On May 12th, 1958, 31-year-old Peter Manuel went to trial at Glasgow High Court for the murder of eight people.
So desperate were people to get a seat on the public benches for the trial of the infamous Beast of Birkenshaw, they queued outside the court overnight.
*** LISTENER CAUTION IS ADVISED AS THIS EPISODE CONTAINS ADULT THEMES AND DESCRIPTIONS THAT SOME LISTENERS MAY FIND DISTRESSING ***
There is only one prisoner who will go down in history as being Britain’s most notoriously violent inmate. This is not a label you get overnight, and despite a couple of short-lived moments of freedom, he has been in prison since 1974, with the majority of those years held in solitary confinement. He has spent time in the notorious...
In 2004, Sydney Blackwell, a retired accountant, and his wife Jacqueline, an antiques dealer, lived in the village of Melling in Merseyside. It's an affluent area with green fields, old churches and quaint cottages. They shared their home with their 18-year-old son, Brian. As Sydney sat in his favourite chair, his son attacked him with a...
WARNING: THIS IS PART TWO OF A TWO-PART STORY. PLEASE LISTEN TO SEASON 1 - EPISODE 15 FOR MORE DETAILS ON THIS CASE. Stephen Port was arrested on October 15th, 2015 for the murders of 4 men. They were all found in Barking in East London and had all died in strikingly similar circumstances. All had deadly levels of GHB in their system and the...
St Margaret’s Church is located in Barking, in East London. The church is surrounded by grassland and lies on the same grounds as an abbey which has fallen into ruin. During the summer of 2014, the churchyard would be the location where two young men would be found, weeks apart. Both had died from an apparent overdose of GHB, otherwise...
Canterbury is a Cathedral city located in Kent in the South East of England. The city lies on the River Stour, and within the city walls, the gothic Canterbury Cathedral dominates the skyline. On March 29th, 2016 the emergency services received a phone call from 54-year-old Foster Christian. He claimed that he was assaulted at home, by some of...
The Humber bridge nature reserve is in the east ridings of Yorkshire, and is scenic place where families spend the day. It's also the location of rumour and legend, like that of the headless man that stalks the woodland at night. The legend has a grain of truth as a motorcyclist was beaten to death there in 1963 though wasn't decapitated as the...
WARNING: THIS IS PART TWO OF A TWO-PART STORY. PLEASE LISTEN TO SEASON 1 - EPISODE 11 FOR MORE DETAILS ON THIS CASE. On May 11th, 2012 in the early hours of the morning, a fire raged throughout a semi-detached house in Derby. The fire had spread so rapidly by the time firefighters arrived, and the house was engulfed in flames. Six...
May 11th, 2012 in the early hours of the morning, a fire raged throughout a semi-detached house in Derby. Thick smoke escaped through anywhere it could, billowing out onto the street, alerting neighbours who rushed to try and help those trapped inside. The fire had spread so rapidly by the time firefighters arrived, the house was...
At 13 Graham Frederick Young’s knowledge of chemistry was that of university student and he needed subjects that he had unlimited access to. That’s when he turned his attention to experimenting on his family. *** LISTENER CAUTION IS ADVISED AS THIS EPISODE CONTAINS ADULT THEMES AND DESCRIPTIONS THAT SOME LISTENERS MAY FIND...