Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / Free To Kill: The Case Of Theodore Johnson

Transcript

Free To Kill: The Case Of Theodore Johnson · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So it is December 15th, 2016, 3.18 p.m. at the
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Cheshunt Railway Station in England.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Right in the middle of the afternoon. Exactly.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: And a frantic call comes into emergency services. A 64-year-old
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: man has just thrown himself right in front of an
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: oncoming express train.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Which is, I mean, just absolute chaos. Yeah.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Picture yourself on that platform for a second. The screech
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: of the brakes, the immediate panic of the bystanders everywhere.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Oh, it would be terrifying.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Completely. And when the first responders arrive, they are stepping
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: into the exact kind of scene that they dread. But, well,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: it's one they're highly trained to manage.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Right, they switch into that mode. Yeah.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Miraculously, the man has survived the initial impact, but he
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: has suffered just catastrophic life-altering injuries.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, taking a hit from a locomotive.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: He lost his right arm and his left hand, just
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: to the sheer force of it.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: You really have to put yourself in the mindset of
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: those emergency crews at that exact moment because their operational
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: focus is entirely microscopic.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they aren't looking at the big picture.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: No, not at all. It is strictly about tourniquets, blood volume,
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: airway management, rapid transport. Right. There is absolutely no context
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: for who this man is. Only what has physically happened
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: to his body. They stabilize him through sheer medical adrenaline
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: and just rush him to the nearest trauma center.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Right. So at this specific juncture, the narrative is entirely
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: one of a tragic, isolated mental health crisis.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It just looks like a desperate act by an
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: older gentleman.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Right. It's a medical emergency, full stop. And while the
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: surgeons are fighting to save his life, the police begin
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: their standard parallel procedure.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: They have to figure out who he is.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Exactly. They do their due diligence, dig into his pockets,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: run his details. And they figure out his name is
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Theodore Johnson.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: They find an address for him, too. It's a flat
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: on Dartmouth Park Hill in Islington, London. So two officers
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: are dispatched.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Just a standard welfare check, essentially.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Right. Their goal is completely straightforward. They are tasked with
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: finding a next of kin, knocking on the door, and
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: delivering that gut-wrenching news. Yeah.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Telling a family member that their loved one has been
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: severely injured in a suicide attempt.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: Which is one of the heaviest burdens of local policing, honestly.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: You are mentally preparing yourself. To break someone's world apart. Right.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: I can't even imagine.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: The officers approaching that flat in Islington are, you know,
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: they're calibrating their tone, their body language. They are anticipating
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: a grieving spouse or a deeply shocked family member opening
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: that door.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're in a completely compassionate, administrative headspace. Right.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: But the moment they cross the threshold of that flat,
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: the entire reality of the situation just completely fractures.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Because they walk into the living room. Expecting quiet domesticity, right?
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: And instead, they walk into an absolute nightmare.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Lying on the floor is the dead body of a
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: 51-year-old woman.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Oh my god. Yeah.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: A belt is wrapped tightly around her neck, and a
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: blood-stained hammer is lying right nearby on the floor.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: It's just horrific.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: In a matter of seconds, the man they just rushed
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: to the hospital to save isn't just a tragic victim
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: of severe depression anymore. He is a murderer.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: And this is where the cognitive dissonance for those officers
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: must have been absolutely paralyzing.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, how do you even process that pivot?
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: You really can't. Not instantly. Law enforcement officers develop a
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: very specific mental framing based on the dispatch call they're
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: responding to. Right.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: They were framed for a welfare check.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So to suddenly pivot to processing a brutal, active
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: murder scene, a scene involving both ligature strangulation and blunt
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: force trauma, it requires a massive, immediate shift in their
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: investigative posture.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Completely.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: And as they would soon discover, this wasn't just a murder.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: The crimes of the man on that operating table were
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: virtually unprecedented in British criminal history. Yeah. They had just
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: saved the life of a serial killer.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this because the whiplash from, you know,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: tragic suicide victim to brutal killer is intense enough.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's giving me whiplash just talking about it.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Right. But then you learn about the woman who was
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: found in that living room. Her name was Angela Best.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: And we really need to talk about who she was.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: We do. The source material we're looking at today draws
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: from a highly detailed transcript provided by the Truly Criminal channel,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: and it paints an incredibly vivid picture of her.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: It really does.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Because we are not just going to read you a
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: timeline today. We are going to explore the staggering, decades-long
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: systemic failures that allowed a monster to hide in plain sight.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: But to understand the failure, you really first have to
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: understand the victim. Right.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: Angela Vest was 51 years old. She was a devoted
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: mother of four children and a deeply loved grandmother.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: So loved by her family.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: She originally hailed from Manchester before putting down roots in Tottenham, London,
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: and she had lived there for many years.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: The descriptions of her from her family are just, they're
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: heartbreaking to read when you know how her story ends.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: She was described as loyal, fun, gentle, and just incredibly generous.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: They literally called her the life and soul of her
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: family unit. She was the kind of person who would,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: you know, drop everything to help anybody in need. If
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: you needed a favor, Angela was there.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: Which is such a beautiful trait, but.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: If you needed someone to listen, she was there.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: And that is a crucial psychological detail to remember as
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: we delve deeper into how Theodore Johnson operated.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: Angela was fundamentally empathetic. Her baseline was compassion. And predators
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: rely on that.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: They hunt for it.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Yes, they do. For the police officer standing in her
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: living room taking in this horrific scene with the belt
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: and the hammer, the immediate question is, how does a
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: 64-year-old man, seemingly out of nowhere, commit such an intimately
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: brutal act against a woman like this?
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Right. Because violence of this specific nature rarely, if ever,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: occurs in a vacuum.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: No, it doesn't.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Exactly. It's like pulling a single loose thread on a sweater.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: You think you're just tidying up a tiny little snag,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: you know, notifying a family member about train incident.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: But you pull it and you sit there watching as
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: a 35-year history of deception, violence, and just gross bureaucratic
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: failure completely unravels.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: In front of you. 35 years. Yeah.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: You don't just wake up at 64 years old, grab
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: a hammer and a belt and decide to orchestrate this
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: level of carnage. So how could a man commit such
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: a brutal act? Where did this actually come from?
