Criminal profiling on a serial killer, Joanna Dennehy

Name

University affiliation
Introduction:

Joanna Dennehy can be beautiful, a good friend, and desirable to people of both genders. She

was susceptible to explosive, terrifying outbursts of temper and aggression if she did not get her

way. Friends, including lovers, learned to get out from the way quickly as she would attack and

lash out at everything nearest to her (Donnell, 2016).

Dennehy went significantly, even further in early spring last year, killing three men, probably

only because she would be irritated by their unwelcome attention or bored by them during casual

inappropriate relationships. She went in search of further abuse after tasting and seemingly being

delighted by it, narrowly escaping murdering two more individuals before being apprehended.

Doctors who treated Dennehy during and before her murderous rampage presented her with

several ailments. She was diagnosed with a psychopathic anti-social personality disorder a year

before she killed, which expressed itself in rage, hostility, impulsivity, and lack of responsibility.

She showed little concern for others' welfare, had no remorse for hurting others, and was a

professional deceiver and manipulator. Like many people with a significant anti-social

psychological disorder, Dennehy has been in and out of prison and has a long history of

substantial alcohol and drug abuse. Her sexual interests bothered some of her many male and

female lovers, but they appealed to others. She was diagnosed with paraphilia lesbianism after

her detention, which means she gets sexual gratification from both sending and receiving pain

and misery. She wore a pair of handcuffs attached to her trousers to conceal her criminal

tendencies (Parker, 2014).

Her childhood seems to have been pleasant and routine. She connected a bunk bed with Maria,

who has been twenty decades her junior when she was a little girl, and the two of them were so

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similar that they invented their very own special language. Dennehy loved her dolls as a child,

and as she grew older, she enjoyed wearing make-up, painting her hair, and dressing up in trendy

clothes. Friends claim their fathers were stern and supportive of their daughters but not

overpowering. Dennehy excelled at Roundwood Park Schools in Harpenden at first. Her parents

hoped she would have to go to university and become a lawyer because she was intelligent and

capable, and they even compensated for her extra tuition. She was a member of the hockey and

Aussie rules teams at her high school (Parker, 2014).

According to the professor, men's offenders are more likely to have been strangers because they

can find themselves in violent circumstances, such as fighting or resolving disputes in nightclubs

or just on the street. "You don't see that kind of combative murder whenever women are already

in social spaces."

Although what causes a woman to start committing or serial murders?

Wilson claims that the causes vary for men because they are for women, but clinical psychologist

Elie Gods claims that the response is more simplistic. "If women have also been

brutalizedbrutalizedbrutalized, they just act in absolutely de human and damaging ways."

While searching for a room to rent, she met her roommate and eventual victim, Kevin Lee, 49,

including his business partner, Paul Creed. Creed claims that "She told that she'd been killed her

father because he had raped her and even had Jacksons' child, which she had lost... She even

revealed several scars throughout her arms, including the stomach." While Creed refused to

house her, Lee "wanted to give a woman a chance."

It all started to go downhill when she was in her full back. She began skipping classes and

hanging out with a group of older boys. She ran away with a man named John Treanor, five

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years her age when she was around 15 years old. Her family was in a panic. The couple was

finally discovered living on the streets near the marital home, and they reconciled (Wilson,

2015).

On the other hand, Dennehy had started using smoking and alcohol and had even turned up at the

school high or intoxicated. She left home for the weekend at the age of 16, returning only when

she needed more money. Dennehy and Treanor made their home in Luton, instead of Milton

Keynes, a few miles up the coast.

Her rages became more intense. Before she was intoxicated, she would kick and punch Treanor.

She started carrying a knife in another one of her boots and made it known she had a deep urge

to kill somebody. Treanor fled in 2009, taking children with him, afraid that she's using the

dagger on him. Dennehy's behaviour became increasingly erratic. She travelled around East

Anglia, cheating and even resorting to trafficking to sustain her drug and alcohol abuse. She was

sentenced to jail and provided medication for her psychological problems while there (Parker,

2014).

