August 18, 2025 • 44 mins
Lambert House is an apartment complex sitting in Ealing, West London. It’s an unremarkable area, but somewhere considered safe. But over September of 2022, a stench was noticed coming from one of the flats and it was getting worse with each day that passed.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Images of Shakira before she fell under your influence show
her full of life, healthy and smiling.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Hull Back Rope sits quietly in the wallpell world of
Ealing in West London. It's residential crescent just far enough
from the clamor of the city to feel like its
own self contained world, nestled between three line straight and
the occasional hum of the Elizabeth Lyne in the distance.
It's a place where people know their neighbors, if not
by name, then at least by face. This part of
(01:13):
Ealing is upmarket, tidy and well cared for. It carries
that comfortable, settled in kind of charm that's hard to manufacture.
It's a patchwork of post war terraces, modern semis, and
a new wave of flats that were built in recent years.
Among them stands Lambert House, a four story brick building
completed in two thousand and nineteen, is part of a
(01:34):
regeneration initiative to provide affordable homes for key workers and
consul tenants. Children often play in the communal courtyards between
the buildings, and to most people, Whobeck Row feels safe.
It's the kind of place where nothing too extraordinary ever
really happens. But then, on the twenty fifth of September
twenty and twenty two, something did happen, something horrific. It
(01:58):
was Sunday, unmortarkable in every way, at least at first
at Lambert House. The day had passed quietly. Residents went
about their routines. Groceries were unpacked when thows were cracked
open to lead in the breeze. But on the third
floor of the building, one woman sat alone in her flat,
increasingly troubled by a feeling she couldn't quite shake. For
(02:22):
two weeks, she hadn't seen her neighbor. There were no
signs from the unit next door, no movement behind the
drum blinds. At first, she had told herself that it
was nothing, that people often come and go. Perhaps her
neighbor was staying with family, or maybe she'd gone away
on holiday. But now something had changed. There was a smell,
(02:44):
and it wasn't faint. It was the kind of smell
that lingered in the hallway and clung to fabric. It
seemed to save through the seams of the building itself,
and it was only getting worse. By four point thirty
pm that day, she couldn't ignored any longer. She stood
in the hallway, staring at the door of the neighboring flat,
(03:04):
willing herself to knock again, even though she already knew
there would be no answer. She then reached her her
phone and dialed nine ninety nine. Shaghir Spencer was born
(03:30):
on the thirteenth of June nineteen eighty seven to parents
Lloyd and Mercia. She grew up in ealing, West London.
The Spencer family were close. Big family gatherings were a
constant in Shakira's early life. Birthdays, christenings, weddings. There was
always a reason to come together. Her sister Arena would
(03:51):
later say, we have a big, extended family, so there
were always birthdays, christenings, weddings to attend. In these moments,
surrounded by loved ones, Shakira shoan, but at skill she
stood out, and not in the way that children hoped for.
She struggled. Learning didn't come easy to Shakira, and socializing
even less so. She was quiet, reserved, and unsure of
(04:15):
how to fit in. Shakir had learning difficulties and was
often described as socially awkward, but that didn't tell the
whole story. She was kind, earnest, and thoughtful to a fault.
Her mother, Mercia, said she was quiet and shy, but
would often come out of her shell about when she
was surrounded by loved ones. She deeply cared about people
and loved having friends to spend time with. Shakira wanted
(04:38):
to be liked. That desire followed her into adulthood, shaping
her relationships and at times leaving her painfully vulnerable. She
had a trusting nature and a tendency to give more
than she received, to bend herself in ways that others
would never for her. In a world that can be
so unkind, especially to those who struggled to fit in,
that trait would become dangerous, yes, But despite her challenges,
(05:02):
Shakira had dreams, real ones, simple ones. She knew from
a young age that she wanted to be a mother,
that maternal instinct was always there. After finishing school, she
began working in a nursery. Her mother used to joke
that the chaos of toddlers might put her off having
children of her own, but it didn't. Her mother recollected
(05:23):
she was really happy when she became a mum. Shagia
gave birth to her first son in twenty ten. Followed
by a second boy the next year, two beautiful boys
close in age, just as Shakira had always wanted. Arena recollected.
She loved being a mum. She'd wanted boys close together,
so she was happy. It was a period of Shakira's
(05:46):
life that felt full. She felt like she had a purpose,
and she took joy in the small things, the school
drop offs, bedtime routines, and packing lunches. For a time,
things were good. Shakira was proud of the little life
that she was build. But life is rarely simple, and
for someone like Shakira, with such a deep desire to
(06:06):
please and an openness that was often mistaken for weakness,
danger was never far away. When police arrived at Lambert
House on the twenty fifth of September twenty twenty two,
(06:27):
they gathered outside flat number nine. The neighbor had made
the phone call. Her voice was shaky with concern. She
hadn't seen her neighbor, Shakira Spencer, in over two weeks,
and now there was a smell, an unbearable smell. It
wafted through the communal hallway, thick compew dread hanging in
the air like fog. When officers arrived, they noticed something
(06:50):
else as well, something far more sinister. Maggots were crawling
out from beneath the sealed threshold of Shakira's door, a
line of them inching across the floor. Whatever was on
the other side, it wasn't going to be easy to witness.
The officers didn't wait. They forced an dry kicking down
the front door, but it was clear almost immediately that
(07:12):
time had already run out. The smell hit them like
a wall. It was the unmistakable stench of death, the
kind of smell that would follow them home. Inside the
flat was quiet and still. The officers called out Shakira's name,
but they knew she wouldn't answer. They began their search, slowly, methodically,
(07:32):
stepping through the rooms, drawn like magnets towards the source
of the odor. It led them into a bedroom, and
that's where they found her. At the back of the
room stood a child's bunk bed, and on the bottom
bunk was a body. It was Shakiera Spenser, or what
was left of her. Her remains were so severely decomposed
(07:54):
that her face was gone, her skin, her features, the
very essence of what ones made her sh Kia was
all erased by time and decay. Her body was being
consumed by maggots. The scene was grotesque, but it wasn't
just what they saw what disturbed the officers. It was
what didn't make sense. Beside her body, a newspaper had
(08:16):
been laid out neatly on the floor, almost as if
she had been reading it before drifting off to sleep.
It was a strange detail, almost staged in the room,
incense had been lit. It was clear that this was
no peaceful death. There were no signs of medical emergencies,
no medications, no evidence that Shakira had simply passed in
(08:38):
her sleep. Her remains were removed from the flat and
taken for post mortem examination, but the pathologist quickly ran
into an obstacle. Shakierra's body was so decomposed, so ravaged
by the process of death, that it was impossible to
determine a clear cause. She needed to be formally identified
through her dental records. Yes, that's how far gone she was.
(09:03):
But even through the decay, the damage was still visible.
Shaker had suffered crushing injuries to her ear, the kind
of trauma that was consistent with blunt force. There were
deep cuts to her scalp, and her fate had been scolded.
These weren't the injuries of an accidental fall or an
untreated illness. Shakira's Spencer had been tortured to death. As
(09:38):
the news of Shakira Spencer's death broke headlines across the
United Kingdom, public shock quickly turned to questions. How could
something so violent happen to somebody so quietly living her life,
and how could it go unnoticed for so long. The
investigation was now underway and led by Detective Chief Inspector
Brian Howie. It didn't take long for him to appear
(10:00):
before the cameras, appealing to the public for information. I
need to know why people would want to harm Shakira,
he said bind the scene. Shakira's family was being supported
by specially trained officers. The trauma they were facing was immense.
They had only lost a daughter, a sister, a mother,
but they were now being told that she had died
(10:20):
in pain, in fear, and alone. DCI Howie continued, I
would urge anyone with information, no matter how insignificant you
think it might be, to get in touch with my team,
and somebody did. The first tip came from the very
neighbor who had called police to report Shakira missing. This
woman had known Shaquira for her rund ten years. She
(10:43):
described her as pleasant and friendly, the kind of neighbor
you were always happy to run into in the hallway.
But in recent months, she said that something had changed.