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Well, to answer that, the investigators had to look backwards.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: And what they found took them all the way back
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: to the year 1980. 1980.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: They realized very quickly that the murder of Angela Bess
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: was not an isolated incident. It was, horrifyingly, the third act.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: The third act.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Theodore Johnson was a serial killer who utilized the very
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: systems meant to protect the public as his own personal camouflage.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Just hearing the third act gives me chills. Let's travel
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: back to that first act. Let's look at the blueprint again.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: of manipulation that Theodore established.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: So our sources tell us that Theodore was originally from Jamaica.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: He was one of 11 children.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: A huge family.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Huge. And he actually used to work on a banana
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: plantation before he made the move to the UK in
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: September of 1980. Right.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: And the socioeconomic context here is really important. He immigrated
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: to the UK to join his wife, a 23-year-old woman
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: named Yvonne.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Yvonne.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: Okay. And they already had two sons together. They settled
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: into a block of flats in Wolverhampton, which is in
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: the West Midlands of England.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: So they're kind of starting fresh.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: Exactly. From the outside, you're looking at a classic immigrant
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: story of the era. They are attempting to build a foundation.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: He secures a job as a car mechanic. Yvonne is
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: working at a factory. Okay. And they are, you know,
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: just navigating the complexities of a new country, a new culture,
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: and raising two young boys.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: But whatever facade of a happy new life they had
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: crumbled incredibly fast. Just a few months after he arrived,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: in May of 1981, we see the first explosion of
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: lethal violence.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: Just months. Yeah.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: And the details are just so mundane and then suddenly
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: so extreme. It's a Sunday. People are relaxing. But the
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: neighbor in the flat next door hears a massive tussle
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: breaking out. The shouting is loud enough to just pierce
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: the walls.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: And the source outlines the inciting incident for this argument.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: It is... chilling in its absolute triviality.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: The argument started because Yvonne did not want Theodore going
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: to church with her.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: And why was that?
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: Because she felt he wasn't dressed smartly enough. That was
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: the spark.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: A disagreement about church clothes. I mean, think about the
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: thousands of minor domestic squabbles couples have every single day
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: about what to wear or who forgot to take out
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: the trash.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: But Theodore's response to this minor domestic friction wasn't just anger.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: It was catastrophic violence. He grabbed a vase and smashed
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: it over Yvonne's head.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: Unbelievable escalation.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: And then the physical altercation spilled out of the confines
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: of the flat and onto their ninth floor balcony.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: And this is the moment where the psychology shifts from
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: reactive anger to calculated homicide. They are on a balcony
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: nine stories up. Yeah. And he pushes her deliberately over
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: the edge.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: And Yvonne doesn't just fall instantly, right?
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: No, she frantically grabs onto the balcony. She is dangling there,
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: desperately trying to hold on for her life, suspended nine
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: floors above the concrete.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Which is just the most terrifying final moment I can imagine.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: And Theodore, what does he do while she's hanging there?
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: He does absolutely nothing. to help the mother of his
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: two children. He just stands there.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: He just watches her?
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: He watches her grip loosen, finger by finger, until she
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: falls nine stories to the concrete below.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: The sheer physics of a nine-story fall are devastating. Neighbors
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: literally witnessed the aftermath and the fall itself. They saw
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: the ambulance rushing up.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: It was incredibly public.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Right. Yvonne was initially in critical condition when the paramedics
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: got to her, but she succumbed to those massive blunt
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: force injuries shortly after.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there was no surviving that.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: When the police arrived and began interviewing the witnesses, it
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: became immediately clear to everyone on the ground that this
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: was not a tragic accident.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: No. She hadn't tripped over the railing.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Exactly. The witnesses explicitly stated they heard the fight.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: The circumstances pointed clearly to her being deliberately thrown. So
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Theodore was arrested and charged with murder.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: And rightfully so.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: Right. He's sent to Birmingham prison to await his trial.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: And this is where Theodore Johnson, sitting in a jail cell,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: begins to write his playbook.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: This is where the calculated, chillingly intelligent manipulation really begins.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: He starts writing letters, but he doesn't write them to
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: his defense attorneys or to his family back in Jamaica.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: Who does he write to?
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: He writes them to his neighbors back in Wolverhampton.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: And you really have to understand the tactical brilliance of
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: this in a highly psychopathic sense.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, explain that because it seems weird at first.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: Well, in 1981, he knows exactly how the penal system
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: operates regarding correspondence. He knew. that prison guards monitored, opened,
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: and read all mail going in and out of the
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: cells of remanned prisoners.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Ah, so he knew he had an audience.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: Exactly. He knew those letters would be intercepted and become
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: part of the official legal record. So he wasn't really
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: writing to his neighbors. He was writing to the Crown
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: Prosecution Service.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: That is so manipulative.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: It is. He crafted a narrative. He wrote that Yvonne
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: had been Terribly abusive and violent toward him for a
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: long time.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Just completely flipping the script.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: Right. He claimed that during the argument over the clothes,
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: he just snapped and fought back in self-defense. He admitted
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: to hitting her with a vase and pushing her, but
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: he framed the entire event as the desperate, reactive act
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: of a terrified, battered man.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: So he was basically laying the groundwork to paint himself
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: as the victim.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he figured out that if he could just convince
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: the authorities that he was provoked to the point of,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: you know, losing his mind, that he wouldn't be facing
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: that mandatory life sentence for murder.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: You know, you get angled for that lesser charge that you,
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: you know, the lesser charge of manslaughter.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: And this brings us to the trial in November 1981
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: at the Stafford Crown Court, which, when you read the transcripts,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: honestly reads like a work of dark fiction.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: The trial is a masterclass in judicial failure and societal bias.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: First of all, the neighbors. The ones who lived right
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: next door, who heard the fight, who had never heard
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: any prior altercations that would corroborate Theodore's claims of long-term abuse.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: They were never called to testify by the prosecution.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Wait, let me push back on this because I am
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: struggling to comprehend the legal mechanics here.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: It's baffling.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: You're saying the system was biased, but this is a
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: murder trial in a Crown court. How does a judge
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: or a prosecutor legally justify bypassing the neighbor's statements entirely?
