BONUS: The Black Widow's Web – Joanne Dennehy (Living With A Serial Killer)

Weight loss medications are everywhere right now.

Everyone's talking about them, everyone's on them.

But let's be real.

Have you seen the price tag?

It's hard to believe they're actually accessible.

That's where HERS comes in.

HERS is transforming women's healthcare by providing access to affordable weight loss treatment plans.

They connect you with a medical provider who will work with you to determine the best treatment option for you.

So, if you've been struggling to find a solution to your weight loss journey, it's time to find the best option that works for you through HERS.

Start your free online visit today at forhers.com/slash snapped.

That's F-O-R-H-E-R-S dot com slash snapped for your personalized weight loss treatment options.

For HERS.com slash snapped.

Weight loss by HERS is not available everywhere.

Compounded products are not approved or reviewed for safety, effectiveness, or quality by the FDA.

Prescription required.

See website for full details, important safety information, and restrictions.

Actual price depends on product and plan purchased.

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

You chose to hit play on this podcast today.

Smart choice.

Progressive loves to help people make smart choices.

That's why they offer a tool called AutoQuote Explorer that allows you to compare your progressive car insurance quote with rates from other companies.

So you save time on the research and can enjoy savings when you choose the best rate for you.

Give it a try after this episode at progressive.com.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates.

Not available in all states or situations.

Prices vary based on how you buy.

Hi, Snap listeners.

We're bringing you a special bonus episode today from Oxygen's Hit Series, Living with a Serial Killer, airing on Oxygen on Saturdays at 9 p.m.

Eastern and Pacific Time.

You can also watch full episodes live or on demand on the free Oxygen app by clicking the link in our description.

Enjoy!

Serial killers in the United States have long dominated the headlines.

But these diabolical murderers aren't unique to America.

In England, serial killers have also horrified a nation.

And one of the UK's most notorious murderers is Joanne Denahy.

This is Joanna Dennehy, the multiple killer.

She took the lives of three men without a second thought.

Joanna Denahy decided to admit murdering these three men and one of the country's most notorious serial killers.

Over 10 days in 2013, Joanne Denahy killed three men and left two others for dead.

But to some, this cold-blooded killer was a wife, a daughter, and a mother.

So what is it like to discover you've shared your life, your home, and even your DNA with one of the world's most deadly killers.

I'm Beth Karas, and this is Living with a Serial Killer.

It's 10 p.m.

on Friday, March 29th, 2013, in Peterborough, England, a rural area 100 miles north of London.

Police have received reports of an abandoned vehicle on fire on a rural stretch of road.

When that call comes in, we have an automobile on fire, and there's no rhyme or reason as to why it is in a particular location.

So the detectives run the plates.

and the registration comes back to a man out of Peterborough, and his name is Kevin Lee.

Kevin Lee was a married father of two, whose wife had reported him missing, along with the family's blue station wagon.

On the ground, senior investigator Jeff Hill is among the first officers notified.

I first became aware of Kevin Lee being missing as a consequence of a telephone call from one of my detective inspectors.

There was something not quite right with this.

A person was missing and their vehicle had seemingly been set on fire fire intentionally.

With Kevin Lee missing and his car on fire, Jeff Hill and his team ask, what could have happened to this man?

Then early the next morning, 10 miles from the burnt out car, A dog walker makes a gruesome discovery.

Kevin's body was found face down in the ditch and he was wearing a woman's cocktail dress.

This victim has received five stab wounds to the chest and there is the appearance that he has been sexually assaulted.

Local journalist Steve Briggs attended the scene.

If we do maybe two or three murders a year that happened in Peterborough.

But I can't remember another case where a body had been dumped in this way.

This is, it was very unusual.

It was very unusual.

Police have discovered Kevin Lee's body, but who is responsible for his tragic death?

We learned a lot more about Kevin Lee as the investigation progressed.

Kevin had a business which was associated with the rental of properties to people people who were on benefits.

There would be within that community people who did have a criminal record.

So in doing the due diligence to find out who our victim is, these detectives, they find out that there is an associate of Kevin Lee's named Gary Stretch.

Gary Stretch was seven feet three inches tall and had a long and violent criminal history.

So in the course of their investigation on Stretch,

they find video from a gas station where Stretch had been inside.

This video is going to put Stretch

in possession of Kevin Lee's car.

And now he's got a female with him.

Following Gary Stretch into the gas station is an unidentified woman driving a second vehicle.

So now one of the challenges here is to get this unidentified female identified.

Well, what do we discover?

We discover that she is also

one of Kevin Lee's tenants,

Joanne Denney.

Denahy and Stretch were working as sort of painters and decorators around the houses and doing them up.

We didn't know much about Dennehy at the time, if anything.

Officers rush to bring Gary Stretch and his female associate, Joanne Dennehy, in for questioning.

But neither individual can be found.

Police put out what is called a bolo.

Be on the lookout because this is critical.

We need to find these people as soon as possible.

And license recognition equipment that we have, it knocks off the license plate on Stretch's car 150 miles away from the scene.

