All language subtitles for Black.Widow.2024.S01E02.720p.WEBRip.x264-GalaxyTV

This programme contains
depictions of violence.

Please be aware that this programme
also contains themes of suicide.

LEE: When I was on the run,

Dena was psyching me up
by saying the mafia

only want to kill us
if you're alive.

She was saying... if you committed
suicide or pretend suicide,

can we take photos?

DIRECTOR: You would fake
committing suicide,

and then no-one would be
after you anymore?

There'll be a new identity
for me to pick up,

because Lee Wyatt
has killed himself.

There's a special hangman's noose,

you put it over your shoulders
and arms,

aand you've got to be a very good
actor to sort of make the disguise.

Did you ever feel like
she was suggesting

you should actually commit suicide?
Yeah,

yeah,

yeah,
on quite a few occasions.

I was her biggest problem,

because I'm still alive,
and I can fill in all the gaps.

(CLICK)

(THEME MUSIC)

# I put a spell on you

# Because you're mine

# You better stop the things you do

# I say, watch out

# I ain't lying

# Because you're mine

# Because you're mine #

I remember,

I was sitting in my office

and someone called Sean McDonald,
who was a DC I'd never met,

walked in, and he said,

I've done some profiling of you,

and you've worked
on a lot of murders.

And I said, I have.

He said, I think
you're pretty good at murder.

I said, well, thank you.
(CHUCKLES)

And he started talking about
someone called Julian Webb.

A few years earlier,
Julian had unexpectedly died.

His wife Dena straight away said
that he committed suicide,

but everybody took the view that
this was a suspicious death.

Sean and a lot of the officers felt
that there was far more to this,

and Sean gave me the files in the
hope that I could further that view.

Dena told the paramedics
that Julian had died

literally 15 minutes
before the ambulance arrived,

and, yet,
when they went to move the body,

the body had rigor mortis.

And that rang alarm bells

because rigour mortis takes far
longer than 15 minutes to set in.

He had died long before
she told us he had died.

And then we got the A+E Doctor,

who had thought Dena
was faking her grief.

Really, really unusual.

Finally, I have never in my life
heard of anybody

claiming for a partner's money
the day after an unexpected death.

It was quite obvious there was
more to this case than met the eye.

And now Dena's first husband,
Lee Wyatt, had reappeared.

Lee had been missing
for about four years

and he was accused of seriously
assaulting Dena

and his disappearance
appeared to be linked to that.

He was arrested for benefit fraud
using an alias of Colin Mitchell.

There were quite a few things
to talk to him about

and we were hoping that some light
on what happened to Julian

would be shed in the interview.

LEE: I'd been living alone
for four years on the run.

Dena was living with Julian.

And there I was

moving from place to place,
sometimes living rough,

really rough.

I was desperate and broken.

I didn't tell anyone about the mafia

because they'd think I'm mad.
(CHUCKLES)

So that's the sort of thing
you have to keep quiet.

Tell no-one. Nothing.

And for all those years
I hadn't seen my son, Darren,

because Dena told me it wasn't safe.

I'd lost all perspective on truth
and what was lies.

I got the impression
she's trying to make me mad.

I was probably bordering
on that nonsanity thing

simply because
what I've gone through.

I made these dozens of little notes.

I would write things like,
"Is Dena lying to me?"

And then another one saying,

"Has all this story about Disney
been a lie?"

Every time I spoke to her,

I would say, "How long is this
going to keep on going on for?"

"What's happening?"

I want answers.

And that's when she said
"Julian is dead."

And I said,
"Well, how is that? Why is that?"

And then she put
the phone down on me.

So obviously
I was asking too many questions.

I took a deep breath,

and I thought, so I'm not going to
be a protection squad

taking over the identity
of Julian Webb.

I tried to ring her again after
that, but she wasn't picking up.

Did you think, for even a moment,

that she might have killed him?
No.

No, I didn't.
I didn't think it was in her.

A week later, she contacted me.

And that's when she strung up
the thing about the States.

