June 3, 2024 • 41 mins
Fiction Watch is where former murder detective, Steve Keogh, examines episodes of TV crime fiction to see how what is portrayed, compares to how things are done in the real world. He then judges them on their authenticity, rating them as good, bad or ridiculous.
In this episode, Steve looks at Luther, the BBC drama starring Idris Elba.
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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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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 pencilsand prepare to embark on a journey into a
world few get to see.
This is murder investigation for crime
(00:23):
writers.
Hello and welcome to Murder investigation team
for crime writers.
I'm your host, Steve Keogh.
I was a former murder detective, investigatedmurders for about twelve years.
Since leaving the police, I've written acouple of books, present a tv show, and I've
(00:45):
created the online community for crimewriters.
If you're interested in any of those things,you can find all the details@stevekeo.com.
so today's episode is going to be slightlydifferent to what you've heard so far.
This format of episode that we're going tohave today is known as fiction one.
And in each episode, I'll look at a crimefiction tv show.
(01:09):
We will look at what is being portrayed, whatthey're getting right, what they're getting
wrong, and more importantly, what wouldactually happen in real life.
It's not about saying how good the programmeis in terms of entertainment, how close is it
to real life, how authentic is it, and whatthey're portraying, how would that actually be
(01:30):
carried out in real life?So that's the purpose of these episodes.
And to start off with going to use my oldfavourite, if you've ever seen me speak in, I
would have brought this up.
It's Luther, and I'm doing this from season
one, episode one.
So the very first programme of Luther, we're
going to go through.
But don't worry, you don't have to have
watched it.
(01:50):
I'm just going to summarise different scenes
as we go through.
But the important bit is examining what we do
in real life, translating what they'reportraying on tv to what actually happens.
So let's crack on.
And where do we start?
Scene one.
Let me paint the picture.
Luther is investigating the case of a missingchild and they've found their suspect in a big
(02:15):
abandoned building.
Luther chases him, fights him, and it results
in the baddie falling through a hole in thefloor, just clinging on by his fingers,
pleading with Luther to help him up.
Seeing his opportunity, Luther leaves a man
hanging, demanding to know where the littlegirl is so they can go and rescue her.
(02:39):
Big hole, big drop.
If he falls, he's going to be in trouble.
Luther keeps him hanging until he confesseswhere the girl is.
Luther relays that back to his colleagues andthey rescue the girl just in time.
So that's a scenario.
What's the reality?
Well, for a start, let's ignore the fact he'sleaving him hanging and eventually lets him
(03:05):
fall because he refuses then to tell him aboutother crimes.
I mean, that's entertainment, isn't it?That's not going to happen in real life, so
let's forget about that.
If we concentrate on the fact that Luther is a
detective chief inspector and he's out andabout fighting with a suspect, now, that's
pretty far from the truth.
(03:26):
Detective Chief inspectors.
Detective inspectors, their job is a strategicone, so they're more likely to be in the
office formulating the strategies that resultin other officers going out and affecting
arrests.
So the reality is, in this scenario, if people
(03:48):
were out and about looking for a suspect, itwould be a detective sergeant, Detective
constables and whatever units they call uponto assist them.
So let's talk about arrests and how theyhappen in murder investigations.
Essentially, there are three different typesof arrest, three different ways in which you
(04:08):
would conduct an arrest using the differentresources available to you.
So the first one is, the one that I used invirtually every arrest I conducted was members
of the murder investigation team going out ontheir own, maybe with a little bit of help
with some local units, just to add somenumbers to them, but going out on their own
(04:30):
and arresting the suspect.
And as I say, that was the vast majority of
murders that I investigated when we conductedthe arrests, that's how we did it, and I'm a
strong believer in it.
And the reason is, I was a police officer for
30 years and I got assaulted once very earlyon in my career, when I was in uniform.
(04:53):
Tell you, I won't go into that.
But the point being is that I arrested people
for murder, for rape, robbery, seriousassaults, terrorism.
Every offence you can think of, and none ofthem ever wanted to hurt me.
What I never really found was the anger or theemotion or the motive that a murderer had
(05:17):
against a victim.
They never transferred it to me and my
colleagues when we later then went to arrestthem.
Maybe I was lucky, I don't know.
But I never got into a situation where that
killer was determined to either get away orhurt me.
And I think a big reason for that is the wayin which we conducted the arrests.
(05:39):
What we used to do and what I always tried todo was just knock on someone's front door, get
them to open it and calmly explain to themexactly why we're there.
And the fact, we're going to arrest them,they're going to come to the police station,
they're going to be interviewed, etcetera.
Because we did it in that calm way, without
(06:00):
knocking down doors, pointing guns in people'sfaces, etcetera.
We didn't put them into fight or flight mode.
So that's the primaeval side of the brain
where you are under threat and your survivalinstincts kick in with fight or flight,
meaning you're either going to fight your wayout of the situation or you're going to run
(06:22):
away.
By putting somebody into that mindset, they're
much more likely to want to fight you back.
So that's why we used to do it in a calm,
considered way.
As I say, I did that in most of the arrests
that we conducted and the ones I didn't, itwould have been because there was some
underlying information or history in relationto the suspect, which would suggest that in
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actual fact, that they might use violenceagainst the police.
In which case you would then consider twoother options.
The first one is like the riot police inLondon.
We call them TSG, territorial support grouparound the country.
These same units, the ones that dealpredominantly with public order, would have a
different name, but they can be used to gointo premises, particularly when knives might
(07:13):
be involved.
And they wear all that riot gear and they've
got the shields and they can burst into thehouse and contain it in a way that nobody's
going to get hurt.
I don't know if you've ever seen the film Life
of Brian.
I always used to think of it a bit like that
when all the centurions went running in, 50 ofthem running into this little room.
(07:34):
And it's very much like that when they go intoa flat or go into a premises, you see them all
running in with their riot gear on.
Quite often you'd hear screams coming from
inside.
I never quite know what was going on.
They're very good at detaining a person whennobody gets hurt, where they can push them
into a corner with shields.
Or another alternative is to put shields on
(07:55):
the door and call the person out.
The next step up from that is where firearms
are involved and there's fear of anoutstanding firearm that could be used against
the police.
In this case, it would obviously be armed
officers that would do that.
Now, as an investigator, you wouldn't make
that decision on your own.
(08:16):
There would be a supervisor in the firearms
unit known as a tactical advisor, and youwould contact that tactical advisor to discuss
the options, get advice, and in between you.
You would settle on what is the best option.
Is it a case of going at 03:00 in the morning,putting in the door and arresting the person
(08:37):
as quickly as possible, or putting acontainment in and calling them out, or not
making it a firearms operation at all?But there will be discussions between you as
an investigator and the tactical advisor.
Now, I've got to be honest, I hated using
these because it all got so complicated.
It wasn't a case of just going up, knocking on
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the door, generally, it was about 03:00 in themorning.
My understanding of why they do that, it's apoint where the body is at its least
responsive, along those lines, becausesomebody's asleep and it gives them a tactical
advantage.
But I tried to stay away from that as much as
possible, so if I could, I would just knock onthe door and arrest someone in that way.
(09:21):
So when you're doing your writing, when itcomes to arrest, those are the three options
that you need to consider.
Is it going to be detectives knocking on the
door?Is it going to be those riot police officers
with shields and the riot gear?Or is it going to be a firearms team that are
going to either go into the premises or callthe suspect out?
What it won't be is a DCI going there anddoing the rest on his own.
(09:46):
Not going to happen.
Then we have scene two.
Now, because of all the shenanigans in thisbuilding, where Luther allowed the person to
fall from the hole, seriously injuringthemselves, he was suspended for a while from
frontline duty, but he was then exonerated andallowed to carry on with his active
operational duties.
(10:08):
So they gave him a murder to investigate,
which involved two people in a house, bothhaving been shot, and a dog had been shot as
well.
The two people were a husband and wife.
The husband had been shot in the back of thehead whilst at a computer.
The wife was in bed and had been shot once andthe dog had been shot four times.