By now the police were on their trial

using CCTV, telephone communications, tracking devices.

The detectives want to forewarn the officials in Hereford that they have a possible murder suspect in their midst.

Well, by the time they contact them, we already have another victim.

At around 3.40pm, a man in his 60s was stabbed on West Valing Street in Hereford.

The man remains in a critical but stable condition.

The victim, Robin Bereza, survived five stab wounds and phoned police to report the unprovoked attack himself.

It's wholly unusual for an attack on a complete stranger randomly in the middle of the day is unprecedented, particularly for a place like Hereford.

What's remarkable about our victim now in Hereford is that he's giving descriptions of who stabbed him.

And as the reports start to come in, detectives, officers are getting very excited that this has got to be, it's got to be Stretch.

Well, it turns out it's not Stretch.

He is very specific about a female with a tattoo of a star on her face.

Investigators make the connection.

Robin Berezo's attacker is Stretch's female associate, Joanne Dennehy.

It was a big surprise when we learned it was Denahy.

It really did

change the entire story for us.

So who was this slight five-foot woman viciously attacking a passerby in broad daylight?

And why was she doing this?

At the time of the attack, police weren't the only ones with questions about Joanne.

150 miles north, her estranged daughter Cheyenne was also wondering what had become of her mother.

Cheyenne and her sister hadn't seen Joanne for four years after moving away with their dad.

My memories from around 9 to 12 were just like a normal upbringing.

I had friends, going to school every day,

just normal.

But I wanted to know what she'd been doing for years and why she hadn't reached out.

As a kid, it's like,

why is she not here?

Why am I not good enough?

Kind of thing.

I'd hoped that she would knock on that door, but I knew I was kidding myself.

At this juncture, Cheyenne has not seen her mother for four years.

She has no idea what's going on in her mother's life, and obviously, she has a lot of questions.

As Cheyenne wondered what had happened to her mother, 150 miles south, police were trying to arrest Joanne Denahy for a violent knife attack.

In the middle of the chaos to take care of this first victim, We get a report 10 minutes afterwards that there's a second victim.

In a really, really short space of time, you've had two horrific attacks on two completely innocent members of the public randomly on the street.

Immediately you start thinking, Crikey, this is escalating.

Multiple victims now, multiple scenes that you've got to deal with, dealing with a marauding attacker.

With innocent lives at stake, Can please catch Joanne Danahy before she hurts anyone else?

And should investigators reconsider her part in the brutal murder of her landlord, Kevin Lee?

She wants to become notorious.

That is satanic.

That is pure, pure evil.

Serial killer.

How many bodies are there?

Joanne Denahy is on the run from police after stabbing two innocent dog walkers, Robin Bereza and John Rogers.

This, now, we've got a real sense of urgency.

We want to get her off the street before she harms anyone else, as quickly as possible.

How can somebody randomly stab two innocent people?

And making sense of that is very, very difficult.

Although both stabbing victims survived, reports from the second scene suggest John Rogers's injuries were particularly grave.

Witnesses in the area are seeing Joanne walk away from the second victim after 40 stab wounds.

And she is now licking the knife that she used.

To go and stab somebody 40, sometimes 40 times and then lick the blood off of the blade and walk away giggling, that is satanic.

That is pure, pure evil.

I cannot even begin to explain how dangerous this woman is.

But with two brutal attacks taking place within 10 minutes of each other, can police track Joanne Denahy Denahy down in time to stop any more bloodshed?

You've got a couple of people here, Stretch and Joanne, that have been getting very good at going underground.

Whatever they're doing is making it difficult for officials to find Joanne.

To catch a predator, you have to think like a predator.

And so the hunt is on.

Hardworking detectives doing the footwork that needs to be done.

They find Stretch's vehicle at the house of an associate while he is offloading some stuff that they stole.

And they find Joanne sitting in the car

by herself.

When the police finally catch up with Dena Hay, they find her in a car.

She is covered in blood.

She has a bloodstained knife.

Put myself in that position, and I've been in the position of a responding officer many, many times earlier in my career.

Gotcha, is the first thought.

Now, remarkably,

they walk up to Joanne.

They speak with her.

She gets out of the car.

She's very compliant.

They put her in handcuffs and they walk her back to the van and put her in custody.

And she doesn't move a finger to resist.

While this is going on with Joanne, big boy Stretch has seen what's happened to her and being the noble person he is.

He's out of there.

But officers get on him pretty quickly and he is arrested as well.

Stretch and Dennehy are taken into custody, along with several high-value items found in their possession, presumed stolen.

Shortly after Joanne Denahy's arrest, her estranged family are contacted.

I was at a sleepover that night doing normal sleepover stuff, baking, making

videos, funny ones, you name it, we were doing it.

Then my dad called me home unexpectedly.

I got home and as I closed the door and turned around to him he was kind of like

I got some really bad news.

I was like okay what's wrong?

What's happened?

And he's turned around to me and said I've just found out your mum's stabbed someone and at that point

I just kind of

lost all kind of senses and I just fell to to the floor and started crying.