You've got to get yourself
over there with a passport.

And she said you'll see Darren;

you'll see him in the hotel.

She said we were going to be
starting a new life together

as a family unit.

I said, "At last!"

But she said
it wasn't safe to travel together,

so she said,
I'll meet you over there.

That's when the brain
started ticking over,

thinking there's something
not quite right here.

But I need to try and make a life,

and I need to try
and get my son back.

So, I went anyway.

She came into the hotel room

I'm thinking now
we can have an embrace together.

And straight away she would come out
with, "Do you have any money?"

And I said, I've got no money.

She wasn't happy with that at all.

And I thought, this isn't right.

She said, "I'll go back,
and I'll get Darren now."

And I thought,
what the hell is going on?

I need to follow her when she leaves

and see if she's telling the truth.

I ducked out the rear entrance,
climbed over a fence

and I saw her
heading towards a young man.

They kissed.

And then that's when it suddenly
hit me like a ton of bricks.

She's carrying on
like I never existed.

I felt sick.

I realised the whole thing
was a sham.

All these years, Lee,
you've been manipulated and used

and everything has been a lie.

I was thinking,
I need to see the parents,

I need to ask them questions.

I've got no money,
so I signed on at The Job Centre.

And signed on as..?
As Colin Mitchell.

And then I had a letter, saying,
"Can you come into the office?

We believe there's something not
quite right."

And I said, right.
Game is up.

SEAN: He had been sleeping rough,
sleeping in bus shelters.

He looked a bit dishevelled,
shall we say.

But, you know, he's not got tattoos
on his face or anything like that.

He was just a very ordinary
sort of looking bloke.

MARTYN: We'd suddenly got Lee Wyatt.
I couldn't believe it.

We knew that Lee and Dena
were still married legally

when Dena married Julian.

And we knew Lee was
at the house in Yapton

about the time when Julian died.

Dena accused Lee of stealing money,

of breaking into her house,
of assault,

and we had this awful allegation
of sexual assault against him.

These are serious allegations;

he would easily be facing
five years or more in prison.

LEE: As soon as the door shut,
I was frightened.

I was shaking.

I thought, well,
what story do I tell?

I did what I did

because I thought I needed to save
the lives of my son and Dena.

But whether or not
they would believe me, I don't know.

MARTYN: And I said,
we're going to go through this

from start to finish.

So, let's start at the beginning
and take me through it.

Yeah.

'86.

That was probably
the very start of it all.

We'd had the first years together,

which were quite wonderful,
as in we were going places.

And then Dena was pregnant.

She said this isn't right,
this is uncomfortable.

And the medical staff
declared that the baby was dead.

DIRECTOR: How many weeks
pregnant was she?Oh...

About 36 weeks.

So, it was like,
you know, full term.

Dena had to go
through the motions of birth.

Such was the exhaustion of doing it,

Dena's heart stopped.

I heard what we call
the death "throttle."

(RASPING BREATH)

The sister then ran out

to get the machine
to give her a shock,

and I was shouting, "Don't do this
to me, we've got a life together."

Whacked her in the heart

and then there was a big,
deep breath that came from her.

The sister rushed in and said,

"She's alive, she's alright".

The baby came out,

and I remember saying,

"Here's our child, our baby,
let's just say goodbye to it".

The name was Louise Amanda Wyatt,

and that would be... my initials.
(VOICE BREAKS)

So, it was a part of me
dying with her.

Yeah.

I wanted to pick up the baby

and she wouldn't allow it.

(DENA SCREAMS)

She was just saying,
"Don't look at it, don't touch it."

I never once touched the baby
and nor did she.

And I didn't touch Louise

because I didn't want to upset Dena.

Did something change that day?

Yeah.

That, to me,
was a moment where Dena died.

And I honestly to God think
Dena came back

as truly another person.

Everyone gave Dena the sympathies.

And quite rightly so.

But she just carried on as normal.

As if nothing had happened.

And within weeks she insisted
she had to get pregnant again.

So we did that.

And Darren was obviously on his way.