Jagir had always been known for her curves, a vibrant
curvey size sixteen, with long, thick hair and warm, beautiful face.
But now, the woman said, Shaker was unrecognizable. She was
(11:07):
just skin and bones. Her cheeks were sunken, her eyes
were ringed with heavy bags. Her frame looked frail, almost breakable.
She'd lost a drastic amount of weight. And then there
was her behavior. Shagher had been cutting people off. She'd
lost touch with her family. She'd even lost custody of
her two boys to their father, which stunned those who
(11:29):
knew how deeply she loved them. The more detectives look,
the more they realized this wasn't a sudden tragedy. This
was the tail end of something that had been building
in the shadows for months, maybe even longer. Shaghiera's father, Lloyd,
told detectives that he had noticed the changes in his
daughter as well. Every time he tried to visit her,
(11:49):
she had an excuse. She was busy, she wasn't feeling well,
she didn't want to see anybody. But just a couple
of months before her death. He did see her, just
three days before her thirty fifth birthday. What he saw
had left him shaken. Jagear looked gaunt, her body language
was guarded, almost jittery. She didn't look like herself, and
(12:12):
she didn't act like herself either. Lloyd was terrified. The
only thing that made sense to him at the time,
the only thing that could explain the sudden weight loss,
that isolation, and the erratic behavior, was drugs. Lloyd asked
his daughter, and she denied it, but he wasn't convinced.
He begged her to see a doctor. He thought that
(12:32):
she was ill, maybe seriously. Something was clearly wrong, but
the truth was far worse than he ever could have imagined.
Just after midnight, the phone rang at the police station.
The voice on the other end was quiet, nervous, and hesitant.
(12:54):
It was a man calling about his sister, Michelle Pendleberry,
and her son Sean. Only ours earlier, Sean had turned
up at his mother's home in a state of visible panic.
He was pale, shaken and swearing something was wrong. Michelle
asked him what was going on and pressed him to
explain himself, and then Sean told her that he had
(13:16):
done something really bad. Michelle didn't understand what kind of bad.
He said he had burned someone's feet and now they
were dead. Michelle stared at her son, stunned. She still
didn't understand what he was saying. She hadn't seen the news.
She had no idea about Shakira's spencer. She asked him who,
(13:40):
and then Sean said her name, Shakira. He said that
he had killed her, but not on purpose and not alone.
He told his mother that two other women were involved,
a Shanna stood Home and Lisa Richardson. He said they'd
all been there before. We I've back into today's case.
(14:01):
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Your wallet will thank you. Michelle didn't know what to do.
Her son had just confessed to something terrific, but she
didn't want to hand them in. She got in the
car and drove Sean over to her brother's home. But
when they're rived, things didn't go the way Sean had hoped.
His uncle was horrified. He asked him, are you a killer? Now?
(15:07):
Do you just go around killing people? John denied it.
He said it wasn't him and claimed he didn't lay
a hand on Shakira, but the women stood home and
Richardson were the ones who had done it. He said
he had only helped clean up afterwards. Then Sean made
a request. He asked his uncle for help buying a
ticket to the Seychelles, where his grandmother lived. He wanted
(15:30):
out of the country. He wanted to run, but instead
Sean's uncle called police and the trio were arrested.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Listen, is what I got to say. It is very
important to you. You've been arrested on suspicion of the
murder of Shakira Spencer at nine Lambert House. Okay, between
the thirty first and the eighth and the twenty sixth
of the ninth. In relations to that, you do not
have to say anything, but it may harm me defense
if you do not mention one question something which he
later rely.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
On in court.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Anything you do say maybe given an evidence necessity for
we arresked is to revenge your disappearance for a prompt
and effective investigation of prevention at home. Okay, yeah, I've.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
So. I don't know why you're on a.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Portion at the moment. My advice would be wait until
you have the opportunity to have legal advice before you
make any further comment in relation to the allegations against you. Okay.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
That phone call would crack the case wide open. Up
until now, detectives had very few leads, but now they
had names. Three of them. John Pendlebury, a Shanna stud
home Lisa Richardson, and soon detectives would uncover something far
more disturbing than they could have ever expected. Shakira wasn't
killed In some heed of the moment attack. Shakira had
(16:37):
spent the last months of her life living as a slave.
In twenty twenty one, Shakira Spencer met a woman who
on the surface seemed kind. Her name was a Shana
(17:00):
Home and she was a neighbor who lived nearby. Shakira,
who was ever eager to make friends, began to trust her.
But Shakira couldn't have known who Studholme really was behind
the compliments in the Sweet Smiles was a long violent history.
Studholm had a criminal record that stretched back years, including
three convictions for attacking other women. In one case, she
(17:22):
had kicked and punched a woman who was lying helpless
in the middle of the street. Four years later, she
assaulted another woman in a racially aggravated attack. She had
also received the caution after a child under her care
fell from a flat roof while left unintended in a
paddling pool. This wasn't a woman looking for friendship. This
was a predator, and Shakira, a woman who was vulnerable trusting,
(17:46):
eager to be liked was her perfect target. At the time,
Studholm was in a relationship with Sean Pendlebury, a man
with his own history of violence. His convictions included drug offenses,
assaulting police officer, and handling stolen goods. Together, the pair
moved through a chaotic and volatile social world, often in
(18:07):
the company of Lisa Richardson, a forty three year old
woman who lived in Northold. Richardson's flat had a reputation.
It was described by neighbors as a hive of anti
social behavior. People came and went at all ours, Arguments
broke out in the stairwells. It was the kind of
place where trouble had a permanent residence. And it was
(18:28):
in this world that Shakira was pulled slowly and deliberately.
At first, it looked like a friendship, harmless messages, legs
and comments on Facebook. In one Stockholm called her a
natural beauty. In another she wrote, pretty to somebody like Shakira, quiet, shy,
(18:49):
with intellectual disabilities and a desperate need to be accepted.
These comments meant everything. She thought she had found someone
who genuinely cared. But behind that screen, Stodholm was laying
a trap. She introduced Shakira to the darker side of life,
one filled with late night drinking, drug use, and chaotic parties.
(19:11):
This wasn't the kind of world that Shakira had known,
but she didn't say no. She wanted to be liked,
and slowly, Studholme took control. She used the cover of
COVID lockdowns to ramp up her influence. She told Shakira
to break up with her partner. She discouraged her from
seeing her family. She began to isolate her emotionally, socially, physically.
(19:35):
Then the control escalated. Stodholm, Pendleberry, and Richardson began to
own Shakira. They took over her bank accounts. Stodholm changed
her benefit forms to redirect payments to herself. They started
to force Shakira into sex work, and whatever money she
earned they took. Shakira stopped being a friend. She became
(19:57):
a possession. She was passed between the three like a commodity,
living in their homes, used for cooking and cleaning, sent
on errands to buy groceries. She was no longer traded
like a person. And then came the violence. They didn't
just beat Shakira They tortured her. They used their fists,
their feate belts, glass bottles. They even scolded her feet
(20:20):
with They even scolded her feet with boiling water. Her
body became frail and skeletal. From a size sixteen, she
dropped to a size six in a matter of months.
Shakira was starving and they gave her nothing but ketchup
sachez to eight. Shakira's hair, which was once long and thick,
was crudely chopped off. Her face was bruised, her eyes
(20:42):
were often blackened. They didn't even let her sleep in
a bed. Shakira was forced to sleep in a hallway
on crumpled newspapers, like a discarded pet. Some nights she
wasn't even allowed inside. She was made to sleep in
a bike shed, and when Pendlebury moved into her flat,
her fire final safe space was gone. Towards the end
(21:03):
of August twenty twenty two, Shakira was stopped by police
while running errands for the group. They were concerned her
parents shocked them the bruises, the sunken face, the black eyes.
When they asked what had happened, Shakira said nothing. She
was worn down by the terror humiliation and isolation, and
the police just let her go. The torment that Shakira
(21:37):
Spenser injured wasn't a secret kept behind closed doors. It
was something that her abuser celebrated. They boasted about what
they were doing, They laughed and documented her pain. In July,
Lisa Richardson sent a series of text messages to her
friend named Carla. She wrote, I've just fucked this bitch up.