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: They just didn't prioritize them.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: Was the standard of evidence just that broken in 1981
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: or did the defense actively suppress it? I mean, you
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: don't just leave out the people who heard the murder happen.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: That is the critical failure point right there. In the
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: early 1980s, the legal definition and application of the provocation
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: defense in the UK was deeply flawed, particularly when it
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: intersected with domestic homicides.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: OK, so it was a systemic issue with how they
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: viewed provocation.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The prosecution often focused entirely on the physical evidence
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: of the act itself, rather than the circumstantial character evidence
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: surrounding it. The defense presented Theodore's letters, the ones he
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: strategically wrote knowing they'd be read, as a documented, contemporaneous
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: state of mind.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: So they took his fake letters as gospel.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: Yes. And because the prosecution failed to aggressively counter this
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: narrative by putting those neighbors on the stand to testify
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: about the couple's actual day-to-day dynamic, the court was left
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: with a vacuum.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: And Theodore's defense team filled that vacuum with his fabricated
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: story of being a battered husband.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: And it gets worse than just a vacuum of evidence.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: A police officer actually took the stand and testified on
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Theodore's behalf, stating that Theodore was a victim of domestic violence.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: How does that even happen?
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: It really speaks to the insidious nature of coercive controllers. Yeah.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: They are often incredibly charming, polite, and persuasive to authority figures.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Theodore likely presented himself to the police as meek, remorseful,
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: and completely broken by his wife's supposed nagging.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: So he conned the cops too.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: He did. The jury, presented with this warped narrative compounded
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: by the endorsement of a police officer, was entirely swayed.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: They didn't see a cold-blooded killer who watched his wife
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: hang from a balcony. They saw a man pushed beyond
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: his limits.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Which means they didn't convict him of murder.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: No. They convicted him of manslaughter by reason of provocation.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: The judge's sentencing remarks are just... Baffling to read today.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: The judge officially referred to Theodore as a battered husband
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: in open court.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: It's sickening.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Even noted for the record that Yvonne had allegedly hit
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: him with a broom in the past and nagged him
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: about doing household chores.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: Blaming the victim entirely.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Right. Think about the message that sends. For throwing a
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: 23-year-old mother of two off a balcony, Theodore Johnson served
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: just three years in prison.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: Three years. The devaluation of Yvonne's life is just staggering.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: It is.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: But beyond the tragedy of the sentence itself, it set
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: a terrifying psychological precedent for Theodore. He learned an invaluable
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: lesson in that courtroom.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that his lies work.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: Precisely. He learned that if he played the victim, if
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: he utilized the language of vulnerability, the British justice system
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: would bend over backward to show him leniency. He realized
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: that the legal system was inherently reliant on the narrative
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: presented in the courtroom rather than the objective reality of
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: the violence.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: He walked away from a murder with a slap on
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: the wrist. And because he served so little time, he
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: was right back out into the world while he was
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: still a young man.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: Which is terrifying.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Which shifts us immediately into what happened after his release.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: Because if anyone sitting on that jury thought those three
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: years rehabilitated him, they were dead wrong.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: Dead wrong.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: The justice system's leniency wasn't just an error. It was
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: a fatal error that directly doomed another woman.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Following his incredibly brief stint in prison, Theodore starts
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: a new life and a new relationship. He moves in
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: with a woman named Yvonne Bennett.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: It's chilling that her name was also Yvonne.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: It really is. They live together in Low Hill, Wolverhampton,
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: and they eventually have a daughter together.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: And right away, the red flags are flying. But not
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: everyone is blind to them this time. Yvonne Bennett's sister,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: a woman named Janet, she saw right through him from
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: day one.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Janet was very perceptive.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: In the source material, Janet says she took an immediate
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: dislike to him. She described their dynamic by saying, we
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: were arch enemies.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: Wow, that's a strong statement.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah. She saw how intensely controlling he was. He was
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: dictating who Yvonne could talk to, where she could go.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: He was isolating her from her support network.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: Janet's instincts were entirely correct. And she was picking up
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: on the classic mechanics of coercive control. Theodore was reestablishing
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: the exact same paradigm of dominance that ended in his
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: first wife's death.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: It's a pattern.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: A course of control isn't just about physical violence. It's
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: about micromanaging a partner's life to strip them of their autonomy.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: Janet actively tried to encourage her sister to leave him,
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: recognizing the danger even if she didn't know the full
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: extent of it. And eventually, Yvonne did try to escape.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: She did. She moved all the way to Holloway, London,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: and later to Finsbury Park. specifically to get away from Theodore.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: But he wouldn't let her go. No.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: He followed her from Wolverhampton down to London. And here
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: is a terrifying detail for you to consider. Neither Yvonne
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: Bennett nor her sister Janet had any idea about Theodore's past.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: They had no clue.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: They didn't know he was a convicted killer. There was
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: no registry they could check. It was only later that
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Janet found out from Theodore's own family in Jamaica about
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: his violent history and the death of his first wife.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: And look at what Janet did with that horrifying information.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: She did exactly what citizens are told to do by
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: the state.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: She went to the police.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: She went straight to the authorities. She told the police,
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: this man is dangerous. He's killed before. He's terrorizing my sister.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: Get involved.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: But according to Janet, the authorities took absolutely no notice.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Let's pause on that because it's infuriating. They ignored her.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: It's a massive failure of duty of care.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Even though neighbors in London were reporting that he kept
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: a suffocatingly close eye on Yvonne, they heard loud, violent
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: arguments echoing through the walls. The police were even called
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: out to the residence on at least one occasion for
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: a domestic disturbance.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: Theater paper trail. Yes.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: Plus, Theodore was weaponizing self-harm. The source notes he would
