July 2, 2024 • 53 mins
In 1983 in Aberdeen in Scotland, a man going about his usual work day was senselessly and brutally murdered he was a kind man described by friends and family as a good, ordinary hard working man. Fast forward 41 years and Police haven’t given up, they are still working on finding the man who did it, and they’re almost there. With the public’s help, George's family can get the answers they need.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:40):
Hello and welcome along to crime Pediapodcast. It is very nice to be
back. We've had a break fora while, but it is me your
host this week with my lovely cohost is the lovely Morgan. And your
name is Cherry. My name isCherry. That is true. Hello Cherry,
Hello were Yes, we welcome back. It's been a while. It's
(01:04):
been a while. It's been verybusy. We've had a very busy time
recently. So much has been goingon in the true crime world as well.
I've noticed that Colin Sutton has gota whole new series of Manhunter on
the way. Stephen Koh's got awhole new series. He's got writers,
writers things now that you can goand like he can advise you as a
detective if you're a writer, andhe can advise you on the ways that
(01:27):
people detect stuff and crime processes andstuff like that. There's courses you can
go on all sorts. I needto go in on that, Yeah you
should. I think you can doit online too, Actually that would be
a good idea. Find him findhim on LinkedIn, or find him on
like you're friends of him anywhere.I think on Instagram. He's like being
(01:47):
posting about it so you can joinup. And because I sent you on
the other day, which was alike a writer's course, because in case
you don't know, Morgan has beenwriting a book, a crime fiction book,
which will be out soonish, I'mgetting hopefully before Christmas. And so
yeah, but you've got a wholea whole knowledge of the whole like fountain
(02:08):
of knowledge there with the people thatwe know. You could you could ask
about crime processes and stuff. Yeah, because that's the that's the one thing
I don't want, like, ohmy god, if I like, if
Carlin Sutton read my book, hewas like, it was okay, except
blah blah. Yeah, we don'tdo it like that. Yeah. Yeah,
(02:28):
well that would never happen. Youknow. You're like, oh,
okay, well, well keep we'llkeep you posted on on Morgan's book,
and then maybe that'll be a goodstocking filler for Christmas for all your true
crime fans out there. You havea nice crime fiction from a true crime
podcaster. Yeah. Maybe I couldsign it for whoever you give it to.
(02:51):
Oh you just signed copies even better? Yeah, Well, this week
I have got for you from goodold Bonnie Scotland. This Week is the
story of fifty eight year old GeorgeMurdoch. In nineteen eighty three, in
(03:20):
Aberdeen, in Scotland, a mangoing about his usual workday was senselessly and
brutally murdered. He was a kindman, described by friends and family as
a good, ordinary hard working man. Fast forward over forty years and police
still haven't given up. They're stillworking on finding the man who did it,
and they're almost there. With thepublic's help, George's family can get
(03:43):
the answers that they need. Thisis crime Pedia and this is George Murdoch's
story. Okay Morgan, So,fifty eight year old George Murdoch was born
in Aberdeen, in Scotland. AndI couldn't find anything anywhere about this guy
that was less than like praising.He was described by everyone who knew him
(04:04):
as a really kind gentleman, justan ordinary hard working guy. He'd been
married to his wife for thirty sevenyears. She was called Jesse. They
didn't have any children themselves, butthey did have nieces and nephews, and
they used to sort of shower theirlove on nieces and nephews. And the
cutest thing about George that I readwas that he loved pigeons. He had
(04:28):
his own pigeons. Yeah, itwas really cute, and I thought,
do you know what, it justsounds like a if you watch a if
you watch a program here in Englandcalled Coronation Street, there was a really
lovable character in that show that usedto love pigeons. So if ever I
think of pigeon keepers, I alwaysthink of him for some reason. So
it's just like a general working classnice guy. He also had a boat
(04:48):
that he loved going out on aswell. And in late nineteen seventies he
was made redundant from his job,which is in a factory. And now
I believe it if I've got thisright up in Aberdeen in Scotland in the
seventies there was like an influx ofpeople from different countries. The factories got
overrun. They didn't really did.There wasn't as much work in the factories
(05:11):
because there was loads of different thingshappening, and he got made redundant.
So because of this, he obviouslyneeded to earn money and so turned to
taxi driveing to earn a living,which is obviously a good living. It
wasn't his dream job, it wasn'tsomething he desperately wanted to do, and
him and Jesse. He wasn't keenon leaving Jesse at home in the evenings
because a lot of taxi driving isgoing to be evenings and weekends. It's
(05:34):
like unsociable hours, isn't it.That's when you're going to get your most
money. He didn't like leaving her, and she was worried about him going
out and late nights and evenings towork. And on the twenty ninth of
September in nineteen eighty three, nowthis is a Thursday night. Yes,
it was late night shopping in Aberdeenand George was working an evening shift.
(05:56):
So he drove at the time alight if you know your cars, a
light blue Ford Cortina. My dadused to have a Ford Cortina and they
are really at the time, likereally nice cars. I used to love
my dad's Cortina. And this waslike a light blue, light blue,
one, very very light blue.Now, around half past eight in the
evening, his car was seen parkedin Queen's Road. Now, this is
(06:18):
near the New Marcliffe Hotel in Aberdeenif you google it. It was a
busy night that night. A lotof people have sort of come forward since
to say it was very busy andat the time he was flagged down by
a man who was described to bein his twenties. Now, usually if
you if you book a taxi,your details are taken, contact details are
taken. But if you just flagone down, obviously there's no there's no
(06:42):
pre booking, so there's no name, there's no contact details. It's literally
just excuse me, you know,like you know, like your helicab in
like London or something. Yeah,and there's no details taken, so we
don't know who this guy is thatgot into his taxi. So, as
expected, usually when George got afair like that, when they flag someone
(07:02):
down, he would radio through tothe control room to say that now he
was out of action basically until hehad done the job that he had just
been flagged down to do. Heradioed Threw and said that he just picked
up a customer and he was headinto a place called Couta. Now,
if you're looking this up on amap, couter is actually spelt culter cu
(07:23):
lt r. Now, I don'tknow if this is a pronunciation thing because
of the because of the Scottish accent, but it's actually said as Couter as
far as I could work. Soif I've got this wrong and you are
Scottish and you're going to tell meoff, I'm really sorry in advance.
Then Couter itself is actually actually PeterCutor, so that's its proper name,
(07:44):
is Peter Cutor. But they callit Cutera for sure, And it's about
eight miles out from the city center, so it's not a huge and not
very long way. Eight miles.There's nothing to say in a car.
So after driving two miles, whichis in kilometers if you do this by
kilometers, about three kilometers. Afterdriving about three kilometers in his taxi towards
Cooter, he turned onto pit Fuddles, which is station road just on the
(08:07):
outside outskirts of the city. Nowit's not known why he stopped there particularly,
but something happened in the cab andthe two men began fighting. So
they're fighting, and I don't knowhow this has happened logistically. I don't
know if he was sat in thefront or whether he was sat in the
back. Usually it is customary toget in the back of a taxi.
(08:28):
You don't usually get in the frontof a taxi unless there's too many of
you, and someone has to situp front. Usually if you're on your
own or in the two or something, you'd get in the back. So
they began fighting and George was reallystruggling to control this guy, and they
spilled out of the taxi onto theroad in this area. Now there was
(08:50):
two young boys passing on their pushbikesbicycles. They saw the fight and were
quite scared and then reported seeing Georgebeing stranged this passenger. So George was
desperately calling out for help, andthe two boys went a mile down the
road to the Colts Hotel where theyused the phone box to call the police
station. So they've used it tocall the local police station where they reported
(09:13):
what was happening. Now, policeobviously rushed right to the scene, but
unfortunately didn't arrive in time and foundthe lifeless body of George Murdoch just outside
of his taxi. Now, thestrange thing about this, other than the
fact that was this guy just doingthis to, you know, not pay
for his taxi, but the attackerhad used cheese wire to wrap around George's
(09:37):
throat and this murder weapon was actuallyfound at the scene. Now, if
you don't if you don't. Idon't know if it's customary over there to
use cheese wire, but you know, chee war is used to cut particularly
hard cheese. So it's a pieceof wire that's usually bound around two wooden
like wooden pegs. I would say, they're kind of like little wooden handles
(09:58):
and they're sort of on them eitherend, and then what you do is
you would hold it one end andthen you would slice down through the hard
cheese because it's much easier than doingit with a knife. And he used
to find it in like supermarkets.If you went to like the deli part
of the supermarket, they would usea cheese wire to cut the cheese up.
So why this guy had a cheesewire in his pocket is very odd.
(10:18):
It looks like a grut, right, I mean, well yeah,
yeah, yeah, so that's verystrange. I mean that's something that I
don't think a normal person would justbe carrying around unless for some reason,
you're a cheese Somalia or whatever thehell it would be, and he just
happened to have it. That's notsomething you would you would just have in
(10:39):
your pocket. Yeah, randomly,Well, I mean, I went,
I went, I went online,did a bit of investigation, see if
I could find any old cheese likecheese shops or anything like that, any
places or butcher's or something like that, so also sold cheese, and I
couldn't find any listed from back inthe day. Because I thought, okay,
is possible that if he was workedin a cheese shop, could he
(11:01):
have put it in his pocket byaccident and just taking it home? Or
do they have their own you know, some places you have your own tools,
Chefs have their own knives and stufflike that. Could it be that
that was his own one or strangeIt's a really odd thing to be carrying
around on your person, and thatwould suggest to me straight away that that
was a premeditation, right, Yeah, obviously, I mean I would think
(11:26):
that if you've got something like thatin your pocket, chances are you're not
going to be using it to likeflush your teeth. It's going to be
for something bad exactly. You're eithergoing to be cutting cheese with it or
you're going to kill somebody. Yeah, you're going to be cutting something you
shouldn't with it, for for sure. So this guy was described to be
in his late twenties to early thirties. He was described to have dark hair
(11:50):
which sat over his ears. Hewas wearing dark clothing which police say would
have been heavily bloodstained after the attack. He was a thin guy, about
five foot seven, it's report,and was clean shaven. So George's wallet
and his taxi fares for that eveningso far had been stolen by this person.
Police believed that there had been abouttwenty between twenty one and thirty five
(12:11):
pounds. That's all he took.That's all that that's all that George had
between twenty one and thirty five,given the fairs that he had had that
evening. So police could not sayfor certain that robbery was a motive for
the murder. But I mean,if you were to get in a taxi
and not pay, and you gethard because he wasn't even all the way
there to where he was going,So if he had, if he had
(12:35):
sort of got halfway there, andhow does that, how does that happen
that he's refusing to pay? Itis strange. And here's the other thing.
If if robbery was the motive,wouldn't it be easier just to like
hold them up with a knife insteadof just killing him. I mean,
(12:56):
that's for a robbery, having somethingthat you're gonna kill, you know,
with with that cheese, that cheese, I mean, your goal is to
kill them. And I thought aboutthis too, just a random thought thinking
about this. You said it waswhat kind of car was it it was?
