May 20, 2024 • 47 mins
In this episode, former Scotland Yard detective inspector, Steve Keogh, explains what it is like being a murder detective. He explains his journey there, plus the challenges and rewards of the role.
If you enjoy these podcasts, you may wish to join the online community at https://steve-keogh.thinkific.com/pages/landing-page where you can meet and talk with fellow authors, take part in regular Q&As with Steve Keogh and make use of the online courses, all designed to help you achieve authenticity in your storytelling.
You can learn more about all of Steve's work at https://stevekeogh.com/ and find out about the two books Steve has published and his TV series, Secrets of a Murder Detective.
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Episode Transcript
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Steve Keogh (00:02):
Welcome to Murder investigation for crime Writers, the podcast where we delve
into the dark world of murder to help bringauthenticity to your stories.
I'm your host, Steve Keogh, a former ScotlandYard detective inspector.
So grab your notebook, sharpen your pencils,and prepare to embark on a journey into a
world few get to see.
This is murder investigation for crime
(00:23):
writers.
Hi and welcome to episode one of murder
investigation for crime writers.
I'm your host, Steve Keogh.
For those of you don't know me, I'm a formerpolice officer, spent 30 years in the Met
police, twelve of those investigating murder,and I retired as a detective inspector.
(00:45):
Since leaving the police, I've written acouple of books about murder investigation.
I present a tv series on true crime calledsecrets of the Murder Detective, and I've put
together the online community murderinvestigation for crime writers, all of which
you can find information on at Stevekeogh.com.
In this first episode, I want to talk aboutwhat it's like to really be a murder
(01:06):
investigator.
I'm assuming that most of you are going to be
crime writers.
You're going to be writing about murder
investigation and you're going to have acentral character.
Now, for the majority of you, you're not goingto have actually been in that person's shoes.
You're not going to have been a murderinvestigator, but you're going to have to be
writing about their inner thoughts, theirinner feelings, their challenges, what issues
(01:33):
they're going to come across.
You're going to be trying to get inside their
psyche, which I suppose if you've not beenthere, you're guessing.
Essentially, you're trying to imagine what itwould be like.
So in this episode, what I'd like to do isjust explain it from my point of view.
Now, I spent twelve years investigatingmurder, 30 years as a police officer,
(01:54):
investigated over 100 murders.
So I've got a good knowledge of what it's like
to be in your character's shoes, if you like.
Now, there are hundreds, hundreds of murder
detectives in the country, so I can't speakfor them all, but I can give you a good
understanding of what it was like for me.
(02:15):
And then if there's anything in what I'm
saying that resonates with you, anything thatyou feel might be useful for your character,
or you can develop it, you can use that anduse it as building blocks.
I'm going to break it down into differentareas.
The first part would be how I eventuallybecame a murder squad detective.
I didn't become one straight away about 18years in, before I became a murdered squad
(02:39):
detector.
So I've.
I'll talk about my journey to get there andwhat eventually drew me to investigating
murders, and then I'll talk about thechallenges and I'll also talk about the
rewarding side, the good and the bad, if youlike, just a little bit about my journey.
I spent six years in uniform before I wentdown the route of becoming a murder detective.
(03:04):
But I suppose in many ways, my journey startedas soon as I. Soon as I joined the police.
Police officers aren't all the same and theyare motivated by different aspects of
policing, which is why they end up in so manydifferent areas.
(03:24):
You've got police officers that are in uniformfor their whole career.
You've got others that specialise in dogs orboats or in a helicopter or riot police or
traffic police.
There are so many different areas within
policing and then you've got detective work.
(03:45):
And I suppose the biggest driver as to what
would make somebody choose a particular pathwithin the police is what motivates them, what
sort of off most their boat, what gets themgoing in the morning.
Now, for me, that was always about catchingcriminals, going after the bad guys.
When I joined the police, and you sit down onthe board and you're.
(04:06):
And you're explaining to the panel, why didyou join the police?
The stock answer is you want to help peopleand that is right, obviously, you join the
police.
And the major, major part of being a police
officer is you're protecting society.
That's what the police are there for, to
protect society.
But there's no doubt what motivated me
throughout my whole career was that chasingthe bad guy, catching the criminal, and that
(04:32):
started in uniform.
I was lucky to join in a day where it was a
bit more relaxed than it is now.
We had a bit more time to do things.
What I found myself doing in uniform was Iwould be out looking for a criminal.
I'd come on duty, grab some car keys, get inthe car and go out.
And to me, it was a bit like a game.
(04:54):
I was going out there, I knew there were
criminals and I was going to go out and catchthem.
And I really enjoyed that.
I really enjoyed that chase of going out
there.
And not every day you'd come back with an
arrest, but a lot of the days you would.
And I'd walk away at the end of the day
completely satisfied that I'd done my job.
If I knew that I caught a bad guy.
(05:14):
I know it sounds corny, but I caught a badguy.
I've taken someone off the road, and I'vetaken, quite possibly, saved someone from some
pain and trauma by arresting this criminal.
And then when you go down that kind of route,
when that's what motivates you, you naturallyget drawn being a detective.
(05:34):
And most detectives come from that sort ofbackground of what they become known as is
thief takers.
If you're a thief taker, you'll be known
amongst your peers as somebody who's out therelooking for criminals and is good at catching
them.
And when you're one of those, you'll end up
getting drawn towards the world of being adetective.
(05:55):
Now, the root of becoming a detective isn'tyou just put your hand up one day and say, I'd
like to be a detective, please.
There's certain routes you have to go down.
And for me, it was joining something that wasknown as the crime Squad and it essentially
was a bit like a drugs unit.
So we were going after drug dealers.
And then from there you go towards being atrainee detective, if you like, investigating
(06:16):
things like robbery and burglary and that kindof thing, then you qualify, you have to take
exams and sit aboard and become a detective.
And once I became a detective, it was always,
for me, it was always about that chase ofcatching the criminal.
And by being a detective, it allowed you to goafter the more serious criminal.
When you're in uniform, yes, you might arresta burglar or a robber, but more often than
(06:40):
not, it'll be somebody that has some stolenproperty on them or some drugs or offensive
weapon, that kind of thing.
But when you're investigating burglary, you'll
be investigating robbery, you're investigatingserious assaults, sexual offences.
You can start to up the criminal that you'regoing after.
And that's the journey that I found myself on.
(07:00):
And I was always chasing that more serious
criminal, which is why in 2002, I ended upjoining the anti terrorist branch and was
chasing terrorists.
But then around 2008.
No, 2009, I applied to join the murder teams.
And for me, it was a natural progression.
I think I'd investigated virtually every crimeyou could imagine, other than murder.
(07:25):
So I went there as detective sergeant, and asI say, it was a natural progression.
I haven't investigated this yet.
You can't get much more serious than murder.
Let's go and try it.
And when I got there, it was a bit of a
transition because I'd never investigatedmurder before.
And as a detective sergeant, there's a lot ofpressure on you, because when you perform the
(07:49):
role, it's known as the case officer, as adetective sergeant, essentially, it's your
investigation, because, yes, there areofficers senior to you that will make
decisions, strategic decisions, but as thecase officer, it would be you that will take
the job to court, and it will be you thatgathers the evidence and ensures that the CPS
have the evidence they need to charge.
(08:10):
The court has the evidence they need to have
a. A trial.
The jury have enough evidence that they can
form a decision.
So there's a lot of pressure on you.
So it was a bit of a steep learning curve, butI enjoyed it.
It was good.
It was good.
But where everything changed for me was thefirst trial I was at.
(08:32):
Now, getting a murder case, court isn't easy,so the first barrier you have to get over is
the Crown prosecution service.
You have to present them evidence that they're
satisfied that there's the likelihood of aconviction.
So that's the first hurdle, and that's notalways easy.
Then the next hurdle is at court getting theevidence, so that by the time the prosecution
(08:55):
case is put before the court, it gets throughwhat's known as half time.
It's not going to be thrown out through lackof evidence.
And then the final hurdle, the hardest one toget over, is to persuade a jury so they can be
sure.
And that's the saying that they can be sure.
Used to be beyond reasonable doubt.
Now it's that they can be sure of a
(09:17):
defendant's guilt.
And that's a really tough barrier to get over,
because it's not easy judging someone for amurder and convicting them, knowing that
they're going to go to prison for a long time.
You have to present a case that is strong,
that the jury have no doubts about, that it'snot going to fall down in front of them.
They're going to go, well, if I've got anydoubts, I can't convict it, because the
(09:39):
defence will play on that.
They will come at the angle of, if you've got
any doubts, members of the jury, you have tofind this defendant not guilty.
So you have to get over that barrier, whichisn't easy.
And along the way, the hardest part of anymurder investigation is having to be on that
(09:59):
journey with the victim's family, with thebereaved relatives.
