Speaker 1: Images of Shakira before she fell under your influence show
Speaker 1: her full of life, healthy and smiling.
Speaker 2: Hull Back Rope sits quietly in the wallpell world of
Speaker 2: Ealing in West London. It's residential crescent just far enough
Speaker 2: from the clamor of the city to feel like its
Speaker 2: own self contained world, nestled between three line straight and
Speaker 2: the occasional hum of the Elizabeth Lyne in the distance.
Speaker 2: It's a place where people know their neighbors, if not
Speaker 2: by name, then at least by face. This part of
Speaker 2: Ealing is upmarket, tidy and well cared for. It carries
Speaker 2: that comfortable, settled in kind of charm that's hard to manufacture.
Speaker 2: It's a patchwork of post war terraces, modern semis, and
Speaker 2: a new wave of flats that were built in recent years.
Speaker 2: Among them stands Lambert House, a four story brick building
Speaker 2: completed in two thousand and nineteen, is part of a
Speaker 2: regeneration initiative to provide affordable homes for key workers and
Speaker 2: consul tenants. Children often play in the communal courtyards between
Speaker 2: the buildings, and to most people, Whobeck Row feels safe.
Speaker 2: It's the kind of place where nothing too extraordinary ever
Speaker 2: really happens. But then, on the twenty fifth of September
Speaker 2: twenty and twenty two, something did happen, something horrific. It
Speaker 2: was Sunday, unmortarkable in every way, at least at first
Speaker 2: at Lambert House. The day had passed quietly. Residents went
Speaker 2: about their routines. Groceries were unpacked when thows were cracked
Speaker 2: open to lead in the breeze. But on the third
Speaker 2: floor of the building, one woman sat alone in her flat,
Speaker 2: increasingly troubled by a feeling she couldn't quite shake. For
Speaker 2: two weeks, she hadn't seen her neighbor. There were no
Speaker 2: signs from the unit next door, no movement behind the
Speaker 2: drum blinds. At first, she had told herself that it
Speaker 2: was nothing, that people often come and go. Perhaps her
Speaker 2: neighbor was staying with family, or maybe she'd gone away
Speaker 2: on holiday. But now something had changed. There was a smell,
Speaker 2: and it wasn't faint. It was the kind of smell
Speaker 2: that lingered in the hallway and clung to fabric. It
Speaker 2: seemed to save through the seams of the building itself,
Speaker 2: and it was only getting worse. By four point thirty
Speaker 2: pm that day, she couldn't ignored any longer. She stood
Speaker 2: in the hallway, staring at the door of the neighboring flat,
Speaker 2: willing herself to knock again, even though she already knew
Speaker 2: there would be no answer. She then reached her her
Speaker 2: phone and dialed nine ninety nine. Shaghir Spencer was born
Speaker 2: on the thirteenth of June nineteen eighty seven to parents
Speaker 2: Lloyd and Mercia. She grew up in ealing, West London.
Speaker 2: The Spencer family were close. Big family gatherings were a
Speaker 2: constant in Shakira's early life. Birthdays, christenings, weddings. There was
Speaker 2: always a reason to come together. Her sister Arena would
Speaker 2: later say, we have a big, extended family, so there
Speaker 2: were always birthdays, christenings, weddings to attend. In these moments,
Speaker 2: surrounded by loved ones, Shakira shoan, but at skill she
Speaker 2: stood out, and not in the way that children hoped for.
Speaker 2: She struggled. Learning didn't come easy to Shakira, and socializing
Speaker 2: even less so. She was quiet, reserved, and unsure of
Speaker 2: how to fit in. Shakir had learning difficulties and was
Speaker 2: often described as socially awkward, but that didn't tell the
Speaker 2: whole story. She was kind, earnest, and thoughtful to a fault.
Speaker 2: Her mother, Mercia, said she was quiet and shy, but
Speaker 2: would often come out of her shell about when she
Speaker 2: was surrounded by loved ones. She deeply cared about people
Speaker 2: and loved having friends to spend time with. Shakira wanted
Speaker 2: to be liked. That desire followed her into adulthood, shaping
Speaker 2: her relationships and at times leaving her painfully vulnerable. She
Speaker 2: had a trusting nature and a tendency to give more
Speaker 2: than she received, to bend herself in ways that others
Speaker 2: would never for her. In a world that can be
Speaker 2: so unkind, especially to those who struggled to fit in,
Speaker 2: that trait would become dangerous, yes, But despite her challenges,
Speaker 2: Shakira had dreams, real ones, simple ones. She knew from
Speaker 2: a young age that she wanted to be a mother,
Speaker 2: that maternal instinct was always there. After finishing school, she
Speaker 2: began working in a nursery. Her mother used to joke
Speaker 2: that the chaos of toddlers might put her off having
Speaker 2: children of her own, but it didn't. Her mother recollected
Speaker 2: she was really happy when she became a mum. Shagia
Speaker 2: gave birth to her first son in twenty ten. Followed
Speaker 2: by a second boy the next year, two beautiful boys
Speaker 2: close in age, just as Shakira had always wanted. Arena recollected.
