was the getaway car. He drove her to Hereford.
He was there when she jumped out of the car to
stab people. He didn't wield the knife himself,
but he facilitated the terror. And he was convicted
for it. He was convicted of attempted murder
for his role in that spree. Why? I mean, really,
why? You're a 47 -year -old man. You are 7 '3".
Why are you acting as a chauffeur for a serial
killer half your size? Was he terrified of her?
Was he in love with her? What was going on? It's
the million -dollar question, isn't it? And the
answer is likely a toxic cocktail of both, fear
and infatuation. We see this in what are sometimes
called folia de cases, a shared psychosis. Right.
Denny was charismatic. She was incredibly manipulative.
She could be charming one minute and terrifying
the next. She probably alternated between seducing
him and threatening him. If she can stab a man
to death and dress him in sequence, imagine what
she could threaten to do to Gary Stretch if he
didn't comply. So he just becomes a tool, an
extension of her will. Precisely. A nodding dog.
He completely surrendered his own agency to her.
And he wasn't the only one. There was also Leslie
Layton. Leslie Layton, 36. He was more involved
in the cover -up, perverting the course of justice,
helping her dispose of evidence after the Peterborough
murders. And a Robert Moore. Robert Moore, who
was 55. His charge was assisting an offender.
He basically provided her with shelter when she
was on the run. It's like she had this gravitational
pull. She collected these Menstretch, Layton,
Moore, and they just orbited her, doing her bidding,
and just... completely ruining their own lives
in the process. And here's a really telling detail
about their submission to her. When it came to
the trial, both Stretch and Layton stood in the
dock, but they both decided not to give evidence
in their own defense. They just stayed silent.
Total silence. They didn't try to explain themselves.
They didn't try to blame her. They didn't offer
any mitigation. They just... took it that feels
like the ultimate sign of her control even when
she's caught even when they're facing decades
in prison they can't or won't break ranks her
power over them was that absolute or maybe they
just knew there was nothing they could say the
evidence was just so overwhelming but either
way that silence speaks volumes about the power
she held so the spree ends the police finally
catch up with them the car is stopped and we
move to the trial now usually this is where we
get the big legal drama The defense team trying
to argue insanity or diminish responsibility.
They try to find a loophole. Of course. So it's
November 2013. We're at the old Bailey in London.
The stage is set. The press are all there. The
families, the victims are there. Everyone is
bracing for weeks, maybe months of gruesome,
painful testimony. Right. And Joanna Dennehy
walks into the courtroom and drops an absolute
bombshell. She pleads guilty. To everything.
All three counts of murder, both counts of attempted
murder, the whole lot. Just like that. No plea
deal. No negotiation with the prosecution. Nothing.
Just like that. Her own legal team was completely
blindsided. The judge was visibly surprised.
When she was asked by the court clerk to confirm
her plea, she simply said, I have pleaded guilty
and that's that. And that's that. It's so dismissive.
It's like she's bored with the entire process.
It's incredibly dismissive, but it's also highly
strategic. Her sister, Maria, actually gave an
interview where she just nailed it. She said,
There's that word again, control. Think about
it. By pleading guilty, she completely shuts
down the show. She denies the prosecution the
chance to lay out their entire case in painstaking
detail. She denies the victims' families The
catharsis of hearing a jury deliver a guilty
verdict. She decides when it starts and she decides
when it ends. She is the writer, director, and
star of her own grim play. And everyone else
is just a supporting character. And her behavior
in court wasn't exactly what you'd call remorseful,
was it? Far from it. She was seen laughing in
the dock, smirking at the press, treating the
old Bailey like it was a social club. Laughing
while the court is hearing the details of how
she butchered three men. It's the behavior of
someone who is completely and utterly detached
from the moral reality of their actions. And
then she had an outburst. She couldn't help herself.
She started shouting at the judge, Mr. Justice
Spencer. What did she say to him? She shouted,
I don't want to be controlled by anybody. I don't
want to be controlled by my lawyers, by the police,
by anybody. Wow. She literally said the quiet
part out loud. That's the thesis statement for
her entire life. I will not be controlled. And
that is precisely why the sentence she received
was so necessary and so fitting. Mr. Justice
Spencer saw right through her. On February 28th,
2014, he delivered his sentencing remarks. And
he called her a cruel, calculating, selfish,
and manipulative serial killer. He did not hold
back. He couldn't. He highlighted the premeditation.
