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10. 03. 10. - 14:00

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10. 03. 10. - 14:00

Black Widow Killer: New Victim

Kathryn Quinn

A woman dubbed the Black Widow after murdering her husband with a poisoned curry is facing a new investigation into what police believe could have been her first victim.

Ruthless Dena Thompson, from Collumpton, Devon, was jailed for life for the killing of hubby Julian Webb on his 31st birthday.

Now investigators have revived a police and Interpol search for a Bulgarian man she dated in the 1980s.

Stoyan Kostov apparently disappeared while he was dating Thompson - then going under her maiden name Holmes - in the 1970s and 80s while she was training as a young gymnast in Svishtov, Bulgaria.

A search by British and local police turned up no clues as to where Kostov went.

Now details of the secret search are to emerge in a new Bulgarian media investigation into the disappearance.

Sussex Police Det Chief Insp Martyn Underhill - who investigated the UK killing - said of Kostov: "We cannot rule out the possibility that other partners have been injured in some way."

And one investigator explained this week: "Some sort of incident seems to have happened in Bulgaria but we don't know what it was."

Sex-obsessed Thompson was sentenced to life in jail in 2003 for her second husband's murder over a secret cash stash of 300,000 GBP she had amassed from various swindles and frauds.

She had earlier been acquitted of trying to kill her third husband with a knife and a baseball bat as he lay trussed up on the bathroom floor claiming she'd feared for her life in a bondage session.

Judge Michael Hyam told Thompson she was "utterly ruthless and without any pity", adding: "Nothing can excuse you for the wickedness of what you did."

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