The Dark Descent of Joanna Dennehy

WEBVTT

1
00:00:37.079 --> 00:00:41.679
Every once in a while a person
comes along that has us asking whether psychopaths

2
00:00:41.719 --> 00:00:46.439
are made or if they are simply
born that way. To add to that

3
00:00:46.479 --> 00:00:52.840
debate is Joanna Denahe. Joanna was
born in nineteen eighty three in St Albans,

4
00:00:52.840 --> 00:00:57.240
England, to loving and kind parents. Her mother was a shop assistant

5
00:00:57.359 --> 00:01:00.679
and her father worked in security,
and together they a happy and stable home

6
00:01:00.719 --> 00:01:04.760
for Joanna to grow up in.
She was very sensitive. Her mother later

7
00:01:04.799 --> 00:01:08.519
said if she stood on a worm
or something, she would be really upset

8
00:01:08.519 --> 00:01:11.879
if it died. She used to
take them to bed with her. She

9
00:01:12.079 --> 00:01:18.359
was a loving girl. Joanna got
good grades at school and loved playing netball

10
00:01:18.400 --> 00:01:22.200
and hockey. But so much of
that charmed and gentle life that had been

11
00:01:22.359 --> 00:01:26.200
all that Joanna had known had also
changed by the time she turned sixteen.

12
00:01:26.799 --> 00:01:30.680
By then, she had a twenty
one year old boyfriend named John Traynor,

13
00:01:32.200 --> 00:01:36.480
and the two of them ran off
together, leaving Joanna's parents and Joanna's old

14
00:01:36.519 --> 00:01:41.920
life behind. Joanna was a teenager
and she enjoyed having an older boyfriend that

15
00:01:41.959 --> 00:01:46.640
she could live with unsupervised. She
could do whatever she wanted to do and

16
00:01:46.760 --> 00:01:51.519
didn't have to answer to anyone.
But only a year later, Joanna would

17
00:01:51.599 --> 00:01:57.599
learn that some actions do have consequences. At the age of seventeen, Joanna

18
00:01:57.640 --> 00:02:02.200
found out that she was pregnant.
Far from defending herself and her behavior after

19
00:02:02.200 --> 00:02:07.599
hearing the news, however, the
pregnancy only seemed to tick Joanna off.

20
00:02:07.120 --> 00:02:10.719
She didn't want children, and even
though she decided to keep the baby,

21
00:02:12.080 --> 00:02:16.000
it didn't look like that opinion was
going to change anytime soon. Quote she

22
00:02:16.120 --> 00:02:20.319
came out of the hospital and the
first thought in her mind is to get

23
00:02:20.360 --> 00:02:23.479
stoned, her boyfriend at the time, John Traynor, later said, but

24
00:02:23.599 --> 00:02:29.560
Joanna actually ended up doing so much
more than just getting high. Joanna began

25
00:02:29.719 --> 00:02:35.280
abusing both drugs and alcohol, and
she started self harming. About six more

26
00:02:35.360 --> 00:02:39.159
years of this went by, and
Joanna became pregnant again. This time John

27
00:02:39.240 --> 00:02:43.639
saw the writing on the wall and
he walked with both the children. Once

28
00:02:43.680 --> 00:02:49.080
their second child was born. Joanna
then moved to Petersborough, where she continued

29
00:02:49.080 --> 00:02:53.719
to abuse substances and allegedly worked as
a prostitute to fund her habits. It

30
00:02:53.800 --> 00:02:59.120
is possible that it was because of
this work that Joanna's opinions of men began

31
00:02:59.280 --> 00:03:02.360
to change, but What is clear
is that by the age of twenty nine,

32
00:03:02.680 --> 00:03:07.960
Joanna had simply had enough of men. It started with a brief arrest

33
00:03:08.080 --> 00:03:13.560
for theft. During interviews, it
became obvious to the arresting officers that they

34
00:03:13.560 --> 00:03:17.719
were dealing with something far more than
just a petty, aspiring criminal. Joanna

35
00:03:17.879 --> 00:03:22.759
was admitted to a hospital for psychiatric
treatment, and it was there that she

36
00:03:22.840 --> 00:03:29.800
was diagnosed with OCD and antisocial disorder
otherwise known as psychopathy. Joanna was now

37
00:03:29.879 --> 00:03:34.520
officially a psychopath, but once her
treatment was over, she was released back

38
00:03:34.560 --> 00:03:38.599
into the public. It was only
about a year later that Joanna would make

39
00:03:38.639 --> 00:03:43.680
headlines across the nation and become known
as the most evil woman in Britain.

