Three People Convicted of Murdering Shakira Spencer

Found guilty of 'depraved acts of indescribable cruel torment'

Shaun Pendlebury, Ashana Studholme and Lisa Richardson. Picture: Met Police

December 13, 2023

A man and two women have been convicted of the murder of a woman in a case in which the investigating officer said involved ‘depraved acts of indescribable cruel torment’.

Shakira Spencer had been a happy, vivacious woman with a child before Ashana Studholme, Shaun Pendelbury and Lisa Richardson came into her life.

Over time they came to exercise complete control of their victim taking over her bank accounts and starving and torturing her before ultimately battering her to death.

Shakira, although she had vulnerabilities, had been a happy and healthy woman. She had known the three for some time, in what was a complex web of relationships, but eventually they stole her self-respect, her children, and her home.

They had subjected her to a campaign of beatings, enslavement, coercion and control, humiliation and degradation over a period of months. She was made to sleep in a hallway on newspaper and was rarely fed often given just sachets of ketchup for a meal leading to severe weight loss. This ordeal culminated in a frenzied, violent assault reaching a climax between 9 and 12 September 2022, from which Shakira most likely died on 14 September 2022. Instead of taking her to hospital, 26-year-old Pendlebury of Tewkesbury Road in Ealing and 38-year-old Studholme of Greenhill Road Harrow drove Shakira back to her home in the boot of a car and bundled her in a cupboard in her flat in Hanwell and left her to die.

Shakira Spencer before and during her ordeal

The police recovered CCTV footage and bank transactions where the killers used Shakira’s bank card to purchase a cleaning product and Studholme and 44-year-old Richardson of Broomcroft Avenue, Ealing, used their own bank cards to purchase items including refuse sacks and gloves, all in an attempt to clean-up the crime scenes and conceal their involvement in the murder.

The police were called to Holbeck Road, Hanwell at 4:38pm on 25 September 2022 after a neighbour had noticed maggots coming from under the door. Officers forced entry into the property and found the body of a woman who was later identified as 35-year-old Shakira.

A few hours after the discovery, one of Pendlebury’s relatives called the police to say that he had confessed to being involved in killing of a woman and that Studholme and Richardson were also involved. The trio were arrested shortly afterwards and taken into custody.

Their mobile phones were seized, which revealed details of what they had done to Shakira. Hundreds of messages were found on their phones referencing the abuse to which they had subjected Shakira. Richardson and Studholme exchanged images of a bedraggled Shakira, mocking her. Videos of Shakira being beaten up while the others laughed and jeered were also discovered.

Shakira Spencer in 2017

The three defendants were charged with murder three days after their arrest and convicted on Monday, 11 December, after a 12-week trial at the Old Bailey.

Studholme, Pendlebury, and Richardson were found guilty of the murder and of preventing the lawful burial of Shakira.

Senior Investigating Officer, Detective Chief Inspector Brian Howie said, “My thoughts today, and that of my team, are with Shakira Spencer’s family and friends. During the trial they listened to deeply traumatising evidence of the depraved acts of indescribable cruel torment committed by the three defendants. They murdered Shakira in the most savage and inhumane way imaginable.

"Shakira was a beautiful, happy mother who was kind and had a trusting nature. Shakira could be vulnerable and these defendants took advantage of that by controlling and isolating her from everyone she knew in order to control and enslave her in the most dehumanising and degrading way.

“The family’s ordeal has been compounded by the behaviour of the defendants, who have each lied, providing implausible accounts and explanations to try and absolve themselves of any responsibility. Whatever their cruel and sadistic motives were, there is no acceptable explanation for what Shakira was put through.

“This was a complex and challenging investigation. A meticulous timeline was created to pull together the different strands of evidence, paralleled against each other, in order to prove the defendants’ campaign of controlling behaviour and violence. This included the retrieval and viewing of thousands of hours of CCTV, extensive forensic examinations, pathology, witness accounts, searching of houses and vehicles and reviewing the defendants’ phones. That examination revealed what Shakira had been subjected to, with footage, messages and voice notes recorded by the defendants themselves that would prove key.”

The trio will be sentenced at a later date.