(10:31):
So he goes there and he's now got with him adetective sergeant who's been desperate to
work with him and has put in loads ofapplications saying, please can I work with
Luther?So they turn up at the address.
Luther walks in with his new colleague and heis not in what we call full barrier clothing.
If a detective is entering a crime scene, theyshould be in overshoes, a paper suit, wearing
(10:56):
two pairs of latex gloves and a mask.
And we'll go into the reasons for that in a
bit.
But Luther isn't.
He's just in his normal clothes.
Normal shoes.
And he walks in and he tells his newcolleague, you might want to keep your hands
in your pockets.
It reduces the temptation to touch anything.
That is, you're not going to leave yourfingerprints anywhere.
Was his walking through the hall, through thedog's blood in his own shoes?
(11:22):
Is that likely to happen in real life?Don't you think?
You'll be surprised for me to say, no,absolutely not.
In actual fact, if a detective walked into ascene like that, whoever was in charge of that
scene, probably a crime scene manager, wouldthrow them out, telling them, you get out of
my scene and don't come back until you'reproperly dressed.
Because what Luther is doing there ispotentially ruining the case.
(11:46):
The reason why that fall barrier clothing isworn is twofold.
Firstly, it's to prevent somebody introducingDNA, et cetera, into a crime scene.
So if I walk in as Luther was, and we could beshedding skin, DNA, hair.
(12:08):
Well, I probably wouldn't, though I haven'tgot much hair.
But the potential is that you're going tointroduce foreign DNA that isn't there into
the crime scene.
And also, and probably more dangerously, is
that you could bring DNA, forensic evidenceout of the scene.
Now, picture this.
Luther walks in and he's in his own shoes, and
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he steps in some of that dog's blood.
Luther, being a good detective, is very likely
within the next hour to have identified whothe killer was and be at their house.
So when he does go to their home and he'swalked through that dog's blood, he's likely
to have that blood on his shoes, dried bloodon his shoes.
And when he walks into the suspect's house,there's a good chance that blood will fall
(12:53):
off.
Imagine if the forensic team then later went
to examine a suspect's home.
And on the carpet in the hall were flakes of
dried blood that matched the dog at the crimescene.
What they now have is evidence linking thatsuspect to that murder, when in actual fact,
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we know it's not.
It's Luther.
Through his poor crime scene practises, he'strodden in blood and deposited it elsewhere,
given a false indication of evidence thatcould convict someone of murder.
When actual fact, that evidence shouldn't havebeen found in the first place because it was
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put there unintentionally by Luther.
I quite often get asked, do you watch this
programme or do you watch that programme inrelation to crime fiction?
And I usually say no. And the reason being isI get wound up quite easily by what I see, but
I'm putting myself through this for you.
(13:56):
So, in the future, I'm gonna have to start
watching a few more of these programmes.
But one of the things that winds me up the
most is this.
You see a detective walking into the crime
scene in their own clothes while surrounded bya forensic team, properly dressed in four
barrier clothing.
Now, I get for tv that it's not great with
your main character looking completely likeeverybody else, with a face covered, and you
(14:18):
can't see who's who and it's very difficult tosee them and hear them, so I get that.
But it is galling, I've got to be honest.
It is galling and it's probably the worst
thing I ever see.
Now, for you, when you're writing your
stories, it's much easier, isn't it?You're going to put your detectives in full
barrier clothing and it's easier for yourreaders because they don't have to
(14:38):
differentiate between, visually on the screen,who's who.
It will be in your book and it'll be easy todevelop.
But, yeah, so if you're writing about yourdetective going to a crime scene, they have to
have four barrier clothing.
Scene three.
So Luther's at this address and he starts towalk around, taking in what he's seeing, but
(15:00):
very quickly making statements about what'sthere.
So he notices that the couple are sleeping indifferent beds.
What do you make of that?He says to his colleague, somebody snores.
He replies, which in actual fact, is a prettygood response, because how can you take
anything from somebody sleeping in differentbeds?
(15:22):
And he also points out there are sleepingtablets next to one of the beds.
Again, what does that tell you?I don't know.
Now, what Luther is doing here, essentially,is trying to interpret what he sees at a crime
scene, which is good, and it should happen.
A good lead detective will visit a crime scene
(15:43):
because there's no replicating that.
Being in the crime scene and seeing it and
smelling it and almost tasting it, you can'tget that from photographs, you can't get it
from video.
You have to go there.
Then he looks at the male that had been shotin the back of the head.
He forms an opinion that the killer wasefficient in what they did.
(16:05):
And if they were that efficient, what he wouldhave expected to see was them to leave the gun
there, to have left the gun and fled.
So now his suspicions are being raised.
Something just doesn't sit right in thismurder.
Well, is he onto something?Is it something that you would expect a killer
(16:25):
to do, leave the gun behind?If they're efficient at what they do.
Well, in all honesty, I've never ever comeacross that.
I've never dealt with a murder where thekillers have left the gun behind.
Maybe I've only dealt with inefficientkillers, I don't know, but it's not something
I've ever seen, and I've dealt with a fair fewshootings.
So for him to make the assumption that becausethe killer didn't leave the gun, there's
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something that could be read into, that, inall honesty, is a load of rubbish.
If it happens, it happens so rarely that youcan't take it as being the norm.
It would be something that's actually unusual.
So the fact this didn't happen, nothing can be
read into it.
But what Luther is doing here is actually.
(17:10):
He's actually doing the right thing.
He's visiting a crime scene.
He's trying his best to interpret it bylooking at what the crime scene is telling
him.
My criticism would be that he's doing it far
too quickly.
Now, obviously, he's doing it for television,
but he's carrying it out in such a way likehis Sherlock Holmes, that you can just look at
a room and within a few seconds process what'sin there and interpret what that is telling
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him.
The reality is very different to that.
You can't just walk into a room, look at itfor 10 seconds, and then decide that this is
what it's telling you.
What I used to do when I used to go to a crime
scene is go to each room, especially the roomwhere incidents have taken place, either where
the body's been found or there's been aconfrontation, etcetera, stand there and just
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look.
But this can take some time because you want
to look everywhere and you want to look up anddown all around the room, but you're not just
looking, you're seeing.
And I used to call it seeing, not looking.
So it's very easy to look at something and notsee what it's telling you.
And the only way you can really do that is bytaking your time and trying to take in
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everything that is in front of you.
Is there something out of place?
Has something been disturbed?Are there drawers open?
Are there clothes around that's got thepockets turned out?
For instance, is there a break in dustindicating that something has been moved?
For instance, there's a square shape in thedust where something was there before, but
it's not there now.
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Just trying to interpret anything you can from
a room that could give you a clue as to whathas gone on, that's not always easy and it's
not always obvious, and there might not beanything at all, but it's an exercise that can
be really useful.
And in all honesty, it's not something I saw
many detectives doing.
I think most would just go into a room, have a
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quick look around and walk out again.
In actual fact, what you need to do is just
stop and look.
And that's one of the best skills, I think, of
a detective, is having that ability just tostand still and take things in.
So Luther is on the right track, but far tooquick, and he's jumping to too many
assumptions.
(19:24):
So, scene four.
So the murder has been discovered by the twovictims daughter.
She's come to the house and discovered thather parents have been shot.
And in the next scene, we see her in a policeinterview room.
Now, this is an interview room that'sprimarily to interview suspects, people that
have committed crimes.
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But she's there as the victim's daughter in a
blue suit.
Now, the blue suit that she's in is the same
one that we would give prisoners when we taketheir clothes.
So they've obviously taken her clothes, whichis the right thing to do.
So anybody that's at a crime scene in thiscircumstance, particularly if they've got
blood on them or if there's been a shooting,their clothing would be taken for later
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examination.
Luther goes into the room as the DCI and
starts asking her questions, immediatelyputting on the tape recorder to record what's
going on.
Would this happen in real life?
You might not be surprised for me to say no.
So, this lady is a family member of two people
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that have been murdered, and as such, shewould be allocated a family liaison officer,
and that family liaison officer would be adetective constable, and they would work with
a deputy FlO or deputy Flo, and they would bethe people that would be asking questions of
this lady.