This bitch she ain't going nowhere. I'm going to smash
(21:59):
her up joke, and then again she wrote I'm going
to mash up Shakira. A day later, Richardson's followed up
with another message, which read, so at the end of
the day, she deserved everything she got. I didn't even
bait her that much. I just gave her a couple
of slaps, a tappy tap slap one, two, three, but no.
Richardson then sent photographs of Shakira to her friends. Her
(22:23):
nose was clearly injured, as if she had just been
punched in the face. In another photograph, Shakira lay unconscious
on a sofa in Richardson's flat. Her face was battered,
and Richardson had written, look, I've got another afternoon stod
Holme struck Shakira in the head with a glass bottle,
blood spattered on the wall. In a panic, she texted Richardson,
(22:47):
I've bust her head in, I need you here. I'll
go to jail, but none of them stopped. Pendlebury escalated
things further. He chased Shakira with a homemade blue torch
made with a lighter held to an aerosol. Boiling water
was poured on her feeth. CCTV footage in the surrounding
area would later capture what they had done to her.
(23:08):
Shakira moved differently now. She hobbled down the street, visibly
in pain and struggling to walk. Her feet had been
scolded so badly that she could barely walk. Her eyes
were bruised and sunken, and her expression was vacant. Shakira
looked like a ghost. She was clearly dying in plain sight.
(23:29):
The abuse didn't stop, and it didn't tape off. It
escalated until Shakira Spenser was barely clinging to life. It
was the eleventh or twelfth of September when everything came
to a final brutal head inside of Shanna Stodholm's home.
The violence began again, but this time it would be
the last time. That morning, Sean Pendleberry dragged Shakira off
(23:51):
the floor. He hurled her against the oven and her
skull struck metal. Then he set upon her again, chasing
her with a lighter and an aerosol can, burning her flesh.
Studholme poured boiling water over her. Later that day, Richardson
saw Shakira standing in the kitchen. She was just standing there.
(24:12):
She wasn't crying, she wasn't speaking. The only song she
could make was a faint murmur, bub bub bub. She
was barely clinging to life. They all knew it. That night,
Pendleberry borrowed his hands, houned the civic He barked it
outside Studholm's flat. When it was dark enough, they bundled
Shakira into the boot of the car. She was still alive.
(24:36):
A neighbor would later recall seeing her stumbling towards the car.
She looked confused and lost. Pendlebury and Studholm drove across
London back to Shakira's flat in ealing There, they shoved
her into her hallway cupboard, locked the door, and walked away.
They knew that she would die in there. Back at
(24:56):
Studholm's flat. Richardson joined them. They scrubbed everything, the blood,
the filth, the smell. They e raised Shakira from the scene.
Then they went out for kebabs. They were caught on
CCTV laughing and joking as they returned. A few days later,
they returned to Shakira's flat. She was dead. Her body
(25:17):
was slumped in the tiny cupboard where they had left her.
Now they had a problem. They didn't want to just
leave her there. That would look suspicious, so Pendleberry came
up with a plan. He borrowed a caravan from his hand,
and the idea was to soft Shakira's body inside and
abandon it somewhere far away. But it was already too late.
(25:37):
Shakira's body was already decomposing. The smell and bodily fluids
was more than they could handle, so instead they dragged
Shakira's corpse into the bedroom and laid it out on
the bottom bunk of a child's bed. They wanted it
to look natural, as if Shakira had just died peacefully
in her sleep. They lit incense to try and cover
(25:58):
the stench of rot. They even packed ice around Shakira's body,
a crude and desperate attempt to slow the inevitable decomposition.
Then they laid out a newspaper beside the bed, as
if Shakier had been reading when death came for her.
And just before and just like before, they started cleaning.
They scrubbed their flats, They raised fingerprints, burned clothing, discarded founds.
(26:23):
They tried to vanish every trace of what they had
done to Shakira Spenser. But truth has a way of
rodding its way to the surface, and soon it would.
On the twenty ninth of September, justice finally began to stir.
(26:45):
Joan Pendleberry, A Shanna stood Home and Lisa Richardson stood
in the dock side by side. At a magistrate's court
in London. They were each charged with murder. Pendlebury and
stud Home also faced charges of conspiracy to cause gravous
bodily harm and preventing a awful burial. All three of
them pleaded not guilty. They had all denied involvement in
(27:06):
their interviews with police. Do you have anything to do with
her death?
Speaker 3 (27:10):
And I did not? No, you know who did?
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Prosecutor Banhold stood before the court. He described a timeline
soaked in brutality, a sustained campaign of abuse culminating in
Shakira's death. He stated, this case involves the exploitation of
a vulnerable individual during a course of time, with assaults
culminating in her death over a number of weeks. The
(27:35):
judge didn't shy away either. He described the fatal assault
not just as an attack, but as something closer to torture.
Detective Chief Inspector Brian Hoyey spoke outside the courtroom and said,
I am pleased that we have secured charges against the
three individuals and we continue to work to get justice
for Shakira's family. He added that the family were understandably
(27:56):
devastated and were still being supported by especially trained officers.
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promo code morbidology. The trial began almost a year later,
on the eleventh of September twenty twenty three at the
Old Bailey. The courtroom was silent as prosecutor Alison Hunter
k C rose to her faith. She told the jury
that Shakira Spenser had been reduced to a slave, her
(29:48):
body and mind dominated and destroyed by three people standing
just feet away, her former neighbor a Shanna Studholme, Studholm's
partner Sean Pendleberry, and their friend Lisa Richard Shardson. She stated,
for whatever was their unfathomable, cruel, sadistic motive, these three
defendants tormented, tortured, starved, burned, and eventually battered Shakira Spencer
(30:12):
to death. She stood with photographs of Shakira taken just
before she died and described what the camera had captured.
She said to the jury. In early twenty and twenty one,
Shakira Spencer had been a healthy, even volumptuous psiz sixteen,
weighing some seventy four kilograms. By July twenty and twenty two,
(30:34):
She was just skin and bone, gaunt, skeletal, bruised from
head to foot, her eyes hollow and black. She was
barely a scrawny sized six in the images taken by
the defendants as they laughed and mocked her condition. The
court was then shown the evidence photographs and videos, the
very same ones the trio had broadly taken. There was
(30:57):
no denying what had happened to Shakira Spencer. Her suffering
had been recorded. The testimony began with someone who knew
they accused all too well, Michelle Pendlebery, Sean's mother. She
had once been close friends with the Shanna Studholme, but
by the time she took the witness stand that friendship
had long since fractured. She told the court that Studholm
(31:19):
was a controlling force, not just over Shakira, but over
her son and over Lisa Richardson too. It was the
foundation of the defense that all of them, in their
own way, had been manipulated and controlled, just like Shakira.
Michelee testified that she had known what was happening, that
she had seen it firsthand, and worse, that Studholm had
(31:42):
even forced her to hit Shakira. She said to the
jury she'll make you hit her too. She gets you
riled up, and you don't even know why, you're just
worked up. Michelle confessed that she had hit Shakira once.
She said that she was sorry and she wasn't proud
of it. She painted a picture of a woman Studhome
who was opinionated, aggressive and demanding, a woman who wanted
(32:06):
people under her feet twenty four hours a day. She said,
it was Michelle, can you do this? Do that? Even
with her partner, she treated them like dogs. She described
Studholm's moods as violent and unpredictable. One moment she was kind,
even magnetic, the next it was like somebody had flipped
a switch. Michelle was asked whether she found some of
(32:29):
these qualities attractive, and she said yes. When asked whether
she had fallen under Studholm's spell, she replied simply, yeah.
She seemed to have it figured out at times. Then
the courtroom fell silent. The next witness was Sean Pendleberry,
taking the stand for the first time. He denied having
(32:50):
anything to do with Shakira's death, even though he had
confessed to his uncle and mother. He claimed that when
he saw her, she was already in a bad way.
