Dani Hitchcock, the former stepdaughter of mass murderer Joanna Dennehy, has opened up on the behaviour she saw from the criminal before her arrest.
She was branded as the 'evil stepmum' in her life, while being known as Britain's most dangerous woman by the public.
Dennehy made the news back in March 2013 after murdering Lukasz Slaboszewski, 31, John Chapman, 56, and Keven Lee, 48.
She would then go on to stab two more victims before being caught while on the run. She pleaded guilty to three murders and two attempted murders in November 2013.
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Dennehy was sentenced to die behind bars, the first woman to be given such a punishment in Britain, being called a 'cruel, calculating, selfish and manipulative serial killer'.
The convict even told a psychiatrist that she got a 'taste' for killing, though before being punished for her crimes, she had taken control of Dani's life at the age of 12.
Dani recalled being so uncomfortable that she'd stopped spending time with her dad, even remembering the time she heard of Dennehy's killing spree.
She told The Sun in an exclusive interview: “I was in the car with my mum and it came on the news. I just froze, and laughed a nervous laugh. I just said ‘mum, that could’ve been us, my dad, my brothers’. I just felt sick. We had a lucky escape, big time. She really was the evil stepmum.”
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Dani's dad had started seeing Dennehy, and she moved in within months, as Dani recalled: "I was really shocked. She looked really grubby and she had her arms out which were full of self-harm scars. I had never seen self-harm like that to this day, and at that age you don’t know what it is."
“She was very blank with me. She spoke to my brothers but not to me, and she was all over my dad which was cringe enough as it is, let alone with someone like her,” she said.
There were a number of behaviours from Dennehy which made a young Dani uncomfortable, with her explaining: "I felt on edge in my own dad’s house. It was the house we had all grown up in and when my parents got divorced my dad kept it. But it started to feel not like a home.
"I didn’t even want to go downstairs and I was nervous to go into the kitchen because she would always be in there drinking, all day and all night."
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Looking back on the situation, the 29-year-old reckons that Dennehy saw her as competition for her dad's affections, leading to the killer making sexual comments in front of Dani, a child.
The latter said: “Any conversation she had with me would be really inappropriate. I remember her sprinkling something on my dad’s dinner once and I asked her what it was. She said, ‘oh, it is to make your dad hard’.”
But there was one incident which was particularly disturbing, as Dani remembered that she would 'dip in and out' of her dad's life.
"It is only now I realise that it was because she was in and out of prison," she admitted.
As a child though, Dennehy apparently forced Dani to do a 'seductive dance' to 'Do it Like a Dude' by Jessie J, which was 'pretty much pole dancing'.
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"I have the vision of me and Joanna spending hours practising. She was quite forceful, she was saying everyone will love it if you do this, we will have to show your dad," she claimed.
Dani remembered that her dad's mate was also living with him, adding: "She basically wanted me to do this sexy dance for my dad and his friend. It was only when I went home and showed my mum. She was absolutely disgusted.
"Joanna was sex-obsessed. She was very all over my dad, she was always sitting on him."
Looking back, Dani said that he was simply viewed as 'prey', saying: "There was also this man who went into my dad’s shop who was in his 80s and had just lost his wife. When my dad kicked Joanna out, this old man said she could go and live with him."
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Apparently, she would walk around his house naked before stealing all his wife's jewellery.
The family breathed an understandable sigh of relief once she was gone.
Topics: True Crime, Crime, UK News
Joshua Nair