(13:16):
For? Now? Typically you knowyour passengers would be sitting in the
back seat, right, yeah?Yeah? Were those Do you know if
it was if those were like twodoor? Was it a two door sedan?
Or was it like a four doorsedan? Do you happen to know?
I think it might have been fourdoor. I think it was.
(13:39):
I think it was full door.I can check that. It's strange to
me that that they were able toget out of the car and he was
able to continue to well, Iuse the word continue to strangle him with
the cheese wire. My my assumptionwould be if he was going to try
to rob or kill him, ifhe's got I've got a picture of it.
(14:01):
Yeah it was it was a fourso it's four door. So yeah,
my this is how I would havepictured it, because they were already
in sort of they were fighting inthe car before they got out of the
car. And if he's behind him, like in the back seat. I
would imagine that if his goal wasto kill him, he would have that
(14:24):
cheese wire out in ready, readyto go, and then while he's in
the car, that's when he startsto strangle him. But getting out of
the car, that would mean thatthey would have he would have had to
stop they get out of the car. I just said you, I've just
sent you a picture of the carso you can understand what four courteen looks
like. And I'll put this onthe socials when we put our stuff up,
(14:45):
so you can see from that.It's a very square, very old
car. The the headdresss aren't particularlyhigh in the car, and there's no
like, there's no sort of separationbetween there's no kind of like screen or
anything between the front and the back. It's just like an ordinary looking car.
And I thought the same. Imean, I don't know whether he's
leaned through the middle of the carbecause in the old days, the older
(15:09):
cars, there was a much biggergap between the front two seats. Because
I remember when my dad had thiscar, like I could fit through through
the the center of the two frontseats quite easily. And so I wonder
whether it's the fighting started through themiddle and then they've spilled out of the
driver's side door. Maybe that's howthey've fallen out, because the kids say
(15:30):
that they remember seeing them spilling outof the car onto the road and then
and then they saw the man stranglewhat they said was strangling him. Obviously
we know, we know now thathe was using the cheese wire. Yeah,
to do to do that very strange, Okay, I mean, like
you said, I think if someif if your motive was to in this
(15:54):
vehicle, if your motive was torob him, surely you would, like
you say, you would have somethingthat would stop him in his tracks,
like a knife or a gun ora you know something. You don't look
very menacing with a bit of cheesewire. No, like physically you don't
look menacing. But if you justcaught him unawares and put it over him
(16:14):
whilst he was driving, that's goingto cause him to like slam on the
brakes, probably drive a bit erraticallyuntil he can stop. I mean,
you're not really going to pull upthe handbrake. I mean, because we
have it's different over here. Ithink your handbrakes are like up high,
aren't they like on a truck here? But our handbreaks are down in between
the front two seats, so wewould pull it up from the front two
seats. So it's a very strange. I mean, I don't know,
(16:37):
I don't know how the conversation's goneon, but it's a very strange way
to rob someone. I think.I don't think robbery was the motive.
No, because, like I said, if your motive was robbery, you
would have something that would cause fearwith Okay, yeah, here you go,
here's my money, don't hurt me, let's take it go. If
(17:00):
you have cheese wire, your intentionis harm, yeah, exactly. And
here's the thing. It's not likeit's difficult to get a knife. So
it's not like, oh I can'tget a knife. No, every kitchen
has one, that's right. Yeah, not every kitchen is gonna have a
(17:22):
cheese wire. I don't. Idon't know. I haven't got one.
We've never had one in my family. We've never had a cheese wire.
I don't know anybody that has thatkind of thing at home. To be
honest, I know what cheese wiresare. I don't know if I if
I know anyone that has that hasa cheese wire. It has ever had
a cheese wire. Maybe it wasmore common in the seventies. I don't
(17:45):
know, but it's like, there'sno, there's no. Yeah, you
can't control the situation with a cheesewire, you know what I mean?
Yeah, exactly if you don't,it's a strange weapon of choice. Right,
If you don't get that thing aroundtheir neck right away, you're stuffed.
(18:07):
You don't have control of the situation. How do people have control the
situation when they have knives, whenthey have guns, whatever it might be,
not a cheese wire. A cheesewire is something that you see serial
killers use, right, That's somethingthat they people choose that because they enjoy
you know, yes, the painand suffering in the effects of it.
(18:30):
Yeah right, yeah, no,you're right. Well, I mean,
obviously, George's murder made headline newsthat can nationally made headline news, and
the media, as they do,dubbed the murderer the cheese wire killer.
I don't know why they always dothat. Why don't they give them really
pathetic names so that to stop thisfrom happening. The police launched a manhunt
(18:52):
to find George's murderer, and it'sreported that they had visited over ten thousand
homes and took over eight thousand statements. And in the days after George's death,
roadblocks were set up to cover afive mile stretch. Now this was
on the there was a focus,particularly on the southeast side. There was
an area southeast Side Road because someonematching the description of this man that they
(19:15):
believe killed George was actually seen bya milkman. There was a milkman there
making a delivery to Rudolph Steiner houseand this was running from Southeast Side Road
into some fields. Now, thismilkman, obviously because back then used to
deliver I don't know if it's thesame in America, but back then,
even when I was growing up,you would get your milk from your local
milkman. So they would come anddeliver bottles to your front door, and
(19:36):
you could sometimes get like orange juicewith it as well. But generally it
would be milk or butter that youcould get from your local milkman. Occasionally
you would get things like milkshake,and you would get things like orange juice.
And so they would always always earlyhours of the morning. It would
always be like between something like threeam and five am. They would do
these deliveries. So this guy isobviously out on the road very early in
(20:00):
his milk float and he sees thisguy coming out of the woods but then
quickly disappearing back into the same setof trees. So the police searched the
wasteland near where George was found.They used dogs even back then, they
used dogs to trace where this guymay have gone. And then appeals were
made for anyone in the Queen's Roadarea of the city between eight fifteen and
(20:21):
eight forty five that night to comeforward, which is which is where George
was parked up and took this fareon. Now, there were some people
that came forward because a sighting ofa man with blood on his hands was
made quite shortly after the murder.So the local mister Chips Takeaway on Great
(20:41):
Western Road. The one of thepeople that was working there. The servers
reported to police that this guy camein and he was covered in blood.
His hands were covered in blood,and he had three or four scratch marks
on his cheek and on his nose. He had bruised in to the lower
lid of his eye. He wassaid to have cuts on his thumb and
(21:02):
first three fingers of his hand whichwere all bleeding. Now exactly you've done
exactly if you can see he's doneexactly, I did exactly the same thing.
So like I was got my handsas if I had like the cheese
were in my hand, and thenwas thinking, well, that makes good
sense because you would have you wouldprobably have cut fingers because of the way
(21:22):
you're holding it and fighting your thumband your fingers. Even if you're hold
in the wood, the wire isstill going to be going making contact with
parts of your hand and your skin. So depending on how you're holding it,
like if you have it like ifyou put okay, just imagine if
you have have it in your handlike a fist. You have two fists,
(21:45):
you have two pieces of wood.The wire is going to come out
between your your two middle fingers,right, yes, yeah, and so
you should would expect it's gonna be. Yeah, if you're pulling it that
tight, your expect to see likesome sort of cuts in between your fingers.
Yeah, And especially as he's fightingback, I mean, you know
he's going to be trying to gethis hands up there, He's going to
(22:07):
be fighting. It's not going tobe you know that you're going to do
it, it's not going to beclear. I mean, we have the
same thing with knife fights. Usuallythe person who has stabbed somebody usually has
cuts on their own hand because asthe blood is there, it's slippery,
yes, and then that's when theperson gets cut too. So this is
very strange. Obviously, this guygoes into a local fish and chip restaurant
(22:29):
and he asks for plasters. Ithink he bought chips. I think that's
what I read. He bought somechips and he asked if they had any
plasters. Now, for me,this is strange. If you've just committed
a murder and you're covered in blood, right, why would you go into
somewhere that is? Fish and chipshops generally are very bright places. Every
(22:51):
fish and chip shop I've worked inas a kid, and every fish and
chip shob i've been to is alwaysvery bright. Everything's all bright because of
all the lights that keep the thefood warm and the fryers. Everything's always
bright. Why would you go intosomewhere like that covered in blood. You're
easily recognizable, very easily remembered becausepeople are going to see you and go
(23:12):
that's weird, that's really odd.I mean, if you were to be.
If you were to be covered inblood and go and walk into a
butcher's, or you were to goand walk into an abatar, people wouldn't
even think twice. But to goand walk into somewhere like a fish and
chip shop, absolutely covered in blood, that seems really strange to me.
(23:32):
How far or how far was thisship in this fish and chip shop from
where the murder took. I thinkI think it's just I think it's just
back in town. It's on GreatWestern Road, so I think it's just
back in back in Aberdeen, backin the town. So he would have
had to walk back into town.Yeah, into town, but it was
only like it wasn't very far,was it either, It wasn't it wasn't
(23:53):
that far. I mean, ifGeorge George picked this guy up, they
think between eight fifteen and eight fortyfive, so I mean he was he
only traveled two kilometers out of townbefore, So I mean that would have
taken you not even sort of liketen minutes, ten to fifteen minutes.
So we're talking about maybe nine o'clockat night. So these got back.
I mean fish and chip shops generally, what time do they shut Maybe ten
(24:18):
you tell me, Yeah, surely, it depends, Yeah, it depends.
I mean when I was a kid, I remember that fish and chip
shop shops stayed open quite late,and like now I know that our local
fish and chip shop is usually Ithink it's open till like ten, half
past ten, but then on theweekends it's it's open a bit later.
Right, And of course this wason I think this was this was a
(24:40):
This was a Thursday, so thisis a weekday, but it was late
night shopping, so they will probablyopen a little bit later because of the
late night shoping. You're going tomake quite a good, quite good trade,
aren't you if you stay open.Okay, So that tells me two
things. Well, first off,what are the odds that someone would have
those type of injuries on that night? Yeah, that close to with a
murder happened obviously to me, thatthat indicates that definitely, I don't I
(25:07):
can't say definitely there's a high probabilitythat that is the person who killed George.
To me, the other thing isif he's walking back into town instead
of walking to to cutter a couterhow you say it, So that tells
me that why if he's walking backinto Aberdeen. He's probably from Aberdeen.
(25:30):
He's probably heading back towards wherever helives or wherever he's staying. Because if
he was in if he actually neededto get to Kuter and that's where he
was from, then I would imaginethat he would be walking and stopping somewhere
in the opposite direction. Yeah,okay, well exactly, And that makes
(25:52):
you think that actually did he didhe get did he get into the taxi
to go to Cuta or did heget into taxi because he knew that the
way he was going to take,the direction he was going to take,
led him past these fields, ledhim past these trees, and it was
going to be a place that actuallynobody would be coming past because it's out
the way and he's got a goodchance of being able to hurt him and
(26:15):
rob him. That's what. Yeah, he's't taking them out, He's
taking them out so that there's there'smore seclusion. Yeah, that's what it
sounds like. That's piecing it together, That's what it sounds like to me.