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: frequently threaten to harm himself just to keep Yvonne under
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: his psychological control.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: That is a highly documented tactic of a severe domestic abuser. Yes.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: It shifts the focus from their abusive behavior to their
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: supposed fragility. If Yvonne tries to leave, Theodore threatens suicide,
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: which traps Yvonne in a cycle of guilt and obligation.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: It makes the victim feel responsible for the abuser's life.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It was incredibly manipulative. But eventually, the control began
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: to slip. Yvonne and Theodore did separate after he discovered
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: she was seeing someone else.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: But Theodore, true to his psychological profile, fundamentally refused to
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: accept the loss of control. He began relentlessly stalking her.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Just imagine being Yvonne. You are terrified. You've moved cities.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: You've broken up with him. And he is still... There.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: Constant presence.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: She went to the police in Finsbury Park, begging for
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: help to get him out of their shared home. Janet
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: even came down to London and stayed for three weeks
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: to try and physically protect her sister.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: Janet was really trying.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: But shortly after Janet returned home, well, we reach September 1992.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Theodore is back at the property. He's refusing to leave
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: her alone. He tries this pathetic, manipulative gesture. He brings
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: her a box of chocolates to try and win her back.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: And this is the flashpoint.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: When she refuses the chocolates, when she asserts her independence,
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: sets a boundary, and denies him the control he craves,
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: his response is lethal.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: While their two-year-old daughter is sleeping just yards away in
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: the very same flat, Theodore takes his belt and strangles
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: Yvonne Bennett to death.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: It's horrific. He murders the mother of his child while
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: the child is in the next room.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: And then.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: He enacts the next phase of his manipulation.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: The playbook continues.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: He leaves the flat, leaves his toddler completely alone with
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: her mother's dead body, goes to a public phone box
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: and calls the police to confess.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: It is cold.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: The police rush to the scene, find the distraught child,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: and realize Yvonne is gone. And while they launch a
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: massive manhunt for Theodore, where do they finally find him?
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: They find him hanging around a parking lot in Barnett.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: He had attempted to end his own life, though the
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: attempt was entirely unsuccessful.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: Now, this is a critical moment in the timeline. The
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: source material notes that some of the seasoned investigators on
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: the scene believed the suicide attempt wasn't genuine at all. Oh, really? Yeah.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: They didn't think it was driven by actual remorse or
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: guilt over what he had done to Yvonne or his daughter.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: They viewed it as another highly calculated, manipulative ploy for sympathy. Right.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: Playing the victim again.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Exactly. He was trying to paint himself as the ultimate victim,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: just like he did with the prison letters a decade earlier.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, we see
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: a distinct evolution in his predatory behavior. When the police
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: looked into his history and realized he had already killed
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: a previous partner in 1981, they were stunned.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Right. How could they not be?
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: But they were also confident. They thought, we have him.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: We have a confession. We have a clear documented pattern
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: of lethal domestic violence. We are going to secure a
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: murder conviction and lock him away for life.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: But Theodore and his legal team pivot. We are now
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: at the Old Bailey Courthouse in London in March 1993,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: and Theodore brings out his new camouflage.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: Here we go.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: Medical and psychiatric reports are submitted to the court. The
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: prosecution actually accepts that he suffers from a personality disorder
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: and severe depression.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: Accepted it without a fight. Yep.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: And what is their primary piece of evidence for the
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: supposed clinical depression? The fake suicide attempt in the parking lot.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: The very attempt that the initial investigators flagged as manipulative
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: theater was accepted by the court's psychiatrists as empirical, clinical
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: evidence of severe mental illness.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: That is just wild to me.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: To understand how this happened, you have to look at
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: the legal framework at the time. Under the Homicide Act
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: of 1957 in the UK, a person could avoid a
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: murder conviction if they were suffering from an abnormality of
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: mental functioning, which substantially impaired their ability to form a
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: rational judgment or exercise self-control.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: Wait, so the defense just says he was depressed and
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: the prosecution says, OK, sounds good. How did the psychiatrist
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: actually test for that? Because from the outside, it looks
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: like he just played them like a fiddle.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: He absolutely played them. Forensic psychiatry, especially in the early 90s,
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: relied heavily on patient self-reporting and historical context to build
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: a diagnostic profile.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: So they just asked him how he felt?
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: Basically. Theodore presented them with a narrative of deep despair.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: pointing to his suicide attempt as proof. He likely did
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: exhibit symptoms of a personality disorder, but the fatal error
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: the psychiatrist made was assuming that his personality disorder caused
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: him to lose control.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Instead of what?
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: Instead of recognizing that his personality disorder made him a calculated,
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: coercive controller who killed when he lost control. The nuance
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: was entirely lost. Wow. This allowed Theodore to change his plea.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: He didn't plead guilty to murder. For the second time
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: in his life, he pled guilty to manslaughter. But this time,
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: instead of the 1980s excuse of provocation, the grounds were
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: diminished responsibility.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: I have to use an analogy here because it's the
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: only way my brain can process how one man tricks
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: the justice system twice in two different decades.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: Please do.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: It is exactly like watching a predator in the wild
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: who learns precisely which camouflage works best in different environments.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: In the 1980s, the societal and judicial bias heavily leaned
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: toward the trope of the nagging wife. So he put
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: on the battered husband disguise and it worked perfectly.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: Yes, it did.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: By the 1990s, the courts were becoming much more focused
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: on psychiatric evaluations and mental health interventions. So he flawlessly
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: slipped into the mentally unwell, deeply depressed patient disguise.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: That is precisely what happened. He weaponized society. the evolving
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: psychiatric protocols of the justice system. Because he was convicted
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: of manslaughter due to diminished responsibility, he wasn't sent to
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: a standard maximum security prison like Belmarsh or Strangeways.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Where did he go?