So you're there from the very beginning.
You're there when they've just discovered that
their loved one has died by murder, and you goon that journey with them through, first the
coronial system, going to the coroner's court,identifying the body, having the body released
(10:21):
for a funeral.
All that journey that you're on there with
them, at the same time as they're goingthrough this journey, they're trying to wrap
their head around, trying to understand whysomeone that they love has been taken in this
way.
Then the challenges of getting the evidence,
(10:41):
getting on the road to justice for their lovedone.
So you're on that journey with them all theway through, and then you get to court.
And when you're at court, court trials can bedifficult because defended by the best
barristers, and they will do everything theycan to try and get their client off.
(11:02):
It's their job to test the evidence of theprosecution.
Some take it further than others, but that'stheir job, to test the evidence of the
prosecution.
There's lots that can go on through a trial.
Ups and downs, twists and turns.
1 minute you're thinking, yeah, we're doing
really well here.
And another, your legs can be taken under you
(11:23):
by a witness not turning up or sayingsomething different in the box, and they said
in a witness statement, that kind of thing.
So the journey you're on in the trial can be
difficult.
And then you get to the point where you've
been through the evidence, you've been throughthe speeches of the barristers, the judge has
done their summing up, and then the jury willgo out to deliberate on their verdict.
(11:46):
And they can be out for hours, they can be outfor days.
The trials that we had were at the old Bailey.
So during the time the jury are out, you're
sat around in the canteen waiting.
And every time a tannoy goes off to get
everybody for your court back in, you'rethinking, is this the verdict?
More often than not, it's not.
It'll be a note passed over by a jury member
(12:09):
asking a question about the evidence thatthey're not sure about.
But then that Tanoi comes and you walk intothe court and you notice a completely
different atmosphere within the court becausethe court staff know that actually we got a
verdict.
And they will say, yes, we got a verdict.
And straight away the butterflies in yourstomach start.
(12:30):
Your heart starts racing.
And I'm not the one on.
I'm not the one on trial, I'm a police officerthere, I'm not part of the bereave family, I'm
not the defendant.
But for me, the nerves start to kick in, your
stomach starts to churn.
You sit down and the jury shuffle in and
(12:50):
you're looking over to the jury to see ifthere's any indication as to what their
verdict might be.
Are they looking at the defendant?
Are they not looking at the defendant?Are they looking at me?
Are they looking at the family?Trying to gauge if you can guess what their
verdict may be?And they'll sit down and the court usher or
the clerk of the court, one of the two, willgo to the jury foreperson and say, members of
(13:15):
the jury, have you come to a verdict on whichyou all agree?
And the person will say, yes.
And your heart is now racing, your stomach is
properly churning.
You're just hanging on their next words, and
the next words are guilty.
And the feeling I had at that point for that
(13:40):
verdict on my first murder trial, I knew atthat point I could do nothing else in the
police.
There was nothing that was going to replicate
that feeling.
It was immense satisfaction professionally,
because you knew the challenges you'd beenthrough to get to that point.
(14:02):
It was feelings personally, becauseinvestigating murder isn't easy and it impacts
your life.
But most of all, the satisfaction and the
feeling that you can give, almost like a giftto the family in terms of, look, nothing we
(14:23):
can do that's going to bring your loved oneback.
Then next best thing we can do is get justicefor them and justice for you.
And more often than not, at that point, whenyou're outside, you've just walked outside,
you've got the verdict, everybody's on a high.
The family members will give you a hug and
(14:44):
they will say thank you.
And more often than not, it will be something
along the lines of, I feel that we can nowmove on.
Not move on as in forget the person, but moveon in that grieving process, because they're
almost in a limbo throughout the whole of thecriminal justice procedures, the waiting for
the trial, the trial itself and all that.
(15:06):
They've been in a limbo and they can start to
move on with their grieving, as everybody elsedoes when they've lost a loved one.
You can generally start to move on in yourgrieving process, but when you're in that
limbo, it's very difficult.
And it's that feeling that I honestly
couldn't.
I couldn't.
I couldn't think of doing anything else in thepolice.
(15:28):
And that's why I spent the rest of my careerinvestigating murder.
So that was my journey, becoming a murderdetective.
And that was what made me remain.
I want to talk about the challenges and the
rewards now.
I probably touched on both through what I've
(15:49):
just said there, but I'll expand on it a bitmore.
One of the first things, whenever you'retalking to anybody about how you investigate
murders.
A lot of people focus in on the sites, the
things you see, the crime scenes, the deadbodies.
I can only talk about myself and the people Iwork with, and I get a feeling most of them
(16:12):
were exactly the same as me.
The sights you see aren't the worst thing
about investigating a murder for a simplereason that you're not thrust into this world.
You don't walk out of the gates of policetraining college straight into a murder team.
There's a journey for you to get there, andit's a journey most of us have been on.
(16:37):
I joined the police two weeks after my 20thbirthday, and I'd never seen a dead body.
I'd never seen anything really traumatic.
So when I first came out, I was on what's
known as street duties.
So it'd be ten weeks of being puppy walked,
where you would have an experienced officerwith you and you would go to certain calls to
(16:58):
build up your knowledge, so that when you dogo onto your team, you can do so being half
effective.
And one of the things they do with you when
you're on street, you, is they send you toevery single sudden death.
So if somebody dies suddenly, the police haveto attend to make sure that there's nothing
suspicious.
(17:19):
And vast majority of these deaths that you
attend, there's nothing suspicious in them atall.
But what this does is it does starts to buildup that resilience.
So you're seeing dead bodies and you decide todeal with the families as well.
When I was at school, when did I ever have todeal with somebody who just lost a relative?
But as a 20 year old, very quickly, I wasstarting to regularly deal with that.
(17:42):
And you find your feet quite quickly and youstart to learn how to talk to people.
The sympathy you need to be able to show atthe same time as trying to get information
from them.
So you need to understand how they died and.
And to be able to write your report book andsay, well, actually, there's nothing
suspicious.
I didn't need to get the CID involved because
(18:04):
everything I saw, there's nothing in therethat worried me.
What you do later on in a murder investigator,where you're going into a family and trying to
build up a picture of a victim's life, gettinginformation from them at a point where the
trauma is most raw, I started to learn thatvery early on when I was in uniform, when I
was going to somebody's house and somebody haddied suddenly, trying to get information from
(18:28):
them to build up a picture of their life interms of illnesses and any reason why they may
have died suddenly.
Where I ended up investigating murders was a
journey over those 18 years before I got tothe murder team.
And it started off the moment I left policetraining college.
But there's one proviso to this.
(18:48):
So I. I saw.
In my career, I've seen.
I couldn't even put a figure.
I couldn't put a figure on it.
I couldn't begin to imagine how many dead
bodies I'd seen.
And the vast majority never bothered me.
It's something you got used to, thatresilience, is there?
But there's one type of murder that I foundmost difficult, and that was the murder of
(19:09):
children.
And I never got used to that.
I never got used to seeing the sight of a deadchild, be it through murder or otherwise.
And in a weird way, it was something thatcomforted me.
In 2005, I was on the anti terrorist branch.
Colleague and I were the first on scene at
(19:30):
Edgware Road, and we didn't leave for twoweeks.
And our job was to treat that bomb scene as acrime scene, which involved removal of the
dead victims and then a fingertip search ofthe whole of the track where the bomb had
taken place, and the train carriage itself,looking for evidence, looking for parts of the
(19:53):
bomb, etcetera.
Now, obviously, when you're dealing with an
explosion on a packed train with a suicidebomber, a lot of what you're going to be
picking up is going to be bits of body.
It was a hard two weeks, and at the end of it,
my family and friends knew what I was doingand a lot of questions around.
(20:14):
Are you okay?What worried me the most was how okay I was.
I didn't seem to be impacted by what I wasdoing.
And that started to worry me.
Well, have I lost my human side?
Is there some part of me that's gone?But when I reflected on it, it was.
(20:35):
Well, actually, no, I had a job to do.
My job was to get justice for those victims,
those victims of the bombings.
I was part of that process of getting justice
for them.
And if I couldn't do my job properly because I
was caught up in my own emotions, my own fearsand feelings, then I wouldn't be able to do my
(20:55):
job properly.
So that was why I was able to do that job
without succumbing to my own feelings andemotions.
And the way you deal with that is youcompartmentalise, you lock things away, you
don't think about them.
But the fact later on, when I was
investigating murder, that the childrenaffected me.
(21:16):
That is what I found comforting in terms of ifI can still be affected by things, then I've
still got that human element.
That's the human side to me.
I can still feel, I've got empathy.
So that's what I found comforting.
That even though I'm dealing with sights andtrauma that most people in their lives would
(21:39):
never have to deal with, and I'm dealing withit in a way that isn't affecting me.
