All language subtitles for Black.Widow.2024.S01E03.720p.WEBRip.x264-GalaxyTV

The following programme contains
descriptions of real-life violence

that some viewers may find
distressing.

(HOSPITAL CHATTER)

(LOW, SOMBRE MUSIC)

Unless it's happened to you
or someone you know...

..you really, really struggle
to take all this in.

You thinking,
did that really just happen?

Did someone just try and kill me?

I've gone from married,
dreams coming, everything.

In a split second,
I'm fighting for my life.

This is where you go into a shock.

When you try and think about
someone's mentality to do this

to another human being,
I think it's monstrous.

(MUSIC FADES, ENDS)

(LOW, SOMBRE MUSIC)

He says there's blood all over the
floor, blood all over the bathroom.

The logical person would dial 999.

The fact that Richard then took
another day to phone the police.

It beggars' belief.

When I met Richard Thompson
with his huge facial injuries,

it was quite clear this case
was a runner.

But, Richard,
he had wasted three days

and allowed the scene
to be destroyed.

And even when he contacted
the police purely said,

I want this logged
in case I divorce her.

Unbelievable.

He was coerced into a hugely
controlling relationship

and he didn't see the wood
for the trees.

As she walked out the door,
she turned back and said,

you'll never be able to tell anyone
what I did to you.

Almost like a warning.

INTERVIEWER: Do you think that
she meant that you would be

too embarrassed to tell anyone?

There could be that element there,

the only thing I find embarrassing
that I was suckered into this.

Being suckered into lying on a floor
is pretty horrendous.

It's trust.

That's the only way I got myself
into that situation.

We've got this whole issue
of the male ego.

Richard was embarrassed to admit
what he'd been through.

But 20 or 30 years ago, the male
psyche was one of dominance.

We were a very misogynistic society,

and so the possibility that a man
would be targeted by a woman

was alien to most people.

And Richard could not accept that
the person he married

would go to such lengths
to kill him.

He said to me,
you can't switch love on and off.

And that's the point.

The scary thing about Dena,
it starts with a love story.

(TICKING)

(LIGHT MUSIC)

I was like a modern-day
globetrotter.

Financially wise, I was comfortable.

But what I didn't realise was
the longer and longer

I was working abroad,

my social network was just getting
smaller and smaller.

What did you do?

Well in those days,
back in the late '90s,

there was nothing else
but lonely heart columns.

You had a code in your advert,

and then you could dial in and
see if anyone left you a message.

(PHONE RINGING)

Were you optimistic?

I'm always optimistic.

I thought oh yeah,
she sounds nice, we'll meet up.

She was very bubbly, extrovert,
I'm an extrovert, confident.

And these were things
that I found attractive.

Dena said, 'Oh, I'm off to Florida
in a couple of months.

I go fishing in Florida.
Would you like to join me?'

My hobby all my life's been fishing,
I jumped at the chance.

the stuff I was catching
in the English Channel,

they class as bait out there.

And that's when Dena
put her first hook in me.

(LIGHT MUSIC CONTINUES)

We stayed in this little place
called St Pete Beach.

She knew the layout of the place,
she knew restaurants.

Even the Americans called
it paradise.

We went out, we did a little grouper
fishing, a little snapper fishing.

She was affectionate towards him.
He was affectionate towards her.

It was that banter back and forth.

She was definitely like
the alpha in charge on that deal.

Like I remember her making, like,
loaded comments to me.

She was flirting with you?
Oh of course. Yeah.

This was all a big act.

She was, like,
very good at what she did.

He was under a spell, basically.

There was attraction there.
A very, very strong friendship.

And that's why we decided
to get married.

That night, she said,
look I've got something to tell you.

She told me a couple of years ago
she'd won the lottery -

wasn't the jackpot,
but it was £300,000.

Why did she tell you about it
on your wedding night?

Who knows?

Who knows?
Was she hatching her plan?

Was she putting these seeds
in my head?

When I sit down and think about it,

it's really clear that Dena had
an agenda from the very beginning.

Out to scam him and steal his money.

It's unbelievable, really.
Unbelievable.

Did you have any inkling
of all this when you met her?

Who could have. That she was
a thief, a fraudster,

and a murderer.

I did find a few things strange.

