Triple killer admits murder of partner with claw hammer
A SERIAL killer yesterday pleaded guilty to murdering a mother-offour with a claw hammer.
Wheelchair-bound Theodore Johnson, 64, admitted killing his former girlfriend Angela Best, 51, in the hammer attack and throttling her with a dressing gown cord.
After the murder at his home in Islington, north London, he threw himself in front of a train and suffered horrific injuries.
Johnson’s history of violence against women included convictions for manslaughter after killing his wife by throwing her off a balcony in 1981 and strangling another partner in 1993.
The garage worker pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of grandmother Ms Best and then changed his plea to admit her murder on the first day of his Old Bailey trial.
Johnson, who was born in Jamaica and moved to Britain in 1980, now faces the prospect of the rest of his life behind bars.
He killed Ms Best on December 15 2016 after their relationship broke down and she started seeing another man.
Hours after the killing, he threw himself in front of an express train at Cheshunt railway station in Hertfordshire. His injuries included losing his right arm and left forearm.
When police went to his home they discovered Ms Best’s body in the living room with a belt around her neck and a blood-stained hammer nearby. In November 1981, he was convicted by a jury at Stafford Crown Court of the manslaughter of his wife Yvonne Johnson.
Following an argument, he had hit the mother-of-two with a vase before pushing her over the balcony of their ninth floor flat in Wolverhampton.
In March 1993, he was convicted at the Old Bailey of killing his partner Yvonne Bennett, responsibility.
The couple, who had a daughter together, had moved from Wolverhampton to Finsbury Park in north London.
Johnson strangled Ms Bennett with a belt after she had an affair with another man.
He then tried to hang himself from a tree but failed after the string he used by diminished snapped. On his release from a psychiatric unit he met Ms Best in 1995.
She had 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 as his murder trial was about to be opened by prosecutor Mark Heywood, QC.
Johnson was remanded in custody and will be sentenced on Friday.