'My sister should have been saved from serial killer': Calls for authorities to be held to account
Two victims of a serial killer who lived in Wolverhampton could have been saved had he been properly monitored by authorities, the sister of one of them has said.
Theodore Johnson threw his wife off a balcony in Wolverhampton before going on to kill another two partners after being released back into society on both occasions.
The 67-year-old serial killer is three years into a minimum 30-year jail sentence for the murder of Angela Best, who he bludgeoned with a claw hammer and strangled with a dressing gown cord in 2016, and he will likely die in prison.
Ms Best was murdered 35 years after Johnson pushed his first victim, 25-year-old Yvonne Johnson, off a ninth-floor balcony in Blakenhall, Wolverhampton, in 1981. He went on to kill another partner, Yvonne Bennett, in 1992 before meeting his final victim Ms Best.
Despite his past crimes, Johnson had been released back into society by 1997. He had been sentenced to a hospital order after being convicted of manslaughter by grounds of diminished responsibility for the second killing. The sentencing judge at the Old Bailey even remarked Johnson "was not a violent man" following the first killing.
An inquest into the death of Ms Best last month heard how failings allowed Johnson to carry on killing.
One of the conditions of Johnson’s release was that, given his past, he must alert authorities if he began another relationship. He never did and was allowed to spend 19 years with her before killing her in London.
Jannet Bennett, the sister of Johnson's second victim Yvonne Bennett, was astounded by the revelations from the inquest and believes the life of her sister could have been saved had Johnson been kept behind bars after his first murder.
The pair got together in the early 1990s and lived in Low Hill, Wolverhampton, for a time.
Ms Bennett, 59, from Smethwick, said he was a controlling partner. She said she took an instant dislike to Johnson, who was originally from Jamaica, but neither she nor her sister knew he had killed his wife. Yvonne Bennett was just 25 when Johnson strangled her while their two-year-old daughter was sleeping in London.
Jannet Bennett told the Express & Star: "Nothing was made known, there was nothing out there for us. He shouldn't have been in this country.
"Since my sister he has committed another murder. What's going on? This man is a serial killer, he really is. Why was this man even here?
"Personally, we didn't get on. We were arch-enemies. He was very controlling, which was one of the problems with my sister. He told her who to talk to and where to go. I tried to encourage her to leave him. She went back.
"That was the whole idea of going to London in the first place. She left him in Low Hill but he followed her all the way to London. She could not get rid of him."
Ms Bennett, one of 10 siblings including Yvonne, said she learned from Johnson's family in Jamaica just how dangerous he was and that he had killed his wife by throwing her from a balcony.
She said she attempted to alert the police to the danger her sister was in but nothing was done.
"They said 'get the police involved, this man is dangerous'. I went to the authorities but they took no notice," Ms Bennett said.
She said she went to London to try to rescue Yvonne from Johnson and left just days before he killed her. The pair had separated after Johnson found out she was having an affair but he then began stalking her.
"I went down to London and spent three weeks in the very house he killed her. I came home and the following week he killed her.
"I think somewhere along the line she said 'leave me alone, I don't want anything to do with you'. I think that was the trigger."
Asked how she felt when she discovered her sister had also fallen victim to Johnson, Ms Bennett said: "I was absolutely outraged. I didn't speak for a month, I lost the power of speech.
"It totally destroyed our family, she was such a big part of our family. Nothing was done to protect my sister."
That wasn't the end of Ms Bennett's ordeal as she learned in 2016 that he had, inexplicably, struck again by killing Ms Best.
"I broke down in tears when I found out about the last killing," she confessed. "I heard from a friend of my sister. I didn't even know he was out of jail.
"It felt like I was hit by a truck. How many murders does he have to commit?"
Ms Bennett insisted the latest victim, just like her sister, could have been protected.
She said: "They have to be held responsible for what happened to the last one. It is not as if they have got no information on this man. He should have been monitored so that women were not vulnerable."
Ms Bennett described her sister Yvonne as "meek and mild", not aggressive and not loud.
She added: "I think that's why he could do what he did to her."
