How was Joanne Dennehy caught? Inside killer's 10-day murdering spree (2024)

Over a decade ago,Joanna Dennehy stabbed three men to death in a chilling ten-day murder spree before going on the run - sparking a nation-wide manhunt.

Dennehy, 41, stabbed lover Kevin Lee and housemates Lukasz Slaboszewski and John Chapman, dumping each body in ditches in Cambridgeshire in March 2013.

After the killings, Dennehy and accomplice Gary Stretch, 58, drove to Hereford where she repeatedly stabbed two other men - Robin Bereza and John Rogers - at random, with the pair surviving the attack.

In 2014, Dennehy was handed a whole-life prison term - the third given to a total of four women in British history - while Stretch was found guilty and convicted of attempted murder.

Now, ten years on, a gripping documentary - The Killing Spree: Hunting Joanna Dennehy - airs at 10pm on Channel 5 tonight, which offers a chilling insight into the life and crimes of the serial killer.

But, what did Joanna Dennehy do after butchering three men - and how was the triple murderer caught? Read on to find out.

What crime did Joanna Dennehy commit?

In March 2013, Joanna Dennehy killed two of her roommates and her lover in Peterborough before attempting to slaughter two more men she randomly encountered walking their dogs.

Her overall goal was to - along with her accomplice Gary Stretch - murder nine men in total, to be like the infamous duo Bonnie and Clyde.

During the ten-day killing spree, Dennehy stabbed lover Kevin Lee and housemates Lukasz Slaboszewski and John Chapman, dumping each body in ditches in Cambridgeshire.

All of the murder victims died from multiple stab injuries, including wounds to the heart.

After his death at a house in Peterborough, on or around March 19, the body of Mr Slaboszewski, 31, was stored in a wheelie bin, whileMr Lee was found dressed in a black sequin dress with his buttocks exposed.

Dennehy, who was brought up in a stable family home in the Home Counties, carried out the attacks to gratify her 'sad*stic love for blood.'

What did Joanna Dennehy do while on the run?

When the three bodies were found, police launched a high-profile murder investigation.

Meanwhile, Dennehy and accomplice Gary Stretch went on the run and travelled 140 miles to Hereford, where she began scouring the streets for more men to kill.

Excited by the police manhunt for her, she told him: 'I want to have my fun.'

The pair randomly selected two dog walkers, retired fireman Robin Bereza, 66, and John Rogers, 58.

Dennehy stabbed them in frenzied knife attacks. Both survived the horrific attacks only because of swift medical intervention.

During her search for further victims, Dennehy posed for photos with a huge serrated knife and bragged that she and Stretch were 'like Bonnie and Clyde', whose gang killed nine policemen in 1930s America.

When and how Joanna Dennehy caught?

After two days on the run, Dennehy was caught and arrested by officers in April 2013 in Hereford.

West Mercia Police footage shows the killer laughing while being booked, as she joked and flirted with the male police officer who processed her.

By the time the serial killer was arrested following a nationwide hunt, the blade of her pocket knife was stained black with dried blood. One friend said she had started to smell of blood.

At the height of a nationwide man-hunt, she bragged to one witness that she had killed eight people - although no further murders have been detected.

Police found no lucid motive for her attacks. She was a long-term drug user and drinker, and had frequently been in trouble with the police for burglary, theft, drug offences and minor acts of violence.

However, psychiatrists had diagnosed her with 'psychopathic, anti-social and emotional instability disorders.'

Additionally, after her arrest, doctors ruled that she was suffering from paraphilia sadomasochism, deriving sexual pleasure from both giving and receiving pain and humiliation.

Dennehy, who was brought up in a stable family home in the Home Counties, carried out the attacks to gratify her 'sad*stic love for blood.'

The Old Bailey was told the killer had a ‘sexual and sad*stic motivation.' Later she told a psychiatrist: 'I killed to see how I would feel, to see if I was as cold as I thought I was. Then it got more-ish.'

Dennehy was handed a whole-life prison term in 2014, being the fourth woman in Britain to be given one - along with Moors murderer Myra Hindley, House of Horrors serial killer Rose West, and serial child killer Lucy Letby.

Dennehy is currently carrying out her sentence at HMP Low Newton, near Durham, a maximum security prison for Britain's female killers that once imprisoned Rose West.

The Killing Spree: Hunting Joanna Dennehy airs on Channel 5at 10pm tonight