Dennehy spent a couple of days in Peterborough city hospital in February 2012, just over a week

before the killings. She had been classified with anti-social psychological disorder and attention

deficit disorder. When she was being held at Bronzefield Prison in Surrey after her conviction,

she was examined by a specialist clinical psychologist, Frank Farnham. He has said she is

suffering from paraphilia sadomasochism. Actions involving the infliction of discomfort,

embarrassment, or bondage elicit sexual arousal among those with the disorder. Dennehy

enjoyed inflicting – and receiving – pain (Wilson, 2015).

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She also seemed to enjoy her celebrity, breathing a sigh of relief when police asked for help

finding her and identifying herself as a "monster" while on the run. She accused of killing eight

men in total, comprising her father, two persons in some house fire, and two individuals in a hit-

and-run. Her father is still alive, and no proof has been shown that she has killed upwards of

three men. She is not a serial killer throughout the strictest sense; psychologists believe there

must be a "cooling off" cycle between killings, or she would be classified as a "serial murderer"

or "spree killer." She'll go down in history alongside Rosemary West and Myra Hindley as

among the most notorious female murderers in the United Kingdom (Parker, 2014).

"This is a one-of-a-kind and unparalleled case," said David Wilson, a criminology professor at

Birmingham City University. "Serial killers disconnect from either the killing process and return

to their regular lives. There has never been any indication that she was disengaging. She seemed

to be in the middle of a killing spree at all times." Wilson, who's already done thorough research

into the case, suggests it may be due to various reasons, considering her alcohol and drug use, as

well as her relationship with Gary Stretch. The latter aided her in disposing of her perpetrators'

bodies and escaped from prison with her (Donnell, 2016).

Within a week of driving throughout the country, they tracked down Dennehy's next victims in

Hereford, where she assaulted them and said, "I need my fun." Dennehy's behaviour is much

more notable for her attempts to attract attention to her killings, as though to prove her story

about killing her father. It's evident that perhaps the killings were a source of pride for her; they

drew attention and left her feeling victorious (Fox, 2013). According to a relative, Dennehy was

"trying to jump around" in excitement because she saw herself face mainly on the news. Women

make up as little as one out of every six known mass murderers, but the number of additional

female criminals has risen dramatically since the 1950s (Parker, 2014).

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We don't know why Dennehy started killing when she did. We realizerealizerealize that

Dennehy's former boyfriend, John Treanor, kicked her out of the building after she continued to

harass and assault him. As one of my neighbours recalled: "Jo was a force to be reckoned with.

She was a thorn in my side from the start. She used to beat him all of the time, and he'd end up

with black eyes and bruises on his hands."

Dennehy's current feud with Lee, her husband, including his decision to evict her from her home,

may well have been fatal. Dennehy's final denial may very well have reopened a manipulative

wound from her childhood, triggering debilitating feelings of resentment and anxiety. As a

consequence, murder must have been the only answer to absolute insanity, counterintuitively.

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References:

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differently?. Fields: journal of Huddersfield student research, 2(1), 45-65.

Pettigrew, M. (2020). Confessions of a serial killer: A neutralisation analysis. Homicide studies,

24(1), 69-84.

Canning, D. Critically evaluate a major criminal case from within the last 50 years.

Parker, R. J., Vronski, P., Newton, M., Ramsland, K., Perrini, S., & Banaski, K. (2014). 2015

Serial Killers True Crime Anthology, Volume II (Vol. 2). RJ PARKER PUBLISHING, INC..

Reid, S. (2017). Compulsive criminal homicide: A new nosology for serial murder. Aggression

and violent behavior, 34, 290-301.

Brookes, M., Wilson, D., Yardley, E., Rahman, M., & Rowe, S. (2015). Faceless: High-profile

murders and public recognition. Crime, media, culture, 11(1), 61-76.

Kaminsky, M. (2019). Serial Killer Trivia: Fascinating Facts and Disturbing Details That Will

Freak You the F* ck Out. Simon and Schuster.

Wilson, D., Yardley, E., & Lynes, A. (2015). Serial Killers and the Phenomenon of Serial

Murder: A Student Textbook. Waterside Press.

Rauf, D. (2015). Female Serial Killers. Enslow Publishing, LLC.

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Berry-Dee, C. (2011). Talking with Serial Killers: Dead Men Talking: Death Row’s worst

killers–in their own words. Kings Road Publishing.

Fox, J. A., & Levin, J. (2013). Overkill: Mass murder and serial killing exposed. Springer.

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