Darren was 6.7 lbs when he was born

but it took five days for him
before he could come out

because he became a blue baby.

So he got put into an oxygen
box tank, and I'm thinking,

"I can't believe
this is happening again".

From that point onwards,

I became fearful that
I was going to lose him, too.

GARETH: I think what Lee went
through made him feel vulnerable.

Do you think that Darren was used
as a way of controlling Lee.

Oh, yeah.

In that sort of situation,

it's currency.

How soon after Darren was born
did Dena tell you about the mafia?

Uh...

It's got to be within weeks...

He was a little baby.

I believed that the Irish Mafia
wanted to kill all of us.

This was hitmen

and Dena had said there was a price
on my head of £100,000.

They wanted all the money
from the cuddly toy business -

from the rights
to Shaun the Leprechaun.

But you must've said to her,
"What do you mean, the Mafia?"

Like, what was your reaction?

Yeah...

Well, I had heard of stories
like the Irish Mafia before.

When I heard the Irish Mafia,
I just assumed the IRA.

At the time, there was a war of the
IRA against people on the mainland,

and the day we got married

The Grand Hotel in Brighton
got bombed.

And I just thought
this is a dangerous organisation.

I was frightened.

It's quite hard to imagine
there were numerous people

out there trying to kill

your newborn baby,
your wife, yourself.

Yep.

You're always
looking at someone as...

well, are they the enemy
or are they a good person?

It sounds crazy but every time
we came out of the house,

I would go through
the standard security check,

looking under the cars for bombs.

I kept track of the number plates
in the back of the rear-view mirror.

I would write it down
on a little notepad.

See if I had the same
number plate following me.

Every time we went out.

I did fear for our lives,
every hour of every day.

It's such a crazy story.
It's extremely hard to believe.

But you validate a lot
of what he said happened.

Yep. How do you manage to isolate
somebody that effectively

and where does the drive come from

to want to do that
to another human being?

But, by that point,
he is completely controlled by Dena.

And we had no idea.

Dena struck me as being
a very well-balanced,

perfectly normal human being.

Dena was contacting my Auntie Jean
with phone calls,

very, very odd visits,
without Lee.

And there was the constant blaming
of Lee being the one

that didn't want anything to do
with his mother or the family.

And she was the innocent one
doing her best to communicate.

When you're only given one side
of the information...

what do you believe?

There was no reason
to not believe her at all.

Dena had said that
my mother and family

had been infiltrated by the Mafia.

And that's why contact
ceased from me.

And I believed her.

Within two years,
I'd lost my grandfather, my father,

and then I had the stillborn
of Louise.

And together with her bringing up
the stories of all the mafia,

that was just juggling about
in my brain.

Perhaps I was having
a mental breakdown.

Not just that particular
minute that week,

but just gradually building up.

Lee, I saw as being a strong,
well-adjusted person.

Successful. Knew his own mind.
Knew what he wanted out of life,

and he absolutely got torn apart

by somebody's manipulation.

I absolutely couldn't believe
the story I was hearing.

You think this can't have happened.

SEAN: You have to unravel
all the stories that are there.

And they're so intertwined
and so difficult to unravel.

LEE: I thought, well, are they
against me or are they with me?

I had a lot to tell them,

I'm the victim of her lies.

GARETH: Nobody had any contact
with Lee whatsoever.

He was just a ghost.

Just a ghost.

Lee was an only child,

and he was very,
very dear to his parents.

You know, I was angry at the time.

And, in my naivety,
I just thought,

I want to go and find Lee
and have a go,

and I'm going to find out
why he's not talking to his mother.

I drove down a very long lane
to get to their house.

And nobody was more surprised
than Dena when she opened that door

and I was stood there.

And she told me Lee was away
and he wouldn't be back.

So, I might as well go.

DIRECTOR: Away where?

Didn't elaborate on that at all.

LEE: Dena told me just hide.

I was just huddled up in the corner.

So that I wouldn't be
acknowledging myself to him.

Why did you accept what Dena said
that Lee wasn't there?