40
00:03:44.800 --> 00:03:50.000
Things escalated with thirty one year old
Lucas Labazuski. He and Joanna had only

41
00:03:50.039 --> 00:03:54.120
met in Petersborough a few days before, but Lucas was already excited about their

42
00:03:54.159 --> 00:03:59.080
future prospects. He told his friends
that he was heading off that evening to

43
00:03:59.120 --> 00:04:03.240
see a girl he was hoping would
soon become his girlfriend. But unfortunately for

44
00:04:03.360 --> 00:04:09.080
Lucas, he was very far off
the mark. Joanna and Lucas spent the

45
00:04:09.159 --> 00:04:13.479
night drinking, and then Joanna invited
him to a home owned by her landlord.

46
00:04:14.360 --> 00:04:17.120
There, she enticed Lucas in and
asked him to put on a blindfold.

47
00:04:17.759 --> 00:04:23.040
Lucas eagerly agreed, and once he
had it on, Joanna pulled out

48
00:04:23.079 --> 00:04:28.720
a knife and began stabbing him.
One of those stab wounds pierced Lucas's heart

49
00:04:29.000 --> 00:04:32.079
and killed him. Joanna then hid
his body in a dumpster and went on

50
00:04:32.160 --> 00:04:35.920
about her evening. But she could
never come back from what she had just

51
00:04:36.040 --> 00:04:41.360
done. She could never undo killing
Lucas, and she could never put the

52
00:04:41.399 --> 00:04:46.920
feelings that murdering someone had stirred up
inside her back into the box. Joanna

53
00:04:46.040 --> 00:04:50.560
knew that she wanted to kill again, and she lasted only ten days before

54
00:04:50.600 --> 00:04:56.079
she gave in to the urge to
do so. This time, she struck

55
00:04:56.360 --> 00:05:00.759
much closer to home. For Joanna, part of the whole riche was the

56
00:05:00.879 --> 00:05:04.600
thrill of the hunt, the drawing
in and enticing of her victims. Targeting

57
00:05:04.639 --> 00:05:10.040
women was out of the question.
They were likely mothers, and Joanna could

58
00:05:10.040 --> 00:05:13.920
take mothers away from children, so
it was men that she would go after.

59
00:05:14.480 --> 00:05:17.560
Fifty six year old John Chapman,
one of Joanna's housemates, fit the

60
00:05:17.600 --> 00:05:23.759
bill. Perfectly. Joanna flirted and
seduced, and she drew him into her

61
00:05:23.839 --> 00:05:28.920
room. There she toyed with him
before turning to her tried and true She

62
00:05:29.040 --> 00:05:32.920
told John to put on a blindfold
and wait, and then once he could

63
00:05:32.920 --> 00:05:39.879
not see her coming, she began
stabbing him. Joanna satisfied her immediate urges

64
00:05:39.959 --> 00:05:44.800
by killing John, but instead of
keeping Joanna satiated, this new murder only

65
00:05:44.839 --> 00:05:49.240
seemed to spur her on. Only
hours later and Joanna had her next fix

66
00:05:49.399 --> 00:05:56.000
in front of her forty eight year
old Kevin Lee. Kevin was actually Joanna's

67
00:05:56.040 --> 00:06:00.439
and her previous murder victim, John's
landlord, Andanna already had him ensnared.

68
00:06:00.800 --> 00:06:05.920
Joanna was Kevin's mistress. But even
Kevin could have had no idea what awaited

69
00:06:06.000 --> 00:06:11.399
him when Joanna invited him in that
evening, or even that his other tenants

70
00:06:11.600 --> 00:06:15.639
was already lying dead in that very
same house. Joanna got John into her

71
00:06:15.720 --> 00:06:19.519
room and then she played with him. She convinced him to put on a

72
00:06:19.519 --> 00:06:24.959
black sequin dress, and then she
told him to put on a blindfold.