After Dena moved in,

then the fishing and crewing
for me um, stopped.

He told me that...

..he had put her
on the land registry documents

so she was a joint owner
of the cottage.

I was surprised at that.

Probably about six months
after we got married, I rung home.

And she said, 'I have cancer'.

Well, of course you're worried.
And I was worried.

Cancer's that horrible word.

I took her to hospital,
and I collected her.

She said 'Let's move out to Florida
and let me live my last few years

living a really good dream.

And I'll set you up in business
with the lottery money.'

Dena said, 'Richard's leaving for
the States,

and he won't be coming back'.

Why did Dena tell you?
Why didn't Richard just tell you?

I don't know.
That was a bit strange.

I think probably because she was
in control by that time.

I think I probably felt, "Oh well,
that's the end of a friendship".

(LOW, TENSE MUSIC)

Although Richard didn't want
to press charges,

his injuries were so severe

we were able to get a warrant
for Dena's arrest.

She was in Devon living
at her parents.

I rang the local police station
and said,

'We need her arrested
as quickly as you can.'

Then she was brought back
to Sussex to be interviewed.

I first met Dena when she had been
arrested for the attempted murder

of Richard Thompson.

I gave her a look to say,

I know what you've done
and I'm going to put you away.

And then something really strange
happened. I remember it vividly.

She gave me the look.

I got the Dena look.

She has this really alluring look
that entices men in.

It didn't work with me,
but it wasn't lost on me

that she did it to me, in the most
bizarre of circumstances...

..while she was under arrest
for attempted murder.

I think that demonstrates to me
just how dangerous she is.

At that point the pressure was
on to get the evidence together

to keep her in custody...

..but we're way behind.

We'd lost 2 to 3 days because
Richard had waited so long

to report the incident.

Because he still loved her.

And as he said to me,

I've been in love with this woman
for nearly a year.

She's my wife.

She may have done wrong,
but I believe in my wedding vows.

I said to him, if you don't help us,
Richard,

I'm going to carry on
with this anyway.

Luckily,
Richard did come to his senses,

and we went for the prosecution.

You're piecing it all together in
your mind. I'm concussed, basically.

Eventually the reality does set in

and you realise how horrific
this was,

and how worse it could have been.

Suppose she stabbed me
through the throat.

Supposed she had hit me in
the jugular

because it's only a few inches away.

The detectives were great.

They came and they said,
"We believe you".

And there was a lot to explain.

The day after the attack
at half past eight,

knock at the door.

There's a guy in a suit
with a clipboard.

He said 'Oh your wife's selling
the house, what are you doing here,

you're supposed to be in Florida.'

SEAN: Richard had signed over his
last will and testament to Dena.

He signed over a power of attorney
to her,

and Richard said she was going to
sell his house and take everything.

He went to his bank accounts
and all the money was gone.

The £30,000 of my pension payment.

The £12,000 on the American Express.

The £5,000 cheque.

She knew exactly what she was going
to do,

and she explained
how I wasn't going to be there.

There's your premeditation.

Had she achieved killing me,

how she was going to dispose of me,
who knows?

Dena is remanded in custody.
But we have a ticking clock.

The trial is coming and sure enough,

she went for
the self-defence argument.

She said that Richard
had tried to kill her.

But Dena was examined for injuries
and had no injuries.

The problem in a case like
this particularly with partners

is it's one word against another.

We needed more than that.

As the forensics team went over
the crime scene,

they discovered that the attempt
to clean up wasn't perfect.

Fortunately,
when you look at it more closely,

behind the radiator,
quite high up on the walls,

Richard's blood spatterings
were found all around the room.

It was a relief that not
all the evidence was lost.

And then we have another
major breakthrough.

Dena had an address book.

It was full of names of men,
with their addresses,

telephone numbers,
and business cards.

And we were tasked to go through it
and call all these numbers.

And one of the numbers,
this chap answers,

and he is horrified.

He says, 'I'm married,
I will lose my wife,

I'll probably lose my job,
and please don't call me again.'

Some of the people flatly denied
that anything ever happened.

And I don't believe them.

But we did establish more
than ten more victims.

These guys meet her,
she's too good to be true,

telling people
that she'd won lotteries,

and how rich she was and how ill
she was, um, none of which was true.

