Number 9 Murder of Sophie Lionnet In 2018, a wealthy English couple
was accused of torturing, killing and burning the body of their 21-year-old French nanny,
Sophie Lionnet. 35-year-old fashion designer Sabrina Kouider and husband Ouissem Medouni,
aged 40, faced multiple years in prison for their crimes. It was reported that Kouider believed
Lionnet had slept with her former boyfriend, Mark Wanton, of Boyzone fame. By multiple accounts,
the two hadn’t even met but Kouider was obsessed and convinced they were plotting against her. In a
bid to get Lionnet to confess, she and her husband took away the young woman’s phone and identity
card. She became a prisoner at their Sheffield property and subjected to repeated beatings. Hours
before her death, Lionnet reportedly appeared in a video confession, severely emaciated. She was then
drowned in a bathtub. An investigation would later reveal that Lionnet had suffered fractures to
multiple ribs, her sternum and jawbone. The couple was arrested and admitted to burning the body but
blamed each other for the killing. According to updates on the case, they were sentenced to life
with a minimum of 30 years served. Number 8 Joanna Dennehy
In 2013, when Joanna Christine Dennehy was in her early 30s, she stabbed three men to death
and injured two others. The bodies of her victims were found in ditches, in Peterborough. Her first
target was Polish national Lukasz Slaboszewski, whom she murdered on March the 19th. A man named
Kevin Lee, who was Dennehy’s lover, and Mark Chapman, her housemate, were both killed on the
29th. Dennehy dressed Lee’s body in a black sequin dress before dumping it. That same day Dennehy was
driven to Hereford, by an accomplice, where she randomly stabbed two male dog walkers, in separate
attacks. Following her arrest, Dennehy pled guilty to the murder and attempted murder charges. She
was sentenced to life with the recommendation that she never be released. Three male accomplices
were given multiple-year sentences for their role in the killing spree. Dennehy stated that
she’d started killing purely for entertainment and then got a taste for it, reportedly telling
an accomplice "I want my fun. I need you to get my fun." She’d specifically targeted men and wanted
to claim 9 victims, to emulate Bonnie and Clyde. Psychiatrists diagnosed Dennehy with anti-social,
psychopathic and borderline personality disorders. While imprisoned, an escape plot was discovered in
her diary that involved cutting a guard’s finger and using it to pass the prison’s biometrics.
After a prolonged stint in solitary confinement, Dennehy became romantically involved with a
cellmate and, in 2018, both women tried to kill themselves in a suicide pact. In 2020, Dennehy
was in a new relationship with inmate Emma Aitken, who’d also been involved in the murder of a man.
Number 7 Lethal London Smog Between the 18th and 20th century,
England’s emergence as the world’s leading commercial force was not without consequence.
London, in particular, had become notorious for its smog events.
They were called “pea-soupers” as the thick killer fog would have a greenish, yellowish
or blackish color because of the sulfur dioxide and soot particles it contained.
A number of incidents were reported before, in December of 1952, the Great Smog of London became
the worst case of air pollution in the history of the UK. A combination of windless conditions,
unusually cold weather and an anticyclone had resulted in the collection of airborne pollutants.
From December 5th to the 9th, London was wrapped in a thick layer of smog. It was denser and
lasted longer than any of the previous events. Visibility was reduced to a few feet and the smog
even seeped indoors. Up to 100,000 people suffered respiratory complication and, by modern estimates,
10,000 to 12,000 of them died as a result. A study authored by economist Walker Hanlon
revealed the extent of London’s smog problem. He concluded that, between 1866 and 1965, at least
1 in 200 deaths could be linked to air pollution. Number 6 Securitas Depot Robbery
In February of 2006, the largest cash robbery in British history occurred at the Securitas depot,
in Tonbridge, Kent. Its alleged mastermind was 29-year-old former MMA fighter Lee Murray. On
February the 21st, the crew kidnapped the depot’s manager, Colin Dixon, from his car while posing as
police officers. At around the same time, Dixon’s wife and child were also abducted from their home.
The family was taken to a farm in Staplehurst and told they weren’t going to be hurt if they
cooperated. The crew transferred them to a white van and drove to the depot. The robbers’ faces
were clad with balaclavas and they were armed with shotguns, pistols, AK-47 assault rifles and a
submachine gun. After Dixon had let them and their vehicles in, over a dozen staff members were held
at gunpoint, tied up and locked in cash cages. The crew then loaded a white Renault truck with
£53,116,760 worth of used and unused Bank of England sterling banknotes. Murray had
incriminated himself in a cellphone recording that was found in one of the abandoned vehicles.