I mean Jesse, obviously Jesse's athome, she doesn't know any of
this. So when George didn't comehome later that night, she gets worried,
(26:37):
and she's thinking back, this isbefore cell phones. She's back thinking
this is strange. She's not comehome. Suddenly there's a knock at the
door and it's the police and theybreak the news to Jesse that George has
been murdered, and bless her.I think that must be. To hear
that your partner has been murdered isawful, and then to hear that your
partner has been murdered in that way, it's just it's just awful. It's
(27:03):
even worse. And then of courseyou've got the fact that nobody's got a
bad word to say about George.He's got no enemies that they know of.
They've got they've got nothing. Sowe also had another another sighting was
a man came forward, another taxidriver came forward, so that he picked
up a bleeding man in the manorfield. I don't actually know where this
(27:23):
is, but that they picked uphe picked up another man in the area,
another bleeding man. Well, surelythere can't be there can't be that
many. There can't be that manybleeding men around that time. So the
manifield is m a N N Ofield. It's a man O Field police
say this. This taxi driver madean anonymous call to the taxi on the
(27:45):
twentieth of October, and he saidthat he'd collected a man matching the suspects
description in one of the key searchareas, and he didn't want to go
to the police himself because he hadrecently got a parking ticket and was worried
for I don't know, worried theywere going to give more, I don't
know. So apparently he was quiteworried. But then this made me think
(28:07):
was that a genuine sighting or wasthat somebody ringing up from a payphone to
try and divert officers away from youknow, a certain a certain train of
thought. Maybe Okay, so justlooking here man of the map, Yeah,
I am man of Field. Wouldbe the area just south of Great
(28:33):
Western Road along Okay, so heremiss chips A ninety three where A ninety
three is the road that they weretaking to Takure Tokutah. So so it's
all, oh, I see,Manifield. I've got it here on the
I've got it here on the onthe map. So so what they're saying,
So if that's if that's the case, then it looks like he's come
(28:55):
out of Queen's Road heading towards Cootaand he would have had to have go
it would have had to have gonepast a field to go to Pittford pittfod
Dolls station, so that's where that'swhere he was. Manifield is just before.
So if that's the case, thisguy might have been picked up bleeding
on the way back, because thatwould make sense if he went out to
(29:15):
Pitfodles or pit Fuddles or however yousay it, and then he's on his
way back and flags down another taxi. By this point he would have already
killed George and would be covered inblood. So then this guy was dropped,
was picked up bleeding and dropped backinto town, which would then make
sense that he then goes to theGreat Western Road and buys himself chips.
(29:37):
Yeah, I mean, damn,you've just murdered somebody and the first thing
that you're thinking of is your stomach. There's that's that's bad. I won't
I'm covered in blood, I'm cuttingher. I've just killed someone, But
damn, I really fancy some chips. That's just what does that say about
that person's mind? You know?Mind frame the Yeah, there's something wrong,
(30:00):
there's one hundreds something wrong. Yeah, this is a young person.
This is a young guy. Toointeresting, and it's obviously it's not and
the thing is, go on,No, I'm just gonna say, there's
too many coincidences here that this isnot the same person. Right, I
(30:22):
agree. I agree with you,and like, think about it. Somebody's
husband, I think, somebody's son. I think this is very young.
This is they've said that he's aroundhis twenties. Right, So you're looking
at somebody's either partner or son hascome home that night absolutely covered in blood.
Right that this person unless they livealone. But even then, I
(30:45):
would imagine that they would live inan area where there's other people live in.
I doubt they live in the middleof nowhere where there's no neighbors or
anything, because that's just not howthings are set out there. So this
this guy is going to be completelycovered in blood, even if it's dried
blood. I mean, we stillknow that. Even if you've been to
any crime cons and things, you'llknow that if you have blood on your
(31:07):
hands and you try and wash itoff, there is still unless you've stood
there for sort of like a goodtwenty minute scrubbing your fingers and everything.
When you've got dried blood, itgets in your nail beds, It gets
in your finger cracks, your knucklecracks, it gets everywhere. This guy's
already been the the A guy hasalready been seen covered in blood in the
fish and chip shop, already beenseen in a taxi getting back into town.
So surely this person has gone hometo someone covered in blood. So
(31:33):
when you've got that answer of ohmy god, what happened? Because if
you if your wife was to comehome covered in blood, you'd be like,
oh my god, what's happened?Are you okay? What's gone wrong?
So this person would have gone homeunless they've just burnt those clothes.
You know, somebody, somebody's gotto know that their son or their brother
(31:55):
or whatever came home completely covered inblood the same night that a guy got
killed. That is crazy. Andhere's the thing. So he's covered in
blood and he hops in another taxi, right, that blood should should be
in that taxi. So you'd think, well, I hope that if the
taxi driver called and said, hey, I you know, I picked up
(32:17):
a guy that was bleeding, thatthey actually investigate that and they you know,
they came. He did it anonymously, did anonymously in the parkast Oh
yeah, yeah, that's right,that's right. He was worried, so
he did he did it anonymously,so there was no sampling to be taken
because because he didn't want to givehis name. Okay, fish and Chips,
(32:39):
Okay, so I am one hundredpercent Fish and Chips guy is the
same guy that got in the taxi. So the Fish and Chips it was
mister Chips in manor Field, whichis on the corner of Cranford and Great
Western Road and Great Western Road.Is yeah, the chance there was,
the chances of it being a differentperson is very slim's very slim. I
(33:01):
agree, yeah, I agree.Well, the taxi driver there was another
taxi driver, a guy called HarryMark, and he remembers the night that
George was killed that he was drivingdown Queen's Road in West End when he
saw George. Because I guess youget to know if they're not like,
they're not marked taxis like like youhave sort of they're just general people's cars.
And he's doing it for himself,he's not working for a branded firm.
(33:24):
And sometimes he used to have likemagnets that you'd stick to the door
that had the look a taxi firmsnumber on. Now, he was driving
down Queen's Road and he saw Georgepassing him with a passenger in his car,
and Harry gave him a wave.And that was the last known sighting
of George alive. That was thelast that's the one we've got. So
Harry told STV News that it cameacross the radio that George was dead,
(33:46):
and I thought, imagine putting thatacross the radio, And he said he
asked the girl that was in thecar to leave and said that he wouldn't
charge her for the fair and thenhe went back to the office because obviously
they've come over the radio and toldeverybody that George has died. And to
hear me thought that that was reallysort of callous and quite I would have
(34:07):
personally, I would have been like, okay, all available taxis, can
you please make your way back tothe station. I wouldn't have told them
why until they all got there.No, definitely, not, especially because
you don't know who's in the carwith these with these drivers, right,
I mean, that's exactly that's crazy, so so onto the investigation. So
(34:28):
on October sixteenth, nineteen eighty three, police made a plea to some witnesses.
Now this is called the Silence sixteen. These are the people that they
wanted to come forward which they thoughtwould have information. So the first guy
was the guy that George picked upbefore the final fair. This was a
passenger that went from King Street andsome Matcher Road to the Bridge of Down,
(34:49):
So that was the last person beforeGeorge's final fair. Then there was
a man matching the suspect's description thatwas ejected from the Newmarctiff Hotel on Queen's
Road just before George's taxi left,So could it have been the guy that
was ejected from there. Then anotherone was just after the murder the man
There was a man seen running acrossthe Northeast Side Road. Another man was
(35:12):
seen running on Northeast Side Road towardsthe city at nine oh six pm.
Five minutes later, there were fourteenagers waiting for a bus in Pittfordl's so
they want to talk to them.And then four of five joggers were also
in the area at the time andhadn't gone to police, so they know
that there was there was five peopleout jogging. One came forward and gave
(35:36):
any information that they had to police, but we know that there were five
others of one other. Though oneperson came forward, sorry, four others
hadn't come forward yet to give theirinformation to the police. So after a
long investigation, there were no newleads found and no one had come forward.
And so this case sadly had gonehouse we would call it had gone
(35:57):
cold. After the murder of herhusband, Jesse. This is so sad.
Jesse was never the same after herhusband was murdered. She never talked
about his murder. She wouldn't talkabout it. Her health then started to
decline, and she was always afraidthat this murderer would come back for her,
which I then wonder was there somethingthat she knew, oh her and
(36:20):
George knew. Was there a fallingout with her and somebody else? Because
she wouldn't talk about the murder afterit happened, and she was always frightened
that someone was going to come andget her too, And if it was
a stranger or it was a robbery, why would they come back for her?
So could it be that maybe Georgehad fallen out with somebody, or
they had fallen out with somebody.I don't know, it's just a speculation,
(36:44):
but they seemed to be such lovelypeople, and there seems to be
nobody that's got a bad word tosay about them whatsoever. So is it
just that this is like a survivor'sguilt and she's you know, it's messed
her up that she's lost her husband. I mean, I'm sure it would.
It must be absolutely horrific for herto have to then carry on alone,
you know, without him knowing thathe was taken in such a savage
(37:05):
and horrific way, right, SoI'm sure that would affect your mental health,
you know, no end. Andsadly, in March two thousand and
four, Jesse passed away, soshe never got to know who or why
or you know. In twenty twentytwo, it was a big year for
this case. The case featured onCrime Watch Live Now, so I think
(37:29):
you have like some kind of crimewatch there too. So is a TV
program. We've talked about it beforeon previous episodes that they would tell you
like cases that the police are wantinghelp on and that they're asking for witnesses
and things, and they do reconstructionsand stuff like that. And they have
this crime Watch Live, which isa series of live episodes that they do
(37:50):
straight onto, straight straight on,and it's normally daytime. I think it's
like daytime TV. Crime Watch alwaysused to be. I think I can
remember it's either a Friday or aSaturday night Crime Watch. It was always
on like past nine o'clock, andit used to scare the living daylights out
of me when I was a kid, because it's all real stuff that's happened.
So I used to always watch itwith my Nan. Me and Nan
always used to watch Crime Watch together. And I remember I used to go
(38:14):
to bed afterwards, and I usedto be like then, you were like
laying in bed and you're kind oflike thinking what noise was that? Was
that someone coming in the door?You know? Is that a burglar?
Is that? Is that a robbercoming to get us? I don't know
why. I don't know why Iused to watch it because he used to
scare the life out of me.That was me and unsolved mysteries. Oh
was it the same way? Therewere two times. I remember one time,
(38:36):
I don't want to remember what thecase was, but I remember at
the top of top of the stairsgoing up to the second floor. There
was a window in my parents' house, and I like, there was one
time I was watching it and Iwas sure if I were to look out
that window, there would be someonelike watching me waiting, so I would
(38:57):
crawl underneath that window, going like, I didn't want I didn't want to
look out the window. I didn'twant to see anyone out there, even
though it was on the second floor. I remember that, and then I
remember another case where it was aserial arsonist and I was convinced that he
was going to come and burn myhouse down because I had watched that episode.
How funny? What are our parentsdone to us? So yeah,
(39:22):
so these episodes went out. Ithink it was the fourteenth of March.