And they had been subjected to her
maxing up their credit cards

and then dumping them.

30 years ago it was a very unusual
modus operandi

for a woman to target men.

There's this male desire
to keep things private,

which is why Dena got away
with so much.

We established patterns of behaviour
with these men.

There may have been different lies,

there may have been different
backgrounds to the men

and to the stories.

But there was always
the American dream.

The American dream was all
about moving to a beautiful place

and live happily ever after.

Dena was promising Lee that he would
be going to America with her.

And Julian was going to do
fishing trips

and work for the Tampa Tribune.

Richard thought he was going off
to do this job in Florida

once his green card had come.

And this is a theme
that runs through

all her other victims as well,

but why she was so obsessed
with Florida,

I don't think it was ever
really established.

What was also very clear was
that there was a lot of sex,

and the sex was very adventurous.

It became apparent it was part of
the coercive game.

She would phone me randomly
and say she's- Oh, God.

She's into bondage and whips
and I'm laughing 'cause

maybe it's just like knowing that

I'm a bit blinking strange
and prudish.

I can't say that if you walked
into a room and he saw her

that you'd go,
she's very attractive.

I still feel very much that...

..her attraction would be...

..her attitude maybe to sex.

(LOW, SOMBRE MUSIC)

One thing we never saw with Dena
is any form of sympathy or empathy.

We never found a natural,
healthy relationship with a man

or a woman in her life.

And that, I think, speaks volumes
about the psychology of her mind.

The mother wouldn't speak to us
at all.

The father was very anti police...

..which I found staggering because
the father was a prison officer.

This suggested a warped mentality
which I think rubbed off on her.

She never really talked
about her childhood.

But she spoke about gymnastics
and going abroad with her father.

She never mentioned
her mother at all.

It was always dad this,
or dad did that.

It was just seemed like
if anything was going wrong,

he would be the person
that would sort it out.

But like when she talked about
the gymnastics and things like that,

something just doesn't seem right.

As more and more evidence came
to light, you figure it out.

When the police did a very thorough
search of the cottage,

they found a tin.

It was full of photographs
of this other guy. Julian Webb.

No idea. Never heard of this person.

The police explained that Julian
had met his end

in what they regarded
as suspicious circumstances.

Who I now know was
her second husband, Julian Webb.

But I didn't have any knowledge
of Julian Webb until this moment.

In some respects,
your memories of people still live.

I think it's counterproductive
to get sort of mawkish and morbid.

It really is. Doesn't help anybody.

INTERVIEWER: Had you got to
the point where you thought

perhaps you weren't going
to get justice for Julian?

Well, I don't know if I thought
so negatively as that.

But it's what kept me going.

(PHONE RINGING)

I think it was Martyn Underhill
called me

and told me she was about
to appear in court

for the attempted murder
of Richard Thompson.

I could have fallen off my chair.

Having seemingly got away
with murder once,

here she was having another go.

(LOW, SOMBRE MUSIC)

JUDGE: All rise.
This court is now in session.

Dena Thompson, you are charged
that you unlawfully took out

a credit card in Richard Thompson's
name, therefore committing fraud.

Do you plead guilty or not guilty?
DENA: Guilty.

You are charged that you did
unlawfully attack Mr Thompson

with a baseball bat

and that you stabbed him
with a knife,

therefore committing
attempted murder.

Do you plead guilty or not guilty?
Not guilty.

(MIC FEEDBACK)

Dena looked very, very small
in the witness box...

..and she admitted that she had lied
to Richard about her health,

and it was solely so that she would
get some sympathy from him.

I was very apprehensive
about the court case.

When Dena was on the stand,
she said that,

I was in the bathroom trimming
curtains with a carving knife

and then said that when she
confessed that all my money

had gone,
that's when I attacked her.

She said he'd come at her with
the knife

and she had managed to grab
the baseball bat,

hit him twice with it
to defend herself,

and then, got the knife off of him
and stabbed him

because she thought her life was
in danger.

She was asked
'Did you love Richard Thompson?'

She just said 'no'.

Richard was broken by that.

This was this was a dagger
through his heart really.

Hearing someone say that, you
realise, I was the means to an end.

I think I was in this dock
for at least two days.

They were trying to convince
the jury I was the aggressor;

I was totally frustrated with the
ridiculous questions I was asked.

