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Laura Lippman spent more than 20 years as a journalist working in Texas and Baltimore.
She has won Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, Barry, Nero and Shamus awards (among many others) for her 25 novels - which include 12 featuring the private investigator Tess Monaghan
Her latest, Prom Mom, has a loose inspiration by the 1997 case of Melissa Drexler a New Jersey teenager who gave birth during her prom, but then something truly awful happened…
Laura discusses the ethics of True Crime - including the aftermath of Baby Reindeer, how being a journalist helped her ‘research to task’ and why Nick Hornby likened Laura to ‘a big American cheeseburger’ (Patricia Highsmith was a steak!)
There’s more about Laura here: https://lauralippman.com/
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This was Penelope Jackson’s final chance. The evidence against her seemed overwhelming: the glib 999 call admitting the killing of her husband, her further confessions on police body worn footage.
In court, even her friends had described her as overbearing and domineering.
Now it was her turn to take to the witness stand to give her version of events.
In the words of her lawyer: ‘She could see no way out, She replaced invisible handcuffs for real ones but at least then she knew where she would be.’
But would the jury believe Penelope?
If you’ve been affected by issues in this episode, please follow these links:
https://www.nelsontrust.com/
https://refuge.org.uk/
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To friends, David and Penelope Jackson were like most other retired couples living in the West Country.
They had a good life: a nice home, an active social life and a penchant for foreign cruises.
But in February 2021, Penelope killed her husband after a birthday celebration.
She then called 999 saying ‘I stabbed him once, then he said I wouldn’t do it again so I did it twice more.’
Had she been suffering in silence for years at the hands of a silent abuser?
Or was she fabricating a life of coercive control to wriggle away from a murder charge?
If you’ve been affected by issues in this episode, please look at these links:
https://www.nelsontrust.com/
https://refuge.org.uk/
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Award-winning crime novelist Denise Mina has written the latest Philip Marlowe book: The Second Murderer. To research the book, she spent months studying Los Angeles in 1940, deconstructing Raymond Chandler’s distinct sentence structure and recreating his unique humour.
Denise’s career straddles both crime fiction and true crime. She has won many awards - including the Theakstons Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year two years running and has been inducted into the CWA Hall of Fame.
This podcast was recorded at CrimeFest, May 2024.
The Second Murderer is available here.
Denise’s true crime book about Peter Manuel ,The Long Drop, is available here.
Raymond Chandler’s books are available here.
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is available here.
My own true crime books Decoy and the award-winning To Hunt A Killer are available here.
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To coincide with the launch of my true crime book ‘Decoy’ I’ve updated and reissued this podcast featuring a rare and exclusive interview with Chris Gould.
In the 1970s, the city of Bristol was terrorised by a man nicknamed ‘The Clifton Rapist.’ The stranger-attacker assaulted seven women over a two-year period.
PC Chris Gould suggested a daring honeytrap: Avon and Somerset Police should set up an innovative undercover sting, using young rookie police officers as decoys to catch him.
This was a monumental gamble, putting the lives of their youngest, least-experienced female officers on the line.
But 12 women volunteered.
As the weeks passed, with no further attacks, commanders made an even more innovative move. And Chris’s career was never the same again.
How was the predator caught and justice achieved? Chris has never spoken in this detail before.
+++ Grab your copy of Decoy here in the UK: https://tinyurl.com/fd759pmh +++
+++ Or here in the USA: https://tinyurl.com/yethzdum +++
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NB: This is a reissue of a podcast episode first released in November 2023
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Nearly 20 years had passed and forensic scientist Dr Colin Dark received a call asking if he’d like to take on the case of Hilda Murrell.
What clues had been left at the scene? How could they be analysed using modern techniques? And what truths would emerge about the theories surrounding her murder?
This is a short p…
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On March 21st 1984, Hilda Murrell disappeared. It would take police three days to find her - yet her body was in the obvious place.
She had been murdered.
But by whom?
Now the conspiracy theories started: Did the British government want Hilda dead because of her awkward questions about a new nuclear power station? Was she killed because of her links with naval intelligence?
And was the phone line disconnection in her home the work of a bungling amateur or a professional hitman?
This is a free episode and the first part of a two-part mini series. Episode two is for paid subscribers.
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Screenwriter George Kay (Hijack, Lupin, The Long Shadow, Criminal UK) was talking with his mother about a potential project: would he be interested in writing a script about the Lord Lucan mystery?