That it was Studhomme who had put her in the cupboard,
that he just drove her home. Prosecutor Alison Hunter leaned
in her voice cold but composed, as she said, is
a cupboard a place where people are left to die?
(33:12):
Pendleberry shrugged and replied, no, how am I meant to
know where people are left to die. He told the
jury that on the thirteenth of September he had gone
back to Shakira's flat. He said he heard a noise
from the cupboard, and when he opened it, Shakir was
still alive. He claimed. He asked her if she needed
an ambulance, but she said no. He said he helped
(33:34):
her out of the cupboard and onto the bunk bed.
He said that he made her some soup and helped
her to drink it. Pendleberry said he left the flat
and only found out Shakier had died when Stodholm called him,
But that story did in align with what others had said.
Multiple witnesses had seen Pendleberry drag Shakier across the floor,
(33:54):
slammer into the oven, and burn her with the lighter
and aerosol can. There was even the CCTV footage that
showed Pendlebury on the twelfth of September taking bin bags
out of Studholm's flat. He told the court they were
full of bloody tissues used to clean the walls where
Studholm had attacked Shakira, but the prosecution wasn't buying it.
More CCTV footage captured Pendleberry and Studholm together returning from
(34:18):
Shakira's flat after leaving her there to die. They were
laughing and joking as Shakira's spencer lay dying. After Pendleberry's testimony,
the final defendant to take the stand was Lisa Richardson.
She had once called the Shannis Studholm like family. Now
standing before the jury, she claimed that she too had
(34:39):
been controlled. She stated she knew I was scared of her,
just her charisman, MA I'm quite a fearful person like Pendlebury.
Richardson insisted that she had been under Studholm's influence, but
the evidence told a much darker story. She had poured
boiling water on Shakira, she had burned her using aerosol
(34:59):
in a light. She had joined in, not intervened, and
when asked what the motive was why they did it,
all she could say was I don't know why it happened.
She claimed that she had watched in horror as Shakira
was tortured. She testified that Studholm had doysterr and boiling
water and Pendleberry had burned her skin with the flame.
(35:21):
But if Richardson had been horrified, the evidence suggested otherwise.
After the torture, after Shakira had been stuffed into that cupboard,
Richardson sent the text message. She said she wanted to
move closer to Studholme. Prosecutor Richard Stone wasn't buying it.
He confronted her with the message and said, I suggest
(35:41):
you're seeking to blame her in your defense so you
avoid being convicted of murder. Richardson denied it, but the
prosecution had more. She had recorded the abuse of Shakira.
She had taken photographs and videos of her suffering. She
had even been part of a video call with Pendleberry
during a torture show session, as she said she didn't
(36:03):
want to miss out on the amusement. In addition to
the CCT surveillance of the killers with Shakira, there was
forensic evidence as well. Shakira's blood was found in Studholm's apartment.
Her blood was found on Pendleberry's shoes. There was also
evidence of Studholm using Shakira's bank cards at various stores.
(36:24):
After that, the trial drew to a close. A Shanna
Studholm refused to testify. She clearly had nothing to say.
Prosecutor Alison Hunter made her final appeal to the jury.
She reminded them of what the trao had done after
Shakira died, stating they cleaned up the scene as best
they could. They rained Shakira Spenser as if she had
(36:45):
been reading. The windows around the flat were left open,
the door parricaded. Then Pendleberry went to the car from
the other side of the building. They concealed the death
of Shakira's Spencer. They isolated her from everyone she knew,
even her own family. Then she paused, and she said
what everyone in the courtroom was thinking. They are guilty
(37:07):
of murder, and it really is murder of the most foil.
They are guilty of denying a decent burial, and I
hope you do not lose one second of sleep if
you find them so. The jury deliberated for eighteen hours.
When they returned to court, the atmosphere was tense. The
public gallery was packed, and then the verdicts were read out,
(37:27):
guilty on all charges. The courtroom was stunned, and Pendlebury
showed his true colors. He began to clap as if
mocking the court before he stormed out of the dock.
The judge adjourned sentencing and excused the jury from service
for life. The trial had been that horrific. Outside the
court house, Detective Chief Inspector Howie addressed the media and
(37:50):
said she care It was a beautiful, happy mother. She
was kind and had a trusting nature. He said that
she had been exploited, controlled and enslaved in the most
dehumanizing way imaginable. He said, I think she just wanted
to be cared for, loved to have a friendship group
around her. She was coerced and manipulated over a long
(38:13):
period of time by these people. On the first of
March twenty twenty four, Studholm, Pendlebury, and Richardson returned to
court for sentencing. This time the jury was gone, but
the evidence was far from over. The prosecution played chilling
(38:35):
footage filmed by the three defendants themselves in the weakes
leading up to Shakira's death. It showed them mocking her,
taunting her and abusing her. Prosecutor Benholt told the court
that the footage made one thing brutally clear. They were
enjoying what they were doing. Then came the victim impact statements.
Shakira's son, whose name was protected by law, submitted a
(38:57):
heartbreaking statement. He said suffered nightmares every single night. He
said that he couldn't get the image of his mother
out of his head. How skinny she looked, how I'm well?
And then he asked why were they so heartless? What
could cause them to torture another human? He told the
court that his mother wasn't perfect, but she made him
(39:19):
feel safe, happy, and loved. And then, through tears, he said,
I miss her every single day and wish for a
chance to say and speak with her again. I never
got to say goodbye to her or tell her that
I loved her. These people let her die alone, feeling
she was unloved because they had taken everybody from her.
Then Shakira's mother spoke. She said the defendants had stripped
(39:42):
her daughter of everything that made her who she was.
She stated they isolated her from her family and friends.
Her health deteriorated and she was almost unrecognizable. She said,
when Shaquiera was at her lowest, they had tortured and
murdered her like a pack of animals. Judge Anne Rafferty
then addressed the court and the three defendants who sat
(40:03):
before her.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
Shakira Spencer was a healthy and loving young woman of
thirty five years old. Images of Shakira before she fell
under your influence show her full of life, healthy and smiling.
She is unrecognizable at the end, emaciated, broken. All who
(40:28):
watched it will be slow to forget the CCTV footage
of Shakira trying to walk on scolded feet in the
middle of the night.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
She turned to Pendlebury and said you lived in a
flat while she slept in the bike shed to stud home.
She said you started as a friend, but ended as
the worst kind of enemy a person could have. And
to Richardson, she said you show Shakiera nothing but exceptional
contempt and aggression. She spoke of how Shakira had been humiliated,
(40:58):
degraded and dehumanized, how she had been soft, trusting, and
completely exploitable. She said she was no match for the
three of you. She noted their complete lack of empathy,
their refusal to accept responsibility, their total absence of remorse.
She told Studholm directly, you're not mentally ill, You're dominant,
(41:20):
aggressive and manipulative. To Pendlebury, she acknowledged his low IQ
and follower's nature, but she made it clear you were
fully involved. And then came the sentences life in prison
with a minimum term of thirty four years. After the sentencing,
Shakira's father, Lloyd, spoke publicly for the first time. He
(41:43):
had traveled to Guiana in twenty twenty, only to get
stuck there during the pandemic, and he said the words
that haunt so many parents in tragedy. I regret going.
I feel like I could have saved her. He said.
Those three made his daughter feel like she finally found friends,
people who cared about her, but they were never her friends.
(42:04):
He said they brainwashed her into thinking they were doing
right by her. She didn't realize they were grooming her
to get her place, to take her money, to control
her life. And then, with a voice full of pain,
he said, they broke her soul. That is it for
(42:47):
this episode of Morbidology. It's only thank you so much
for listening, and I'd like to say a massive Thank
you to my new supporter up on Patreon, Veronica. As
you all know, Morbidology as a one woman's team, so
that support upon their seriously goes such a long way.
I upload adfree and early release episodes behind the scenes,
and I also send out thank you card along with
some co merch. There's also a bunch of bonus episodes
(43:09):
of Morbidology Plus that aren't on the regular podcast platforms,
and you can even suggest a case for me to
cover up on there. Remember to check us out at
morbidology dot com for more information about this episode and
to read some true crime articles. Until next time, take
care of yourself, Stacey, and have an amazing week.
