Policing and crime detection rely on a combination of careful examination, hard work, logic and, increasingly, forensic sciences. One of the most important advances in crime detection was the so called ‘Murder Bag’. Equipped with everything needed to collect evidence, it became vital to scene of crime officers. The murder bag was put together in 1924 as a response to the very basic conditions that the police were working in. Before that time, little specialised equipment was used at the scene of a crime. But a gruesome murder was directly responsible for changing this.
It is true to say that with the advances of science the work of forensic experts in helping to solve crime has become ever more specialised. Forensic dentistry, or odontology, is now accepted as an essential part of the forensic sciences. In our first case, one of the most shocking of its day, it was the dental evidence that finally nailed the murderer.
As the German writer Goethe observed, ‘there is no such thing as poison, it all depends on the dose’. Poisons have featured in many murder cases, and for the determined poisoner, history has shown that there is always a vast range of materials at hand. Arsenic used to be one of the most widely available poisons. For the prospective poisoner, few substances could match it. It looks so harmless, like flour or sugar, and its virtual lack of taste means it is easy to disguise in drink or food.
Some criminals have remained at liberty because they have successfully disposed of or concealed crucial evidence and even their victims’ bodies. However, our sins have a way of coming back to haunt us. Forensic archaeology is a relatively new science, but one which means that even crimes committed in the distant past can often be solved.
In today’s murder investigations police use the latest technology to track down and apprehend criminals, but at the turn of the century when communications were limited, passports not required and organisations such as Interpol not established, a fugitive could flee abroad to escape the clutches of the law. A sensational murder case changed all that, for in 1910 a man wanted for murder was dramatically captured by means of wireless telegraphy. It was the first time that transatlantic radio communication was used in a murder hunt, with police chasing the fugitives across the Atlantic Ocean. Because of this dramatic use of a new technology the whole world became captivated by the case of Dr Crippen.
The first case featured in this episode made legal history because it was the first time a British defendant was found guilty of murder without a body ever being found. The evidence which was available made up the body of the crime, and resulted in a verdict that still raises questions more than fifty years after the event. A tale of sex and violence on the high seas, the story began on the morning of 18 October 1947, on passenger liner the SS Durban Castle, which was on its way from South Africa to London.
This programme looks at the importance of establishing the time of death of a murder victim and the difficulties that this can entail. The first case looks at the role of maggots in determining time of death. It starts with the discovery in 1968 of a body in Bracknell woods. We interview a man who, as a child looking for maggots for fishing, came upon a decomposed body. He and a scene of crime police officer recall how the body was ‘alive’ with maggots.
The first crime covered in this episode is a grisly murder case, showing how ballistic work tracked down the cold-blooded killer of a young bank clerk and disproved his defence of accidental shooting. Plus, the legendary crime story of two hardened criminals convicted for the gruesome murder of a policeman.
The first case in the programme looks at the Belgian poisoner Marie Becker, who during the 1930s carried out a series of poisonings, killing eleven people in total. Becker, who lived in the historic city of Liege, used digitalis, an extract from the foxglove plant, and administered it into cups of tea and glasses of wine. Her victims were mainly elderly ladies whom she would befriend in coffee shops and whose trust she would rapidly gain.
George Joseph Smith became known in 1914 as the ‘Brides in the Bath Murderer’. A callous crook, he murdered women he had conned into marriage weeks, and sometimes just days after their wedding. Always insuring their lives and having had them make out a will in his favour, he thought he had found a foolproof get rich quick scheme.
In 1968 a young husband returned to his flat in Beckenham to be confronted by a terrible sight. His wife, Claire was lying dead on their bedroom floor, a ghastly wound across her throat. The hunt to find Claire Joseph’s murderer involved brilliant detective work by DS John Cummings, but proving the murderer’s guilt relied on the sophisticated techniques of the time regarding fibre analysis.
The first case featured in this episode concerns the first ever murder trial where thallium, a heavy metal, was used as the murder weapon. When the workforce of Hadlands factory in Hertfordshire started to come down with a terrible illness, they put it down to a bug that had been prevalent for some time. But when a store man died, workers began to lose their hair and suffered agonising and debilitating symptoms, they realised that something was very wrong.
To modern investigators, the crime scene can be a goldmine of potential evidence. However, it took pioneering forensic detective work to identify these tiny clues when such science was in its infancy. In these two landmark cases, human blood and saliva seem to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt – but what will the juries think?
These are two macabre cases, where pathologists have solved a crime by identifying the impact of an unusual weapon. This episode covers how the brutal murderer of a young girl was brought to justice after the finding of a peculiar knife, plus details the evidence that nailed Neville Heath, the notorious sadist whose crimes shocked post-war England.
Two killers thought they had covered their tracks perfectly, by using fire to destroy their victims’ bodies as if in a tragic accident. But in these two cases from the Crime Museum, the murderers reckoned without the persistence of detectives and pathologists, who combined keen minds and nascent forensic science techniques to put the criminals in the dock.
Follow the chilling tales of two murderers convicted by their handwriting. The killer of a school cook, lured to her death by a false job advertisement, was caught out by simple spelling mistakes. Additionally, forensic experts were able to decipher writing on what appeared to be blank paper, in order to find who bludgeoned a man to death in his own garage.
Though most often used as a means of suicide, hanging can also disguise cold-blooded murder. In the early 20th century two women were hanged and two men charged with the killings. Only one was executed for his crime, but did the juries make the right choices?
The disturbing case of the masked man who terrorised men and women in their own homes sparked one of the biggest manhunts of the 1980s. Dubbed ‘the Fox’ by police due to his elusive nature, he seemed to strike with impunity throughout the summer of 1984, until meticulous detective work, and a stroke of luck, brought him to justice.