If you want to look it up, I think there would be available and
probably on YouTube or something. Soit was fourteenth of March twenty twenty two.
It was season fifteen, episode six, which was the live episode which
featured George's murder, and this actuallyled to new leads, so dozens of
people came forward with new information.Okay, now, a guy called Alex
(39:45):
McKay, which is actually George's nephew, talks in the show about his uncle,
who they used to call Uncle Dodd, which I think is really cute,
and he talks about how he waswith his family, and he talks
about how he was a big kidat heart, and it's really nice to
add heart warming, and it's alsoso sad to see that even now,
(40:06):
after all these years, it stilldeeply affects his family. It still deeply
affects him that his uncle was takenaway this way and that they've got no
answers, and you kind of youhear about these cases and you listen and
you think, yeah, that's reallysad, and then you're sort of onto
the next one with these TV programs. But this episode was really touching because
(40:27):
his nephew is a fully grown adultnow, you know, he's you know,
a fully grown man, and it'sreally sad to hear how much it
still affects him even to this daynow. In also in twenty two,
George's family and a local newspaper cametogether and they offered a twenty thousand pounds
reward for information leading to the captureof the killer. So obviously that is
(40:49):
a good motive for people to comeforward. Police have renewed the appeal for
witnesses. They also said that theywere starting to look and speak to a
small, stocky man in his sixtiesto seventies who was seen in Wilson's Sports
Bar on Aberdeen's Market Street wearing anIron Maiden T shirt in September twenty fifteen.
So this guy so twenty fifteen,he would have been in his sixties
(41:10):
or seventies, and apparently he mayhave significant information for police, because I
would imagine if you're from that areaand you have information, you talk about
that kind of thing. So inSeptember twenty twenty three, it was forty
years after George's murder and police uncoveredevidence that they believed could help solve the
case. So advancement in forensic analysishad enabled a DNA profile to be taken
(41:37):
from George's case. This DNA profilehas already been used to eliminate up to
fifty people they had as potential subjectsin George's murder. Wow, that is
amazing. Forty years after the murder, they now have a full DNA profile
of this person. The reward nowwas on up to fifty thousand, so
(42:01):
it's gone up even more and policehave said that they are urging anyone who
has not come forward previously who believesthat they can assist in the investigation to
contact one oh one or There isan email that is a dedicated inbox specifically
for this case, and I'm goingto read it to you because it's quite
long. So if you are listeningand you have any information on this case,
(42:22):
then you can email it's scd HolmesAberdeen at Scotland dot PNN dot Police
dot UK. I'll put this onour socials so that you don't have to
remember that, because I doubt you'vegot a pen in your hand while you're
listening, so I will put thaton our socials. But there is a
dedicated inbox so you can do thisanonymously. You don't have to give your
name. You also don't have togive your name on one oh one.
(42:45):
You can do that as submitting intelto the police without giving any details at
all. So if you do haveany information, please come forward with it,
because after forty years, I thinkthis family have struggled on enough and
I think that this is so closeto being solved. We are We've got
(43:05):
a clear DNA profile. This isso so close, and I think that
the family have had a terrible timeover all this time. Jesse's gone,
George is gone. You know,somebody needs to somebody needs to be to
be got for this murder. Thisis absolutely a senseless murder. I mean
it seemingly happened for no reason,that's right. And somebody somewhere had someone
(43:35):
come home covered in blood that night, and they know in their heart,
they know that something's not right aboutthat, and that is George's story.
Man, This seems like this wouldbe a case that would have been easily
solvable, Like early on, Ibelieve, Yeah, if they had the
DNA techniques we had now then thenI think they would have they would have
(43:58):
done it. It would have beensolved really quick. But now, obviously
detectives are now fighting the fact thatthis is forty years ago. You know,
I mean that guy was in histwenties, roughly in his twenties forty
years ago, So he's going tobe in his sixties now. Yeah,
maybe maybe late sixties at a push, early seventies at a push. So
there is every every opportunity that thisguy is still alive, possibly still married
(44:21):
to the same person, or isnow married to the person who was dating
back then, or you know,was he was he a military man?
Was he? I don't know whowho was he? I'm sure we can
find out. And let's be honest, it's probably not that many people that
have cheese wires come on exactly exactly. And I don't know how easy it
(44:42):
was just to pick one up backthen. Were they readily available in your
local you know, your local store? I don't know. I don't think.
So there's a man out there thatthat had a cheese wire go missing,
yeah, or a workplace that hada cheese cheese cheese why I go
miss in. You know, there'ssomebody somewhere is going to listen listen to
(45:06):
this or not necessary to us,but somebody somewhere has listened to reports on
this and gone, oh, youknow, that could have been ours.
There is a family member that hasjust suspected that their son or a cousin
or whatever might be definitely have They'llbe whispers, they'll be whispers locally,
(45:27):
and they need to do the rightthing and come forward. Yeah, man,
hopefully answers come quickly. You know, I really hope that you know,
we can give you an update soonto say that they've you know,
they've matched the DNA profile. Theyneed to introduce it so that we can
use genealogy in this country. Itwould be so good to be able to
(45:49):
use that as a tool to catchpeople because the only you know, it
can only do good if you Ifyou've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing
to worry about. So so yeah, so that's this week case for you.
Well, thank you very much.I really like that one. I
appreciate it. You're welcome. Andwith that, cherry, how about we
(46:09):
do what we normally do at thispoint in the show and do a little
dumb criminal. Let's go, hey, use a dummy and use a piece
of shit. Well, still makesme laugh. Two and a half years
later, still laughing at that?Oh no, wait, aren't we three
years now? Because it was August, So yeah, three years later,
(46:31):
are you still laughing at that?I think it's more than three. I
don't know, it's been a longtime. It's been a long time.
It's been a long time. Ithink we're moving in. Yeah, we
might be going to four year four. I think. I don't know.
No, we must be, becausewe didn't we start this in lockdown?
Didn't we start this in twenty twenty. Yeah, so yeah, we would
be four years just gone four years. Wow, g Us, time goes
(46:52):
fast doing it so long we can'teven remember. Well, Cherry, this
week I have not one, buttwo dumb criminals who are definitely pieces as
shit. Okay, Okay, we'vetalked. We've had many dumb criminals who
have tried to rob banks. Thisrobbery probably takes a bit, takes the
(47:15):
cake, all right. This one'sa little different. All right. So
two women from Ohio face charges forallegedly driving the dead body of their male
roommate to the bank, propping himup, and withdrawing money from his account.
(47:35):
I heard about this. This isabsolutely insane. So a Loreene Farrello,
who's fifty five years old, andKaren Castbomb, sixty six, of
Astribula, Ohio, were charged withtheft and gross abuse of a corpse.
Okay, so yea, this isso sick. So the two women allegedly
(47:55):
found the deceased Douglas Leyman, whowas eight years old, dead in his
home where they were also residing.Okay, so the two, with the
help of a third person, allegedlyput Layman in his car and drove to
the bank, where they withdrew anundisclosed amount of money from his account.
It's further alleged that mister Layman wasplaced in the vehicle in such a manner
(48:19):
that he would be visible to thebank staff in order to make it.
In order to make the withdraw,all right, So he was propped up
in the passenger's seat so the tellercould see him. So they pulled a
week ind at Bernie's on this guy. Yeah, they did, they did.
I shouldn't laughed. It's not evenfunny, it's ridiculous. Yeah.
So this, so this is somethingthat they actually would have done normally,
(48:42):
but before he was dead. Soif they had to go to the bank
and draw money for his account,they would drive him. He would sit
in the passenger's seat and they wouldsee him, okay, hey, mister
Layman, and then they would getthe money. Yeah, So they decided
to go ahead and after he died, basically withdraw whatever he had left it
and carry on. Right. Soafter they left the bank, they at
(49:05):
least were nice enough to drop hisdead body off dead body off at the
astribunech Astribute County Medical Center emergency room, and they would leave without identifying Laymen
or themselves. That's so bad.So well, where is it? Morals?
People like, what's wrong with youstealing from a dead man? That's
(49:28):
just horrific. And the fact thatyou took the dead man to the bank
to get his money out? Yeah, you just yeah, and you just
drop him off at the at themedical center like that's normal, and you
don't give him any information. He'slike, well, here's a body,
do what you want with it.So obviously his life, you know,
(49:52):
was meaningless to them. They allthey were just interested in his money.
How long did they get for that? Do we know? I don't know.
I don't know, but I'm like, how long would you get for?
How long would you get for somethinglike that? I mean, because
that's like it like is it grossindecency? It's something to you can get
(50:13):
done for, like not properly recordingthe desk you can get done for.
Then then something to do like adeceased body you can get There's loads of
charges that would fall under that,So I wonder how long they actually got.
Let me see, I'm looking itup and say, Ohio, yeah,
what would because you have like differentrules of different states, don't you
be interesting to know? Like Iwould imagine they've got done for quite a
(50:36):
few. There's quite a few feloniesin there, right, definitely. Oh
no, absolutely, so so letme see, let's go back to go
back to this real quick. Soit was an abuse of a corpse with
a negligence. Yeah, then theymust have like properly not not properly record
(51:00):
holding a death, because I knowthat's another one. Yeah, that had
to be something. Yeah, whenyou, yeah, like you don't you
don't probably report in somebody dead,you just drop them off already dead.
Then you've got the stealing aspect ofit that you've actually stolen from a person's
there's theft in there as well,right, jeez, I don't know.
They must have. They must havebeen in there for ages. They must
(51:21):
have. They must have got fairmust have got that action. Guilty of
gross abusic corpse it is. Itis a felony in the state of heart.
Yeah, must be. I don'tknow if it has. Let me
see, blah blah blah blah blah, it doesn't. I don't have the
(51:42):
maximum sentence for that, but Ihope, but I would imagine, I
mean, there's felon he's in there, isn't there's more than one felony there,
one hundred percent. Yeah, sothat's yes, there's going to be
time served. Yeah, definitely,so there should be two. It's just
terrible. Let me dumb criminals.I mean, here's one where it's sentencing
(52:02):
and corpse abuse. They got threeyears for it. This was, but
this was Yeah, so who knows. I mean hopefully they get least they
get some sort of sentence and theyhave to sit in prison and think about
what the hell they did. It'sjust yeah, it's messed up. I
mean sick. It's sick, that'swhat it is. It's sick. Not
only have you stolen from a littlea little old man, but he's also
(52:25):
he's dead and you haven't properly givenhim a proper you know. Yeah,
you just drop him off like nothing, drop him off of the thing.
Yeah, like a piece of rubbish. That's so bad. Shame on you
people, shame pieces of shit.Definitely. Well, thank you very much
for joining us this week. Wehope you have maybe not enjoyed, but
(52:46):
maybe been interested in what we've beentalking about today. I hate to say
hopefully you've been entertaining, because it'snot an entertaining subject. But I hope
that this has been interesting to you, and if you do have any information,
we will put the details up onour socials for you to be able
to give any information over that you'vegot and hopefully help George and Jesse's family
get some kind of answers as towhat happened that night. We will be
(53:09):
back again in two weeks time withour next episode. That will be Morgan's
episode, So for now, benice and bye.