The fact that those children, when I close myeyes, even today I close my eyes, I can still
see the dead children that I saw.
I find that comforting because it means that
I've still got that human side.
So I think that's probably quite typical for
(21:59):
anybody that I work with investigating murder.
The way you deal with things is you lock them
away, you compartmentalise, you don't dealwith it, you just ignore it.
And whether that's healthy or not, I don'tknow.
But when you're writing about your leadcharacter or your characters, and they are
(22:25):
having to deal with the sites, the trauma,etcetera, almost certainly, if they're typical
of a murder squad detective, that's whatthey're going to be doing.
They're going to be locking it away, they'regoing to be ignoring it, they're not going to
be focusing in on the sites that they'reseeing because they've got a job to get on
(22:45):
with.
They're professionally getting on with their
job.
Can that manifest in ways that are unhealthy
for that individual?I think, yes, I've seen it.
I've seen colleagues that have suffered withtheir mental well being.
Whether or not that was a direct result of thethings they had to deal with is impossible to
(23:09):
say, because mental health, as we know,anybody can suffer with it, and a lot of
people do.
So whether or not it's because they're
investigating murder or they would havesuffered with that anyway, is impossible to
know.
Again, from my own perspective, how this
manifests for me was at night.
(23:32):
As a detective, I always used to do some of my
best detective work in bed.
That may sound weird, but at night was when my
mind was at its most clear.
When with that clarity of thought, I could
really think about the evidence that we have,think about the lines of inquiry that we could
(23:54):
possibly follow.
What were we missing?
What was I missing?That kind of thought process that could really
focus my mind on an investigation.
And very often I'd come in the next morning
with ideas about where we could go, what wecould do.
But thinking about murder all the time as youdo, because when you're investigating the
(24:16):
murder, you become completely invested in it.
It takes over your life.
You're not working nine to five, going homeand then just haven't spending time with the
family.
You're working long hours and when you get
home, you're still thinking about the murder,you're still.
Your mind is in it.
You live and breathe a murder investigation,
certainly at the beginning, an investigation,and that's probably not the best thing to do
(24:38):
just before you're about to go to sleep.
So what I found is that I would dream violent
dreams.
And in these dreams it would be me that would
be committing the violence, stabbing people,shooting them, strangling them.
I mean, I'd wake up in the morning and my papaand I, it was a. It was almost a running joke.
Like she'd say to me, what did you do lastnight?
(25:01):
I may have shot a person or two at the time.
It didn't bother me.
But it was only later on when I was writingone of my books and I was reflecting on how
murder investigation may have impacted uponme, it suddenly dawned on me that I don't have
these dreams anymore.
And it was because I'd stopped investigating
murder.
(25:21):
And once I stopped investigating murder, the
dreams stopped.
So as much as you can lock these things away,
you can compartmentalise, you can't fault yourbrain, can you?
You can't forget what you see, you can'tforget what you do.
And for me, that's how it would manifest in mydreams.
(25:42):
For other people, I'm sure it was in differentways.
So, yes, you can professionally get on anddeal with things.
Yes, you can ignore or lock awaycompartmentalise what you do, but it's always
there.
It's lurking in your brain somewhere and one
day it may come out and affect you.
(26:05):
So just on that subject, in terms of
counselling, do murder squad detectives, arethey offered counselling?
Well, yes, occasionally, but not routinely.
In my experience, it would be when there was a
particular type of murder.
One of the last murders I investigated was the
(26:26):
murder of a police officer.
And we were offered counselling in that
situation for the other ten murders we'dinvestigated that year, wasn't offered it at
all.
So it's there.
If people look like they're suffering withtheir mental health, then they'll probably be
referred to for counselling services by theirsupervisors.
(26:46):
But it's not something that's done routinely.
The type of trauma I don't think gets
mentioned an awful lot, certainly not comparedto when people are asking about what I may
have seen is the trauma that is carried by thebereaved relatives.
And for me, that was always the hardest partof murder investigation.
(27:10):
Just put yourself in a position where someoneyou know has lost a relative and you're there
just at that point where they find out, youmay have been through this, you may have seen
that you may have been there yourself on thejourney of trauma.
That's probably the hardest point of it, whereyou're just trying to get your head around the
(27:30):
fact that it's just happened.
Dealing with a family who have lost a relative
through murder adds even more complicationsand layers.
And the biggest question beyond doubt thatpeople will ask is why?
Why has my loved one died?Why has somebody chosen to end their life?
(27:52):
It's a really difficult question to answer.
More often than not at the beginning of a
murder inquiry, when police officers arespeaking to a family at this very early stage,
what they're there to do mostly is to getinformation from that family.
(28:13):
The officers in this situation are going to betrained family liaison officers.
Also with them is likely to be one of thesenior officers, DCI or DI.
And they are there primarily to getinformation from the family.
That's their job.
(28:33):
They're investigators, and they're trying to
get information from the family that wouldhelp the investigation.
There's a saying that you're going to hear mesay plenty of times throughout this series,
and that is to learn how a person died, youhave to learn how they lived.
And that's because in most murders, there'ssomething or someone within a person's life
(28:56):
that was the reason why they died, the reasonwhy they were murdered.
And the family are going to be the best peopleoften to get that information from, to build
up that picture, to get an understanding of aperson's life, to try and ascertain if there's
someone or something within their life thatwould lend to the motive of why they were
(29:22):
murdered.
But you're in that situation where that trauma
is most raw, would have just found out theirloved one had died, and not only has their
loved one died, but their loved ones beenmurdered.
And I always found that the most difficultpart of any investigation is those initial
(29:42):
stages where those emotions, those feelings ofgrief are most raw.
And you're going in there and, you know,you've got a job to do, you know, you've got
to get information from these people.
You need to balance that against their needs,
against their trauma, against their feelings.
(30:03):
You can't just go in there and demand the
information.
You've got to balance it.
You've got to balance what they need, theinformation that they'll want, the questions
they have to ask of you with the questionsthat you have to ask of them.
And that's really tricky.
Now, family liaison officers, we'll cover this
on another topic as well.
(30:23):
Family liaison officers are trained, but their
training only lasts a week in a classroom.
You really learn how to be a family liaison
officer, how to deal with families in thissituation by actually doing the job, by
actually having that experience of dealingwith these families.
(30:44):
But it's really hard.
It's undoubtedly the hardest part, I think, of
being a murder investigator.
So that, I think would be one of the
challenges that your lead characters will haveto deal with.
And some will be better at it than others.
Some will hate it, some will hate being in
(31:05):
that situation of having to deal with thefamilies.
Others will embrace it and see it as part oftheir journey that they're on with the family.
And this is the beginning of that journey.
And this is where they can have possibly one
of the biggest impacts on the family by thisvery early stage, making it clear to them
what's going to happen and start to build thatrelationship, start to build that trust that
(31:31):
they will carry on throughout theinvestigation.
But there's no doubt it's not easy foranybody.
So when anybody asks me about the hardest partof being a murder investigator, this is what
I'll come back to, the dealing with thefamilies and dealing with their trauma.
Investigating murders can also have an impacton you personally.
(31:56):
It's not a nine to five job.
You're not just going to rock up in the
morning.
Look at your watch.
You've done your 8 hours.
You're going to go home.
Especially at those early stages of aninvestigation where a murder may have just
happened.
You're probably going to be starting work at
07:00 in the morning, maybe 08:00 in themorning.
And you're probably not going to be finishinguntil at least 10:00 at night, midnight early
(32:22):
hours.
And then you're coming back in again the next
morning.
And you'll be doing this for days, potentially
weeks.
Police officers are human beings with a life.
They have family, they have children, theyhave partners, they're friends.
So you can imagine if you're working from07:00 in the morning till 02:00 in the
(32:44):
morning, grabbing three or 4 hours sleep andthen coming back into work again, and you're
doing that for days on end, doesn't leave alot of room for those other people in your
life.
And that isn't easy, especially if you've got
children.
You're trying to explain to your children why
you haven't seen them for days, why mummy'snot there, why daddy's not there and why
(33:08):
they're not there again, why are you having tomiss birthday parties, parents evenings,
nativity plays, social events that you go towith your friends?
I mean, in my career as a police officer, Ican never really commit to anything I could
say to friends and family, yeah, I'm going tobe there at this meal, or I'm going to go to
(33:28):
this social event.
But you know in the back of your mind that
actually there's a good chance you're going tohave to cancel.
And they know that you might have to cancel aswell, because they get used to that.
Everything I'm saying there isn't complaining.
It's just a matter of fact.
That's what comes with the territory.
If you're investigating murders, your friends,
(33:50):
family, social life, etcetera, are going tosuffer.
You go into it with your eyes open and you dothat.
But that's not to say that it still isn'tdifficult and it still doesn't impact on your
home life.
