ABSTRACT
“You stabbed him [Slaboszewski] once through the heart”, and only two days earlier Slaboszewski had texted his friend to the effect “that life was beautiful now that he had you as his girlfriend” (Justice Spencer, 2014, p. 2). This was the first of a series of murders that Joanne Dennehy would go on to commit during a 10-day cold-blooded violent spree. According to court transcripts, Dennehy manipulated and lured her victims, as well as committing villainous random violence. Although Dennehy committed the acts for her own hedonistic pleasure, she used the help of Gary Stretch, a seven-foot-three-inch ex-convict, who had become infatuated with Dennehy, so much so he would do anything to help her satisfy her taste for violence. After luring and stabbing Slaboszewski in the heart, Dennehy temporarily stored his body in a wheelie bin, until she had the means to rid of it permanently. Dennehy could not keep her murder a secret, boastfully inviting Georgina Page, a 14-year-old neighbor she had recently befriended, to see the body in the wheelie bin. Recounting to psychiatrists why she had committed the first murder, Dennehy ruthlessly stated, “I wanted to see if I was as cold as I thought I was. Then it got moreish and I got a taste for it” (Spencer, 2014, p. 17). In order to dump the body, Dennehy needed a car. She convinced and borrowed money from her landlord who would soon become her third victim. Two days had passed since the first killing. Dennehy and Stretch took a taxi to purchase a car so they could dump Slaboszewski’s body on the outskirts of Peterborough in England. After dumping Slaboszewski’s body, Dennehy killed her housemate John Chapman by stabbing him once in the neck and five times in the chest. Dennehy later reported that she killed Chapman because he walked in on her while she was in the bath. Chapman’s carotid artery was severed, and his heart was penetrated with severe force. None of the sustained injuries indicated Chapman made any attempt to defend himself, and with a blood alcohol level four times greater than the driving limit it was likely Dennehy attacked Chapman as he lay asleep in the early hours of Good Friday morning.