Hello and welcome along to crime Pediapodcast. It is very nice to be
back. We've had a break fora while, but it is me your
host this week with my lovely cohost is the lovely Morgan. And your
name is Cherry. My name isCherry. That is true. Hello Cherry,
Hello were Yes, we welcome back. It's been a while. It's
(01:04):
been a while. It's been verybusy. We've had a very busy time
recently. So much has been goingon in the true crime world as well.
I've noticed that Colin Sutton has gota whole new series of Manhunter on
the way. Stephen Koh's got awhole new series. He's got writers,
writers things now that you can goand like he can advise you as a
detective if you're a writer, andhe can advise you on the ways that
(01:27):
people detect stuff and crime processes andstuff like that. There's courses you can
go on all sorts. I needto go in on that, Yeah you
should. I think you can doit online too, Actually that would be
a good idea. Find him findhim on LinkedIn, or find him on
like you're friends of him anywhere.I think on Instagram. He's like being
(01:47):
posting about it so you can joinup. And because I sent you on
the other day, which was alike a writer's course, because in case
you don't know, Morgan has beenwriting a book, a crime fiction book,
which will be out soonish, I'mgetting hopefully before Christmas. And so
yeah, but you've got a wholea whole knowledge of the whole like fountain
(02:08):
of knowledge there with the people thatwe know. You could you could ask
about crime processes and stuff. Yeah, because that's the that's the one thing
I don't want, like, ohmy god, if I like, if
Carlin Sutton read my book, hewas like, it was okay, except
blah blah. Yeah, we don'tdo it like that. Yeah. Yeah,
(02:28):
well that would never happen. Youknow. You're like, oh,
okay, well, well keep we'llkeep you posted on on Morgan's book,
and then maybe that'll be a goodstocking filler for Christmas for all your true
crime fans out there. You havea nice crime fiction from a true crime
podcaster. Yeah. Maybe I couldsign it for whoever you give it to.
(02:51):
Oh you just signed copies even better? Yeah, Well, this week
I have got for you from goodold Bonnie Scotland. This Week is the
story of fifty eight year old GeorgeMurdoch. In nineteen eighty three, in
(03:20):
Aberdeen, in Scotland, a mangoing about his usual workday was senselessly and
brutally murdered. He was a kindman, described by friends and family as
a good, ordinary hard working man. Fast forward over forty years and police
still haven't given up. They're stillworking on finding the man who did it,
and they're almost there. With thepublic's help, George's family can get
(03:43):
the answers that they need. Thisis crime Pedia and this is George Murdoch's
story. Okay Morgan, So,fifty eight year old George Murdoch was born
in Aberdeen, in Scotland. AndI couldn't find anything anywhere about this guy
that was less than like praising.He was described by everyone who knew him
(04:04):
as a really kind gentleman, justan ordinary hard working guy. He'd been
married to his wife for thirty sevenyears. She was called Jesse. They
didn't have any children themselves, butthey did have nieces and nephews, and
they used to sort of shower theirlove on nieces and nephews. And the
cutest thing about George that I readwas that he loved pigeons. He had
(04:28):
his own pigeons. Yeah, itwas really cute, and I thought,
do you know what, it justsounds like a if you watch a if
you watch a program here in Englandcalled Coronation Street, there was a really
lovable character in that show that usedto love pigeons. So if ever I
think of pigeon keepers, I alwaysthink of him for some reason. So
it's just like a general working classnice guy. He also had a boat
(04:48):
that he loved going out on aswell. And in late nineteen seventies he
was made redundant from his job,which is in a factory. And now
I believe it if I've got thisright up in Aberdeen in Scotland in the
seventies there was like an influx ofpeople from different countries. The factories got
overrun. They didn't really did.There wasn't as much work in the factories
(05:11):
because there was loads of different thingshappening, and he got made redundant.
So because of this, he obviouslyneeded to earn money and so turned to
taxi driveing to earn a living,which is obviously a good living. It
wasn't his dream job, it wasn'tsomething he desperately wanted to do, and
him and Jesse. He wasn't keenon leaving Jesse at home in the evenings
because a lot of taxi driving isgoing to be evenings and weekends. It's
(05:34):
like unsociable hours, isn't it.That's when you're going to get your most
money. He didn't like leaving her, and she was worried about him going
out and late nights and evenings towork. And on the twenty ninth of
September in nineteen eighty three, nowthis is a Thursday night. Yes,
it was late night shopping in Aberdeenand George was working an evening shift.
(05:56):
So he drove at the time alight if you know your cars, a
light blue Ford Cortina. My dadused to have a Ford Cortina and they
are really at the time, likereally nice cars. I used to love
my dad's Cortina. And this waslike a light blue, light blue,
one, very very light blue.Now, around half past eight in the
evening, his car was seen parkedin Queen's Road. Now, this is
(06:18):
near the New Marcliffe Hotel in Aberdeenif you google it. It was a
busy night that night. A lotof people have sort of come forward since
to say it was very busy andat the time he was flagged down by
a man who was described to bein his twenties. Now, usually if
you if you book a taxi,your details are taken, contact details are
taken. But if you just flagone down, obviously there's no there's no
(06:42):
pre booking, so there's no name, there's no contact details. It's literally
just excuse me, you know,like you know, like your helicab in
like London or something. Yeah,and there's no details taken, so we
don't know who this guy is thatgot into his taxi. So, as
expected, usually when George got afair like that, when they flag someone
(07:02):
down, he would radio through tothe control room to say that now he
was out of action basically until hehad done the job that he had just
been flagged down to do. Heradioed Threw and said that he just picked
up a customer and he was headinto a place called Couta. Now,
if you're looking this up on amap, couter is actually spelt culter cu
(07:23):
lt r. Now, I don'tknow if this is a pronunciation thing because
of the because of the Scottish accent, but it's actually said as Couter as
far as I could work. Soif I've got this wrong and you are
Scottish and you're going to tell meoff, I'm really sorry in advance.
Then Couter itself is actually actually PeterCutor, so that's its proper name,
(07:44):
is Peter Cutor. But they callit Cutera for sure, And it's about
eight miles out from the city center, so it's not a huge and not
very long way. Eight miles.There's nothing to say in a car.
So after driving two miles, whichis in kilometers if you do this by
kilometers, about three kilometers. Afterdriving about three kilometers in his taxi towards
Cooter, he turned onto pit Fuddles, which is station road just on the
(08:07):
outside outskirts of the city. Nowit's not known why he stopped there particularly,
but something happened in the cab andthe two men began fighting. So
they're fighting, and I don't knowhow this has happened logistically. I don't
know if he was sat in thefront or whether he was sat in the
back. Usually it is customary toget in the back of a taxi.
(08:28):
You don't usually get in the frontof a taxi unless there's too many of
you, and someone has to situp front. Usually if you're on your
own or in the two or something, you'd get in the back. So
they began fighting and George was reallystruggling to control this guy, and they
spilled out of the taxi onto theroad in this area. Now there was
(08:50):
two young boys passing on their pushbikesbicycles. They saw the fight and were
quite scared and then reported seeing Georgebeing stranged this passenger. So George was
desperately calling out for help, andthe two boys went a mile down the
road to the Colts Hotel where theyused the phone box to call the police
station. So they've used it tocall the local police station where they reported
(09:13):
what was happening. Now, policeobviously rushed right to the scene, but
unfortunately didn't arrive in time and foundthe lifeless body of George Murdoch just outside
of his taxi. Now, thestrange thing about this, other than the
fact that was this guy just doingthis to, you know, not pay
for his taxi, but the attackerhad used cheese wire to wrap around George's
(09:37):
throat and this murder weapon was actuallyfound at the scene. Now, if
you don't if you don't. Idon't know if it's customary over there to
use cheese wire, but you know, chee war is used to cut particularly
hard cheese. So it's a pieceof wire that's usually bound around two wooden
like wooden pegs. I would say, they're kind of like little wooden handles
(09:58):
and they're sort of on them eitherend, and then what you do is
you would hold it one end andthen you would slice down through the hard
cheese because it's much easier than doingit with a knife. And he used
to find it in like supermarkets.If you went to like the deli part
of the supermarket, they would usea cheese wire to cut the cheese up.
So why this guy had a cheesewire in his pocket is very odd.
(10:18):
It looks like a grut, right, I mean, well yeah,
yeah, yeah, so that's verystrange. I mean that's something that I
don't think a normal person would justbe carrying around unless for some reason,
you're a cheese Somalia or whatever thehell it would be, and he just
happened to have it. That's notsomething you would you would just have in
(10:39):
your pocket. Yeah, randomly,Well, I mean, I went,
I went, I went online,did a bit of investigation, see if
I could find any old cheese likecheese shops or anything like that, any
places or butcher's or something like that, so also sold cheese, and I
couldn't find any listed from back inthe day. Because I thought, okay,
is possible that if he was workedin a cheese shop, could he
(11:01):
have put it in his pocket byaccident and just taking it home? Or
do they have their own you know, some places you have your own tools,
Chefs have their own knives and stufflike that. Could it be that
that was his own one or strangeIt's a really odd thing to be carrying
around on your person, and thatwould suggest to me straight away that that
was a premeditation, right, Yeah, obviously, I mean I would think
(11:26):
that if you've got something like thatin your pocket, chances are you're not
going to be using it to likeflush your teeth. It's going to be
for something bad exactly. You're eithergoing to be cutting cheese with it or
you're going to kill somebody. Yeah, you're going to be cutting something you
shouldn't with it, for for sure. So this guy was described to be
in his late twenties to early thirties. He was described to have dark hair
(11:50):
which sat over his ears. Hewas wearing dark clothing which police say would
have been heavily bloodstained after the attack. He was a thin guy, about
five foot seven, it's report,and was clean shaven. So George's wallet
and his taxi fares for that eveningso far had been stolen by this person.
Police believed that there had been abouttwenty between twenty one and thirty five
(12:11):
pounds. That's all he took.That's all that that's all that George had
between twenty one and thirty five,given the fairs that he had had that
evening. So police could not sayfor certain that robbery was a motive for
the murder. But I mean,if you were to get in a taxi
and not pay, and you gethard because he wasn't even all the way
there to where he was going,So if he had, if he had
(12:35):
sort of got halfway there, andhow does that, how does that happen
that he's refusing to pay? Itis strange. And here's the other thing.
If if robbery was the motive,wouldn't it be easier just to like
hold them up with a knife insteadof just killing him. I mean,
(12:56):
that's for a robbery, having somethingthat you're gonna kill, you know,
with with that cheese, that cheese, I mean, your goal is to
kill them. And I thought aboutthis too, just a random thought thinking
about this. You said it waswhat kind of car was it it was?
(13:16):
For? Now? Typically you knowyour passengers would be sitting in the
back seat, right, yeah?Yeah? Were those Do you know if
it was if those were like twodoor? Was it a two door sedan?
