Murder Maps

In 1849, a man suddenly disappeared in Bermondsey. The discovery that he had been brutally murdered enraptured the press and the public. Even Charles Dickens was totally engrossed in the story of the sinister Marie Manning.

The first episode examines the horrifying discovery made in a trunk at the left luggage office of Brighton Train Station on a hot summers day in 1934. Two days later, a similar case was found in Kings Cross Station, London. A major police investigation began that would take an unexpected turn in the search for a murderer.

The murders of two teens along the River Thames leads to one of Britains most massive manhunts and ultimately to the capture of Alfred Whiteway.

Peter Manuel was a Scottish serial killer who killed at least eight people between 1956 - 1958 around the Greater Glasgow area in Scotland. Manuel had prison for a string of sexual attacks but on his release it didnt take long for his psychopathic behaviour to escalate. He fell under the polices radar several times but each time was let go, free to kill further. Manuels parents would always give their son an alibi. His father especially would go to great lengths to protect him from justice. When he was finally tracked down and arrested for the murder of a family, who he shot dead in their own home, Manuel sensationally defended himself in court. But it would be his mothers testimony which would prove to be crucial to the outcome.

Dr Ruxton was an Indian born physician. He lived a quiet, respectable life in Lancaster but had a violent jealous streak. He had accused his wife of infidelity for years but in September 1935 Ruxtons jealousy got the better of him. He beat, strangled and stabbed her to death then did the same to the housemaid who witnessed the killing. Ruxton dismembered the bodies to remove identification marks and dumped them across the border in Scotland. Local police were dumbfounded as to who the bodies were, the press had a field day but still no one could identify the two bodies. It was a scrap of newsprint used to wrap the body parts in that was identified as a publication only available in Lancaster. The police soon honed in on Ruxton.

It was a crime which shocked Britain. In 1878, a widow was killed in her own home - and the killer was her own servant. This was a murder which struck at the heart of Victorian society, at the sanctity of the home and the rigid divides between the classes. For the young Kate Webster did not only kill and dismember her employer - she stole her clothes, her property and her identity. And to the Victorians that was almost more monstrous than the murder itself.