73
00:06:25.560 --> 00:06:29.800
Kevin, like the others who had
gone before him, never saw Joanna reaching

74
00:06:29.839 --> 00:06:32.839
for her knife. She stabbed him
to death. And then she moved on

75
00:06:32.959 --> 00:06:38.560
to getting rid of the evidence.
The first thing that Joanna had to dispose

76
00:06:38.600 --> 00:06:42.639
of were the bodies piling up around
her, and to do that she employed

77
00:06:42.680 --> 00:06:47.879
some unexpected tactics. Shortly after she'd
first moved to Peterborough years ago, she'd

78
00:06:47.920 --> 00:06:54.319
met a man named Gary Richards who
went by the nickname Stretch. Joanna called

79
00:06:54.360 --> 00:06:58.319
Stretch and asked him to help her
move and discard the remains of the men

80
00:06:58.399 --> 00:07:01.920
she'd just killed, and maybe one
of the most bizarre twists and turns of

81
00:07:01.959 --> 00:07:08.639
the case, Stretch agreed. Stretch
had fallen for Joanna all those years ago,

82
00:07:09.040 --> 00:07:13.079
and it looked like he simply couldn't
do enough for her. Along that

83
00:07:13.120 --> 00:07:16.199
same vein was thirty six year old
Leslie Layton, who was someone that Joanna

84
00:07:16.240 --> 00:07:20.480
counted on as a close friend.
Certainly it would seem close enough to ask

85
00:07:20.560 --> 00:07:26.079
for help in a time of crisis. Joanna managed to convince not one but

86
00:07:26.240 --> 00:07:30.279
two people to help her dispose of
the bodies, and the three of them

87
00:07:30.360 --> 00:07:35.000
drove around Petersborough roads looking for ditches
to hide Joanna's victims. In Kevin would

88
00:07:35.079 --> 00:07:40.120
stand out amongst the bodies abandoned on
the side of the road. The sequin

89
00:07:40.240 --> 00:07:44.519
dress had just been the start,
and his remains were arranged in a sexually

90
00:07:44.519 --> 00:07:50.279
explicit pose to hammer in the humiliation
that took Joanna's victim count up to three.

91
00:07:50.360 --> 00:07:54.959
She now had a plan, and
it was a cold and cruel one.

92
00:07:55.680 --> 00:08:00.120
Joanna was now determined to kill at
least nine men before she was called,

93
00:08:00.639 --> 00:08:03.920
and the pressure was building. She'd
gone from lasting ten days to giving

94
00:08:03.959 --> 00:08:09.199
into her urges to mere hours,
and time was ticking. She Stretched and

95
00:08:09.360 --> 00:08:15.920
Leslie were driving back home from dumping
Kevin's body when Joanna snapped again. This

96
00:08:16.079 --> 00:08:20.199
time, her victims weren't her boyfriend, her housemate, or the landlord she

97
00:08:20.240 --> 00:08:24.439
was having an affair with. They
were two men out walking their dogs.

98
00:08:24.120 --> 00:08:28.759
Joanna ordered Stretch to stop the car, and then she pounced. She caught

99
00:08:28.839 --> 00:08:33.679
Robin Breza in the shoulder and chest
with her knife, and then she turned

100
00:08:33.720 --> 00:08:37.840
on John Rogers. She stabbed John
over forty times before fleeing the scene,

101
00:08:39.240 --> 00:08:43.919
leaving Robin and John to helplessly bleed
out on the street. Fortunately for these

102
00:08:43.960 --> 00:08:50.080
two victims, timely medical intervention saved
both of their lives. Back on her

103
00:08:50.159 --> 00:08:56.039
murder spree, Joanna then found herself
the target. The investigators cornered her after

104
00:08:56.080 --> 00:09:01.000
finding Kevin Lee's remains, but almost
unbelievably, Juenna managed to escape with stretch

105
00:09:01.240 --> 00:09:05.960
before they could arrest her. She
was on the run for two days before

106
00:09:05.960 --> 00:09:09.200
the authorities caught up with her.
But in another twist in the case,

107
00:09:09.600 --> 00:09:13.679
Joanna seemed to enjoy the attention.
Instead of being angry or sad that she

108
00:09:13.720 --> 00:09:18.440
had been caught, especially before fulfilling
her plan of killing nine men, Joanna

109
00:09:18.559 --> 00:09:22.960
seemed to find it funny. Security
footage of her arrest shows her laughing and

110
00:09:24.039 --> 00:09:28.559
flirting with the police officers. Maybe
she was still trying to entice a victim

111
00:09:28.600 --> 00:09:31.919
even at the very last moment.
At trial, Joanna pled guilty to all

