"He obviously overreacted and assaulted her. He has no recollection of doing what he did next. This was a frenzied night terror” — Peter Rouch QC, Swansea Crown Court, June 2020

When Sheila Stroud fled the scene with her two accomplices, she thought her problems were over. She could pay off her mortgage, keep her horses that she loved so dearly, and not have to worry about her troublesome ex-partner ever again. She thought that the blaze burning in a Cotswolds beauty spot would bring to end the continuous arguments of an acrimonious separation and allow her to bask in the light of a prosperous future. In reality, her troubles had only just begun...

Halloween is supposed to be the creepiest time of the year; the nights draw in early, and scary stories are told. When it’s a true story, and the murder is unsolved, it's even more unsettling. The killer could be someone you know, a person in your family or a kindly neighbour. On October 31, 1963, the night sky was illuminated by a full moon. Two children noticed a woman peering out of a window in her home. They didn't know it would be the last time she was seen alive…

On October 7, 1987, in Bristol city centre, a young woman was sat in her car at Canon’s Marsh car park. She had left a party at a nearby public house. Before she started the engine, she noticed a man, who she did not know, slowly walking towards the car. He pried open the door and put a gun into his intended victim’s face. The dark-haired man told the woman that providing she did what he said, she would not get hurt. He motioned that she get into the passenger seat…

In a photograph of the couple on their wedding day, widely circulated in the press, Roselane can be seen looking into the camera with a broad natural smile on her face. The groom is staring to the side, teeth together with a strained smile. Sokol Drenova was hiding something…

Gordon and Derek finally managed to get into the house. They knew something strange was going on. The lights were off, and the curtains were drawn. Gordon’s fiancé wasn't the sort of person to just disappear nor was her father Matthew. In the darkness, searching for the light switch, Gordon and Derek noticed something strange on Matthew’s favourite armchair. It was a deep red stain. When they drew the curtains, and light flooded the room, it was then they began to question whether Matthew and Alison were still alive...

Throughout the late evening of August 15, 2019, PC Andrew Harper and his colleague PC Andrew Shaw were working overtime. They answered the call of a suspected burglary. A gang of masked assailants with weapons were trying to steal a quad bike. The two uniformed officers travelled to the scene in an unmarked BMW fitted with emergency lights and a police siren. They came head to head with the suspects’ vehicle at 11:28 pm in the dim light of an unlit narrow country lane (Part 2 of 2).

On July 1, 2020, accompanied by a judge and several barristers, a jury disembarked a coach in Berkshire after travelling from the Old Bailey in London. A mist of light rain fell, as several police officers, who spoke few words, watched on. The jury were not to be disturbed as they examined the reconstruction of a crime scene. Two vehicles were positioned facing each other on a narrow lane bordered by trees and high hedgerows that exited the village of Stanford Dingley (Part 1 of 2).

He was alarmed by the long trail of blood in the aisle. It reached at least twelve feet long. In the artificial light of the carriage, it almost looked black. As the train pulled away, with no emergency stop signal or no way of contacting the driver, it was twenty minutes before it ground to a halt at the next station. A second passenger boarded the carriage. In a state of shock, the two strangers conversed, deciding what to do at the next stop. Whoever had lost such a great deal of blood was severely injured or possibly dead, but there was no sign of them on the train.

When you choose a partner in life, you take on their family too. Ideally, you get on, and you live in harmony. Some people invite their in-laws into their homes with open arms, unaware that their new family member has left behind a murderous past.

Ian Simms was in the dock at Liverpool Crown Court. He was accused of murdering Helen McCourt who vanished in February 1988. Her body was still missing. Despite the overwhelming forensic evidence, Simms insisted he was innocent (Part 2 of 2).

A woman in her early twenties goes missing on a journey home from work. A few days pass, and some of her belongings are found, discarded just under 20 miles away. Police suspect foul play and a murder charge is laid. But why was she killed and where was her body? (Part 1 of 2).

"We have seen cases where young people have been groomed online, but it is rare for it to culminate in such a dreadful and violent murder. The degree of planning and manipulation by Daynes is shocking, and when you consider the young ages of perpetrator and victim, it stands out as one of the most cruel, violent and unusual cases we have dealt with"

— Chief Crown Prosecutor Jenny Hopkins, outside Chelmsford Crown Court, January 2015

The disappearance of Madeleine McCann, a three-year-old that went missing from a Portuguese holiday resort in 2007, has been widely covered by the media. Back in 1985, another three-year-old went missing while at a holiday park. This is the case of Leoni Keating.

Paul Bint is known under many aliases. He would convince his unsuspecting victims that he was a doctor, a lawyer, an aristocrat, or even a millionaire. Through his twenties and thirties, Bint had spent a total of 10 years in and out of prisons or mental health facilities. However, this did little curb his desire to convince his victims that the fantasy world he inhabited existed (Part 2 of 2).

"People have this picture of me which is completely inaccurate, and I don't see how I am ever going to get around this problem. I don't think I would describe myself as a conman, or King Con Man or King of the Swindlers, as the newspapers call me. I'm someone who lied about myself and my status. It made me forget what the reality was, and for me, it was a way of escaping. It always has been" — Paul Bint, Southwark Crown Court, 2009 (Part 1 of 2).

It is a scene reserved only for your worst nightmares. You live alone, but there is suddenly a stranger in your bedroom. He does not have to unfasten the zipper over his mouth on the black leather mask he is wearing to say why he is there. Prominent, against the dim light and the dark leather, there is one word scrawled crudely in white capital letters across the forehead of the mask… RAPIST.

Red stains on the carpet, red stains on your knife, oh, Dr Buck Ruxton, you murdered your wife. The nursemaid saw you and threatened to tell, oh, Dr Buck Ruxton, you killed her as well…

— Lancashire nursery rhyme, parody of the song ‘Red Sails in the Sunset’, latter half of the 1930s

Raoul Moat had been on the run from the police. Using a double-barrelled shotgun, Moat fired the weapon at his ex-girlfriend, Samantha Stobbart. She suffered life-threatening injuries. In the same attack, Moat murdered her new partner, Chris Brown. Moat was obsessed and could not face the fact that his six-year relationship with Samantha had ended (Part 2 of 2).

A highly volatile former nightclub doorman is released from prison. He is in a jealous rage. The carnage that followed saw one person dead, and two left with life-threatening injuries. The attacks would spur one of the biggest manhunts the UK had ever seen culminating in a stand-off that resulted in yet another life being taken... (Part 1 of 2).