Dena Thompson
Dena Thompson (born 1960), commonly known as The Black Widow, is a convicted murderer, confidence trickster and bigamist. She habitually met men through lonely hearts columns and stole their money. She is currently in prison for murdering former media manager Julian Webb, her second husband (though she was still married to her first). She was acquitted of the attempted murder of Richard Thompson (who she married in 1998 after her divorce), and is also suspected of murdering an ex-boyfriend. She was convicted of murder in 2003 after Webb's remains were exhumed and sentenced to life. A  High Court ruling in 2007 determined she would serve 16 years, meaning she would not be eligible for release until 2019. She was also convicted of theft and defrauding former lovers. Following her 2003 conviction, Detective Chief Inspector Martyn Underhill stated: "This woman is every man's nightmare, the most dangerous woman I have ever met. For a decade, she has targeted men sexually, financially and physically. The men of Britain can sleep safe tonight knowing she has been taken off the streets." A judge described her as: "one of the most fluent liars I have come across." Detective Chief  Inspector Martyn Underhill observed Thompson was a misandrist: "I think the events of her childhood have made her hate men. If you look at her life, it is always men she has targeted." Early life. Thompson was born Dena Holmes in 1960 in Hendon, North London. She worked for a building society. Her father was described in 2000 as a retired prison warder. She moved to Sussex in the 1980s with her first husband. Lee Wyatt. Thompson married Lee Wyatt in 1984, having met two years previously. She convinced Wyatt he had received £50 million for a toy he  had patented and was wanted by the mafia. He was forced to live homeless for years in order to escape the mafia. The defence described Wyatt as a "fantasist". She had previously secured an injunction against Wyatt after making false claims of being assaulted by him. During their marriage, she stole £23,000 from the building society in which she worked then attempted to blame it on Wyatt. She was jailed for 18 months in 1995 for this crime. They divorced in 1997. Julian Webb. Thompson bigamously married Julian Webb in 1991. She murdered him on his 31st birthday in  June 1994 by poisoning a curry. Webb had a penchant for very hot curry and it is speculated that this would have masked the taste of the anti-depressants. He died of an overdose of anti-depressants and ground aspirin in a drink. As he lay dying in bed, his mother had called to speak to him on his birthday, but she was told by Thompson that he was too unwell. His mother told her to call a doctor but she did not. The inquest into his death recorded an open verdict. Thompson unsuccessfully attempted to have his body cremated . The very next morning after Webb died she had tried to collect money amounting to £35,000, which would be released from his pension plan, in the event of his death but Webb's mother was able to establish that Thompson was not his next of kin, as she was still married to her first husband. Webb's mother later testified that she had warned her son about marrying a woman whom he had known for only three months. Richard Thompson. Dena Holmes married Richard Thompson, her third husband, in 1998. They lived together in Rustington near Brighton, Sussex. Soon  after they married, on 1 January 2000, she attempted to kill her bound and gagged husband with a baseball bat. She had asked him if she could tie him up and blindfold him for a sexual game, but once she did so she returned to the room with the bat and a knife and attacked him. He managed to free his hands and fight back against her, and despite bleeding profusely from the head managed to force her to drop the knife. After this she broke down, saying "It's all been a lie. I've spent all your money . Richard later recounted his subsequent feelings on an episode of Crimewatch Solved" in 2009: Thompson left the house and the next day an estate agent turned up unexpectedly, explaining that he had been told by Thompson that he was to sell the house and stating he expected Richard would be in Florida. It emerged that Thompson had planned to kill her kill her husband and then sell their house while he was on a long-planned trip to Florida, as no one would be suspicious of his disappearance since they would have thought he was away in America. Richard contacted  the police and his wife was soon arrested. Police interviewed her former partners and found that she had stolen money from all of them and emptied their bank accounts of funds. Richard Thompson's accounts were likewise discovered to have been emptied. She admitted to police to conning money from men but denied trying to kill her husband. She claimed that he had attacked her following the revelation that she had defrauded him and had retaliated in self-defence. At the trial, the jury acquitted her of attempting to murder him, but she was convicted on 15 counts of deception , which she had admitted before the trial, and sentenced to three years and nine months imprisonment for the money she stole from Thompson and two other lovers. Richard Thompson later described Dena as "pure evil'. Murder inquiry. Despite her acquittal for attempted murder, investigating officers had grown suspicious of the circumstances of the death of Thompson's second husband, Julian Webb, 6 years previously. The announced that they would be exhuming Webb's body, which was done in October 2001. A friend of Thompson's came forward to tell police that she had indicated to him that she had given  the overdose of drugs to her husband in a hot curry. Conviction for murder. In 2003, she was convicted of Webb's murder after a trial at the Old Bailey and sentenced to life. She was told her sentence would run to 16 years at a 2007 High Court ruling, meaning she would not be eligible for release until 2019. The judge at her 2003 trial described her as "utterly ruthless and without pity". Wyatt, her first husband had contacted her at the home she shared with Webb, and the motive for murder, according to the prosecution, was her fear  the two men would meet and her double life would be exposed. Webb was also unaware of her attempts to try and implicate Wyatt for her thefts from the building society. She was dubbed "The Black Widow" in the press, as a black widow spider will kill their male counterparts after mating with them. As of 2016, Thompson was imprisoned in HM Prison Send, however, she completed her minimum term of imprisonment in 2019 and is now eligible for parole. In April 2022, the parole board announced that they would consider her case for release and publish their decision in  May. Additional suspected victim. Following her 2003 conviction it was reported that Thompson was being investigated about the disappearance of another of her previous partners, Stoyan Kostov. Investigators had tried to trace all of Thompson's former lovers in order to establish if she had committed potentially criminal acts against further victims, stating "we cannot rule out the possibility that other partners have been injured in some way". It was discovered that Kostov, who she dated in the 1970s and 1980s, had been missing since he had dated Thompson while she was training as a gymnast in Bulgaria. In  2010 media interest was renewed in the disappearance after a new probe was launched, with investigators stating that "some sort of incident seems to have happened in Bulgaria but we don't know what it was". As of 2010, Kostov had never been found. In popular culture. Documentaries. Thompson's case has featured in multiple documentaries: Books. A book was published about Thompson in 2010 by Adrian Gatton. It was titled "Black Widow: The True Story of How Dena Thompson Lured Men into a Twisted Web of Sex, Lies and Murder".