Then, she dropped the bombshell: he had a personal link with the other Lucan nanny Christabel Boyce.
George wanted to speak with Christabel - she would be a primary source and knew the main characters from ‘74.
This was impossible, his mother said. Christabel had herself been murdered by her husband ten years later.
In this conversation, George and Behind the Crimes host Rob Murphy discuss how a private diary found by police investigating Cristabel’s murder in 1985 shed new light on Sandra’s killing.
And the parallels between the Lucan marriage and the Boyce’s are chilling.
Parts 1 and 2 of this trilogy are available, you may want to listen to these first.
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In her book ‘A Different Class of Murder: The Story of Lord Lucan’ writer Laura Thompson suggests six possible scenarios of what happened on the night of November 7th 1974.
Was Lady Lucan the target? Did Lord Lucan carry out the killing himself or - as with the rest of his life - did he get help?
And speaking of help, did his rich, powerful gambling friends at the Clermont Club aid his disappearance? Or were they - like he - a target of 1970s society?
You can get a copy of Laura’s incredible book here.
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Within a few moments on the night of November 7th 1974, Lord Lucan killed his children’s nanny, tried to murder his wife - and then disappeared.
But that attack had been brewing for months, years even. And still - half a century on - people argue about what really happened.
Was his estranged wife really the target?
Was it Lucan in the cellar with the lead piping? Or a hitman? Had he somehow bungled an attempt to kill his wife?
And what about his rich, powerful gambling friends? Did they help his escape?
To research her book ‘A Different Class of Murder: The story of Lord Lucan’ award-winning author Laura Thompson spoke with people who knew the couple and investigated Sandra’s death.
In this interview, she argues that when you strip away the myths, the facts look different to the familiar story.
You can grab a copy of Laura’s book here: https://amzn.to/48UEXpb
Part 2 will be next week.
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Margaret Backhouse survived - it was a miracle. The car bomb seemed amateur but it was effective.
Why would anyone want to target an elegant farmer’s wife in a quiet, safe English village?
Detectives then heard about a hate campaign against her husband Graham. Dark notices left on the farm forewarning murd…
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In June 1984, 17-year-old Melanie Road was murdered as she walked home from a nightclub in the beautiful city of Bath, England.
The investigation became Britain’s biggest manhunt, yet despite 96 arrests, her killer was never found.
Twenty five years later, Det Sgt Julie Mackay joined Avon & Somerset Police’s cold case unit.
‘I always knew I would find Melanie’s killer,’ she says.
It would take seven further years of trying. The investigation saw incredible highs and lows. And as Julie fought for promotion, battled personal crises, she built a deep friendship with Melanie’s inspirational mother, Jean.
The story ends with a courtroom showdown between Jean Road and her daughter’s killer - who Julie brought to justice three decades after the murder.
The story is the subject of the award-winning* book Julie and I have written about the case: To Hunt a Killer.
In this interview, I ask Julie about the investigation, the rollercoaster that is a complex inquiry, her drive to find Melanie’s killer and her adoration for Jean Road.
You can get copies in the USA here or in the UK here.
* Julie and I were winners of the True Crime Awards’ ‘Best New Author’ and were shortlisted for a CWA ALCS Gold Dagger award for best book.
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This suspect had already escaped from police custody once. Now he was wanted for a triple murder. He was living wild off the land and Britain’s newspapers had joined the police hunt. The suspect was even taunting the inquiry, writing to journalists describing police as ‘boy scouts.’
Then a detective had an ingenious idea to set a trap.
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In October 1998, Jenny King vanished. The 22-year-old had been on a night out at a club near her home in Kingswood near Bristol, in the South West of England.
Police realised the office worker was in a good, stable relationship. She had no enemies. And no-one would want to harm her.
But a friend of Jenny’s came forward. In the hour before Jenny disappeared, she had said something about a ‘psycho ex boyfriend’ being in the nightspot.
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Days later, police made an horrific discovery. But at this deposition site they found a set of keys.
Who was this ‘psycho ex boyfriend' and whose door would the keys unlock?
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Eugène-François Vidocq was the real-life Paris detective who inspired Sherlock Holmes, Edgar Allen Poe’s Dupin and Maurice Lablanc’s Lupin stories.
He revolutionised criminology: developing undercover techniques, using science and surveillance to bring Paris’s crimewave under control and setting up a system of card indexes which would be used for well over a century.