(20:48):
Now, the DCI is likely to meet her, and you
would meet her at some stage, probably anearly stage, in order to introduce himself as
the senior officer on the case, to explainsome of the processes and to answer any
questions that she may have.
But he would not, in any circumstance, be the
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officer that would be interviewing a witnessas she is at this stage.
In this circumstance.
It just wouldn't happen, not in a million
years.
But Luther is starting to think that things
don't add up and he's getting suspicious ofthis daughter.
He's starting to form the opinion that she maybe the murderer and he's got a trick up his
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sleeve, he yawns.
And when she doesn't respond with that
automatic yawning response that often happenswhen somebody yawns in front of you, he now
knows he's got the killer.
He leaves the room, quickly goes, speaks to
his colleagues and say, she did it, she's thekiller.
How does he know that?Well, because she didn't respond when he
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yawns.
She must be a psychopath.
And if she is a psychopath, it must have beenher that killed her parents.
I mean, how do you unpick that?There's a few things there.
So, firstly, this would not happen at all inreal life.
Forget about it.
If you're looking at this for inspiration for
your stories, and you want to keep yourstories based on authenticity, it would not
(22:19):
happen.
So, first off, do people automatically yawn
when you yawn in front of them?No, it doesn't happen, does it?
It might happen.
There's a good chance it could happen, but
it's not going to definitely happen.
There have been studies that suggest that
people with less empathy might not yawn inresponse to seeing somebody else yawn.
(22:40):
Clearly.
That doesn't mean that everybody that doesn't
respond in that way lacks empathy.
And even if she was a psychopath, is that
evidence that she killed her parents?No, of course not.
I mean, there are many, many psychopaths inthis world, and if one of their loved ones
comes to harm, does it automatically mean theydid it?
(23:03):
No. What Luther is doing here, he is buildingup the suspicion in his mind that she is
guilty of an offence, which is absolutelyfine.
If you believe somebody is guilty of anoffence because of the circumstance that
you're presented with, because of your ownsubjective ideas on it, that's fine.
(23:24):
But there are ways that you deal with that.
And what you don't do is carry on questioning
that person in the way that Luther does,trying to catch them out, trying to get them
to basically confess to the murder.
Now, what should have happened in this
circumstance?If suspicion falls on a witness or a family
member and you want to speak to them, carefulconsideration has to go into how that happens.
(23:50):
Now, you have several options.
If your suspicion isn't that high, then you
can carry on speaking to them.
But in the senior officer's decision log, they
would have to justify why they're speaking tothem.
In this circumstance, they would have tooutline why, in actual fact, they don't
(24:10):
suspect a person guilty of an offence.
At this stage, they might be keeping an open
mind, but at this stage, they don't suspectthem of being guilty of the offence.
If they do, there are only two ways in whichthey should be questioning them in any way
about the offence, the first of which isarresting them.
So if somebody is suspected of a crime, we allknow that they can be arrested, and if they're
(24:35):
arrested, they would be taken into custody andhave the rights given to them, that they can
have a solicitor, etcetera.
But you don't have to arrest somebody in this
circumstance.
There's another option, and it's known as
caution plus three, and that is that youcaution someone, the same caution you give
someone when they're arrested.
So you do not have to say anything, but it may
(24:55):
harm your defence if you do not mention whenquestioned something which you're later
relying in court.
Anything you do say may be given in evidence.
So you give them those words as you would ifyou were arresting them.
And the plus three is you tell them you're notunder arrest, you're entitled to free legal
advice and you're free to leave at any time.
So if, in this case, as Luther suspects that
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this person may be responsible for her parentsmurders, he should either arrest her or
interview her under caution.
Caution plus three, he elects to do neither of
these.
The problem with that is, if she was to have
gone on to confess or said something that wasincriminating, if the questions that led to
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that were asked in a circumstance where thequestioner had suspicion against the person
but didn't caution them, when he gets tocourt, the defence will make an application
that that confession or whatever was saidisn't put before a jury.
And if the judge agrees, and in thiscircumstance, if someone suspects you of a
crime and you don't, they don't caution youand they still carry on questioning you,
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there's a good chance the judge will agree, sothat will never reach the jury.
So what Luther's doing here is wholly wrong.
If you're writing in your stories, you've got
a situation where there is suspicion fallingupon a person, be it a witness, a family
member, in any way.
If your detectives wish to question them, they
(26:30):
should do so either by arresting them orgiving them a caution plus three.
So what about the fact that Luther nowsuspects the daughter?
That's fine.
If he suspects, with the evidence that he's
been presented, with the information he has,that she is guilty, absolutely fine.
Now, I question how he got there in terms ofthe yawn, etcetera, but what he would need to
(26:55):
be doing as a senior investigator isformulating hypotheses.
We'll look at these in detail on anotherepisode.
But essentially, hypotheses are scenarios thatmay have happened that give the investigating
team a starting point for their investigation.
So, in this instance, if he believed that the
(27:16):
daughter was guilty of the murder, then whathe should be doing is forming a hypothesis,
saying the murder was carried out by thedaughter.
But what Luther is doing is he is falling intothe trap that the worst detectives fall into,
and that is confirmation bias.
(27:36):
He's formed an opinion, and he is now looking
to prove himself right.
I know I'm Luther.
I know that this is the killer, and I'm goingto go and prove it right.
Well, the problem is, Luther, you might bewrong.
So while you're chasing this killer down andtrying to get the evidence to prove yourself
(27:56):
right, you could be taking your eye off theball in the fact that it was somebody else
that carried out the murder.
In the meantime, this person is doing all they
can to distance themselves from the crime,destroy evidence, and more worryingly, could
go on to kill other people.
And that's something that does happen.
And I think the worst case I've ever seen ofthis involves Rachel Nickel, where she was
(28:21):
murdered on Wimbledon Common.
And due to information in a criminal profile,
the police formulated our hypothesis that thekiller was Colin Stank.
They were convinced he was the person thatkilled Rachel, so they went after him.
They went seeking evidence to prove themselvesright, and even going as far as setting up a
(28:46):
honey trap by introducing an undercover femaleofficer.
They even went as far as charging Stagg, whothen went to court, and rightly so.
The case was thrown out by the judge becauseof the way the evidence was obtained.
But they took their eye off the ball and theyignored the fact that it could have been
somebody else, and it was somebody else.
(29:06):
It was Robert Napper.
And Nappa then went on to kill SamanthaBlissett and her five year old daughter,
Yasmin.
And now, I'm not saying if the police had
ignored stag, they would have automaticallyidentified Nappa.
We can't say that.
I don't know what evidence they had, but by
not looking for Nappa, they were never goingto find him.
(29:27):
Is there a chance that their incompetence,which is what it was, led to, Samantha and
Yasmin being murdered?We will never know the answer to that, but it
is concerning.
It definitely is concerning.
Is probably one of the worst examples in UK ofconfirmation bias.
So then we come to the next scene wherethey're discussing what they can do with the
(29:48):
daughter.
Luther is pleading with the superintendent
saying, we can't release her, we can't releaseher.
And the superintendent saying, will you bringme some evidence then?
The problem is here, they're ignoring otherpotential lines of evidence.
It's almost like if she doesn't confess to themurder, there's nothing they can do about it.
But let's just think about that for a second.
(30:10):
They've seized her clothing and on that
clothing, we can see is blood.
What also could be on that clothing is gunshot
residue.
So let's deal with those things in turn.
Blood can get on somebody's clothing, andthere's two in particular that are important
here.
So the first one is contact staining.
(30:33):
So this would be, for instance, if she hadgiven her dad a cuddle or a mum a cuddle, and
in the process, blood transferred from themonto her.
Another example would be airborne blood.
So, for instance, if you'd shot someone and
the impact of the bullet caused blood to flythrough the air, landing on the clothing,
(30:55):
those two ways in which the blood had got onthe clothing would appear very different to a
forensic scientist when they're carrying outtheir examinations.
Blood pattern analysis is the technical term,but essentially they're looking to see how
blood is likely to have been distributed onclothing.
