Joanna Dennehy killed three men in and around Peterborough in March 2013. Lukasz Slaboszewski died first, on or about March 19. John Chapman and Kevin Lee died on the same day, Good Friday, March 29. She stabbed each of them, and the bodies were left in ditches in remote farmland in the Cambridgeshire Fens. On April 2, with police across England looking for her, a friend drove her about 140 miles west to Hereford, where she stabbed two men who were out walking their dogs. Both survived.
She was 30. In November 2013, at the Old Bailey in London, she pleaded guilty to every charge: three murders, two attempted murders and three counts of preventing the lawful and decent burial of a body. Her own lawyers had not expected it. On February 28, 2014, Mr Justice Spencer called her "a cruel, calculating, selfish and manipulative serial killer" and ordered that she never be released. Three men who helped her were jailed with her.
Little is on record about Dennehy's early years. The sentencing judge, who had read the psychiatric and background reports, said she had "a perfectly decent and proper upbringing and the advantage of a good home." She had told Kevin Lee that she was abused as a child and that she had killed her father. The judge called both claims "pure fantasy."
An aunt told ITV News in February 2014 that Dennehy had been an "angelic" girl until about the age of 14, when she burned her schoolbooks, and that the person she had known was now dead to her. A former long-term partner told the same report about her manipulative streak and her outbursts of violence. Her barrister in 2016 described a history of self-harm that went back to childhood.
Her criminal record before 2013, as the judge summarized it, was mostly short sentences for dishonesty. In 2012 she was convicted of carrying razor blades in a public place, and the same year she received a community order for assault occasioning actual bodily harm. By early 2013 she was living in rented rooms in Orton Goldhay, a district of Peterborough. She had a star tattooed beneath her right eye, a mark the police later used in their appeals to the public.
Her landlord was Kevin Lee, who was landlord of the two Peterborough houses at the center of the case. He was also her employer and her friend. "Kevin Lee became infatuated with you," the judge told her at sentence. She met the men who would help her through the same small world. Gary Stretch, 47, a man of 7 feet 3 inches who had been known as Gary Richards and had once lived in Herefordshire, was her companion and driver. Leslie Layton, 36, lived in the same house of bedsits as she did. Robert Moore, 55, a man with no criminal record, would later shelter her.
Lukasz Slaboszewski was 31, a Polish man living in Peterborough. He met Dennehy only days before his death and told friends that he had found an "English girlfriend." After he died, his sister said he had been "the joker in the family, always finding something to laugh about." He left his parents and two sisters.
According to the judge, Dennehy befriended him and drew him to a house in the city, where she stabbed him to death. The date given at the trial of her co-defendants and by Cambridgeshire Police was on or about March 19, 2013. She then took a 14-year-old girl she had befriended to the house and lifted the lid of the bin to show her. Dennehy denied this, but the judge found the girl's account "so clear and compelling" that he rejected her denial. In a statement read to the jury, the girl said Dennehy stood beside the bin and kept smiling. The girl's mother said her daughter broke down when she told the police.
Within two days, Dennehy and Stretch bought a green Vauxhall Astra with money she had borrowed from Kevin Lee. The trial heard that the car was registered in the false name of a company called "Undertaker and Sons." The same evening, the judge found, the two of them went looking for a place to leave the body and settled on a ditch at Thorney Dyke, an isolated spot in the Fens. Stretch's local knowledge helped them choose it. Dennehy told Kevin Lee that she had committed this first murder.
John Chapman was 56. He had served in the Royal Navy, and the Peterborough Telegraph described him as a veteran of the Falklands War. By 2013 he was dependent on alcohol and living in a bedsit in the same Orton Goldhay house as Dennehy and Layton. He was afraid of her, and he called her the "man woman." She had threatened to get him out of the house "by any means." His family later described him as "a loving brother, brother in law and uncle" who "was much loved by all who knew him."
