Behind the Crimes - on Netflix (twice)
Two high-end documentaries about extraordinary cases featuring Behind The Crimes host Rob Murphy - now on TV streamer
I’m on Netflix twice - as of this week. Documentary films about two of my largest inquiries have been uploaded to the streaming giant:
1. Catching a Serial Killer
It was an extraordinary confession: made by a serial killer to a free-thinking detective in the middle of the beautiful English countryside.
Pressure had been mounting on Det Supt Steve Fulcher to find a missing 22-year-old, Sian O’Callaghan. She had vanished six days earlier on a night out. Sian’s family was distraught, Steve feared for her safety and her disappearance was now the biggest news story of the week.
CCTV showed Sian getting into the taxi driven by Christopher Halliwell in the early hours of Saturday March 19th 2011 in the Old Town area of Swindon, Wiltshire.
Surveillance crews had been tailing Halliwell for days, but now it was Thursday, and with every passing hour, hope of finding Sian seemed to be fading.
Fulcher ordered Halliwell’s arrest. But the officers who detained Halliwell said he was refusing to talk.
This was the point at which Fulcher made a monumental gamble that would located Sian and effectively end his career.
Instead of following the arrest guidelines, Fulcher ordered for Halliwell to be brought into the countryside to a spot where he believed Halliwell may be keeping Sian hostage. Fulcher wanted to talk to the suspect man-to-man.
As a journalist who had worked with Steve for a number of years, I knew he was a free-thinking, confident decision-maker who was unafraid of speaking truth to power.
And I would later watch as he was first feted for obtaining from Halliwell not just the confession he had murdered Sian, but also admitted killing a another woman - Becky Godden-Edwards - years earlier.
But then I saw how his career exploded in the most savage way as a combination of defence barristers, managers within his own force and circumstances conspired against him.
Even though Halliwell confessed to two murders, a judge ruled that neither confession could be admitted before a jury in court. Fulcher had knowingly broken the rules.
Halliwell would admit Sian’s murder in 2012 and would be found guilty of Becky’s in 2016.
One of Fulcher’s biggest supporters was Becky’s mum, Karen Edwards, who has campaigned fo a change in the law around arrest guidelines.
One day I may write my own memoirs of this case as I am the only journalist who was there from the opening days as the case began and am still in touch with the key people.
But if this is enough to whet your appetite - please do look up the documentary ‘To Catch a Serial Killer’ on Netflix. I am one of the interviewees in the film.
This is a story about hunting a killer. But it is also a sobering study about risk, responsibility and rules.
There are no correct answers. And eleven years on, this case remains unique in British policing.
The story would also be dramatised in ITV’s series ‘A Confession.’
If you’d like to read more, you can get copies of Steve Fulcher and Karen Edwards’s books by clicking here.
2: The Parachute Murder Plot
How did experienced skydiver Victoria Cilliers survive a 4,000ft fall after both her main and reserve parachutes failed?
Then, when police investigated, she told detectives about the shocking gas leak in her new-build home the previous week.
From the outside, Victoria Cilliers and her husband - army sergeant Emile - seemed to lead a picture-perfect life.
Then lead detective Det Insp Paul Franklin and the officer in the case Det Con Maddy Hennah learnt more about Emile’s adulterous secret life of swinging clubs and sex workers, about his payday loans and hidden ‘other’ family.
Having Vicky dead and receiving her insurance money would help his finances and his love-life.
But with no forensics, how could they build a case?
And how did what started as an attempted murder inquiry develop into a study of coercive control?
Paul and Maddy are a charismatic pair, and this is a brilliant documentary. Some of my reporting from the inquiry and the trial features in the sequences.
You can view it here.
The doc was the 3rd most popular show on Netflix in the UK this week.
The story is also the subject of my first-ever true crime podcast series ‘No Strings Attached’ - which I made for ITV. You can listen for free.
I loved working with Maddy and Paul - and they make wonderful company in this unique, dramatic and emotionally-charged episodic podcast series.