112
00:09:33.039 --> 00:09:37.480
charges and was sentenced to life in
prison with the recommendation that she never be

113
00:09:37.600 --> 00:09:41.279
released. Joanna is one of only
three women in British history to have ever

114
00:09:41.320 --> 00:09:46.320
received this sentence, one of the
other ones being the notorious serial killer Rosemary

115
00:09:46.360 --> 00:09:52.559
West. Joanna was actually placed in
the same facility as Rose West, but

116
00:09:52.720 --> 00:10:03.480
Rose was moved after Joanna threatened to
kill her too. That's ten minute murder

117
00:10:03.519 --> 00:10:07.440
for today, brief and bingeable true
crime. I'm Joe. I'm the host,

118
00:10:07.679 --> 00:10:11.960
and thank you so much for taking
the time to listen to the podcast.

119
00:10:11.200 --> 00:10:15.440
If you're a brand new listener,
subscribe, you're an og listener.

120
00:10:15.480 --> 00:10:18.639
I love you with my whole heart. And if you either of you have

121
00:10:18.759 --> 00:10:22.840
not connected with the podcast on social
media, do that right now. Links

122
00:10:22.840 --> 00:10:26.440
are at ten minute Murder dot com. You can also go to ten minute

123
00:10:26.480 --> 00:10:31.159
Murder dot com to send me an
email like this one from Mallory. Hey,

124
00:10:31.240 --> 00:10:35.120
Joe, great podcast. I probably
average about one person per week that

125
00:10:35.200 --> 00:10:39.080
I tell about ten Minute Murder,
and you're rights. Sometimes they look at

126
00:10:39.120 --> 00:10:43.120
you like you're strange, like I'm
weird for recommending a true crime podcast.

127
00:10:43.440 --> 00:10:48.200
I haven't lost any friends over it, though not yet. Anyway. The

128
00:10:48.279 --> 00:10:50.080
reason for the email isn't to tell
you all that. I actually want to

129
00:10:50.120 --> 00:10:54.360
know if you'd ever consider interviewing people
involved in the cases you talk about during

130
00:10:54.360 --> 00:10:58.360
the episodes. I don't know how
you'd be able to manage that in ten

131
00:10:58.399 --> 00:11:01.000
minutes, but you're the expert.
I think it would be interesting to hear

132
00:11:01.399 --> 00:11:05.840
all the best. Mallori in SF. Mallori, thanks for the email.

133
00:11:07.480 --> 00:11:11.519
Yeah, I've kind of considered that. I think that would be interesting.

134
00:11:11.559 --> 00:11:15.840
I agree with you completely. I
have thought over the logistics of how I

135
00:11:15.840 --> 00:11:20.840
would make that work, and it
would make the episodes take much longer for

136
00:11:20.919 --> 00:11:24.159
me to do because obviously I do
this part that you've heard on this one,

137
00:11:24.240 --> 00:11:28.559
But then I would have to reach
out to the different people involved in

138
00:11:28.600 --> 00:11:31.440
the cases and try to figure out
a timeline of when they're available and I'm

139
00:11:31.440 --> 00:11:35.399
available, and then edit all of
that in to ten minutes and make that

140
00:11:35.440 --> 00:11:39.360
happen. It's a whole world that
I feel like I need more people.

141
00:11:41.279 --> 00:11:43.759
I need to hire some people.
I'm not asking, this is not me

142
00:11:43.840 --> 00:11:48.960
asking if you would like to apply
for a job you listening. I can't

143
00:11:48.960 --> 00:11:50.679
do that at this point, but
I think that would be the next step.

144
00:11:50.679 --> 00:11:54.360
I would need to hire some people
to help out in that way in

145
00:11:54.480 --> 00:11:58.120
order to make that happen. But
I think it's a great idea and I

146
00:11:58.120 --> 00:12:00.879
would love to do that at some
point in the future of this podcast.

147
00:12:01.480 --> 00:12:03.960
So h yeah, we're on the
same page, Mallory, and appreciate the

148
00:12:05.000 --> 00:12:07.639
email again, if you'd like to
send me one Joe at ten minute murder

149
00:12:07.840 --> 00:12:11.480
dot com. And that's it.
That's your episode for today. Thank you

150
00:12:11.559 --> 00:12:15.039
so much for listening to ten minute
murder