Speaker 2: She loved being a mum. She'd wanted boys close together,
Speaker 2: so she was happy. It was a period of Shakira's
Speaker 2: life that felt full. She felt like she had a purpose,
Speaker 2: and she took joy in the small things, the school
Speaker 2: drop offs, bedtime routines, and packing lunches. For a time,
Speaker 2: things were good. Shakira was proud of the little life
Speaker 2: that she was build. But life is rarely simple, and
Speaker 2: for someone like Shakira, with such a deep desire to
Speaker 2: please and an openness that was often mistaken for weakness,
Speaker 2: danger was never far away. When police arrived at Lambert
Speaker 2: House on the twenty fifth of September twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: they gathered outside flat number nine. The neighbor had made
Speaker 2: the phone call. Her voice was shaky with concern. She
Speaker 2: hadn't seen her neighbor, Shakira Spencer, in over two weeks,
Speaker 2: and now there was a smell, an unbearable smell. It
Speaker 2: wafted through the communal hallway, thick compew dread hanging in
Speaker 2: the air like fog. When officers arrived, they noticed something
Speaker 2: else as well, something far more sinister. Maggots were crawling
Speaker 2: out from beneath the sealed threshold of Shakira's door, a
Speaker 2: line of them inching across the floor. Whatever was on
Speaker 2: the other side, it wasn't going to be easy to witness.
Speaker 2: The officers didn't wait. They forced an dry kicking down
Speaker 2: the front door, but it was clear almost immediately that
Speaker 2: time had already run out. The smell hit them like
Speaker 2: a wall. It was the unmistakable stench of death, the
Speaker 2: kind of smell that would follow them home. Inside the
Speaker 2: flat was quiet and still. The officers called out Shakira's name,
Speaker 2: but they knew she wouldn't answer. They began their search, slowly, methodically,
Speaker 2: stepping through the rooms, drawn like magnets towards the source
Speaker 2: of the odor. It led them into a bedroom, and
Speaker 2: that's where they found her. At the back of the
Speaker 2: room stood a child's bunk bed, and on the bottom
Speaker 2: bunk was a body. It was Shakiera Spenser, or what
Speaker 2: was left of her. Her remains were so severely decomposed
Speaker 2: that her face was gone, her skin, her features, the
Speaker 2: very essence of what ones made her sh Kia was
Speaker 2: all erased by time and decay. Her body was being
Speaker 2: consumed by maggots. The scene was grotesque, but it wasn't
Speaker 2: just what they saw what disturbed the officers. It was
Speaker 2: what didn't make sense. Beside her body, a newspaper had
Speaker 2: been laid out neatly on the floor, almost as if
Speaker 2: she had been reading it before drifting off to sleep.
Speaker 2: It was a strange detail, almost staged in the room,
Speaker 2: incense had been lit. It was clear that this was
Speaker 2: no peaceful death. There were no signs of medical emergencies,
Speaker 2: no medications, no evidence that Shakira had simply passed in
Speaker 2: her sleep. Her remains were removed from the flat and
Speaker 2: taken for post mortem examination, but the pathologist quickly ran
Speaker 2: into an obstacle. Shakierra's body was so decomposed, so ravaged
Speaker 2: by the process of death, that it was impossible to
Speaker 2: determine a clear cause. She needed to be formally identified
Speaker 2: through her dental records. Yes, that's how far gone she was.
Speaker 2: But even through the decay, the damage was still visible.
Speaker 2: Shaker had suffered crushing injuries to her ear, the kind
Speaker 2: of trauma that was consistent with blunt force. There were
Speaker 2: deep cuts to her scalp, and her fate had been scolded.
Speaker 2: These weren't the injuries of an accidental fall or an
Speaker 2: untreated illness. Shakira's Spencer had been tortured to death. As
Speaker 2: the news of Shakira Spencer's death broke headlines across the
Speaker 2: United Kingdom, public shock quickly turned to questions. How could
Speaker 2: something so violent happen to somebody so quietly living her life,
Speaker 2: and how could it go unnoticed for so long. The
Speaker 2: investigation was now underway and led by Detective Chief Inspector
Speaker 2: Brian Howie. It didn't take long for him to appear
Speaker 2: before the cameras, appealing to the public for information. I
Speaker 2: need to know why people would want to harm Shakira,
Speaker 2: he said bind the scene. Shakira's family was being supported
Speaker 2: by specially trained officers. The trauma they were facing was immense.
Speaker 2: They had only lost a daughter, a sister, a mother,
Speaker 2: but they were now being told that she had died
Speaker 2: in pain, in fear, and alone. DCI Howie continued, I
Speaker 2: would urge anyone with information, no matter how insignificant you
Speaker 2: think it might be, to get in touch with my team,
Speaker 2: and somebody did. The first tip came from the very
Speaker 2: neighbor who had called police to report Shakira missing. This
Speaker 2: woman had known Shaquira for her rund ten years. She
Speaker 2: described her as pleasant and friendly, the kind of neighbor
Speaker 2: you were always happy to run into in the hallway.
Speaker 2: But in recent months, she said that something had changed.
Speaker 2: Jagir had always been known for her curves, a vibrant
Speaker 2: curvey size sixteen, with long, thick hair and warm, beautiful face.