And the two would present very differently thecontact staining and the airborne blood.
(31:19):
But they hadn't really thought about that,have they?
They haven't thought, well, let's get herclothing to the lab as soon as possible.
And that would tell us whether or not thatblood was there because she happened to give
her parents a cuddle or because she was stoodthere when the bullet entered them.
And the blood distribution proves that she wasstood there when the shot was fired.
And then we've got GSR, which is gunshotresidue.
(31:42):
When a gun is fired, a big cloud comes out ofthe barrel and in that cloud is gunshot
residue, which is essentially small particlesthat come from the gunpowder and the bullet.
Now, if you fire a gun or if you're stood nextto it when it's fired, a quite significant
amount of that gunshot residue is likely tosettle on you, which is very different to it
(32:07):
being transferred on you.
For example, if she were to have cuddled her
parents and they'd been shot and it was closeby and they had gunshot residue on them,
there's likely that some of that would betransferred on.
But when the scientists examine her clothingfor gunshot residue, it will look very
different if she stood next to a gun or she'sfired the gun, or then if she'd given someone
(32:30):
a cuddle.
Again, it's not evidence that they were even
considering, and it's something that wouldneed to be looked at.
So they're pinning all their hopes on herconfessing to a murder.
And the reality is, when it comes to murderinvestigations, confessions play very little
part in an investigation.
(32:51):
When you're interviewing someone, you're not
trying to get them to confess.
Yes, it might be nice if they confess, but
that's not the purpose of the interview.
What you're trying to do is get them to commit
to a story which can be tested.
And if they've said something in a police
station, it doesn't look great if they go andchange their account later on in court.
So all this emphasis they seem to be placingon the confession just doesn't ring true.
(33:16):
So the next scene is that they've decided, wedon't have the evidence to hold her here, so
we're going to have to take her home.
And Luther drives her home and he's driving a
marked police vehicle.
Would a detective chief inspector be using a
marked police vehicle to drive a witness home?No. Luther is based in London, and the murder
(33:39):
investigation teams in London do have accessto marked police vehicles.
And the car that they would use to respond tonew murders is known as the hat car.
The homicide assessment team, the hat car.
And quite often that would be a marked police
vehicle, but that would only be used in thosecircumstances for responding to calls.
(34:03):
Would a DCI have access to that?Well, they would, but the likelihood of them
using it is pretty slim.
So this scene of him driving her home in a
marked police vehicle, it just wouldn'thappen.
And I do understand why they're doing it.
It's for television, so it's much easier for
the viewer to understand what's going on byfollowing a marked police vehicle.
(34:24):
But the reality is, no, this would not happen.
And then we get the next scene.
And essentially what is happening now is thatLuther has worked out what has happened to the
gun, the gun that he says should have beenleft behind.
And the way he works this out is that theparents were each shot once and the dog was
(34:47):
shot four times.
So overkill, essentially, on the dog.
Why would that happen?Well, obviously, the killer was firing the gun
into the dog in order that they could then putthe gun into the dog so that it was hidden and
the dog was taken off and the bodyincinerated, thus meaning that the evidence,
(35:08):
the gun, was incinerated with it.
Now, I've got a few problems with this, so
just imagine a scenario where someone hadentered a premises, fired some bullets and
killed somebody, the forensic examiners andthe police would be looking for all the
bullets that were fired by that gun.
If they were in a war, they would look to
(35:31):
remove them from the wall.
If the bullets were in the victim, they would
be looking to retrieve those at a post mortem.
Now, what would happen if those bullets were
in a dog?What would they do, just leave them?
Of course not.
They would be taking steps to retrieve the
bullets from the dog.
So in all likelihood, what would probably
(35:51):
happen is the dog would be x rayed and theywould carry out a post mortem in order for
those bullets to be retrieved.
In the process, they would have identified a
gun that had been stuffed inside the dog inorder to hide it.
So whoever wrote this hasn't really thoughtthrough the processes of what the police would
do.
But it does make for a good story, doesn't it?
(36:13):
And then we get to the next scene whereLuther, determined that he's going to prove
that he's right, breaks into the home of thedaughter in order to look for these gun parts
in the urn in which the dog's ashes are.
So he breaks into her home and in there he
(36:34):
looks in the urn and he's right, parts of thegun are in this urn.
But the problem is, he's broken into thispremises illegally, so whatever is found is
going to be difficult to use as evidence atcourt.
If only he had the power to enter that homeproperly, lawfully, legally, and seize
(36:54):
whatever was there.
If only he had the power.
Well, he did, didn't he?All he had to do was arrest her.
He suspected somebody was guilty of anoffence, and that suspicion is subjective.
So there's no book where you open it up andyou look at a table and you say, right, do we
have the grounds to arrest?It's subjective.
So in his mind, with the information he has,with the evidence he's seen, he's formed a
(37:18):
suspicion that this person is guilty of themurder.
If he'd arrested her, it then would haveopened up powers to search her home.
If somebody's arrested under section 18 ofpace, the police have a power to search their
home or other premises that they control inorder to search for evidence of that offence,
(37:38):
which is what they could have done here, couldquite easily have arrested her on suspicion of
murder, got the authority of an inspector,which is what you need for section 18
searches.
Once somebody's arrested in our police station
and then searched her home, finding the gunbits in the urn, and they would have been
another piece in the puzzle for him, buildingup a case against her.
(38:00):
But not Luther.
No, Luther doesn't follow the rules, he
doesn't follow procedures.
He just does whatever he wants.
Would this happen in real life?Clearly not.
I mean, it's a story, I understand it'sentertainment, but this is so far from the
truth.
Then we have a scene with him, with his wife.
They're estranged, their marriage has beenunder some difficulties, and as it transpires,
(38:25):
she's been seeing somebody else.
And when he goes to speak to her, she
basically blames the job in that he's neveraround.
He's always out investigating murders.
So this does have a ring of truth to it.
There is no doubt that when you investigatemurder, it can have an impact on your life.
And a lot of detectives are divorced.
(38:46):
I was one of those.
It can really have an impact on your life.
So there is a ring of truth to this.
And the final bit I want to speak about isjust a minor, minor point, and it stems from
the issues that Luther is having with hiswife.
And he turns up her house and he calls his bitof a scene, and her and her new boyfriend call
the police, and the police arrive and Lutheris showing them his warrant card, saying to
(39:11):
them, I'm a policeman.
I'm a policeman.
Now, when you're doing your writing, and ifyou want the words that are used, the dialogue
to be authentic, a policeman would neverdescribe themselves as a policeman.
I mean, if I've done that, I've only ever doneit to children, when I'm trying to do it in a
very basic way, saying to them, I'm apoliceman.
(39:33):
Certainly when you're speaking to other policeofficers, you would not say, I'm a policeman.
The words that he would use in this situation,he would say to them, I'm job, or I'm in the
job.
That's what you say to other police officers
when you're trying to let them know thatyou're in the police as well.
I'm job.
I'm in the job.
You would not say to them, I'm a policeman.
(39:54):
So they're the points I wanted to speak about
from the episode, looking at what Luther didcompared to what would happen in real life, in
all of these episodes, I'm going to judge theprogramme I'm watching on its authenticity as
whether it's good, bad or ridiculous.
(40:15):
So what about Luther?
Where does he fit on this scale?I don't think you'll be surprised for me to
say, sorry, Luther, your programme isridiculous.
Thank you for joining me on another episode ofmurder Investigation for crime writers.
I'm your host, Steve Keogh, and it's been apleasure delving into the world of murder
investigation with you.
(40:36):
Authenticity is key for crime writers and I
hope this podcast has provided you withvaluable insights and inspiration for your
storytelling journey.
If you found value in what you've heard today,
I encourage you to share this podcast withyour fellow authors.
Together we can elevate the standards of crimefiction and bring realism to the forefront.
If you have a moment, I'd also appreciate ifyou could leave a review on your favourite
(40:59):
podcast platform.
Your feedback helps others discover the
podcast and join our community of passionatecrime writers.
Thank you for listening.
Until next time, keep writing, keep
investigating, and keep bringing your storiesto life.
