Joanna Dennehy Becomes the First Woman Ordered by a Judge to Die in Prison for the Murders of Three Men
Mr. Justice Spencer called her "a cruel, calculating, selfish, and manipulative serial killer." Three men who helped her were also jailed.
Published
Joanna Dennehy told a psychiatrist that she had killed to see how she would feel, "to see if I was as cold as I thought I was. Then it got moreish and I got a taste for it." On February 28, 2014, Mr. Justice Spencer ordered that she never be released, making her the first woman in England to be told by a judge that she would die in prison.
Sitting at the Old Bailey, the judge sentenced her to life imprisonment with a whole-life order for the murders of three men in Peterborough within 10 days at the end of March 2013. She received concurrent life sentences for two attempted murders and concurrent 12-year terms for three offenses of preventing the lawful burial of her victims. "You are a cruel, calculating, selfish, and manipulative serial killer," he told her. In a letter to him she had written that she felt no remorse for the murders and that to claim otherwise would be a lie.
Dennehy, who pleaded guilty to every count when she was arraigned in November 2013, killed Lukasz Slaboszewski, 31, a Polish man who had come to England in 2005; John Chapman, 56, a Royal Navy veteran who lived in the same house; and Kevin Lee, 48, her landlord and employer, a husband and father. Days later she stabbed two men chosen at random as they walked their dogs in Hereford. Both survived. Gary Stretch, who drove her there and helped dispose of the bodies, was jailed for life with a minimum of 19 years after a jury convicted him of the attempted murders; Leslie Layton received 14 years for preventing lawful burial and perverting the course of justice, and Robert Moore three years for sheltering the pair while they were on the run.
Only two other women, Myra Hindley and Rosemary West, had been given whole-life terms, and both received them from a Home Secretary rather than a judge.
The court record names her Joanne Christine Dennehy; she is better known as Joanna. The BBC said David Waddington set Hindley's whole-life term and Jack Straw set West's, while the Guardian credited Straw with both.
Sources
- The Queen v Joanne Christine Dennehy and others: sentencing remarks of Mr Justice Spencer, Courts and Tribunals Judiciary
- Spree killer Joanne Dennehy 'had sadistic lust for blood', BBC News
- Joanna Dennehy: serial killer becomes first woman told by judge to die in jail, The Guardian
Related News
- November 18, 2013: Joanna Dennehy Unexpectedly Pleads Guilty at the Old Bailey to Murdering Three Men Found in Cambridgeshire Ditches