ROD: In court, he would sit there

and if he didn't like
what he's hearing,

he would smack his hands down
"(GROANS)".

I said to him,

"The jury are watching
your every move, Richard."

SEAN: Her mother and father gave
evidence on her behalf.

I don't think either of them think
that Dena could do anything wrong,

which seems astonishing to me,
really.

MARTYN: Of course, Julian couldn't
be mentioned to the jury,

but I was confident in the evidence.

We had all of the motives
that we knew about,

the coerciveness towards Richard.

It was a slam dunk for me.

They came back in and asked
to hear the original call

from Richard Thompson to the police.

Richard Thompson phoned up to say
my wife tried to kill me.

I just want it logged in case
I'll seek a divorce.

So that's what seemed to create
a question of doubt for the jury.

NEWS: The black widow,
as she's become known,

stood trial for the attempted murder
of Richard Thompson.

NEWS 2: Mrs Thompson had denied that
she had tried to kill her husband.

NEWS 3: After stabbing him and
beating him with a baseball bat

she was acquitted
of attempted murder.

NEWS 4: The jury accepted that
she had acted in self-defence.

(TENSE, SOMBRE MUSIC)

When I heard the verdict,
I was absolutely devastated.

I had been through hell,

and I thought how on earth did
the jury not see what was happening.

I thought we had got Dena

and that she was going to prison
for a substantial amount of time.

I was wrong.

We had to shrug it off
and carry on fighting.

And that's why on the same day as
the acquittal,

I announced we were reopening
the Julian Webb Case.

The events portrayed during
this trial,

and the unusual nature
of Julian Webb's death,

means that Sussex Police
will re-examine

the circumstances of that death.

I was determined to stop Dena
and get justice for Rosemary Webb.

We now knew that Dena was
obsessed with insulin.

We'd heard from five other men that
they had been injected with insulin.

If you inject someone with insulin,
you will cause shaking,

you'll be disoriented,
your temperature will rise,

and if it's enough insulin,
you will die.

And the theory I came up with is
that Dena had used insulin on Julian

to incapacitate him.

And over several days she made him
ingest aspirin and dothiepin...

..and suddenly I had a line
from A to B

of how a young man went from being
fit and healthy

to a dead body a week later.

But we had a problem.

If you have a suspicious death,
you have a forensic post-mortem.

And Sean said to me,
we didn't do that.

It was classified as a unexpected
death, not a suspicious death.

Even though many, many people
had their own doubts.

If you are trying to find
long-term drugs in someone's body,

it would be in their hair.

I realised that I would have
to exhume the body.

There are only four or five forensic
exhumations in this country a year.

I reached out to the world's expert
on exhumation at that time.

His first question to me completely
threw me and he said, Martyn,

is there a tree next to the body?

Because the tree roots suck all
the water out

and save the body decomposing.

So, of course, straightaway
we drove to Hayling Island,

we found Julian's plot, and
it was right next to an oak tree.

(SOMBRE MUSIC)

I'm very much a person who believes
you go back to the earth

that you never really go away.

Your chemicals, your spirit,
is there in the natural world.

It's not nothing.
It's something else.

It's things like that, that makes me
wish I was religious,

because I would then imagine
we would meet again in some form,

and that's hard to deal with.

(LOW, TENSE MUSIC)

It was a really daunting experience.

Each six inches you go down,
you have to take soil samples

because bodies do leak fluid
and they do leak poison.

After about two hours,
we got to the coffin.

That was heavy duty.

We were lucky.

96, 97% of his body was intact,
very little of it had decomposed.

But if we didn't get anything
back from the post-mortem,

the case would be closed.

(SOFT DRAMATIC MUSIC)

(MUSIC FADES, ENDS)

The forensic post-mortem showed
that small amounts of dothiepin

had been fed to Julian over
several days,

it was enough to question whether
Dena had killed Julian Webb.

I remember punching the air,
I was absolutely over the moon.

But Dothiepin tastes very bitter.

How did Dena get Julian to
take dothiepin without knowing?

To prove she did it, I needed
the answer to that question.

But the results from the scientists
came in in the late summer of 2000.

On the 1st July 2000,
Sussex Police started investigating

the biggest murder enquiry
ever launched,

which was the Sarah Payne case.

