In June 2022, 63-year-old Dena Thompson was released from prison after serving 19 years of a life sentence for the murder of her husband… but that wasn’t her only crime…
Dena Thompson, born Dena Holmes, was the eldest of three children. Her father was a prison officer and her mother was a primary school teacher. When she left school she started working at a Halifax bank branch near her family home in Cricklewood, North-West London.
In 1982, when Dena was 22, she met medical rep Lee Wyatt. They instantly hit it off and moved to Worthing together before getting married in October 1984.
Their son, Darren, was born in 1987. Lee had quit his job as a medical rep and he and Dena set up a soft toy business. Dena was keen on crafting and created a Leprechaun character that Disney was willing to pay millions for the rights to… at least that’s what she told her husband. Dena forged letters and documents over the months to make her story believable. She made it seem like she and Lee had a wonderful opportunity ahead of them, but things took a sinister turn with Dena then convincing Lee that the Mafia wanted a cut of the money they would be getting from Disney. Using the same tactics as before, she managed to convince Lee that they were in genuine danger.
Eventually, the couple moved to Yapton in Sussex where Dena began working at the Woolwich Building Society in Arundel.
Dena persuaded Lee that he needed to go on the run, and so he did. Lee moved from place to place, changing his name as he did, in an effort to evade the Mafia. He eventually ended up in Cornwall, working as a maintenance worker in arcades. He paid most of his wages into Dena’s bank account. She repeatedly told him that it wouldn’t be long until he would be able to return home. The truth was very different though…
In November 1991, Dena bigamously married another man, Julian Webb, after a three-month whirlwind romance. Webb was an advertising sales executive for the West Sussex Gazette. Soon after they married, Dena convinced Julian that she had cancer and persuaded him to give her his £25,000 savings to pay for her treatment.
Dena was also stealing money from her workplace, the Woolwich Building Society. She transferred £23,000 into an account she created under a false name.
Lee finally returned home in 1994, demanding answers. After getting him to leave again, Dena became worried that her two husbands would meet.
In June 1994, on his 31st birthday, Julian Webb was murdered. Dena Thompson laced his curry with a fatal dose of antidepressants. The very next day, Dena went to Julian’s place of work to ask how long it would be before she got his £36,000 death-in-service benefit.
Despite Dena’s insistence that Julian must have committed suicide, the coroner recorded an open verdict. Dena wanted Julian to be cremated but his mother was suspicious and instead had him buried near her home in Hayling Island, Hampshire.
In 1995, Dena was jailed for 15 months for the Woolwich Building Society theft. When she got out Lee Wyatt had started divorce proceedings.
Dena met BT manager Richard Thompson through a newspaper’s ‘Lonely Hearts’ column. They married in April 1999 in Florida, just 6 months after meeting.
Richard studied for a US Coast Guard qualification after taking early retirement as he and Dena were planning a life together in Florida. The day before Richard was due to fly to Florida, Dena ran him a bath and told him to lay on the bedroom floor for a “surprise”. She then tied his arms behind his back, put tape around his ankles, and put a towel over his face before hitting him twice around the head with a baseball bat and stabbing him in the shoulder. After getting his hands free Richard managed to fight Dena off.
At Lewes Crown Court in 2000, the jury believed Dena’s claims that she was defending herself after an argument. She was found not guilty of attempted murder but was jailed for 3 years, 9 months after she admitted to conning Richard and previous boyfriends out of over £12,000.
In 2001, Sussex police exhumed Julian Webb’s body to re-examine it. Investigators then discovered that Julian had been murdered. Dena was found guilty of fraud and murder in December 2003. She was given a life sentence with a minimum term of 16 years.
In June 2022, after serving 19 years in prison, Dena Thompson was released on parole. She will need to disclose new relationships, provide details of vehicles she uses, wear an electronic tag and adhere to a curfew.
Sources:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/dec/16/ukcrime.rosiecowan
https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/20596187.sussex-black-widow-killer-released-prison
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/black-widow-killer-dena-thompson-freed-b2136345.html