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: He was given an indefinite hospital order with restrictions under
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: the Mental Health Act. He was sent to a secure
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: regional psychiatric unit. A hospital. Yes. But the most chilling
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: part of that 1993 trial The presiding judge actually went
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: on the official record during sentencing to describe Theodore Johnson
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: as not a violent man.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Not a violent man.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: Quote unquote.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: A man who pushed his first wife off a ninth
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: floor balcony and strangled a second wife with a belt
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: while their toddler slept nearby. It's beyond comprehension. It makes
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: you wonder what the judge's definition of violence even is.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: It's completely baffling.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: But if you think a secure psychiatric hospital is going
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: to keep society safe from a man like this, The
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: next part of this timeline is going to give you
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: absolute whiplash. Let's look at the sheer astounding blindness of
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: the mental health system between 1994 and 1997.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: The speed of his reintegration into society is deeply alarming,
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: and it speaks to a fundamental flaw in how the
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: system assessed risk. He was sentenced in March 1993. Okay.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: By September of 1994, just over a year later, He
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: is already being allowed out of the secure hospital on
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: escorted community parole.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: Just a year. Think about that.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: It's nothing.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: You are a member of Yvonne Bennett's grieving family. You
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: are still processing the trauma of her murder. And 12
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: months later, you spot the man who killed her out
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: on the street taking a stroll with a hospital staff member.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: Which is exactly what happened.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: The family... actually saw him.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: The film he actually saw him.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Can you imagine the terror and the outrage? The police
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: detectives who investigated the murder couldn't believe it either. But
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: it escalates so quickly from there.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: It does. By mid-1995, he has successfully convinced the hospital
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: staff that he poses absolutely no danger to the public.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Unescorted. A twice-convicted killer of women out wandering the city
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: of London on his own, taking a furniture class.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Let's dig into that. Why a furniture class? What is
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: the logic behind letting a dangerous offender out for something
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: like that?
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: It falls under the umbrella of occupational therapy and rehabilitation.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: The hospital's goal under the medical model is to eventually
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: reintegrate the patient into society.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, sure.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: They use structured activities like educational courses to monitor how
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: a patient handles routine, responsibility, and social interaction. If he
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: attends the class, behaves politely, and returns on time, It
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: gets logged in his chart as compliant and progressing.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: But the staff had no idea what he was actually
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: doing during those unescorted days. They are checking a box
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: that says he went to class, but they aren't monitoring
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: his interpersonal interactions outside the hospital walls.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: That's the blind spot.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: And spoiler alert, the furniture class in 1996 is exactly
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: where he meets our victim from the beginning of the story,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: Angela Best.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: Right. And he applies for a conditional discharge in May
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: of 1996. which is initially refused by the authorities. But
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: he is persistent. He keeps pushing. He keeps demonstrating compliance
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: within the hospital walls.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Playing the game.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: And finally, following a mental health tribunal on October 30, 1997,
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: Theodore Johnson is officially released from the hospital.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Now, what does a mental health tribunal actually look like?
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: They didn't just open the doors and say, goodbye, good luck.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: They put a condition on his release, and this condition
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: is the linchpin of the entire tragedy.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: A mental health tribunal typically consists of a legally qualified chair,
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: a medical member like a psychiatrist, and a lay member.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: Their job is to balance the patient's right to liberty
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: under human rights laws against the potential risks of the public.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: They reviewed Theodore's file, and they noted that given his
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: history of domestic homicide, any future relationships with women needed
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: to be treated with extreme caution.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: Extreme caution.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: Okay. So their master plan, their fatal condition to keep
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: the public safe, was to tell Theodore, you must make
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: your social workers and doctors aware of any new relationships
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: you enter into.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: Wait, I need to stop you there. I understand you're
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: explaining the medical model and the balancing act of human rights,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: but how does a panel of highly educated professionals look
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: at a man whose entire file consists of killing two women,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: lying to prison guards, lying to the police, and faking
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: a suicide to manipulate a jury and decide that the
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: absolute best safety protocol is just asking him to politely
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: report his dating life. It's completely absurd.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: It is a catastrophic, systemic failure of risk assessment. The
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: tribunal failed to recognize that deception was not just a
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: symptom of his past. It was his primary operational methodology.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: That was his entire thing.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: They completely mistook his compliance within a highly structured, heavily
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: monitored hospital environment for genuine psychological and behavioral change. Wow.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: By making his freedom contingent on his honesty, they practically
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: handed him the blueprint for his next crime. They assumed
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: a therapeutic alliance, that he wanted to be well and
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: would be transparent.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: When in reality... When in reality.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: They were dealing with a manipulative predator who viewed them
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: simply as obstacles to navigate.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: Which leads us directly into a deeply unsettling era. Two
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: decades of uninterrupted deception, stretching from his release in 1997
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: all the way to 2016. Because when Theodore was sitting
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: in front of that tribunal in 1997, nodding his head
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: and promising to tell them if he ever met anyone,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: he was already lying through his teeth.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: Exactly. He had already been dating Angela Best for an
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: entire year by the time he was officially released.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: A whole year.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: And he managed to hide her existence from the authorities,
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: from the doctors, from the social workers for the next
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: nearly 20 years.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: That's hard to even fathom.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: Angela, of course, was completely in the dark. She had
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: absolutely no idea about his criminal past, his hospital orders,
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: or the horrific murders of Vaughn and Yvonne Bennett.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: So if you're listening to this, you're probably asking the
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: same question I am. How do you hide a romantic
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: partner from the government for two decades?