Now, there's a saying in the police that
you're not a proper detective until you've gotat least one divorce behind you.
(34:12):
And that is a reflection of what I've justbeen talking about in that investigating
serious crime has a huge impact on your life,because you don't have the time that other
people have.
You can't commit to things in the way other
people can.
Those long hours, those days on end of not
(34:33):
seeing people.
So, again, for your characters, this is going
to be a challenge for them.
I know it's a bit of a cliche about this
divorced detective thing, but it's true.
I was divorced myself as a detective, and a
lot of the people I worked with were the same.
So for me, it's.
Those three challenges are the most obviouswhen it comes to the writing of a murder
(34:57):
detective.
It's the dealing with the dead bodies, for me,
in particular, the children.
It's being on that journey with a family and
being around their trauma and trying to helpthem through their trauma and the impact on
you as an individual in your personal life,those long hours, etcetera.
(35:18):
So those are three challenges.
Why do they choose to put themselves in a
position where they're having to deal withthis trauma, where they're having to have that
negative impact on their life?Well, that's goes back to what I said at the
beginning in terms of the rewards you get.
(35:40):
And for me, there is no better reward than
that conviction at court, especially whenyou've been on that journey with a family and
you've seen the trauma these individuals havecaused on innocent people.
Having been there at those initial stageswhere they're just trying to get their head
(36:01):
around the fact that their son, theirdaughter, their brother, sister, parent has
just had their life ended.
Being there and seeing that trauma, seeing
them break down, seeing the tears and thenbeing on that journey with them, the challenge
of getting someone to court is something theysharing as well.
(36:24):
They want justice for their loved ones.
It can take months, even years to get that
justice.
And you having to keep, keep the spirits up,
if you like, keep them going.
We're trying.
We're doing everything we can.
We're not giving up.
You don't give up.
We're not giving up.
We're going to keep trying.
We're going to keep trying.
What you can never do is promise them.
(36:45):
You can't promise you're going to get justice.
I sometimes see this actually in America.
I've seen american law enforcement go on the
news and say, we're going to catch them, we'regoing to get this killer.
You can't do that.
You can't promise something that's.
That isn't in your gift to give.
You can't guarantee you're going to catch a
killer.
Most murders are solved.
(37:07):
This fluctuates and it's lower than it used tobe.
But when I investigated murder, we solvedaround 90%.
It's about nine in ten.
You knew you were going to get a conviction at
the end of it, but you can never take that forgranted.
And you certainly couldn't promise a familymember.
Although I did find myself doing that once Iwas in that situation I just described of
(37:32):
being there with the family when they've justfound out that in this situation, it was their
son, their son had been murdered.
It was a really emotional moment.
They were in absolute agony, as you canimagine.
They just found out their son had beenmurdered.
And I got caught up in that emotion and Ifound myself saying, we'll get them.
(38:00):
Even at those initial stages, with theevidence we had, I was confident we were going
to catch them.
I should never, ever have used those words.
And as soon as they left my mouth, I thought,what have you done?
You can't promise that.
And thankfully, we did catch them and they did
go to court and get convicted, etcetera.
But it was the one and only time I did it.
(38:21):
And I regretted it afterwards, because if wehadn't, for me, I would have broken a promise.
And that's not the relationship and the trustbetween a police officer and a victim's
family.
You should not be making promises you can't
keep.
So I never did it again.
I never made that promise again.
And I would never wish to see any police
(38:44):
officers promise a family that they will catcha killer.
Because you can't promise something that youcan't guarantee.
But when you do get that conviction for them,those long hours, those missed times with your
family, those broken social events, those bagsunder your eyes because you're getting
(39:11):
virtually no sleep, it's all worth it.
That moment in court, that moment when the
jury come back with the guilty verdict,everything you've been through, everything
you've been through with the family, it justmakes it worth it.
And for me, as I said at the beginning of thisepisode, that was why I knew I couldn't leave
(39:32):
a murder team.
And that's what kept me going on it.
That's what made all the sacrifices I madeworthwhile.
Other rewards for me personally, everythingthat I did as a detective all came back to
that time when I was in uniform.
(39:53):
And I described it as a game.
No, it's not a game.
It's far more serious than that.
But for me, I'm quite.
I'm quite a competitive person.
I don't like losing.
Every murder was a challenge.
(40:14):
It was a challenge between me and the killers.
So for me, one of the most rewarding things
was when you arrested them, when you went totheir house, when you looked him in the eye
and you told them that you were arrestingthem.
(40:37):
I'd always make a point of looking them in theeye just to see the reaction.
Is there anything I can glean from it?I know it's a bit of a cliche that the eyes
are a window into a person's soul, but Ilearned in those days in uniform, on the
street, when I was stopping people, drivingcars, stopping people in the street, looking
(41:00):
for those criminals, trying to catch them,more often than not, by looking them in the
eye, would be the point where you knew whereyou got them or not.
Were they lying to you?Do they look worried?
Is there something in the eye that's givingthem away?
Their words may be saying one thing, but theireyes are saying something else.
(41:22):
So looking a killer in the eye when you'rearresting them was one of the most satisfying
things for me, one of the most importantpoints of an investigation for me.
Do we have the right person?Sometimes you're not so sure.
By looking them in the eye and seeing theirreaction.
(41:44):
Just put yourself in a position.
If you were being arrested for murder and you
hadn't done it, how would you react comparedto if you had done it and you're trying to
make it look like you hadn't?I mean, there's a difference there and quite
often you could see it in somebody's eyes.
How am I going to react?
The fear, the fear of being caught, the fearof what comes next.
(42:08):
The eyes give it away.
And as a detective sergeant on the murder
team, certainly not as a detective inspector.
Detective inspectors, chief inspectors, they
don't get involved in these arrests.
But as a detective sergeant, I always made a
point of being involved in the arrest.
Quite often it would be me carrying out that
arrest so that I could get to that point whereI'm looking a killer in the eye, saying those
(42:33):
words, I'm arresting you for this murder.
Giving them a bit of the evidence as to why,
why you suspect they're guilty of this murder,cautioning them, looking them in the eye.
Also for me, and I think a lot of people thatwork on murder investigation, is that real
(42:55):
team camaraderie.
You work in a bit of a silo as a murder
investigator.
You're working on a team of people that you're
with day in, day out, quite often.
More often than not, you're spending more time
with them than you are with your loved ones.
(43:16):
All going through those same challenges, all
going through the same witnessing of thattrauma, witnessing of sights that most people
wouldn't want to see.
And you do build up a bond with people.
Quite often it would result in you going downa pub with them afterwards and celebrating a
charge, celebrating a conviction, or justgoing out for a drink.
(43:38):
In general, having left the police, sometimesI get asked the question, do you miss it?
The honest answer is no. And I think I'veprobably explained the reason why in this
episode, and that is because of how much youhave to give in order to do the job properly,
(44:01):
how much of yourself, your personal life yougive over in order for you to be able to
ultimately get that justice for families.
But it's only so long.
I think you can do that.
I did it for twelve years and by the end of
those twelve years, I think I'd giveneverything and I couldn't have done any more.
(44:24):
And I always said to myself, if I couldn'tgive 100% in a murder investigation, then it
was time to move on, because you owe that tothe victim, you owe that to their families.
And by the end of my career, I think, yeah,I've done my bit and retirement has probably
come along at the right time.
But the one thing I do miss is that
(44:45):
camaraderie in the team, that team spirit youhave.
And to this day, I still stay in touch, and Iprobably will forever stay in touch with
people from my murder team because of thosebonds you build up in those most traumatic of
times.
So there you go.
They are my experiences of what it was like tobe a murder detective.
(45:12):
As I said at the beginning, the way I feelabout it is undoubtedly going to be different
to others.
But I think a lot of what I say will be common
amongst every murder investigator in thecountry.
It's common in those that I work with.
It's quite a unique job, it's quite a
(45:36):
challenging job.
But in terms of policing, I don't think
there's a more rewarding one.
So I hope that in amongst everything I've
said, there are bits in there that you coulduse within your writing to help develop your
(45:56):
lead characters, to bring them to life a bit,to give them some realistic challenges, some
realistic rewards, and to help you maybe get abetter understanding of what motivates them.
So I've been Steve Keogh.
This is murder investigation for crime writers
(46:17):
and I'll see you on the next episode.
Thank you for joining me on another episode of
Murder Investigation for crime Writers.
I'm your host, Steve Keogh, and it's been a
pleasure delving into the world of murderinvestigation with you.
Authenticity is key for crime writers and Ihope this podcast has provided you with
valuable insights and inspiration for yourstorytelling journey.
(46:38):
If you found value in what you've heard today,I encourage you to share this podcast with
your fellow authors.
Together we can elevate the standards of crime
fiction and bring realism to the forefront.
