Female serial killer stabbed three men to death before dumping their bodies in ditches

Female serial killer Joanna Dennehy 'cast a spell' over her victims before embarking on a 10-day spree of violence, a court has heard.

Dennehy, 31, has admitted stabbing three men in the heart and dumping their bodies in ditches in Cambridgeshire but until now little has been known about the killings.

As the trial of her alleged accomplices Gary Stretch and Leslie Layton began, prosecutor Peter Wright QC said both men helped Dennehy in her bid to cover up the 'terrible truth' of the murders.

He added: 'These men came under the spell of Dennehy.'

The bodies of Lukasz Slaboszewski, 31, Kevin Lee, 48, and John Chapman, 56, were found dumped in ditches in March and April last year.

The prosecutor described how, after the killings, Dennehy and Stretch drove to Hereford where they selected two other men at random. She repeatedly stabbed them both in the street but both survived.

Mr Wright added that both Mr Slaboszewski and Mr Lee were also drawn by Dennehy's spell.

He said: 'They paid for that with their lives.'

Court: Joanna Dennehy, left, stabbed three men in a 10-day spree of violence. Two alleged accomplices, including Gary Stretch, right, who is one of Britain's tallest men, are now on trial at Cambridge Crown Court

Dennehy met Mr Slaboszewski, a heroin addict, shortly before his death.

She lured him to a house in Peterborough, with a series of text messages on March 19 and he was never seen again, Mr Wright said.

His body was kept in a wheelie bin before being transported to an isolated area.

Mr Wright told the court: 'She even showed the body to a teenage girl quite casually as it lay in the wheelie bin.'

Mr Chapman and Mr Lee were both killed on March 29.

Mr Chapman, who served in the Falklands war with the Navy but had fallen on hard times, lived in a bedsit in the same run-down property as Dennehy in Orton Goldhay.

Victims: The bodies of Lukasz Slaboszewski (left), 31, Kevin Lee (right), 48, and John Chapman, 56, were found dumped in ditches in Cambridgeshire in March and April last year

SOURCE-DAILYM