I've been Steve Keogh.
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 pencilsand prepare to embark on a journey into a
world few get to see.
This is murder investigation for crime
(00:23):
writers.
Hello and welcome to Murder investigation team
for crime writers.
I'm your host, Steve Keogh.
I was a former murder detective, investigatedmurders for about twelve years.
Since leaving the police, I've written acouple of books, present a tv show, and I've
(00:45):
created the online community for crimewriters.
If you're interested in any of those things,you can find all the details@stevekeo.com.
so today's episode is going to be slightlydifferent to what you've heard so far.
This format of episode that we're going tohave today is known as fiction one.
And in each episode, I'll look at a crimefiction tv show.
(01:09):
We will look at what is being portrayed, whatthey're getting right, what they're getting
wrong, and more importantly, what wouldactually happen in real life.
It's not about saying how good the programmeis in terms of entertainment, how close is it
to real life, how authentic is it, and whatthey're portraying, how would that actually be
(01:30):
carried out in real life?So that's the purpose of these episodes.
And to start off with going to use my oldfavourite, if you've ever seen me speak in, I
would have brought this up.
It's Luther, and I'm doing this from season
one, episode one.
So the very first programme of Luther, we're
going to go through.
But don't worry, you don't have to have
watched it.
(01:50):
I'm just going to summarise different scenes
as we go through.
But the important bit is examining what we do
in real life, translating what they'reportraying on tv to what actually happens.
So let's crack on.
And where do we start?
Scene one.
Let me paint the picture.
Luther is investigating the case of a missingchild and they've found their suspect in a big
(02:15):
abandoned building.
Luther chases him, fights him, and it results
in the baddie falling through a hole in thefloor, just clinging on by his fingers,
pleading with Luther to help him up.
Seeing his opportunity, Luther leaves a man
hanging, demanding to know where the littlegirl is so they can go and rescue her.
(02:39):
Big hole, big drop.
If he falls, he's going to be in trouble.
Luther keeps him hanging until he confesseswhere the girl is.
Luther relays that back to his colleagues andthey rescue the girl just in time.
So that's a scenario.
What's the reality?
Well, for a start, let's ignore the fact he'sleaving him hanging and eventually lets him
(03:05):
fall because he refuses then to tell him aboutother crimes.
I mean, that's entertainment, isn't it?That's not going to happen in real life, so
let's forget about that.
If we concentrate on the fact that Luther is a
detective chief inspector and he's out andabout fighting with a suspect, now, that's
pretty far from the truth.
(03:26):
Detective Chief inspectors.
Detective inspectors, their job is a strategicone, so they're more likely to be in the
office formulating the strategies that resultin other officers going out and affecting
arrests.
So the reality is, in this scenario, if people
(03:48):
were out and about looking for a suspect, itwould be a detective sergeant, Detective
constables and whatever units they call uponto assist them.
So let's talk about arrests and how theyhappen in murder investigations.
Essentially, there are three different typesof arrest, three different ways in which you
(04:08):
would conduct an arrest using the differentresources available to you.
So the first one is, the one that I used invirtually every arrest I conducted was members
of the murder investigation team going out ontheir own, maybe with a little bit of help
with some local units, just to add somenumbers to them, but going out on their own
(04:30):
and arresting the suspect.
And as I say, that was the vast majority of
murders that I investigated when we conductedthe arrests, that's how we did it, and I'm a
strong believer in it.
And the reason is, I was a police officer for
30 years and I got assaulted once very earlyon in my career, when I was in uniform.
(04:53):
Tell you, I won't go into that.
But the point being is that I arrested people
for murder, for rape, robbery, seriousassaults, terrorism.
Every offence you can think of, and none ofthem ever wanted to hurt me.
What I never really found was the anger or theemotion or the motive that a murderer had
(05:17):
against a victim.
They never transferred it to me and my
colleagues when we later then went to arrestthem.
Maybe I was lucky, I don't know.
But I never got into a situation where that
killer was determined to either get away orhurt me.
And I think a big reason for that is the wayin which we conducted the arrests.
(05:39):
What we used to do and what I always tried todo was just knock on someone's front door, get
them to open it and calmly explain to themexactly why we're there.
And the fact, we're going to arrest them,they're going to come to the police station,
they're going to be interviewed, etcetera.
Because we did it in that calm way, without
(06:00):
knocking down doors, pointing guns in people'sfaces, etcetera.
We didn't put them into fight or flight mode.
So that's the primaeval side of the brain
where you are under threat and your survivalinstincts kick in with fight or flight,
meaning you're either going to fight your wayout of the situation or you're going to run
(06:22):
away.
By putting somebody into that mindset, they're
much more likely to want to fight you back.
So that's why we used to do it in a calm,
considered way.
As I say, I did that in most of the arrests
that we conducted and the ones I didn't, itwould have been because there was some
underlying information or history in relationto the suspect, which would suggest that in
(06:49):
actual fact, that they might use violenceagainst the police.
In which case you would then consider twoother options.
The first one is like the riot police inLondon.
We call them TSG, territorial support grouparound the country.
These same units, the ones that dealpredominantly with public order, would have a
different name, but they can be used to gointo premises, particularly when knives might
(07:13):
be involved.
And they wear all that riot gear and they've
got the shields and they can burst into thehouse and contain it in a way that nobody's
going to get hurt.
I don't know if you've ever seen the film Life
of Brian.
I always used to think of it a bit like that
when all the centurions went running in, 50 ofthem running into this little room.
(07:34):
And it's very much like that when they go intoa flat or go into a premises, you see them all
running in with their riot gear on.
Quite often you'd hear screams coming from
inside.
I never quite know what was going on.
They're very good at detaining a person whennobody gets hurt, where they can push them
into a corner with shields.
Or another alternative is to put shields on
(07:55):
the door and call the person out.
The next step up from that is where firearms
are involved and there's fear of anoutstanding firearm that could be used against
the police.
In this case, it would obviously be armed
officers that would do that.
Now, as an investigator, you wouldn't make
that decision on your own.
(08:16):
There would be a supervisor in the firearms
unit known as a tactical advisor, and youwould contact that tactical advisor to discuss
the options, get advice, and in between you.
You would settle on what is the best option.
Is it a case of going at 03:00 in the morning,putting in the door and arresting the person
(08:37):
as quickly as possible, or putting acontainment in and calling them out, or not
making it a firearms operation at all?But there will be discussions between you as
an investigator and the tactical advisor.
Now, I've got to be honest, I hated using
these because it all got so complicated.
It wasn't a case of just going up, knocking on
(08:58):
the door, generally, it was about 03:00 in themorning.
My understanding of why they do that, it's apoint where the body is at its least
responsive, along those lines, becausesomebody's asleep and it gives them a tactical
advantage.
But I tried to stay away from that as much as
possible, so if I could, I would just knock onthe door and arrest someone in that way.
(09:21):
So when you're doing your writing, when itcomes to arrest, those are the three options
that you need to consider.
Is it going to be detectives knocking on the
door?Is it going to be those riot police officers
with shields and the riot gear?Or is it going to be a firearms team that are
going to either go into the premises or callthe suspect out?
What it won't be is a DCI going there anddoing the rest on his own.
(09:46):
Not going to happen.
Then we have scene two.
Now, because of all the shenanigans in thisbuilding, where Luther allowed the person to
fall from the hole, seriously injuringthemselves, he was suspended for a while from
frontline duty, but he was then exonerated andallowed to carry on with his active
operational duties.
(10:08):
So they gave him a murder to investigate,
which involved two people in a house, bothhaving been shot, and a dog had been shot as
well.
The two people were a husband and wife.
The husband had been shot in the back of thehead whilst at a computer.
The wife was in bed and had been shot once andthe dog had been shot four times.
(10:31):
So he goes there and he's now got with him adetective sergeant who's been desperate to
work with him and has put in loads ofapplications saying, please can I work with
Luther?So they turn up at the address.
Luther walks in with his new colleague and heis not in what we call full barrier clothing.
If a detective is entering a crime scene, theyshould be in overshoes, a paper suit, wearing
(10:56):
two pairs of latex gloves and a mask.