If you have a moment, I'd also appreciate if
you could leave a review you on your favouritepodcast platform.
Your feedback helps others discover thepodcast and join our community of passionate
crime writers.
(46:59):
Thank you for listening.
Until next time, keep writing, keepinvestigating, and keep bringing your stories
to life.
I've been Steve Keough.
Welcome to Murder investigation for crime Writers, the podcast where we delve
into the dark world of murder to help bringauthenticity to your stories.
I'm your host, Steve Keogh, a former ScotlandYard detective inspector.
So grab your notebook, sharpen your pencils,and prepare to embark on a journey into a
world few get to see.
This is murder investigation for crime
(00:23):
writers.
Hi and welcome to episode one of murder
investigation for crime writers.
I'm your host, Steve Keogh.
For those of you don't know me, I'm a formerpolice officer, spent 30 years in the Met
police, twelve of those investigating murder,and I retired as a detective inspector.
(00:45):
Since leaving the police, I've written acouple of books about murder investigation.
I present a tv series on true crime calledsecrets of the Murder Detective, and I've put
together the online community murderinvestigation for crime writers, all of which
you can find information on at Stevekeogh.com.
In this first episode, I want to talk aboutwhat it's like to really be a murder
(01:06):
investigator.
I'm assuming that most of you are going to be
crime writers.
You're going to be writing about murder
investigation and you're going to have acentral character.
Now, for the majority of you, you're not goingto have actually been in that person's shoes.
You're not going to have been a murderinvestigator, but you're going to have to be
writing about their inner thoughts, theirinner feelings, their challenges, what issues
(01:33):
they're going to come across.
You're going to be trying to get inside their
psyche, which I suppose if you've not beenthere, you're guessing.
Essentially, you're trying to imagine what itwould be like.
So in this episode, what I'd like to do isjust explain it from my point of view.
Now, I spent twelve years investigatingmurder, 30 years as a police officer,
(01:54):
investigated over 100 murders.
So I've got a good knowledge of what it's like
to be in your character's shoes, if you like.
Now, there are hundreds, hundreds of murder
detectives in the country, so I can't speakfor them all, but I can give you a good
understanding of what it was like for me.
(02:15):
And then if there's anything in what I'm
saying that resonates with you, anything thatyou feel might be useful for your character,
or you can develop it, you can use that anduse it as building blocks.
I'm going to break it down into differentareas.
The first part would be how I eventuallybecame a murder squad detective.
I didn't become one straight away about 18years in, before I became a murdered squad
(02:39):
detector.
So I've.
I'll talk about my journey to get there andwhat eventually drew me to investigating
murders, and then I'll talk about thechallenges and I'll also talk about the
rewarding side, the good and the bad, if youlike, just a little bit about my journey.
I spent six years in uniform before I wentdown the route of becoming a murder detective.
(03:04):
But I suppose in many ways, my journey startedas soon as I. Soon as I joined the police.
Police officers aren't all the same and theyare motivated by different aspects of
policing, which is why they end up in so manydifferent areas.
(03:24):
You've got police officers that are in uniformfor their whole career.
You've got others that specialise in dogs orboats or in a helicopter or riot police or
traffic police.
There are so many different areas within
policing and then you've got detective work.
(03:45):
And I suppose the biggest driver as to what
would make somebody choose a particular pathwithin the police is what motivates them, what
sort of off most their boat, what gets themgoing in the morning.
Now, for me, that was always about catchingcriminals, going after the bad guys.
When I joined the police, and you sit down onthe board and you're.
(04:06):
And you're explaining to the panel, why didyou join the police?
The stock answer is you want to help peopleand that is right, obviously, you join the
police.
And the major, major part of being a police
officer is you're protecting society.
That's what the police are there for, to
protect society.
But there's no doubt what motivated me
throughout my whole career was that chasingthe bad guy, catching the criminal, and that
(04:32):
started in uniform.
I was lucky to join in a day where it was a
bit more relaxed than it is now.
We had a bit more time to do things.
What I found myself doing in uniform was Iwould be out looking for a criminal.
I'd come on duty, grab some car keys, get inthe car and go out.
And to me, it was a bit like a game.
(04:54):
I was going out there, I knew there were
criminals and I was going to go out and catchthem.
And I really enjoyed that.
I really enjoyed that chase of going out
there.
And not every day you'd come back with an
arrest, but a lot of the days you would.
And I'd walk away at the end of the day
completely satisfied that I'd done my job.
If I knew that I caught a bad guy.
(05:14):
I know it sounds corny, but I caught a badguy.
I've taken someone off the road, and I'vetaken, quite possibly, saved someone from some
pain and trauma by arresting this criminal.
And then when you go down that kind of route,
when that's what motivates you, you naturallyget drawn being a detective.
(05:34):
And most detectives come from that sort ofbackground of what they become known as is
thief takers.
If you're a thief taker, you'll be known
amongst your peers as somebody who's out therelooking for criminals and is good at catching
them.
And when you're one of those, you'll end up
getting drawn towards the world of being adetective.
(05:55):
Now, the root of becoming a detective isn'tyou just put your hand up one day and say, I'd
like to be a detective, please.
There's certain routes you have to go down.
And for me, it was joining something that wasknown as the crime Squad and it essentially
was a bit like a drugs unit.
So we were going after drug dealers.
And then from there you go towards being atrainee detective, if you like, investigating
(06:16):
things like robbery and burglary and that kindof thing, then you qualify, you have to take
exams and sit aboard and become a detective.
And once I became a detective, it was always,
for me, it was always about that chase ofcatching the criminal.
And by being a detective, it allowed you to goafter the more serious criminal.
When you're in uniform, yes, you might arresta burglar or a robber, but more often than
(06:40):
not, it'll be somebody that has some stolenproperty on them or some drugs or offensive
weapon, that kind of thing.
But when you're investigating burglary, you'll
be investigating robbery, you're investigatingserious assaults, sexual offences.
You can start to up the criminal that you'regoing after.
And that's the journey that I found myself on.
(07:00):
And I was always chasing that more serious
criminal, which is why in 2002, I ended upjoining the anti terrorist branch and was
chasing terrorists.
But then around 2008.
No, 2009, I applied to join the murder teams.
And for me, it was a natural progression.
I think I'd investigated virtually every crimeyou could imagine, other than murder.
(07:25):
So I went there as detective sergeant, and asI say, it was a natural progression.
I haven't investigated this yet.
You can't get much more serious than murder.
Let's go and try it.
And when I got there, it was a bit of a
transition because I'd never investigatedmurder before.
And as a detective sergeant, there's a lot ofpressure on you, because when you perform the
(07:49):
role, it's known as the case officer, as adetective sergeant, essentially, it's your
investigation, because, yes, there areofficers senior to you that will make
decisions, strategic decisions, but as thecase officer, it would be you that will take
the job to court, and it will be you thatgathers the evidence and ensures that the CPS
have the evidence they need to charge.
(08:10):
The court has the evidence they need to have
a. A trial.
The jury have enough evidence that they can
form a decision.
So there's a lot of pressure on you.
So it was a bit of a steep learning curve, butI enjoyed it.
It was good.
It was good.
But where everything changed for me was thefirst trial I was at.
(08:32):
Now, getting a murder case, court isn't easy,so the first barrier you have to get over is
the Crown prosecution service.
You have to present them evidence that they're
satisfied that there's the likelihood of aconviction.
So that's the first hurdle, and that's notalways easy.
Then the next hurdle is at court getting theevidence, so that by the time the prosecution
(08:55):
case is put before the court, it gets throughwhat's known as half time.
It's not going to be thrown out through lackof evidence.
And then the final hurdle, the hardest one toget over, is to persuade a jury so they can be
sure.
And that's the saying that they can be sure.
Used to be beyond reasonable doubt.
Now it's that they can be sure of a
(09:17):
defendant's guilt.
And that's a really tough barrier to get over,
because it's not easy judging someone for amurder and convicting them, knowing that
they're going to go to prison for a long time.
You have to present a case that is strong,
that the jury have no doubts about, that it'snot going to fall down in front of them.
They're going to go, well, if I've got anydoubts, I can't convict it, because the
(09:39):
defence will play on that.
They will come at the angle of, if you've got
any doubts, members of the jury, you have tofind this defendant not guilty.
So you have to get over that barrier, whichisn't easy.
And along the way, the hardest part of anymurder investigation is having to be on that
(09:59):
journey with the victim's family, with thebereaved relatives.
So you're there from the very beginning.
You're there when they've just discovered that
their loved one has died by murder, and you goon that journey with them through, first the
coronial system, going to the coroner's court,identifying the body, having the body released
(10:21):
for a funeral.
All that journey that you're on there with
them, at the same time as they're goingthrough this journey, they're trying to wrap
their head around, trying to understand whysomeone that they love has been taken in this
way.