We have to catch and lock up
the person who abducted

and killed a this little girl.

And so we're going
to have to park this.

It was really frustrating,

I just started getting
into the swing of this case,

but I knew I would go back to it.

(GENTLE MUSIC)

Rosemary kept everything in relation
to her son's death. Everything.

Let's have a look.

And that's when I first heard about
Don Hutson.

'Dear Don, how's things,
are you enjoying your beer?

And here's another one,
'Dear Don and Kathy.

Happy Christmas to you both and hope
to see you soon, Julian and Dena'.

Some of the letters were sent after
Julian's death,

where Don had
written condolences to Dena.

So, I was determined to find Don,
because I want to know his version

of what he thought happened
to Julian and how Julian died.

And the first thing I did was
contact the local police in Tampa

and ask for their help.

(PLANE ENGINE ROARS)
(UP-BEAT POP MUSIC)

(MUSIC FADES, ENDS)

I got a message that there was...

I needed to speak to some
British detectives, English bobbies.

(CHUCKLES) They got an accent.
You know.

(FAKE ENGLISH ACCENT) Hello, JD.

Could you be of some service?
Possibly? Yes, sir.

(NORMAL) Yeah, I can help you out,
brother. What you got?

We need to find Don Hutson.

We would run, you know, it's just
a standard driver's license checks

to see if there's anything available
on that person.

But there was just nothing that
we could, you know, locate them at.

And I believe that ultimately led
to Martyn and Sean coming here.

(LIGHT MUSIC)

As soon as we landed, I think we
were probably curiosities.

SEAN: Yeah, we were.
They loved the accent.

And they wanted just to know if
we'd brought our hats with us,

and all that sort of thing.
Of course.

Did you?
No!

There were lots of reasons why
we went to America.

One was to trace Don Hutson,

but also it strengthened
the plank of the American Dream.

We only had four days,
so we immersed ourselves

in the fishing community of
South East Florida.

(MUSIC ENDS)

We went everywhere:

marinas, yacht yards,
pubs, restaurants.

We spent three days looking for him
and our time is running out.

We're flying home in two days.

I really wanted to find Don Hutson,

because I knew he was
a personal friend of Julian's,

and we had a really strong clue
that he had spoken to Dena

after the death.

So I decided to use the media.

Hi.

This appeal is for Don Hudson,
who's an American living in Florida.

I am Detective Inspector Underhill,

and this is...
Detective Constable Sean MacDonald.

And we are both from
the Sussex Police in England.

I didn't want the American press
exaggerating

or running off with the wrong idea.
And of course, they did.

Within 24 hours,

we were Scotland Yard detectives
and Don was a suspect in a murder.

Within a day,
Don Hudson contacted me,

but the dude was pissed
that his name is associated

with a police investigation.

He was incredibly angry, you know,

how dare you come over to this
country and tell everyone

that I'm a murder suspect?
You've ruined my life.

I got him to agree for me to go
and see him,

at this huge outdoor hunting lodge.

There was lots of taxidermy animals
there.

You know, six-foot tall bear.
(LOW, TENSE MUSIC)

There was an alligator. The whole
thing was gun centric, man centric.

When I met him there,
he was incredibly hostile.

He gave me both barrels.

I said, 'Look, this has just
completely been exaggerated

beyond all belief.'

Slowly we brought him down
and then he started talking.

He told us the story that Don and
Julian had met through fishing.

They corresponded together;
they spoke on the phone.

He said 'the last time he spoke
with Dena was a couple of days

after Julian had died.

Dena called Don and said...
'I'm sorry, Julian is dead'.

She said 'He had a really hot curry.

Next morning,
I found him dead in bed.

It looks like he killed himself.'

I just went,
whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa.

What was that you just said?

That was the- the moment for me.
That was my Pandora's Box.

'Can you conceal the taste
of dothiepin in a curry?'

Yes, of course you can.

Suddenly, to me,
everything clicked into place.

That was how she gave him
the tablets.

It was that eureka moment for me.

I was a man possessed for then on.

I thought 'I've got you now'.

NEWS: Dena Holmes arrived at
Crawley Police station

in West Sussex
just before 10 o clock this morning.

Shortly afterwards,
detectives began questioning her

about the death of
her former husband 8 years ago.