And the first thing I said was,

will I turn into her?

Like, will that be me?

The days after my mum was arrested, it all came crashing down.

I had, obviously, there was media outlets at the front door.

I had to be escorted to and from school.

by the police.

I had to be escorted to the train station by the police to get away.

I was very depressed, yeah.

I remember nights where I'd cry myself to sleep or I'd cry myself so hard that I just had nothing left to cry.

I was scared because that's not the person that I grew up with and for her to just flip, I was like, I've lived in the same house as that woman.

I have held that woman's hand.

I have kissed her goodnight.

I wanted to know

why she'd done what she'd done and what drove her to do what she'd done and why she hadn't thought about the ripple effect on everyone else.

To be told that your mother has been arrested for attempted murder has to be one of the most shocking things you could possibly hear.

And trying to then go back to school, to friendships, to life is unimaginably difficult because what do you talk about?

How do you relate?

How do you even keep your head out of what's going on at home?

You can't.

So disturbing, distressing, concerning.

And must have raised some questions around: is there some genetic here that I'm going to be like this?

Is this going to be a passed-on somehow to me?

150 miles south of Cheyenne in Hereford, Joanne is booked on the charge of two attempted murders.

But what about Joanne's possible role in the death of her Peterborough landlord, Kevin Lee?

In investigative profiling, we look for consistencies and patterns that would suggest typologies.

But these two criminal incidents are entirely different.

One was premeditated murder and the other was this frenzied spontaneous attack.

It's as if they're committed by two entirely different people.

Together, Cambridgeshire and Herefordshire police need to uncover exactly who they have in custody.

Is Dennehy a frenzied attacker or a calculated murderer?

Now the investigation is really going to start.

Because now we have to find out who in the heck is Joanne Dennehy.

Detectives on Kevin Lee's murder case are preparing to travel 150 miles to interview their suspects, Joanne Dennehy and Gary Stretch.

But as Joanne Denahy is booked into custody, the situation quickly changes.

Any medical conditions?

Yes.

Okay.

Go on.

Was he taking you through this family?

Two thirty-seven.

Okay, so you've got two floor on.

Anything else to say?

You've got cuts all the way there.

Joanne's responses make police realize that she is a potential danger to herself or others.

In England, because she has

talked about having these particular ailments, symptoms, she must be assessed.

UK law requires anyone in custody presenting mental health concerns to be evaluated right away, ahead of any police interrogation.

And when Joanne Denahy is assessed, the results are revealing.

She is diagnosed with a condition called paraphilia sadomasochism.

A paranoid sadomasochist suffers from a paraphilia or a sexual disorder in which they get unusual, abnormal, sexual arousal.

In this particular case, from committing pain or harmful actions against another person, that's the sadism, or pain against themselves, that's the masochism.

This is a very dangerous combination.

Personally looking at Denahey, she clearly had a developing personality disorder, what we call borderline personality, which is swinging moods, vacuous sense of self, often self-harming and clamoring for attention.

Would you be cheery if you knew up for attempted murder and murder?

I wouldn't, but.

No, but I was a smiler.

Please help me.

After this diagnosis, Joanne is removed from police custody and committed to a mental hospital for 10 days.

There, doctors can assess her and determine whether or not she understands the crimes of which she's accused and can participate in the criminal justice process.

Not being able to interview Joanne for 10 days while she was sectioned and being assessed was slightly frustrating.

You got the sense that there was a manipulation of the system.

Denahi, if she was so minded, could have decided to fabricate a story

to give account for her actions and some of the evidence that she would have known that we would have had.

But although being unable to interview Joanne for 10 days was frustrating, Detectives use this time to find out more about Dennehy's connection to Kevin Lee.

They know he was her landlord, but could there have been more to their relationship?

So, as the detectives start to dig into

who is Joanne Denney, they really start to dig into it.

And they find out they talk to Kevin Lee's wife.

She brings up the fact that she believes

that

Kevin and Joanne had a thing going on.

So now she's carrying on an affair with a married man,

and

we know how Kevin ends up.

Could details of Joanne and Kevin's sexual relationship provide any clues to his demise?

It certainly appears that violence in kink was part of the sexual connection between Kevin Lee and Joanne Denahy.

So Kevin Lee on the day he was killed, he told a friend he was going to go into a house for sex.

He said he was going to be dressed up and raped when he got to the house.

He was, after all, found in that ditch wearing a woman's cocktail dress and he had been positioned face down with the dress pulled up over his waist, his buttocks in the air, in a very humiliating pose.

But just as Kevin Lee's murder starts to make some sense, this investigation takes a massive turn.

So in the middle of everything going on at Kevin Lee's scene, at the scenes in Hereford,

two more bodies pop up.

In a further development, the bodies of two men were discovered at Thorney Dyke yesterday morning.

There will be extra police officers out on patrol in the areas where the bodies were discovered.

And we have a large team of detectives working on the investigations into all three deaths.

So now the question becomes:

is Joanne Denahy responsible for these two?