Then the challenges of getting the evidence,
(10:41):
getting on the road to justice for their lovedone.
So you're on that journey with them all theway through, and then you get to court.
And when you're at court, court trials can bedifficult because defended by the best
barristers, and they will do everything theycan to try and get their client off.
(11:02):
It's their job to test the evidence of theprosecution.
Some take it further than others, but that'stheir job, to test the evidence of the
prosecution.
There's lots that can go on through a trial.
Ups and downs, twists and turns.
1 minute you're thinking, yeah, we're doing
really well here.
And another, your legs can be taken under you
(11:23):
by a witness not turning up or sayingsomething different in the box, and they said
in a witness statement, that kind of thing.
So the journey you're on in the trial can be
difficult.
And then you get to the point where you've
been through the evidence, you've been throughthe speeches of the barristers, the judge has
done their summing up, and then the jury willgo out to deliberate on their verdict.
(11:46):
And they can be out for hours, they can be outfor days.
The trials that we had were at the old Bailey.
So during the time the jury are out, you're
sat around in the canteen waiting.
And every time a tannoy goes off to get
everybody for your court back in, you'rethinking, is this the verdict?
More often than not, it's not.
It'll be a note passed over by a jury member
(12:09):
asking a question about the evidence thatthey're not sure about.
But then that Tanoi comes and you walk intothe court and you notice a completely
different atmosphere within the court becausethe court staff know that actually we got a
verdict.
And they will say, yes, we got a verdict.
And straight away the butterflies in yourstomach start.
(12:30):
Your heart starts racing.
And I'm not the one on.
I'm not the one on trial, I'm a police officerthere, I'm not part of the bereave family, I'm
not the defendant.
But for me, the nerves start to kick in, your
stomach starts to churn.
You sit down and the jury shuffle in and
(12:50):
you're looking over to the jury to see ifthere's any indication as to what their
verdict might be.
Are they looking at the defendant?
Are they not looking at the defendant?Are they looking at me?
Are they looking at the family?Trying to gauge if you can guess what their
verdict may be?And they'll sit down and the court usher or
the clerk of the court, one of the two, willgo to the jury foreperson and say, members of
(13:15):
the jury, have you come to a verdict on whichyou all agree?
And the person will say, yes.
And your heart is now racing, your stomach is
properly churning.
You're just hanging on their next words, and
the next words are guilty.
And the feeling I had at that point for that
(13:40):
verdict on my first murder trial, I knew atthat point I could do nothing else in the
police.
There was nothing that was going to replicate
that feeling.
It was immense satisfaction professionally,
because you knew the challenges you'd beenthrough to get to that point.
(14:02):
It was feelings personally, becauseinvestigating murder isn't easy and it impacts
your life.
But most of all, the satisfaction and the
feeling that you can give, almost like a giftto the family in terms of, look, nothing we
(14:23):
can do that's going to bring your loved oneback.
Then next best thing we can do is get justicefor them and justice for you.
And more often than not, at that point, whenyou're outside, you've just walked outside,
you've got the verdict, everybody's on a high.
The family members will give you a hug and
(14:44):
they will say thank you.
And more often than not, it will be something
along the lines of, I feel that we can nowmove on.
Not move on as in forget the person, but moveon in that grieving process, because they're
almost in a limbo throughout the whole of thecriminal justice procedures, the waiting for
the trial, the trial itself and all that.
(15:06):
They've been in a limbo and they can start to
move on with their grieving, as everybody elsedoes when they've lost a loved one.
You can generally start to move on in yourgrieving process, but when you're in that
limbo, it's very difficult.
And it's that feeling that I honestly
couldn't.
I couldn't.
I couldn't think of doing anything else in thepolice.
(15:28):
And that's why I spent the rest of my careerinvestigating murder.
So that was my journey, becoming a murderdetective.
And that was what made me remain.
I want to talk about the challenges and the
rewards now.
I probably touched on both through what I've
(15:49):
just said there, but I'll expand on it a bitmore.
One of the first things, whenever you'retalking to anybody about how you investigate
murders.
A lot of people focus in on the sites, the
things you see, the crime scenes, the deadbodies.
I can only talk about myself and the people Iwork with, and I get a feeling most of them
(16:12):
were exactly the same as me.
The sights you see aren't the worst thing
about investigating a murder for a simplereason that you're not thrust into this world.
You don't walk out of the gates of policetraining college straight into a murder team.
There's a journey for you to get there, andit's a journey most of us have been on.
(16:37):
I joined the police two weeks after my 20thbirthday, and I'd never seen a dead body.
I'd never seen anything really traumatic.
So when I first came out, I was on what's
known as street duties.
So it'd be ten weeks of being puppy walked,
where you would have an experienced officerwith you and you would go to certain calls to
(16:58):
build up your knowledge, so that when you dogo onto your team, you can do so being half
effective.
And one of the things they do with you when
you're on street, you, is they send you toevery single sudden death.
So if somebody dies suddenly, the police haveto attend to make sure that there's nothing
suspicious.
(17:19):
And vast majority of these deaths that you
attend, there's nothing suspicious in them atall.
But what this does is it does starts to buildup that resilience.
So you're seeing dead bodies and you decide todeal with the families as well.
When I was at school, when did I ever have todeal with somebody who just lost a relative?
But as a 20 year old, very quickly, I wasstarting to regularly deal with that.
(17:42):
And you find your feet quite quickly and youstart to learn how to talk to people.
The sympathy you need to be able to show atthe same time as trying to get information
from them.
So you need to understand how they died and.
And to be able to write your report book andsay, well, actually, there's nothing
suspicious.
I didn't need to get the CID involved because
(18:04):
everything I saw, there's nothing in therethat worried me.
What you do later on in a murder investigator,where you're going into a family and trying to
build up a picture of a victim's life, gettinginformation from them at a point where the
trauma is most raw, I started to learn thatvery early on when I was in uniform, when I
was going to somebody's house and somebody haddied suddenly, trying to get information from
(18:28):
them to build up a picture of their life interms of illnesses and any reason why they may
have died suddenly.
Where I ended up investigating murders was a
journey over those 18 years before I got tothe murder team.
And it started off the moment I left policetraining college.
But there's one proviso to this.
(18:48):
So I. I saw.
In my career, I've seen.
I couldn't even put a figure.
I couldn't put a figure on it.
I couldn't begin to imagine how many dead
bodies I'd seen.
And the vast majority never bothered me.
It's something you got used to, thatresilience, is there?
But there's one type of murder that I foundmost difficult, and that was the murder of
(19:09):
children.
And I never got used to that.
I never got used to seeing the sight of a deadchild, be it through murder or otherwise.
And in a weird way, it was something thatcomforted me.
In 2005, I was on the anti terrorist branch.
Colleague and I were the first on scene at
(19:30):
Edgware Road, and we didn't leave for twoweeks.
And our job was to treat that bomb scene as acrime scene, which involved removal of the
dead victims and then a fingertip search ofthe whole of the track where the bomb had
taken place, and the train carriage itself,looking for evidence, looking for parts of the
(19:53):
bomb, etcetera.
Now, obviously, when you're dealing with an
explosion on a packed train with a suicidebomber, a lot of what you're going to be
picking up is going to be bits of body.
It was a hard two weeks, and at the end of it,
my family and friends knew what I was doingand a lot of questions around.
(20:14):
Are you okay?What worried me the most was how okay I was.
I didn't seem to be impacted by what I wasdoing.
And that started to worry me.
Well, have I lost my human side?
Is there some part of me that's gone?But when I reflected on it, it was.
(20:35):
Well, actually, no, I had a job to do.
My job was to get justice for those victims,
those victims of the bombings.
I was part of that process of getting justice
for them.
And if I couldn't do my job properly because I
was caught up in my own emotions, my own fearsand feelings, then I wouldn't be able to do my
(20:55):
job properly.
So that was why I was able to do that job
without succumbing to my own feelings andemotions.
And the way you deal with that is youcompartmentalise, you lock things away, you
don't think about them.
But the fact later on, when I was
investigating murder, that the childrenaffected me.
(21:16):
That is what I found comforting in terms of ifI can still be affected by things, then I've
still got that human element.
That's the human side to me.
I can still feel, I've got empathy.
So that's what I found comforting.
That even though I'm dealing with sights andtrauma that most people in their lives would
(21:39):
never have to deal with, and I'm dealing withit in a way that isn't affecting me.
The fact that those children, when I close myeyes, even today I close my eyes, I can still
see the dead children that I saw.
I find that comforting because it means that
I've still got that human side.
So I think that's probably quite typical for
(21:59):
anybody that I work with investigating murder.
The way you deal with things is you lock them
away, you compartmentalise, you don't dealwith it, you just ignore it.