Speaker 2: But now, the woman said, Shaker was unrecognizable. She was
Speaker 2: just skin and bones. Her cheeks were sunken, her eyes
Speaker 2: were ringed with heavy bags. Her frame looked frail, almost breakable.
Speaker 2: She'd lost a drastic amount of weight. And then there
Speaker 2: was her behavior. Shagher had been cutting people off. She'd
Speaker 2: lost touch with her family. She'd even lost custody of
Speaker 2: her two boys to their father, which stunned those who
Speaker 2: knew how deeply she loved them. The more detectives look,
Speaker 2: the more they realized this wasn't a sudden tragedy. This
Speaker 2: was the tail end of something that had been building
Speaker 2: in the shadows for months, maybe even longer. Shaghiera's father, Lloyd,
Speaker 2: told detectives that he had noticed the changes in his
Speaker 2: daughter as well. Every time he tried to visit her,
Speaker 2: she had an excuse. She was busy, she wasn't feeling well,
Speaker 2: she didn't want to see anybody. But just a couple
Speaker 2: of months before her death. He did see her, just
Speaker 2: three days before her thirty fifth birthday. What he saw
Speaker 2: had left him shaken. Jagear looked gaunt, her body language
Speaker 2: was guarded, almost jittery. She didn't look like herself, and
Speaker 2: she didn't act like herself either. Lloyd was terrified. The
Speaker 2: only thing that made sense to him at the time,
Speaker 2: the only thing that could explain the sudden weight loss,
Speaker 2: that isolation, and the erratic behavior, was drugs. Lloyd asked
Speaker 2: his daughter, and she denied it, but he wasn't convinced.
Speaker 2: He begged her to see a doctor. He thought that
Speaker 2: she was ill, maybe seriously. Something was clearly wrong, but
Speaker 2: the truth was far worse than he ever could have imagined.
Speaker 2: Just after midnight, the phone rang at the police station.
Speaker 2: The voice on the other end was quiet, nervous, and hesitant.
Speaker 2: It was a man calling about his sister, Michelle Pendleberry,
Speaker 2: and her son Sean. Only ours earlier, Sean had turned
Speaker 2: up at his mother's home in a state of visible panic.
Speaker 2: He was pale, shaken and swearing something was wrong. Michelle
Speaker 2: asked him what was going on and pressed him to
Speaker 2: explain himself, and then Sean told her that he had
Speaker 2: done something really bad. Michelle didn't understand what kind of bad.
Speaker 2: He said he had burned someone's feet and now they
Speaker 2: were dead. Michelle stared at her son, stunned. She still
Speaker 2: didn't understand what he was saying. She hadn't seen the news.
Speaker 2: She had no idea about Shakira's spencer. She asked him who,
Speaker 2: and then Sean said her name, Shakira. He said that
Speaker 2: he had killed her, but not on purpose and not alone.
Speaker 2: He told his mother that two other women were involved,
Speaker 2: a Shanna stood Home and Lisa Richardson. He said they'd
Speaker 2: all been there before. We I've back into today's case.
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Speaker 2: Your wallet will thank you. Michelle didn't know what to do.
Speaker 2: Her son had just confessed to something terrific, but she
Speaker 2: didn't want to hand them in. She got in the
Speaker 2: car and drove Sean over to her brother's home. But
Speaker 2: when they're rived, things didn't go the way Sean had hoped.
Speaker 2: His uncle was horrified. He asked him, are you a killer? Now?
Speaker 2: Do you just go around killing people? John denied it.
Speaker 2: He said it wasn't him and claimed he didn't lay
Speaker 2: a hand on Shakira, but the women stood home and
Speaker 2: Richardson were the ones who had done it. He said
Speaker 2: he had only helped clean up afterwards. Then Sean made
Speaker 2: a request. He asked his uncle for help buying a
Speaker 2: ticket to the Seychelles, where his grandmother lived. He wanted
Speaker 2: out of the country. He wanted to run, but instead
Speaker 2: Sean's uncle called police and the trio were arrested.
Speaker 3: Listen, is what I got to say. It is very
Speaker 3: important to you. You've been arrested on suspicion of the
Speaker 3: murder of Shakira Spencer at nine Lambert House. Okay, between
Speaker 3: the thirty first and the eighth and the twenty sixth
Speaker 3: of the ninth. In relations to that, you do not
Speaker 3: have to say anything, but it may harm me defense
Speaker 3: if you do not mention one question something which he
Speaker 3: later rely.
Speaker 1: On in court.
Speaker 3: Anything you do say maybe given an evidence necessity for
Speaker 3: we arresked is to revenge your disappearance for a prompt
Speaker 3: and effective investigation of prevention at home. Okay, yeah, I've.
Speaker 1: So. I don't know why you're on a.
Speaker 3: Portion at the moment. My advice would be wait until
Speaker 3: you have the opportunity to have legal advice before you
Speaker 3: make any further comment in relation to the allegations against you. Okay.
Speaker 2: That phone call would crack the case wide open. Up
Speaker 2: until now, detectives had very few leads, but now they
Speaker 2: had names. Three of them. John Pendlebury, a Shanna stud
Speaker 2: home Lisa Richardson, and soon detectives would uncover something far
Speaker 2: more disturbing than they could have ever expected. Shakira wasn't
Speaker 2: killed In some heed of the moment attack. Shakira had
Speaker 2: spent the last months of her life living as a slave.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty one, Shakira Spencer met a woman who
Speaker 2: on the surface seemed kind. Her name was a Shana
Speaker 2: Home and she was a neighbor who lived nearby. Shakira,
Speaker 2: who was ever eager to make friends, began to trust her.
