'Black Widow' guilty of killing husband

A woman dubbed the 'Black Widow' has been jailed for life for killing her husband with a curry laced with a lethal overdose of prescription drugs.

Dena Thompson, 42, from Yapton in West Sussex, had denied killing her second husband, 31-year-old Julian Webb, on his birthday in June 1994.

However, at the Old Bailey today, the jury returned a verdict of guilty on the murder charge brought against Thompson.

The jury heard how Thompson had laced a curry with anti-depressants and drinks with aspirin in order to kill her husband.

The Old Bailey had heard that Thompson wanted to benefit from Mr Webb's £36,000 life insurance, when she became concerned that details about her first marriage, which had not been annulled, may have been discovered.

The court also heard that Mr Webb's mother had been unable to accept that her son, a newspaper sales executive, had taken his own life. Mr Webb's body was exhumed seven years later - after Thompson was cleared of killing her third husband, Richard Thompson, in 2000.

Dena Thompson had attacked Richard Thompson with a knife and a baseball bat, claiming that she had feared for her life. She received a three-year jail term for appropriating £12,000 from her third husband and two other lovers.

(SP)