Historical Murders

The A6 Murder

(aka the James Hanratty affair)

In 1961, a man was shot dead, and a woman raped and shot in a layby in Bedfordshire. A man was hanged but the story would occupy the front pages for half a century.
Read more...

The Corner Shop Killings

(aka The murder of Elizabeth Ridgley)

Just after the first world war, a woman and her dog were beaten to death inside a small corner shop in Hitchin. Two investigations were launched, each with a different conclusion.
Read more...

The Green Bicycle Murder

(aka the killing of Bella Wright)

Just after the first world war, a young woman was shot dead as she rode her bicycle along a country lane in Leicestershire. A man seen nearby on a green bicycle needed to be found.
Read more...

When actress Gay Gibson went missing from a passenger ship sailing from Cape Town to Southampton in 1947, a man was arrested and tried for murder despite the victim’s body never being found.
Read more...

The Harry Oakes Murder

(aka Murder in the Bahamas)

As the world was engaged in a second global war, the Empire’s wealthiest man was bludgeoned to death in his bed and his body set on fire in his Bahamian mansion.
Read more...

The Julia Wallace Murder

(aka the chess club conspiracy)

In 1931, a quiet and respectable woman was found at her Liverpool home bludgeoned to death. Was her murder the result of a meticulously planned killing by her husband or were other suspects overlooked?
Read more...

The Murder of Lord Erroll

(aka Murder and the Happy Valley set)

When a member of the aristocracy was shot dead in 1941 as he drove his car through the middle of the night in Kenya, it exposed a ring of sex, drugs and scandal.
Read more...

The Rillington Place Murders

(aka the cases of Timothy Evans and Reg Christie)

Between 1943 and 1953, eight people were strangled to death inside the confines of number 10 Rillington Place, West London. The case became synonymous with wrongful convictions and the abolition of the death penalty.
Read more...

The Murder of Sidney Spicer

(aka the Percy Toplis affair)

In 1920, a taxi driver was found by the side of a road near Andover in Hampshire with a bullet wound to the back of his head. His taxi was found 150 miles away in Wales.
Read more...

The Kray Twins

(aka The Kray twins)

In 1960s East End of London, a reign of terror existed which allowed the beatings and murders of a number of people. Mental health, sexuality and corruption each had its part to play.
Read more...

Britain’s first railway murder

(aka The murder of Thomas Briggs)

In 1864, the reputation of Britain’s railway was rocked by the violent and unexplained murder of a city gentleman. A daring chase across the Atlantic led to a man being arrested.
Read more...

The Acid Bath Murders

(aka John Haigh: cold-blooded killer)

Over a five-year period in the 1940s, six people in London went missing before the police were notified. Each had been dissolved in sulphuric acid and had literally disappeared.
Read more...

Cases & Presentations...