Speaker 2: But Shakira couldn't have known who Studholme really was behind
Speaker 2: the compliments in the Sweet Smiles was a long violent history.
Speaker 2: Studholm had a criminal record that stretched back years, including
Speaker 2: three convictions for attacking other women. In one case, she
Speaker 2: had kicked and punched a woman who was lying helpless
Speaker 2: in the middle of the street. Four years later, she
Speaker 2: assaulted another woman in a racially aggravated attack. She had
Speaker 2: also received the caution after a child under her care
Speaker 2: fell from a flat roof while left unintended in a
Speaker 2: paddling pool. This wasn't a woman looking for friendship. This
Speaker 2: was a predator, and Shakira, a woman who was vulnerable trusting,
Speaker 2: eager to be liked was her perfect target. At the time,
Speaker 2: Studholm was in a relationship with Sean Pendlebury, a man
Speaker 2: with his own history of violence. His convictions included drug offenses,
Speaker 2: assaulting police officer, and handling stolen goods. Together, the pair
Speaker 2: moved through a chaotic and volatile social world, often in
Speaker 2: the company of Lisa Richardson, a forty three year old
Speaker 2: woman who lived in Northold. Richardson's flat had a reputation.
Speaker 2: It was described by neighbors as a hive of anti
Speaker 2: social behavior. People came and went at all ours, Arguments
Speaker 2: broke out in the stairwells. It was the kind of
Speaker 2: place where trouble had a permanent residence. And it was
Speaker 2: in this world that Shakira was pulled slowly and deliberately.
Speaker 2: At first, it looked like a friendship, harmless messages, legs
Speaker 2: and comments on Facebook. In one Stockholm called her a
Speaker 2: natural beauty. In another she wrote, pretty to somebody like Shakira, quiet, shy,
Speaker 2: with intellectual disabilities and a desperate need to be accepted.
Speaker 2: These comments meant everything. She thought she had found someone
Speaker 2: who genuinely cared. But behind that screen, Stodholm was laying
Speaker 2: a trap. She introduced Shakira to the darker side of life,
Speaker 2: one filled with late night drinking, drug use, and chaotic parties.
Speaker 2: This wasn't the kind of world that Shakira had known,
Speaker 2: but she didn't say no. She wanted to be liked,
Speaker 2: and slowly, Studholme took control. She used the cover of
Speaker 2: COVID lockdowns to ramp up her influence. She told Shakira
Speaker 2: to break up with her partner. She discouraged her from
Speaker 2: seeing her family. She began to isolate her emotionally, socially, physically.
Speaker 2: Then the control escalated. Stodholm, Pendleberry, and Richardson began to
Speaker 2: own Shakira. They took over her bank accounts. Stodholm changed
Speaker 2: her benefit forms to redirect payments to herself. They started
Speaker 2: to force Shakira into sex work, and whatever money she
Speaker 2: earned they took. Shakira stopped being a friend. She became
Speaker 2: a possession. She was passed between the three like a commodity,
Speaker 2: living in their homes, used for cooking and cleaning, sent
Speaker 2: on errands to buy groceries. She was no longer traded
Speaker 2: like a person. And then came the violence. They didn't
Speaker 2: just beat Shakira They tortured her. They used their fists,
Speaker 2: their feate belts, glass bottles. They even scolded her feet
Speaker 2: with They even scolded her feet with boiling water. Her
Speaker 2: body became frail and skeletal. From a size sixteen, she
Speaker 2: dropped to a size six in a matter of months.
Speaker 2: Shakira was starving and they gave her nothing but ketchup
Speaker 2: sachez to eight. Shakira's hair, which was once long and thick,
Speaker 2: was crudely chopped off. Her face was bruised, her eyes
Speaker 2: were often blackened. They didn't even let her sleep in
Speaker 2: a bed. Shakira was forced to sleep in a hallway
Speaker 2: on crumpled newspapers, like a discarded pet. Some nights she
Speaker 2: wasn't even allowed inside. She was made to sleep in
Speaker 2: a bike shed, and when Pendlebury moved into her flat,
Speaker 2: her fire final safe space was gone. Towards the end
Speaker 2: of August twenty twenty two, Shakira was stopped by police
Speaker 2: while running errands for the group. They were concerned her
Speaker 2: parents shocked them the bruises, the sunken face, the black eyes.
Speaker 2: When they asked what had happened, Shakira said nothing. She
Speaker 2: was worn down by the terror humiliation and isolation, and
Speaker 2: the police just let her go. The torment that Shakira
Speaker 2: Spenser injured wasn't a secret kept behind closed doors. It
Speaker 2: was something that her abuser celebrated. They boasted about what
Speaker 2: they were doing, They laughed and documented her pain. In July,
Speaker 2: Lisa Richardson sent a series of text messages to her
Speaker 2: friend named Carla. She wrote, I've just fucked this bitch up.