Images of Shakira before she fell under your influence show
her full of life, healthy and smiling.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Hull Back Rope sits quietly in the wallpell world of
Ealing in West London. It's residential crescent just far enough
from the clamor of the city to feel like its
own self contained world, nestled between three line straight and
the occasional hum of the Elizabeth Lyne in the distance.
It's a place where people know their neighbors, if not
by name, then at least by face. This part of
(01:13):
Ealing is upmarket, tidy and well cared for. It carries
that comfortable, settled in kind of charm that's hard to manufacture.
It's a patchwork of post war terraces, modern semis, and
a new wave of flats that were built in recent years.
Among them stands Lambert House, a four story brick building
completed in two thousand and nineteen, is part of a
(01:34):
regeneration initiative to provide affordable homes for key workers and
consul tenants. Children often play in the communal courtyards between
the buildings, and to most people, Whobeck Row feels safe.
It's the kind of place where nothing too extraordinary ever
really happens. But then, on the twenty fifth of September
twenty and twenty two, something did happen, something horrific. It
(01:58):
was Sunday, unmortarkable in every way, at least at first
at Lambert House. The day had passed quietly. Residents went
about their routines. Groceries were unpacked when thows were cracked
open to lead in the breeze. But on the third
floor of the building, one woman sat alone in her flat,
increasingly troubled by a feeling she couldn't quite shake. For
(02:22):
two weeks, she hadn't seen her neighbor. There were no
signs from the unit next door, no movement behind the
drum blinds. At first, she had told herself that it
was nothing, that people often come and go. Perhaps her
neighbor was staying with family, or maybe she'd gone away
on holiday. But now something had changed. There was a smell,
(02:44):
and it wasn't faint. It was the kind of smell
that lingered in the hallway and clung to fabric. It
seemed to save through the seams of the building itself,
and it was only getting worse. By four point thirty
pm that day, she couldn't ignored any longer. She stood
in the hallway, staring at the door of the neighboring flat,
(03:04):
willing herself to knock again, even though she already knew
there would be no answer. She then reached her her
phone and dialed nine ninety nine. Shaghir Spencer was born
(03:30):
on the thirteenth of June nineteen eighty seven to parents
Lloyd and Mercia. She grew up in ealing, West London.
The Spencer family were close. Big family gatherings were a
constant in Shakira's early life. Birthdays, christenings, weddings. There was
always a reason to come together. Her sister Arena would
(03:51):
later say, we have a big, extended family, so there
were always birthdays, christenings, weddings to attend. In these moments,
surrounded by loved ones, Shakira shoan, but at skill she
stood out, and not in the way that children hoped for.
She struggled. Learning didn't come easy to Shakira, and socializing
even less so. She was quiet, reserved, and unsure of
(04:15):
how to fit in. Shakir had learning difficulties and was
often described as socially awkward, but that didn't tell the
whole story. She was kind, earnest, and thoughtful to a fault.
Her mother, Mercia, said she was quiet and shy, but
would often come out of her shell about when she
was surrounded by loved ones. She deeply cared about people
and loved having friends to spend time with. Shakira wanted
(04:38):
to be liked. That desire followed her into adulthood, shaping
her relationships and at times leaving her painfully vulnerable. She
had a trusting nature and a tendency to give more
than she received, to bend herself in ways that others
would never for her. In a world that can be
so unkind, especially to those who struggled to fit in,
that trait would become dangerous, yes, But despite her challenges,
(05:02):
Shakira had dreams, real ones, simple ones. She knew from
a young age that she wanted to be a mother,
that maternal instinct was always there. After finishing school, she
began working in a nursery. Her mother used to joke
that the chaos of toddlers might put her off having
children of her own, but it didn't. Her mother recollected
(05:23):
she was really happy when she became a mum. Shagia
gave birth to her first son in twenty ten. Followed
by a second boy the next year, two beautiful boys
close in age, just as Shakira had always wanted. Arena recollected.
She loved being a mum. She'd wanted boys close together,
so she was happy. It was a period of Shakira's
(05:46):
life that felt full. She felt like she had a purpose,
and she took joy in the small things, the school
drop offs, bedtime routines, and packing lunches. For a time,
things were good. Shakira was proud of the little life
that she was build. But life is rarely simple, and
for someone like Shakira, with such a deep desire to
(06:06):
please and an openness that was often mistaken for weakness,
danger was never far away. When police arrived at Lambert
House on the twenty fifth of September twenty twenty two,
(06:27):
they gathered outside flat number nine. The neighbor had made
the phone call. Her voice was shaky with concern. She
hadn't seen her neighbor, Shakira Spencer, in over two weeks,
and now there was a smell, an unbearable smell. It
wafted through the communal hallway, thick compew dread hanging in
the air like fog. When officers arrived, they noticed something
(06:50):
else as well, something far more sinister. Maggots were crawling
out from beneath the sealed threshold of Shakira's door, a
line of them inching across the floor. Whatever was on
the other side, it wasn't going to be easy to witness.
The officers didn't wait. They forced an dry kicking down
the front door, but it was clear almost immediately that
(07:12):
time had already run out. The smell hit them like
a wall. It was the unmistakable stench of death, the
kind of smell that would follow them home. Inside the
flat was quiet and still. The officers called out Shakira's name,
but they knew she wouldn't answer. They began their search, slowly, methodically,
(07:32):
stepping through the rooms, drawn like magnets towards the source
of the odor. It led them into a bedroom, and
that's where they found her. At the back of the
room stood a child's bunk bed, and on the bottom
bunk was a body. It was Shakiera Spenser, or what
was left of her. Her remains were so severely decomposed
(07:54):
that her face was gone, her skin, her features, the
very essence of what ones made her sh Kia was
all erased by time and decay. Her body was being
consumed by maggots. The scene was grotesque, but it wasn't
just what they saw what disturbed the officers. It was
what didn't make sense. Beside her body, a newspaper had
(08:16):
been laid out neatly on the floor, almost as if
she had been reading it before drifting off to sleep.
It was a strange detail, almost staged in the room,
incense had been lit. It was clear that this was
no peaceful death. There were no signs of medical emergencies,
no medications, no evidence that Shakira had simply passed in
(08:38):
her sleep. Her remains were removed from the flat and
taken for post mortem examination, but the pathologist quickly ran
into an obstacle. Shakierra's body was so decomposed, so ravaged
by the process of death, that it was impossible to
determine a clear cause. She needed to be formally identified
through her dental records. Yes, that's how far gone she was.
(09:03):
But even through the decay, the damage was still visible.
Shaker had suffered crushing injuries to her ear, the kind
of trauma that was consistent with blunt force. There were
deep cuts to her scalp, and her fate had been scolded.
These weren't the injuries of an accidental fall or an
untreated illness. Shakira's Spencer had been tortured to death. As
(09:38):
the news of Shakira Spencer's death broke headlines across the
United Kingdom, public shock quickly turned to questions. How could
something so violent happen to somebody so quietly living her life,
and how could it go unnoticed for so long. The
investigation was now underway and led by Detective Chief Inspector
Brian Howie. It didn't take long for him to appear
(10:00):
before the cameras, appealing to the public for information. I
need to know why people would want to harm Shakira,
he said bind the scene. Shakira's family was being supported
by specially trained officers. The trauma they were facing was immense.
They had only lost a daughter, a sister, a mother,
but they were now being told that she had died
(10:20):
in pain, in fear, and alone. DCI Howie continued, I
would urge anyone with information, no matter how insignificant you
think it might be, to get in touch with my team,
and somebody did. The first tip came from the very
neighbor who had called police to report Shakira missing. This
woman had known Shaquira for her rund ten years. She
(10:43):
described her as pleasant and friendly, the kind of neighbor
you were always happy to run into in the hallway.
But in recent months, she said that something had changed.
Jagir had always been known for her curves, a vibrant
curvey size sixteen, with long, thick hair and warm, beautiful face.
