Two guilty of aiding serial killer

Joanna Dennehy has admitted murdering Lukasz Slaboszewski
10 February 2014

Two men have been convicted of offences related to serial killer Joanna Dennehy's three murders.

Gary Stretch has been found guilty of three counts of preventing the lawful burial of a body and one of attempted murder at Cambridge Crown Court.

Leslie Layton was also found guilty of perverting the course of justice.

Dennehy, 31, of Orton Goldhay, Peterborough, has already admitted the murders of Lukasz Slaboszewski, 31, Kevin Lee, 48, and John Chapman, 56, in and around Peterborough over a ten day period in March last year.

She also admitted preventing the lawful and decent burial of all three victims and two charges of attempted murder.

Stretch's attempted murder conviction relates to Dennehy's attack on John Rogers in Hereford on April 2.

The jury will continue to consider its verdict in relation to his involvement in the attempted murder of Robin Bereza in Hereford on the same day.

Layton is accused of preventing the lawful burial of the bodies of Mr Chapman and Mr Lee but the jury is yet to reach a verdict on those counts.

The convictions follow 31-year-old Dennehy's killing spree in March last year.

Afterwards she drove to Hereford with Stretch in a Vauxhall Astra registered in the false company name Undertaker and Sons.

Once there the diagnosed psychopath randomly selected and repeatedly stabbed two dog walkers - Mr Bereza and Mr Rogers - in the street.

Both survived despite suffering critical injuries.

During the trial, prosecutors said Dennehy "cast a spell" over her alleged accomplices and some of her victims as she killed "for fun".

Dennehy was likened to "Uma Thurman from Kill Bill and the woman from the Terminator" by married father-of-two Mr Lee shortly before his death.

Another victim, John Chapman, had dubbed her the "man woman" because of her intimidating nature.

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.

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

After his death at a house in Rolleston Garth, Peterborough, on or around March 19, the body of Mr Slaboszewski was stored in a wheelie bin.

At one point a smirking Dennehy showed the body to a teenage girl, prosecutor Peter Wright QC told the court.

Along with John Chapman, who was killed in the block of bedsits he shared with Dennehy in Bifield on March 29, his body was later dumped in a ditch near the isolated Thorney Dyke.

Mr Lee was also killed on March 29 in the same house as Mr Slaboszewski.

His body was found wearing a black sequin dress and positioned in a sexual pose in a separate ditch near Newborough, in what Mr Wright described as a "final act of humiliation".

After the Peterborough killings, Dennehy had bragged that she and Stretch were "like Bonnie and Clyde" as they drove 140 miles across the country to search out further victims.

Describing the involvement of the two defendants, Mr Wright said both had been "willing and able" participants in the plot.

Neither man gave evidence in the trial, but both claimed they had been acting under duress.

A third man,Robert Moore, 55, of Belvoir Way, Peterborough, is awaiting sentence after admitting assisting an offender.

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