The department he created - the Sûreté - was the forerunner of both Scotland Yard and the FBI.
But who was this almost mythical man? And where does the truth stop and the fiction - which he helped create - begin?
James Morton wrote the entertaining ‘The First Detective: The life and revolutionary times of Eugène-François Vidocq.’ (Link to USA site.)
In this episode - a special bonus for paid subscribers - Morton describes how Vidocq moved from being a criminal himself to setting up one of the world’s most influential crime fighting organisations while inspiring history’s most celebrated fictional detectives.
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It was the occasional smell of weed which made detectives suspicious at first.
Then a mystery delivery alerted police to the former nuclear bunker in the middle of the English countryside.
But when detectives mounted a raid on the underground fortress, they had no idea if they could get through the atomic blast doors. And when they did - what would they find?
What followed was a moment of high-tension as the team had just seconds to catch an organised crime group in the act.
And detectives uncovered a unique drugs factory built on a scale not seen before in England.
But this is no crime caper. Soon police saw for themselves the dark side of drugs production.
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To welcome new listeners to Behind The Crimes, every day this week I’m highlighting some of the incredible stories we have covered in the last year. This is a replay of an episode from June 2023.
In the early hours of October 4th 1922, a woman who was about to become Britain’s most notorious murder suspect walked home from the theatre with her husband.
Edith Thompson was 28, she was beautiful, had a career, a good social life… and a lover 8 years her junior.
Freddy Bywaters leapt from the shadows and stabbed her husband to death. Edith was terrified. She didn’t want her husband dead, she hadn’t held the knife.
But why did detectives charge her with murder?
In what ways did her love letters scandalise puritanical Post-War society? And as the hangman’s noose awaited a guilty verdict, how important was that opinion on the jury?
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This podcast is based on an interview with Laura Thompson, whose book ‘Rex vs Edith Thompson, a Tale of Two Murders’ can be bought here in the UK and here in the USA.
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NB. As a welcome to new Substack subscribers, this is a reissue of an episode released in 2023.
Roy and Joan Clarke are found dead in their home in rural England in December 2004. They’ve been stabbed in a ‘ritualistic-style’ attack.
Det Ch Supt Paul Howlett’s suspicions fall on one man. But does his prime suspect have the opportunity to kill? There is little evidence at first.
But the country’s top forensic psychologist warns Paul if the suspect is the murderer ‘it’s not a question of if he will kill again, but when.’
The killer has laid the perfect alibi. Or so he thinks.
The route to justice takes some dark turns.
And twenty years on, and Roy Clarke’s daughter is still seeking answers.
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NB. This is a replay episode - first released in July 2023.
What does it take to be a cold case detective? How do you solve a case from the past when all the files have vanished?
All Julie and Gary had was one sheet of paper: a laboratory submission form.
Nothing else.
They didn’t know the details of the attack, who the victim was, what or where it happened.
But by methodically reviewing the case Julie and Gary were able to rebuild the investigation.
There was a DNA hit linking the attack to another unsolved crime scene.
And the attack had been so terrifying, all the original officers and witnesses had never forgotten that freezing night in January 1986 when they came across a young woman called Samantha who had been subjected to this traumatising assault.
But just when Julie thought justice was within her grasp she faced another challenge: lawyers who were refusing to charge their prime suspect.
The case culminated in a dramatic and emotionally-charged court hearing.
Warning: while this episode does not give graphic or intimate descriptions of this sexual assault, some of the details and imagery may be distressing. Listener discretion is advised.
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Who is Banksy? It is a question that has taunted the art world for two decades.
As a graffiti-artist, he has committed criminal damage. Which is why I’m including him in Behind the Crimes.
I uncovered a ‘lost’ interview with the secretive stenciller.
When researching the artist’s background, I came across an old report which had lain in a tape archive for more than a decade and a half. Even the journalist who had interviewed the then-unknown Banksy had forgotten about it - even though he had seen the artist’s face without a mask.
Today, Banksy could genuinely claim to be the world’s most famous artist. Some of his work sells for tens of millions of dollars.
But no-one knows what he looks like.
So this ‘lost’ interview I discovered has now become an important part of modern art history.
When I found it I had no idea it would set me on a trail that would lead to direct contact with the artist himself.
In this one-off special, I’m telling you the story behind the discovery.
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