Or was it like a four doorsedan? Do you happen to know?
I think it might have been fourdoor. I think it was.
(13:39):
I think it was full door.I can check that. It's strange to
me that that they were able toget out of the car and he was
able to continue to well, Iuse the word continue to strangle him with
the cheese wire. My my assumptionwould be if he was going to try
to rob or kill him, ifhe's got I've got a picture of it.
(14:01):
Yeah it was it was a fourso it's four door. So yeah,
my this is how I would havepictured it, because they were already
in sort of they were fighting inthe car before they got out of the
car. And if he's behind him, like in the back seat. I
would imagine that if his goal wasto kill him, he would have that
(14:24):
cheese wire out in ready, readyto go, and then while he's in
the car, that's when he startsto strangle him. But getting out of
the car, that would mean thatthey would have he would have had to
stop they get out of the car. I just said you, I've just
sent you a picture of the carso you can understand what four courteen looks
like. And I'll put this onthe socials when we put our stuff up,
(14:45):
so you can see from that.It's a very square, very old
car. The the headdresss aren't particularlyhigh in the car, and there's no
like, there's no sort of separationbetween there's no kind of like screen or
anything between the front and the back. It's just like an ordinary looking car.
And I thought the same. Imean, I don't know whether he's
leaned through the middle of the carbecause in the old days, the older
(15:09):
cars, there was a much biggergap between the front two seats. Because
I remember when my dad had thiscar, like I could fit through through
the the center of the two frontseats quite easily. And so I wonder
whether it's the fighting started through themiddle and then they've spilled out of the
driver's side door. Maybe that's howthey've fallen out, because the kids say
(15:30):
that they remember seeing them spilling outof the car onto the road and then
and then they saw the man stranglewhat they said was strangling him. Obviously
we know, we know now thathe was using the cheese wire. Yeah,
to do to do that very strange, Okay, I mean, like
you said, I think if someif if your motive was to in this
(15:54):
vehicle, if your motive was torob him, surely you would, like
you say, you would have somethingthat would stop him in his tracks,
like a knife or a gun ora you know something. You don't look
very menacing with a bit of cheesewire. No, like physically you don't
look menacing. But if you justcaught him unawares and put it over him
(16:14):
whilst he was driving, that's goingto cause him to like slam on the
brakes, probably drive a bit erraticallyuntil he can stop. I mean,
you're not really going to pull upthe handbrake. I mean, because we
have it's different over here. Ithink your handbrakes are like up high,
aren't they like on a truck here? But our handbreaks are down in between
the front two seats, so wewould pull it up from the front two
seats. So it's a very strange. I mean, I don't know,
(16:37):
I don't know how the conversation's goneon, but it's a very strange way
to rob someone. I think.I don't think robbery was the motive.
No, because, like I said, if your motive was robbery, you
would have something that would cause fearwith Okay, yeah, here you go,
here's my money, don't hurt me, let's take it go. If
(17:00):
you have cheese wire, your intentionis harm, yeah, exactly. And
here's the thing. It's not likeit's difficult to get a knife. So
it's not like, oh I can'tget a knife. No, every kitchen
has one, that's right. Yeah, not every kitchen is gonna have a
(17:22):
cheese wire. I don't. Idon't know. I haven't got one.
We've never had one in my family. We've never had a cheese wire.
I don't know anybody that has thatkind of thing at home. To be
honest, I know what cheese wiresare. I don't know if I if
I know anyone that has that hasa cheese wire. It has ever had
a cheese wire. Maybe it wasmore common in the seventies. I don't
(17:45):
know, but it's like, there'sno, there's no. Yeah, you
can't control the situation with a cheesewire, you know what I mean?
Yeah, exactly if you don't,it's a strange weapon of choice. Right,
If you don't get that thing aroundtheir neck right away, you're stuffed.
(18:07):
You don't have control of the situation. How do people have control the
situation when they have knives, whenthey have guns, whatever it might be,
not a cheese wire. A cheesewire is something that you see serial
killers use, right, That's somethingthat they people choose that because they enjoy
you know, yes, the painand suffering in the effects of it.
(18:30):
Yeah right, yeah, no,you're right. Well, I mean,
obviously, George's murder made headline newsthat can nationally made headline news, and
the media, as they do,dubbed the murderer the cheese wire killer.
I don't know why they always dothat. Why don't they give them really
pathetic names so that to stop thisfrom happening. The police launched a manhunt
(18:52):
to find George's murderer, and it'sreported that they had visited over ten thousand
homes and took over eight thousand statements. And in the days after George's death,
roadblocks were set up to cover afive mile stretch. Now this was
on the there was a focus,particularly on the southeast side. There was
an area southeast Side Road because someonematching the description of this man that they
(19:15):
believe killed George was actually seen bya milkman. There was a milkman there
making a delivery to Rudolph Steiner houseand this was running from Southeast Side Road
into some fields. Now, thismilkman, obviously because back then used to
deliver I don't know if it's thesame in America, but back then,
even when I was growing up,you would get your milk from your local
milkman. So they would come anddeliver bottles to your front door, and
(19:36):
you could sometimes get like orange juicewith it as well. But generally it
would be milk or butter that youcould get from your local milkman. Occasionally
you would get things like milkshake,and you would get things like orange juice.
And so they would always always earlyhours of the morning. It would
always be like between something like threeam and five am. They would do
these deliveries. So this guy isobviously out on the road very early in
(20:00):
his milk float and he sees thisguy coming out of the woods but then
quickly disappearing back into the same setof trees. So the police searched the
wasteland near where George was found.They used dogs even back then, they
used dogs to trace where this guymay have gone. And then appeals were
made for anyone in the Queen's Roadarea of the city between eight fifteen and
(20:21):
eight forty five that night to comeforward, which is which is where George
was parked up and took this fareon. Now, there were some people
that came forward because a sighting ofa man with blood on his hands was
made quite shortly after the murder.So the local mister Chips Takeaway on Great
(20:41):
Western Road. The one of thepeople that was working there. The servers
reported to police that this guy camein and he was covered in blood.
His hands were covered in blood,and he had three or four scratch marks
on his cheek and on his nose. He had bruised in to the lower
lid of his eye. He wassaid to have cuts on his thumb and
(21:02):
first three fingers of his hand whichwere all bleeding. Now exactly you've done
exactly if you can see he's doneexactly, I did exactly the same thing.
So like I was got my handsas if I had like the cheese
were in my hand, and thenwas thinking, well, that makes good
sense because you would have you wouldprobably have cut fingers because of the way
(21:22):
you're holding it and fighting your thumband your fingers. Even if you're hold
in the wood, the wire isstill going to be going making contact with
parts of your hand and your skin. So depending on how you're holding it,
like if you have it like ifyou put okay, just imagine if
you have have it in your handlike a fist. You have two fists,
(21:45):
you have two pieces of wood.The wire is going to come out
between your your two middle fingers,right, yes, yeah, and so
you should would expect it's gonna be. Yeah, if you're pulling it that
tight, your expect to see likesome sort of cuts in between your fingers.
Yeah, And especially as he's fightingback, I mean, you know
he's going to be trying to gethis hands up there, He's going to
(22:07):
be fighting. It's not going tobe you know that you're going to do
it, it's not going to beclear. I mean, we have the
same thing with knife fights. Usuallythe person who has stabbed somebody usually has
cuts on their own hand because asthe blood is there, it's slippery,
yes, and then that's when theperson gets cut too. So this is
very strange. Obviously, this guygoes into a local fish and chip restaurant
(22:29):
and he asks for plasters. Ithink he bought chips. I think that's
what I read. He bought somechips and he asked if they had any
plasters. Now, for me,this is strange. If you've just committed
a murder and you're covered in blood, right, why would you go into
somewhere that is? Fish and chipshops generally are very bright places. Every
(22:51):
fish and chip shop I've worked inas a kid, and every fish and
chip shob i've been to is alwaysvery bright. Everything's all bright because of
all the lights that keep the thefood warm and the fryers. Everything's always
bright. Why would you go intosomewhere like that covered in blood. You're
easily recognizable, very easily remembered becausepeople are going to see you and go
(23:12):
that's weird, that's really odd.I mean, if you were to be.
If you were to be covered inblood and go and walk into a
butcher's, or you were to goand walk into an abatar, people wouldn't
even think twice. But to goand walk into somewhere like a fish and
chip shop, absolutely covered in blood, that seems really strange to me.
(23:32):
How far or how far was thisship in this fish and chip shop from
where the murder took. I thinkI think it's just I think it's just
back in town. It's on GreatWestern Road, so I think it's just
back in back in Aberdeen, backin the town. So he would have
had to walk back into town.Yeah, into town, but it was
only like it wasn't very far,was it either, It wasn't it wasn't
(23:53):
that far. I mean, ifGeorge George picked this guy up, they
think between eight fifteen and eight fortyfive, so I mean he was he
only traveled two kilometers out of townbefore, So I mean that would have
taken you not even sort of liketen minutes, ten to fifteen minutes.
So we're talking about maybe nine o'clockat night. So these got back.
I mean fish and chip shops generally, what time do they shut Maybe ten
(24:18):
you tell me, Yeah, surely, it depends, Yeah, it depends.
I mean when I was a kid, I remember that fish and chip
shop shops stayed open quite late,and like now I know that our local
fish and chip shop is usually Ithink it's open till like ten, half
past ten, but then on theweekends it's it's open a bit later.
Right, And of course this wason I think this was this was a
(24:40):
This was a Thursday, so thisis a weekday, but it was late
night shopping, so they will probablyopen a little bit later because of the
late night shoping. You're going tomake quite a good, quite good trade,
aren't you if you stay open.Okay, So that tells me two
things. Well, first off,what are the odds that someone would have
those type of injuries on that night? Yeah, that close to with a
murder happened obviously to me, thatthat indicates that definitely, I don't I
(25:07):
can't say definitely there's a high probabilitythat that is the person who killed George.
To me, the other thing isif he's walking back into town instead
of walking to to cutter a couterhow you say it, So that tells
me that why if he's walking backinto Aberdeen. He's probably from Aberdeen.
(25:30):
He's probably heading back towards wherever helives or wherever he's staying. Because if
he was in if he actually neededto get to Kuter and that's where he
was from, then I would imaginethat he would be walking and stopping somewhere
in the opposite direction. Yeah,okay, well exactly, And that makes
(25:52):
you think that actually did he didhe get did he get into the taxi
to go to Cuta or did heget into taxi because he knew that the
way he was going to take,the direction he was going to take,
led him past these fields, ledhim past these trees, and it was
going to be a place that actuallynobody would be coming past because it's out
the way and he's got a goodchance of being able to hurt him and
(26:15):
rob him. That's what. Yeah, he's't taking them out, He's
taking them out so that there's there'smore seclusion. Yeah, that's what it
sounds like. That's piecing it together, That's what it sounds like to me.
