After Richard Thompson placed a lonely hearts ad in his local paper in 1998, he was optimistic: following one failed marriage and a period of work overseas, the 40-year-old telecomms manager was ready to settle down again. So when he got a reply from a woman named Dena - “bubbly, extroverted, confident” - he was excited. “These are things I found very attractive,” he says, and recalls their first meeting: “There was some chemistry there.
And that’s what you’re looking for.” Two years later, with blood pouring from his head on their bathroom floor, their plans for an idyllic future together came to an end. Blindfolded with his hands tied behind his back after Dena allegedly suggested a sex game, Richard says he felt a crash to the skull as she landed a blow with a baseball bat.
Adrenaline coursed through him to such a degree that he didn’t feel the subsequent lacerations to his neck and shoulder with a carving knife. The brutal attack on Richard, Dena’s third husband, would ultimately uncover a trail of murder, fraud and bigamy spanning at least a decade. For the first time, he and several others she ensnared appear in Black Widow , a new Sky documentary about their battle to bring Dena to justice, and the fear there are more victims out there.
Almost a quarter of a century on, Richard says he has been denied retribution. The documentary and this interview, he says, are his opportunity to finally set the record straight. “I want justice.
I want people to know what really happened” -something he says was not achieved in court. In 2000, a jury acquitted Dena of attempted murder, despite both Richard and the police being convinced she would be convicted. Though the court dismissed Dena’s alleged attempt on Richard’s life, the litany of deceptions she wrought on her victims led police to describe her as “every man’s nightmare”.
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