Did you not feel like you wanted
to have a look around inside?

That's...

I should have done.

But, at that point, we had no reason
to disbelieve that wasn't the case.

You know, we weren't privy
to what was effectively

the psychological warfare
that was going on, aimed at Lee.

Lee was part of a journey for Dena.

I think she was learning
how to control people

to the extent
that she controlled Lee.

And then what she did post that,
became the murderess.

MANDY: By then, Dena
didn't really talk about Lee.

I guess I didn't really ask.

I knew that Lee had assaulted her,

but I didn't know anything else.

Lee was definitely
out of the picture.

And all of a sudden, she's talking
about someone called Julian.

Suddenly she was Julian's partner.

This one day
I remember being in the front room,

I look out the window, it's Dena

and this person walking down.

"Hello! This is Julian."

"Oh, hi. Hello,
pleased to meet you."

It kind of... didn't make sense.

But it wasn't like,
"Oh, I'm having an affair."

Which, you know, that's what
it would be classed as, in theory.

And then it was like,
suddenly they were married.

I've never seen two people
that would be so different.

But it was very much,

to me,
that she was in charge.

LEE: Her father said,
Dena's just married.

Some chap, and I said, "What do you
mean married? What marriage?

She can't marry. I'm married."
There's no divorce.

She told her parents

that we were in the proceeds
of divorcing one another.

But it wasn't true.

She married him bigamously.

She actually put on the marriage
certificate "spinster."

At the time, I thought it was just
part of this plan to protect us.

A week before Dena married Julian,

she said to me you have to be
on the run without us.

And she told me
I couldn't stay as Lee Wyatt.

I had to have another identity.

It felt like
I was an undercover operative.

So, I'd read a couple of books.

There was The Day of the Jackal.
I think it was.

This guy was going through
the French countryside,

killing all manner of people,
taking cars and money.

So, I pulled out a map of the UK,

and I quite literally

hovered my arm and a finger
and a pencil around this.

I spun myself in a circle
to make myself giddy.

And the first bit I hit was Newquay.

It wasn't quite on Newquay.

It was near Newquay.

DAVE: In those days the amusements
arcades were in their heyday.

So it would be, pushers,
and things like that.

And then the cranes,
which was the grabbers.

You pick it up and win every time.

No. (LAUGHS)

What we used to do is
take the weight of the toy,

hold it in there
and just ease it off

so basically the grab would do that.

One day a person walked through the
front door, long hair and a beard.

Asked if
there's any employment available.

And I offered him
a job fixing machines.

I asked him his name,
he said he was Colin.

Colin Mitchell.

Hi, I'm Colin Mitchell.

So, who was Colin Mitchell?

Well, he's someone that worked
in the hotel trade

and I probably used to see him
every day.

So, you knew him?
So, I knew him. Yeah.

And you stole his name?
And I used his name.

I managed to get a passport
in the name of Colin John Mitchell.

How did you do that?

Uh, I just applied for it.
(CHUCKLES)

It's funny because there was
a film on, called The Fugitive.

And I saw that at the cinema,

and I thought,
"Oh, God, is that me?"

I'm not going to be jumping off
of rivers and helicopters

and stuff like that,
but that's how I felt.

DAVE: I'd say,
"Colin, can you do this?"

And basically, he wouldn't
answer to Colin.

Now I know why, yes.

Cos he wasn't called Colin!
(CHUCKLES)

I was waiting.

Waiting for the threat
of the Mafia to be gone.

Leaving your son behind,

obviously that was quite horrific.

So, my trust was in Julian
and his mates, the protection squad,

to look after them two.

And Dena always said,
"Yeah, they're doing their jobs.

They're looking after us."

They're arresting the hitmen,
according to her.

Well, it turns out, Julian
became a stepfather sort of thing,

a substitute dad.

He probably behaved
quite well to him.

But I'm not to know that
cos no-one ever told me anything.

MARTYN: Lee hasn't seen his son
for years because of Dena.

For a parent to leave their child,
this is a very extreme action.