I mean Jesse, obviously Jesse's athome, she doesn't know any of
this. So when George didn't comehome later that night, she gets worried,
(26:37):
and she's thinking back, this isbefore cell phones. She's back thinking
this is strange. She's not comehome. Suddenly there's a knock at the
door and it's the police and theybreak the news to Jesse that George has
been murdered, and bless her.I think that must be. To hear
that your partner has been murdered isawful, and then to hear that your
partner has been murdered in that way, it's just it's just awful. It's
(27:03):
even worse. And then of courseyou've got the fact that nobody's got a
bad word to say about George.He's got no enemies that they know of.
They've got they've got nothing. Sowe also had another another sighting was
a man came forward, another taxidriver came forward, so that he picked
up a bleeding man in the manorfield. I don't actually know where this
(27:23):
is, but that they picked uphe picked up another man in the area,
another bleeding man. Well, surelythere can't be there can't be that
many. There can't be that manybleeding men around that time. So the
manifield is m a N N Ofield. It's a man O Field police
say this. This taxi driver madean anonymous call to the taxi on the
(27:45):
twentieth of October, and he saidthat he'd collected a man matching the suspects
description in one of the key searchareas, and he didn't want to go
to the police himself because he hadrecently got a parking ticket and was worried
for I don't know, worried theywere going to give more, I don't
know. So apparently he was quiteworried. But then this made me think
(28:07):
was that a genuine sighting or wasthat somebody ringing up from a payphone to
try and divert officers away from youknow, a certain a certain train of
thought. Maybe Okay, so justlooking here man of the map, Yeah,
I am man of Field. Wouldbe the area just south of Great
(28:33):
Western Road along Okay, so heremiss chips A ninety three where A ninety
three is the road that they weretaking to Takure Tokutah. So so it's
all, oh, I see,Manifield. I've got it here on the
I've got it here on the onthe map. So so what they're saying,
So if that's if that's the case, then it looks like he's come
(28:55):
out of Queen's Road heading towards Cootaand he would have had to have go
it would have had to have gonepast a field to go to Pittford pittfod
Dolls station, so that's where that'swhere he was. Manifield is just before.
So if that's the case, thisguy might have been picked up bleeding
on the way back, because thatwould make sense if he went out to
(29:15):
Pitfodles or pit Fuddles or however yousay it, and then he's on his
way back and flags down another taxi. By this point he would have already
killed George and would be covered inblood. So then this guy was dropped,
was picked up bleeding and dropped backinto town, which would then make
sense that he then goes to theGreat Western Road and buys himself chips.
(29:37):
Yeah, I mean, damn,you've just murdered somebody and the first thing
that you're thinking of is your stomach. There's that's that's bad. I won't
I'm covered in blood, I'm cuttingher. I've just killed someone, But
damn, I really fancy some chips. That's just what does that say about
that person's mind? You know?Mind frame the Yeah, there's something wrong,
(30:00):
there's one hundreds something wrong. Yeah, this is a young person.
This is a young guy. Toointeresting, and it's obviously it's not and
the thing is, go on,No, I'm just gonna say, there's
too many coincidences here that this isnot the same person. Right, I
(30:22):
agree. I agree with you,and like, think about it. Somebody's
husband, I think, somebody's son. I think this is very young.
This is they've said that he's aroundhis twenties. Right, So you're looking
at somebody's either partner or son hascome home that night absolutely covered in blood.
Right that this person unless they livealone. But even then, I
(30:45):
would imagine that they would live inan area where there's other people live in.
I doubt they live in the middleof nowhere where there's no neighbors or
anything, because that's just not howthings are set out there. So this
this guy is going to be completelycovered in blood, even if it's dried
blood. I mean, we stillknow that. Even if you've been to
any crime cons and things, you'llknow that if you have blood on your
(31:07):
hands and you try and wash itoff, there is still unless you've stood
there for sort of like a goodtwenty minute scrubbing your fingers and everything.
When you've got dried blood, itgets in your nail beds, It gets
in your finger cracks, your knucklecracks, it gets everywhere. This guy's
already been the the A guy hasalready been seen covered in blood in the
fish and chip shop, already beenseen in a taxi getting back into town.
So surely this person has gone hometo someone covered in blood. So
(31:33):
when you've got that answer of ohmy god, what happened? Because if
you if your wife was to comehome covered in blood, you'd be like,
oh my god, what's happened?Are you okay? What's gone wrong?
So this person would have gone homeunless they've just burnt those clothes.
You know, somebody, somebody's gotto know that their son or their brother
(31:55):
or whatever came home completely covered inblood the same night that a guy got
killed. That is crazy. Andhere's the thing. So he's covered in
blood and he hops in another taxi, right, that blood should should be
in that taxi. So you'd think, well, I hope that if the
taxi driver called and said, hey, I you know, I picked up
(32:17):
a guy that was bleeding, thatthey actually investigate that and they you know,
they came. He did it anonymously, did anonymously in the parkast Oh
yeah, yeah, that's right,that's right. He was worried, so
he did he did it anonymously,so there was no sampling to be taken
because because he didn't want to givehis name. Okay, fish and Chips,
(32:39):
Okay, so I am one hundredpercent Fish and Chips guy is the
same guy that got in the taxi. So the Fish and Chips it was
mister Chips in manor Field, whichis on the corner of Cranford and Great
Western Road and Great Western Road.Is yeah, the chance there was,
the chances of it being a differentperson is very slim's very slim. I
(33:01):
agree, yeah, I agree.Well, the taxi driver there was another
taxi driver, a guy called HarryMark, and he remembers the night that
George was killed that he was drivingdown Queen's Road in West End when he
saw George. Because I guess youget to know if they're not like,
they're not marked taxis like like youhave sort of they're just general people's cars.
And he's doing it for himself,he's not working for a branded firm.
(33:24):
And sometimes he used to have likemagnets that you'd stick to the door
that had the look a taxi firmsnumber on. Now, he was driving
down Queen's Road and he saw Georgepassing him with a passenger in his car,
and Harry gave him a wave.And that was the last known sighting
of George alive. That was thelast that's the one we've got. So
Harry told STV News that it cameacross the radio that George was dead,
(33:46):
and I thought, imagine putting thatacross the radio, And he said he
asked the girl that was in thecar to leave and said that he wouldn't
charge her for the fair and thenhe went back to the office because obviously
they've come over the radio and toldeverybody that George has died. And to
hear me thought that that was reallysort of callous and quite I would have
(34:07):
personally, I would have been like, okay, all available taxis, can
you please make your way back tothe station. I wouldn't have told them
why until they all got there.No, definitely, not, especially because
you don't know who's in the carwith these with these drivers, right,
I mean, that's exactly that's crazy, so so onto the investigation. So
(34:28):
on October sixteenth, nineteen eighty three, police made a plea to some witnesses.
Now this is called the Silence sixteen. These are the people that they
wanted to come forward which they thoughtwould have information. So the first guy
was the guy that George picked upbefore the final fair. This was a
passenger that went from King Street andsome Matcher Road to the Bridge of Down,
(34:49):
So that was the last person beforeGeorge's final fair. Then there was
a man matching the suspect's description thatwas ejected from the Newmarctiff Hotel on Queen's
Road just before George's taxi left,So could it have been the guy that
was ejected from there. Then anotherone was just after the murder the man
There was a man seen running acrossthe Northeast Side Road. Another man was
(35:12):
seen running on Northeast Side Road towardsthe city at nine oh six pm.
Five minutes later, there were fourteenagers waiting for a bus in Pittfordl's so
they want to talk to them.And then four of five joggers were also
in the area at the time andhadn't gone to police, so they know
that there was there was five peopleout jogging. One came forward and gave
(35:36):
any information that they had to police, but we know that there were five
others of one other. Though oneperson came forward, sorry, four others
hadn't come forward yet to give theirinformation to the police. So after a
long investigation, there were no newleads found and no one had come forward.
And so this case sadly had gonehouse we would call it had gone
(35:57):
cold. After the murder of herhusband, Jesse. This is so sad.
Jesse was never the same after herhusband was murdered. She never talked
about his murder. She wouldn't talkabout it. Her health then started to
decline, and she was always afraidthat this murderer would come back for her,
which I then wonder was there somethingthat she knew, oh her and
(36:20):
George knew. Was there a fallingout with her and somebody else? Because
she wouldn't talk about the murder afterit happened, and she was always frightened
that someone was going to come andget her too, And if it was
a stranger or it was a robbery, why would they come back for her?
So could it be that maybe Georgehad fallen out with somebody, or
they had fallen out with somebody.I don't know, it's just a speculation,
(36:44):
but they seemed to be such lovelypeople, and there seems to be
nobody that's got a bad word tosay about them whatsoever. So is it
just that this is like a survivor'sguilt and she's you know, it's messed
her up that she's lost her husband. I mean, I'm sure it would.
It must be absolutely horrific for herto have to then carry on alone,
you know, without him knowing thathe was taken in such a savage
(37:05):
and horrific way, right, SoI'm sure that would affect your mental health,
you know, no end. Andsadly, in March two thousand and
four, Jesse passed away, soshe never got to know who or why
or you know. In twenty twentytwo, it was a big year for
this case. The case featured onCrime Watch Live Now, so I think
(37:29):
you have like some kind of crimewatch there too. So is a TV
program. We've talked about it beforeon previous episodes that they would tell you
like cases that the police are wantinghelp on and that they're asking for witnesses
and things, and they do reconstructionsand stuff like that. And they have
this crime Watch Live, which isa series of live episodes that they do
(37:50):
straight onto, straight straight on,and it's normally daytime. I think it's
like daytime TV. Crime Watch alwaysused to be. I think I can
remember it's either a Friday or aSaturday night Crime Watch. It was always
on like past nine o'clock, andit used to scare the living daylights out
of me when I was a kid, because it's all real stuff that's happened.
So I used to always watch itwith my Nan. Me and Nan
always used to watch Crime Watch together. And I remember I used to go
(38:14):
to bed afterwards, and I usedto be like then, you were like
laying in bed and you're kind oflike thinking what noise was that? Was
that someone coming in the door?You know? Is that a burglar?
Is that? Is that a robbercoming to get us? I don't know
why. I don't know why Iused to watch it because he used to
scare the life out of me.That was me and unsolved mysteries. Oh
was it the same way? Therewere two times. I remember one time,
(38:36):
I don't want to remember what thecase was, but I remember at
the top of top of the stairsgoing up to the second floor. There
was a window in my parents' house, and I like, there was one
time I was watching it and Iwas sure if I were to look out
that window, there would be someonelike watching me waiting, so I would
(38:57):
crawl underneath that window, going like, I didn't want I didn't want to
look out the window. I didn'twant to see anyone out there, even
though it was on the second floor. I remember that, and then I
remember another case where it was aserial arsonist and I was convinced that he
was going to come and burn myhouse down because I had watched that episode.
How funny? What are our parentsdone to us? So yeah,
(39:22):
so these episodes went out. Ithink it was the fourteenth of March.
If you want to look it up, I think there would be available and
probably on YouTube or something. Soit was fourteenth of March twenty twenty two.