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: The mechanics of his deception are infuriating because the system
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: made it so incredibly easy for him. The authorities, meaning
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: his assigned social workers and doctors from the NHS Trust,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: were required to visit his home to compile a continuous
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: assessment report. They did this every three months.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: But the critical, fatal flaw in this monitoring system was
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: the scheduling protocol. Apart from just two occasions over those
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: 20 entire years, Theodore was always given prior notice that
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: the authorities would be coming over for their visit.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: It's like a building inspector calling ahead to tell you
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: exactly what day and time they'll be dropping by to
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: look for fire hazards. It gives you plenty of time
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: to hide the matches and the gasoline.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: Theodore knew exactly when the social workers were arriving, so
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: he would just make sure Angela was out of the flat.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: He would meticulously hide all of her personal belongings, her clothes,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: her toiletries, her photos, making the flat look perfectly staged
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: to appear as though he lived completely alone.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: And you might think, well, why didn't the social workers
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: just look around, open a drawer, look in the closet.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: Right, like just open one door.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: If they had just opened one wardrobe, the illusion would
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: have shattered instantly, but they couldn't. The source material highlights
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: a massive bureaucratic blind spot that Theodore exploited perfectly. The
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: flat was never searched due to patient confidentiality rules.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: Patient confidentiality. Let's dig into that. So the very rules
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: designed to protect the privacy and dignity of Everyday people
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: seeking health care were used as an impenetrable shield by
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: a serial killer to hide his victim.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: How does that legally work? Why couldn't they search?
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: It comes down to the strict separation between criminal parole
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: conditions and medical discharge conditions in the U.K. system at
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: the time.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: Okay. So treating him as a patient, not a criminal.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: Exactly. If Theodore had been released from a standard prison
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: on parole, his parole officer would have the right to
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: conduct random searches of his residence to ensure compliance with
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: the law. But Theodore was discharged under a medical order. Ah.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: The social workers visiting him are bound by medical confidentiality guidelines,
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: similar to Caldecott principles in the NHS, which mandate respecting
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: the patient's privacy and dignity. They are there to assess
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: his mental state, not to toss his flat looking for contraband. Wow.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: Searching his home without a warrant or explicit cause would
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: breach their professional code of conduct and potentially violate his rights.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: So routine scheduled check-ins and a strict blind adherence to
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: privacy policies ultimately protected the abuser rather than the public.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: That's exactly right.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: The system was more concerned with strictly following its own
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: internal rules than with critically evaluating the reality of the
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: situation in front of them. They saw exactly what Theodore
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: wanted them to see. A quiet, compliant, single, older man.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: Precisely. It is a textbook example of confirmation bias within
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: a bureaucracy. The file said he was doing well. So
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: every visit was just an exercise in confirming the file.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: Just checking boxes.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: And he kept this up right until the very end.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: His last appointment with a social worker and a psychiatrist
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: was on December 8, 2016. That is literally just days
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: before he murdered Angela Best.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: Days before.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: At that appointment, he sat there, looked these highly trained
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: professionals in the eye, and maintained he was single. They
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: noted in their official file that he showed no signs
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: of depression or behavioral deterioration.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: Incredible.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: There was actually supposed to be another meeting just two
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: days before the murder, but the social worker happened to
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: be ill, so it was canceled and rescheduled.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: He successfully gamed a multi-agency monitoring system for 20 years.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: But the collapse of this massive decades-long lie didn't come
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: from a brilliant psychological insight by a doctor. It didn't
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: come from a surprise inspection by the police. The deception
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: collapsed from the inside.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: Yes, it did.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: It brings us to the confession letter and the final trap.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: We are now in September 2016. Theodore and Angela have
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: been together for almost 20 years. And Angela makes a
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: chance discovery at their shared home.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: A terrible discovery.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: She finds a letter written by Theodore. And the contents
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: of this letter are absolutely staggering. In this letter, he
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: had written out a full confession detailing how he had
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: killed a previous partner.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: It's hard to believe he would write that down.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Now, the source doesn't explicitly state why he wrote this down.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: But what's your psychological read on this? Why would a
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: man who spent 20 years flawlessly hiding his past suddenly
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: write it down on a piece of paper and leave
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: it where his partner could find it?
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: There are a few psychological possibilities here. Sometimes individuals with
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: deep-seated psychopathy or narcissistic traits feel an overwhelming compulsion to
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: brag about their crimes, even if just to themselves on paper.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: Like a trophy.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: Kind of. It's a manifestation of their perceived superiority over
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: the system they've outsmarted. Alternatively, it could have been a
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: careless mistake, born of arrogance. After 20 years of getting
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: away with it, he simply became sloppy, believing he was untouchable.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: Or, in a darker sense, it could have been a
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: subconscious test. A way to introduce the terror of his
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: past into the relationship to see if he could still
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: maintain control over Angela, even if she knew.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: Whatever the reason he wrote it. For Angela, reading this
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: must have been world shattering. Think about it from her perspective.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: This is a man she has shared her life with,
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: her bed with, for two decades. She thought she knew
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: everything about him.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: And she knew nothing.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: She is stunned. But you have to admire her incredible bravery.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: She takes the letter and she confronts him directly. She
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: demands to know what is going on. And he admits it.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: He just confesses.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: He tells her the letter is true. and then he
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: drops the rest of the nightmare on her. It wasn't
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: just one previous partner he killed. There were two.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: Faced with this horrifying reality, Angela does exactly what you
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: would hope anyone would do. She ends the relationship immediately.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: She removes herself from the immediate romantic entanglement.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: Thank goodness.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: But remember how her family described her at the beginning
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: of our deep dive? Gentle, generous, the kind of person
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: who helps anyone in need.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: Because of her deeply ingrained kindness... And her empathetic nature,
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: even after ending a 20-year relationship with a confessed killer,
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: she doesn't cut him off entirely. She agrees to still
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: help him if he genuinely needs it in the future.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: Perhaps viewing him now as a frail, damaged old man
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: who still needs occasional support.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: She moves on with her life. And the true tragedy is,
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: she was thriving. People described her during this period in
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: late 2016 as being the happiest she had been in
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: a long, long time.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: Which is wonderful.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: She had even started a new relationship and was looking
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: forward to the future. But Theodore Johnson cannot handle a
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: woman asserting her independence.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: No, he cannot. What's fascinating here, in a deeply dark
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: analytical sense, is the recurring psychological trigger. Theodore's pattern of
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: lethal violence is inextricably, undeniably tied to a loss of
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: control over his partners.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: Every single time.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: When Yvonne wanted to go to church against his wishes
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: in 1981, asserting a tiny bit of autonomy, he killed her.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: When Yvonne Bennett started seeing someone else in 1992 and
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: refused his chocolates, rejecting his control, he killed her. And now,
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: in 2016, Angela has left him. discovered his secrets, and
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: found happiness elsewhere. He begins exhibiting those exact same possessive,
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: controlling behaviors we saw in the 80s and 90s. He
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: is constantly calling her, constantly telling her he loves her,
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: completely refusing to take no for an answer.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: And he realizes he can't win her back with romance
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: or intimidation this time because she knows the truth. So
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: what does he do? He weaponizes her best trait. He
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: sets a trap.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: He does.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: On December 14th, 2016, he contacts Angela... and asks for
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: her help. He claims he desperately needs her assistance to
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: fill out a Jamaican passport application at the embassy the
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: very next morning.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: It is a coldly calculated manipulation of her empathy. He
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: knew her psychological profile perfectly. He knew she wouldn't come
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: over for a romantic plea, and she wouldn't come over
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: to argue.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: But she would come over to assist him with a
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: complicated administrative task, because that was her fundamental nature. She
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: was a helper.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: Isn't it just completely heartbreaking? Her ultimate vulnerability was her kindness.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: She tried to do the right, compassionate thing by supporting
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: an elderly man she had spent 20 years with, even
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: after leaving him and learning about his horrific past. And
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: he used that exact compassion to lure her to her death.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: It really is tragic. On the morning of December 15th,
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: Angela tells her daughter her plans for the day and
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: arrives at Theodore's property in Islington at around 9.20 a.m. Okay.