Or do we have somebody else out here that's gone off the rocker?

She is the master puppeteer.

Joanne

invites him

to the Black Widow's Web.

Once she's got her claws into you, you struggle to get out.

Less than 24 hours after Joanne Denahy's arrest, police in Cambridgeshire receive a devastating call.

On the Wednesday morning, one of the detectives in the office said there was a telephone call I needed to take.

So I went across to the phone, spoke to somebody in the control room who told me that two further bodies had been located in a ditch.

So these two new bodies that have popped up, the farmer finds them, they're together, they're stabbed.

The bodies are found just five miles from where Dennehy's landlord, Kevin Lee, was discovered.

It was an easy assumption to make that given the fact that three bodies were found within a very short distance of each other or within dikes within a short space of time that they are likely to be connected.

But I was also very conscious not to make assumptions that they were.

But with suspects Joanne Denahy and Gary Stretch in custody on the other side of the country, how could they be responsible?

And if Stretch and Dennehy didn't kill these men, who did?

Despite investigators proceeding with caution, news of the discovery soon spreads.

At about half past three,

we had it confirmed that there were two more bodies out at Thorny Dyke.

We go out there, we see the scene, we speak to as many people in the area as possible, and we're trying to find out what the similarities are to the Kevin Lee case.

In those circumstances, we'd have been under immense pressure by the media.

That would have been very difficult to investigate.

With the press reporting Kevin Lee's killer has struck again, can investigators prove they have the right suspects in custody?

At that early stage, we didn't have any identification of these individuals.

We didn't know who they were, how they'd been murdered

and why they'd ended up in the ditch.

I went out to the scene with another one of my senior detectives, saw that in the ditch there were two bodies.

They were partially submerged.

We could see that they looked to have been there for a little while.

The detectives take a portable fingerprint scanner to the scene to scan and hopefully get these people identified.

The first body was identified as Lukas Slabozewski.

Luka Slaboszewski was a 31-year-old Polish national who moved to Peterborough in 2005 to work as a delivery driver.

I don't think Lucas was reported missing until quite late on.

I think it's because he's part of the Eastern European community who's traveled here.

I don't know how many people he knew actually in the Peterborough area.

Here we have a young, attractive man, newly arrived in town.

He doesn't know anyone.

He's a stranger in a strange land.

Initially, they don't find any particular connection between he and Joanne.

But then they come up with a text

that

from him that refers to a beautiful girl.

He phoned or texts his family, I've met this beautiful girl.

I'm meeting her tonight or tomorrow.

I'm happy.

She's beautiful.

Could Joanne Dennehy be the beautiful girl in Lucas's text?

Could they have been in a relationship, just as Joanne was with Kevin Lee?

Could seduction be part of this suspected serial killer's MO?

As a child, Joanne's daughter Cheyenne does recall her mother seeking male attention.

I remember as a child, she would walk down the street and she'd wear like clothing that was revealing.

You could be again walking down the street and my mum would be flirting with other men right in front of my dad.

As I started growing up we would go out for walks and I thought nothing of it.

Oh walk with my mum, have fun.

But it started turning into

using me as an excuse

to go to other men's houses and sleep with them while I was in another room and played with their children.

Like friends would have birthdays, but it was getting to a point where I'd never get invited anymore, even if I was friends with them, because they'd be too scared because of my mum.

So I always missed out.

Or she'd sleep with her dads.

It's really tricky when young children start to see worrying, concerning behaviour in a parent.

However much she might have understood things were going wrong and mum was getting less well or becoming more unpredictable, she wouldn't have had an adult's understanding of that.

She knew what she was doing.

She was using her wiles to get what she wanted from people.

And she'd, I don't know, the way she'd present herself to the people, they'd like fall in love with her and do whatever she wanted.

And it's like

how and why, you know what I mean?

And it's the same with just everyone around her.

She's like, once she's got her claws into you, you struggle to get out.

Detectives suspect Joanne may have lured Lukas Laboszewski to his death.

But how can they be sure she's the beautiful girl in his text?

So this text in and of itself is not going to be a real solid connection.

There's a lot of implication here.

We already know that Joanne Denahy is in a relationship with her landlord, Kevin Lee.

Everywhere she goes, she leads with her sexuality.

In short, she's just a seductress.

With no conclusive connection between Denahy and Luca's, will details of the second victim in the ditch prove Joanne Denahy's involvement and confirm Joanne Denahy is the rarest of criminals?

A female serial killer.

You've got like a Bonnie and Clyde escapade.

Someone who is engaging in hedonistic lust killing.

She's out hunting.

If you're shopping while working, eating, or even listening to this podcast, then you know and love the thrill of a deal.

But are you getting the deal and cash back?

Racketon shoppers do.

They get the brands they love, savings, and cash back, and you can get it too.

Start getting cash back at your favorite stores like Target, Sephora, and even Expedia.

Stack sales on top of cash back and feel what it's like to know you're maximizing the savings.

It's easy to use, and you get your cash back sent to you through PayPal or check.

The idea is simple.