This is not normal behaviour.

I realised what we were looking at

was a really controlling
relationship.

Coercion starts
with very small control

like, "I'll answer the phone,"

"I'll open the door."

A month later, it's, "I'll access
our joint bank account."

And the scary nature of coercion

is that often the person
being controlled doesn't realise it.

But it was a complex story,
and we had this awful allegation

of sexual assault against Lee
that we had to put to him.

(BUTTON CLICKS)

LEE (ON RECORDING):
Roses are red, violence is black,

you need arse shafting
as a pay back.

LEE: It's not good.

My hands were shaking.

My feet were shaking.

And I admit to them
that I did make that call.

She said you have to make
a phone call

where you're slagging me off.

Then I question and she said,
"Don't give up on Darren."

I said, "I'm not giving up
on Darren."

"But you are.
You're asking all these questions."

And this is this twist
that she does.

Then I read
the sexual assault statement,

which she signed.

She set me up
with a crime I haven't committed.

I knew this was serious.

And that's when it all came to me.

I ask, "What date did
she say this happened?"

And he gave me the date.

I said,
"It's impossible.

I was in Cornwall,
working, on that day."

And the detectives looked at
each other and they left the room.

Did you attack or abuse Dena?

Not then, no other times, whatever.

So that wasn't me.
That was her mental state.

She's just on another level.

SEAN: I called his old boss.

And Lee's alibi checked out.

He was 200 miles away
when the incidents

that she's saying
were happening in Yapton,

when he was working in Cornwall.

Worryingly, she got Lee Wyatt
to incriminate himself

in numerous offences
that he hadn't committed

purely because she coerced him
into doing it.

I loved her that much that
I would have done anything for her.

Love does make you do crazy things.

SEAN: His had all been
fabricated by Dena.

He was never charged
with any offences.

Full credit and marks to them.

Because they believed
in an innocent man.

(SIGHS)

MARTYN: I'd never heard of a case
as extreme as Lee Wyatt.

It was mind-numbing
what she did to him.

By the end of the interview,
I don't think any of us thought

he was in any way connected
with the death of Julian Webb.

The way Dena set up Lee Wyatt,

took a lot of intelligence.

took a lot of thought.
A lot of planning.

Premeditation.

But we couldn't charge Dena
with anything

because, at that time,
coercive control wasn't a crime.

She got away with it

and the damage caused
was horrendous.

LEE: Of course,
I tried to get custody.

But the family court judge
took her word rather than mine.

What she's done
isn't against the law,

and the police would not help.

It's like a civil matter
rather than a law enforcement thing.

I think Darren has always lived
with his grandmother,

Dena's mother, Margaret.

I got the impression

he's been taught
the father is the devil.

So, he's been brainwashed.

Of course, he has.

I wanted a life
together with my son.

But I hadn't seen Darren
for three or four years.

When I left, all I could say is,
"Daddy will see you again soon."

But I never saw him after that.

I remember sending things
for his birthday.

It was all sent back to me.

I've never known
what he's done in his life,

how he got on at school.

Darren is the greatest
loss of my life.

I was frustrated that
we hadn't got a charge.

Dena completely destroyed Lee's life
and Julian Webb had been found dead.

There is a killer out there
and I was definitely worried.

I just knew something else
was going to happen.

I had no doubt that she'll be
looking to meet more victims.

And that's what concerns me
the greatest.

In August of 1995, a man walks
into the police station at Worthing,

and states that he is
a victim of Dena as well.

And his name is Rob Waite.

Dena had mentioned
his name several times,

blaming him
for all kinds of thefts and things.

And I thought it's just
another made up name

that she'd come up with.

But this guy has arrived to tell me

he has been coerced to go
to America with Dena.

And the date that he was there
is exactly the same

as when Lee met Dena at a hotel,
and then followed her back

to where she was with a guy.

That was Rob Waite.

Alarm bells go off straight away.

Dena had told him
that she's dying from cancer,

and she wanted to go to America for
the last three months of her life.