He highlighted the sadomasochistic nature of
the crimes. The complete and total lack of remorse.
And he handed down the whole life order. You
will never be released. The ultimate control
placed upon the one woman who refused to be controlled
by anyone. Justice. Finally. And usually this
is where the story ends. The cell door slams.
The credits roll. But with Joanna Dennehy, the
story doesn't end with the sentence. If anything,
the prison years are just the sequel. It really
is Joanna Dennehy, the prison years. And it is
just as chaotic and dramatic as the murders themselves.
Because even in a maximum security prison, she
found new ways to manipulate the environment
and everyone in it. Okay, let's talk about the
escape plot. This was at H &P Bronzefield, and
it happened while she was on remand, right? Even
before she was sentenced. That's right. She wasn't
sitting in her cell reflecting on her sins. She
was writing a diary. And in that diary, she was
meticulously plotting a breakout. And this wasn't
a tie bedsheets together and climb out a window
kind of plot, was it? No, this was gruesome.
It was incredibly violent. The plan was to target
a specific female prison officer to kill or seriously
injure them. But the key detail of the plan.
She intended to cut off the officer's finger.
Why the finger? Biometrics. To use the amputated
finger and its fingerprint to bypass the prison's
electronic security systems to open the doors.
That is, I mean, that is straight out of a really
dark, gory spy thriller. It shows she was looking
at the prison guards, not as human beings, but
as keys. Literally, I need that finger to open
that door. It is utilitarian psychopathy at its
absolute worst. So the authorities found the
diary. They foiled the plot. What was the consequence?
They put her in segregation, solitary confinement.
And she was there for two years, from September
2013 to September 2015. So how did the woman
who kills for fun handle being alone with her
own thoughts? She hated it. And a twist that
is just... almost laughable if it weren't so
deeply infuriating, she sued the prison service.
She sued them for what? She sued for damages.
She claimed that the prolonged isolation violated
her human rights. She told the court it had left
her tearful and upset. Hold on. The woman who
dressed a corpse in a sequined dress for a laugh,
the woman who showed a dead body in a bin to
a 14 -year -old, she was tearful and upset because
she was lonely. The irony is absolutely blinding,
but shows her profound narcissism. Her pain matters.
Her discomfort is a human rights violation. The
unimaginable pain she inflicted on dozens of
people. Completely irrelevant. Did she win? Please
tell me she didn't win that case. She did not.
The high court, specifically a Mr. Justice Singh,
rejected her claim. The government lawyers argued,
quite rightly, that she posed a massive risk
to the public. She had plotted to sever a person's
finger. Segregation was deemed necessary and
proportionate. Thank goodness for some sanity
in the courts. But she didn't stay in solitary
forever. She was eventually integrated back into
the main prison population. And that led to romance.
Romance might be a generous term for it, but
yes, relationships. In 2018, she requested official
permission to marry a fellow prisoner, a woman
named Haley Palmer. Haley Palmer. I'm going to
guess Haley's family wasn't buying a hat for
the wedding. They were terrified. They gave interviews
saying it would endanger her. And they were absolutely
right. The relationship was incredibly volatile.
In 2018, Dennehy and Palmer entered into a suicide
pact together in prison. So it was just a destructive
spiral. Completely. But even after that, as late
as 2021, there were reports that they still intended
to marry after Palmer was released. It's a bizarre
codependent situation. But then, Dennehy seemed
to move on. In 2020, she was linked to another
murderer. Emma Aitken. And who is Emma Aitken?
She was serving time for killing a man and dumping
his body outside a social club. It's like a networking
event for the UK's most dangerous women. She
just finds the other predators and gravitates
right toward them. Birds of a feather. But there
is one interaction that really stands out above
all others. And it involves the other member
of that whole life order club we mentioned right
at the start. Don't tell me Rose West. How is
West? They ended up in the same prison. For a
time, yes. At Lowe -Newton Prison in County Durham
back in 2019. Now you might think, two female
serial killers, both serving whole life orders,
maybe they'd swap stories, bond over their shared
infamy. Knowing Dennehy's absolute need to be
the alpha in any situation, I seriously doubt
that. You're spot on. Upon arrival, Dennehy allegedly
made it known that she was going to kill Rose
West. She threatened to kill the only other woman
in the country with a sentence as heavy as hers.
