Double killer released only to murder his next lover
A MAN who savagely killed two of his previous partners is facing life behind bars after admitting murdering a third.
Theodore Johnson had twice before been convicted of manslaughter, when in Dec 2016 he attacked Angela Best, 51, his then girlfriend, with a claw hammer.
Johnson was first convicted of manslaughter in 1981 after throwing his then-wife off a ninth-floor balcony in Wolverhampton.
Eleven years later he strangled a second partner with a belt at their home in London, but served just two years in a psychiatric hospital after pleading guilty to manslaughter. The “violent and controlling” 64-year-old attacked Ms Best, a mother-of-four, after she found out about his past and ended their relationship.
Just hours after the brutal murder, he drove to Cheshunt railway station in Herts, where he threw himself in front of an express train. He suffered horrific injuries, including a severed right arm and left hand, but survived.
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 bloodstained claw hammer nearby.
The wheelchair-bound defendant had initially admitted her manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, but denied her murder.
However as Mark Heywood QC prepared to open the prosecution’s case to the jury at the Old Bailey yesterday, he changed his plea and admitted murder. He will be sentenced on Friday.
Mr Heywood said: “This is a man who is controlling and violent to the women in his life and who, when crossed, will kill.”
Johnson, a garage worker, was born in Jamaica and moved to the UK in 1980. The following year he was convicted of killing Yvonne Johnson, his wife. 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.
He was convicted of manslaughter on the basis of provocation and served less than five years for the killing.
In March 1993, he was again convicted of manslaughter after killing Yvonne Bennett, his then partner.
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 discovering she had had an affair.
Johnson tried to hang himself from a tree but failed after the rope snapped. Doctors concluded he was depressed and had a personality disorder.
He was found guilty of manslaughter having claimed diminished responsibility and was sent to a psychiatric unit, where he served just two years.
Following his release in 1995 he met Ms Best. Det Sgt Danny Yeoman, of Scotland Yard, said: “This was a vicious attack and I hope the conviction gives Angela’s family some measure of comfort and closure.”