A violent killer is facing a life sentence after he admitted beating a former girlfriend over the head with a claw hammer and throttling her with a dressing gown cord.
Theodore Johnson, 64, attacked mother-of-four and grandmother Angela Best, 51, on December 15, 2016 after they broke up and she started a new relationship.
Hours after killing her, the controlling killer threw himself in front of an express train at Cheshunt railway station in Hertfordshire, but survived despite suffering horrific injuries.
When police went to his home in Islington, north London, they discovered Ms Best’s body in the living room with a belt wrapped around her neck, and a blood-stained hammer nearby.
The wheelchair-bound defendant had pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Ms Best by diminished responsibility but denied murder.
However, he admitted the murder charge on the first day of his Old Bailey trial, as prosecutor Mark Heywood QC was preparing to open the case to the jury.
It can now be reported that Johnson had a history of violence towards women, having been twice convicted of manslaughter before.
In November 1981, the garage worker was convicted by a jury at Stafford Crown Court of killing his wife, Yvonne Johnson.
Following an argument, he hit the mother-of-two with a vase before pushing her over the balcony of their ninth-floor flat in Wolverhampton.
Then in March 1993, he was convicted at the Old Bailey of killing his partner, Yvonne Bennett, by diminished responsibility.
The couple, who had a daughter together, had moved from Wolverhampton to Finsbury Park in north London, where Johnson strangled Ms Bennett with a belt after she had an affair with another man.
On his release from a psychiatric unit, Johnson met Ms Best around 1995 after she moved to Tottenham in north London from Manchester with her children.
Ms Best’s two sisters sat in court as Johnson entered his guilty plea.
Judge Richard Marks QC remanded him into custody to be sentenced on Friday.
No comments:
Post a Comment