A man who killed two women he was in relationships with is facing life in prison after pleading guilty to murdering a third woman.

On the first day of his trial at the Old Bailey in London, Theodore Johnson, 64, admitted to attacking his girlfriend Angela Best with a claw hammer and then strangling her with a cord in December 2016.

His guilty plea means it can now be reported that Johnson was previously twice convicted of manslaughter.

In 1981, he killed his then wife, Yvonne Johnson, after an argument. He hit her with a vase before pushing her off the balcony of their ninth-floor flat in Wolverhampton. He was convicted at Stafford crown court in November that year.

After his release he went on to kill Yvonne Bennett 11 years later, strangling her with a belt at their home in Finsbury Park, north London. In March 1993, at the Old Bailey he was convicted of killing Bennett by diminished responsibility.

After his release from a psychiatric unit, Johnson met Best in 1995. She had moved to Tottenham in north London from Manchester with her four children.

Best was initially unaware of Johnson’s previous convictions but later found letters revealing he had killed a previous partner.

Johnson was described by Best’s children as abusive and controlling and he once punched her after she found out he had cheated on her.

Their relationship ended in autumn 2016 and she started dating another man. Johnson then began stalking her near.

On 14 December of that year, Best told her daughter she was going to see Johnson the next day to accompany him to an appointment at the Jamaican embassy.

She is believed to have arrived at his home at about 9.20am and later that morning her son Fabian Collins phoned her and got no answer.

When police searched Johnson’s home they discovered Best’s body in the living room.

A postmortem revealed she had been hit at least six times over the head with a hammer.

Hours after killing her, Johnson threw himself in front of a train at Cheshunt railway station in Hertfordshire, losing both his arms.

Johnson, who uses a wheelchair, had initially pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Best by diminished responsibility but denied murder. But in a last-minute change of plea he admitted the murder charge, as Mark Heywood QC, prosecuting, was preparing to open the case to the jury.

Best’s two sisters watched in in court as Johnson entered his guilty plea.



Heywood said: “This is a man who is controlling and violent to the women in his life and who, when crossed, will kill.”

“She [Best] did nothing whatsoever to bring any violence in her direction: she had gone to his home to help him with an appointment he had that day.

“Instead of accepting her help the defendant set on her with brutal, merciless violence. He did it for a simple reason: after all that time she was no longer prepared to remain with him and his controlling ways.

“She had recently met another and began a new chapter in her life, seeing that other man. The defendant is someone who would rather that she did not live if that life was to be with anyone but him. And so, quite simply he killed her.”

The judge, Richard Marks QC, remanded Johnson into custody. He will be sentenced on Friday.