A few days before his death, Stretch and Layton were drinking with him at the house. In the early hours of Good Friday, March 29, Dennehy stabbed him to death in his room. The judge said he was "quite sure" the killing was planned, and he listed Chapman's vulnerability among the factors that made it more serious. At 6:34 that morning a call was made from Chapman's phone to Stretch. At 7:32 Layton took a photograph of the body on his phone, which he later deleted. Stretch arrived at the house during the morning.
That evening Chapman's body was carried down the stairs, with Layton's help, and loaded into the Astra. It was taken to the same ditch at Thorney Dyke.
Kevin Lee was 48 and lived in Fletton, Peterborough. Reports at the time described him as a property developer and as a lettings agent; he was landlord of both houses where the killings took place. He had married his wife in 1996, and they had a daughter and a son. Speaking for the family after the pleas, his brother-in-law said Lee was "so full of life, excitement and laughter" and was close to his son, for whom he was "his karting mechanic" as well as his father. "Kevin gave everyone a chance, no matter how vulnerable," he said, "which sadly led to him losing his life."
On the afternoon of March 29, Lee was seen buying CDs in a shop before he went to meet Dennehy. Less than an hour before the meeting, he told his best friend what Dennehy had said she intended to do with him. He had earlier compared her to Uma Thurman's character in "Kill Bill" and to the woman in the "Terminator" films. She stabbed him to death at the same house where Slaboszewski had died. The judge found that he had tried to defend himself.
His body was taken away and left in a ditch near Newborough. The judge found that this murder involved sexual and sadistic conduct. Lee's Ford Mondeo was driven to Yaxley and set on fire. Layton helped to get the petrol. That evening Dennehy and Stretch, with Layton present, cleaned both houses.
Lee's family reported him missing on March 29. On Saturday, March 30, a dog walker found his body on farmland at Newborough. A murder investigation began at once, and Detective Chief Inspector Martin Brunning of Cambridgeshire Police, who led it, later called it "one of the largest and most complex investigations in my 20 years' experience." Dennehy and Stretch were quickly identified, and police issued a wanted appeal for both. Officers described the green star tattoo on her right cheek and told the public not to approach her. Police released photographs of the dead men and asked whether anyone had seen them.
Over the weekend of March 30 and 31, Robert Moore gave Dennehy and Stretch food and a place to sleep at his home in Peterborough for two nights. He knew they were wanted and knew that a body had been hidden. He sent them text messages about food and told them the police were searching for them. When officers asked him, he lied.
Police first called on Layton on Sunday, March 31. He told them he had not seen Chapman or Dennehy. On the afternoon of Monday, April 1, they questioned him again, and while they were there Dennehy rang him several times from Chapman's phone. He called her back after they left. That evening Dennehy, Stretch and Layton drove to King's Lynn to visit a woman they knew, and Stretch threatened her. During the visit Dennehy said the two of them "would get caught," and Stretch said that his children were grown up and he did not care. Earlier that day the pair had burgled a house in Diss, Norfolk. Police said Layton was arrested on April 1.
On April 3 a farmer found two bodies in the ditch at Thorney Dyke. They were John Chapman and Lukasz Slaboszewski. Post-mortem examinations found that all three men had died of stab wounds.
Early on Tuesday, April 2, Dennehy and Stretch drove west. Closed-circuit cameras recorded them at Strensham services on the M5. Stretch knew Herefordshire, and in Kington they met other criminals at a flat. Stretch showed one of the men there a handgun. The judge accepted that he had a gun but found that he got rid of it before the attacks. The pair burgled two houses in Herefordshire that day.
One man they met there, who later gave evidence for the prosecution, traveled on with them in the Astra. The judge found he was not a willing passenger and that Stretch held him physically to stop him leaving the car. He told the jury that Dennehy said she wanted "a man with a dog" and told Stretch she wanted to "have my fun." He said he was frightened of her and thought about alerting an assistant in a shop they stopped at in Hereford; the shop's camera showed Dennehy laughing with him about a minute before the first attack. "If she had told me to put my head through the windscreen, I would have done," he said. Jurors were also shown a photograph Dennehy took of herself in the back of the car, grinning, shortly before the attacks, and pictures of her smiling with a knife, with Stretch copying her pose.