Speaker 2: This bitch she ain't going nowhere. I'm going to smash
Speaker 2: her up joke, and then again she wrote I'm going
Speaker 2: to mash up Shakira. A day later, Richardson's followed up
Speaker 2: with another message, which read, so at the end of
Speaker 2: the day, she deserved everything she got. I didn't even
Speaker 2: bait her that much. I just gave her a couple
Speaker 2: of slaps, a tappy tap slap one, two, three, but no.
Speaker 2: Richardson then sent photographs of Shakira to her friends. Her
Speaker 2: nose was clearly injured, as if she had just been
Speaker 2: punched in the face. In another photograph, Shakira lay unconscious
Speaker 2: on a sofa in Richardson's flat. Her face was battered,
Speaker 2: and Richardson had written, look, I've got another afternoon stod
Speaker 2: Holme struck Shakira in the head with a glass bottle,
Speaker 2: blood spattered on the wall. In a panic, she texted Richardson,
Speaker 2: I've bust her head in, I need you here. I'll
Speaker 2: go to jail, but none of them stopped. Pendlebury escalated
Speaker 2: things further. He chased Shakira with a homemade blue torch
Speaker 2: made with a lighter held to an aerosol. Boiling water
Speaker 2: was poured on her feeth. CCTV footage in the surrounding
Speaker 2: area would later capture what they had done to her.
Speaker 2: Shakira moved differently now. She hobbled down the street, visibly
Speaker 2: in pain and struggling to walk. Her feet had been
Speaker 2: scolded so badly that she could barely walk. Her eyes
Speaker 2: were bruised and sunken, and her expression was vacant. Shakira
Speaker 2: looked like a ghost. She was clearly dying in plain sight.
Speaker 2: The abuse didn't stop, and it didn't tape off. It
Speaker 2: escalated until Shakira Spenser was barely clinging to life. It
Speaker 2: was the eleventh or twelfth of September when everything came
Speaker 2: to a final brutal head inside of Shanna Stodholm's home.
Speaker 2: The violence began again, but this time it would be
Speaker 2: the last time. That morning, Sean Pendleberry dragged Shakira off
Speaker 2: the floor. He hurled her against the oven and her
Speaker 2: skull struck metal. Then he set upon her again, chasing
Speaker 2: her with a lighter and an aerosol can, burning her flesh.
Speaker 2: Studholme poured boiling water over her. Later that day, Richardson
Speaker 2: saw Shakira standing in the kitchen. She was just standing there.
Speaker 2: She wasn't crying, she wasn't speaking. The only song she
Speaker 2: could make was a faint murmur, bub bub bub. She
Speaker 2: was barely clinging to life. They all knew it. That night,
Speaker 2: Pendleberry borrowed his hands, houned the civic He barked it
Speaker 2: outside Studholm's flat. When it was dark enough, they bundled
Speaker 2: Shakira into the boot of the car. She was still alive.
Speaker 2: A neighbor would later recall seeing her stumbling towards the car.
Speaker 2: She looked confused and lost. Pendlebury and Studholm drove across
Speaker 2: London back to Shakira's flat in ealing There, they shoved
Speaker 2: her into her hallway cupboard, locked the door, and walked away.
Speaker 2: They knew that she would die in there. Back at
Speaker 2: Studholm's flat. Richardson joined them. They scrubbed everything, the blood,
Speaker 2: the filth, the smell. They e raised Shakira from the scene.
Speaker 2: Then they went out for kebabs. They were caught on
Speaker 2: CCTV laughing and joking as they returned. A few days later,
Speaker 2: they returned to Shakira's flat. She was dead. Her body
Speaker 2: was slumped in the tiny cupboard where they had left her.
Speaker 2: Now they had a problem. They didn't want to just
Speaker 2: leave her there. That would look suspicious, so Pendleberry came
Speaker 2: up with a plan. He borrowed a caravan from his hand,
Speaker 2: and the idea was to soft Shakira's body inside and
Speaker 2: abandon it somewhere far away. But it was already too late.
Speaker 2: Shakira's body was already decomposing. The smell and bodily fluids
Speaker 2: was more than they could handle, so instead they dragged
Speaker 2: Shakira's corpse into the bedroom and laid it out on
Speaker 2: the bottom bunk of a child's bed. They wanted it
Speaker 2: to look natural, as if Shakira had just died peacefully
Speaker 2: in her sleep. They lit incense to try and cover
Speaker 2: the stench of rot. They even packed ice around Shakira's body,
Speaker 2: a crude and desperate attempt to slow the inevitable decomposition.
Speaker 2: Then they laid out a newspaper beside the bed, as
Speaker 2: if Shakier had been reading when death came for her.
Speaker 2: And just before and just like before, they started cleaning.
Speaker 2: They scrubbed their flats, They raised fingerprints, burned clothing, discarded founds.
Speaker 2: They tried to vanish every trace of what they had
Speaker 2: done to Shakira Spenser. But truth has a way of
Speaker 2: rodding its way to the surface, and soon it would.
Speaker 2: On the twenty ninth of September, justice finally began to stir.