And we'll go into the reasons for that in a
bit.
But Luther isn't.
He's just in his normal clothes.
Normal shoes.
And he walks in and he tells his newcolleague, you might want to keep your hands
in your pockets.
It reduces the temptation to touch anything.
That is, you're not going to leave yourfingerprints anywhere.
Was his walking through the hall, through thedog's blood in his own shoes?
(11:22):
Is that likely to happen in real life?Don't you think?
You'll be surprised for me to say, no,absolutely not.
In actual fact, if a detective walked into ascene like that, whoever was in charge of that
scene, probably a crime scene manager, wouldthrow them out, telling them, you get out of
my scene and don't come back until you'reproperly dressed.
Because what Luther is doing there ispotentially ruining the case.
(11:46):
The reason why that fall barrier clothing isworn is twofold.
Firstly, it's to prevent somebody introducingDNA, et cetera, into a crime scene.
So if I walk in as Luther was, and we could beshedding skin, DNA, hair.
(12:08):
Well, I probably wouldn't, though I haven'tgot much hair.
But the potential is that you're going tointroduce foreign DNA that isn't there into
the crime scene.
And also, and probably more dangerously, is
that you could bring DNA, forensic evidenceout of the scene.
Now, picture this.
Luther walks in and he's in his own shoes, and
(12:29):
he steps in some of that dog's blood.
Luther, being a good detective, is very likely
within the next hour to have identified whothe killer was and be at their house.
So when he does go to their home and he'swalked through that dog's blood, he's likely
to have that blood on his shoes, dried bloodon his shoes.
And when he walks into the suspect's house,there's a good chance that blood will fall
(12:53):
off.
Imagine if the forensic team then later went
to examine a suspect's home.
And on the carpet in the hall were flakes of
dried blood that matched the dog at the crimescene.
What they now have is evidence linking thatsuspect to that murder, when in actual fact,
(13:13):
we know it's not.
It's Luther.
Through his poor crime scene practises, he'strodden in blood and deposited it elsewhere,
given a false indication of evidence thatcould convict someone of murder.
When actual fact, that evidence shouldn't havebeen found in the first place because it was
(13:35):
put there unintentionally by Luther.
I quite often get asked, do you watch this
programme or do you watch that programme inrelation to crime fiction?
And I usually say no. And the reason being isI get wound up quite easily by what I see, but
I'm putting myself through this for you.
(13:56):
So, in the future, I'm gonna have to start
watching a few more of these programmes.
But one of the things that winds me up the
most is this.
You see a detective walking into the crime
scene in their own clothes while surrounded bya forensic team, properly dressed in four
barrier clothing.
Now, I get for tv that it's not great with
your main character looking completely likeeverybody else, with a face covered, and you
(14:18):
can't see who's who and it's very difficult tosee them and hear them, so I get that.
But it is galling, I've got to be honest.
It is galling and it's probably the worst
thing I ever see.
Now, for you, when you're writing your
stories, it's much easier, isn't it?You're going to put your detectives in full
barrier clothing and it's easier for yourreaders because they don't have to
(14:38):
differentiate between, visually on the screen,who's who.
It will be in your book and it'll be easy todevelop.
But, yeah, so if you're writing about yourdetective going to a crime scene, they have to
have four barrier clothing.
Scene three.
So Luther's at this address and he starts towalk around, taking in what he's seeing, but
(15:00):
very quickly making statements about what'sthere.
So he notices that the couple are sleeping indifferent beds.
What do you make of that?He says to his colleague, somebody snores.
He replies, which in actual fact, is a prettygood response, because how can you take
anything from somebody sleeping in differentbeds?
(15:22):
And he also points out there are sleepingtablets next to one of the beds.
Again, what does that tell you?I don't know.
Now, what Luther is doing here, essentially,is trying to interpret what he sees at a crime
scene, which is good, and it should happen.
A good lead detective will visit a crime scene
(15:43):
because there's no replicating that.
Being in the crime scene and seeing it and
smelling it and almost tasting it, you can'tget that from photographs, you can't get it
from video.
You have to go there.
Then he looks at the male that had been shotin the back of the head.
He forms an opinion that the killer wasefficient in what they did.
(16:05):
And if they were that efficient, what he wouldhave expected to see was them to leave the gun
there, to have left the gun and fled.
So now his suspicions are being raised.
Something just doesn't sit right in thismurder.
Well, is he onto something?Is it something that you would expect a killer
(16:25):
to do, leave the gun behind?If they're efficient at what they do.
Well, in all honesty, I've never ever comeacross that.
I've never dealt with a murder where thekillers have left the gun behind.
Maybe I've only dealt with inefficientkillers, I don't know, but it's not something
I've ever seen, and I've dealt with a fair fewshootings.
So for him to make the assumption that becausethe killer didn't leave the gun, there's
(16:49):
something that could be read into, that, inall honesty, is a load of rubbish.
If it happens, it happens so rarely that youcan't take it as being the norm.
It would be something that's actually unusual.
So the fact this didn't happen, nothing can be
read into it.
But what Luther is doing here is actually.
(17:10):
He's actually doing the right thing.
He's visiting a crime scene.
He's trying his best to interpret it bylooking at what the crime scene is telling
him.
My criticism would be that he's doing it far
too quickly.
Now, obviously, he's doing it for television,
but he's carrying it out in such a way likehis Sherlock Holmes, that you can just look at
a room and within a few seconds process what'sin there and interpret what that is telling
(17:35):
him.
The reality is very different to that.
You can't just walk into a room, look at itfor 10 seconds, and then decide that this is
what it's telling you.
What I used to do when I used to go to a crime
scene is go to each room, especially the roomwhere incidents have taken place, either where
the body's been found or there's been aconfrontation, etcetera, stand there and just
(17:58):
look.
But this can take some time because you want
to look everywhere and you want to look up anddown all around the room, but you're not just
looking, you're seeing.
And I used to call it seeing, not looking.
So it's very easy to look at something and notsee what it's telling you.
And the only way you can really do that is bytaking your time and trying to take in
(18:21):
everything that is in front of you.
Is there something out of place?
Has something been disturbed?Are there drawers open?
Are there clothes around that's got thepockets turned out?
For instance, is there a break in dustindicating that something has been moved?
For instance, there's a square shape in thedust where something was there before, but
it's not there now.
(18:42):
Just trying to interpret anything you can from
a room that could give you a clue as to whathas gone on, that's not always easy and it's
not always obvious, and there might not beanything at all, but it's an exercise that can
be really useful.
And in all honesty, it's not something I saw
many detectives doing.
I think most would just go into a room, have a
(19:03):
quick look around and walk out again.
In actual fact, what you need to do is just
stop and look.
And that's one of the best skills, I think, of
a detective, is having that ability just tostand still and take things in.
So Luther is on the right track, but far tooquick, and he's jumping to too many
assumptions.
(19:24):
So, scene four.
So the murder has been discovered by the twovictims daughter.
She's come to the house and discovered thather parents have been shot.
And in the next scene, we see her in a policeinterview room.
Now, this is an interview room that'sprimarily to interview suspects, people that
have committed crimes.
(19:44):
But she's there as the victim's daughter in a
blue suit.
Now, the blue suit that she's in is the same
one that we would give prisoners when we taketheir clothes.
So they've obviously taken her clothes, whichis the right thing to do.
So anybody that's at a crime scene in thiscircumstance, particularly if they've got
blood on them or if there's been a shooting,their clothing would be taken for later
(20:07):
examination.
Luther goes into the room as the DCI and
starts asking her questions, immediatelyputting on the tape recorder to record what's
going on.
Would this happen in real life?
You might not be surprised for me to say no.
So, this lady is a family member of two people
(20:28):
that have been murdered, and as such, shewould be allocated a family liaison officer,
and that family liaison officer would be adetective constable, and they would work with
a deputy FlO or deputy Flo, and they would bethe people that would be asking questions of
this lady.