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: But there was no passport application. There was no embassy
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: appointment scheduled. The entire premise was a total fabrication designed
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: solely to get her alone behind the closed doors of
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: his flat.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: As the morning drags on, Angela's son tries to text
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: and call her to check in, but he gets no response.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: Because inside that flat, Theodore Johnson had launched a brutal,
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: merciless attack. He strangled her with a dressing gown belt.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: horrifyingly mirroring the exact way he killed Yvonne Bennett 24
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: years earlier.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: Repeating his crimes.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: And he beat her with a hammer, striking her in
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: the head six times as she desperately tried to defend herself.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: It was an onslaught of intimate, explosive, deeply personal violence.
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: The use of a belt and a hammer, these are
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: weapons of rage and physical domination.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: And it is only after he ensures Angela is dead
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: leaving her body on the living room floor, that he
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: leaves the flat, travels across the city to the Chesson
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: Railway Station, and throws himself in front of the express
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: train at 3.18 p.m.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: Bringing us right back to the horrific scene the police
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: walked into at the very beginning of this deep dive.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: But the story doesn't end in that living room. The
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: fallout from this crime forced a massive public reckoning within
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: the British legal and medical systems.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: It had to.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: We have to look at the final trial and the
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: devastation left behind because it is staggering.
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: So Theodore spent weeks in a hospital intensive care unit
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: recovering from the massive trauma of the train impact. His
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: injuries were severe, the amputation of his arm and hand,
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: but he survived.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: At the end of January 2017, he was formally charged
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: with murder, a charge he initially denied.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: And if you can believe the sheer audacity of this man,
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: as the trial at the Old Bailey approached later that year,
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: He actually tried to run his old playbook. He instructed
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: his lawyers to try and plead guilty to manslaughter for
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: a third time.
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: A third time?
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: He thought it worked in the 80s, it worked in
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: the 90s. Why wouldn't it work now?
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: He genuinely believed the system would fold for him again.
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: His narcissism convinced him that his camouflage was infallible. But
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: this time, the context was entirely different.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: Thank goodness.
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: The prosecution was armed with an irrefutable mountain of evidence.
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: They had the confession letter Angela found. They had evidence
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: of the staged embassy appointment, proving premeditation. They had the sheer,
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: undeniable brutality of the attack.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: They had him cornered.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: Yes. On the very first day of the trial, presented
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: with this wall of evidence, his camouflage finally failed. He
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: realized there was no loophole left to exploit. He changed
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: his plea and pleaded guilty to the murder of Angela Best.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: The prosecutor, Mark Haywood... He summed him up perfectly in court.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, this it's a quote that that just cuts
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: right through all the decades of psychiatric jargon. He said,
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: this is a man who is controlling and violent to
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: the women in his life and who, when crossed, will kill.
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: A perfect summary.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: And, you know, the defense lawyer, his attempt to kind
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: of garner criticism. Sympathy or something during sentencing just rings
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: so hollow. His lawyer stood up and tried to say
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: Theodore hated himself, that he didn't wish to be alive.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: And he even tried to blame the 1997 Mental Health Tribunal.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: The defense actually argued that the release decision 20 years
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: ago was flawed because it relied on Theodore being honest.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: It is a profound, almost grotesque irony. The defense effectively
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: argued that the system was at fault for trusting their client.
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: Because their client was, by his very nature, an inherent liar.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: It's just ridiculous.
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: They tried to use the system's incompetence as a mitigating
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: factor for his brutality. But the judge presiding over this trial,
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: Judge Richard Mark, was not swayed by any attempts at
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: mitigation or psychiatric excuses. He looked at the facts. He
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: called the attack on Angela sustained, vicious, and utterly brutal.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: Theodore was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: term of 26 years before he could even be considered
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: for parole. The judge specifically pointed out during sentencing that
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: Theodore's 20 years of repeated, calculated lies to doctors and
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: social workers actively prevented the authorities from warning Angela about
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: his past. But even with that strong condemnation, 26 years
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: didn't sit right with the public or with the appellate courts.
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: No, it didn't. In the UK, there is a mechanism
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: for reviewing sentences that are deemed too lenient. When Theodore's
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: case went to the Court of Appeal, the senior justices
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: reviewed the entire scope of his three decades of violence.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: And what did they decide?
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: They actually ruled that the 26-year minimum sentence was unduly lenient,
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: given that this was his third conviction for killing a
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: female partner. They increased his minimum term to 30 years. Wow.
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: Given his advanced age and his severe physical disabilities from
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: the train incident, This means Theodore Johnson will be in
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: his 90s before he's even eligible to apply for parole.