Speaker 2: Joan Pendleberry, A Shanna stood Home and Lisa Richardson stood
Speaker 2: in the dock side by side. At a magistrate's court
Speaker 2: in London. They were each charged with murder. Pendlebury and
Speaker 2: stud Home also faced charges of conspiracy to cause gravous
Speaker 2: bodily harm and preventing a awful burial. All three of
Speaker 2: them pleaded not guilty. They had all denied involvement in
Speaker 2: their interviews with police. Do you have anything to do with
Speaker 2: her death?
Speaker 3: And I did not? No, you know who did?
Speaker 2: Prosecutor Banhold stood before the court. He described a timeline
Speaker 2: soaked in brutality, a sustained campaign of abuse culminating in
Speaker 2: Shakira's death. He stated, this case involves the exploitation of
Speaker 2: a vulnerable individual during a course of time, with assaults
Speaker 2: culminating in her death over a number of weeks. The
Speaker 2: judge didn't shy away either. He described the fatal assault
Speaker 2: not just as an attack, but as something closer to torture.
Speaker 2: Detective Chief Inspector Brian Hoyey spoke outside the courtroom and said,
Speaker 2: I am pleased that we have secured charges against the
Speaker 2: three individuals and we continue to work to get justice
Speaker 2: for Shakira's family. He added that the family were understandably
Speaker 2: devastated and were still being supported by especially trained officers.
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Speaker 2: promo code morbidology. The trial began almost a year later,
Speaker 2: on the eleventh of September twenty twenty three at the
Speaker 2: Old Bailey. The courtroom was silent as prosecutor Alison Hunter
Speaker 2: k C rose to her faith. She told the jury
Speaker 2: that Shakira Spenser had been reduced to a slave, her
Speaker 2: body and mind dominated and destroyed by three people standing
Speaker 2: just feet away, her former neighbor a Shanna Studholme, Studholm's
Speaker 2: partner Sean Pendleberry, and their friend Lisa Richard Shardson. She stated,
Speaker 2: for whatever was their unfathomable, cruel, sadistic motive, these three
Speaker 2: defendants tormented, tortured, starved, burned, and eventually battered Shakira Spencer
Speaker 2: to death. She stood with photographs of Shakira taken just
Speaker 2: before she died and described what the camera had captured.
Speaker 2: She said to the jury. In early twenty and twenty one,
Speaker 2: Shakira Spencer had been a healthy, even volumptuous psiz sixteen,
Speaker 2: weighing some seventy four kilograms. By July twenty and twenty two,
Speaker 2: She was just skin and bone, gaunt, skeletal, bruised from
Speaker 2: head to foot, her eyes hollow and black. She was
Speaker 2: barely a scrawny sized six in the images taken by
Speaker 2: the defendants as they laughed and mocked her condition. The
Speaker 2: court was then shown the evidence photographs and videos, the
Speaker 2: very same ones the trio had broadly taken. There was
Speaker 2: no denying what had happened to Shakira Spencer. Her suffering
Speaker 2: had been recorded. The testimony began with someone who knew
Speaker 2: they accused all too well, Michelle Pendlebery, Sean's mother. She
Speaker 2: had once been close friends with the Shanna Studholme, but
Speaker 2: by the time she took the witness stand that friendship
Speaker 2: had long since fractured. She told the court that Studholm
Speaker 2: was a controlling force, not just over Shakira, but over
Speaker 2: her son and over Lisa Richardson too. It was the
Speaker 2: foundation of the defense that all of them, in their
Speaker 2: own way, had been manipulated and controlled, just like Shakira.
Speaker 2: Michelee testified that she had known what was happening, that
Speaker 2: she had seen it firsthand, and worse, that Studholm had
Speaker 2: even forced her to hit Shakira. She said to the
Speaker 2: jury she'll make you hit her too. She gets you
Speaker 2: riled up, and you don't even know why, you're just
Speaker 2: worked up. Michelle confessed that she had hit Shakira once.
Speaker 2: She said that she was sorry and she wasn't proud
Speaker 2: of it. She painted a picture of a woman Studhome
Speaker 2: who was opinionated, aggressive and demanding, a woman who wanted
Speaker 2: people under her feet twenty four hours a day. She said,
Speaker 2: it was Michelle, can you do this? Do that? Even
Speaker 2: with her partner, she treated them like dogs. She described
Speaker 2: Studholm's moods as violent and unpredictable. One moment she was kind,
Speaker 2: even magnetic, the next it was like somebody had flipped
Speaker 2: a switch. Michelle was asked whether she found some of
Speaker 2: these qualities attractive, and she said yes. When asked whether
Speaker 2: she had fallen under Studholm's spell, she replied simply, yeah.
Speaker 2: She seemed to have it figured out at times. Then
Speaker 2: the courtroom fell silent. The next witness was Sean Pendleberry,
Speaker 2: taking the stand for the first time. He denied having
Speaker 2: anything to do with Shakira's death, even though he had
Speaker 2: confessed to his uncle and mother. He claimed that when
Speaker 2: he saw her, she was already in a bad way.
Speaker 2: That it was Studhomme who had put her in the cupboard,
Speaker 2: that he just drove her home. Prosecutor Alison Hunter leaned
Speaker 2: in her voice cold but composed, as she said, is
Speaker 2: a cupboard a place where people are left to die?