Stores pay Racketon for sending them shoppers, and Rakuten shares the money with you as cash back.

Download the free Racketon app or go to Racketon.com to start saving today.

It's the most rewarding way to shop.

That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N, Racketon.com.

Candice Rivera has it all.

In just three years, she went from stay-at-home mom to traveling the world, saving lives and making millions.

Anyone would think Candice's charm life is about as real as unicorns.

But sometimes the truth is even harder to believe than the lies.

Not true.

There's so many things not true.

You gotta believe me.

I'm Charlie Webster and this is Unicorn Girl, an Apple original podcast produced by Seven Hills.

Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts.

Investigators are trying to establish whether Joanne Danahy is connected to two bodies discovered in a ditch near where her landlord and lover, Kevin Lee, was found murdered five days earlier.

So we've got some strong circumstantial stuff.

But, you know, at this point in the investigation, there is no direct evidence.

Without a direct connection, it's still possible another killer could be on the loose.

But at this stage, police have yet to identify the ditch's second body.

Could he provide the missing link to Joanne Dennehy?

So again, we use the portable fingerprint scanner to get Lucas identified, and now we also are able to use that equipment to get John Chapman identified.

John Chapman, he was ex-Navy.

He had been married.

His wife had died.

He was on Skid Row.

He was becoming reliant on drink.

His only hobby was carp fishing.

I interviewed the local shopkeepers and neighbours and they thought he was a lovely, harmless guy.

However, he lived in a house that was owned by Kevin Lee.

The second identified victim now, John Chapman, is also one of Kevin's tenants.

And so it's not a far stretch, and it's not too difficult to connect all of these dots.

Police are now convinced Joanne Denney is responsible for all three of these murders, but they need proof.

When and where did these murders occur?

And how did Dennehy's proposed triple killing spree play out?

We started to put all the pieces together, particularly around the last sightings of individuals, and we were able to establish that those two victims were murdered way before Kevin Lee was murdered.

So as a result of all the forensic evidence gathered at the scene at Lucas'

murder scene,

the authorities were able to determine that Lucas

was the first victim of Joanne Denahy.

The interesting thing about Lucas'

murder, it's clear that he is killed in one place and then the body is dumped in another place.

Forensics suggest Lucas' body has been moved.

But if he hadn't been in the ditch for two weeks, where exactly had Lucas been?

Fortunately for investigators, Denehye makes a classic mistake.

She is so proud of her crime, she wants to gloat about it.

As the detectives begin to investigate Lucas' murder, they come up with this witness that can tell them

what happened.

The anonymous witness explains Joanne told her everything that happened on the night of Lucas's murder and paints a terrifying picture for police.

They meet at a mall and then Joanne

invites him

to the Black Widow's Web.

Then he lured him to a house which was rented by Kevin Lee.

He went in in the evening.

In the kitchen area, she pulled out a small lock knife,

stabbed him through the heart.

Again and again.

She

got his body

with Stretch, who was waiting in another room in case something went wrong.

And they took this heavily built Polish man and they put him in a wheelie bin in the backyard

for about four or five days.

She shows the body in the trash bin to a local teenage girl.

This is someone who has absolutely no sense of guilt or remorse.

She's actually bragging about her crime.

She wanted to see the reaction on that teen's face to know what she had accomplished.

John Chapman was last seen alive nine days after Lucas's death.

But at 59, he was significantly older than 30-year-old Joanne.

Had Denahy also seduced him?

The murder of John Chapman is decidedly different.

He's an older man, an alcoholic, completely vulnerable, harmless, stabbed to death in his bed while he's sleeping.

In killing Lukas Slavozevsky, Joanne Denahy had essentially just taken the lid off, and she had discovered that inside the jar is somebody who is capable of murder and who quite enjoys it.

So her second victim, Mr.

Chapman, he's somebody who is for her quite an easy kill.

He's somebody who is easy to dispatch and get rid of.

Neighbours had complained about lice

and Lee wanted Chapman out.

but he wouldn't go through this court process.

He would send round his enforcers, Dennehy and Stretch.

She'd actually been placed in this accommodation to intimidate him, to frighten him.

While there's no relationship necessarily with John, other than the fact he's a tenant in the same spot,

this is all starting to build in her.

The crime scene of Chapman is like something out of a horror movie.

You cannot imagine

what that room was like.

She stabbed Lucas five times and she stabs John Chapman ten times.

It is interesting to watch the pattern.

of behavior, the pattern of the attacks.

Joanne's method is remaining the same, but her

technique is changing and it's evolving.

With Lucas killed on March 19th, John last seen on March 28th, and Kevin Lee found two days later, did Kevin Lee's death make sense as the culminating act in this 10-day timeline of escalating violence?

When we look at Denahi's murder of Kevin Lee, I think she would consider it to be the jewel in the crown.

She has gone from somebody who is killed for the thrill and then killed for the expedience to someone who is engaging in hedonistic lust killing.

We are now seeing this sexual component of this thing starting to escalate as well because of the condition that we find Kevin's body in.

