Two years have passed since the woman dubbed the ‘Black Widow’ after defrauding three husbands, killing one and brutally attacking another, was released from prison.
There was a time when petite murderess Dena Thompson could capitalise on her girl-next-door looks to lure men into her life and deceive them. Today, the grey-haired sexagenarian barely warrants a second glance.
But, says the former police officer who helped put her behind bars, men who encounter the 64-year-old should remain vigilant.
‘If your father, son, uncle, cousin, friend, whoever, comes home and says they’ve met a lovely new lady called Dena, then my advice would be to ring the police,’ says retired Sussex police detective Sean McDonald, who led the investigation into Dena and met her on multiple occasions.
Dena Thompson defrauded her first husband, bigamously married, defrauded and then poisoned her second and married and stole from a third whom she later attacked
‘I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, I am absolutely convinced she will commit further offences.’
Dena’s heinous crimes are the subject of a new three-part documentary, Black Widow, due to be aired on Sky later this month.
The series will tell the jaw-dropping story of how she defrauded her first husband, bigamously married, defrauded and then poisoned her second and, having covered up the murder as suicide, married and stole from a third whom she later attacked with a metal baseball bat and carving knife.
Those crimes may be just the tip of the iceberg. When she was sent to prison in 2003, Sussex police claimed Dena had targeted at least eight other men and possibly more via newspaper lonely hearts advertisements.
While Dena’s dark past is about to be under scrutiny again, the real fear is what the future holds for the Black Widow – described by the judge who jailed her as ‘utterly ruthless and without any pity’ – now that she is free again.
Most disturbing of all are claims I uncovered this week that the killer may have formed a relationship with a prison pen pal, something which disturbs the men who have already crossed her path.
While the former building society worker may no longer be the sylph-like blonde she was when committing her crimes, Sean McDonald believes her advancing years and the arrival of online dating may even give her an advantage when it comes to meeting men.
‘She’s now moved into an age bracket where there are lots of divorcees and people with big pensions, who may well own their own homes with no mortgages,’ he says.
‘She picks her targets very carefully. They are vulnerable men who are lonely and who have got money.’
Dena’s former husband, 69-year-old retired businessman Lee Wyatt, knows all too well how easy it is for men to fall into her grip.
‘I was the first victim,’ he told me this week. ‘I wanted someone to grow old with but now I look back and think I’m lucky to be alive.’
He paid a heavy price for falling in love with a ‘pretty and fun-to-be- with’ 22-year-old in the early 1980s when both lived in North London.
Aside from being deceived, defrauded and manipulated for years by Dena, he is estranged from the son they had together, his only child, Darren, now 37.
Darren was 16 years old when his mother was sent to prison and was raised by Dena’s parents at their home in Cullompton, Devon.
‘He’ll never accept the truth now,’ says Lee.
A source close to the family told me this week that although Dena’s two younger brothers no longer speak to her, her parents doted on their ‘golden girl’ and her mother and late father, who died in June 2022, refused to accept her guilt.
‘Single men should beware,’ reiterates Lee. ‘She plays the innocent, the sort of sweet woman that couldn’t hurt a fly but it’s all an act. No man is safe around her.’
Some might argue that given her later crimes, Lee got off lightly. But the reality was that after marrying Dena in October 1984, his life became a nightmare – an extraordinary tale of fraud and gaslighting which could have been plucked straight from a Hollywood thriller.
By the time Darren was born in 1987, Lee had quit his medical rep job and set up a soft toy business with Dena, who was keen on handicrafts. They moved to the village of Yapton, West Sussex, and she began work at the Woolwich building society in Arundel.
Around this time she began spinning the first webs of deceit. By forging documents she convinced Lee that Disney wanted to pay millions for the rights to a leprechaun soft toy character she had created. She later used the same technique to trick him into believing the mafia wanted a cut of their money.
Faked letters arrived at their home. Some threatened their lives. Others appeared to be from a ‘protection squad’ sent by the FBI and Dena persuaded Lee to get away from their home, while she remained there with their son.
Taken in, he changed his name to Colin Mitchell and became a maintenance worker at an amusement arcade while living under the radar in Cornwall. He paid most of his wages into Dena’s bank account.
As extraordinary as her claims were, Lee believed he was acting in the best interests of his family, not realising that she had moved another man into their home.
Julian Webb, an advertising sales executive on the West Sussex Gazette was that man. The pair met in May 1991 and married, bigamously, six months later. Soon after, Dena told him she had cancer – a lie she repeated to many of her victims, sometimes interchanging it with the claim that she had diabetes and would need to have both feet amputated.
A retired Sussex police detective believes the arrival of online dating may even give Dena an advantage when meeting men
She persuaded Julian to hand over £25,000 in savings to pay for treatment and also stole £23,000 from the branch of the Woolwich where she worked after transferring the cash into bogus accounts.