Speaker 2: Pendleberry shrugged and replied, no, how am I meant to
Speaker 2: know where people are left to die. He told the
Speaker 2: jury that on the thirteenth of September he had gone
Speaker 2: back to Shakira's flat. He said he heard a noise
Speaker 2: from the cupboard, and when he opened it, Shakir was
Speaker 2: still alive. He claimed. He asked her if she needed
Speaker 2: an ambulance, but she said no. He said he helped
Speaker 2: her out of the cupboard and onto the bunk bed.
Speaker 2: He said that he made her some soup and helped
Speaker 2: her to drink it. Pendleberry said he left the flat
Speaker 2: and only found out Shakier had died when Stodholm called him,
Speaker 2: But that story did in align with what others had said.
Speaker 2: Multiple witnesses had seen Pendleberry drag Shakier across the floor,
Speaker 2: slammer into the oven, and burn her with the lighter
Speaker 2: and aerosol can. There was even the CCTV footage that
Speaker 2: showed Pendlebury on the twelfth of September taking bin bags
Speaker 2: out of Studholm's flat. He told the court they were
Speaker 2: full of bloody tissues used to clean the walls where
Speaker 2: Studholm had attacked Shakira, but the prosecution wasn't buying it.
Speaker 2: More CCTV footage captured Pendleberry and Studholm together returning from
Speaker 2: Shakira's flat after leaving her there to die. They were
Speaker 2: laughing and joking as Shakira's spencer lay dying. After Pendleberry's testimony,
Speaker 2: the final defendant to take the stand was Lisa Richardson.
Speaker 2: She had once called the Shannis Studholm like family. Now
Speaker 2: standing before the jury, she claimed that she too had
Speaker 2: been controlled. She stated she knew I was scared of her,
Speaker 2: just her charisman, MA I'm quite a fearful person like Pendlebury.
Speaker 2: Richardson insisted that she had been under Studholm's influence, but
Speaker 2: the evidence told a much darker story. She had poured
Speaker 2: boiling water on Shakira, she had burned her using aerosol
Speaker 2: in a light. She had joined in, not intervened, and
Speaker 2: when asked what the motive was why they did it,
Speaker 2: all she could say was I don't know why it happened.
Speaker 2: She claimed that she had watched in horror as Shakira
Speaker 2: was tortured. She testified that Studholm had doysterr and boiling
Speaker 2: water and Pendleberry had burned her skin with the flame.
Speaker 2: But if Richardson had been horrified, the evidence suggested otherwise.
Speaker 2: After the torture, after Shakira had been stuffed into that cupboard,
Speaker 2: Richardson sent the text message. She said she wanted to
Speaker 2: move closer to Studholme. Prosecutor Richard Stone wasn't buying it.
Speaker 2: He confronted her with the message and said, I suggest
Speaker 2: you're seeking to blame her in your defense so you
Speaker 2: avoid being convicted of murder. Richardson denied it, but the
Speaker 2: prosecution had more. She had recorded the abuse of Shakira.
Speaker 2: She had taken photographs and videos of her suffering. She
Speaker 2: had even been part of a video call with Pendleberry
Speaker 2: during a torture show session, as she said she didn't
Speaker 2: want to miss out on the amusement. In addition to
Speaker 2: the CCT surveillance of the killers with Shakira, there was
Speaker 2: forensic evidence as well. Shakira's blood was found in Studholm's apartment.
Speaker 2: Her blood was found on Pendleberry's shoes. There was also
Speaker 2: evidence of Studholm using Shakira's bank cards at various stores.
Speaker 2: After that, the trial drew to a close. A Shanna
Speaker 2: Studholm refused to testify. She clearly had nothing to say.
Speaker 2: Prosecutor Alison Hunter made her final appeal to the jury.
Speaker 2: She reminded them of what the trao had done after
Speaker 2: Shakira died, stating they cleaned up the scene as best
Speaker 2: they could. They rained Shakira Spenser as if she had
Speaker 2: been reading. The windows around the flat were left open,
Speaker 2: the door parricaded. Then Pendleberry went to the car from
Speaker 2: the other side of the building. They concealed the death
Speaker 2: of Shakira's Spencer. They isolated her from everyone she knew,
Speaker 2: even her own family. Then she paused, and she said
Speaker 2: what everyone in the courtroom was thinking. They are guilty
Speaker 2: of murder, and it really is murder of the most foil.
Speaker 2: They are guilty of denying a decent burial, and I
Speaker 2: hope you do not lose one second of sleep if
Speaker 2: you find them so. The jury deliberated for eighteen hours.
Speaker 2: When they returned to court, the atmosphere was tense. The
Speaker 2: public gallery was packed, and then the verdicts were read out,
Speaker 2: guilty on all charges. The courtroom was stunned, and Pendlebury
Speaker 2: showed his true colors. He began to clap as if
Speaker 2: mocking the court before he stormed out of the dock.