It was season fifteen, episode six, which was the live episode which
featured George's murder, and this actuallyled to new leads, so dozens of
people came forward with new information.Okay, now, a guy called Alex
(39:45):
McKay, which is actually George's nephew, talks in the show about his uncle,
who they used to call Uncle Dodd, which I think is really cute,
and he talks about how he waswith his family, and he talks
about how he was a big kidat heart, and it's really nice to
add heart warming, and it's alsoso sad to see that even now,
(40:06):
after all these years, it stilldeeply affects his family. It still deeply
affects him that his uncle was takenaway this way and that they've got no
answers, and you kind of youhear about these cases and you listen and
you think, yeah, that's reallysad, and then you're sort of onto
the next one with these TV programs. But this episode was really touching because
(40:27):
his nephew is a fully grown adultnow, you know, he's you know,
a fully grown man, and it'sreally sad to hear how much it
still affects him even to this daynow. In also in twenty two,
George's family and a local newspaper cametogether and they offered a twenty thousand pounds
reward for information leading to the captureof the killer. So obviously that is
(40:49):
a good motive for people to comeforward. Police have renewed the appeal for
witnesses. They also said that theywere starting to look and speak to a
small, stocky man in his sixtiesto seventies who was seen in Wilson's Sports
Bar on Aberdeen's Market Street wearing anIron Maiden T shirt in September twenty fifteen.
So this guy so twenty fifteen,he would have been in his sixties
(41:10):
or seventies, and apparently he mayhave significant information for police, because I
would imagine if you're from that areaand you have information, you talk about
that kind of thing. So inSeptember twenty twenty three, it was forty
years after George's murder and police uncoveredevidence that they believed could help solve the
case. So advancement in forensic analysishad enabled a DNA profile to be taken
(41:37):
from George's case. This DNA profilehas already been used to eliminate up to
fifty people they had as potential subjectsin George's murder. Wow, that is
amazing. Forty years after the murder, they now have a full DNA profile
of this person. The reward nowwas on up to fifty thousand, so
(42:01):
it's gone up even more and policehave said that they are urging anyone who
has not come forward previously who believesthat they can assist in the investigation to
contact one oh one or There isan email that is a dedicated inbox specifically
for this case, and I'm goingto read it to you because it's quite
long. So if you are listeningand you have any information on this case,
(42:22):
then you can email it's scd HolmesAberdeen at Scotland dot PNN dot Police
dot UK. I'll put this onour socials so that you don't have to
remember that, because I doubt you'vegot a pen in your hand while you're
listening, so I will put thaton our socials. But there is a
dedicated inbox so you can do thisanonymously. You don't have to give your
name. You also don't have togive your name on one oh one.
(42:45):
You can do that as submitting intelto the police without giving any details at
all. So if you do haveany information, please come forward with it,
because after forty years, I thinkthis family have struggled on enough and
I think that this is so closeto being solved. We are We've got
(43:05):
a clear DNA profile. This isso so close, and I think that
the family have had a terrible timeover all this time. Jesse's gone,
George is gone. You know,somebody needs to somebody needs to be to
be got for this murder. Thisis absolutely a senseless murder. I mean
it seemingly happened for no reason,that's right. And somebody somewhere had someone
(43:35):
come home covered in blood that night, and they know in their heart,
they know that something's not right aboutthat, and that is George's story.
Man, This seems like this wouldbe a case that would have been easily
solvable, Like early on, Ibelieve, Yeah, if they had the
DNA techniques we had now then thenI think they would have they would have
(43:58):
done it. It would have beensolved really quick. But now, obviously
detectives are now fighting the fact thatthis is forty years ago. You know,
I mean that guy was in histwenties, roughly in his twenties forty
years ago, So he's going tobe in his sixties now. Yeah,
maybe maybe late sixties at a push, early seventies at a push. So
there is every every opportunity that thisguy is still alive, possibly still married
(44:21):
to the same person, or isnow married to the person who was dating
back then, or you know,was he was he a military man?
Was he? I don't know whowho was he? I'm sure we can
find out. And let's be honest, it's probably not that many people that
have cheese wires come on exactly exactly. And I don't know how easy it
(44:42):
was just to pick one up backthen. Were they readily available in your
local you know, your local store? I don't know. I don't think.
So there's a man out there thatthat had a cheese wire go missing,
yeah, or a workplace that hada cheese cheese cheese why I go
miss in. You know, there'ssomebody somewhere is going to listen listen to
(45:06):
this or not necessary to us,but somebody somewhere has listened to reports on
this and gone, oh, youknow, that could have been ours.
There is a family member that hasjust suspected that their son or a cousin
or whatever might be definitely have They'llbe whispers, they'll be whispers locally,
(45:27):
and they need to do the rightthing and come forward. Yeah, man,
hopefully answers come quickly. You know, I really hope that you know,
we can give you an update soonto say that they've you know,
they've matched the DNA profile. Theyneed to introduce it so that we can
use genealogy in this country. Itwould be so good to be able to
(45:49):
use that as a tool to catchpeople because the only you know, it
can only do good if you Ifyou've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing
to worry about. So so yeah, so that's this week case for you.
Well, thank you very much.I really like that one. I
appreciate it. You're welcome. Andwith that, cherry, how about we
(46:09):
do what we normally do at thispoint in the show and do a little
dumb criminal. Let's go, hey, use a dummy and use a piece
of shit. Well, still makesme laugh. Two and a half years
later, still laughing at that?Oh no, wait, aren't we three
years now? Because it was August, So yeah, three years later,
(46:31):
are you still laughing at that?I think it's more than three. I
don't know, it's been a longtime. It's been a long time.
It's been a long time. Ithink we're moving in. Yeah, we
might be going to four year four. I think. I don't know.
No, we must be, becausewe didn't we start this in lockdown?
Didn't we start this in twenty twenty. Yeah, so yeah, we would
be four years just gone four years. Wow, g Us, time goes
(46:52):
fast doing it so long we can'teven remember. Well, Cherry, this
week I have not one, buttwo dumb criminals who are definitely pieces as
shit. Okay, Okay, we'vetalked. We've had many dumb criminals who
have tried to rob banks. Thisrobbery probably takes a bit, takes the
(47:15):
cake, all right. This one'sa little different. All right. So
two women from Ohio face charges forallegedly driving the dead body of their male
roommate to the bank, propping himup, and withdrawing money from his account.
(47:35):
I heard about this. This isabsolutely insane. So a Loreene Farrello,
who's fifty five years old, andKaren Castbomb, sixty six, of
Astribula, Ohio, were charged withtheft and gross abuse of a corpse.
Okay, so yea, this isso sick. So the two women allegedly
(47:55):
found the deceased Douglas Leyman, whowas eight years old, dead in his
home where they were also residing.Okay, so the two, with the
help of a third person, allegedlyput Layman in his car and drove to
the bank, where they withdrew anundisclosed amount of money from his account.
It's further alleged that mister Layman wasplaced in the vehicle in such a manner
(48:19):
that he would be visible to thebank staff in order to make it.
In order to make the withdraw,all right, So he was propped up
in the passenger's seat so the tellercould see him. So they pulled a
week ind at Bernie's on this guy. Yeah, they did, they did.
I shouldn't laughed. It's not evenfunny, it's ridiculous. Yeah.
So this, so this is somethingthat they actually would have done normally,
(48:42):
but before he was dead. Soif they had to go to the bank
and draw money for his account,they would drive him. He would sit
in the passenger's seat and they wouldsee him, okay, hey, mister
Layman, and then they would getthe money. Yeah, So they decided
to go ahead and after he died, basically withdraw whatever he had left it
and carry on. Right. Soafter they left the bank, they at
(49:05):
least were nice enough to drop hisdead body off dead body off at the
astribunech Astribute County Medical Center emergency room, and they would leave without identifying Laymen
or themselves. That's so bad.So well, where is it? Morals?
People like, what's wrong with youstealing from a dead man? That's
(49:28):
just horrific. And the fact thatyou took the dead man to the bank
to get his money out? Yeah, you just yeah, and you just
drop him off at the at themedical center like that's normal, and you
don't give him any information. He'slike, well, here's a body,
do what you want with it.So obviously his life, you know,
(49:52):
was meaningless to them. They allthey were just interested in his money.
How long did they get for that? Do we know? I don't know.
I don't know, but I'm like, how long would you get for?
How long would you get for somethinglike that? I mean, because
that's like it like is it grossindecency? It's something to you can get
(50:13):
done for, like not properly recordingthe desk you can get done for.
Then then something to do like adeceased body you can get There's loads of
charges that would fall under that,So I wonder how long they actually got.
Let me see, I'm looking itup and say, Ohio, yeah,
what would because you have like differentrules of different states, don't you
be interesting to know? Like Iwould imagine they've got done for quite a
(50:36):
few. There's quite a few feloniesin there, right, definitely. Oh
no, absolutely, so so letme see, let's go back to go
back to this real quick. Soit was an abuse of a corpse with
a negligence. Yeah, then theymust have like properly not not properly record
(51:00):
holding a death, because I knowthat's another one. Yeah, that had
to be something. Yeah, whenyou, yeah, like you don't you
don't probably report in somebody dead,you just drop them off already dead.
Then you've got the stealing aspect ofit that you've actually stolen from a person's
there's theft in there as well,right, jeez, I don't know.
They must have. They must havebeen in there for ages. They must
(51:21):
have. They must have got fairmust have got that action. Guilty of
gross abusic corpse it is. Itis a felony in the state of heart.
Yeah, must be. I don'tknow if it has. Let me
see, blah blah blah blah blah, it doesn't. I don't have the
(51:42):
maximum sentence for that, but Ihope, but I would imagine, I
mean, there's felon he's in there, isn't there's more than one felony there,
one hundred percent. Yeah, sothat's yes, there's going to be
time served. Yeah, definitely,so there should be two. It's just
terrible. Let me dumb criminals.I mean, here's one where it's sentencing
(52:02):
and corpse abuse. They got threeyears for it. This was, but
this was Yeah, so who knows. I mean hopefully they get least they
get some sort of sentence and theyhave to sit in prison and think about
what the hell they did. It'sjust yeah, it's messed up. I
mean sick. It's sick, that'swhat it is. It's sick. Not
only have you stolen from a littlea little old man, but he's also
(52:25):
he's dead and you haven't properly givenhim a proper you know. Yeah,
you just drop him off like nothing, drop him off of the thing.
Yeah, like a piece of rubbish. That's so bad. Shame on you
people, shame pieces of shit.Definitely. Well, thank you very much
for joining us this week. Wehope you have maybe not enjoyed, but
(52:46):
maybe been interested in what we've beentalking about today. I hate to say
hopefully you've been entertaining, because it'snot an entertaining subject. But I hope
that this has been interesting to you, and if you do have any information,
we will put the details up onour socials for you to be able
to give any information over that you'vegot and hopefully help George and Jesse's family
get some kind of answers as towhat happened that night. We will be
(53:09):
back again in two weeks time withour next episode. That will be Morgan's
episode, So for now, benice and bye.
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