But now, the woman said, Shaker was unrecognizable. She was
(11:07):
just skin and bones. Her cheeks were sunken, her eyes
were ringed with heavy bags. Her frame looked frail, almost breakable.
She'd lost a drastic amount of weight. And then there
was her behavior. Shagher had been cutting people off. She'd
lost touch with her family. She'd even lost custody of
her two boys to their father, which stunned those who
(11:29):
knew how deeply she loved them. The more detectives look,
the more they realized this wasn't a sudden tragedy. This
was the tail end of something that had been building
in the shadows for months, maybe even longer. Shaghiera's father, Lloyd,
told detectives that he had noticed the changes in his
daughter as well. Every time he tried to visit her,
(11:49):
she had an excuse. She was busy, she wasn't feeling well,
she didn't want to see anybody. But just a couple
of months before her death. He did see her, just
three days before her thirty fifth birthday. What he saw
had left him shaken. Jagear looked gaunt, her body language
was guarded, almost jittery. She didn't look like herself, and
(12:12):
she didn't act like herself either. Lloyd was terrified. The
only thing that made sense to him at the time,
the only thing that could explain the sudden weight loss,
that isolation, and the erratic behavior, was drugs. Lloyd asked
his daughter, and she denied it, but he wasn't convinced.
He begged her to see a doctor. He thought that
(12:32):
she was ill, maybe seriously. Something was clearly wrong, but
the truth was far worse than he ever could have imagined.
Just after midnight, the phone rang at the police station.
The voice on the other end was quiet, nervous, and hesitant.
(12:54):
It was a man calling about his sister, Michelle Pendleberry,
and her son Sean. Only ours earlier, Sean had turned
up at his mother's home in a state of visible panic.
He was pale, shaken and swearing something was wrong. Michelle
asked him what was going on and pressed him to
explain himself, and then Sean told her that he had
(13:16):
done something really bad. Michelle didn't understand what kind of bad.
He said he had burned someone's feet and now they
were dead. Michelle stared at her son, stunned. She still
didn't understand what he was saying. She hadn't seen the news.
She had no idea about Shakira's spencer. She asked him who,
(13:40):
and then Sean said her name, Shakira. He said that
he had killed her, but not on purpose and not alone.
He told his mother that two other women were involved,
a Shanna stood Home and Lisa Richardson. He said they'd
all been there before. We I've back into today's case.
(14:01):
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(14:45):
Your wallet will thank you. Michelle didn't know what to do.
Her son had just confessed to something terrific, but she
didn't want to hand them in. She got in the
car and drove Sean over to her brother's home. But
when they're rived, things didn't go the way Sean had hoped.
His uncle was horrified. He asked him, are you a killer? Now?
(15:07):
Do you just go around killing people? John denied it.
He said it wasn't him and claimed he didn't lay
a hand on Shakira, but the women stood home and
Richardson were the ones who had done it. He said
he had only helped clean up afterwards. Then Sean made
a request. He asked his uncle for help buying a
ticket to the Seychelles, where his grandmother lived. He wanted
(15:30):
out of the country. He wanted to run, but instead
Sean's uncle called police and the trio were arrested.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Listen, is what I got to say. It is very
important to you. You've been arrested on suspicion of the
murder of Shakira Spencer at nine Lambert House. Okay, between
the thirty first and the eighth and the twenty sixth
of the ninth. In relations to that, you do not
have to say anything, but it may harm me defense
if you do not mention one question something which he
later rely.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
On in court.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Anything you do say maybe given an evidence necessity for
we arresked is to revenge your disappearance for a prompt
and effective investigation of prevention at home. Okay, yeah, I've.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
So. I don't know why you're on a.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Portion at the moment. My advice would be wait until
you have the opportunity to have legal advice before you
make any further comment in relation to the allegations against you. Okay.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
That phone call would crack the case wide open. Up
until now, detectives had very few leads, but now they
had names. Three of them. John Pendlebury, a Shanna stud
home Lisa Richardson, and soon detectives would uncover something far
more disturbing than they could have ever expected. Shakira wasn't
killed In some heed of the moment attack. Shakira had
(16:37):
spent the last months of her life living as a slave.
In twenty twenty one, Shakira Spencer met a woman who
on the surface seemed kind. Her name was a Shana
(17:00):
Home and she was a neighbor who lived nearby. Shakira,
who was ever eager to make friends, began to trust her.
But Shakira couldn't have known who Studholme really was behind
the compliments in the Sweet Smiles was a long violent history.
Studholm had a criminal record that stretched back years, including
three convictions for attacking other women. In one case, she
(17:22):
had kicked and punched a woman who was lying helpless
in the middle of the street. Four years later, she
assaulted another woman in a racially aggravated attack. She had
also received the caution after a child under her care
fell from a flat roof while left unintended in a
paddling pool. This wasn't a woman looking for friendship. This
was a predator, and Shakira, a woman who was vulnerable trusting,
(17:46):
eager to be liked was her perfect target. At the time,
Studholm was in a relationship with Sean Pendlebury, a man
with his own history of violence. His convictions included drug offenses,
assaulting police officer, and handling stolen goods. Together, the pair
moved through a chaotic and volatile social world, often in
(18:07):
the company of Lisa Richardson, a forty three year old
woman who lived in Northold. Richardson's flat had a reputation.
It was described by neighbors as a hive of anti
social behavior. People came and went at all ours, Arguments
broke out in the stairwells. It was the kind of
place where trouble had a permanent residence. And it was
(18:28):
in this world that Shakira was pulled slowly and deliberately.
At first, it looked like a friendship, harmless messages, legs
and comments on Facebook. In one Stockholm called her a
natural beauty. In another she wrote, pretty to somebody like Shakira, quiet, shy,
(18:49):
with intellectual disabilities and a desperate need to be accepted.
These comments meant everything. She thought she had found someone
who genuinely cared. But behind that screen, Stodholm was laying
a trap. She introduced Shakira to the darker side of life,
one filled with late night drinking, drug use, and chaotic parties.
(19:11):
This wasn't the kind of world that Shakira had known,
but she didn't say no. She wanted to be liked,
and slowly, Studholme took control. She used the cover of
COVID lockdowns to ramp up her influence. She told Shakira
to break up with her partner. She discouraged her from
seeing her family. She began to isolate her emotionally, socially, physically.
(19:35):
Then the control escalated. Stodholm, Pendleberry, and Richardson began to
own Shakira. They took over her bank accounts. Stodholm changed
her benefit forms to redirect payments to herself. They started
to force Shakira into sex work, and whatever money she
earned they took. Shakira stopped being a friend. She became
(19:57):
a possession. She was passed between the three like a commodity,
living in their homes, used for cooking and cleaning, sent
on errands to buy groceries. She was no longer traded
like a person. And then came the violence. They didn't
just beat Shakira They tortured her. They used their fists,
their feate belts, glass bottles. They even scolded her feet
(20:20):
with They even scolded her feet with boiling water. Her
body became frail and skeletal. From a size sixteen, she
dropped to a size six in a matter of months.
Shakira was starving and they gave her nothing but ketchup
sachez to eight. Shakira's hair, which was once long and thick,
was crudely chopped off. Her face was bruised, her eyes
(20:42):
were often blackened. They didn't even let her sleep in
a bed. Shakira was forced to sleep in a hallway
on crumpled newspapers, like a discarded pet. Some nights she
wasn't even allowed inside. She was made to sleep in
a bike shed, and when Pendlebury moved into her flat,
her fire final safe space was gone. Towards the end
(21:03):
of August twenty twenty two, Shakira was stopped by police
while running errands for the group. They were concerned her
parents shocked them the bruises, the sunken face, the black eyes.
When they asked what had happened, Shakira said nothing. She
was worn down by the terror humiliation and isolation, and
the police just let her go. The torment that Shakira
(21:37):
Spenser injured wasn't a secret kept behind closed doors. It
was something that her abuser celebrated. They boasted about what
they were doing, They laughed and documented her pain. In July,
Lisa Richardson sent a series of text messages to her
friend named Carla. She wrote, I've just fucked this bitch up.