Speaker 2: The judge adjourned sentencing and excused the jury from service
Speaker 2: for life. The trial had been that horrific. Outside the
Speaker 2: court house, Detective Chief Inspector Howie addressed the media and
Speaker 2: said she care It was a beautiful, happy mother. She
Speaker 2: was kind and had a trusting nature. He said that
Speaker 2: she had been exploited, controlled and enslaved in the most
Speaker 2: dehumanizing way imaginable. He said, I think she just wanted
Speaker 2: to be cared for, loved to have a friendship group
Speaker 2: around her. She was coerced and manipulated over a long
Speaker 2: period of time by these people. On the first of
Speaker 2: March twenty twenty four, Studholm, Pendlebury, and Richardson returned to
Speaker 2: court for sentencing. This time the jury was gone, but
Speaker 2: the evidence was far from over. The prosecution played chilling
Speaker 2: footage filmed by the three defendants themselves in the weakes
Speaker 2: leading up to Shakira's death. It showed them mocking her,
Speaker 2: taunting her and abusing her. Prosecutor Benholt told the court
Speaker 2: that the footage made one thing brutally clear. They were
Speaker 2: enjoying what they were doing. Then came the victim impact statements.
Speaker 2: Shakira's son, whose name was protected by law, submitted a
Speaker 2: heartbreaking statement. He said suffered nightmares every single night. He
Speaker 2: said that he couldn't get the image of his mother
Speaker 2: out of his head. How skinny she looked, how I'm well?
Speaker 2: And then he asked why were they so heartless? What
Speaker 2: could cause them to torture another human? He told the
Speaker 2: court that his mother wasn't perfect, but she made him
Speaker 2: feel safe, happy, and loved. And then, through tears, he said,
Speaker 2: I miss her every single day and wish for a
Speaker 2: chance to say and speak with her again. I never
Speaker 2: got to say goodbye to her or tell her that
Speaker 2: I loved her. These people let her die alone, feeling
Speaker 2: she was unloved because they had taken everybody from her.
Speaker 2: Then Shakira's mother spoke. She said the defendants had stripped
Speaker 2: her daughter of everything that made her who she was.
Speaker 2: She stated they isolated her from her family and friends.
Speaker 2: Her health deteriorated and she was almost unrecognizable. She said,
Speaker 2: when Shaquiera was at her lowest, they had tortured and
Speaker 2: murdered her like a pack of animals. Judge Anne Rafferty
Speaker 2: then addressed the court and the three defendants who sat
Speaker 2: before her.
Speaker 1: Shakira Spencer was a healthy and loving young woman of
Speaker 1: thirty five years old. Images of Shakira before she fell
Speaker 1: under your influence show her full of life, healthy and smiling.
Speaker 1: She is unrecognizable at the end, emaciated, broken. All who
Speaker 1: watched it will be slow to forget the CCTV footage
Speaker 1: of Shakira trying to walk on scolded feet in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night.
Speaker 2: She turned to Pendlebury and said you lived in a
Speaker 2: flat while she slept in the bike shed to stud home.
Speaker 2: She said you started as a friend, but ended as
Speaker 2: the worst kind of enemy a person could have. And
Speaker 2: to Richardson, she said you show Shakiera nothing but exceptional
Speaker 2: contempt and aggression. She spoke of how Shakira had been humiliated,
Speaker 2: degraded and dehumanized, how she had been soft, trusting, and
Speaker 2: completely exploitable. She said she was no match for the
Speaker 2: three of you. She noted their complete lack of empathy,
Speaker 2: their refusal to accept responsibility, their total absence of remorse.
Speaker 2: She told Studholm directly, you're not mentally ill, You're dominant,
Speaker 2: aggressive and manipulative. To Pendlebury, she acknowledged his low IQ
Speaker 2: and follower's nature, but she made it clear you were
Speaker 2: fully involved. And then came the sentences life in prison
Speaker 2: with a minimum term of thirty four years. After the sentencing,
Speaker 2: Shakira's father, Lloyd, spoke publicly for the first time. He
Speaker 2: had traveled to Guiana in twenty twenty, only to get
Speaker 2: stuck there during the pandemic, and he said the words
Speaker 2: that haunt so many parents in tragedy. I regret going.
Speaker 2: I feel like I could have saved her. He said.
Speaker 2: Those three made his daughter feel like she finally found friends,
Speaker 2: people who cared about her, but they were never her friends.
Speaker 2: He said they brainwashed her into thinking they were doing
Speaker 2: right by her. She didn't realize they were grooming her
Speaker 2: to get her place, to take her money, to control
Speaker 2: her life. And then, with a voice full of pain,
Speaker 2: he said, they broke her soul. That is it for
Speaker 2: this episode of Morbidology. It's only thank you so much
Speaker 2: for listening, and I'd like to say a massive Thank
Speaker 2: you to my new supporter up on Patreon, Veronica. As
Speaker 2: you all know, Morbidology as a one woman's team, so
Speaker 2: that support upon their seriously goes such a long way.
Speaker 2: I upload adfree and early release episodes behind the scenes,
Speaker 2: and I also send out thank you card along with
Speaker 2: some co merch. There's also a bunch of bonus episodes
Speaker 2: of Morbidology Plus that aren't on the regular podcast platforms,
Speaker 2: and you can even suggest a case for me to
Speaker 2: cover up on there. Remember to check us out at
Speaker 2: morbidology dot com for more information about this episode and
Speaker 2: to read some true crime articles. Until next time, take
Speaker 2: care of yourself, Stacey, and have an amazing week.