And whether that's healthy or not, I don'tknow.
But when you're writing about your leadcharacter or your characters, and they are
(22:25):
having to deal with the sites, the trauma,etcetera, almost certainly, if they're typical
of a murder squad detective, that's whatthey're going to be doing.
They're going to be locking it away, they'regoing to be ignoring it, they're not going to
be focusing in on the sites that they'reseeing because they've got a job to get on
(22:45):
with.
They're professionally getting on with their
job.
Can that manifest in ways that are unhealthy
for that individual?I think, yes, I've seen it.
I've seen colleagues that have suffered withtheir mental well being.
Whether or not that was a direct result of thethings they had to deal with is impossible to
(23:09):
say, because mental health, as we know,anybody can suffer with it, and a lot of
people do.
So whether or not it's because they're
investigating murder or they would havesuffered with that anyway, is impossible to
know.
Again, from my own perspective, how this
manifests for me was at night.
(23:32):
As a detective, I always used to do some of my
best detective work in bed.
That may sound weird, but at night was when my
mind was at its most clear.
When with that clarity of thought, I could
really think about the evidence that we have,think about the lines of inquiry that we could
(23:54):
possibly follow.
What were we missing?
What was I missing?That kind of thought process that could really
focus my mind on an investigation.
And very often I'd come in the next morning
with ideas about where we could go, what wecould do.
But thinking about murder all the time as youdo, because when you're investigating the
(24:16):
murder, you become completely invested in it.
It takes over your life.
You're not working nine to five, going homeand then just haven't spending time with the
family.
You're working long hours and when you get
home, you're still thinking about the murder,you're still.
Your mind is in it.
You live and breathe a murder investigation,
certainly at the beginning, an investigation,and that's probably not the best thing to do
(24:38):
just before you're about to go to sleep.
So what I found is that I would dream violent
dreams.
And in these dreams it would be me that would
be committing the violence, stabbing people,shooting them, strangling them.
I mean, I'd wake up in the morning and my papaand I, it was a. It was almost a running joke.
Like she'd say to me, what did you do lastnight?
(25:01):
I may have shot a person or two at the time.
It didn't bother me.
But it was only later on when I was writingone of my books and I was reflecting on how
murder investigation may have impacted uponme, it suddenly dawned on me that I don't have
these dreams anymore.
And it was because I'd stopped investigating
murder.
(25:21):
And once I stopped investigating murder, the
dreams stopped.
So as much as you can lock these things away,
you can compartmentalise, you can't fault yourbrain, can you?
You can't forget what you see, you can'tforget what you do.
And for me, that's how it would manifest in mydreams.
(25:42):
For other people, I'm sure it was in differentways.
So, yes, you can professionally get on anddeal with things.
Yes, you can ignore or lock awaycompartmentalise what you do, but it's always
there.
It's lurking in your brain somewhere and one
day it may come out and affect you.
(26:05):
So just on that subject, in terms of
counselling, do murder squad detectives, arethey offered counselling?
Well, yes, occasionally, but not routinely.
In my experience, it would be when there was a
particular type of murder.
One of the last murders I investigated was the
(26:26):
murder of a police officer.
And we were offered counselling in that
situation for the other ten murders we'dinvestigated that year, wasn't offered it at
all.
So it's there.
If people look like they're suffering withtheir mental health, then they'll probably be
referred to for counselling services by theirsupervisors.
(26:46):
But it's not something that's done routinely.
The type of trauma I don't think gets
mentioned an awful lot, certainly not comparedto when people are asking about what I may
have seen is the trauma that is carried by thebereaved relatives.
And for me, that was always the hardest partof murder investigation.
(27:10):
Just put yourself in a position where someoneyou know has lost a relative and you're there
just at that point where they find out, youmay have been through this, you may have seen
that you may have been there yourself on thejourney of trauma.
That's probably the hardest point of it, whereyou're just trying to get your head around the
(27:30):
fact that it's just happened.
Dealing with a family who have lost a relative
through murder adds even more complicationsand layers.
And the biggest question beyond doubt thatpeople will ask is why?
Why has my loved one died?Why has somebody chosen to end their life?
(27:52):
It's a really difficult question to answer.
More often than not at the beginning of a
murder inquiry, when police officers arespeaking to a family at this very early stage,
what they're there to do mostly is to getinformation from that family.
(28:13):
The officers in this situation are going to betrained family liaison officers.
Also with them is likely to be one of thesenior officers, DCI or DI.
And they are there primarily to getinformation from the family.
That's their job.
(28:33):
They're investigators, and they're trying to
get information from the family that wouldhelp the investigation.
There's a saying that you're going to hear mesay plenty of times throughout this series,
and that is to learn how a person died, youhave to learn how they lived.
And that's because in most murders, there'ssomething or someone within a person's life
(28:56):
that was the reason why they died, the reasonwhy they were murdered.
And the family are going to be the best peopleoften to get that information from, to build
up that picture, to get an understanding of aperson's life, to try and ascertain if there's
someone or something within their life thatwould lend to the motive of why they were
(29:22):
murdered.
But you're in that situation where that trauma
is most raw, would have just found out theirloved one had died, and not only has their
loved one died, but their loved ones beenmurdered.
And I always found that the most difficultpart of any investigation is those initial
(29:42):
stages where those emotions, those feelings ofgrief are most raw.
And you're going in there and, you know,you've got a job to do, you know, you've got
to get information from these people.
You need to balance that against their needs,
against their trauma, against their feelings.
(30:03):
You can't just go in there and demand the
information.
You've got to balance it.
You've got to balance what they need, theinformation that they'll want, the questions
they have to ask of you with the questionsthat you have to ask of them.
And that's really tricky.
Now, family liaison officers, we'll cover this
on another topic as well.
(30:23):
Family liaison officers are trained, but their
training only lasts a week in a classroom.
You really learn how to be a family liaison
officer, how to deal with families in thissituation by actually doing the job, by
actually having that experience of dealingwith these families.
(30:44):
But it's really hard.
It's undoubtedly the hardest part, I think, of
being a murder investigator.
So that, I think would be one of the
challenges that your lead characters will haveto deal with.
And some will be better at it than others.
Some will hate it, some will hate being in
(31:05):
that situation of having to deal with thefamilies.
Others will embrace it and see it as part oftheir journey that they're on with the family.
And this is the beginning of that journey.
And this is where they can have possibly one
of the biggest impacts on the family by thisvery early stage, making it clear to them
what's going to happen and start to build thatrelationship, start to build that trust that
(31:31):
they will carry on throughout theinvestigation.
But there's no doubt it's not easy foranybody.
So when anybody asks me about the hardest partof being a murder investigator, this is what
I'll come back to, the dealing with thefamilies and dealing with their trauma.
Investigating murders can also have an impacton you personally.
(31:56):
It's not a nine to five job.
You're not just going to rock up in the
morning.
Look at your watch.
You've done your 8 hours.
You're going to go home.
Especially at those early stages of aninvestigation where a murder may have just
happened.
You're probably going to be starting work at
07:00 in the morning, maybe 08:00 in themorning.
And you're probably not going to be finishinguntil at least 10:00 at night, midnight early
(32:22):
hours.
And then you're coming back in again the next
morning.
And you'll be doing this for days, potentially
weeks.
Police officers are human beings with a life.
They have family, they have children, theyhave partners, they're friends.
So you can imagine if you're working from07:00 in the morning till 02:00 in the
(32:44):
morning, grabbing three or 4 hours sleep andthen coming back into work again, and you're
doing that for days on end, doesn't leave alot of room for those other people in your
life.
And that isn't easy, especially if you've got
children.
You're trying to explain to your children why
you haven't seen them for days, why mummy'snot there, why daddy's not there and why
(33:08):
they're not there again, why are you having tomiss birthday parties, parents evenings,
nativity plays, social events that you go towith your friends?
I mean, in my career as a police officer, Ican never really commit to anything I could
say to friends and family, yeah, I'm going tobe there at this meal, or I'm going to go to
(33:28):
this social event.
But you know in the back of your mind that
actually there's a good chance you're going tohave to cancel.
And they know that you might have to cancel aswell, because they get used to that.
Everything I'm saying there isn't complaining.
It's just a matter of fact.
That's what comes with the territory.
If you're investigating murders, your friends,
(33:50):
family, social life, etcetera, are going tosuffer.
You go into it with your eyes open and you dothat.
But that's not to say that it still isn'tdifficult and it still doesn't impact on your
home life.
Now, there's a saying in the police that
you're not a proper detective until you've gotat least one divorce behind you.
(34:12):
And that is a reflection of what I've justbeen talking about in that investigating
serious crime has a huge impact on your life,because you don't have the time that other
people have.
You can't commit to things in the way other
people can.
Those long hours, those days on end of not
(34:33):
seeing people.
