Murdertown

When a young woman goes missing on Valentine�s Day, detectives turn to a pollen expert, who pieces together fragments of evidence to find her body.

In 1993, 16-year-old Claire Tiltman is found dying by the roadside. Her killer disappears into the night. More than 20 years later, Colin Ash Smith is finally brought to trial. Jurors hear of how he knew Claire, and even went to her funeral.

Aged 15, Robbie McIntosh walked into a fish and chip shop to announce that a woman had been killed on the iconic Law Hill. Police revealed the victim had been stabbed dozens of times. But they never imagined that the culprit was the teenager.

In 2015, a 69-year-old man is found stabbed in his home. At the scene, forensics uncover a receipt from a nearby cashpoint. CCTV at the bank reveals a woman using the victim's card to withdraw cash. Who is she? And how does she relate to the murder?

In 2014, a woman goes missing after a night drinking in the local pubs. CCTV finds her walking home arm in arm with another drinker. He just happens to be a former butcher. Police soon realise he has put his trade to use by dismembering his victim.

In 1994, a gang kill a woman who manages a building society and tie up her husband, before robbing the building society of large sums of cash. But despite making a tearful plea for help, the injured husband’s story doesn’t tally.

In 2000, a young woman is stabbed to death while walking her dog in a picturesque park in the town. A suspect is seen running semi-naked across the M1 motorway. It takes detectives weeks to identify the killer as a local man called Leon Amos.

In 2014 a sex offender called Robert Hind goes missing from a bail hostel. Cops fear he’s absconded to commit crime. The town is scoured. But then the cops learn that the sex offender hasn’t absconded - he’s been murdered.

In 2015 a man visits a tarot card reader. Within an hour she’s dealt out the death card and he’s confessed to a murder. When cops arrive they discover he’s been living at home with his victim’s body for days.

On the 9th of December 1986, the body of Linda Cook was found in the grass and scrub of a pathway in Buckland, Portsmouth. The only clue the Hampshire Constabulary had to go on was a footprint left on her abdomen.

With first-hand testimony from family members, police officers, witnesses and reporters, we shine a light on some of Britain's darkest murder locations, examining the crimes that rocked these communities.

Thirty-seven-year-old pharmacist Mitesh Patel phoned the Cleveland police in Middlesbrough, panicked and breathless. After returning from collecting a pizza, he had found his house burgled and his wife Jessica non-responsive on the living room floor.

In October 2016, police knocked on the door of a large cottage six miles southwest of Greenock, in the small Clyde Coast village of Inverkip, Scotland. They were looking for Margaret Fleming; a thirty-six year old woman who had been on long-term disability benefits.

The 3rd of August was the hottest day 1990 and County Durham had seen so far. A few people reported seeing Ann lounging in the yard. But when Peter returned home just before 6 that evening, he would find his wife murdered on the living room floor.

Twenty-two year-old Jenny King left Chasers Nightclub in Bristol with a fiver that her brother had given her to get a taxi home. She never made the mile to her family home in Warmley.

In Greenock, a town around 30 miles from Glasgow, the murder of Elaine Doyle looms large in the public consciousness.

It was an ordinary evening in the January of 1994 when a knock came on the door of the Maidens’ family home in Nuneaton. Catherine could see there was a man wearing a motorcycle helmet, just like a pizza delivery guy, only the Maiden’s hadn’t ordered any pizza.

On the evening of July 10th, 1991, Humberside Police were called to the home of a well known local family, the Newton’s, where shots had been fired.

Nimal Samarasinha and his family prepared for work and school. He left the house to warm the car up, and soon his daughter ran out to meet him, only when she got to the pavement, her father was lying on the ground - one forceful blow of a knife in his heart.

Emilia travels to the Yorkshire town of Rotherham to uncover the details of a horrific double murder separated by more than two decades. In April 2019 the body of Alena Grlakova was discovered by police after she had gone missing on Boxing Day.

With first-hand testimony from family members, police officers, witnesses and reporters, we shine a light on some of Britain's darkest murder locations, examining the crimes that rocked these communities.