Dena was arrested,
but wouldn't speak to us.

She chose to provide
a prepared statement.

POLICE: There was only two people
in the house on that night,

you and Julian.

Of course, sadly Julian can't help.

But you were there Dena...

..tell me what happened.

DENA: I've given you a statement,
I'm not giving you any more.

(MYSTERIOUS MUSIC)

In this case, it was undeniable
that she was a liar.

That in itself doesn't get you very
far in proving a case of murder.

We had put together a lot
of strands of evidence

about Dena's extraordinary,

I would say, deformed personality.

About her dishonesty,
about her motives,

and about her very curious conduct

in the period up to Julian's death
and immediately after.

Days before Julian died,

Lee unexpectedly turned up
at Dena's house.

Had Julian and Lee met,
then the bigamy would have come out.

I mean if Lee had started to tell
Julian what had happened to him,

well, imagine what the effect
would have been on Julian

and on Dena's marriage to him.

And so maybe she decided
relatively quickly to kill him.

And that timeframe, Lee turns up,

it's only a week later
that Julian dies.

Is it just a coincidence?

She didn't want to get caught.

Suddenly I had not just
the method in which she'd given

Julian Webb a fatal dose of
dothiepin, I also had the motive.

And I thought,
the pieces are coming together.

One my analysts created an A3 chart,
and I called it a story on the page.

We had each victim's name
and story that they were told.

I said when the jury goes into
the jury room,

having listened to
a very bizarre story,

I want them to refer to
a piece of paper and it's all there.

A repetitive serial fraudster who
used violence when it was necessary.

It was back to the thrill of
the chase again.

INTERVIEWER: You were excited?

Well, I suppose anticipation,
but I think mostly thankfulness

that something had been
recognised at last.

I think that was
the overwhelming feeling.

Couldn't contemplate that the
perpetrator would get away with it.

(SOMBRE, HAUNTING MUSIC)

NEWS: Dena Thompson was described
in court as a very disturbed person.

NEWS 2: Police say she was motivated
by money and hatred of men.

NEWS 3: Thompson denies murder
and the trial continues.

Here I was presenting the jury and,
in effect, the public,

with this very intimate analysis
of what we thought was going on

in this woman's mind

and her very remarkable
and distorted personality.

But I never heard her speak.

Dena didn't testify in court.

I think there's one reason for that

because the lawyer has said
if you go to that stand,

your story will collapse.

(MUSIC FADES, ENDS)

A woman's has been jailed for life
for murdering her second husband

by poisoning his curry
on his 31st birthday.

Curry. Poison in curry.

NEWS: Sentencing Dena Thompson
to life imprisonment,

the judge Michael Hyam told her

'Nothing could excuse you for
the wickedness of what you did.'

NEWS 2: Dena Thompson is tonight
beginning a life sentence

for murder.

She is dishonest, untruthful,
manipulative, deceitful

and scheming.

We got there.

(RELIEVED WHISTLE)

It's one of these sorts of highs,
you know, adrenaline flow.

You know, you could have gone out
and danced all night sort of thing.

(LOW, OMINOUS MUSIC)

It's still really hard to believe
that I know that person.

You know, if someone goes,
what does a murderer look like?

Well, not Dena.

LEE: I remember there would be
moments

where if you thought something,

she'd be reminiscing
the same thought.

And that's where I thought
we were going, as one.

It makes me sick now, actually,
when I think about it.

'Cause to me,
that was a wasted life with her.

She's paid for her crimes,

but she hasn't paid for her crime
against me.

(LOW, TENSE PIANO MUSIC)

INTERVIEWER: She still goes by
the name Dena Thompson.

She still uses your surname.

Yeah, I find that odd.

Do you think she ever loved you?

No. I've accepted it.

A hard acceptance.

But I had no choice,
I had to accept this and move on.

It would be much easier to entrap
men now than it was in her day.

Now you just swipe left or right
on an app.

You can spot vulnerabilities
in people

just on their profiles online.

What better age for somebody like
Dena to then start targeting

my age group.

So, has the story finished?
After 30 years?

We'll wait and see
what the next chapter says.

Would she do it again?

Yes, I am sure she would.

I don't think she can help herself.

I hope I'm wrong.

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