(20:48):
Now, the DCI is likely to meet her, and you
would meet her at some stage, probably anearly stage, in order to introduce himself as
the senior officer on the case, to explainsome of the processes and to answer any
questions that she may have.
But he would not, in any circumstance, be the
(21:08):
officer that would be interviewing a witnessas she is at this stage.
In this circumstance.
It just wouldn't happen, not in a million
years.
But Luther is starting to think that things
don't add up and he's getting suspicious ofthis daughter.
He's starting to form the opinion that she maybe the murderer and he's got a trick up his
(21:32):
sleeve, he yawns.
And when she doesn't respond with that
automatic yawning response that often happenswhen somebody yawns in front of you, he now
knows he's got the killer.
He leaves the room, quickly goes, speaks to
his colleagues and say, she did it, she's thekiller.
How does he know that?Well, because she didn't respond when he
(21:54):
yawns.
She must be a psychopath.
And if she is a psychopath, it must have beenher that killed her parents.
I mean, how do you unpick that?There's a few things there.
So, firstly, this would not happen at all inreal life.
Forget about it.
If you're looking at this for inspiration for
your stories, and you want to keep yourstories based on authenticity, it would not
(22:19):
happen.
So, first off, do people automatically yawn
when you yawn in front of them?No, it doesn't happen, does it?
It might happen.
There's a good chance it could happen, but
it's not going to definitely happen.
There have been studies that suggest that
people with less empathy might not yawn inresponse to seeing somebody else yawn.
(22:40):
Clearly.
That doesn't mean that everybody that doesn't
respond in that way lacks empathy.
And even if she was a psychopath, is that
evidence that she killed her parents?No, of course not.
I mean, there are many, many psychopaths inthis world, and if one of their loved ones
comes to harm, does it automatically mean theydid it?
(23:03):
No. What Luther is doing here, he is buildingup the suspicion in his mind that she is
guilty of an offence, which is absolutelyfine.
If you believe somebody is guilty of anoffence because of the circumstance that
you're presented with, because of your ownsubjective ideas on it, that's fine.
(23:24):
But there are ways that you deal with that.
And what you don't do is carry on questioning
that person in the way that Luther does,trying to catch them out, trying to get them
to basically confess to the murder.
Now, what should have happened in this
circumstance?If suspicion falls on a witness or a family
member and you want to speak to them, carefulconsideration has to go into how that happens.
(23:50):
Now, you have several options.
If your suspicion isn't that high, then you
can carry on speaking to them.
But in the senior officer's decision log, they
would have to justify why they're speaking tothem.
In this circumstance, they would have tooutline why, in actual fact, they don't
(24:10):
suspect a person guilty of an offence.
At this stage, they might be keeping an open
mind, but at this stage, they don't suspectthem of being guilty of the offence.
If they do, there are only two ways in whichthey should be questioning them in any way
about the offence, the first of which isarresting them.
So if somebody is suspected of a crime, we allknow that they can be arrested, and if they're
(24:35):
arrested, they would be taken into custody andhave the rights given to them, that they can
have a solicitor, etcetera.
But you don't have to arrest somebody in this
circumstance.
There's another option, and it's known as
caution plus three, and that is that youcaution someone, the same caution you give
someone when they're arrested.
So you do not have to say anything, but it may
(24:55):
harm your defence if you do not mention whenquestioned something which you're later
relying in court.
Anything you do say may be given in evidence.
So you give them those words as you would ifyou were arresting them.
And the plus three is you tell them you're notunder arrest, you're entitled to free legal
advice and you're free to leave at any time.
So if, in this case, as Luther suspects that
(25:19):
this person may be responsible for her parentsmurders, he should either arrest her or
interview her under caution.
Caution plus three, he elects to do neither of
these.
The problem with that is, if she was to have
gone on to confess or said something that wasincriminating, if the questions that led to
(25:44):
that were asked in a circumstance where thequestioner had suspicion against the person
but didn't caution them, when he gets tocourt, the defence will make an application
that that confession or whatever was saidisn't put before a jury.
And if the judge agrees, and in thiscircumstance, if someone suspects you of a
crime and you don't, they don't caution youand they still carry on questioning you,
(26:07):
there's a good chance the judge will agree, sothat will never reach the jury.
So what Luther's doing here is wholly wrong.
If you're writing in your stories, you've got
a situation where there is suspicion fallingupon a person, be it a witness, a family
member, in any way.
If your detectives wish to question them, they
(26:30):
should do so either by arresting them orgiving them a caution plus three.
So what about the fact that Luther nowsuspects the daughter?
That's fine.
If he suspects, with the evidence that he's
been presented, with the information he has,that she is guilty, absolutely fine.
Now, I question how he got there in terms ofthe yawn, etcetera, but what he would need to
(26:55):
be doing as a senior investigator isformulating hypotheses.
We'll look at these in detail on anotherepisode.
But essentially, hypotheses are scenarios thatmay have happened that give the investigating
team a starting point for their investigation.
So, in this instance, if he believed that the
(27:16):
daughter was guilty of the murder, then whathe should be doing is forming a hypothesis,
saying the murder was carried out by thedaughter.
But what Luther is doing is he is falling intothe trap that the worst detectives fall into,
and that is confirmation bias.
(27:36):
He's formed an opinion, and he is now looking
to prove himself right.
I know I'm Luther.
I know that this is the killer, and I'm goingto go and prove it right.
Well, the problem is, Luther, you might bewrong.
So while you're chasing this killer down andtrying to get the evidence to prove yourself
(27:56):
right, you could be taking your eye off theball in the fact that it was somebody else
that carried out the murder.
In the meantime, this person is doing all they
can to distance themselves from the crime,destroy evidence, and more worryingly, could
go on to kill other people.
And that's something that does happen.
And I think the worst case I've ever seen ofthis involves Rachel Nickel, where she was
(28:21):
murdered on Wimbledon Common.
And due to information in a criminal profile,
the police formulated our hypothesis that thekiller was Colin Stank.
They were convinced he was the person thatkilled Rachel, so they went after him.
They went seeking evidence to prove themselvesright, and even going as far as setting up a
(28:46):
honey trap by introducing an undercover femaleofficer.
They even went as far as charging Stagg, whothen went to court, and rightly so.
The case was thrown out by the judge becauseof the way the evidence was obtained.
But they took their eye off the ball and theyignored the fact that it could have been
somebody else, and it was somebody else.
(29:06):
It was Robert Napper.
And Nappa then went on to kill SamanthaBlissett and her five year old daughter,
Yasmin.
And now, I'm not saying if the police had
ignored stag, they would have automaticallyidentified Nappa.
We can't say that.
I don't know what evidence they had, but by
not looking for Nappa, they were never goingto find him.
(29:27):
Is there a chance that their incompetence,which is what it was, led to, Samantha and
Yasmin being murdered?We will never know the answer to that, but it
is concerning.
It definitely is concerning.
Is probably one of the worst examples in UK ofconfirmation bias.
So then we come to the next scene wherethey're discussing what they can do with the
(29:48):
daughter.
Luther is pleading with the superintendent
saying, we can't release her, we can't releaseher.
And the superintendent saying, will you bringme some evidence then?
The problem is here, they're ignoring otherpotential lines of evidence.
It's almost like if she doesn't confess to themurder, there's nothing they can do about it.
But let's just think about that for a second.
(30:10):
They've seized her clothing and on that
clothing, we can see is blood.
What also could be on that clothing is gunshot
residue.
So let's deal with those things in turn.
Blood can get on somebody's clothing, andthere's two in particular that are important
here.
So the first one is contact staining.
(30:33):
So this would be, for instance, if she hadgiven her dad a cuddle or a mum a cuddle, and
in the process, blood transferred from themonto her.
Another example would be airborne blood.
So, for instance, if you'd shot someone and
the impact of the bullet caused blood to flythrough the air, landing on the clothing,
(30:55):
those two ways in which the blood had got onthe clothing would appear very different to a
forensic scientist when they're carrying outtheir examinations.
Blood pattern analysis is the technical term,but essentially they're looking to see how
blood is likely to have been distributed onclothing.
And the two would present very differently thecontact staining and the airborne blood.
