A woman who was cleared yesterday of trying to murder her husband during a bondage sex session is now being investigated over the death of a former partner, police said last night.

Dena Thompson, 40, had been accused of trying to kill her husband Richard, 42, by tying him up and attacking him with a baseball bat and a carving knife as he lay naked on the bathroom floor.

After an 11-day trial a jury at Lewes Crown Court in Sussex decided the petite blonde had not tried to murder her husband.

But Thompson was jailed for three years and nine months for 15 counts of deception, relating to thousands of pounds she stole from three past lovers, including Mr Thompson.

After the case detectives said they would reopen an investigation into the death of Thompson's second husband, Julian Webb, whom she married bigamously.

Detective Constable Sean McDonald said: ''Mr Webb died at his home from an apparent overdose in 1994. An open verdict was recorded by an inquest, but we will reopen the case in the light of what we now know.''

Thompson, of Rustington, West Sussex, fleeced her lovers of money after telling them a pack of lies including that she was suffering from cancer and was being stalked. She smiled as she was led from the dock.

Mr Thompson sat in the public gallery as the verdict was read out. He gave no reaction to the decision and said nothing as he hurriedly walked from the court.

Mr Thompson claimed that his wife attacked him with the baseball bat and knife as he was bound and gagged ready for their sex game.

But Thompson claimed she hit him twice with a baseball bat in self-defence after he found out she had lied about winning #300,000 on the lottery and had stolen money from him.

During the trial Thompson admitted being a serial fraudster who had conned a string of lovers out of their money, but said she had never been violent.

She admitted 15 counts of deception before the trial.

The court heard that Thompson stole more than #4400 from Graham Binks, of Burgess Hill, West Sussex, after meeting him in September 1997 through a lonely hearts advert.

She told him she was being harassed by a former boyfriend and that she had throat cancer, before asking if she could move in with him. He later found she had used his credit cards to withdraw money from his bank before leaving him.

Thompson, who was jailed for 18 months in 1995 for stealing from the Woolwich Building Society where she worked, met Phil Trott in February 1998 at a fabric shop in Worthing, West Sussex.

They began a relationship during which she told him various lies including that she was being stalked. She also told him she had cancer.

Mr Trott discovered soon after she moved in that all of his credit cards had gone missing, and found them in her handbag.

Thompson also admitted tricking Robert Waite, promising him a new life in America and making him believe she was unwell. Once in the USA she left him there, making off with all his money.

Thompson said she intended to do the same to Mr Thompson, whom she met through a lonely hearts advert in October 1998. ''My intention was to get him across to America, sell the house and then go. I was going to leave him in America like I did with Robert Waite.''

She told him she had breast cancer and he took a #36,000 early retirement package so they could start a new life together in the USA, where he would become a fishing captain.

Detective Constable McDonald labelled Thompson ''one of the most dangerous people I have ever met. She is completely heartless, she is convincing and she is cunning.''