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: For all intents and purposes, he will die in prison.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: But locking him away doesn't fix the systems that enabled him.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: You can put the monster in a cage. But what
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: about the people who kept leaving the door open? Right.
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: The accountability.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: The Camden and Islington NHS Trust, which had been in
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: charge of his care in the community since 2004... promised
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: to issue a full independent report to Angela's family to
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: explain how they missed this for 20 years. But the
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: most damning official finding came from the coroner's inquest.
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: The coroner's inquest was unflinching in its assessment. They made
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: it incredibly explicit. They officially ruled that Angela Best could
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: have lived if the health and social workers had known
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: about the relationship.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: She could have lived.
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: Yes. The established protocol was completely clear. Had they known
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: he was dating someone, they would have intervened. They would
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: have held a multi-agency risk assessment conference, and they would
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: have warned Angela about his past, giving her the information
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: she needed to protect herself, just as they should have
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: done for his previous partners.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: But they didn't know.
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: The system had the exact tools required to save her,
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: but those tools were rendered useless because they were blinded
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: by a reliance on the abuser's self-reporting.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: And the anger wasn't just coming from the courts or
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: the coroner. A former health care assistant who had actually
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: worked directly with Theodore gave an interview, and she flat
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: out said she had predicted he would kill again.
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: She knew.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: She said, I don't think he should have been let
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: out at all. He played the system. She knew. The
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: people on the ground, the ones interacting with him daily,
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: knew he was just masking his temper and manipulating the doctors.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: But the bureaucracy above them checked the boxes on their
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: clipboards and let him walk out the door.
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: This raises an important question, perhaps the most vital question
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: of this entire analysis. How do we measure the success
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: of rehabilitation? Right. If a legal or medical system equates
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: quiet compliance in a highly controlled artificial environment with fundamental
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: psychological change, it leaves the public incredibly vulnerable.
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: It's just a facade.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: We have to scrutinize the massive gap between clinical theory,
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: what a textbook says about a patient's progress, and behavioral reality.
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: what a psychopathic individual is actually capable of when the
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: restrictions are lifted.
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean for us? Look at
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: the devastation left in his wake. Three women are dead
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: over three decades. Yvonne, Yvonne Bennett, and Angela Best.
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: Three lives stolen.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: Three women who had hopes, dreams, careers, and families who
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: absolutely adored them. You read the quotes from The Families
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: Left Behind, and the grief is just suffocating. Angela's sister, Valerie,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: gave a statement saying their everyday lives have been affected
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: in every way imaginable, that they are completely destroyed and
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: broken by this loss.
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: And you hear from Angela's sons, Rafael and Fabian, who
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: expressed a profound life-altering despair. Fabian stated simply and devastatingly
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: that he now hated life. The anchor of their family
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: was violently ripped away.
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: It's unbearable.
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: And the trauma transcends just the current victim's family. Yadon
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: Bennett's sister, Janet, the woman who literally tried to warn
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: the police decades ago in the 90s, said the findings
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: of the inquest astounded her.
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: Oh, I bet she was furious.
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: She explicitly stated that nothing was done to protect her
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: sister back then, and that if Theodore had spent the proper,
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: justified amount of time in jail for his first murder
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: in 1981, Angela Best would still be alive today. The
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: failure cascades through generations.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: It's a generational trauma caused by one man, yes, but
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: enabled by a system that continually... bafflingly gave him the
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: benefit of the doubt over the safety of women. Think
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: about the image of him in court during that final trial.
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: The wheelchair.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: Right. He had to be wheeled out in a wheelchair.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: He was missing an arm and a hand. A frail,
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: older man. He finally faced actual permanent consequences, but only
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: after he had spent an entire lifetime completely destroying multiple
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: families and outsmarting every safeguard meant to stop him.
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: It is a stark visual reminder that physical frailty, does
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: not equate to psychological safety. The system looked at an
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: aging man in a flat and assumed the danger had
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: naturally passed with time, failing to realize that the mechanics
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: of coercive control, possessiveness, and a sense of lethal entitlement
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: over women do not necessarily diminish with age.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: As we bring this deep dive to a close, The
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: key takeaway you need to hold onto is that Theodore
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: Johnson's story isn't just a dark profile of a serial killer.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: We aren't just here to marvel at a true crime timeline.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: No, absolutely not.
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: This is a glaring, blaring indictment of systemic loopholes. It
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: is a story about the fatal naivety embedded in the
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: justice and mental health systems and the catastrophic, irreversible consequences
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: of prioritizing bureaucratic protocol and patient privacy against over the
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: undeniable physical safety of human beings.
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: And you might be thinking to yourself, why should you,
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: the listener, care about the intricacies of this decades-old bureaucracy?
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: Why does the phrasing of the 1957 Homicide Act or
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: the visitation schedule of a 1990 social worker matter to
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: you today?
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: Why does it matter?
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: Because the system's designed to protect society right now. The police,
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: the courts, the medical boards— They are still only as
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: robust as the critical thinking of the human beings enforcing
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: those rules. Exactly. Trusting a proven killer on an honor system,
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: assuming a therapeutic alliance with someone who has demonstrated lethal deception,
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: is a failure of logic that fundamentally compromises the safety
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: of the community at large. We rely on these systems
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: to be the barrier between us and the Theodore Johnsons
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: of the world.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: I want to leave you with a final thought to
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: mull over as you go about your day. Think about
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: the safeguards in your own community, the rules and regulations
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: you trust to keep you safe. When a legal or
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: medical system's ultimate safety net relies entirely on the honesty
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: of someone who has already proven they are highly capable
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: of murder and deception.
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: Are we actually practicing rehabilitation? Or are we simply setting
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: a timer for the next tragedy?
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Theodore Johnson proved that the most dangerous threats in
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: our society don't always look like monsters in the dark. Sometimes...
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: They hide in the polite smiles at scheduled check-ins. They
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: hide behind well-meaning privacy rules. And they hide in plain sight,
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: just waiting for the system to look the other way.