This bitch she ain't going nowhere. I'm going to smash
(21:59):
her up joke, and then again she wrote I'm going
to mash up Shakira. A day later, Richardson's followed up
with another message, which read, so at the end of
the day, she deserved everything she got. I didn't even
bait her that much. I just gave her a couple
of slaps, a tappy tap slap one, two, three, but no.
Richardson then sent photographs of Shakira to her friends. Her
(22:23):
nose was clearly injured, as if she had just been
punched in the face. In another photograph, Shakira lay unconscious
on a sofa in Richardson's flat. Her face was battered,
and Richardson had written, look, I've got another afternoon stod
Holme struck Shakira in the head with a glass bottle,
blood spattered on the wall. In a panic, she texted Richardson,
(22:47):
I've bust her head in, I need you here. I'll
go to jail, but none of them stopped. Pendlebury escalated
things further. He chased Shakira with a homemade blue torch
made with a lighter held to an aerosol. Boiling water
was poured on her feeth. CCTV footage in the surrounding
area would later capture what they had done to her.
(23:08):
Shakira moved differently now. She hobbled down the street, visibly
in pain and struggling to walk. Her feet had been
scolded so badly that she could barely walk. Her eyes
were bruised and sunken, and her expression was vacant. Shakira
looked like a ghost. She was clearly dying in plain sight.
(23:29):
The abuse didn't stop, and it didn't tape off. It
escalated until Shakira Spenser was barely clinging to life. It
was the eleventh or twelfth of September when everything came
to a final brutal head inside of Shanna Stodholm's home.
The violence began again, but this time it would be
the last time. That morning, Sean Pendleberry dragged Shakira off
(23:51):
the floor. He hurled her against the oven and her
skull struck metal. Then he set upon her again, chasing
her with a lighter and an aerosol can, burning her flesh.
Studholme poured boiling water over her. Later that day, Richardson
saw Shakira standing in the kitchen. She was just standing there.
(24:12):
She wasn't crying, she wasn't speaking. The only song she
could make was a faint murmur, bub bub bub. She
was barely clinging to life. They all knew it. That night,
Pendleberry borrowed his hands, houned the civic He barked it
outside Studholm's flat. When it was dark enough, they bundled
Shakira into the boot of the car. She was still alive.
(24:36):
A neighbor would later recall seeing her stumbling towards the car.
She looked confused and lost. Pendlebury and Studholm drove across
London back to Shakira's flat in ealing There, they shoved
her into her hallway cupboard, locked the door, and walked away.
They knew that she would die in there. Back at
(24:56):
Studholm's flat. Richardson joined them. They scrubbed everything, the blood,
the filth, the smell. They e raised Shakira from the scene.
Then they went out for kebabs. They were caught on
CCTV laughing and joking as they returned. A few days later,
they returned to Shakira's flat. She was dead. Her body
(25:17):
was slumped in the tiny cupboard where they had left her.
Now they had a problem. They didn't want to just
leave her there. That would look suspicious, so Pendleberry came
up with a plan. He borrowed a caravan from his hand,
and the idea was to soft Shakira's body inside and
abandon it somewhere far away. But it was already too late.
(25:37):
Shakira's body was already decomposing. The smell and bodily fluids
was more than they could handle, so instead they dragged
Shakira's corpse into the bedroom and laid it out on
the bottom bunk of a child's bed. They wanted it
to look natural, as if Shakira had just died peacefully
in her sleep. They lit incense to try and cover
(25:58):
the stench of rot. They even packed ice around Shakira's body,
a crude and desperate attempt to slow the inevitable decomposition.
Then they laid out a newspaper beside the bed, as
if Shakier had been reading when death came for her.
And just before and just like before, they started cleaning.
They scrubbed their flats, They raised fingerprints, burned clothing, discarded founds.
(26:23):
They tried to vanish every trace of what they had
done to Shakira Spenser. But truth has a way of
rodding its way to the surface, and soon it would.
On the twenty ninth of September, justice finally began to stir.
(26:45):
Joan Pendleberry, A Shanna stood Home and Lisa Richardson stood
in the dock side by side. At a magistrate's court
in London. They were each charged with murder. Pendlebury and
stud Home also faced charges of conspiracy to cause gravous
bodily harm and preventing a awful burial. All three of
them pleaded not guilty. They had all denied involvement in
(27:06):
their interviews with police. Do you have anything to do with
her death?
Speaker 3 (27:10):
And I did not? No, you know who did?
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Prosecutor Banhold stood before the court. He described a timeline
soaked in brutality, a sustained campaign of abuse culminating in
Shakira's death. He stated, this case involves the exploitation of
a vulnerable individual during a course of time, with assaults
culminating in her death over a number of weeks. The
(27:35):
judge didn't shy away either. He described the fatal assault
not just as an attack, but as something closer to torture.
Detective Chief Inspector Brian Hoyey spoke outside the courtroom and said,
I am pleased that we have secured charges against the
three individuals and we continue to work to get justice
for Shakira's family. He added that the family were understandably
(27:56):
devastated and were still being supported by especially trained officers.
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promo code morbidology. The trial began almost a year later,
on the eleventh of September twenty twenty three at the
Old Bailey. The courtroom was silent as prosecutor Alison Hunter
k C rose to her faith. She told the jury
that Shakira Spenser had been reduced to a slave, her
(29:48):
body and mind dominated and destroyed by three people standing
just feet away, her former neighbor a Shanna Studholme, Studholm's
partner Sean Pendleberry, and their friend Lisa Richard Shardson. She stated,
for whatever was their unfathomable, cruel, sadistic motive, these three
defendants tormented, tortured, starved, burned, and eventually battered Shakira Spencer
(30:12):
to death. She stood with photographs of Shakira taken just
before she died and described what the camera had captured.
She said to the jury. In early twenty and twenty one,
Shakira Spencer had been a healthy, even volumptuous psiz sixteen,
weighing some seventy four kilograms. By July twenty and twenty two,
(30:34):
She was just skin and bone, gaunt, skeletal, bruised from
head to foot, her eyes hollow and black. She was
barely a scrawny sized six in the images taken by
the defendants as they laughed and mocked her condition. The
court was then shown the evidence photographs and videos, the
very same ones the trio had broadly taken. There was
(30:57):
no denying what had happened to Shakira Spencer. Her suffering
had been recorded. The testimony began with someone who knew
they accused all too well, Michelle Pendlebery, Sean's mother. She
had once been close friends with the Shanna Studholme, but
by the time she took the witness stand that friendship
had long since fractured. She told the court that Studholm
(31:19):
was a controlling force, not just over Shakira, but over
her son and over Lisa Richardson too. It was the
foundation of the defense that all of them, in their
own way, had been manipulated and controlled, just like Shakira.
Michelee testified that she had known what was happening, that
she had seen it firsthand, and worse, that Studholm had
(31:42):
even forced her to hit Shakira. She said to the
jury she'll make you hit her too. She gets you
riled up, and you don't even know why, you're just
worked up. Michelle confessed that she had hit Shakira once.
She said that she was sorry and she wasn't proud
of it. She painted a picture of a woman Studhome
who was opinionated, aggressive and demanding, a woman who wanted
(32:06):
people under her feet twenty four hours a day. She said,
it was Michelle, can you do this? Do that? Even
with her partner, she treated them like dogs. She described
Studholm's moods as violent and unpredictable. One moment she was kind,
even magnetic, the next it was like somebody had flipped
a switch. Michelle was asked whether she found some of
(32:29):
these qualities attractive, and she said yes. When asked whether
she had fallen under Studholm's spell, she replied simply, yeah.
She seemed to have it figured out at times. Then
the courtroom fell silent. The next witness was Sean Pendleberry,
taking the stand for the first time. He denied having
(32:50):
anything to do with Shakira's death, even though he had
confessed to his uncle and mother. He claimed that when
he saw her, she was already in a bad way.
That it was Studhomme who had put her in the cupboard,
that he just drove her home. Prosecutor Alison Hunter leaned
in her voice cold but composed, as she said, is
a cupboard a place where people are left to die?
