Behind the Crimes with Robert Murphy

If you’ve found the ITV drama The Long Shadow compelling, you’ll be fascinated by this box-set podcast.

My mini series, Deadly Deception - about ‘Yorkshire Ripper’ Peter Sutcliffe - was so well-regarded it was promoted globally by Substack.

It features an interview with former Det Chief Superintendent Chris Gregg. Chris has a unique story having worked on both the 1970s ‘Ripper’ inquiry and then brought the ‘Wearside Jack’ hoaxer to justice more than two decades later.

Chris is a character in tonight’s final episode of The Long Shadow.

So here is an introduction with George Kay followed by all three episodes of Deadly Deception in full, back-to-back.

The episodes were originally broadcast in April 2023. This is the first time the podcasts have been combined as a compendium.

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If you missed my chat with George about his brilliant series The Long Shadow you can get it here:

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How do you dramatise for television the story of Britain’s most notorious serial killer? How can you devise and write compelling scenes while remaining faithful to the facts, respectful to his victims and mindful of the families left behind?

Behind the Crimes is an independent reader-supported publication. To receive bonus features including video interviews, images and long-reads, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

To produce the critically-acclaimed drama ‘The Long Shadow’ writer and Executive Producer George Kay (Hijack, Lupin, Criminal UK, Litvinenko) spent four years researching primary sources about Sutcliffe’s crimes, meeting families of his victims and hearing from survivors.

In this interview-episode, George tells Rob Murphy how he managed this sensitive balancing act to create this absorbing series.

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For ten years, a spy operated in the midst of suburban Yorkshire. Secrets were passed to Soviet Bloc agents about Britain’s V-bomber’s radar-jamming device. But was the real spy the prime suspect - a Royal Air Force engineer? Or was the main player his beautiful, unfaithful wife?

The case was finally solved after Det Sgt Michael Burdis discovered the operation’s ‘dead-letter drop’ - the location where messages were passed between spy and handlers. In this podcast he speaks about the case publicly for the first time.

Behind the Crimes is a free podcast. To see images about the Prager case or to read more, subscribe below. Never miss an episode.

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.

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?

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.

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.

Behind the Crimes is a reader-supported publication. To see evidence from the case or watch videos with detectives, please subscribe.

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?

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.

West Yorkshire, 2004.

Chris Gregg is now at the height of his career - a detective chief superintendent establishing West Yorkshire Police’s elite Homicide and Major Enquiry Team.

The next few months are busy.

But at the back of his mind is unfinished business: tracking down Wearside Jack, the Yorkshire Ripper hoaxer from nearly 30 years previously.

Chris has failed to persuade senior officers to re-investigate the case over the years.

Now he is the senior officer and what he says goes.

But scientists tell Chris the letters are destroyed and the tape can’t be found.

Somewhere lost in a police storeroom is a tiny fragment of evidence - just two centimetres large - which offers one final hope of identifying the hoaxer.

Will new science be able to match this with the man behind the deadly deception of the 1970s?

This episode is part 3 of 3. Written, presented and produced by Robert Murphy. To watch video clips with Chris, to see evidence from the case or to learn more, go to: https://robertmurphy.substack.com/about

June 1979. The tape recorded by the man known as ‘Wearside Jack’ is played to the Yorkshire Ripper team.

‘I could feel the hairs standing up on the back of my neck’ says Chris Gregg - a detective constable at the time - as the chilling Sunderland accent fills the room.

The inquiry pivots.

Unbeknown to lead detective George Oldfield, the lines of inquiry have already got the serial killer in the net. ‘But there was a hole in the net’ says Chris.

Three separate investigative strategies have highlighted the name ‘Peter Sutcliffe’ - a lorry driver with a Yorkshire accent - to the Ripper team.

He is interviewed nine times.

Why is he discounted?

While six more women are attacked - three are murdered - the inquiry is looking for a man with a Sunderland voice.

Then, in January 1981, things change.

This episode is part 2 of 3. Written, presented and produced by Robert Murphy. To watch video clips with Chris, to see evidence from the case or to learn more, go to: https://robertmurphy.substack.com/about

March 1978. Britain’s biggest manhunt. West Yorkshire Police detectives are desperate to find the man who has killed seven women. The man nicknamed ‘The Yorkshire Ripper.’

Det Con Chris Gregg is a rookie officer in the incident room when a letter arrives, claiming to be from the serial killer.

The handwriting is spidery. The language is taunting.

Chris doubts that it is from the genuine killer, but a series of catastrophic coincidences persuade the lead investigator, Asst Ch Constable George Oldfield, that it has been penned by the murderer.

Then, in a moment of pure policing drama, Chris Gregg is summonsed along with the team to hear George Oldfield reveal a new development.

This episode is part 1 of 3. Written, presented and produced by Robert Murphy. To watch video clips with Chris, to see evidence from the case or to learn more, go to: https://robertmurphy.substack.com/about