At about 3:40 in the afternoon, in a street in Hereford, Stretch spotted Robin Bereza, 63, a retired fireman walking his dog. He stopped the car, and Dennehy came up behind Bereza and stabbed him. He told the court that she said she was going to kill him, and that he tried to fight her off with kicks that seemed to have no effect. She was driven away by, in his words, a "big gentleman." Stretch drove off believing Bereza was dead. He was treated by paramedics and flown to hospital.
Less than 15 minutes later, Stretch picked a second man, John Rogers, 56, who was walking his dog on a footpath in the city. Dennehy stabbed him repeatedly, and the attack went on after he fell. Rogers told the court that he asked her a question and she answered, "I better do some more." He said she did not seem to be enjoying herself. "As I lay there I thought 'this is where I'm going to die,'" he said. Passers-by gave him first aid, which police said helped to save him, and he was flown to hospital for surgery. Dennehy took his dog, Archie, back to the car, saying it was her only friend. The dog was later recovered unharmed.
Witnesses said Dennehy was smiling after the attacks. Stretch was arrested a few minutes after the attack on Rogers, and Dennehy was arrested soon afterward. Police seized the Astra. A local newspaper reported at the time that she had been detained under the Mental Health Act and taken to a secure unit outside Herefordshire for assessment. Detective Inspector Dave Williams of West Mercia Police later said the attacks had a "devastating effect" on the local community and that random attacks on strangers were rare.
Stretch made his first court appearance before Hereford magistrates. By the time the case reached the Old Bailey, Dennehy faced three charges of murder. She and Stretch were jointly charged with the two attempted murders in Hereford and with preventing the lawful and decent burial of all three men. Layton was charged with perverting the course of justice and with preventing the burial of Chapman and Lee, and Moore with two counts of assisting an offender. Layton and Moore first pleaded not guilty. Mr Justice Sweeney set a provisional trial date of January 14, 2014, at Cambridge Crown Court and listed the four defendants to return to the Old Bailey on November 18, 2013.
Dennehy was remanded first to HMP Peterborough and, from April 18, 2013, to HMP Bronzefield in Surrey, one of two prisons in England and Wales able to hold the highest-risk women.
On Monday, November 18, 2013, Dennehy was arraigned at the Old Bailey before Mr Justice Sweeney. She pleaded guilty to every count against her. Her barrister, Nigel Lickley QC, told the court, "The course of the arraignment is not one we had anticipated." Dennehy told the judge, "I've pleaded guilty and that's that." Stretch, who stood beside her in the dock, denied the charges against him. Moore later pleaded guilty, on December 19, 2013, to two counts of assisting an offender.
The psychiatric evidence explains part of what the court faced. Dr Farnham, in a report dated October 26, 2013, found her fit to plead. He diagnosed a severe emotionally unstable personality disorder, an antisocial personality disorder, a sadomasochistic paraphilia and a psychopathic disorder. She did not use any of these conditions to argue for a partial defense to murder, and the judge later gave them no weight in mitigation. She told the psychiatrist she had killed "to see if I was as cold as I thought I was. Then it got moreish and I got a taste for it."
Stretch and Layton were tried at Cambridge Crown Court in January and February 2014, with Karim Khalil QC representing Stretch. Peter Wright QC, prosecuting, told the jury that Dennehy had "cast a spell" over the men who helped her and over some of her victims, that she killed "for fun," and that both defendants were "willing and able" participants. The jury heard that after the killings she boasted to friends that she and Stretch were like Bonnie and Clyde. A witness said she had claimed to have killed eight people; no other killing has been laid at her door.
Neither man gave evidence. Both said they had acted under duress, out of fear of her. The jury rejected that defense. On Monday, February 10, Stretch was convicted of three counts of preventing lawful burial and of the attempted murder of John Rogers, and Layton of perverting the course of justice. On February 12 Stretch was convicted of the attempted murder of Robin Bereza and Layton of two counts of preventing lawful burial. Prosecutors said the men "revelled in bringing suffering and misery upon their victims and showed no remorse."