So, he had agreed to take
all the money that he could

and they went to Florida.

And I sat there open mouthed.

Dena's told Rob the same fabricated
story that she told Julian.

They had ended up doing
midnight flits from hotels, motels,

and taking anything that
they could grab before they left

cos people were after them.

And then Rob told us that
she administered something to him

in their hotel.

He felt a sharp pain
in his upper thigh.

He believed that she was
administering insulin.

Dena then went back to England

and abandoned him in America.

He had no money, no clothes.

All he had with him, really,
was his passport and a few pennies.

And now I'm thinking, could this be
what happened to Julian Webb?

Was he injected
with insulin as well?

We're truly shocked
by what is going on,

that this is her pattern
of behaviour.

I realised that we had something
much more serious going on here.

DIRECTOR: Now you've got three
victims. Can you take action?

At that point, there was nothing
else we could do to arrest Dena,

because we had no proof
that she had injected Rob.

I kept trying to push people to see
if there was anything else,

because I think everybody
had begun to think,

there may be other victims here.

But then the case went quiet.

RICHARD:
On the 1st of January 2000,

there I am, on the floor,
feet tied, hands tied,

and I'm thinking,
this is uncomfortable.

And she said, "I'm just going
to tie you up and have some fun."

And she put a towel over my face.

She goes, "Can you hear me?
Can you hear me?"

"Yeah, I can hear you."

Bang!
(GLASS SHATTERS) (MAN SCREAMS)

A bright flash
goes off in your head.

It's like someone firing a flash
gun in your eyes.

Bang! Again.
(SCREAMING)

So hard

the impact
split my head up both sides.

I didn't even know I'd been stabbed.

Honestly, I just couldn't
take it in.

"What?
Your wife just tried to kill you?"

There was so much blood,
it was all over the floor.

To her horror, I sat up.

I'm literally fighting for my life.

I pinned her on the floor.

She dropped the knife.

And I said to her,
"What on earth are you doing?"

And she said, "It's all been a lie."

All been a lie!

There was nothing else said...

So... she calls her parents.

After about two and a half hours,
her parents turned up.

Her mother walks in.

First thing, she said, "Dena,
what have you done this time?"

Her father took me to a hospital
to get me stitched up.

I was lying in a hospital bed.

I could see two policemen
attending another incident.

And I was trying to get
their attention.

But her father pulled the curtains.
He wouldn't let me.

When we got back to the house,

Dena had packed some basic stuff.

I just assumed
she was going off with her parents.

And I'm trying to work it all out.

I could still hear the ringing
of this baseball bat in my head.

I really wanted to go to sleep.
The pain was incredible.

And I noticed that all the blood
had been cleared up.

Her mother had cleaned it up.

And then they left,
and they drove her back to Devon.

So, I'm in the DS's office,

he tells me take a seat
and we're going to talk about job

that's been called in
the day before.

Richard Thompson says
he has been assaulted by his wife,

and her name is Dena Thompson.

I just went, "Fuck!"

Dena Thompson was also Dena Webb
and Dena Wyatt.

I thought,
this can't be happening again.

Immediately, police officers
were sent to the address.

But because Richard had waited
so long to contact us -

it had been three days
since the alleged attack -

we were playing catch up.

By the time
we get to do the bathroom,

Richard told us Mum has already
cleaned up all the blood

that's in there.

You would never clean a scene
ever like that, ever.

And somebody had.

MARTYN: This is a crime scene.
The man nearly died.

It stretches belief.

We'd lost a lot of evidence.

The golden hour, as we call it,
had been and gone.

The logical person would dial 999.

Richard had wasted three days

and allowed the scene
to be destroyed.

Unbelievable.

SEAN: Not only had we lost
all the evidence that could give us

clear proof of what happened,
we had another problem...

Richard doesn't want
to press charges.

I was shocked.

MARTYN:
I was in a real dilemma

because if he didn't want
to prosecute,

Dena could go off again
and do this to someone else.

This woman is out there,
and she could do it again...

She's dangerous.

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