(31:19):
But they hadn't really thought about that,have they?
They haven't thought, well, let's get herclothing to the lab as soon as possible.
And that would tell us whether or not thatblood was there because she happened to give
her parents a cuddle or because she was stoodthere when the bullet entered them.
And the blood distribution proves that she wasstood there when the shot was fired.
And then we've got GSR, which is gunshotresidue.
(31:42):
When a gun is fired, a big cloud comes out ofthe barrel and in that cloud is gunshot
residue, which is essentially small particlesthat come from the gunpowder and the bullet.
Now, if you fire a gun or if you're stood nextto it when it's fired, a quite significant
amount of that gunshot residue is likely tosettle on you, which is very different to it
(32:07):
being transferred on you.
For example, if she were to have cuddled her
parents and they'd been shot and it was closeby and they had gunshot residue on them,
there's likely that some of that would betransferred on.
But when the scientists examine her clothingfor gunshot residue, it will look very
different if she stood next to a gun or she'sfired the gun, or then if she'd given someone
(32:30):
a cuddle.
Again, it's not evidence that they were even
considering, and it's something that wouldneed to be looked at.
So they're pinning all their hopes on herconfessing to a murder.
And the reality is, when it comes to murderinvestigations, confessions play very little
part in an investigation.
(32:51):
When you're interviewing someone, you're not
trying to get them to confess.
Yes, it might be nice if they confess, but
that's not the purpose of the interview.
What you're trying to do is get them to commit
to a story which can be tested.
And if they've said something in a police
station, it doesn't look great if they go andchange their account later on in court.
So all this emphasis they seem to be placingon the confession just doesn't ring true.
(33:16):
So the next scene is that they've decided, wedon't have the evidence to hold her here, so
we're going to have to take her home.
And Luther drives her home and he's driving a
marked police vehicle.
Would a detective chief inspector be using a
marked police vehicle to drive a witness home?No. Luther is based in London, and the murder
(33:39):
investigation teams in London do have accessto marked police vehicles.
And the car that they would use to respond tonew murders is known as the hat car.
The homicide assessment team, the hat car.
And quite often that would be a marked police
vehicle, but that would only be used in thosecircumstances for responding to calls.
(34:03):
Would a DCI have access to that?Well, they would, but the likelihood of them
using it is pretty slim.
So this scene of him driving her home in a
marked police vehicle, it just wouldn'thappen.
And I do understand why they're doing it.
It's for television, so it's much easier for
the viewer to understand what's going on byfollowing a marked police vehicle.
(34:24):
But the reality is, no, this would not happen.
And then we get the next scene.
And essentially what is happening now is thatLuther has worked out what has happened to the
gun, the gun that he says should have beenleft behind.
And the way he works this out is that theparents were each shot once and the dog was
(34:47):
shot four times.
So overkill, essentially, on the dog.
Why would that happen?Well, obviously, the killer was firing the gun
into the dog in order that they could then putthe gun into the dog so that it was hidden and
the dog was taken off and the bodyincinerated, thus meaning that the evidence,
(35:08):
the gun, was incinerated with it.
Now, I've got a few problems with this, so
just imagine a scenario where someone hadentered a premises, fired some bullets and
killed somebody, the forensic examiners andthe police would be looking for all the
bullets that were fired by that gun.
If they were in a war, they would look to
(35:31):
remove them from the wall.
If the bullets were in the victim, they would
be looking to retrieve those at a post mortem.
Now, what would happen if those bullets were
in a dog?What would they do, just leave them?
Of course not.
They would be taking steps to retrieve the
bullets from the dog.
So in all likelihood, what would probably
(35:51):
happen is the dog would be x rayed and theywould carry out a post mortem in order for
those bullets to be retrieved.
In the process, they would have identified a
gun that had been stuffed inside the dog inorder to hide it.
So whoever wrote this hasn't really thoughtthrough the processes of what the police would
do.
But it does make for a good story, doesn't it?
(36:13):
And then we get to the next scene whereLuther, determined that he's going to prove
that he's right, breaks into the home of thedaughter in order to look for these gun parts
in the urn in which the dog's ashes are.
So he breaks into her home and in there he
(36:34):
looks in the urn and he's right, parts of thegun are in this urn.
But the problem is, he's broken into thispremises illegally, so whatever is found is
going to be difficult to use as evidence atcourt.
If only he had the power to enter that homeproperly, lawfully, legally, and seize
(36:54):
whatever was there.
If only he had the power.
Well, he did, didn't he?All he had to do was arrest her.
He suspected somebody was guilty of anoffence, and that suspicion is subjective.
So there's no book where you open it up andyou look at a table and you say, right, do we
have the grounds to arrest?It's subjective.
So in his mind, with the information he has,with the evidence he's seen, he's formed a
(37:18):
suspicion that this person is guilty of themurder.
If he'd arrested her, it then would haveopened up powers to search her home.
If somebody's arrested under section 18 ofpace, the police have a power to search their
home or other premises that they control inorder to search for evidence of that offence,
(37:38):
which is what they could have done here, couldquite easily have arrested her on suspicion of
murder, got the authority of an inspector,which is what you need for section 18
searches.
Once somebody's arrested in our police station
and then searched her home, finding the gunbits in the urn, and they would have been
another piece in the puzzle for him, buildingup a case against her.
(38:00):
But not Luther.
No, Luther doesn't follow the rules, he
doesn't follow procedures.
He just does whatever he wants.
Would this happen in real life?Clearly not.
I mean, it's a story, I understand it'sentertainment, but this is so far from the
truth.
Then we have a scene with him, with his wife.
They're estranged, their marriage has beenunder some difficulties, and as it transpires,
(38:25):
she's been seeing somebody else.
And when he goes to speak to her, she
basically blames the job in that he's neveraround.
He's always out investigating murders.
So this does have a ring of truth to it.
There is no doubt that when you investigatemurder, it can have an impact on your life.
And a lot of detectives are divorced.
(38:46):
I was one of those.
It can really have an impact on your life.
So there is a ring of truth to this.
And the final bit I want to speak about isjust a minor, minor point, and it stems from
the issues that Luther is having with hiswife.
And he turns up her house and he calls his bitof a scene, and her and her new boyfriend call
the police, and the police arrive and Lutheris showing them his warrant card, saying to
(39:11):
them, I'm a policeman.
I'm a policeman.
Now, when you're doing your writing, and ifyou want the words that are used, the dialogue
to be authentic, a policeman would neverdescribe themselves as a policeman.
I mean, if I've done that, I've only ever doneit to children, when I'm trying to do it in a
very basic way, saying to them, I'm apoliceman.
(39:33):
Certainly when you're speaking to other policeofficers, you would not say, I'm a policeman.
The words that he would use in this situation,he would say to them, I'm job, or I'm in the
job.
That's what you say to other police officers
when you're trying to let them know thatyou're in the police as well.
I'm job.
I'm in the job.
You would not say to them, I'm a policeman.
(39:54):
So they're the points I wanted to speak about
from the episode, looking at what Luther didcompared to what would happen in real life, in
all of these episodes, I'm going to judge theprogramme I'm watching on its authenticity as
whether it's good, bad or ridiculous.
(40:15):
So what about Luther?
Where does he fit on this scale?I don't think you'll be surprised for me to
say, sorry, Luther, your programme isridiculous.
Thank you for joining me on another episode ofmurder Investigation for crime writers.
I'm your host, Steve Keogh, and it's been apleasure delving into the world of murder
investigation with you.
(40:36):
Authenticity is key for crime writers and I
hope this podcast has provided you withvaluable insights and inspiration for your
storytelling journey.
If you found value in what you've heard today,
I encourage you to share this podcast withyour fellow authors.
Together we can elevate the standards of crimefiction and bring realism to the forefront.
If you have a moment, I'd also appreciate ifyou could leave a review on your favourite
(40:59):
podcast platform.
Your feedback helps others discover the
podcast and join our community of passionatecrime writers.
Thank you for listening.
Until next time, keep writing, keep
investigating, and keep bringing your storiesto life.
I've been Steve Keogh.
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