DCI Brunning called Dennehy "a sadistic serial killer with a fearsome personality" who had manipulated the men into doing what she wanted.
All four were sentenced at the Old Bailey on February 28, 2014, by Mr Justice Spencer, sitting as a judge of Cambridge Crown Court. Dennehy had been due for sentence earlier, but her case was held back while the courts considered whether whole life orders could survive a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights. Her barrister told the court that the murders were "exceptionally serious" but that the three men who died were not strangers to her, that she had not meant to humiliate them, and that the Hereford attacks were random and unplanned. In the dock she wore a vest top, smiled and laughed, and at one point interrupted her own mitigation to talk to one of her lawyers.
She had written to the judge. In the letter she said she felt no remorse for the murders, and that to say she did "would be a lie." She claimed to regret the Hereford attacks, which she put down to "drunken cruelty plain and simple." The judge did not accept that she felt remorse for those either, and he rejected her claim that she had been too drunk in Hereford to know what she was doing.
He found that each murder involved a substantial degree of premeditation and that the murder of Kevin Lee involved sexual and sadistic conduct. Applying paragraph 4 of Schedule 21 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which covers murders of exceptionally high seriousness, he relied on the Court of Appeal's 2014 decision in McLoughlin, and he said he would have imposed a whole life order even without the finding of premeditation. Among the aggravating features he listed were that she carried knives to the scenes, that she showed a child a dead body, that she took advantage of Chapman's vulnerability, that the bodies were dumped in remote places, and that she went on to try to kill two more men. "The element of just punishment and retribution requires the imposition of a whole life order," he said.
She received life imprisonment with a whole life order for each murder, concurrent life sentences for the two attempted murders and concurrent terms of 12 years for the burial offenses. She was 31. She was only the third woman in Britain to be given a whole life term, after Myra Hindley and Rose West.
The judge found that Stretch used his local knowledge to help dispose of the bodies, scouted places, helped clean the scenes and drove the car, and that in Hereford he chose both men she attacked. He said Stretch had been "revelling" in helping her and in the publicity of being one of Britain's most wanted. Stretch had earlier convictions for burglary, robbery when young, handling stolen goods and, in 2008, harassment involving threats to kill a former partner. He received life imprisonment for the attempted murders, with a minimum term of 19 years, and concurrent determinate terms for the burial offenses.
Layton, 37 by the time of sentence, received 10 years on each burial count, concurrent, and four years consecutive for perverting the course of justice, a total of 14 years. The judge found that he had carried his housemate Chapman's body down the stairs, traveled with the bodies, helped to burn Lee's car, and lied to police again and again during the search for Chapman to protect Dennehy and Stretch.
Moore, 56, received three years. The judge accepted that he had been flattered by Dennehy's attention and that he was "genuinely remorseful," and gave him credit for his guilty plea.
After the sentences DCI Brunning said, "Joanne Dennehy is a dangerous individual and will never be released to the public." He added that two of her victims would live with what she had done for the rest of their lives, and he said police were also thinking of her own family, who were struggling to come to terms with it.
Victim statements were read at the sentencing. Chapman's brother-in-law gave one for his family. Lee's widow said Dennehy had taken and ruined her family's lives, and Lee's family attended the hearing together. They said she had "brainwashed" him. Robin Bereza described how the attack had turned a robust former fireman into a nervous shadow of himself, and said his wife and family had suffered with him. John Rogers had lost the dexterity to play the guitar, and his wife had supported him through the trauma.
Dennehy's years in custody have been documented mainly through a court case she brought herself. In September 2013, while she was still on remand at Bronzefield, prison intelligence pointed to an escape plan involving her and two other prisoners, together with a plan to seriously assault or kill a member of staff. One element was cutting off an officer's finger to defeat the prison's biometric locks. A written plan was reported found in her cell, and a prison uniform in the laundry. She called it a "doodle" in her diary. The matter was referred to police on October 4, 2013, and police took no further action. She was placed on the escape list and, from September 19, 2013, in segregation.