So, again, for your characters, this is going
to be a challenge for them.
I know it's a bit of a cliche about this
divorced detective thing, but it's true.
I was divorced myself as a detective, and a
lot of the people I worked with were the same.
So for me, it's.
Those three challenges are the most obviouswhen it comes to the writing of a murder
(34:57):
detective.
It's the dealing with the dead bodies, for me,
in particular, the children.
It's being on that journey with a family and
being around their trauma and trying to helpthem through their trauma and the impact on
you as an individual in your personal life,those long hours, etcetera.
(35:18):
So those are three challenges.
Why do they choose to put themselves in a
position where they're having to deal withthis trauma, where they're having to have that
negative impact on their life?Well, that's goes back to what I said at the
beginning in terms of the rewards you get.
(35:40):
And for me, there is no better reward than
that conviction at court, especially whenyou've been on that journey with a family and
you've seen the trauma these individuals havecaused on innocent people.
Having been there at those initial stageswhere they're just trying to get their head
(36:01):
around the fact that their son, theirdaughter, their brother, sister, parent has
just had their life ended.
Being there and seeing that trauma, seeing
them break down, seeing the tears and thenbeing on that journey with them, the challenge
of getting someone to court is something theysharing as well.
(36:24):
They want justice for their loved ones.
It can take months, even years to get that
justice.
And you having to keep, keep the spirits up,
if you like, keep them going.
We're trying.
We're doing everything we can.
We're not giving up.
You don't give up.
We're not giving up.
We're going to keep trying.
We're going to keep trying.
What you can never do is promise them.
(36:45):
You can't promise you're going to get justice.
I sometimes see this actually in America.
I've seen american law enforcement go on the
news and say, we're going to catch them, we'regoing to get this killer.
You can't do that.
You can't promise something that's.
That isn't in your gift to give.
You can't guarantee you're going to catch a
killer.
Most murders are solved.
(37:07):
This fluctuates and it's lower than it used tobe.
But when I investigated murder, we solvedaround 90%.
It's about nine in ten.
You knew you were going to get a conviction at
the end of it, but you can never take that forgranted.
And you certainly couldn't promise a familymember.
Although I did find myself doing that once Iwas in that situation I just described of
(37:32):
being there with the family when they've justfound out that in this situation, it was their
son, their son had been murdered.
It was a really emotional moment.
They were in absolute agony, as you canimagine.
They just found out their son had beenmurdered.
And I got caught up in that emotion and Ifound myself saying, we'll get them.
(38:00):
Even at those initial stages, with theevidence we had, I was confident we were going
to catch them.
I should never, ever have used those words.
And as soon as they left my mouth, I thought,what have you done?
You can't promise that.
And thankfully, we did catch them and they did
go to court and get convicted, etcetera.
But it was the one and only time I did it.
(38:21):
And I regretted it afterwards, because if wehadn't, for me, I would have broken a promise.
And that's not the relationship and the trustbetween a police officer and a victim's
family.
You should not be making promises you can't
keep.
So I never did it again.
I never made that promise again.
And I would never wish to see any police
(38:44):
officers promise a family that they will catcha killer.
Because you can't promise something that youcan't guarantee.
But when you do get that conviction for them,those long hours, those missed times with your
family, those broken social events, those bagsunder your eyes because you're getting
(39:11):
virtually no sleep, it's all worth it.
That moment in court, that moment when the
jury come back with the guilty verdict,everything you've been through, everything
you've been through with the family, it justmakes it worth it.
And for me, as I said at the beginning of thisepisode, that was why I knew I couldn't leave
(39:32):
a murder team.
And that's what kept me going on it.
That's what made all the sacrifices I madeworthwhile.
Other rewards for me personally, everythingthat I did as a detective all came back to
that time when I was in uniform.
(39:53):
And I described it as a game.
No, it's not a game.
It's far more serious than that.
But for me, I'm quite.
I'm quite a competitive person.
I don't like losing.
Every murder was a challenge.
(40:14):
It was a challenge between me and the killers.
So for me, one of the most rewarding things
was when you arrested them, when you went totheir house, when you looked him in the eye
and you told them that you were arrestingthem.
(40:37):
I'd always make a point of looking them in theeye just to see the reaction.
Is there anything I can glean from it?I know it's a bit of a cliche that the eyes
are a window into a person's soul, but Ilearned in those days in uniform, on the
street, when I was stopping people, drivingcars, stopping people in the street, looking
(41:00):
for those criminals, trying to catch them,more often than not, by looking them in the
eye, would be the point where you knew whereyou got them or not.
Were they lying to you?Do they look worried?
Is there something in the eye that's givingthem away?
Their words may be saying one thing, but theireyes are saying something else.
(41:22):
So looking a killer in the eye when you'rearresting them was one of the most satisfying
things for me, one of the most importantpoints of an investigation for me.
Do we have the right person?Sometimes you're not so sure.
By looking them in the eye and seeing theirreaction.
(41:44):
Just put yourself in a position.
If you were being arrested for murder and you
hadn't done it, how would you react comparedto if you had done it and you're trying to
make it look like you hadn't?I mean, there's a difference there and quite
often you could see it in somebody's eyes.
How am I going to react?
The fear, the fear of being caught, the fearof what comes next.
(42:08):
The eyes give it away.
And as a detective sergeant on the murder
team, certainly not as a detective inspector.
Detective inspectors, chief inspectors, they
don't get involved in these arrests.
But as a detective sergeant, I always made a
point of being involved in the arrest.
Quite often it would be me carrying out that
arrest so that I could get to that point whereI'm looking a killer in the eye, saying those
(42:33):
words, I'm arresting you for this murder.
Giving them a bit of the evidence as to why,
why you suspect they're guilty of this murder,cautioning them, looking them in the eye.
Also for me, and I think a lot of people thatwork on murder investigation, is that real
(42:55):
team camaraderie.
You work in a bit of a silo as a murder
investigator.
You're working on a team of people that you're
with day in, day out, quite often.
More often than not, you're spending more time
with them than you are with your loved ones.
(43:16):
All going through those same challenges, all
going through the same witnessing of thattrauma, witnessing of sights that most people
wouldn't want to see.
And you do build up a bond with people.
Quite often it would result in you going downa pub with them afterwards and celebrating a
charge, celebrating a conviction, or justgoing out for a drink.
(43:38):
In general, having left the police, sometimesI get asked the question, do you miss it?
The honest answer is no. And I think I'veprobably explained the reason why in this
episode, and that is because of how much youhave to give in order to do the job properly,
(44:01):
how much of yourself, your personal life yougive over in order for you to be able to
ultimately get that justice for families.
But it's only so long.
I think you can do that.
I did it for twelve years and by the end of
those twelve years, I think I'd giveneverything and I couldn't have done any more.
(44:24):
And I always said to myself, if I couldn'tgive 100% in a murder investigation, then it
was time to move on, because you owe that tothe victim, you owe that to their families.
And by the end of my career, I think, yeah,I've done my bit and retirement has probably
come along at the right time.
But the one thing I do miss is that
(44:45):
camaraderie in the team, that team spirit youhave.
And to this day, I still stay in touch, and Iprobably will forever stay in touch with
people from my murder team because of thosebonds you build up in those most traumatic of
times.
So there you go.
They are my experiences of what it was like tobe a murder detective.
(45:12):
As I said at the beginning, the way I feelabout it is undoubtedly going to be different
to others.
But I think a lot of what I say will be common
amongst every murder investigator in thecountry.
It's common in those that I work with.
It's quite a unique job, it's quite a
(45:36):
challenging job.
But in terms of policing, I don't think
there's a more rewarding one.
So I hope that in amongst everything I've
said, there are bits in there that you coulduse within your writing to help develop your
(45:56):
lead characters, to bring them to life a bit,to give them some realistic challenges, some
realistic rewards, and to help you maybe get abetter understanding of what motivates them.
So I've been Steve Keogh.
This is murder investigation for crime writers
(46:17):
and I'll see you on the next episode.
Thank you for joining me on another episode of
Murder Investigation for crime Writers.
I'm your host, Steve Keogh, and it's been a
pleasure delving into the world of murderinvestigation with you.
Authenticity is key for crime writers and Ihope this podcast has provided you with
valuable insights and inspiration for yourstorytelling journey.
(46:38):
If you found value in what you've heard today,I encourage you to share this podcast with
your fellow authors.
Together we can elevate the standards of crime
fiction and bring realism to the forefront.
If you have a moment, I'd also appreciate if
you could leave a review you on your favouritepodcast platform.
Your feedback helps others discover thepodcast and join our community of passionate
crime writers.
(46:59):
Thank you for listening.
Until next time, keep writing, keepinvestigating, and keep bringing your stories
to life.
I've been Steve Keough.
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