(33:12):
Pendleberry shrugged and replied, no, how am I meant to
know where people are left to die. He told the
jury that on the thirteenth of September he had gone
back to Shakira's flat. He said he heard a noise
from the cupboard, and when he opened it, Shakir was
still alive. He claimed. He asked her if she needed
an ambulance, but she said no. He said he helped
(33:34):
her out of the cupboard and onto the bunk bed.
He said that he made her some soup and helped
her to drink it. Pendleberry said he left the flat
and only found out Shakier had died when Stodholm called him,
But that story did in align with what others had said.
Multiple witnesses had seen Pendleberry drag Shakier across the floor,
(33:54):
slammer into the oven, and burn her with the lighter
and aerosol can. There was even the CCTV footage that
showed Pendlebury on the twelfth of September taking bin bags
out of Studholm's flat. He told the court they were
full of bloody tissues used to clean the walls where
Studholm had attacked Shakira, but the prosecution wasn't buying it.
More CCTV footage captured Pendleberry and Studholm together returning from
(34:18):
Shakira's flat after leaving her there to die. They were
laughing and joking as Shakira's spencer lay dying. After Pendleberry's testimony,
the final defendant to take the stand was Lisa Richardson.
She had once called the Shannis Studholm like family. Now
standing before the jury, she claimed that she too had
(34:39):
been controlled. She stated she knew I was scared of her,
just her charisman, MA I'm quite a fearful person like Pendlebury.
Richardson insisted that she had been under Studholm's influence, but
the evidence told a much darker story. She had poured
boiling water on Shakira, she had burned her using aerosol
(34:59):
in a light. She had joined in, not intervened, and
when asked what the motive was why they did it,
all she could say was I don't know why it happened.
She claimed that she had watched in horror as Shakira
was tortured. She testified that Studholm had doysterr and boiling
water and Pendleberry had burned her skin with the flame.
(35:21):
But if Richardson had been horrified, the evidence suggested otherwise.
After the torture, after Shakira had been stuffed into that cupboard,
Richardson sent the text message. She said she wanted to
move closer to Studholme. Prosecutor Richard Stone wasn't buying it.
He confronted her with the message and said, I suggest
(35:41):
you're seeking to blame her in your defense so you
avoid being convicted of murder. Richardson denied it, but the
prosecution had more. She had recorded the abuse of Shakira.
She had taken photographs and videos of her suffering. She
had even been part of a video call with Pendleberry
during a torture show session, as she said she didn't
(36:03):
want to miss out on the amusement. In addition to
the CCT surveillance of the killers with Shakira, there was
forensic evidence as well. Shakira's blood was found in Studholm's apartment.
Her blood was found on Pendleberry's shoes. There was also
evidence of Studholm using Shakira's bank cards at various stores.
(36:24):
After that, the trial drew to a close. A Shanna
Studholm refused to testify. She clearly had nothing to say.
Prosecutor Alison Hunter made her final appeal to the jury.
She reminded them of what the trao had done after
Shakira died, stating they cleaned up the scene as best
they could. They rained Shakira Spenser as if she had
(36:45):
been reading. The windows around the flat were left open,
the door parricaded. Then Pendleberry went to the car from
the other side of the building. They concealed the death
of Shakira's Spencer. They isolated her from everyone she knew,
even her own family. Then she paused, and she said
what everyone in the courtroom was thinking. They are guilty
(37:07):
of murder, and it really is murder of the most foil.
They are guilty of denying a decent burial, and I
hope you do not lose one second of sleep if
you find them so. The jury deliberated for eighteen hours.
When they returned to court, the atmosphere was tense. The
public gallery was packed, and then the verdicts were read out,
(37:27):
guilty on all charges. The courtroom was stunned, and Pendlebury
showed his true colors. He began to clap as if
mocking the court before he stormed out of the dock.
The judge adjourned sentencing and excused the jury from service
for life. The trial had been that horrific. Outside the
court house, Detective Chief Inspector Howie addressed the media and
(37:50):
said she care It was a beautiful, happy mother. She
was kind and had a trusting nature. He said that
she had been exploited, controlled and enslaved in the most
dehumanizing way imaginable. He said, I think she just wanted
to be cared for, loved to have a friendship group
around her. She was coerced and manipulated over a long
(38:13):
period of time by these people. On the first of
March twenty twenty four, Studholm, Pendlebury, and Richardson returned to
court for sentencing. This time the jury was gone, but
the evidence was far from over. The prosecution played chilling
(38:35):
footage filmed by the three defendants themselves in the weakes
leading up to Shakira's death. It showed them mocking her,
taunting her and abusing her. Prosecutor Benholt told the court
that the footage made one thing brutally clear. They were
enjoying what they were doing. Then came the victim impact statements.
Shakira's son, whose name was protected by law, submitted a
(38:57):
heartbreaking statement. He said suffered nightmares every single night. He
said that he couldn't get the image of his mother
out of his head. How skinny she looked, how I'm well?
And then he asked why were they so heartless? What
could cause them to torture another human? He told the
court that his mother wasn't perfect, but she made him
(39:19):
feel safe, happy, and loved. And then, through tears, he said,
I miss her every single day and wish for a
chance to say and speak with her again. I never
got to say goodbye to her or tell her that
I loved her. These people let her die alone, feeling
she was unloved because they had taken everybody from her.
Then Shakira's mother spoke. She said the defendants had stripped
(39:42):
her daughter of everything that made her who she was.
She stated they isolated her from her family and friends.
Her health deteriorated and she was almost unrecognizable. She said,
when Shaquiera was at her lowest, they had tortured and
murdered her like a pack of animals. Judge Anne Rafferty
then addressed the court and the three defendants who sat
(40:03):
before her.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
Shakira Spencer was a healthy and loving young woman of
thirty five years old. Images of Shakira before she fell
under your influence show her full of life, healthy and smiling.
She is unrecognizable at the end, emaciated, broken. All who
(40:28):
watched it will be slow to forget the CCTV footage
of Shakira trying to walk on scolded feet in the
middle of the night.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
She turned to Pendlebury and said you lived in a
flat while she slept in the bike shed to stud home.
She said you started as a friend, but ended as
the worst kind of enemy a person could have. And
to Richardson, she said you show Shakiera nothing but exceptional
contempt and aggression. She spoke of how Shakira had been humiliated,
(40:58):
degraded and dehumanized, how she had been soft, trusting, and
completely exploitable. She said she was no match for the
three of you. She noted their complete lack of empathy,
their refusal to accept responsibility, their total absence of remorse.
She told Studholm directly, you're not mentally ill, You're dominant,
(41:20):
aggressive and manipulative. To Pendlebury, she acknowledged his low IQ
and follower's nature, but she made it clear you were
fully involved. And then came the sentences life in prison
with a minimum term of thirty four years. After the sentencing,
Shakira's father, Lloyd, spoke publicly for the first time. He
(41:43):
had traveled to Guiana in twenty twenty, only to get
stuck there during the pandemic, and he said the words
that haunt so many parents in tragedy. I regret going.
I feel like I could have saved her. He said.
Those three made his daughter feel like she finally found friends,
people who cared about her, but they were never her friends.
(42:04):
He said they brainwashed her into thinking they were doing
right by her. She didn't realize they were grooming her
to get her place, to take her money, to control
her life. And then, with a voice full of pain,
he said, they broke her soul. That is it for
(42:47):
this episode of Morbidology. It's only thank you so much
for listening, and I'd like to say a massive Thank
you to my new supporter up on Patreon, Veronica. As
you all know, Morbidology as a one woman's team, so
that support upon their seriously goes such a long way.
I upload adfree and early release episodes behind the scenes,
and I also send out thank you card along with
some co merch. There's also a bunch of bonus episodes
(43:09):
of Morbidology Plus that aren't on the regular podcast platforms,
and you can even suggest a case for me to
cover up on there. Remember to check us out at
morbidology dot com for more information about this episode and
to read some true crime articles. Until next time, take
care of yourself, Stacey, and have an amazing week.
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