She then asked the High Court, in a claim heard in March 2016, to rule that the segregation was unlawful and a breach of her human rights. Her counsel, Hugh Southey QC, described her as a vulnerable prisoner with severe personality disorders and a history of self-harm, and said the isolation had left her tearful and upset and had at times led her to self-harm again. A lawyer for the prison's operator called her "arguably the most dangerous female prisoner in custody." The government conceded that her segregation from September 21, 2013, to September 4, 2015, had been unlawful in a technical sense because the Secretary of State had not authorized it as the Prison Rules then required.
On May 26, 2016, Mr Justice Singh dismissed the rest of the claim. He found that she knew the substance of the allegations, that her treatment was not inhuman or degrading, that she had not been discriminated against because of her mental health, and that there was "a cogent justification" for keeping her segregated. A declaration that the earlier period was unlawful was enough, and he awarded no damages. The judgment records that a phased plan to return her to normal prison life had begun in August 2015, and that she had been referred in February 2016 to a unit for women with complex needs at HMP Low Newton, though staff then thought a pilot program at Bronzefield more suitable. The Peterborough Telegraph reported that the claim was funded by legal aid; the Ministry of Justice said it defended such compensation claims robustly.
No appeal against her convictions or the whole life order has been reported. In August 2023, when Lucy Letby received a whole life order, LBC listed Dennehy among the women serving whole life terms in Britain. Under that order she cannot be considered for parole.
Eight killings: a witness at the Cambridge trial said Dennehy had boasted of killing eight people. Police found no other killing, and she was never charged with more than three.
Her own account of her past: her claims to Kevin Lee that she had been abused as a child and had killed her father were rejected by the sentencing judge as fantasy.
The Hereford attacks and drink: she said in her letter that she was drunk; the judge rejected the claim that she did not know what she was doing.
Duress: Stretch and Layton both said they acted out of fear of her. The jury rejected the defense, and the judge found Stretch was a willing and enthusiastic helper. The judge did accept that the man from Kington who rode in the car was not there willingly.
The escape plan: the prison treated the written plan as credible; Dennehy called it a doodle; police took no action. The High Court did not decide whether the plan was real, only that the prison was entitled to act on the intelligence.
About March 19, 2013: Lukasz Slaboszewski is stabbed to death in Peterborough.
March 29, 2013 (Good Friday): John Chapman is killed in the early hours; Kevin Lee is killed in the afternoon. Lee's car is burned at Yaxley, and his family reports him missing.
March 30, 2013: a dog walker finds Lee's body near Newborough. Dennehy and Stretch stay with Robert Moore.
March 31, 2013: police first question Leslie Layton.
April 1, 2013: Layton is arrested; Dennehy and Stretch burgle a house in Diss and visit King's Lynn.
April 2, 2013: they drive to Herefordshire; Robin Bereza and John Rogers are stabbed in Hereford in the afternoon; Stretch and Dennehy are arrested.
April 3, 2013: a farmer finds the bodies of Chapman and Slaboszewski at Thorney Dyke.
April 18, 2013: Dennehy is remanded to HMP Bronzefield.
September 19, 2013: she is placed in segregation after the escape plan is reported.
November 18, 2013: she pleads guilty to all counts at the Old Bailey.
December 19, 2013: Moore pleads guilty to assisting an offender.
January and February 2014: Stretch and Layton are tried at Cambridge Crown Court; verdicts on February 10 and 12.
February 28, 2014: Mr Justice Spencer imposes a whole life order on Dennehy and sentences the three men.
March 2016: the High Court hears her segregation claim.
May 26, 2016: Mr Justice Singh dismisses the claim, apart from a declaration about 2013 to 2015.
August 2023: she is reported as one of the women serving whole life orders in Britain.