So this is really an interesting case of watching a person just

fall into

the black pit of evil.

But if Joanne Denahy murdered the last of her three Peterborough victims on March 29th and was arrested four days later, 150 miles away, what crimes could she have committed during the four days she was unaccounted for?

Can police really be sure there aren't other victims?

You know, when you have that number of bodies, the first things that start going through your mind are serial killer, how many bodies are there?

We've got this four-day gap.

Who knows?

Where we have another body that pops up?

Joanne Denahy has now been connected to three murders in Peterborough and two stabbings in Hereford.

But police can't be certain there aren't victims still to be found.

Now that we are finding bodies popping up, the question becomes how many bodies are out there that we don't know about.

Could Stretch and Denehy have harmed anyone else in the four days between Kevin Lee's murder and their arrest?

As is common when we have something like this going on, these little crime sprees that involve murders, there are other crimes being committed.

So there's a burglary that they commit,

and

Joanne is found with a camera stolen out of that burglary.

We've got an actual camera where Joanne has been documenting in a pictorial the activities that her and Stretch have been involved in.

This is awesome.

This is a gold mine of information.

This is absolutely critical to our inquiry.

You've got it stolen in a burglary in Norfolk.

And then you've got like a Bonnie and Clyde escapades recorded on this camera of their journey.

The camera's 29 remarkable images map out a 200-mile journey showing Stretch and Denehy on the run.

These photos are as if they're on a tour to the Grand Canyon or something.

They're posing with silly smiles and it shows a complete disregard to the reality of what they've done.

But moreover, they're loving and basking in the attention.

Reflecting on the images on that camera, it's almost as if she wanted to capture that journey for posterity, knowing what she'd done, knowing that she probably would be captured at some stage.

There was a record of it to be used,

and she controlled that.

The camera's images led police to various associates who could account for Dennehy and stretch during their four days on the run.

With a clear understanding of stretch and Dennehy's every move, police could now be confident no further murders had been committed.

Because of the information that the detectives were able to get from those pictures off of that camera, they were able to determine that there were no other victims in Joanne's crime spree and murder spree.

The associates that Stretch and Dennehy met while on the run also described Joanne's shocking reaction to news of her own manhunt.

We heard that when the story was on the news, her name was mentioned, her face was shown.

She celebrated and was jumping up and down on seeing that.

So I think she wanted to be connected to these crimes.

She has such a kind of grandiose sense of herself at this point in time.

She's really loving the fact that the eyes of the world are upon her.

But whereas Joanne was seen to revel in her notoriety, news coverage only served to increase her daughter Cheyenne's pain.

I was 13 at the time and Obviously it's a very big thing and my dad was trying to protect me from it but you can't protect me from something that big when other people are going to find out.

It's in the news, it's in the papers.

I was really kept away from it until it was in the media and I'd walked into a co-op

and I'm curious as it is so I was like looking for newsstands.

I was looking for it so that was my own fault and on the front page was her.

with the dagger and saying that she'd murdered and I just froze.

Like I all I knew is that she'd killed someone.

That's all I knew.

And then I read it and I just

broke down and I had to be taken out of the shop and then I did read it all over the like what had been said and I just

it was a lot.

Yeah.

Had Cheyenne been warned, it wouldn't have made the information any better, but it would have meant that she was prepared for what was on that newspaper, that she would have known that there was a risk she'd see it, it that that information was out there the fact that she had no knowledge of it prior and it just came and hit her while she was with her friends would have sent her into such a state of turmoil

I found one article and that just led to a deep dark hole of the rest of them.

All basically the same story, just worded differently.

Monster, murderer, just them words just always stood out to me and it broke my heart because

essentially she is that but at the same time I don't want to know where is that

as Cheyenne learned of her mother's crimes in the press many details remained unreported

and for investigators crucial facts remained unknown.

More than a week after her arrest, Joanne was still unavailable for an interview.

In my line of work, interviews are crucial.

There are a lot of questions that I certainly would have had, and I'm sure the detectives would have had for her.

But in England, she must be assessed.

They cannot speak to her for 10 days.

Could the case change as the result of an interview with Joanne?

What if she claimed she'd been coerced to kill by Gary?

With Joanne's 10-day hospitalization nearing its end, will investigators finally get the chance to interview her and find out?

She's engaging in conversations with the doctor, quite freely admitting the fact that she killed people.

This woman is completely lost

in her own craziness.

Is she going to kick off?

Is she going to have a meltdown?

Is she going to make a joke about it?

You just, I can't predict.

British police have built a detailed picture of Joanne Denahy's terrifying crime spree, but they have yet to question Dennehy or officially charge her for her crimes.

Then, on April 12th, 10 days after her arrest, doctors finally deemed Joanne Denahy fit for an interview.

She went through some really comprehensive assessments,

independent assessments by medical professionals, and was found to be not only fit to be interviewed, but entirely fit to make her own plea.

Investigators have been waiting to hear Dennehy's explanation of events.

Will she claim innocence?

Or will she confess to the brutal crimes she allegedly committed?

A serial killer, in most cases, they're narcissists.

