When it comes to stories of crime and detection we we have long been a nation obsessed. But why do we British so enjoy reading about a spot of murder? … These familiar components give us that comforting feeling of the classic whodunnit. Andrew Marr, Sleuths, Spies & Sourcerers I, BBC 2016
Rule 1: A Mystery Begins With a Mystery. ibid.
The Duchess of Death herself: Agatha Christie … The rules of ordinary life have suddenly been suspended. ibid.
The quintessential location is the country house. ibid.
The rules of the detective novel are the rules of a game. ibid.
The first great sleuth in detective fiction is Sherlock Holmes. ibid.
So what makes Sherlock Holmes so irresistible? ibid.
Rule 5: The Crime Must Be Credible. ibid.
Christie used poisons more often than any other crime writer. ibid.
In the UK in 2016 there are fifty-nine people serving whole-life prison terms. Crimes that Shook Britain: Wrongly Released s7e1
People have been jailed for horrific crimes including rape, manslaughter and even murder and then released back into society only to offend again … Were they wrongly released? ibid.
The re-offending rate for adults released from custody in October 2013 to September 2014 was 45.5%. ibid.
The murder of Neville Corby had been so brazen it had surprised even the senior police officers. ibid.
Ernest Wright … While he [Trevor Hale] was asleep he [Wright] took an iron bar and beat him to death; he [Wright] then built a bonfire, put Trevor on top, poured engine oil over him then went back to Aylesbury, picked up Ruth, drove her to the scene, he then set the bonfire off, and made Ruth stand there and watch her husband being murdered. ibid.
Roy Whiting, June 1995: kidnapping and sexual assault … served just twenty-nine months. ibid.
Sarah Payne’s body was found … He [Whiting] lived in this flat five miles away. ibid.
Donald Andrews had already been responsible for the deaths of two men … convicted of manslaughter instead … served less than fifteen years in prison … In 2002 he will attack again … a further six years in prison … His next victim would be 29-year-old Victoria Legg … The only non-murderer to be jailed for Life without the prospect of release. ibid.
Nearly 400 children have been convicted of murder in the UK in the last two decades. The youngest was just eleven years old. When Kids Kill: Schoolboy Slayer, Channel 5 2017
More than 1,000 women are murdered in Pakistan each year by male relatives who believe the victims have dishonoured their families. A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness ***** 2015
‘Saba had a gunshot wound on the left side of her face which made it almost impossible to recognise anything.’ ibid. doctor
‘They shot her and threw her in the river.’ ibid. rozzer
‘I will never forgive them.’ ibid. Saba
After leaving the hospital Saba went into hiding. ibid.
‘This is what happens when honour is at stake … No woman should ruin her parents’ reputation.’ ibid. mother
‘People who visit my father tell me he is asking for forgiveness.’ ibid. Saba
‘If there is no justice, you can imagine how terrible the police will feel.’ ibid. rozzer
‘I am called an honourable man.’ ibid. father
‘In my heart they are unforgiven.’ ibid. Saba
In the act of murder there is a weapon, a crime scene and a body: all vital evidence in the hunt for the killer. It’s a game of cat and mouse between police and murderer that used to favour the criminal. But then something happened that swung the odds in favour of justice: the arrival of forensic science. Gabriel Weston: Catching History’s Criminals I: A Question of Identity, BBC 2015
It’s a word we all use but have you ever stopped to wonder what exactly is a psychopath? … They all have something in common: they all have a severe personality disorder. It can’t be cured but I it can be understood. Meet the Psychopaths I: Psycho Killers, Channel 5 2015
What makes a psychopath become a psycho-killer? ibid.
On 30th March 2013 a man’s body was discovered in a ditch near Newborough, Cambridgeshire. His name was Kevin Lee … Bizarrely, he was wearing a dress. ibid.
Joanna Dennehy was known to police for petty crime. But they’d never seen the true depths of her disturbed personality. Her killing spree shocked the nation … Joanna lived in one of Kevin Lee’s rented properties and worked in his property letting business. ibid.
Kevin Lee was not her first victim, he was her third. ibid.
She placed one of the men’s body in a wheely-bin and decided to show it off to a fourteen-year-old girl she had befriended. ibid.
Dennehy was after more men; within an hour two were fighting for their lives. ibid.
She was arrested without a struggle. ibid.
She will never be released from prison. ibid.
Dennehy was the mother of two daughters, the first born when she was seventeen, the second six years later but she would still disappear for weeks and months and be in constant trouble. Dennehy was drinking heavily and began to cut herself. ibid.
Noel Razor Smith has fifty-eight criminal convictions including GBH and armed robbery: he has spent thirty years in prison … Now he is on a mission to look inside his own mind. ibid.
Not all criminal psychopaths are serial killers or even murderers. But most of them are at least very violent. ibid.
There is another type of psychopath all the more dangerous because their disorder is hidden, it’s invisible behind a mask of sanity. ibid.
Meet John Cannan, rapist and sexual predator and prime suspect in one of Britain’s most famous cold cases, the disappearance of Fulham estate agent Suzy Lamplugh. In 1987 29-year-old newly wed Shirley Banks disappeared from Bristol city centre … [Cannan] had robbed a knitwear shop at knifepoint. He tied up the shot assistant’s mother then raped the shop assistant after threatening to stab her baby if she resisted … Six months later Shirley Banks’ naked and decomposed body was found. ibid.
One person out of a hundred is a psychopath. ibid.
‘Very few humans are actually capable of committing the act of murder, or attempting to commit the act of murder.’ I Shot My Parents, BBC 2017
In the USA five parents are killed by their children every week. ibid.
In 2013, 14-year-old Nathon Brooks shot both his parents in the head while they slept. ibid.
‘And that’s when it really clicked what I’d done.’ ibid. Nathon