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Joanne Christine Dennehy, the infamous Peterborough ditch murderer who killed three men in a frenzied 10-day murder spree had a sick victory song killingher third murder.

Dennehy only targeted men, insisting she would never kill a woman, especially not one who was a mother. After a life of petty crime and alcoholism the mother began to kill in March 2013. She explained to anaccomplice in 11 chilling words: "I want my fun. I need you to get my fun." Dennehy’s first victim was Lukasz Slaboszewski. The Polish national believed Dennehy was his girlfriend. When Slaboszewski met Dennehy, he texted a friend saying: “Life is beautiful”.

Dennehy later told a psychiatrist she killed Slaboszewski “to see if I was as cold as I thought I was”. She sent the man sexual text messages to lure him to her home and then stabbed him in the heart, dumping his body in a wheelie bin. Horrifyingly, she showed the body to a 14-year-old girl she had groomed and said she found the murder “moreish”, and had developed “a taste for it”. A week later she struck again and, Dennehy stabbed her 56-year-old housemate to death with a pocket knife.

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The same day she killed Kevin Lee using the same honey-trap method and stabbing him at her own home. She then dressed his corpse in a black sequined dress and posed the body in a ditch, intentionally leaving his backside exposed. During her trial, the judge said she had intended to intentionally humiliate Lee in death. Chillingly, after this episode she phoned a friend to sing the Britney Spears song “Oops… I Did It Again” and danced in joy when she saw a television news report about the killings, which took place over two weeks.

But she wasn’t finished yet. Weeks later he accomplice Gary Stretch drove her to nearby Hereford where she randomly attacked two men walking their dogs, leaving both for dead, stealing the second man’s dog. Ultimately Dennehy pleaded guilty to three counts of murder and two of attempted murder in November 2013. The presiding judge, Mr Justice Spencer, called her “a cruel, calculating, selfish and manipulative murderer”.

Stretch was also handed a life sentence, while two further accomplices received sentences of 14 and three years respectively. This is no clear motivation behind Dehenny’s murdering spree beyond mere desire to kill. Witnesses at trial said Dehenny fantasised to them about being like Bonnie and Clyde. Gary Stretch confessed she had told him it was “entertainment” for her.

She also reportedly said she only wanted to kill and hurt men and that she would never attack a woman, especially one who had children like her. At trial, Mr Justice Spencer stated that Dennehy suffered from paraphilia sadomasochism, a psychological condition which causes the infliction of pain and humiliation to stimulate sexual enjoyment.