They will begin to share with you the ins and outs, and they'll tell you the story

with a straight face.

They'll show no emotion.

It's like they're reading a bedtime story to their kid.

They are proud of what they've done.

Let her tell her story.

But when officers finally question Dennehy, she simply says no comment.

On one hand, there was that surprise, I suppose, but then the suspects do have a right to remain silent, don't have to say anything.

So you have to be ready for that eventuality.

She's doing this intentionally.

She's doing it because she is enjoying

the little cat and mouse game here that we're playing now with the police.

Although Denihy's silence is unexpected, by now it doesn't really matter.

Having had time to build a solid case, police charged Joanne with two counts of attempted murder and three counts of murder.

There was some very, very strong forensic evidence that linked the suspects to the crimes.

There was some very comprehensive CCTV footage.

So

the case was a very strong one.

But a strong case is no guarantee of a conviction.

On these types of high-profile cases, the stakes are so high.

So despite actually running a large number of major inquiries, this one was quite daunting for me.

And that's where you have to have a really, really professional team because the slightest difference can mean so much in terms of what somebody could be proven to be guilty of or not or maybe a lesser charge.

I don't think you ever find yourself in a situation where you say you have a watertight case.

When it came to progressing this matter to court,

we were fairly confident that we would, by presenting the evidence to a jury, that we would hopefully get a conviction.

But you never do know.

As the trial approaches, investigators have one principal concern.

Will Joanne Denahy assert an insanity defense to avoid criminal responsibility?

One of the risks throughout this case is obviously that Joanne could have been looking to plead diminished responsibility.

I was concerned that somebody may take a view that

she couldn't necessarily form the intent, the criminal intent to commit these crimes.

And I was concerned of the impact that would have on the family and their right to justice.

It was clear that she had some mental health conditions.

Did they rise to a level of a diminished capacity or an inability to understand the nature and consequences of her act?

Should she be punished in a different way?

Or did she choose to commit those crimes?

On November 18th, 2013, Joanne Denahy takes the stand at London's historic Old Bailey.

But in her fight against these charges, will Joanne Denahy claim criminal insanity as expected?

Ever since Dennehy's arrest and from her behavior in police custody, she has been manipulating the process.

She doesn't want to be manipulated by the system.

She's never been manipulated by anybody.

She's the manipulator.

So Joe is going into that court, cock sure, she doesn't give a damn.

November 18th, 2013.

The eyes of the world are on serial killer Joanne Denahey as she arrives at court to plead her case.

Well, this is as serious as it gets.

You're facing three murder counts in the old Bailey.

It doesn't get any more serious than that.

Joanne Denahy is expected to plead not guilty on the grounds she was mentally incapable of fully understanding her actions.

We thought it's just going to be a straight not guilty plea,

set a date for trial, away we all go.

And that's what everybody in the courtroom thought, apart from Joe.

What does Joe do?

Joe walks into that court,

her co-defendants are in the dock, and she tells them I'm guilty and she tells the judge to F off.

Joanne Denahy's guilty plea sends shockwaves through the courtroom.

When Joanne Denahy pled guilty, she had all of her legal team scrambling around, everybody kind of really shocked that she'd done this because that was not what they were expecting whatsoever.

Her defence team tried to stop reports of that coming out.

The judge said, well, I'm afraid the cat's already out of the bag, because obviously we'd, as soon as she pleaded guilty with tweets and things, we'd reported that.

The fact that Joanna Dennehy decided to admit murdering these three men and denying them a lawful burial took the whole of court two by surprise, including her defense barrister, who said that proceedings weren't going as anticipated.

But was Dennehy's plea an acceptance of responsibility?

Or was it just another distasteful bid for attention and control?

The fact that she went guilty was just her way of securing her notoriety.

By pleading guilty, the scene stops on the terms of Joanne Denahy.

There will be no trial, there will be no bringing out of all of this evidence, which might actually burst her delusional bubble.

She knows that everything from here on is not as she has fantasized.

And so, on her own terms, she closes the curtains.

Although Joanne Danahy temporarily succeeded in keeping details to herself, four months later, Gary Stretch appeared in court.

Because Gary Stretch had pleaded not guilty to their parts in the crime, we knew that all of that would come out in a trial.

And during Stretch's trial, shocking unknown facts come to light.

Following the stabbing death of poor Mr.

Chapman,

she was ecstatic with joy.

Drenched in blood,

she phones Gary Stretch and tells him what she's done.

She's singing a song to him over the phone.

She calls Stretch and starts singing the Britney Spears number one hit, Oops, I did it again.

This woman is completely lost

in her own craziness.

That's how cold-blooded she was.

So, when you think about Joanne Denahy, you realize that she is the master puppeteer, getting all of these men to do her bidding.

And that sense of control is part of what drives her.

On February 28th, Gary Stretch and Joanne Dennehy were sentenced.

Gary Stretch received 19 years for his part in selecting Dennehy's Hereford victims and helping her dispose of three bodies.