It's a pure dominance display. I'm the boss of
this wing. I'm the most dangerous person here.
Reports at the time said that West was so terrified
she was moved to another prison shortly after,
although the government officially denied the
move was because of that specific threat. But
the narrative is clear. Oh, absolutely. Joanna
Dennehy cannot and will not share the spotlight.
It's just exhausting hearing about it. The constant
manipulation, the threats, the plots. It makes
you realize that the whole life order isn't just
about punishment. It's about containment. She
is a force of nature that simply cannot be let
out into the world. Which brings us to the final
and in some ways the most frustrating part of
this whole story. The systemic failures. Because
before she was a maximum security prisoner, she
was a probationer. Right. This came out after
the trial. While she was killing Kevin Lee, while
she was killing Lucas and John, she was actually
under the official supervision of the probation
service. She was. She had previous convictions
for assault and for owning a dangerous dog. She
was on their radar. She was a known quantity.
So how? How does a woman on probation go on a
triple murder spree over 10 days without anyone
noticing something is very wrong? The official
review of the case. done after the fact, concluded
that the staff dealing with her were, and I quote,
inexperienced. Inexperienced. That sounds like
a very polite way of saying they were completely
out of their depth. Mansedly out of their depth.
You have to understand, probation officers are
often overworked, dealing with huge caseloads
of fairly standard offenders. And then in walks
Joanna Dennehy. She's manipulative. She's charming
when she wants to be. She's a pathological liar.
An inexperienced officer just... Didn't stand
a chance against that. They saw a woman with
a dangerous dog charge and some assault priors.
They didn't see the predator lurking just underneath
the surface. They missed the signs. They missed
the escalation. They missed the thirst for blood
that she was developing. And three men paid the
ultimate price for that bureaucratic blind spot.
It's a tragedy. And it's a lesson, isn't it?
You cannot treat every offender as just a tick
box exercise. Some of them are wolves in sheep's
clothing. or in this case, just wolves. It highlights
the desperate need for specialized training when
dealing with severe personality disorders. A
standard weekly check -in is just not enough
for a psychopath. So we've covered so much ground.
We've been to the ditches of the Fens. We've
seen the black sequined dress. We've been in
that car to Hereford for fun. We've seen the
nodding dog accomplices and the laughter in the
courtroom. When you step back and you look at
the whole horrifying picture of Joanna Dennehy,
what is the single biggest takeaway for you?
For me, it always goes back to that one word
she used, more -ish. It's such a terrifyingly
mundane word, but it's a profound insight into
the mind of a thrill killer. We like to think
of murder as having a reason, anger, money, jealousy.
But Dennehy teaches us that for some people,
the act itself is the reason. The suffering is
the point. For me, it's the stark contrast between
the fantasy she had in her head and the grim
reality. She wanted to be Bonnie and Clyde. She
wanted that cinematic glamour. But there was
no glamour. There was just a dirty wheelie bin
and a muddy ditch and a stolen dog and a sad
giant man who couldn't say no to her. It wasn't
a movie. It was just pathetic, ugly waste. That
is the most important point to land on. These
killers try to mythologize themselves. They want
us to see the legend they've created. Our job
is to strip all that away and see the sordid,
sad reality underneath it all. And yet here we
are, still talking about her. The documentaries
are still being made. In a way, she got her wish.
She is infamous. She is. And that is the central
paradox of true crime, isn't it? We analyze them
to understand them, to protect ourselves from
them. But in doing so, we invariably give them
the attention they so desperately crave. I want
to leave our listener with one final thought
today. We have a justice system that is designed,
at least in theory, for rehabilitation. Or at
the very least, for punishment that fits the
crime. But how does any system actually cope
with a Joanna Dennehy? Someone who explicitly
states they kill for fun. Someone who views a
prison sentence not as a punishment, but just
as a new level in a game. A new stage for manipulation.
It's the ultimate challenge for the system. When
a human being so completely rejects their own
humanity, how do we humanely manage them for
the rest of their natural life? I'm not sure
we have a perfect answer to that yet. It's a
chilling thought to end on. We'll be back next
time with another stack of sources and another
deep dive. Until then, keep your eyes open and
stay safe.