Within days of the robbery, he’d fled to Morocco. He was caught and sentenced to 25 years. According
to subsequent updates, Murray was training for an MMA comeback while hoping for a pardon
from the Moroccan king. 30 more arrests were made in the case but roughly £32 million of the stolen
money has never been recovered. Number 5 RAF Fauld Explosion
On November the 27th of 1944, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history occurred at a
Royal Air Force underground munitions storage, in Staffordshire. The facility housed weapons to be
used by Britain during the World War II effort. According to a later report, the tremendous blast
had been caused by a worker using a brass chisel, instead of the regulated wooden one,
to remove a detonator from a live bomb. The sparks ignited munitions,
mostly high explosives, with a combined weight of up to 4,400 tons. That would make it over
three times heavier than a giant sequoia tree. A mushroom cloud rose thousands of feet into the air
and the explosion left behind a crater, 100-foot-deep, that’s still visible to this day.
Several buildings were damaged and a reservoir, containing millions of cubic feet of water,
was obliterated. At least 70 people were killed in the flood and the explosion, which remains the
largest to have ever been reported on UK soil. Number 4 John McCarthy & Richard Leslie
In November of 2014, John McCarthy and Richard Leslie ruthlessly tortured an elderly couple,
in Cambridgeshire, during a 4-hour robbery. Clad in forensic suits and surgical gloves, they broke
into the home and proceeded to torment the unnamed victims, both in their 70s. The man was struck
with a chair and stabbed with pins. His wife was forced to walk on broken glass and the attackers
crushed one of her toes with a sledgehammer. She was beaten so viciously that she subsequently
needed to have all of her teeth removed. During the attack, one of the robbers reportedly boasted
“This is what we do for a living!” The elderly man was told that he’d have to watch while they cut
off his wife’s fingers. The couple was bound and locked in a utility room but eventually escaped
the home, after the man was able to crawl through a window. Both survived but remained
severely traumatized in the incident’s aftermath. McCarthy and Leslie made off with cash as well
as gold and silver ornaments. They were later arrested and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Number 3 London Beer Flood On October the 17th of 1814, a giant vat
holding fermented beer burst at a brewery, in London. The pressure of the initial liquid
explosion destroyed several more of the brewery’s containers. Up to 388,000 gallons were released,
which is more than half the capacity of an Olympic pool. The beer wave, which at its highest reached
15 feet, collapsed the brewery’s wall and spilled onto a nearby slum. It obliterated
two homes and badly damaged two others. 8 people were killed in the beer flood,
which a jury would eventually rule as an accident. There have been stories of mass drunkenness
as hundreds of Londoners allegedly collected the beer in the incident’s aftermath. The
claims were, however, challenged by historians. Today's topic was requested by Thomas McKimm,
if you have any other topics you'd like to learn about, subscribe & let us know in the
comments section below Number 2 Dreamspace V
On July the 22nd of 2006, British artist Maurice Agis opened an installation, which he called
Dreamspace V, at Riverside Park, in the market town of Chester-le-Street. It was
a massive inflatable network of multi-colored corridors that visitors could wander through.
The following day, the installation left its mooring and rose 30 feet into the air,
along with over two dozen people who were inside at the time. It then crashed into a CCTV pole. 2
people were killed in the collision while 13 others were injured. Vandalism was suspected,
at first, but there was also the theory that warm weather currents had basically turned the artwork
into a hot air balloon. Agis was arrested on gross negligence manslaughter charges but was ultimately
found not guilty and given a fine. Number 1 Harold Shipman
Harold Shipman, also known as The Angel of Death or Dr. Death,
is suspected as being one of the most prolific serial killers in history. In late January of
2000, the general practitioner was found guilty of killing 15 patients under his care and sentenced
to life imprisonment. Shipman was caught while trying to forge the will of his latest victim,
Kathleen Grundy, who was found dead at her home in June of 1998. The family lawyer doubted the
document’s authenticity, in which Grundy had chosen to leave Shipman all of her fortune
and nothing for her children. An investigation was launched and, after Grundy’s body was exhumed, the
police found traces of diamorphine, a painkiller normally given to terminal cancer patients.
Law enforcement discovered a pattern of Shipman administering lethal amounts of diamorphine,
putting his signature on patients’ death certificates and then
falsifying their medical records to show that they’d had health problems.
The Shipman Inquiry, a 2-year-long investigation, revealed that, over a period of 27 years,
459 people had died under his care. Of them, up to 250 are believed to have been murdered and
most of his victims were elderly women. His modus operandi reflected the manner
in which his mother had died of lung cancer, when Shipman was in his teens. Leading up to her death,
he’d witnessed her pain subside after a doctor administered morphine. In January of 2004,
Shipman hanged himself with bed sheets on the window bars of his cell at HM Prison Wakefield.
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