In 1994, Lee turned up unannounced at his old home.
‘Something made me go there that day,’ he tells me. ‘I’d had enough. I wanted answers.’
Dena persuaded him to leave but it was later said in court that fearing her two husbands might meet and she would be exposed, Dena decided to kill Julian. He died on his 31st birthday in July 1994 after eating a curry she laced with aspirin and paracetamol.
But at the time police found no evidence of foul play. Crucially, though, Julian’s suspicious mother Rosemary refused Dena’s demands for a cremation and insisted he was buried near her home on Hayling Island, Hampshire.
At Julian’s inquest, a coroner recorded an open verdict and said he wasn’t convinced that Julian had taken his own life.
Over the next four years, Dena found new victims to prey on via lonely hearts adverts placed in newspapers across Sussex, including a mental health worker and a customs official at Gatwick Airport. Both gave her £6,000.
She was obsessed with moving to Florida and often drew the men in her life into her plans, sometimes using the cancer lie to claim it was her dying wish. She convinced a landscape gardener she had got him a job at Nasa and used his credit cards behind his back.
In the midst of all this, Dena was jailed for 18 months for her theft from the Woolwich. By the time she came out of prison, Lee had begun divorce proceedings. But utterly remorseless, she began looking for more victims as soon as she was freed.
In 1998, she met husband number three, divorced BT manager Richard Thompson, whose name she still uses.
They married six months after meeting, with Richard unaware Dena was already forging his signature, had emptied his savings account and had run up thousands of pounds of debt on his credit cards.
She told him she had breast cancer and he gave up his job with BT and took a £36,000 early retirement package.
Less than a year into their marriage, after pretending to seduce him and tying him up in the bathroom, she placed a towel across Richard’s face before hitting him twice around the head with an aluminium baseball bat and stabbing him with a carving knife.
He only managed to escape by getting his hands free and sticking his fingers into her eyes.
‘I don’t think Richard grasped what had happened at first,’ recalls Sean McDonald. ‘By the time he called us, the bathroom had been cleaned up but there was still some blood spatter behind the radiator and up on the ceiling.’
Sussex police were convinced that Dena would be found guilty of attempted murder, but in 2000 a jury at Lewes Crown Court accepted her claim that she had been defending herself after a row about money turned to violence.
She was cleared of trying to kill Richard but was jailed for three years and nine months on 15 theft and dishonesty charges.
Crucially, says Sean McDonald, the case led Sussex police to re-open the investigation into Julian’s death. In 2001, his body was exhumed and re-examined.
Police later established that she had laced Julian’s favourite curry with drugs to poison him. She was jailed for life at the Old Bailey in 2003. Police said she had targeted at least eight others.
Retired businessman Lee Wyatt was the first victim – after marrying Dena in October 1984, his life became a nightmare
Dena stole the life savings of her third husband BT manager Richard Thompson
Julian Webb, an advertising sales executive on the West Sussex Gazette met Dena in May 1991 and married, bigamously, six months later. Soon after, his wife lied that she had cancer
They were unable to trace two of the men. Other victims were reluctant to give evidence against her as they were married at the time, or had partners, or simply felt ashamed at being defrauded and tricked by a woman.
Unsurprisingly, Dena’s release two years ago brought back terrible memories for those who had encountered her.
Now aged 65 and living in East Sussex, her third husband Richard Thompson declined to speak about his evil ex-wife this week, but previously told me: ‘She can’t change. She’s never shown remorse.
‘So many men were her victims. She’s the master of putting on an act. She’s a schemer.
‘There’s no way she should be released.’
While Dena’s current location is unknown, since her release there have been sightings of her in both Reading and London.
She was also seen in Devon, in July 2022, not long before being freed from prison, when she attended her father’s funeral at Exeter crematorium.
Another mourner at the funeral recalls how she arrived, dressed in a tweed jacket and skirt, handcuffed to a prison guard, to take her place among the 15 or so mourners.
‘They sat on the front pew together and Dena had her free arm supporting her mum who was quite frail by then,’ said the guest who noted that aside from her mother and son, no other relative spoke to Dena. ‘She never shed a tear but she was bold as brass,’ they added. ‘You would have thought she might have been a bit sheepish but she followed the coffin out at the end with her head held high.’
Most concerning of all are reports that she might already be in a new relationship with someone who contacted her while she was in prison.
‘If it’s correct, then this person must know about her offending,’ says Sean McDonald. ‘But some people are drawn to the drama and excitement of that kind of relationship.’
He added: ‘I think she’ll continue to offend. It’s only a matter of time.
She is a manipulator. There will be other victims.’
Lee Wyatt agrees. ‘Her desire for money will always be there,’ he says. ‘She can’t help herself. There’s no way she’s not going to do anything.’
- BLACK WIDOW will premiere on Sky Documentaries on September 15.