But with three innocent men brutally killed and two others left for dead, what punishment could possibly fit Joanne Denahy's heinous crimes?

Well, in the United States, of course, a case like this, you only have two ranges of punishment You're either going to get the death penalty or you're going to get a life with no parole in this particular case

Joanne makes it very easy for the ruling and the ruling comes from a judge and she pleads guilty and is sentenced to life with no parole.

This is the most severe penalty you can get in Britain.

The fact that she'll never see daylight again in the outside world is of huge comfort for the family.

And whilst I don't measure the success of any investigation on prison time, in this case, for Joanne Dennehy, it's absolutely the right thing that she won't come out of prison.

Sent to maximum security prison, HMP Bronzefield.

Joanne Denahy would spend her first five years alone in a cell, 23 hours a day with no visits from family.

Then in 2018, her daughter Cheyenne decided to finally pay her a visit.

I almost had a near enough meltdown going in because I was so scared.

I was shaking, I was sweating, I was crying, and I didn't know who was going to be in that room.

Five years after Joanne Danahy was sentenced to life for stabbing five men in cold blood, Cheyenne made the difficult decision to go and visit her mother.

Even though I had people telling me that it's a bad idea and that it would only make me worse, my curiosity and need for closure, I knew the only way I was going to get that was with answers, so

I went and visited her.

Cheyenne went from being told that her mum was a monster, was the most dangerous woman in Britain, to choosing to go and visit her in prison, which seems like a curious choice.

Why would she do that?

But actually, I think this desperation for meaning, this desperation for understanding, for reasons, for answers to why her mum did that would have absolutely driven her to go and seek those answers.

As I've walked in, I've not recognised her.

She was completely different.

The brown hair, gone.

Piercings, more of them.

Tattoos, more of them.

She

had the same frame and the same dress sense, but

it wasn't my mum in a sense.

And it's taken me a double take to realize who was sat at that table.

It became very real at that point.

All of the anger, all of the hurt, everything just disappeared, and all I wanted was my mum.

And I just ran at her, at her essentially, and just cried for a while.

It was tough, but it was nice.

But when it came to Joanne's crimes, Cheyenne was looking for answers.

Would she get the closure she was hoping for?

I asked her, why them?

And does it not come into your mind that it's not just a life you're taking, you're taking someone's son, brother, child, you name it, you've taken it.

And the people that have to suffer that for the rest of their life, it's it's not fair.

It's like me taking away your most pride and joy.

She said,

I don't know, that she just wasn't happy and that she just flipped.

But she was fully aware of what she was doing.

And I think not only did it shock me,

but it hurt.

It hurt that she could say that to me.

Although I've asked for the truth, but it still hurts.

She doesn't feel remorse for what she's done, and I don't think she ever will.

After confronting Joanne about her crimes, Cheyenne made the decision to stop all contact.

It wasn't my mum that I was sitting across from.

It's who she'd grown to be, and I didn't like who she'd grown to be.

I didn't want anything to do with it.

Like they say, a leopard never changed its spots and I think she's past the point of change.

Since Joanne Dennehy's conviction, the shocking news of Britain's notorious female serial killer went global.

But was it Joanne Denahy herself that caught the public's interest?

Or was it the senseless nature of the violence she committed?

Why is Joanne Dennehee such a headline grabber?

What is this all about?

Here we have a young girl who is killing people on her own, literally physically killing on her own with a pocket knife,

turning this whole world upside down.

You'd think, how have you committed the crimes that you've committed?

The Joannes of the world,

they are evil people who did evil things

to a bunch of victims that had no idea this was coming at them.

And these are the ones that we need to remember and memorialize and don't let what this person did define them as people.

All too often, the killer's narrative is the one that dominates.

So, for me, I think it is about saying, Actually, Joanne Denahi, you are not in control of this narrative, here is the real story.

And people who are family members of serial killers, you know, have that double challenge-you know, not just establishing who they are, but establishing that distance from the person who's committed these horrendous crimes.

We need to enable the survivors of these people to come through and to tell their stories.

Back then it was a sense of I'm not good enough.

I'm ashamed to be who I am and

now I realize I'm my own person and I can't be ashamed of who I am because of who she is.

I'm not her and I never will be.

It's your man Nick Cannon.

I'm here to bring you my new podcast, Nick Cannon at Night.

I've heard y'all been needing some advice in the love department.

So who better to help help than yours truly?

Nah, I'm serious.

Every week I'm bringing out some of my celebrity friends and the best experts in the business to answer your most intimate relationship questions.

Having problems with your man?

We got you.

Catching feelings for your sneaky link?

Let's make sure it's the real deal first.

Ready to bring toys into the bedroom?

Let's talk about it.

Consider this a non-judgment zone to ask your questions when it comes to sex and modern dating in relationships, friendships, situationships, and everything in between.

It's going to be sexy, freaky, messy, and you know what?

You'll just have to watch the show.

So don't be shy.

Join the conversation and head over to YouTube to watch Nick Cannon at night or subscribe on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

Want to watch episodes early and ad-free?

Join Wondery Plus right now.